The twelve years of NCLB

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / December 19, 2002

In the first year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 2nd year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 3rd year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 4th year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Four district improvement plans,
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 5th year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Five schools to choose from,
Four district improvement plans,
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 6th year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Six annual tests,
Five schools to choose from,
Four district improvement plans,
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 7th year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Seven highly-qualified teachers,
Six annual tests,
Five schools to choose from,
Four district improvement plans,
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 8th year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Eight supplemental services,
Seven highly-qualified teachers,
Six annual tests,
Five schools to choose from,
Four district improvement plans,
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two state report cards, and
A law based on A.Y.P.

In the 9th year of NCLB, my Uncle (Sam) gave to me
Nine school reconstitutions,
Eight supplemental services,
Seven highly-qualified teachers,
Six annual tests,
Five schools to choose from,
Four district improvement plans,
Three disaggregated test scores,
Two

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The twelve years of NCLB

Racial distrust and school reform

Frederick M. Hess / December 19, 2002

Step back from the furor over Trent Lott's recent statement and observe how the episode itself opens a window onto the legacy of distrust that has characterized African-American views of conservatives and Republicans since the civil rights era.

This distrust has shaped public policy on many fronts but perhaps nowhere as profoundly as in K-12 education. Here, African-American mistrust of conservatives, combined with the left's embrace of civil rights legislation and affirmative action, led to a longstanding alliance between black Americans and the teacher unions and public-school establishment. The result has been a tacit agreement in which the left avoids blaming schools for education problems, promotes bureaucracy and teacher protections as a response to failing urban schools, and cloaks the educational status quo in the rhetoric of civil rights.

This tendency has been especially visible in debates over school vouchers and charter schooling. While one can reasonably oppose choice-based education reforms, much of the opposition has traded on hysterical and race-conscious assertions about the motives of proponents.

The problem for those who are serious about improving American education is that this distrust is not wholly unwarranted. The legislation and court decisions of the civil rights era culminated more than a century of strenuous African-American efforts to widen their children's educational opportunities. During that time, black Americans had few allies and what little support they did receive came mainly from the left. In the years that followed Brown (1954) and the Elementary

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Racial distrust and school reform

Massachusetts grants MCAS waivers

December 19, 2002

Massachusetts has granted appeals to roughly 200 students who demonstrated-via good grades, stellar attendance, teacher recommendations, and having taken part in MCAS tutoring-that they knew enough to graduate despite thrice failing at least one section of the state exit test by a narrow margin. State Education Commissioner David Driscoll called the appeals process a "national model" and hopes it will assuage critics who view MCAS as ruthless and unbending. "There do seem to be instances where kids are thrown off by a test," he said. (Driscoll explains further in a letter that appears below.) "MCAS waivers give hope to others," by Michele Kurtz, The Boston Globe, December 11, 2002

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Massachusetts grants MCAS waivers

NYC schools chancellor to award top principals battle pay

December 19, 2002

Chancellor Joel Klein says that New York City's best principals will get up to $75,000 in bonus pay if they agree to work for three years with a principal-in-training in a failing school. In addition to opening a leadership academy for new principals [see http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/11/education/11UNIO.html], Klein also plans to remove the 50 lowest performing school leaders by documenting "persistent educational failure." The intent of Klein's overhaul is to "infuse the ranks of New York's principals with new blood, put the most experienced administrators where they are most needed, and weed out those who preside over schools plagued by low test scores, poor discipline and other problems." "Plan to lure top principals to bad schools," by Abby Goodnough, The New York Times, December 12, 2002

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NYC schools chancellor to award top principals battle pay

Pennsylvania's education secretary throws in the towel

December 19, 2002

Charles Zogby has resigned as Pennsylvania's Education Secretary, leaving behind a legacy of controversial but sensible and far-reaching reforms. Among many other accomplishments, Zogby and his predecessor, Eugene Hickok, now U.S. Undersecretary of Education, advanced charter schools, instituted tougher standards for teachers and students, and oversaw the state takeover of the Philadelphia schools. Zogby becomes senior vice president of K12, William Bennett's online education firm. Governor-elect Ed Rendell will likely replace him with someone from the heart of the school establishment. "Pa.'s education secretary resigns," by Ovetta Wiggins and Dale Mezzacappa, The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 18, 2002

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Pennsylvania's education secretary throws in the towel

Philly school system overwhelms top suburban principal

December 19, 2002

A successful suburban principal with thirty years' experience - a woman hired to work miracles - has crashed and burned after only four months as principal of a troubled Philadelphia elementary school that's now managed by Edison Schools. Struggling to answer to two bosses, the principal was "exhausted, frustrated and finally defeated by the Philadelphia system's bureaucracy, which left her without teachers, and entrenched union rules, which kept her from even meeting with her teachers." For a sobering look at the difficulties of urban school reform, see "Philadelphia School's Woes Defeat Veteran Principal," by Sara Rimer, The New York Times, December 15, 2002

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Philly school system overwhelms top suburban principal

SOL study tool earns rave reviews from kids

December 19, 2002

Virginia third-graders are having a blast while studying for the Standards of Learning (SOL) exams thanks to SOLAR, a computer software program designed by Lockheed Martin Corp. When students answer SOL-like questions correctly, the program rewards them with exciting graphics and sound effects reminiscent of a video game. Meanwhile, a database monitors children's performance in key subjects, enabling their teachers to spot weaknesses as well as strengths. Who said standards and testing must take the fun out of learning? "Engineering A Kid-Friendly Way to Study For SOL Tests," by Rosalind S. Helderman, The Washington Post, December 15, 2002

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SOL study tool earns rave reviews from kids

A Decade of Public Charter Schools: Evaluation of the Public Charter Schools Program: 2000-2001 Evaluation Report

Terry Ryan / December 19, 2002

U.S. Department of Education
November 2002

Prepared for the U.S. Department of Education by SRI International, this report is chock-full of data about charter schools and their authorizers, and offers a good review of the state of the charter movement ten years on. Findings include:

• Most charter school teachers are certified and, like in traditional public schools, most are white.
  
• Non-renewal and revocation of a school's charter are predominantly the result of business failings, not poor student performance.
  
• The median enrollment in charter schools is 171.
  
• On average, slightly more than half of charter students are members of ethnic minorities.
  
• Approximately 12 percent of charter pupils have IEPs for special education services, compared to about 13 percent of students in traditional public schools.
  
• Sixty-two percent of charter schools have more applicants than they can accommodate.
  
• Fewer than one-quarter work with Education Management Organizations (EMOs).
  
• The average number of charter schools in operation per authorizer is three.
  
• Authorizers typically do not have separate offices, staff, or budgets to support their activities with charter schools.
  
• Fewer than one-quarter of authorizers report having turned down charter applicants because of problems or concerns with their applications.
  

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A Decade of Public Charter Schools: Evaluation of the Public Charter Schools Program: 2000-2001 Evaluation Report

Comprehensive School Reform and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / December 19, 2002

Geoffrey Borman, Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, Johns Hopkins University
November 2002

The Johns Hopkins-based Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) is the source of this 45-page study. A review of 250 studies of "comprehensive school reform" programs (CSR, also known as "whole-school reform"), it finds that only 3 of 29 school models can be said to "work" in terms of significantly and reliably boosting student achievement. (Those are Direct Instruction, Success for All and the School Development Program.) Though just about every other model can boast some positive effects, implementation matters hugely and, in 26 cases, the jury is still out as to whether the model, overall, can be counted upon to increase pupil learning. The authors don't say they should be dismissed or CSR abandoned, only that better and more sustained research is needed. Still, there's not much comfort here for those who want to believe that CSR models are the secret of turning bad schools into effective ones. See for yourself at http://www.csos.jhu.edu/crespar/techReports/Report59.pdf.

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Comprehensive School Reform and Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

Papers on knowledge- and skills-based teacher pay

Allison Cole / December 19, 2002

Consortium for Education Policy Research
2002

Two recent papers from the Consortium for Education Policy Research (CPRE) explore the use of knowledge- and skill-based systems of teacher pay and ask whether these systems actually reward teachers who improve student achievement. "The Varieties of Knowledge and Skill-based Pay Design: A Comparison of Seven New Pay Systems for K-12 Teachers" (by Anthony Milanowski, October 2002) describes seven teacher pay systems in Ohio, Colorado and California. Their greatest problem is that they do not always clearly define the teacher knowledge and skills necessary to improve instruction and achievement; instead, they use surrogates like National Board certification. The author also faults these unconventional pay schemes for not aligning their measures of teacher knowledge and skills with the state standards and curricula that teachers in those states are supposed to use. "The Relationship Between Measures of Teacher Quality and Student Achievement: The Case of Vaughn Elementary" (H. Alix Gallagher, April 2002) takes a closer look at the pay system at California's celebrated Vaughn charter school (also profiled in Milanowski's report) to determine whether high ratings on teacher evaluations matched up with student gains. For the most part, finds this study, a high average rating based on evaluations by an administrator, a trained peer, and the teacher was a "statistically significant predictor" of student gains in reading; findings for math and language arts were less clear. Notably, neither state certification nor years of experience was found to be

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Papers on knowledge- and skills-based teacher pay

The Kids That E.C.O.T. Taught: The Pioneers of America's E-Schooling Revolution

Terry Ryan / December 19, 2002

Bill Lager
2002

E.C.O.T. stands for Electronic Classroom Of Tomorrow. It's Ohio's first statewide "virtual" charter school and one that's come in for more than a little criticism due to gaps between what it promised and what it delivered, as well as for being a profit-seeking venture in a world that finds all such motives suspect. But it is also an important pioneer in a new field and its 21 first-year (2001) graduates can fairly be compared to successful education explorers. In this hefty (300 page) volume, E.C.O.T.'s iron-willed founder, Bill Lager, melds his school's tale with individual profiles of most of those initial graduates in the first book I have seen about the challenges and opportunities presented by e-schooling. Yes, it's somewhat self-serving, but it also opens a welcome window on an exciting and little-understood corner of American education. The ISBN is 0972346805; the publisher is EOS Publishing. The book is most readily available via Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0972346805/qid=1040144595/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/104-8993071-0866325?v=glance&s=books. For information about the school itself, surf to www.ecotohio.org.

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The Kids That E.C.O.T. Taught: The Pioneers of America's E-Schooling Revolution

The Six Habits of Fiscally Responsible Public School Districts

Eric Osberg / December 19, 2002

Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., and Elizabeth H. Moser
Mackinac Center for Public Policy
December 2002

This report by the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy identifies six ways school districts-some of which spend over half their budget outside the classroom - can save money without laying off teachers. The recommendations are sound if mostly obvious: minimize administrative costs; out-source non-instructional services; cut back on overly generous health plans; structure capital costs effectively; and reform collective bargaining. The authors also make a not-too-subtle bid for increased school choice as a means of spurring competition and efficiency. Although they provide only anecdotal evidence of cost savings based on Michigan's experience with "schools-of-choice," their argument is convincing. It will be a challenge, however, to convince administrators around the country that a partial solution to their budget woes may be to lobby for greater choice in their districts - not that the other recommendations will prove easy to implement, either. This report can be found at http://www.mackinac.org/4891.

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The Six Habits of Fiscally Responsible Public School Districts