Our Schools & Our Future: Are We Still at Risk?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 27, 2003

Two decades after the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its celebrated "A Nation at Risk" report, how much progress has the U.S. made in averting that risk and bringing excellence to its schools? Not much, says the Hoover Institution's Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, one of whose eleven members I am.

At a symposium yesterday in Washington, at which Education Secretary Rod Paige, Senator (and former Education Secretary) Lamar Alexander, and former Excellence Commission staff director Milt Goldberg also spoke, the Task Force issued its new report, accompanied by eleven individually-authored chapters that amplify and document its findings and recommendations.

The Koret Task Force concludes, in the first of ten "findings," that "U.S. education outcomes, measured in many ways, show little improvement since 1970. The trends that alarmed the Excellence Commission have not been reversed."

Why, despite so much energy, good will and money devoted to education reform, has so little progress been made? Did the Excellence Commission misdiagnose the problem? The Koret group says yes, the 1983 panel "failed to confront essential issues of power and control" and underestimated the tenacity of three "powerful forces of inertia" within the education system: "the resistance to change from the organized adult interests of the K-12 education system"; the "'thoughtworld' of the nation's colleges of education"; and the "large number of Americans, particularly in middle-class suburbs, who believe that their schools are basically sound and academically successful." By not foreseeing

» Continued

Our Schools & Our Future: Are We Still at Risk?

Breaking News: Ed School Profs Endorse Phonics and Mandated Curricula!

Diane Ravitch / February 27, 2003

How well I recall a day in 1987 when Teachers College, Columbia University, was celebrating its centennial as our nation's premier school of pedagogy. One of the events marking this grand occasion was a panel discussion of the topic: "Do we need a national curriculum?" On one side, arguing the affirmative, was Checker Finn and a Teachers College faculty member. On the other side, opposing the idea, were two other faculty members. A large crowd filled Horace Mann Auditorium to hear the debate.

Finn argued for a set curriculum that consumed not more than half the school day in basic academic subjects, and he pointed to various other nations as exemplars. But as Finn made his case, a strange thing occurred. The person who was supposedly on Finn's team decided that he, too, opposed a national curriculum, and so it was Finn against the other three panelists.

As it happened, there were four other people seated on the stage near the panelists - all of whom had received medals of distinction from the College on its anniversary - and they, too, jumped into the discussion. Soon the debate raged heatedly between Finn on one side, and seven people on the other. The latter team opposed any set curriculum, whether set by city, state, or nation, and the Teachers College audience clearly shared that view.

Later the same evening, I voiced my dismay to the College's President, suggesting that his institution had

» Continued

Breaking News: Ed School Profs Endorse Phonics and Mandated Curricula!

Are Advanced Placement (AP) courses still the gold standard?

February 27, 2003

A long article in this month's American School Board Journal examines whether the tremendous growth in students taking AP courses has been accompanied by slackening of that program's lofty academic standards. Today nearly 950,000 students worldwide take AP courses, more than double the number a decade ago. In the 1990s, the College Board shifted its mission from providing a program for the academic elite to offering an opportunity to any student willing to accept the challenge. According to the College Board's new philosophy, school grades are not to determine access to the program, nor should teachers serve as a gatekeeper to screen out low-performing students. The 11 subjects that were initially offered in the AP program have been joined by 23 others, including courses like drawing and human geography. But are there limits to how much the program can grow without lowering standards and reducing high-level learning? Among the challenges faced by the program are poorly prepared students, a looming scarcity of qualified teachers, difficulty in finding enough college faculty members to grade the exams, and a large number of students (now 31 percent) who enroll in the course but do not take the exam, potentially diluting what it means to take an AP course.

"Is the shine off the A.P. apple?" by Nina Hurwitz and Sol Hurwitz, American School Board Journal, March 2003

» Continued

Are Advanced Placement (AP) courses still the gold standard?

Culture clash between philanthropists and public school systems

February 27, 2003

Following the lead of three major foundations in Pittsburgh, which suspended funding to the school system in July 2002 because of a decline in district leadership, governance and fiscal discipline [for more see "Foundations withdraw grants to Pittsburgh school district," a private foundation in Memphis has vowed not to donate any more money to the school system until its leaders show that they can spend the money wisely. Partners in Public Education (PIPE), made up of some of the city's prominent business executives and philanthropists, will withhold all support for the district until school leaders enact 65 recommendations that, says a consultant, could save $114 million over the next five years. The consultant's study, paid for by PIPE, outlined dozens of ways that the school system could become more academically effective and fiscally efficient. Over the last ten years, PIPE has raised about $12 million for innovative projects in the district, such as sending principals to Harvard for training and creating a Teaching and Learning Academy. District leaders say that all of the recommendations in the consultant's report will be considered, and that the staff is already planning to implement many of them.

In Detroit, a retired entrepreneur wants to spend up to $300 million to boost urban education, but so far the education establishment has spurned him. Bob Thompson's performance-based plan goes like this: open a charter high school in Detroit and, if 90 percent of the students

» Continued

Culture clash between philanthropists and public school systems

High-stakes testing in Massachusetts is proving critics wrong

February 27, 2003

exam presents an impossibly high barrier, yet more than 80 percent of 12th graders have already passed it and many more are expected to pass later this year. Further, the evidence suggests that many students who failed the test did so for simple reasons: they missed many days of school and did not attend any of the tutoring sessions that have been offered to help them clear the bar. While critics also contend that such tests will cause dropout rates to soar, a new study finds that the dropout rate for this year's senior class has decreased to a 10-year low. Meanwhile, SAT scores for Massachusetts students just hit a 10-year high. Most importantly, the state is now focusing on a group of students who have always been at risk but who were left behind in the past.

"Scores belie anti-MCAS arguments," by Scot Lehigh, The Boston Globe, February 21, 2003

» Continued

High-stakes testing in Massachusetts is proving critics wrong

New England states to develop shared standards and tests

February 27, 2003

Four New England states - Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont - will be working together to develop common standards and tests in English and math for grades 3-8 in order to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act. Test development is a costly undertaking and, by joining forces, these states will be able to cut costs. The collaboration will also give the states more clout when negotiating with testing companies. The U.S. Department of Education has awarded them a grant of $1.78 million to support the effort. Perhaps more jurisdictions will come to realize that their fourth graders need to learn the same math skills as fourth graders across the state line, and collaborative efforts like this one will proliferate.

"Educators find strength in numbers for test," by Linda Borg, Providence Journal, February 21, 2003 [registration required]

» Continued

New England states to develop shared standards and tests

Should homework be abolished or expanded?

February 27, 2003

Intrigued by a report on CBS suggesting that today's kids are burdened with too much homework, ace Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews did some digging. He found that, while it's true that American children under the age of 12 do almost 60 percent more homework than they did in 1981, the actual increase in total weekly homework was from one hour and 24 minutes to two hours and 14 minutes, meaning that today's children still average less than a half hour of homework each school night. He also investigated what research says about the benefits of homework: while it has little effect on achievement in the elementary grades, it does raise achievement in middle and high school. And light homework in the early grades may serve another important purpose: helping children develop the work habits that they'll need as they move to middle and high school and then on to life. Mathews concludes with some creative ideas for making sure that homework serves its purpose.

"Is Homework Really So Terrible?" by Jay Mathews, Class Struggle column on Washingtonpost.com, February 18, 2003

» Continued

Should homework be abolished or expanded?

Financial Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on the State of New Hampshire

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 27, 2003

The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, The Business Roundtable, AccountabilityWorks
February 2003

Not long ago, the New Hampshire School Administrators Association issued a report complaining that complying with No Child Left Behind will cost the Granite State more than $100 million in excess of the federal funds that will flow into the state in connection with NCLB. This caused much alarm in frugal New Hampshire and also illustrated again how the public-school establishment is fighting NCLB on many fronts - as well as storing up excuses for failing to meet its challenges. In response, The Business Roundtable contracted with AccountabilityWorks to conduct an independent study. The results of that study were released last week by New Hampshire's Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. The new findings: NCLB will bring into New Hampshire more than enough money to pay for cost increases attributable to complying with its dictates and mandates. Indeed, some $6 million will be left over in school year 2002-3 and almost $3 million in 2003-4. (And that's before counting savings that may arise from the multi-state collaboration on standards and tests described above.) There could turn out to be many reasons why New Hampshire, like other states, will find it hard to meet NCLB's multiple challenges - but a shortage of federal money is not one of them. To see the AccountabilityWorks/Bartlett study, surf to http://www.jbartlett.org/pdf/NCLB_Report.pdf. To see the administrators' study to which it responds, go to

» Continued

Financial Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on the State of New Hampshire

Recruiting, Preparing and Retaining High Quality Teachers: An Empirical Synthesis

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 27, 2003

Gerald Bracey and Alex Molnar, Education Policy Studies Laboratory (ASU)
February 12, 2003

Here the ubiquitous Gerald Bracey and Alex Molnar turn up as coauthors of a paper from the dyspeptic Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University. You may not surprised to learn that they believe the "highly qualified teacher" provision of NCLB will reduce teacher supply "if strictly enforced"; that they oppose "highly scripted" curricula (such as many of those validated by research and many of those promoted by the for-profit firms that the authors abhor); that they're against high-stakes testing and in favor of small classes; that they're cool toward content knowledge and judging teacher quality by student achievement; that they swallow hook, line and sinker the notions promulgated by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future with respect to teacher training and certification; that they really truly think all teachers should be paid a lot more; and that they care deeply about the "diversity" of the teaching force. In sum, just about every dubious and faddish bit of conventional wisdom about teachers and teaching finds its way into these 40 pages. I doubt you want a copy but you can find it at http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0302-102-EPRU.doc.

» Continued

Recruiting, Preparing and Retaining High Quality Teachers: An Empirical Synthesis

The Civic Mission of Schools

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 27, 2003

Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement
February 2003

Though last week's scheduled White House conference on history and civics had to be postponed because of the President's Day blizzard, there's no dearth of activity on the "civics education" front. Recently released by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement is this 40-page report that seeks to offer "a common vision of a richer, more comprehensive approach to civic education in the United States." Though praised in a recent column by the usually astute David Broder, it turns out to be a remarkable amalgam of very good and highly questionable material. It does a dandy job of explaining why schools should take civic education seriously and suggesting a variety of ways in which they can do better at this. It has excellent suggestions for the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The big problem is that it's grounded in what must be termed a "political activism" conception of both civic education and responsible citizenship. You'll find a bit here about being a good parent, good neighbor and conscientious participant in the nongovernmental institutions that comprise civil society. But you'll find lots and LOTS about influencing public policy and engaging in political activity. The report even faults nonpolitical "service-learning" programs on the dubious grounds that they may encourage "students to volunteer in place

» Continued

The Civic Mission of Schools

Who Controls Teachers' Work? Power and Accountability in America's Schools

Allison Cole / February 27, 2003

Richard Ingersoll, Harvard University Press
February 2003

As standards-based reforms spread, much attention has been given to whether teachers should be held accountable for the performance of their students and, if so, how. On one side are policymakers who argue that teachers have tremendous freedom in their classrooms and have seldom been held responsible for their results. On the other side are those, often members of the education establishment, who contend that teachers are knowledgeable professionals who need to be empowered to do what they think is best for their students and are already hampered by too many restrictions. In this new 300-page book, Penn's Richard Ingersoll says both sides are wrong. Using language drawn from organization theory, he shows that schools are far more complex institutions than those on either side of the "teacher autonomy" debate realize. Ingersoll gathers data from numerous surveys as well as case studies to demonstrate that contemporary teachers do not simply shut the classroom door and exert total control. Rather, they're governed by any number of formal and informal controls which limit both their autonomy and their effectiveness. In particular, Ingersoll argues that teachers lack control over key decisions regarding social aspects of their work, including student discipline and pupil assignment, control that would both lift their job satisfaction and allow them to provide better instruction. There is much to quibble with in Ingersoll's account, including his views on the rules created by collective bargaining, his

» Continued

Who Controls Teachers' Work? Power and Accountability in America's Schools