Want to see ESEA updated in 2011? Try this approach

Chester E. Finn, Jr. , Michael J. Petrilli / November 11, 2010

With the votes finally counted almost everywhere, the fancies of education policy wonks turn to ESEA/NCLB, long overdue for reauthorization—and the subject of many aches, pains, and kvetches. Will the new Congress finally tackle this problem in 2011? Can it work with the Administration? For that matter, can it work with itself? The President murmurs about bipartisanship in education. A few Congressional leaders have been meeting. But what might a bipartisan compromise entail? And would it make for good policy? Would it be good for kids? Let us take a look.

Whether ESEA moves forward in the 112th Congress is primarily up to one man: future House speaker John Boehner, himself no slouch as an education-policy shaper. He and his team will need to make a strategic/political decision about cooperating with the White House—on anything. There are plenty of reasons they may opt not to: Why give Obama any “wins” to run on in 2012, goes the thinking. But we’re not so sure. A “do-nothing” Congress is no formula for winning votes, either, and does anyone really believe that a national election will hinge on whether an education bill gets passed? We’re cautiously hopeful that Speaker Boehner will view ESEA reauthorization as a low-risk yet important undertaking, conceivably even a win-win. While it could be portrayed as an Obama victory, it might give his members something to show their constituents, too—at least if done right.

If the elephants and donkeys do choose

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Want to see ESEA updated in 2011? Try this approach

Seven education imperatives for Ohio

Chester E. Finn, Jr. , Terry Ryan / November 11, 2010

John Kasich won the Ohio governor’s race last Tuesday. He will take office in under two months with much goodwill and support in the General Assembly, where significant GOP majorities will rule both chambers. But he will also face a vast budget shortfall—estimated at $6 to $8 billion—for the next biennium. The resolution of this deficit is sure to affect everything the state supports and does, including K-12 education, which now consumes 40 percent of state dollars.

Yet education is no simple “government service” or “consumable.” It’s a critical investment in our children’s future and that of the entire state. It is central to creating great jobs, transforming the economy from physical labor to brain work, boosting competitiveness, strengthening the polity, and sustaining the culture—all of which Ohio mightily needs. That’s why education reform has been front-and-center in the Buckeye State for two decades.

Despite all the worthy effort by past governors and legislatures, however, Ohio’s young people are not nearly as well educated as they need to be and the academic payoff from its whopping investment in public education has been disappointing, to put it mildly. Costs are sky-high. Results-based accountability is weak. Bureaucratic regulation is rampant. Quality choices are few. Adult interests have over-ridden those of children, families, and taxpayers. Some foolish policies have been enacted along with sound ones. And now, of course, the state’s fiscal health is perilous, as is that of many schools and school systems.

Yet as

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Seven education imperatives for Ohio

Thanks much, Joel!

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / November 11, 2010

Though New York City’s academic achievement gains over the past eight years remain subject to some dispute, on Joel Klein’s watch the nation’s largest city also ended up among its most impressive when gauged by the kinds of structural and policy changes that comprise intelligent, promising modern-day school reforms. (New Orleans and the District of Columbia are the only real rivals for that title. For more on that, check out Fordham’s recent study on reform-friendly cities.)

Klein won his spurs not only as perhaps the most creative/persistent/productive reformer among America’s big city superintendents—his only rivals would be Paul Vallas and Michelle Rhee, probably followed by Arne Duncan while in Chicago—but also as a force to be reckoned with at the national level. Smart, tireless, shrewd, and well-connected, he seemed to be involved with everything nearly everywhere. He imported programs, ideas, and people to New York. He exported “proof points,” ideas, writings, and more. He teamed up with strong figures across the spectrum from Jeb Bush to (aaargh) Al Sharpton.

Joel made a couple of dubious initial personnel choices and got off to a slow start on the curriculum front, but he learned fast, generally hired well, and never rested on yesterday’s accomplishment when tomorrow’s challenge loomed. Despite ceaseless pushback from the country’s most powerful teacher union, led by the smart/tireless/shrewd Randi Weingarten, he made a series of profound structural changes in the system, along the way harnessing the powers of data, of choice, of decentralization, of technology, and much more. Of course, it helped that (until the last year

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Thanks much, Joel!

Who's got the power?

November 11, 2010

In a word: Oops. A committee of the Maryland legislature voted Monday to reject a new state board of education regulation requiring half of teacher evaluations to be based on student learning—a regulation that was key to the Old Line State winning a chunk of Race to the Top moolah. Now the state education department and the Obama Administration both find themselves in a bit of a pickle. If Maryland lawmakers do not relent, the state will renege on one of its key promises to Uncle Sam. (And a change doesn’t seem likely, considering that Senator Paul G. Pinsky, chairman of the legislative committee that voted down the regulation, is a teacher-union organizer.) If MD is out of compliance, however, the feds will be forced to consider taking back the money. (New Jersey was next in line in the RTTT competition and Governor Chris Christie is more than ready to put the cash to good use.) For now, ED is mum on how it will handle the issue, stating that “significant” changes to RTTT proposals will be handled on a case-by-case basis. The chances that Duncan will take back Maryland’s grant are about the same as Nancy Pelosi keeping her job as Speaker of the House. But what a message that would send.

“Race to Top grant may be jeopardized,” by Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post, November 9, 2010.

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Who's got the power?

U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students?

Daniela Fairchild / November 11, 2010

For those who thought AIR’s Gary Phillips presented a bleak picture recently of American international competitiveness, be warned that it gets worse. This PEPG/Education Next study investigates how the U.S. fares in getting its students to advanced levels on the NAEP and PISA math exams. Of the fifty-six countries that participate in PISA, thirty best the U.S. Our highest performing state, Massachusetts, trails fourteen of them. (Fordham’s home state of Ohio boasts the same percentage of advanced math students as Lithuania.) No, these findings can’t be pinned to the fact that our country is large and heterogeneous: White students and those with college-educated parents fared little better. California’s white pupils, for example, matched evenly with the pupils of Poland. But don’t blame NCLB—as many do when fretting about inattention to academically-advanced students. The percent of students scoring at the advanced level on NAEP rose significantly after 2002, when the law took effect. One silver thread can be extracted from this depressing data quilt, though. Thanks to our size, out of these fifty-six countries, the U.S. still produces the largest volume of high-achieving math students.

Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessmann, “U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students?,” (Cambridge, MA: Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance and Education Next, November 2010).

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U.S. Math Performance in Global Perspective: How Well Does Each State Do at Producing High-Achieving Students?

Putting Data into Practice: Lessons from New York City

Chris Irvine / November 11, 2010

In this recent Education Sector report, Bill Tucker discusses the use and effectiveness of data systems, drawing explicit lessons from strategies now employed in New York City. Tucker explains that education data have traditionally flowed upward—from school to district to state to Washington—and been used mainly as a cog in the compliance machine. They rarely influence classroom-level decision-making. Data systems, Tucker says, have become “de facto data morgues.” Enter New York City, which has, since 2008, utilized the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) to provide teachers and parents with real-time assessment results, attendance records, and course grades. This program enables educators to identify students’ strengths and learning gaps, craft needed interventions, and customize progress reports. It also allows cross-curricular collaboration. But it hasn’t penetrated very deep as yet. Through anecdotal evidence, Tucker indicates that ARIS data analysis is not effecting fundamental change in teacher practice or decision-making. To that end, he offers a number of useful recommendations for obtaining, analyzing, and deploying data, beginning with the central insight that data collected must match the goals for collecting it.

Bill Tucker, “Putting Data into Practice: Lessons from New York City” (Washington, D.C.: Education Sector, October 2010).

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Putting Data into Practice: Lessons from New York City

A New Approach to Principal Preparation: Innovative Programs Share Their Practices and Lessons Learned

November 11, 2010

This report from the Rainwater Leadership Alliance brings back into focus the challenge of preparing top-notch school leaders. Utilizing case studies from nine highly-effective principal training programs (thankfully, none could also be called “traditional”), the volume adduces a six-stage model that’s worth examining. Each featured program attacks what we have dubbed the “crisis in leadership” head-on, through selective recruiting, on-the-job training, and support to their alumni in the field. Principals emerge from such programs better able to utilize data, offer ongoing feedback to teachers, create curriculum and student support programs, and manage staff and its development. Most importantly, they’re able to shift school cultures. Infusing the system with this new brand of school leader is just one part of the equation, though. They also need enough autonomy to be effective.

Gretchen Rhines Cheney, Jacquelyn Davis, Kelly Garrett, and Jennifer Holleran, “A New Approach to Principal Preparation: Innovative Programs Share Their Practices and Lessons Learned,” (Fort Worth, TX: Rainwater Leadership Alliance, 2010).

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A New Approach to Principal Preparation: Innovative Programs Share Their Practices and Lessons Learned