Friday, February 02, 2007
"We don't say 'oooh,' we fix the problem."
We all--especially those of us in the education policy world--could learn a lot from the kids in Pre-K 114.
Spitzer Hearts Pre-K, Too
There's been a lot of bloggy talk about NY Governor Eliot Spitzer's budget proposal to dramatically increase funding for public education but require greater accountability and raise the charter cap. But what seems to have slipped under a lot of folks' radar--including, as Richard Colvin notes, the major print media outlets--is Spitzer's proposal to ramp up funding for New York's "Universal" Pre-k program over the next three years so that it actually gets to the point where it deserves that adjective. New York launched the program in 1998, with plans to ramp up funding through several "waves" of school districts, starting with the most disadvantaged. But it never quite got there, so it's remained in effect a smaller targeted preschool program. Now Spitzer wants to bring it all the way to full scale. That should be big news, and it would have been if Spitzer hadn't packed so many bold and controversial ideas into his proposals. But even with everything else going on, it still deserves significant attention.
All That Baggage
I think Joe Williams has a great point here:
There's a tendency among folks in positions like mine to characterize teachers as being obstructionist or anti-accountability when they oppose the types of reform ideas Joe lists above, but the reality is that teachers who have been living and working in dysfunctional systems have good reasons not to trust the people that would be given greater decision-making authority under some reform schemes. And policy types should listen to that, not just dismiss it or wish it away. The dysfunction and problematic behaviors that weaken many of our school systems aren't independently occurring phenomena--they are causally connected and feed off each other. You can't address one without also impacting a host of other relationships and behaviors. That's why "add on" reforms, like new curricula, or reducing class size, or extending class time, or whatever else is the flavor of the week, even though they may be really good ideas, can't fix things on their own. Fundamental improvement requires shocking the system in a way that breaks through the baggage of accumulated behaviors and relationships. I don't think anyone has yet figured out how to do that really well. Even in the cities that are making positive progress on reform, there's still a tremendous amount of conflict and mistrust, lots of incompetence remaining in the system, and dysfunctional behavior going on at all levels.
Message to people who like the idea of things like weighted student formulas, decentralization, merit pay, improving the tenure process, etc: You have to think hard about whether this is really the crew you want implementing this kind of important stuff. How can we even talk about getting rid of incompetent teachers when the mayor has created a system that so warmly embraces incompetent bureaucrats?
There's a tendency among folks in positions like mine to characterize teachers as being obstructionist or anti-accountability when they oppose the types of reform ideas Joe lists above, but the reality is that teachers who have been living and working in dysfunctional systems have good reasons not to trust the people that would be given greater decision-making authority under some reform schemes. And policy types should listen to that, not just dismiss it or wish it away. The dysfunction and problematic behaviors that weaken many of our school systems aren't independently occurring phenomena--they are causally connected and feed off each other. You can't address one without also impacting a host of other relationships and behaviors. That's why "add on" reforms, like new curricula, or reducing class size, or extending class time, or whatever else is the flavor of the week, even though they may be really good ideas, can't fix things on their own. Fundamental improvement requires shocking the system in a way that breaks through the baggage of accumulated behaviors and relationships. I don't think anyone has yet figured out how to do that really well. Even in the cities that are making positive progress on reform, there's still a tremendous amount of conflict and mistrust, lots of incompetence remaining in the system, and dysfunctional behavior going on at all levels.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Sex Offender Surprise
This story is truly a gem, but I'll try to stick to the education side. The basic story line is that 29 year-old sex offender Neil H. Roderick II attended a series of Arizona charter schools posing as a 7th grade student for almost 2 years. Using the assumed name Casey Price, Roderick lived in El Mirage, and attended a school called Imagine Charter School in a town called Surprise. (Far too good to make up). Aiding in his scheme were two older men, also sex offenders, who enrolled him in school.
Leaving aside the fairly obvious question of how a 29 year-old could masquerade as a 7th grader for nearly two years without attracting attention, why didn't Price's suspicious documentation alert officials before? The school that ultimately called authorities noted that Price's documents had different dates of birth and spellings of Price's first name. Also, why did he choose to enroll in a series of charter schools?
My personal suspicion is that in the hot charter state of Arizona, where there are 450 charter schools (1 in every 4 public schools) that enroll 8% of the student body, competition is real, and enrollment processes may not be as stringent as in the traditional system. In fact, a parent in the Times story comments that Roderick probably thought a charter school was an easier target, noting that "it is not really difficult to enroll."
While eliminating bureaucracy can be an important benefit of charter schools (which I support), sometimes red tape can be useful in creating a filter. Imagine Charter School is unclear about what documentation it requires (though notes it is reviewing its procedures), but its online enrollment form is fairly cursory. In contrast, the local school district in Surprise asks parents to provide: an original birth certificate, last school attended and academic records, proof of residence, custody papers, and proof of immunization. I'm sure all this paperwork is a hassle for parents, but nonetheless probably a good idea to ensure kids have not been kidnapped, are not actually adult sex offenders, etc.
Barely related aside: As a reward for reading to the end of the Times article, the reader is treated to the lovely revelation that the men who had posed as Price's uncle and grandfather were also tricked by him and had believed that he was a minor, though they were disappointed by his deception. Yes, you read correctly. These men were disappointed to discover they had been engaging in a sexual relationship with an adult, instead of a child. Surprise!
Leaving aside the fairly obvious question of how a 29 year-old could masquerade as a 7th grader for nearly two years without attracting attention, why didn't Price's suspicious documentation alert officials before? The school that ultimately called authorities noted that Price's documents had different dates of birth and spellings of Price's first name. Also, why did he choose to enroll in a series of charter schools?
My personal suspicion is that in the hot charter state of Arizona, where there are 450 charter schools (1 in every 4 public schools) that enroll 8% of the student body, competition is real, and enrollment processes may not be as stringent as in the traditional system. In fact, a parent in the Times story comments that Roderick probably thought a charter school was an easier target, noting that "it is not really difficult to enroll."
While eliminating bureaucracy can be an important benefit of charter schools (which I support), sometimes red tape can be useful in creating a filter. Imagine Charter School is unclear about what documentation it requires (though notes it is reviewing its procedures), but its online enrollment form is fairly cursory. In contrast, the local school district in Surprise asks parents to provide: an original birth certificate, last school attended and academic records, proof of residence, custody papers, and proof of immunization. I'm sure all this paperwork is a hassle for parents, but nonetheless probably a good idea to ensure kids have not been kidnapped, are not actually adult sex offenders, etc.
Barely related aside: As a reward for reading to the end of the Times article, the reader is treated to the lovely revelation that the men who had posed as Price's uncle and grandfather were also tricked by him and had believed that he was a minor, though they were disappointed by his deception. Yes, you read correctly. These men were disappointed to discover they had been engaging in a sexual relationship with an adult, instead of a child. Surprise!
New York's Watchful Eye
Two news stories this week indicate that New York Katherine Gibbs School
Preferred lender lists are lists of lenders that financial aid offices recommend their students use for their loans. These lists can be as short as one lender or can include several options, and students almost always choose a lender off this list. For lending companies, getting on preferred lender lists is essential to maintaining high profits; it gives them access to federal loan business, but also to more lucrative private loan business. Of course, when high profits are involved, there is the potential for shady behavior – lenders aren’t supposed to bribe financial aid officers to get on preferred lender lists, but some smaller loan companies are accusing them of doing just that. It will be interesting to see how the Attorney General’s investigation shakes out, and whether it impacts the Department of Education’s proposed regulatory changes on loan company and university practices.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Say It Loud, Eliot Spitzer, and Say It Proud
Blogging again after a week on vacation. I could say I'm glad to be back, but given that I was here, that would be an egregious lie.
On Monday, Governor Elitot Spitzer made a big announcement about school funding in New York, supporting a multi-billion dollar increase in resources, but saying that the money would come with strings attached to new standards for high performance. Specifically, he said:
“My vision for education reform is built on a single premise: To be effective, new funding must be tied to a comprehensive agenda of reform and accountability.”
The details are forthcoming, and so this will sink or swim based on whether the implementation is smart and well-integrated into established accountability systems. But there is a very important symbolic issue here as well, one that could more significant in the long run than what actually happens in New York.
Supporters of more school funding, who tend to be liberals, Democrats, and/or people working in schools, basically have three options:
1) Fight the proposal, on the grounds that more state-based accountability and performance-driven oversight is a bad idea. In other words, the money isn't worth the strings.
2) Accept the proposal, on the grounds that the money is worth the strings, but in a grudging fashion, taking many opportuntities along the way to grumble that while this is an okay deal, more money with fewer (that is, no) strings would be a lot better.
3) Support the proposal wholeheartedly.
Some ostenible school funding supporters will choose (1), but most will probably choose (2). This is a bad and ultimately short-sighted choice to make. In the long run, (3) is the only way to go, both in terms of what's right for kids, but also purely in terms of the cause of more school funding.
Here's why: Before I moved to Washington, DC to write blogs and do other, more productive work, I spent six years working in the Indiana Statehouse, focusing on tax policy, budgeting, and school finance. I spent two of those years working as the chief advisor to the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. The committee had a Budget subcommittee, chaired by a Republican.
I didn't agree with his politics, but I had a lot of respect for him as a person and a legislator. He was a retired farmer and a Quaker with a Harvard M.B.A, a conservative in the sensible midwestern way. He thought that public resources should be spent sparingly and wisely, a principle that's hard to argue with, regardless of your politics. He was also a really nice, even-tempered guy. It took a lot to make him angry.
But it happened, as it did one day when some group or another was making a particularly ill-conceived and poorly justified plea to the committee for a sizeable increase in state appropriations. I don't remember if it was an education group or not, but their request basically boiled down to, "We think you should give us many millions of new dollars, on the grounds that we deserve it, and would probably be better off with that money than without it, all things considered."
To which the chairman reddened, shook his finger, and said "What you're asking is for the taxpayers of Indiana to give you more money for the same thing. And I am not going to do that."
Needless to say, he didn't. He wasn't a maniac anti-government conservative who thought that taxation was tantamount to theft. He thought the government did a lot of good--that's why he ran for office. He just thought it should do good in a restrained, efficient way.
The point being, most people in this country feel this way. There's really no such thing as big-government liberalism in 2007. There might have been once, but that was a long time ago. Hard-core anti-government conservatives are better represented on talk radio and in Congress and the White House than they are in the real world. Most people will pay taxes with relatively few complaints as long as they're reasonable and used for something useful. And education is pretty high on their list of useful things.
But there's a catch: they, like the chairman, don't want to pay more money for the same thing. This is completely sensible. It is the instinct that Eliot Spitzer is speaking to. It's the right thing to do from a policy perspective; there are a lot of children out there suffering in schools that are both under-funded and badly run. The only way to help them is to tackle both problems forcefully, at the same time.
Crucially, it's also the right thing politically. It's the path to broad public support for financial help for public education. There are a lot of people out there who could be convinced to pay for or even sacrifice on behalf of the public schools, not just the schools their kids go to but all public schools, if they could only have some reasonable assurance that the money would mean something, that it would be spent wisely and well.
Unfortunately, our education system has been trapped for decades in a unspoken agreement between conversatives who care more about keeping taxes low than improving the schools and left-leaning interest groups who care more about protecting the status quo than improving school funding. Neither will budge, and the students lose.
That's why it's incumbent on school funding supporters to not just go along with proposals like Spitzer's--assuming the particulars are well-thought out--but embrace them. To hold them up as the first, best option. That's what it will take to get the majority of the citizens to a place where they'll support the kind of broad, far-reaching funding reforms that many schools really need.
On Monday, Governor Elitot Spitzer made a big announcement about school funding in New York, supporting a multi-billion dollar increase in resources, but saying that the money would come with strings attached to new standards for high performance. Specifically, he said:
“My vision for education reform is built on a single premise: To be effective, new funding must be tied to a comprehensive agenda of reform and accountability.”
The details are forthcoming, and so this will sink or swim based on whether the implementation is smart and well-integrated into established accountability systems. But there is a very important symbolic issue here as well, one that could more significant in the long run than what actually happens in New York.
Supporters of more school funding, who tend to be liberals, Democrats, and/or people working in schools, basically have three options:
1) Fight the proposal, on the grounds that more state-based accountability and performance-driven oversight is a bad idea. In other words, the money isn't worth the strings.
2) Accept the proposal, on the grounds that the money is worth the strings, but in a grudging fashion, taking many opportuntities along the way to grumble that while this is an okay deal, more money with fewer (that is, no) strings would be a lot better.
3) Support the proposal wholeheartedly.
Some ostenible school funding supporters will choose (1), but most will probably choose (2). This is a bad and ultimately short-sighted choice to make. In the long run, (3) is the only way to go, both in terms of what's right for kids, but also purely in terms of the cause of more school funding.
Here's why: Before I moved to Washington, DC to write blogs and do other, more productive work, I spent six years working in the Indiana Statehouse, focusing on tax policy, budgeting, and school finance. I spent two of those years working as the chief advisor to the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. The committee had a Budget subcommittee, chaired by a Republican.
I didn't agree with his politics, but I had a lot of respect for him as a person and a legislator. He was a retired farmer and a Quaker with a Harvard M.B.A, a conservative in the sensible midwestern way. He thought that public resources should be spent sparingly and wisely, a principle that's hard to argue with, regardless of your politics. He was also a really nice, even-tempered guy. It took a lot to make him angry.
But it happened, as it did one day when some group or another was making a particularly ill-conceived and poorly justified plea to the committee for a sizeable increase in state appropriations. I don't remember if it was an education group or not, but their request basically boiled down to, "We think you should give us many millions of new dollars, on the grounds that we deserve it, and would probably be better off with that money than without it, all things considered."
To which the chairman reddened, shook his finger, and said "What you're asking is for the taxpayers of Indiana to give you more money for the same thing. And I am not going to do that."
Needless to say, he didn't. He wasn't a maniac anti-government conservative who thought that taxation was tantamount to theft. He thought the government did a lot of good--that's why he ran for office. He just thought it should do good in a restrained, efficient way.
The point being, most people in this country feel this way. There's really no such thing as big-government liberalism in 2007. There might have been once, but that was a long time ago. Hard-core anti-government conservatives are better represented on talk radio and in Congress and the White House than they are in the real world. Most people will pay taxes with relatively few complaints as long as they're reasonable and used for something useful. And education is pretty high on their list of useful things.
But there's a catch: they, like the chairman, don't want to pay more money for the same thing. This is completely sensible. It is the instinct that Eliot Spitzer is speaking to. It's the right thing to do from a policy perspective; there are a lot of children out there suffering in schools that are both under-funded and badly run. The only way to help them is to tackle both problems forcefully, at the same time.
Crucially, it's also the right thing politically. It's the path to broad public support for financial help for public education. There are a lot of people out there who could be convinced to pay for or even sacrifice on behalf of the public schools, not just the schools their kids go to but all public schools, if they could only have some reasonable assurance that the money would mean something, that it would be spent wisely and well.
Unfortunately, our education system has been trapped for decades in a unspoken agreement between conversatives who care more about keeping taxes low than improving the schools and left-leaning interest groups who care more about protecting the status quo than improving school funding. Neither will budge, and the students lose.
That's why it's incumbent on school funding supporters to not just go along with proposals like Spitzer's--assuming the particulars are well-thought out--but embrace them. To hold them up as the first, best option. That's what it will take to get the majority of the citizens to a place where they'll support the kind of broad, far-reaching funding reforms that many schools really need.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
D.C. Governance Reform
The D.C. Council is holding hearings today on Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposal to take control over governance of the District of Columbia Public Schools. If you're a real school reform geek, you can watch the hearings here.
You can sense from the hearings that many of the councilmembers are very frustrated with the current system and eager for change. Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) seems to be the most opposed to Fenty's plans: She penned a Washington Post op-ed airing her concerns that ran over the weekend. I think Ms. Schwartz makes one very good point. Improving the District's public schools in long-term, laborious work that requires clear focus and a lot of political capital. Despite the D.C. Government's progress during the Williams adminsitration, there are plenty of city programs and agencies besides education that still need dramatic achievement. It is reasonable to ask whether a Mayor can have the energy and political capital to run the schools and improve student achievement while also fixing other city services. But the reforms Ms. Schwartz recommends in place of mayoral control are pretty weak. In particular, giving the council line-item authority over the school budget is a recipe for micromanagement that will only further complicated the tangled governance arrangements for schools in D.C. Mayor Fenty's legislation would also have given the Council a bigger role in school budgeting, and I think that's a mistake, too.
The current Board of Education also presented its own alternative plan yesterday. Under their plan, the existing board would maintain day-to-day control of school operations but set specific targets for school improvement in the next 18 months. Unlike Fenty's plan, which is purely a governance reform plan, the Board of Education's legislation includes a set of specific education reforms and goals. Both Fenty's plan and the Board of Education plan would create a new State Department of Education under the Mayor's control.
It seems pretty likely that, whatever else, we will get a new State Education Department for D.C. If so, we should take into account what nearly every major analysis of NCLB implementation so far has said: Existing State Departments of Education weren't designed to run accountability systems or support efforts to school improvement. The resources are focused in the wrong places and so they're doing a lousy job implementing the law. D.C. has an opportunity to build a new model of State Education Agency designed for today's education policy goals. Congress has an opportunity to help improve D.C. schools and address a key issue in NCLB by providing D.C. with additional funding to build an excellent model State Education Agency.
btw: Lots of speakers are talking about the impacts of other mayoral takeovers and what D.C. can learn from them. Completely independent of today's hearing, Ryan at edspresso looks at goings-on in NYC and LA here.
You can sense from the hearings that many of the councilmembers are very frustrated with the current system and eager for change. Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) seems to be the most opposed to Fenty's plans: She penned a Washington Post op-ed airing her concerns that ran over the weekend. I think Ms. Schwartz makes one very good point. Improving the District's public schools in long-term, laborious work that requires clear focus and a lot of political capital. Despite the D.C. Government's progress during the Williams adminsitration, there are plenty of city programs and agencies besides education that still need dramatic achievement. It is reasonable to ask whether a Mayor can have the energy and political capital to run the schools and improve student achievement while also fixing other city services. But the reforms Ms. Schwartz recommends in place of mayoral control are pretty weak. In particular, giving the council line-item authority over the school budget is a recipe for micromanagement that will only further complicated the tangled governance arrangements for schools in D.C. Mayor Fenty's legislation would also have given the Council a bigger role in school budgeting, and I think that's a mistake, too.
The current Board of Education also presented its own alternative plan yesterday. Under their plan, the existing board would maintain day-to-day control of school operations but set specific targets for school improvement in the next 18 months. Unlike Fenty's plan, which is purely a governance reform plan, the Board of Education's legislation includes a set of specific education reforms and goals. Both Fenty's plan and the Board of Education plan would create a new State Department of Education under the Mayor's control.
It seems pretty likely that, whatever else, we will get a new State Education Department for D.C. If so, we should take into account what nearly every major analysis of NCLB implementation so far has said: Existing State Departments of Education weren't designed to run accountability systems or support efforts to school improvement. The resources are focused in the wrong places and so they're doing a lousy job implementing the law. D.C. has an opportunity to build a new model of State Education Agency designed for today's education policy goals. Congress has an opportunity to help improve D.C. schools and address a key issue in NCLB by providing D.C. with additional funding to build an excellent model State Education Agency.
btw: Lots of speakers are talking about the impacts of other mayoral takeovers and what D.C. can learn from them. Completely independent of today's hearing, Ryan at edspresso looks at goings-on in NYC and LA here.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Reapply or Say Goodbye
The Baltimore Sun reports that Annapolis superintendent Kevin Maxwell is making the entire staff of Annapolis High School reapply for their jobs. The school is chronically low-performing and will face intervention next year if something's not done to improve student achievement. Teachers are feeling scapegoated (most amusing quote of the Sun article: "Where is the proof that teachers were to blame for this...Do you blame your doctor if you have cancer? Is it Giant Food's fault if I'm fat?").
And people are wondering... is this a desperate step, or a real strategy for change?
Maxwell might look to what superintendent Jesse Register did in Chattanooga five years ago with nine of the worst elementary schools in Tennessee. Register led a major overhaul of the teaching staff and principal leadership in an effort to turn these schools around. It seems to have worked–these eight schools have consistently improved their performance every year. But it wasn't just re-staffing that made the difference.
The Benwood Initiative, as it is called because of $5 million funding from the Chattanooga-based Benwood Foundation (added to $2.5 million more from Chattanooga's Public Education Foundation), involved a comprehensive plan for change. Teacher performance was evaluated by a fairly unique and objective measure. Teachers who were rehired, or who started anew, received intense training in reading instruction. Reading specialists and teaching coaches were hired, and incentives were set up to attract and keep good teachers (including performance bonuses, housing incentives and a free master's program). A parent involvement coordinator was also hired, along with extra staff for after-school and summer programs.
So take note, Annapolis. TN's was an expensive and comprehensive approach to reconstituting schools (and it still wasn't easy). Yours better be too if you want to see real change.
And people are wondering... is this a desperate step, or a real strategy for change?
Maxwell might look to what superintendent Jesse Register did in Chattanooga five years ago with nine of the worst elementary schools in Tennessee. Register led a major overhaul of the teaching staff and principal leadership in an effort to turn these schools around. It seems to have worked–these eight schools have consistently improved their performance every year. But it wasn't just re-staffing that made the difference.
The Benwood Initiative, as it is called because of $5 million funding from the Chattanooga-based Benwood Foundation (added to $2.5 million more from Chattanooga's Public Education Foundation), involved a comprehensive plan for change. Teacher performance was evaluated by a fairly unique and objective measure. Teachers who were rehired, or who started anew, received intense training in reading instruction. Reading specialists and teaching coaches were hired, and incentives were set up to attract and keep good teachers (including performance bonuses, housing incentives and a free master's program). A parent involvement coordinator was also hired, along with extra staff for after-school and summer programs.
So take note, Annapolis. TN's was an expensive and comprehensive approach to reconstituting schools (and it still wasn't easy). Yours better be too if you want to see real change.
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