Great Debate: What Should Republicans Seek in Education? , taped Monday, April 27, 2009, at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Video from Education Gadfly on Vimeo .

Today the Senate Education Committee heard testimony about school funding reform from Dr. Paul Hill, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education and John and Marguerite Corbally professor at the University of Washington Bothell. Dr. Hill is one of the nation's leading school funding experts and was the lead author of Facing the Future: Financing Productive Schools, a five-year, $6 million, Gates-funded study of school finance systems (see here). Based on this national study, he authored an analysis of Governor Strickland's school funding plan, Ohio at the Crossroads: School funding-more of the same or changing the model? (see here). Earlier this month, Dr. Hill wrote an op-ed about the governor's funding plan that appeared in the Columbus Dispatch (see here). Dr. Hill's testimony challenges key pieces of Governor Strickland's Evidence-Based Model (see here) and is sure to trigger further debate about how best to improve the Buckeye State's school funding system. His testimony can also be found online here.

Dr. Paul Hill's April 28 invited testimony to the Ohio Senate Education Committee

Chairman Cates, Ranking Minority Member Sawyer, and Members of the Committee:

Thank you for inviting me to testify here today.

I come as a once and probably future Ohio voter, and as an Ohio State graduate.

The basis of my testimony is my Center's 5-year Gates-funded study of school finance, and its report, Facing the Future. Mr. Chairman, I have brought copies of the report for the Committee.

Based on the results of our school finance study, I recently offered a critique of the Governor's plan in the Columbus Dispatch (4/19/09). I will turn to that critique in a few minutes, but today I want to emphasize the positive, saying first what is needed in a reform of school finance, and then showing how the Governor's plan falls short.

On what is needed, Ohio (like other states) needs to raise school performance while increasing school spending little, if at all.

On performance, too many of Ohio's children are not learning what they need to enter college and be productive self-supporting workers. You are familiar with the statistics: about less than half of African American children in big cities graduating from high school, and minority children falling farther behind white and Asian children the longer they are in school. You also know that many children educated in small towns and rural areas are not ready for college or work in a competitive high-tech economy.

Ohio needs as a matter of social justice to provide schools that will work for these children, as well as they now do for white children in big cities and suburbs. The economic future of the state also depends on whether workers here can constantly learn new skills and adapt to constant changes in their jobs.

On school spending, the $8 billion state deficit clearly precludes major increases in school support in the foreseeable future.

The need to improve performance without extra spending is a tough challenge but it is not without precedent. Our country leads the world at finding ways to do things never done before, and at constantly finding better ways of doing important things.

Americans got to the moon and found therapies for AIDS and cancer by experimenting-by identifying promising approaches, investing in new methods, subjecting new ideas to trials, eliminating the least productive, and then if the results were not good enough, investing in additional new methods, trying them, and repeating the process. This process, called continuous improvement in most other fields, is sorely needed in public education.

But public education, in Ohio and elsewhere, is not built for continuous improvement. Instead, we have created an elaborate structure of rules, organizations, and job protections that prevents the very experimentation we need to make schools more productive.

Ohio needs to experiment, within realistic spending limits, with ideas that have already emerged elsewhere and can lead to mixtures of higher performance and lower costs, for example:

• New ways of combining instruction with social services
• Ways of extending learning time for children who fall behind
• Ways of assessing a child's learning in real time so that the teacher can remedy any misunderstandings the very next day
• Methods to keep young children out of special education by providing personal attention as soon as they show signs of struggling to read
• New ways of integrating teachers' work with the use of technology, to free up teachers from lecturing so they focus on diagnosis, individualization, and tutoring
• Ways to staff schools to minimize the numbers of adults who don't teach and to increase the numbers of students in contact with the best teachers
• Technology-based instruction, especially in subjects such as math and physics, where regular classroom teachers are hard to find
• Mixtures of in-person and online schooling, to provide top-quality instruction for children in remote areas, and for urban high schoolers who can't attend school at regular times because of parenthood, jobs, and other issues
• Flexibility to allow schools to trade in some teaching and administrator slots so they can buy online instruction for children who need it
• Obtaining music and arts instruction and sports coaches via lesson fees to experts working in the community, rather than by employing full-time teachers

These are starting points, not complete recipes for success. But they open up the possibility of schools that perform better, and cost little or no more, especially for children who struggle now.

This gets me to my critique of the Governor's plan. In short, it prevents experimentation with new ideas that can lead to continuous improvement. Instead of opening up experimentation and encouraging schools and districts to pursue more effective methods, the Governor's plan mandates particular uses of funds. It maintains, and even bulks up, an existing set of job descriptions, administrative structures, and rules on who can teach and how time is used.

The Governor's plan violates the common sense dictum that you can't get a dramatically better result by doing a little more of the same thing. His plan claims, implausibly, that students will stop dropping out, and unproductive schools will turn around, if only the state mandates hiring of more teachers, administrators, instructional specialists, teacher leaders, clerks, building managers, secretaries, media services staff, non-instructional aides, and nurse's aides.

Some schools might benefit from these uses of money, but many won't. In particular, schools serving the disadvantaged need to find ways of providing more effective instruction, instruction that meets their students' needs and remedies their earlier learning deficits, not bigger administrative structures. Similarly, the highest-performing schools in the state generally don't need these beefed-up staffing tables and would use extra money in different and more productive ways if they had the choice.

The school finance provisions of the Governor's plan promote stasis, not continuous improvement. It makes big bets on increased staffing, heavier administration, and other mandates on uses of funds. Unfortunately those bets are essentially shots in the dark: no other school system has improved detectably by using money in these ways.

How can Ohio move toward continuous improvement? The key is not to fund anything whose value is unknown, and that includes specific staffing patterns and programs. There is no evidence that any staffing pattern, salary schedule, teacher certification program, or for that matter any statewide program or mandate, reliably leads to increased student learning.

Fund students, not mandates or staffing patterns. Eliminate requirements that funds be spent in the same way all across the state. At the same time, promote experimentation with new uses of funds for forms of schooling, methods, technologies, and uses of time.

Continuous improvement is possible only with a school finance system that:

• Drives funds to schools based on student counts. The goal should be to deliver real budgets to local principals, which they should be responsible for allocating and managing within their schools. Legislators can use weighting to allocate extra money for disadvantaged children.
• Funds all schools, including charter and cyber schools, based only on enrollment. The state needs innovation to find less costly and staff-intensive ways of providing instruction. The state's practice of paying charter and cyber schools much less than regular public schools-not because they are less effective but because they cost less-is totally anti-innovation.
• Keeps linked data about uses of funds and results, so that alternative methods of delivering instruction can be compared on cost and effectiveness.
• Encourages innovation and experimentation with new uses of funds and imaginative new instructional programs. The goal should be annual measurable improvement in school and student performance. The state should also fund world-class data and analysis capacities, which are necessary supports for innovation and experimentation.
• Holds schools and districts accountable for student performance and continuous improvement. The legislature should re-mission school districts and the Ohio Department of Education to manage portfolios of schools on the basis of performance. Make superintendents and the State Superintendent of Schools responsible for judging school performance and finding better options for children whose schools do not teach them effectively.

Continuous improvement does not guarantee instant success. Nothing does. What is certain is that without changes of the sort outlined here and a continuous process of evaluating progress and making needed adjustments, Ohio is unlikely ever to reach its goal of an adequate education for all students, at any level of state funding.

In just a few minutes, the DC policy scene will be gathering here at Fordham for our third "Great Debate" on pressing education issues of the day. (See my live-blogging of the last one here.)

Today's debate will focus on the future of the Republican Party as it pertains to federal education policy. Squaring off will be Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who also serves as the third-ranking Republican in the Senate. (Of course, he was also the secretary of education and even made the cover of TIME.) And Senator Jim DeMint of South Caroline, described by National Journal as the most conservative member of the Senate. And finally Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware, who also served as a two-term governor of??his state.

The focus of the debate (we hope!) will be Fordham's "Open Letter" to the new Administration and Congress, released in December, and more specifically its call for policymakers to embrace "Reform Realism."

In a nutshell, Reform Realism seeks to advance education reform but with realistic expectations about what Uncle Sam can accomplish from Washington. It contrasts with the "extend NCLB" camp within the GOP, which is pro-reform but (in our view) overly optimistic about the federal government's ability to make things come out right. On the other hand, it also differs from the "local control" school of thought which assumes that the feds can do almost nothing??useful in k-12 schooling, save write checks. We see Reform Realism as somewhere in the middle.

It's our hunch that Mike Castle will argue the "support NCLB, with tweaks" argument; Jim DeMint will??advocate for his A-Plus Act, which pushes toward local control, and that Lamar Alexander will take up the Reform Realism mantle. But who knows; members of Congress tend to speak their own minds. Stay tuned and find out what they have to say, and whether these three key members of Congress, and of the Republican Party, find common ground or sharp areas of disagreement. (Video will be available tomorrow.)

Senator Alexander is up and is arguing that the GOP should follow President Lincoln's lead. He provided opportunities through laws such as the one creating Land-Grant Colleges and Universities. That "Lincoln Approach" was later followed by the GI Bill, Pell Grants, etc. That contrasts with the FDR "Command and Control" approach, which is dominant in k-12 education policy today.

The federal government should be involved in education, but??Senator Alexander is??in favor of the Lincoln opportunity model, not the Rooseveltian command and control model. It's virtually impossible for lawmakers and regulators to make schools better.

What can feds do to confer opportunities on parents? Pell grants for kids: $500 to spend after school. A federal tax system favoring parents raising children. Pre-natal care. Nurse visits in homes. Home schooling. Help adults learn English. Work-site day care. Higher standards and data collection. Pay good teachers more by expanding the Teacher Incentive Fund. Encourage charter schools. Teach For America. Award peer-reviewed competitive research grants to ed schools. UTEACH. Summer academies for teachers of history and sciences. Train school leaders.

Republicans should create proposals and policies that create opportunities for students, parents, teachers, etc. But we should stay away from "command and control."

Congressman Castle??just said??that national standards and assessments are "worthy of discussion." This is big news; few Republicans have been so open about considering supporting national standards. He worries that too many state standards are "dumbed down" and that encourages schools to "coast along."

He addressed other ideas for NCLB reauthorization, including implementing a growth model, allowing computer-adaptive assessments, ensuring standardized graduation rates, encouraging merit pay and charter schools, supporting Teach For America and other routes to alternative certification, funding education research, and especially promoting parental involvement. "If there's one thing I could do, it would be to uplift our culture" to focus more on education.

He came from a marketing background, and it's well-known in the private sector that you have to have specialization, competition, lots of choices. Why can't we use that model in education? Nothing more different than our children: different learning styles, aptitudes, and family situations.

We're starting with a one-size-fits-all model and trying to help people on the edges. That's the opposite of what we want to do if we want to meet students where they are and help them move forward.

No business could produce quality with a system like the one we have in education. "It cannot work." When you're losing ground, losing market share, you have to try something different.

Why is there such resistance to change in education? The answer is political. Not what works for children, what works for unions.

Consider Medicare Part D: Because of the influx of funds for prescriptions, the private sector invested, built new pharmacies, offered new services. What if we made even half of k-12 education's funding available for parents? Imagine how the private sector would respond.

Then he promoted his A-Plus Act: Allow states to experiment and try to find out what works.

Congressman Mike Castle is arguing that there's a lot of common ground in education. Education politics aren't so much about Republicans and Democrats but about the NEA. He wasn't thrilled about what he saw in the stimulus bill, but he's waiting to see what the Administration has to propose in terms of other pieces of legislation.

Senator Alexander also??likes to look for places where we can work together. He really disagrees with adding $40 billion for education for "more of the same." And really disagrees about cancelling the DC voucher program. But we can work together on charter schools, higher education, and other issues, he says.

We DC-based policy types are susceptible to getting dangerously far removed from the quotidian thrills and struggles of real schools. So I visited four schools earlier this week while in NYC. It was a complete delight. If you find yourself suffering from policy- or research-induced edu-malaise, here's a highlight from each school.

At the Cornelia Connelly Center, an all-girls Catholic middle school on the Lower East Side serving a 100 percent minority and 90 percent free and reduced-price eligible student body, my two "student ambassador" tour guides were pulled out of their mandatory Latin class where they were, at the moment, learning the roots of the word "intractable." "I like Latin," one of the young ladies told me, "it helps me understand English better, too." Walking past a picture of the president hanging next the history classroom, the other young woman said, "We were allowed to watch the inauguration in school. Some students got pretty emotional. It showed what we could become."

At the remarkable Harlem Success Academy charter school (run by the remarkable Eva Moskowitz), the school's powerful culture was evident everywhere, from the founders' vision to the teachers' behavior to the inspirational adages affixed to the walls. Their results are outstanding and their replication goals audacious.???? I thought I was blown away by the five- and six-year olds doing science experiments on momentum (all students take one hour of science five days a week beginning in kindergarten), but it was eclipsed by seeing a sea of six-year old hands shoot into the air during the required chess class when asked how they could free the bishop from the back line. "Move the pawn at E7 two spaces forward," a student said with pride.

At the much-heralded Harlem Children's Zone charter schools, Harvard economist Roland Fryer provided an excellent presentation on the project's outstanding academic gains in recent years. This was exciting but even better was founder Geoffrey Canada's admission that their early results, despite huge investments, were disappointing and that the whole team acknowledged their shortcomings and redoubled their efforts. The highlight of the tour of the fifth-floor medical clinic, with full health and dental services for all students, was walking past the classroom where five-year olds were learning the proper way to brush their teeth and wash their hands.

Finally, at Mount Carmel-Holy Rosary Catholic school, the principal told the riveting tale of the school's two brushes with closure and ultimate salvation through a large donation from a previously unknown out-of-state benefactor. Despite having nearly all of its students attend on scholarship, 100 percent of 8th graders pass the state ELA exam. Though the class sizes were large--all above 30 from what I saw, one at 35--there couldn't have been more order or higher morale.

In one classroom, 34 second-graders were determining which emotions were associated with which colors so they could improve poems they had recently written. With the lesson complete, the teacher asked the students to get out their recorders so they could play "Ode to Joy" for their guests. Who wrote "Ode to Joy?" she asked as they silently got out their musical instruments. A sea of hands. "Beethoven." Then 34 low-income seven-year olds played the most beautiful recorder version of a Beethoven song of all time.

Ode to joy, indeed.

Jumping for joy - photograph by reebs* on Flickr

I fancy myself forward-thinking, even revolutionary, when it comes to envisioning the urban school district of the future. But after an hour-long conversation with a truly exceptional group from the NYC Department of Education's portfolio and charter school teams, I felt downright humdrum.

What they are implementing-not just thinking about, not just talking about, but actually implementing-via closures, charters, and new start-ups is (next to the charterization of New Orleans' system) the most exciting development in the affairs of traditional districts in eons.

This team is ably led by the very impressive Michael Thomas Duffy who accomplished great things for charterdom while in Boston. In addition to helping bring great new schools online for the nation's largest school district, Duffy will also be called on to play an important role in this tricky effort.

After this meeting, I'm more bullish than ever about what Joel Klein is accomplishing. I've long believed that the only way to fix urban public education is to completely replace the traditional district model. But if it's possible-if-to transition that failed model into something much better, NYC may be providing the blueprint.

Revolutionary patriots picture by flattop341 on Flickr

Education is full of irony. For example, in Ohio - as in other states - charter schools were born in the late 1990s out of lawmakers' exasperation with failed district schools that were constantly seeking more funding through adequacy lawsuits in the state courts.

Fast forward to 2009, and Ohioans are still debating school funding and charter schools. The Ohio House released its version of the state biennial budget this week and during a press conference leadership claimed that the budget would finally make Ohio's school funding system "constitutional." Deep in this 3,679-page budget document, Democratic lawmakers propose the creation of four classes of charter school funding. All of these levels of funding, by the way, are less than what traditional district schools would receive--some charters would simply be shorted less than others.

The proposed categories are:

1) District-sponsored brick-and-mortar charter schools. These schools, regardless of their state academic rating, receive the base charter funding plus the "Ohio educational challenge factor." This factor is an index ranging from 0.75 to 1.65 that is intended to adjust funding for each school to account for student and community property wealth and socioeconomic factors. Charter schools that are sponsored by the district from which the majority of their students hail will be assigned the educational challenge factor of that sponsoring district. This is a significant bump in school revenue--for example, in Dayton the educational challenge factor is 1.448 while in Cleveland it is 1.59. There were 47 schools serving 5,800 children in this category in 2007-08, and only 15 were rated "C" or higher by the state.

2) Non-district-sponsored brick-and-mortar charter schools rated "C" or higher by the state. These schools get the same funding as district-sponsored brick-and-mortar charter schools except they are assigned the statewide average educational challenge factor (1.22). There were 65 schools serving 15,000 children in this category in 2007-08.

3) Non-district-sponsored brick-and-mortar charter schools rated "D,""F," or not rated at all by the state. These schools get less funding than either of the two categories above. They are not assigned an educational challenge factor so will operate with the base funding only. A charter school in Dayton in this category would receive about 31% less funding than a district-sponsored school, a charter in Cleveland would receive nearly 40% less, and a charter in Columbus more than 20% less. There were 180 schools serving 37,800 children in this category in 2007-08.

4) Cybercharter schools, regardless of sponsor. These schools get dramatically less funding--at least half of what a poor-performing district school would receive. There were 34 virtual schools serving 24,000 children in this category in 2007-08.

Here is the irony. In 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court declared the state's funding system of public education unconstitutional: "Due to glaring discrepancies in school buildings, facilities, access to technology and curriculum, some students within the state are being deprived of educational opportunity." Yet, in 2009, the governor and House Democrats, in seeking to make the state's system of school funding "constitutional" are in fact proposing the creation of a statutorily sanctioned class of underfunded public schools. Students in these schools are predominately needy and children of color - 65% of Ohio charter school students are economically disadvantaged while 57% are minority!

The irony here would be funny if it weren't for the fact that we are talking about real children, which makes it tragic. Failed schools should be closed. Starving them of resources only hurts the children in them.