The Education Gadfly Weekly

Education Commission of the States
June 2001

Although it's accepted with little question in many other lines of work, in education there's much resistance to compensating people based on their job performance. As bullets whiz overhead, however, some states and districts are implementing performance-pay plans in an effort to jumpstart pupil achievement and halt the stream of top-notch teachers exiting the classroom for greener employment pastures. Earlier this year, the Education Commission of the States assembled representatives from five leading pay-for-performance locales-Cincinnati; Denver; Douglas County, CO; Iowa; and the Milken Family Foundation's Teacher Advancement Program (in Arizona)-to pool their insights and determine what lessons their experiences could yield for other states and districts. A recent ECS Issue Paper offers an overview of the meeting's findings, including an explanation of key issues involved in implementing performance-based pay in schools, a summary of questions policymakers ought to consider, a brief discussion of lessons learned (even though some programs have yet to become operational), a chart comparing the five programs, a summary of each program's structure, and a reference guide. The paper doesn't hold any surprises, but it does present a sound, if cursory, treatment of a nettlesome issue. It's available at http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/28/30/2830.htm or by contacting ECS at 707 17th Street, Suite 2700, Denver, CO 80202-3427; 303-299-3600; fax 303-296-8332.

Henry Levin's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based at Teachers College, Columbia University, hasn't always done important and well-balanced work, but it's certainly been prolific. What's more, several of the recent "occasional papers" now available on its burgeoning website strike us as worth knowing about, maybe even reading.

• Can Public Policy Affect Private School Cream-Skimming? Despite its "have you stopped beating your wife" title, this is an interesting analysis (I can't tell you how long because the pages aren't numbered but it feels like about 40) by economists David Figlio (University of Florida) and Joe Stone (University of Oregon). Using what they describe as a "unique" data set-from the National Education Longitudinal Survey-they conclude that a wide array of public policies influences who ends up going to private (and, for that matter, public) schools in a given community. This naturally leads to wide-ranging policy implications. For example, say the authors, "fighting crime successfully and lowering the violent crime rate will likely improve the ability of public schools to retain higher socio-economic status and ability students and lessen the disparity in peer groups between the public and private sectors." Some of us might think this obvious. But it's good to have empirical analysis to buttress a normal human impulse: the instinct of parents to weigh a variety of environmental, economic, contextual and educational factors in choosing a school for their child. To the extent that policy makers want to affect school choices, therefore, they are well advised to understand how many different polices bear on those decisions. (Occasional paper #31.)
• Tuition Tax Credits: What do we know so far? British economist (and University of South Carolina business school professor) Clive Belfield has penned a short (12 page) paper on the economics of tuition tax credits, a topic that hasn't elicited much research, though such credits are on the books in (Belfield says) five states. Here he reviews what evidence he could lay his hands on and supplies some added analysis. Some of his conclusions will be more pleasing to tax-credit advocates than others. Using a "comprehensive" framework, he finds some important positives (e.g. enhanced freedom, greater efficiency) as well as negatives (greater segregation, diminished social cohesion). The purely economic analysis is largely negative. The author also seems quite off base in his explanation of the role of tax credits in the pending federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act amendments. He seems to think they're there. I certainly can't find them! (Occasional paper #33.)
• The Effects of Catholic Schools on Religiosity, Education, and Competition. Despite its mega-title, this is just a 38-page paper, written by DePaul economist William Sander (no, not the statistician Bill Sanders). In this domain, of course, there's been much previous research. Sander pokes into some of it and does some data analysis of his own, again using the Privatization Center's four "comprehensive" criteria for evaluating private schools and programs: freedom of choice, efficiency, equity and social cohesion. (This paper doesn't actually tackle the fourth of these.) Catholic schools, in Sander's analysis, fare well on freedom and reasonably well on equity, due to their positive effects on low income and minority students. His analysis of their "productive efficiency" leads to what he terms a "mixed" finding. I don't find that part of the paper very persuasive or thorough, however. Have a look for yourself, but be warned that it's fairly technical. (Occasional paper #32.)

Papers are available from the website of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at http://www.ncspe.org/ (click on "Occasional Papers" for a list of titles). The Center can also be reached at 212-678-3259.

Patrick J. Wolf, Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West
August 2001

One of the many questionable arguments made against school vouchers is that public schools produce better and more open-minded citizens than private schools. A new study by Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance and Georgetown's Public Policy Institute reveals that low-income District of Columbia students attending private schools with the help of vouchers are more politically tolerant than their peers in public schools. According to lead author Patrick Wolf, this remarkable finding cannot be attributed to students' backgrounds, which were similar for all who were surveyed. (The comparison groups were assigned by lottery.) Students were asked, for example, if they would allow members of groups they found objectionable to live in their neighborhood, give a speech, or run for president. In all instances, more private than public school students said yes. The study also examined parent satisfaction with their children's schools. Here, too, private schools are doing a better job: 81% percent of parents gave their child's private school an "A" or a "B," compared to 60% of public school parents. Other subjects covered in the survey include school discipline, homework and satisfaction with teachers. Add these results to earlier research showing that D.C.'s African-American voucher students achieve at higher academic levels than their public school peers, and it would seem that the arguments against school choice grow ever shakier. To read the new study, surf to http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg and click on "Research Papers."

Most children who live in the Hollywood Hills go to private schools, but a small group of parents from that affluent Los Angeles neighborhood decided two years ago that they might like to send their kids to the local public school. First, though, they wanted to make sure that it would be suitable for their sons and daughters, so they began meeting with the principal and teachers at this school, which then served mostly youngsters from the other side of the tracks, including the children of recent immigrants who work as gardeners, nannies, and housekeepers for families in the Hills. The wealthy parents hoped to launch a series of projects to improve the school, but found that its staff and some parents of kids attending it thought it was already doing a pretty good job, even though the school had received a ranking of just 2 (out of 10) on the latest state performance index. In a 6,000 word story that appeared on page 1 of The Wall Street Journal, Lisa Bannon described the culture clash that ensued. Read "What Happened When Well-to-Do Parents Tried to Prep a Public School for Their Kids," August 23, 2001, http://interactive.wsj.com/fr/emailthis/retrieve.cgi?id=SB998511295703108758.djm (may only be available to subscribers at this point).

As if House and Senate conferees didn't already face enough difficulties in creating a fair definition of "adequate yearly progress" for the new ESEA, an article in this month's Washington Monthly explains how high rates of student mobility can doom an otherwise solid accountability system. According to a GAO study, one out of every six U.S. third-graders has attended three or more schools since entering first grade, and a New York Times investigation found that 40 percent of the students in a typical New York City classroom changed schools over the course of the year. Unless an accountability system has some way of dealing with highly mobile students, schools may be sanctioned for failing to educate kids who have barely spent any time on their premises. For more, see "Student Movement: The Fatal Flaw in the Bush Education Plan," by Thad Hall, Washington Monthly, September 2001, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0109.hall.html

In 1999, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation published a study by Dan Goldhaber (of the Urban Institute) and Dominic Brewer (of RAND) that found that students of teachers with emergency credentials do no worse than students whose teachers have standard teaching credentials. The study was later published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The Spring 2001 issue of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis contains a 20-page article by Linda Darling-Hammond, Barnett Barry, and Amy Thoreson that attacks the Goldhaber and Brewer study as well as some claims that have been made on the basis of that study, and reviews the literature on the impact of teacher certification on student achievement. In an 8-page reply appearing in the same issue, Goldhaber and Brewer respond to the charges. While the methodological debate may be too technical for lay readers, their brief review of the extremely weak research base often cited by proponents of teacher certification is very useful. Unfortunately these articles are not available online. Readers who would like to read them and don't have access to Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis at a university library will have to order a back issue (Spring 2001) for $16 plus $3 postage (payable by Visa/Mastercard/check) from AERA. Write to AERA, Attention: Publications/Sales, 1230 17th St NW, Washington DC 20036; phone: 202-223-9485; fax: 202-775-1824.

This time of year always brightens the education picture with the optimism of fresh starts. Classrooms are clean, teachers rested, children eager. There are new textbooks on the shelves, new hardware in the computer labs, perhaps a new menu in the cafeteria.

Some of this year's innovations are even more profound. Hundreds more "charter" schools will open their doors in coming weeks, bringing the total to nearly 2500. In some cities (e.g. Washington, D.C., Kansas City, and Dayton), the charter enrollment approaches 20 percent (though nationally it's still below one percent). Tens of thousands of youngsters are studying in private schools with the help of privately funded voucher programs. More children than ever aren't sitting in school at all; they're being educated at home and by a cluster of high-tech "virtual" schools. More schools than ever are being out-sourced to private management firms, one of which has just been engaged to devise a new master plan for the entire Philadelphia system. "Alternative" teacher certification is spreading as evidence mounts that able liberal arts graduates are at least as effective in the K-12 classroom as those who attended education schools.

In sum, there's lots of reform ferment. And yet we've been reforming U.S. education for at least 18 years-since 1983's "Nation at Risk" report-and have mighty little to show for it. Test scores remain flat at an unacceptably low level. Rich-poor and black-white gaps remain wide. Our international rankings remain stagnant, also at an unacceptably low level. Remediation remains the greatest growth sector in higher education. Employers seeking technical workers continue to look overseas. Many of our new teachers are still drawn from the bottom third of their college classes and a dismayingly large fraction of our children are being "taught" by people who barely studied the subjects they're now responsible for teaching. Yet with all this evidence that our schools aren't producing acceptable results, the Kappan/Gallup survey still reports that 62 percent of parents award "honors" grades to the public schools of their communities.

As if Newton's laws of physics govern education policy, we also find that, for every promising reform, there's an opposite reaction seeking to quash it. Milwaukee's pioneering voucher program barely dodged a legislative bullet this summer. The charter school laws of Ohio and Pennsylvania are under courtroom siege by teacher unions and school board associations-which have a special animus toward "virtual" schools that need fewer conventional teachers. New York's fledgling charter program is paralyzed by election politics. State after state is entrusting teacher certification to "independent" boards run by the ed-school/teachers-union cartel. Chicago's hard-charging school superintendent was dismissed by the mayor-and his counterpart in Los Angeles is faltering even as New York City's businessman-chancellor appears headed for the exit. Many communities face a testing-and-accountability backlash fomented by unions, so-called "testing experts" and affluent parents. President Bush's ambitious "No Child Left Behind" plan to reform federal education policy, though winning plaudits from the public, has had most of its stuffing knocked out by Congress; the testing scheme that survives is imperiled in a conference committee, even as Messrs. Daschle and Kennedy hint that no bill will reach the Oval Office until lots more money gets earmarked for those weary, ineffectual old federal programs.

The reactionaries have even recruited the Public Broadcasting Service, which is greeting the new school year with two documentaries chock full of bad education ideas. One of them profiles a quintet of earnest young teachers during their first year in the classroom. It's quite appealing until you notice that they're never shown imparting academic skills and knowledge to their pupils. Rather, they function as social workers, guidance counselors, prejudice-eradicators and political agitators. There's nary a whiff of science, history, literature or math.

The longer and more troubling film-aired this past Monday and Tuesday-spends four hours persuading viewers that today's public schools are doing pretty much what Thomas Jefferson dreamed of and that those mischievous agitators for standards, testing, choice and competition are bent on destroying the American dream. Perhaps it's only coincidence that the Clinton administration pumped $1.6 million into this documentary project, that the public school establishment is falling over itself to promote it, and that the filmmakers are relatives of former Vice President Fritz Mondale and his brother Mort, the quondam National Education Association official who in the late 1970's helped hold Jimmy Carter to his ill-conceived pledge to create a Cabinet-level education department.

Television documentaries don't set policy but they influence the war of ideas. And as school resumes we do well to recognize that today's crucial education battles are ultimately about ideas. Our readiness to replace bad ones with better ones is the key to real reform. But ideas are Newtonian, too. The resistance to changing them is intense and, so far, at least equal to the push for reform. Five dubious ideas top the list of candidates for replacement.

First, no matter what the Mondales say, we must stop defining public education as a bureaucratic system of government-run schools. Instead, it should mean educating the public: ensuring that all children gain the skills and knowledge they need from whatever sources suit them best, physical or virtual schools, governmental, private, charter, non-profit, for-profit, home or hybrid.

Second, stop assuming that the "experts should be in charge" and acknowledge that key education decisions are best made by parents and public officials such as governors and legislators.

Third, stop insisting that all "qualified" teachers must be ed school graduates "certified" by state bureaucrats; instead let schools hire-and deploy, retain and compensate-anyone who knows the material and is willing to teach it to kids.

Fourth, retire the faux-progressive notion that education's main task is developing children's self-esteem and self-awareness. Affirm instead that the crucial work of teachers and schools is to infuse specific skills and knowledge into their pupils along with good behavior and decent character.

Finally, quit treating "accountability" as a meaningless mantra and start putting it into practice: children who learn what they should get promoted and graduated-and the rest get tutored until they do. Adults who teach them successfully get properly rewarded. Those whose students don't learn find their own lives less pleasant, their pay less generous and their jobs less secure.

Welcome back to school, boys and girls.

A version of this editorial appeared in the September 3, 2001 issue of The Weekly Standard as "PBS Flunks Its Back to School Test."

Montgomery County, Maryland is known for having public schools among the best in the nation, ranking high in test scores and college admissions. But that doesn't mean every school is effective. Especially as the county has become more economically and culturally diverse, its school system has struggled to deal with the challenge of low-performing schools. In six articles spread over two days under the headings "A Growing Divide: Economic Segregation in Montgomery Schools" and "Montgomery Schools Seek a Solution," Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating of The Washington Post explore the ways in which one district is evolving into two separate and unequal school systems, and examine efforts of Montgomery County School superintendent Jerry Weast to combat this tendency.

In a dozen years, the number of schools in the county with more than 40 percent of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch has increased from 6 to nearly 40. In these high-poverty schools, teacher turnover is high, fewer advanced courses are offered, principals find themselves becoming social workers, and test scores lag. Reminiscent of the celebrated Coleman Report of 1966, the Post reporters suggest that the real problem is poor children attending schools with heavy concentrations of other poor children. Analyzing student achievement data, the journalists find that low-income students perform at or above the county average when they attend schools with affluent student bodies (where fewer than 5% of students are poor), but that their scores drop far below the mean when they attend schools where the student body is predominantly poor. On the other hand, Schulte and Keating write, middle class students still "perform well" when they attend high-poverty schools, which "challenges an assumption that has fueled the flight of middle-class parents out of troubled schools." (The data presented in the article tell a somewhat different story, however; wealthy or middle class students enrolled in schools where the student body is more than 25% poor still perform above the county average, but their scores are significantly lower than those of wealthy or middle class students at richer schools.) The reporters profile one poor student who attends an affluent school and one well-off student who attends a high-poverty school to help understand why both youngsters perform well.

An urgent priority for Superintendent Weast is determining how to stem the decline in student performance in a growing number of his schools before it triggers the flight of more middle class families from the public school system itself. The county has doubled the amount targeted to help troubled schools, spending $60 million in the last five years and budgeting as much as $3000 more per pupil at high-poverty schools, but so far has little to show for the effort, as the performance gap between poor and affluent schools has continued to widen. While some school systems (such as San Francisco, Wake County, N.C., and La Crosse, Wis.) have attempted to integrate schools based on economic status, a proposal that appeals to the Post reporters, redrawing school boundaries is understood to be an option that would not be tolerated by wealthier parents in Montgomery County. A "controlled choice" program-in which the boundaries among three high schools were erased, each school was given a special theme, and families were allowed to choose among them-was introduced in one struggling corner of the county and this has produced economic and racial diversity in the three schools as well as a rise in test scores.

Montgomery County is struggling to address the challenges faced by its high-poverty schools without sacrificing the qualities that make many other county schools attractive to middle class parents. Given the importance of solving this dilemma, it's hard to understand why school leaders haven't been more willing to look "outside the box" for strategies to narrow the achievement gap. The Montgomery County school board has already rejected a proposal from some county teachers who would like to create a small charter high school with an International Baccalaureate program aimed at black and Hispanic students (and it is likely to reject a reformulated proposal sometime soon, according to an article in Tuesday's Post). Another possibility, offering incentives for outstanding teachers to transfer to low-performing schools-and assigning these teachers to struggling students in those schools-might not go over well with the county teacher union, but it is a promising strategy for narrowing the gap between rich and poor schools since research suggests that teacher quality is the single most important school factor in explaining student achievement. Being serious about reform means widening the search for solutions beyond timeworn ideas like spending more money and moving students around to make schools less segregated; it may even be necessary to consider proposals that step on the toes of some people in the school system itself.

Sunday, September 2:
"Pupils' Poverty Drives Achievement Gap," by Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27602-2001Aug31.html

"Amid Affluence, Poorer Students Rise to Challenge," by Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27610-2001Aug31.html

"'Gifted' Grow Even in Weak Schools," by Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27607-2001Aug31.html

"Language Problem Masks True Roots of Low Grades," by Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27612-2001Aug31.html

Monday, September 3 "Closing Student Gap Opens Door to Conflict," by Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/education/A33612-2001Sep2.html

"High Praise for School-Choice Test," by Brigid Schulte and Dan Keating,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/education/A33781-2001Sep2.html

Tuesday, September 4
"A Good Idea Whose Time May Never Come," by Marc Fisher,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/metro/columns/fishermarc/A37355-2001Sep3.html

All articles appeared in The Washington Post.

Henry Levin's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based at Teachers College, Columbia University, hasn't always done important and well-balanced work, but it's certainly been prolific. What's more, several of the recent "occasional papers" now available on its burgeoning website strike us as worth knowing about, maybe even reading.

• Can Public Policy Affect Private School Cream-Skimming? Despite its "have you stopped beating your wife" title, this is an interesting analysis (I can't tell you how long because the pages aren't numbered but it feels like about 40) by economists David Figlio (University of Florida) and Joe Stone (University of Oregon). Using what they describe as a "unique" data set-from the National Education Longitudinal Survey-they conclude that a wide array of public policies influences who ends up going to private (and, for that matter, public) schools in a given community. This naturally leads to wide-ranging policy implications. For example, say the authors, "fighting crime successfully and lowering the violent crime rate will likely improve the ability of public schools to retain higher socio-economic status and ability students and lessen the disparity in peer groups between the public and private sectors." Some of us might think this obvious. But it's good to have empirical analysis to buttress a normal human impulse: the instinct of parents to weigh a variety of environmental, economic, contextual and educational factors in choosing a school for their child. To the extent that policy makers want to affect school choices, therefore, they are well advised to understand how many different polices bear on those decisions. (Occasional paper #31.)
• Tuition Tax Credits: What do we know so far? British economist (and University of South Carolina business school professor) Clive Belfield has penned a short (12 page) paper on the economics of tuition tax credits, a topic that hasn't elicited much research, though such credits are on the books in (Belfield says) five states. Here he reviews what evidence he could lay his hands on and supplies some added analysis. Some of his conclusions will be more pleasing to tax-credit advocates than others. Using a "comprehensive" framework, he finds some important positives (e.g. enhanced freedom, greater efficiency) as well as negatives (greater segregation, diminished social cohesion). The purely economic analysis is largely negative. The author also seems quite off base in his explanation of the role of tax credits in the pending federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act amendments. He seems to think they're there. I certainly can't find them! (Occasional paper #33.)
• The Effects of Catholic Schools on Religiosity, Education, and Competition. Despite its mega-title, this is just a 38-page paper, written by DePaul economist William Sander (no, not the statistician Bill Sanders). In this domain, of course, there's been much previous research. Sander pokes into some of it and does some data analysis of his own, again using the Privatization Center's four "comprehensive" criteria for evaluating private schools and programs: freedom of choice, efficiency, equity and social cohesion. (This paper doesn't actually tackle the fourth of these.) Catholic schools, in Sander's analysis, fare well on freedom and reasonably well on equity, due to their positive effects on low income and minority students. His analysis of their "productive efficiency" leads to what he terms a "mixed" finding. I don't find that part of the paper very persuasive or thorough, however. Have a look for yourself, but be warned that it's fairly technical. (Occasional paper #32.)

Papers are available from the website of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at http://www.ncspe.org/ (click on "Occasional Papers" for a list of titles). The Center can also be reached at 212-678-3259.

Education Commission of the States
June 2001

Although it's accepted with little question in many other lines of work, in education there's much resistance to compensating people based on their job performance. As bullets whiz overhead, however, some states and districts are implementing performance-pay plans in an effort to jumpstart pupil achievement and halt the stream of top-notch teachers exiting the classroom for greener employment pastures. Earlier this year, the Education Commission of the States assembled representatives from five leading pay-for-performance locales-Cincinnati; Denver; Douglas County, CO; Iowa; and the Milken Family Foundation's Teacher Advancement Program (in Arizona)-to pool their insights and determine what lessons their experiences could yield for other states and districts. A recent ECS Issue Paper offers an overview of the meeting's findings, including an explanation of key issues involved in implementing performance-based pay in schools, a summary of questions policymakers ought to consider, a brief discussion of lessons learned (even though some programs have yet to become operational), a chart comparing the five programs, a summary of each program's structure, and a reference guide. The paper doesn't hold any surprises, but it does present a sound, if cursory, treatment of a nettlesome issue. It's available at http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/28/30/2830.htm or by contacting ECS at 707 17th Street, Suite 2700, Denver, CO 80202-3427; 303-299-3600; fax 303-296-8332.

Patrick J. Wolf, Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West
August 2001

One of the many questionable arguments made against school vouchers is that public schools produce better and more open-minded citizens than private schools. A new study by Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance and Georgetown's Public Policy Institute reveals that low-income District of Columbia students attending private schools with the help of vouchers are more politically tolerant than their peers in public schools. According to lead author Patrick Wolf, this remarkable finding cannot be attributed to students' backgrounds, which were similar for all who were surveyed. (The comparison groups were assigned by lottery.) Students were asked, for example, if they would allow members of groups they found objectionable to live in their neighborhood, give a speech, or run for president. In all instances, more private than public school students said yes. The study also examined parent satisfaction with their children's schools. Here, too, private schools are doing a better job: 81% percent of parents gave their child's private school an "A" or a "B," compared to 60% of public school parents. Other subjects covered in the survey include school discipline, homework and satisfaction with teachers. Add these results to earlier research showing that D.C.'s African-American voucher students achieve at higher academic levels than their public school peers, and it would seem that the arguments against school choice grow ever shakier. To read the new study, surf to http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg and click on "Research Papers."