Up with teachers, not so much with unions

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / August 18, 2011

A apple for America's teachers
(Photo by Stacey)

Over the next couple of weeks, youngsters across the land will strap on their SpongeBob backpacks and lace up their new Converses. They’ll board school buses, sharpen their pencils (and turn on their iPads), and settle in their classroom chairs, eager-eyed and ready to learn. But for a lot of teachers in a lot of states, the 2011-12 academic year won’t begin with the same cheerful anticipation. More and more educators, we’re hearing, are dragging to school with grimaces rather than grins on their visages. September looks like worn-out June. They feel the burden of societal disrespect, of distrust, of being blamed by the public for all that ails American education.

They’re wrong—fortunately. The new Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup survey makes clear that most adults value their children’s teachers. Seventy-one percent say they “have trust and confidence in the men and women who are teaching children in the public schools” and 67 percent say they would like to have one of their own children become a public-school teacher.

That’s tons more positive than the public’s view of schools in general: Just 17 percent give A or B grades to them (though Americans continue to give high marks to their own children’s schools—and this figure, say the pollsters, is rising).

Respondents were also asked to grade the teachers, principals, and school board in their own

» Continued

Up with teachers, not so much with unions

Let's make a deal!

August 18, 2011

Montana's retroactive revolution
(Photo by Brian Swan)

On Sunday, 158 Montana public schools were slated to join the state’s other “failing” schools—per federal AYP designations. On Monday, that number plummeted to three. Yet this change in labeling had nothing to do with student achievement. Instead, the feds allowed education officials in big-sky country to simply redraw the state’s schedule of testing targets—retroactively back to 2005. Why? The Treasure State had revamped its own state assessment that year, yet hadn’t reset its proficiency standards (something the NCLB accountability workbook allows). Duncan’s crew found this loophole and let Montana rewrite its proficiency targets from 2005 on. For this year, that means that Montana’s required proficiency rates will be slightly above the state’s original 2007 levels. A possible contributing factor to ED’s willingness to find a work-around: a desire on Duncan’s part to save face after Montana's flagrant and continued refusal to raise its proficiency standards—even after the Secretary’s threat to withhold Title I funding. Yet Duncan’s clumsy wielding of the NCLB stick, as well as this back-bending for states, may have serious negative consequences. So, Mr. Secretary, take heed of Jeb Bush’s good advice: Be a leader. A thought-out plan on how to pass responsibility to the states is more pragmatic than defusing potentially embarrassing situations.

» Continued

Let's make a deal!

“Quiet Riot: Insurgents Take on Teachers’ Unions,” by Andrew J. Rotherham, Time, Aug ust 11, 2011.

“Will Young People Reform Teachers Unions? Dream On.,” by Terry Moe, PublicSector, Inc., August 12, 2011.

» Continued

Wrong conditions for a coup

It's working in Harlem

August 18, 2011

Geoffrey Canada has become a bit of an ed-reform rock star since he began the Harlem Children’s Zone in the 1990s. That initiative provides wraparound services—including schooling, healthcare, healthy meals, and after-school activities—for children and their families in a sixty-block square of central Harlem. And the idea has grown legs across the country (look to the “promise neighborhoods” initiative for proof). Yet, in Columbus, a similar effort led by Columbus Collegiate Academy (one of the top-performing urban schools in the Buckeye State) and the Boys and Girls Club risks having its legs swept out from under it. (Full disclosure: CCA is a Fordham-authorized school.) The partners hope to open a new school in a vacant building near the Boys and Girls Club on the city’s near west side, where existing middle-school options are paltry. Planning was going smoothly, with grants and donors lined up to support the CCA-BGCC joint program, until the state’s biennial budget bill was finalized in late June. Under the new law, districts no longer have discretion about whom they rent space to. That decision must now be done by lottery. (Ironically, the change in law is meant to ensure that charter schools have greater access to vacant district buildings, as districts have been remiss to rent space to them.) Yet now, CCA might miss out on this prime school-system real estate, putting the entire children’s zone partnership—and a much-needed network of services for needy kids—at risk. And that would be a sad day for Columbus and for its children.

“Project would go beyond school,” by

» Continued

It's working in Harlem

Money, Mandates, and Local Control in American Public Education

Chris Tessone / August 18, 2011

At times, local school districts may feel like marionettes, with state and federal mandates contorting them to fit one policy priority after another. According to this fascinating new book by Wake Forest professor Bryan Shelly, higher levels of government can indeed manipulate local education agencies with remarkably few dollars—as little as 5 percent of their budgets. Shelly uses NCLB to illustrate this effect, showing that even state and local politicians with serious reservations about the law implemented it anyway, unwilling to cut ties to federal cash—or brave the political backlash that would ensue. While some states (like Colorado and New Mexico) have passed laws formally opposing various NCLB provisions, every state has at least partially implemented 95 percent of NCLB’s provisions. The same is true at the district level: Only seven of the nation’s 14,383 school districts have formally opted out of NCLB. With these facts in hand, Shelly draws a simple but important conclusion: A better way for higher levels of government to leverage reform would be to ease up on onerous mandates, leaving to locals the heavy lifting in areas like teacher quality and curriculum. State and federal money need not be accompanied by the demolition of local control. Do that and local school districts might start to whistle Pinocchio’s favorite tune, “I’ve got no strings.”

» Continued

Money, Mandates, and Local Control in American Public Education

IDEA National Assessment Implementation Study: Final Report

Janie Scull / August 18, 2011

This paper examines the state of IDEA services in the five years after the law’s most recent reauthorization in 2004. Findings are drawn from a 2009 survey of state special-education offices as well as 1,200 school districts. Though there is much throat-clearing in the report, it is chockablock with relevant data. Perhaps the most interesting tidbits relate to implementation of intervening services for students who are not yet identified as special-needs but who require additional supports to succeed academically: Eleven percent of districts have voluntarily opted to direct allotted IDEA funds toward services like Response to Intervention (RTI), something they’ve only been allowed to do since 2004. (RTI is an instructional technique that provides students with tiered and increasingly intensive instruction to address problems in their early stages.) Still many more districts provide such services without tapping into their IDEA funds: When it comes to RTI specifically, fully 71 percent of districts—encompassing 61 percent of elementary schools, 45 percent of middle schools, and 29 percent of high schools—use RTI. Unfortunately, the report stops short of analyzing why districts are opting to spend their own cash on RTI initiatives, rather than directing federal dollars to the cause, circling us back to an issue with special-education writ large: Where, how, and why money gets spent remains a black box.

State Achievement Score Trends Through 2008-09, Part 4: Is Achievement Improving and Are Gaps Narrowing for Title I Students?

Laura Johnson / August 18, 2011

For all the disaggregation of test scores that has taken place since the implementation of NCLB, little attention has been placed on the Title I student population itself (those in schools with high percentages of low-income pupils). This Center on Education Policy report—the fourth in a series on student achievement—spotlights these kids. It assesses trends in Title I and non-Title I student-achievement data (for grades four, eight, and either ten or eleven) between 2002 and 2009, and the findings initially appear promising. Of the nineteen states that disaggregate achievement data by Title I status, fifteen saw improvement among Title I participants. Additionally, gaps between Title I and non-Title I students have narrowed more frequently than they have widened since 2002. Unfortunately, while CEP offers a needed peek at Title I student success, the report’s basic methodology limits the reach of its findings. Not only does it not correct for shifting levels of Title I funding, it also cannot disaggregate student achievement (or school funding) by students enrolled in school-wide or targeted-assistance programs (albeit that these targeted-assistance programs are quickly becoming things of the past). So kudos to CEP for shining light on the effectiveness of Title I efforts, but many more bulbs will have to be illuminated to truly understand the efficacy of Title I’s $14 billion.

Nancy Kober, Jennifer McMurrer, and Malini R. Silva, “State Achievement Score Trends Through 2008-09, Part 4: Is Achievement Improving and Are » Continued State Achievement Score Trends Through 2008-09, Part 4: Is Achievement Improving and Are Gaps Narrowing for Title I Students? Uneducated Guesses: Using Evidence to Uncover Misguided Education Policies August 18, 2011   For better or worse, testing—formative, evaluative, and diagnostic—is entrenched in our K-12 education system. But policies around assessment haven’t all been evidence-based. In this book, Howard Wainer, a long-time research scientist at ETS and statistics professor at Wharton, illustrates this point through a series of rebuttals to opinions he sees as ubiquitous in today’s conversations around testing. In one chapter, he explains why the SAT should not be made optional. In another, he gauges the practicality of using value-added models (VAM) as components of teacher evaluations—concluding that available data render VAM implementation premature. While many of Wainer’s arguments dive far into the weeds of testing, his overall message rings clear and true for much more than assessment: Policy that is formed without full analysis of the breadth of data available on a topic is policy that will fail. Howard Wainer, Uneducated Guesses: Using Evidence to Uncover Misguided Education Policies, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). » Continued Uneducated Guesses: Using Evidence to Uncover Misguided Education Policies Announcements March 25: AEI Common Core Event March 21, 2013 While most discussion about the Common Core State Standards Initiative has focused on its technical merits, its ability to facilitate innovation, or the challenges facing its practical implementation, there has been little talk of how the standards fit in the larger reform ecosystem. At this AEI conference, a set of distinguished panelists will present the results of their research and thoughts on this topic and provide actionable responses to the questions that will mark the next phase of Common Core implementation efforts. The event will take place at the American Enterprise Institute in D.C. on March 25, 2013, from 9:00AM to 5:00PM. It will also be live-streamed online. For more information and to register, click here. Read more announcements Archives Month January February March April May June July August September October November December 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 Sign Up for updates from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute    Please leave this field empty Gadfly Podcast The World is Phat play pause stop mute unmute National         About Us Our Mission Board of Trustees Staff Fellows EEPS Funding and Financing Partners Careers Contact Us Subscribe to the Education Gadfly Online Policy Priorities Standards-Based Reforms Quality Choices A Reform-Driven System Commentary Education Gadfly Weekly Education Gadfly Daily Flypaper Ohio Gadfly Daily Common Core Watch Choice Words Videos Podcasts Publications Standards, Testing & Accountability Talented Tenth Charters & Choice NCLB School Finance Governance Ohio Policy Curriculum & Instruction Digital Learning Teachers Additional Topics Events Upcoming Events Past Events Ohio Policy Ohio Education Gadfly Ohio Publications   Ohio Charters Fordham-Sponsored Schools Applying for Sponsorship Resources for Schools © The Thomas B. Fordham Institute Privacy Policy Usage Agreements 1016 16th St NW, 8th Floor Washington, DC 20036 (202) 223-5452 thegadfly@edexcellence.net nonprofit software