"Selection Effects" and Charter Schools: A Clarification

A number of skeptics argue that one reason for some charters' success is that they skim some of the best students from traditional public schools.  Matthew Yglesias fundamentally misunderstands this argument (as, I suspect, do many others) in this post on recent research on KIPP when he writes that the authors are "able to look in a rigorous way at whether the high performance of KIPP students relative to demographically similar non-KIPP students is merely the result of some kind of selection effect".

While it's true that some charter schools do attract students who score higher, on average, than their peers, no serious education wonk is arguing that this alone is why the KIPPs of the world have higher test scores (which is not to say that nobody is making this argument).  Indeed, if we look at research on these high-flying charters -- note, I said research and not the popular press -- the statistics cited aren't usually snapshots of how many kids passed a certain test but, rather, longitudinal examinations of the growth of kids' test scores over time.  In this sense, simply having higher achieving kids from the start wouldn't help much -- and could conceivably hurt a school.

So what is meant by "selection effects" then?  Well, when skeptics argue that charters often skim off the best students, they mean best students in a more holistic sense.  If you ask a teacher to identify their best students, they wouldn't just point you to the kids with the highest test scores -- they'd point you to the kids who worked hard, cooperated, asked questions, turned in assignments on time, showed up every day, and generally did what was asked of them.  And having a school full of students in this mold would make teaching easier, hallways quieter, and a school's climate more positive -- all of which would aid student growth.

As far as I know, there hasn't been much research on whether charters do, in fact, recruit and retain kids who are "better students" in this sense (please note that I'm not saying there hasn't been any, only that I'm unaware of it -- and, actually, if you know of some I'd appreciate it if you sent it my way).  But there's plenty of reason to suspect that at least some charters' student bodies might skew in this direction.  Probably the most cited reason is that it takes extra effort for a parent to enroll their kid in a charter school -- making it quite logical to assume that more motivated parents are more likely to fill out the application (of course, maybe the parents' motivation is driven by hatred or their current school or something rather than desire for their kid to excel).  Secondly, there are various indicators that some charters are more likely to give kids the boot, or at least threaten to do so, than are traditional public schools.  For example, I watched one video in which a KIPP principal walks in the first day of school and tells a kid who's not cooperating that if this school isn't for him that he can leave -- that's not something that traditional public schools can really do.

Anyway, the point is this: when people talk about charters benefiting from "selection effects" they're talking about schools enrolling "better students" in the sense that they're more motivated and more cooperative, not that they simply enroll higher-scoring students.  I don't know whether or not charters actually have better students, but it's easy to imagine that a more enthusiastic, better behaved student body would make a school far more productive.

Quote of the Day

"Nothing good can come of any reform that teachers do not embrace"

-Diane Ravitch

Income Inequality vs. Wealth Inequality

When we discuss the achievement gap in education, income inequality often serves as one explanation.  But racial differences persist even when controlling for differences in income.  One reason?  Wealth may be a better indicator of household resources than income -- and wealth inequality is far larger than income inequality.

An advocacy group released this report on income inequality yesterday. The article I noticed on the topic focused on one statistic: the wealth of White vs. Black single women aged 36-49.  The average wealth for Whites is $42,600.  The average wealth for Blacks is $5.

While that statistic is striking, different people stay single for different reasons.  What I find more notable is this: the median wealth for both Black and Hispanic single mothers with children under 18 is $0.  Yes, that means that 50% of  Black and Hispanic single parents have less than zero in assets to tap in times of need.  And before you scoff at the small sub-category this represents, keep in mind that nationwide over 2/3 of African-American children are born to single mothers.  Single White mothers, on the other hand, have a median wealth of only $7,970 -- a fairly paltry sum, but infinitely more than Black or Hispanic single mothers.

If we look at all the stats for 18-64 year-olds, it's readily apparent that inequalities in wealth are far larger than inequalities in earnings.  Blacks and Hispanics make, on average, about 2/3 of what same-gendered Whites make.  But they usually possess less than 1/5 of the assets as same-status Whites (see two tables below (note: sorry for the lack of readibility, for some reason blogger still hasn't made it easy to insert tables)).

This isn't to say that wealth or income inequality explain all of the achievement gap, of course.  For one thing, in the stats below you'll notice that Hispanics often do worse than Blacks -- but we know that, nationwide, Hispanics outscore Blacks on standardized tests.

		Wealth	% of white
Married or Cohabiting	White	$162,500
	Black	$31,500	19.4%
	Hispanic	$18,000	11.1%
Single Male	White	$43,800
	Black	$7,900	18.0%
	Hispanic	$9,730	22.2%
Single Female	White	$17,500
	Black	$100	0.6%
	Hispanic	$120	0.7%

		Earnings	% of White
Male	White	$50,139
	Black	$35,652	71.1%
	Hispanic	$29,239	58.3%
Female	White	$36,398
	Black	$31,035	85.3%
	Hispanic	$25,454	69.9%

How Bad are the Central Falls Teachers?

I have absolutely no idea.  And you probably don't either.  So let's keep this debate philosophical rather than personal.

Don't Start Believin'

If memory serves, when Campbell Brown began her show on CNN, the (unofficial?) slogan was "no bull".  So much for that . . .

Tonight's show included a segment on the Rhode Island school (Central Falls) that recently fired all of its teachers.  While that action carries all sorts of ramifications (that I'm going to momentarily ignore), what caught my attention were education contributor Steve Perry's comments.

Ms. Brown first talked to a guidance counselor from the school, George McLaughlin, who argued that comparing Central Falls to other schools in wealthier neighborhoods was unfair because their school has a more transient population, more ESL students, and more special ed. students among other challenges.

Perry's response?  In the midst of an emotional segment in which he says that Mr. McLaughlin "has some nerve," he declares that Central Falls' teachers are failing solely based on the fact that 93% of its students failed the state math exam last year.  He continues on to say that "it's not a valid argument" and seems to argue that school achievement scores should be evaluated completely absent of any and all context

It's hard to debate Mr. Perry's points, because arguing that context doesn't matter in education is like arguing that height doesn't matter in basketball -- I'm not sure where to begin.

But I will address his other misstep -- using one snapshot figure.  Even if we imagine, for a second, a world where poverty, homelessness, non-native languages, and so forth don't hinder one's academic performance in the least, we still can't evaluate schools in that manner.  In this world, Central Falls teachers have the exact same kids in their classes as do those in Newport.  Except for one thing.  When they start high school, 100% of the kids in Newport are passing and 100% in Central Falls are failing (numbers are made up).  The following year, 10% of the Central Falls kids pass the test, while 50% of the Newport kids pass the test.  Which school has better teachers?  Obviously Newport, because they have more kids passing the test.  That's essentially Perry's argument.

Please don't start believing this kind of baloney . . . even when the host promises that there won't be any.

The clip is embedded below or available here, Mr. Perry's remarks begin at the 6:00 mark.



p.s. if you're thinking Mr. Perry should stick to his day job, please know that this is a different Steve Perry

Passion Before Program?

Bob Herbert's op-ed on schools today is a mixed bag -- which means it's better than most commentaries that have appeared in the popular press over the past couple years.  In it, he discusses his visits to, and discussions with the founder of, three Harlem charter schools -- the Village Academies.

He again falls into the "teachers are the only thing that matter and good ones work miracles" trap, which seems to be a popular one lately.  But he focuses on more than just teachers.  Most notably, he talks about school climate.  The best and worst part are in the same short paragraph:

Charter schools, of course, can fire teachers for poor performance. “Obviously, none of us should be allowed to be in front of children if we’re not doing a good job,” Ms. Kenny said. “But the threat of being fired if you don’t do a good job is not what makes a teacher great.”

When I have undergrads write papers on education, one mistake many make is thinking that all charter schools are the same (usually that they all work miracles).  Herbert is no better.  The whole point of charter schools is that they're autonomous and free to innovate.  It's hard to make just about any other blanket statement.  Charter schools vary widely in their rules, strategies, designs, success, etc.  So to matter-of-factly state that charter schools can, "of course," fire teachers at will is absurd on face.  Different charter schools have different rules.  Besides, the notion that traditional public schools can't fire teachers for poor performance is absurd.  Yes, in many it's tough to fire a teacher for poor performance after they've earned tenure -- that's a lot different from the implied "can't" in his statement.

But the end of the paragraph transitions back into a discussion of the school climate.  Herbert writes that the main focus of the schools has been on finding "talented and passionate" teachers, but his discussion focuses much more on the culture and climate of the school.  Indeed, the founder of the schools focuses as much on developing and keeping great teachers as she does on finding them.  And her main strategy (at least according to Herbert) seems to be creating a positive environment where people want to work.

To me, the largest difference between unsuccessful high-poverty, urban schools like the one I taught in and the typical school one usually imagines is the climate of the school.  There's undoubtedly a better analogy, but many in our school reported feeling as though they were in a "war zone."  The tension and stress were palpable.  Neither administrators nor teachers nor students were enjoying themselves.

Which brings me back to what I liked about Herbert's piece.  He writes that we focus too much on "program elements" and not enough on other things (like great teachers) when trying to create and replicate successful schools.  I agree, but I'd frame is slightly differently.  Herbert teeters on the edge of suggesting that all we need to do is find great teachers and nothing else will matter.  I'd argue that, to some extent, passion matters more than program; that it's more important that everybody is committed to the same goal than precisely what that goal is (obviously, exceptions abound).  To me, what's notable about his description of these schools isn't that they're charter schools or that they employ great teachers (at least according to Bob Herbert), but that everybody seems to be working toward the same goal.  And when that happens, it means that administrators don't have to battle teachers and teachers don't have to battle students.  Which is a pretty good first step.

Today's Random Thought

I wrote a while back about an ASA presentation I called "perhaps the best paper I've ever seen at a conference."  Apparently I wasn't the only one who liked the research, b/c the NY Times today ran an article discussing Matthew Desmond's research on evictions in Milwaukee.  It's definitely worth a read if you haven't seen it yet.

Today's Random Thoughts

Sorry for the long layoff -- it turns out that taking over a class a week into the semester while trying to advance both one's dissertation and other papers can be quite time consuming.  Or I could just say I've been busy.  Either way, until I find time to expound on some of the ideas that have been bouncing around my head recently, here are a few of the things I've found interesting recently:

-Pittsburgh has shut their schools down for the entire week.  Why?  Well, 29 inches of snow spread out over 5 days hasn't helped, but the main problem seems to be an inexplicable delay in the plowing and salting of roads.  4 inches of snow canceled school for 5+ straight calendar days here in Nashville, but that's because we don't have the equipment or know how to deal with snow.  Pittsburgh does.  Or at least it did.  The strangest part of the story: Last Saturday the entire county declared a state of emergency as it tried to shovel and plow itself out from 21.1 inches of snow . . . meanwhile, boy Mayor Luke Ravenstahl was off in the mountains "celebrating his 30th birthday".  Maybe now that he's turned 30 he'll get his act together.  Because a city that's made all sorts of headlines with its plans for an educational turnaround doesn't need mayoral incompetence getting in the way of student learning.

-Meanwhile, the rule in Nashville seems to be one day off per inch of snow.  Guess what was supposed to be happening while school was canceled due to mildly slushy sidewalks most of last week?  State tests.  Which serves as another reminder how fallible one high-stakes test is.

-On the other end of the spectrum, it appears that NYC finally canceled a day of school after getting blitzed with snow yesterday.  During my two years in the city we had exactly zero official snow days.  I say "official" because we had three days where all the suburbs called off and no more than about half the staff or students showed up.  One of those was the day after NYC got 19 inches of snow.  And all three were a waste of a day . . . we simply lined everybody up in the cafeteria at 8am, divvied them up between teachers, and babysat all day.  I guess the moral of the story is that while canceling too much school isn't a good thing, never canceling school doesn't solve the problem.

-It looks like NYC is finally going to start using test score data as part of tenure decisions.  Except that 90% -- yes, 90% -- of teachers up for tenure this year didn't teach the same tested subject for two consecutive years.  Which serves as another reminder that value-added scores won't solve all of our system's problems.

Declining Reform or DeKleining Intelligence?

The teaser on Time's home page for Joe Klein's new commentary on teachers' unions said something about them stopping reform.  Of course unions have prevented reform over the years.  But that, in and of itself, doesn't make them evil.  You see, not all reform is good.  Preventing a bad reform from occurring would actually make the union the good guys.

Now, of course, I don't actually see that line in the article -- so it may have been all the headline writer's idea instead of Joe Klein's.  But there are plenty of other problems:

1.) Teachers' unions do a number of both good and bad things.  I cannot take seriously any article or person that doesn't acknowledge that -- the idea that unions are either purely good or purely bad is pure nonsense.

2.) He writes that "it is near impossible to fire a teacher" in NYC and that "miscreants are stashed in 'rubber rooms'."  I still don't buy that it's nearly as hard to fire a teacher as many claim.  And even if it is, the argument is still overstated since there are far more teachers that walk away quasi-voluntarily than there are teachers who are sent to the rubber room (in other words, getting rid of bad teachers probably isn't as hard as you think).  Is it too hard to fire teachers?  In many cases, yes, it probably is.  But it's not impossible.  And all the hand-wringing is unnecessary.  When I see a bad teacher remaining in a school, I blame the principal more than the union.

3.) Klein writes that "authorities are forbidden, by state law, to evaluate teachers by using student test results."  This is true.  Sort of.  Technically they're forbidden -- for now.  The law that was passed only mandated a two-year moratorium on this practice -- it didn't forbid it for eternity.  Besides, there's plenty of evidence that using the scores would've created more problems than it solved.

4.) He summarizes the Hoxby et al study as showing that "students in New York City's charter schools . . . have closed 86% of the gap in test results between the poorest neighborhoods of the city and ritzy suburbs like Scarsdale."  Notice the word have in the sentence.  The study showed nothing of the sort.  Based on snapshots of data, it projected that students enrolled in these charter schools (which, by the way, were only the charter schools popular enough to be oversubscribed and have an entrance lottery) would eventually close 86% of the gap.  A subsequent study from other Stanford researchers again found that the charters were doing better than traditional public schools, but that the gains aren't nearly that big.

5.) All of these arguments have been made before.  And they were just as weak then.  When I was told Joe Klein had a new column out on education, I was expecting something insightful.  I love some of his other work.  Hopefully he was distracted because he's in the midst of writing the next great political novel.

NYC School Closures

I stayed up late following the action on GothamSchool's excellent play-by-play post of the decision to close 20 schools in NYC.  When a meeting drags on for 9 hours because the speaker list climbs into the hundreds, you know that there are some raw emotions involved, and I'd encourage everybody to at least skim through the post to get a feel for what was being done and said.

But I'm left with very mixed feelings regarding the closures.  On the one hand, the process is certainly undemocratic -- the majority of the school board is appointed by Bloomberg, and it doesn't seem like a coincidence that 4 out of 5 of the other appointees voted against school closures while all 9 of his appointees voted for them.  The crowd greeted every yea vote by yelling "puppet!" and every nay vote by yelling "leader!"  It's pretty clear that a large number of people feel disenfranchised by the way that Bloomberg and Klein are managing the NYC school system.

On the other hand, I have little doubt that at least a few of those 20 schools were horribly mismanaged and had little chance of turnaround in the future.  When they decided to phase out the school where I taught, I firmly believed that they were doing the community a favor.  After all, it's possible for a decision to be both undemocratic and correct.  Maybe the lack of a traditional school board was actually a good thing this time, because traditional school boards have an awfully hard time voting to close schools.  And sometimes schools need to be closed.

I don't like the way that the decisions were made -- they might have been the right decisions.  The biggest question now is whether the new schools that are put in place will be any better than the old ones.