While the costs and benefits of annual tests were debated at great length last year, analysts of the new "No Child Left Behind" education legislation are getting more excited about an opportunity created by those tests: the ability to identify effective schools and teachers using annual test scores. In a 9-page paper for the Lexington Institute, Robert Holland explains how statistical analysis of annual testing data can determine how much value teachers add to the learning of individual students. In the paper, Holland traces the development of the value-added assessment system developed by Bill Sanders in Tennessee, provides an example of a teacher report from this assessment system for an individual teacher, and compares the Tennessee model with a different statistical model used in other districts. Once these techniques are honed, we will have a fair and objective system for identifying the most effective teachers and schools, which will bring much-needed praise to teachers and schools that do a superior job helping low achieving students, Holland writes. "Indispensable Tests: How a Value-Added Approach to School Testing Cold Identify and Bolster Exceptional Teaching," by Robert Holland, Lexington Institute, December 2001. William J. Bennett and Chester E. Finn, Jr., make many of the same points in "Adding Value to Education," an op-ed that appeared in The Washington Times on December 20, 2001. (available for a fee at www.washingtontimes.com)
Anne Lewis, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, 2001
This sixty-page report sets forth numerous practical strategies for bettering the education of disadvantaged youngsters, including, for example, "5 steps to a good start," "6 ways to tell if your school is serious about teaching reading and math," "4 ways to make reform stick," etc. The recommendations are pretty obvious, even banal, but they sit atop a trove of valuable research summaries, cases in point, and lots and lots of references. You can obtain hard copies for $5 apiece from Poverty & Race Research Action Council, 3000 Connecticut Avenue NW, #200, Washington, DC 20008. You can phone (202) 387-9887, fax (202) 387-0764, e-mail [email protected] or download the whole thing (in PDF form) from http://www.prrac.org/additup.html.
Douglas A. Archbald, Education Policy Analysis Archives, November 2001
Standards-based reform is simple in theory but can be surprisingly difficult in practice, at least without technology's help. Most states now have academic standards and tests, but assessment data is often available only in reports and databases that are distant from teachers who could benefit from them. Curriculum guides may be only in the hands of administrators, making it tough for teachers to access them frequently. This paper by Douglas Archbald explores how improvements in information technology help make state, district, local, and - most importantly - classroom-level implementation of standards-based reform significantly easier. Some state agencies now publish standards and sample assessments online, and many states also permit individual student achievement information to be posted on the web for access by authorized users. A wide range of software packages is now available to align lesson plans with standards and track student performance in relation to the same. But while much is possible, it isn't necessarily happening yet. Archbald identifies obstacles: leaders who fail to cultivate the necessary values and practices (such as frequent meetings to evaluate staff performance and student achievement); hesitation by teachers and principals who fear that information may be used against them if it is publicly reported; and a lack of computer proficiency by school staff. There are technical obstacles, too: databases must be kept up-to-date, cross-referenced and easy to navigate, and must contain information from standards-based assessments, state/district achievement tests, and tests on curricula. But there's hope. Archbald concludes that, as teachers, administrators and policymakers begin to embrace standards-based reform with the aid of the "next generation" of technology, student achievement will benefit. For more, see http://www.epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v9n48.
Educational Issues Policy Brief, American Federation of Teachers, 2001
This Policy Brief outlines the AFT's position on teacher induction programs, which the union views as a critical response to high attrition rates among new teachers. The AFT proposes a year-long, state-mandated and -funded induction program in which all new teachers would have to participate. They would bear reduced course loads and be assigned qualified mentors, who would also have reduced loads (and receive additional compensation). At year's end, a "summative review" would determine whether or not the new teachers would proceed to full licensure. The AFT reviewed teacher induction programs in all 50 states to determine whether any met their standards. Although the number of induction programs has doubled since the 1980s, only 33 states currently have statewide programs in place. Of these, only 22 states actually mandate and fund the programs. To remedy these inadequacies, says the AFT, states should develop (and partially fund) comprehensive policies that reflect the importance of induction for new teachers. To view this issue brief - which includes tables summarizing state induction policies - as a PDF, surf to http://www.aft.org/edissues/downloads/NEW_TEACH_INDUCT.pdf.
Edward E. Gordon, Imperial Consulting Corporation, November 2001
Edward E. Gordon, president of Imperial Consulting Corporation, recently presented this "white paper" to the Education, Employment and Training Committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Unlike most reports that we bring to the attention of Gadfly readers, which deal with the academic preparation of American school children, this one looks at the skills possessed (and, more importantly, not possessed) by the American workforce. The author contends that "about four-fifths of all the people currently employed in our economy...are in danger of turning into the 'new techno-peasants of the information age' because they lack essential educational and/or technical skills." He finds the solution in "workforce education," which he defines broadly - including the humanities, for example - and for which he assigns responsibility to communities, also broadly defined to include schools, employers and a variety of new entities and delivery systems. He ranges far and wide in these 55 pages and, while much of it is hortatory, it comes across as a reasonably coherent presentation of what it will take to produce a well-prepared workforce for the new American economy. You can most readily access this paper by e-mailing Dr. Gordon at [email protected].
Krista Kafer, Heritage Foundation, December 13, 2001
Have you been wondering what to make of the soon-to-be-signed "No Child Left Behind" act? Heritage Foundation education analyst Krista Kafer has written a worthy overview of its strengths and weaknesses. Her conclusion: "Although the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization contains the major themes of the Bush No Child Left Behind plan - accountability, opportunity, flexibility, structural change, and quality improvement - it is only a modest representation of those key elements. The bill perpetuates ineffective and wasteful programs and is authorized at twice the funding level of the 1994 reauthorization in the first year alone." For the full text, surf to http://www.heritage.org/shorts/20011213education.html.
A New Yorker piece by Malcolm Gladwell tells the fascinating tale of a working-class kid from Brooklyn who turned the world of college admissions testing upside down. As you read the article, it's hard not to root for Stanley H. Kaplan, the precocious child of Eastern European immigrants and a whiz in class who was devoted to helping struggling students succeed. After graduating second at City College, Kaplan continued to tutor and coach students at the "Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center" he opened in his parents' basement, and one day he was asked to prepare a student for the Scholastic Aptitude Test. The S.A.T. was said to be designed to measure innate ability rather than acquired knowledge, and it stated clearly in the instructions that cramming was pointless. Unwilling to believe that preparation was futile, Kaplan developed a set of drills and tools that were so effective that they essentially proved that, whatever the S.A.T. was measuring, it was "eminently coachable," and thus not a true aptitude test at all. The impact of showing working-class kids how to ace the S.A.T. was to undermine that test's use as a means of social engineering by elite colleges, which relied on S.A.T. scores to separate naturally gifted students (whose success was effortless and who often had good manners) from the "grinds," lower middle class (and usually Jewish) students who were thought to excel less by intelligence than by sheer determination and who were less desirable on Ivy campuses. Kaplan showed that success on a test like the S.A.T. depends less on innate ability than on how hard a student works (as well as how much help he gets from parents and teachers). If that's so, however, why not replace the S.A.T. with achievement tests aligned with clear curricular guidelines, an alternative that's been proposed by University of California president Richard Atkinson, among others. "Examined Life: What Stanley H. Kaplan Taught Us About the S.A.T." by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, December 12, 2001.
If you've been on another planet this week, you may not have heard that Congress passed the long awaited E.S.E.A. bill, which President Bush intends to sign in January. If you were out of our solar system all year, you might not know that this legislation requires states to test every student in grades 3 through 8 and report the results broken down by subgroup (e.g. race); to establish a minimum level of proficiency; and to take action against schools that fail to make satisfactory progress towards proficiency for all students, among other things. There is widespread agreement that implementing this new accountability system will be a big challenge. There is less agreement on whether the bill itself is anything to be excited about. For a good summary of what's in it, see "Education Law Biggest in 35 Years," by Gail Russell Chaddock, The Christian Science Monitor, December 18, 2001. For the story of how this legislation came about and managed to survive lobbying, political upheaval in the Senate, and the outbreak of a war on terrorism, see "Long Road to Reform," by David Broder, The Washington Post, December 17, 2001. For a look at what two skeptics about the overall legislative package regard as its most hopeful feature, see "Adding Value to Education," by William J. Bennett and Chester E. Finn, Jr, The Washington Times, December 20, 2001.
Just how different ARE charter schools? Everyone knows that their governance is freer, their budgets leaner and their longevity less certain than regular public schools, but how different is what actually goes on inside them? Is it anything that students, parents and teachers would notice? Anything that might make them produce better results? Anything that the rest of American education might learn from? If not, the whole charter enterprise may amount to little, a comet flashing across the sky, perhaps, but not the new education solar system that its boosters and backers claim.
With the charter phenomenon barely a decade old, it's too soon for definitive judgments. But evidence is trickling in. A new study conducted for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation adds to that stream. Named "Autonomy and Innovation: How Do Massachusetts Charter School Principals Use Their Freedom?" and available ONLY on the web (at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=18), it was conducted by Bill Triant, a former Boston public-school teacher now studying education and business at Stanford, who interviewed eight Bay State charter principals on five dimensions of school operations.
He found exciting seedbeds of new approaches in which "charter principals are using the freedom granted to them to create schools that would not be possible if the charter law did not exist." With respect to personnel, for example, Triant reports that, while seven of the eight principals "believed that the system of teacher hiring in their charter school is better than the system in comparable district schools," their reasons ranged all over the map. Two focused on their ability to hire non-certified teachers. "What I need," said one, is "people who are highly intelligent, prestigious college background, articulate, they like kids. They know what it means to work on a team. They are visionaries of a sort....Certification is a guarantee of nothing to me."
Other principals in Triant's sample were glad to have the option but preferred to hire state-licensed instructors. Several commented that because they, rather than a downtown office, made hiring decisions, they had better odds of finding "teachers who would suit their school missions." Five remarked on their ability to off-load unsatisfactory teachers with "reasonable ease" and several prized their operational flexibility to do things like hold after-school meetings without fear of violating the union contract. The union, one noted, "encourages teachers to punch in in the morning and leave at the gong." He also deplored conventional school systems' propensity to "slow down the go-getters." Another said she sought people "who want to come in at six and leave after six, who are willing to come to extra school events, who want to be on the ground floor creating processes and procedures for a school that will be around for a long time."
Even in Triant's small sample, much variation surfaced. Just one principal found building-level hiring a costly bother. Most relished their freedom and authority on the personnel front, while exercising it in notably different ways. For example, of the two principals who remarked that they were getting better quality teachers than comparable district schools, one noted that he was paying higher salaries while the other "expected more of her teachers and paid them less," at least in part to assure that "those who took the job really were imbued with the mission of the school." Another perceptive principal with long experience in the district system commented that "There are better teachers in the public school system percentage-wise than there are teachers in the charter school system. The problem is that those teachers in the public school system are being held under a thumb....no you can't do that, no, no, no, no, we can't work with that curriculum....Does that leave the teacher with any autonomy? No."
Triant's anecdotes show more than the fascinating variability that other charter-school analysts have noted. They also show that, with rare exceptions, these principals are bent on finding very special people for their teaching posts - but have sharply differing notions about how to locate and attract them.
His study also examines other aspects of charter-school diversity and the benefits of freedom. Though the sample is small and the methodology informal, it opens a new and welcome window onto the charter phenomenon. From it, we also learn something timely and important about school principals, who recently were shown (by Public Agenda, in Trying to Stay Ahead of the Game) to be especially frustrated and exasperated by the bureaucracy, red tape and politics that ensnarls them in regular school systems. We learn from Triant that they are prepared to do more than gripe! At least for those school leaders who gravitate to charter schools, freedom does make a difference. When the opportunity presents itself to innovate, they do so. When the shackles are lifted, they do things differently.
What a splendid end-of-year holiday gift we would make to America's hundred thousand principals, and the millions of children attending their schools, if we were to confer upon them all the blessing of freedom and the invitation to innovate. Meanwhile, my thanks to Bill Triant for the timely gift he has made to our understanding of charter schools and those who lead them.
"Autonomy and Innovation: How Do Massachusetts Charter School Principals Use Their Freedom?" by Bill Triant, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, December 2001
Trying to Stay Ahead of the Game: Superintendents and Principals Talk About School Leadership, Public Agenda, October 2001
While some see charter schools as a radical experiment of the 1990's, the model is actually over 200 years old, according to an article by Susan Hollins of the New Hampshire Charter School Resource Center. A review of historical documents in the Granite State reveals that as early as 1781, New Hampshire residents were petitioning the legislature for the authority to establish free public academies, with groups of concerned citizens serving as trustees. Once approved, their petitions (which resemble today's charter applications) became the charters for the schools. Much like today, trustees were given the power to hire staff and make rules for the governance of the schools. Modern day New Hampshire has a law supporting charter schools, but alas, no charter schools are operating in the state at present. To read more, including some interesting examples of early charters, see "Chartered Schools in New Hampshire: 18th Century and Today," by Susan Hollins, Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, December 2001.