The Education Gadfly Weekly

Prachi Srivastava
University of Sussex
2007

Perhaps sparked by the work of Newcastle University's James Tooley, there is an increasing interest in studying private school systems in the developing world. This paper examines how sixty low-income parents in Lucknow, India chose among a plethora of inexpensive private schools. Readers should be forewarned that it is written for academics and uses needlessly complex language. Still, the author uncovers a few interesting nuggets, including the clear perception among respondents that private schools served brighter kids and offered better education. The author also notes that those interviewed tended to take a "consumerist" and "active engagement" approach to their children's schooling. They negotiated tuition fees, weighed multiple factors before choosing a school, and acted as "quality-conscious ‘alert clients'" (i.e., they care about school quality). Srivastava draws some dubious policy conclusions from her own work, however, including angst that a proliferation of such private schools will hurt their state-run peers and that India's more-engaged parents will opt for private instead of public education. But in a country with hundreds of millions of poor children not becoming literate from the government system, ordinary readers might find such schools a blessing. You can find the paper here.

Lynn Olson
Aspen Institute
February 2007

In this brief paper, Education Week editor Lynn Olson offers some lessons on revitalizing the teaching profession that she gleaned at a 2006 Aspen Institute seminar. The meeting brought together representatives from eight countries who discussed how they've tried to improve the quality and quantity of classroom instructors. Discussion revolved around three classes of teachers--"novice," "experienced," and "expert." Many of the ideas here are old hat to American educators. In Switzerland, for instance, novice teachers are assigned experienced mentors. But there are some interesting suggestions for strengthening the more-experienced teachers. To Japan, where senior teachers "are expected to change schools every 5 to 10 years so that their ideas and practices spread more readily from school to school and the best teachers are spread more evenly among schools." In addition, Japan's government subsidizes 40 days of intensive professional development for teachers in their tenth year. In other countries, reforms have been more radical. Singapore maintains a regimented system of career tracks in which promotions are based strictly on performance assessments. In Sweden, by contrast, principals negotiate raises and bonuses on a teacher-by-teacher basis. The paper is short and anecdotal, and Olson never examines how a nation's teacher policies may affect student achievement. But it offers food for thought and can be found here.

There is an old adage among lawyers that says, "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table."

Advocates of whole-language reading instruction have been doing a lot of table-pounding since 2000. That's when the National Reading Panel declared unequivocally that "scientifically-based reading research" (SBRR) shows that children learn to read better when they are taught using phonics at the feet of capable instructors, not whole language. In 2002, federal law accepted these findings and (in NCLB's "Reading First" program) decreed that any district accepting federal dollars to purchase reading programs can use only those based on SBRR.

So with neither the facts nor the law on their side, whole-language advocates are battling SBRR with the only stick they have left--ad hominem (and ad feminem) attacks.

The most recent target is Louisa Moats, an esteemed researcher and reading expert, and author of the recent Fordham report, Whole Language High Jinks: How to Tell When "Scientifically-based" Reading Instruction Isn't. In the report, Moats boldly called out reading programs that claim to be based on SBRR, but in fact are little more than whole-language programs with SBRR window dressing.

In an extended response, Richard Allington of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, charges, inter alia, that Moats "exaggerates the findings of the National Reading Panel" and the "effects of systematic phonics on reading achievement." And then he gets personal--and mean.

Moats, he notes, authored the professional development program Linguistic Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS). "The LETRS program is marketed by her employer, SoprisWest, apparently giving Moats a financial stake in many of this report's recommendations. From that perspective, the recommendations seem more self-serving than based in any rigorous research demonstrating positive effects of such efforts on teaching children to read."

Moats was quick to respond, sending a letter to the review's editor, Kevin Welner at the Think Tank Review Project. "I have not written any program or assessment mentioned in the paper. The only program I have written for teacher professional development, LETRS, is not referenced in the paper."

Welner quickly backed off, issuing a statement that said Allington's report should be clarified. Allington then released an author's note acknowledging that Moats was not pushing her own materials. That's a black eye for the Think Tank Review Project, for sure. But what's worse is that whole-language advocates continue to pound the table in such sleazy fashion.

And it's not just the table where Moats sits. Last year, Reid Lyon--former chief of the child development and behavior branch at NIH's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and major domo of the National Reading Panel--was wrongly charged with profiting from his government contracts. (Read his response here.)

Such mendacious attacks don't help any children to read better. They simply seek to besmirch the names of people who have devoted their professional lives to that endeavor. At day's end, however, more mud will stick to those who are hurling it.

Hurl the mud and bang the tables as they will, the verdict is in: whole-language advocates have lost.

Perhaps it makes perfect sense that Batman would turn up in a place called Cave Creek. Still, three schools in this Phoenix suburb were placed on lockdown for 45 minutes last week after a Desert Arroyo Middle School student reported seeing Batman (or a person mimicking the Caped Crusader) run across campus, hop a fence, and vanish into the desert. After police combed the dusty landscape and, unremarkably, found nothing, it was determined that the tipster student--whose identity is still shrouded in mystery, although sources suggest he may be a billionaire industrialist and international playboy--had lied. Cave Creek Unified School District spokeswoman Nedda Shafir was upset by the untruth. "I don't know what to say," she said. "I'm at a loss for words." Explaining the district's reaction, Shafir continued: "We're in an area where we're in a desert, and we have to take these reports seriously."

"Student lied about Batman, school says," Associated Press, February 16, 2007

The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. The self-destructing St. Louis Public School District seems unable to take this step, so the Missouri State Board of Education is staging an intervention. In a 5-2 vote, the board created a three-member committee to oversee the chronically troubled district. Whether its role will be to govern or advise the district will be decided later this month (so they say), based in part on how district leaders react. Early signs aren't promising, however. At the state board meeting, St. Louis Superintendent Diana Bourisaw (the sixth superintendent in four years) protested that the district is now "being asked to provide data that is far beyond what other districts are being asked to do," while board member Donna Jones hurled accusations of racism at state school chief Kent King. (Her exact quote was, "Racism! Racism! Racist! Racist!") As with most downward spirals, it's the innocent bystanders that get hurt the most. In this case, that means the children of St. Louis.

"State's clock ticking for St. Louis schools," by Steve Giegerich, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 16, 2007

Apple users are famously loyal, many teachers among them. So Steve Jobs's sudden bout of teacher-union bashing deserves at least brief notice. At a recent conference in Austin, the Apple CEO called teacher unions and the influence they wield "off-the-charts crazy." "What kind of person," he asked rhetorically about school principals, "could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" Apple fans may not forgive him but Jobs is a shrewd observer. There's no way Apple would be so successful as a company if it had to negotiate the same type of contracts that schools do.

"Apple CEO Jobs attacks teachers unions," by April Castro, Associated Press, February 18, 2007

For as long as we can remember, certainly for the past decade, K-12 education in Ohio, as in many other states (see here), has been defined by intermittent, piecemeal reforms and initiatives. Much of it has been partisan and self-interested. The result is many layers of accumulated efforts, like an archeological site at Jericho or Olduvai Gorge. The result is not world-class performance, the narrowing of achievement gaps nor the development of a high-skills, 21^st Century workforce. Such woes may be especially acute in regions such as the Midwest that urgently need an education makeover in order to have a fighting chance of an economic makeover, but in fact they're true across the land.

Sometimes good makeover advice arrives at the national level, as in the fine recent report from the National Center on Education and the Economy (see here). That kind of advice is hard to follow, however, because we lack good national mechanisms for doing so and because the main responsibility for K-12 education in America remains state-specific.

Once in a blue moon, a state gets the advice it needs for a full makeover (see here and here). This month, Ohio received a smart, ambitious, comprehensive plan that deserves attention well beyond Buckeye State borders, even though its implementation is the responsibility of Ohio leaders. Ten days ago, the Ohio State Board of Education received a remarkable 137-page report (available here) that it had requested from Achieve, Inc. With funding from the Gates Foundation, Achieve commissioned McKinsey & Company, one of the world's foremost consulting firms, to examine Ohio's K-12 system and report back on how the Buckeye State could become a world leader in education by 2015. The lead author of the report is Sir Michael Barber, former chief education policy advisor to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Creating a World-Class Education System in Ohio sets two big goals: 1) creating a public system of education as strong as any in the world; and 2) helping Ohio close its persistent academic achievement gaps, which have been largely impervious to earlier school reform efforts. The Achieve/McKinsey/Barber report then organizes its reform agenda around three attributes found in world-class systems:

• High challenge -- sets ambitious learning expectations and lays them on the people most responsible for producing such achievement, notably teachers, principals, superintendents, and students themselves.
• High support -- provides the necessary resources to, and builds the capabilities of, those same people so that they can deliver the necessary results.
• Aligned incentives -- includes both positive incentives and negative consequences for meeting (or failing to meet) those expectations of student achievement.

To reshape Ohio's K-12 education program in line with those attributes, the report puts forth seven broad recommendations and a host of smaller ones that, if implemented together, would put Ohio squarely on course to educational excellence.

1. Ensure readiness for college and the global economy by raising Ohio's standards and improving assessments. The McKinsey team recommends revising academic standards to make college readiness the overarching goal of the K-12 system. Performance against more rigorous standards would be measured by a streamlined assessment program which, at the secondary level, would include "end of course" exams in core subjects.
2. Empower principals. Central to improving classroom instruction is helping principals better control the instructional leadership of their schools. The report recommends giving them authority over hiring and staffing decisions, school budgets, and instructional choices such as curriculum. In return, they would be accountable for student outcomes, academic achievement chief among them.
3. Set clear expectations for teachers and align evaluation, professional development, rewards and consequences. Teachers, too, would become more accountable. Merit and performance pay, plus professional learning opportunities, would give teachers incentives to hone their skills and to innovate. Chronic underperformers would be objectively evaluated and, if unable to improve, removed from classrooms and school buildings.
4. Support students in meeting high expectations. The state would develop a comprehensive diagnostic process for identifying and addressing pupils' academic and nonacademic needs. Incentives such as college scholarships would help ensure that all students are encouraged to pursue a college-prep curriculum.
5. Ensure that funding is allocated fairly, efficiently, and accountably. Ohio's long-broken school-funding system would be replaced by a state-dominated weighted funding plan wherein per-pupil amounts, adjusted to the specific needs of students, would follow them to the schools they choose to attend (very much in line with our Fund the Child proposal). Devolving most financial decision-making to principals, districts would become school-support entities providing critical services such as financial management, transportation, special ed, etc. Increased transparency would help state policymakers gauge the true price of a world-class education and ensure that taxpayer dollars are well-spent.
6. Increase effectiveness of school and district ratings and improvement. The state would align its annual rating system to reflect performance against federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets. Troubled schools and districts would receive support through a diagnostic system akin to the British "inspectorate" system. Outside school "doctors" would help district and school leaders pinpoint weaknesses and chart a course for improvement, which might include professional development for teachers, targeted interventions, and complete school restructuring.
7. Give all students access to high-quality, publicly-funded school options. The McKinsey team insists that young Ohioans be able to attend any (public) school in the state, including but not limited to district-operated and charter schools. This report echoes recommendations (see here) by national charter-school organizations (including Fordham) to shutter the poorest performing schools; encourages high-performing networks and schools to open; strengthens the accountability of sponsors; and recommends funding parity (including facilities funding) for solid performers.

In all, Creating a World-Class Education System in Ohio offers a compelling, optimistic and ambitious vision. For it to gain real traction in the months ahead, however, it needs bipartisan support. Which it deserves. As we size it up, there's much here to appeal to Republicans and Democrats alike.

Four reasons why Democrats should take this report seriously:

1. It calls for more equitable funding for needy kids and urban districts.
2. It seeks support and incentives for teachers and school administrators working with the toughest students.
3. It calls for increased charter-school accountability.
4. It takes educator professionalism seriously and empowers principals and teachers to get the job done.

Four reasons why Republicans should take this report seriously:

1. It promotes markedly increased school choice and equitable funding for schools of choice.
2. It calls for fiscal transparency and more efficient, productive uses of education dollars.
3. It advocates merit and performance pay for teachers and principals.
4. It would make it easier to replace underperforming educators.

There is plenty here for lawmakers, educators, and citizens to consider. (Of course there could be more. We looked in vain, for example, for mention of alternative preparation-and-certification pathways for teachers and principals.) But it would be a mistake to pick the report apart and focus only on its isolated elements. For its real power is the interaction of its parts. For instance, instruction isn't likely to improve without serious accountability measures at the principal and teacher levels. Weighted student funding doesn't fulfill its potential absent greater autonomy for principals. A diverse portfolio of high quality charter schools may never exist without a thorough "house cleaning" of poor performers and more equitable funding for good ones. And until there's better data-collection and greater transparency at all levels, these ambitious reforms may never get off the ground at all.

Nobody in Ohio or elsewhere will like everything in this report. It doesn't pander--well, it only panders a little--to vested interests. Rather, it looks over the horizon and explains clearly what the state's education reform agenda should look like. We hope that warring factions, elected and appointed officials, and community leaders can suspend their short-term schemes and think big and comprehensively. Creating a World-Class Education System in Ohio points the way.

Lynn Olson
Aspen Institute
February 2007

In this brief paper, Education Week editor Lynn Olson offers some lessons on revitalizing the teaching profession that she gleaned at a 2006 Aspen Institute seminar. The meeting brought together representatives from eight countries who discussed how they've tried to improve the quality and quantity of classroom instructors. Discussion revolved around three classes of teachers--"novice," "experienced," and "expert." Many of the ideas here are old hat to American educators. In Switzerland, for instance, novice teachers are assigned experienced mentors. But there are some interesting suggestions for strengthening the more-experienced teachers. To Japan, where senior teachers "are expected to change schools every 5 to 10 years so that their ideas and practices spread more readily from school to school and the best teachers are spread more evenly among schools." In addition, Japan's government subsidizes 40 days of intensive professional development for teachers in their tenth year. In other countries, reforms have been more radical. Singapore maintains a regimented system of career tracks in which promotions are based strictly on performance assessments. In Sweden, by contrast, principals negotiate raises and bonuses on a teacher-by-teacher basis. The paper is short and anecdotal, and Olson never examines how a nation's teacher policies may affect student achievement. But it offers food for thought and can be found here.

Prachi Srivastava
University of Sussex
2007

Perhaps sparked by the work of Newcastle University's James Tooley, there is an increasing interest in studying private school systems in the developing world. This paper examines how sixty low-income parents in Lucknow, India chose among a plethora of inexpensive private schools. Readers should be forewarned that it is written for academics and uses needlessly complex language. Still, the author uncovers a few interesting nuggets, including the clear perception among respondents that private schools served brighter kids and offered better education. The author also notes that those interviewed tended to take a "consumerist" and "active engagement" approach to their children's schooling. They negotiated tuition fees, weighed multiple factors before choosing a school, and acted as "quality-conscious ‘alert clients'" (i.e., they care about school quality). Srivastava draws some dubious policy conclusions from her own work, however, including angst that a proliferation of such private schools will hurt their state-run peers and that India's more-engaged parents will opt for private instead of public education. But in a country with hundreds of millions of poor children not becoming literate from the government system, ordinary readers might find such schools a blessing. You can find the paper here.