Put this one in the "idea whose time has come" file: high school end-of-course exams. A decade back, when states such as Virginia started requiring them for graduation, it appeared the practice would take the nation by storm. Instead, it stalled for some reason (NCLB?)--until now. The Center on Education Policy reports that eight states will have end-of-course exams in place by 2012, and a bill that passed the Texas senate last month would make it nine. Nine states have also come together to offer a common Algebra II exam. Achieve president Michael Cohen explains the reasoning: "End-of-course tests can promote a level of consistency in content across courses, schools, and districts, and those tests can be a lot more rigorous." Of course, the devil is in the details; the tests need to be based on solid standards, for example. And their full potential won't be realized until states use the results for college admissions and placement decisions, as New York does--and as Cohen's American Diploma project urges. Still, when it comes to high school reform, end-of-course exams are a good start.
"States Mull Best Way to Assess Their Students for Graduation," by Catherine Gewertz, Education Week, May 16, 2007
It's no secret that public education contains vast funding inequities: between districts, within districts, and between district and charter schools, to name just a few. There are lots of potential solutions, too, but when money is at stake, reform is never simple.
In New York City, Chancellor Joel Klein is rolling out a somewhat emaciated version of weighted student funding, aka "Fair Student Funding," to distribute education dollars more equitably across the Big Apple. This is no small challenge in a district with a million students, a powerful teacher union, and plenty of middle-class schools accustomed to generous budgets. Those fat budgets occur not because their students' families pay more in taxes (though they may), or because public policy intends for their schools to receive a greater share of resources (which it probably doesn't). No, affluent families in many New York City neighborhoods enjoy schools with more resources because their schools employ more experienced teachers with bigger salaries. Across town, run-down classrooms are led by less-experienced teachers, and less-experienced teachers make less money--which means that kids in needy schools are actually being shortchanged.
Klein's plan would go a considerable distance toward setting this right, within the limits of the budgetary share controlled by City Hall (as opposed to Albany or Washington). It proposed a system in which the city would allocate dollars rather than teaching positions to its schools. Not surprisingly, that plan engendered much opposition. First came the United Federation of Teachers and wealthy parents, fearful that today's relatively generous budgets in affluent communities would suffer and the plum jobs of better-paid teachers would become unsettled. Klein struck a deal on this key element of weighted student funding--letting wealthier schools keep their larger budgets for at least a year--and thereby put off part of the solution for another day.
Now comes a thoroughly misguided new critique, courtesy of Andrew Wolf and the New York Sun. Wolf contends that wealthy families in well-off schools do, in fact, deserve to have more spent on their children, but he also alleges that Klein is naïve to believe that money even matters in education.
Wolf also laments New York's history of fiscal waste, with "skyrocketing" expenditures accompanied by no comparable rise in student achievement. That part would be fair except that he attacks the very solution to this inefficiency and mismanagement: funding schools based on the needs of individual students rather than "based on the cost of providing services." Ironic. Until now, districts such as New York City's haven't put principals in charge of their schools' budgets and thus have encouraged the very waste Wolf decries. Centrally managed organizations have fallen out of use in other industries, replaced by dispersed decision-making in which the authority of a manager is commensurate with his responsibility. It's an innovation heralded by management scholars, and Klein--who has been wrong on a number of curricular issues--is right in his attempt to bring the principle to bear on schools.
On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, battles over education funding inequities also loom, as Congress and its orbiting policy wonks contemplate changes to NCLB. Much of the conversation has focused on the law's accountability mechanisms. Yet we mustn't forget that NCLB is, via Title I, a massive funding program, and that it distributes billions of dollars. And while one might assume that Uncle Sam is better suited to pass out money than to judge school quality, it falls short there, too.
Title I should help alleviate, rather than exacerbate, funding inequities between wealthy and poor schools. And ever since its enactment forty long years ago, districts have been responsible for ensuring that Title I schools receive "comparable" resources before the federal dollars are added on top. Yet NCLB's fine print about how to determine "comparability" requires districts to use the same budget smokescreens New York City is trying to clear by ignoring the salary advantages of teachers among various schools. Federal policy is exacerbating the problem that Klein is trying to solve. (You can see for yourself, in Section 1120A(c)(2)(B): "in the determination of expenditures... staff salary differentials for years of employment shall not be included.")
Given that teacher salaries make up the bulk of school budgets, this is a bit like holding students accountable for only 30 percent of their answers on a final exam. And given that Title I comprises $13.9 billion of the $24.5 billion that the president has requested for NCLB in Fiscal 2008 (see here), it's a sizable problem. That's why the Education Trust's recent suggestions for "Comparability and Funding Equity" in NCLB (see here) are worth taking seriously. To make sure that Title I actually benefits poor students, districts would be required to demonstrate comparable spending across schools, and they'd be required to include actual teacher salaries in doing so.
It's a common sense proposal that builds on the NCLB Commission's own recommendation on comparability. (The Ed Trust proposal is actually a slight improvement, as the commission would have required comparable teacher salaries. Ed Trust merely requires comparable school spending, including actual salaries, which leaves some sensible flexibility to buttress lower salaries with increased expenditures in other areas. In either case, the biggest potential concern is burdening districts with paperwork, which will depend on the particular regulations the Education Department ultimately drafts.)
Anything that makes this much sense is sure to face opposition. Unions will be quick to recognize, as the UFT did, the dangers of sunlight on actual teacher salaries. Besides unfounded criticism from the usual suspects, however, there are also legitimate reasons to consider the impact of such changes to education funding. After all, as Marguerite Roza and Christopher Cross note in their fascinating analysis, How the Federal Government Shapes and Distorts the Financing of K-12 Schools, when it comes to Title I, "virtually any action will have unintended consequences." For example, as the National Council on Teacher Quality's Kate Walsh points out, an ill-conceived plan could encourage districts to transfer pricey but poorly-performing veteran teachers to high-poverty schools in order to meet the "comparability" threshold. Heading off that sort of "dance of the lemons" is essential, too, then. The NCLB Commission does that, but Ed Trust doesn't.
Still, as in New York City, the potential benefits outweigh the risks. Title I is intended to allocate dollars to the neediest students, and steps that return to that original vision (without adding layers of complexity) are moves in the right direction. If such changes do spawn new budgetary shenanigans by districts, those should be fixed at their root--by creating rational state and local funding mechanisms in which dollars are allocated by need, formulas are simple and transparent, and principals control their budgets and staff. New York City has pushed the right ideas in these respects. Such principles should also extend to the nation's capital.
Los Angeles Superintendent (and former Navy admiral) David Brewer III wrote in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed that anyone reading about the city's schools probably thinks "not a single thing is going right and that nothing is happening to fix what's wrong." Some things are indeed going right, including charter schools, which are trying to gain a bigger role in the City of Angels and deserve credit for the good work they've already done. But Walter Coombs and Ralph Shaffer--Cal Poly Pomona emeritus professors of social science and history, respectively--won't give an inch. These profs (who, as far as Gadfly can tell, have no experience at all related to K-12 education [see here, for example]), write that charter schools "have a tendency to pick and choose" who they enroll, "are unprepared to educate all students," and belong "in the circular file." Wrong. The Reason Foundation's Lisa Snell easily rebuts their nonsense with (here's an idea): actual data. As for the admiral's admirable efforts, we wish them well--but have more faith in charter-style reform. Coombs and Shaffer are retired--they should consider retiring their rhetoric, too.
"It isn't all bad at L.A. Unified," by David L. Brewer III, Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2007
Paulette Strong, a former school bus driver, worked for less than 30 years and retired before she turned sixty. Nonetheless, Strong still received lifetime health insurance from Michigan's Office of Retirement Services. Thanks to a loophole, all Paulette had to do was re-enter the system at age 60 as a "school aide," work 102 hours, "retire," and then reap the benefits. Her aide salary was supposed to be $6.50 an hour, but, after lifetime dental, vision, and medical care is factored in, she effectively made $1,470 an hour. And Strong isn't alone. In 2006, thirty retired employees were rehired for 102 hours, then quit, and received lifetime health plans. During their first year in the retirement system, the medical bills of those thirty folks cost taxpayers $268,558. According to the Detroit News, Allan Short of the Michigan Education Association "shrugs off the impact of the loophole." That's odd, considering that we thought the union wanted more money for educating kids.
"The $1,470-an-hour Loophole: Retirees Work for 13 Days to Earn Lifetime Health Care," by Ron French, Detroit News, May 11, 2007
Diane Ravitch
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
August 2007
As anyone who's ever attended a Fordham Institute event knows, conversations about K-12 education can quickly turn inscrutable. They become tangled in jargon, so for the lay person unfamiliar with the mishmash of acronyms, Diane Ravitch offers a rather comprehensive new book. Now, when friends start musing at cocktail parties about the particulars of the "Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504)," a quick turn to page 182 resolves any lingering ambiguities that might kill the mood. Much is here. But no glossary of EdSpeak can ever be complete. There's just too much of it. This reviewer discovered several omissions. "Gadfly," for example, is inexplicably missing in action. One trusts that subsequent revisions and editions will tidy up such minor quirks in a swell book that your reference shelf now craves. Look for it this August.
Susan L. Aud
Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation
April 2007
Do vouchers unfairly drain money from public schools as their opponents claim? No, says the Friedman Foundation's Linda Aud, in this examination of the fiscal impact of 12 voucher and tax-credit programs. Her analysis weighs the amount of per-pupil state funding that districts lose when voucher students leave (voucher money generally comes from state, not federal or local, coffers) against those districts' per-pupil instructional spending. In Cleveland in 2004-2005, for instance, the state withheld $3,750 for each voucher, while the district's per-pupil instructional spending averaged $6,707 (although, it should be noted, the old Cleveland voucher program was cheap and rather inadequate). The school thus generated a savings of $2,958 when the voucher recipient left the district. Multiply that per-pupil "surplus" by the 4,256 Cleveland students who received vouchers, and the district saved over $12 million that school year. (Districts save money in other ways, too--lunch programs, transportation, etc.--but Aud includes only instructional costs to make her estimates as conservative and credible as possible.) The numbers are similar for most other voucher programs, save for Milwaukee, where the district itself bears half the burden of funding its vouchers. Aud also calculates savings at the state level. Although Ohio withheld $3,750 from the district for each Cleveland voucher, for instance, it actually awarded only $2,686 to each student, generating a state-level savings of $1,064 per voucher. When Aud combines district and state savings since 1990 for all the programs she analyzed, she calculates that vouchers have saved nearly $444 million nationally. Critics will naturally claim that those savings exist only on paper; after all, it's hard to realize efficiencies if each classroom merely loses a student or two. But by that line of thinking, the more students that take advantage of vouchers, the better for public schools. Join the debate; read the report here.
The decisive recent levy defeat (by a margin of 58 to 42 percent) was indisputably a blow to the Dayton Public Schools (DPS), bringing grim fiscal realities that will force district leaders to scale back certain programs, curtail some activities and furlough a number of teachers and staff--much of this in less than two months.
Downsizing an organization is never easy and laying off scores of employees is truly wrenching. It’s harder still in the public sector, where contractual obligations, political pressures and community needs whipsaw executives seeking to make “rational” choices and do the “right thing”. These won’t be easy weeks for DPS leaders. Yet if they move thoughtfully and strategically, in the medium and long term Dayton could benefit educationally from the short-term agony. The challenge is to use the fiscal stress as leverage to focus on key priorities and rethink some long-time practices and assumptions.
That’s begun to happen in other cities. Consider Denver, where tight budgets, outdated procedures, restrictive contracts and a student exodus to other (especially charter) schools have prompted superintendent Michael Bennet (see here) and every single member of the school board to approach the community with an exciting future vision of a radically different kind of school system--one that would embrace choice, differentiate schools, empower principals, decentralize authority, create new career paths for teachers and foster greater transparency and accountability across the system. It would also reach out to high quality charter operators like KIPP and Achievement First for school partnerships.
Consider Chicago, where the city’s Renaissance 2010 program is reconstituting schools, outsourcing others and incorporating the “charter” principle in turning a centrally managed bureaucracy into something more akin to a “portfolio” of diverse schools. Or just look west down I-70 at the innovative education goings-on in Indianapolis, where Mayor Bart Peterson's office sponsors 16 charter schools and is working with local superintendents to open more in their districts (see here).
Dayton is smaller, yes, but it, too, could bring its public education system into the 21st century by rethinking district-school relations, the constructive (and competitive) uses of school choice, new ways of deploying and compensating personnel, and different approaches to management. We’re not talking “new programs”--i.e., the sort of thing that typically calls for extra money and additional layers. We’re talking about changing the way the community approaches its “core business” of educating the next generation. In the months ahead, DPS can start that ambitious makeover by affirming four key concepts:
- Redoubling its academic progress in core subjects;
- Embracing school choice and developing mutually beneficial partnerships with quality charter and private schools;
- Giving principals the authority they need--especially over school budgets, personnel and instruction--to lead successful schools for whose results they are in turn held accountable; and
- Increasing parental and community buy-in, pointing toward future public support for additional resources.
This means that upcoming cuts in personnel and programs should be made with a scalpel, mindful of their impact on student learning. (Despite recent gains, fully half of DPS pupils are proficient in neither reading nor mathematics.) The district must strive to retain its best principals and teachers, signing these educators to new contracts that, for principals, offer greater operational and instructional autonomy in exchange for direct accountability. In doing so, district leaders must recognize that their top performers may not always be their longest-serving employees and that seniority must yield to performance if children are to benefit.
Rather than turning its back on school choice and charter schools, DPS should welcome them through the front door. Indeed, embracing and capitalizing on school choice in Dayton is both sound policy and a prerequisite for the district’s survival. DPS would do well to identify and protect those schools that have strong academic foundations and community buy-in--such as the all-girls Charity Adams Early Academy, the Dayton Early College Academy and World of Wonder School. They represent more than expanded schooling options; they also lay out a path that the district could tread and widen to meet the needs of the community. Parents who choose their children’s schools make a commitment--and the sooner the district recommits to them, the sooner its fiscal prospects will brighten.
DPS shouldn’t be shy about reaching out for help. In the short term, it should seek counsel from experts who can assist the district to develop a cost reduction strategy that maintains a focus on quality education. Longer term, it should seek partnerships with high-performing charter school operators and networks to see if they are game to take over the operation of some of the district’s most troubled (or expensive) schools. The district can also offer extant charter schools options, selling them specialized services like special education, business management, teacher development, even charter sponsorship. As we’ve noted before (see here), DPS could certainly bring in revenues and goodwill by negotiating facility agreements with quality charters--even private schools serving voucher-bearing children--that crave decent buildings. It could also partner with charter and private schools on sorely needed pre-K and after-school programs.
While playing smart defense, DPS should not shun an aggressive offense. For instance, the district could quarterback a community move to bring to Montgomery County a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) high school. Such a STEM school could be a place of innovation and excellence, benefiting secondary students across the county, while garnering community support, business partnerships and philanthropic (as well as state and federal) dollars. Arrangements could even be made to ensure that DPS teachers benefit by participating in shared professional development opportunities with STEM teachers and staff.
Many more examples could certainly be offered. There’s no denying that DPS has been handed a lemon. But with vision and determination, the result might yet be lemonade.
Though school vouchers have met with a chilly reception by some in Ohio, other countries have warmed up to them quite nicely--for good reason, too. There’s mounting evidence that they’re having a considerable impact on student outcomes. Consider Columbia (yes, Columbia). During the 1990s, its government instituted a voucher program to increase access to high schools, providing over 125,000 students (via a lottery) with about half the cost of tuition at a private school. Researchers have found that those in the program were 15 to 20 percent more likely to finish high school, had lower rates of grade repetition, earned higher scores on academic assessments, and were more likely to sit for college entrance exams. In Sweden, education reforms in the early 1990s resulted in greater choice for parents and students via a government-funded voucher program. The result has been expanded schooling options and some compelling proof that competition and choice raise standards for everyone. As senators in Ohio debate the future of the state’s fledgling voucher program--as well as a new special education voucher initiative, they might want to look abroad for a little guidance and some compelling evidence for offering Ohio’s parents more choices and opportunities for their children’s education.
“Free to Choose, and Learn,” The Economist, May 3, 2007.
A piece of the pie
The spring legislative session is heating up, with the Senate Finance and Financial Institutions Committee now deliberating on the House version of the state budget bill (see here). (Though it remains to be seen whether the Senate can maintain the unwonted bipartisan accord achieved the by House.) As the committee kicked-off hearings on the bill, it quickly became apparent that legislators have no shortage of ideas when it comes to how and where dollars should be spent to improve the education system. Senator Gary Cates (R-West Chester) is seeking a funding guarantee for rapidly growing districts; Senator Joy Padgett (R-Coshocton) wants dollars allocated to programs encouraging students to pursue postsecondary education (like the Post Secondary Educational Option); and Senator Randy Gardner (R-Bowling Green) is seeking to offer incentives for schools that implement the Ohio Core curriculum in advance of the 2014 deadline. None of them bad ideas per se (though not all good, either), but as this finite educational funding pie gets divvied up, more than a couple folks are bound to be staring at an empty plate.
Giving it to us straight
Few people deliver grim news as well as Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust and a leading child advocate in the field of education. Last week, she spoke at a packed event in Columbus (presented by the Columbus Metropolitan Club and sponsored by KidsOhio.org). The state’s leading educators, business leaders, philanthropic organizations and policymakers turned out for a hot lunch and some chilling statistics about the state of our nation’s schools and the loss of our competitive edge in most grades and subject areas on international assessments. While acknowledging gains Ohio has made, she reminded parties of its staggering and persistent achievement gaps as evidence of work yet to be done. Balancing the bitter with the sweet, Ms. Haycock also shared stories of high performing schools serving poor and/or minority students throughout the country--along with some specific (and common-sense) steps that we need to take in Ohio. Perhaps most notable was her emphatic contention that all good schools--be they charter or district--need help and support replicating, just as bad schools must be closed (view her presentation here).
All about the adults
More money and less reform. That seems to be the thrust of the joint letter (see here) sent to Senate President Bill Harris (R-Ashland) by the Ohio Education Association, Buckeye Association of School Administrators, Ohio Association of School Business Officials and Ohio School Boards Association. Concerned about several provisions of the House-passed budget bill, the foursome lobbied for, among other things:
- reinstating Governor Strickland’s harsh, even crippling, restrictions on state charters;
- restoring Parity Aid levels and the cost-of-doing-business component to district funding formulas;
- redirecting a $20 million appropriation for STEM schools to traditional schools; and
- rejecting outright a new special education voucher initiative.
Sadly, there’s precious little that relates to improving student achievement or expanding quality learning opportunities for children in the letter. This one’s all about the adults.
The May 4th charter school board governance training, held in Columbus, drew almost 100 board members and charter school stakeholders from across the state. Participants left with vital information about effective school governance and the myriad regulations, guidelines and statutes affecting Ohio’s charter schools--all presented by national and state experts. Event materials and presentations are available here.