The Education Gadfly
A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
October 23, 2008, Volume 8, Number 41
New to Fordham: Laura Elizabeth Pohl. Fordham is elated to welcome Laura Elizabeth Pohl to our team as New Media Director. She previously worked as a freelance photojournalist and multimedia producer for editorial and non-profit clients including The Associated Press, The Virginian-Pilot, The Toronto Star, World Links, and ForKids. Before venturing into visual journalism, Laura worked as a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in New York and Seoul and for USA Weekend magazine. Welcome Laura! Read more about her here.
This week on the Education Gadfly Show Podcast: Rick Hess, cave dweller
Contents
From Mike's Desk
Recommended Reading
Flypaper's Finest (The best from Flypaper, Fordham's blog)
The Education Gadfly Show Podcast
Short Reviews
- OECD Economic Surveys: Australia
- Improving on No Child Left Behind
- Counting on the Future: International Benchmarks in Mathematics for American School Districts
- Common Standards for K-12 Education? Considering the Evidence
Announcements
From Mike's Desk
No campaign education advisor left behind
If many recent polls are to be believed, Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. And this week we got an important glimpse into the dynamics of his education team that might preview what we can expect in the four years to come.
"Portfoliogate" started Tuesday morning on the Diane Rehm Show, when Obama staffer Melody Barnes expressed her candidate's openness to using portfolios to assess student achievement under No Child Left Behind. "We have to deploy and employ the proper kinds of assessments," Barnes said, "portfolios for example and other forms of assessments that may be a little bit more expensive but they are allowing us to make sure children are getting the proper analytic kinds of tools."
Both Greg Toppo of USA Today and I thought we heard Barnes make news, and said so on the air. (We were guests on the show, along with Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation.) Neither of us remembered the Obama camp speaking so effusively about portfolios before. Later, I wrote that this appeared to signal a big shift for Obama, opening the door to portfolios as an alternative to standardized testing.
It turned out that both Toppo and I were wrong about the first point; as Michele McNeil of Education Week demonstrated, Obama mentioned "digital portfolios" way back in his first big education speech (last November in New Hampshire). And the Obama campaign strongly disputed my second point, releasing a statement hours later calling my interpretation "a willful misreading of his comprehensive agenda on education" and pointing to comments he made after his second big education speech (in May in Colorado) that showed a clear commitment to testing.
But a few hours later, the plotline took yet another twist, this time when Obama advisor Linda Darling-Hammond spoke about portfolios during her Education Week/Teachers College debate with McCain adviser Lisa Graham Keegan. "If you look at other countries, their assessments include relatively few multiple-choice items and in some cases none," said Darling-Hammond. "Their kids are doing science inquiries, research papers, technology products. Those are part of the examination system." Later, she addressed Barnes's statements on the Diane Rehm Show. "She said in addition to standardized tests we need to look at other assessments. She did mention portfolios. They are used in the charter school she is on the board.... And we have to get knowledgeable about what does go on in other countries....They routinely include elements like research products, they are scored, they are scored in consistent and reliable and valid ways."
So here we have an Obama advisor speaking in glowing terms about assessments in other countries that include "science inquiries, research papers, technology products" but "few multiple-choice items." Doesn't that sound a lot like portfolios? And regardless of what Darling-Hammond insists, experience has shown portfolios to be unreliable measures of achievement, since, by their very nature, they include so much variability and subjectivity on the part of those who evaluate them. (They're also time consuming and costly but save that problem for another day.)
Why does any of this matter, beyond the specific policy concerns about using portfolios in lieu of standardized tests? First, it illustrates, in stark relief, the divisions within Obama's own education team. It's hard to imagine Andrew Rotherham or Jon Schnur speaking with such conviction about "authentic assessments"; these Obama advisors have been known as accountability hawks who support standardized testing, imperfect as it may be. And this is just one area where the "reform" camp within the Obama campaign (and the Democratic Party) disagrees with the "establishment" camp, epitomized by Darling-Hammond. (Support for non-traditional routes into the classroom, such as Teach For America, is another obvious example.) These factions are still jockeying for position, and this week their infighting spilled out into the public domain.
Second, this fracas shows how fluid Obama's education policy still is, especially when it comes to the No Child Left Behind Act. It's hard to pinpoint the Senator's position on assessments, for example, because that position has yet to solidify. We simply don't know where a President Obama would go on NCLB, because he (like McCain in this regard) has been coy about the specific fixes he would propose.
Perhaps we should be grateful; as of now, at least, Senator Obama hasn't irrevocably embraced any terrible ideas about how to fix NCLB. But he hasn't embraced any great ideas, either. And he probably hasn't even decided yet which way to go politically: throw the reformers under the bus and embrace his union and ed-school friends, or throw his establishment pals under the bus and hug the reformers.
If he chooses the latter--let's hope--he will need to find Republican votes in order to get a reform-minded NCLB reauthorization through Congress. That's because many members of his own party won't be so brave as to buck the unions, and they want the law eviscerated. So he will need to find some version of bipartisan compromise.
What might that entail? Right now, NCLB micromanages the procedures and timelines by which schools are labeled and sanctioned, yet it allows states total discretion over the academic standards and tests used to judge schools (and kids) in the first place. These should be flipped. Turned upside down. Inside out. Uncle Sam should provide incentives for states to sign up for rigorous nationwide (not federal) standards and tests. (Tests, not portfolios!) Make the results of this testing publicly available, sliced every which way by, state, district, school and group. But then allow states and districts (or private entities, such as GreatSchools.net) to devise their own school labels and ratings--and let them decide what to do with schools that need help.
This will not only enable parents, policy-makers, and taxpayers to compare schools in an apples-to-apples manner, across state lines, but will also empower states and communities to take the driver's seat again when it comes to determining which schools need help and how to intervene.
This solution won't please everyone. And perhaps it won't thrill anyone, either--not a bad definition of consensus, ultimately. Some reformers will worry that, absent stern mandates from Washington, some states will fail to hold troubled schools accountable. Some conservatives will complain about "national" testing. And some union leaders, maybe all of them, will still chafe at the transparency of school results and the possibility of tying student performance to teacher effectiveness.
But reasonable people on all sides of the issue will see that this approach is better aligned with Uncle Sam's true skill set. After all, Washington is at least three or four steps removed from the operation of local schools. There's only so much policy-makers can do from Capitol Hill and the federal Education Department, whatever their intentions. It would be far better for the feds to focus on making school standards explicit and results transparent, and then allow the states, communities and expert educators to focus on how to reform schools that aren't making the grade.
To be sure, this would be a radical departure from current policy under NCLB, and is different from what anyone is talking about now. But it could work, both politically and substantively. And there's nothing about this proposal that would conflict with what Obama and his warring sidekicks have laid out during the campaign. So perhaps we should be heartened that he has left himself so much room to maneuver, after all.
This article was adapted from an Op-Ed that appeared this morning in The Washington Times.
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Recommended Reading
Check it out
It's no secret that Gadfly and his friends harbor some doubts about the programs now popping up in various cities that pay students for improved attendance, behavior, and grades. But now that these initiatives are in motion, we might as well learn something from them. Last week, DC students received their first checks and the results were mixed. Some kids reported being more motivated to participate in class, show up on time, and pull up their grades. Others' aspirations were less high-minded. "I'm going to the mall," declared one seventh grade girl. "What d'you get? What d'you get?" whooped others, gleefully waving their checks, as they bounded out of schoolhouse doors. Teachers reported that the most obvious change so far is a decline in tardiness. But not everyone is convinced. Diane Ravitch notes that students in other countries make costly sacrifices to attend school; can the future really belong to those that must be "cajoled and bribed" to do that which is in their best interest-learn? But perhaps these cash incentives aren't that different from the car-and-Hawaiian-vacation rewards of wealthier suburban students, argues Richard Daley, Mayor of Chicago. Some of these kids have "never seen a $10 or $20 bill," he reasons. Mayor Daley, with all due respect, you need a better sound bite than that. Meanwhile, we're waiting for this "Show me the money" initiative to show us some data.
"We Shouldn't Pay Kids to Learn," by Diane Ravitch, Forbes.com, October 17, 2008
"Delighted - or Deflated - by Dollars," by Bill Turque and N.C. Aizenman, Washington Post, October 18, 2008
"Daley: Why can't kids get paid for good grades?," by Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun Times, October 18, 2008
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Half a LEAPfrog
Ending social promotion is a good idea, but merely forcing students to repeat grades--same stuff, same classrooms, often same teachers--has been shown to be an inadequate alternative. Which is why Jefferson Parish, Louisiana deserves kudos for devising a promising "third way": grade 4.5, the destination for fourth-graders who fail to pass the state's LEAP test. This intermediate level will serve as a "transitional class" that "combines intense remedial math and language arts with regular fifth-grade courses" to give students a chance to catch up to their peers. Wisely, not all of the 22 percent of the system's 3,100 fourth graders who failed to pass their LEAPs are eligible. Admission requires contract-style parental support for the "intense effort and focus" required to pass 4.5--and a minimum score of "approaching basic" in math and English. Regrettably, details are scant on how the new grade will work and some may argue that Jefferson's approach is nothing new--after all, it's basically a return to grouping students by current ability, a sensible policy that unfortunately went out of fashion in the 1990s. But if it results in six-graders who are ready to do sixth-grade work, that will be something we can all LEAP about.
"Program to help students catch up," by Barri Bronston, New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 18, 2008
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Electric shock
It may not have the ring of "The Hammer" but Michelle Rhee's latest appellation is perhaps better suited. As today's rockstar of education reformers and the bane of change-resistant teachers' unions, she certainly has become the country's "Lightning Rod" for all things education. By Clay Risen's reckoning, she's "the most controversial figure in American public education and the standard-bearer for a new type of schools leader nationwide." Risen's take may smack of hyperbole, but Rhee has taken the praise and criticism in stride. Her relentless Teach For America-style pursuit of results (and Mayor Fenty's still-firm backing) has mixed with the District's accustomed horse-trading, deal-making, and cronyism of Marion Barry and co. like a hairdryer over the bathtub. But not everyone is gaga for Michelle. One DC mother and member of activist group Save Our Schools wonders if Rhee and her Blackberry-wielding cadres know what they are doing--or are just "evilly brilliant." Only time will tell. Her reforms may have run "roughshod over the community" but everyone agrees that change is needed, argues Risen. And change is always stormy.
"The Lightning Rod," by Clay Risen, The Atlantic, November, 2008
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Civics lesson
Lawsuits, Columbine...Election Day? That seems to be the thought process for many a school district contemplating November 4th and worried that their schools can't safely serve as polling stations and learning environments at the same time. That's why Illinois's Indian Prairie school system cancelled classes for the day. Allentown, Indiana's schools, on the other hand, are simply refusing to host voters this year. Voting will take place in churches and other public spaces instead. We can't let every "Tom, Dick and Harry walk in the front door," explains John Weicker, school security director for neighboring Fort Wayne. Not everyone is convinced. Kathy Christie, chief of staff at the Education Commission of States, calls the decisions a "knee-jerk reaction." We couldn't agree more. "It breaks my heart to think we are losing the opportunity to send a very strong message to children about their civic duties," she explained. Ours, too.
"Safety Concerns Eclipse Civic Lessons as Schools Cancel Classes on Election Day," by Karen Ann Cullotta, New York Times, October 18, 2008
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School politics
There may be no Greek columns to back-drop these stump speeches, but they're still promising big change. In fact, the school corridors and cafeteria tables only serve to emphasize the issues of the day: class trips and cafeteria food. That's right, election fever has hit southern Florida elementary schools--election fever for school council elections. "I will try to get your class more parties and field trips and make school more fun," pledged one candidate. "I am a people person and that's why my slogan is 'Every student counts,'" explained another. Students find themselves evaluating the qualities they cherish in others and, perhaps, themselves. ''They should have excellent grades as president, they should be respectful, they should be nice and they shouldn't lie,'' recommended Miami Shores Elementary fifth grader Shabreya Johnson. And national candidates might well take a page from their younger counterparts. "I won't steal any money," promised fourth-grade treasurer candidate William Howell, "I swear." Now that's a speech promise any constituent would love to see kept.
"Student politicians promise just about anything," by Hannah Sampson, Miami Herald, October 21, 2008
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Flypaper's Finest (The best from Flypaper, Fordham's blog)
Youth rebellion
Mike Petrilli
If Barack Obama is a socialist* does that make Robert Samuelson a radical? Writing in today's Washington Post, he calls on young voters to "get mad" at their politicians for selling out their interests to the old. "You're being played for chumps. Barack Obama and John McCain want your votes, but they're ignoring your interests. You face a heavily mortgaged future. You'll pay Social Security and Medicare for aging baby boomers."...Read it here.
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An innovative use of Catholic education
Stafford Palmieri
Martin West and Ludger Woessmann have published a fascinating study in the winter edition of Education Next. Its conclusion-that there is a positive correlation between the prevalence of private schools and high test scores-is something that is widely argued but not so widely proven...The part, however, that caught my eye was how they controlled for the causes of private school proliferation...Read it here.
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The Education Gadfly Show Podcast
Rick Hess, cave dweller
Mike and Rick talk social promotion, portfolios, and closing down schools on Election Day. Then Amber tells about a new report from AIR and Stafford goes raw on Rate that Reform. Click here to listen through our website and peruse past editions. To download the show as an mp3 to your computer, click here (no iPod required--this link will play through any music software on your computer, including Windows Media Player or RealPlayer).
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Short Reviews
OECD Economic Surveys: Australia
Chapter 3, "Enhancing Educational Performance"
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
October 10, 2008
Part of a larger OECD assessment of Australia, this chapter on education focuses on the current state of the Aussie education system and recommends policy reforms. Australia's achievement on international tests is strong across the board, concludes the report, and the country performs notably better than its spending levels alone would indicate. But analysis found that average reading scores for 15-year-olds fell between the 2003 and 2006 administrations of PISA. Australia also faces an achievement gap between indigenous and non-indigenous students; the former tend to be roughly two years behind the latter. To address these problems, Australia is introducing some key reforms, the most significant of which is a K-12 national curriculum in English, math, science, and history scheduled for implementation by January 2011 (for commentary, try here and here). Other steps include financial incentives to motivate early childhood educators to work in rural areas or indigenous communities and negotiations between the Commonwealth and state and territory governments on various forms of merit pay. But more must be done, argue the OECD analysts. For example, greater school autonomy would give principals the freedom to attract, reward, and keep excellent teachers. Strict regulations on starting up new schools should be eased to encourage competition. And reforming funding schemes to take into account differences in socioeconomic background--i.e. a form of weighted student funding--would be transformative. Sounds like Australia's on the right track, especially if it follows the OECD's recommendations. Read the rest here.
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Improving on No Child Left Behind
Richard D. Kahlenberg, ed.
Century Foundation
October 2008
There's no shortage of advice out there regarding the makeover that NCLB needs. This latest contribution from the Century Foundation contains four essays. Editor Rick Kahlenberg's introduction points toward increased funding, choice provisions to foster socioeconomic integration of schools, and a revised standards-testing-accountability regimen. Three longer chapters then elaborate on these topics. William Duncombe and two colleagues spend 80 pages trying to prove not only that NCLB is under-funded but also that it's inequitably funded (as between states and districts). Lauren Resnick and two colleagues would redesign NCLB's standards, assessments, and accountability provisions in the direction of a "thinking curriculum." And Jennifer J. Holme and Amy Stuart Wells argue for inter-district public-school choice. See for yourself here.
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Counting on the Future: International Benchmarks in Mathematics for American School Districts
Gary W. Phillips and John Dossey
American Institutes of Research
October 2008
AIR's Gary Phillips previously applied an ingenious analytic technique to crosswalk states' NAEP results to international TIMSS scores so that states could see how their kids compare (in math and science) with those of other lands. In a new paper being released today at the annual meeting of the Council of the Great City Schools, Phillips and math educator John Dossey extend that analysis (confined to math) to the large urban districts taking part in NAEP's "TUDA" program. This enables them to show how each of 11 large U.S. cities compares, in grades 4 and 8, with youngsters in a host of foreign countries in terms of what fraction of their pupils attain NAEP's "proficient" level. We learn, for example, that Boston's 8th graders do worse than Estonia's and the Netherlands' but better than Armenia's and Italy's. Officials in those communities will surely find this interesting as will everyone bent on "international benchmarking." One advantage of TIMSS's similarity to NAEP is that this kind of comparison can be made, which is not the case with the much-lauded PISA exam. You can find the Phillips-Dossey paper here.
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Common Standards for K-12 Education? Considering the Evidence
National Research Council
2008
This report details the brainstorming that occurred at National Research Council workshops held in January and March 2008. The topic was K-12 standards--specifically, the feasibility and merits of a move toward common national standards. At this point, just about everyone realizes the importance of standards, but they also understands the flaws of the state-by-state variety (see here and here, for example). Could common (i.e. multi-state, even national?) standards improve on these? Most likely, argued workshop participants, though national standards alone won't be enough, and implementing them could be quite a challenge, due to America's permanent debate between "local control" and "the urge to tackle national problems with central solutions." Which is why, the report argues, "to have any chance of success, a common system would have to be voluntary." The federal government should play a role, but states, districts, and perhaps third party entrepreneurs would need to be involved every step of the way; to address this, the report recommends "a bottom-up, grassroots approach." Ironic that the success of national standards requires adhering to the maxim "all politics are local." Check out the full NRC report here--or for Fordham's take, try here.
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Announcements
Save the date
Don't choose education statistics for your Sunday-morning-over-coffee perusal? Don't worry, you will once you read Fordham's newest report, "A Byte at the Apple: Rethinking Education Data in the Post-NCLB Era." The big day is only weeks away (November 17, 2008) and to celebrate--and educate--we'll be having a panel in our beautiful conference center featuring a whole host of fascinating characters. This one you don't want to miss. RSVP to rsvp@edexcellence.net.
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AEI presents?
... "Disruptive Innovation in Education and Health Care," a conference on the potentially "disruptive" nature of technology vis-à-vis long-established business practices. This fascinating event will feature a keynote speech by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen, an iconic figure in the study of business innovation. And our own Checker Finn will also be featured. When and where, you ask? Monday, October 27, 2008 from 12pm-3:30pm on AEI's legendary twelfth floor. For more information, go here.
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Props
It is by no small accident that Gadfly was able to get his pulvilli (as in the plural of pulvillus, of course, the sticky footpads on the feet of flies) on a copy of the OECD's Australia report. Major props go out to the Australian Minister for Education Julia Gillard and her staff, who through determination and a few strings, procured our copy. We'd high-five ya but you might get stuck to our tenet setae.
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Mike on air
In case you missed it, Mike joined Greg Toppo, Rick Kahlenberg, Michelle Rhee, Lisa Graham Keegan, and Melody Barnes to discuss the candidates' education policies on the Diane Rehm Show yesterday. It's no Education Gadfly Show Podcast, but it's definitely worth a listen!
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About Us
The Education Gadfly is published weekly (ordinarily on Thursdays), with occasional breaks, by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Regular contributors include Amy Fagan, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Kyle Kennedy, Mickey Muldoon, Jamie Davies O’Leary, Eric Osberg, Stafford Palmieri, Emmy Partin, Michael J. Petrilli, Laura Elizabeth Pohl, Terry Ryan, Janie Scull, Saul Spady, and Amber Winkler. Have something to say? Email us at thegadfly@edexcellence.net. Would you like to be spared from the Gadfly? Email thegadfly@edexcellence.net with “unsubscribe gadfly” in the text of your message. You are welcome to forward Gadfly to others, and from our website you can also email individual articles. If you have been forwarded a copy of Gadfly and would like to subscribe, you may either email thegadfly@edexcellence.net with “subscribe gadfly” in the text of the message or sign up online here.
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is a nonprofit organization that conducts research, issues publications, and directs action projects in elementary and secondary education reform at the national level and in Ohio, with a special emphasis on our hometown of Dayton. (For Ohio news, check out our Ohio Education Gadfly, published bi-weekly, ordinarily on Wednesdays.) The Institute is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.
