Racing to national tests?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 7, 2010

While everyone in educator-land obsesses over the $4 billion competition among states for Race to the Top (RTT) funding, the Education Department is readying a separate competition for less than one-tenth as much money that may nonetheless prove far more consequential for American education over the long term. I refer, of course, to the upcoming announcement of how $350 million will be meted out to “consortia of states” to develop “common assessments” that are aligned with “common standards.”

Secretary Arne Duncan’s team cannot be faulted for the pains it is taking to ensure that this grant competition is based on a transparent, participatory process with ample input from sundry experts, stakeholders, and the broader public. They’ve just scheduled three more public meetings to examine all of this, in addition to seven sessions already held. The “Race to the Top” stewards are posing thoughtful, important questions and publicizing the answers that they’re getting.

Still and all, this competition--to be “on the street,” we’re told, by March, with awards by September--is fraught with challenge and laden with portent. For example:

• The simple fact that Washington’s dollars are to be used to develop what will inevitably be termed the “national test” entangles Uncle Sam big-time in what has, to date, been a non-federal process of devising “common standards” for states to adopt on a voluntary basis. (The National Governors Association [NGA] and Council of Chief State School Officers [CCSSO] have spearheaded that process, using

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The hype, the reality

Eric Osberg / January 7, 2010

Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert C. Bobb has garnered much national publicity as he struggles to save what is arguably the most troubled big-city school system in America from both financial bankruptcy and academic ruin. As his first year of this struggle ends--he was just granted a second term, through February 2011--Bobb has made some promising strides. As John Merrow reported in October, he has been doggedly rooting out waste, inefficiency, and even fraud while chipping away at the $306 million deficit he inherited. Bobb says they’ve saved tens of millions by making changes in health care and transportation, for example, and the Detroit News recently pegged the deficit at a slightly less-daunting $219 million.

Yet an immense amount remains to be done. Detroit’s NAEP TUDA math scores for 2009 were a downright embarrassment and there’s plenty of other evidence of academic decrepitude. The recent teacher contract negotiations represented an opportunity to redirect matters. They ended just before Christmas with a new three-year agreement (through June, 2012). The Wall Street Journal hailed it as “innovative,” and Randi Weingarten used her space in the New York Times to proclaim that “Detroit Teaches America a Valuable Lesson,” one about “compromise, collaboration and mutual respect, as well as smart investments.” Bobb himself claimed $34-36 million in savings (though he concedes he was seeking $45 million).

In a system with personnel costs of $737 million

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The hype, the reality

Teaching industry goes retro?

January 7, 2010

The large-scale arrival of women in the U.S. workforce has brought serious change to many industries, certainly including education. The Economist peeks at the social consequences of this transition, specifically how these changes have affected decisions on motherhood. Previously, one of the few paths open to women was teaching. Hence many entered the classroom and lots of these were talented, smart, and good at what they did. As the labor market opened up, however, women had tons more options. Meanwhile, the education industry continued to grow, more teaching jobs were created, and status and salaries remained stagnant. Result: The caliber of teachers went down. Today, perhaps, a silver lining is emerging in this cloud. More women are seeking careers that enable them either to work from home with flexible hours or to follow schedules that roughly coincide with their children’s. Teaching, either virtually or in the classroom, seems to fit the bill. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, forty years after the rise of modern feminism, women chose to re-enter the careers they left behind? Might education get a talent boost as a result?

“Female power,” The Economist, December 30, 2009

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A new era of selective charters?

January 7, 2010

Spectrum Academy--the catchy if slightly off-putting name for Utah’s K-8 charter school for students with autism (or “on the spectrum”--get it?)--will expand its offerings to high school in fall 2010. What’s more interesting is how the school’s very existence reminds us of two contentious issues. By removing these youngsters from mainstream classrooms, indeed from regular schools, Spectrum obviously flies in the face of IDEA’s emphasis on integration. And it raises a question about charter-school admissions. In Utah, like most places, charters are supposed to accept all comers--and use lotteries when oversubscribed. Schools that restrict themselves to predetermined pupil populations risk losing (and often do lose) some funding--federal start-up dollars in particular. Gadfly thinks well of specialized charter schools with admissions criteria but public policy hasn’t really bought into that idea. Is Spectrum another trailblazer?

"New Help for Autism" by Elizabeth Stuart, Desert News (UT), December 28, 2009

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New Teacher Mentoring: Hopes and Promise for Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Daniela Fairchild / January 7, 2010

This volume is the work of the New Teacher Center (NTC) at UC-Santa Cruz, a comprehensive teacher mentoring and professional development outfit. You may recall that the federal Institute of Education Sciences used NTC’s program as one of the two “comprehensive” treatments in its Comprehensive Teacher Induction study (find year one and year two results here; year three is underway). To date, that study has found meager effectiveness gains from teacher induction and mentoring programs. Undaunted, NTC insists that, through instructionally-intensive, high-quality mentor training, districts can ensure higher teacher retention rates and improve instructional quality. Here they describe how their program has been implemented in four cities: Durham, Boston, New York City, and Chicago. Looks encouraging for teacher retention at least, but this is not a statistical analysis. There is no control for other changes underway in those districts or any proof of causality. On balance, this book describes an appealing program but fails to rebut the IES findings. You can purchase it here.

Ellen Moir, Dara Barlin, Janet Gless, and Jan Miles, New Teacher Center
Harvard Education Press
2009

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New Teacher Mentoring: Hopes and Promise for Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Competition, the universal motivator

January 7, 2010

We’ve been covering the Los Angeles school-outsourcing plan for a while and it’s no surprise that teachers are among the groups vying for control of various schools. But the gusto with which they’ve entered this fray may come as a surprise--and a source of encouragement...sort of. Groups of teachers, backed by their union, are contending to run thirty struggling schools and new campuses. They’re working 24/7 to write management proposals for the LAUSD competition. "For the first time we're trying to show that we can, as teacher-educators, build a school that will benefit our children because we know our children best," says Josephine Miller, a first-grade teacher at Hillcrest Drive Elementary, a school deemed "failing." It seems that teachers are both energized by the competition--and determined to prevent their schools from turning charter and being run by independent organizations. Too bad it took the threat of actually being held accountable for teachers to sit up and take notice of their schools’ shortcomings and what they might to do rectify these. Better late than never, however.

"Teachers seek control at up-for-bid L.A. Unified schools," by Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, January 2, 2010

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Catching up

January 7, 2010

Hard education news was skimpy at year’s end, so the New York Times education beat folks must have been catching up on their reading--of the Gadfly, at least. Just last week, we teased the paper for its filler-like piece on the Department of Education’s absurd estimate for how long a Race to the Top application should take. Yawn. But roaring back two days later (and another two days after that) the Times stepped it up. Three recent items are worth your note, the most prominent of which being an opinion piece on substitute teaching by a former substitute teacher. (See “The Replacements” below.) Keep it up NYT.

“As Honor Students Multiply, Who Really Is One?” by Winnie Hu, New York Times, January 1, 2010

“Skills to Fix Failing Schools,” by Laura Pappano, New York Times, January 3, 2010

“The Replacements,” by Carolyn Bucior, New York Times, January 3, 2010

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Catching up

Understanding homeschooling: A better approach to regulation

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / January 7, 2010

This sane and constructive piece by Indiana University education professor Robert Kunzman says that many states are following the wrong approach when it comes to "regulating" home-schoolers, trying to control the "credentials" of home-schooling parents, to decree what curriculum they should teach and more. This doesn't work, he says, and fosters unnecessary controversy and political conflict. In his view, any external regulation of home schooling needs to satisfy three conditions: "Vital interests of children or society must be at stake. General consensus should exist on standards for meeting those interests. And there needs to be an effective way to measure whether those standards are met." He concludes that "basic skills testing" of home-schooled children fulfills all three conditions and that states and districts should otherwise butt out. You can find it (for a fee) here.

 

Robert Kunzman, Indiana University
Theory and Research in Education
2009

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Understanding homeschooling: A better approach to regulation

New Teacher Mentoring: Hopes and Promise for Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Daniela Fairchild / January 7, 2010

This volume is the work of the New Teacher Center (NTC) at UC-Santa Cruz, a comprehensive teacher mentoring and professional development outfit. You may recall that the federal Institute of Education Sciences used NTC’s program as one of the two “comprehensive” treatments in its Comprehensive Teacher Induction study (find year one and year two results here; year three is underway). To date, that study has found meager effectiveness gains from teacher induction and mentoring programs. Undaunted, NTC insists that, through instructionally-intensive, high-quality mentor training, districts can ensure higher teacher retention rates and improve instructional quality. Here they describe how their program has been implemented in four cities: Durham, Boston, New York City, and Chicago. Looks encouraging for teacher retention at least, but this is not a statistical analysis. There is no control for other changes underway in those districts or any proof of causality. On balance, this book describes an appealing program but fails to rebut the IES findings. You can purchase it here.

Ellen Moir, Dara Barlin, Janet Gless, and Jan Miles, New Teacher Center
Harvard Education Press
2009

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New Teacher Mentoring: Hopes and Promise for Improving Teacher Effectiveness

Conditional Cash Transfers and School Dropout Rates

Amber M. Winkler, Ph.D. / January 7, 2010

While the United States has been fussing about paying students (see here for starters), the Brits have turned it into national program. Their Education Maintenance Allowance or EMA pays low-income students between the ages of 16-19 up to £30 ($48) a week for a max of three years to stay in school past the requirements of compulsory education (a.k.a. Year 11); with extra bonuses for good attendance and meeting academic “goals” of their education contract (think IEP), the weekly payout can be much higher. The money goes directly into the student’s bank account and students enrolled in a wide variety of education options (some of which don’t look much like “school”) are eligible. The point is simply to make continuing in some sort of training/education program after the age of sixteen a viable (if not attractive) financial reality for young people from low-income families.

This well-executed study reports on a pilot version of the program (before it was rolled out nationally in 2004). It says full-time education participation rates increased by non-trivial amounts and those receiving the largest payments had the largest increases. The median payout during this pilot phase amounted to a whopping £100 weekly. Of late, however, the program has come under fire for not tracking what happens to the money, for calculating eligibility based on parents’ earnings the previous year (a boon to parents who lost their jobs during the economic downturn),

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Conditional Cash Transfers and School Dropout Rates

Will School Reform Fail?

Stafford Palmieri / January 7, 2010

If you missed the January 2010 issue of U.S. News and World Report, go pick up a copy. “Will School Reform Fail?” queries the cover and it’s a troubling question. Inside are multiple stabs at the answer, including articles on President Obama’s lofty education goals, the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, New Orleans’ blazing charter path, and Green Dot, Los Angeles’ union-friendly charter network. Perhaps most intriguing are the tables in “America’s Best High Schools” section, which rank the best high schools, best charter high schools, best magnet schools and more. Find a copy at your local newsstand.

 U.S. News and World Report
January 2010

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