Education President?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 13, 2004

Last week was "education week" for John Kerry's campaign, during which he unveiled a series of proposals that likely comprise the main education plank of his platform. They definitely warrant a look, though in part he seems to be recycling Al Gore's ideas from 2000 - and also Gore's chief strategy: a deft balancing of crowd pleasers, teacher pleasers and demagoguery, all resting atop billions in "new" money. These proposals are supposedly shielded from rival spending priorities via a "trust fund" arrangement whose cash will come from raising taxes on well-to-do Americans. The platform covers a lot of territory (see http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/education/ and http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/college/) and, as usual in a campaign, contains a mix of the astute and the absurd, some well developed notions, others ultra-hazy. For example:

1. More money for effective teachers in return for some teacher quality improvements, including speedier mechanisms for dismissing bad teachers. This is Gore redux - and not half so bold as Kerry himself was in 1998 when he called for "ending teacher tenure as we know it." Still, it's the best of his ideas - IF one can picture Congress insisting on the "give back," i.e., stipulating that this money will only be available to states that get serious about offloading weak teachers and overriding contracts (and union opposition) to give more pay to good ones. Else this proposal morphs into a new federal teacher-pay supplement, minus the

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   Education President?

   Colorado adopts college vouchers

   May 13, 2004

   On Monday, Governor Bill Owens signed the nation's first-ever college voucher program. It will award a stipend usable at any state university to all Colorado undergraduates who qualify for in-state tuition, with a smaller stipend made available for low-income students attending three private universities. The state already spends about $700 million on higher education each year. Today, however, that money flows directly into the colleges. Under the new voucher program, it will flow only if students enroll in them. "The institutions will now compete for students because state aid now arrives on campus with the student," Owens said. "The more students you attract, the better your institution can do." Lawmakers can already foresee problems, though, starting with too little money in the state treasury. The size of the voucher may have to be cut. And some wonder whether providing a stipend to every student will encourage schools to raise tuition, thus making it even harder for low-income people to enroll. One can also anticipate a court challenge to the private and religious school component. Stay tuned.

   "College voucher plan becomes law in Colorado," by Steven K. Paulson, Boston Globe, May 11, 2004 

   "College vouchers become law today," by John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News, May 10, 2004 

   "Nation's first college voucher program OK'd," CNN.com, May 10, 2004

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   Colorado adopts college vouchers

   Pay for performance profiled

   May 13, 2004

   New York Times reporter Diane Jean Schemo wrote a fine profile of Denver's new teacher pay-for-performance scheme (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=141#1740). While voters still have to approve it (and a concomitant rise in property taxes), teachers have already given it thumbs up, and the process by which it was put together is worth understanding. No, the plan is not perfect. (For example, it relies too little on the academic value that teachers add to their pupils.) But because its architects took time to get teacher input and allay their fears, a majority of them were willing to jump into the unknown, despite pressure from the national level to reject the plan. Increasingly, the arguments against such plans - too scary, too liable to abuse, too divisive - are being consigned to the dustbin of history.

   "When teachers' gains help students' bottom lines," by Diane Jean Schemo, New York Times, May 9, 2004 (registration required)

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   Pay for performance profiled

   Appeasing degression

   May 13, 2004

   Washington State's Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission voted unanimously this week to lower the passing score in reading and math for fourth- and seventh-graders, and recommended lowering the pass score for the tenth-grade reading test on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), the statewide accountability test. The changes to the 4th- and 7th-grade tests will go into effect this year, but the 10th-grade test changes must first be approved by the state legislature. The commission left unanswered the more pressing question of what students will have to score on the WASL to earn their diplomas once passing the test becomes a graduation requirement in 2008. Critics, including the Washington Education Association, blasted the review process for insufficient minority input, the state for not spending enough on education, and the even lower standards for still being too stringent. At least one commission member, Jim Spady, pressed the WEA representative asking "If there's nothing we can do to satisfy you, then why should we care what you say?"

   "Panel lowers bar for passing parts of WASL," by Linda Shaw, Seattle Times, May 11, 2004

   "WASL panel lowers 4th, 7th-grade passing bar," Olympian, May 12, 2004

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   Appeasing degression

   The left and NCLB

   May 13, 2004

   Writing in the centrist Democrat magazine, Blueprint, Andrew Rotherham is characteristically perspicacious in warning that the left's opposition to NCLB may make its worst fears of "privatization" come true. He observes that refusing even to acknowledge the need for higher standards and better tracking of achievement data serves to strengthen the argument that only a system of school choice will deliver desired educational improvement. "Failure to eliminate the achievement gap is unlikely, by itself, to substantially alter the political alignment on education," he writes. "But failure to even try seriously validates the conservative argument." Rotherham is for increasing the funding for NCLB, if only because it will make the law's directives on data gathering and teacher quality go down easier for many states and districts. But we suspect he will have a tough time convincing the disparate interests that comprise the Democratic coalition that NCLB is, in the long run, good for them as well as for public education!

   "The new face of inequality," by Andrew Rotherham, Blueprint, May 7, 2004

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   The left and NCLB

   A creative way to cut NCLB costs

   May 13, 2004

   Education officials in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island announced last week that they were joining forces to create the New England Compact Assessment Program. In October 2005, all three states will begin using a common reading and math test in grades 3-8 and a common writing test in grades 5 and 8 to fulfill their NCLB accountability requirements. According to officials, by joining forces, the three states will create an economy-of-scale that halves the per-pupil testing cost. In Vermont, for example, the cost of the new test will drop from the $22 per-student the state currently pays to about $12.50 per pupil. An additional benefit, according to the Burlington Free Press: "the three states can compare themselves with one another, generating some good-natured competition that might lead to better results."

   "A classroom compact," Burlington Free Press, May 6, 2004 (no longer available online)

   "Vermont to collaborate on school testing," Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, May 5, 2004

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   A creative way to cut NCLB costs

   Summer reading for your inner wonk

   May 13, 2004

   The summer 2004 issue of Education Next is out and contains many items worthy of your attention. For example, Jay Greene and Marcus Winters's account of how Florida's A+ voucher program has spurred failing schools to improve. Voucher-eligible schools, they found, made gains 15.1 percentile points higher on the FCAT math test than the Florida average. Schools that were "voucher-threatened"-one more "F" from becoming voucher-eligible, that is-made gains 9.2 percentile points higher. Also, check out Daniel Willingham on "multiple intelligences," Senator Lamar Alexander on "Pell Grants for Kids," and a debate on whether school boards are obsolete.

   Education Next, Summer 2004

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   Summer reading for your inner wonk

   Ripples of Innovation: Charter Schooling in Minnesota, the Nation's First Charter School State

   Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 13, 2004

   Jon Schroeder, Progressive Policy Institute
   May 2004

   Veteran charter-school ace Jon Schroeder authored this fine new report for the Progressive Policy Institute, the second of six case studies of the evolution of the charter movement at the state or (in New York City) municipal level. Supported by the Gates Foundation, this worthy series distills valuable lessons from actual experience. This fifty-pager does a nice job of extracting nine lessons and seven recommendations from Minnesota's saga, ranging from the role of private funders to the need for more diverse sponsors, to the challenges of dovetailing the idiosyncratic essence of charter schooling with the uniform demands of NCLB. Schroeder concludes that neither "past success" nor "current momentum" will propel the charter movement (in Minnesota or elsewhere) to its needed "new level as a proactive strategy for changing and improving public education." He's surely got that right. Have a look, online at http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=110&subsecid=134&contentid=252555.

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   Ripples of Innovation: Charter Schooling in Minnesota, the Nation's First Charter School State

   Educational Freedom in Urban America

   Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 13, 2004

   David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue, editors, Cato InstituteMay 2004

   This 300-page collection of a dozen essays, released by the Cato Institute, is subtitled "Brown v. Board after Half a Century" and edited by Cato staffers David Salisbury and Casey Lartigue. It contains some swell entries, including essays by Howard Fuller, Floyd Flake, David Bositis, Paul Peterson, Irasema Salcido and Rick Hess. Bositis is interesting on the politics of school choice among black and white voters; Peterson draws a perceptive distinction between Brown and Zelman; D.C. charter-school founder Salcido does a fine job of recounting her school's trials and accomplishments; and more. Though suffering from the inherent limits of essay collections, this one does a nice job of linking the issues of race and choice in American education. The ISBN is 1930865562 and you can learn more at http://www.cato.org/events/040511bf.html.

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   Educational Freedom in Urban America