About Harold O. Levy

Diane Ravitch / August 30, 2001

In recent weeks, the Chancellor of the New York City public school system has been heavily criticized, especially about cost overruns in school construction. The sharks have been circling, and the New York Times ran an editorial defending him (a sure sign that he is in big trouble). I'd like to say a few things in his behalf.

Harold O. Levy, as everyone knows by now, is from the business world. He is a lawyer who worked for a major banking firm with global interests. He has a passionate commitment to education and to kids. He brings a different perspective to the job of chancellor because he still has the capacity to be amazed when things go wrong and to insist that they go right.

I have appreciated his love of literature, poetry, music, and the arts, and his unembarrassed insistence on quoting Plato or some other classic writer to make a point.

He is not a company man, and it shows in his readiness to jump in and try to make things happen.

Although I have not spoken to him in a long while, I have a sense that he has had a long and rude awakening; that he discovered that the chancellor is not able to make things happen quickly; that good will and intelligence go only so far when faced with entrenched interests and bureaucratic inertia; that the chancellor is in some sense a flea on an

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About Harold O. Levy

Summer school in New York City

Diane Ravitch / August 30, 2001

I read the results of the summer school program in New York City with a growing sense of dismay, in part because so many kids gained so little from the experience, but also because I had predicted this would happen in a New York Times op-ed a year ago, when the school system rashly threatened to send 325,000 kids to summer school. My guess at that time was that the system was incapable of managing a tightly targeted summer remediation effort. For the sake of the kids, I hoped I was wrong; I was not.

Some 72,000 kids were ordered to attend summer school because of their academic deficiencies. Of that number, 8,000 did not go. Some showed up irregularly. Most students who went to summer school failed their end-of-course exams in reading and math, but were promoted anyway. Two-thirds showed little or no improvement in math, and nearly 60 percent failed to improve in reading.

Improvements were greatest among the youngest children, especially children in third and fourth grades. Average reading scores actually dropped for eighth graders, both last year as well as this one.

Nearly three-quarters of the eighth graders scored in the lowest level of performance in reading and math at summer's end, which means that these students do not have the literacy or computational skills for high school work.

It would be interesting and probably depressing to calculate how much was gained for the $175 million

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Summer school in New York City

Taking aim at AIMS

Diane Ravitch / August 30, 2001

My older sister lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, for many years and her six children attended the public schools there. Her oldest child, my niece, took most of her public schooling in Texas and is now a teacher in Florida. The rest are graduates of the Arizona school system. Whenever I visited her, which I especially liked to do in the winter, I always talked to my nieces and nephews about what they were doing in school. My most memorable exchange was about a dozen years ago, with my nephew Steve.

I asked Steve what book they were reading in his high school English class. He replied that they were "doing Captains Courageous." I said, "How much of it have you read?" And he replied, "Well, we don't actually read it, we saw the movie and we are discussing it." That, plus similar conversations, left me with concerns about the quality of education in Arizona at that time.

When Lisa Graham Keegan was state superintendent, she tried to shake up this lax approach and put in its place a system of standards, assessments, and accountability. The hallmark of her reforms was the development of AIMS (Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards), the state test required for graduation.

Failure rates were high on this test, but the test questions were not particularly difficult. In one question, for example, students were given a map with a weather forecast for the state of Arizona, then

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Taking aim at AIMS

Charter Schools as laboratories for personnel policy experiments

August 30, 2001

Charter schools have come under criticism in some quarters for failing to realize one of the goals emphasized by proponents: that they would serve as laboratories in which novel ideas and methods could be tested and best practices identified for dissemination among traditional public schools. For example, a recent study of California charter schools concluded: "... the charter schools we observed ... were not serving as models of innovation from which educators in other schools could learn." A new study of personnel policy in charter schools by economists Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky suggests just the opposite conclusion. In the areas of recruitment and staffing, pay flexibility and incentive pay, and staffing flexibility they find evidence of major differences between charter and traditional public schools.

The authors surveyed administrators of charter schools that had been in operation at least two years. They focused on seven states with relatively strong enabling legislation, exempting charter schools from many state regulations and freeing them from collective bargaining agreements unless the charter school faculty chose to unionize. While their our conclusions pertain only to those states, they certainly suggest that when given the opportunity, charter schools will pursue innovative personnel policies differing in key respects from those of traditional public schools.

In what ways did charter schools differ? Charter schools employ more teachers and aides relative to the number of students than do traditional public schools. In states where it is permitted, charter schools

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Charter Schools as laboratories for personnel policy experiments

How can one science education system produce elites and illiterates?

August 30, 2001

The US has the finest scientists in the world but the rest of the population is abysmally ignorant of science. Why? Because science education in the US today exists as a kind of mining and sorting operation in which existing scientists search for diamonds in the rough who can be cut and polished into elite scientists, according to David Goodstein, a professor of physics at Caltech. In elementary school, few children ever come into contact with a scientifically trained person; in high school, many teachers say their greatest satisfaction is not in preparing all students to thrive in an increasingly technical world, but in finding those diamonds in the rough; in college, students may satisfy science requirements with a single fun course that does little to prepare them for the 21st Century. The solution, according to Goodstein: make teaching attractive to people with science degrees by paying them more and treating them with professional respect. To read "Science Education Paradox," a two-page column that appeared in the September 1 issue of Technology Review, surf to http://www.biotechknowledge.com/showlib.php3?uid=5620&country=uk

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How can one science education system produce elites and illiterates?

Is the GED as good as a high school degree?

August 30, 2001

Since 1975, the percentage of young adults who have gotten their diploma through the GED program has risen from less than 3 percent to 12 percent. Since the Census Bureau includes GED holders as high school completers, these statistics mask a steady rise in the nation's dropout rate. But does the GED measure up as a high school equivalence exam? In a 10-page story in the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Bruce Murphy traces the history of the GED and investigates claims made on its behalf. He reports that studies have found that GED holders are far less likely to succeed in college than high school graduates and more likely to drop out of the military. Astonishingly, some studies have found that GED holders have more job turnover and lower pay than even high school dropouts without a GED. Nobel Prize winner James Heckman is leading a team of researchers who have been documenting the poor performance of GED holders and raising questions about our use of the certificate. His research shows a 25 percent increase in high school dropouts since 1975. Back then, only one in 7 dropouts (age 18 to 24) had gotten a GED; today, half of all dropouts are GED holders. Some argue that raising the cut score for the GED would reduce the dropout rate. Others propose a return to the original rule that requires that test takers be 20 or older. Still others say that what

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Is the GED as good as a high school degree?

On the road with the KIPP Academy Orchestra

August 30, 2001

Can you think of anything more fun than chaperoning 76 junior high school kids on a bus trip across America? Seth Kugel, who accompanied the KIPP Academy String and Rhythm Orchestra on a 17-day tour this summer, shares his diary with Slate readers at http://slate.msn.com/code/story/actions/print.asp?strURL=/XML/diary/01-08-20/diary.xml&iMsg=1

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On the road with the KIPP Academy Orchestra

Why new teachers leave (and what would make them stay)

August 30, 2001

Almost 75 percent of new teachers in the Cleveland Municipal School District either were considering leaving or were unsure whether they would stay, according to the results of a survey administered this spring. The teachers considering leaving cited the following reasons: student misbehavior (48%), lack of materials or supplies (47%), school is poorly run (38%), student apathy (32%), and lack of support from parents (30%). Much lower on the list were "class size is too large" (17%) and "want higher salary" (12%). The survey was administered by Catalyst: For Cleveland Schools, which is published by a local nonprofit to analyze and support school improvement in Cleveland's public schools. Several articles in the August/September issue of Catalyst take a close look at what new teachers want and how teachers who planned on staying were different from those who were thinking about leaving. You can read the issue online at www.catalyst-cleveland.org or call 216-63-6320 to request a hard copy.

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Why new teachers leave (and what would make them stay)

Options for Restructuring the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act: Report with Background Papers and Focus Group Summary

Judy Goss / August 30, 2001

RAND 2001

RAND's Drug Policy Research Center has recently completed a project aimed at reviewing the structure and performance of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act (SDFSCA), which was signed into law in 1986 as the first coordinated federal effort to curtail teen drug use and is up for renewal as part of ESEA this year. This report contains material drawn from a literature review, focus groups, commissioned papers, and a conference, all focused on the strengths and weaknesses of the Act and its implementation. Some problems with the enactment of SDFSCA that are identified by the researchers include: a severe lack of funds, poor appropriation of resources, vague goals and evaluative criteria, poor training for teachers dealing with drug abuse and prevention, and a lack of coordination with other federal and state programs. The authors credit the Clinton administration with improving accountability in the program, but note that the reforms failed to boost program capacity, the targeting of resources, or cost effectiveness. The study recommends a range of reforms, including changes in the way funds are allocated to states, efforts to assess the need and capacity of the districts receiving funds, enhancements to the content of individual programs, and clear standards to judge program performance. To read a summary of the findings, go http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1328.1/MR1328.1.pref.pdf. Paper copies of this 187-page report can be ordered for $20 by surfing to http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1328.1/ or contacting RAND at (310)

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Options for Restructuring the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities Act: Report with Background Papers and Focus Group Summary

Teacher Labor Market Imbalances in Massachusetts: A Review of the Evidence The New England Council

Kelly Scott / August 30, 2001

Commission on High Technology Workforce Development August 14, 2001

The nation's teacher shortage-one that is not found in all school districts and all subjects, but which is particularly acute in math and science-is very much in the news as students and teachers head back to school. But it's not just schools that are having a hard time filling math and science positions; the scientific, engineering and information technology labor markets as a whole are experiencing a severe shortage of skilled workers. Last year, The New England Council formed a Commission on High Tech Workforce Development to examine the issue, placing special emphasis on the teacher labor shortage since schools' inability to hire qualified teachers restricts their ability to impart to students the knowledge necessary for high tech careers. A study of the teacher labor market in Massachusetts, conducted on behalf of the Commission by researchers at Northeastern University's Center for Labor Market Studies, revealed that teacher employment in the Bay State is actually quite stable, with a job vacancy rate of less than one percent. How can Massachusetts be suffering a severe teacher shortage if vacancy rates are so low? The report's authors explain that, "unlike other labor markets, teacher labor shortages do not manifest themselves through either rapid wage growth or high job vacancy rates. Instead of quantitative changes in supply-demand relationships that occur in most other labor market segments, the teacher labor market adjusts to shortages by reducing

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Teacher Labor Market Imbalances in Massachusetts: A Review of the Evidence The New England Council

Teacher Workload Survey: Interim Report

Kelly Scott / August 30, 2001

Department for Education and Skills (UK) August 2001

Seeking to end a labor dispute that forced some schools to adopt a four-day schedule, the British government hired consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to analyze the workload of teachers and head teachers (principals) and suggest ways to improve their efficiency. In an interim report for the Department for Education and Skills, PwC explained their findings, which are based on fieldwork in 48 schools. Among the consultants' observations: teachers and head teachers work longer hours than many other occupations, though the volume of work is comparable to other professions when spread out over a year (adjusting for the typical 9 month school calendar); teachers welcome efforts to professionalize their field through greater accountability and higher expectations, yet they feel they are not given the support needed to meet those challenges (despite higher spending per pupil); and teachers' workloads are made excessive by having to perform tasks that could be carried out by other staff, by having inadequate technical support, and by wide variations in head teachers' and managers' effectiveness in managing workload. Nearly absent from the study, which contains all sorts of statistics and measurements relating to teachers' current working conditions and practices, is analysis of how these variables are affecting student achievement. Perhaps PwC's final report, to be released in November with recommended solutions for lessening teachers' workload, will shed some light on this most crucial element of the academic equation. In

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Teacher Workload Survey: Interim Report