Supersize my education? Not in Singapore

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / May 10, 2012

Boarding my plane from Singapore after a fascinating, whirlwind reacquaintance with that small nation’s remarkable education system, I encountered this Wall Street Journal headline: “Education Slows in U.S., Threatening Prosperity.” Reading on, I learned that Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz have performed a provocative—and seemingly alarming—set of calculations to answer the question: How much more education are Americans getting than their parents did?

There’s still an increment, it turns out, but it’s been shrinking: from two years more schooling (by age thirty) for those born in 1955 down to just eight months more for those born in 1980. The implication, quoth the Journal reporters: “Without better educated Americans, economists say, the U.S. won’t be able to maintain high-wage jobs and rising living standards in a competitive global economy.”

America's tendency to supersize may not be a good recipe for education.  Photo by velkr0.

This isn’t exactly news. Nor is the Goldin-Katz analysis the first time we have observed that the U.S. is no longer leading the planet when it comes to the quantity of education that its population receives. But is more education—more hours and days, more years and degrees—the cure for what ails us? Or are we already pigging out on the educational equivalent of fast food—fattening but not nutritious—and

» Continued

Supersize my education? Not in Singapore

Mayor Jackson's reasonable request of Ohio's charter community

Terry Ryan / May 9, 2012

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson told the Columbus Dispatch back in 2007, about his city’s rapidly declining population, that, “Our problem is families with children. People are making their choices based on education, and if I am able to make our school district a district of choice where people want to put their children because of excellence, then I can guarantee you that our population reduction will come to a halt.” In the last decade, Cleveland’s school age population has shrunk by 10,000 children, and those left behind are largely poor, minority, and struggling academically.

Ensuring a bright future for Cleveland and its education system requires taking chances.  Photo by Laszlo Ilyes.

It is in the hope of stemming the loss of families and children that the mayor has proposed his bold school-reform plan that seeks to turn the city’s educational fortunes around. There are many worthy parts to his plan (see here for details), and one of the boldest sections calls for changes to how charter schools operate and are treated in Cleveland. First, high-performing charters would be welcomed as equals and even be offered a share of local tax-levy revenue. This arrangement would be the first of its kind in America and is truly path breaking. Second, the plan

» Continued

Mayor Jackson's reasonable request of Ohio's charter community

A states’ rights insurrection led by…California?

Michael J. Petrilli / May 10, 2012

Three cheers for California’s governor, state superintendent, and state board chair, for applying for a waiver from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind) that doesn’t totally kowtow to Washington. While Jerry Brown, Tom Torlakson, and Mike Kirst deserve plenty of criticism for their indifference to education reform—kicking charter supporters off the state board, cozying up to the teacher unions—on this one they deserve kudos for bravery and federalism. In a nine-page request (still in draft form for another month) they ask Arne Duncan to allow California to use its own accountability system, the Academic Performance Index (API), and to scrap AYP. But they refuse to meet one of Duncan’s conditions for such flexibility: namely, the creation of a statewide teacher evaluation system. As Kirst bluntly put it, "We're saying we just can't pay for it." Moreover, he continued, "We do not see anything in the law about state mandates for teacher evaluation." Finally, a state willing to call out the administration on the dubious legality of its waiver policy. (And a true-blue state at that!) To be clear: California’s request shouldn’t automatically be approved. There are legitimate questions about API and whether it’s demanding enough (and sensitive enough to subgroup performance). As with the other states, Duncan has a right to negotiate over the particulars. But he doesn’t have a right to demand in return the creation of a teacher evaluation system not mentioned

» Continued

A states’ rights insurrection led by…California?

Concessions in Connecticut

Michael J. Petrilli / May 10, 2012

Has Connecticut witnessed “meaningful education reform,” as its governor claimed this week? Both reformers and teacher-union leaders have answered yes, which leaves Gadfly scratching his head. So what happened? Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy agreed to legislation that somewhat toughens teacher evaluations, enhances transparency in school spending, provides Connecticut’s (few) charter schools the most money they’ve ever seen, and empowers the state with more latitude to turn around poor performing schools. With progress, however, comes concession. Performance evaluations that determine whether teachers receive tenure will be piloted in just a handful of districts, and they lack the bite of the reforms proposed by Malloy three months ago. The legislation also confines the education commissioner to intervene in only twenty-five of the lowest-achieving schools over three years and limits his ability to turn them around. (The bill limits private management to just six of the twenty-five schools and prohibits for-profit providers from taking over any school.) And unions retain their ability to bargain over the impact of these changes. Still, the steps are substantial for a Democratic governor and a Democratic legislature. The Nutmeg State has made room for more accountability and greater school choice. That counts for something.

“In Connecticut, Compromise on Education Package,” by Peter Applebome, New York Times, May 8, 2012.

» Continued

Concessions in Connecticut

Charters and coders get their due

The Education Gadfly / May 10, 2012

This week, Tennessee capped the number of foreign workers on visas that charter schools in the Volunteer State can hire. Critics have called the bill xenophobic and discriminatory (which is true), but the Gadfly also thinks it's unfair for a different reason: Part of what makes charter schools worth having in the first place is the freedom and flexibility to hire who they need without onerous and unnecessary governmental regulation.

In a special report, The Washington Monthly describes a new reform wave poised to break upon America’s school systems, the combined effect of Common Core State Standards and rapid advances in education technology. The future depicted here is appealing—rigorous instruction aligned to demanding standards and assessed by sophisticated computerized tools that will increasingly blur the line between games and tests—but, as the Wall Street Journal noted yesterday, it’s no sure thing. Much hard work remains before we can know whether this wave turns into a destructive tsunami—or if it's little more than the tide.

After reviewing 2,500 entries, the Hewlett Foundation awarded $100,000 in prizes yesterday to winning three teams that designed software capable of effectively grading student writing. While computerized essay grading promises to benefit teachers and students, equally exciting is the competition itself: None of the winning teams came from education backgrounds, a tantalizing sign of what the technology sector, given incentive

» Continued

Charters and coders get their due

The Nation’s Report Card: Science 2011 (Grade 8)

Daniela Fairchild / May 10, 2012

It’s a big week for science geeks: Achieve is slated to release the long-awaited draft Next-Generation Science Standards (NGSS) tomorrow. Until then, we have the just-released nation’s report card for eighth-grade science to keep us occupied. Overall trends are positive: Scale scores ticked up two points since 2009. (Due to framework changes, we can’t compare data any further back than that.) The black-white achievement gap dropped one point, and the Hispanic-white gap narrowed by three points. All racial subgroups saw bumps in achievement. At the state level, sixteen jurisdictions improved their scale scores since 2009; no states averaged scores significantly lower than their 2009 marks. Further, we learn that those students who engage in hands-on science activities at least once a week and those who participate in science activities outside the classroom fair better on NAEP—an encouraging find for programs like Project Lead the Way. But there’s also cause for concern. Notably (staffers at PLTW and elsewhere should take note), we have not shown the ability to boost outcomes for our best and brightest. The percentage of students scoring “advanced” on the eighth-grade NAEP science test stagnated between 2009 and 2011—at a dismal 2 percent. (Compare this to the 8 percent of eighth graders scoring advanced in math.) All achievement groups are making gains save our top performers: The bottom quartile of students bumped three scale-score

» Continued

The Nation’s Report Card: Science 2011 (Grade 8)

Common Core State Standards Math: The Relationship Between High Standards, Systemic Implementation and Student Achievement

Kathleen Porter-Magee / May 10, 2012

Three years ago, Grover “Russ” Whitehurst made the bold claim that the caliber of a state’s standards had no bearing on that jurisdiction’s student achievement. More recently, fellow Brookings scholar Tom Loveless used Whitehurst’s work to argue that the Common Core standards won’t move the needle on student achievement. There is, however, one small problem with applying the Whitehurst findings to the present situation: The Common Core standards didn’t exist in 2009. Enter this analysis by Michigan State University education professor Dr. William Schmidt (admittedly, a Common Core booster): After comparing states’ previous standards to those of the Common Core, Schmidt analyzed how students from each state fared on the 2009 NAEP math exam. The upshot? States whose own standards were closer to the Common Core boasted higher NAEP scores than those states with unaligned standards. (Schmidt also compared the Common Core standards to those in other high-performing nations and found them to be of similar substance and quality.) These correlations suggest that Common Core may be getting something very right in the way the standards are written and that spending the time and money necessary for smart implementation may well be exactly what our students need. But they’re only correlations. As Schmidt himself cautioned: “This does not prove anything…it’s a reasonable approximation of what might be possible.”

Dr. William Schmidt, Common Core State Standards Math: The Relationship Between High Standards, Systemic Implementation and Student Achievement (Lansing, MI: Michigan

» Continued

Common Core State Standards Math: The Relationship Between High Standards, Systemic Implementation and Student Achievement

The State of the NYC Charter School Sector

Amber M. Winkler, Ph.D. / May 10, 2012

This pithy report from James Merriman’s New York City Charter School Center offers a look at the state of play among Big Apple charters. It brims with useful statistics framed around four central questions: Who are the students? What choices do charters provide? What are their results? And what is the outlook for their future? To (partially) answer these questions: 136 charters in NYC enroll 47,000 students, representing a 4 percent market share—though these schools are concentrated in Harlem, Central Brooklyn, and South Bronx. For perspective, 25 percent of students in Harlem attend charters. Seventy-five percent of students in charters are low income—comparable to district schools. Sixty percent are black, compared to 30 percent of district students, while 30 percent are Hispanic (versus 40 percent in district schools). Compared to district schools, the charter sector serves smaller percentages of SPED and ELL students and has higher average teacher- and principal-turnover rates. (But—kudos to the charters—they’ve got stronger pupil attendance!) On the achievement front, charters fare better at teaching students math; they’re on par with district schools for ELA and their ELL students appear more likely to pass the English-language-proficiency test and leave the ELL category. What’s more, this sector is slated for growth (assuming the political environment allows it): About half of Gotham’s charters are affiliated with CMO networks and most (60 percent) have been open less than

» Continued

The State of the NYC Charter School Sector