Let's talk education reform

Michael J. Petrilli , Chester E. Finn, Jr. / July 14, 2011

The Republican presidential field is beginning to take shape, and candidates and maybe-candidates are figuring out where they stand and what to say. Sooner or later, they will need to say something about education. May we suggest a few talking points? Even a potential speech for a GOP candidate? (It’s free for the use of Democrats and Vegetarians, Libertarians, too. You don’t even have to ask.)

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Photo by Josh Berglund 19

Folks, you know that our education system is tattered. Parts of it are fine, but too much is mediocre or worse. Once the envy of the world, American schools are losing ground to those in Europe and Asia. Today, many countries are out-teaching, out-learning, and out-hustling our schools?—?and doing it for a fraction of the cost.

Meanwhile, failed education systems in our cities worsen the odds that the next generation will climb out of poverty into decent jobs and a shot at the American dream. And as much as many of us prefer not to notice, way too many of our suburban schools are just getting by. They may not be dropout factories, but they’re not preparing anywhere near enough of their pupils to revive our economy, strengthen our culture, and lead our future. 

Turning this situation around has been the work of education reform for the past two decades. We’ve spent a lot of money on it. We’ve had any number of

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Let's talk education reform

Cheating

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / July 14, 2011

Photo by Alberto G.

The latest shock to hit American schools and education reformers is the revelation that teachers and administrators have been fiddling with test scores in Atlanta and, evidently, in D.C., Baltimore, and half a dozen other locales.

In Georgia, where a state investigation implicated 178 individuals in the Atlanta public schools for cheating on or allowing cheating on the 2009 round of state assessments, Governor Nathan Deal declared that “when test results are falsified and students who have not mastered the necessary material are promoted, our students are harmed, parents lose sight of their child's true progress, and taxpayers are cheated.” He’s right, of course. But, as destructive as the actual cheating is the cry from many directions that the remedy for it is to do away with testing or radically reduce our reliance on its results as markers of student and school performance.…

Unfortunately, CNN.com, which originally published this piece, wouldn’t let us run more than 150 words of it here. To read the full essay, find it here on the CNN.com opinion page.

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Cheating

Dream. Believe. Achieve?

July 14, 2011

Educational entrepreneur Chris Whittle, former head of Edison Schools, has targeted a new consumer base. While Edison Schools sought to run outsourced district and charter schools, this new Whittle venture—Avenues: The World School—aspires to build a network of twenty elite private schools with similar curricula in places like London and Shanghai. Whittle has reportedly raised $75 million from two private equity firms; recruited over 1,200 applicants for Avenues’s first campus in lower Manhattan; and brought on board some big names in elite education (the school’s co-leaders ran Exeter and Hotchkiss). And this all before the school can boast a completed building or curriculum. (It’s slated to open for the 2012-13 year with full-freight tuition in the $40,000 range.) Whittle hasn’t always succeeded in the past with exceptionally ambitious plans, but if this model prospers and delivers results, it could revolutionize the way itinerant upscale families—or those interested in a cosmopolitan education—interact with schooling.

“The Best School $75 Million Can Buy,” by Jenny Anderson, New York Times, July 8, 2011.

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Dream. Believe. Achieve?

Getting tough

July 14, 2011

Can a school-culture culture really be called “no excuses” if it accepts low student achievement—even if that low student achievement masks laudable incremental gains? Paul Tough says no. Yet this is precisely the rhetoric espoused by some in the reform community. Instead of exulting in its successes, the reform movement is increasingly defensive and given to excuses. Defending the Bruce Randolph School (which doubled its writing proficiency rates since 2007—but only to 15 percent), Jonathan Alter explained that Randolph “should not be compared to other Colorado schools in affluent neighborhoods.” Tough is right: While improvement should be acknowledged, 15 percent writing proficiency still stinks. Instead of getting defensive, reformers should find some humility—and a willingness to change their plans and methods. KIPP sets an estimable example here; when that organization learned that only 33 percent of its alums graduate from college—not bad, for kids from tough circumstances, but a far cry from KIPP’s goal of 75 percent—it didn’t hide behind poverty or whatever. It instead vowed to double-down efforts to reach its stated goal. We need more of that mentality.

“No, Seriously: No Excuses,” by Paul Tough, New York Times Magazine, July 7, 2011.

“KIPP, UNCF and CFED Launch Partnership for College Completion,” by Staff, United Negro College Fund, June 22, 2011.

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Getting tough

Making data pro-public

July 14, 2011

New federal data, collected by ED’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and then analyzed by ProPublica, find that low-income and minority students in America’s schools have unequal access to experienced teachers, early education, school counselors, and rigorous courses. OCR surveyed 72,000 schools in 7,000 decent-sized districts, grabbing information on AP, science, and math course offerings and enrollments; ability grouping and tracking; teacher experience and quality; student demographics; etc. There’s much important—if sobering—content within this dataset (and the corresponding ProPublica dataset, which links the OCR data to income). Focusing specifically on access to rigorous courses, jurisdictions like Maryland, Kansas, and Oklahoma offer particularly unequal access for wealthy and low-income students. Florida, on the other hand, enrolls roughly the same percentages of students in AP courses in its high- and low-income districts. Ohio lands in the middle of the pack. While its wealthy districts boast AP enrollment around 40 percent, Akron, Dayton, and Columbus only enroll 7 percent of their students in APs. Questions of how these data can and will be used by both OCR and others still loom. If they move from transparency to jawboning and then to enforcement, a backlash will inevitably follow. But right-thinking people will find these data eye-opening and, we hope, worth trying to alter.

“Some States Still Leave Low-Income Students Behind; Others Make Surprising Gains,” by Sharona Coutts and Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica, June 30, 2011.

“Federal Data Shed Light on Education Disparities,” by Nirvi Shah, Education Week, July 1, 2011.

Civil Rights Data Collection, U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, 2009-10.

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