The Education Gadfly Weekly

With renewed attention being paid to college and career readiness, many wonder whether career and technical (CTE) courses—formerly known as vocational ed—enhance academic achievement. Using the Educational Longitudinal Study (or ELS) for students attending high school from the 2000–01 to 2003–04 school years (prior to the passage of the latest Perkins reauthorization, the federal program that funds career tech), this new report from RAND and RTI examines the relationship between CTE courses and math achievement. After controlling for selection bias as well as possible, the authors look at both the effect on math achievement for each additional CTE course taken in high school and whether having a higher balance of CTE courses relative to academic courses increases math achievement. The top three findings: First, exposure to CTE is common, with 64 percent of students earning at least two CTE credits and 43 percent earning three or more. Second, the total number of CTE courses taken is unrelated to the number of questions answered correctly on the math assessment, but the more CTE courses one takes, the lower one’s gains at the most advanced levels. And third, all else equal, those who take a mix of CTE and academic courses, those who take mostly CTE courses, and those who take mostly academic courses all have similar predicted scores. In other words, learning gains in math are not compromised when CTE courses are taken at the expense of academic courses. Of course, we must bear in mind that students who take mostly CTE courses tend to be lower achieving—but that’s attributable not to the courses but to the characteristics of those students. In short, CTE courses do no harm—but then again, they do not bolster achievement either.

SOURCE: Robert Bozick and Benjamin Dalton, “Balancing Career and Technical Education with Academic Coursework: The Consequences for Mathematics Achievement in High School,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 35 (2): 123–38.

In 1958, over 18,000 U.K. infants (including nearly 1,000 immigrants) joined the National Child Development Study—a longitudinal, population-representative survey. For this study, researchers tracked these youngsters through to age forty-two to determine whether childhood reading and math skills (at age seven) predicted adult socioeconomic success. The initial finding is a nothingburger: “Mathematics and reading ability both had substantial positive associations with adult [socioeconomic status].” But look a little closer! The correlations between adult SES and childhood reading and math know-how were greater than those between adult SES and one’s economic status at birth or one’s intelligence (as measured at age eleven). The methods are weedy but the message is clear and hopeful—socioeconomic status in childhood plays a role in students’ future level of success. But school-based knowledge matters more.

SOURCE: Stuart J. Ritchie and Timothy C. Bates, “Enduring Links From Childhood Mathematics and Reading Achievement to Adult Socioeconomic Status,” Psychological Science 24(5): (May 2013).

Can wonky Mike and data-loving Dara come to an agreement on Texas’s education reforms, Illinois’s rebuff of online learning, and a moratorium on Common Core–related stakes? Amber joins the number-cruncher brigade with a study on the effect of career and technical education on math achievement.

Amber's Research Minute

“Balancing Career and Technicial Education with Academic Coursework: The Consequences for Mathematics Achievement in High School,” by Robert Bozick and Benjamin Dalton, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

In an educational climate consumed with leaving no child behind and closing achievement gaps, America's highest performing and most promising students have too often been neglected. Our nation's persistent inability to cultivate our high-potential youth—especially tomorrow's leaders in science, technology, entrepreneurship, and other sectors that bear on our long-term prosperity and well-being—poses a critical threat to American competitiveness. EXAM SCHOOLS: Inside America's Most Selective Public High Schools, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Jessica A. Hockett, presents a pioneering examination of our nation's most esteemed and selective public high schools—academic institutions committed exclusively to preparing America's best and brightest for college and beyond.

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Buy Exam Schools from Princeton University Press

This article originally appeared on Education Week’s Bridging Differences blog, where Mike Petrilli will be debating Deborah Meier through mid-June.

I want to say more about a topic that interests us both: how to create an accountability system that empowers excellent educators to create top-notch schools while ensuring a basic level of quality for everyone.

It's a real dilemma, because what might work in a hothouse setting (especially lots of professional autonomy) has tended to disappoint when taken to scale.

That's not easy for me to admit. My first education enthusiasm was the notion of autonomy and uber-local control, as epitomized in Chicago's "local school councils" of the early 1990s. I wrote my college thesis on the topic (with the help of the University of Michigan's great David Cohen), and came away convinced that educator autonomy, plus parental choice, would lead us to the Promised Land. (Professor Cohen knew better!)

A few years later, I landed at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, where we embraced the "let a thousand flowers bloom" mantra of the early charter schools movement. I helped plant a few of said flowers in our hometown of Dayton, Ohio—flowers that turned out to be, err, more like skunk cabbage.

It was a disaster. Well, not a total disaster. A few of those charter schools (in Ohio and elsewhere) turned out to be quite good. KIPP. Amistad Academy. The Met. High Tech High.

But many, many more turned out mediocre, or worse.

What was the problem? We'd cleared away the soul-sucking union contracts and much of the mindless bureaucracy. We'd empowered educators to do their thing and let the magic happen. Yet many flopped.

It wasn't just the test scores—though those were often pretty pitiful. Anyone who visited the schools could see with their own eyes that there wasn't much  there—the curriculum (if they had one) was disorganized or incoherent, the teaching was inconsistent (at best) and nonexistent (at worse), the culture was weak. The schools were often small, safe, and welcoming—virtues, all—but you couldn't say much more about them without wanting to cry.

This period of the charter movement yielded difficult lessons—but exactly what lessons is still up for debate. Did it just show that nothing works—that poverty is too much of a barrier for anyone to overcome? (Most of these early charters were serving overwhelmingly poor students.) Were the charters simply underfunded—money matters after all!—and just needed more resources to succeed? Did it prove that "decentralization" and "professional autonomy" are misguided—and that what we need is more centralization and control, like some systems overseas?

My own take is that freedom—for educators to do their work and for parents to choose an environment that's right for their children—is necessary, but not sufficient, for the creation of excellent schools. That it's "necessary" is obvious by looking at what happens in highly controlled, regimented systems in the United States or around the world. These systems can bring a certain degree of quality control to the task and make sure that outright failures (educational, fiscal, or otherwise) don't happen. But it's hard to find an "excellent" school in a command-and-control system. That's because of a simple fact of human psychology: We hate being told what to do.

But removing all strings isn't sufficient to get you excellence, either. You can't just empower anyone—you have to empower a team of people who actually know what they are doing. And these people, collectively, must have the capacity to run a great school. They need to have a coherent pedagogical vision, know how to build a curriculum, know how to create a positive school culture, know how to build and follow a sensible budget, know how to put reasonable "internal controls" in place, know how to recruit a great staff, and on and on. These people, it turns out, are scarcer than I had realized at age twenty-two.

And then you have to hold these schools accountable for getting strong results with kids. That brings us back to the question of measurements. I think the charter movement had it right from the get-go: Each school would have its own "charter" spelling out the results that it would be responsible for achieving, and these metrics could be customized to the school. More traditional schools might have been happy to use test scores, but more progressive ones might use something else—say, their graduates' success at the next level of schooling. (Deborah, how do you think about this for a school like Mission Hill, whose test scores are pretty mediocre? Is it how well their students do in high school?)

Then came the modern standards-testing-accountability movement with its emphasis on uniform achievement measures, culminating in No Child Left Behind. Here those of us in the charter movement made a mistake. We quickly agreed to be part of the "same accountability system" as other public schools, which meant that those customized "charters" mostly went out the window; the measures that mattered were the test scores and nothing but. We did this for understandable and strategic reasons—imagine the outcry from charter opponents if charters didn't have to sweat the tests!—but it was a step backward nonetheless. And it led, predictably, to less pedagogical diversity in the charter movement, which came to be increasingly dominated by "traditional" models of schools.

So now what? Let me make a modest proposal for how to design an accountability system going forward; I think you might actually like it!

1. First, as the default system, we keep something like we have today, but with better standards and tests. (Yes, Common Core standards and tests.) Students are tested annually. Schools are held accountable for making solid progress from September to June, with greater progress expected for students who are further behind. States and districts give these schools lots of assistance—with curriculum development, teacher training, and the like. Such a default system won't lead to widespread excellence, but it will continue to raise the floor so that the "typical" school in America becomes better than it is today. (NB: I'd scrap any state-prescribed "accountability" below the level of the school. In other words, no more rigid teacher-evaluation systems; leave personnel issues to the principals.) And it would provide taxpayers an assurance that they are getting a "public good" from their investment in public education (namely, a reasonably educated citizenry).
2. Then we offer all public schools—district and charter—an opt-out alternative. They can propose to the state or its surrogate that they be held accountable to a different set of measures. My preferences would be those related to the long-term success of their graduates. School "inspections" could be part of the picture, too. These evaluation metrics would be rigorous but designed to be supportive of, rather than oppositional to, the cause of excellent schools. And they might be particularly important to educators of a more progressive, anti-testing bent.

How about it, Deborah? The "default" system would keep schools from being bad, and might even help most schools be good. And the "alternative" system would unleash our best educators to go for great.

Deal?

Mike

When Jessica Hockett and I embarked upon the Fordham-Hoover study that gave rise to our recent book Exam Schools, we predicted that the touchiest issue in the realm of selective-admission public schools would turn out to be how, exactly, they choose their pupils.

We were right. This also turned out to be the aspect of these schools that was hardest for outsiders to get a handle on. In some cases, the admissions process is truly Byzantine. In some, it’s partly or totally out of the hands of the school itself. It takes many different forms, from strict adherence to rank-ordered scores on a single test to multi-dimensional and holistic evaluations akin to those practiced by selective private colleges.

As I talk with more people who are smack in the middle of this, it’s becoming clear to me that—to put it bluntly—you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, at least in situations where swarms of qualified kids vastly outnumber the openings at your school.

The school heads understand this full well and are frustrated by the impossible choice it places before them (and whoever else makes such decisions for their schools).

Straight-out test-based admission gives rise to two undesirable situations:

• Without a lot of affirmative-action-style manipulation (of the kind the Supreme Court has vetoed), it almost never yields a pupil population that demographically resembles the catchment zone from which it draws students. This is most evident in high-profile, high-demand schools such as New York’s Stuyvesant and Hunter College High Schools and in northern Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, where more than half the students today are of Asian descent and the numbers of African American and Hispanic pupils are paltry.
• It leads to the admission of at least some kids who are test wise and clever but may lack ambition, persistence, imagination, or even regular attendance.

The benefit of test-based admission, on the other hand, is that it has at least the appearance of complete objectivity and transparency and makes it relatively easy to resist manipulation, favoritism, and political pressure. (“Sorry, Governor, but your niece came in below this year’s numerical cut-off.”)

You will not be surprised to learn that the “holistic” approach to admission also brings serious woes of its own, and that these are pretty much the obverse of the problems associated with test-based entry. Now it’s the difficulties that arise when at least part of admissions decision-making is subjective. Human beings have to make judgment calls about which kids are “better fits” or otherwise more suitable for entry into this school than other kids. This subjectivity means that the grownups involved in the process can be intimidated, bribed, coerced, leaned on, and pleaded with—and sometimes by very influential people.

Selective-admission colleges and private schools face this sort of thing all the time, but they control their own destinies. They’re not part of universal, compulsory public education systems like the high schools on our list in Exam Schools. They’re not, by and large, answerable to elected officials. This isn’t to say they never yield to entreaties from alums, wealthy benefactors, trustees, key faculty members, and influential community leaders; they can do so because they don’t have to follow the norms of public servants. People in K–12’s public sector do.

On the other hand, holistic admissions brings many benefits to a school. It can yield a student body that is duly diverse—and on many dimensions, not just ethnicity. And it can screen candidates for qualities such as energy, stick-to-it-iveness, and imagination, as well as their track records in middle school.

All things considered, is one system preferable? Keep in mind that a test-score-based admissions process is speedy and efficient, whereas the holistic kind takes quite a lot of effort. Keep in mind, too, that the kinds of outside interference and manipulation that must be anticipated in the holistic version may consume innumerable hours of administrator time that might better be spent ensuring that the school’s actual students get a tip-top education. In a test-score-based environment, those phone calls are short—and it’s unlikely that anyone will credibly threaten the principal or admissions director with being fired.

Rarely does the principal herself actually decide what system will be used to admit kids to her school. It’s likely to be determined mainly by external policymakers—legislators, school boards, even university presidents—and often it’s enshrined in statute, as well as longstanding tradition. Nor is the choice of admission procedures necessarily black and white: Some places have had the good sense to remove such decisions at least one step from those who run the school, enabling the latter to stick to their educational knitting and making some other office the bad cop. (That how it works at Thomas Jefferson.) Some places also use a blended approach. (Dozens of selective high schools in New York City—not including the eight that rely entirely on test scores—follow a complex citywide dual-track choice-and-selection process akin to the “match” system by which medical residents get placed.)

So it need not be all one or the other, and it’s possible to devise procedures that contain some of the better features of both. Still and all, the really crazy-sad policy question arising from all this is why does it have to be so difficult for outstanding students to get into top-flight high schools? Why not create more such schools?

After a sandstorm of education bills swept through the last few weeks of the Lone Star State's eighty-third legislative session, the dust cleared to reveal the passage of five major education bills:

1. HB 5 rolls back the number of required end-of-course exams from fifteen to five and creates two high school diploma tracks
2. SB 2 expands the state’s charter school system, increasing the state cap on charter school contracts from 215 to 305 over the next six years
3. HB 866 will allow students in grades 3–8 who score well in either the third or fifth grade to be excused from certain standardized tests (this one requires federal approval)
4. HB 2836 limits the number of “benchmark” exams districts can administer in grades 3–8 and orders that the state’s curricular standards be studied by a mandated commission
5. HB 1926 requires that all districts, beginning in middle school, offer students the option of taking online courses (setting the limit at three per student, per year) and opens the virtual-education market to nonprofits and private companies, to be authorized by the Texas Education Agency

The big battle that was won: As Greg Richmond of NACSA reports, SB 2 is quality legislation that promotes both growth and accountability; in addition to raising the cap on charter contracts, it strengthens the application process and creates a default closure mechanism for failed schools. The big battle that was lost: HB 5 is a major setback. As Checker Finn warned when the bill cleared the House in April, by scrapping ten of its fifteen end-of-course exams and weakening the 4x4 default curriculum, Texas “essentially forfeits uniform academic expectations and returns to the days when individual districts, schools, and teachers decided which students get diploma credit for which classes”—creating a disincentive for districts, especially those serving poor and minority students, to offer rigorous courses.

Thanks to Matt Prewett of the Texas Parents Union for his insight into the state-of-play of the education bills.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed legislation last week that places a one-year moratorium on new virtual charter schools outside Chicago and directs a state commission to study the effects and costs of virtual charters. These actions were clearly responses to suburban districts’ angst over the growing presence of K12 Inc. Relatedly, we’re sure that local bookstores favor blocking Amazon.com so that we might “better evaluate and understand” its impact. Is that next up?

Now in its fifth year, Menlo Park Academy in Cleveland—Ohio’s only charter school exclusively serving gifted children—is a haven for over 300 students, drawing K–8 youngsters from forty school districts in and beyond the Cleveland metro area. It's also the subject of a profile by award-winning journalist Ellen Belcher. To read more, visit the Ohio Gadfly Daily.

And now, from Nevada, a riddle about poor school-funding policy: What do you get when you add the third-largest fraction of English-language learner (ELL) students in the nation (a full fifth of Nevada’s 2010–11 student population) to a school-funding formula that doesn’t allot districts any extra state cash to educate said youngsters? Answer: Only 29 percent of the state’s ELL students in the graduating class of 2010–11 made it across the stage with their cohort. Brian Sandoval, the Republican governor of Nevada, has proposed $50 million over two years to go towards ELL programs; the state’s Senate majority leader has countered with $140 million. While money alone won’t solve Nevada’s achievement woes, extra dollars for needy students is a principle we’ll support.

In an educational climate consumed with leaving no child behind and closing achievement gaps, America's highest performing and most promising students have too often been neglected. Our nation's persistent inability to cultivate our high-potential youth—especially tomorrow's leaders in science, technology, entrepreneurship, and other sectors that bear on our long-term prosperity and well-being—poses a critical threat to American competitiveness. EXAM SCHOOLS: Inside America's Most Selective Public High Schools, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Jessica A. Hockett, presents a pioneering examination of our nation's most esteemed and selective public high schools—academic institutions committed exclusively to preparing America's best and brightest for college and beyond.

Like Exam Schools on Facebook

Buy Exam Schools from Amazon

Buy Exam Schools from Princeton University Press

In an educational climate consumed with leaving no child behind and closing achievement gaps, America's highest performing and most promising students have too often been neglected. Our nation's persistent inability to cultivate our high-potential youth—especially tomorrow's leaders in science, technology, entrepreneurship, and other sectors that bear on our long-term prosperity and well-being—poses a critical threat to American competitiveness. EXAM SCHOOLS: Inside America's Most Selective Public High Schools, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Jessica A. Hockett, presents a pioneering examination of our nation's most esteemed and selective public high schools—academic institutions committed exclusively to preparing America's best and brightest for college and beyond.

Like Exam Schools on Facebook

Buy Exam Schools from Amazon

Buy Exam Schools from Princeton University Press

With renewed attention being paid to college and career readiness, many wonder whether career and technical (CTE) courses—formerly known as vocational ed—enhance academic achievement. Using the Educational Longitudinal Study (or ELS) for students attending high school from the 2000–01 to 2003–04 school years (prior to the passage of the latest Perkins reauthorization, the federal program that funds career tech), this new report from RAND and RTI examines the relationship between CTE courses and math achievement. After controlling for selection bias as well as possible, the authors look at both the effect on math achievement for each additional CTE course taken in high school and whether having a higher balance of CTE courses relative to academic courses increases math achievement. The top three findings: First, exposure to CTE is common, with 64 percent of students earning at least two CTE credits and 43 percent earning three or more. Second, the total number of CTE courses taken is unrelated to the number of questions answered correctly on the math assessment, but the more CTE courses one takes, the lower one’s gains at the most advanced levels. And third, all else equal, those who take a mix of CTE and academic courses, those who take mostly CTE courses, and those who take mostly academic courses all have similar predicted scores. In other words, learning gains in math are not compromised when CTE courses are taken at the expense of academic courses. Of course, we must bear in mind that students who take mostly CTE courses tend to be lower achieving—but that’s attributable not to the courses but to the characteristics of those students. In short, CTE courses do no harm—but then again, they do not bolster achievement either.

SOURCE: Robert Bozick and Benjamin Dalton, “Balancing Career and Technical Education with Academic Coursework: The Consequences for Mathematics Achievement in High School,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 35 (2): 123–38.

In 1958, over 18,000 U.K. infants (including nearly 1,000 immigrants) joined the National Child Development Study—a longitudinal, population-representative survey. For this study, researchers tracked these youngsters through to age forty-two to determine whether childhood reading and math skills (at age seven) predicted adult socioeconomic success. The initial finding is a nothingburger: “Mathematics and reading ability both had substantial positive associations with adult [socioeconomic status].” But look a little closer! The correlations between adult SES and childhood reading and math know-how were greater than those between adult SES and one’s economic status at birth or one’s intelligence (as measured at age eleven). The methods are weedy but the message is clear and hopeful—socioeconomic status in childhood plays a role in students’ future level of success. But school-based knowledge matters more.

SOURCE: Stuart J. Ritchie and Timothy C. Bates, “Enduring Links From Childhood Mathematics and Reading Achievement to Adult Socioeconomic Status,” Psychological Science 24(5): (May 2013).