On Leaving No Child Behind

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 28, 2002

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is less than two months old but it's already yowling and a lot of people are nervous about it, not unlike new parents unsure how best to soothe a crying infant.

This is an enormous piece of legislation that possibly nobody has read from cover to cover. Spanning dozens of programs and thousands of specific features, it ranges from Indian education to impact aid, from teacher quality to bilingual education, and on and on.

Its heart and muscle, however, are its provisions dealing with standards, testing, adequate yearly progress and accountability at the state and school levels. This is the part of the act that got the most attention, stirred the most controversy, is perhaps the most different from previous versions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and is fraught with the greatest uncertainty as its implementation proceeds.

No matter what one thought of the President's initial proposal (which I liked a great deal) or of the compromises and alterations that Congress worked in it (many of which I didn't like nearly so much), NCLB is now the law. Surely everyone wants it to work effectively in carrying out its stated purposes: boosting student achievement, improving schools, giving people better information and closing long-lasting and troubling performance gaps, so that, indeed, no child will be left behind.

The standards, testing and accountability provisions are at the core of this hope. But they turn out to be

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On Leaving No Child Behind

Diverse voices call for accountability in special education

February 28, 2002

President Bush's commission on special education, charged with recommending areas of reform to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), held hearings in Houston this week. Some expected the hearings to be attended only by representatives of special education advocacy groups opposed to any changes in IDEA, which is soon up for reauthorization. Instead the panel heard from a range of witnesses -- including state education officials from Texas and New York, as well as some advocacy groups -- calling for the federal government to focus on accountability for results instead of compliance with procedural rules, according to a story in the San Antonio Express-News. An open letter to the President's commission, identifying key areas of IDEA that urgently need reforming, was released earlier this week by Lisa Graham Keegan (Education Leaders Council), William J. Bennett (former Secretary of Education, now at Empower America), and Chester E. Finn, Jr. (Thomas B. Fordham Foundation). While the House of Representatives is planning to take up the issue of special education this summer (after the President's commission issues its recommendations), the legislation is likely to be contentious and Hill staffers do not expect serious work on the bill until 2003, according to a report in Education Week.

"Experts want focus to be on results," by Sharon Hughes, San Antonio Express-News, February 26, 2002.

Open letter to the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education from Lisa Graham Keegan, William J. Bennett, and Chester E.

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Diverse voices call for accountability in special education

Great teachers turn up on top no matter how they are evaluated

February 28, 2002

Two years ago, the Cincinnati Public Schools launched a teacher evaluation system in which teachers were measured against 17 standards, with the results to be linked to compensation and career advancement for individual teachers. Last week, the district announced that teachers who rated the highest under the evaluation system also produced the greatest gains in student achievement. The evaluation system rates teachers based on whether they meet standards like giving tests aligned with the district's standards and using content-specific instructional strategies. For the study, the district looked at individual student scores on achievement tests and compared student improvement rates to teachers' evaluation ratings, according to an article by reporter Jennifer Mrozowski in the Cincinnati Enquirer. "The study found the basic design of the teacher evaluation system is sound and worth continuing," said Jack Lewis, the district's director of research and evaluation. For details see "Study links teacher quality and student progress," by Jennifer Mrozowski, Cincinnati Enquirer, February 21, 2002.

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Great teachers turn up on top no matter how they are evaluated

Justices hear arguments on vouchers

February 28, 2002

If you spent last week on another planet and missed the press coverage of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on the Cleveland voucher program, you can catch up with the help of The Economist ("School Vouchers: A Supreme Opportunity," February 23, 2002.)

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Justices hear arguments on vouchers

Reading researchers find, yet again, that children need instruction in phonics

February 28, 2002

Heated arguments about the most effective form of reading instruction continue to polarize the teaching community, but yet another review of the research has found beyond dispute that "teaching that makes the rules of phonics clear will ultimately be more successful than teaching that does not." So conclude five professors of psychology, linguistics and pediatrics in a cover story in this month's Scientific American, "How Should Reading Be Taught?" by Keith Rayner, Barbara Foorman, Charles Perfetti, David Pesetsky, and Mark Seidenberg, Scientific American, March 2002.

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Reading researchers find, yet again, that children need instruction in phonics

Advocacy Versus Authority-Silencing the Education Professoriate

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 28, 2002

Paul Shaker and Elizabeth Heilman
Policy Perspectives, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
January 2002

The American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) may mean well but it's irrevocably cast in the role of apologist for the nation's ed schools and what goes on in them. This sometimes means striking back at those who find fault with conventional teacher training and certification, with conventional ed-school style research, etc., and savaging those who engage in independent studies that arrive at "outside the ed school box" conclusions. A particularly nasty version of this retribution recently appeared in Policy Perspectives, an AACTE newsletter. There we find a piece called "Advocacy Versus Authority-Silencing the Education Professoriate", by Paul Shaker of California State University at Fresno and Elizabeth E. Heilman of Purdue University. It tries to find fault with numerous critical reports and studies, ranging from A Nation at Risk to the recent report of the National Reading Panel, from Diane Ravitch's book Left Back to CREDO's recent study of the Teach for America Program in Houston to the journal Education Next, and so forth. Its essential argument seems to be that the "critics" haven't a scholarly leg to stand on but are winning the policy fights because the ed school professoriate is too na??ve, quiet and inner-directed to hold its own. It never occurs to Shaker and Heilman that, to the extent that critics are making some headway, it might be due to their

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Advocacy Versus Authority-Silencing the Education Professoriate

Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 28, 2002

Jerry P. Gollub, et al.
National Academy of Science, Committee on Programs for Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in American High Schools
February 2002

Diane Ravitch opined on this National Research Council "study" in last week's Gadfly but it's worth another comment, particularly amidst reports that elite private schools are dropping Advanced Placement courses so as to concentrate on idiosyncratic, teacher-built courses, and in light of last week's report that Harvard will henceforth award credit only to those who score "5" (the top mark) on A.P. exams. In this lengthy study (only the uncorrected, pre-publication version of which is presently available, and that for a stiff price), the National Academy of Science's Committee on Programs for Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in American High Schools essentially tries to impose N.C.T.M. math and a similar view of science on two long-standing, external "gold standard" high school curriculum-and-assessment programs, the College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) program and the International Baccalaureate (IB). The gist of the critique is that these programs are too heavy on content coverage and skill development and too light on conceptual understandings. The authors don't see the AP and IB as external tests of important skills and knowledge but, rather, as teaching strategies that, they assert, should be "made consistent with findings from recent research on how people learn". In other words, it's not knowledge of the disciplines that should form the core of these programs, as it long

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Learning and Understanding: Improving Advanced Study of Mathematics and Science in U.S. High Schools

School Choice in New York City After Three Years: An Evaluation of the School Choice Scholarships Program,

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 28, 2002

Final Report, David Myers, Paul Peterson, et al.
Mathematica Policy Research and the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance
February 2002

David Myers, Paul Peterson and colleagues at Mathematica Policy Research and the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance issued this lengthy study the day before the U.S. Supreme Court heard the Cleveland voucher case. It reviews three year's of evidence from a large, privately funded voucher program in New York City. The "bottom line" is interesting but ambiguous. Taken as a whole, low-income children who attended private schools with the assistance of these scholarships did not academically surpass the control-group children who remained in the public schools. However, when the results are separately analyzed for black youngsters (44 percent of those in the sample studied here), the researchers found statistically-significant academic achievement gains, amounting to about 9 additional points on combined reading-math tests for those who spent all three years in the private schools. The Hispanic youngsters in the program, however, showed no effect. This finding parallels those reported earlier from similar programs in Washington, D.C. and Dayton, Ohio: they make a measurable difference for African-American youngsters but not for others who are just as poor. Why? Nobody is sure, though theories abound. The New York report also reviews data on many other aspects of the school experience (e.g. parental satisfaction, discipline, homework). On almost all such indicators, the scholarship students in private schools fare better than their public-school

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School Choice in New York City After Three Years: An Evaluation of the School Choice Scholarships Program,

Still Getting It Wrong: The Continuing Failure of Special Education in the Baltimore City Public Schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 28, 2002

Kalman Hettleman.
The Abell Foundation
February 2002

The Baltimore-based Abell Foundation has produced another excellent education report, this one written by Kalman Hettleman and addressing the problems of special education in that city's schools. It's especially timely as the President's Commission on Special Education (which you can read about at http://www.ed.gov/inits/commissionsboards/whspecialeducation/) buckles down to its review of the federal IDEA program with an eye toward the possible reform of same. 50 pages long, Hettleman's report paints a devastating picture of a failed program and goes on to outline a comprehensive overhaul. Because it documents these problems in a real urban setting, it provides a valuable case study of special education in action (or perhaps inaction) and ought to capture the attention of policymakers and special educators alike. You can get a PDF version by surfing to www.abell.org and hunting there. You can also request a hard copy by phoning (410) 547-1300, faxing (410) 539-6579 or emailing Gresham@abell.org.

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Still Getting It Wrong: The Continuing Failure of Special Education in the Baltimore City Public Schools