The Institute for Justice has a nifty new website on school choice with links to legal briefs, fact sheets, and talking points about the topic. A handy resource for researchers, journalists, and activists. Check it out at http://www.ij.org/cases/school/.
Though testing opponents have made some gains in the court of public opinion, they continue to strike out in the real courts. This week, the Massachusetts Supreme Court unanimously rejected a claim by several Bay State students that the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System is unconstitutional. Striking down the MCAS, the court held, "would undermine educator accountability and hinder education reform." Exactly.
"State's highest court rejects MCAS appeal," by Jennifer Peter, Associated Press, January 27, 2004
"State's high court rejects MCAS suit," by Rebecca Piro, Lowell Sun, January 28, 2004
The poet Longfellow once wrote, "How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams with its illusions, aspirations, dreams!" And though George Bernard Shaw would respond that youth is wasted on the young, youthful idealism remains a mainstay of our culture and one of the most precious things to be guarded and nurtured by education. So it's a bit depressing to read this year's edition of the American Freshman Survey, now in its 38th year from UCLA. Seems that slightly fewer than 40 percent of American college freshman now think it's important to "develop a meaningful philosophy of life," which is a silly way of describing the important youthful search for one's intellectual and moral bearings. But the most students ever, 73 percent, now feel it's important to be "very well-off financially." Another fascinating tidbit: 47 percent of all freshmen report that they have an A average, despite an increase in the total number of students attending college and annual declines in the average weekly number of hours spent studying.
"College students found to value money over all," by Peter Y. Hong, Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2004 (registration required)
There are at least three possible responses to pressure on teachers to get students up to par on state standardized tests. One is to do the job. Another is to take a pass, not get the job done, and criticize the test. A third is to cheat. Generally, we would characterize these responses, respectively, as the correct response, passing the buck, and unethical. Some teachers evidently don't see it that way. A disturbing article in the New York Post discusses "scrubbing," which the paper claims is a fairly widespread practice in Gotham schools, whereby a teacher revises the Regents Exam essays of students who are on the cusp of passing. "I'm sorry if it's shocking for laymen to hear," said an unnamed Manhattan teacher. "Scrubbing is something we have to do to help kids get their asses out of high school." Teaching them to write an acceptable essay, we guess, is out of the question. And in the magazine District Administration, Texas teacher Thomas Rosengren recounts how he decided to shift from teaching third grade to first grade because he couldn't hack the pressure of getting his students to proficiency on the TAKS. He portrays this as a bold step, while those who "teach to the test" are knuckling under to administrators and legislators. So, in Orwellian fashion, cheating is now virtue, passing the buck is courageous, and getting the job done is cowardice.
"Teachers cheat," by Carl Campanile, New York Post, January 26, 2004
"Unethically teaching to the test," by Thomas Rosengren, District Administration, January 2004
Education leaders in Georgia and Minnesota are working to revise their state standards for U.S. and world history. And, in both states, a fierce debate has ensued. We've been following the Minnesota story for some time (see http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=8#370) and have watched as social studies ideologues have savaged the state's courageous education commissioner, Cheri Pearson Yecke, for daring to develop standards that expect students to master real historical content. Regrettably, Georgia seems to be headed in the opposite direction. At least one history teacher says that its new "Performance Standards" for social studies expect less of students, not more. According to Joseph Jarrell, a 25-year veteran Georgia history teacher, "The misguided rationale behind the hastily prepared revision [of the standards] is that we teach too much history in high school. The solution? Eliminate 40 percent of the current coursework." "Interesting formula," quips Jarrell, "teach less, test less, brag more." In Minnesota, on the other hand, where Yecke and her team are working to ensure that the new history standards are more rigorous than the state's widely mocked Profiles of Learning, critics allege the reverse: that the proposed Minnesota standards have "too much content" and demand "too much memory work." Some of the more squalid among them have even defamed Yecke for writing standards that are "implicitly and explicitly racist" because they are "too focused on the experiences of white Americans and Europeans."
"DFLers roll out plans for schools," by Norman Draper, Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 27, 2004
"The Minnesota Senate hearings: social studies," EdWatch.org, January 26, 2004, (click on "Ed Watch updates")
"Social studies standards won't promote Dr. King's cause," by Paul Spies, Minnesotans Against Proposed Social Studies Standards, January 19, 2004
"Dumbing down our past doesn't serve our future," by Joseph Jarrell, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 25, 2004
"Heightened standards delve deep," by Kathy Cox, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 25, 2004
Elizabeth G. Hill, Legislative Analyst???s Office
January 2004
This report to the California legislature summarizes key points from a recent RAND analysis, (see our earlier coverage of that piece at http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=108#282) in order to provide policy recommendations about the Golden State's charter schools. It notes that the state's 409 charters generally perform as well academically as traditional public schools, and that, because they receive fewer state and federal dollars than public schools, they are "cost effective." (Charter people might prefer the term "starved.") The Legislative Analyst then recommends that the state lift the cap on the number of charter schools allowable (currently set at 750), as charters "remain neither new . . . nor untested," which was the rationale for setting a cap in the first place. The report also makes many specific recommendations designed to remove bureaucratic hurdles in charters' way, including the "complex" and "opaque" funding system and the inflexible authorizing process. Currently, California charters may generally be sponsored only by local school boards, which is a recipe for disaster (they often lack the capacity to be good authorizers, and may not have the incentive to try); instead, the LAO argues that a wide variety of organizations should be eligible to become authorizers. In addition to addressing these California-specific issues, and offering a nice summary of the RAND work, the report explains several national trends in charter school legislation and authorizing that even those on the right coast might find useful. It's a short, accessible report that you can find online at http://www.lao.ca.gov/2004/charter_schools/012004_charter_schools.htm.
This brochure contains profiles of the winners of the second annual Thomas B. Fordham Foundation Prizes for Excellence in Education. The 2004 prize for Valor is awarded to Howard Fuller, and the 2004 prize for Distinguished Scholarship is awarded to Eric Hanushek.
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On Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, Gary Orfield and the Harvard Civil Rights Project released a study concluding--just like last year's report, and the one the year before that--that school segregation is on the rise. According to the authors, their 'new' work "shows that U.S. schools are becoming more segregated in all regions for both African American and Latino students. We are celebrating a victory over segregation at a time when schools across the nation are becoming increasingly segregated." According to the report, Kentucky leads the nation as the most integrated state for black students, and Wyoming leads the nation as the most integrated state for Latinos. The report does not, however, detail student achievement levels in either state, nor does it give any indication of whether integration has increased pupil achievement overall in those states. In fact, in their discussion of the academic implications of racial segregation, the authors acknowledge that socioeconomic status, not race per se, "turns out to be powerfully related to both school opportunities and achievement levels." One would have hoped that the authors would see this link as evidence that relegating low-income and minority students to persistently failing inner-city schools is the real problem. Sadly, they do not recommend the one reform that could give the greatest number of low-income minorities the power to escape segregated inner-city schools: unlimited school choice. Rather, they're only interested in giving minorities only limited choices, and only if those choices further racial desegregation. You could look the report up at http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/reseg04/resegregation04.php, or you could wait 'til next year's edition, which will undoubtedly say exactly the same thing.
"U.S. school segregation now at '69 level," by Michael Dobbs, Washington Post, January 18, 2004
2004 could turn out to be the year of the teacher, the year that the bureaucratic, ideological, and regulatory strangleholds under which the teaching profession labors might just be broken. Last year ended with the Education Trust's stern rebuke of federal and state officials for playing fast and loose with NCLB's highly-qualified teacher requirement. (See http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=128#1608.) The new year opened with an unexpectedly bold, almost radical, "call to reform" from Lou Gerstner's Teaching Commission; a generally bullish evaluation of Denver's pilot "pay for performance" effort; and a surprising speech by New York City teachers' union head Randi Weingarten that urged decades-overdue streamlining of the "teacher discipline process." What next?
We will admit that, when former IBM CEO Louis V. Gerstner formed his 19-member blue-ribbon teaching commission, it was so exquisitely "balanced" that we assumed it would be able to recommend little more than an extrapolation of present policies and practices into a better-financed future. We're delighted to have been proven wrong. The Commission's recommendations are far-reaching and generally commendable. Yes, it calls for plenty more money, but also for linking pay to effectiveness (based on value-added measures of student achievement), to subject specialty, and to working conditions. It urges new forms of accountability for teacher-education programs, making new teachers pass demanding tests of content knowledge, and removing needless certification obstacles. And it would empower school principals as "CEOs" with control over personnel decisions. Bravo. It's 60 pages long and you can find it at http://www.theteachingcommission.org/publications/FINAL_Report.pdf.
Denver's pay-for-performance pilot program wasn't very bold, large, or long-lasting, but it seems to have made a positive difference in many, though not all, of the participating schools. The 145-page study explaining this is full of information (much of it rather technical) but it also suggests that a real city CAN implement the kind of performance-linked compensation plan that the Gerstner team is urging, and can even do so with the union's cooperation. The report is available at http://www.dpsk12.org/pdf/PayForPerformance.pdf.
As for Randi Weingarten's January 14 speech to the Association for a Better New York, it seeks to answer the question, "How to get a highly qualified teacher into every New York City classroom--and keep them there?" Much of her answer is standard stuff: better base pay, a cursory nod toward performance-linked compensation, a professional career ladder, greater respect for teacher expertise, etc. But then she turned to the problem of teacher incompetence and - after blaming management for not solving it - offered a promising proposal of her own. Its gist is that management should move aside and give the union 90 days (no more) to set a faltering teacher either on the course to improvement or the road to exiting. In the latter case, she says, the union will then back principal and chancellor if they opt to "remove the person for incompetence." Though Ms. Weingarten made several more discipline-related recommendations, the 90-day time limit captured the headlines. After all, New York City claims that under present procedures it cannot remove an incompetent teacher in less than two years. Fascinating. You can find her text at http://www.abny.org/docs/UFT_speech.pdf.
Three promising moves, at least on paper. And - let us, who often rap the unions, not fail to comment - all involved teacher unions. Two are obvious. In the Gerstner case, note that one of his panel members is AFT president Sandra Feldman. Good for them. Now they must walk the walk.
"Commission wants teacher pay tied to test scores," by Ben Feller, Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 15, 2004
"Merit pay helps students, too," Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 20, 2004
Today is a red-letter day for parents and kids trapped in failing D.C. public schools. The Senate has just passed the much-delayed omnibus spending bill for fiscal year 2004, which has language attached to it authorizing a voucher program in the District. The vote comes after several days of delay and threats of filibuster from Democrats and a handful of Republicans who objected to the pork-laden measure. In fact, a motion to close debate on the bill failed on Tuesday, 48-45. But Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said the minority has "made its point" and has no interest in shutting down the federal government. Look for the President to sign the bill shortly. Now, more than likely, D.C. vouchers are off to the courts.
"GOP hopes to push lagging spending bill," by Alan Fram, Associated Press, January 22, 2004
"Dems' stance on omnibus spending bill hardens despite threats by GOP," by Alexander Bolton and Geoff Earle, The Hill, January 20, 2004
"Fate of $820 billion omnibus spending bill still unclear," by Peter Cohn and Jerry Hagstrom, Congress Daily, January 16, 2004