The Charter Friends National Network (CFNN) has issued a revised (May 2001) edition of this useful publication, prepared by Elizabeth Giovannetti, Eileen Ahearn and Cheryl Lange. This 30-page paper seeks "to provide charter school developers and operators a concise and understandable explanation of current special education laws and requirements." CFNN also aims to anticipate Congress's upcoming review of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the principal federal special ed program. CFNN director Jon Schroeder urges charter school "leaders and advocates" to begin examining needed changes in IDEA. This is important, as current special ed law is out of whack with the theory and practice of charter schools. IDEA assumes, in effect, that the school district is the responsible party in the delivery of education to children with disabilities, yet many charter schools have no relationship (or sometimes a frosty one) with their local school systems. IDEA also assumes that a disabled child will have his/her educational needs met in essentially the same way no matter where he/she goes to school. Yet the essence of charter schools is the distinctive differences they develop from one another with respect to educational philosophy, structure and delivery. Today, from the charters' perspective, special ed is the most rigidly restrictive area of federal (and state) policy, the area where waivers and variances are hardest to obtain. It is also the case that many charter schools aren't adequately prepared or knowledgeable about their obligations to disabled children. This handbook clearly sets forth what they must do-and offers useful advice as to how-even while it paves the way, we may hope, for needed changes in the law itself. You may obtain a copy from CFNN at 1295 Bandana Boulevard, Suite 165, St. Paul, MN 55108. Phone (651) 644-6115, fax (651) 644-0433 or e-mail [email protected] or visit www.charterfriends.org/cfi-specialed.html. You can also contact Jon Schroeder at [email protected].

Edited by Margaret Maden

In 1996, the National Commission on Education in the United Kingdom published Success Against the Odds, a description of how 11 schools in disadvantaged areas were producing high student achievement. RoutledgeFalmer is now publishing Success Against the Odds: Five Years On, which revisits these schools to determine whether those schools remain successful. Most have done even better but there is "significant variation in the amount and kind of success." The Selly Park Technology School for Girls in Birmingham, located in a primarily Muslim community, had the second highest rise in GCSE scores in England between 1997 and 2000. By contrast, the Even Fair Furlong Primary suffered from discipline problems during the five-year period and only last summer showed significant gains in student achievement, doubling its aggregate scores in English and Math. Though no one blueprint emerges as a guarantee for success, the authors did find several common factors in schools that did well. The head teachers (principals) of each school possessed a wide spectrum of leadership styles but all had at least ten years' experience. The most important factor was the school staff's commitment and quality. This primarily meant a carefully selected teaching force, but several schools also utilized support staff and parental volunteers imaginatively. (Not surprisingly, the No Excuses project of the Heritage Foundation, which examined 21 high-performing schools in low-income areas in the United States, also found that principal leadership and a high-quality teaching staff lead to successful schools.) Success Against the Odds: Five Years On can be ordered from RoutledgeFalmer at http://www.routledgefalmer.com/main.html and from www.amazon.co.uk for $27.95.

The National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council is at it again, taking money from the (Clinton) Department of Education to advance the education profession's conventional wisdom while claiming to be engaged in serious analysis. Someone at the Department evidently took it into his/her head in 1999 to ask the Academy to examine the tests that many states use as part of the selection, screening and licensure of new teachers. (This was evidently triggered at least partly by Congress's insistence that states begin to report passing rates on these tests for each of their teacher preparation programs.) The Academy empanelled a fifteen member "Committee on Assessment and Teacher Quality," chaired by David Z. Robinson of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. At least half the committee was drawn straight from the teacher-education-and-licensure establishment, and it apparently took the group no time at all to embrace the assumptions and prescriptions of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future (NCTAF, whose leader, Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, was a member) and its fellow traveling organizations, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC). Indeed, this report's key chapter on "defining teacher quality" is based entirely on those groups' ideology, as are most of the committee's recommendations. One can, nevertheless, learn a few useful things from these 300 pages, such as the fact that just 21 states test their new teachers for subject-matter knowledge. Mostly, though, this fat, boring report echoes the Academy's usual doubts about testing (especially the use of tests for anything with real-world consequences) and its desire for more-and more and MORE-research to be done. We have no objection to more research in this area, in fact have called for it ourselves. And we have plenty of complaints about the current regimen of teacher testing in most states. But we're a tad weary of solemn convocations of the usual suspects getting federal dollars to carp and cavil and grimace about testing while trying to make the world safe for NCTAF and its dubious ideas about how to improve teacher quality in America. Nevertheless, if you need to see for yourself, surf to http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10090.html, call (800) 624-6242 or write to the National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20418.

School choice researchers and critics discuss the strengths and weaknesses of studies analyzing the effects of vouchers in "The Problem With Studying Vouchers," by D.W. Miller, Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2001 (Article is available only to subscribers.)

(For more on this topic, see "Voucher Vortex," by David Glenn, Lingua Franca, May/June 2001 (not available at http://www.linguafranca.com, but you can order a copy of the magazine))

I was out of the country last week and expected to return to find an end to the media frenzy about Education Secretary Rod Paige being (a) unhappy with his job, (b) "out of the policy loop" and (c) on the verge of quitting. Alas, this foolishness seemed, if anything, to have intensified.

Having lived in Washington forever, I know this sort of thing occurs from time to time. Think of it as a form of political fiction writing or rumor mongering. The usual formula is to allege a rift or conflict between a senior official and the White House (or sometimes between White House aides), then make much ado about its significance and implications, using this occasion to cast the incumbent administration in a bad light.

These stories have three possible sources. The likeliest is journalists with little better to do, a yen to make trouble, keen awareness that gossipy stories about people draw more readers than dense articles about policy, and, usually, some anonymous source willing to abet this plan by saying something provocative off the record. Second, opponents of the administration (who may, of course, include the journalists and/or their sources) may deploy this tactic for their own purposes of policy or politics. Third, it's possible that someone within the administration-conceivably the person alleged to be unhappy-is using this public mechanism as a way to "send a message" into the Oval Office.

Whence came the Paige rumors? We'll never know for sure, but possibility three is not to be believed in this case, at least not by anyone who knows Rod Paige, his modus operandi, and his long-standing relationship with George W. Bush & Co. If he were truly miffed, which I find exceedingly unlikely, he would have picked up the White House hotline, not confided in journalists or outsiders.

If political opponents were behind these reports, they were pretty dumb. It's been alleged, for example, that conservative critics of the emerging E.S.E.A. bill, knowing of Paige's enthusiasm for school choice, peddled rumors of his unhappiness so as to leverage the White House into stauncher support for vouchers. Maybe. But it doesn't make sense. I've been as critical as anyone on this score, but it's long been clear to me-and, I think, to anyone with a brain-that E.S.E.A.'s slippage on choice (and some other reform strategies favored by the right) was well beyond rectifying before the Paige stories surfaced. As for critics on the left, it's not clear what they could gain from this kind of mischief beyond simply making the administration look bad. It's well known that this approach almost never yields policy changes; a single conversation between the allegedly unhappy official and the White House instantly eradicates any possible leverage.

I'm left with the conclusion that it was idle-handed journalists bent on making trouble. (For a vivid-and borderline racist-example, see Noam Scheiber's squalid piece in the June 21 New Republic.) It's so much easier-and quotable-to pen a trashy piece about the Education Secretary quitting than, say, to plumb the murky depths of Adequate Yearly Progress.

Two other points bear mentioning. First, it was clear before Rod Paige was even nominated that E.S.E.A. policy and negotiations would be handled from the White House, not the Education Department. This is what George W. Bush ran on-and the people who helped him develop these proposals during the campaign now serve on his immediate staff. He's passionately involved with this topic himself, as he was in Texas. Tons of other education issues lie ahead-research, statistics, assessment and special ed, to name the most obvious-that are less central to the Bush agenda and where the White House is apt to leave much of the heavy lifting to Paige and his team at the Department.

Second, today one simply must view Cabinet agencies as extensions of the Oval Office, not alternative power centers. Cabinet members, too, are creatures of the President, not independent policymakers. He may delegate broad authority to them-but then again he may not. As a rule of thumb, the higher an issue is on the President's own list of priorities, the tighter the White House reins will be. (The converse is true, too. I invite readers to identify a single "housing and urban development" issue that has yet surfaced in the Bush administration-or, for that matter, to name the incumbent H.U.D. secretary without looking it up.)

This is a fundamental truth about the modern Presidency in general, and it's clearly an operating principle of George W. Bush's administration in particular. We've seen plenty of examples in other agencies-just ask Christie Whitman or Don Rumsfeld-of the White House reversing policy decisions made by senior Cabinet officials, or simply gathering an issue into the White House and handling it there.

As for Rod Paige, he has bought a house in Washington and seems to be settling in for a long stay at the Department. Earlier this week, he lectured N.E.A. members about special ed. He's assembling a talented team. He's reworking agency management. He's making all sorts of plans and quietly advancing a lot of initiatives. He's meeting with the usual suspects-and some less usual. He's putting his imprint on the Department and, through tireless travel, on the nation. He happens to be one of the most successful education reformers alive. He's also a Bush loyalist. That doesn't mean they necessarily agree on every single thing, or that he's thrilled with every single clause of the E.S.E.A. bill. But anybody who claims to spot daylight between this Secretary and this White House is a candidate for Fantasy Island.

"Public schooling: Rod Paige learns the hard way," by Noam Scheiber, The New Republic, July 2, 2001

"Paige denies retirement rumors, unhappiness with Bush," by Michael Fletcher, Washington Post, June 28, 2001

Long-time education policy analyst Henry M. Levin now heads the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, based at Teachers College, Columbia. That center held its kick-off conference in April 1999. The conference papers have now been collected in this volume, which Levin edited. Fourteen of them range across a wide variety of issues that bear, in varying degrees and from diverse perspectives, on the "privatization" debate in education. As with any edited volume, they also vary in quality, insight and value. Since this is an agenda-setting volume for Levin's center, it doesn't purport to offer general conclusions or policy advice. If you'd like to take a look, the ISBN is 0813366402. The publisher is Westview Press, located at 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80301 and on the web at www.westviewpress.com.

Nearly all states post report cards on the internet that show parents (and others) how their children's schools are doing, but some of these report cards are more useful than others. The Heritage Foundation has created a web site that highlights the 10 best internet-based school report cards, explains why such measures are important, and includes links to school report cards in all the states. Check it out at http://www.heritage.org/reportcards/

Children First America has issued an eight-page brief describing bold reforms that the Kiwis have made to their education system over the past decade and a half. New Zealand's powerful, unresponsive, and highly bureaucratic Ministry of Education was transformed into a body that hands block grants to local boards of trustees (one per school) and audits school performance against the requirements written into each school's charter by its own board. Every New Zealand public school and most private schools are now versions of "charter schools," and district-level boards have been eliminated. Private schools may get state funding equivalent to public schools (including capital funding), provided they meet certain facility code standards, teach the core curriculum, and instruct students for the prescribed number of days each school year. Authors Matthew Ladner of Children First America and Maurice McTigue, a former New Zealand Cabinet Minister, briefly examine what test scores reveal about the efficacy of these Antipodean reforms. The 1995 TIMSS math results show that New Zealand's 12th graders scored 22 points above the international average, while U.S. seniors scored 39 points below. Ladner and McTigue conclude their brief with a critique of U.S. authors Edward Fiske and Helen Ladd's recent book on school choice in New Zealand, When Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale. This book asserts that school competition in New Zealand has not improved those schools that lost enrollments as a result of the nation's reforms. Ladner and McTigue argue that Fiske and Ladd fail to muster any evidence that the children in these schools have been harmed in any way and also that they misunderstand the accomplishments of the past 16 years of reform. Attendance has indeed shrunk at unpopular schools and risen at schools held in high esteem by parents, with the result that fewer Kiwi children attend schools regarded by parents as low quality than was the case before the reforms-a result to be celebrated, not bemoaned. School Choice in New Zealand is available online in Adobe Acrobat PDF format at http://www.childrenfirstamerica.org/cfanzstudy.pdf and as a Microsoft Word document at http://www.childrenfirstamerica.org/CFAnz.doc. Hard copies can be obtained by telephoning co-author Matthew Ladner at (512) 345-1083 or e-mailing him at [email protected].

The summer issue of the American Federation of Teacher's magazine, American Educator, has several must-read articles. E.D. Hirsch explains that closing the achievement gap in reading will require that kids learn decoding skills and also that they work their way through a curriculum that develops knowledge of academic subjects; Louisa Moats describes what it takes to produce reading gains that endure beyond 4th grade; H. Wu shows how the proper study of fractions prepares students for algebra; and Diane Ravitch resurrects William Chandler Bagley, who was wrongly branded a reactionary for insisting-75 years ago-that all children should learn challenging academic material. American Educator is one of our favorite publications-issue after issue is genuinely worth reading-and we salute editor Liz McPike on another terrific example of journalistic excellence and education seriousness. If you'd like a copy of one article or the whole summer issue, send a fax to the American Educator (attn: Yomica) at 202-879-4534.

The Educational Research Service's new study of high-performing districts expands on an appraisal of high-performing schools that it published three years ago. This one highlights four districts: Brazosport Independent School District (in Clute, Texas); Twin Falls School District (in Idaho); Ysleta Independent School District (in El Paso); and Barbour County School District (in Philippi, West Virginia). All four districts serve a significant number of low-income children, yet showed significant gains in student achievement over the past five years. The study found an unsurprising correlation between strong leadership, a culture of high expectations, clearly articulated goals and standards, and a combination of empowerment and accountability among school staff and student achievement. A key factor contributing to district success, however, was item-level analysis of assessment results so as to identify specific weaknesses in students' knowledge and skills. This helped schools to focus classroom and individual instruction on improving these areas. Extensive efforts to provide immediate and appropriate corrective instruction contributed to the impressive score gains that these four districts made. To order a copy of the report, surf to http://www.ers.org/CATALOG/description.phtml?II=WS-0420&UID=2001070509040164.12.103.182 or contact the Educational Research Service at 1-800-791-9308.