RttT reforms are good, but can we afford them over the long-haul?

Emmy L. Partin , Terry Ryan , Jamie Davies O'Leary / August 25, 2010

Yesterday, Ohio was selected as a winner in the Race to the Top federal education sweepstakes, garnering $400 million for the state and local schools. We are happy to see Ohio win funds – especially during a brutal recession and with an impending funding cliff threatening K-12 funding. In the short term, the money will surely help Ohio’s schools and its children. But in the long-term, we’ve likely made promises that will prove empty as we don’t have the political muster necessary to see them through or make the trade-offs to support reforms while making necessary cuts elsewhere.

Ohio deserves recognition for being one of the first states to adopt the Common Core standards in English language arts and mathematics and for prioritizing high academic standards and the creation of assessments aligned to them. This is an important step toward lifting Ohio’s student performance, and Race to the Top surely helped nudge Ohio off the fence about adopting the standards. The state also deserves credit for other reform areas highlighted in its application, such as leadership in the collection and use of value-added data connected to teachers. 

That said, one doesn’t have to be a skeptic to wonder why obvious front-runners like Colorado or Louisiana were left out in the cold, especially compared to states such as Maryland, Hawaii, and Ohio -- whose applications (according to multiple groups) were comparatively less rigorous on multiple fronts.

It’s been noted that the ten winners (Ohio

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RttT reforms are good, but can we afford them over the long-haul?

Use value-added data to measure teacher effectiveness; but humanely

Terry Ryan / August 25, 2010

Nothing matters more to student learning than teacher quality. Not class-size, not poverty, not family background, not even overall school quality. This was the key takeaway from a highly controversial Los Angeles Times analysis of teacher value-added scores for students in the L.A. Unified School District (LAUSD). The significance of this finding can’t be understated. Many people still believe either that “these kids can’t learn” or that “school can only do so much with kids like this until society fixes their families and communities.”

But, the political firestorm around how these findings were reported by the Times may very well result in them being discredited or simply ignored. The Times asked Richard Buddin, a senior economist and education researcher from Rand, to analyze seven years of reading and math scores to calculate performance of teachers who’ve taught grades three through five. To illustrate its point about the importance of teacher quality, the paper actually used Buddin’s analysis to publish – by name – “effective” teachers as well as “poor-performers.”

Unfortunately, the manner in which the Times published the data was unfair to individual teachers. This outing of teachers based exclusively on the use of value-added data triggered a furious reaction by the Los Angeles teachers union. The United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) press release sought to discredit the value of standardized testing, value-added analysis, and even the primacy of teachers in children’s learning. Further, the union has threatened to boycott the

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Use value-added data to measure teacher effectiveness; but humanely

College outlook not bright for Ohio grads, says ACT report

Emmy L. Partin / August 25, 2010

The vast majority of Ohio high school graduates are not ready for college, according to a new report from ACT. In its class-of-2010 edition of The Condition of College & Career Readiness, the testing company reports that just 28 percent of test-taking Ohio graduates met its college-ready benchmarks in all four tested subject areas. The statistics are even grimmer when you delve into the details.

First, being “college-ready” by ACT’s definition is by no means a guarantee of higher-education success. Rather, it means that a student has a 50 percent chance of earning a B or better and a 75 percent chance of earning a C or higher in entry-level, credit-bearing college classes.  

Second, the college-readiness gap between white and Asian students and their black and Hispanic peers is even more troublesome than the K-12 achievement gap.  For example, based on ACT results, 78 percent of white Ohio graduates are prepared for college English composition coursework and 54 percent for college Algebra, while just 36 and 14 percent of black students are, respectively. Asian-American students are best prepared, with 80 percent ready for college English class and 72 percent for college Algebra.

Third, that 28 percent of college-ready students is based on the test-taking population, which is just two-thirds of last year’s graduating class.  Factor in the unprepared students who didn’t take the test as well as the more than 15 percent of students who never finish high school, and the number

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College outlook not bright for Ohio grads, says ACT report

Districts improve performance despite increasing poverty

Jamie Davies O'Leary / August 25, 2010

A few weeks ago Fordham hosted an event in our hometown of Dayton to discuss findings from a student mobility study we commissioned. In addition to shedding light on several fascinating findings related to mobility (read more on the study via the Dayton Daily News), the conversation diverged into a useful tangent when West Carrollton Superintendent Rusty Clifford described the district’s increasing student poverty rate and struggles with mobility alongside strategies to ensure that such challenges don’t impact the district’s high academic performance.

Indeed, many in the room (lawmakers, district leaders, academics, policy wonks, and philanthropists) were curious to know how a district like West Carrollton, whose student poverty rate has risen from seven percent at the start of the decade (2001-02) to nearly fifty percent (49.4) last school year, has managed to hold academic achievement steady – let alone improve it. West Carrollton is currently rated Effective by the state, up three categories from Academic Emergency when Clifford first took over in the late 1990s.

With the unemployment rate still high, and presumably more districts serving economically disadvantaged kids, we wondered the same. How many districts have seen sharp growth in poverty rates over the last decade? And how many of those have been able to hold steady, or even improve, instead of sliding backwards?

The results are surprising, but in a good way.

First we looked at student poverty (as measured by Ohio’s “economically disadvantaged” status) and Performance

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Districts improve performance despite increasing poverty

School turnarounds headed down familiar path

Jamie Davies O'Leary / August 25, 2010

Dear readers, colleagues, and friends,

I'd like to announce a career move I'll soon be making jointly with my husband. We've decided to combine our experience working in urban schools and in policy (Mike's 14 months as a behavioral psychotherapist in a school for behaviorally challenged kids, and my two years teaching and handful of years doing other education work) and open a center that will assist troubled schools in turning themselves around. As you may know, Ohio has been awarded $132 million in federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) funds to distribute to chronically failing schools, who will select from a range of providers to assist in turnaround efforts.

We're thrilled to announce that our new venture, Radical Ohio Turnarounds (ROT), has been invited into the pool of turnaround providers!  (The name ROT was birthed out of our love for well-known Buddhist psychologist Tara Brach  and we will probably use the lotus flower in the company’s logo.) We are still hammering out details but our vision is to utilize Mike’s skills in psychotherapy (specifically, empathic listening and cognitive behavioral techniques) with my broad knowledge of schools and education. Although school turnaround work is brand-new for us, we are confident that our commitment and enthusiasm will prevail and that we can assist staff in many failing Ohio schools in reclaiming their confidence, self-worth, and happiness.

While the above announcement was meant to be absurd, the premise behind it – that just about

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School turnarounds headed down familiar path

Yes We Can: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males

August 25, 2010

Schott Foundation for Public Education
2010

While its title sounds hopeful, this report’s findings are not very auspicious. The Schott Foundation for Public Education takes an in-depth look at the education of Black males across the US (and state-by-state), analyzing several areas related to performance, such as graduation rates and reading proficiency.

Overall, the results are pretty grim.

In 2007-2008 the national graduation rate for Black males was 47 percent. The variation in graduation rates across states is also shocking: States such as Texas and Florida, which have a relatively comparable Black male population of 341,219 and 313,887 respectively, have drastically different graduation rates.  Texas has a graduation rate of 52 percent for Black males and New York has a graduation rate of 37 percent. With a majority of Black males not graduating, it’s clear that federal and state leaders must step up and ensure that all students are given equal opportunities. 

Another alarming statistic that this report examines is the percentage of Black males reading at or above a proficient level (as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or the “nation’s report card”).  The national average for reading proficiency among eighth-grade Black males was nine percent.

Results for Black males in Ohio mirror the grim national results. Ohio’s graduation rate for Black males in 2007-08 was 41 percent, six percentage points below the national average. In Cleveland, a city with 18,419 Black male students, this number was just 27 percent.  Cleveland is

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Yes We Can: The Schott 50 State Report on Public Education and Black Males

Advancing High-Quality Professional Learning Through Collective Bargaining and State Policy: An Initial Review and Recommendations to Support Student Learning

Theda Sampson / August 25, 2010

American Federation of Teachers, Council of Chief State School Officers, National Education Association, National Staff Development Council
August 2010 

The result of an 18-month study between four organizations and teams in Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, this report examines state policies and collective bargaining agreements as it relates to teachers’ professional learning. It argues that embedding professional learning standards into law and bargaining agreements is the “primary pathway” toward increasing educator effectiveness. Unfortunately, the report’s analysis (and recommendations) is peripheral to improving student achievement and come across as an extension of the national teachers unions’ agenda. 

First, the report set about defining professional learning (aka professional development), which consists of activities teachers follow to increase personal content knowledge, teaching skills, and opportunities for career growth in order to both improve teaching and student learning.

Next, it examined state policies and bargaining agreements to see how various states and districts handle professional learning and the extent to which they codify it. Of the six states studied, four are collective bargaining states while two – North Carolina and Texas – are not. Specifically, producers of the report looked at areas such as: time and budget for professional development; how it fits into “career” (National Board Certification or state licensure); and the extent to which learning is “collaborative” (teacher decision making, mentoring, collaboration, flexible designs).

Ultimately, they concluded that “professional learning does not have a significant place in policy and collective

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Advancing High-Quality Professional Learning Through Collective Bargaining and State Policy: An Initial Review and Recommendations to Support Student Learning

Better Benefits: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force

Eric Osberg , Jamie Davies O'Leary / August 25, 2010

Chad Aldeman and Andrew J. Rotherham
Education Sector
July 2010

Alderman and Rotherham mince no words: Teacher pensions are a huge problem. First, they drain state and district budgets: The total public pension liability—much of which is owed to teachers—facing the states approaches $500 billion under the most conservative assumptions. In other words, the average American owes nearly $1,500 to his state’s public sector retirees, and each Alaskan owes a whopping $5,133. Second, the “defined benefit” structure of most pension plans was designed for a workf orce that stayed in one job for a career; today, however, employees often switch careers, which means old-style pensions may actually deter high-quality teachers from entering and staying in education. By comparison, the private sector mostly uses “defined contribution” plans. The names say it all: In the former, the benefit—i.e., the payout in the unknown future—is defined, based on a formula that factors in things like years on the job; in the latter, the contribution—i.e., how much the employer pays into the fund now—is what’s set, with no guarantees for future value. This short-term/long-term disconnect undergirds pension politics, too: Politicians have a natural incentive to reward teachers with improved benefits when times are flush, while state laws, even constitutions, often prevent them from ever decreasing benefits when times are scarce. So what to do? The most interesting suggestion here is the little known “cash balance” plan, in which employees have portable accounts that grow based on

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Better Benefits: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force

The wheels on the bus go... late, off-route, and terribly mismanaged

Kathryn Mullen Upton, Esq. / August 25, 2010

School started last week for one of the highest performing middle schools in Columbus, the Columbus Collegiate Academy (one of Fordham’s sponsored schools). With the start of school comes the start of familiar problems with student transportation. While a few glitches during the first week are to be expected for any school, this year what’s happening to the kids, their parents, and CCA (under the operation of First Student – the sole transportation provider for Columbus City Schools), is appalling. Read the rest of the post here.

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The wheels on the bus go... late, off-route, and terribly mismanaged

Should school ratings be available before start of new school year?

Terry Ryan / August 25, 2010

Back-to-school season is in full swing.?? Of the seven schools that Fordham authorizes, five have already opened their doors and by the middle of this week nearly all Ohio school kids will be back in classes. But it won't be till this Friday morning that the Ohio Department of Education will release annual report cards for both district and school performance.

The fact that families made determinations about where to send their children to school without the availability of academic performance data for the last school year wasn't lost on the Columbus Dispatch, which highlighted the problem in an article Sunday.

In the story, I expressed my frustration that parents are making school choice decisions for the new school year without the benefit of any data from last year. But, would such data matter? Would parents use it to make different decisions if it were available to them earlier? Maybe not, but the state surely has an obligation to make last year's performance data available to parents who might want it before they enroll their children in a charter school or an open enrollment district school this year ??? or who move to the state during the summer.

The state surely has an obligation to make last year's performance data available to parents who might want it before they enroll their children.

It is hard to stomach the thought that children have been enrolled in schools that will be rated

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Should school ratings be available before start of new school year?

I want to go to that school

August 25, 2010

• Sick of hearing stories about cuts facing K-12 education? Here’s a change: The nation’s most expensive public school ever will open its doors next month to 4,200 K -12 students.  Robert F. Kennedy Community School located in Los Angeles cost an astonishing $578 million. Among the many features at this elaborate school are a public park, and walls covered in fine art murals.  This new school does not come without some political resistance though.  The district is facing a $640 million deficit causing almost 3,000 teachers to be let go and programs to be cut.
• The American Council of Trustees and Alumni recently published a report entitled “What Will they Learn?’’ The report tries to determine which four-year institutions are providing students with the best education.  Letter grades were given out depending on whether core subjects such as composition and science were mandatory. You might be surprised to find Ivy League heavyweights such as Yale and Brown were given the lowest score possible.
• A school in Alexandria, Virginia is taking a unique approach to conventional PE classes.  Instead of having kids participate in gym during the school day, kids at this school complete their PE credit either before or after school. Students are given monitors that measure their heart rates and how long they exercise. Once a week they must meet with the PE teacher to load the measurements on the computer where their exercise for the week

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  I want to go to that school

New Fordham report: Best and worst cities for school reform

August 25, 2010

A new report from the national Fordham team surveys 30 American cities to find out which have environments that are most conducive for school reform (measured by factors such as access to human capital, a solid funding pipeline, a thriving charter-school market, etc.) The report also grades cities accordingly – no city earned an “A,” while Columbus ranks alongside eight others with a “B.” Learn more about the report on Fordham’s website.

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New Fordham report: Best and worst cities for school reform

Think Tank + Sponsoring Charter Schools = Harder Than It Looks

August 25, 2010

Don’t miss another vigorous, frank, and eye-opening discussion of Fordham’s own experience authorizing charter schools in Ohio—and how that compares to authorizing elsewhere. Join us Thursday, August 26 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm in Fordham’s DC office (1016 16^th St. NW, 7^th Floor), where Fordham Vice President of Ohio Policy and co-author of Ohio’s Education Reform Challenges: Lessons from the Frontlines Terry Ryan will discuss Fordham’s experience as an authorizer of charter schools on-the-ground in Ohio. Fordham President Chester E. Finn, Jr. (and co-author) will moderate the discussion, and comments will follow from Alex Medler, Joey Gustafson, and Perry White, all folks with extensive experience in the charter world. 

Please RSVP to RSVP@edexcellence.net or 202-223-5452. 

PLEASE NOTE: If you’re not up for trekking to DC for this one, the event will be WEBCAST nationwide. There is no need to sign up for the webcast – simply visit www.edexcellence.net as the event begins, and click on the event link. Members of the webcast audience who would like to submit questions during the event can email them to questions@edexcellence.net.

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Think Tank + Sponsoring Charter Schools = Harder Than It Looks