California legend to retire from state board

January 16, 2003

This week, Marion Joseph will attend her last meeting as a member of the California state board of education, and a column by Peter Schrag makes clear how large a gap her departure will leave. It was Joseph, a liberal Democrat, who in 1994 sounded the alarm that millions of California schoolchildren were not learning to read. Since then, she has spoken out relentlessly on the importance of rigorous curricula and no-excuses standards for all California students. She will be sorely missed, especially at a time when pressure to roll back academic standards is mounting in the Golden State. "Marion Joseph's decade of education reform," by Peter Schrag, The Sacramento Bee, January 8, 2003

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California legend to retire from state board

Charter school laws rated anew

January 16, 2003

The Center for Education Reform this week released the latest edition of its ranking of the "strength" of the nation's 40 charter school laws. Arizona retains the top ranking this year as Minnesota moves into second place. New charter laws in Tennessee and Iowa garner a C-minus and F respectively. For more information, surf to www.edreform.com/charter_schools/laws/rankingintro.htm

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Charter school laws rated anew

Neuman resigns as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education

January 16, 2003

Earlier this week, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige accepted the resignation of Susan Neuman as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education. While the office she directed is the organizational home of the No Child Left Behind Act, much of the implementation of that law has been orchestrated from elsewhere in the Department and White House. Before joining the Department, Neuman was a reading researcher at the University of Michigan. For details see "Secretary Paige Accepts Susan B. Neuman's Resignation," press release, U.S. Department of Education, January 14, 2003

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Neuman resigns as assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education

Philadelphia eliminates budget deficit, considers outsourcing more schools

January 16, 2003

In the midst of depressing financial news elsewhere, Philadelphia district officials announced last week that belt-tightening will eliminate a $28.3 million deficit and, in fact, produce an estimated $2 million surplus by the end of the fiscal year. The savings have been produced by eliminating over 1,000 staff positions, reducing all nonschool nonpersonnel budgets by 5 percent, eliminating redundancies in the facilities program, and other measures, according to school CEO Paul Vallas. The district also announced that most of the seven outside managers overseeing Philadelphia public schools this year are asking to oversee more schools next year. After the state took control of the school system a year ago, district officials turned over the management of 45 low-performing schools to three for-profit firms, two universities, and two non-profit groups. Unfortunately, district officials will have to decide whether to give the outside managers additional schools (or take schools away) before the results are in from the district's testing program this spring.

"Officials: School district to save $51m this year," by Mensah Dean, Philly.com, January 10, 2003

"School managers seeking more work," by Susan Snyder, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 8, 2003

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Philadelphia eliminates budget deficit, considers outsourcing more schools

Younger pupils becoming more violent

January 16, 2003

Elementary school principals and safety experts say they're seeing more violence and aggression than ever among their youngest students, according to an article by Greg Toppo in USA Today. While federal statistics show only a small increase in the percentage of elementary school teachers who say they've been attacked, a number of states and districts report an alarming rise in very young students suspended for hitting classmates or teachers or committing other "crimes against persons." For more, see "School violence hits lower grades," by Greg Toppo, USA Today, January 12, 2003

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Younger pupils becoming more violent

An Analysis of Some Unintended and Negative Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 16, 2003

Audrey Amrein and David Berliner
Arizona State University
December 2002

In last week's Gadfly, Jay Greene reported on the failings of a much-publicized study of high-stakes testing by Arizona State University's Audrey Amrein and David Berliner. [http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=6#412] It turns out this dynamic duo has done TWO related studies. The second one, published electronically by the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (and also paid for by teacher unions), reviews data from 16 states with high-stakes graduation exams, and, as you might expect, purports to find all sorts of dire things happening in them: more high school dropouts, more teacher dropouts, etc. This is a cooked-to-order "study" that isn't really worth your time but if you're a glutton for punishment - or just trying to monitor the efforts of the anti-testing crowd and their fellow-traveling Panglosses - you can find it online at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/pub/H-S%20Analysis%20final.pdf.

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An Analysis of Some Unintended and Negative Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

High-Stakes Testing and the History of Graduation

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 16, 2003

Sherman Dorn
Education Policy Analysis Archive
January 2003

In this 30-page study, "published" by Arizona State's "Education Policy Analysis Archive," Sherman Dorn of the University of South Florida's College of Education tries to use 20th Century history to predict the effects of high-stakes tests that must be passed to earn high-school diplomas. You may not be surprised to learn that the author thinks they will cause graduation rates to decline, dropouts to rise, and confusion to persist over the "social meaning of diplomas." Aaargh. See for yourself, if you must, at http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n1/.

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High-Stakes Testing and the History of Graduation

Journal of Education

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 16, 2003

Boston University School of Education
November 2002

Boston University's School of Education is reviving and remaking its 125-year-old education journal under the editorship of Richard Silberman. It seeks to play a role in education policy debates akin to the roles played by Foreign Policy, The Public Interest and The American Scholar in their respective fields - somewhere between an academic journal and a popular magazine. This debut issue is 117 pages long, not at all glamorous to look at, but has some pretty good stuff in it: a meditation on teaching by Thomas Cottle, a thoughtful commencement address by former education dean Edwin J. Delattre, a discussion of the tension between teacher creativity and accountability, an explanation of why Department of Defense schools do relatively well academically and what local systems might learn from them, a couple of perceptive book reviews, and more. There doesn't appear to be a website but you can request a subscription by writing Journal of Education, Boston University School of Education, 605 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215.

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Journal of Education

Quality Counts 2003: Ensuring a Highly Qualified Teacher for Every Classroom

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 16, 2003

Education Week, January 2003

This bulky annual data compilation cum policy analysis from Education Week is getting better. If you can find a shelf large enough for its 182 oversized (and un-foldable) pages, you'll want to retain and refer back to it from time to time. As everybody knows, this year's issue focuses on teachers, in particular on the "teacher gap" (the concentration of less able, less prepared and less experienced teachers in schools serving poor kids vs. the relatively stronger teaching workforce in middle class schools) and on state policies that may boost the supply of "highly qualified" teachers, which are supposed to be the only kind left in U.S. classrooms three years hence. (Besides state-level data, this year the editors surveyed 30 large school districts.) It's somewhat circumscribed in its policy imagination, given that it reports on what exists in American public education today rather than thinking anew about what might be done differently. You will not, therefore, find much discussion of (say) giving school principals sweeping authority over the employment and compensation of their teachers - nor will you find much effort to learn from innovations in charter and private schools. Despite those limitations, this report tallies an impressive array of efforts to solve a tangle of teacher-related problems. Mostly, though, it illustrates how far most states still have to go to get within striking distance of real solutions, and how intractable are a host of local problems

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Quality Counts 2003: Ensuring a Highly Qualified Teacher for Every Classroom

The Limits and Contradictions of Systematic Reform: The Philadelphia Story

Eric Osberg / January 16, 2003

Tom Corcoran and Jolley Bruce Christman
Consortium for Policy Research in Education
November 2002

In this report, Corcoran and Christman examine the impact of the Annenberg Challenge in Philadelphia - and the Children Achieving reform it funded - nearly eight years after it first began. This enormous reform effort began in 1995, when Walter Annenberg awarded $50 million to Philadelphia (which was matched with $100 million in funds raised elsewhere) and then-superintendent David Hornbeck created an ambitious plan to turn around Philadelphia's abysmal public schools. The report reads like a case study in the problems associated with changing a vast and bureaucratic system. The reform began with promise - and the right ideals - as Philadelphia implemented standards, testing, and accountability and then decentralized decision-making to give schools flexibility in meeting these standards. Test scores improved modestly, but the visions of great change never materialized. Ultimately the reform efforts unraveled from both the bottom - where schools were ill-prepared for additional responsibility and teachers were given little time to adapt to the new standards - and the top - where politics and battles over funding disillusioned the community and ultimately led to Hornbeck's resignation. Perhaps the most universal lessons are that implementation is paramount, massive school reform is incredibly unpredictable, and continually cultivating support from teachers and the community is imperative. This report provides a conclusion to the unfinished stories told in previous reports, including a chapter from Fordham's own Can Philanthropy Fix