The core of a good idea

October 18, 2007

There's plenty not to like about No Child Left Behind, and its various loopholes and limits are getting lots of attention as Congress works to reauthorize the law. One issue that has finally moved to the fore is the watering down of the k-12 curriculum--a process that began long ago but has become more acute under NCLB-generated pressures.

NCLB is only the latest challenge to serious liberal learning and curricula rich in the social sciences and the arts. It's been decades since the typical U.S. college pressed a broad and deep education upon its "liberal arts" students, much less its teacher-education candidates. And then there's the Back-to-Basics and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) movements, which have contributed to a further shift away from liberal education.

But lo, there is a rare positive development for those of us who think a content-rich liberal education should be the centerpiece of schooling for all children. A possible positive development, to be precise.

Congressmen George Miller and Buck McKeon's discussion draft for the reauthorization of NCLB includes a new "Core Curriculum Development" section. It would award grants to school systems "to promote and strengthen" one or more of the following subjects as "an integral part of the elementary school and secondary school curriculum."

• Music and arts
• Foreign languages
• Civics and government
• Economics
• History
• Geography
• Physical education and health

Alright, there's some tinkering to be done here. "Physical education and health" is an oddball on this list. And where's the study of literature? But it

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The core of a good idea

Hope in the bayou?

October 18, 2007

Most 24-year-olds struggle to pull themselves out of bed in the morning. When Bobby Jindal was 24, he was struggling to reform Louisiana's healthcare system.

If you haven't heard of Bobby Jindal, you will soon. Polls have the 36-year-old U.S. Congressman from Kenner, Louisiana, way out in front of his rivals in the Bayou State's gubernatorial race. If he receives over 50 percent of the vote in Saturday's primary (Louisiana has a non-partisan primary), which he well might, he will win the top job outright, without a general election.

Jindal grew up in Baton Rouge, attended Brown University, spent time in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and went to work for McKinsey & Co. doing healthcare consulting. A 1996 article in the Washington Post about Louisiana's healthcare system spurred the then 24-year-old to write a report with recommendations for the state. That report found its way to the governor, Mike Foster, who met with Jindal and was so impressed that he hired him as secretary of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals.

Jindal went on to eliminate the department's $400 million budget deficit, then take a job as president of the University of Louisiana system, then serve as an assistant U.S. secretary of health and human services, and then run for governor in 2003. He barely lost to Kathleen Blanco. (In 2004, he ran for, and won, an open House seat, to which he was re-elected last

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Hope in the bayou?

A Nobel but naive notion on failing schools

October 18, 2007

It was Al Gore who said seven years ago, in a nationally televised debate with George W. Bush, "if a school is failing, we work with the states to give them the authority and the resources to close down that school and reopen it right away with a new principal, a new faculty, a turn-around team of specialists who know what they're doing." That moment may have been the high-water mark for the idea of closing and reopening failed schools. Diana Jean Schemo reports this week in the New York Times that states are having a tough time implementing this reform in practice and at scale. In California alone, 1,000 schools are eligible for "restructuring" under No Child Left Behind, a number which, according to Berkeley ed school professor Heinrich Mintrop, "taxes the capacity of the whole school change industry." Looking at student growth over time might help; according to California officials, 700 of those 1,000 schools are making "substantial progress" and thus might not truly be "failing" after all. But that still leaves 300 Golden State schools in need of closing, reopening, or, better yet, replacing. Which is one more argument for California policymakers and their peers nationwide to aggressively support the speedy development of high-quality alternatives. KIPP, Green Dot, and Aspire: grow, grow, grow!

"Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard," by Diana Jean Schemo, New York Times, October 16, 2007

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A Nobel but naive notion on failing schools

Loose lips sink scholarships?

October 18, 2007

Call Patrick Fitzgerald. We've got a mole in the Government Accountability Office, an anti-voucher mole at that. The Washington Post this week reported on a leaked draft GAO evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, which is spending $12.9 million annually to send 1,900 low-income students to private schools. The draft report charges that some of these private schools lack occupancy permits, are not fully certified, or have falsely reported having a gymnasium or an auditorium. Such findings seem flimsy and one-sided, especially considering that parents are satisfied (see here and here) with the program. Worse, however, is the fact that an early, unvetted draft has found its way to the Post's pages. A spokeswoman from the Department of Education, which oversees the program, says the draft "presents an incomplete picture," and that the final version will contain a number of revisions. Unfortunately for the District's scholarship recipients, a lot of damage has already been done.

"Voucher Program Puts D.C. Kids at Risk, Study Says," by Theola Labbé, Washington Post, October 11, 2007

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Loose lips sink scholarships?

Sickos in the classroom

October 18, 2007

If your child's teacher was previously disciplined for inappropriate behavior, you would insist, as a parent, that you had the right to this information. The Ohio Department of Education, however, might disagree. The Columbus Dispatch is running a series of exposés showing that the department has sealed from public disclosure 80 cases of educators who were disciplined. At least 48 of those cases involve a child, and ten of the teachers involved are still eligible to run classrooms. Yes, there's a partial explanation for the secrecy: the investigations stemmed from tips from child protection agencies. We understand the need to protect the identity of people who are under investigation and there are, alas, altogether too many of these. (Since 2000, the department has reviewed and cleared over 15,000 allegations of misconduct.) Innocent until proven guilty. But what about situations where the investigation yields damning evidence? Potentially predatory teachers are being recycled throughout Ohio's school system, with parents and principals none the wiser. The agency needs to establish a centralized database, through which the backgrounds of teachers and school administrators are made accessible to the public. If pedophiles are lurking in Ohio's classrooms, even just ten of them, they need to be identifiable--or, better, weeded out.  

"Secrecy shrouds disciplined teachers," by Jill Riepenhoff and Jennifer Smith Richards, Columbus Dispatch, Oct. 16, 2007

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Sickos in the classroom

Transitions

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / October 18, 2007

In recent few days, two vital armies in the idea wars announced plans to change generals. First, Chris DeMuth will leave the command of the American Enterprise Institute by the end of 2008, after 22 remarkable years at the helm of this crucial Washington-based think tank and research organization. A search committee (including DeMuth, Jim Wilson, and former Fordham trustee Bruce Kovner, who chairs the AEI board) will seek to identify a fit successor. It won't be easy. Chris and I first got acquainted when both of us, still in our 20s, worked for Pat Moynihan in the Nixon White House, where a thin divider separated our work-spaces in the grand Old Executive Office Building. At AEI, he's been an extraordinary institution builder and leader, as well as a scholar in his own right. We surely haven't heard the last of him. His "think-tank confidential" valedictory in the Wall Street Journal on October 12th is an inspired essay--you can find it here--that underscores both the quality of his mind and prose and the central role that such institutions have come to play in contemporary America, due in no small part to Chris. Second, Commentary Magazine just announced that John Podhoretz will succeed Neal Kozodoy as that distinguished journal's editor in January 2009. Kozodoy has been on Commentary's editorial team for a remarkable 41 years and its editor since 1995. As all who have worked with him know well,

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Transitions

Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / October 18, 2007

Center on Education Policy
October 2007

On the one hand, this new study by Jack Jennings's Center on Education Policy (conducted for them by Harold Wenglinsky) can be termed part of the vast left-wing conspiracy to delegitimize private schooling and public policies that might lead to more of it. On the other hand, they had to work awfully hard in this analysis to obtain the desired conclusion--and even then they couldn't erase the advantage conferred on (poor) kids by some private schools, specifically Catholic "religious order" schools such as those run by the Jesuits. These came up strong on almost every gauge. To efface any possible advantage on the part of other private schools, however, the analysts had to:

• Look only at twelfth graders, such that the public-school "control group" consisted entirely of survivors and contained no future dropouts (as studies of earlier grades would inevitably do).
• Confine the study further to urban kids in the lowest SES quartile, among whom public-school dropout rates are sky-high. Hence looking only at twelfth graders further constricted the control group and skewed the comparison.
• Control for every imaginable sort of family influence and "cultural capital," including "parental discussion of school work," "parental expectations of their child's educational attainment," and "level of parental involvement in school activities." In other words, they sought to eradicate the effects of the very things that might cause kids to be found in private schools in the first place: concerned parents and

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  Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?