New hope for urban schools

Terry Ryan / September 5, 2002

Contrary to many people's glum assumption, urban school systems are not all education disaster zones. Nor are they all alike. Some, in fact, are far more effective than others at educating children-and we're beginning to understand why that is and what might enable other urban school systems to turn themselves around. A smashing new study being released today by the Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS) provides a major boost to that understanding. At a time when the U.S. is seeking to "leave no child behind," the study is very welcome indeed.

We've known for ages that good schools occasionally flourish within even the most decrepit school systems. The "effective schools" research of the 1970's and 1980's contributed much to that knowledge. It helped us describe the usual characteristics of effective schools. It helped us to spot them hither and yon. The great frustration was that nobody knew quite how to replicate them. They were more like wild flowers, turning up on their own, than a crop to be cultivated.

We've also known for some time that, while many efforts at systemic urban school reform get nowhere-see Frederick Hess's Spinning Wheels for one perceptive analysis-others lead to real change and measurable gains. (See Don McAdams's Fighting to Save Our Urban Schools&and Winning! for an account of Houston's successful effort to turn itself around.) But, like the "effective schools" research, those explanations have been situation-specific and hard to generalize.

CGCS set out

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New hope for urban schools

A mini-history of the school choice movement

September 5, 2002

As he ends his tenure as president of Children First America, a private scholarship program, school choice icon Fritz Steiger offers some closing remarks and thanks to his allies. His final "Voice for Choice" statement reads like a mini-history and who's who of the school choice movement. "A Voice for Choice," Fritz S. Steiger, Children First America, August 29, 2002

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A mini-history of the school choice movement

Declining graduation rates masked by official statistics

September 5, 2002

While the National Educational Goals Panel and others have reported high school graduation rates remaining essentially stable (around 86 percent) over the last decade, the graduation rate has actually fallen if students receiving GEDs are not included in those numbers, according to an article by Duncan Chaplin of the Urban Institute that appears in the new issue of Education Next. The falling graduation rate would have been a national scandal by now, Chaplin argues, had it not been disguised by a faulty measuring stick that does not distinguish between regular high school diplomas and GED certificates. Other articles in the same issue-available at www.educationnext.org-examine why teacher pay is so low, whether the ills of our education system endanger the U.S. economy, and how standards and accountability are being used as weapons in school finance lawsuits. "Tassels on the Cheap," by Duncan Chaplin, Education Next, Fall 2002.

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Declining graduation rates masked by official statistics

Fast-track applicants fail Massachusetts teacher test

September 5, 2002

Aspiring teachers in the Bay State did not do as well on their tests. More than half of the applicants who were accepted into the state's fast-track teacher certification program contingent upon their passing the Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure failed the test, according to an analysis by a critic of the fast-track program. "Half of applicants fail test for teacher program," by Michele Kurtz, The Boston Globe, August 29, 2002.

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Fast-track applicants fail Massachusetts teacher test

MCAS scores improve, achievement gap narrowed

September 5, 2002

One year after pass rates on the MCAS exam rose significantly-a gain which was dismissed as a fluke by opponents of Massachusetts' high-stakes testing program-scores on the test have risen yet again, though this round of gains is smaller than last year's. In spring 2002, 86 percent of sophomores passed the Bay State's English exam, up from 82 percent in 2001, and 75 percent passed the math exam, the same as last year. Forty percent of black 10th graders passed both portions of the test, up from 37 percent in 2001; 33 percent of Hispanic students passed both parts, up from 29 percent the year before; and 78 percent of white students passed both parts, up from 77 percent the year before. Of the roughly 21,700 sophomores who did not pass the test, 60 percent came within four points of doing so. These students will have four more chances to pass the test before they are scheduled to graduate in 2004. "MCAS scores improve as minorities narrow gap," by Ed Hayward, Boston Herald, August 30, 2002; "Slight improvements seen on Massachusetts high-stakes test," by Neal Learner, Education Daily, September 3, 2002 (subscribers only). A summary of the test scores is available at www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/2002/results/summary.pdf

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MCAS scores improve, achievement gap narrowed

New York bishops demand school choice

September 5, 2002

Cardinal Edward Egan and other New York bishops have charged state politicians with violating poor parents' "fundamental rights" by condemning kids to failing public schools and denying them the option to attend parochial schools. In a harsh pastoral letter, the clergymen recommend that private and religious education be made more accessible to all families through publicly funded vouchers or tax credits. "Cardinal in Holy War Over Schools," by Carl Campanile, New York Post, September 2, 2002.

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New York bishops demand school choice

Spelling bee mania

September 5, 2002

This week's New York Times Magazine contained a fascinating profile of the quirky Goldstein family of West Hempstead, NY-the von Trapps of the spelling bee world. A Goldstein has placed in the top 20 at the National Spelling Bee for four of the last five years, writes Bruce Grierson, and this unusual family's life revolves around obsessively memorizing obscure words that might turn up in competitions. For more, see "Spellbound," by Bruce Grierson, The New York Times Magazine, September 1, 2002.

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Spelling bee mania

Why aren't there more suburban charter schools?

September 5, 2002

Why haven't charter schools taken greater hold in suburban areas in most states? In a new Fordham Foundation report, Pushpam Jain of the University of Maine takes a close look at three states with relatively high proportions of charter schools in the suburbs to see how they managed to introduce charter schools, and then compares them to one state (Illinois) with only a few suburban charters to see what is blocking the spread of charters there. His conclusion: if a state sets up a system for authorizing charter schools where the only authorizing body doesn't want charter schools, there won't be many charter schools! But when state policymakers want charter schools, and when the state retains a role in the charter approval process-either as primary authorizer or as appellate authority-there are likely to be more charter schools in suburbs. The report, The Approval Barrier to Suburban Charter Schools, was released today by the Fordham Foundation and is available at www.edexcellence.net.

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Why aren't there more suburban charter schools?

2001 State Policies on Assessment Participation and Accommodations

Allison Cole / September 5, 2002

National Center on Education Outcomes
July 2002

This thorough if dry report by the National Center on Education Outcomes (NCEO) details the various participation options and accommodations available to students with disabilities when taking state tests. According to both the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1997, all students, including those with disabilities, should be included in state- and district-wide testing with "reasonable" or "appropriate" (the language depends on the document) accommodations. The NCEO report describes state policies in this area as of 2001 and compares them to state policies reported earlier. Numerous charts show state participation policies, testing options, accommodation policies, groups eligible for accommodations, criteria for making accommodation decisions, and alternate assessments for all fifty states. Noted in the report are the addition of partial participation (when a student takes some but not all of the test) and out-of-level testing (when a student takes the test designed for students at a lower grade level) options, the increased specificity of the 2001 policies, the implications of accommodations for test scoring, and a list of controversial accommodations (such as allowing a proctor or scribe to record a student's responses). Interestingly, "emotional anxiety" was included by six states as a reason for students not to participate in assessments. Accommodations for assessments continue to be based largely on the recommendation of the student's IEP (Individual Education Plan) team, although parents are gaining an increased role in

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2001 State Policies on Assessment Participation and Accommodations

Achievement Matters

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / September 5, 2002

Hugh B. Price
September 2002

Hugh B. Price, president of the National Urban League, recently authored this thoughtful 256-page book, written especially for parents and subtitled "Getting Your Child The Best Possible Education." In its opening sentence, Price notes that this is his "first real book," earlier volumes having been collections of speeches, articles and suchlike. Full of anecdotes, personal vignettes and shrewd counsel for parents, it's an accessible, urgent yet optimistic book. It's no policy tome, though Price makes plain his own view on some of today's education policy issues. (He's for charter schools, for example, and against vouchers.) He's been a plucky warrior in the education reform wars, wise but impatient, and his book is a welcome addition to one's library. The ISBN is 0758201192, Kensington is the publisher and more information can be found at http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/kensington/finditem.cfm?itemid=6252.

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Achievement Matters

How Well Are American Students Learning?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / September 5, 2002

Tom Loveless, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution
September 2002

Tom Loveless, director of the Brookings Institution's Brown Center, has taken to issuing annual reports on American education, each examining several topics in interesting and provocative ways. This year is no exception. The new Brookings report takes up three issues. The one that got scant press attention-doubtless because it revealed no alarming problem-is whether high schools that are "sports powerhouses" are weaker academically than schools less adept at athletics. The answer is no, no "zero sum" game is at work, and there's "no evidence that schools suffer academically when they excel at athletics." In fact, the two forms of success may even be "mutually reinforcing." The other two issues in this report are getting big-time media notice, however. One deals with arithmetic. Loveless asserts that, despite some evidence that U.S. students and schools have made modest gains in math achievement in recent years, they have "stagnated or even declined" when it comes to computation in general and arithmetic in particular. His great concern is that America is turning its back on arithmetic, not paying nearly enough attention to it in an era when schools and school systems (and state standards) are more attentive to the "problem-solving skills" emphasized by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (The NCTM, it's fair to say, is not Loveless's favorite group.) His particular beef in this report is that the National Assessment of Educational Progress

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How Well Are American Students Learning?

Postsecondary Progression of 1993-94 Florida Public High School Graduates

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / September 5, 2002

John Wenders, Idahoans for Tax Reform
August 2002

Florida's Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement (CEPRI, a state agency within the Office of Legislative Services) has been tracking Florida's high-school class of 1994. This report follows them through their seventh post-high school year. Lots of revealing data are offered here, including the fact that three-quarters of them had earned no college (or community college) degree. Of those who had, the strongest predictor was their high school academic record. Thus this report is both data source and partial analysis for one big state-and a model of the kind of longitudinal tracking of high school graduates that every state ought to be engaged in. It's also a glum reminder that, for all our pride in an open-access higher education system in America, a huge number of young people don't get college degrees. Indeed, as we recall from recent OECD reports, this is another education measure on which the U.S. long led the pack but is beginning to be outpaced by other countries. You can download the full Florida report in PDF format from http://www.cepri.state.fl.us/pdf/2002%20Cohort%20Report.pdf. You can also find an analytic tool for your own use at http://www.cepri.state.fl.us/bacompletion/index.cfm.

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Postsecondary Progression of 1993-94 Florida Public High School Graduates

Social Studies Textbook Review

Kelly Scott / September 5, 2002

Texas Public Policy Foundation
July 2002

The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative statewide think tank that, among other things, keeps watch over textbooks being considered for adoption by the Texas public schools. As the second largest of the states that must okay textbooks before they are used in the schools, Texas has considerable influence over the national textbook market-and its State Board of Education, through this mechanism, has considerable influence over what's taught in the state's public schools. Because it was time for the state's periodic review of secondary-schools social-studies textbooks, TPPF empanelled its own reviewers from K-12 and higher education to examine some 26 books. The reviewers were asked to appraise both their "academic content" and "how well the textbooks meet the state requirements for textbook content." In general, the reviewers found very weak history content in these books-and numerous factual errors (96 pages worth!), as well as some evidence of bias and political correctness. In each of 7 categories, however, they found some textbooks to be more satisfactory than others-and TPPF presented that information to the State Board in July. If you're reviewing secondary school social studies textbooks, you may pick up pointers here, although non-Texas readers may be more interested in TPPF's general critique of the historical weakness of most of the volumes they reviewed. You can find the entire review on the web at www.tppf.org.

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Social Studies Textbook Review

The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College

Allison Cole / September 5, 2002

Jacques Steinberg
2002

Jacques Steinberg, a New York Times reporter specializing in education, spent eight months observing almost every aspect of the college admissions process at Wesleyan University, and his account of what he saw and heard during that time is the basis for a new book, The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College. According to a review of the book by Dan Seligman, the admissions process at Wesleyan includes "elaborate procedures for reinterpreting grades and test scores in order to guarantee high admission rates for minorities," procedures that Seligman, a contributing editor of Forbes, calls "patently unfair." Seligman, who describes the book as "enormously readable" and "revelatory," is struck by the personal investment of some admissions officers in particular applicants, especially minority or disadvantaged applicants. To read the book review, which appears in the September 2002 issue of Commentary Magazine, surf to http://www.educationnews.org/getting_in.htm. Or dive into the book itself, which is published by Viking (see http://www.penguinputnam.com/Book/BookFrame/0,1007,,00.html?0CS^0670031356).

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The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College

Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / September 5, 2002

Harvard Civil Rights Project
August 23, 2002

With reauthorization time nearing in Washington for the Higher Education Act, expect renewed discussion of whether the federal government should add a "merit" component to its billions of dollars in need-based aid for college students. In my view, this idea warrants serious consideration as a way of creating incentives for young people to study harder and learn more in high school, an effect that would likely trickle down into the middle and elementary schools. We have a far better chance of "leaving no child behind" if young people see a tangible reward attached to academic achievement-the more so if they come from low income families. But this idea faces stiff opposition from a cadre of purists who contend that financial neediness alone should determine one's eligibility for (and the amount of) aid to attend college. That point of view is argued in a new report from the Harvard Civil Rights Project, which examines the merit-based scholarship programs that have been spreading from state to state (and are now operational in at least a dozen of them). Predictably, given the "social engineering" orientation of that Project, this report concludes that giving non-poor people financial assistance as incentive and reward for doing well in high school is a socially dysfunctional thing to do, that it increases stratification, doesn't boost "access," etc. You can find it on the web at http://www.law.harvard.edu/groups/civilrights/publications/meritaid/synopsis.html. You may also want to read

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Who Should We Help? The Negative Social Consequences of Merit Scholarships