This week's Newsweek cover story looks at apparently-conflicting research findings on the health impacts of different dietary choices and how confusing they can be for the public. For example, after years of warnings about the dangers of high-fat diets for both heart health and waistlines, many Americans were understandably surprised--and a few ecstatic--to hear about a recent Women's Health Initiative study that was widely reported as showing low-fat diets don't improve health outcomes, relative to higher-fat diets. But, in fact, the researchers' conclusions were much more nuanced. And, as the Newsweek article admirably admitted, media coverage--including Newsweek's own reporting at times--often further muddies the issues, rather than clarifying them for the public. It's a fairly interesting article (particularly, I would imagine, for dieters) that makes a pretty decent effort to help readers cut through some of the confusion around recent studies.
What I found interesting about this article, however, was how much of the discussion could just as well be applied to debates about education policy. Swap out, say, the great charter research wars of 2004-05 for low-fat diets or hormone therapy, and you could write pretty much an identical story. Maybe the ideology is a bit more fiery in the education debate. (Although, if you've ever tried to prepare a meal to accommodate an ardent Atkins dieter and a Dean Ornish convert, you may disagree with this.) But a lot of the issues are the same.
And, many of the same media pathologies the Newsweek authors note produce public confusion over health findings--such as a tendency to boil complex issues down to simplistic headlines--also have a negative impact on education policy debates. One of Education Sector's--and, by extension, the Quick and the ED's--goals is to address some of these issues and help enrich the education policy conversation. (Programming Note: On March 24, Education Sector is co-hosting, with the National Academy of Sciences and the National Education Knowledge Industry Association, a forum to try to help untangle what the research evidence says about high school reform strategies and implications for policy and practice.)
Folks in the education policy community tend to be a bit envious of medical research. But, as this article illustrates, health care research is hardly as perfect as those seeking to remake education research in its image might imagine. It's easy to find a ridiculous-sounding education "research" article, or one with just plain lousy methodology, but there are also crummy studies in health. For example, Newsweek mentions a 2001 study, funded by the American Cocoa Institute, that found health benefits from chocolate--but was based on only 23 participants (to my great sorrow). The WHI's own low-fat study methodology raises some eyebrows: It relies on the (all-female) participants' self-reports of their own food consumption: something about which my gender is not known to be particularly candid. That's not to say education research can't learn from health research--in fact, we have to--but we need to be clear-eyed about what we're comparing ourselves to.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Going Soft in Connecticut?
Many Educommentators, including some of my educolleagues, have been protesting Connecticut's attempt to free itself of NCLB's testing requirements via the courts. It's hypocritical for a state such as Connecticut with significant achievement gaps between racial groups to try to circumvent the federal law's main mechanism for addressing such problems, they say. And they make much of the NAACP's coming to the side of U.S. Secretary of Ed Margaret Spellings in the case. The end-game, of course, is to defeat Connecticut's legal action in any way possible, for fear that a loss there would lead to lawsuits by more states and the unraveling of NCLB's requirement that states test every student in seven grades in reading and math every year, which is the key to the law's strategy for pressing educators to help needy kids.
This big-picture strategizing is understandable. I'm not going to pretend to know all the reasons why Connecticut is pressing its case in the courts. And if Connecticut ultimately loses the case, so be it. But there's one aspect of the Connecticut case that should be troubling to NCLB advocates: U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has steadfastly refused to speak up on behalf of high quality tests.
Test quality matters because what's tested is what gets taught. NCLB advocates talk a lot about the law's pursuit of high standards for all students. But a new report by Education Sector makes clear that a lack of federal funding has combined with other factors to encourage states to create tests that measure mostly low-level reading and math skills like restating facts rather than the higher-level thinking skills touted by NCLB because such tests are cheaper and quicker to produce. Education Sector calls for the feds to more than double spending on statewide testing, from $408 million this year to $860 million, to permit states to create uniformly high-quality tests.
Connecticut has used high-standards tests since the 1980s, including math questions that require students to write explanations of their answers. State officials claim that by underfunding NCLB testing, the feds are forcing Connecticut to dumb down its tests, at the expense of the very kids NCLB is designed to help.
Some NCLB defenders are saying that Connecticut is crying foul when it hasn't even spent all of its federal NCLB money. I don't know whether Conn. has spent all its money or not. And I don't really care.
My beef is that lots of states are creating lousy tests that are lowering the level of instruction in many classrooms and Spellings has been mute on the issue. Her response has been, in effect: I'm not concerned whether states create tests that promote high standards or low standards, as long as they are testing every kid every year. If you want good tests, spend the money for them yourself, she suggests.
Is that really the right message from the Secretary of Education? If she's not careful, people might start accusing her of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
This big-picture strategizing is understandable. I'm not going to pretend to know all the reasons why Connecticut is pressing its case in the courts. And if Connecticut ultimately loses the case, so be it. But there's one aspect of the Connecticut case that should be troubling to NCLB advocates: U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has steadfastly refused to speak up on behalf of high quality tests.
Test quality matters because what's tested is what gets taught. NCLB advocates talk a lot about the law's pursuit of high standards for all students. But a new report by Education Sector makes clear that a lack of federal funding has combined with other factors to encourage states to create tests that measure mostly low-level reading and math skills like restating facts rather than the higher-level thinking skills touted by NCLB because such tests are cheaper and quicker to produce. Education Sector calls for the feds to more than double spending on statewide testing, from $408 million this year to $860 million, to permit states to create uniformly high-quality tests.
Connecticut has used high-standards tests since the 1980s, including math questions that require students to write explanations of their answers. State officials claim that by underfunding NCLB testing, the feds are forcing Connecticut to dumb down its tests, at the expense of the very kids NCLB is designed to help.
Some NCLB defenders are saying that Connecticut is crying foul when it hasn't even spent all of its federal NCLB money. I don't know whether Conn. has spent all its money or not. And I don't really care.
My beef is that lots of states are creating lousy tests that are lowering the level of instruction in many classrooms and Spellings has been mute on the issue. Her response has been, in effect: I'm not concerned whether states create tests that promote high standards or low standards, as long as they are testing every kid every year. If you want good tests, spend the money for them yourself, she suggests.
Is that really the right message from the Secretary of Education? If she's not careful, people might start accusing her of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Oberlin's Money, Mouth at Odds
In the middle of an Insidehighered.com piece on Oberlin College's recent effort to integrate the word "fearless" into their latest marketing campaign, we find this:
"The timing of this marketing effort coincides with a financial concern that is specifically mentioned in the strategic plan, which calls for an enrollment reduction of 163 undergraduate students by 2010 in order to facilitate “modest but essential increases in net tuition revenue per student.” By recruiting more students from high-income families, Oberlin would thus have more tuition dollars coming in and less financial aid going out."
As is generally the case, these policies are wrapped up in financial aid-speak, so let's be clear about what this means: Over the next four years, Oberlin is planning on not admitting 163 smart, well-qualified students from lower-income financial backgrounds, because the university doesn't want to give them the financial aid they need to afford Oberlin prices. This kind of policy is increasingly typical in higher education.
A lot of higher education institutions are under financial strain these days, and there's little doubt that the challenge is particularly acute at small, private liberal arts colleges. Personally, I've always liked Oberlin, I spent a fun weekend there while I was in grad school and the older I get the more I value the rich, quirky cultural and intellectual environments created in small college towns. Oberlin was the first college in the nation to admit women and it was deeply involved in the abolition movement and civil rights movements. It gave the world Fredo Corleone, Ed Helms , and Liz Phair (or at least fierce mid-90s Liz Phair. I don't blame them for this). Not bad for 170 year's work.
But at an institution so famously liberal that things like this and this seem perfectly plausible, it's remarkable that these anti-egalitarian student aid policies are put in place. I'd bet dollars to donuts that on any given day during the Oberlin academic year, a significant number of people on campus are writing, teaching, discussing, or protesting about the grave injustices foisted upon the economically oppressed around the world. It's easy to believe in distributive justice when someone else's dollars are at stake; a lot harder when the necessary sacrifices are close to home.
"The timing of this marketing effort coincides with a financial concern that is specifically mentioned in the strategic plan, which calls for an enrollment reduction of 163 undergraduate students by 2010 in order to facilitate “modest but essential increases in net tuition revenue per student.” By recruiting more students from high-income families, Oberlin would thus have more tuition dollars coming in and less financial aid going out."
As is generally the case, these policies are wrapped up in financial aid-speak, so let's be clear about what this means: Over the next four years, Oberlin is planning on not admitting 163 smart, well-qualified students from lower-income financial backgrounds, because the university doesn't want to give them the financial aid they need to afford Oberlin prices. This kind of policy is increasingly typical in higher education.
A lot of higher education institutions are under financial strain these days, and there's little doubt that the challenge is particularly acute at small, private liberal arts colleges. Personally, I've always liked Oberlin, I spent a fun weekend there while I was in grad school and the older I get the more I value the rich, quirky cultural and intellectual environments created in small college towns. Oberlin was the first college in the nation to admit women and it was deeply involved in the abolition movement and civil rights movements. It gave the world Fredo Corleone, Ed Helms , and Liz Phair (or at least fierce mid-90s Liz Phair. I don't blame them for this). Not bad for 170 year's work.
But at an institution so famously liberal that things like this and this seem perfectly plausible, it's remarkable that these anti-egalitarian student aid policies are put in place. I'd bet dollars to donuts that on any given day during the Oberlin academic year, a significant number of people on campus are writing, teaching, discussing, or protesting about the grave injustices foisted upon the economically oppressed around the world. It's easy to believe in distributive justice when someone else's dollars are at stake; a lot harder when the necessary sacrifices are close to home.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
This Lede's Not Just Buried, It's Six Feet Under.
The No Child Left Behind Act is designed to increase student learning in math and reading, primarily in the elementary and middle school grades, by holding schools accountable for student performance on state standardized tests. It also focuses on closing achievement gaps for low-income and minority students.
Last week, the Education Trust released a report which found that in the vast majority of states studied, elementary and middle school student performance improved in math and reading, as measured by their performance on state standardized tests. In most states, achievement gaps also narrowed. (Disclosure: I used to work at the Education Trust, and the report's primary author, Daria Hall, used to work for me. In addition to being a crackerjack education policy analyst, Daria has better taste in rock music than anyone I know).
In other words, the No Child Left Behind Act is working, as measured by one of the few metrics that can be reasonably used to make such judgments. As the report notes, results aren't improving fast enough nor are all the gaps closing. But the vector of improvement, by these measures, is undeniable. Given the near-constant and frequently histrionic teeth-gnashing about NCLB, you'd think this would be news.
Yet for days following the report's release, CNN.com ran an AP article about the report that made virtually no mention of these findings. Instead, it was titled: "Huge gaps in state, federal test scores."
That refers to one of the report's appendices, which noted that the definition of "proficiency" used by the federal NAEP exam is a lot more stringent than the definition used by most states. It's a perfectly fair point. But it's also been made by a lot of other people at other times.
Burying the lede is one thing; putting it in the last graf, as this article did, is something else entirely. The lesson here is clear: some random teacher in Colorado talks smack about the President, and it's front-page news; carefully document the fact that millions of teachers and students across the country have worked hard and improved achievement, and if you're lucky you get a desultory final sentence that basically says "Oh, and students are learning more or something."
It's telling that in our loud national debate about education policy, the central goals--and evidence--of improving student performance are often the last thing anyone wants to talk about.
Last week, the Education Trust released a report which found that in the vast majority of states studied, elementary and middle school student performance improved in math and reading, as measured by their performance on state standardized tests. In most states, achievement gaps also narrowed. (Disclosure: I used to work at the Education Trust, and the report's primary author, Daria Hall, used to work for me. In addition to being a crackerjack education policy analyst, Daria has better taste in rock music than anyone I know).
In other words, the No Child Left Behind Act is working, as measured by one of the few metrics that can be reasonably used to make such judgments. As the report notes, results aren't improving fast enough nor are all the gaps closing. But the vector of improvement, by these measures, is undeniable. Given the near-constant and frequently histrionic teeth-gnashing about NCLB, you'd think this would be news.
Yet for days following the report's release, CNN.com ran an AP article about the report that made virtually no mention of these findings. Instead, it was titled: "Huge gaps in state, federal test scores."
That refers to one of the report's appendices, which noted that the definition of "proficiency" used by the federal NAEP exam is a lot more stringent than the definition used by most states. It's a perfectly fair point. But it's also been made by a lot of other people at other times.
Burying the lede is one thing; putting it in the last graf, as this article did, is something else entirely. The lesson here is clear: some random teacher in Colorado talks smack about the President, and it's front-page news; carefully document the fact that millions of teachers and students across the country have worked hard and improved achievement, and if you're lucky you get a desultory final sentence that basically says "Oh, and students are learning more or something."
It's telling that in our loud national debate about education policy, the central goals--and evidence--of improving student performance are often the last thing anyone wants to talk about.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Smart, Unselfish Congressional Budget Policy. No, Really.
The iron-clad conventional wisdom around NCLB is that the law is an "unfunded mandate," an idea driven by the disparity between the amount of money Congress has appropriated for the Title I program and the maximum amount it could appropriate, given the escalating annual authorization targets established in NCLB. For the first few years of NCLB implementation, supporters could counter that argument by noting that while appropriations fell short of the maximum authorized levels, they still represented significant real-world increases. Title I grew from $7.7 billion in federal fiscal year 2000 to $12.7 billion in FY 2005, a significant bump no matter how you slice it.
Most of that increase, however, came out the outset of NCLB implementation. The FY 2006 Title I appropriation fell victim to across-the-board recissions and actually dropped from FY 2005. The President's budget for FY 2007 proposes no new Title I funding. Given the current fiscal climate, the prospects for any near-term Title I increases in Title seem dim. The fact that new support for education has stalled even as metastasizing Congressional earmarks and hugely expensive corporate tax cuts march forward unabated is of no credit to the people in charge of the federal pursestrings.
But somehow in all of this Congress has managed to not get credit for a piece of genuinely smart, unselfish public policy: In addition to putting more money in Title I, they've also changed the way new Title I funds are distributed. As a new Chart You Can Trust from Education Sector shows, every additional Title I dollar sent out under NCLB has been distributed through a pair of never-before-used funding formulas designed to target the highest-poverty school districts and reward states that expend the most effort funding schools and distribute state and local money equitably to school districts. Congress has even reallocated $600 billion in funding previously distributed under older, less-targeted formulas.
Given the deserved beating Congress has taken in recent months over persistent deficits, "bridges to nowhere," and other evidence of a general breakdown in budget discipline, it's surprising that they've not received more credit for doing right by the states, schools and students who need need and deserve new funding the most.
Most of that increase, however, came out the outset of NCLB implementation. The FY 2006 Title I appropriation fell victim to across-the-board recissions and actually dropped from FY 2005. The President's budget for FY 2007 proposes no new Title I funding. Given the current fiscal climate, the prospects for any near-term Title I increases in Title seem dim. The fact that new support for education has stalled even as metastasizing Congressional earmarks and hugely expensive corporate tax cuts march forward unabated is of no credit to the people in charge of the federal pursestrings.
But somehow in all of this Congress has managed to not get credit for a piece of genuinely smart, unselfish public policy: In addition to putting more money in Title I, they've also changed the way new Title I funds are distributed. As a new Chart You Can Trust from Education Sector shows, every additional Title I dollar sent out under NCLB has been distributed through a pair of never-before-used funding formulas designed to target the highest-poverty school districts and reward states that expend the most effort funding schools and distribute state and local money equitably to school districts. Congress has even reallocated $600 billion in funding previously distributed under older, less-targeted formulas.
Given the deserved beating Congress has taken in recent months over persistent deficits, "bridges to nowhere," and other evidence of a general breakdown in budget discipline, it's surprising that they've not received more credit for doing right by the states, schools and students who need need and deserve new funding the most.
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