This week, researchers Steven Barnett and Bruce Fuller have been debating the merits of universal versus targeted preschool on the Education Sector website. Yesterday, I explained why I find Steven Barnett's case for universal preschool compelling--but also why I still have some questions. Today I'll explain my reaction to Fuller's arguments for targeting investments.
I should start out by noting that I'm inclined to be sympathetic to Fuller's arguments here. In general, I tend to believe new public spending on education should be targeted to the most needy youngsters. But I'm perplexed by Fuller's assertion that advocates for universal preschool believe "that pre-K should become just another grade level in the public schools" or that "early development is about getting three and four year-olds ready for standardized testing." Fuller seems to think universal preschool advocates want to create a standardized, one-size-fits-all program of school-like environments for preschoolers that ignore critical aspects of children's social and emotional development in favor of test prep.
I'm at a loss to understand where Fuller gets this idea. I've spent a decent amount of time around universal preschool people and read a lot of what they produce, and I've never gotten the sense these were their beliefs or objectives. Preschool people tend to emphasize that preschools should not look like elementary schools or even kindergartens. The work and resources produced by advocacy organizations such as Pre-K Now and Barnett's own research group NIEER emphasize the importance of children's social and emotional development in preschool. Many states have made community-based and other non-school providers a key part of their preschool systems.
If I thought universal preschool was part of some plot to standardize early childhood and eliminate diverse, comunity-based providers, I'd probably oppose it, too. I do have concerns about how Prop. 82 would govern preschool in California, and whether or not it would be equitable to community-based and private providers (and the families that prefer them). But these are policy and program design questions--not issues inherent in the idea of universal preschool.
One of the reasons I do find the idea of universal preschool appealing is the opportunity it would provide to build a new kind of educational system outside of the existing one. I certainly don't think that publicly-funded preschool should look like just another, earlier, year of the existing public schools. But I think that practical realities and the desires of parents will ensure that it can't in most places. What's exciting to me about the preschool movement is the opportunity it creates to build a new early education system in many places: A system that incorporates diverse providers, a system that uses new governance and accountability models to oversee these providers and hold them accountable in ways that are more holistic and developmentally appropriate than plain old pencil-and-paper-standardized tests (because you CAN'T use those with kids this little). I think a system like this would look a lot like the kind of educational system I'd like to see available to older kids, as well, and making such a system parents' first encounter with publicly-funded education would help put pressure on the existing K-12 system to change. Now, creating a system like that is hard, and a lot of places aren't going to do it with the limited resources and ad hoc nature of their preschool programs, but I still think it's an interesting prospect.
Fuller makes a lot of other worthwhile points in his piece: Some of the evidence on preschool has been overhyped; just like in K-12 teaching, we don't know as much as we'd like to think about the characteristics that make preschool teachers effective; and community providers are a critical piece of the early childhood infrastructure that need to be maintained and integrated into any publicly-funded system. His piece is well worth reading.
So, where did I come down after this debate? I'm positive but still ambivalent about the idea of universal preschool, because I think it needs to be weighed against alternative, more-targeted investments. I also wonder if there's not a smart design way to achieve some of the benefits Barnett argues come from universal preschool while keeping some of the cost burden on more affluent parents, rather than the public. And I do think the design and policy details of specific programs and proposals matter a lot.
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Costs of Cost-Benefit Analysis
Reason Foundation takes on RAND Corporation over cost-benefit calculations for California's Prop. 82 universal preschool proposal. RAND found Californians would reap benefits of about $2.62 for every $1 spent on universal preschool; Reason critiques their analysis and says the state would actually lose money on its investment. I'm not an expert on cost-benefit analysis, so I'll leave that to others to sort out.
The Reason report is worth a look, if only for the hilarious graphic (on page 18) of a sweating little boy pouring buckets of greenbacks down the gullet of a big purple monster label "Prop 82." I do think, though, that the Reason authors misunderstand aspects of Prop. 82. For example, they keep referring to publicly-funded preschool under Prop. 82 as "government-run" preschools. But the referrendum is written to allow non-government providers--such as community-based providers and charter schools--to become part of the publicly-funded preschool system if they meet quality standards. Understanding this idea could clear up some of their mystification at certain assumptions in the RAND report.
More seriously, I do wonder sometimes if the preschool movement doesn't put entirely too much stock in cost-benefit analyses. Sober assessments of costs and benefits do have an important role in policymaking, and they can be useful advocacy tools, but, contrary to what we learned in school (apologies, Professor Walter), they aren't the only, or even necessarily the main, factor driving policy decisions. The RAND report's looking at returns to preschool investments throughout children's lives--60 years down the road! That's a much longer timeline than it's easy for most elected officials to think in terms of. And, because the set of assumptions analysts choose can have dramatic effects on the costs and benefits they arrive at, these estimates can seem wierdly fragile and subject to challenge by those who employ alternative assumptions.
Further, just because society eventually reaps returns on preschool investments doesn't make it any easier to find the funds governments need to spend to establish preschool programs NOW. Many of the benefits prominent cost-benefit analyses of preschool capture accrue to private citizens or other parts of government (such as the criminal justice system), so it's not really accurate to say these investments will pay for themselves down the road--that's just not how budgets work.
That's not to deny the significance of the preschool cost-benefit analyses or the value of the work done by researchers in this field. But I do think it would behoove the preschool movement to make sure its case doesn't rest too heavily on these cost-benefit calculations. Other aspects of the case for preschool must also be fully developed.
The Reason report is worth a look, if only for the hilarious graphic (on page 18) of a sweating little boy pouring buckets of greenbacks down the gullet of a big purple monster label "Prop 82." I do think, though, that the Reason authors misunderstand aspects of Prop. 82. For example, they keep referring to publicly-funded preschool under Prop. 82 as "government-run" preschools. But the referrendum is written to allow non-government providers--such as community-based providers and charter schools--to become part of the publicly-funded preschool system if they meet quality standards. Understanding this idea could clear up some of their mystification at certain assumptions in the RAND report.
More seriously, I do wonder sometimes if the preschool movement doesn't put entirely too much stock in cost-benefit analyses. Sober assessments of costs and benefits do have an important role in policymaking, and they can be useful advocacy tools, but, contrary to what we learned in school (apologies, Professor Walter), they aren't the only, or even necessarily the main, factor driving policy decisions. The RAND report's looking at returns to preschool investments throughout children's lives--60 years down the road! That's a much longer timeline than it's easy for most elected officials to think in terms of. And, because the set of assumptions analysts choose can have dramatic effects on the costs and benefits they arrive at, these estimates can seem wierdly fragile and subject to challenge by those who employ alternative assumptions.
Further, just because society eventually reaps returns on preschool investments doesn't make it any easier to find the funds governments need to spend to establish preschool programs NOW. Many of the benefits prominent cost-benefit analyses of preschool capture accrue to private citizens or other parts of government (such as the criminal justice system), so it's not really accurate to say these investments will pay for themselves down the road--that's just not how budgets work.
That's not to deny the significance of the preschool cost-benefit analyses or the value of the work done by researchers in this field. But I do think it would behoove the preschool movement to make sure its case doesn't rest too heavily on these cost-benefit calculations. Other aspects of the case for preschool must also be fully developed.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
NCLB Causes Head Lice
I'm not even kidding. The article($) is in today's Wall Street Journal:
This is the first NCLB critique I've seen that's both nit-picking and about nit-picking at the same time.
Seriously, there's a certain not-grown-up quality to stories like this. The Washington Post ran basically the same article this morning, except the focus there was how NCLB is causing schools to get rid of recess. It's only a matter of time before the New York Times goes above the fold with an expose of how schools are supposedly abolishing restrooms, school lunches, and the Pledge of Allegiance to free up class time for test prep.
NCLB holds schools accountable for the most important things--reading, math, coming to school. Inevitably, that means conflicts and tradeoffs with other important things--social studies, recess, personal hygiene. That's worth noting, and worrying about. But that's also life--conflicting priorities, difficult tradeoffs, limited resources.
Too much of the reaction to these conflicts is along the lines of "Therefore, NCLB is bad idea." As opposed to "Let's work hard to reconcile these competing but important priorities and come to the best solution for students."
Education-reform mandates like the No Child Left Behind law are putting a contentious new spin on a classroom issue that makes parents' skin crawl: head lice. Schools used to take a hard line on the sesame-seed-sized parasites, which suck human blood and glue their eggs to individual hairs. At the first sign of an outbreak, pupils got scalp checks. Those with lice were immediately banished from the classroom until all lice and eggs -- known as nits -- were gone.
But to the dismay of many parents, these "no nits" policies are disappearing as school districts face state and federal pressure to reduce absenteeism and boost academic achievement. No Child requires that 95% of students be present for mandatory achievement tests. It also allows states to use attendance to help determine whether school districts are making adequate educational progress under the federal law. Those that don't do so face sanctions that could include state takeovers of their schools.
This is the first NCLB critique I've seen that's both nit-picking and about nit-picking at the same time.
Seriously, there's a certain not-grown-up quality to stories like this. The Washington Post ran basically the same article this morning, except the focus there was how NCLB is causing schools to get rid of recess. It's only a matter of time before the New York Times goes above the fold with an expose of how schools are supposedly abolishing restrooms, school lunches, and the Pledge of Allegiance to free up class time for test prep.
NCLB holds schools accountable for the most important things--reading, math, coming to school. Inevitably, that means conflicts and tradeoffs with other important things--social studies, recess, personal hygiene. That's worth noting, and worrying about. But that's also life--conflicting priorities, difficult tradeoffs, limited resources.
Too much of the reaction to these conflicts is along the lines of "Therefore, NCLB is bad idea." As opposed to "Let's work hard to reconcile these competing but important priorities and come to the best solution for students."
Debating Universal vs. Targeted Preschool: Part I
This week on the Education Sector website, researchers W. Steven Barnett and Bruce Fuller have been debating the merits of universal versus targeted approaches to publicly funded preschool. The question, essentially, is: "Does it make more sense for governments to spend money on publicly-funded preschool for all children, or just for those who are most needy?"
As someone who works on early-childhood policy issues, I find this question a particularly difficult one, so I'm excited that Education Sector is able to host this debate. Each of these gentlemen presents the case for his respective position more clearly and compellingly than anyone I've yet heard from. And, with voters in our nation's largest state poised to vote on a statewide universal preschool proposal less than a week from now, it's an important and timely question--one we're likely to see raised more places around the country in the near future. All good reasons you should check out the debate itself now.
Today, I'm going to offer a few quick reactions to Steven Barnett's case for universal preschool. Tomorrow, I'll talk about my response to Bruce Fuller's arguments.
I find Steven Barnett's case for universal preschool pretty compelling. The argument that "programs for the poor are too often poor programs," isn't easily dismissed--we see this play out in a lot of policy areas, and it is part of the reason some much-hyped early-childhood programs have delivered disappointing results. Richard Kahlenberg's work arguing for socioeconomic integration of K-12 schools can be helpful to understanding why this is the case in education, and it also offers another argument against targeting preschool programs so narrowly that they segregate low-income children from their more affluent peers. In addition, Barnett makes an important point that the kids with families at the median income level--those whose families aren't poor enough to qualify for public programs but aren't affluent enough to afford private preschool--are the least likely to be enrolled in preschool, even though many of these children, whose families are hardly rich, could probably benefit from it.
Still, there's a big hole for me in Barnett's arguments, and that's the issue of trade-offs. If we lived in a climate of infinite resources, it would certainly make a lot more sense to invest in universal rather than targeted preschool programs. But we don't. Policymakers have to decide between competing priorities and make trade-offs. So, where are the trade-offs worth making? For example, is it better to invest in universal preschool for all four-year-olds, or targeted preschool for poor four-year-olds, combined with greater funding for childcare for poor infants and toddlers? Would we be better off providing one year of preschool to all children or two years only to the most disadvantaged?
I also worry that the emphasis on universal preschool may create an incentive for policymakers and politicians to cut corners on quality in order to stretch limited resources so they can say they accomplished universal preschool. We saw this in Florida after voters there passed a referendum for universal preschool--Governor Bush and the state legislature implemented a program with quality standards much lower than Barnett or other experts say are necessary to have the kinds of positive impacts we want preschool to have on children's development and achievement down the road. If this happens, we eventually wind up in the same place--a poor program serving poor kids--that Barnett fears we'll wind up with a targeted approach.
As someone who works on early-childhood policy issues, I find this question a particularly difficult one, so I'm excited that Education Sector is able to host this debate. Each of these gentlemen presents the case for his respective position more clearly and compellingly than anyone I've yet heard from. And, with voters in our nation's largest state poised to vote on a statewide universal preschool proposal less than a week from now, it's an important and timely question--one we're likely to see raised more places around the country in the near future. All good reasons you should check out the debate itself now.
Today, I'm going to offer a few quick reactions to Steven Barnett's case for universal preschool. Tomorrow, I'll talk about my response to Bruce Fuller's arguments.
I find Steven Barnett's case for universal preschool pretty compelling. The argument that "programs for the poor are too often poor programs," isn't easily dismissed--we see this play out in a lot of policy areas, and it is part of the reason some much-hyped early-childhood programs have delivered disappointing results. Richard Kahlenberg's work arguing for socioeconomic integration of K-12 schools can be helpful to understanding why this is the case in education, and it also offers another argument against targeting preschool programs so narrowly that they segregate low-income children from their more affluent peers. In addition, Barnett makes an important point that the kids with families at the median income level--those whose families aren't poor enough to qualify for public programs but aren't affluent enough to afford private preschool--are the least likely to be enrolled in preschool, even though many of these children, whose families are hardly rich, could probably benefit from it.
Still, there's a big hole for me in Barnett's arguments, and that's the issue of trade-offs. If we lived in a climate of infinite resources, it would certainly make a lot more sense to invest in universal rather than targeted preschool programs. But we don't. Policymakers have to decide between competing priorities and make trade-offs. So, where are the trade-offs worth making? For example, is it better to invest in universal preschool for all four-year-olds, or targeted preschool for poor four-year-olds, combined with greater funding for childcare for poor infants and toddlers? Would we be better off providing one year of preschool to all children or two years only to the most disadvantaged?
I also worry that the emphasis on universal preschool may create an incentive for policymakers and politicians to cut corners on quality in order to stretch limited resources so they can say they accomplished universal preschool. We saw this in Florida after voters there passed a referendum for universal preschool--Governor Bush and the state legislature implemented a program with quality standards much lower than Barnett or other experts say are necessary to have the kinds of positive impacts we want preschool to have on children's development and achievement down the road. If this happens, we eventually wind up in the same place--a poor program serving poor kids--that Barnett fears we'll wind up with a targeted approach.
Engineering Better Content Standards
With the release of new NAEP science scores last week, there has been a flurry of commentary about what these scores mean for students and what we are doing- or should be doing- to improve science education in our schools. Many in the K-12 world are centering the discussion on improving science content standards, particularly as states and districts prepare for mandatory science testing under NCLB (beginning 2007). AAAS's Project 2061 provides a great history and some updates on national and state efforts to create science standards.
Part of the conversation is about revising content standards. Another part is about adding new content areas altogether, namely engineering. Engineering is somewhat of an unusual suspect in this K-12 science conversation. It’s a hot topic in higher education for many reasons, including that engineering enrollment has recently begun to climb but has still not reached its 1983 peak. Read NSF’s Science & Engineering Indicators 2006 report for more about the overall state of science and technology. The last section, as an aside, includes some interesting data about what Americans think about science and where we get our information (sadly, not from reading).
The idea to introduce and formally incorporate engineering into the K-12 curriculum has been gaining popularity. Several states have added “pre-engineering” components to their curricula and other states seem ready to follow. Massachusetts is the first state to have a pre-college engineering curriculum in place and to formally add it to its statewide framework.
The notion seems like a good one. Introduce engineering early in education and students will be more engaged, or at least familiar, with the subject before entering college. It makes sense that learning real-world engineering applications (imagine high school students learning how to build their own iPods, for instance) might increase student interest in and aptitude for science and engineering. But there are some important practical questions to consider first. How and where will “pre-engineering” fit into the curricula (or into state assessments)? Do we have teachers who are prepared to teach these courses? Will engineering courses be required, or will “enrichment" programs meet the requirements? (There are, by the way, many examples of excellent engineering programs and competitions for youth, and activities for teachers to incorporate into their current lesson plans). Finally, are we adding more content because more seems better? The seminal reports on the subject, Project 2061's Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards, recommend depth over breadth for student learning so this last point may be the most salient consideration.
There is no argument that basic engineering principles should be included in any science curriculum, and that students should be exposed to engineering concepts early in their education. But formally incorporating another content area into statewide frameworks might not be the most resourceful way to achieve this goal. As the front-runner, Massachusetts will be worth watching.
Part of the conversation is about revising content standards. Another part is about adding new content areas altogether, namely engineering. Engineering is somewhat of an unusual suspect in this K-12 science conversation. It’s a hot topic in higher education for many reasons, including that engineering enrollment has recently begun to climb but has still not reached its 1983 peak. Read NSF’s Science & Engineering Indicators 2006 report for more about the overall state of science and technology. The last section, as an aside, includes some interesting data about what Americans think about science and where we get our information (sadly, not from reading).
The idea to introduce and formally incorporate engineering into the K-12 curriculum has been gaining popularity. Several states have added “pre-engineering” components to their curricula and other states seem ready to follow. Massachusetts is the first state to have a pre-college engineering curriculum in place and to formally add it to its statewide framework.
The notion seems like a good one. Introduce engineering early in education and students will be more engaged, or at least familiar, with the subject before entering college. It makes sense that learning real-world engineering applications (imagine high school students learning how to build their own iPods, for instance) might increase student interest in and aptitude for science and engineering. But there are some important practical questions to consider first. How and where will “pre-engineering” fit into the curricula (or into state assessments)? Do we have teachers who are prepared to teach these courses? Will engineering courses be required, or will “enrichment" programs meet the requirements? (There are, by the way, many examples of excellent engineering programs and competitions for youth, and activities for teachers to incorporate into their current lesson plans). Finally, are we adding more content because more seems better? The seminal reports on the subject, Project 2061's Benchmarks for Science Literacy and the National Research Council's National Science Education Standards, recommend depth over breadth for student learning so this last point may be the most salient consideration.
There is no argument that basic engineering principles should be included in any science curriculum, and that students should be exposed to engineering concepts early in their education. But formally incorporating another content area into statewide frameworks might not be the most resourceful way to achieve this goal. As the front-runner, Massachusetts will be worth watching.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Teacher Policy: Backwards, Forwards, Upside-Down
A few years ago there was a great magazine advertisement that showed a picture of a napkin. On the napkin was written:
1. Build Computer.
2. Sell Computer.
Except someone had crossed out the "1" and written in "2," and then crossed out the "2" and written in "1." In other words, the business plan for Dell Computer that allowed Michael Dell to make a hundred jillion gazillion dollars by age 40 by having all his customers order and pay for computers over the Internet before Dell built and shipped them, saving vast sums of money on warehousing, inventory, etc.
I thought of this ad during the last few weeks while I watched Eduboss Andy Rotherham cajole the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards into finally coughing up a largely critical evaluation from value-added guru Bill Sanders. Sanders' main finding was:
1. Build Computer.
2. Sell Computer.
Except someone had crossed out the "1" and written in "2," and then crossed out the "2" and written in "1." In other words, the business plan for Dell Computer that allowed Michael Dell to make a hundred jillion gazillion dollars by age 40 by having all his customers order and pay for computers over the Internet before Dell built and shipped them, saving vast sums of money on warehousing, inventory, etc.
I thought of this ad during the last few weeks while I watched Eduboss Andy Rotherham cajole the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards into finally coughing up a largely critical evaluation from value-added guru Bill Sanders. Sanders' main finding was:
The amount of variability among teachers with the same NBPTS Certification Status is considerably larger than the differences between teachers of different Status.
At first, the implications here seem limited to NBPTS. But they're actually much more significant and far-reaching, touching on the foundations of contemporary public policy as it relates to teachers.
The Sanders value-added system estimates teacher effectiveness by comparing the actual year-to-year growth in learning (as measured by standardized tests) of each teacher's students to amount of learning growth those student would be expected to gain given their previous academic history. The more actual growth exceeds expected growth, the higher the rating.
In essence, the Sanders study found that individual NBPTS-certified teachers differ more from one another than they collectively differ from non-NBPTS teachers. On the surface, the imlications of this finding seem straightforward: the NBPTS folks have some work to do to improve their process and states that have tied many millions of dollars in salary bonuses to NBPTS status should give those policies a second look.
But both of these ideas flow from the same premise: that this study is just another step forward in the ongoing search for the characteristics of the effective teacher. A definitive list of such characteristics is the holy grail of teacher policy. If we only had that list, so the thinking goes, we could do all kinds of important and useful things. We could reshape education schools to impart those characteristics. We could set up certification systems to filter out teachers who don't have those characteristics. We could design compensation systems that pay teachers with those characteristics more money.
In other words:
1. Identify effective teacher.
2. Hire effective teacher.
The problem is that this entire approach is flatly contradicted by the evidence. The essential findings of the Sanders study--more variation among teachers with or without NBPTS status than between teachers with our without NBPTS status--is also basically true for every other teacher characteristic that's ever been studied.
Experience, education level, certification status, training, content knowledge, selectivity of the undergraduate institution, verbal ability -- all of these things have been shown by some studies to influence teacher effectiveness (although some more than others--having a Master's generally seems to have no effect, which is , given the resources devoted to putting millions of teachers through graduate school, an enormous problem).
But even in combination, these factors explain only a minority--often a small minority--of the overall variation among indvidual teachers in helping students learn. There are great inexperienced teachers and terrible inexperienced teachers, effective certified teachers and ineffective certified teachers, etc. etc. etc. It's not that these things don't matter. But other, unknown things clearly matter more.
Yet a lot of teacher policy conversations are based on the idea that if we just keep looking--or created elaborate processes like the NBPTS--we will, someday, finally nail down the prototype of the elusive effective teacher, and then proceed to stamp out millions of copies of him or her.
Underlying this idea is a kind of commodified view of teachers -- that they all have pretty much the same job requiring pretty much the same characteristics to succeed. Obviously this varies somewhat by grade, subject, and type of student, but the essentials are supposed to be the same. This view is reinforced by most collective bargaining agreements, which enforce further uniformity on how teachers are hired, managed, and paid.
My strong suspicion is that this whole way of thinking will ultimately turn out to be profoundly wrong. That teaching is actually a much more complicated, difficult, and idiosyncratic process than our mainstream, characteristics-based teacher policy suggests. That knowing teacher characteristics like experience, training, etc., is useful, but only marginally so. That we could double, triple, or magnify tenfold our efforts to refine and expand things like the NBPTS and still never get close to identifying the effective teacher, for the simple reason that she doesn't exist.
In the long run, I think we'll eventually conclude that the best and only way to consistently and usefully identify teachers who are good at helping students learn is to assess how much teachers' students are learning. We can and should wonder why they're so successful, but we shouldn't let the inherent limitations of our ability to do so limit the plain logic of shaping public policy around the fact that they are successful, or are not, or are somewhere in between.
In other words, I think we'll utimately come to grips with the fact that the combination of knowledge, skill, motivation, work ethic, talent, focus, and myriad other factors that make for an effective teacher are 1) very different for different teachers who nonetheless produce similar results, and 2) far beyond our ability to identify and categorize for the purposes of crafting good public policy.
Or:
1. Hire effective teacher.
2. Identify effective teacher.
It worked for Michael Dell.
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