For school equality, try mobility

Rod Paige / June 29, 2006

Dumb liberal ideas in education are a dime a dozen, and during my time as superintendent of Houston's schools and as the United States secretary of education I battled against all sorts of progressivist lunacy, from whole-language reading to fuzzy math to lifetime teacher tenure. Today, however, one of the worst ideas in education is coming from conservatives: the so-called 65 percent solution.

This movement, bankrolled largely by Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, wants states to mandate that 65 percent of school dollars be spent "in the classroom." Budget items like teacher salaries would count; librarians, transportation costs and upkeep of buildings would not.

Proponents argue that this will counter wasteful spending and runaway school "overhead," and they have convinced many voters--a Harris poll last fall put national support at more than 70 percent. Four states--Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas--have adopted 65 percent mandates and at least six more are seriously considering them.

The only drawback is that such laws won't actually make schools any better, and could make them worse. Yes, it's true that education financing is a mess and that billions are wasted every year. But the 65 percent solution won't help. The most likely outcome is that school officials will learn the art of creative accounting in order to increase the percentage of money that can be deemed "classroom" expenses.

More ominously, it will tie school leaders' hands at a time when they need more freedom to innovate. Things we

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For school equality, try mobility

Facing backward on his horse, Kozol rides again

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / June 29, 2006

Once upon a time, Jonathan Kozol played a formative and constructive role in my career. Death at an Early Age, his evocative tale of the tribulations of inner-city school children and the trials of a novice Boston teacher, appeared in 1967--two years after the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, three years into the War on Poverty, and just as I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. It strengthened my resolve to plunge into the icy, swirling waters of education reform.     

Since then, I've learned a lot about what makes schools (and kids) tick and what sorts of reforms have a chance of transforming American K-12 education into an enterprise that, in fact, leaves no child behind.         

Alas, Kozol has learned nothing. He's been writing the exact same stuff for four decades, blaming the woes of urban education (and urban kids) on racism, inadequate spending and, of late, testing. (See the expert unmasking of Kozol by Marcus Winters in the spring 2006 issue of Education Next.)

Kozol's latest crusade is to strike a blow at standards-based reform in general and NCLB in particular. On June 16, he circulated an update written for those "Education Activists who have asked me: where do we go next?"

Kozol's answer: he's formed a new group called "Education Action" in order "to fight racism and inequality and the murderous impact of the NCLB

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Facing backward on his horse, Kozol rides again

Charter schoolyard politics

June 29, 2006

New York has seen much mud-slinging and blame-shifting this week as the charter crowd seeks to explain why the legislature had the chutzpah to complete work on the state budget without raising the statewide charter-school cap from 100 to 150 schools, as urged by both Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki. Democratic legislators, led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and deeply in the pocket of the teachers' union and other established interests, were dead set against more charter schools. The main statewide charter advocacy group decided to play hardball (like everyone else in Albany) and launched a series of gutsy (if inflammatory) radio and television ads against hostile Assembly members. Silver and his cohorts went ballistic, some of them saying they wouldn't even discuss the charter school issue unless the ads were pulled. This led more accommodating members of the charter movement--if Tories in Thatcher's England, they'd have been termed "wets"--to seek to placate Silver. Had alleged charter allies in the State Senate and governor's office been firmer of backbone, Silver and the union might have been routed. In the event, the budget as passed includes no easing of the charter cap. It does, however, also include (and omit) some items that need further work by the legislature later this year, leaving some future leverage in the Governor's hands. We'll see if he wields it. Gadfly thought the attack ads were marvelous and wishes they'd started earlier and been meaner. For

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Charter schoolyard politics

Coleman crackles

June 29, 2006

When buying fireworks this weekend, don't forget to throw a box of birthday candles into your shopping basket. It's the 40th anniversary of the Coleman Report, which was released Fourth of July weekend 1966 to "deafening silence." Why the tepid initial response? Partly because folks were busy looking skyward at brocades and blasts, and partly because in the Great Society era, the report's most vivid finding-that a student's family background affected academic results more than schools-didn't go down well. Many of Coleman's discoveries remain pertinent today (for example, teachers' verbal abilities are tied to higher student test scores), while others have been disputed (schools, and especially teachers, matter quite a lot, it turns out, and some are far more effective than others). Its greatest legacy is the use of test data to measure academic outcomes and school performance--a novelty among ed researchers at the time. It highlighted achievement gaps and shocked Americans into acknowledging that often, even in the midst of well-meaning efforts, some students aren't learning enough. "The Coleman Report," says economist Eric Hanushek (who in his youth participated in a Moynihan-led "faculty seminar" at Harvard that reanalyzed these data), "changed the perspective to concentrating on student performance, and that has endured." We'll light a Roman Candle to that.

"Race Report's Influence Felt 40 Years Later," by Debra Viadero, Education Week (subscription required), June 21, 2006

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Coleman crackles

(Saving) face time

June 29, 2006

Aphorist Dorothy Parker once observed, "Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city." Similarly diffuse and divided is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's latest plan to take over L.A. Unified. His wheeling and dealing with teachers unions to save his flailing bid to become education boss threatens to undermine the entire project. Re-read that sentence and you can understand why; after all, the most compelling argument for mayoral control is to diminish the Politburo-like power that urban teacher unions exert over elected school boards. The details coming out of Sacramento are troubling. One reported compromise, for example, would allow each campus to set its own curriculum. As departing L.A. Superintendent (and former Colorado governor) Roy Romer rightly points out, "It sounds great until you learn that about one in four of our students change schools in any given year." Another part of Villaraigosa's original vision lost in his deal-making is a clear line of accountability for schools. Under the new plan, L.A.'s superintendent would report to both the Board of Education and the new "Council of Mayors." Who's in charge? Everyone, which means no one, sort of like the District of Columbia, a fine model of urban education success. In L.A., as we understand it, the latest version of the Mayor's plan would have the superintendent set the school budget, the mayor review it, and the board set overall budget categories. All the while, principals and teachers are

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(Saving) face time

High cut scores

June 29, 2006

While chattering education reformers bicker about standards, accountability, and how to spend Warren Buffet's billions, Japanologist Boyé Lafayette De Mente is busy attacking the achievement gap the old fashioned way: by cutting off its head with a Samurai sword. De Mente--who resides in the Tokkaido-like community of Paradise Valley, Arizona--recently published Samurai Principles & Practices That Will Help Preteens & Teens in School, Sports, Social Activities & Choosing Careers. In the book, he argues that a return to Samurai training, which includes learning about "setting goals, discipline, diligence... and tapping into cosmic power," will boost American student performance in the classroom. So true. Anyone who caught the The Last Samurai knows that, without such training, Tom Cruise would have continued to stumble through life in his cavalry uniform, drinking copious amounts of whisky and getting into bar brawls. But after cutting up some guys with a Samurai sword, he found religion and married Katie Holmes. Even more encouraging, some school districts have already copied certain parts of De Mente's Samurai curriculum. With a little more tweaking, we're confident this approach could give KIPP: Ninja Academy a run for its money.

"Author Claims Samurai-Type Training Could Help Students Succeed," Education News.Org, June 26, 2006

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High cut scores

A National Dialogue: Commission Report: Draft

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / June 29, 2006

The Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education
June 22, 2006

Yesterday, Secretary Spellings's commission on the future of higher education met to review the draft of its final report that had leaked a few days earlier. No accounts of the meeting have yet reached us but Gadfly is sure that agitated commissioners sought to excise some of the stinging truths and bold recommendations contained in this outstanding document submitted by chairman Charles Miller. (It's now clear that Spellings erred when she named so many "stakeholders" to this group. Stakeholders can almost never acknowledge that anything is wrong with the current system, and they abhor criticism.) Sadly, the final report, due in September, is unlikely to be quite as memorable or quotable. Thus, it makes sense to treat this superb, readable, hard-hitting yet constructive draft report as if it were the commission's last word. Read it and you will discover a clear statement of the big problems that beset U.S. postsecondary education today: constrained access, spiraling tuition, too much remediation, weak outcomes, limp accountability, and meager information. You will find blunt "nation at risk" prose explaining why, if the country doesn't address these problems (and transcend its smug and complacent defensiveness about the present higher ed system), its future is in jeopardy. And you will find six and a half pages of sensible recommendations spelling out what needs doing by whom. Bravo for Miller for telling the truth

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A National Dialogue: Commission Report: Draft

Diplomas Count: An Essential Guide to Graduation Policy and Rates

June 29, 2006

The Graduation Project 2006
Education Week/ Editorial Projects in Education
June 22, 2006

If Diplomas Count--the first in a series of special Education Week reports about graduation rates--is any indication, the light on graduation rates is about to get even hotter. This report features a close look at nationwide graduation totals; a powerful online mapping technology that lets users view graduation data at national, state, and district levels; and an examination of state graduation policies and how they obfuscate the problem by fudging dropout numbers. Diplomas Count estimates that some 70 percent of students receive a regular diploma (not a GED) within four years of high school. This figure is consistent with those from the National Center for Education Statistics (7.5 in 10 receive a diploma) and Jay Greene and Marcus Winters (7 in 10), and at odds with the Economic Policy Institute (8 in 10), and many states who report numbers over 80 or even 90 percent. The report analyzed the percentage of 9th graders who completed high school four years later. And though forced to adjust for missing data--such as grade retention and transfers in and out of a district or state--its methodology is reasonable. The report describes wide variation in state graduation requirements and argues that national graduation numbers have more gaps than a hockey player's grin: racial/ethnic gaps, socioeconomic gaps, gender gaps, and regional gaps. The good news (there is some) is that educators are getting

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Diplomas Count: An Essential Guide to Graduation Policy and Rates