Massachusetts school reform: If it ain't broke...

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 31, 2008

By almost every relevant measure, Massachusetts has the highest-performing public education system in the land, with praiseworthy NAEP results (at least compared to everywhere else), solid academic standards, an effective testing and accountability system, a well-regarded (if puny) charter-school sector, intelligent approaches to teacher licensure, and more. This is fundamentally the legacy of fifteen years of sensible, steadfast (and generously funded) reform efforts that have, for the most part, enjoyed the support of GOP governors (Weld, Romney and more) and Democratic legislators but that have been spearheaded and sustained, above all, by the Commonwealth's bumptious and proudly independent state board of education and former commissioner (now a Fordham board member) David Driscoll.

Why is Governor Deval Patrick bent on ramming through the legislature an organizational and policy upheaval that bids fair to undermine if not actually undo these achievements, while overturning a set-up that dates to Horace Mann's time?

On the surface, the Gov seeks only structural changes, including creation of a powerful education "czar" reporting to him who would sit atop the existing units of education governance, and related changes meant to make those units less autonomous and more subject to gubernatorial direction.

There are, to be sure, some states where Gadfly might hail such changes as what's needed to enable a crusading, change-minded governor to break the grip of the status quo. But Massachusetts is a reform success story, and one doesn't have to be a completely

» Continued

Massachusetts school reform: If it ain't broke...

ComPelling proposal

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 31, 2008

The President wasn't wrong when he said on Monday evening that the No Child Left Behind Act is "succeeding," though he cherry-picked the available evidence to document his claim. Six years in, the best that can be said of NCLB is not that it's causing test scores to soar (some are up a bit) or bad schools to be transformed (most are unchanged) but that it's yielding a trove of data by which we know more than ever before about which schools and kids and states and districts are performing and which aren't, which are getting better and which aren't. Sunshine is finally breaking through the swirling clouds of educator claims, denials, and obfuscation.

That sunshine is still patchy, to be sure. Flawed state standards, incompatible tests, a screwy federal definition of progress, and a fair amount of game-playing and finagling continue to make it far harder than it should be to know how American K-12 education is doing. But we know more today than we did yesterday and we could know still more tomorrow. Indeed, the most important single repair that Washington could make to NCLB would be straightening out the measurement-and-reporting system. For at day's end, turning around schools, improving curriculum, strengthening teaching, and getting kids to learn more can't be micromanaged from the shores of the Potomac. It's the proper work of parents and communities. Uncle Sam can best help by getting the standards, tests and reporting arrangements

» Continued

ComPelling proposal

Chocolate-shake paper chase?

January 31, 2008

"Welcome to McQualifications." Thus read a Financial Times headline after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that McDonald's--the burger and fries joint--will have the power to bestow upon their employees nationally recognized diplomas (see here).

What led to this? In 2004, Britain appointed businessman Sandy Leitch to draft for Her Majesty's Treasury a report assessing the nation's long-term skills needs--i.e., to evaluate the U.K.'s human capital and determine ways to make the country more globally competitive. Leitch's final report, released in late 2006, offered both a gloomy picture of the skills of Britain's workforce and goals for bettering them. How to act on the recommendations has since become quite a big deal, and quite controversial.

Which is why Brown this week told a London conference, "A generation ago a British prime minister had to worry about the global arms race. Today a British prime minister has to worry about the global skills race." As part of the "global skills race," he noted, three employers (Network Rail, Flybe, and McDonald's) will heretofore be allowed to award nationally accredited qualifications to their employees.

All of which sounds fine until you actually think about what's going on here: the British government is conflating its nation's skills level with its credential level. Allowing McDonald's to develop and award diplomas that will supposedly be the equivalent of GCSE's and A-levels (academic designations) seems rather

» Continued

Chocolate-shake paper chase?

Keillor to Obey: Shame on you

January 31, 2008

Garrison Keillor, he of soothing baritone and dyed-in-the-wool liberal sensibilities, writes that it is not "Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats" who are failing the nation's public-school children. No. "Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy," he writes. Indeed, Keillor notes that many of his fellow Democrats oppose the No Child Left Behind law simply because it's related to President Bush. And Keillor also wonders: Why aren't we teaching phonics? "There is much evidence that teaching phonics really works, especially with kids with learning disabilities," he notes. "But because phonics is associated with behaviorism and with conservatives, and because the Current Occupant has spoken on the subject, my fellow liberals are opposed." What a shame. He says of the Reading First program (slashed over the holidays by his fellow Prairie Companion, Wisconsin Congressman David Obey), "It is morally disgusting if Democrats throw out Republican programs that are good for children." One hopes that more folks will, like Keillor, see the light and stop rejecting meritorious ideas just because they're associated with spat-wearers.

"Liberals able to botch up schools too," by Garrison Keillor, Chicago Tribune, January 30, 2008

» Continued

Keillor to Obey: Shame on you

Charterat emptor

January 31, 2008

If the charter school movement has learned anything in the last fifteen-plus years, it's that passionate folks with good intentions often underestimate the challenges of starting and leading a school. A recent Salt Lake Tribune article drives this lesson home. It describes how overzealous charter-founders in Utah have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars above market value for their school buildings. Larissa Powell, who was part of a group that paid $500,000 above the appraised price for Lincoln Academy in Pleasant Grove, Utah, said, "Our mistake was we didn't have signed papers saying, before we started... how much it's going to cost." Critics are now wagging their fingers at developers and calling for the state government to step in and regulate. Stephanie Colson, a founder of Eagle Mountain's The Ranches Academy, said, "I wish the state could find a way not to put us at the mercy of the charter developers." Or--instead of asking for government to stick its nose in charter-school business--founders could follow one simple rule: Don't start a school if you don't yet understand facilities and management. Putting up a multi-million-dollar building is no joke. Neither, for that matter, is coordinating food services, hiring employees, or paying bills. The charter movement will take a huge leap forward when charter-starters--and charter school authorizers--recognize this.

"Charter schools in Utah: Building schools, at what price?" by Julia Lyon, Salt Lake Tribune, January 27, 2008

» Continued

Charterat emptor

An Empire State illusion?

January 31, 2008

Rumors that New York's state assessments are getting easier in the era of No Child Left Behind have repeatedly surfaced (see here and here). A close look at this National Center on Education Statistics report from last June indicates that proficiency "cut scores" there may have in fact dropped from 2003 to 2005 (at least in fourth-grade and eighth-grade math and reading)--explaining in part the Empire State's big test-score increases over those years. Now comes more evidence from an intrepid New York City parent (and former teacher) that a high-school mathematics test has gotten dramatically easier over the previous decade. According to Steve Koss's analysis, out of the test's 30 multiple-choice questions, a student now only has to get 13 right in order to "pass" the test. That's many fewer right answers than a student in the 1990s would have had to earn. Of course, it's possible that the questions themselves got harder--possible but not likely. At the risk of repeating ourselves: the whole testing enterprise needs a whole lot more transparency and consistency if standards-based reform is to stay afloat.

"NY State Math A Regents Exams - The Soft Bigotry (and Political Payoff) of Lowered Expectations," by Steve Koss, NYC Public School Parents Blog, January 24, 2008

» Continued

An Empire State illusion?

Kozol review

January 31, 2008

Gadfly was still a bit groggy from the holidays when this fine piece about Jonathan Kozol appeared in the Weekly Standard. The article traces Kozol's development, from failed novelist (an excerpt of his book Fume of Poppies: "The white of her belly was lovely and gay. The fire beat at us."), to teacher in an affluent Boston suburb, to Communist sympathizer, to angry old man. It's a sad story, really, about someone who has talents but simply squandered them, preferring to rail against private schools and those many decent people he perceives to be racists than to actually help improve the squalid state of inner-city classrooms. (Others have of course noted this before.) Is he still on that partial hunger-strike, or whatever it was?

"The Learning Disabled Expert," by Jonathan Leaf, Weekly Standard, December 31, 2007

» Continued

Kozol review

2 Million Minutes

Coby Loup / January 31, 2008

Robert A. Compton, Adam Raney, and Chad Heeter, producers
2008

Global warming. The war in Iraq. America's diminishing competitive edge. It's hard to say which of these front-page topics incites the most hyperbole among our cultural commentators. But the new documentary 2 Million Minutes tacks some serious points onto the "diminishing competitive edge" column. The film follows six students--two each from the U.S., China, and India--through their daily routines. Neil, from Indiana, works twenty hours a week in a fast food joint and has earned a full-ride scholarship to Purdue without (by his own admission) working very hard in school. He plans to design video games for a living. Brittany plans to go pre-med at Indiana University and watches Grey's Anatomy while studying with her girlfriends. Meanwhile, Apoorva and Rohit, from India, and Xiaoyuan and Ruizhang, from China, spend most of their waking minutes studying and most of their on-camera time telling us about it. The contrast between the American and Asian students is compelling. But it's also manipulative. For one, it ignores far deeper contrasts between the U.S. and Asia, namely the stark social divides (yes, much wider than ours) that will doubtless impede their supposed ascension to the global throne. (See here and here.) The film also ignores economic logic by assuming that trade and innovation are zero-sum games (i.e., what India gains, the U.S. loses). Finally, there's the possibility (glossed over in the documentary) that

» Continued

2 Million Minutes

The Funding Gap

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / August 15, 2002

Education Trust
August 2002

This short (11-page) study by the Education Trust has drawn some media attention because it reaches the kind of conclusion that the press loves: schools serving poor and minority kids are getting gypped when it comes to state and local funding. (See "Neediest Schools Receive Less Money, Report Finds," by Diana Jean Schemo, The New York Times, August 9, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/09/education/09FUND.html.) The facts, of course, are somewhat more complicated than the headlines. In many jurisdictions, funding formulae-especially those that distribute state dollars-do help compensate for the underlying problem, namely that school systems with lots of poor kids are often in poor communities without much wealth to spend on education. That was the original point of "state equalization" (or "foundation") funding, and often it works. What's distressing to find in these Education Trust data are a number of places-most vividly New York-where the state dollars seem to exacerbate the problem of unequal spending. There are many reasons for this, including the political idiosyncrasies of some state-local relationships. (The Illinois data, for example, are dominated by Chicago's relationship to the state, as Pennsylvania's are by Philadelphia and New York's by New York City.) The big question, though, barely addressed in this report, is whether redirecting more resources into heavily minority and low-income school systems will produce more learning in their classrooms. Of course that depends on how the money gets spent. Across-the-board raises for current staff members aren't

» Continued

The Funding Gap