National Education Goals Panel, September 2001

Children of military personnel who attend schools run by the Department of Defense (DoD) resemble their peers in urban schools in many ways: 40% of students in DoD schools are minorities, half qualify for free and reduced price lunches, 80% have parents with a high school diploma or less, and 35% switch schools every year. There's one big difference: the 112,000 DoD students consistently score higher than students in nearly every state on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (and have an achievement gap between whites and non-whites that is significantly narrower than the national average).  Researchers from Vanderbilt University were asked by the National Education Goals Panel to determine why DoD students - especially African Americans and Hispanics - do so well.  Among the conditions they identified were clear, centralized standards combined with local decision-making - dubbed by the researchers as "mission, money, and measurement from the top, and methods from the bottom"; curriculum-aligned standardized testing of every student; high expectations for all kids; top-quality, competitively paid teachers; strong pre-school and after-school programs; small schools; and a "corporate commitment" to expecting and enabling parent involvement.  The report is laced with revealing comments from DoD teachers that seem right on track - for example: "Your study is looking at why minority students do better.  I think the answer to that question is that all our students do better.  There are no 'minority' students here."  It's worth reading.  Download the report in PDF format at www.negp.edu or contact the National Education Goals Panel at 1255 22^nd Street, NW, Suite 502, Washington, DC 20037; 202-724-0015; fax 202-632-0957; email [email protected].

Richard Nadler deconstructs Alfie Kohn in this week's National Review.  While many others embrace the same pedagogical ideas that he does, what distinguishes Kohn, the author argues, is his single-minded struggle to place the elements of that pedagogy beyond criticism. Kohn seeks to achieve this by denouncing the very ideas of objective assessment, discipline, and even external curricula, even though parents, teachers and taxpayers generally value these things; to Kohn, such people are part of the problem. Read more in "School's Out," by Richard Nadler, National Review, October 15, 2001. (not available online)

In a new book, Free Agent Nation, Daniel Pink explores how self-employed knowledge workers are increasingly transforming the American workplace as they abandon traditional jobs and reinvent themselves as freelancers, independent contractors, and proprietors of home-based businesses. He looks at how this transformation is beginning to shape schooling in an article in Reason magazine.  School is a modern invention, Pink notes; throughout most of history, people learned from tutors or close relatives, and it wasn't until the early 20^th century that public schools as we know them became widespread. (Not until the 1920s did attending one become compulsory.)  Mass schooling based on the One Best Way of doing things was good preparation for the Organization Man economy and a highly structured workplace. It accomplished many great things. But Pink contends that that approach to schooling (which endures today, for the most part) makes less sense in the new My Size Fits Me economy.  Free agency, he believes, will accelerate three movements in education: home schooling, alternatives to traditional high school, and new approaches to adult learning.  In his analysis of home schooling, Pink emphasizes the "unschooling" strand that allows kids to pursue their own interests in their own way. Pink likes it because it is consonant with the animating values of free agency: having freedom, being authentic, and defining your own success. This will likely strike many as too child-centered, even irresponsible.  Still, his analysis includes many fresh insights about the ways free agency is changing education. Pink notes that free agency for adults has already led to flexible schedules that make it easier for parents to home-school their own children, and it has created a huge cadre of potential teachers (e.g. not just writers and retired teachers, but also carpenters and others with special skills) who can hire themselves out as tutors to home-schoolers. Pink has less to say about alternatives to high school (which include apprenticeships, entrepreneurship, and national service) and adult learning (expect more self-teaching via the web, formal distance learning, conferences and the devaluation of traditional degrees), but his thoughts on the impact of free agency on these institutions are interesting as well. For more, see "School's Out," by Daniel Pink, Reason, October 2001. Free Agent Nation: How America's New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live, by Daniel H. Pink, was published in May 2001 by Warner Books. Its ISBN is 0446525235.

Without some form of standardized testing, there's no way to ensure that students are learning what they should. Yet some argue that state testing programs unfairly limit the educational choices of schools and communities.  John Katzman and Steve Hodas, CEO and executive vice president of the Princeton Review, propose that states embrace a third way, one between tests and no tests: allowing schools to choose among several different state-sponsored curricula and then give their students tests linked to those curricula, tests to be created by the curriculum designers.  The authors assert that independent evaluators will create ways of comparing scores across different tests (though it is hard for us to imagine how states can create real accountability systems based on multiple tests).  To those who argue that all children should learn the same thing, the authors reply that 1) Americans have already rejected the idea of a single national curriculum, 2) requiring all children to study the same thing causes the curriculum to become both politicized and "a mile wide and an inch deep," and 3) insisting on one curriculum for all drives away teachers who think creatively and replaces them with people who like textbooks. But requiring students to know certain things and testing them on this core knowledge need not cause these harms or squeeze out all curricular choices.  "No More One-for-All, Let the Curricula Compete," by John Katzman and Steven Hodas, Newsday, October 7, 2001.

Every state wants to ensure that its public schools are staffed by excellent teachers, and to this end, most require that teachers complete a state-approved course of study at a school of education before receiving a teaching license.  Defenders of these systems of certification (and those who would add to their requirements) contend that studies show that certified teachers are more effective than uncertified teachers, and that research demonstrates links between greater student achievement and teachers with more formal preparation, additional education coursework, and master's degrees. 

Kate Walsh of the Abell Foundation in Baltimore was curious about the "100 to 200 studies" that certification advocates cite in support of the notion that taking the coursework required to obtain certification is the best means for preparing teachers. She decided to track down and review every study cited by prominent national advocates of teacher certification (including Linda Darling-Hammond of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future).  Digging through citations with the zeal of an archaeologist, she ultimately located 150 studies going as far back as 1950 that explore the relationship between teachers' educational preparation and student achievement.

When she looked closely at those studies, she found that most of them suffered from deficiencies so grave that no serious researcher would invoke them: conclusions are asserted absent any evidence, basic principles of data analysis are routinely violated (e.g. studies do not control for key variables critical to understanding student performance), studies suffer from serious statistical errors (e.g. aggregation bias), lack of support for certification is disguised behind imprecise or inaccurate evidence, negative findings are overlooked, and less reliable research is cited irresponsibly. 

Teacher Certification Reconsidered: Stumbling for Quality, released on October 8 by the Abell Foundation, contains the result of Walsh's analysis of the research on teacher certification. The findings are presented in clear, mostly non-technical language and many examples of flawed research are supplied. The report also includes a table listing studies cited by certification advocates, descriptions of the main finding of each study and why it gets cited, and explanations of the problems found with the study or with claims about it. 

Teacher Certification Reconsidered also reviews the findings of studies that investigate the relationship between other teacher attributes (such as verbal ability) and teacher effectiveness, scientifically sound research conducted mostly by economists and other bona fide social scientists. This research suggests that teachers who score higher on tests of verbal ability and those who attended more selective colleges tend to produce higher student achievement, and that secondary school teachers who know more about their subject matter are generally more effective, at least in math and science.

This review of the "evidence" on teacher certification is important for states to consider as they confront the challenge of staffing all of their public schools with qualified teachers.  States that hold tight to the notion that individuals must complete a prescribed body of coursework in a school of education before teaching in a public school - a notion that nobody can any longer claim is supported by good research - do so at their own risk.

Teacher Certification Reconsidered: Stumbling for Quality, by Kate Walsh, The Abell Foundation, October 2001.

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future is expected to post a response to this report on Thursday, October 11, 2001. (A press release announcing the response is already available on their website.)

Without fanfare, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the country's largest constituency-based Hispanic organization, is embarking on a $25 million project to open 50 new Latino charter schools over the next five years. Behind the effort is Anthony Colon, who worked for 20 years in the bureaucracy of the New York City school system before becoming principal of a charter school in Oakland. An article by Jonathan Rauch describes the plan and profiles Nueva Esperanza, a charter school that sprang from, and serves, Philadelphia's Latino community. While some will be uncomfortable with the idea of ethnocentric charter schools, the founders believe that community ownership creates a sense of pride and purpose, and supporters note that what makes these schools so effective is that the people who run them believe their pupils are capable of great achievement.  For details, see "Charter Schools: A New Hope for America's Latinos," by Jonathan Rauch, Jewish World Review, October 1, 2001.

(1) In praise of public education. You may think I'm no fan of public education, and it's true that the U.S. version often exasperates me. But recent world news has underscored society's obligation to see that its young get educated, acculturated and socialized. In the past few weeks, we've seen how the virtual collapse of public education in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan has driven tens of thousands of boys into "madrasahs" - Islamic schools where they learn militancy, radical Islamic lore and hyper-nationalism, but little else. (Girls, of course, are not welcome, so most end up with scant formal education of any sort.) Wealthy families - there are few in Afghanistan but many in Pakistan - pay tuition for their sons and daughters to attend private schools, where they learn science, geography, languages, etc. The poor, however, end up in hothouses for terrorism.

What really happens there? Let me quote from an October 2 account by reporter Peter Fritsch in The Wall Street Journal, after he interviewed a youngster attending such a school in Pakistan:

"The battle for Arshad's heart and mind may be over.... The 11-year-old, who doesn't offer his last name, rises each morning at 4 to pray and recite the Koran at the Central Martyrs madrasah in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. In his village...there is no public school. His parents paid the equivalent of $2 a month, a large sum in Pakistan, to put his older brother through a private high school, but he has yet to find work years after graduation, Arshad says.

" 'The madrasah is free' - and includes room and board - 'so why waste money in such a way?' he asks. Following typical madrasah rules, the boy hasn't seen his parents in nine months and probably won't have any contact with them for at least another few years.

"Arshad has learned little about the modern world. A visitor asks him whether a man has ever walked on the moon. 'This isn't possible,' the boy answers. What is two times two? Silence. Eager to impress, though, he announces that dinosaurs exist. 'The Jewish and American infidels have created these beasts to devour Muslims.'"

Let's hear it for universal education, complete with a liberal arts curriculum, state standards, mandatory testing and accountability. That's not an argument against school choice - or for a government monopoly of schooling. It's an argument for ensuring that the public gets decently educated.

"With Pakistan's Schools in Tatters, Madrasahs Spawn Young Warriors" by Peter Fritsch, The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2001. (available only to subscribers)

(2) Teaching Patriotism. Curriculum expert and former Humanities Endowment chairman Lynne V. Cheney, who also happens to be married to Vice President Dick Cheney, said it well the other day. Addressing the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, she argued for teaching children "the ideas and ideals on which our nation has been built." Cheney was reacting to the flurry of educators who contend that the proper response of schools to the terrorist attacks upon the U.S. is to stress (in the words of New York City deputy chancellor Judith Rizzo) "tolerance...and awareness of other cultures." Not so, Cheney responded. The suggestion that our schools should place greater emphasis on teaching world cultures "implies that the events of September 11 were our fault, that it was our failure to understand Islam that led to so many deaths and so much destruction...that somehow intolerance on our part was the cause." Instead, Cheney said, "If there were one aspect of schooling from kindergarten through college to which I would give added emphasis today, it would be American history." Bravo!

To read Cheney's speech, see "Remarks by Lynne Cheney: Teaching Our Children About America," Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, October 5, 2001.

(3) Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The end game may finally be nearing for this long awaited (and much diluted) legislation. With an agreement evidently reached on how much Washington will spend on education in fiscal 2002 (about $4 billion higher than the initial Bush request), the remaining wrinkles are slowly getting ironed out of the ESEA bill. The "big four" conferees (Messrs. Kennedy, Gregg, Boehner and Miller) have been meeting privately, and rumor has it they've agreed on all but one or two of the major issues. On the controversial matter of requiring state participation in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), we understand that the decision is yes - but that a state's NAEP score won't "count" in any high-stakes sense. Also that NAEP's 4^th and 8^th grade reading and math tests will be given every two years instead of annually. We also hear troubling reports that Congress wants to impose new restrictions on NAEP test items and background questions. Some members seem to believe that it's bad to pose such queries to kids as whether there are any newspapers in their homes. They evidently don't realize that it's only with data like these in hand that we can explain why some youngsters get higher reading scores than others. (It's not only the schools' doing, after all.) Moreover, NAEP is only given to a sample of children and no individually identifiable data ever emerge. Let's hope that a mandated NAEP doesn't turn out to be a weakened NAEP. Meanwhile, groups are suddenly emerging with last-minute advice for the ESEA conferees. I was part of one such, together with Bill Bennett, Lisa Keegan and Krista Kafer. If you'd like to read our policy recommendations, go to http://www.empoweramerica.org/ea/servlet/dispatcher/Articlewebcmd?ACTION=getArticleContent&articleId=431. To see a rather surprising "kill the bill" message from the National Conference of State Legislatures, go to http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/ESEA.htm. Their main beef - reportedly shared by the National Governors Association - is that the only major action-forcing provision of the entire bill (the annual testing requirement) represents too heavy a federal hand. 

For the latest on the ESEA bill's progress, read "State Officials, School Groups Worried About Education Bill," by David S. Broder and Michael Fletcher, The Washington Post, October 10, 2001.

(4) Why Certify Teachers? You will read below about an important new study of teacher certification, released this week by the Baltimore-based Abell Foundation. Please take it seriously. It shows, in effect, that the "research" cited to "prove" that state-certified teachers are superior to non-certified teachers is little more than a pile of words and numbers. It's not robust social science. Which raises a very big question: if certification is based on no substantial evidence, why do we make people undergo it before being allowed to teach in public schools? Not only do such restrictions worsen the teacher quantity problem; they do nothing to solve the quality problem, which was their primary rationale. Note, too, that private and charter school teachers, many of them not certified, seem to do a perfectly adequate job of imparting skills and knowledge to children.

Go to Teacher Certification Reconsidered: Stumbling for Quality, by Kate Walsh, The Abell Foundation, October 2001.

What do these observations have in common? A strong belief in a well-educated society coupled with a keen aversion to what Orwell termed smelly little orthodoxies.

Kevin J. Sullivan, Alliance for Excellent Education, September 2001

A new non-profit called the Alliance for Excellent Education - which says its mission is turning every child's right to an excellent education into national policy - has released an inaugural report that calls for full funding of the federal Title I program. The Alliance notes that the program has never received appropriations commensurate with its authorized level of funding.  That means school districts receive only a small fraction of the federal funds for which they are eligible, often forcing them to make a "Sophie's Choice between their elementary-age children and their adolescents" to which they respond by targeting limited funds at early education at the expense of middle and high schools.  Noting that additional resources directed at those early grades have produced measurable gains, the Alliance argues that it's time to do the same for older students. This is mostly a plea for more money and one that leaves us skeptical. (It is probably also a sign of things to come from this new outfit.)  Instead of a simplistic plea for added funds, it would be better to make the funds "portable" so that they support students instead of institutions - a concept that would likely be anathema to this fledgling nonprofit.  To learn more about the Alliance's recommendations, download the report in either HTML or PDF format at http://www.all4ed.org/report.htm.  (A limited number of hard copies are available from the Alliance for Excellent Education, 1101 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 411, Washington, DC 20005; phone 202-842-4888; fax 202-842-1613; email [email protected].)  For the Fordham Foundation's thoughts on Title I reform, check out our December 2000 publication Education 2001: Getting the Job Done, available on our website at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=37.

MetLife Foundation 2001

Since 1984, the MetLife Foundation has sponsored annual surveys of American teachers. The 2001 version, subtitled "Key Elements of Quality Schools", includes data from students and principals as well as teachers. Close to 200 pages long, it presents an immense amount of information, including some useful trend data. (For example, teacher job satisfaction in 2001 is far higher than in 1984, although the researchers have an annoying way of rephrasing the questions so that one cannot be absolutely sure of these comparisons.) This year's highlights include much evidence that teaching counts, that teachers in secondary school feel less connected to their schools (and students) than those in elementary schools, and that teachers and principals and students have sharply different perceptions of their schools. I found particularly revealing a table (Exhibit 1.2) where secondary students are asked to grade their teachers on several dimensions. While more than half give their teachers "A's" in knowing their subject area, just a third of students give similar marks to their teachers for "caring about students" and only a quarter award top marks for maintaining classroom discipline. But that's just the tip of a big iceberg. Much interesting data here, though not especially well digested or clearly presented. For a hard copy, write to MetLife, The American Teacher Survey, P.O. Box 807, Madison Square Station, New York, NY 10159-0807. You can also download a PDF version of the full report (by going to "MetLife Foundation" then "Education") at http://www.metlife.com/Companyinfo/Community/index2.html.

National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, September 2001

As we have previously reported in the Education Gadfly, Columbia's National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education keeps pumping out scholarly papers and you can now find quite a collection on the Center's website. The latest to catch our eye, written by center director Henry Levin and researcher Clive Belfield, reviews 35 studies of the effects of competition on education outcomes. Bottom line: "A sizable majority of these studies report beneficial effects of competition across all outcomes." Those outcomes include graduation rates, school efficiency and teacher pay as well as academic achievement. Moreover, there is evidence that the greater the competition the stronger the outcomes, although these gains are modest. (For example: "A one standard deviation increase in competition would probably increase test scores by approximately .1 standard deviations or about four percentiles.") You can request a copy from the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, Box 181, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027-6608. You can get one faster by surfing to http://www.ncspe.org, going to "publications", then to paper #35, where you'll find both an abstract and a link to the PDF version.