The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Harvard may forfeit nearly $400 million in alumni gifts this year as a consequence of ex-president Lawrence H. Summers' abrupt exit. Even for mega-bucks Harvard, that begins to qualify as real money, a palpable hit in the pocketbook--a "significant setback" in Journalese.

The four major donors involved, including such high-profile folks as David Rockefeller, Larry Ellison, and Mortimer Zuckerman, are fairly circumspect in explaining their actions, but the Journal depicts them as "supportive of Mr. Summers and elements of his vision for Harvard."

Several other big donors have also signaled a reduction or withholding of their regular gifts to Harvard. Said Byron Wien of Pequot Capital, who declined to make his (sizable) annual contribution, "It was my little wake-up call saying, look, there are multiple constituencies there. The students are a constituency, and they were very supportive of Summers. And the alumni are a constituency, and they were very supportive of Summers."

Lots of people have Summers-related gripes--my own is that toward the end he wimped out and apologized rather than sticking to his convictions--but everyone agrees that he was an energetic agent of change who sought, during his five years in the nice corner office in Massachusetts Hall, to redirect the university on a number of fronts. These include the nature of undergraduate education; the uses of technology; Harvard's place on the international stage; a major physical relocation of portions of the university across the Charles River; and some rollback of political correctness, including at least limited efforts to resurrect ROTC.

He moved quickly and decisively on many of these fronts. He was often outspoken, even provocative, in many of his comments. He was, I'm told, abrasive, unkempt, and hard to work with. He did not operate via the university norm of "consensus"--which norm usually guarantees that nothing changes. And a couple of his most visible altercations--especially with an African-American professor and some prickly women scientists--got him in Dutch with a noisy and politicized fraction of the faculty of Arts and Sciences. Most of the rest of the university liked him well enough. Some thought he was just what the place needed. In the end, however, the Harvard Corporation--the university's principal governing body--eased him out the door and brought back (on an interim basis) the genial, clubbable Derek Bok.

I admired most of the Summers agenda and rather fancied his "gadfly" approach to higher education. His main shortcoming, in my view (prior to the eventual wimp-out), was his party affiliation, but that can be forgiven.

My own alumni gifts to Harvard have never amounted to much, but I've been a faithful annual donor. Now I'm rethinking that habit. It's not that the university would notice the loss of my few dollars. It's that private universities are almost entirely unaccountable to anyone but their own faculty. (I'm referring to selective institutions that have plenty of applicants. Other sorts of campus must be attentive to the student marketplace.)

One way to get their attention is via alumni contributions and the absence thereof. American colleges and universities are profoundly greedy--always wanting more of just about everything from academic accolades to climbing walls and, because they're allergic to productivity gains and efficiency considerations, their only way of doing more is to bring in more bucks. On private campuses, that boils down to hiking tuition levels, which causes its own woes, or landing more grants and gifts. These can come from innumerable places, of course, including federal agencies and private foundations as well as individual donors. Alumni, however, are a favorite source, because they are presumed to be biased in favor of a particular institution and generally steadfast, even eager to repay what they regard as their enduring debt to their alma mater.

Alumni who seek to influence their college or university, as opposed simply to "helping" it, have to be strategic. Institutions of higher education don't like to be influenced and are notoriously resistant to hectoring, pleading, and pressuring. Nothing brings a professor greater pleasure than mounting a soapbox to declare that some nefarious external force is trying to curb his academic freedom. But such institutions tend to respond to money. The single best way to get a college to do something is to give it dollars for that specific purpose. They almost always react positively.

I'm not under any illusion that haughty places with lots of money--Harvard is surely at the top of that list--will be equally responsive to the absence or withdrawal of money. The development office will undoubtedly take note, as will a couple of administrators, but it's far from clear that the faculty will notice or care. Indeed, it's a fair bet that the selfsame Arts and Science professors who ousted Summers will take smug satisfaction from the fact that Harvard will no longer have resources specifically earmarked for his unloved reforms.

Still, money is just about the only two-by-four this particular mule has any chance of noticing. It'll be good for the alumni/ae to express themselves. Maybe they'll turn it into a habit, perhaps even join the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Summers will surely notice. Other alumni (like me) might be emboldened and empowered. And possibly, just possibly, this high-status but oft-misguided university will alter its future course a tiny, tiny bit.

"Summers' Supporters Withhold $390 Million from Harvard," by Zachary Seward, Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2006 (subscription required)

Center on Education Policy
2006

This practical guide is true to its title: basic. CEP has compiled data, mostly from the National Center for Education Statistics, and presented it in an easy-to-read-and-follow primer. No real commentary here, nor any earth-shattering conclusions from the statistics presented herein. Rather, CEP wrote the primer to give "sufficient background information about public education," encourage "interest in education issues," and stimulate involvement in local schools. For education neophytes, it's a useful starter. And for those already mired in education policy, the primer still contains some intriguing factoids. For example, almost 20 percent of U.S. students are children of immigrants, though some three quarters of them were born on these shores. Also: just 2 percent of school districts enroll over 25,000 students, but they account for 34 percent of the country's public school population. And another: Though college entrance exams are now being taken by more students than ever--including rising percentages of low-income and minority students--SAT scores (mostly math scores) have increased modestly since 1990 (after taking into account the SAT score recentering) and ACT scores have held steady. Pick up a copy here and skim it. You might stumble across a statistic that will surprise you. At the least, you'll acquire a handy reference guide for your bookshelf.

National Center for Education Accountability
July 2006

The National Center for Educational Accountability has relentlessly asked why some schools help more students reach higher standards than other schools. And it has persistently tried to answer that key query. In this new series of reports--which investigates over 200 schools in 20 states, and then compares the results nationally--research teams examined performance data from top- and average-performing schools, then examined the education practices at work in both kinds via extensive interviews and observation. The results show that high-achieving schools share certain facets not present in their lower-performing institutional peers. For example, they boast rigorous course content across a broad range of subjects and demand excellence from students of varying academic abilities. Average schools are more likely to allow lower-performing youngsters a lot of leeway. Analysts also observed that high performing schools don't separate students based on ability but educate all students in classes containing a spectrum of academic performers. This means, in practice, that less savvy students are not segregated and then ignored (a common practice in lower-performing schools). Top schools also make their decisions about curricula and instruction based on student performance data, not emotions. And their teachers and administrators are more likely to collaborate, and to share experiences about what works for students and what doesn't. Many of these findings aren't new (see here) but it's no bad thing to repeat and reinforce them. The state reports are available here.

Joe Williams
Education Sector
July 2006

The National Education Association has spent millions on public relations campaigns attacking NCLB ever since enactment. What the public doesn't know until now is that the NEA has also given millions of dollars in backchannel support to advocacy organizations, researchers, civil rights groups, and state political operatives to erode the federal law's legitimacy. In this report, Joe Williams details the support these groups and individuals received from the NEA to "echo" and amplify the union's own criticisms of the law. A professor at Columbia University's Teachers College, who wished to remain anonymous because of his relationship with the union, said, "The [NEA] has a lot of money for research, but it wants the conclusions to match its agenda." For example, the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice, a nonprofit outfit, has supported many studies critical of NCLB and high-stakes testing. According to Williams, "All [of those studies] have been funded entirely with money from the NEA and several state affiliates." While the center's director denies that his organization's research also winds up supporting NEA policy positions, so far as we can tell Great Lakes has never produced a study supportive of testing or NCLB. Other, similar situations are detailed in the report. Williams does not accuse the NEA of anything illegal (the union has disclosed all financial dealings that the law requires). But citizens should know that, when they read that some non-profit group has condemned NCLB or some analyst has found another flaw in NCLB, NEA money is probably behind it. To learn more about the union's tactics, read the Williams report here.

Remember the mid-1990s, when pruning regulations and focusing on results was all the rage? Like so many education-reform movements, it's skipped town like a Texas twister. The state legislature there has turned its back on district autonomy, giving Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley power to oversee the state's $260 million teacher incentive program, and to set annual targets for district expenditures. Most important, she can now replace teachers and administrators in schools rated for two consecutive years as "Academically Unacceptable." That's a whole lotta jobs, pardner, considering that 364 schools made the year-one list in 2005-06. Gadfly is no friend of state bureaucracies, and generally believes school leaders should call the shots (see here), but also understands that most local school boards are little more than agents of organized adult interests (see here). So if Neeley is willing to pull the trigger and make the tough choices that ultimately benefit students and schools, we've got her back. If she doesn't, district leaders will be waiting behind the corral.

"School reform in state's hands," by Terrence Stutz, Dallas Morning News, July 10, 2006

Look around you--everywhere, even on the front page of the New York Times, boys are failing. Young men are in trouble. And everyone's trying to figure out why.

Or so we and many others thought (see here, here, and here) until last month when Sara Mead jolted those riding the "The Trouble With Boys" bandwagon with her study, The Evidence Suggests Otherwise: The Truth About Boys and Girls. In it, she contends that "The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse; it's good news about girls doing better."

She cites NAEP data showing that, over the past 35 years, boys as a group haven't gained or lost ground to girls on test scores. And she answers those who worry that women are flooding college campuses, leaving men outside the gates, by arguing that more men are in college today than ever--it's just that women had more ground to gain, and they've done that. (For more, see here.)

Christina Hoff Sommers, author of The War Against Boys, and Michael Gurian, author of The Minds of Boys, wasted no time in firing back (see here and here). Like Mead, both cite NAEP data and use their best culture war language to argue that boys are in desperate straits. Sommers points to minority males' deplorable track record on NAEP and how much better minority girls are doing. Gurian claims that Mead overlooks the larger cultural forces at play against males.

Because both sides draw on the same data sources, the average observer may well wonder who's right.

The existing evidence isn't likely to resolve the debate-though Mead has some things to answer for. A little international perspective might help, however. Neither Mead nor Sommers consider the Progress in International Reading Literacy (PIRL) assessment, which shows that fourth-grade boys' scores in each participating country trailed those of fourth-grade girls in 2001. This raises an interesting question that neither wonk wants to entertain: Is there a problem with boys in general or is it possible that boys and girls simply develop intellectually (and in other ways) at different rates?

The same point in reverse can be made with math and science. Both internationally and in the U.S., boys have lost some ground to girls in those subjects, but boys still score better on average. This despite 30 years of programs in the United States encouraging women to study more hard sciences and opening more doors for them to do so. Outgoing Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers was politically incorrect in the remarks that cost him his post, but just as girls do better in reading when they're younger, perhaps there's something to boys doing better, on the whole, in math and science.

The trouble with "The Trouble With Boys" argument is that it forces us to home in on boy-girl trend lines and ignore the individual. Girls may excel in reading and writing, but no shortage of greats such as Maxwell Perkins, Ernest Hemingway, and John Steinbeck show that boys can do it, too. Ditto boys and science. Sure, statistically they may fare better, but Sally Ride, Jane Goodall, and Evelyn Boyd Granville prove girls can soar.

In a recent Esquire article, Kati Haycock does a good job of putting girls' gains and boys' struggles in perspective: The gains of girls, she explains, are "the result of a couple of generations of advocacy on the part of women, and girls getting the message that anything is possible.... That's what's owed the boys. It's a matter of generational focus."

Today's generation of policy worriers is focusing on boys. So let's capitalize on it. Let's instruct teachers to use emerging brain science to inform the way they teach boys in their classrooms. Let's face the possibility that, in creating opportunities for girls, we may have overcompensated and done away with things that work for boys, like more competition and greater classroom structure. Let's make sure there are plenty of books that young boys will find interesting (books about sports and soldiers are more apt to catch a young lad's eye than Max and Ruby or Dora.)

But let's realize that it's most important to see and teach Johnny and Jenny based on their innate talents--all of them. So whether Johnny opts for becoming the next Neil Armstrong or the next Neil Simon, he's prepared to pursue either course that interests him.

School buses have never been particularly comfortable, efficient, or hip. So how would Mickey Velilla make the morning commute easier on students? Let them take limos. Velilla is president of Diamond Star Limousine, one of several Tampa Bay-area limo companies that offer transportation for youngsters who need to get to and from school but find public transportation and yellow buses thoroughly distasteful. The trend is blossoming on the Suncoast, but some parents "wonder" if the limos create a status divide and spoil well-off kids. Hmm, seems like a possibility. But Kim Lang, a Tampa mother who owns a candle company and sacrifices work time to transport her children, finds the idea quite sensible. And her kids would love it. "They're really all about pomp and circumstance," she said. "They are all into status." Of course, with limos transitioning from extravagance to everyday, one wonders how students will commute to such soirees as the eighth grade dance, homecoming, or prom--traditional limo haunts, all. Hansom cabs? Luxury rickshaws? Does anyone know the number to Diddy's cell?

"School busing in style," by Ben Montgomery, St. Petersburg Times, July 8, 2006

We'll try to hide our grin as we note the end of Michael Winerip's education columns in the New York Times. Over the past four years, he somehow managed to travel the country reporting about K-12 education and never deviate from his initial, illogical perceptions (see here). And so it is in his final piece, where the Defender of All Things Status Quo offers suggestions for "improving" NCLB when its reauthorization rolls around next year. As expected, his claims are standard fare: reduce class sizes ("a moral issue"), stop blaming teachers when their students can't read, etc. Winerip refuses to budge from his belief that the country's K-12 education system shouldn't be held accountable. Instead, he calls for teachers to be "trusted." (Does he feel the same about stockbrokers or corporations or everyone else in our society, or are educators a special class?) He manages to forget that, before standards-based reform began in a serious way in 1989, teachers were pretty much allowed to monitor their own progress. They didn't produce inspiring results, especially for poor and minority students. Public education exists to serve the citizenry, and it is to the citizenry that it must ultimately answer. As for Mr. Winerip, perhaps the Times will now deploy him to report on auto sales.

"Teachers, and a law that distrusts them," by Michael Winerip, New York Times, July 12, 2006 

Mexico's presidential election brought a rare consensus in the U.S. press. Ideologically diverse outlets from the New York Times to the Wall Street Journal seemed to agree (see here and here; subscriptions required) that Felipe Calderón, Mexico's new leader (recount notwithstanding), has two choices. He can either revive a faltering economy by opening the country's mostly-closed economy to outside investment or he can cast his lot with leaders of other Latin American states who prefer either populist demagoguery or inaction to real reform. By choosing the former, they argue, he can develop good opportunities for Mexicans at home and help stem the flow of workers northward.

Yet the media focused so intently on economic issues that they largely ignored another Mexican system in urgent need of reform: K-12 education. Even with liberalized economics, it's impossible to create jobs and promising opportunities when large swaths of the country's population remain mostly uneducated.

Mexico has a lot going for it. It's flush with natural resources, is blessed with thousands of miles of coastline, and abuts the world's most prosperous nation. Yet Mexico remains mired in poverty and continues to hemorrhage human capital to the United States.

That's not surprising when the nation's K-12 schools are models of bureaucratic incompetence and corruption. They are also in thrall to the all-powerful National Education Workers Union, which has done much to devalue and degrade classroom instruction for Mexican children.

For example, the teachers union has advocated keeping the elementary school day limited to a paltry four hours of instruction. It has opposed any overhaul of an 80-year-old middle school curriculum that perceptive government officials say is in desperate need of modernizing.

And then there's teacher absenteeism, a major problem in Mexico because firing teachers, even when they habitually miss work, is prevented by the union. A 2004 Washington Post article quoted one principal, Jose Luis Gonzalez, who could not fire his school's ninth-grade math teacher despite the instructor's taking another job and missing 75 percent of his classes.

Even more shocking is the union's de facto custom of "selling" teaching jobs, or taking bribe money to expedite certain individuals' teacher applications. A top Education Ministry official told the Post, "The union is a business for selling jobs."

Add to this graft the schools' incompetent, centralized control and the results are predictable: a 2005-06 World Economic Forum report placed the quality of Mexican education 81st out of 117 countries. Only 25 percent of the nation's students graduate from high school.

When U.S. politicians discuss immigration, and when the White House begins negotiating with the new Mexican administration, improving that nation's elementary-secondary education system should be a priority. Illegal immigration from Mexico to the United States may be primarily the result of Mexico's lagging economy, but according to a recent World Education and Development Fund paper (and common sense), "One of the key factors thwarting economic growth in Mexico is the extremely poor education level of its citizens."

Those who are most frequently shortchanged in Mexico's classrooms come from rural areas, many in the country's south. And the vast majority of undocumented immigrants come from those areas, too. A recent New York Times Magazine article details that 60 percent of Mexican immigrants in the United States are dropouts.

Calderón espouses sound, market-based policies on the economic front, but change may still be slow to come. According to Stephen Johnson of the Heritage Foundation, Mexican citizens are notoriously wary of efforts to reform their country's "sacred cows," whether that means fighting the teacher unions or allowing principals more control over their schools.

Mexico's outgoing President Vicente Fox missed the chance to reform his nation's public schools. Let's hope the United States leans on Calderón to do the right thing and that Mexico's new leader has the cojones to enact some real change.

Who was Captain Cook, and what did he discover? Prime Minister John Howard wants young Aussies to know this and much more, and is calling for a "root-and-branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history... and the way it is taught." Education Minister Julie Bishop tacks with him, complaining that history is currently presented in vague themes, and "squashed... together with other social and environmental studies." She, Howard, and their allies want history taught in a narrative style, without social and ideological brainwashing. But opposition leader Kim Beazley and Queensland Education Minister Rob Welford prefer the social studies soup. Says Welford, "I think we have learnt over the years that the regurgitation of facts and figures is not really ‘learning.'" Sound familiar? At least in Cook's day bad ideas didn't travel around the world quite so quickly. Prime Minister Howard: throw those pedagogical pirates overboard!

"Beazley against history revival," by Imre Salusinszky and Dan Box, The Australian, July 6, 2006

"History back in schools," by Imre Salusinszky, The Australian, July 5, 2006