The Education Gadfly Weekly

Guilbert C. Hentschke, Scot Oschman and Lisa Snell, Reason Public Policy Institute
May 2002

Former U.S.C education dean Guilbert C. Hentschke and two colleagues penned this "policy brief," reviewing key aspects of the growth of "EMO's," notably the political barriers they face, their comparative advantage, their "complementarities" with school systems, conditions affecting their future growth, and how to contract with them. The appendix offers a list of selected EMO's. You can download the PDF version at http://www.rppi.org/pb21.pdf.

Institute for Education and Social Policy, Steinhardt School of Education, New York University
December 2001

New York University's Institute for Education and Social Policy prepared this five-year report on the Annenberg Challenge in New York, to which it gives high marks. The study finds somewhat stronger attendance in the Annenberg-aided schools than in regular New York City public schools serving similar youngsters; slightly more stable enrollments; a smaller fraction of ESL and special ed students in the Annenberg schools; significantly smaller schools and less experienced teachers (bear in mind, though, that the Annenberg Challenge in New York focused on starting and supporting networks of small new schools); a mixed picture with respect to test scores (better than comparison schools but still below the citywide average, which itself is notably weak); and another mixed picture with regard to school completion and graduation rates. The authors work hard to declare the Annenberg-assisted schools a success. They only succeed moderately well in making this case. Their bullish findings are somewhat more persuasive concerning qualitative and process indicators such as school climate, curricular focus and individualized attention. You can see for yourself by downloading the PDF version from http://www.nyu.edu/iesp/publications/reports/NYNSRFinalReport.PDF. Interested readers may also want to reacquaint themselves with Ray Domanico's examination of the Annenberg Challenge program in New York City, prepared for this foundation and available at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=41.

Debora Scheffel, Colorado Department of Education
March 2002

The Colorado Department of Education recently released this 50-page study by Debora Scheffel of the University of Northern Colorado, based on a survey of district special-ed directors and charter-school administrators regarding services for disabled youngsters attending Colorado charters. It indicates that the number and proportion of such youngsters is rising, that this is "causing an increasing strain on both the charter schools and the support provided by the districts." This argues for finding ways of addressing "issues which impede a collaborative and enabling relationship between charter schools and school districts so that the needs of students with disabilities can be adequately met." As you may know, Colorado charters are all sponsored by their local districts, so they find themselves working together-or at loggerheads-more than in most states. For delivering and paying for special ed services, it's common in Colorado to use an "insurance model wherein [charters] pay a flat rate to the district for provision of specific services to their students with disabilities." This seems to work well from the district perspective but far less so from the charter-school viewpoint. Only ten percent of charter heads report a "positive relationship" with their district-though 70% of district special ed directors are satisfied. The author finds a major lack of awareness of each other's perspective. She goes on to make recommendations, mostly predictable. It's not a riveting report but is pertinent to those seeking better information on the relationships between charter schools and special ed and ways that districts can help meet these kids' needs. You can find it on the web (in PDF format) at http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdechart/download/charterSpedreport.pdf. Also available (and possibly relevant to school system and charter people in other states) is Laura Freppel's "Special Education Guide for Colorado School Administrators," which you can order from http://www.webbookstore.net/.

Forum for the American School Superintendent
January 2002

There is a deepening shortage of strong principals and superintendents in American public education, especially those willing to work in urban and rural schools. It is well established that good schools have good principals, and effective school districts have first-rate superintendents. Hence a growing coalition is forming around the effort to improve school leadership. The "Statement of the Wingspread Coalition" is an effort by the Danforth and Johnson foundations, partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, to spotlight the need to improve the quality of school leaders in the United States. Leaders from these philanthropic organizations gathered in October 2001 with superintendents and principals at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, to define a new grantmaking agenda in this area, one based on the premises that school leaders are learners; that effective leaders are made, not born; and that therefore they can be developed and improved. To these ends, the coalition coalesced around five ideas. They are:

• Urban Schools Leadership Roundtable-to improve big-city schools. The Coalition wants to develop a roundtable that will work to improve education in the nation's 100 largest school districts. (Presumably they know to seek out the Council of the Great City Schools-a coalition of nearly 60 of the nation's largest urban public school systems founded in 1956 to improve urban education.)
  
• Presidential Commission or Conference on School Leadership-to develop future leaders. The Coalition urges the President to use his "bully pulpit" to elevate national consciousness around today's shortages of teachers, principals, principals, and superintendents, etc.
  
• Leaders as Learners. The Coalition calls for helping current superintendents and principals reshape their responsibilities from management and administration to transformational leadership of learning organizations.
  
• New Thinking for New Times. The Coalition seeks "break the mold" thinking about the leadership and direction of schools. (It does not, however, advocate opening the leadership ranks to non-traditional candidates from corporate, nonprofit, military and business backgrounds. This seems a wasted opportunity.)
• A Forum on Race, Class and Gender-to develop a sense of urgency about continuing inequities.

If this report is seen as part of a larger dialogue that seeks to include other ideas and partners, then it is a useful piece of a greater enterprise. Taken alone, it's too limited in depth and scope to have much impact. To get a copy, contact The Forum for the American School Superintendent at [email protected] or call 206-526-5336.—Terry Ryan

Michael R. Sandler, Education Industry Leadership Board
April 2002

Michael R. Sandler, who heads EduVentures, wrote this "white paper" reviewing the first decade of the "education industry" (the burgeoning for-profit sector of K-12 education) for a group called the Education Industry Leadership Board, which he also chairs. In a dozen pages, it offers a nice, quick tour of this fast-changing sector of the education cosmos. For copies of the paper, e-mail [email protected] and request a PDF copy. The paper will be online at www.aepp.org next week. - Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Last week, the Department of Education released the most recent batch of scores on the NAEP history exam, and the results for 12th graders were abysmal. Once you learn a little about the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS), the 26,000 member organization of teachers of history, geography, political science, economics, sociology, and psychology, you may not be surprised that history scores are so bad. In the May 6 issue of The Weekly Standard, Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute takes a look at what the NCSS and its members-the professionals who are in charge of turning the nation's young into effective citizens-have had to say about citizenship since September 11 and over the past decade. After the attacks, the NCSS magazine warned that they would provide the excuse Americans wanted to indulge their reflexive racism and revenge-oriented ideology. But the deep cynicism of the NCSS about America is nothing new. For the most part, the NCSS aims to "de-exceptionalize" both America and the Western world as a whole ("We're just another country and another group of people") and to help students think of themselves not as Americans but as members of the global community. The curriculum standards that NCSS promulgated for social studies in 1994 include a list of performance expectations that cover culture, economics, technology, "continuity and change," and personal identity, but no American history, no major documents, and only a smattering of references to government at all, writes Hymowitz. Many states have embraced the NCSS idea that you don't need to know any American history to be an effective citizen, and use the NCSS curricular guidelines as the model for their state social studies standards. NCSS theoreticians reject the notion of America's Founders that self-governing citizens must learn their country's Constitution and political history well, for only those who understand their country would love it, and only those who love it would be willing to undertake the work and sacrifice to sustain it, Hymowitz writes. "Anti-Social Studies," by Kay Hymowitz, The Weekly Standard, May 6, 2002 (subscribers only)

According to an article in Sunday's Washington Post, advisers to President Bush are developing a package of policies to boost civics education in the United States in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. The ideas they're considering include federal incentives to states to adopt civics education classes in public schools, expansion of "service learning" classes that give credit for community volunteer work, drafting of a civics curriculum, and the use of the presidential bully pulpit. From the 1920s to the 1960s, at least half of American high school students took civics classes, but by 1994, that number had fallen to 10 percent as civics education was replaced by government classes that do not deal with citizens' involvement. "Revival in Civics Education is Explored," by Dana Milbank, The Washington Post, May 12, 2002

Anyone looking for resources that can be used to teach history and geography in grades K-6 should take a look at a fine new series of books developed by the Core Knowledge Foundation to supplement or supplant ordinary textbooks. At the first grade level, teachers (or parents) can choose from slim, colorful books on Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt, Three World Religions, Mexico Today, Early Civilizations of the Americas, Early Explorers and Settlers, From Colonies to Independence, and Exploring the West; at the fourth grade level, the offerings, which are equally engaging but even more packed with content, include Using Maps, World Mountains, Europe in the Middle Ages, The Spread of Islam, African Kingdoms, Dynasties of China, The American Revolution, The United States Constitution, Early Presidents: Washington through Jackson, and American Reformers. There are other selections for all grades from K-6. For more information, contact E.D. Hirsch at [email protected], Pearson learning at 1-800-321-3106, or surf to http://www.pearsonlearning.com/plearn/html/cat_progseries.cfm?sub_id=S7&grade=-1,12&prog_id=88362005&area_id=A228.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires school districts to allow children in persistently failing schools to transfer to better (public) schools and to pay the transportation costs for those students to reach their new schools. For thousands of schools, that provision takes effect in September. Well-run districts are already developing plans for complying with this provision but in the process they're encountering two issues they've thus far managed to avoid: integration and competition. Both issues are being played out in Montgomery County, Maryland, an enormous school district in the suburbs of Washington, DC which includes some of the nation's most exclusive zip codes as well as more diverse urban areas, a district that has lately been struggling with its own widening achievement gap.

The Montgomery County school system has developed a plan that gives parents in 10 faltering schools the ability to transfer their children to affluent, high-achieving schools that are nearby and have room for more students. The reactions to this plan have been telling. Some parents whose children attend the high-achieving schools are bristling at the news that students from other neighborhoods might be bused in, according to Washington Post reporter Brigid Schulte. The vice president of the school board commented that "I hate to think people are socioeconomically biased, but I think there is some prejudice in this county." School staff seem more optimistic. One principal whose school has been designated to take about 45 transfers said that teachers were concerned about how it might affect their test scores, although generally upbeat and feeling up to the challenge of the new students. Meanwhile, Superintendent Jerry Weast, who has been pumping millions of dollars into the failing schools in an attempt to turn them around, is doing his best to convince parents to keep their kids in those schools. But not everyone in the district seems convinced that giving parents the ability to send their children to the best possible school should be the goal, whatever the federal law says. One board member complained "With the amount of money we're putting into those schools, we shouldn't have to be moving kids around." Whether parents will prefer to keep their children in the low-achieving schools, some of which have such bells and whistles as health clinics, after-school programs, and adult literacy classes, or send their kids to the higher-achieving school up the road, is yet to be seen.

"Educators Prepare, Worry over Effect of Transfer Law," by Brigid Schulte, The Washington Post, May 13, 2002

"For Pupils, A Chance to Transfer Up," by Brigid Schulte, The Washington Post, May 10, 2002

The miserable failure of most states to implement the requirements of the 1994 federal education amendments in timely fashion had already cast a veil of doubt over the prospects for No Child Left Behind: the stark fact that states don't necessarily make the changes that Washington expects of them-and then get away with it.

But what happens when states do comply with the formal requirements of federal legislation, yet do so in such a way that they defeat its main purpose?

No Child Left Behind allows for that possibility, via one of its central "federalism" features: the expectation that every state will set its own standards and (with Washington's approval) select and score and report the results of its own tests. The only uniform requirement is that every state has the same twelve years to get all its pupils up to the level that it designates as "proficient."

Many have noted that this arrangement could easily encourage low standards, i.e. that a state with lower standards has a better chance of making "adequate yearly progress" toward, and getting everybody up to, those standards within the prescribed dozen years than a state with loftier standards. It's obvious: if you set the bar lower, more people will successfully jump over it without having to struggle very hard.

But what, exactly, does "low standards" mean and by what mechanisms could a state, intentionally or inadvertently, end up with them? Who would know that this was occurring? How could one tell?

It turns out that education bars can be set low via more mechanisms than you might suppose-and that it's not always easy to know when this is happening. I can think of four ways that state standards might end up being low in practice, yet only one of these will be readily apparent to outsiders unless the state discloses complete information about its tests, what's on them, what the actual test questions are, how they're scored and how a student's or school's performance is calculated. (And, of course, unless someone closely analyzes the information that the state makes available.) Note that three of these four paths to low standards involve tests as well as academic standards, and be aware that tests (and their scoring) are usually far more elusive than the standards themselves in the eyes of outside analysts and whistle blowers. Many states simply don't release them, or release only portions of them, or release the tests but not the scoring information.

Here are the four ways:

First and most obvious, the published academic standards are themselves undemanding. Their content is easy. They expect little by way of skills and knowledge from students at various grade levels. Third grade math standards, for example, are limited to addition and subtraction, not multiplication and division. When multiplication is reached, only one or two digit numbers must be multiplied. Fractions are never complex, numbers never irrational. On the English standards, sentences are never compound, adjectives and adverbs never need to be distinguished, reading passages are simple, words are short. Precisely because this version of low standards is so apparent to anyone who looks-the standards, typically, are posted on the Internet-and because various organizations (e.g. the American Federation of Teachers, from time to time the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation) know how to find and appraise them, states may be too shrewd to follow this path.

Second, though the standards cover the full spectrum of skills and knowledge that well-educated students should possess, the tests focus on the easy end of that spectrum. In other words, they're poorly aligned with the standards, and the mis-match leads to an over-concentration on the more basic skills and rudimentary knowledge. Thus, for example, the posted math standards for 8th grade include algebra yet most of the test questions deal with arithmetic. This means one could do well on the test without knowing algebra. The English standards may expect students to explain the plot of a work of fiction, but the reading passages on the test are pegged at the level of Harry Potter rather than Lord of the Flies. Nor would anyone know this unless they could inspect the actual test items-all of them, or at least a representative sampling, not just a handful that the state selects for release.

Third, the test is nicely aligned with the standards and the questions thus "cover" the right skills and content, but the individual test items are easy to answer correctly. If they're multiple-choice questions, the "distractors" are ridiculous, making even a weak student more likely to select the correct response. If they're "open response" items, the "scoring rubric" is simplistic, such that a student can receive full credit for a superficial answer. (For example, he explains that the Constitution establishes our framework for government but says nothing about its key principles and provisions.) If a state (or its testing contractor) used this ploy, it would be hard for outsiders to detect unless they had access both to the test questions (and possible answers) AND the scoring rubrics.

Fourth, the state's standards are solid, the tests are properly aligned with them and the questions are suitably challenging-but the "cut score" is set low. A student might, for example, have to answer only half the questions correctly to be said to have "passed" the test-and those could be the easier half of the questions dealing with the easier half of the standards. (A variant: the "proficiency" score for individuals is appropriate, but only a smallish fraction of the kids in a school-or demographic subgroup-needs to attain that score for the larger unit to be deemed to meet the standards.) This gambit would only be visible if one had access to information about passing scores and how they're calculated for individuals, schools and groups, and that information would be truly helpful only if one also could inspect the test items and scoring guides (and could "map" them onto the state's academic standards).

How to guard against such eventualities leading to a cheapening of standards and evasion of the point of NCLB? One might trust the state and its testing contractors to do the right thing, although in a high-stakes era, when political reputations (and future contracts) hinge on these results, that would seem risky. One could replace state-determined standards and tests with a single national set-but in the present political context that seems entirely unthinkable and many believe it's undesirable. One can wait for NAEP, in its new role as external auditor of state academic performance, to reveal discrepancies and then poke around for explanations in individual states-but that'll take quite a while, and NAEP has its own vulnerabilities, which may be compounded by the pending NAEP-OERI reauthorization. Or one can rely on sunlight and external scrutiny of state standards and tests, but that is realistic only if the state accountability system is highly transparent, if tests are fully released (which is costly), if scoring guides and rubrics are in the public domain, and if outside groups know how to monitor all these moving parts and make sense of how they fit together.

Not a reassuring picture, eh?

Please suggest additional solutions-and help us alert Gadfly readers to other ways of manipulating the system, frustrating the honorable goal of leaving no child behind and, thereby, continuing to leave millions of young Americans at risk. We will consider for publication in this space any cogent and well-written submissions.

Debora Scheffel, Colorado Department of Education
March 2002

The Colorado Department of Education recently released this 50-page study by Debora Scheffel of the University of Northern Colorado, based on a survey of district special-ed directors and charter-school administrators regarding services for disabled youngsters attending Colorado charters. It indicates that the number and proportion of such youngsters is rising, that this is "causing an increasing strain on both the charter schools and the support provided by the districts." This argues for finding ways of addressing "issues which impede a collaborative and enabling relationship between charter schools and school districts so that the needs of students with disabilities can be adequately met." As you may know, Colorado charters are all sponsored by their local districts, so they find themselves working together-or at loggerheads-more than in most states. For delivering and paying for special ed services, it's common in Colorado to use an "insurance model wherein [charters] pay a flat rate to the district for provision of specific services to their students with disabilities." This seems to work well from the district perspective but far less so from the charter-school viewpoint. Only ten percent of charter heads report a "positive relationship" with their district-though 70% of district special ed directors are satisfied. The author finds a major lack of awareness of each other's perspective. She goes on to make recommendations, mostly predictable. It's not a riveting report but is pertinent to those seeking better information on the relationships between charter schools and special ed and ways that districts can help meet these kids' needs. You can find it on the web (in PDF format) at http://www.cde.state.co.us/cdechart/download/charterSpedreport.pdf. Also available (and possibly relevant to school system and charter people in other states) is Laura Freppel's "Special Education Guide for Colorado School Administrators," which you can order from http://www.webbookstore.net/.

Forum for the American School Superintendent
January 2002

There is a deepening shortage of strong principals and superintendents in American public education, especially those willing to work in urban and rural schools. It is well established that good schools have good principals, and effective school districts have first-rate superintendents. Hence a growing coalition is forming around the effort to improve school leadership. The "Statement of the Wingspread Coalition" is an effort by the Danforth and Johnson foundations, partnered with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds, to spotlight the need to improve the quality of school leaders in the United States. Leaders from these philanthropic organizations gathered in October 2001 with superintendents and principals at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, to define a new grantmaking agenda in this area, one based on the premises that school leaders are learners; that effective leaders are made, not born; and that therefore they can be developed and improved. To these ends, the coalition coalesced around five ideas. They are:

• Urban Schools Leadership Roundtable-to improve big-city schools. The Coalition wants to develop a roundtable that will work to improve education in the nation's 100 largest school districts. (Presumably they know to seek out the Council of the Great City Schools-a coalition of nearly 60 of the nation's largest urban public school systems founded in 1956 to improve urban education.)
  
• Presidential Commission or Conference on School Leadership-to develop future leaders. The Coalition urges the President to use his "bully pulpit" to elevate national consciousness around today's shortages of teachers, principals, principals, and superintendents, etc.
  
• Leaders as Learners. The Coalition calls for helping current superintendents and principals reshape their responsibilities from management and administration to transformational leadership of learning organizations.
  
• New Thinking for New Times. The Coalition seeks "break the mold" thinking about the leadership and direction of schools. (It does not, however, advocate opening the leadership ranks to non-traditional candidates from corporate, nonprofit, military and business backgrounds. This seems a wasted opportunity.)
• A Forum on Race, Class and Gender-to develop a sense of urgency about continuing inequities.

If this report is seen as part of a larger dialogue that seeks to include other ideas and partners, then it is a useful piece of a greater enterprise. Taken alone, it's too limited in depth and scope to have much impact. To get a copy, contact The Forum for the American School Superintendent at [email protected] or call 206-526-5336.—Terry Ryan

Guilbert C. Hentschke, Scot Oschman and Lisa Snell, Reason Public Policy Institute
May 2002

Former U.S.C education dean Guilbert C. Hentschke and two colleagues penned this "policy brief," reviewing key aspects of the growth of "EMO's," notably the political barriers they face, their comparative advantage, their "complementarities" with school systems, conditions affecting their future growth, and how to contract with them. The appendix offers a list of selected EMO's. You can download the PDF version at http://www.rppi.org/pb21.pdf.

Institute for Education and Social Policy, Steinhardt School of Education, New York University
December 2001

New York University's Institute for Education and Social Policy prepared this five-year report on the Annenberg Challenge in New York, to which it gives high marks. The study finds somewhat stronger attendance in the Annenberg-aided schools than in regular New York City public schools serving similar youngsters; slightly more stable enrollments; a smaller fraction of ESL and special ed students in the Annenberg schools; significantly smaller schools and less experienced teachers (bear in mind, though, that the Annenberg Challenge in New York focused on starting and supporting networks of small new schools); a mixed picture with respect to test scores (better than comparison schools but still below the citywide average, which itself is notably weak); and another mixed picture with regard to school completion and graduation rates. The authors work hard to declare the Annenberg-assisted schools a success. They only succeed moderately well in making this case. Their bullish findings are somewhat more persuasive concerning qualitative and process indicators such as school climate, curricular focus and individualized attention. You can see for yourself by downloading the PDF version from http://www.nyu.edu/iesp/publications/reports/NYNSRFinalReport.PDF. Interested readers may also want to reacquaint themselves with Ray Domanico's examination of the Annenberg Challenge program in New York City, prepared for this foundation and available at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=41.

Michael R. Sandler, Education Industry Leadership Board
April 2002

Michael R. Sandler, who heads EduVentures, wrote this "white paper" reviewing the first decade of the "education industry" (the burgeoning for-profit sector of K-12 education) for a group called the Education Industry Leadership Board, which he also chairs. In a dozen pages, it offers a nice, quick tour of this fast-changing sector of the education cosmos. For copies of the paper, e-mail [email protected] and request a PDF copy. The paper will be online at www.aepp.org next week. - Chester E. Finn, Jr.