STEM education is, by design, integrative. It strives to emulate the real-world work of engineers within a teaching environment. Traditional science and math concepts merge with hands-on design-and-build work using technology, often through “design challenges.” Team dynamics, learning by failure and revision, and analytical thinking all factor in as well. It’s a big lift, but such efforts are vital for schools to attempt as demand for STEM—from parents, employers, the military, and colleges—increases. Traditional education models may not readily adapt to the hands-on demands of STEM, nor can many practitioners turn on a dime to accommodate a tech-heavy pedagogy. A new report from Michigan Technological University sheds light on some of these complexities that teachers face bringing STEM education into their practice.

Authors Emily Dare, Joshua Ellis, and Gillian Roehrig use observation and interview data to assess the first-time STEM integration efforts of teachers in nine physical science classrooms in different, unnamed middle schools in the United States. The researchers posit that a lack of consensus over best practices and a lack of professional development contribute to the difficulties. Both classroom observation and teacher reflection data for these nine case studies of teachers attempting STEM integration with little or no previous training data showed fundamental difficulties in full integration efforts.

The researchers’ primary variable was the amount of time teachers spent in each daily lesson on science, math, and engineering, both singularly and in integration with others. More integration was considered desirable, but the data showed far fewer instructional minutes with two or more disciplines fully integrated than researchers expected. Follow-up interviews with teachers focused on three specific factors—the style of integration chosen, how science and math concepts were integrated with engineering within the style chosen, and levels of student engagement and motivation.

STEM-integration can take on several styles in classroom practice: Engineering work can be used as an “add-on” to reinforce concepts—say, by having students design and build a roller coaster model to cap off a traditional unit on velocity—or it can be used as a primary means of imparting science and math concepts, or the balance can fall somewhere in between. The nine teachers in the case studies opted for variations of each style, determined largely by their reported comfort and familiarity with hands-on engineering projects. However, the observed time spent on integration was sometimes at odds with the teachers’ interview responses.

The dominant pattern observed, even among teachers reporting an effort at full integration, was discrete blocks of science instruction followed by engineering work, although these blocks varied from minutes to hours to days across classrooms. The smaller the discrete blocks, the more integrated the classroom, but that’s a far cry from proper STEM integration as defined by the researchers. It makes some sense that these science teachers would be focused on imparting the core knowledge of their traditional discipline—it is their job, of course, and many states have mandated science exams in middle school as well. However, interviews reinforced the notion that these teachers experienced discomfort with their own skill levels around both math and engineering.

Student engagement appeared to be a key factor for teachers in deciding their level and patterns of integration, both in designing and executing lessons. Teachers reported trepidation that students would not grasp science concepts through the engineering work, so they often defaulted to teaching science first, engineering last—which is again unsurprising, given the teachers’ job descriptions. But even those who were observed engaging in the most integration often reported that they believed their students didn’t grasp the science concepts well enough. Those teachers would typically do science first, engineering second, and then backtrack—returning to traditional science teaching so quickly that it shortchanged the hands-on engineering work or ended it entirely. This could also contribute to the even smaller amounts of instruction time dedicated to mathematics, either alone or in integration. Many teachers also reported feeling a mental clock ticking away, urging them to “finish” and move on. All of this is problematic because most teachers reported their students were eager to do the hands-on work and enjoyed it while it was underway.

Real-world work is a defining feature of STEM education—from labs to field research to problem-solving challenges in design—but these case studies suggest that single-subject teachers may struggle to integrate the various disciplines successfully. Concerns related to time, student engagement, and teacher comfort and confidence all impinge on possible success. Perhaps it is even impossible to provide high-quality STEM education in a single classroom. But there is some hope. One of the more successful cases in this report notes the assistance given by a second teacher—a math teacher—to a science instructor, so maybe fully-STEM-integrated schools or programs are the most effective providers. As demand increases, more work is needed to make sure that teachers and schools are confident in providing high-quality STEM education.

SOURCE: Emily A. Dare, Joshua A. Ellis, and Gillian H. Roehrig, “Understanding science teachers’ implementations of integrated STEM curricular units through a phenomenological multiple case study,” International Journal of STEM Education (February 2018).

1. The bill which proposes, among other things, a consolidation of Ohio’s K-12, higher ed, and workforce development governance structures was the topic of dueling op-eds in the Dispatch this weekend. Fordham’s Aaron Churchill provided the case in support of the proposal. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/25/18) The CEO of the Ohio School Boards Association provided the case against the proposal. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/25/18) There’s even a poll you can take to register your own feelings on the matter. How very civic of the editorial page editors of the D.
    
2. I think the folks at the Elyria Chronicle were as surprised as I was by the dueling articles on Lorain school board member Yvonne Johnson which ran in the Chronicle and in the Northern Ohio Morning Journal last week. Specifically, why those two articles seemed to present polar opposite views of her positions. So, they asked her about it. The answers are interesting, cogent, and eye-opening. Take a look. (Elyria Chronicle, 3/24/18) Speaking of taking a second look, you remember that national report released last month that said Ohio ranked second in the nation for equitable school funding? The one that was touted hither, yon, and beyond? Yeah, never mind. The insane complications of school funding in Ohio have claimed another analyst-victim. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/23/18)
    
3. Youngstown Schools’ CEO Krish Mohip is 0 for 2 in his search for a new job in some cold northern clime. Fingers crossed for Osseo! (Youngstown Vindicator, 3/24/18)
    
4. Here is an update on the Move to PROSPER project. You may recall that this is the effort to recruit single-parent families with school-age children and pay for them to move out of Columbus to establish a more stable life – housing, transportation, health care, employment, and education. Well, initial funding is in place and applications will be accepted starting this week for a small ten-family trial. Note that I put education last in the list of stabilizing factors, but in fact the move locations are defined by school district. Specifically: Hilliard, Olentangy, Dublin, and Reynoldsburg school districts. Forgive me for being a bit cheeky and pointing out that one doesn’t have to move to Reynoldsburg proper in order to enroll in that school district thanks to its open enrollment policy. But there’s a lot of other good stuff in Reynoldsburg too. Just not the annual Tomato Festival – that’s been postponed until 2019. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/23/18)
    
5. The long arm (and even longer memory) of Doug “Crime Buster” Livingston is on full display in this piece, drawing connections between a charter school-related racketeering case in Florida and charter school history in his beloved Akron. Almost as if there were colored thread between the points. Tacked to a cork board. With photos. And sticky notes. (Akron Beacon Journal, 3/24/18)

1. The bill which proposes to, among other things, consolidate the state’s K-12, higher ed, and workforce development governance apparatus is still the talk of the state for some reason. Lots of folks in Northeast Ohio are opposed for some reason. Fordham’s Chad Aldis is quoted herein in support of the bill. Thank goodness. (MyTownNEO, 3/21/18) The reason I say thank goodness for Chad is not only because he’s my boss and he expects such statements, but also because he may soon be the only person making any sense at all in discussion of this bill. Case in point is this piece where a group representing Ohio restaurateurs took the podium this week to complain about some testing and credentialing change that happened a while back and with which they don’t agree. For some reason. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/21/18)
    
2. There will be no “balanced calendar” in Youngstown City Schools next year. CEO Krish Mohip deemed the year-round schedule to be too much change too quickly for parents, students, and staff. (Youngstown Vindicator, 3/22/18) Of course, there may be no CEO Krish Mohip in Youngstown next year either, which could lead to some change. Mohip is a finalist in yet a third district’s superintendent search. This time, it’s Osseo Schools in snowy Minnesota. (WKBN-TV, Youngstown, 3/21/18)
    
3. In this story from the Morning Journal, a member of the Lorain City Schools Board of Education appears to lay out the case against district CEO David Hardy. That includes her thoughts on the vote of no confidence in CEO Hardy the board took earlier this week. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 3/21/18) In this story from the Chronicle, a member of the Lorain City Schools Board of Education appears to lay out the case for district CEO David Hardy. That includes her assertion that fellow board members are “keeping up the turmoil” for personal reasons. Oddly enough, these two stories are about comments made by the SAME BOARD MEMBER. (Elyria Chronicle, 3/22/18) The additional reportage from the Chronicle, talking to Hardy and ADC members, is worth a read too.
    
4. A bill under consideration in the General Assembly would “standardize” reporting of student vaccination records for schools across the state. Why? A) Because the state cannot seem to get proper records together (despite the fact that the DDN touts their own ability to get them every year). B) Because the data being reported is far too often incomplete. And C) Because the limited evidence suggests is that student vaccination rates are super low and threaten herd immunity. Yikes. And since this legislation also addresses the issue of parental opt outs for vaccinating their children, expect it to fly above the radar shortly. (Dayton Daily News, 3/22/18)
    
5. Beavercreek Schools are so short of bus drivers that they are holding a job fair soon and they are training several district leaders—including the superintendent and his assistants—to become substitute bus drivers. Talk about all hands on deck! (Dayton Daily News, 3/23/18)
    
6. As noted earlier in the week, the General Assembly’s Joint Education Oversight Committee (JEOC) got back in action this week after several months’ hiatus. How’d that first meeting go? Gongwer has the blow-by-blow. Try not to get too excited while reading this. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/22/18)

The most recent rankings from U.S. News & World Report once again have Massachusetts at the top in pre-K—12 education. For the vast majority of pundits and analysts, this should come as no surprise. Bay State students have excelled on the national and international stage for years. But what may surprise some is the state’s success with a particular type of schooling—career and technical education (CTE).

The most recent Perkins data show Massachusetts’s positive results on measures like technical-skill attainment, school completion, and graduation rates. A 2015 report from Achieve highlighted its transformation into a CTE leader, as well as some particularly successful programs. Another report showed that participating in one of the state’s high-quality CTE programs raised the probability of on-time high school graduation by 3–5 percentage points for higher-income students and 7 percentage points for their lower-income peers. And 2016 survey data showed high levels of satisfaction from both students and parents. In short, much of the data indicate that Bay State CTE programs are on par with the quality of the rest of their pre-K—12 offerings.

It could be argued that the Massachusetts’s vocational education laws and policies are a key part of its CTE success. Other states looking for ways to improve their sectors could certainly adopt them as their own and hope for the best. But each place has its own unique context and needs, and copy and pasting laws isn’t a guarantee for success.

That’s where the Alliance for Vocational Technical Education (AVTE) comes in. AVTE is a Massachusetts-based coalition that aims to increase access to high quality CTE in the Bay State. The association recently published a white paper that, among other things, outlines five domains that characterize an excellent CTE sector, and that other states can use as a starting point for following in Massachusetts’s footsteps. Let’s take a look.

Access and equity

It’s important that all students, regardless of their background or needs, have the opportunity to enroll in high-quality CTE programs. A necessary condition of that is providing students and parents with quality information about their options. And in terms of equity, states should make sure that admission policies and procedures aren’t biased in favor of certain students or certain populations.      

Infrastructure

Without the proper infrastructure in place, CTE programs can’t serve students well, let alone contribute to closing achievement gaps. AVTE points to a few key aspects of good infrastructure, namely employing effective teachers and staff, updated facilities, and access to appropriate equipment. Perhaps the most important lesson is that high-quality CTE sectors need reliable and adequate funding. Modernized buildings, proper equipment, and highly qualified staff cost money, and states that want the benefits of excellent career and technical education must be ready to fund them.

Curriculum, instruction, and assessment

In the past, CTE has been labeled as “blue-collar stuff” best left for kids who aren’t on a college path. Many of today’s programs, however, are just the opposite. Students earn industry-recognized credentials that will place them in good-paying jobs, but they also earn associate and bachelor’s degrees. This transformation has a lot to do with the curriculum, instruction, and assessments used by the programs. For starters, high expectations must be non-negotiable. CTE students should never be held to lower standards than their peers in traditional academic programs. And curricula should be aligned to state academic standards, as well as national benchmarks and local employer needs. States should also carefully consider how to license and train their CTE teachers; AVTE recommends using nationally validated teacher competency testing. As for assessments, AVTE recommends utilizing pre-and post-technical tests to measure exactly what students know and are able to do.

Career readiness

The primary goal of CTE programs is to prepare students for careers. To this end, AVTE recommends collaborating with recognized industry credential providers like NOCTI to develop state-customized credentials that accurately measure readiness. Similar to the way a good ACT or SAT score demonstrates college readiness, earning an externally validated credential can give CTE students solid proof of their readiness and skills. AVTE also emphasizes the importance of meaningful partnerships between CTE programs, businesses, and community members.

Data and outcomes

There’s no way to determine whether programs are effective without measurable outcomes, such as rates of graduation, dropout, job placement, and college-going and -persistence. States should make these data easily accessible to the public so that students and their families can make well-informed choices.

***

States looking for ways to improve their CTE sectors could do worse than importing Massachusetts’s policies. But if ESSA has taught us anything, it’s that each place has its own unique context and needs. That’s why personalizing and implementing these five domains would be a smart move for states interested in mirroring the Bay State’s CTE success.

This post is the third in a series of commentaries leading up to the release of new NAEP results on April 10. The first post discussed the value of the NAEP; the second looked at recent national trends.

Since 2002, federal law has conditioned Title I funding on states’ participation in the biannual administration of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in math and reading in grades four and eight. This is a boon to us policy wonks because we can study the progress (or lack thereof) of individual states and use sophisticated research methodologies to relate score changes to differences in education policies or practices. That’s the approach that allowed Tom Dee and Brian Jacob, for example, to inform us that NCLB-style accountability likely boosted math achievement in the 2000s.

Over the years, NAEP has also made stars out of leading states and their governors or education leaders, and has galvanized reformers to try to learn from their successes. It started with North Carolina and Texas, which saw stratospheric increases in the 1990s, especially in math, and across all racial groups. Then it was Jeb Bush’s moment in the sun, as Florida’s scores climbed quickly from the late-1990s through the 2000s, with particular progress for black and Hispanic youngsters. Delaware, Minnesota, and even New York have also produced some big improvements at various times. And let us not forget the Massachusetts Miracle.

The release of the 2017 scores on April 10 will give us fresh data for analyses of this sort. As I warned a few weeks ago, rigorous studies will take time. We should be skeptical of anyone who claims on release day to know why certain states are surging ahead or falling behind—though interesting patterns will surely be fodder for hypotheses and further study.

To help us prepare, Fordham’s research interns and I dug into the NAEP data to see which state-level trends are worth watching. As I’ve argued before, we don’t want to over-interpret short-term changes, so it’s better to look at trends that span four years or more, i.e., trends that are based on at least three test iterations. Here’s a look, then, at statistically significant changes from 2011–15 for every state and D.C. Cells that are empty indicate that there were no statistically significant changes; the numbers represent statistically significant scale score changes from 2011 to 2015.  

Table 1: Statistically significant changes on NAEP, 2011–15

National trends are essentially flat over this time period, but that hides much state-by-state variation. Nineteen states, for example, improved their reading results over that four-year period, while just five saw declines. But the opposite is true for math. Scores declined in twenty states, rose in just nine, and were mixed in two.

This table makes it easy to understand why there’s been so much recent buzz about the District of Columbia and Tennessee. But it also suggests that Indiana and Nebraska deserve a lot of love for posting gains in three of the four categories since 2011. And we should also laud Louisiana, Mississippi, and Wyoming for producing statistically significant gains among fourth graders in both reading and math.

But let’s not just look at the leaders; the laggards are interesting as well. Maryland had the worst showing. In 2013, the state got caught for having long excluded many students with disabilities from taking the assessment. Now that it’s properly including these children, its scores have plummeted. But it’s hardly alone; there were plenty of other backsliders, especially in math: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, and Vermont all saw declines in both fourth and eighth grades. Yikes.

As with the national data, we should be mindful that demographic changes can affect achievement trends, especially as Hispanic students make up an ever-larger proportion of our population. So if we want to understand which state policies and practices might be helping or hurting, we need to find a way to deal with these demographic trends. Matt Chingos and his Urban Institute colleagues offer one clever way of doing that, adjusting the scores for demographic changes over time.  Another approach—which we’ll use here—is to analyze results for each of the three major racial groups, rather than for the overall student population. So let’s take a look at that, first for reading and then for math.

Table 2: Statistically significant changes in reading scale scores, 2011–15

Disaggregating by race reaffirms Indiana’s and Tennessee’s success, as both produced gains in four of the six categories. But it also identifies some additional states worthy of praise for making gains across several categories in reading, including Alaska, Arizona, California, D.C., Hawaii, Iowa, North Carolina, Oregon, Utah, and West Virginia.

Now let’s look at math.

Table 3: Statistically significant changes in math scale scores, 2011–15

As we saw for states overall, there’s less good news in math than in reading, but D.C., Indiana, Tennessee, Nebraska, Louisiana, and Mississippi—all flagged above for producing good progress for all students—deserve praise for improved subgroup performance. Arizona also looks good when viewed in this manner. On the other hand, Texas should worry about its across-the-board declines in 8^th grade math. And what’s the matter with Kansas?

***

What to make of all this? The District of Columbia, Indiana, and Tennessee clearly have momentum going into the 2017 NAEP release, with the broadest gains in both subjects and grade levels. All three have been reform hot spots, making them all the more interesting. (Though no, we can’t prove that their reforms—much less which of their reforms—get the credit.)

The District of Columbia has of course been in the news of late for scandals that have taken the shine off the Michelle Rhee/Kaya Henderson apple. Everyone will be watching to see what the NAEP scores show, and what that means for the debate about whether the progress in DCPS is real. (Keep in mind that the data above are for all students in public and charter schools.)

Louisiana and Mississippi are both showing some promise, which is praiseworthy given how far they still have to go. We should keep our eyes on a few other “sleepers”: Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, and Utah. And are we seeing a resurgence from North Carolina? What about California?

If the states are our laboratories of democracy, we should get some great new data from their education policy experimentation on April 10.

CORRECTION: The original version of this article stated that the results reported here were for public, charter, and private schools. That was incorrect; it's only for public and charter schools. Thanks to the Bluegrass Institute's Richard Innes for pointing out the mistake.

In this study, Ian Kingsbury of the University of Arkansas uses data from 394 charter applications in seven states to argue that “stringent regulatory environments impose barriers to aspiring minority candidates and to standalone charter schools.” However, the real story seems to be the disappointing relationship between candidates of color and education and charter management organizations (EMOs and CMOs).

According to Kingsbury, barriers to entering the charter market might manifest in two ways. “First, cumbersome or daunting application processes could deter would-be applicants from applying in the first place…Second, greater regulation could induce authorizers to prefer applications from White applicants and CMO/EMO-affiliated entities.”

Because no data exist for would-be applicants who were deterred, Kingsbury uses the share of applicants affiliated with an EMO or CMO as a proxy for the first form of deterrence. But this is problematic for a number of reasons. (For example, EMOs and CMOs may avoid states that are inhospitable to charters.) Somewhat more plausibly, he uses states’ NACSA scores (which reflect that organization’s opinion of their laws on authorizing) as a proxy for their regulatory environments. But of course, this too can be questioned, as it makes “regulation” unidimensional when in reality it is far more complex.

Regardless, Kingsbury estimates that a one-point increase in a state’s NACSA score is associated with just a 0.4 percentage point increase in an applicant’s odds of management organization affiliation—meaning that moving from the minimum score of zero to the maximum score of thirty-three might increase a state’s management organization affiliation rate by about a dozen percentage points. This is a minor bug if you spend your time worrying about “institutional isomorphism” (or the tendency toward charters that all look and feel the same), but it’s a feature if you buy the research on CMOs’ comparatively strong performance.

More interesting (at least to this reviewer) are the descriptive statistics on applications that the author has compiled. For example, judging from the primary “point-of contact” on charter applications, Hispanics are badly underrepresented among charter applicants in most states; whereas whites are overrepresented in Arizona and Nevada, and African Americans are overrepresented in Indiana, Ohio, and Texas. These imbalances provide necessary context for the second part of the analysis, which looks at approval rates.

Unsurprisingly, applicants affiliated with management organizations are about 20 percentage points more likely to be approved. More troublingly, some fraction of this advantage seems to be driven by race. According to Kingsbury, black and Hispanic candidates are less likely to be affiliated with management organizations. Moreover, affiliated applicants of color are only 10 percentage points more likely to be approved (rather than 20 points). Finally, even after controlling for education and management organization affiliation, candidates of color are still 25 percentage points less likely to be approved. Notably, the racial approval gap swells to 78 percentage points when management organization affiliation is excluded from the model. In other words, most of this gap reflects the relationship between black and Hispanic candidates and management organizations.

To Kingsbury, all of this highlights the folly of overregulation. (For example, a one-point increase in a state’s NACSA score is associated with a 1.7 percentage point decrease in Black and Hispanic applicants’ odds of approval.) However, to this reviewer, the big story is the disappointing relationship between race and management organization affiliation, which raises at least two decidedly awkward questions: Why aren’t management organizations recruiting more African American and Hispanic applicants? And perhaps even more to the point, why don’t the candidates of color they do manage to recruit see more of a boost?

SOURCE: Ian Kingsbury, “Charter School Regulation as a Barrier to Entry,” University of Arkansas (March 2018).

The underrepresentation of high-poverty and minority populations in gifted programs has troubled education analysts and reformers for decades. One finding in this winter’s Fordham report on gifted programming gaps was that although high-poverty schools are as likely as low-poverty schools to have gifted programs, students there are less than half as likely to participate in them. This is complemented by a recent University of Connecticut finding that school poverty has a negative relationship with the percentage of students identified as gifted.

Researchers used student-level data from three state departments of education, supplemented by data from NCES, for the cohort of students who entered third grade in 2011 and completed fifth grade in 2014. The data spanned pupils from 4,546 schools in 367 districts. They used free and reduced-price lunch (FRL) eligibility as a proxy for poverty, and compared FRL eligibility, gifted identification, and performance on reading and math tests at the student, school, and district levels.

Their results confirmed existing knowledge about low rates of identification for low-income students, even after controlling for student performance on standardized tests and school and district demographics. In one state, in an average school and district, a non-FRL student was 3.33 times more likely to be identified than a FRL peer with the same test score. In another, 41 percent of schools had no FRL students identified as gifted.

The researchers also looked between and within districts to find where the greatest variability in the percentage of gifted-identified students lay. They found that the variance in both FRL percentages and gifted identification was far greater between schools within the same district than between different districts. In two of the states, even in schools with comparable achievement on standardized tests, the school with a lower percentage of FRL students tended to identify a higher percentage of students as gifted. (In one state, for example, a 10 percent reduction in FRL students yields a 1.7 percent increase in gifted identification.) And in all three states, FRL percentages at the school level had a negative relationship with gifted identification.

The study does, however, have limitations, such as its broad-brush use of FRL eligibility as a substitute for poverty, its reliance on only one cohort of students across three states, and its inability to account for state and district differences in how they define giftedness and identify students.

Nevertheless, the research further solidifies the known relationship between individual poverty and underidentification for gifted programs, and highlights an additional connection between school-level poverty and underidentification. Schools and districts around the country tend to overlook poor students for these opportunities, and this study demonstrates that inequities within districts are a contributor. Denying low-income kids and kids in low-income schools the benefits of gifted education perpetuates injustice, and we all lose when young people don’t reach their potential.

SOURCE: Rashea Hamilton, et al, “Disentangling the Roles of Individual and Institutional Poverty in the Identification of Gifted Students,” Gifted Child Quarterly (January 2018).

1. The General Assembly’s Joint Education Oversight Committee is back in action this week (!) after a three month hiatus. This week’s meeting under a new chair will reevaluate priorities and sound out some issues to pursue for the future. Hope they can think of some good ones. (Gongwer Ohio, 3/19/18) Meanwhile, state supe Paolo DeMaria is traveling around the state kicking the tires on a draft five-year strategic plan with the help of the public, including students. (Canton Repository, 3/20/18)
    
2. Speaking of plans, here is more concrete detail (sorry about that pun) on proposed changes to Elyria Schools’ construction plan. Looks like plans for two promised K-4 schools are being shelved in order to keep costs in line. Folks are steamed by the perceived bait-and-switch, but here’s hoping that calm and realistic deliberations will prevail. (Elyria Chronicle, 3/20/18)
    
3. In school board news: Lorain City Schools’ Board of Education found time in its no-doubt jam-packed meeting agenda earlier this week to take a vote of no confidence in the district’s CEO. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 3/19/18) Dayton City Schools’ Board of Education, as expected, voted to make the interim district supe the permanent supe. And it gave her a raise. Congrats! (Dayton Daily News, 3/20/18) Commiserations, however, for Youngstown CEO Krish Mohip after the Boulder Valley Schools’ Board of Education in Colorado voted not to hire him as the district’s next supe. (Youngstown Vindicator, 3/21/18) There is an investigation underway into the abortive search for a new superintendent by the Board of Education of Columbus City Schools. That investigation may have been made just the tiniest bit easier by a resolution considered by board members at last night’s meeting. While the resolution was voted down, its detailed anti-Sunshine specificity seems like it should be a useful guide for investigators. (Columbus Dispatch, 3/20/18)
    
4. We end today with some much-needed real-world awesomeness. Chris Sumlin, a graduate of The Charles School here in central Ohio (and whose education journey we profiled here), has written a book to help first-generation college goers like himself. The title of the book, like Chris himself, is one part pragmatic and one part showy. I, for one, am a big fan. (Education Post, 3/20/18)

In Fordham’s fifth annual Wonkathon, policy experts submitted twenty-three entries—a Wonkathon record—addressing whether our high school graduation requirements need to change, in light of diploma scandals in D.C., Maryland, and elsewhere:

A recent investigation revealed that several high schools in Washington, D.C., skirted district rules to graduate large numbers of their students who didn’t meet the standards for earning diplomas. As Erica Green of the New York Times and others have argued, this type of malfeasance isn’t limited to the nation’s capital. It happened in neighboring Prince George’s County, Maryland, and there are reasons to believe it’s happening in plenty of other places.

It’s not hard to understand why. For a decade now, federal policy has required states to measure graduation rates uniformly, to set ambitious goals for raising those rates, and to hold high schools accountable for meeting such goals. But the same local administrators who have been charged with getting more students across the graduation stage also have considerable leeway—via course grades, credit recovery programs, and shadier practices—in determining whether students have earned the privilege.

Given how many children enter American high schools far below grade level, and noting how many states have been dropping external checks such as exit and end-of-course exams, the temptation for educators to ignore graduation norms is pervasive.

That’s no reason to excuse cheating, but it does point to a large systemic problem and a bona fide policy dilemma. It may imply that we’ve set unrealistic expectations about the number of students who can feasibly reach rigorous graduation standards. Or it may mean that we’ve been wrong about what kinds of standards make the most sense in twenty-first-century America—and whether they should be uniform for all schools and kids.

This year’s Wonkathon will tackle these issues head-on. We are asking contributors to address the following question: What standards should students meet to graduate from high school?

The articles offered a wide range of great ideas from some of the wonkiest wonks in education reform. And because we received so many, we’re honoring first-, second-, and third-place submissions.

So, without further ado…

First Place

"High school reimagined (and we truly mean reimagined)" by Jessica Shopoff, M.Ed., and Chase Eskelsen, M.Ed.

Shopoff and Eskelsen argue that our current approach to high school is so flawed and ineffective that we can’t fix it with mere tweaks. Instead, they urge policymakers to revamp it by building a personalized learning model that effectively graduates students prepared to successfully contribute to society. This requires at least three steps: 1. embracing cross-curricular competency-based learning; 2. personalizing graduation paths; and 3. realigning learning across the preschool-to-higher-education-or-career continuum.

Second Place

"Look beyond four-year graduation rates" by Peter Greene

The pressure to inflate grades, bogus credit-recovery courses, and plain-old D.C.-style fraud don’t happen just because school districts are under pressure to graduate students, contends Greene. They happen because districts are under pressure to graduate students “Right Now! In Four Years!” For all the reform talk these days about personalization and flexibility, we still deny public schools the option to say to a student, “We are going to get you through this. We are going to see you succeed, even if it takes a little bit longer than it does for some of your peers,” Greene says. And he calls on leaders to change that.

Third Place

"Reformer, heal thyself. You've ruined high school." by Max Eden

Eden argues that the technocratic education reform movement provides structural and social incentives for fraud. The central premise is that by empowering highly-trained central-office leaders with world-class systems designed by preeminent experts, we ought to expect “transformative” change. But that is, he claims, willful wishful thinking. In the face of these headwinds, Eden believes that only a truly bold policy shift can restore systemic integrity: Make classes optional after tenth grade and grant diplomas to anyone who a local employer certifies shows up steadily and performs adequately.

***

Thanks to all the participants for another great Wonkathon, and congratulations again to this year’s Wisest Wonks, Jessica Shopoff and Chase Eskelsen. All of this year’s articles are linked below as inspiration for you to continue wonking out, all year long.

• "Tie high school graduation to student attendance and passing grades" by Peter Cunningham
• "Meaningful diplomas need external validation" by Sam Duell
• "Reformer, heal thyself. You've ruined high school." by Max Eden
• "Look beyond four-year graduation rates" by Peter Greene
• "High school counseling and individualized plans are key to student success" by Nancy C. Herrera
• "Award three high school diplomas: 'basic,' 'career-ready,' and 'university-ready'" by Joanne Jacobs
• "How we should write high school requirements" by Ed Jones
• "Make high school relevant again" by John Legg and Travis Pillow
• "Four guiding principles for fixing high school" by Eric Lerum
• "In reconsidering the high school diploma, don't overlook dropouts" by Alex Medler
• "Award a variety of high school diplomas with different requirements, but honor them all the same" by Jeremy Noonan
• "To fix the gaming of graduation requirements, we need to overhaul high schools and our policies governing them" by Michael J. Petrilli
• "Let's make sure graduates actually know what's in the state standards" by Elliot Regenstein
• "Make high school about content mastery, not time served" by Patrick Riccards
• "Let's expect more from our high schools" by Laura Jimenez and Scott Sargrad
• "High school reimagined (and we truly mean reimagined)" by Jessica Shopoff, M.Ed., and Chase Eskelsen, M.Ed.
• "Ensuring the quality and consistency of courses is fundamental to fixing high school" by Laura Slover
• "Graduation rates are not the real scandal. High school diplomas and how they are earned are." by Quentin Suffren
• "The special-education graduation conundrum" by Sivan Tuchman and Robin Lake
• "Graduation rates are important—but also have issues as performance indicators. States can use ESSA's flexibility to address that." by Amy Valentine
• "Fill in the missing building blocks of college and career readiness" by David Wakelyn
• "Ask students what they want to do after high school" by Daniel Weisberg
• "Make diplomas meaningful through differentiation" by Lane Wright

Ohio policymakers are currently wrestling with a slew of issues related to transitions from high school to college or career. Among the major topics of debate is the state’s dual-enrollment program—known as College Credit Plus—that allows advanced students an opportunity to take university-level courses while in high school. Dual enrollment, done well, is a fine way to expand opportunities for high achievers, as are Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses and early-college high schools.

What if Ohio also made a more concerted effort to graduate high-achieving students early? Why not encourage students who are ready and willing to head off to college to do just that—rather than asking them to stick it out in high school?

These questions crossed my mind while reading a witty essay by Neerav Kingsland. Reflecting on his own educational experience, Kingsland believes he would have been better off doing other, more productive things during his late high school years. I can relate: In retrospect, going off to college early might’ve been better than suffering through a case of “senioritis.”

To encourage more college-ready students to consider the early graduation route, Ohio legislators could create a scholarship program, something a few other states have already done (e.g., Idaho, Indiana, and Kentucky). The program would offer eligible students a state-funded college scholarship if they decide to forego their junior and/or senior years. For students choosing to take up the offer, the benefits might include: 1) an opportunity to challenge themselves by enrolling in college early; 2) an extra financial boost to defray the costs of higher education; and 3) the potential to earn a college degree early and start pursuing a career at an earlier age.

Scholarships for early graduation might also be a more efficient use of taxpayer money. If the amount is less than the public funding used to subsidize students’ high school education, cost savings should follow. Though likely modest, those savings could be used to provide extra support and instruction for pupils struggling to meet basic graduation requirements, or be put to other uses.

As with any proposal, the devil’s in the details. The following is a rough sketch of how it might work.

Eligibility: Policymakers should base eligibility on objective indicators of academic readiness. To qualify for the scholarship, the state could require students to meet the high-school diploma requirements via the ACT- or SAT-score pathway, in addition to earning sufficient course credits. Because some “college-ready” students may not be able to meet the course requirements early—for instance, Ohio requires four units of English—the state might allow early graduation if students earn exceptional ACT or SAT scores (perhaps matching the higher scores needed to earn an honors diploma).  

Application and usage: Students would likely need to apply for the scholarship, something that Indiana requires to verify scholarship eligibility. With respect to usage, policymakers could require students to use it within a certain timeframe, such as three years, to accommodate early graduates who intend to work or intern before college. They could restrict usage to Ohio’s public colleges and universities, or include in-state private colleges, as well. An even more expansive approach would allow the funds to be used at out-of-state institutions; however, if policy makers wanted to encourage young people to remain in-state, they could limit use to Ohio colleges and universities.

Funding: Policymakers would need to decide how to set scholarship amounts, and a few possibilities are as follows:

• Option 1: Set a flat amount—for instance, a one-time $4,000 scholarship to any eligible student. This has the benefit of simplicity, but it’s less tied to students’ financial needs.
• Option 2: Base amounts on students’ household income (and/or assets), providing more financial aid to needier students. Verifying this would likely require paperwork, and the state would need to create a “sliding scale” that sets amounts based on family wealth. But this approach would more efficiently target assistance to lower-income students.
• Option 3: Align amounts to the state and local per-pupil funding that would have otherwise been spent on early graduates’ high school education. This would be a fairly generous approach, with scholarships upwards of $10,000. Yet it would require heftier state appropriations or districts to contribute to the scholarship pool.

* * *

National data suggest that only about 3 percent of students graduate early.[1] That number makes sense: Most students, financial incentives or not, will likely want to finish their K–12 experience in familiar surroundings with well-known classmates. Other young people, despite being academically ready, may not feel prepared for the various social challenges of college life. Still others might want to continue building their resumes to seek admission to a top-flight university. And many students may not even contemplate early graduation as a serious possibility.

For students willing and able to take their next step in life, Ohio should put early graduation on the table by offering college scholarships. The take-up rate may or may not be very high—and some of that likely hinges on policy design. But by creating an opportunity for more college-ready students to advance into higher education early, policymakers might ensure that more people look back on their teenage years as time well spent.