Are teachers underpaid?

May 15, 2003

The latest edition of Education Next, released yesterday, includes several articles that challenge two common education beliefs: that teachers are underpaid and that smaller classes boost student achievement. The conclusions are complicated, though. It seems that great teachers are underpaid but most teachers are not underpaid, relative to what they could earn in other occupations. As for class size reduction, while it's logical to assume that a teacher could be more effective with fewer students, shrinking classes across the board often forces schools and districts to hire scores of ineffective teachers to fill the extra slots, which hurts students more than having a few extra classmates. This edition of Education Nextalso contains interesting articles on schools in New York City, including one by Sol Stern (whose bookBreaking Free is reviewed in today's Gadfly) showing the detrimental effect of district and union staffing policies on such highly regarded schools as Stuyvesant High. Another piece examines the tremendous cost of keeping large urban high schools safe.

Education Next, Summer 2003

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Are teachers underpaid?

Mayor Jerry Brown checked on charter change

May 15, 2003

Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown went to the California General Assembly last week to lobby for a bill that would allow nonprofit groups, colleges and universities, and mayors to authorize charter schools in that state. (Presently California charters are almost all sponsored and overseen by local school boards.) Many other charter experts and reformers favored passage of this bill, considering the hostile attitude toward charters of many school boards. It perished in committee, however, though not before Hizzoner directed some very un-Moonbeamesque comments at opponents. "This is a matter where people want a particular kind of public education and others want to deny them their legal and constitutional rights," he remarked about the bill's opponents, which included the California Teachers Association and the school boards association. Brown also blasted Democrats who opposed the bill on grounds that it would remove money from regular district schools for "following another agenda that often doesn't surface in a very honest or explicit way&. I think the people who fight this have a lot of explaining to do." (In a few weeks, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute will release the first-ever evaluation of charter authorizers and the charter-school policy environment in dozens of states - including California. Keep watching.)

"Jerry Brown battles the unions he once nurtured," by Daniel Weintraub, Sacramento Bee, May 13, 2003

"Brown leads charter school charge," by Timm Herdt, Ventura County Star, May 8, 2003

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Mayor Jerry Brown checked on charter change

Stiffening soft America

May 15, 2003

The war in Iraq got columnist Michael Barone thinking: America's military is chock full of the underskilled, undereducated graduates produced by so many schools. What happened in the intervening years to turn them into the determined, competent soldiers who toppled Saddam's regime? In fact, why is it that this country tends to produce "incompetent 18-year-olds and remarkably competent 30-year-olds?" Barone says it's because many kids spend their school years in "Soft America," which is marked by little or no competition or accountability and generous doses of ego massage. By contrast, most colleges, workplaces and the military are "Hard America," which sorts and measures people along meritocratic lines. Invoking Diane Ravitch's Left Back, Barone identifies the education system as the mushy center of Soft America, with its "mistrust of testing and competition and ... yearning to protect children from their rigors." Barone applauds education reforms that seek to stiffen the backbone of Soft America.

"A tale of two nations," by Michael Barone, U.S. News & World Report, May 12, 2003

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Stiffening soft America

The NCLB testing price tag

May 15, 2003

Last week, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) released a report on the costs to states of implementing the testing requirements of No Child Left Behind. Not surprisingly, this doesn't seem to have settled any of the NCLB funding fuss. The report estimates that, over the next seven years, states will shell out anywhere from $1.9 billion (if all states use machine-scored multiple choice tests) to $5.3 billion (if they use a combination of multiple choice and open-ended questions that must be scored by hand). Critics of NCLB's testing requirements quickly brandished the report as evidence of the inadequacy of the $4 billion (over six years) that NCLB guaranteed to cash-strapped states to cover testing costs. Supporters respond that the money is ample, so long as states use the more economical (and equally valid and reliable and NCLB-compliant) multiple-choice tests. Further blurring the situation, the Department of Education and the Education Leaders Council criticized GAO's methodology and contend that the report exaggerated the costs of implementation by ignoring budget dollars already committed by states to existing testing programs.

Characteristics of tests will influence expenses; information sharing may help states realize efficiencies, General Accounting Office, May 8, 2003

"New GAO report shows reform opponents are exaggerating state 'No Child Left Behind' testing costs," House Education and the Workforce Committee Press Release, May 8, 2003

"GAO overestimates mandated testing costs under NCLB," Education Leaders Council Weekly Policy Update, page 3, May 9,

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The NCLB testing price tag

Union to Bloomberg: drop dead

May 15, 2003

Last August, when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought in Joel Klein as schools chancellor to help implement his Children First reform initiative, United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten came out in support of the mayor and his education plans. [For more information about Mayor Bloomberg's reforms, go to http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#368.] Now, after Klein has made the inevitable tough decisions - including imposing a uniform (if ill-chosen) curriculum on failing schools and a proposal to cut 864 full- and part-time classroom aides - Weingarten has jumped ship. "The UFT simply cannot continue to lend its support to a program that, in these tight fiscal times, costs a quarter of a billion dollars and does so little for our children," she said. Weingarten's preferred "reform" proposal is a city ballot initiative that would require class size reductions throughout the system.

"Teacher's union president turns against schools reform plan," by Abby Goodnough, New York Times, May 11, 2003

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Union to Bloomberg: drop dead

Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 15, 2003

Sol Stern, Encounter Books
May 2003

This superb book by City Journal contributing editor Sol Stern is a vividly evocative account of why many public schools and school systems simply don't work very well - and what must be done to rectify that situation. Between adult interests that are placed first, deadening bureaucracy, silly ideas, ridiculous union contracts, and, above all, the fact that they are near-monopolies under no pressure to change, they don't do right by many pupils. The children they do serve well are often those with savvy and aggressive parents like Stern and his wife, who navigated the shoals of the New York City system on behalf of their kids. The most finely wrought (and true) stories in this 250-page volume are three chapters about the Stern children's schools and the difficulties encountered by this astute, educated family as it strove to see that their kids fared well despite the system. One can only wince for the hundreds of thousands of youngsters who have nobody running such effective interference on their behalf. Then three chapters show how the system has gotten itself tangled in its own lingerie. All of this leads Stern to press for school choice as a way to crack the monopoly, exert pressure on the system, and create alternatives for children who need them. Chapter seven is a tour of Catholic schools that work; chapter eight visits "the schools that vouchers built" in Milwaukee; and the

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Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice

Left Out and Left Behind: NCLB and the American High School

David L. House II / May 15, 2003

Alliance for Excellent Education
April 2003

Most people are so focused on NCLB's requirements for grades 3-8 that they don't realize the law also has implications for high schools. In fact, there are four categories of requirements that high schools must meet under NCLB: teacher quality, testing, graduation, and adequate yearly progress. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, it's no surprise these provisions get scant attention, since most school districts focus their federal dollars on elementary schools. The authors judge that No Child Left Behind is right to hold high schools responsible for improving student outcomes, but fault it for failing to provide the needed resources. To view this report, click http://www.all4ed.org/policymakers/NCLB/index.html.

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Left Out and Left Behind: NCLB and the American High School

Socioeconomic Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Selective College Admissions

Eric Osberg / May 15, 2003

Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose
Century Foundation
March 2003

This study makes the case for modifying college admissions programs to include greater consideration for those of low socioeconomic status (SES), in addition to existing affirmative action plans. Its authors rely partly on idealism - rewarding those who overcome hardships - and partly on public opinion (surveys show broad support for such policies). Their report analyzes hypothetical applicant pools for selective colleges under five different sets of admissions policies, four of which it knocks down. Pure meritocracy, it is said, would reduce diversity. The public won't put up with a simple lottery. Relying on class rank would admit too many ill-qualified students if it didn't incorporate a minimum SAT score - and would yield too little diversity if it did. Left standing is their proposal to employ economic affirmative action. In the end, their argument boils down to the conviction that colleges have many qualified but poor applicants and "once high-performing students from low-SES families get the chance, they are able to succeed." This may be a worthwhile cause, but the authors don't subject their own recommendation to the same scrutiny as those they dismiss. What happens once we combine racial and economic affirmative action? Do poor students do as well in college? At what rate do they graduate? How much preference should they be given? The authors don't say. For a free copy, visit the Century Foundation's website at http://www.tcf.org/Publications/White_Papers/carnevale_rose.pdf.

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Socioeconomic Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Selective College Admissions

Technology Counts 2003

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 15, 2003

Kevin Bushweller, Project Editor, Education Week
May 8, 2003

Among the annual series of tabloid-size publications from the editors of Education Week is one devoted to technology. The newly released 2003 edition focuses on computer-adaptive testing and other ways of harnessing technology to the challenges of assessment. Though not exactly gripping, it's informative, especially regarding computer-assisted grading of essays and the pushes and pulls exerted by No Child Left Behind. (It turns out to be quite a challenge to do efficient computer-adaptive testing when everybody's results must be scored against a single standard.) There is much information about the extent of states' technological preparedness and, as always, some troubling gaps appear. For example, several western states have their students-to-instructional-computers ratio down below 3, while in California, Alabama, Nevada, and Louisiana it's above 5. Several states assert that, in every one of their public schools, at least half the teachers have (school-based) email addresses, while in New York and Massachusetts that's the case in fewer than two-thirds of the schools. This is more a reference work than report or study, but you may want your own copy if you don't already have one. For further information, surf to http://www.edweek.org/sreports/TC03/article.cfm?slug=35exec.h22.

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Technology Counts 2003

The Neglected 'R': The Need for a Writing Revolution

Terry Ryan / May 15, 2003

Report of the National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges
April 2003

Good writing is hard to find. It's even harder to produce and, as "The Neglected 'R" notes, few high school or even college students can write a paper that goes beyond "rudimentary and fairly run-of-the-mill prose." In fact, "more than 50 percent of first-year college students are unable to produce papers relatively free of language errors." Why are American students such poor writers, and what can be done about it? The Commission's answers run the gamut from astute to goofy. Johnny can't write, the report notes, because he spends too much time "drilling on facts, details, and information"; spends far more time watching television than reading or writing; because not enough money is dedicated to his education; because his teachers don't have a good "theory of writing instruction"; because tests don't test writing; and because Johnny and his parents simply don't care. The proposed solutions are standard fare. The Commission - made up of college presidents, school administrators, and teachers - argues for more money, more time, more teacher training in writing theory and practice, more technology, more money for more comprehensive tests, more support from colleges and universities, more support from policy makers and politicians, and more support from parents and society generally. The Commission is right to blow the whistle on America's writing crisis, but much in this report is driven more by ideology, dubious

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The Neglected 'R': The Need for a Writing Revolution