The faltering U.S. economy has put an end to a decade of budgetary good times for schools, with the recession opening a $40 billion hole in many states' general funds on which schools rely heavily, reports Daniel Wood in The Christian Science Monitor. Among the hardest-hit states are New York, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, and California, where Gov. Gray Davis announced a $850 million cut to public education last week. Belt-tightening moves by districts in these states include laying off teachers, curtailing textbook and other purchases, raising class sizes, postponing repairs, and scaling back teacher training. While the $26.5 billion education reform law signed by President Bush last Tuesday will provide some relief, those funds are largely earmarked for specific purposes like testing and literacy - and implementing the new accountability regime could cost more than Washington will provide. For details see "Recession saps school budgets," by Daniel Wood, The Christian Science Monitor, January 10, 2002.

As Supreme Court justices weigh the constitutionality of Cleveland's voucher program in the next few months, their assessment of the benefits of school choice is apt to influence their decision. If there is evidence that voucher programs offer sound educational opportunities to poor children and prompt the reform of low-performing urban public schools, the "brethren" are more likely to find ways to uphold such programs' constitutionality.

Mindful that the research evidence is likely to carry weight in this important case, many organizations have sought to spin it to suit them. The main strategy of those hostile to vouchers has been to describe the evidence as "mixed" or "inconclusive" at best. Saying that research findings are inconclusive has a reasonable, moderate tone that appeals to journalists who seek balance and tend toward skepticism, even when such balance and skepticism are unwarranted.

In the case of voucher research, those labels are indeed unwarranted, though it's not hard to make it look otherwise. To turn strong and consistently positive results on behalf of vouchers into mixed and inconclusive ones, all that is needed is to apply an unreasonable high standard - perfection - to the voucher research.

One large example of this is "Rhetoric Versus Reality: What We Know and What We Need to Know About Vouchers and Charter Schools," a report issued by the Rand Corporation last month. "For most of the key questions," the Rand authors assert, "direct evaluations of vouchers and charter schools have not yet provided clear answers, and the list of unknowns remains substantially longer than the list of knowns." They do their best to cast doubt on existing studies of the effects of vouchers by using an approach most commonly seen in graduate school, where budding researchers are trained to critique extant scholarship harshly so as to hone their intellects, burnish their methodological sophistication and spot complex questions to explore in their dissertations. In the real world, however, policymakers cannot afford the graduate student luxury of critiquing ad nauseam. Since they must choose among options presented by the real world, based on the information that is available, they require a practical standard that enables them with reasonable confidence to compare various policy alternatives with the status quo. They know that more evidence will continue to roll in, policies will continue to evolve and programs will continue to be refined, replaced and renewed.

When compared with research used to support other education policies, the evidence supporting school choice is remarkably strong. Five random-assignment studies have investigated whether vouchers provide academic benefits to students who use them. They examined the impact of vouchers on children in Charlotte, Dayton, Milwaukee, New York, and Washington, D.C. Random assignment is the gold standard of research designs and program evaluations. Because chance distinguishes who is in otherwise identical treatment and control groups, this approach minimizes the risk that outcomes are caused by unobserved characteristics of students and families - or other events in their communities - rather than by the policy being studied.

All five of these studies showed that students using vouchers experience significant academic benefits. These consistently positive findings have held up under analysis and re-analysis by sundry researchers from Harvard, Princeton, the University of Wisconsin, Georgetown, Mathematica, and the Manhattan Institute. I know of only one other education policy that has been the subject of even one major random assignment study: the class-size reduction experiment in Tennessee. Most education policies are adopted without any experimental evidence, gold standard or less, concerning their effectiveness. (For example, the recently renewed federal Title I program, after 35 years, can muster no such evidence concerning its effectiveness in boosting the achievement of disadvantaged youngsters - its ostensible purpose.)

While the evidence that vouchers benefit youngsters who use them is strong, existing research has important limitations. As the Rand report correctly notes, voucher-induced learning gains are largely restricted to African-American students. Of course, this is partly due to the fact that the vast majority of students in the five voucher experiments conducted so far have been black. To learn more about possible voucher benefits for students from other backgrounds, we would need larger samples of students from these groups. Instead of hailing the finding that vouchers offer significant benefits to African-American students, however, Rand focuses on the "unknowns" for other children. Some people dwell on emptiness in glasses that are even three-quarters full.

As to whether voucher programs can have a positive impact on public schools in the district, the Rand report is even gloomier: "Whether the introduction of vouchers/charters will help or harm the achievement of students who stay in conventional public schools remains for the moment entirely unknown." The authors can say this because they excluded from their conclusion all studies that are not direct examinations of the effects of voucher programs on local public schools. For example, they give no weight to research by Harvard economist Caroline Minter Hoxby that shows that public schools demonstrate higher academic performance when they face additional competition (because they are located in metropolitan areas with more school districts). They ignore my own work with the Education Freedom Index that finds that states with a broader range of choices offered to parents have higher test scores. In short, they spurn all analyses of the current education marketplace that find that greater competition improves public school performance. This is akin to excluding animal studies when trying to determine if a chemical causes cancer in humans - or whether a new treatment might help cancer patients.

The Rand researchers also missed another important Hoxby study that directly examines the effect of new school choice programs on public school performance. She probed charter-school programs in Arizona and Michigan as well as the Milwaukee voucher program and found that the more exposed public schools were to these sources of competition, the greater their academic improvement. This important study, published in the Winter 2001 issue of Education Next, became available on the web in mid-2001, yet Rand's analysts missed it in their "exhaustive review of the existing literature on vouchers and charter schools."

On the collateral question of how school choice affects civic values, they again arrived at a negative conclusion only by excluding significant studies and relevant analyses. In this case, they missed a significant study by Georgetown professor Patrick Wolf and others that found that recipients of a voucher in the D.C. experiment were significantly more likely to be tolerant of the political activities of disliked groups (which is the conventional measure of political tolerance in social science research) than were the public school students who applied for a voucher but were denied one by lottery. Note that these differences were produced after just two years in different schools.

Such gloomy assessments of voucher research are possible despite relatively strong evidence to the contrary because the standards to which critics seek to hold voucher research are different from those they apply to other policies and programs. That's the essence of a "double-standard." Of course there's much still to be learned about the effects of school choice. But unless we try voucher programs on a larger scale and continue them for a longer period, we'll never be able to resolve today's uncertainties or gather more definitive evidence. So long as the existing research is assessed using an overly strict standard, however, policymakers may wrongly be discouraged from trying bigger and bolder programs, scholars may be discouraged from gathering further evidence and the Supreme Court may even be discouraged from allowing today's small programs to continue at all.

Jay P. Greene is Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. The opinions expressed here are his own

Beatriz Chu Clewell and Ana Maria Villegas, The Urban Institute December 2001

Many urban and rural school districts today face a serious shortage of teachers, especially in fields such as bilingual education and special education, and in subjects such as mathematics and science. To help bring new teachers into the profession, the Wallace Reader's Digest Fund has invested over $50 million since 1989 in the Pathways to Teaching Careers program, which prepares classroom aides and returning Peace Corp volunteers to become certified teachers. In this report, Urban Institute researchers look at how the Pathways program has done. They find that it turns out teachers who, overall, are more committed, more diverse and more willing to take on challenging assignments than those emerging from traditional preparation programs. Pathways participants are seen by their supervisors, principals, and independent assessors as more effective than the typical beginning teacher in their schools. Over 81 percent of them remained in the field for at least three years after completing the program. And fully 84 percent of Pathways graduates took jobs in high-need school districts. The success of Pathways serves as further proof that drawing teachers from nontraditional pools is an effective way of attracting good people to a field in need of new and diverse talent. To see the full version, go to http://www.urban.org/education/absence-unexcused.html or order a copy by calling 877-847-7377 or emailing [email protected].

Governor's Task Force on Efficiency and Accountability in K-12 Education December 18, 2001

According to this brief report by Arizona Governor Jane Hull's Task Force on Efficiency and Accountability in K-12 Education, Arizona has no time to waste in implementing standards-based accountability. Citing low achievement, the fact that curricula are not aligned to standards in more than half the state's schools, and a system that is "morally and economically unacceptable," the task force sets forth a series of recommendations to bolster accountability and make good use of the additional funds provided by Proposition 301, which authorized a sales tax increase to support K-12 education. Endorsing Arizona LEARNS, the school accountability plan developed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Jaime Molera, the report calls for: 1) aligning all curricula at every grade level to the state's academic standards; 2) implementing the state Department of Education's "Purposeful Accountability System" which includes greater reporting and dissemination of student and school performance data; 3) implementing a statewide program of student achievement awards and teacher pay-for-performance linked to student achievement; 4) turning underperforming schools around; and 5) directing financial resources toward student achievement. The report describes the "next steps" that must be taken - some requiring legislation, some not - to carry out the task force's recommendations. Puzzled readers may well wonder why this is all again under discussion in a state that's already been through the development of sound academic standards, new tests and accountability systems (as well as the country's largest charter-school program). The short answer, as we observe these matters from afar, is that Molera, the Governor's Task Force, and some legislators are backing away from the "high stakes" approach of former superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan and instead embracing strategies (such as those outlined above) favored by Arizona's public school establishment. We are, accordingly, underwhelmed, but if you'd like to see this pious report for yourself you can find a PDF version at http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/arizona.pdf.

Howard Fuller and Kaleem Caire, National Center for Policy Analysis 2001

Co-written by school choice guru Howard Fuller and Kaleem Caire, CEO of the Black Alliance for Educational Options, this book refutes ten of the most widely proffered arguments against school vouchers, promoted especially by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. These "myths" include accusations that vouchers "cream" the best students, rob public schools of needed funds, deny service to disabled students, and so forth. Fuller and Caire introduce each allegation with direct quotes from choice opponents and then set the record straight. Myth #5, for example, says that "Tax-funded school voucher programs do not improve the academic achievement of voucher students." The authors found variations on this statement made by AFT President Sandra Feldman and others to contradict the conclusions of several independent evaluations of experiments that have found statistically significant benefits for students who used vouchers. (For more information about these studies, see Jay Greene's editorial above.) Copies of the book - a handy and concise weapon in the choice supporter's arsenal - are available from the National Center for Policy Analysis, 12655 North Central Expressway, Suite 720, Dallas, TX 75243; telephone 972-386-6272.

Patrick Basham, Fraser Institute 2001

Home schooling, the leading form of education in North America during parts of the 19th century, is making a comeback in the 21st century. Home-schoolers today may make up as much as 3.4 percent of the school-aged population in the U.S. and 1.0 percent in Canada. This report, written by Cato Institute scholar Patrick Basham and published by the Fraser Institute, explores the recent surge of home schooling in the U.S. and Canada. (It should be noted, though, that Basham's estimates for U.S. home schooling are a lot higher than those recently published by the National Center for Education Statistics.) He describes the ideological and pedagogical factors that motivate American and Canadian parents to teach their children at home and he identifies interesting features of home schooling families. (In the U.S., for example, the fastest growing group of home-schoolers is Muslim Americans.) Basham finds that home schooled students - especially in the U.S. - are just as likely to be involved in social activities outside the home and more apt to succeed academically then their public school peers - all for a fraction of the cost of public education. To order a hard copy of this concise report, contact the Fraser Institute at 1770 Burrard Street, 4th Floor, Vancouver, B.C., V6J 3G7; phone 800-665-3558; or download one from http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/publications/pps/51/homeschool.pdf.

Gripe number one:

When Congress decided to federalize the nation's airport security personnel, there was a briefly heated debate about whether "federalizing" was synonymous with improving, or whether it would mean nothing more than adding 28,000 people to the federal workforce with additional job protections for the workers but no additional security for passengers. During the debate, we were assured by our elected representatives that those who worked in sensitive positions in the airports would have to meet higher standards than are currently in place.

Surprise: the nation's airport security personnel will be, apparently, exactly the same as those who were on the job (or not on the job) on September 11. To make matters worse, the Department of Transportation is rapidly dropping or diluting or forgetting about the "standards" that the public thought had been adopted in the legislation. After an outcry from places like California, it turns out that security personnel will NOT have to be American citizens. It seems that a large number of these workers are not American citizens, even though they have lived in the United States (in some cases) for years (certainly enough years to apply for and receive their citizenship papers).

Worse yet: those people who are our nation's first line of defense, screening air passengers and their possessions, will not need to be high school graduates. At a time when nearly 90% of all young people are getting high school diplomas, this move is outrageous. It suggests that screeners will be drawn from the pool of the poorest educated and least motivated individuals, those who lacked the minimal persistence needed to complete a high school diploma. Instead of a high school degree, screeners need have only "one year of work experience," which is about as minimal as one could get, save for no work experience at all. This is the kind of policy that sends a very negative message to students and teachers about the importance of having a high school education.

This dumbing down of qualifications suggest that our nation is still not serious about air security. The message that we are all getting through these decisions is that worker job security counts for a lot more than passengers' lives and safety.

My friend Checker is currently en route to Mexico, but I suggest that the rest of us stay home or drive until there is some clear signal that our government intends to put our safety first.

Gripe number two:

Recently the President of Yale University revealed that he was reconsidering the practice of early decisions for students applying for admission. Immediately came an outcry from a variety of admissions officers in defense of early decisions. It was good, they said, for high school seniors to make their choice of college in the fall of their last high school year and to get an answer in December. I forget all the reasons they set forth about the importance of early decisions. Not one of them mentioned, however, that early decisions have a devastating impact on the senior year in high school. When students know that they have already been admitted to the college of their choice, they have no reason to work hard. When they know that their hard work has no bearing on their future, it is devalued. Teachers have been complaining for years that senior year has become a joke. Are our students so well educated that we can be content with only three years of high school instead of four? Why throw away the senior year? The truth is that the only good case for early admission is the convenience of college administrators, who like to know well in advance that they have lined up their top choices. From the point of view of students and high schools, early admissions is a disaster. Yale is right, and I hope the university sticks to its guns on this one.

Members of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) who attend the organization's annual meeting in 2002 are invited to attend a professional development course (for only $70!) that will train them to engage "with poetic representation of data as a way of focusing, interpreting, clarifying, and communicating the results of qualitative research," according to a note in the December 2001 issue of Educational Researcher, the association's journal. The complete description, which appears on pp. 38-39, is as follows:

 "Constructing Data Poems

This workshop engages participants with poetic representation of data as a way of focusing, interpreting, clarifying, and communicating the results of qualitative research.  It further addresses the question of poetic representation as an avenue for culturally relevant research.  Its purpose is to give participants a hands-on experience with poetic representation of data and an exposure to a range of forms and purposes.  Participants may work with data that they will be guided to generate during the workshop or
with data they bring.  Presenters will offer models of data poems; specific strategies for constructing and revising data poems; examples of poet-researcher collaborations; trans-national/trans-cultural collaborations, and ways of thinking about assessment.  In this highly interactive session, issues for discussion will include a) the potential for poetic representation of research and the limitations of that potential, b)the potential roles of data poems in teaching and learning, and c) the potential of poetic representation for culturally relevant research."

This workshop is promoted in the same journal that in the last few years has published articles such as "The Awful Reputation of Education Research," by Carl F. Kaestle ( v22 n1 pp. 23, 26-31) and "Improving the 'Awful Reputation' of Education Research" by Gerald E. Sroufe ( v26 n7 pp. 26-28).

While the testing and reading provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act have been monopolizing the spotlight, the requirement that all teachers in core academic subjects be fully qualified within four years is starting to attract its share of unfriendly attention. In an article in last week's Sacramento Bee, Wayne Johnson, the president of the California Teachers Association called it "fantasy legislation" and said, "It's not going to happen." But Rep. George Miller (D-California), one of the key backers of the legislation, is dead serious about the goal. "How long do they suggest we should have unqualified teachers in the classroom?" he asked. "How long would they accept unqualified firemen, policemen, doctors? The answer is, they wouldn't. People are running around yelling 'We can't do this, we can't do this.' Well, you haven't even tried yet. ... Not only is this an attainable goal, but it is absolutely essential if you're going to improve the quality of education in the poorer-performing schools. For too long, states and school districts have looked the other way as they've hired people who are unqualified." Perhaps what makes the goal of a qualified teacher in every classroom seem impossible to some people is their unwillingness to imagine changing any of the ground rules and procedures that today determine who can teach and who cannot, rules and procedures that discourage and demoralize many talented teachers and prospective teachers. Redefining what is meant by qualified teachers to focus on effectiveness in the classroom rather than paper credentials, and reorienting our systems for training, hiring, inducting, and deploying teachers around this new definition could dramatically increase our chances of finding a qualified teacher for every classroom. See "Federal teacher goal is blasted," by Erika Chavez, The Sacramento Bee, January 4, 2002.

Scientific American reports that data on the effects of class size reduction are inconclusive. According to Education Week, the same is true of data on the "whole school" reform effort. While education data exist in oversupply, they are of little use for policymaking, writes E.D. Hirsch in a column for the Hoover Institution. What turns data into usable information is interpretation, which teases out the separate factors that affect outcomes and assigns relative causality to them. The best recent attempt to interpret education data and draw policy conclusions from it was offered by the late Jeanne Chall in The Academic Achievement Challenge, the fruit of a lifetime of engagement with education research, Hirsch writes, but this book has had a negligible effect on policies and schools because it has not been widely disseminated. To the bookstore... "Education Policy and Information," by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Hoover Institution weekly essay, January 7, 2002