The Education Gadfly Daily

Top Ten Takeaways: Common Assessments (Part 2)

May 24, 2013

Following yesterday’s release of #10–#6, here are my top five takeaways from my Q&A sessions with USED, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced (most important is #1).

5. The P is for prudence

The most noticeable aspect of PARCC’s response was its the-dog-that-didn’t-bark-ness. I expected, but didn’t get, more discussion of big successes to date.

Maybe they have gobs to peacock about but chose not to, wanting later results to speak for themselves (more on that in #4). People I trust say they are on the way to getting content, alignment, and rigor right. Maybe my questions didn’t set them up to brag about that stuff?

Or maybe my reaction is just a matter of relativity. When compared to SB’s earnest, 3,000-word, front-of-the-classroom response, heck, almost anything would’ve paled.

But maybe my affection for PARCC’s board and team has softened me. A cynic might say PARCC’s limited discussion of wins is a red flag.

I don’t find anything worrisome in PARCC’s response, so I won’t speculate. So I’ll say this: PARCC’s modest response about past activities probably won’t change too many Insiders’ right-track/wrong-track vote in either direction.

4. Confidence about the future

Reports of the consortia’s death have been greatly exaggerated! Or so they argue: Both come across as sanguine about the days ahead.

Are their tests going to be on time?

PARCC: We are “on-track to deliver high quality computer-based summative assessments for mathematics and ELA/literacy in grades 3–11 in the 2014–15 school year.”
SB: “We are on track to deliver each aspect of our assessment system on time and on budget in 2014–15.”

Are they worried about states abandoning the consortia?

SB: “We have no reason to expect changes among our 21 governing states.”
PARCC: “Our governing states tell us they are in it for the long haul.”

What about these large proportions of Education Insiders saying both consortia are on the wrong track?

PARCC: “The ‘education insiders’ who matter most are our state chiefs, local educators and local school systems. They tell us they are pleased with our progress, and we will keep pushing forward as planned.”
SB: (My paraphrase): We’re quietly doing tough, technical work; those folks aren’t assessment experts; they don’t know what we’ve been doing.

Doughty stuff, indeed. Take that, Smarick, Finn, and Education Insiders!

3. Whither common assessments?

Secretary Duncan used to assail the “race to the bottom.” States had different standards and tests, and the tests differed in difficulty and cut scores. So a state could “improve” its comparative standing by merely easing its standards or tests.

The solution, he argued, was common standards and common assessments. Three Duncan quotes from 2010:

(Note two things about his vision: Commonality is key and state decision making on tests created huge problems—“insidious,” “no sense.”)

“The Common Core standards developed by the states, coupled with the new generation of assessments, will help put an end to the insidious practice of establishing 50 different goalposts for educational success.”

“The fact of, you know, 50 states doing this individually has made no sense whatever. You know, this is much more efficient, and both intellectually and from a financial standpoint is the right way to go.”

“For the first time, it will be possible for parents and schools leaders to assess and compare in detail how students in their state are doing compared to students in other states.”

Statements like these had me believing the Department was determined to have states participate in the consortia. In fact, one 2010 Duncan statement suggested that the consortia would be the only testing options:

“We hope these two groups will work together and learn from one another. States will have the ability to - you'll pick which one they think will be best for them.”

This is why I asked all three respondents how important the consortia were to Common Core and why I asked the Department if it would use its authority to hold states in the consortia.

The answers I got were unexpected and significant.

The consortia surprisingly demurred. SB replied, “The Common Core will succeed or fail in the classroom.”

But the Department’s response was clear: It is not going to hold states together on assessments.

While it thinks a diffuse system of tests with varying cut scores would be “unfortunate,” the Department implied things wouldn’t be so bad.

To paraphrase its response: The public reporting requirements of ESEA would continue to ensure transparency and the ability to identify areas of weakness in states. States would work with their institutions of higher education to create tests that measure college- and career-readiness. And NAEP would still provide comparable cross-state results.

Two things stand out. First, it feels like the Department has seriously pulled back on the importance of common assessments—three years ago, different state systems “made no sense” and was “insidious.”

Second, we had ESEA reporting requirements, state-based test decisions, and NAEP results back when Secretary Duncan bemoaned the “race to the bottom.” Those things evidently didn’t stop states from scurrying downward. Why would they now?

2. The return of the Tenth Amendment and the loss of commonality

There were times during my reading of the responses that I thought I had inadvertently picked up a copy of the Republican Party’s platform on federalism. We’re talking about near-obsequious touting of state authority.

PARCC and SB are collections of states, so I wasn’t surprised to read it from them. But the Department’s enormous deference to states speaks volumes about the current politics of Common Core and, more importantly for our purposes here, the future of Common Core–aligned tests.

The Department’s response included the following:

“The states are the vital decision-makers here”
“States must make the right decisions for their students and communities”
“How states get (to great standards and assessments) is entirely up to them.”
“Again, states need to individually make the best decision for them based on all the relevant facts.”

I have a difficult time squaring these comments with the 2010 language (quoted above) that demeaned a state-led system of standards and assessments.

It seems pretty clear that this is simply realpolitik from the Department. At present, much of the political right sees the push for common standards and assessments as federal overreach. In power in many states, leaders on the right are now doing something about it—e.g., Indiana’s and Pennsylvania’s Common Core repudiations.

I’m sure many advocates for common standards and assessments now feel wistful. Would this backlash have occurred had the Department used language more deferential to states than the 2010 language cited above?

Would there be less antagonism toward Common Core and common assessments had the Department allowed them to gain support organically instead of pushing them so forcefully?

(In Rick Hess’s direct language, the Department has its “thumbprints all over the Common Core. The administration has pushed it through Race to the Top, the NCLB waivers, and their ‘ESEA blueprint’; they've championed it in public remarks; and they've patted themselves on the back for all this in the Democratic National Platform.”)

I have to wonder: If four years of policy and communications had been more modest, would the Department now be in better position to hold the consortia together and prevent a splintering on assessments?

The Department now says it’s fine with states making their own testing decisions. But based on that 2010 language, the $330 million it spent on the consortia, and its weaving of common standards and assessments into other programs, I suspect it was the Department’s wish that all or nearly all states participated in the consortia.

That now is out of the Department’s hands. Broad commonality in testing may be lost.

But the Department has not surrendered; instead, it appears to have made a clever tactical retreat. It has drawn a line in the sand, and we now know where the final battle will be fought.

1. Rigor, alignment, and technical review

With commonality likely a lost cause, the Department will fight for rigor and alignment.

Each state can choose whatever assessment system it wants—PARCC, SB, or something else—but that system will have to be aligned with high-quality standards and measure college- and career-readiness.

The Department gave several interesting clues about how this will play out. First, it mentioned that Common Core differs from other standards, for example, in its heavy focus on writing; therefore, “assessments that truly measure the Common Core will likely look different from current state tests.”

How I read this: Test makers and states, off-the-shelf won’t cut it.

Second, the Department said it is studying how to determine whether a test actually measures college- and career-readiness.

I interpret that to mean the Department will be very interested in state cut scores.

Third, the Department reminds us that current law requires a state’s tests to be aligned with its standards, and that the Department has a peer-review system for ensuring that. In a few months, the Department says it will re-launch the now-paused peer-review system and provide additional detail “about our process and our criteria.”

Then, the kicker:

Once complete, all assessment systems, including PARCC, Smarter Balanced, and all other state assessment systems, will be required to demonstrate how they meet the requirements for technical quality, alignment, and other assessment best practices.

(Don’t consider this an idle threat. Though it was in the previous administration, the Department has withheld funds from a state for not adhering to federal rules on testing.)

So in total: The Department will be hands-off about the test systems states choose; the consortia will sink or swim based on their ability to create products states want; states may chose to go in different directions, making comparing results difficult; but the Department will use its peer-review process to ensure state systems are aligned with standards and set the proficiency bar high.

Keep your eyes peeled for information from the Department on the peer-review process and criteria. That will be the pulling back of the curtain, the big reveal, for how Common Core will be assessed.

First Bell 5-24-13

May 24, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Fordham's latest

"Top Ten Takeaways: Common Assessments (Part 1 of 2)," by Andy Smarick, Common Core Watch

Yesterday, the House passed legislation—mainly along party lines—to stop a doubling of student-loan interest rates by tying rates to prevailing market trends and ending federal subsidies. (Politics K–12 and New York Times)

Rhode Island has become the first state to officially adopt the Next Generation Science Standards. (Curriculum Matters)

After Chicago announced that it would close fifty public schools, the CTU renewed its promise to oust Mayor Emanuel. (Huffington Post)

The Hechinger Report profiles the transition to Common Core in Washington, D.C.

A team of MIT researchers report that Boston’s charter school students perform better than their traditional public school peers. (Charters & Choice)

A study finds that minority students are less likely to be diagnosed with autism. (On Special Education)

Politics K–12 takes a closer look at the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 school-finance data on per-pupil spending.

Bad to good and good to great

May 24, 2013

This article originally appeared on Education Week’s Bridging Differences blog, where Mike Petrilli will be debating Deborah Meier through mid-June.

Many of the seeds planted in the "let a thousand flowers bloom" era of the early charter schools movement grew into skunk cabbage. What happened?
Photo by Nicholas_T

Dear Deborah,

I want to say more about a topic that interests us both: How to create an accountability system that empowers excellent educators to create top-notch schools while ensuring a basic level of quality for everyone.

It's a real dilemma, because what might work in a hothouse setting (especially lots of professional autonomy) has tended to disappoint when taken to scale.

That's not easy for me to admit. My first education enthusiasm was the notion of autonomy and uber-local control, as epitomized in Chicago's "local school councils" of the early 1990s. I wrote my college thesis on the topic (with the help of the University of Michigan's great David Cohen), and came away convinced that educator autonomy, plus parental choice, would lead us to the Promised Land. (Professor Cohen knew better!)

A few years later, I landed at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, where we embraced the "let a thousand flowers bloom" mantra of the early charter schools movement. I helped plant a few of said flowers in our hometown of Dayton, Ohio—flowers that turned out to be, err, more like skunk cabbage.

It was a disaster. Well, not a total disaster. A few of those charter schools (in Ohio and elsewhere) turned out to be quite good. KIPP. Amistad Academy. The Met. High Tech High.

But many, many more turned out mediocre, or worse.

What was the problem? We'd cleared away the soul-sucking union contracts and much of the mindless bureaucracy. We'd empowered educators to do their thing and let the magic happen. Yet many flopped.

It wasn't just the test scores—though those were often pretty pitiful. Anyone who visited the schools could see with their own eyes that there wasn't much there there—the curriculum (if they had one) was disorganized or incoherent, the teaching was inconsistent (at best) and nonexistent (at worse), the culture was weak. The schools were often small, safe, and welcoming—virtues, all—but you couldn't say much more about them without wanting to cry.

Freedom for educators and for parents is necessary, but not sufficient, for the creation of excellent schools.

This period of the charter movement yielded difficult lessons—but which lessons is still debated. Did it just show that nothing works—that poverty is too much of a barrier for anyone to overcome? (Most of these early charters in most states were serving overwhelmingly poor students.) Were the charters simply underfunded—money matters after all!—and just needed more resources to succeed? Did it prove that "decentralization" and "professional autonomy" are misguided—and that what we need is more centralization and control, like some systems overseas?

My own take is that freedom—for educators to do their work and for parents to choose an environment that's right for their children—is necessary, but not sufficient, for the creation of excellent schools. That it's "necessary" is obvious by looking at what happens in highly controlled, regimented systems in the United States or around the world. These systems can bring a certain degree of quality control to the task and make sure that outright failures (educational, fiscal, or otherwise) don't happen. But it's hard to find an "excellent" school in a command-and-control system. That's because of a simple fact of human psychology: We hate being told what to do.

You can't just empower anyone—you have to empower a team of people who actually know what they are doing.

But removing all strings isn't sufficient to get you excellence, either. You can't just empower anyone—you have to empower a team of people who actually know what they are doing. And these people, collectively, must have the capacity to run a great school. They need to have a coherent pedagogical vision, know how to build a curriculum, know how to create a positive school culture, know how to build and follow a sensible budget, know how to put reasonable "internal controls" in place, know how to recruit a great staff, and on and on. These people, it turns out, are scarcer than I had realized at age 22.

And then you have to hold these schools accountable for getting strong results with kids. That brings us back to the question of measurements. I think the charter movement had it right from the get-go: Each school would have its own "charter" spelling out the results that it would be responsible for achieving, and these metrics could be customized to the school. More traditional schools might have been happy to use test scores, but more progressive ones might use something else—say, their graduates' success at the next level of schooling. (Deborah, how do you think about this for a school like Mission Hill, whose test scores are pretty mediocre? Is it how well their students do in high school?)

Then came the modern standards-testing-accountability movement with its emphasis on uniform achievement measures, culminating in No Child Left Behind. Here those of us in the charter movement made a mistake. We quickly agreed to be part of the "same accountability system" as other public schools, which meant that those customized "charters" mostly went out the window; the measures that mattered were the test scores and nothing but. We did this for understandable and strategic reasons—imagine the outcry from charter opponents if charters didn't have to sweat the tests!—but it was a step backward nonetheless. And it led, predictably, to less pedagogical diversity in the charter movement, which came to be increasingly dominated by "traditional" models of schools.

So now what? Let me make a modest proposal for how to design an accountability system going forward; I think you might actually like it!

First, as the default system, we keep something like we have today, but with better standards and tests. (Yes, common-core standards and tests.) Students are tested annually; schools are held accountable for making solid progress from September to June, with greater progress expected for students who are further behind. States and districts give these schools lots of assistance—with curriculum development, teacher training, and the like. Such a default system won't lead to widespread excellence, but it will continue to raise the floor so that the "typical" school in America becomes better than it is today. (NB: I'd scrap any state-prescribed "accountability" below the level of the school. In other words, no more rigid teacher evaluation systems; leave personnel issues to the principals.) And it would provide taxpayers an assurance that they are getting a "public good" from their investment in public education (namely, a reasonably educated citizenry).
Then we offer all public schools—district and charter—an opt-out alternative. They can propose to the state or its surrogate that they be held accountable to a different set of measures. My preferences would be those related to the long-term success of their graduates. School "inspections" could be part of the picture, too. These evaluation metrics would be rigorous, but designed to be supportive of, rather than oppositional to, the cause of excellent schools. And they might be particularly important to educators of a more progressive, anti-testing bent.

How about it, Deborah? The "default" system would keep schools from being bad, and might even help most schools be good. And the "alternative" system would unleash our best educators to go for great.

Deal?

Mike

New homes for D.C. charter schools

May 24, 2013

Charter schools have captured nearly half of the public school market in Washington, D.C., but they have struggled to find suitable buildings to carry out their mission. That changed this week when D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gray announced that the District would give charter schools the chance to lease as many as sixteen former or soon-to-be-closed public school buildings. Charter advocates were pleased.

This move was long overdue. Charters have been attracting more and more of the public school market share in D.C. every year, but they have been grasping for adequate space to accommodate their burgeoning enrollments. Arguably, the D.C. charter sector would be even larger today if the city hadn’t hoarded vacant properties, prompting even the best charters to scrounge for makeshift facilities and place students on waitlists due to lack of space.

These challenges are familiar to charter schools in most cities. Despite the surge in charter school enrollments and the support the sector receives from both political parties, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has documented that charters still commonly rent or own building space that is much smaller than that occupied by their traditional public school peers or that lack kitchens, gymnasiums, libraries, or science and computer labs.

The same could be said of even the best-performing charters in D.C. Until the high-flying Washington Latin Public Charter Schools got the chance to move into a former district school, it had been operating on three different campuses and forcing older students to walk three blocks to get from class to class. KIPP DC has been struggling to find new property for its high school to meet heightened demand.

Mayor Gray then perhaps recognized that the city can’t keep treating certain public school students as second-class citizens. He’ll now give twelve charter schools long-term leases and provide the others with short-term rentals. Eight of these buildings are district schools scheduled to close by next year.

Charter opponents in the district have decried the move as another, major step toward an all-charter school system. But this ignores the trend lines in D.C.: Charter enrollments have grown by around 7 percent each year during the past five years and are on track to make up 50 percent of the total public school population in the near future. To ask in-demand charters to keep turning students away because they lack the facilities is unacceptable.

Charters shouldn’t have to rely on the goodwill of city leaders and school districts just to get a suitable school building. They should have access to the same capital funds and bonding authority available to traditional school systems. But until they do, Gray’s move ought to be emulated in other cities.

Top Ten Takeaways: Common Assessments (Part 1 of 2)

May 23, 2013

The three-part series of interviews on the nation’s move to Common Core–aligned assessments was as edifying as I could’ve hoped. USED, PARCC, and Smarter Balanced offered meaningful information on the current state of play and clear indications of what’s on the horizon.

I’ve pulled out a “Top Ten Takeaways” from the exchange. Today, we’re posting #10–#6 (they’re in rank order so #1 is most important). Tomorrow, we’ll post #5 - #1.

10. Competition with the testing industry is GAME ON!

In ways subtle and not, the responses sought to differentiate the consortia’s efforts from the testing industry.

It seemed like the Department’s interest was in drawing a line between the old and the new. Why’d they spend $330 million on new tests? Because, USED says, governors and state chiefs asked them to do so.

Why did states make that ask? “Because the market was not meeting their needs.”

According to the feds, the consortia are building “next-generation” tests that “will offer significant improvements directly responsive to the wishes of teachers and other practitioners: they will offer better assessment of critical thinking, through writing and real-world problem solving, and offer more accurate and rapid scoring.”

“We expect the consortia to develop assessment systems that are markedly better than current assessments.”

The implication is that the testing industry had come up short.

SB said its new tests would offer a “quality benefit”; SB’s transparency is “antithetical to the competitive nature of commercial test publishing”; states will now have more control over tests; and tests will have more high-quality items.

PARCC argued that “through the consortium, states are able to ensure a higher-quality assessment than any individual state could by itself.” If states drop out, they “will likely use lower quality tests to assess the CCSS.”

PARCC was also clear that the consortia had the ability make the testing industry better: “The power of states working together is going to move and improve the entire testing industry” and “The consortia assessments are our best chance to move the testing industry towards innovation and quality.”

What does PARCC think about testing companies trying to steal away its members with big promises? “The state chiefs have been hearing this sales pitch for years, and they are wise to the ways of the traditional testing industry.”

Bam!

Have no doubt: This is true-blue competition.

I’m sure the consortia believe everything they’re saying, but have no doubt, they’re also talking down their competitors.

They’ve probably had an inkling that the testing companies were quietly looking to pick off states. But yesterday’s hugely revealing Ed Week piece on ACT removed all doubt as the company declared, “We are Plan B.”

Ka-pow!

The testing companies’ capturing states would be a coup: beating out two consortia of states that were buoyed by federal money and given several years of lead-time to get their offerings right. The consortia don’t want to lose members, and they certainly don’t want to have to explain why they got $330 million of taxpayer funds if the market was going to produce something states wanted and without government money.

It seems the consortia are working overtime to maintain their respective market shares. When asked about the possibility of Florida’s and other states’ exodus, PARCC summed things up extremely well.

Yes, we think they’ll stay with us, “[b]ut we know there are no guarantees. That is why we are working hard to produce the highest-quality assessment that reflects the needs of PARCC states…Our job is to make sure that PARCC remains ‘Plan A’ for Florida and every other member state.”

Game on.

9. Technology as a major issue

Both consortia concede that while some states are ready to give online tests, some are not. Both are confident states will get there. (As a precaution, both are providing a paper-and-pencil option.)

To help the cause, SB announced that old operating systems and processors and limited memory will be sufficient to administer its assessments. With PARCC, it developed a “technology readiness tool” that allows schools and districts to track progress.

Making the infrastructure upgrades necessary and procuring the needed devices is a huge lift for states. Moreover, online tests come with their own challenges.

As states list the pros and cons of staying in the consortia, tech issues will be front and center.

8. The complexity and consequences of coordination and consensus

Both PARCC and SB discussed the difficulty associated with so many cooks in the kitchen. Completing tasks requires so many different actors across so many different states, and so many stakeholders want to play a role. In PARCC’s words, “There are thousands of state leaders, local educators and postsecondary leaders, administrators and faculty who are engaged in developing the PARCC assessment system.”

SB wrote about the challenge of “responding to the intense—and legitimate—interest of so many diverse parties in this work.” Moreover, “Keeping this diverse array of interested parties informed about the complex and often highly technical work of building an assessment system has been more challenging than we originally imagined.”

This is noteworthy because these challenges have arisen prior to the high-stakes state-level decisions just ahead. As states approach crucial go/no-go calls (budgeting for the new tests, ending contracts for existing tests), the gaps between the consortia’s decisions and each state’s preferred paths will be magnified.

In other words, a number of states might opt out partially because they didn’t get their ways on some number of issues.

7. Smarter Balanced has its act together

I follow the assessments transition closely, and even I didn’t realize how far SB had come. Perhaps they are just really good at telling their story, but I walked away from their submission convinced they are running a pretty tight ship.

They’ve hit their project milestones for delivering summative, interim, and formative assessments. The estimated cost for their full formative-interim-summative package is less than what most of their members currently pay.

This coming year, they’ll pilot 5,000 items and tasks with about a million students. This month, they plan to release a complete set of practice tests for each subject and grade level. They’ve done small trials already.

Finally, they believe all of their governing-board members are fully committed (that is, not flight risks). In a recent survey, all but one of their states indicated plans to use the full suite of tests; the other plans use only the summative assessment.

Not too shabby.

6. But what will be the quality of SB’s act?

In so many ways, Smarter Balanced gave the impression that their process has been (and therefore their final product may be) business-as-usual. Time and time again, I found myself saying, “Wow, this sounds traditional.”

Consider SB’s verbatim language:

“The process Smarter Balanced is using is very similar to the processes that states have been using for over a decade to create assessments for NCLB accountability”
“To date, our work has been supported through contracts with every one of the country’s large testing companies”
“The test-development process Smarter Balanced is using follows a sequence of steps that is familiar to all experienced assessment professionals.”

More than just using familiar processes, SB seems to have done everything possible to generate consensus among its countless stakeholders—such language is throughout their response. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this in principle—in fact, it’s laudable—but it does raise the specter of lowest-common-denominator-itis.

Take for example, SB’s “innovative approach” to setting cut scores. Concerned that member states might not feel “adequately represented” by just participating in workshops, SB has created a crowd-sourcing mechanism so just about everyone can weigh in on what proficiency means. Will that lead to tough cut scores or widely accepted cut scores (BIG difference)?

Perhaps SB’s most revealing response along these lines is the following: “While the process that is being used to develop the Smarter Balanced assessment system would be familiar to anyone who has ever built a test, what is unique about Smarter Balanced is the bringing together of a large and diverse array of talent committed to making each element of the system ’best in breed.’”

That sounds to me like things aren’t going to be different so much as consensus based and better (though my colleague Kathleen Porter-Magee might question the “better” part).

Maybe this is the right course of action. It’ll keep people together and keep everything on pace. The product will probably be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

I guess my overall take is this: I’m certainly more confident than before that SB will successfully deliver something reputable and on-time. For that, they deserve a tip of the hat.

However, I just find it hard to make the case, based on what I read from them, that it will be “next generation.”

But I may be wrong. Time will tell.

First Bell 5-23-13

May 23, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Fordham's latest

"By the Company It Keeps: Tim Daly," by Andy Smarick, Flypaper

"School funding and poverty in the suburbs," by Terry Ryan, Ohio Gadfly Daily

"Longing for the Holy Grail," by Adam Emerson, Choice Words

In the largest mass school closure in any major U.S. city, Chicago officials have officially voted to shutter forty-nine public schools this year and one next year. (Washington Post, New York Times, Huffington Post, and Chicago Tribune)

ACT Inc. has jumped into the Common-Core-assessments arena, announcing that they are an alternative to the Smarter Balanced and PARCC tests. (Curriculum Matters)

A new report finds that while two-year colleges enroll more poor and minority students, they receive lower levels of federal resources. (New York Times)

Kansas lawmakers have dropped from a state budget bill a measure that would have blocked spending on Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. (Curriculum Matters)

The U.S. Department of Education reports that even as more Americans than ever are earning bachelor’s degrees, the nation’s international lead is slipping. (Hechinger Report)

A new report finds that schools are flooded with data that they don’t know how to use, and it calls on lawmakers to develop long-term plans to make sure that tech systems are in sync. (Digital Education)

Under a new program, roughly 250 math and science teachers in New York will be eligible for bonus pay in exchange for mentoring new teachers. (Teacher Beat)

A testimony on the Common Core standards

May 22, 2013

The following is the text of Kathleen Porter-Magee's testimony to the Wisconsin State Legislature's Committee on Education, delivered on May 22, 2013.

My name is Kathleen Porter-Magee; I’m a senior director and Bernard Lee Schwartz policy fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education-policy think tank in Washington, D.C., that also leads ground-level work in the great state of Ohio. We support a variety of education reforms, with a particular focus on school choice and standards- and accountability-driven reform. In addition to my own policy work, I’ve spent several years working to implement rigorous standards in urban Catholic and public charter school classrooms. Fordham’s president, Chester Finn, served in the Reagan Administration, and its executive vice president, Mike Petrilli, served under George W. Bush. Both are also affiliated with the Hoover Institution in California.

I’m honored to be with you here today, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to talk to you about what I believe is one of the most important education initiatives of the past decade: the development and adoption of the Common Core State Standards.

I hope to help explain why the Common Core holds such promise, to demystify what the standards are all about, and to debunk some of the most common myths and misconceptions.

For nearly two decades, state standards have been a cornerstone of our modern education system. State governments have long set minimum expectations for each grade level or grade band across all grades, K through 12. These are meant to ensure that all students, regardless of race or socioeconomic status are held to the same rigorous standards. And there is ample evidence that, without clear objectives, teachers will—often unconsciously—raise or lower their own expectations based on the abilities and background of the students in front of them, rather than based on what will help ensure students are on path towards college or the workforce.

Yet, we have known for a long time that, in far too many states, including Wisconsin, the existing state standards set the bar far too low, leaving a content and expectations gap between schools and classrooms.

But are the Common Core the right solution to this problem? In order to answer that question, it’s important to understand five facts:

1.   The Common Core effort is and has always been a state-led effort to improve the quality and rigor of K–12 academic standards, of which Wisconsin leaders have been full participants.
2.   The Common Core State Standards are significantly stronger than the Wisconsin standards they replaced.
3.   Common Core English language arts standards emphasize the importance of reading rigorous, high-quality literature in English class, plus nonfiction in history, science, and other courses.
4.   The Common Core math standards prioritize the most important math content at each grade level, including a heavy dose of “math facts” and arithmetic in the early grades.
5.   By adopting the Common Core, Wisconsin benefits from much stronger standards while retaining full control over curriculum, instruction, and pedagogy where it belongs—at the local level.

Let’s dive deeper into rigor of the standards. If I leave you with nothing else, I hope I will be successful in underlining this critical point: The Common Core are significantly clearer and more rigorous than the Wisconsin English language arts and math standards they replaced. In fact, the gains made by replacing the Wisconsin standards with the Common Core are some of the largest in the nation.

We at the Fordham Institute have been evaluating state standards for more than fifteen years. In 2010, we released a comprehensive review of the clarity, specificity, content, and rigor of every state’s existing ELA and math standards, along with our evaluation of the final draft of the Common Core. In that analysis, the Common Core earned a B-plus from our ELA experts and an A-minus from our math experts. In the same evaluation, Wisconsin’s English language arts and math standards earned a D and an F, respectively. By choosing to adopt the Common Core, Wisconsin has dramatically boosted the quality, clarity, and rigor of its expectations in these two critical areas.

When judged against international standards for ELA and math, the Common Core fares equally well. Between 2009 and 2010, we reviewed the quality of the standards that provide the foundation for several national and international assessments: the NAEP, the PISA, TIMSS (for math), and PIRLS (for ELA). In math, the Common Core scored as well as the TIMSS, and better than both the PISA and the NAEP. In ELA, the Common Core outperformed all three: the NAEP, PISA, and PIRLS.

What’s more, research by William Schmidt, a leading expert on international mathematics performance and a previous director of the U.S. TIMSS study, has compared the Common Core to high-performing countries in grades K–8. The agreement was very high between the Common Core math standards and the math standards in place in the highest performing nations. In fact, Schmidt and his colleague found that no state's previous math standards were as close a match to those of high performing countries as the Common Core (not California’s, not Indiana’s, not Massachusetts’s).

Perhaps even more critically, Schmidt’s research found that “states whose previous standards were most similar to the Common Core performed better on a national math test in 2009.”[1] That means that, across the nation and the world, students whose learning was driven by standards that closely resembled the Common Core fared better than students who lived in states whose standards looked very different.

In spite of the evidence of rigor of the Common Core, a small but vocal set of critics have spent the past year in Wisconsin and around the country spreading countless myths about what the standards ask, who is behind them, and what they mean for our teachers and students.

For the purposes of today’s conversation, let me address four of the most prominent critiques to demonstrate how these attacks don’t hold up under scrutiny.

First, many critics mistakenly believe that the Common Core inappropriately prioritize nonfiction over literature in language arts classrooms.

This is based on a misreading—or deliberate manipulation—of a two-paragraph section found on page 5 of the introduction to the CCSS that mentions the NAEP assessment framework, and suggests that teachers across content areas should “follow NAEP’s lead in balancing the reading of literature with the reading of informational texts, including texts in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects.” Following NAEP’s lead would mean that fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders would spend 50, 55, and 70 percent of their time (respectively) reading informational text.

Some critics have led people to believe that these percentages are meant to direct learning exclusively in literature classrooms. They are not. In fact, the Common Core immediately clarifies that “the percentages…reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts.”

What’s more, the Common Core devote a disproportionately large amount of attention on demonstrating the quality, complexity, and rigor of the texts students should be reading each year. Appendix A includes a list of “exemplar” texts, the vast majority of which are works written by literary giants like Throeau, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Harper Lee, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The small number of technical documents included in these lists are dwarfed by the volume of great authors and works of literature and literary nonfiction that the Common Core holds up as exemplary.

Second, many critics complain that the Common Core standards promote low-level mathematical skills, or that they prioritize mathematical “practices” or “fuzzy math” over critical content. Again, a close reading of the standards reveals the opposite is true.

The Common Core math standards prioritize essential content—and allow the time and space needed for deep mastery of that content. In the early grades, this means that arithmetic is heavily weighted, that students are asked to learn to automaticity their basic math facts, and that they are asked to master the standard algorithms. This is content they need to know—cold—in order to be prepared for the upper level math work they will do in high school and beyond. If there is one thing we know with certainty, it’s that math is cumulative. You can only move on to more advanced content when you have fully mastered essential prerequisite knowledge and skills.

Some critics complain that the Common Core don’t require Algebra in the eighth grade, something that many think is essential to prepare students for advanced math in high school. The reality, however, is that the Kindergarten through seventh grade Common Core standards include all of the prerequisite content students will need to have learned to be prepared for Algebra I in the eighth grade. And that means that it’s the states, districts, and/or schools who decide for themselves course and graduation requirements.

Third, despite some heated rhetoric to the contrary, the Common Core was at its founding and remains today a state-led effort. The Obama administration has certainly tried to claim credit, but the truth is the work on Common Core started before Barack Obama was sworn in as president. And while his administration did try to incentivize adoption of more rigorous state standards like Common Core through the Race to the Top competition, no other federal money is tied to Common Core adoption. The states who have opted not to adopt the Common Core—Texas, Virginia, Alaska, and Nebraska—receive exactly the amount of federal aid they would have received had they adopted the Common Core. Even more critically: any state that opts out of the Common Core today or in the future will not lose any future federal education funding.

Some claim that the Obama administration tied Common Core adoption to its ESEA waiver process. Yet, Virginia won a waiver without ever adopting the Common Core, proving that the two were not inextricably linked.

Similarly, there is no single national assessment being forced on states. There are two federally funded assessment consortia, but states have no obligation to join either, as was evident when Alabama and Utah backed out of both. In fact, private assessment developers continue to compete for state assessment contracts. Pearson has developed an assessment in New York that the state may choose to stick with even when the consortia assessments are ready. The ACT is in the process of developing its own version as well. Others will no doubt join them, and the federally funded consortia will be a helpful comparison—much like the NAEP is now—but will not lead to a sole “national” test for all American schoolchildren.

Finally, some argue that adoption of the Common Core—or any K–12 academic standards—will usurp local control over curriculum and instruction. On the contrary, by setting standards, rather than adopting statewide curricula, state education leaders are ensuring that local district, school, and teacher leaders remain in control of the decisions that most directly impact the students they serve. On the ELA side, this means that local leaders and teachers can and will choose the texts students will read. On the math side, it means that schools can decide whether to fast-track students to Algebra I, and so on. Standards set a minimum bar—a floor, not a ceiling. They are designed only to help define student outcomes to help ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn the content they need to succeed. But educators still drive curriculum and instruction. Leaders still make critical, school-level decisions. In short, by setting standards, states can help preserve local autonomy, rather than taking it away.

The decision to adopt the Common Core in Wisconsin has set this great state on the right path. Whether this decision leads to improved outcomes depends entirely on your commitment to getting this right for Wisconsin’s schoolchildren.

[1] For a fuller description of the findings, see here: http://edwp.educ.msu.edu/news/2012/study-supports-move-toward-common-math-standards/#sthash.qqbNrGdb.dpuf.

Longing for the Holy Grail

May 22, 2013

Over on the Ohio Gadfly Daily, Fordham’s Jeff Murray has a meditation on what it’s like to lose the school-choice lottery. And it vividly reminds us that despite a flourishing school-choice movement, many families still struggle to access the one school they want for their children—even a public school.

Jeff and his wife have been reaching into their “middle-income pockets” to send their daughters to a “middle-of-the-road” private school because their public school options have been substandard. Until recently. An impressive STEM high school planned to expand to middle grades, and it was just what the Murray family wanted.

So it was for hundreds of others. And so a lottery would pick the lucky few from the many who longed for what Jeff called the Holy Grail, the best possible educational foundation for their kids. “We know we’d found it,” he writes. “And we can’t get in.”

Jeff has left us a lot to ponder, and not just because he has left us a powerful, personal reflection. What happens, he asks, when you don’t have the means or the knowledge of the system? What happens when all your choices are bad?

What happens, indeed?

No longer a boy’s world: Boys and special education

May 22, 2013

Wayward Sons, a recent report published by the policy think tank the Third Way, finds that the average girl’s educational and career outcomes have improved over time, while boys tend to be faring worse. This widening “gender gap,” the report contends, suggests “reason for concern” and “bodes ill for the well-being of recent cohorts of U.S. males.”

Explaining why boys are struggling now more than in past decades is, of course, extremely complex. One line of inquiry might consider the changing schooling experiences of boys and girls: Could it be that boys are becoming increasingly harder to educate? Might schools tailor education in ways unsuitable for boys’ needs? Or is it a mix of both?

Fair questions—and using Ohio’s special education data, I look at whether there’s any evidence that (a) boys might be harder to educate than girls and (b) whether schools might respond to difficult-to-educate boys by referring them into special education.

The Ohio data is nothing short of remarkable: There are considerably more boys identified as disabled than girls. (The referral and identification process is a joint effort between the parent and the school.) Statewide, 166,690 boys (65 percent) and 88,539 girls (35 percent) were identified as disabled in 2011-12. This compares to a 51 percent male to 49 percent female ratio for all K-12 students—disabled and non-disabled together.

A similarly disproportionate number of boys populate the specific disabled categories. In fact, every single category except one (deaf-blindness) has more boys than girls.[1] The bullets below, and as displayed in chart 1, present the male-female percentages for the state’s top five special education categories, by student enrollment in 2011-12:

Specific learning disabilities: 64,130 boys (61 percent of this group) and 41,133 girls (39 percent);
Other health impaired – minor: 23,923 boys (70 percent) and 10,152 girls (30 percent);
Speech and language impairments: 21,361 boys (67 percent) and 10,340 girls (33 percent);
Cognitive Disabilities (mental retardation): 14,887 boys (58 percent) and 10,852 girls (42 percent);
Autism: 13,816 boys (85 percent) and 2,485 girls (15 percent).

Chart 1: Proportionally more boys than girls identified as disabled - by largest special education categories, 2011-12

SOURCE: Ohio Department of Education, Data Warehouse Reports

That there are more boys than girls who are identified as disabled is not a one-year phenomenon as chart 2 indicates. We see that the percentage of male special education students has remained steady, slightly above 65 percent since 2003. Interestingly, however, the percentage of males in the specific learning disability (SLD) category has declined from 69 percent in 2002-03 to 61 percent in 2011-12. Meanwhile, the proportion of males has risen incrementally in the other two disabled categories displayed. (Only the three largest categories by 2011-12 student enrollment are displayed.)

Chart 2: More boys than girls identified as disabled – overall disabled and select categories, 2002-03 to 2011-12

SOURCE: Ohio Department of Education, Data Warehouse Reports

Whether it’s the “boy or the school” that accounts for the disproportionate identification of boys as disabled can’t, of course, be answered definitively with these data. It could be that schools are quick to relocate hyperactive or slow-learning boys into special education. (Naturally, categories such as deaf-blindness or autism wouldn’t be valid under this explanation. But the Other Health Impairments-Minor, somewhat of a catchall category for unruly kids, could be.) Yet, it could also be that learning-disabled boys are wired in such a way that special education is an entirely justifiable action taken by a school and parent.

In the end, the dismal findings about boys in Wayward Sons, together with special education data that indicate that too many boys have difficulty in today’s classrooms—and that disabled identification is an oft-used solution—should prompt rethinking about how schools educate boys. Is special education the only—and best—solution for behaviorally- or learning-challenged boys? Could schools better meet boys’ needs through single-gender schools or classrooms? Could schools ratchet up efforts to recruit and retain male teachers? (Ohio’s teacher force is 75 percent female.) Should schools carve out more recess or physical education time for boys? What about establishing more vocationally focused high schools? Any or all of these practices might just put boys on a better educational and vocational trajectory than our current system has.

[1] Ohio schools can classifies special education students into fourteen categories. For the definition of each disability, see EdResourcesOhio.org’s online glossary.

By the Company It Keeps: Tim Daly

May 22, 2013

Our first guest on By the Company It Keeps is Tim Daly, President of TNTP. I’m a huge fan of Tim and his organization. In addition to being a highly talented and endlessly affable guy, he’s helped lead TNTP into rarified air. It is as influential on policy and practice as any education-reform organization around.

Tim was a guiding force behind the seminal publication The Widget Effect and played a major role in the production of other top-flight TNTP reports like The Irreplaceables and Leap Year.

Earlier in his career he was a TFA corps member (having taught in Baltimore) and helped establish and expand the New York City Teaching Fellows program. With TNTP CEO Ariela Rozman (another total star), he received the 2012 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education.

If future interviews turn out half as well as Tim’s, I’ll be thrilled. We learn a great deal, and the subject’s smarts, curiosity, and humility shine through. He even enlightens us about Garry Wills and Stan Musial.

As a matter of fact, the totality is so good that I’m willing to look past his grievous error about Sandy Koufax (he only had 165 career wins!).

Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Daly.

1. How would you summarize the key findings of Leap Year, TNTP’s latest report?

It’s sort of a combination of a study and a tell-all. The basic finding is that the first year is not a warm up lap—it’s a very strong signal of how a teacher will perform in the future. If we use multiple tools to follow a teacher’s early progress, we have a good idea of whether that person should continue in the profession. Other studies have shown this by looking at large populations of teachers, but we demonstrated it in the real world by launching programmatic shifts in more than a dozen cities.

It’s also the story of our quest to do a better job of bringing excellent teachers to schools that desperately need them. We have a mission. If we aren’t doing the things that will achieve it, we need to change. But how? We thought we’d share our approach.

2. One interesting lesson is that we should probably invest in more observers, not more observations. Can you say more about that?

This is a finding that echoes the Gates MET research. When you send the same person each time to see a teacher, you don’t maximize reliability because whatever tendencies the observer has are consistently projected onto the teacher. In some ways you are learning more and more about the observer, not the teacher. We also see in many cases that the same observer rates the teacher higher and higher with each visit, while you don’t see that with varied observers. The most useful observational portrait is a combination of multiple visits AND multiple visitors.

3. In recent years, thanks to the MET Project, TNTP’s The Widget Effect, and other research, we’ve learned a great deal about educator effectiveness. Thanks to Leap Year, we’re wiser about the first year of teaching. Taking all of this into account, what does the ideal state teacher-certification system look like?

This is a policy issue where our instincts and the evidence can point in opposite directions. We all want to hold a high bar for entry into teaching. It’s a reasonable assumption that asking candidates to jump through all sorts of hoops before becoming teachers is going to improve quality. But the evidence just doesn’t support it. A lot of the candidates who jump through the hoops don’t become good teachers and some of the candidates who come through streamlined avenues do very well. It leads us to conclude that up-front certification should be lightweight and simple—designed to exclude only those who don’t even deserve a tryout in teaching. On the other hand, ongoing re-certification should be much more rigorous, as we should expect that many teachers will fail to meet our standards on the job and should not become career educators.

4. Why do you think some of the nation’s “new-and-improved” teacher-evaluation systems continue to rate the vast majority of teachers as effective or better? Given all of the time, money, and energy spent on evaluation reform, should we be concerned that meaningful differentiation is still elusive?

Yes, we should be concerned, but not surprised. We argued in The Widget Effect that the problem wasn’t just the evaluation systems, it was a culture that refused to see the differences in instructional skill that were right before our eyes. The new systems provide a better support structure to assess and develop instruction, and they usually remove prohibitions against consideration of student learning. But they do not by themselves change culture. All of us, as educators, are responsible for that culture. We must take ownership of the systems and use them as they were intended to be used.

5. What current TNTP projects are you most excited about? Are there any particular state or district engagements that seem especially promising?

As a follow up to The Irreplaceables, we’ve done a survey of elite teachers nationally – mostly folks who’ve won prestigious awards—to learn more about their experiences and perspectives on policy issues. We’ll publish the results later this year, but one thing that stands out clearly is that when we talk about what “teachers” think, we’re probably oversimplifying because they have such diverse views about so many issues. I’ve lost track of how many findings surprised me.

Also, we’re about to name the second group of Fishman Prize winners. This is one of my absolute favorite things we do at TNTP. It’s a $25,000 prize for teachers in Title I public schools that’s named for Shira Fishman, a high school math teacher in DC. The winners spend the summer working with us and writing about their classroom practice.

6. My sources tell me that you are an inveterate number cruncher—that, all things being equal, you’d prefer to be analyzing data. Have those hours taught you any overarching lessons about research, advocacy, or policy? Any particularly memorable “a-ha!” from one of these long, solitary journeys through a spreadsheet?

I plead guilty. I like to review evidence myself because I can ask all the questions I want without bothering someone else…and I usually have an annoying number of questions. I would say the number one thing I’ve learned is not to believe things you hear—not without checking. People repeat things at conferences that they believe to be true, but often they misheard someone else say it or they are slightly (and often unintentionally) exaggerating it. Or they are presenting anecdotes as data. When you dig, you find that far fewer things are “true,” meaning they hold up to scrutiny, but they are more interesting and challenging than things tossed around as conventional wisdom.

A good example is the idea that new teachers struggle, but with time they get better. That seems entirely reasonable because it’s consistent with what we observe in our own experiences and with research, which says second year teachers are better than first year teachers. But when you look at the data in detail, it’s more complex than that. This was one of my “A-ha!” moments, as you call them.

I was looking at trend data on a group of new teachers and I realized that some of them stagnated very early in their careers or even declined temporarily. Because they didn’t master basic skills, they adopted bad habits to get by that caused them to fall so far behind their peers that they couldn’t catch up, even a year or two later. So yes, new teachers get better, but you can’t just assume it will happen, or that they will all get better. I still remember staring at my computer screen, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

7. More under-rated hitter: Jimmie Foxx or Stan Musial? Better left-handed pitcher: Warren Spahn or Sandy Koufax?

Stan Musial. I am fatally biased because I’m a Cardinals fan but Musial is one of the most accomplished, consistent, and balanced hitters in baseball history. Just for a start, he had over 3,600 hits—that’s a staggering number, Tony Gwynn didn’t even have 3,200—and he had the same number at home and on the road. But he also hit almost 500 home runs. Pete Rose may have had more hits but he had only 160 home runs.

For pitchers, I’m going to say Koufax but it’s apples and oranges. Spahn is so much more accomplished over his career but Koufax was as untouchable for a period of time as anyone has ever been. That stretch of domination is fascinating to me—especially since he was magical right to the day of his retirement.

8. In my experience most number crunchers are simply very curious people. If you look back on your intellectual development, what big ideas, books, or thinkers (whether education reform–related or not) influenced you the most?

I took a couple of classes with Garry Wills, a historian, when I was an undergraduate and he had a huge influence on me. He has such a knack for laying out deep arguments simply and supporting them with evidence that is more far reaching and comprehensive than anyone else. He’s written authoritatively on everything from performances of Macbeth to the Gettysburg Address to the Catholic Church. His background was as a classicist. In his books he often goes back to original Greek or Latin sources and translates them for himself when he is writing about them. I’ve never forgotten that commitment to inspecting each fragment. And on top of that, he taught me to appreciate Martin Scorsese films.

9. If I had TNTP’s senior staff and board in a room, I’d try to convince you that no matter how smart or effective your team, you’ll never be able to make the urban district succeed. I’d tell you to reallocate your resources to expanding great schools and helping create great new schools in the charter sector and developing policies and support organizations for this new system of schools. After you had me escorted from the building, what would you say to your colleagues?

This is a worthy debate to have. After decades of trying, how many large urban districts can say they systematically expand opportunities for the families they serve? The alternative is to focus on expanding the number of seats in good schools. Except I don’t think these things are mutually exclusive. On our good days, we help districts see that they can think just as aggressively about creating conditions to grow excellent schools as the charter sector. They can empower leaders to assemble cohesive teams and establish college as a core expectation for students. There are districts out there trying to think boldly, and if they succeed, they can create conditions for a lot of good schools to thrive at once. My view is that just as charters are competing with and reacting to districts, districts can compete with and react to the charter sector. They have a role to play.

10. Your brother is an assistant coach with the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings, meaning he gets to have football conversations with future Hall-of-Famers Adrian Peterson and Jared Allen. You, on the other hand, are forced to have conversations about spreadsheets with me. Ever feel like the universe is really, really unfair?

He’s my older brother and I look up to him in a million ways…but never more so than on a Sunday afternoon when he has a ground-level view of Adrian Peterson breaking away on a long run. However, each of us has a place in the universe, and apparently mine is among the spreadsheets.

School funding and poverty in the suburbs

May 22, 2013

When Ohio Governor John Kasich released his “Achievement Everywhere” school funding plan in late February it was widely criticized for “stealing from the poor and giving to the rich.” Opponents of the governor’s plan noted “rich” suburban districts would see more state funding than poorer rural and urban districts. People wondered why the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, with a long history of poverty, would see no increase in state funding while Cleveland suburban districts like Euclid City would see a 21 percent increase in funding.

It didn’t seem to make sense, despite the arguments of the governor’s staff that Ohio’s demographics had changed considerably over the last decade (consider Cleveland had lost 30,000 students), and poverty was far more widely dispersed than most people thought. In response to the cries that the governor’s plan was unfair to rural and urban districts while a money grab for suburban districts the House rewrote the Kasich school funding plan to fund both rural and urban schools at higher amounts. This, it was argued, would be a fairer funding formula than what the Governor proposed and spreadsheets of the House plan did indeed show more rural and urban district benefiting from their plan than the governor's.

It is yet to be seen what the Senate is going to do per school funding, but one hopes that Senators are reading the new book from the Brookings Institution that reports “the suburban poverty rate in America has climbed by 64 percent over the past decade, more than twice as fast as the poverty rate in urban areas.”

The Brookings report confirms what supporters of Governor Kasich’s plan have been arguing since its release in February. Ohio’s demographics are changing and Ohio’s school funding formula needs to evolve to meet these new realities. Kasich’s plan tries to attach school funding to the actual needs of students, as opposed to attaching money to traditional perceptions about school districts and their poverty. Ohio should follow Governor Kasich’s lead and finally break away from thinking of school funding through the lenses of district “equity” and “adequacy;” between “rich” and “poor” districts. Poverty and needy students increasingly live in the suburbs and money for their education should follow them to their schools.

Video of "Always Reformed, Always Reforming" event now available

May 21, 2013

Last week, Fordham’s Ohio team gathered with school leaders and ed reform stakeholders - including legislators and members of the State Board of Education - to discuss the findings of our latest report, Half Empty or Half Full? Superintendents’ Views on Ohio’s Education Reforms.

While we provided a recap of the event Friday, I’m happy to share a full-length video of the event! If you missed it, or attended and would like to view or share with others, check out the video here.

We feel the survey and its findings provide an important window into how the reforms we champion play out on the ground in districts across Ohio. The insights of our panelists and audience members are interesting and enlightening. Watch the video and tell us what you think.

Share your comments about the survey and event below. We look forward to seeing you at future Fordham events!

First Bell 5-21-13

May 21, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Fordham's latest

"Why private schools are dying out," by Chester E. Finn, Jr., Flypaper

"Video of "Always Reformed, Always Reforming" event now available," by Kevin Pack, Ohio Gadfly Daily

On Monday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced that three more states—Alaska, Hawaii, and West Virginia—will be granted NCLB waivers, bringing the total to thirty-seven. (Politics K–12 and Associated Press)

Chiefs for Change, a group of state education leaders, are pushing back against calls for a moratorium on the use of standardized tests in student or teacher evaluations. (Curriculum Matters, Washington Post, and Education Gadfly Show Podcast)

Khan Academy—with a little help from a $2.2 million Helmsley grant—plans to develop online, Common Core–aligned mathematics tools for teachers and students. (Curriculum Matters)

The D.C. charter board has approved two new schools and rejected seven more. (Washington Post)

Today, most New York residents will vote on their school districts’ budgets. (Wall Street Journal)

With the successes of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and David Karp on the mind, the Wall Street Journal wonders: When is it okay for a high flyer to drop out of school?

Common Core–aligned tests are in the works for students with severe disabilities. (Education Week)

Losing the school choice lottery and what it means for one family

May 21, 2013

Yesterday, I spent all day hitting the Refresh button on my email account. Probably 653 times. Why? Because the one school that we wanted for our children for next year was to announce its lottery results to those lucky few who would be chosen. 12 or 13 slots for sixth grade, out of an application pool of several hundred (wish I knew exactly how many).

On click number 653 we got the news at last: Our numbers didn’t hit.

***

My parents practiced school choice the old-fashioned way in the late 1970’s – they moved from the east side of Columbus to the boonies. This was their only option. With a one-income family and four children, private school was not in the cards. My father drove 30 miles one way to work (even farther later in his career) with no complaints.

Why not stay in Columbus City Schools? Desegregation. I’m not proud of this fact and the mindset that it evokes, but they were not the only ones in our neighborhood – let alone the city – who did not want their children bussed across town for a school they felt inferior to the one they had. In fact, we had five other family/friends move from our street alone into the same tiny burg in the country the same summer. Did we miss out on some opportunities moving from a big city district to the country? You bet. But all of us did OK in our new environment and our lives and careers are still on track nearly 40 years later.

Fast forward to 2013: my family and I live in the city of Columbus in an old house on a quiet street near everything we love – libraries, parks (river, bikepath, etc.), stores, activities, and even the road out of town for when wandering sounds good. Our commute to work is 15 minutes on a bad day.

This neighborhood has been the same for a very long time, but much has changed around it and much within the mindset of its residents, especially in terms of education that is on the minds of the many young families who choose to live here. And it is a choice that they make for the most part. Incomes here are all over the board and can usually be determined by where you live in relation to the major crossroads. To say you live in this part of town conveys nothing but a relative geography until folks probe deeper and then they figure out more about you by whether you live northwest or southeast of High and Broadway. And so you can choose to be in the same area whether you have a middling amount of money or a large amount of money. House, apartment, duplex, condo – we have it. This is a place you go when you have some means (either a little or a lot).

What we don’t have is a district school that I want to send my daughters to. This is no different than my parents felt – for a very different reason – but the landscape of choice has changed. In fact, that landscape includes an opt-in to the Columbus district, which many vocal parents are choosing and advocating for among their friends and acquaintances. They reason that if more motivated parents choose to be here, the neighborhood school and all its students will benefit. And, honestly, if there is a good Columbus elementary school to be had (i.e. – rigorous, focused on student success, geared toward the future, and not sparing with high-value homework) it’s probably here. In fact, our area is one of the few with no voucher-eligible schools in Columbus. But we investigated and found it academically wanting and so it was out. NOTE: I am not the first Fordham father to talk about this. Check out Mike Petrilli’s excellent book for his much more detailed story.

So was the district lottery, despite the fact that many families we knew sent their children (often multiple children) to the alternative school several blocks away. If you can get in. But it too seemed to be less than an ideal fit for our girls and the lottery process was reported to be Byzantine and often fruitless, although it still lurks in the back of our minds.

No charter schools in our neighborhood, so we would be forced to bus them or drive them a long way to reach one of the few good charter elementaries. So that was not practical either.

And as we have always done, we were looking at the big picture – middle school, high school, college readiness. Even if we had been tireless advocates for our children in the neighborhood public elementary (pushing for more rigor, nagging for more attention from teachers, and supplementing the classroom work with outside opportunities), there was nothing available to us in the district even remotely worthwhile to us after fifth grade.

And since neither of us have the skill to homeschool, we have gone the private school route. That has been our reality since the girls were three years old – private daycare, private preschool, private Montessori school, and now a private K-8 school, with summer camps each year from various private sources. Out of our own middle-income pockets. Not the elite Academies or all-girls schools you might have heard of, but a white-bread (in all senses of the term, unfortunately) middle-of-the-road institution that really would rather be doing Mass than math. But they soldier on with academics, pleased to adopt and align to the Common Core early but lax on homework, indifferent to long-term project-based learning, and weak in areas where there's no such thing as a common core standard.

The girls have done great – worked hard, learned the value of a good education, and produced at or above our expectations regularly. And they even know how to have fun when the work is finished. They are fantastic and on the right path, sometimes despite the teachers in the schools they’ve attended.

So, what was yesterday about? Those 653 clicks?

The holy grail.

***

We have had our eye on the local STEM school for high school (talk about the long game) for the last couple of years, only to have them announce that they are expanding to middle school just in time for our kids to start sixth grade. Wow. But maybe it’s not as good as we thought it was.

Open house. Amazing. Even better than we imagined.

Application. Easy and interesting. I didn’t realize my eleven-year-olds had already figured out their five-year visions.

The waiting. Hard, but not too long.

Word on the street: everyone we know is applying. Probably lots of folks we don’t know.

Uh oh.

Yesterday? Depression.

***

Our only Plan B is to return to our middle-of-the-road private school, downtrodden and with even lower expectations than before. (You know how it is: as soon as you decide that you want to trade in your old car, you suddenly see its flaws even more starkly.) We can apply to the STEM school – the only one of its kind for 20 miles – again next year for seventh grade. And again the following year for eighth grade. And again the following year for ninth grade, as we had originally planned.

We figured we had the school choice thing in Columbus locked up: we lived where we wanted, paid for the best school we could afford, and then supplemented to the best of our ability. We didn’t even begrudge our property taxes continuing to go to Columbus City Schools. The American way, right?

Our kids are our priority and we know where we want them to go: to college and beyond. They can be anything they want with the right foundation, and it’s our job to give them the best foundation possible. That’s why yesterday’s lottery loss stings so much. We know we’d found it. And we can’t get in.

What happens when you don’t have means, when you don’t have knowledge of the system, when you have other priorities weighing on your family, when all of your “choices” are bad?

First Bell 5-20-13

May 20, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Fordham's latest

"Superintendents’ views on Ohio’s education reforms," by Terry Ryan, Ohio Gadfly Daily

"Am I a part of the cure...or the disease?," by Michael J. Petrilli, Flypaper

In response to Democratic mayoral candidates’ bashing of Mayor Bloomberg’s education agenda, Dennis Walcott, New York City’s schools chancellor, has begun a campaign to remind voters of the administration’s accomplishments. (New York Times)

CREDO found that 42 percent of Michigan’s charters are outperforming traditional public schools in math, with similar results in reading, while just 6 percent of the charters underperform their traditional counterparts in math. (Wall Street Journal)

Anger has erupted in New York City and beyond over “field tests,” standardized exams intended to assess not students but future tests. (New York Times)

The Hechinger Report profiles a virtual classroom simulator that allows teachers-in-training to practice managing a classroom.

Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, has quietly begun to assert philanthropy goals in education, global conservation, nutrition, and immigration policy. (New York Times)

A federal report finds that forty states have looked into allegations of cheating by school officials on tests in the last two years. (Curriculum Matters)

A Pew study finds that most teachers believe their students don’t have the digital-literacy skills to wade through online information effectively. (Education Week)

Karen Lewis has been reelected to lead the Chicago Teachers Union. (Answer Sheet)

Keep charter achievement in perspective

May 20, 2013

How satisfied should education reformers and charter enthusiasts be when studies show charter students outperforming those in the local district schools? Sure, it’s a lot better than underperforming, and yes, it’s a fine thing for the girls and boys who benefit from this value-add (as well as from the safety, variety, intimacy, family engagement, and other pluses that typically accompany charter school attendance). But observe what a low achievement bar this kind of comparison generally sets. The “virtual-twin” district school that is generally the basis for comparison is usually a miserable excuse for an educational institution, and the kids who shifted into the charter school had ample reason to want out. Their parents had ample reason to want better opportunities for their children. But is “better than” good enough at a time when college and career readiness is the goal of the larger K–12 enterprise and when preparation for international competitiveness is the country’s education target? Would you be satisfied with your golf score if it were a few points lower than someone who shoots 100? Would you be satisfied with your weight loss if you were now at 300 pounds compared with the other guy’s 320? Would you be pleased with your child’s medical outlook if his doctor bungled fewer cases than the next one but was still on the verge of malpractice? I think not. Let's understand that charter schools, too, need to produce strong educational results for their pupils, not just scores that are a bit better than the disasters down the street.

Why private schools are dying out

May 20, 2013

Private education as we have known it is on its way out, at both the K–12 and postsecondary levels. At the very least, it's headed for dramatic shrinkage, save for a handful of places and circumstances, to be replaced by a very different set of institutional, governance, financing, and education-delivery mechanisms.

Private education as we have known it is on its way out.
Photo by Jim Young/Reuters

Consider today's realities. Private K–12 enrollments are shrinking—by almost 13 percent from 2000 to 2010. Catholic schools are closing right and left. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, for example, announced in January that forty-four of its 156 elementary schools will cease operations next month. (A few later won reprieves.) In addition, many independent schools (day schools and especially boarding schools) are having trouble filling their seats—at least, filling them with their customary clientele of tuition-paying American students. Traditional nonprofit private colleges are also challenged to fill their classroom seats and dorms, a situation to which they're responding by heavily discounting their tuitions and fees for more and more students.

Meanwhile, charter school enrollments are booming across the land. The charter share of the primary-secondary population is 5 percent nationally and north of 25 percent in two dozen major cities. "Massive open online courses" (MOOCs) are booming, too, and online degree and certificate options proliferating. Public-sector college and university enrollments remain strong and now educate three students out of four. The "proprietary" (i.e., for-profit) sector of postsecondary education is doing okay, despite its tortured relationship with federal financial aid.

What's really happening here are big structural changes across the industry as the traditional model of private education—at both levels—becomes unaffordable, unnecessary, or both, and as more viable options for students and families present themselves. While unemployment remains high, the marginal advantage of investing thirty or fifty thousand dollars a year in private schooling is diminishing, particularly when those dollars are invested in low-selectivity, lower-status institutions. Recent analyses by AIR's Mark Schneider and Brookings's Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill make it explicit:

People who attended the most selective private schools [colleges/universities] have a lifetime earnings premium of over $620,000....For those who attended a minimally selective or open-admission private school, the premium is only a third of that....[P]ublic schools tend to have higher ROIs than private schools, and more selective schools offer higher returns than less selective ones.

Alterations in the housing market may also play a role where K–12 private schools are concerned. Not long ago, one could live in a nice house in the city for a lot less than a nice house in the suburbs—and spend the money saved on private schooling for one's kids. In gentrifying cities, however, that's no longer so. Now one must pay more for a house in the city plus private school for the children. Thus, more parents are saying, "Forget it, I'll go public—provided the public sector can be made to supply me with a good charter or magnet school, or a virtual-education supplement to a decent neighborhood school."

Three factors keep all these changes from being more visible and talked about.

First, of course, they're gradual, and thus (proverbially) difficult to perceive. Second, it's not in the interest of private schools or colleges to acknowledge that they have a problem—lest it create the educational equivalent of a run on the bank, with clients fleeing for fear of being abandoned after a sudden collapse. Much of the allure of private schools, after all, is based on their reputations, which they work hard to sustain. Hence they maintain a brave front while quietly shrinking, discounting—and recruiting full-pay students from wealthy families in other lands, particularly in Asia.

Most other modern countries have essentially melded their private education sectors into their systems of public financing

Third, elite private institutions are doing just fine, many besieged by more applicants than ever before. The wealthiest Americans can easily afford them and are ever more determined to secure for their children the advantages that come with attending them. And at the K–12 level, a disproportionate fraction of those wealthy people live in major cities where the public school options are unappealing. So we're not going to see an enrollment crisis anytime soon at Brown, Amherst, or Duke, nor at Andover, Sidwell Friends, or Trinity. Indeed, New York's new Avenues School, serving preschoolers through twelfth graders, is able to fill its classes with families willing and able to pay its staggering $43,000 per annum.

Because these elite schools and colleges are also highly visible—and where the "chattering classes" want (and can afford) to enroll their own daughters and sons—they create a façade of private-sector vitality. Behind it, however, like the Wizard of Oz's curtain and Potemkin's building façades, there is much weakness, a weakness that probably afflicts the vast majority of today's private schools and colleges.

Is this situation reversible? And should it be a matter of concern for education reformers and policymakers?

Most other modern countries have essentially melded their private education sectors into their systems of public financing—and have accepted the tradeoffs that accompany such financing, namely government regulation of curriculum, teacher credentialing, student admissions, and more. We can see early examples of this in the U.S., too, as vouchers gradually spread and private schools accommodate themselves to the state testing regimes and other rules that come with such financing.

This is apt to be a limited remedy, however, due to American church-state entanglement anxieties that other countries don't share; prohibitions in many state constitutions that make such public financing difficult or impossible; and our conviction that what's valuable about private education is its freedom to be different. The policy dilemma is whether different-ness is precious enough, if with it comes gradual erosion of the "different" sector itself.

Can run-of-the-mill private schools and colleges reboot? I wouldn't bet a year's tuition on it.

One can also fairly ask whether U.S. private schools and colleges are really all that different from their public-sector counterparts. In practice, their education-delivery model is practically indistinguishable, save for the accoutrements that the wealthiest of them can buy (trips to faraway lands, nifty technology, tiny classes, etc.). There is, however, a difference where religion is concerned: Just 22.8 percent of K–12 private school students are in secular schools, while about 32 percent of all private college students are enrolled in religiously affiliated institutions. In less prosperous schools and colleges, religion may, at day's end, be the only real difference between public and private—and the return on that investment, while perhaps significant, cannot be easily measured.

Changing the delivery system might serve to make private education both more affordable and more different, and signs of such change are already evident, but rarely in the traditional nonprofit portions of the private sector. Instead, the boldest innovations are coming from entrepreneurs, most of them profit-seeking and most of them delivering instruction (and more) via technology rather than face-to-face in brick buildings that are open just six or eight hours a day for 180 or so days a year.

Elite universities—the ones that are still thriving and would continue to thrive even without these changes—are also, themselves, innovating—but mostly for students other than their own. The MITs and Stanfords are teaming up with the Courseras and Udacitys—educational-technology companies specializing in online education—to offer online courses to thousands. Udacity has dipped a toe into the K–12 waters, both by partnering with local school systems and by inviting students to enroll directly in its college-level courses. Nor is it likely to stop there. Indeed, I expect "St. Paul's math" and "Dalton's literature" in time to echo across the land, too. If current trends continue, we're going to see a bi-modal system develop, with public schools (including charter schools) and ultra-elite private schools monopolizing the education space as the plethora of smaller private and parochial schools that once fell between them gradually fade away.

Can run-of-the-mill private schools and colleges reboot? Can they change themselves—including both their delivery systems and their cost structures—enough to brighten their own futures? I wouldn't bet a year's tuition on it.

This article originally appeared in the Atlantic.

Am I a part of the cure...or the disease?

May 17, 2013

This article originally appeared on Education Week’s Bridging Differences blog, where Mike Petrilli will be debating Deborah Meier through mid-June.

Confusion never stops
Closing walls and ticking clocks
Gonna come back and take you home
I could not stop that you now know

Come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I a part of the cure?
Or am I part of the disease?
-Coldplay, "Clocks," A Rush of Blood to the Head, 2002

Is everything for which reformers fight actually making things worse?
Photo by ToniVC

Dear Deborah,

I am haunted by the title of your last post: “The Testing Obsession Widens the Gap.”

Could this possibly be true? Is test-based school reform reducing opportunity for America's neediest children? Is everything for which we school reformers fight actually making things worse? Am I a part of the cure, or am I part of the disease?

"It's OK to ask: 'What if I'm wrong?'" you wrote last week. So let me ask it. It wouldn't be the first time. A year ago, for example, I explored the "test-score hypothesis"—a line of reasoning, undergirding much of the reform movement, that says that if we can significantly improve low-income students' math and reading skills, as measured by standardized tests, we can significantly increase their chances of escaping poverty.

Let's unpack this hypothesis a bit.

As it stands now, children born into poverty come into kindergarten with massive deficits—in terms of vocabulary, content knowledge, and non-cognitive skills. And if they make it to high school graduation thirteen years later (and many will not), they will leave, on average, reading and doing math at an eighth-grade level. Of the low-income teens that give higher education a shot, the vast majority will end up in remedial education and then wash out. More than half of poor children will become poor adults, with poor children of their own. The cycle will repeat. Our hope is that by improving our schools (and, yes, other things too), we can change this narrative.

Let's imagine that our schools can help the average child born into poverty do somewhat better. Let's say that with a combination of talented and well-trained teachers, a rich and rigorous curriculum, lots of supports, and strong leadership, we're able to get poor students, on average, to a tenth-grade level by the time they graduate high school. Suddenly they can attend a community college, or even a four-year university, without starting in remedial education. They are much more likely to graduate, at least with an associate's degree or a technical credential. Rather than making minimum wage, they will make a living wage.

They are less likely to get pregnant as teens, or end up in prison, or drop out of the workforce. Their children wouldn't be born poor—they would be born middle class. This would be transformative.

Notice the key assumption built into this "theory of action": reading and math matter a lot. Getting to the tenth-grade level instead of the eighth-grade level (even as measured by rinky-dinky standardized tests) would make a meaningful difference in real lives. With that assumption in place, it's not crazy—in fact, it's perfectly rational—to hold schools accountable for helping their students make progress every year with their reading and math skills. It's smart to put in place clear, high standards—let's call them common-core standards—that will delineate the path from poverty to prosperity, that will help schools and teachers focus on the knowledge and skills that matter most, and will get students to true readiness for college and career by the age of eighteen.

So Deborah, are you ready for the big question, the kicker, the heart of the matter?

How sure are we that it's literacy and numeracy, and related academic knowledge and skills, that are the most important precursors to success in college, career, and life? What if something else is just as important, or even more important, like "non-cognitive skills" or personal relationships? (Or perhaps the habit of "serious intellectual inquiry," as you put it?)

And what if our "testing obsession" is crowding these other things out?

These are critical questions, but here's what gives me solace.

First, the evidence is quite strong that reading and math achievement are critical tickets to the middle class. Look, for example, at the blockbuster study from Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Jonah Rockoff that examined the impact of teachers on students' long-term outcomes. As Kevin Carey explained at the time,

If you believe standardized tests are worthless or highly flawed or deeply inadequate or even troublingly limited in accuracy and scope-and many reasonable people believe these things-then you could dismiss or downplay value-added measures of teacher effectiveness, by definition....But now the CFR study says that teachers who are unusually good at helping students score high on standardized tests today aren't just unusually good at helping students score high on standardized tests tomorrow. They also have an unusual effect on the likelihood of students going to college, going to a good college, earning a good living, living in a nice place, and saving for retirement. In other words, whatever the limitations of standardized tests may be, test-based value-added scores do, in fact, provide valuable information about the things most people care most about.

Or look at the evidence that E.D. Hirsch cites about the impact of teenagers' vocabularies on their long-term prospects, such as a 1999 study that shows that "a gain of one standard deviation on the Armed Forces Qualification Test raises one's annual income by nearly $10,000 (in 2012 dollars)."

Or a brand-new study from the United Kingdom (flagged by Joanne Jacobs) that finds that "math skills at 7 predict earnings at 42."

Surely reading and math aren't all that matters. Paul Tough makes a good case for non-cognitive skills. Others, yourself included, point to the importance of strong personal relationships with mentors. We could name more. But reading and math skills are at least necessary, if not sufficient.

On the other hand, there's little evidence that the "testing obsession" is systematically getting in the way of good teaching and learning in high-poverty schools. That's not because an obsession with testing isn't a problem. It surely is, with its temptations of cheating, narrowing of the curriculum, and the culture of fear that it often perpetuates.

But here's the rub, Deborah: Studies of high-poverty schools in America have demonstrated for decades that great teaching and learning have always been the exception, not the norm. To believe that testing is making these schools worse, you have to believe that they were once pretty good, or at least better than they are now. I just don't see it. Do you? Where's the evidence of that?

Furthermore, think back to Kevin Carey's comments on the Chetty study. If an obsession with reading and math was crowding out more important tasks, why would students with stronger reading and math gains do better long-term than their peers?

Here's what your readers need to remember: The choice today is not between 100,000 Central Park Easts or Mission Hills and 100,000 test-prep factories. If it were, I'd pick the Deborah Meier schools in a heartbeat. But let's face it: There aren't more than a handful of Deborah Meier schools out there. (The same goes with Don Hirsch schools or Mike Feinberg/Dave Levin schools, or any other brand you want to name.)

The typical high-poverty school is, and has always been, pretty mediocre. That's not an indictment of the people who work in these schools; the problem is the system. And it's not unique to education. Any big, bureaucratic government agency is going to struggle to achieve effectiveness, much less excellence. (Think the DMV.) Heck, even most large, private-sector companies are pretty lame, especially ones that don't face much competition. (Think the electric company.) Layer on top of that all of the distracting demands placed upon schools, the fragmented nature of education governance, and, in some places at least, too few resources, and it would be a miracle if the typical high-poverty public school were good, much less great.

So do I think testing and accountability make matters worse? No. In fact, based on the studies cited above, I think they will make matters marginally better. I also think stronger standards and tests (a la Common Core) will make things better still.

What about you, Deborah? Are you willing to ask "What if I'm wrong?" What if it's true that reading and math skills are hugely related to opportunities in life, and indeed are malleable? What if "direct instruction," which you say isn't needed, really is the most effective method for helping children in poverty develop those skills? What if it's patently untrue that children learn "vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and spelling ... the same way we learn everything else that matters," as you stated last week, but instead have to be taught systematically? What if the perfect for which you have spent decades championing really is the enemy of the good—and the greater good, for millions of boys and girls throughout America?

Deborah, with all due respect, I ask you to ask yourself: Am I a part of the cure, or am I part of the disease?

Mike

Implementation of the Common Core, Third Grade Reading Guarantee, other reforms hinges on leadership

May 17, 2013

“This is about leadership.” Such was the closing comment of state superintendent Dick Ross at this morning’s Columbus event “Always Reformed, Always Reforming.” It was a remark spurred by the findings from Fordham’s recent publication Half Empty or Half Full? Superintendents’ Views on Ohio’s Education Reforms. At this event, school and policy-making leaders gathered to discuss the findings of Fordham's newest publication, a survey of Ohio's superintendents who are tasked with implementing a host of eduational reforms.

Steve Farkas of the FDR Group led off the event with a presentation of the findings the survey of 344 of the state's 614 superintendents. The survey found varied opinion from school leaders for the Buckeye State’s recent reforms. Among the seven reforms we inquired about, superintendents strongly support the Common Core and individualized learning. District superintendents, however, are far less enamored with the Third Grade Reading Guarantee and school choice options (vouchers and charter schools).

A panel discussion followed with Fordham’s Terry Ryan moderating and Senator Peggy Lehner, Kirk Hamilton, and Steve Dackin participating on the panel. Senator Lehner is the chair of the Senate Education Committee, Kirk Hamilton is the executive director of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA), and Dackin is the superintendent of Reynoldsburg City Schools near Columbus.

Panelists (from left to right): State superintendent Dick Ross, Steve Farkas of the FDR Group, Kirk Hamilton of the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, Steve Dackin of Reynoldsburg City Schools

The first topic of discussion was the Common Core. The panelists agreed that the Common Core has considerable potential to improve education for Ohio’s youngsters. Lehner remarked that educator support for the Common Core has helped Ohio’s lawmakers “weather the storm” of recent anti-Common Core agitation. Also agreed upon was that K-12 education must push ahead by integrating technology into classrooms and individualizing learning. Both, the panelists thought, can better inspire and engage children in their education.

Less common ground was found when it came to the Third Grade Reading Guarantee—Ohio’s recent law requiring third graders to demonstrate proficiency in reading before entering fourth grade. Dackin reported that, for the most part, his district has been pushing hard in primary education even before the law. Meanwhile, Lehner maintained that the policy is the right policy—Ohio has far too many kids who can’t read—and a state law, on the books, will push districts harder to prioritize the basics of early education.

Finally, the panelists found the least consensus when it came to school governance: Specifically, what role should local communities have (which as Hamilton pointed out, vary widely in culture and values) and what role should the state of Ohio play in students’ education? A brief exchange between Lehner and Hamilton sums up the complexity of governance—public education is akin to a marriage: It takes hard work to get it right—and sometimes there are arguments and sometimes there’s dysfunction.

Implementing education policy remains complex, the panelists seemed to agree. And, all this brings us full-circle to Dick Ross’ statement. Implementing serious—and often complex—education reform for the betterment of Ohio’s 1.8 million school-aged children is “all about leadership.” Are superintendents willing and able to faithfully lead the implementation of these changes? Time will tell, and here’s hoping.

To read the full findings of Fordham’s survey of Ohio superintendents, please click here. For more reaction to the report, please visit the Columbus Dispatch and StateImpact Ohio.

First Bell 5-16-13

May 16, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Fordham's latest

"The moderate extremism of relinquishment," by Neerav Kingsland, Flypaper

"Religious schools, the ADA, and the Justice Department," by Adam Emerson, Choice Words

The Chicago Teachers Union has filed suit over the city’s planned closings of more than fifty schools; parents are divided. (New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and Hechinger Report)

Bill Thompson, a Democratic NYC mayoral candidate, outlines his education agenda, which includes a plan for teacher merit pay. (New York Times and Wall Street Journal)

Researchers are beginning to look at how to measure skills learned in preschool. (Inside School Research)

New York City parents with backgrounds in statistics are questioning the city’s method of determining gifted-and-talented eligibility, arguing that a flaw in the city’s calculations meant too many kids qualified. (Wall Street Journal)

Kiera Wilmot, the sixteen-year-old model student expelled and charged with felonies last week for a failed science experiment, will not be criminally charged—but she may still be expelled. (Atlantic Wire and Huffington Post)

The LAUSD, the nation’s second-largest school district, has decided to stop expelling or suspending students for “willful defiance.” (Wall Street Journal and NPR)

A study has linked seven-year-olds’ math and reading skills to midlife financial success. (Huffington Post)

David Letterman and ten Teach for America professionals remind us why teaching is worth it. (Huffington Post)