Informative new report on school choice from Heritage

Texas to streamline process for expanding great charters

Disappointing results for merit pay plan?

The administration chose Wisconsin as the site for the president's Race to the Top speech yesterday, we're told, because that state's legislature is about to get rid of its data firewall.

But did anyone read the bill in question? According to a local newspaper, while the legislation would allow student test data to be tied to teachers, that information can't be used to remove teachers from the classroom. Of course, that isn't the only reason to link teachers to student performance data, but in the most serious cases where that data reveal that student learning is being imperiled, a principal should be empowered to act.*

I've been warning that there's a big difference between changes in law and changes in practices and therefore we need to drastically scale back our excitement about all of the RTT-generated changes in state laws. For example, hostile districts may erase a charter cap lift's ability to generate new schools. Similarly, local union contracts may render a state merit pay program meaningless. And just because a state gets rid of its data firewall doesn't mean that the state will actually link teachers to students or, if it does, make use of the data that's generated. In fact, in the case of Wisconsin, a principal may actually be barred from acting on data swiftly and forcefully.

I hope the Department is wise to these important distinctions. States are bound to make the most electrifying promises in their RTT applications. It'll take some hard-nosed peer reviewers and senior Department officials to cut to the quick and figure out whether great sounding proposals will actually lead to reform.

* Thanks to Robert Pondiscio for pointing out that I was insufficiently clear on this point earlier. I appreciate his alerting me to my poor wording which came across as an intemperate tone. ??I'll do better next time.

Great discussion yesterday at our national standards event. Here's an article in Education Week that highlights some of it. Much interest in what was said by panelist Dane Linn of the National Governors Association (a group that is, of course, helping to spearhead the Common Core State Standards Initiative). The article notes that Linn gave updates on how the process is going - including that a draft of the K-12 standards document should be ready by?? the middle of next month.

The piece also highlights some comments by panelist Sandy Kress, Texas attorney and former senior education advisor to President Bush, who argued that the standards won't mean much unless states agree to revamp teacher training and instructional materials, implement good tests and high passing thresholds.

All in all an interesting summary of yesterday's discussion.......

Quotable:

"[For-profit companies] see public education as a windfall for their bottom line, and they are taking what is an education crisis in Georgia and the nation and trying to make a buck.?? They see children as profit margins."

-Jeff Hubbard, President of the Georgia Association of Educators

Florida Times-Union: More private firms want to run Georgia charter schools

Notable:

2.5%:

Projected annual rate of increase of national per-pupil revenue over the next 10 years, based on historic spending trends and estimations that the federal government's stimulus contribution will grow to approximately $90 billion.

Education Next: :Think Education Spending Will Decline? Think Again

Arne Duncan may continue lambasting teacher preparation programs nation-wide, but Texas could soon give him something to smile about. The State Board for Teacher Certification recently gave initial approval to a proposal authored by veteran state Senator Florence Shapiro that would impose stricter standards on the state’s 177 traditional and alternative teacher prep programs. (Final approval is expected in February, 2010.) Heretofore, program accreditation was based on only one factor: percentage of teaching candidates passing a written certification exam. Shapiro’s two-step plan would raise the combined passing rate of all teacher candidates from 70 to 80 percent by 2012 (a move initiated in Rhode Island last month), and would also establish three other accreditation criteria: mandating evaluations by the principals of schools into which the products of teacher prep programs go to teach, instituting teacher prep program follow-up with certified graduates for at least one year, and ensuring that prep program graduates are improving student achievement for their first three years. Linking student test scores back to teacher training programs would be a big step for Texas; currently, such scores are only used to determine yearly bonuses for teachers. But the current proposal (pdf) leaves undefined the required “improvement in student achievement” of prep program graduates, the details of program follow-up with graduates, or how principal evaluations will be weighted; setting these bars too low and/or making them easy to circumvent, of course, would undermine the changes entirely. It’s also unclear whether a prep program could feasibly stay open without state accreditation (or if the state version is tied to national accreditation organizations like NCATE and AACTE) and if beginning teachers’ student achievement will be averaged over the three years or evaluated year by year (which would be hardly fair for the newbie). We’ll give one cheer for a great first step and reserve the second for when we get more details.

“Teachers’ trainers must make the grade, too,” by Ericka Mellon, The Houston Chronicle, November 1, 2009

Last week’s editorial “Remembering Ted Sizer” misidentified the outreach program at Harvard Graduate School of Education as "Outward Bound," a well-known outdoors program. The program was actually "Upward Bound," a federal college preparation program for low-income students and first-time college goers.

In perhaps the worst decision since the resurrection of the legwarmer, the North Carolina General Assembly has effectively granted retroactive diplomas to scores of high school seniors who failed graduation tests. Apparently to cut costs (though how, exactly, is not self-evident), the Tarheel legislature has eliminated the requirement that students pass state graduation tests in math, English, and computer skills. But in an odd, and seemingly unnecessary twist, they’ve made the measure retroactive to 1981. Paging Jim Hunt (who authorized the state board of education to institute the graduation test requirement): One of your reforms has just been sent the way of the side ponytail. It’s not clear how many students will take advantage of the new rules, since only those who completed all other graduation requirements save passing the tests are eligible, but the measure is certainly not going to be much of a money-saver. Districts will now have to spend time and dollars to determine who is eligible for a diploma; this will be particularly difficult for non-graduates from more than five years ago, as the state’s present data system was not in place then. Don Martin, Superintendent of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board called the move just another “unfunded mandate” and “tedious.” But we’re left wondering about the greater repercussions on North Carolina’s work force. Will students retroactively be able to get into UNC? Retroactively earn their lost income? Retroactively attend senior prom? The potential chaos is endless.

"Eligible for a diploma?: Schools tackle retroactive change in requirements," by Kim Underwood, Winston-Salem Journal, October 29, 2009

When the Gates Foundation announced in July that it would give up to $250,000 grants to fifteen states to help them with their Race to the Top applications, it was exercising the right of a private organization to be selective with its funds. But then the neglected 35 cried “unfair.” And the financial floodgates opened. Now all fifty states will get financial help with their RTT proposals. Will the same thing happen when the Department of Education determines RTT winners? And shouldn’t a private foundation be showing how to be selective rather than yielding, government-style, to political pressure?

“After Complaints, Gates Foundation Opens Education Aid Offer to All States,” by Sam Dillon, New York Times, October 28, 2009

The Parent Revolution in Los Angeles continues to bring home the bacon, having managed to put organized parents squarely in the center of local education politics. In August, the LA Unified school board launched a new school choice policy, a corner stone of which is the outsourcing of 200 underperforming schools to outside operators. This fall, the Parent Revolution lobbied LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines to bump schools to the top of the 200 if a simple majority of the school’s current or future (i.e., feeder schools’) parents support a takeover. Though the final version of the so-called “Parent Trigger” clause is weaker than the original proposal (to the point of being “more likely to frustrate parents than empower them,” according to the L.A. Times editorial board), we still can’t help but admire Parent Revolution for its assertiveness and surely hope that kindred parent unions spring up and seize power in many other cities. Tom Vander Ark, former Director of Education for the Gates Foundation, called the Parents Revolution an idea “that will change the education landscape.” Let’s hope he’s proven right.

“LA Unified to allow parents to initiate school reforms,” Los Angeles Times, October 28, 2009

“L.A. Gives Parents ‘Trigger’ to Restructure Schools,” by Lesli A. Maxwell, Education Week, November 4, 2009 (subscription required)

“Parents Unite to Transform Your Schools! (Just Kidding…),” by Ben Austin, Parent Revolution blog, November 2, 2009

“I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep…Those numbers completely changed my professional life,” says Sarah Fanning, referring to 1999 test scores that revealed a full third of freshmen at Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama, where Fanning oversees curriculum and instruction, read at or below the seventh-grade level. In response, Buckhorn became an early adopter of the Alabama Reading Initiative, which focuses on incorporating literacy instruction across all subjects. Buckhorn’s implementation seems to have three points of emphasis: Teach reading skills in all classes (not just English), use whatever methods it takes to help students understand and engage with concepts (visual aides, pop culture tie-ins, and hands-on projects are especially prominent), and make sure that every student understands all the content, even if that means starting at a basic level. The school now consistently outperforms surrounding high schools on reading tests. Programs like this can go horribly awry if, for example, they give teachers the power to substitute fluff projects for actual subject material. But, responsibly implemented, schools like Buckhorn show that putting reading and writing skills into practice in real courses is more successful than teaching them in the abstract.

“An Ala. High School Makes Literacy a Schoolwide Job,” by Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, October 30, 2009 (subscription required)