The Education Gadfly Weekly

If CRPE’s recent meta-analysis of charter-school research was an amuse-bouche, this report (from Mathematica/CRPE) on the practices and impacts of charter-management organizations (CMOs) acts as the entrée—and perhaps also the dessert. It exhaustively details the characteristics of forty CMOs (of the nation’s 130, which serve 17 percent of charter-school students), noting some interesting commonalities: Compared to their district counterparts, CMOs typically run smaller schools (with smaller classes). They also offer more time in learning: Forty percent of studied CMOs provided their students with more instructional time than all of the nation’s traditional public schools. Completing the meal, the report analyzed student-achievement results for those CMOs with adequate data. Echoing previous charter research, the report finds that CMO performance varies—and widely. Of the twenty-two networks analyzed, eleven boast significantly positive impacts in math, while ten can make that claim in reading—this compared to a representative control group of district pupils. (Seven negatively impact their students in math, six in reading.) Why do some CMOs do so well while others flounder? Researchers note two reasons for success: intense teacher coaching and school-wide behavior standards (notably those that offered consistent rewards and sanctions and asked for parent and student contracts). Unfortunately, the authors stop there. No after-dinner coffee or digestif. Because of promises of confidentiality, the report names neither the high flyers nor the low performers. Interesting data, yes, but not much help to school shoppers or communities seeking effective CMO’s to run more of their schools. Though a palatable and hearty meal, the report could have used that added bit to settle the reader’s stomach.

In her new book, Kathryn A. McDermott of the University of Massachusetts tackles the complicated theory and history of educational accountability. According to McDermott, our increasingly centralized system has been shaped by the push for educational equality, going back to desegregation and continuing with performance-based accountability today. To make her case, McDermott showcases the rise of accountability structures in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and the growth in federal involvement. Perhaps most interesting are the lessons McDermott draws from these case studies—relevant to other public-policy sectors as well. Notably, to design a smart accountability system, policymakers must first ensure that they have the capacity to operate it. Else accountability creates perverse incentives (like cheating on high-stakes testing). As federal policymakers contemplate handing accountability back to the states, it will be smart to remember whence and why our current model originated. This book shines a light onto that past.

The debates surrounding Ohio’s biennial budget and other education-related legislation during the first half of 2011 were intense, and it’s no wonder. The state headed into the year facing a historic deficit, federal stimulus money was vanishing, and school districts were preparing for draconian cuts. Meanwhile, despite decades of reform efforts and increases in school funding, Ohio’s academic performance has remained largely stagnant, with barely one-third of the state’s students scoring proficient or better in either math or reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Achievement gaps continued to yawn between black and white students and between disadvantaged youngsters and their better-off peers.

 Revised considerably by the General Assembly, Governor Kasich’s budget plan (House Bill 153), a 5,000-page document that both funded the Buckeye State through fiscal year 2013 and included dozens of education-policy changes, was signed into law on June 30. The Ohio House and Senate were also engaged during the spring in passing other legislation that impacts schools.

It’s time to take stock. To what extent have Ohio’s leaders met the challenges and opportunities before them in K-12 education? What needs to happen next?

Ohio’s electorate soundly rejected Issue 2 (the referendum on Senate Bill 5) on Tuesday. As almost everyone knows, that statute made significant changes to collective bargaining for public employees in the Buckeye State. The most controversial bits included changes to binding arbitration (to give management the right to impose its last best offer), a ban on strikes by public employees, and elimination of seniority as the sole factor for determining who should be laid off when cutbacks are necessary.

Though teachers and their unions were most definitely included—both in Senate Bill 5 and in the frantic, well-funded ($30 million) effort to persuade voters to repudiate it—education-policy watchers outside Ohio may not appreciate the extent to which this was really a referendum on policemen, firemen, and other “first responders” in the public sector. They and their unions were covered by the measure, too, and played the lead role—and by far the most visible role—in the campaign to undo it. There is, in fact, every reason to believe that if the first responders hadn’t been involved, Senate Bill 5 would have survived Election Day.

	On the same ballot, Ohio voters repudiated Republican plans to restructure collective bargaining in the Buckeye State and the big plans of Beltway Democrats to reshape the nation’s healthcare system.

At their raucous victory party on Tuesday night, union leaders said the vote should send a clear message to Governor Kasich and GOP legislative leaders. “Their biggest mistake was to think they (Republicans) could come up with a solution and impose it on a bunch of people,” said Bill Leibensperger, vice president of the Ohio Education Association. He continued, “There has always been room to talk. That’s what collective bargaining is about. You bring adults around a table to talk about serious issues.”

He was half right. Ohio’s voters indeed rejected what they were persuaded was a Republican over-reach to reshape state and local government and how they deal with their employees. The same day, however, and by an even greater (2 to 1) margin, Ohioans spurned key pieces of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Supporters of that ballot item boasted that, “Today, Ohio voters sent a clear message to President Obama… We reject the mandates of ‘Obamacare.’”

In sum, on the same ballot, Ohio voters repudiated GOP plans to restructure collective bargaining in the Buckeye State and the big plans of Beltway Democrats to reshape the nation’s healthcare system. So what lesson should politicians and policymakers draw?

There's much to read in SB5's tea leaves.
Photo by John Tann

Ohioans—like Americans generally—are largely centrist in their politics. (That’s why it’s been a key swing state in so many national elections. Remember “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation”?) The political extremes on both sides are loud and polarizing, of course, yet most state voters are moderates open to compromise. They don’t like one-party solutions and are skeptical of big fixes, wherever they originate. Lasting change and real reform in a state like Ohio requires some level of bipartisan support and collaboration.

What does this mean for education reform? Do we now face a period of political paralysis in Ohio (and beyond) where nothing can be changed even when change is needed? Will elected officials be so shell-shocked by this particular electoral pounding that they will simply nibble on the margins of reform—and attempt to make nice to the unions that trounced them?

That would be a terrible mistake. Surveys have consistently shown that Ohioans support bona fide school-reform efforts, and many of the other education changes that were tucked into the 300 pages of Senate Bill 5 had and still have the support of voters. These include:

• Creating a salary structure free of automatic step increases;
• Requiring performance-based pay for teachers and nonteaching school employees;
• Limiting public employer contributions toward health care benefit costs;
• Requiring annual evaluations of teachers to include student performance data; and
• Requiring that any layoffs be based in part on these evaluations.

The Fordham Institute polled Ohioans on education issues in 2005, 2007, and 2009 and in every one of these surveys Buckeye residents said they prefer to pay teachers according to their “performance and how effectively they teach” rather than compensate them for “years of service and degrees earned.” In 2009, the margin was a striking 69 to 15 percent. Further, an overwhelming 87 percent favored “giving local public schools more freedom to fire teachers that aren’t performing,” while only 11 percent opposed such a measure.

In case you don’t like Fordham data, Quinnipiac reported two weeks ago that Ohioans supported (49 to 40 percent) the provision in Senate Bill 5 that pay increases for public-sector employees (including teachers) should be based on merit rather than seniority. And again, as Ohio goes, so goes the nation. Recent national polls show Americans overall support merit pay and tying tenure to performance. An Education Next survey earlier this year found that “those who say tenure should be based on academic progress increased from 49 percent to 55 percent between 2010 and 2011.”

Nor does the economic imperative to do more with less go away with this week’s vote. Budgets are tight. Revenues are down. Taxpayers are stressed, not least because so many of them lack jobs. (Ohio’s unemployment rate is 9.1 percent and it has lost 400,000 jobs over the past five years.) It was this basic reality that mobilized Republicans to pursue the changes wrought by Senate Bill 5 in the first place: They would save a lot of money that the state and its school systems don’t have.

University of Arkansas economist Robert Costrell captured the profound challenges still confronting Ohio when he wrote of this week’s vote:

The core fiscal issues that motivated SB5 remain unsolved for school districts. SB5 was a very broad bill, which contributed to its defeat, but specific provisions are quite important for keeping school district costs under control. There were two particularly important provisions regarding health insurance. First, the law capped district contributions at 85 percent, so that teachers would have to pay 15 percent. By comparison, the collective bargaining agreement for Cleveland sets the employee share of premiums at about five percent. Second, and perhaps even more important, the law gave districts the ability to set plan design, subject to best practices established by a state board. Currently collective bargaining agreements establish which plans will be offered, what the deductibles and co-insurance rates are, etc. In Cleveland, for example, there are no deductibles at all for in-network coverage, nor is there any co-insurance. This is quite astounding—well below industry standards, even for generous plans, like those we find in public universities. These provisions are written into the union contract. They will be very difficult to remove, under current bargaining law, which leaves school districts at a great disadvantage at the bargaining table. So districts like Cleveland will continue to face huge budget difficulties, now and in the future. The defeat of SB5 will mean layoffs and other education cuts, unless these provisions are re-enacted separately.

Senate Bill 5 is now dead, but the underlying problems facing Ohio schools and budgets remain. To make any progress, bold changes are needed in education and other parts of the public sector. But as Philip Howard perceptively noted in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, across the entirety of the public sector the unions are still powerful obstacles to needed change.

In kicking off Education Trust’s annual conference, Kati Haycock said that we can’t let “bad parenting” be an excuse for poor educational results. She’s absolutely right, of course. It’s not like our schools are running on all cylinders (especially schools serving poor kids), and if only parents were doing their jobs, too, achievement would soar. Sure, we’ve got several examples of school models that are making a tremendous difference in educational outcomes for kids, regardless of what’s happening at home.

That said, it strikes me as highly unlikely that we’re ever going to significantly narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor unless we narrow the “good parenting gap” between rich and poor families, too. (And yes, I know I’m going to catch a lot of grief for saying that.)

	We're never going to significantly narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor unless we narrow the 'good parenting gap' between rich and poor families, too.

Let’s admit it: The Broader/Bolder types are right when they say that a lot of what influences student achievement happens outside of schools and before kids ever set foot in a Kindergarten classroom. Where they are wrong, I believe, is in thinking that turbo-charged government programs can compensate for the real challenge: what’s happening (or not) inside the home.

Conservatives used to talk about this, but for whatever reason they’ve been awfully silent lately. Perhaps that’s starting to change. A new book by Minnesota think tanker Mitch Pearlstein addresses the issue head on. And last week, in the Washington Post, compassionate conservative Michael Gerson argued that issues like divorce and teenage pregnancies are what are dampening social mobility.

So let’s get specific: What can parents do to increase the chances of their children doing well in school? Let’s just start with the zero-to-five years.

1. Wait until you’ve graduated from high school and you’re married to have children.
2. Stay married.
3. Don’t drink or smoke when you’re pregnant.
4. Get regular prenatal check-ups.
5. Nurse your baby instead of using a bottle.
6. Talk and sing to your baby a lot.
7. As you child grows, be firm but loving.
8. Limit TV-watching, especially in the early years.
9. Spark your child’s curiosity by taking field trips to parks, museums, nature centers, etc.
10. Read, baby, read.

For virtually all of these items, we’ve got evidence that affluent parents are much more likely to engage in these behaviors than poor parents. And what makes it easier for affluent parents to do these things mostly isn’t about money (more on that below) but marriage: Getting hitched and staying that way. It’s a heckuva lot harder (though not impossible, of course) to be a great parent when you’re doing the job alone than when you’ve got a partner. And in case you haven’t noticed, out-of-wedlock pregnancy rates and divorce rates have reached catastrophic levels for the poor and the working class—but not for the most affluent and well-educated among us.

The first step is admitting there's a problem.
Photo by Erich Ferdinand

As mentioned above, the Left’s answer to this challenge is a panoply of social programs. Home visits for pregnant women. Community-health centers. Head Start. I’ve got no complaints with these, especially if they can show evidence of working.

But we’re still dancing around the issue if we don’t address the family directly. Imagine we could convince most poor teenagers—whether they are black, white, or Hispanic—to save child-rearing for their 20s, and to get and stay married first. Getting them to adopt healthy parenting behaviors, then, would be much more doable, even on a limited budget. (See the innovative work that GreatSchools.net is doing on this front.) You don’t have to be Richy Rich to nurse your baby, or sing to her, or learn how to be loving but firm. Sure, a few of these items are easier with money. (I imagine that low-income families use TV as a babysitter more because they can’t afford alternative childcare.) But mostly these take commitment, discipline, and practice.

So how do we spark a marriage renaissance, especially for poor and working-class families?

Honestly, I don’t have a clue. Some argue for family-friendly tax incentives; others think a religious revival is what’s needed. I would vote for middle schools and high schools that are unafraid to preach a pro-marriage, wait-till-you’re-older-to-have-babies message—neo-paternalistic charter schools or religious schools in particular. In other words, this is another strong argument for school choice.

Whatever the solutions, let’s at least start talking about the problem. Pat Moynihan tried to warn us long ago that our national experiment with large-scale single parenthood would turn out badly. He was right, and then some. Let’s not wait any longer to do something about it.

For decades, college admissions officers have sought to re-engineer the demographics of their campuses—an understandable impulse with all manner of perverse consequences. Not surprisingly, this dubious idea has filtered down to the K-12 system, too. Districts, like the one in Alexandria, VA, are revamping entrance requirements for their gifted-education programs in an effort to boost minority enrollment. (In Alexandria, 34 percent of the students are black and 31 percent are Hispanic—yet, in the city’s gifted program, those percentages drop to 17 and 11, respectively.) Gadfly welcomes efforts to improve outreach and strengthen kids’ preparation: Qualified and capable students of color won’t enroll in gifted-education programs of which they aren’t aware. But slackening the criteria for program entry is something else entirely. As with AP classes, rigorous entrance requirements for gifted programs are necessary if high-achieving students (whatever their race) are to get much out of them. Simply put, our education system must work to the advantage of all its students—from those scoring in the top decile to those in the bottom. Districts should try this “radical” concept instead: Group students by academic prowess, and meet the needs of all pupils. Let common sense prevail!

Over the past few months, crusading Idaho state supe Tom Luna has shepherded a flock of forward-thinking and cost-saving reforms—including adoption of merit pay and a rollback of tenure and collective-bargaining rights. Yet amid Luna’s bold reforms hides one black sheep. If legislators agree in January, Idaho will become the first state to mandate that all high schoolers take at least two courses online. (Currently, Michigan and Alabama require students to each take one online course.)

You will take your online class. And you'll like it.
Photo by Justus Hayes

Further, one of these classes must be “asynchronous”—think more “correspondence course” and less “virtual classroom.” Gadfly is a firm believer in the potential of digital learning to expand the reach of fantastic teachers, to individualize instruction, and to allow for more choice in public education. But the goal should be to expand access to digital learning, not to require kids to engage in it against their will. Supporters of such mandates often claim that learning how to take an online course is itself a critical skill to build. But if the courses are well-designed (like, say, your iPhone), mastering the experience should be a no-brainer. Luna might want to put the shears to this particular idea.

Mike and Janie bite off big topics in this week’s podcast—from the repeal of SB5 to racial imbalances in gifted-ed programs to online learning. Amber wants CRPE to name names and Chris starts subbing for the pension benefits. You’re gonna want to sit down for this.

If CRPE’s recent meta-analysis of charter-school research was an amuse-bouche, this report (from Mathematica/CRPE) on the practices and impacts of charter-management organizations (CMOs) acts as the entrée—and perhaps also the dessert. It exhaustively details the characteristics of forty CMOs (of the nation’s 130, which serve 17 percent of charter-school students), noting some interesting commonalities: Compared to their district counterparts, CMOs typically run smaller schools (with smaller classes). They also offer more time in learning: Forty percent of studied CMOs provided their students with more instructional time than all of the nation’s traditional public schools. Completing the meal, the report analyzed student-achievement results for those CMOs with adequate data. Echoing previous charter research, the report finds that CMO performance varies—and widely. Of the twenty-two networks analyzed, eleven boast significantly positive impacts in math, while ten can make that claim in reading—this compared to a representative control group of district pupils. (Seven negatively impact their students in math, six in reading.) Why do some CMOs do so well while others flounder? Researchers note two reasons for success: intense teacher coaching and school-wide behavior standards (notably those that offered consistent rewards and sanctions and asked for parent and student contracts). Unfortunately, the authors stop there. No after-dinner coffee or digestif. Because of promises of confidentiality, the report names neither the high flyers nor the low performers. Interesting data, yes, but not much help to school shoppers or communities seeking effective CMO’s to run more of their schools. Though a palatable and hearty meal, the report could have used that added bit to settle the reader’s stomach.

In her new book, Kathryn A. McDermott of the University of Massachusetts tackles the complicated theory and history of educational accountability. According to McDermott, our increasingly centralized system has been shaped by the push for educational equality, going back to desegregation and continuing with performance-based accountability today. To make her case, McDermott showcases the rise of accountability structures in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey, and the growth in federal involvement. Perhaps most interesting are the lessons McDermott draws from these case studies—relevant to other public-policy sectors as well. Notably, to design a smart accountability system, policymakers must first ensure that they have the capacity to operate it. Else accountability creates perverse incentives (like cheating on high-stakes testing). As federal policymakers contemplate handing accountability back to the states, it will be smart to remember whence and why our current model originated. This book shines a light onto that past.