Say It Ain't So

In the latest Gadfly, Rick Hess describes how the latest PDK/Gallup poll shows a large share of the public knows jacksquat about charter schools. In fact, majorities of those polled think charters are non-public schools that are free to charge tuition, teach religion, and select students based on performance. I'm not exaclty surprised. Even in states, like Michigan, with relatively strong charter penetration, the vast majority of school districts don't have charter schools located within their boundaries, so there are a lot of parents and educators--not to mention the bigger number of people who have no kids and no connection to education--who have very little reason to know anything about charters. Rick also thinks it's surprising that Gallup shows a majority of those polled still think charters are a good thing "despite" the misconceptions they hold about them. I'm glad to learn Gallup respondents were positive on charters, but I have to question Rick's suggestion that people would be more bullish on charters if they had the facts. In particular, I'm guessing that, given the rates of religiousity among the American people, a lot of people probably perceive it as a good thing if they think charters can teach religion. That doesn't mean the charter movement shouldn't try to better educate the public about charter schools, but I don't think we should assume all the exisiting misconceptions undermine public support.

Cheaters!

Today's Washington Post ran an article about a group of students in McLean who are protesting teachers' use of Turnitin.com, a company that provides "plagiarism prevention tools".

John Barrie, the developer of Turnitin.com, thinks today's students are faced with more pressure to achieve and more temptation to cheat. The internet, he says, "provides a 1.5 billion-page searchable, cut-and-pasteable encyclopedia". And he's not alone. In June, the 2nd International Plagiarism conference was held in the U.K. You can download all sorts of papers about academic integrity and "stopping the cheats".

For the record, I think companies like Turnitin can be useful. I used a similar service while teaching college students and it helped me to distinguish between the students who didn't understand what they were doing (copied straight lines without quotes or cites) and the students who straight up downloaded papers from the web. Although it certainly didn't feel like plagiarism "prevention" since I was catching them in the act and had to discipline them accordingly. And it hurts to fail a term paper.

So I wonder if it's different in high schools. Do they know what it means to plagiarize? I've asked my sources in PG and Montgomery schools to conduct a straw poll of their high school students to see if they a) know what plagiarism is and b) if they think it's any different to copy lines rather than whole papers and c) if they think it's fair for teachers to submit their papers to the site to check for plagiarism.

I'll let you know what they say.

Wire Preview: Sara's Take (No Spoilers)

Last night Erin and I went to an advance screening of the upcoming Wire episode, which was hosted by Campus Progress and followed by a Q&A with Wire producers David Simon and Ed Burns. Obviously, I'm not going to say anything about the content of the episode, but I will say two things about the show generally: First, I now get Kevin, Craig and other folks' fascination with it. I'd only seen part of a Wire episode before at the gym, so I knew bupkus about it, but I was totally entralled to the point that it was like a shock when the episode ended. Good stuff. Second, the kids and the performances they're getting from them are pretty amazing--in particular the work three of the kids were doing in the last several minutes. I'm seriously bummed I don't have access to watch the show continue to unfold, although I guess that means I have plenty of time to catch up the last three seasons on DVD.

Like Matthew Yglesias, I was not all that impressed with the Q&A that followed the showing. Simon and Burns are trying to show that the deeply troubling behavior of some of their characters is actually a rational response to the dysfunction and limited opportunities in the world around them. That's worth pointing out. But the "rational response to circumstances" bit can be taken beyond the point of usefulness--to a place where it lets people off the hook for things they could do something about. The lead story Matthew relates is one example of this. And it occurs all the time in education: We say that kids' decisions to drop out or put in little effort are a rational response to diminished economic opportunities they see awaiting them, so there's little schools can do to improve achievement or graduation rates until we improve urban economies. But for too many kids, these choices also look reasonable because they know they aren't going to learn anything in the lousy schools they're offered. The quality of schools and how they treat kids does impact their perceptions of the options available and their relative attractiveness.

Go Nats!

So, today's Post features an op-ed by former Ed. Secretaries Bill Bennett and Rod Paige arguing for--wait for it--voluntary national testing. Funny how I seem to have heard that idea somewhere before... Of course, there's no mention of Clinton or Dick Riley, who advocated voluntary national tests long before these two and when he actually was Education Secretary. Instead, Bennett and Paige reference the Fordhamites, who've been pushing the issue hard lately on on whose board Paige serves. They might also want to acknowledge AEI's Michael Greve. Here's Bennett and Paige's core policy recommendation:

Washington should set sound national academic standards and administer a high-quality national test. Publicize everybody's results, right down to the school level. Then Washington should butt out.

Greve said basically the exact same thing at Ed Sector's National Standards debate last spring, which also featured Fordham's Mike Petrilli along with Lauren Resnick, a very feisty Deb Meier, New America's Michael Dannenberg, and our own trendsetter Kevin Carey.

On the substance here: There are a lot of decent arguments for national testing. The huge variation in rigor of state standards (and often utter lack thereof) is the big attention-getter, but equally troublesome, IMHO, is that it's terribly inefficient to have 50 different state systems of standards and testing, and this inefficiency, combined with the high costs of remotely decent tests, leads to a lot of state using really crappy tests that don't actually assess their standards and contribute to the kind of "teaching to the test" accountability foes and parents complain about. It's also just dopey to think that how kids learn to read or calculate or do algebra and what they need to know when in these areas varies much from state to state--particularly in an increasingly global economy. Plus, having national tests would dramatically enhance our ability to do good research on all kinds of questions linked to student achievement, particularly if they were properly aligned grade-to-grade and accompanied by longitudinal student-linked data systems.

Regardless of increasingly rosy thinking about national standards from some small corners of both the left and the right (some of which, IMHO, is more PR than real), however, the politics of the issue are still nearly as killer as they were when Clinton came to grief over them in the 1990s, and the memory of that still makes a lot of folks incredibly wary. Even if National tests could be legislated politically, negotiating the content and standards for the tests would be a massive political nightmare people don't seem to be taking into account. Even such ostensibly straightforward things as reading and math are fraught with ideological baggage--remember the reading wars, or the controversy over the Clinton administration's proposed voluntary national math standards? And that's likely to come out in efforts to create such assessements. (And don't get me started on what happens when you try to do test-based accountability in history or science....)

Welcome Additions

With Craig and Zachary augmenting Kevin's Wire coverage, you may have noticed that we have more folks blogging lately. Further expanding our roster (and proving TAP isn't the only place in town to have a "super-intern") is Education Sector fall intern Alex Redfield, a student at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, whose previous experiences include working at Sacramento High School in California and on his dad's farm. And he may even be almost cooler than Kevin (if that's possible) leaving me still the least hip person on the ES blog team.

Rubbing Elbows with the Stars!

This morning I sat in on Business Roundtable's "Fourth Annual NCLB Forum: Assessing Progress, Addressing Problems, Advancing Performance." The panel discussion featured Acting Education Department Under Secretary and Chief of Staff David Dunn, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chair and Ranking member, respectively, Howard "Buck" McKeon and George Miller, and NEA President Reg Weaver, with USA Today's Richard Whitmire moderating.

Considering the venue and mix of speakers, it was probably too much to hope for significant revelations or in-depth discussion, and the panelists performed to expectations. Everyone was utterly predictable and on their best behavior. Rep. McKeon and Mr. Dunn suggested that NCLB is well on its way to solving all our educational woes. Rep. Miller talked seriously about implementation problems and drew a line in the sand regarding under-qualified teachers, saying that the "most important problem is hiring done on the cheap. No longer." But when it came to solutions, he seemed mostly to be saying that if we could just throw a little more money around, we'd be in much better shape. Mr. Weaver also focused on money. He argued that while NCLB's emphasis on outcomes is admirable, it is a distraction from the necessary improvements to incomes in the education system—and then called for the usual litany of smaller classes, multiple measures, growth models, and teacher incentives to move to difficult districts. The panelists seemed to be talking past each other, and no one mentioned the critical educational challenge NCLB aimed to address—racial inequities in education.

Overall, the event just didn't live up to its big-name panel. With actual movers and shakers on the schedule, I was hoping for some moving and shaking. I don't think political posturing and sidestepping count.

--Guestblogger Alex Redfield

You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)

While Kevin and Andy are merrily debating with Matthew Yglesias about the possibility and meaning of "closing achievement gaps," another post on young Mr. Yglesias' site today --about indie rock bands and record lables, of all things--put me in mind of an issue I've been thinking about a good bit recently--the role of Educational Management Organizations in the charter school movement. Bear with me here.

Educational Management Organizations, (mostly) for-profit (though often in name only) companies that contract with school districts and charter school boards to operate schools, run about 25% of charter schools nationwide. EMOs offer a lot of benefits but also drawbacks, and they are politically contentious, both within the charter community and without. A lot of tradeofs connected to EMOs--opportunity to reach an audience on a significant scale, access to capital, support services and expertise vs. reduced tolerance for innovation, surrendering some autonomy and a substantial chunk of one's revenues, and potential tradeofs between corporate bottom lines and other goals--sound parallel with the risks vs. rewards of record labels Ygelsias mentions, although obviously this comparison oughtn't be taken to far.

What interests me, though, is the area in the middle--ideas to help stand-alone charter schools tap some of the benefits EMOs can bring without sacrificing local leadership or room for innovation. Some good examples have already sprung up in the charter school community: "Back-office" service providers that offer services like payroll or purchasing but don't actually run schools, organizations that provide technical assistance and support to help stand-alone charter schools (DC's FOCUS, which helps prospective charter applicants put together a quality application, is one example), and networks that replicate high-performing schools that started as stand-alones (KIPP and Achievement First are classic models*) are some of the promising ideas here. Venture philanthropists like the New Schools Venture Fund have played a big role in both thinking about how to marry scale with diversity and innovation, and in funding promising initiatives in this area. Maybe the music world--at least the hip music world Kevin and Matthew Yglesias are all into (I only aspire to be even a fraction as cool)--could benefit from some Venture artists?

*btw, a look at the work these schools are doing is quite relevant to the Yglesias/Carey/Norris/Rotherham/AFT/Rothstein.....debate--a topic on which I have some additional thoughts that I still want to let ferment a while before sharing.

btw II: Being a bit of a masochist (I was on the Gadfly show twice), I took a quick glimpse at the comment thread of Yglesias' latest post, where his positive comments about NCLB appear to have provoked the predictable liberal blog commenter NCLB-bashing. Interesting to me that, while NCLB is in no way comparable to the Iraq debacle, criticism of the law from the left tends to break down similarly: Some folks think it was inherently a bad idea because it came from the Bush administration and/or testing is just plain bad. Others think the idea was good but results have not met expectations because of mistakes the administration made in implementation--such as allowing states to use crappy tests and not "fully-funding" the law. I tend to think the latter camp is onto something, but also that the inherent complexity in an endeavor like NCLB accountability guarantees that not everything will work perfectly from the get-go.

Also relating to young, bespectacled, male bloggers: EdWahoo appears to be, at least temporarily, and welcomely, back with a new post on his TFA experience (and more achievement gap insights), and has been restored to the blogroll. (Via Joanne Jacobs)

Yglesias on the Achievement Gap

Matt Yglesias responds to Zachary Norris' post about closing the achievement gap in Baltimore:

But what would it mean -- what could it mean -- to close the achievement gap between high- and low-SES students in American schools? For a whole variety of reasons, this just doesn't seem like it's going to be possible. At the outer limit, more prosperous parents are always going to be able to re-open the gap by investing even more resources in their kids' education. An education and child development arms race to the top might not be a bad thing, but it wouldn't close any socioeconomic gaps. To do that, you actually need to tackle inequality itself.

This is essentially the same question we recently discussed here and here with respect to the various arguments about school inequality promoted by Richard Rothstein, but it bears repeating: It's all a matter of how you define "close the achievement gap."

If you mean "erase all academic differences between students of different economic backgrounds," then it's indeed an impossible dream. Economic factors external to schools matter. As long as deep inequalities persist, educational outcomes will vary by class.

If, however, you mean "bring all students, including low-income students, up to defined minimum levels of proficiency," then we're talking about much different and more realistic challenges. I'm pretty sure Zachary didn't walk into the classroom with the goal of bringing all of his students up to the exact level achieved by the wealthiest, most priviliged private school students. I'm guessing he was simply working to make sure his students had sufficient knowledge and skill to eventually move ahead into college and/or the workforce, to be able to lead decent, fulfilling, productive lives.

That's all anyone is asking of these school systems, including those who drafted No Child Left Behind. Not erase class differences, just help all students learn at least what they need to know.

Nobody thinks this a remotely easy job. But there are many schools doing it successfully, right now. As New York City public schools chancellor Joel Klein said yesterday at the annual Broad Prize event, "If you want to know what's possible, look at what's actual."

Likes Lambs to the Slaughter...

Editor's Note: As part of The Quick and the Ed's ongoing discussion of "The Wire," we'll be featuring periodic posts from Zachary Norris, who recently spent 4 years as a biology teacher and basketball/debate coach at a public high school in Southeastern Baltimore. Zachary can attest to the program's accuracy first-hand, as the producers and writers visited his classroom frequently as part of their research. Here's his take on the first episode, with more to follow. - KC

So The Wire is taking on education in Baltimore City? I tried to do that once; I was bright-eyed and optimistic with visions of systemic reform dancing in my head. "Like lambs to the slaughter," I had no formal teaching experience and no real qualifications other than a college degree and a strong desire to “close the achievement gap.” I joined the Teach For America program and ended up teaching in Baltimore for three years. The experience was humbling.

Like the teacher on the show, I was greeted by a dysfunctional buzzer upon arrival at my school. A fitting symbol of the system's disarray, they were desperately in need of teachers and couldn't let me in once I got there. Many of my peers in the program were “surplussed,” bouncing around from school to school until the district administrators decided where our services could be put to best use. Upon arrival at my school, I was placed in a classroom that had not been cleaned by the previous year's teacher, who I later learned was a first-year teacher that had quit in February. It is common in Baltimore for rookie teachers to quit during the school year. In fact, in my first year in Baltimore, only two out of the six first-years who started the year at my school actually finished. The result of this trend was a staff crunch, and my classroom role swelled at times to above forty students (ranging in age form 3rd to 6th grade, with up to 16 IEP students). It is criminal.

Speaking of criminal, how much of the City’s budget is spent on pointless professional development programs like the one shown on The Wire’s season premiere? Educational consultants with six-figure salaries rattle off clever acronyms like IALAC (I Am Loved And Competent) in steamy August auditoriums and cafeterias. I mean really, how many teachers actually use that stuff? I know I never did. As the frustration of the teachers builds to a crescendo, the professional development meeting devolves into a gripe session about the student population and the hopelessness of their situation. This in itself is destructive, perpetuating negative stereotypes of students and lending to the apathy of teachers. So in the end, the good intentions of administrative policies turn into a completely destructive activity. Welcome to education in Baltimore.

So how did the writers of The Wire get it so right where so many others have gone wrong? They actually spent time in the schools. In my last year in Baltimore a few of the writers of The Wire asked if they could interview my students and me and sit in on my classes for a couple of weeks. Bill Zorzi, one of the writers, and I became quick friends. Bill is a genuine guy who really cares about the children of Baltimore. In fact, he came to be a regular face at my school, taking several students under his wing, teaching a journalism class and helping out with our school newspaper and yearbook.

Based on my conversations with Bill and the other staff at The Wire, I am confident that we are in for a deeper social commentary than your typical shoot-em-up drug dealer drama. The Wire is concerned with the social context of the drug scene: the economic injustice that created it, the political corruption that perpetuates it, and the criminal education system that gives the children of Baltimore, and so many other cities like it, no other option but to be a part of it.

-Posted by Zachary Norris

How to get to Sesame Street

This weekend I saw a noteworthy documentary – The World According to Sesame Street. For something I spent a lot of time watching when I was young (Bert and Ernie were my favorites), it’s not a show I’ve spent much time thinking about as an adult. This documentary gives a new perspective on what Sesame Street is - beyond being educational television for children; it can also be an ambassador of certain values – tolerance, equality, and general friendliness – to the rest of the world.

The documentary’s primary focus is the year-long effort to create Sesame Street in Bangladesh, or Sisimpur (QuickTime clip) as they call it. You watch as they create Sisimpur, from thinking about what their ‘street’ will look like, to creating puppets, and dealing with the politics necessary to get it on the air. This process of creating Sesame Street in other countries also serves as a lens for the challenges children face around the world – as they create Sesame Street in Kosovo, they struggle with how to build understanding between Serbians and Albanians, even as violence between the ethnic groups continues. In South Africa, they create Kami, a puppet with HIV, in order to educate children about AIDS.

This film raises, but doesn’t necessarily answer, some interesting questions – is faith in a television show misplaced? Is big bird a global archetype or a form of cultural imperialism? And what will be the ultimate impact of these international Sesame Streets? Throughout the film, you see plenty of earnest, and at times inspiring, people who truly believe in the ability of Sesame Street to provide quality education to children in a wide range of cultures and living conditions.

Tune in to PBS on October 24^th to catch this film, if for no other reason than to hear Ernie sing rubber ducky in multiple languages (who knew he was multilingual?!). Check out the other Sesame Streets in the world in here.

The Wire Week Two: Craig's Take

“You told me to watch this show, and so far in two episodes, nothing’s happened,” a friend complains. The most frequent objection to the THE WIRE, and one of the biggest ways it diverges from traditional television drama, is its pacing. By the end of each episode, nothing is neatly wrapped up, and, if you are not paying careful attention, you might think nothing much happened at all. (I nearly gave up on the first season more than a few times before I became hooked.)

But THE WIRE isn’t just trying to tell the stories of particular characters. It’s using those characters—what they do, what they experience, and what they learn over the course of a season—to tell the story of an entire city. From scene to scene, it might seem like nothing much is happening, but look closer, and you’ll see a larger, more complex tale unfolding.

Take last night’s episode and what it said about “urban education.” Yes, school hasn’t even started yet. But that doesn’t mean no one is teaching—or trying to teach—our young protagonists. Visiting his father in prison, Namon gets advice about surviving and advancing in his part-time job—dealing drugs. Bubbles the drug addict tries to teach his business—selling small items out of a cart—to an adolescent “intern” he has taken under his wing. Cutty, the ex-con who juggles landscaping with mentoring boys in a boxing program, sizes up Michael as a potential protégé. Assistant principal Marcia Donnelly sends Dukie, who has neglectful and/or impoverished parents, a box of clothes to encourage him to show up.

Meanwhile, a group of middle school teachers meet to plan a common classroom discipline strategy that, they hope, will capture their students’ attention when they arrive in a few days. Marlo, the brilliant and ruthless young drug kingpin, takes a more direct approach to getting their attention—having a minion hand each boy $200 to buy new clothes for school.

As producer Ed Burns says in an interview here, “the idea we're trying to bring across is that kids are going to get educated. […] They will learn. It's just a question of where.” And from whom.

p.s. I didn’t understand the reference to “soft eyes” either. If anyone does, e-mail me at cjerald@speakeasy.net. Thanks!

Redistricting--It's not just for Texas anymore

Don't freak out, I'm not talking about Congressional redistricting. But redrawing school attendance areas--as many rapidly growing (or shrinking) school districts need to do regularly--can be just as political and contentious, as an article in this week's Washington Post real estate section illustrates. Short version: A big new development in Urbana (a community in Frederick County, Maryland, a DC exurb) required construction of a new elementary school. But, contrary to homebuying parents' expectations, not all the kids in the development got assigned to the new school. Controversy ensured. But now some previously disappointed parents have decided the old school is ok after all.

Call me naive, or maybe one-note, but I have to wonder if these situations wouldn't be a bit easier if schools let parents choose their schools and differentiated the educational programs to balance demand. Of course, I realize this approach would have complications of its own.

Unrelated note: In addition to a new elementary school Urbana also got a brand new middle school opened this year, and my brother-in-law teaches there. So, Urbana parents, regardless of what elementary school you were assigned, your kids can look forward to a stellar drama and band teacher in a few years:)