Thursday, February 08, 2007
Alter-native Takes
Ken DeRosa's not having the oversimplified rehashing of centrist wonky consensus (and I mean that in the very most positive way) that is Johnathan Alter's latest Newsweek column on education. I don't agree with a lot of what Ken says, but I think his arguments deserve a serious listen. The big problem with the accountability movement is that incentives don't matter a hill of beans if people honestly can't figure out how to get the desired results. The next generation of ed reforms has to be about combining the tough mindedness NCLB was supposed to bring with a lot more capacity-building, support and R&D to help schools and educators actually get there.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
AP-palooza
The College Board is getting some serious press for their release yesterday of data on national and state-by-state AP test-taking and results for the class of 2006. The big news is that more of last year's grads--15%, up from 10% in 2000--took and passed AP exams. The percent of schools offering classes--62%--is also up. But there are still big inequities in AP course access and test-taking.
Jay Mathews, as usual, takes a novel tack, framing his report around the idea that some students in the D.C. suburbs' competitive hothouse high schools may actually be taking too many AP tests, because 3 to 5 courses are plenty to impress college admissions officers. I think this is kind of goofy logic. AP tests have a lot of value beyond getting kids into college. For starters, there's the whole preparation for college work thing. There's also the possibility of getting college credit. Back when my dad convinced me to take a ridiculous number of AP tests, his intent was not to get me into a competitive college, but to enable me to get out of college faster, thereby saving me and my parents money. (That didn't actually happen, but c'est la vie.) Of course, the really high-end schools don't let you get course credit for AP, so "hothouse" kids with their sights set there may not benefit from the extra tests, but a lot of schools do award course credit for AP, so we should be encouraging kids to take advantage of those opportunities to the extent it's possible for them to do so successfully and still maintain a healthy, happy teenage life (to the extent that any teenager is every happy of course).
The bigger issue, as Jay notes, is certainly not kids taking too many AP courses, but too few kids taking or having access to any at all. Jay knows this better than anybody--that's why his challenge index focuses on how many AP tests a school's students take.
Jay Mathews, as usual, takes a novel tack, framing his report around the idea that some students in the D.C. suburbs' competitive hothouse high schools may actually be taking too many AP tests, because 3 to 5 courses are plenty to impress college admissions officers. I think this is kind of goofy logic. AP tests have a lot of value beyond getting kids into college. For starters, there's the whole preparation for college work thing. There's also the possibility of getting college credit. Back when my dad convinced me to take a ridiculous number of AP tests, his intent was not to get me into a competitive college, but to enable me to get out of college faster, thereby saving me and my parents money. (That didn't actually happen, but c'est la vie.) Of course, the really high-end schools don't let you get course credit for AP, so "hothouse" kids with their sights set there may not benefit from the extra tests, but a lot of schools do award course credit for AP, so we should be encouraging kids to take advantage of those opportunities to the extent it's possible for them to do so successfully and still maintain a healthy, happy teenage life (to the extent that any teenager is every happy of course).
The bigger issue, as Jay notes, is certainly not kids taking too many AP courses, but too few kids taking or having access to any at all. Jay knows this better than anybody--that's why his challenge index focuses on how many AP tests a school's students take.
Nickleby?
It's a little random, but the start of this Burlington Free Press op-ed criticizing NCLB caught my eye:
In its most benign interpretation, No Child Left Behind, known as NicklebySince I've been working as an education policy analyst since the law's passage, you'd think I'd be familiar with whatever people were calling it--NCLB, "No Child," even "No School Board Left Standing,"--but Nickleby? People call it that? With a straight face? Then I remembered I had once read Susan Ohanian explaining that NCLB was called Nickleby, and I started to wonder if the abbreviation is used primarily by people opposed to NCLB as a way of signaling their contempt for the law. A quick and admittedly highly unscientific google search suggests that may be the case. Anyone out there have more insights into this?
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Kopp on Colbert
Thanks to Tivo, my late-night comedy viewing tends to take place on a 20-hour time delay, so I didn't know that Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp was on the Colbert Report until I came home from work today. You can watch the video here. In a lot of ways, it's most interesting for what you don't see--this has to be one of the most straight-up interviews Colbert has done. Colbert's one real fake question was along the lines of, "Why do we need you, since we already have a law that says no child shall be left behind?" To which Kopp said, quite correctly, that's exactly why we need organizations like TFA. NCLB tells us where the problems are, TFA is one of the solutions.
Some messages are so clear and compelling that they're hard to make fun of, even on Comedy Central.
Some messages are so clear and compelling that they're hard to make fun of, even on Comedy Central.
For A Good Time...
Come join us at the National Press Club tomorrow at 9am for some hot coffee and good talk about school time. Hey, if it snows and schools close (uh-oh, now they're only getting 179 days of school this year!) bring the kids. We'd love to hear what they think about extending the school day or year.
P.S. For those of you cringing at the thought of cold weather, it could be worse. That one's for you, Renee.
P.S. For those of you cringing at the thought of cold weather, it could be worse. That one's for you, Renee.
Why the Primary Schedule is Bad for Education
John at AFT blog asks "Who Lost Vilsack?" in response to the Iowa Governor and '08 candidate's call, at a DNC event, for repeal of the No Child Left Behind Act. But who ever had Vilsack on this issue? Contrary to leftwing bloggy conspiracy theorist opinion,* my former employer, the Democratic Leadership Council, does not have any special mind control over the elected officials connected with it, nor can it bend them to do its will or follow a preset party line. The DLC is not a monolith but a network of elected officials who share some similar values and goals but also have their own perspectives, priorities, and constituencies to represent. And sometimes these people disagree with DLC leaders on specific policy issues.
Vilsack is clearly on record as a critic of NCLB. Take this from a 2003 speech to the Democratic Governors Association:
This leads me to a broader concern, though: The current structure of the early presidential primaries is particularly inhospitable to education reform. It's a common complaint in political circles that Iowa and New Hampshire aren't demographically representative of the rest of the country, and that their particular parochial concerns tend to skew policy (support for ethanol subsidies, anyone?).
The consequences for the national debate on education policy are significant: These are both very strong local control states that aren't fans of state standards, accountability, or the federal role in education. They're not big fans of school choice either, and they have some of the country's weakest charter school laws. While most states have been debating how to expand pre-k, New Hampshire hasn't even required all its school districts to offer kindergarten. Perhaps most significantly, the extremely pale hue of these states' populations means that the nation's most serious educational challenge--the huge achievement gap between white students and black or Hispanic students--doesn't resonate there. Instead, we saw campaigning there during the 2004 campaign pushing some Democratic candidates in a more stridently anti-NCLB direction.
Will the same forces play out in 2008? Will a speeded up primary calendar make a difference? I don't know. There's plenty of room for candidates of both parties to offer constructive criticism of NCLB and new, innovative ideas for how the federal government can help improve education. My colleagues and I might even offer them a few ideas for how to do that. I hope they rise to the challenge.
*I don't mean to imply that John is a leftwing bloggy conspiracy theorist.
Vilsack is clearly on record as a critic of NCLB. Take this from a 2003 speech to the Democratic Governors Association:
Unfortunately, the President’s education plan is fundamentally flawed. The “No Child Left Behind” program is focused on failure and it is funded for failure—it is currently $6 billion short of adequate funding. The program assesses a schools performance and punishes accordingly, but fear of failure serves as no incentive to schools that are already struggling. We urge him to join us in a renewed effort to improve education.I mean, the guy's from Iowa, for crying out loud, one of the strongest local control states in the country and the only one that didn't adopt state standards in response to the 1994 Improving America's Schools Act. So he's probably naturally not disposed to be a big fan of the law. And his campaign depends on the idea that the Iowa native will do well in that's state's primary. So of course he's gonna be talking smack on NCLB.
This leads me to a broader concern, though: The current structure of the early presidential primaries is particularly inhospitable to education reform. It's a common complaint in political circles that Iowa and New Hampshire aren't demographically representative of the rest of the country, and that their particular parochial concerns tend to skew policy (support for ethanol subsidies, anyone?).
The consequences for the national debate on education policy are significant: These are both very strong local control states that aren't fans of state standards, accountability, or the federal role in education. They're not big fans of school choice either, and they have some of the country's weakest charter school laws. While most states have been debating how to expand pre-k, New Hampshire hasn't even required all its school districts to offer kindergarten. Perhaps most significantly, the extremely pale hue of these states' populations means that the nation's most serious educational challenge--the huge achievement gap between white students and black or Hispanic students--doesn't resonate there. Instead, we saw campaigning there during the 2004 campaign pushing some Democratic candidates in a more stridently anti-NCLB direction.
Will the same forces play out in 2008? Will a speeded up primary calendar make a difference? I don't know. There's plenty of room for candidates of both parties to offer constructive criticism of NCLB and new, innovative ideas for how the federal government can help improve education. My colleagues and I might even offer them a few ideas for how to do that. I hope they rise to the challenge.
*I don't mean to imply that John is a leftwing bloggy conspiracy theorist.
Are Lenders Crying Wolf?
In yesterday’s Washington Post, Michael Dannenberg and Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation proposed a fundamental change in how subsidy amounts to student loan companies are set (see here for the full idea). They proposed changing from the current system, in which Congress sets the subsidy rate, to a system in which lenders bid for the right to make government-guaranteed loans – one way lenders would sweeten their bids is by offering to take lower subsidies. Dannenberg and Longman argue that using an auction will minimize federal subsidy payments on loans. Not surprisingly, lenders are resistant to this idea.
When John Kerry proposed something similar in 2004, the lending industry responded by saying that an auction mechanism would create too much uncertainty for banks, would cause smaller lenders to withdraw from the federal loan program, and that promised savings were uncertain and services to students might be reduced. Interestingly, very similar claims were made against President Bush’s proposed subsidy cuts in his 2008 budget, released yesterday.
* Fortunately, Sallie Mae's CEO saved himself over $1 million by selling less than 5% of his stock last week.
Per Previous
That last post grew out of some thinking I've been doing lately in response to the debate here in D.C. over Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposal to take over the DCPS system.
One of the big issues for opponents of Fenty's plan is that they believe parents need (and want) an elected school board as a forum to seek redress for their complaints about the public schools. Interestingly, many of the people making this argument are staunch opponents of choice and charter schools in D.C. I don't see this as a coincidence. Activism and choice are two distinctly different methods of trying to get schools to provide what you want for your child, so I think it makes sense that people who are particularly wed to one approach would be skeptical of the other. Of course, the two don't have to be in tension but can by mutually supportive, as Steve Barr's work in LA shows.
I know I have a clear bias here--I'm not a parent, but if I were, the choice approach, if available, seems much more sensible, efficient and rational to me than the advocacy route to get services for one's child--and part of me wonders if this is to some extent a generational issue.
I'm curious: Would you rather turn to advocacy before a public body or choice as a way to try to get educational services for your child? Or, in a more concrete example, would you prefer an elected school board or charter schools?
Let me know, and I'll post the most interesting and insightful comments I receive.
One of the big issues for opponents of Fenty's plan is that they believe parents need (and want) an elected school board as a forum to seek redress for their complaints about the public schools. Interestingly, many of the people making this argument are staunch opponents of choice and charter schools in D.C. I don't see this as a coincidence. Activism and choice are two distinctly different methods of trying to get schools to provide what you want for your child, so I think it makes sense that people who are particularly wed to one approach would be skeptical of the other. Of course, the two don't have to be in tension but can by mutually supportive, as Steve Barr's work in LA shows.
I know I have a clear bias here--I'm not a parent, but if I were, the choice approach, if available, seems much more sensible, efficient and rational to me than the advocacy route to get services for one's child--and part of me wonders if this is to some extent a generational issue.
I'm curious: Would you rather turn to advocacy before a public body or choice as a way to try to get educational services for your child? Or, in a more concrete example, would you prefer an elected school board or charter schools?
Let me know, and I'll post the most interesting and insightful comments I receive.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Parent Involvement
Everyone seems to think that parent involvement is important to improving public education. No one in the education policy mainstream opposes parental involvement, at least not openly. More and better parental involvement is kind of like the pony of public education reform. But what do we actually mean when we talk about parental involvement?
I would posit that there are three different things we talk about when we talk about parental involvement:
First is the traditional, education establishment-endorsed brand of parent involvement: showing up at parent teacher conferences, helping little Madison with her homework, volunteering at the bake sale, etc. This is, I think what most educators are talking about when they bemoan a lack of parent involvement or argue that greater parental involvement is critical to improving student achievement. This kind of parent involvement makes it easier for teachers to do their jobs. From the school system's perspective, it's also fairly innocuous. Parents do what the educational professionals want them to do; they don't rock the boat, or challenge the system, or demand additional things for their kids.
But this is not the only kind of parental involvement. Two other types of parent involvement focus less on what the parent can do for the child and the school, and more on how parents can get schools to provide the services they need for their children:
A second kind of parent involvement is activism: Parents work, either collectively or individually, to demand that schools provide something different or better for their children. There's a lot of variation here: It's everything from the pushy middle-class parents jockeying to make sure their child has the right first grade teacher, to the community activists organizing to demand smaller class sizes or better school facilities--the kind of work groups like PICO and ACORN engage in, and Steve Barr is teaching parents in LA. This type of activism on behalf of children can be either a zero sum--or even negative--game (the savviest or most connected parents get their kids in the best teacher's class, so less advantaged kids miss out), or it can be a net positive if it results in large scale changes that impact all kids in a community--including those whose parents didn't participate in advocacy. Understandably, schools and the people who work in them are a lot less favorably disposed to this kind of parental involvement, because it creates hassels for them and sometimes negative publicity.
A third approach to parent involvement is choice. Rather than advocating to get the school or system they're in to change, parents move their children to another school or system that they believe will do a better job of meeting their needs. In contrast to activism, which can be a long, drawn out process with no guarantee of getting the desired result, choice seems like it might be a relatively efficient mechanism for parents to get the educational services they want--but not if all the choices available are lousy or parents can't find accurate information to make a choice. Skeptics argue that choice will have the same zero-sum or collectively negative impacts as the worst types of parent activism. Boosters argue that market forces will spur improvement across all public schools. This type of parent involvement is newer, more controversial, and less available to many parents than the other types, and there is a lot we still don't know about it.
I don't mean to demean the contributions of the first type of parental involvement. God knows I wouldn't have gotten much of anywhere if my parents hadn't pushed and supported me in school. But I think when we look past the squishy-fuzziness of praising the first type of homework, and the cruel scapegoating of disadvantaged parents who for whatever reason haven't been able to do as much of it, then we'll find parent involvement is a much more complicated and prickly concept, one that offers plenty to oppose, but also, if wielded properly, has a lot more potential to improve public education.
I would posit that there are three different things we talk about when we talk about parental involvement:
First is the traditional, education establishment-endorsed brand of parent involvement: showing up at parent teacher conferences, helping little Madison with her homework, volunteering at the bake sale, etc. This is, I think what most educators are talking about when they bemoan a lack of parent involvement or argue that greater parental involvement is critical to improving student achievement. This kind of parent involvement makes it easier for teachers to do their jobs. From the school system's perspective, it's also fairly innocuous. Parents do what the educational professionals want them to do; they don't rock the boat, or challenge the system, or demand additional things for their kids.
But this is not the only kind of parental involvement. Two other types of parent involvement focus less on what the parent can do for the child and the school, and more on how parents can get schools to provide the services they need for their children:
A second kind of parent involvement is activism: Parents work, either collectively or individually, to demand that schools provide something different or better for their children. There's a lot of variation here: It's everything from the pushy middle-class parents jockeying to make sure their child has the right first grade teacher, to the community activists organizing to demand smaller class sizes or better school facilities--the kind of work groups like PICO and ACORN engage in, and Steve Barr is teaching parents in LA. This type of activism on behalf of children can be either a zero sum--or even negative--game (the savviest or most connected parents get their kids in the best teacher's class, so less advantaged kids miss out), or it can be a net positive if it results in large scale changes that impact all kids in a community--including those whose parents didn't participate in advocacy. Understandably, schools and the people who work in them are a lot less favorably disposed to this kind of parental involvement, because it creates hassels for them and sometimes negative publicity.
A third approach to parent involvement is choice. Rather than advocating to get the school or system they're in to change, parents move their children to another school or system that they believe will do a better job of meeting their needs. In contrast to activism, which can be a long, drawn out process with no guarantee of getting the desired result, choice seems like it might be a relatively efficient mechanism for parents to get the educational services they want--but not if all the choices available are lousy or parents can't find accurate information to make a choice. Skeptics argue that choice will have the same zero-sum or collectively negative impacts as the worst types of parent activism. Boosters argue that market forces will spur improvement across all public schools. This type of parent involvement is newer, more controversial, and less available to many parents than the other types, and there is a lot we still don't know about it.
I don't mean to demean the contributions of the first type of parental involvement. God knows I wouldn't have gotten much of anywhere if my parents hadn't pushed and supported me in school. But I think when we look past the squishy-fuzziness of praising the first type of homework, and the cruel scapegoating of disadvantaged parents who for whatever reason haven't been able to do as much of it, then we'll find parent involvement is a much more complicated and prickly concept, one that offers plenty to oppose, but also, if wielded properly, has a lot more potential to improve public education.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Utah Vouchers
So, the Utah House of Representatives passed voucher legislation that's expected to sail through the state Senate and get gubernatorial approval, too. Utah already has a special education voucher program modeled after Florida's McKay Scholarship program. You can read Andy's and my critique of McKay to see why I don't think that's such a hot idea.
Edspresso's predictably pumped. Me, less so. Utah has the not-to-great distinction of being the lowest spending state in the country on public education, at $5,008 per pupil for the previous school year. Despite that, it's students perform at or just a teensy bit above NAEP averages, except in writing. The voucher funding is even less generous that Utah's regular public education funding: Families would get $500 to $3,000 on a sliding scale based on income. That's not a lot of money and will probably restrict program participation to a.) Families that can afford to pay to supplement the voucher, b.) Schools that have other sources of income and can afford to charge tuition below cost of education (see Matt's concerns about this basically becoming a subsidy for LDS schools), c.) Virtual Schools. I think a potential boom in virtual schools is the biggest possibility here, given the small funding amounts and rural nature of much of Utah. And given the issues that have arisen with unaccountable virtual schools in places like Ohio, I'd say that's cause for concern. But aside from that, and wasting money subsidizing middle class parents to send their kids to private schools, I doubt this is going to have the impact to justify voucher supporters' crowing now.
Unlike the other states with any kind of voucher scene, Utah's got a moderate charter school law (rated weak by the Center for Education), and only 39 charters statewide. I tend to think charters are a better way to expand meaningful choice for kids than voucher are, particularly voucher programs designed like this one is.
Edspresso's predictably pumped. Me, less so. Utah has the not-to-great distinction of being the lowest spending state in the country on public education, at $5,008 per pupil for the previous school year. Despite that, it's students perform at or just a teensy bit above NAEP averages, except in writing. The voucher funding is even less generous that Utah's regular public education funding: Families would get $500 to $3,000 on a sliding scale based on income. That's not a lot of money and will probably restrict program participation to a.) Families that can afford to pay to supplement the voucher, b.) Schools that have other sources of income and can afford to charge tuition below cost of education (see Matt's concerns about this basically becoming a subsidy for LDS schools), c.) Virtual Schools. I think a potential boom in virtual schools is the biggest possibility here, given the small funding amounts and rural nature of much of Utah. And given the issues that have arisen with unaccountable virtual schools in places like Ohio, I'd say that's cause for concern. But aside from that, and wasting money subsidizing middle class parents to send their kids to private schools, I doubt this is going to have the impact to justify voucher supporters' crowing now.
Unlike the other states with any kind of voucher scene, Utah's got a moderate charter school law (rated weak by the Center for Education), and only 39 charters statewide. I tend to think charters are a better way to expand meaningful choice for kids than voucher are, particularly voucher programs designed like this one is.
More D.C. School Reform
Contra most of the press coverage, the group known as the Ward 8 Democrats didn't say they opposed Mayor Fenty's proposal to take control of DCPS. But they do want a referendum on it. The last time we had a major school governance change, when we established the hybrid elected-appointed school board in 2000, we voted (well, I didn't, because I had just moved here, but DC residents generally did). The previous governance change happened because the Congressionally-appointed control board took over the schools, without voter approval.
I don't fully understand why the Fenty administration didn't decide to submit their plan to the voters, thereby taking the home rule objection off the table (or significantly weakening it). The obvious reason is their proclaimed desire for immediate action, but is the difference between early May, when a referendum could occur, and April, when the council might vote on Fenty's plan, that big? As everyone needs to remember, serious school reform is a laborious, long-term process. If having a vote now could improve public support and chances of success over the long haul, wouldn't that have been worth it?
That said, I strongly believe that the primary threat to democracy here in the District is not Mayor Fenty's plan, but the fact that our long-term failure to educate significant percentages of our young people disenfranchises them socially, economically and politically.
I don't fully understand why the Fenty administration didn't decide to submit their plan to the voters, thereby taking the home rule objection off the table (or significantly weakening it). The obvious reason is their proclaimed desire for immediate action, but is the difference between early May, when a referendum could occur, and April, when the council might vote on Fenty's plan, that big? As everyone needs to remember, serious school reform is a laborious, long-term process. If having a vote now could improve public support and chances of success over the long haul, wouldn't that have been worth it?
That said, I strongly believe that the primary threat to democracy here in the District is not Mayor Fenty's plan, but the fact that our long-term failure to educate significant percentages of our young people disenfranchises them socially, economically and politically.
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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