A recent report raises a fundamental education policy question that requires more than simply refuting the report's premise.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- a self-proclaimed "free market, limited government" non-profit, which is really just a spout of Republican policy ideas -- recently released its 16th annual Report Card on American Education. First of all, the LAST thing education needs is another report card. But I have to give it to my friends at SmartALECk which has been nothing less than persistent (in the true conservative spirit), having apparently kept this up for 16 years. Second, I note that ALEC's Board of Directors is populated almost entirely by Republican office holders. Third, I note that the report's foreward was written by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a Republican. It is no mystery for whom ALEC is shilling.
That said, the ALEC Report Card grades states based on two criteria: (1) Education Performance Rank and (2) Education Reform Grade. Specifically, a state's Education Performance Rank "measures the overall 2009 scores for low-income children (non-ELL and/or non-IEP) and their gains/losses on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) fourth- and eighth-grade reading and mathematics exams from 2003 to 2009." A state's "Education Reform Grade" is based on the following reform criteria (few of which are central to educational outcomes, but which are all weighted equally): state academic standards, change in state proficiency standards, private school choice, charter school laws, mandatory intra- and inter-district open enrollment, online learning policies and programs, homeschooling regulation levels, alternative teacher certification, identifying high-quality teachers, retaining effective teachers, and removing ineffective teachers.
The state of Vermont provides a case in point about what is flawed about ALEC's methodology and typifies a troubling dynamic in some of today's education policy and reform conversations. ALEC ranks the Green Mountain state #1 with respect to its educational performance, but gives it the lowest grade of any state - a 'D' - on education reform. I guess the question for me is what is the fundamental purpose of the American education system: To warm the cockles of would-be reformers' hearts by adopting their pet reforms? Or to achieve educational outcomes and accelerate student learning? Assuming you don't have trouble answering that question, what does this example say about broader education policies and reform conversations? Well, it reminds me that too often we seem more interested in the means rather than in the ends. And that's a big problem.
At the federal level, the Obama Administration is onto something with its "tight on ends, loose of means" mantra. Arne Duncan's Education Department has attempted to use that catchphrase to articulate a stronger federal role over education policy while reassuring educators and policymakers that it won't make policies too prescriptive if the desired results are achieved. In a sense, it is not entirely unlike No Child Left Behind's accountability system which more or less allowed schools to keep on keeping on as long as they didn't run afoul of adequate yearly progress requirements. As Fordham's Gadfly recently noted, the future of federal education policy is very much in doubt, dependent on the outcomes of November's elections, control of one or both houses of Congress, and whether the Know Nothing Tea Party forces seize control of the GOP agenda.
But prescriptive-ness is sometimes an invisible line. The Race to the Top program probably went too far down the path of requiring certain reforms that don't have much of an evidential basis, aren't ready to be fully implemented, or aren't scalable. In addition, as Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca (my high school principal at Essex High School in Vermont!) has noted, some of these faddish and sensible-in-certain-context reforms don't make sense or cannot be successfully implemented in a small, rural state such as Vermont. One also could ask whether RTTT scoring insufficiently weighted "improving student outcomes" -- which accounted for only 25 of the application's 500 total points (a mere 5 percent) -- in favor of promises of future reform. Again, is it about educational outcomes for students? Or it is about reform for reform's sake?
Back to the SmartALECk report: It would seem to me that ALEC is right in one sense. There *is* an argument for reducing federal regulation, and in education the answer is to leave well enough alone when a state such as Vermont is achieving great results. Now, we can argue over how those results should appropriately be measured, but that would be a more important conversation than talking about a metric such as 'reform' that is focused on pet approaches to privatizing education, firing teachers and enabling home schooling that likely have little bearing on student outcomes and that have little basis in research.
It is hypocritical of an organization like ALEC, committed to loosening regulations and limited government, to offer up such a prescriptive laundry list of reforms that states must enact to receive an 'A.' By ALEC's own outcome metric, Vermont is doing the best job of any state in the country in achieving equitable educational outcomes for low-income students. (Arguably, that is as much if not more due to Vermont's social safety net and universal health care as anything its schools are doing.) Accordingly, SmartALECk should let those results speak for themselves and save its ABCs and Ds to fill many bowls of alphabet soup during the coming winter.
Predictions that Florida Governor Charlie Crist's veto of a monstrosity of a teacher effectiveness bill back in April 2010 would cause his state to lose the Race to the Top competition have proven false.
Charlie Barone (Democrats for Education Reform), Mike Thomas (Orlando Sentinel columnist), Clayton Christensen, and others wrote at the time that Crist's veto would cost Florida its Phase Two Race to the Top funding. Nope. Even former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Andy Smarick (a favorite to be next New Jersey education commissioner) intimated that Crist's move was the wrong step and could harm Florida. But, lo and behold, the sky did not fall and Republican Crist is still standing (as an independent running for U.S. Senate). And the feds are cutting a $700 million check to the Sunshine State any day now (Orlando Sentinel).
In cycling races such as the Tour de France, riders tragically have lost their lives particularly in mountainous stages in the Alps or Pyrenees. Fortunately, no one was killed in the making of Race to the Top applications. But one state school chief, New Jersey's Brett Schundler, has lost his job as a result of it.
Gov. Chris Christie fired state education commissioner Bret Schundler this morning after Schundler refused to resign in the wake of the controversy over the state's loss of up to $400 million in federal school funding.
The state lost a competitive grant contest for education funding by 3 points. While the state lost points across a number of areas for substantive issues, a blunder on one 5-point question has caused an uproar in Trenton. The state lost 4.8 points by seemingly misreading the question, which asked for information from 2008 and 2009 budgets. The state provided information from 2011.
District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Maryland Massachusetts New York North Carolina Ohio Rhode Island
Here is the official U.S. Department of Education press release and the list of Phase Two scores:
Phase Two Winners: 1. MA - 471.0 2. NY - 464.8 3. HI - 462.4 4. FL - 452.4 5. RI - 451.2 6. DC - 450.0 7. MD - 450.0 8. GA - 446.4 9. NC - 441.6 10. OH - 440.8 ------------ Finalists: 11. NJ - 437.8 12. AZ - 435.4 13. LA - 434.0 14. SC - 431.0 15. IL - 426.6 16. CA - 423.6 17. CO - 420.2 18. PA - 417.6 19. KY - 412.4
This was an especially competitive round. And, as you can see above, there was NOT a natural cut-off point in the scores between successful applicants and unsuccessful ones. That's got to make the loss sting all the more for states such as New Jersey, Arizona, Louisiana and South Carolina especially. Just three points separate a funded state (Ohio) and a non-funded state (New Jersey)!
I am most surprised by the inclusion of Hawaii among the winners, but I was impressed by the strength and comprehensiveness of the teaching/leadership portion of its application. It will be interesting to see a full analysis of its very high score -- third highest, trailing only Massachusetts and New York.
The biggest shock to me is the absence of Illinois in the winners' circle. I felt that it had put together one of the more compelling applications and had been ranked 5th overall in Phase One. South Carolina is another strong contender that missed out; it had the 6th highest ranked application in Phase One.
Dorie Turner of the Associated Press is reporting via Twitter that New York is one of the winners of Race to the Top, Phase Two. If that is the case -- and heavily favored Florida also is shown the money -- then we are likely looking at fewer than 10 winners today. That is, unless states are funded at less than the maximums that they requested. Under such a "spreading the wealth" scenario, then there could be more winners.
I'm not going to make predictions -- I think the cut off is likely to be determined by a few points here and there. But I still like the chances of Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island, and South Carolina best.
EPILOGUE (8/24/2010): Well, my predictions below didn't quite pan out. FL and RI came in strong, but IL and SC flopped (but by mere points, of course). I was almost right that with two large states funded -- Florida and New York -- it would limit the number of winners. But the predicted nine became ten with the surprise inclusion of Hawaii (75 mil) among the winners, along with DC (also only 75 mil). For more on the winners, see here.
Based on Phase 1 scores, reviews of Phase 2 applications, and other considerations, I believe Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island and South Carolina are locks for Phase 2 funding. [UPDATE (8/4/2010): One thing that should be concerning to Georgia is an extremely low level of district buy-in (14%) to its application. The only two other states below 50% buy-in are California (18%) -- by design -- and Pennsylvania (32%). As a result I've moved Georgia from a 'lock' to a 'strong' contender.]
Further, I think that Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania have strong chances at winning Phase 2 funding. (That would place the remaining finalists -- Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Hawaii and New Jersey -- outside the winners' circle.) That said, which and how many states will eventually be funded from the remaining pot of $3.4 billion is largely contingent upon the successes of the Big Three, each eligible to win $700 million: Florida, New York and California. The presence of numerous $400 million eligible states in the mix also has the potential to limit the number of winners.
Let's look at a variety of scenarios, assuming in each case that Florida can bank on the $700 million. Of the three, I think New York has the next best shot at the dollars, with California's chances slightly less. In each case, I have listed the states in Phase One rank order (so feel free to replace any with your preference).
Scenario #1 (Florida only) TOTAL = $3.375 billion11 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD
$700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK
4
Georgia
$400,000,000
3
Illinois So. Carolina
$400,000,000 $175,000,000
5 6
Pennsylvania Rhode Island Kentucky
$400,000,000 $75,000,000 $175,000,000
7 8 9
Ohio
$400,000,000
10
Louisiana
$175,000,000
11
No. Carolina
$400,000,000
12
DC
$75,000,000
16
Scenario #2 (Florida & New York) TOTAL = $3.425 billion9 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD
$700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK
4
New York Georgia
$700,000,000 $400,000,000
15 3
Illinois So. Carolina
$400,000,000 $175,000,000
5 6
Pennsylvania Rhode Island Kentucky
$400,000,000 $75,000,000 $175,000,000
7 8 9
Ohio
$400,000,000
10
Scenario #3 (Florida, New York & California) TOTAL = $3.325 billion8 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD
$700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK
4
New York California Georgia
$700,000,000 $700,000,000 $400,000,000
15 27 3
Illinois So. Carolina
$400,000,000 $175,000,000
5 6
Rhode Island Kentucky
$75,000,000 $175,000,000
8 9
DC
$75,000,000
16
Scenario #4 (Max. Applicants w/ Florida) TOTAL = $3.4 billion 12 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD $700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK 4
Georgia
$400,000,000
3
Illinois
$400,000,000
5
So. Carolina
$175,000,000
6
Pennsylvania
$400,000,000
7
Rhode Island
$75,000,000
8
Kentucky
$175,000,000
9
Ohio
$400,000,000
10
Louisiana
$175,000,000
11
Massachusetts
$250,000,000
13
Colorado
$175,000,000
14
DC
$75,000,000
16
Unless Florida somehow manages to fall on its face in Phase 2, I don't think it is realistic to envision more than 12 applicants receiving funding -- and that would require one of the $400 million-eligible states (such as North Carolina or Ohio) to be eclipsed and knocked out by a smaller state ranked lower in Phase 1 (such as Colorado, Massachusetts and/or the District of Columbia) or by Maryland, which did not apply in Phase 1 [see Scenario #4]. So although the U.S. Department of Education has dangled the possibility of as many as 15 Phase 2 winners, I don't see realistically how we can get there.
Education Week's Michele McNeil and Alyson Klein at Politics K-12 have the scoop on the Race to the Top, Phase 2 finalists. There are 19 of them:
Arizona
California
Colorado
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Generally, I think this is about the number of and group of applicants that most expected, including me. The two biggest surprises on the list are Arizona (although it received support from Gates in Phase 2) and Hawaii. There are no shocking omissions from the list, although some felt that the likes of Arkansas, Connecticut, Michigan, Oklahoma and Utah had outside shots at success.
Want to read all the finalists' applications to see what's so good about 'em? You can find links to all the applications here.
Winners are expected to be named by the U.S. Department of Education in late August or early September.
This policy proposal from Senate Republican Leader Jon Kyl (of Arizona) with a $678 billion price tag -- yes, BILLION -- puts the hullaballo over the $800 million "edujobs" controversy into some perspective. How about we tap into THAT source of revenue by letting the tax cuts expire to save teachers' jobs and leave the currently authorized education reform programs alone?
From Huffington Post ("Jon Kyl: Extend Bush Tax Cuts for Wealthy Even If They Add To Deficit"):
Top Senate Republican Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) insisted on Sunday that Congress should extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans regardless of their impact on the deficit, even as he and other Republicans are blocking unemployment insurance extensions over deficit concerns.
White House aides immediately seized on the comments. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs wrote on Twitter, "Kyl says wealthy need big Bush tax cuts while middle class families are on their own to fend for themselves as a result of Bush economy."
With concerns over the massive budget deficit, rising income inequality, and an inability to fund existing programs, why again should we extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that were bad policy when they were enacted? And this at the same time when Republicans are refusing to extend $30 billion of unemployment benefits for Americans hit hardest by the recession. That's rich.
The Washington Post editorial page weighed in on this issue in today's edition, too.
That is a brief clip of Diane Ravitch addressing the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association on July 6, where she was receiving an award as the 2010 "Friend of Education."
Please keep reading.
The complete text of Diane's speech can be read here. She has given me permission to quote as much as I deem appropriate, including the whole speech if necessary.
I won't do that. You can follow the link to read the entire text if so inclined.
Let me offer some selections to at least whet your appetite, as well as offer a bit of commentary of my own.
... in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.
I remind readers that the Representative Assembly passed a resolution of no confidence in Race to the Top.
And as I talk to teachers, by the end of my talk, I hear the same questions again and again: What can we do? How can we stop the attacks on teachers and on the teaching profession? Why is the media demonizing unions? Why does the media constantly criticize public schools? And why does it lionize charter schools? Why is Arne Duncan campaigning with Newt Gingrich? Why has the Obama Administration built its education agenda on the punitive failed strategies of No Child Left Behind?
Newt Gingrich - now there's a great ally for a supposedly progressive administration, eh? And during the campaign, Obama railed against NCLB, yet too much of the administration policy continues to rely on the failed policies of that approach.
I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.
We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.
I have been told by some people in the Obama Administration that the way to stop the narrowing of the curriculum is to test everything. In fact, the chancellor in Washington, D.C., the other day announced she plans to do exactly that. That means less time for instruction, more time for testing, and a worse education for everyone.
Some of us have worried about this trend for years - I remember a group of elementary school art teachers asking their state for a test on art so their classes would not be eliminated. As it happens, my course is one in which there is a test that has high stakes - students in theory must not only pass a government course but also a state test in government in order to graduate from high school (although the latter requirement has some loopholes). Let me say that for too many students their course in government gets reduced, especially in the Spring as the test approaches, to drill and kill, practice for the test. For a subject that should excite them, because it has direct affect on their lives, they get bored and frustrated.
In speaking out, I have consistently warned about the riskiness of school choice. Its benefits are vastly overstated. It undercuts public education by enabling charter schools to skim the best students in poor communities. As our society pursues these policies, we will develop a bifurcated system, one for the haves, another for the have-nots, and politicians have the nerve to boast about such an outcome.
Public schools, as I said before, are a cornerstone of our democratic society. If we chip away at support for them, we erode communal responsibility for a vital public institution.
Bifurcated - even worse than what we have by geography, where wealthy communities have excellent public schools rich in resources and the students have access to all kinds of elective courses, and poor communities, whether in inner cities, inner rings of suburbs or the hinterlands, lacking equipment, with decaying buildings, and overwhelmed with students arriving st school with less background and current problems.
democratic society - if we really believe in it, economics would not be the sole basis on which we make arguments about our schools.
Last year, a major evaluation showed that one out of every six charters will get better results, five out of six charters will get no different results or worse results than the regular public schools. A report released just a couple of weeks ago by Mathematica Policy Research once again shows charter middle schools do not get better results than regular public middle schools.
Unfortunately, the general media coverage of the Mathematica report was badly flawed, focused on the schools that did 'better' while not including any of the caveats about even these schools. Charters COULD be used to offer alternative ways of teaching/learning to specific groups of students. Diane's next two paragraphs are very important:
The National Assessment of Educational Progress, on whose board I served for seven years, has tested charter schools since 2003. In 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, charter schools were compared to regular public schools and have never shown an advantage over regular public schools. Charter schools, contrary to Bill Gates, are not more innovative than regular public schools. The business model and methods of charter schools is this — longer school days, longer hours, longer weeks, and about 95 percent of charter schools are non-union.
Teachers are hired and fired at will. Teachers work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. They are expected to burn out after two or three years when they can be replaced. No pension worries, no high salaries. This is not a template for American education.
NAEP is the national report card on education. It is considered the gold standard of educational evaluation. It does not show that charters do better. One reason why some "reformers" like charters is that in many states they are a way around unions, and their teachers can be fired at will.
Let me skip down a bit:
And perhaps we should begin demanding that school districts be held accountable for providing the resources that schools need. Just like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top requires and pressures districts to close low-performing schools. The overwhelming majority of low-performing schools enroll students in poverty and students who don’t speak English and students who are homeless and transient. Very often, these schools have heroic staffs who are working with society’s neediest children. These teachers deserve praise, not pink slips. Closing schools weakens communities. It’s not a good idea to weaken communities. No school was ever improved by closing it.
Reread that please. Yes, you will read stories that supposedly focus on "high-performing" schools dealing with such students. In some cases the claims for high performance are based on selective use of data. In most cases the schools on which such focus is made get more resources (as do many charters), have longer days, etc. The "success" is claimed on the basis of test scores. What is not yet offered is any evidence that there are long-term gains in learning: that the students are developing skills and knowledge that they can apply outside of the test environment. Meanwhile we reconstitute schools. We use one of the four models approved by this administration, even though NONE has any research to demonstrate that they improve education.
There are passages about the right to unionize, which Diane supports, but which "reformers" oppose. Read this paragraph, and perhaps you will understand two things, (1) why teachers are reacting so positively towards Diane; and (2) why we feel unfairly besieged, that the playing field is tilted:
I have spoken out repeatedly to defend the right of teachers to join unions for their protection and the protection of the teaching profession. Teachers have a right to a collective voice in the political process. It’s the American way. I don’t see the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the pundits complaining about the charter school lobby. I don’t see them complaining about the investment bankers lobby, or any other group that speaks on behalf of its members. Only teachers’ unions are demonized these days.
Teachers, and those who support them, ARE being demonized. By constrast, Hedge Fund managers (who are making major investments in things like charter schools for tax benefits) and Wall Street Firms (who came close to destroying the economy of this nation and the international community) get bailed out with our tax dollars, continue to pay bonuses, and spend millions to prevent appropriate oversight and regulation. Then they want to have a voice telling us how we should teach, how our schools should be run.
There is so much of value in the speech. By now I hope I have at least convinced you to take the time to read the entire thing.
Let me offer only a few more snippets, skipping over some very important material:
Around the world, those nations that are successful recognize that the best way to improve school is to improve the education profession. We need expert teachers, not a steady influx of novices.
One argument against Teach for America, for example. Now if those in that program actually stayed in teaching, people like Ravitch and me would have far fewer objections. The constant turnover in the schools in which they serve is unfair to those kids. The program benefits many in the TFA corps, and it certainly benefits TFA. It is not clear that the students are getting all that much benefit, and the model is not something that can really address the needs of the millions of students in inner city and rural schools.
The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen.
The consequences of letting these "reforms" go forward unchallenged will be great damages far beyond the arena of public education. It will be further destruction of what is left of the union movement in this country. It will be increased privatization of what is left of the commons in this country/ It will be a narrowing of opportunity for too many of our young people. It will diminish us as a people as our young people receive narrower and narrower educations.
Diane urges those listening to her to be politically active, to remind people that there are millions of teachers, we vote, and so do our families, to not support anyone who is an opponent of public education.
Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.
Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.
Diane Ravitch received a rousing ovation for this speech. As a teacher, as a UNIONIZED teacher in a public school, I understand why.
I thought it important that as many people as possible encounter HER words, not just cursory news accounts. I think it important that voices that speak for teachers and for public schools be given as much of an audience as those who have described themselves as 'reformers' and seek to suppress or denigrate any opposing point of view.
That is why I asked Diane, a friend, if I could quote extensively. That is why Diane told me "You are free to cite or quote whatever you wish."
A recent report raises a fundamental education policy question that requires more than simply refuting the report's premise.
