The Education Gadfly Weekly

“In those days…everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Words penned millennia ago couldn’t be more relevant today. In the education-policy world, I sense it in the growing antagonism toward external forms of accountability for schools’ (and their students’) performance. I get it: accountability regimes, particularly of the state-driven sort, can be perceived as harsh, punishing, and damaging to professionalism, local control, and school specialization. Others perceive standards and accountability as impinging upon individual liberties around parental control.

Yet looming behind this unrest is the specter of mediocrity and a lack of urgency among Ohio’s K–12 schools—an environment ultimately ill-suited for student success. The zeitgeist has worked its way into state law, as policymakers have begun to yield to the cries of those who would prefer to be judged by standards of their own preference or design—or none at all. As evidence, consider the proliferation of alternative accountability (and assessment) systems that are cropping up in state policy. Three examples come to mind.

Third-grade reading

Ohio’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee—a needed initiative to lift early literacy—has a loophole the size of Texas. Seemingly everyone in the state is aware that third graders are now required to pass the reading portion of the Ohio Achievement Assessment (OAA) or else face grade retention. This is tough stuff on the surface—but wait. In a lesser-known provision, the state has also allowed schools to administer any one of three alternative reading assessments. If a student who has failed the state exam passes any of these alternatives, she won’t be retained. For example, a student can fail the OAA on multiple occasions but receive a passing score on the Iowa Assessments to move onto fourth grade. (A student has two chances to pass the OAA on the mandated fall and spring administrations. If she fails those, she has the opportunity to pass on a summer OAA administration. If her district allows it, she can also take an alternative exam twice during the school year and once during the summer to demonstrate proficiency.)

Needless to say, early readers should have multiple chances to demonstrate proficiency. Everyone has a bad day. But up to six possible attempts seems beyond lenient. Meanwhile, what is known about the alternative assessments? How were the “promotion scores” determined, and what is the evidence that they are comparable to the state’s definition for proficient? (The Ohio department of education’s website appears surprisingly sparse on this matter.) More importantly, does introducing alternative assessments invite schools to disregard the OAAs (and, in future years, Common Core–related exams) and, instead, seek out whichever alternative assessment is easiest to pass? All told, by allowing alternative assessments and measures, the state has weakened its approach to guaranteeing early literacy along a strict definition of proficiency, especially if the alternative assessments result in higher pass rates.^[1]

Dropout-recovery and vocational schools

Ohio has separate alternative accountability schemes for its “dropout-recovery” charter schools and career-and-technical planning districts (CTPDs). The 2012–13 school year was the first for both of these new systems. The accountability metrics for these entities differ from other public high schools and exclude two key measures. First, they are not held accountable to the state’s conventional performance-index measure of aggregate school-level achievement on state exams. Second, they will also not be rated along the state’s value-added measure for high schools, to be implemented starting in 2015–16. CTPDs are not scheduled to receive a value-added rating at all, while dropout-recovery schools will receive a “progress” rating based on a norm-referenced growth measure, not the value-added computation that applies to all other high schools based on the state’s new end-of-course exams. However, both dropout-recovery and CTPDs will receive ratings for high school graduation rates, just as all other high schools do.

State policy should recognize that the desired outcomes for a dropout-recovery school might be somewhat different than a general-education high school. The same goes for vocationally focused schools. At the same time, however, by excluding the key measures of school performance—the performance index and value-added growth—the state has muddled the accountability waters. Are we lowering the standards for students who might need high expectations the most? Is the state sending the message that vocationally focused students don’t need to meet academic standards? (I’d argue that they need academic rigor just the same as college-aspiring students.) And why exempt schools that happen to specialize in educating either at-risk or vocational students from making an impact on learning gains, as measured by state assessments? I’m all for specialized schools of all varieties and types, including dropout-recovery and vocational schools. But specialization shouldn’t mean exemption from conventional accountability.

Innovation waivers

This past spring, the legislature established an accountability waiver for innovative STEM schools and districts. The law allows qualifying districts to seek a five-year exemption from state accountability, which may include exemptions from state tests, report cards, and personnel evaluations. In turn, these districts pledge to implement an alternative system of their own design.^[2] The state superintendent reviews the waiver requests and can approve up to ten such districts. (As far as I can tell, the law is unclear on whether the superintendent can approve ten districts’ waivers per year or whether just up to ten districts can be approved for a waiver at a given time.)

Whether external accountability hinders risk-taking innovation is a thorny question, I admit. But should state policy allow so-called “innovative” districts to determine their own accountability schemes—separate from (presumably) less innovative ones? I protest. Allowing a slice of districts to create their own accountability, under the auspices of innovation, seems like a step too far. Why do some districts, part of this special Innovation Lab Network, get the chance to create their own accountability systems? (And how are districts eligible to be part of it in the first place?) What is the process and criteria by which the state superintendent approves waivers? Will parents and taxpayers know how to interpret results from the districts’ alternative assessments and report cards? Will any of these districts actually give themselves a failing grade (if indeed it deserves one)? Finally, why should anyone assume that innovation can’t prove itself along the state’s own educational standards?

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Nobody welcomes external accountability or the consequences that may follow. Everyone would rather be his own judge, using his own criteria and metrics—and everyone has an excuse for why that would work better. But if we genuinely think the goal of schooling is to give all young people the knowledge, skills, and gumption that they need to confront the travails of life, then the state must hold all of its public schools accountable for student outcomes. That goal is practically universal, regardless of the schools’ zip codes, their “types,” or the race, gender, and innate aptitude of their students.

By cracking open the floodgates of alternative accountability (and the concomitant hodgepodge of assessments and metrics), Ohio policymakers are losing their grip on the purpose of education accountability: to send a coherent message to all schools that there is a consistent standard and that standard is the standard. Yes, schools need autonomy and freedom to operate as they see fit, in order to meet and exceed the standards set forth. Schools also need a dose of leniency from consequences when they face challenging circumstances. But in the end, state leaders must also unswervingly hold schools accountable for results along a consistent set of standards, assessments, and measures.

The Hispanic population in the United States continues to grow, with Hispanics making up nearly 17 percent of the total population. This population is young (33 percent is of school age) and is changing the demographics of schools in many states, Ohio among them. From 2000–10, the Hispanic population in Ohio grew to approximately 350,000 individuals, representing 3 percent of the state’s total population. That’s obviously smaller than in, say, Texas, but the number is rising.

Unfortunately, Hispanic students in Ohio schools are struggling. On the Ohio Achievement Assessment (OAA), administered in May 2013, Hispanic children scored lower than the state average in both reading and mathematics at every grade level tested. Similarly, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 2013, Hispanic students in Ohio scored, on average, seventeen points lower than their white peers in fourth-grade reading and fifteen points lower in fourth-grade math. Further, only 66 percent of Hispanic students in Ohio graduate from high school, compared to 80 percent for all students. These results indicate that the achievement gap remains wide in Ohio, and with the population of minority students growing , the education challenge is only going to intensify. Demographics ought not dictate destiny.

Which brings us to early literacy. Myriad reports have been conducted on the subject, including a recent study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which noted that students who are unable to read proficiently by third grade are four times more likely to leave school without earning a diploma than their proficient peers. The outcomes are even more concerning for minority students: 24 percent of African American students and 25 percent of Hispanic students who were not proficient in third grade failed to graduate, nearly twice the rate of nonproficient white students. Yet those gaps nearly disappear when students master reading by the end of the third grade.^[1]

Early literacy was one of several key education-reform policies that Florida adopted in 1999 under Governor Jeb Bush, and the results have drawn national attention. In 2010, Hispanic students in the Sunshine State tied or bettered the statewide fourth-grade reading average of all students in thirty-one states. By 2013, Florida’s fourth-grade Hispanic students scored better than their peers in every other state. High school graduation rates have also improved: the graduation rate for Hispanic students in Florida increased from 63 percent in 2008–09 to 75 percent in 2012–13^[2]. While it’s true that the demographics differ between Ohio and Florida—4 percent of Buckeye students are Hispanic, compared to 29 percent of the students in the Sunshine State—we can learn much from Florida’s success. (For a more in-depth look comparing Florida’s performance to Ohio’s, take a look at this paper by Matthew Ladner.)

With its new Third Grade Reading Guarantee, Ohio is demonstrating a new commitment to ensuring that all young students gain the literacy building blocks that are so important to future success. It’s critical that Ohio’s political leaders stay the course and not back away from the state’s commitment to third-grade reading, as has been occurring in other states. If Florida’s experience is any indication, Ohio’s focus on early literacy could be especially helpful to our growing Hispanic population.

Elementary-school teachers might think twice before plastering their walls with paintings, posters, and pin-ups. This small-scale experiment found that Kindergarten students in a decorated classroom were more likely to be “off-task” and less likely to demonstrate learning. To conduct the study, researchers had twenty-four children participate in six science lessons: three of them were held in a decorated classroom and three in a largely undecorated (“sparse”) one. The decorated room had an assortment of posters, student artwork, and maps on the walls; meanwhile, the walls of the sparse room contained only materials directly related to the lesson. The study utilized video recordings to document on- and off-task behavior and pre- and post-tests, to measure learning. When it came to time on task, the children were off task 39 percent of the time while in the decorated classroom, versus 28 percent off task while in the undecorated one. (Students looking in the direction of the teacher or at the learning materials were deemed on task.) Meantime, children showed greater learning gains in the undecorated room. The average gain in tests scores—the difference between the pre- and post-test—was 33 percent in the sparse room, compared to 18 percent in the decorated one. The bottom line: students can become easily distracted. And this study, while small and for only one age group, suggests that teachers could at least clamp down on one source of distraction—classroom decor—to the benefit of student learning.

Source: Anna V. Fisher, Karrie E. Godwin, and Howard Seltman, “Visual Environment, Attention Allocation, and Learning,” Psychological Science 25 (2014): 1362–1370.

• Battelle has granted KIPP: Columbus $300,000 to develop a STEM teaching fellowship program. The program will pair new teachers at KIPP with mentor educators, who will provide support in STEM instruction. Congratulations!
• Congratulations also to United Schools Network’s Kathryn Anstaett, the founding director of Columbus Collegiate Academy–West (a charter school that Fordham authorizes). She has received the 2014 Excellent Schools Network’s Instructional Leadership Award.
• The second round winners of Ohio’s Straight-A Fund innovation grants are to be finalized on July 28. Some of those winners are already putting their projects into action, including this interesting DigiLit project in Cleveland Heights-University Heights City Schools to bring STEM education to special-needs students.

EDITOR’S NOTE: An edited version of this piece appeared as a letter to the editor in the Columbus Dispatch on Saturday, July 19, 2014.

School choice often engenders controversy. From districts arguing amongst themselves about the impact of open enrollment to charter schools and districts squabbling over funding and facilities, the Buckeye state—a national leader in providing education options to parents—is no stranger to the debates that arise about school choice.

In a July 8 editorial (“The law is the law”), the Columbus Dispatch called out two Ohio districts for allegedly circumventing public-records laws in order to prevent families from knowing about their school-choice options. The editorial drew attention to a current lawsuit brought by School Choice Ohio (SCO) against Cincinnati Public Schools and Springfield City Schools. Dispatch editors wrote, “Public schools understandably want to avoid this [losing students to private schools], but they should fight against it by making their schools safer and more effective—not by scheming to prevent families from knowing about their options. Scheming in defiance of state law would be even worse.”

That sums it up quite nicely. The legal and ethical implications of Cincinnati’s and Springfield’s actions are clear: hiding voucher eligibility from students and their families, many of whom are stuck in failing schools, isn’t just dishonest, unfair, and shameful—it’s also illegal. But the most compelling part of the Dispatch’s argument is that if public schools don’t want to lose students to other schools, they must work to become better schools themselves.

The competition that public schools face is one mechanism that drives them to improve. Common sense and experience tell us that competition brings out the best in us. As a former college soccer player and coach, I know the athletic version well: if you’re not in the starting lineup and you want to be, you work to become better and earn your spot. The same logic exists in business: if competitors are schooling your company, then you’d get better and draw in more customers. Think of the hyper-competitive smartphone market, where innovation and constant improvement are absolutely essential. The result for consumers is a wide variety of choices, ever-expanding features, lower costs, and stronger performance, all driven by competition.

Americans love to compete and to win. We understand the benefits of competition in other realms of our lives. So why are we hesitant to let it work in education? Perhaps it’s because choice opponents have repeatedly asserted that competition in this realm will lead to losers as well as winners and that we can’t afford to allow students to lose out on a quality education. But the fault in this reasoning is that consumers (students) benefit when schools compete to be the best. The only “losers” will be the schools that fail to meet the needs of parents and students—as it should be. Even those schools will likely raise their level of performance in the face of competition (and could end up, consequently, as winners). Competition is not a zero-sum game.

Don’t take our word for it, though. A 2013 study published by the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, entitled A Win-Win Solution: The Empirical Evidence on School Choice, examined twenty-three empirical studies of private-school voucher programs and found that in twenty-two cases, the presence of choice improved the academic outcomes of public schools that were affected by it. (The other study found no negative impact.) This has played out in Ohio, too. A study of the EdChoice Scholarship program by Matthew Carr, the same program that Cincinnati and Springfield have tried to circumvent, showed that schools whose students were eligible for vouchers made greater year-to-year test-score improvements than schools that were not eligible for vouchers. In other words, public schools can (and often do) improve as a result of competition from private schools.

The bottom line is that school choice improves academic outcomes for kids by injecting healthy competition into the education system. It’s time for districts to embrace competition, not shy away from it. After all, not only is it the American way, but our students stand to benefit.

The latest report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) examines how cities with a significant amount of school choice can ensure that it works for more families. Starting with a case study of Detroit, a city where families have a plethora of school options but precious few that could be called high quality, the report paints a picture of the challenges faced by Motor City parents. Testing their observations from Detroit, CRPE expands its focus by surveying 4,000 public school parents in eight cities (including Cleveland). The survey shows that while families from all walks of life are now actively choosing their kids’ schools (55 percent), the majority of parents (61 percent) considered only one or two schools. One explanation might be the barriers parents face when choosing a school: 33 percent had difficulty understanding which schools their child was eligible to attend, 25 percent said they had difficulty getting information about schools, and 26 percent lacked convenient transportation. The report also found that, by and large, disadvantaged, less educated parents and parents of students with special needs are far more likely to experience difficulties in exercising choice. Finally, the report suggests that the fractured governance structure in place in many cities effectively means that no one is focused on overall school quality or removing the barriers faced by parents. Fixing the governance issues this report raises will require city and state-wide action to more efficiently align services and resources across district and charter boundaries—and that could prove elusive. In fact, it will require city and state leaders to stop arguing about charters vs. districts and focus on solutions to improve all schools. If the goal is truly finding what’s best for kids, then it’s hard to argue that finding solutions to make all schools better isn’t a win-win.

Source: Michael DeArmond, Ashley Jochim, Robin Lake, Making School Choice Work (Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education, July 2014).