Facing facts

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / October 2, 2003

"Facts are stubborn things," John Adams famously wrote, "and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." Nowhere is that truer than in education, where passions and wishes often take the place of hard information.

In recent years, an unexpectedly rich source of factual information about U.S. education has turned out to be the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Paris-based "club" of the world's more prosperous lands. When I attended OECD education meetings back in the 1980s, they were sleepy, formalistic affairs that only an education minister (or ed school professor) could love. But of late the organization has evolved into a valuable font of comparative data on education in what we once called the "industrial world." Its annual Education at a Glance is especially helpful in placing U.S. education facts in international perspective, though some of its "indicators" are hard to interpret as a result of OECD's need to massage the data in arcane ways to make them comparable from country to country. (The post-secondary numbers are especially gnarly.)

You may want to get the 2003 edition for yourself, but it now runs a whopping 450 pages so allow me to note some facts contained therein that seem especially illuminating for American education reformers.

- The U.S. high school graduation rate-72 percent of the age cohort, using OECD calculations-is now well below average. Not only

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Facing facts

Vouchers, interrupted

October 2, 2003

The debate over the D.C. voucher bill took a nasty turn in recent days, with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) accusing the GOP of using the voteless District as a guinea pig. And while Senate Republicans acknowledge that they don't have the votes to break a Democratic filibuster and have therefore pulled the bill from the floor for the time being, they seem confident that it will pass later this month, once the 2004 appropriations process is wrapped up. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California remains steadfast in her support of the bill, despite overwhelming pressure to switch sides. "I've gotten a lot of flak because I'm supporting it," said Feinstein of the legislation. "But guess what? I don't care. I've spent the time. I've gone to the schools. I see what works. I see what doesn't work." Hurrah for the Senator's courage, and Gadfly hopes that it catches in Wisconsin, where Governor Jim Doyle is expected to veto a bill that would expand the Milwaukee voucher program. Approved yesterday by the Wisconsin state assembly, the bill expands the scope and size of the Milwaukee school choice program, throwing out the cap that limits the program to 15 percent of the Milwaukee school population and opening up participation to private schools throughout Milwaukee County, rather than just those within the Milwaukee city limits. The governor feels that "now is not the time to be expanding choice." We wonder precisely what

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Vouchers, interrupted

Michigan charter mess

October 2, 2003

How to describe the bizarre chain of recent events in Michigan? It began when philanthropist Robert Thompson offered to build 15 charter schools in the educational wasteland of Detroit, at a cost of $200 million. Proving once again that in education, no good deed goes unpunished, Governor Jennifer Granholm refused to sign legislation authorizing the schools unless it was "comprehensive," a code word for limiting the scope and autonomy of Michigan charter schools. [For Gadfly's earlier coverage, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=112#1408.] Then the Detroit teachers' union closed down the district last week when more than 3,000 teachers took personal days to protest the proposed charter schools bill. In other words, the kids lost a day of school so their teachers could lobby against better schools for them. Such strong arm tactics worked; negotiations over the bill broke down in finger pointing between governor, mayor, and legislature, effectively killing the chance to build the new charter schools in question, along with more than 100 other charter schools throughout the state. Granholm wins, the union wins - kids and parents lose. Shame, shame on the alleged adults running this circus. Michiganders might better learn from the Taiwanese parents who recently reacted to striking teachers by protesting the protestors, accusing them of setting a "bad example" for Taiwanese students.

"Teacher strike over charter schools shuts down Detroit schools," Associated Press, September 25, 2003

"Mayor

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Michigan charter mess

A mixed bag on teacher pay

October 2, 2003

In Iowa and Philadelphia, teacher pay-for-performance plans are in serious jeopardy. In Iowa, lawmakers are considering scrapping their state's initiative, which was adopted back in 2001 but never really implemented due to budget constraints. In Philadelphia, district officials are dropping the merit pay plan on the grounds that it's "too expensive, too difficult to administer, and a failure at giving teachers useful feedback." While these developments are disappointing, in New York and Minnesota, we are seeing some signs that there may be hope after all for changing the way teachers are paid. Two major metropolitan area teachers' union leaders in New York have proposed allowing teacher contracts to be negotiated by schools, or even by individual teachers, rather than the present centralized system. In New York City, United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten's proposal would allow groups of schools to negotiate the contracts with teacher representatives and would abolish the "work rules" that regulate what extra-classroom duties can be assigned to teachers. In Rochester, New York, Adam Urbanski, leader of the Teacher Union Reform Network, issued a plan that would go even further--allowing staff in some schools in Rochester to begin negotiating their own contracts as soon as next year. Under his plan, bargaining would be decentralized throughout the district by the end of three years. In Minnesota, Governor Tim Pawlenty announced a plan yesterday to attract the best and brightest to some of the toughest schools in the

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A mixed bag on teacher pay

So much money, so little time

October 2, 2003

Among the many arguments that voucher opponents level against the D.C. voucher program is the supposed drain they would cause in the District's public school budget. This argument is nonsense, especially in D.C., where Congress is ready to sweeten the pot with quite a lot more money for the regular public-school system. But the argument becomes even more difficult to take seriously as one reads reports that the District school system has not managed to spend almost $30 million in federal teacher development grants. Earlier this week, local officials fretted that D.C. was going to lose $20 million if the money was not spent by Tuesday. District officials now deny that the money is in jeopardy but admit it hasn't been spent, despite sitting in D.C. coffers for almost a year.

"District races to spend school funds," by Brian DeBose and George Archibald, Washington Times, September 30, 2003 

"D.C. school officials deny federal funding lost," by Brian DeBose and George Archibald, Washington Times, October 1, 2003

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So much money, so little time

So much for diversity

October 2, 2003

Colleges and universities pride themselves on being havens of diversity where the best and brightest of every race, creed, and color come together to teach, study, and conduct research. However, as any non-P.C. academic is apt already to have learned in painful ways, this commitment to diversity is generally skin-deep. On most campuses, diversity of thought is as hard to find as a D student at Harvard. Remarks Alan Kors of the University of Pennsylvania, "One is desperate to see people of independent mind willing to enter the academic world. On the other hand, it is simply the case they will be entering hostile and discriminatory territory." According to Princeton's Robert George, nowadays he tells doctoral students who share his non-leftist political perspective that they will "run into intense discrimination" in the academic job hunt and, if they actually land a tenure track job, will "run into even more intense discrimination because the establishment gets more concerned the closer you get to the golden ring." The result? "Faculties skew overwhelmingly to the left. Students often have no contact with adult conservatives, and many develop cartoonish impressions of how 40 percent of the country thinks." Although, the eager young conservative looking to pass the diversity test could always read Peter Woods recent National Review Online column for tips on how to write a "diversity essay."

"Lonely campus voices," by David Brooks, New York Times, September 27, 2003 

"Imaginary friends: How to

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So much for diversity

Do Students Have Too Much Homework?

Kathleen Porter-Magee / October 2, 2003

Tom Loveless, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institution and RAND Corporation
October 1, 2003

Over the last several years, reports Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution, when it comes to homework the "typical story" in U.S. newspapers and magazines has been that "dramatic increases in the amount of homework are robbing American students of their childhood, turning kids off learning, and destroying family life." Yet according to this new report by Loveless, released yesterday by Brookings Institution, "Almost everything in this story is wrong." Indeed, the intensifying anti-homework revolution is the result not of an actual increase in the amount of homework assigned to the typical student - in fact the opposite appears to be true - but in the over-dramatization of anecdotal evidence from a few schools and families. In other words, yes, a handful of kids are buried in homework, but the typical American student is not. In truth, "the amount of weekly time devoted to studying increased from 1 hour 53 minutes in 1981 to two hours 16 minutes in 1997." That's an increase of 23 minutes per week - and means the average student spends 19 to 27 minutes on homework per day. Hardly cause for alarm. Even more interesting, the number of students who do any homework each week actually shrank between 1981 and 1997. Among children ages 9-12, for instance, 62 percent spent time doing homework in 1997 compared with 82 percent in 1981. So

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Do Students Have Too Much Homework?

Democracy and Civic Engagement

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / October 2, 2003

Phi Delta Kappan
September 2003

The September Phi Delta Kappan, in addition to the annual Gallup survey (this year featuring dubious and controversial NCLB questions), offers a long special section on civic education with a dozen pieces that range from perceptive to bizarre. Best by far are Bill Galston's thoughtful explanation of the link between "civic knowledge" and "civic engagement" and Rod Paige's brief discourse on "civic literacy." Worst are several echoes of George Counts's old demand that educators use schools as vehicles for transforming (rather than explaining, transmitting, and safeguarding) the social order. A few authors even manage to get in digs against standardized testing and NCLB. The confusion and dissension that beset contemporary "civic education" are plain to behold. Unfortunately, the articles aren't available online, but you can get more information about them at http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/ktoc.htm. Regardless, you might be better off checking out Fordham's "Back to Basics" project at http://www.edexcellence.net/template/page.cfm?id=252.

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Democracy and Civic Engagement

Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes

Eric Osberg / October 2, 2003

Jennifer King Rice, Economic Policy Institute
2003

This neat little publication offers another summary of existing research on teacher effectiveness. While some such reviews cover only the few studies with rigorous methodologies, Rice includes some that judged teacher performance based not on student achievement but on principal interviews, observations, and even self-evaluations, noting that "the tradition of research in teacher education has long relied on a wide array of empirical approaches," so it's worth considering studies all along this "methodological continuum." Rigorous social scientists will be dismayed by this capitulation to lower research standards-and we judge that Rice's findings should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, she provides enough information about each study for readers to make up their own minds. And her main conclusions are reasonable: content knowledge and good pedagogical training matter, and experience may help. Notably, she argues that preparation is important but there are many ways to get it. Rice also demonstrates that the teaching context is critical to understanding the research; for example, the right academic degree is more important for a high school math teacher than an elementary teacher. As for her claim that the evidence argues against lowering barriers to teaching, we couldn't disagree more. Just because certification and teacher test scores might predict better teaching is no reason to absolutely prohibit candidates from outside the system. The intro and executive summary are available for free online (http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/books_teacher_quality_execsum_intro), and you can order

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Teacher Quality: Understanding the Effectiveness of Teacher Attributes

Schoolyard Revolutions: How Research on Urban School Reform Undermines Reform

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / October 2, 2003

Joseph Viteritti, Political Science Quarterly
Summer 2003

This superb essay by Princeton's Joe Viteritti exposes the double standard of much education scholarship, particularly when any form of school choice is under examination: "The burden of proof has been placed very heavily on those who seek alternatives to the common school model, as if the system were doing just fine. But the risks of change are relatively small in a system that has neglected the needs of a large population of urban students. . . . The burden of proof must be lifted from reformers who want to improve the range of options for children stuck in failing public schools." Viteritti offers several cases in point, including famed education historian David Tyack's shift from critic to defender of monopolistic ("one best system") schooling arrangements, the one-sidedness of Clarence Stone's and Jeffrey Henig's huge Civic Capacity and Urban Education Project, and the inadequacies of a purportedly definitive RAND review of research on school choice. This is a powerful indictment of the education research community for its role in RETARDING the reform of urban education in America. You can purchase the article online at http://www.psqonline.org/.

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Schoolyard Revolutions: How Research on Urban School Reform Undermines Reform