“University offers course in training the Jedi way“

Remember when Ed in ‘08 hired Kanye West to say that education needs to be a top priority? Now the group can put this line into their “Future of America” ad (which we parodied): “I will smash your camera.”

This week’s Gadfly is up. In the editorial slot, on this day of reflection, we present excerpts from our 2003 report, Terrorists, Despots, and Democracy: What Our Children Need to Know. You’ll find offerings from Richard Rodriguez and William J. Bennett, among others. (It’s certainly worth glancing back at the full report, too.) Also in today’s Gadfly, Stafford dissects the Democratic and Republican education platforms, and we’ve got analysis of the education-related speech Barack Obama gave on Tuesday and a cautionary tale from Australia.

Greg Forster thinks (at least I think he thinks) that the difference between rewards and bribes is purely semantic. But semantic distinctions are born to relate and describe real distinctions and degrees, no? Otherwise, we’d have but one word (briwards, maybe) for the concept in question. I argued that Michelle Rhee’s KIPP-based justification of her plan to pay students to induce their good behavior overlooks several basic points, such as the real difference between KIPP Dollars and American dollars and that KIPP rewards its students for behavior it already expects while Rhee’s plan bribes students to do that which they already should.

Forster doesn’t understand the difference between KIPP’s rewards and Rhee’s bribes. I’ll explain it again, but differently. Suppose: Iran refuses to cease its nuclear-weapons development despite the world’s protestations. America therefore offers to give Iran $5 billion in annual aid and lift sanctions if the Islamic nation pulls the plug on nuclear dabbling. Behold—bribery! Now suppose Iran voluntarily ends nuclear-related nonsense and, for the most part, behaves itself. America then decides to lift sanctions and transfer funds to Tehran, but only so long as Tehran continues to play by the rules. Behold—a reward!

I could construct other analogies (e.g., the kid who gets $10 after he mows the lawn and the kid who only mows the lawn after he gets $10), but I think the difference is clear. Perhaps it isn’t to economists, though, who often have a tough time fitting qualitative data into their charts. But there it is.

Update: Greg Forster writes me to say he is not an economist—he’s a political scientist—and that he doesn’t understand why so many mistake his profession. Perhaps he’s just so darn sensible that everyone who meets him thinks, “That Forster must be an economist.” (One hopes he’s not so darn dismal as to induce a similar reaction!)

The Heritage Foundation’s Dan Lips writes today, on National Review Online (where “Education Week” continues), more about the Republican eschewal of No Child Left Behind.

Earlier, Barack Obama was talking about schools in Dayton, Ohio. (He did so in Dayton because it’s Fordham’s hometown, no doubt.) AP and Campaign K-12 cover his speech.

Checker goes in search of those elusive words, No Child Left Behind, and returns empty-handed.

Paul Tough’s New York Times article, which Mike referenced, is really something. It’s fascinating to watch stale education ideas rejuvenated, and to hear their proponents tout their supposed freshness. But what’s even more fascinating is to watch education reformers who are unable to build a rickshaw try to design a Ferrari. We have such a difficult time replicating high-quality charter schools. The answer, apparently: Replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone, a 97-block neighborhood in which social and educational services are integrated and which has an annual budget of $58 million.

It’s “Education Week” over at National Review Online. Mike and Amber get in on the fun.

I’m told that Michelle Rhee, who moments ago wrapped up a “Reporter Roundtable” here at the Fordham offices (I knew I noticed a soft glow emanating from our conference room), defended her plan to pay students for right behavior by pulling out the KIPP Card. KIPP schools—where the hallways are always awash in soft glows—bestow upon their pupils KIPP Dollars, which can be spent on items, such as pencils and pens, on offer at the school store. Why, Rhee wondered, is her plan to pay D.C. students in cash any different from KIPP’s program? I’m so glad she asked.

First, let’s make the obvious distinction between KIPP dollars and American dollars, the former being valid tender only at KIPP-operated enterprises that stock wholesome inventory and the latter easily traded for 64-ounce buckets of cola and pornographic magazines. To be clear: There is a not insignificant difference between rewarding 12-year-olds with school supplies and cutting them each month a $100 check (as Rhee’s plan would do), which they can spend on whatever savory or unsavory products or activities they please.

Second, Rhee’s plan is bribery and KIPP’s is not. To be clear: Rhee’s plan is engineered such that D.C. pupils who habitually miss class and refuse to do their work may, encouraged by offers of payment, deign to act as they already should. At a KIPP school, a consistent truant who balked at books wouldn’t be paid, wouldn’t be bribed—he’d be disciplined and maybe expelled. KIPP uses its KIPP Dollars as rewards for the good behavior that is already expected, not as an incentive to generate such behavior that wouldn’t otherwise be present. KIPP Dollars are simply one reminder among many to pupils that they shouldn’t act out, that they should be conscientious and decorous.

Third, KIPP is not God (are you surprised?), and if Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg decide in the future to jump off a bridge we need not feel compelled to follow them.

Seems that Miami’s superintendent, Rudy Crew, who starred on the cover of our Leadership Limbo report (though I’ve long suspected that Crew, second from left, is actually flouting limbo rules and bolstering himself with Arne Duncan-obscured hands), won’t be hanging around South Florida much longer.

This week’s Gadfly is ready to be read. In the top slot, I write about why paying students (bribing them, really—let’s call it what it is) to study and attend class is a terrible idea. Some say, “Why not try it out? Why not experiment?” I say, “Schools are not Petri dishes, and experiments have consequences.” Like Frankenstein’s monster, or Spam. Elsewhere in the issue, Mike notes that we should quit resisting online education, and we comment on Florida’s voucher setback, the Republicans’ NCLB discord, and the governor of Alaska, who, we’re told, has completed the Iditarod—without using dogs or a sled. She jogged.

All the talk is about Sarah Palin. But this is (largely) an education-related blog, and the Republican who spoke last night most fervently about education was Mike Huckabee (scroll forward to 10:20 in the video), who elocuted about a teacher in Little Rock who, on the first day of school, removed from her classroom all the desks and then made her students guess why. “You get a desk in my classroom,” Huckabee said the teacher said, “when you tell me how you earn it.” (Umm, our parents pay taxes?) By day’s end, news cameras were arranged outside and no student had yet correctly picked out how they could retrieve their classroom furniture. Then... through the door walked 20 veterans, each carrying a desk which he quietly restored to its original position. “You don’t have to earn your desk,” the teacher reportedly told her students, “‘cus these guys—they already did.” As his four-minute story drew to a close, Huckabee solemnly said, “John McCain helped me have a schooldesk.”

So, there. And some of you thought the Ed in ‘08 campaign was wasting millions of dollars. (By the way, didn’t Mike once endorse Huckabee for U.S. Secretary of Education? Might the Arkansan try to take this Ozark deskectomy reform nationwide?)

I don’t know whether Ed Week can “survive the downturn in the journalism business.” But I do know that it can’t survive the evermore frequent downturns of its own website, which appears to be improperly functioning, yet again.

Mike, first lady Laura Bush mentioned No Child Left Behind last night at the Republican Convention—although, if memory serves, she never actually uttered the phrase “No Child Left Behind.”

In Chicago today, students boycott school to protest their lack of learning.

Gadfly doesn’t like it.

Seventeen-year-old Bristol Palin is pregnant, and now we learn from sundry news sources that her mother, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, supports abstinence-only education (or did, at least, in 2006, when she answered a survey question to that effect). The supposition by some in the media is that the foolishness of abstinence-only education is somehow proven by Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. Thus, we hear, schools must offer sex education in the classroom. This presumes that Bristol Palin—had she only been enrolled in such school-proffered sex-ed classes—would have made different decisions. Which further presumes that Bristol Palin was several months ago unaware of the existence of contraceptives or could not procure them. Seems a stretch.

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein writes today about Michelle Rhee’s proposed teacher-pay plan.

Sure, there will be times when teachers will be treated in an arbitrary and capricious way if they give up their tenure rights. Guess what: It happens all the time in the private sector, where hiring, promotion and pay decisions are sometimes made with incomplete information, favoritism, or undue emphasis on one factor or another. But despite this imperfection, despite the numerous instances of unfairness and poor judgment, somehow the vast majority of Americans manage to find a job, move up the ladder and enjoy their work, and companies manage to operate successfully and turn a profit. Pretty incredible, huh?

What you can expect from this week’s Gadfly: Mike tells us what to do about mediocre teachers, we uncover lots of anti-union liberals in Denver (and Australia), and Christina tells us why we shouldn’t throw a party for the College Board. Over on the podcast, Stafford brings us a dazzling new segment, called Rate That Reform.

Ben Wildavsky’s Wall Street Journal review of Real Education is much better than this. One point: Wildavsky worries that in Murray’s system, capable students will be tracked, early on in their educational careers, into academically undemanding courses and eventually similar jobs. Those who, with a little tough love and nurturing and fine teaching, could have become doctors and lawyers will end up mechanics and plumbers.

While determinative tracking is a bad idea, it is not a bad idea to allow pupils who want to be mechanics and plumbers—regardless of their academic potential—to be... mechanics and plumbers. Instead, we shuttle them as 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds into college-preparatory classes that they don’t enjoy and they feel are wastes of time. Seriously, let’s give these near-adults some educational and vocational options and quit shoving college down their throats. Murray’s book makes some solid and compelling points about this that Wildavsky ignores.