If you want your money for the kids, Virginia*, you better listen up.
Have you been following the drama between these two? Today's Post explains Ed's most recent threat to withhold more than $17 million from Fairfax County schools if the system continues to defy a federal mandate to give reading tests to thousands of English language learner children.
Naturally, both Ed and Virginia are arguing for what's best for the kids. Ed says the ELL kids won't get the attention and resources they deserve if they're not tested the same way as other kids. Virginia says it's not fair to test these kids on content when they don't yet understand the language. Ed argues that if we don't assess their content knowledge, we won't know how to serve them. Virginia counters that the tests won't give us good information anyway. Virginia wants to develop an alternative test in time for next year's assessments. Ed says no- it's gotta happen before the Cherry Blossoms (those beautiful warm and sunny days set aside for testing). Ed's holding the purse strings. Virginia's with the kids all day. Who's to decide?
That's the gist, although there's much more to it than this. Education Week's Mary Ann Zehr has been covering this story and other big debates over English language learners. Check out her new blog, which is sure to stay on top of the Virginia/Ed chronicles.
It's an important story to follow b/c it's not just about Virginia. Ed's got kids all over this country.
*Education Sector co-founder Andrew Rotherham is a member of the VA Board of Ed.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Dubious Education Trend Signifiers, Continued
Earlier this week, we discussed how the words "small but growing" indicate the likely presence of a dubious education trend story, in this case about parents uprooting their entire lives to put their kids in private schools. (Alexander Russo follows up here.) Sure enough, the meme has been spreading like wildfire, at least according to this anecdote and an unconfirmed email a friend sent me last night.
The New York Times offers another example this morning, in a story about how parents in an affluent suburb have gone kinda overboard in organizing their local PTO. While there are no assertions of a "small but growing" trend, the piece uses three other words to accomplish roughly the same thing: "across the country." As in:
"Small but growing" and "across the country" (variants: "across the nation," "across America," etc.) are both used for a similar transformational purpose: to turn the specific into the general, anecdote into trend, story into news. "Pay attention," they're saying, "this kind of thing is happening everywhere. It could happen to you." Which is fine, as long as by "everywhere" they mean "possibly in a few more of the small number of wealthy suburban communities located near the handful of large coastal cities / media centers where, not coincidentally, this reporter's editor happens to live."
It's certainly not a coincidence that both of these stories focus on the anxieties of privileged parents. And it's surely only a matter of time before we wake up to find this story on the front page of a major news daily:
DARIEN, C.T. -- Elizabeth Winterhouse just wants what's best for her little boy.
The New York Times offers another example this morning, in a story about how parents in an affluent suburb have gone kinda overboard in organizing their local PTO. While there are no assertions of a "small but growing" trend, the piece uses three other words to accomplish roughly the same thing: "across the country." As in:
The transformation of Livingston’s pizza lunch reflects how parent groups across the country, especially in affluent suburbs, are undergoing a kind of corporate makeover, combining members’ business savvy, technological prowess and negotiating skills to professionalize operations.
"Small but growing" and "across the country" (variants: "across the nation," "across America," etc.) are both used for a similar transformational purpose: to turn the specific into the general, anecdote into trend, story into news. "Pay attention," they're saying, "this kind of thing is happening everywhere. It could happen to you." Which is fine, as long as by "everywhere" they mean "possibly in a few more of the small number of wealthy suburban communities located near the handful of large coastal cities / media centers where, not coincidentally, this reporter's editor happens to live."
It's certainly not a coincidence that both of these stories focus on the anxieties of privileged parents. And it's surely only a matter of time before we wake up to find this story on the front page of a major news daily:
DARIEN, C.T. -- Elizabeth Winterhouse just wants what's best for her little boy.
A slender, slightly nervous woman of 37 dressed in tasteful but expensive jewelry and the latest Talbots fashion, Mrs. Winterhouse keeps a watchful eye over her six-year old son Miles as we sit in the airy, light-filled living room of her suburban Connecticut home.
While her husband Jim works 18-hour days managing a hedge fund in nearby Greenwich, Mrs. Winterhouse has a lot of time to think about Miles' future. And what she sees has her worried. The warning signs came early--amniocentisis results put Miles' prenatal verbal skills in only the 97th percentile. Despite being three months younger, Miles' playmate, neighbor, and best friend Parker has already memorized Pi to 30 digits. Twice-weekly tutoring hasn't helped Miles overcome his difficulties in conjugating French verbs. Meanwhile, admission to Yale University in nearby New Haven is getting tougher every year.
So Mrs. Winterhouse did what she believes any responsble parent in her situation would do. She had an advanced microprocessor surgically implanted in Miles' brain.
And she's not alone. Across the country, a small but growing number of parents are taking advantage of new cyber-enhancement technologies to give their children a leg up in the ever-tougher rat race for admissions to the Ivy League. Other examples include Cynthia Fairhaven, who lives 200 yards away from the Winterhouses on the same Darien street, and Allesandra Stassinopoulis, the wife of a Greek shipping magnate living in Beverly Hills.
Leading national experts confirm this rapidly growing trend. A spokesman for Cyberdyne Systems, manufacturer of Miles' implant, said that "More and more parents are giving their children the educational tools they need, for only $22,995, six months same as cash." Jack Jennings, Director of the non-partisan Center for Education Policy confirmed that "What you said is true, no doubt because of the pressures caused by No Child Left Behind." And as University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato recently noted, "Stranger things have happened."
Thursday, February 22, 2007
I Was Right
Okay, I promise I'll only use that post title like, once a year (or less, if I turn out not to be right about things). But in this case, I am forced to succumb to the temptations of self-aggrandizement. On Tuesday, I wrote this post about a middle-income California couple who quit their jobs and moved from Los Angeles to Boston just to put their teenage daughters in a super-expensive private school they couldn't afford. Rather than simply note the utter craziness of this (see Matt Yglesias here), the Wall Street Journal spun it as evidence of some kind of alleged larger trend, so they could characterize the story as "news." The problem with doing that, I wrote, is that:
Sure enough, there was a press conference this morning announcing the latest 12th grade NAEP scores. They're not good, prompting former Michigan governor and current National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler to note that just the other day, he read about how more and more parents are moving across the country to put their kids in private school, and how this is just further evidence that our public schools are basically going to hell in a handbasket. That's not a direct quote, but you get the gist.
As a public service, the Quick and the Ed will henceforth be tracking the spread and use of this little nugget of conventional non-wisdom. Feel free to email examples to kcarey at educationsector.org.
people believe what they read in the newspaper. If the Wall Street Journal says it's a trend, it's a trend, and soon enough this meme will be become part of the larger narrative about education, influencing what people believe and thus what decisions they make. And it will be wrong, but nobody will know that.
Sure enough, there was a press conference this morning announcing the latest 12th grade NAEP scores. They're not good, prompting former Michigan governor and current National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler to note that just the other day, he read about how more and more parents are moving across the country to put their kids in private school, and how this is just further evidence that our public schools are basically going to hell in a handbasket. That's not a direct quote, but you get the gist.
As a public service, the Quick and the Ed will henceforth be tracking the spread and use of this little nugget of conventional non-wisdom. Feel free to email examples to kcarey at educationsector.org.
Second rate nation?
12th grade NAEP results were released this morning (see here and here) at a press conference filled with gloom and doom. The results aren't good--despite high school students taking more classes, harder classes and getting better grades, NAEP performance overall is down slightly and the achievement gaps aren't closing.
Panelists John Engler (former governor of Michigan), David Driscoll (Massachusetts Commissioner of Education), and David Gordon (Superintendent of Sacramento County Office of Education) all lamented the low standards that exist in some states, argued that courses must increase rigor and alignment with standards, and successful schools should be replicated. Driscoll in particular argued that states are taking positive actions and that there will be a lag before scores start to show the results. All the panelists used pretty strong language in talking about the results, with Driscoll asserting that we are "sleeping through a crisis."
After the presentation of the education morass came press questions, which were thankfully far more lively. My favorites:
1) From NBC: Has 12th grade performance peaked, and are we at risk if becoming a second rate nation?
2) From unidentified reporter: Why are Asian students outperforming others? Are they just smarter?
Other interesting nugget: Although advanced course-taking is strongly associated with higher NAEP performance (students taking more advanced math/science have higher NAEP scores), even among students in the same courses, performance varied by subgroup. White students had higher math scores than Black and Hispanic students taking the same math course. For example, Black students taking Algebra II scored an average of 127, while white students taking geometry (a lower level class), scored an average of 133. These results suggest that some courses are simply not as rigorous as they are labeled and/or some students may be receiving inferior instruction in their courses. See an interesting example of this in data from Illinois that Kevin analyzed recently. Look for more research to come on this "rigor gap."
Without actually advocating national standards, these scores do provide some ammunition to those who argue that many states have set standards too low. Then again, all NAEP results (and other education data) are used to show support for whatever position/reform/idea a group or individual advocates.
A few important caveats:
Panelists John Engler (former governor of Michigan), David Driscoll (Massachusetts Commissioner of Education), and David Gordon (Superintendent of Sacramento County Office of Education) all lamented the low standards that exist in some states, argued that courses must increase rigor and alignment with standards, and successful schools should be replicated. Driscoll in particular argued that states are taking positive actions and that there will be a lag before scores start to show the results. All the panelists used pretty strong language in talking about the results, with Driscoll asserting that we are "sleeping through a crisis."
After the presentation of the education morass came press questions, which were thankfully far more lively. My favorites:
1) From NBC: Has 12th grade performance peaked, and are we at risk if becoming a second rate nation?
2) From unidentified reporter: Why are Asian students outperforming others? Are they just smarter?
Other interesting nugget: Although advanced course-taking is strongly associated with higher NAEP performance (students taking more advanced math/science have higher NAEP scores), even among students in the same courses, performance varied by subgroup. White students had higher math scores than Black and Hispanic students taking the same math course. For example, Black students taking Algebra II scored an average of 127, while white students taking geometry (a lower level class), scored an average of 133. These results suggest that some courses are simply not as rigorous as they are labeled and/or some students may be receiving inferior instruction in their courses. See an interesting example of this in data from Illinois that Kevin analyzed recently. Look for more research to come on this "rigor gap."
Without actually advocating national standards, these scores do provide some ammunition to those who argue that many states have set standards too low. Then again, all NAEP results (and other education data) are used to show support for whatever position/reform/idea a group or individual advocates.
A few important caveats:
- These results are from a test administered 2 years ago (January-March 2005)
- The 2005 NAEP Math test is on a new scale and scores cannot be compared to previous years. The average score of 150 was set by design this year.
- NAEP is not actually the ultimate test of everything in education. While the results are bad and merit serious attention, a panel composed entirely of current and former members of the NAEP oversight Board cannot be expected to provide any critiques of NAEP or its standards. Others can and do.
Hot for Mayors
Edspresso, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, and the Chalkboard all have the vapor's over Newark Mayor Cory Booker's hopes to take over that city's troubled schools and expand school choice (specifically, vouchers and recruiting a KIPP school) there. Booker is indeed dreamy, but he does seem to face a daunting uphill battle on this stuff, not to mention myriad other problems in the city he runs.
Meanwhile, D.C.'s own Mayor McDreamy, Adrian Fenty, has elaborated what he will do to fix the District's royally messed up special education programs if--looking increasingly less iffy--he gets control of the schools. This is important because failure to serve special education students effectively, and the enormous cost of private special education placements this leads to, may be the single biggest discrete problem facing DCPS. James Forman, writing at Edspresso, has some more advice for Fenty about engaging the community to improve the schools.
Meanwhile, D.C.'s own Mayor McDreamy, Adrian Fenty, has elaborated what he will do to fix the District's royally messed up special education programs if--looking increasingly less iffy--he gets control of the schools. This is important because failure to serve special education students effectively, and the enormous cost of private special education placements this leads to, may be the single biggest discrete problem facing DCPS. James Forman, writing at Edspresso, has some more advice for Fenty about engaging the community to improve the schools.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Illiteracy Kills
A slightly more important issue than rich kids moving from LA to Boston, this article highlights the health consequences of low literacy skills. It's another depressing reminder of the high social costs of failing schools.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Bogus Education Trend Stories, Part MCMXLVII
One of the basic tensions in journalism comes between what's news and what's a good story. The best journalism combines the two, using the power of narrative to communicate vital, relevant information about the state of the world. Sometimes, however, journalists find good stories that aren't really news. Unfortunately, they frequently try to make news out of them anyway, by pretending that interesting but isolated incidents represent broader trends.
This happens a lot in education journalism, and there's an easy way to spot these bogus trend stories. Three or four grafs in, after the lead anecdote, you will read three words that should say, loud and clear, "there is less here than meets the eye."
Those words are "small but growing."
As in this article($) in today's Wall Street Journal, which tells the story of a husband and wife who found the perfect private school for their high schools daughters, a tony prep school near Boston. Unfortunately, they lived in Los Angeles. So, naturally, the husband quit his job, they sold their house, and they moved to small apartment in Boston. It took him three months to find a new job, so they had to run through most of their savings and the money they made on the home sale in order to live and pay the $56,000 school tuition. Their furniture is still in L.A., because they can't afford to move it, and the wife, who used to stay home, is now looking for work. But it was all worth it, because their daughters are learning Greek.
Sensibly, this should be a feature story highlighting the fact that this decision looks, in retrospect, to be pretty insane, maybe with some added comment about how some people take devotion to their children's education to almost fetishistic extremes. But it's not. Instead, it's framed as a trend story. The headline is "Anxiety High: Moving For Schools," which is fair enough. But the subhead is "A growing number of parents are choosing where to buy a home based on its proximity to the private school where they want to send their children." And upon coming to the fifth graf, we find this:
The problem is that people believe what they read in the newspaper. If the Wall Street Journal says it's a trend, it's a trend, and soon enough this meme will be become part of the larger narrative about education, influencing what people believe and thus what decisions they make. And it will be wrong, but nobody will know that.
All for the sake of a good story.
This happens a lot in education journalism, and there's an easy way to spot these bogus trend stories. Three or four grafs in, after the lead anecdote, you will read three words that should say, loud and clear, "there is less here than meets the eye."
Those words are "small but growing."
As in this article($) in today's Wall Street Journal, which tells the story of a husband and wife who found the perfect private school for their high schools daughters, a tony prep school near Boston. Unfortunately, they lived in Los Angeles. So, naturally, the husband quit his job, they sold their house, and they moved to small apartment in Boston. It took him three months to find a new job, so they had to run through most of their savings and the money they made on the home sale in order to live and pay the $56,000 school tuition. Their furniture is still in L.A., because they can't afford to move it, and the wife, who used to stay home, is now looking for work. But it was all worth it, because their daughters are learning Greek.
Sensibly, this should be a feature story highlighting the fact that this decision looks, in retrospect, to be pretty insane, maybe with some added comment about how some people take devotion to their children's education to almost fetishistic extremes. But it's not. Instead, it's framed as a trend story. The headline is "Anxiety High: Moving For Schools," which is fair enough. But the subhead is "A growing number of parents are choosing where to buy a home based on its proximity to the private school where they want to send their children." And upon coming to the fifth graf, we find this:
Across the country, a small but growing number of parents like the O'Gormans are dramatically altering their families' lives to pursue the perfect private school for their children. While past generations of parents might have shifted addresses within a town to be near a particular school, or shipped junior off to boarding school, these parents are choosing school first, location second. "I hear about it all the time," says Patrick Bassett, president of the National Association of Independent Schools, or NAIS, in Washington, D.C.In other words, what should be a standard man-bites-dog human interest story is instead alleged to be evidence of some kind of trend. A small trend, of course, backed up in this case by exactly two more anecdotes and a few quotes from private school folks and a psychologist. But a growing trend. How do we know it's growing? Because some person the reporter called on the phone said so! The guy from the private school association, he hears about it all the time. How much more data do you need?
The problem is that people believe what they read in the newspaper. If the Wall Street Journal says it's a trend, it's a trend, and soon enough this meme will be become part of the larger narrative about education, influencing what people believe and thus what decisions they make. And it will be wrong, but nobody will know that.
All for the sake of a good story.
Special Education for Teachers
The Washington Post magazine has a very interesting article this week written by a special education teacher in DC.* Samantha Cleaver's story is not unusual--it's really hard being a first year teacher, probably harder still if you're alternatively certified, and even harder yet to teach special education.
What makes her story powerful is the painstaking detail of the challenges she faces as a new teacher serving students with significant disabilities. The lack of resources are a big problem, but almost a backdrop to the enormously challenging learning and behavioral challenges that her students face. The showdown with 5 year-old "Spidey" exemplifies exactly how difficult each day can be.
I think overall the story raises several important policy lessons.
One is that I think we need to consider carefully the type of training alternatively certified teachers who are placed in special education settings receive. There is extensive research on teaching students with various types of disabilities and that is a lot to master in a summer. I know there is a teacher shortage in special education and we need to fill those slots, but sending hastily prepared people to help kids with the greatest needs seems unfair to all involved. At the very least, school level mentors with special education experience seem essential.
Two is that classroom management is critically important, not just for special education teachers. I think policymakers often fail to recognize how essential this is and teacher training programs (both traditional and alternative) similarly fail to emphasize it. Yes, it is not student achievement focused, but go into a classroom with poor management and you are hard pressed to find much if any learning. The best lesson in the world goes untaught if no one is listening.
Three, I'm not sure many of the education policy proposals on the table right now will address the situation raised in the article. Not that any individual situation necessitates a policy intervention, but this one is far too common to be ignored. New teacher + challenging school situation + inadequate support = teacher attrition. From the article, it seems that the most effective intervention was support from the school guidance counselor who was able to both provide advice and model effective techniques in the classroom--ideally the role of a mentor.
To me, an important and overlooked area is how to help teachers become better teachers. I fully support requiring teachers to be highly effective as opposed to highly qualified, but the reality is that clearly everyone is not. Pushing out the worst and most apathetic teachers makes sense, but considering the size of the teaching force, helping mediocre, new, and struggling teachers improve is a lot cheaper, politically feasible, and more sensible than trying to radically overhaul the teaching force.
Professional development has a well deserved bad reputation and is totally not en vogue, but if done well, it can improve teachers' feelings of preparedness, including how to work with special populations. If teachers don't know how to raise achievement they need support, whether professional development, mentoring, or something else--carrots and sticks are not going to make them magically improve.
*Disclosure: The Post article author is a DC Teaching Fellow, an alternative certification program for which I interview applicants.
What makes her story powerful is the painstaking detail of the challenges she faces as a new teacher serving students with significant disabilities. The lack of resources are a big problem, but almost a backdrop to the enormously challenging learning and behavioral challenges that her students face. The showdown with 5 year-old "Spidey" exemplifies exactly how difficult each day can be.
I think overall the story raises several important policy lessons.
One is that I think we need to consider carefully the type of training alternatively certified teachers who are placed in special education settings receive. There is extensive research on teaching students with various types of disabilities and that is a lot to master in a summer. I know there is a teacher shortage in special education and we need to fill those slots, but sending hastily prepared people to help kids with the greatest needs seems unfair to all involved. At the very least, school level mentors with special education experience seem essential.
Two is that classroom management is critically important, not just for special education teachers. I think policymakers often fail to recognize how essential this is and teacher training programs (both traditional and alternative) similarly fail to emphasize it. Yes, it is not student achievement focused, but go into a classroom with poor management and you are hard pressed to find much if any learning. The best lesson in the world goes untaught if no one is listening.
Three, I'm not sure many of the education policy proposals on the table right now will address the situation raised in the article. Not that any individual situation necessitates a policy intervention, but this one is far too common to be ignored. New teacher + challenging school situation + inadequate support = teacher attrition. From the article, it seems that the most effective intervention was support from the school guidance counselor who was able to both provide advice and model effective techniques in the classroom--ideally the role of a mentor.
To me, an important and overlooked area is how to help teachers become better teachers. I fully support requiring teachers to be highly effective as opposed to highly qualified, but the reality is that clearly everyone is not. Pushing out the worst and most apathetic teachers makes sense, but considering the size of the teaching force, helping mediocre, new, and struggling teachers improve is a lot cheaper, politically feasible, and more sensible than trying to radically overhaul the teaching force.
Professional development has a well deserved bad reputation and is totally not en vogue, but if done well, it can improve teachers' feelings of preparedness, including how to work with special populations. If teachers don't know how to raise achievement they need support, whether professional development, mentoring, or something else--carrots and sticks are not going to make them magically improve.
*Disclosure: The Post article author is a DC Teaching Fellow, an alternative certification program for which I interview applicants.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Presidential Ideas
If you're a kid, February is a great month. It's short and sweet and snowy enough to get days (and days) off school, and then comes the wonderful combined birthdays of George and Abe for a three-day weekend.
With our nation's Presidents in mind, Education Sector is soon to release its Eight for 2008: Education Ideas for the Next President. It's got solutions to some of our nation's most pressing education problems. And it's all there for you to see Tuesday morning when you get back to work. Check it out.
With our nation's Presidents in mind, Education Sector is soon to release its Eight for 2008: Education Ideas for the Next President. It's got solutions to some of our nation's most pressing education problems. And it's all there for you to see Tuesday morning when you get back to work. Check it out.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Teacher Experience, Effectiveness, Etc.
Edwize has a extra-long post from Leo Casey (is there any other kind?) responding to what I wrote a few days ago about the Aspen Commission, value-added measures of teacher effectiveness, and teacher experience.
In addition to finding my writing less than fully felicitous (dude--that's cold) Leo seems to think we disagree about the impact of teacher experience on effectiveness in the classroom. We don't. Leo is exactly right when he says:
We agree; this is what research, common sense, and personal observation tell us. However, Leo is leaving out an important qualifier here, one that makes all the difference in discussions of teacher compensation. He's describing the typical trajectory of individual teachers. In other words, any given teacher is nearly always significantly better in Year 5 than he or she was in Year 1 (and not much better in Year 25 than Year 15). But that does not mean that all Year 5 teachers are the same. In fact, some teachers are pretty great from the beginning, and improve to become spectacular. Other teachers struggle mightily in Year 1, and while they may improve, they never become very good. The differences can be huge.
As a result, some novice teachers are better than other veteran teachers, making up for lack of experience with talent, dedication, training, and hard work. For what I suspect is a good example of such a teacher, just scroll down three posts on Edwize itself, to this post, titled "Are My Students Suffering Because I'm a Novice Teacher?" I don't know the answer for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd bet they're not. That doesn't mean this teacher won't get better, of course she will. But judging from this post, she's probably doing pretty well by her students already:
Resources are finite. If we tie up large amounts of money in mandatory experience-based salary increases in order to retain all experienced teachers, as opposed to only good experienced teachers, then we have less money available to recruit and retain good novice teachers. Increasing salaries for effective younger teachers in this way would decrease the high turnover that Leo is rightly concerned about, and increase the odds that when those young teachers learn from veterans, they learn something worth knowing.
Leo might say there's no way to fairly determine who's "good," and "effective," but I've always found that argument to be singularly unpersuasive. After all, he himself tells us that he's "visited scores of high schools through the years," and has observed the benefits of experience first-hand. I assume he doesn't just infer that experience leads to effectiveness, but that he has instead observed effectiveness independently, as a distinct quality. If Leo can accurately observe large differences in teacher quality in his visits, why do we assume that the principal who works there full time can't do the same, particularly if they supplement those judgments with student achievement data? Clearly, there are examples of principals who aren't up to this task, either as a matter of competence or integrity, but that's an argument for getting better principals, not for an absolute refusal to base individual teacher pay on how well individual teachers do their jobs.
At the bottom of his post, Leo swerves into the standardized attack on standardized tests. Look--nobody thinks standardized tests provide perfect information, or even close to perfect information. But the grown-up question here is obvious: what level of imperfection can we tolerate, given the way the information will be used? (See Sherman Dorn for comment on this issue.) Leo clearly thinks that our current tests fall below that threshold. Okay, I'll bite: how good does student assessment information--from standardized tests or any other source--have to be before it would be appropriate for use in determining teacher salaries? 100% perfect and unassailable in every way? If not perfect, how good? 95%? Let's put a number on the table and then figure out what it would take to get there.
Unless, of course, not getting there is the point.
In addition to finding my writing less than fully felicitous (dude--that's cold) Leo seems to think we disagree about the impact of teacher experience on effectiveness in the classroom. We don't. Leo is exactly right when he says:
...the learning curve in teaching is very steep at the start of a teaching career, when the novice is mastering the fundamental skills, and levels off after that initial 3 to 5 year period. From the viewpoint of mastery of the teaching craft, therefore, it makes sense to say that there is little difference between a 10 year and a 20 year teacher. But whether a teacher has 10, 15, 20 or 25 years of experience, what never disappears is the crucial differential between a novice teacher and an experienced teacher. An accurate description of the research would be that the gap between the skills of the novice teachers and the skills of more experienced teachers grows significantly through five years of experience, and thereafter levels off.
We agree; this is what research, common sense, and personal observation tell us. However, Leo is leaving out an important qualifier here, one that makes all the difference in discussions of teacher compensation. He's describing the typical trajectory of individual teachers. In other words, any given teacher is nearly always significantly better in Year 5 than he or she was in Year 1 (and not much better in Year 25 than Year 15). But that does not mean that all Year 5 teachers are the same. In fact, some teachers are pretty great from the beginning, and improve to become spectacular. Other teachers struggle mightily in Year 1, and while they may improve, they never become very good. The differences can be huge.
As a result, some novice teachers are better than other veteran teachers, making up for lack of experience with talent, dedication, training, and hard work. For what I suspect is a good example of such a teacher, just scroll down three posts on Edwize itself, to this post, titled "Are My Students Suffering Because I'm a Novice Teacher?" I don't know the answer for sure, but if I had to guess, I'd bet they're not. That doesn't mean this teacher won't get better, of course she will. But judging from this post, she's probably doing pretty well by her students already:
I have even admitted to family, friends and most importantly myself that I feel like this is my true calling. I enjoy the kids, I love sharing information, and this career allows me to be myself. In fact, my personality has been vital in forming a good rapport with my students and earning their respect. Still I can’t help but to feel guilty because I realize they are like my first-year “guinea pigs”; they are getting their education from someone who is focused and intelligent but not seasoned. I am an excellent writer, fast learner and able to relate to my students, all good qualities that work in my favor as a teacher. The students have admitted many times during class that they feel like they do “real work” and are “really learning something” in my class, which sounds great coming from those who, in my mind, matter most (the students). I reflect often on the things my students have said to me such as, “Miss, I like that you are always fair” and “I remembered what you taught me when I took my exam.”
Resources are finite. If we tie up large amounts of money in mandatory experience-based salary increases in order to retain all experienced teachers, as opposed to only good experienced teachers, then we have less money available to recruit and retain good novice teachers. Increasing salaries for effective younger teachers in this way would decrease the high turnover that Leo is rightly concerned about, and increase the odds that when those young teachers learn from veterans, they learn something worth knowing.
Leo might say there's no way to fairly determine who's "good," and "effective," but I've always found that argument to be singularly unpersuasive. After all, he himself tells us that he's "visited scores of high schools through the years," and has observed the benefits of experience first-hand. I assume he doesn't just infer that experience leads to effectiveness, but that he has instead observed effectiveness independently, as a distinct quality. If Leo can accurately observe large differences in teacher quality in his visits, why do we assume that the principal who works there full time can't do the same, particularly if they supplement those judgments with student achievement data? Clearly, there are examples of principals who aren't up to this task, either as a matter of competence or integrity, but that's an argument for getting better principals, not for an absolute refusal to base individual teacher pay on how well individual teachers do their jobs.
At the bottom of his post, Leo swerves into the standardized attack on standardized tests. Look--nobody thinks standardized tests provide perfect information, or even close to perfect information. But the grown-up question here is obvious: what level of imperfection can we tolerate, given the way the information will be used? (See Sherman Dorn for comment on this issue.) Leo clearly thinks that our current tests fall below that threshold. Okay, I'll bite: how good does student assessment information--from standardized tests or any other source--have to be before it would be appropriate for use in determining teacher salaries? 100% perfect and unassailable in every way? If not perfect, how good? 95%? Let's put a number on the table and then figure out what it would take to get there.
Unless, of course, not getting there is the point.
Empowering Kids with Neuroscience
I wonder what Charles Murray has to say about this story on NPR about new research indicating that students’ beliefs about their intelligence can impact how they do in school. Students who believed their intelligence could grow got better grades than students who believed their intelligence was fixed.
An interesting part of the study design is that they didn’t just use motivational speaking to convince students they could change their intelligence, but they actually taught the students how their brains worked – that their brains formed new pathways when they were learning and could actually change to increase their ability to solve challenging problems and learn new material. Understanding the truth behind intelligence and the brain can be a powerful tool, one that these kids will hopefully use throughout their lives whenever someone tries to convince them that they just can't learn something.
Check it.
Just got a note about the D.C.-based organization Teaching for Change about some of the book events they host. Not all of them are education related, but author talks are usually pretty interesting, so check out the event list and recommended readings here.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Crazy Colorado Tax Policy
This article in National Crosstalk is well worth reading, in that it illustrates what happens when the sensible, democratically-expressed desires of the citizenry to invest public resources in important things like higher education run up against mind-bendingly foolish, anti-democratic conservative tax policies like Colorado's TABOR law. The result: a pointlessly complicated, Rube Goldbergian higher education funding system that accomplishes nothing other than confusing everyone and wasting resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Seriously, you really have to read it to believe it, this is full-scale, through-the-looking-glass public policy craziness.
Size Matters?
To clarify this: I got nothing against "big ideas" per se, nor did I say I did. But I don't think "bigness" should be the primary goal of policy development. Lots of big ideas are bad, and when big ideas are bad, they're bad in a big way. Nor should we write off small ideas just because they're small. Sometimes an accumulation of small ideas has more impact than a big idea. I doubt Alexander's desire to see the next generation of good big education ideas exceeds mine; I'm actually working to try to help develop some of them (and, no, I don't think they have to come from Education Sector). But I think it's equally important to head off the next generation of bad big ideas that will inevitably come along. And most of the good big ideas that stick need myriad small ideas following behind them to help make them work.
That said, I do have something of a knee-jerk loathing for purely symbolic actions that politicians undertake to try to get credit for "doing something" or even "caring about" a problem, rather than actually, you know, doing something that might be difficult. And that's what legislation to make education a Constitutional right strikes me as. Leave aside that it's politically going nowhere and nobody even thinks it is. What on earth would it mean in practice? Wouldn't it just lead to a lot of "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it" type stuff from states that wouldn't know how to get there even if they had the will to? Would it actually help states, school districts and schools do a better job in any way? Concerns like these are why most thoughtful observers and a majority of D.C. City Council members last year turned against a proposed D.C. Charter amendment to guarantee all D.C. kids a "high-quality" public education. Everyone knew it was a purely symbolic act that, if passed, would have amounted to a very sick joke on D.C.'s kids. Wouldn't the same arguments apply to the national proposal?
That said, I do have something of a knee-jerk loathing for purely symbolic actions that politicians undertake to try to get credit for "doing something" or even "caring about" a problem, rather than actually, you know, doing something that might be difficult. And that's what legislation to make education a Constitutional right strikes me as. Leave aside that it's politically going nowhere and nobody even thinks it is. What on earth would it mean in practice? Wouldn't it just lead to a lot of "John Marshall has made his decision; let him enforce it" type stuff from states that wouldn't know how to get there even if they had the will to? Would it actually help states, school districts and schools do a better job in any way? Concerns like these are why most thoughtful observers and a majority of D.C. City Council members last year turned against a proposed D.C. Charter amendment to guarantee all D.C. kids a "high-quality" public education. Everyone knew it was a purely symbolic act that, if passed, would have amounted to a very sick joke on D.C.'s kids. Wouldn't the same arguments apply to the national proposal?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Aspen and Value-Added
Day two of the Aspen NCLB report saw good notices in the press from the Bush Administration and the Democratic committee chairmen on the Hill, Ted Kennedy and George Miller, and more strong objections from various teachers union representatives. While Joel Packer et. al. hit the broad strokes in the Post and Times, Leo Casey got a lot more specific over at Edwize. It's worth taking a look, because there are a lot distortions and flatly incorrect statements to parse. Leo said:
Let's take these in order (all bold type added):
Leo says "Educational research affirms the absolute centrality of experienced, accomplished teachers to the education of young people, especially for students living in poverty and at academic risk." On the first point, "experienced," this is a gross distortion of what the research says. There's a lot of research that says teacher experience matters. Absolutely none of it says that teacher experience is central to the education of young people. The research says (see here for a good summary, and here) that experience matters in the beginning of a teacher's career, up to at most 10 years, and then not afterwards. And even when experience does matter, it accounts for only a small fraction of all the variance among teachers.
In terms of the centrality of accomplished teachers, it depends on what you think that word means. If you mean the accumulation of credentials, like state certification or master's degrees, absolutely not. Most studies say master's degree don't matter at all, and the evidence on certification is mixed, with small effects. If, on the other hand, you mean "accomplished" in the sense of "consistently helping students increase learning, as measured by standardized tests," the evidence is a lot more persuasive--but that's the very conception of teacher quality that Leo is arguing against.
Leo criticizes the commission for wanting to "adopt a proposal which has never been successfully implemented – the use of growth in standardized test scores as a measure of teaching quality."
A) That's not true, Tennessee has been doing it over a decade.
B) To the extent that it hasn't been implemented more broadly, that's because people like Leo object every time someone tries. It's the chicken-and-the-egg strategy of obstructionism--stop people from doing something new, and then when other people try do it, say "you shouldn't try to do it, because nobody's ever done it."
Leo then cites a 2003 book from RAND, titled "Evaluating Value-Added Models for Teacher Accountability," as evidence against the approach the Aspen commission recommends--evaluating teacher effectiveness by using year-to-year growth in student test scores. This book stands as the most authoritative treatment of the subject that currently exists, and it's going to get referred to a lot in the coming debate. So let's be clear about what it does and does not say.
The RAND book provides a very thorough and critical look at the extant research and available methods for estimating teacher effectiveness using test score growth. It reaches the absolutely reasonable conclusion that none of the measures are perfect, and that anyone relying on value-added data should be aware of the many potential sources of bias and error that could skew the results, particularly when making high-stakes decisions. At the very end--literally, the second-to-last sentence--the authors say:
"In the end...it is the job of policymakers and educators to define their inferential goals and to decide what kinds of uncertainty are acceptable and what kinds are not."
In other words, understand the imperfections of the data you're using, and make smart judgments accordingly. However, earlier in the same chapter, they say:
"The research base is currently insufficient for us to recommend the use of [value-added methods] for high-stakes decisions."
It is hugely important to understand that they are not answering a research question here. They're answering a policy question, which, as they rightly note in the previous quote, is fundamentally different. No researcher, from RAND or elsewhere, can apply an established methodology to definitively identify the threshold level of error, bias, or uncertainty beyond which data shouldn't be used for policymmaking (other than to make the fairly obvious point that a finding of no teachers effects, or completely flawed methodology, would indicate this. That's not what they found.).
As they rightly state in the previous quote, the degree of acceptable uncertainty--some of which is unavoidable--is a question for policymakers to answer. Moreover, their opinion on this issue is based in part on the lack of research around value-added methods that provides evidence one way or the other, not, as Leo implies, the presence of research that discredits value-added methods.
So I read this sentence to say, "If we were policymakers making high-stakes decisions, we wouldn't use this data." They're not policymakers, but okay.
However, in the summary of the book, at the front (that is, the only part non-statisticians are likely to read), this sentence has been edited down to the following:
"The research base is currently insufficient to support the use of [value-added methods] for high-stake decisions."
Note the omission of the words "for us to recommend." Now it appears that RAND has made an absolute, empirical determination of whether value-added data is good enough for policy. This is the quote that will be frequently brandished and misused if this debate gets off the ground. And it simply doesn't mean what people like Leo will say it means.
NCLB was exactly on point in insisting upon a highly qualified teacher in every classroom. Educational research affirms the absolute centrality of experienced, accomplished teachers to the education of young people, especially for students living in poverty and at academic risk.
The recommendations of the report would abandon the work that states have already done to improve the quality of teaching, set aside the work that remains to be done, and adopt a proposal which has never been successfully implemented – the use of growth in standardized test scores as a measure of teaching quality. State of the art research on ‘value added’ and ‘growth’ models of standardized testing has concluded that they do not have the capacity to provide accurate micro-level data for schools or individual teachers. In the absence of such refined tools and with the real world of standardized tests that are themselves substantially flawed more often than not, the use of such tests as measures of quality teaching will simply create massive disincentives for schools and teachers to take on the most needy and academically at risk youngsters who perform poorly on such exams – the exact opposite of what we should be doing in American education.
Let's take these in order (all bold type added):
Leo says "Educational research affirms the absolute centrality of experienced, accomplished teachers to the education of young people, especially for students living in poverty and at academic risk." On the first point, "experienced," this is a gross distortion of what the research says. There's a lot of research that says teacher experience matters. Absolutely none of it says that teacher experience is central to the education of young people. The research says (see here for a good summary, and here) that experience matters in the beginning of a teacher's career, up to at most 10 years, and then not afterwards. And even when experience does matter, it accounts for only a small fraction of all the variance among teachers.
In terms of the centrality of accomplished teachers, it depends on what you think that word means. If you mean the accumulation of credentials, like state certification or master's degrees, absolutely not. Most studies say master's degree don't matter at all, and the evidence on certification is mixed, with small effects. If, on the other hand, you mean "accomplished" in the sense of "consistently helping students increase learning, as measured by standardized tests," the evidence is a lot more persuasive--but that's the very conception of teacher quality that Leo is arguing against.
Leo criticizes the commission for wanting to "adopt a proposal which has never been successfully implemented – the use of growth in standardized test scores as a measure of teaching quality."
A) That's not true, Tennessee has been doing it over a decade.
B) To the extent that it hasn't been implemented more broadly, that's because people like Leo object every time someone tries. It's the chicken-and-the-egg strategy of obstructionism--stop people from doing something new, and then when other people try do it, say "you shouldn't try to do it, because nobody's ever done it."
Leo then cites a 2003 book from RAND, titled "Evaluating Value-Added Models for Teacher Accountability," as evidence against the approach the Aspen commission recommends--evaluating teacher effectiveness by using year-to-year growth in student test scores. This book stands as the most authoritative treatment of the subject that currently exists, and it's going to get referred to a lot in the coming debate. So let's be clear about what it does and does not say.
The RAND book provides a very thorough and critical look at the extant research and available methods for estimating teacher effectiveness using test score growth. It reaches the absolutely reasonable conclusion that none of the measures are perfect, and that anyone relying on value-added data should be aware of the many potential sources of bias and error that could skew the results, particularly when making high-stakes decisions. At the very end--literally, the second-to-last sentence--the authors say:
"In the end...it is the job of policymakers and educators to define their inferential goals and to decide what kinds of uncertainty are acceptable and what kinds are not."
In other words, understand the imperfections of the data you're using, and make smart judgments accordingly. However, earlier in the same chapter, they say:
"The research base is currently insufficient for us to recommend the use of [value-added methods] for high-stakes decisions."
It is hugely important to understand that they are not answering a research question here. They're answering a policy question, which, as they rightly note in the previous quote, is fundamentally different. No researcher, from RAND or elsewhere, can apply an established methodology to definitively identify the threshold level of error, bias, or uncertainty beyond which data shouldn't be used for policymmaking (other than to make the fairly obvious point that a finding of no teachers effects, or completely flawed methodology, would indicate this. That's not what they found.).
As they rightly state in the previous quote, the degree of acceptable uncertainty--some of which is unavoidable--is a question for policymakers to answer. Moreover, their opinion on this issue is based in part on the lack of research around value-added methods that provides evidence one way or the other, not, as Leo implies, the presence of research that discredits value-added methods.
So I read this sentence to say, "If we were policymakers making high-stakes decisions, we wouldn't use this data." They're not policymakers, but okay.
However, in the summary of the book, at the front (that is, the only part non-statisticians are likely to read), this sentence has been edited down to the following:
"The research base is currently insufficient to support the use of [value-added methods] for high-stake decisions."
Note the omission of the words "for us to recommend." Now it appears that RAND has made an absolute, empirical determination of whether value-added data is good enough for policy. This is the quote that will be frequently brandished and misused if this debate gets off the ground. And it simply doesn't mean what people like Leo will say it means.
Fight for the Right
Apparently, Alexander Russo is from the "big, flashy ideas, however dopey, are superior to potentially promising small-bore ones" school of education analysis. Guess he missed this debate in D.C. last year, where I think similar arguments apply.
Maintenance Matters
This makes me mad. In a country as wealthy as ours, shouldn't teachers be able to expect that, when some basic part of the physical infrastructure of their classroom is broken, it will be fixed so that it works properly, in a timely fashion, and with the minimal possible disruption to the classroom? What other professions put up with this idiocy? Of course, I live in D.C., where 30 schools lacked heat in at least some rooms during the past frigid week, and some school buildings had to be closed several days because of lack of heat. Is it any wonder some people support the Mayor's bid to take over? Education is complicated. Improving low-performing schools is very difficult. By comparison, maintaining facilities should be simple. If our school systems can't even handle such basic functions that tons of property management companies in every major city carry out competently on a daily basis, how the h@#$ do we expect them to meet the much more demanding and complex challenges of raising student achievement?
Bizzaro Idaho
Richard Colvin's been doing a great job covering the through-the-looking-glass-ish debate on preschool in Idaho. Not only is Idaho one of the handful of states that doesn't have a state-funded preschool program;* state laws actually prohibit schools from serving kids under the age of 5. So the state legislature is now debating whether or not to allow school districts to serve 4-year-olds, provided that no state funds are used to do so. I find it particularly wacky that the primary opponents of this measure seem to be conservatives, who are opposing it on grounds that educating kids under 5 in the public schoolsis some kind of assualt on the family (how 5 got to be the magic age when publicly funded schooling no longer infringes on the family is not clearly explained). I thought conservatives believed in local control and flexibility in education? Wouldn't both those ideas imply you should allow school district leaders who believe they could serve kids (and, uh, families) better by offering preschool to do so? Particularly considering that a school district that's gonna bother finding its own source of non-state funding for such services isn't exactly acting on a whim and probably thinks this is really important?
*The federal Head Start program has grantees in Idaho, and presumably the state's public education system is meeting its obligations to serve infants, toddlers and preschoolers with disabilities under IDEA without enrolling them in public schools.
*The federal Head Start program has grantees in Idaho, and presumably the state's public education system is meeting its obligations to serve infants, toddlers and preschoolers with disabilities under IDEA without enrolling them in public schools.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
ASPEN on NCLB
The Aspen Commission on NCLB released its long-awaited report today. I'm still reading it, but on first blush it seems like a very solid piece of work, making substantive recommendations in the right places and not getting much wrong. In particular, it goes front and center with the idea of fundamentally changing the way teacher quality is defined, moving the emphasis from qualifications--academic credentials, state certfication, years of experience, etc.--to effectiveness--actual, empirical success in helping students learn. My colleague Eduwonk thinks the report could have done more still to address the human capital challenge in education, and he's right, but this change in and of itself could have far-reaching implications for the basic character and organization of our school system, which I described in a paper I wrote for the Education Trust a few years ago.
Putting the teacher quality recommendations first also send an important message: the standards and accountabilty movement of the last two decades has gotten us to the point where we have a pretty decent idea of what students need to learn, and which schools and districts aren't successful in meeting that goal. The much harder challenge going forward is figuring out what do with those schools and how to help those students, and any successful strategy in that regard has to begin with teachers.
More on this sure to come in the next few days.
Putting the teacher quality recommendations first also send an important message: the standards and accountabilty movement of the last two decades has gotten us to the point where we have a pretty decent idea of what students need to learn, and which schools and districts aren't successful in meeting that goal. The much harder challenge going forward is figuring out what do with those schools and how to help those students, and any successful strategy in that regard has to begin with teachers.
More on this sure to come in the next few days.
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