The (in)competence of government

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / October 14, 2010

We now know that the massive recent recall of salmonella-tainted eggs—launched after 1500 people had taken sick—likely could have been prevented had one federal agency (Department of Agriculture) communicated what it knew about egg-farm sanitation failings to another federal agency (Food and Drug Administration) with responsibility for food safety. But that communication didn’t happen. Never mind that, according to the Wall Street Journal, “the two agencies have a formal understanding about the USDA giving the FDA notice over sanitary issues.”

This is the same federal government that we now want to turn around our schools, produce racial balance in Advanced Placement classrooms, manage millions of college loans, make certain that all teachers are effective—and equitably distributed among schools—not to mention spur classroom innovation, report accurate performance data at every level, and engage in a hundred other major-league education missions.

Sober up, folks. How competent is government to carry out its most basic duties and responsibilities, much less tackle truly complex problems over which it has very limited authority?

I’m not grumping only about Washington. Governments at every level. Can municipalities fix potholes, keep the traffic flowing, prevent subway trains from crashing, and ensure that utility companies reliably supply our homes with electricity and clean water even when snow falls and wind blows? Can states make certain that only people who really know how to drive are on the highways—and that those highways have enough lanes to accommodate the population? Can they take

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The (in)competence of government

Rhee-ality check

Michael J. Petrilli / October 14, 2010

It’s no surprise that Michelle Rhee has stepped down as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools. Advocates of “mayoral control” in education have always argued that such a governance arrangement provides a clear line of accountability, straight through the mayor's office. Upshot: Adrian Fenty loses; his schools chief is out. Simple as that. But that doesn't make the outcome any less unsettling for D.C., and especially for its most vulnerable children. As the Washington City Paper editorialized before the election, “When it comes to reforming a failed school system, you either go monomaniacal or go home. It’s naïve to think that you can do it while simultaneously making nice with the old guard.” Vincent Gray, Washington’s next mayor, will test this argument with his promise to push reform but also seek greater buy-in from stakeholders. There’s little reason to be optimistic about this approach—can anyone name a single city where “reform with a smile” has turned around a failing school system?—but here’s hoping for the best. And, if you’re really committed to looking for a silver lining, it’s this: Michelle is gone, but D.C.’s charter schools remain, and within a few years they will serve a majority of the city’s children.

This piece first appeared in slightly different form on the National Review Online blog, The Corner. It also appeared on Fordham’s own blog, Flypaper.

“Michelle Rhee resigns; Gray huddles with

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Rhee-ality check

Black box or black hole?

October 14, 2010

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution cracked open the sealed box of school boards—and didn’t like what it saw inside. While many Atlanta-area board members are experienced and educated leaders, others are untrained in budget creation and execution. Some have documented histories with money mismanagement; forty percent have personal financial problems, even as they control multimillion dollar education budgets. Investigations by the AJC also uncovered nepotism—at least 35 percent of school board members polled had family members who worked in their district—and a failure by the state to police training requirements for board members. To ease these woes, the paper highlights suggestions for reform: Set education requirements for school board members and mandate training for new and incumbent members alike. Unfortunately, these weak-kneed changes—which aren’t likely to occur, anyway—cannot get at the heart of the issue so well-articulated by the AJC. Instead of inconsequential changes like requiring school board members to have a high school diploma, why don’t we saw the lid off the box, empty it out, and truly rethink the way we structure school governance?

“Few study power of school boards,” by James Salzer and Nancy Badertscher, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 10, 2010.

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Black box or black hole?

Testing, 1-2-3

October 14, 2010

Over the past decade, New York students made dramatic gains on state tests. This progress helped propel Michael Bloomberg to his third term as New York City mayor in 2009. But, as we learned a few months ago, some of those gains were illusory—products of shoddy tests and slipping standards. This long New York Times article gives the back story and digs into the dirty details. There were plenty of design and process flaws, but the biggest problem, it seems, is that New York made it too easy to teach to the test. By making the tests public after the fact, and not switching the format from year to year, it encouraged teachers to prepare students for narrow assessments, rather than teach them more broadly. Experts such as Daniel Koretz sounded the alarm long ago, but to no avail. Until now. For those of us who believe that test-based accountability is an indispensable tool, let us learn these lessons or live to regret it.

“On New York School Tests, Warning Signs Ignored,” by Jennifer Medina, New York Times, October 10, 2010.

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Testing, 1-2-3

Letter from a district central office

October 14, 2010

Without decisive action taken to improve our nation’s public schools, the American dream will fade into a “distant, elusive memory.” These hard-hitting words end the “letter to America” issued Sunday by sixteen large-district leaders, hailing from the North, South, and Midwest, from red and from blue states. It may not be revolutionary; the supes’ recommendations—focused on teacher quality—aren’t necessarily new ideas. (Among them: End the “glacial process for removing an incompetent teacher,” and give parents a better portfolio of schools from which to choose.) And the push for giving district leaders (i.e. the authors) more control to reach these goals isn’t subtle. But the tone and message are commendable in more ways than one. The piece doesn’t rival King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, but it’s hard not to appreciate the spirit through which the signing leaders came together and willingly denounced the system’s many failings. This pronouncement took a bit of courage, too, though perhaps there’s some safety in numbers.

“How to Fix our Schools: A Manifesto by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and Other Education Leaders,” by Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, and others, Washington Post, October 10, 2010.

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Letter from a district central office

Literary Study in Grades 9, 10, and 11: A National Survey

Amber M. Winkler, Ph.D. / October 14, 2010

This paper—a follow-up to an earlier, Arkansas-based study—answers two simple questions: What are high school students being asked to read today and is that material challenging enough for them? The short answers: a hodge-podge of texts, and no. These findings derive from a survey of 406 ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade English teachers across the country who were asked what reading material they assigned in their “standard” and “honors” classes (not in basic, elective, or AP/IB courses since analysts were particularly interested in the experiences of the “middle third”). And the responses are plenty disconcerting. First, literature and reading curricula are not uniform but “idiosyncratic”; in fact, only three titles (Romeo and Juliet, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Crucible) appear to make it into even 20 percent of high school English courses. Second, what students are assigned is generally not challenging enough for high school-level reading skills: only four (Julius Caesar, The Scarlet Letter, The Odyssey, and Macbeth) of the twenty most frequently-assigned titles have a high school-readability level (Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, often assigned at eleventh grade, weighs in at a fourth-grade level!). Third, in a check-all-that-apply question, 70 to 80 percent of teachers report that they choose the major novels, plays, and poems that they assign (only 30 to 40 percent say they are influenced by their departments or school curriculae). Finally, most teachers don’t engage students in close, analytic reading of the assigned

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Literary Study in Grades 9, 10, and 11: A National Survey

Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform

October 14, 2010

The concept of portfolio management in K-12 education (PMM)—a diverse array of public schools overseen but not directly run by a central office—has many advocates. The authors of this new edited volume, including Henry Levin and Josh Edelman, examine its strengths and weaknesses via case studies of Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and New Orleans, each of which has employed at least a limited version of PMM. Their findings: the portfolio approach can jumpstart change in dysfunctional districts but is no silver bullet. In New York City, for example, the Bloomberg-Klein regime saw genuine academic gains through its PMM model but the changes made turn out to have less to do with the model itself than with the political and economic strength of Bloomberg and Klein. In New Orleans, the portfolio approach to education has coincided with increased student performance. However, the district now spends more on education than it did during its pre-PMM days, and lacks a coordinated governance structure. Education policy, the authors argue, often suffers from an unchecked rush to judgment on new ideas. However, they also argue that, absent a willingness to try new approaches, we are stuck with the status quo.

Katrina E. Bulkley, Jeffrey R. Henig, and Henry M. Levin, eds., Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2010).

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Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform

Bumping Human Resources: Giving Principals More Say Over Staffing

Amanda Olberg / October 14, 2010

Through an analysis of its extensive teacher-union contract database, this National Council on Teacher Quality policy brief explains that, when it comes to school staffing, districts sharply limit the authority of principals. Multiple contractual and bureaucratic obstacles get in the way of HR moves by school principals. Perhaps most problematic is the practice of giving senior teachers “bumping rights”—forcing principals to fill empty slots with teachers they may not want. All is not lost, however. The brief also suggests solutions and points to a few districts that are putting them into practice: For example, end forced placements of teachers, as in New York City, and make better use of teacher evaluations, as in D.C.’s new teacher contract, which links final-year evaluations to firing practices. In and of themselves, these solutions won’t revolutionize entrenched district HR practices; but they offer tangible mechanisms for how school leaders can gain some control over staffing.

National Council on Teacher Quality, “Bumping HR: Giving Principals More Say Over Staffing,” (Washington, D.C.: National Council on Teacher Quality, October 2010).

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Bumping Human Resources: Giving Principals More Say Over Staffing

Cutting to the Bone: How the Economic Crisis Affects Schools

Daniela Fairchild / October 14, 2010

This web-based report from the Center for Public Education—an initiative of the National School Boards Association—investigates the short- and long-term impacts of the Great Recession on state and local budgets and education funding. Its findings, at first glance, may be termed sobering: In 2010, forty-eight states faced budget shortfalls, with thirty-three of those states (and D.C.) cutting education spending. At the local level, 78 percent of districts cut their budgets. Nor do figures seem likely to improve for a while. As the CPE report states: “Federal ARRA and Education Jobs funds are simply tourniquets for hemorrhaging local and state education budgets.” That’s all true, but what do we make of it? Rather than face the music, CPE simply pleads for more bailouts. For instance, instead of using this moment to push for health-care benefit and pension-package reforms, the CPE laments these benefit reductions. The report concludes with an appeal for a “serious national conversation” to drum up ways to provide more funding for education. Yes, a serious national conversation on how to manage school funding is overdue. But we also must be candid about the economic realities of our education system—and do a better job of making lemonade out of this lemon of a situation.

Center for Public Education, “Cutting to the Bone: How the Economic Crisis Affects Schools,” (New York, NY: Center for Public Education, 2010).

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Cutting to the Bone: How the Economic Crisis Affects Schools