A special ed focus on people, not process

Andy Smarick / February 19, 2004

A notice in the Federal Register seldom elicits more than a yawn from anyone but a few affected bureaucrats and the special interests organized to hound them. But the Department of Education's regulations for educating and testing disabled students under NCLB deserve much wider attention. They embody a subtle but significant step toward reforming special education and a further indication of the Department's commitment to the improved education of every child. [See http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2003/12/12092003.html.]

The specific question addressed in these new regulations is, "How should states and districts educate and assess the most cognitively disabled students within the federal government's accountability framework?" But answering that question reveals much about one's understanding of the responsibility of schools toward disabled students as well as one's view of content standards, achievement standards, and assessments. Considering the ossified politics of special education and the mounting backlash against NCLB, the implications of any decision made by the Department in this domain would have been significant.

Start by recalling special education's place within NCLB. During the bill's consideration, President Bush and congressional leaders focused public attention on the racial achievement gap, yet the academic achievement of disabled students became an equally important component in the law's final language. In particular, when states and districts disaggregate achievement results, both racial and disability categories must be reported, and the consequences for failing to make progress on either front are identical.

In terms of principle, these requirements plainly demonstrate that the law

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A special ed focus on people, not process

NCLB debate on the left

February 19, 2004

A small intellectual brush fire has broken out among American liberals concerning the No Child Left Behind act. This month, The American Prospect featured a passel of articles under the title "Children Left Behind: Educating America." Among the contributions was Peter Schrag's "Bush's Education Fraud," contending that NCLB "could well implode and take down two decades of state educational reforms with it." The article traces the full gamut of NCLB objections, some reasonable - the clumsy choice provisions and vexed treatment of special ed students, for example - and some not so, such as the whining about "unfunded mandates." (For more on that topic, see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=134#1661.) Other articles are standard fare, such as Richard Rothstein's eternal lament that standardized tests can't assess "creativity, insight, reasoning and the application of skills to unrehearsed situations." Writing in the 21st Century Schools Project Bulletin, Andrew Rotherham responds to the TAP authors in a sharp essay called "Impotent Liberalism." Says Rotherham, "it never seems to enter the calculus of today's establishment liberals that perhaps a system that works inadequately for too many poor and minority youngsters (and does so in all types of communities - equity problems are not just the urban tail wagging the public school dog) needs broader reforms." A fascinating and we hope constructive battle of ideas among the left.

"Children left behind," The American Prospect, February 2004,  (not all articles in this section are available online)

"Impotent liberalism,"

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NCLB debate on the left

Dust-up over new NYC plan

February 19, 2004

Last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools chief Joel Klein (two men who've been at the point of Gadfly's rapier wit more than once) declared that they would hold back third-graders who fail the state's standardized exam. But only after the second failure, and only after the students take summer school for six weeks - and an appeals process will be built in to the plan. For this, Klein and Bloomberg were pilloried by the press, teachers' unions, and parents' groups. Diane Ravitch also expressed reservations. But we agree with the Daily News editorialist: What is the alternative? Students who score below proficiency on the state's tests at eight years old are at best heading toward a rocky educational future. Does anyone truly believe that passing them to the next grade without intervention will bring them up to proficiency? And what does it say to students who are proficient and deserve to pass? How would passing their unprepared classmates honor their achievement? No one likes holding back students. But clich??d as it is, the old parental nostrum is true: it really is for their own good.

"Tweak to 3rd-grade plan is appealing," by Celeste Katz, New York Daily News, February 12, 2004

"Parents flunk Mike's no-promotion plan," by Carl Campanile and David Seifman, New York Post, February 11, 2004

"Advocates of failure must be defeated," New York Daily News, editorial, February 17, 2004

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Dust-up over new NYC plan

The freedom to teach in the Peach State

February 19, 2004

Good news and bad from Georgia, where the state's Professional Standards Commission recently announced that teachers needn't earn an education degree but can be certified if they pass both the state's certification exam and a standardized content knowledge test called the "principles of learning and teaching." While teachers certified through this alternative process will still have to undergo a year of mentoring and on-the-job training, they will not have to jump through any of the traditional ed-school hoops. Of course, for professors whose salary depends on the existence of these hoops, this freedom to teach is a troubling development. Not surprisingly, therefore, the dean of Georgia State's College of Education asserts that the new alternative certification process "will put unqualified teachers in classrooms. We're talking about a very difficult job with no training." Unfortunately, the Commission rejected a proposal to allow candidates without teaching backgrounds to become school principals (a major recommendation of the Fordham-Broad Foundation publication Better Leaders for America's Schools: A Manifesto, at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=1).

"Teacher certification process simplified," by Dana Tofig, Atlanta Journal Constitution, February 13, 2004

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The freedom to teach in the Peach State

Good penpersonship is essential

February 19, 2004

In The Language Police, Diane Ravitch lifted the veil on the way "bias committees" at major publishing houses sanitize and censor the information presented in student tests and textbooks. One of the more interesting revelations was found in a glossary Ravitch created of words and terms that are routinely deleted from texts and tests in the name of cultural sensitivity, including such items as "landlord, cowboy, brotherhood, yacht, cult, and primitive." Ravitch also invited readers to pass along their own examples of "language policing," which they have now done in spades, revealing still more disturbing examples of what can happen when publishers kowtow to pressure groups. One textbook writer sent in the guidelines used by Harcourt/Steck/Vaughn to remove photographs that might be considered offensive, such as "pictures of women with big hair or sleeveless blouses and men with dreadlocks or medallions." Even worse are the state guidelines for language sensitivity in New York, which maintain that while "we may not always understand why a certain word hurts, we don't have to. It's enough that someone says 'That language doesn't respect me.'" This approach, Ravitch argues, is grounded in a belief that says, "If any word or phrase is likely to give anyone offense, no matter how far-fetched, it should be deleted." Such a broad definition of bias has, of course, led to the sanitization and bowdlerization of history and literature. Even the benign word "penmanship," where the "three offensive letters

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Good penpersonship is essential

Value-added assessment in jeopardy

February 19, 2004

Two bills now before the Tennessee General Assembly question the reliability and worth of the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS), which was implemented 14 years ago in a trailblazing effort to track student progress, measure whether students were making suitable yearly academic gains, and estimate the effectiveness of their teachers. Critics maintain that the complicated assessment system, which was designed by and is still run by William Sanders, is difficult to understand and punishes high-achieving schools by focusing on annual gains instead of absolute scores, and also that TVAAS results "don't jibe with other student test information coming from the state." However, many educators - especially those serving low-income and minority students who typically score lower than their peers on standardized tests - have praised the program. Johnny Crow, principal of East Hickman Middle School in Lyles, Tennessee argues that the system "gives you a way to show some progress. It gives teachers an opportunity to show that they are doing their job." State Education Commissioner Lana Seivers indicated that the state department of education had not yet chosen sides in the debate, but she expects to be asked to provide information over the course of the next few weeks.

"Bills would kill value-added test scores," by Claudette Riley, Tennessean, February 13, 2004

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Value-added assessment in jeopardy

Our ears are burning&

February 19, 2004

The New York State Council for the Social Studies recently released the agenda for its annual conference, to be held in balmy Rochester in March. Keynoting the event will be Denee Mattioli, president of the National Council for the Social Studies, who has been "invited to comment on the Fordham Foundation report on the teaching of American history." We assume they're speaking of Where Did Social Studies Go Wrong? (http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=317), published by Fordham and written by a group of disaffected social studies educators calling themselves the "Contrarians," which takes NCSS to task for championing a tendentious and ideology-driven approach to teaching history. Surprisingly, neither Fordham nor the Contrarians are invited to participate. As a survivor of many a tedious keynote address, Gadfly suspects that the good teachers of the Empire State would much prefer a vigorous give-and-take to another boring lecture. Our offer is this: invite us up and we'll gladly pack our snow boots and journey to Rochester to debate Dr. Mattioli. It's one way NYSCSS could prove that it's serious when claiming to be "a market-place of ideas."

"Historian and NCSS president to keynote," press release, New York State Council for the Social Studies

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Our ears are burning&

Bolick to School Choice Alliance

February 19, 2004

We have only one concern at the news that litigator Clint Bolick of the Institute for Justice will shortly leave that group to head the new School Choice Alliance (formed by the merger of the American Education Reform Council, the American Education Reform Foundation, and Children First America) - that the school choice movement may lose his incisive lawyerly mind in future court battles. But it's a mere quibble about a truly inspired choice to lead what we believe will become a significant contender in the choice wars. Congratulations, Clint.

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Bolick to School Choice Alliance

What Is Public About Public Schools?

Eric Osberg / February 19, 2004

Articles by Frederick M. Hess, Linda Nathan, Joe Nathan, Ray Bacchetti, and Evans Clinchy, Phi Delta Kappan
February 2004

This month Kappan offers six essays examining and debating the notion of "public" schooling. Rick Hess frames the discussion - and offers the most interesting insights - by penning the opening article and a rejoinder. In the middle are four pieces from teachers and scholars offering varying views on Hess's arguments. His central point is that we need not constrain our definition of a "public" education to include only schools run by government employees; rather, we should think broadly about our goals and criteria for public schooling and then be flexible in how we achieve these. Thus school choice, private management organizations, and other arrangements could fulfill our needs; likewise, our current public school system may actually be less "public" than we're willing to admit. His related point is that examining what's "public" about education quickly exposes the silliness of those who oppose reforms as being "anti-public school." The rebuttals also raise interesting questions. For example, how can the standards movement, with its top-down interventions, be consistent with democratic control of schools? How do we balance "the relative claims of the student, family, community, nation, and the wider world on how and what schools teach"? Unfortunately, however, most of the counterarguments miss the mark. From Evans Clinchy's call for "safeguards against the threat of vouchers and further encroachment of the private corporate sector

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What Is Public About Public Schools?

The Education Pipeline in the United States 1970-2000

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 19, 2004

Walt Haney, George Madaus, Lisa Abrams, Anne Wheelock, Jing Miao, and Ileana Gruia
Boston College
January 2004

Walt Haney, George Madaus, and four colleagues at Boston College's testing center authored this 72-page report on behalf of the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy. It analyzes 30 years of grade retention, cohort progression and dropout data for the U.S. as a whole and for the states. After 10,000+ calculations, they reach four conclusions. First, and not surprising, kindergarten participation rates rose from 60 percent to 90 percent over these three decades. Second, a lot of kids (almost 12 percent, they say) are "disappearing" from the education pipeline between grades 9 and 10. Third, there's a 9th grade "bulge": lots more students (12 percent more) enrolled in 9th grade than were enrolled the previous year in 8th, which is explained, say the authors, by high rates of grade retention during the freshman year. Fourth, what we already knew to be a dismayingly low rate of high-school graduation - 75 percent if you compare the number of graduates with the number of 8th graders 4 years earlier - grows even worse, to 67 percent, when the number of graduates is set alongside the number of 9th graders 3.5 years earlier. As you might expect if you are acquainted with Messrs. Haney and Madaus and their lapdog of a "national board," the authors ascribe all these woes to standards-based reform and high-stakes testing. Unfortunately, their

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The Education Pipeline in the United States 1970-2000

The Costs of NCLB

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 19, 2004

James Peyser and Robert Costrell, Education Next
Spring 2004

Last week, I commented on the weakness of an Ohio analysis that purported to estimate the state's cost of "complying" with the No Child Left Behind act. (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=134#1661.) I also steered readers to two other new analyses. Each deserves further comment. The latest (spring 2004) issue of Education Next contains - along with much else of interest - a super essay by James Peyser (who chairs the Massachusetts state board of education) and Robert Costrell (chief economist in that state's Office of Administration and Finance) that refutes the widely held view that NCLB is an "unfunded mandate." Rather, say Peyser and Costrell, the "studies" that estimate absurdly high costs of implementing NCLB arise from the same faulty analytic approach as contemporary school-finance equalization lawsuits. In particular, they rely on a flawed and "outdated notion that education can be reduced to a simple production function between input and output." Any conscientious effort to estimate the cost of boosting student achievement must be approached in a very different way, and efforts to calculate NCLB's costs must be carefully distinguished from the education-reform efforts (and spending increases) that virtually every state and district was already undertaking. Conclude Peyser and Costrell: "[I]t would appear that spending in Massachusetts is adequate to achieve the NCLB student achievement mandate." Nationally, they say, the critics are also wrong. The increases underway in federal education spending either "fully cover

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The Costs of NCLB

NCLB Under A Microscope

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / February 19, 2004

Meave O'Marah, Kenneth Klau, Theodor Rebarber, AccountabilityWorks and the Education Leaders Council
February 2004

Also newly released is a study by AccountabilityWorks, entitled NCLB Under A Microscope, undertaken jointly with the Education Leaders Council, that says the additional federal funds being channeled into K-12 education "exceed the state and local 'hard costs' resulting from specific NCLB requirements." The authors dispute the contention that it's also Washington's duty to bear the costs of boosting pupil achievement, noting that the states have a "pre-existing obligation to ensure a quality education for all students." You can find it at http://www.educationleaders.org/elc/events/elc_cost_study-04.pdf.

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NCLB Under A Microscope