Yet another example of a state backing away from high standards. A committee, composed largely of Georgia teachers, included challenging new questions in the state's sixth- and seventh-grade social studies exams. Then, Georgia's Board of Education raised by nine points the score needed to pass those tests. Then, 70 to 80 percent of Georgia's kids failed them. The state knew in 2007, after scoring pilot questions, that tens of thousands of pupils would likely bomb the exams, but it nonetheless allowed testing to go forward, apparently because officials wanted to uphold rigid academic standards. (Imagine that.) Now comes the backlash. "This is atrocious and unforgivable," said seventh-grade educator Jason Adams. "This is the kind of thing where a heads-up to teachers would have been nice." (Heads-up, Mr. Adams! Your students aren't learning much about social studies.) State superintendent Kathy Cox heard the complaints, bowed to pressure, and dumped the social studies results, blaming them, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, on "a vague curriculum and imprecise direction for teachers." Deafening now is the din from state and district officials who argue about what, exactly, could have caused such all-around low scores. An obvious point is rarely, if ever, mentioned: Perhaps students in Georgia simply don't know much history? Perhaps the problem lies not in the standards or the tests, but in the classrooms?

"State foresaw test problems," by Heather Vogell, Laura Diamond, and Alan Judd, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 22, 2008

The drive to lower standards can take on ridiculous guises. See, for example, the case of 18-year-old Australian Nicholas Benjamin Siiankoski, who recently pleaded guilty to possession of Ecstasy. Justice George Fryberg sentenced him to three years' probation and 100 hours of community service. But the judge also added an interesting twist to the punishment. Since Siiankoski admitted to taking drugs since the age of 15, Fryberg ordered the teen to write a 3,000-word research essay--endnotes and all--on the harmful effects of marijuana and Ecstasy. Siiankoski had three months to turn in his paper. Ridiculous! cried the young man's lawyers. A 3,000-word assignment would be far too difficult for their client, who received low grades in school (possibly because he was high?). Fryberg caved and cut Siiankoski's sentence to 2,000 words. Bad idea, judge. Even pot-heads shouldn't be exempt from rigorous academic standards.

"Australian judge orders teen caught with Ecstasy to write essay on dangers of drugs," International Herald Tribune, May 23, 2008

Abt Associates
May 2008

Abt Associates
May 2008

Small schools (also called schools-within-schools and small learning communities) have received much attention in the last few years, particularly because the Gates Foundation has provided extensive funding for them. The idea behind them is that large high schools are impersonal and smaller units offer students a more individualized and presumably better education. This study by Abt Associates examines data from 119 grantees of the federally funded Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) Program; all received initial funding in 2000. The results are less than overwhelming, though analysts do report a significant positive trend in the percentage of 9th-grade students being promoted to 10th grade during the post-grant period as well as a reduction in violent incidents. Lest they be accused of "the-evaluator-doth-protest-too-much-(or not enough)-syndrome," the researchers also delineate a number of methodological caveats including pointing out the absence of a valid comparison group and the fact that results are based on school-reported data which vary greatly in quality and accuracy. Find the lukewarm findings and numerous caveats here.

Charles M. Payne
Harvard Education Press
2008

This generally depressing, but also candid and gutsy, book by University of Chicago (social work school) professor Charles Payne is perceptive in its explanations of why so many reform theories and schemes have left so little lasting impact on America's urban schools. Though Rick Hess and David Tyack and Larry Cuban (among many others) have trod similar ground in the past, Payne does a good job with his mostly-sociological look at much of what's been tried and why its effects have been so evanescent. Chicago is his primary case in point. Especially worthwhile is his final chapter on the blindspots and follies of both conservative and progressive school-reform ideologies--and the very last paragraph of his epilogue, evoking how little about the core of education has changed since the lessons his own father learned in the classrooms of a great African-American eighth-grade teacher named William J. Moore. You can find out more here.

Margaret Raymond
Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford University
April 2008

This study of the effectiveness of generalized student reward programs in charter schools is the first of its kind. Stanford analyst Margaret Raymond surveyed 186 charter schools and collected achievement data from 47 of them to determine whether employing various incentives--e.g., certificates of merit, college fund contributions, cash, for both academic and behavioral excellence--boosted student performance. The results were mixed but offer some cause for cheer. Overall, she found that using an incentive system is positively and significantly correlated with student achievement in reading, though not in math. However, her analysis also revealed that, when limited to the elementary school level, incentives lower performance. Raymond also ran analyses focusing on specific features of the programs that she measured. She found, for instance, that school incentive programs that secured the support of the principal, teachers, and staff were more effective in raising student achievement, as were those that operated in charter network schools, such as KIPP. The study carries a number of caveats, however. For one, all types of incentive programs--long-range and short-range, direct cash and scholarship--were lumped together. Also, when Raymond controlled for the neighborhoods where the schools were located (those in locales where many adults lack high school diplomas tend to offer more academic incentives), the positive correlations disappeared. Still, the study is a good launching point for future research on the topic, which is getting ever more attention around the land. Read it here.

Stacey Childress, Richard F. Elmore, Allen S. Grossman, Susan Moore Johnson, eds.
Harvard Education Press
2007

This bulky "case book" seeks to apply business-school teaching methods to the preparation (or mid-course tune-ups) of education leaders (superintendents, mostly). Edited by four Harvard faculty members (two at the ed school, two at the B-school) and published by the Harvard Education Press, it sorts 19 case studies into 5 categories: "Making Coherence Concrete," "Finding and Supporting Personnel," "Building a High-Performance Organization," "Managing Schools Across Difference," and "Sustaining High Performance Over Time." Each 20- to 30-page case study is accompanied by a few questions to provoke discussion, but optimal use of this tool clearly depends on gifted instructors who can elicit, elucidate, and enlighten through probing questions and analysis rather than the more traditional use of textbook and exhortation. You can learn more here.

This over-the-top, the sky-is-falling article from the Boston Globe is yet more evidence that the concept of "standards" has taken a beating in public discourse. At issue is the MATCH public charter school, one of the nation's best, according to Newsweek . It pushes its students--most of them poor--to take challenging Advanced Placement courses and provides gobs of extra support in the form of intensive tutoring. Almost all of its graduates go on to succeed in college. So what's the problem? Some students, not feeling up to the school's rigor, are "bolting" for the Boston Public Schools.

Boston officials accuse MATCH of not offering enough support for students to graduate on time, leaving Boston with the awkward task of determining the students' fate.

MATCH officials, on the other hand, say Boston presents an easy out - an automatic promotion - for their students struggling under rigorous graduation requirements. They deny encouraging students to leave, and ask that Boston make diploma determinations based on the charter school's standards.

"It breaks my heart to see students leave this late in the senior year, but it would break my heart more to change or lower our standards," said Jorge Miranda, the school's principal. "There's no compromising on the standards. They need that preparation to succeed in college, and when they get that college degree, that's their ticket out of poverty."

Read that again: "It would break my heart more to change or lower our standards." Amen, Mr. Miranda. Unfortunately, Massachusetts board of education chairman Paul Reville, doesn't seem to agree:

"We are all in favor of high standards and expectations and you have to applaud that, but at some point you have to examine reasonableness and whether the standards are working broadly for all students who walk through the door," Reville said. "The standards are wonderful for those students who achieve them, but what's the safety net for those who don't? Right now, it appears Boston public schools are the safety net."

Governor Deval Patrick is about to give Mr. Reville a promotion to be his education secretary; in that role he'll oversee the Bay State's higher education system too. So will Reville apply his argument to Harvard and say it should lower its standards because some of its students drop out and transfer to the University of Massachusetts?

There's a term for "standards that everyone can meet." It's called "no standards." Capiche?

Mark Lampkin, executive director of ED in '08, responds here to an earlier attack, launched by the Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey,??on ED in '08's priorities.

Mark Bauerlein, author of this book about dumb people and the harm they do, has the numbers.

On the front page of today's Washington Post is a feel-good story about Ocean City Elementary, a Maryland school in which 100 percent of the students passed the state's math and reading tests. I don't want to rain on the school's parade (or give the Post reporter, Dan de Vise, a hard time for finding an excuse to mix business with pleasure (hmm... this school is at the beach... the article appeared just after Memorial Day Weekend...)) but isn't it worth pointing out (again) that when everyone can meet a standard, it means it's not really a "standard"? Perhaps this is a sign that Maryland should raise the passing scores on its tests? Can you imagine a front-page Washington Post story reporting that an entire high school student body got a perfect score on the SAT? Surely someone would question whether standards had slipped.

Still, I'm sure we're only days away from hearing Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings declare that "this school proves that 100 percent proficiency is an achievable goal." And with low enough standards, yes it is.