Thoughts on Education Policy

The Theory behind Merit Pay

2008-07-17T11:55:00.002-05:00

Liam Julian posted a couple quick blurbs on merit pay today, including one partially in response to a comment I left on the first. Merit pay is, as I'll explain, fine and dandy on paper -- but I still worry about its feasibility in real life.

By "merit pay," I mean plans to pay better teachers more money -- which has taken all sorts of forms in different schools and districts.

The basic theories behind merit pay, as far as I can tell, are that:
-Teachers will work harder if they know that better teaching will result in more money
-It's more fair to pay teachers based on how good they are than on seniority or education
-Successful teachers are more likely to stay in the profession if their success is rewarded
-Brighter and more driven people are more likely to enter the profession if they know that their success will be rewarded
-Less successful teachers are more likely to leave voluntarily if their pay isn't advanced

All of these are eminently reasonable assumptions. On paper, they make a lot of sense. It wouldn't surprise me at all if any or all of these were borne out by experiments with merit pay.

That said, I also refuse to assume that all of these will be borne out in real life. Economists like to imagine that everybody is a "rational actor" that acts in their own best interest. That theory is, generally speaking, usually true. But there are exceptions -- large exceptions. Not to mention practical hurdles. And these mean that there are a lot of unanswered questions about merit pay, including:

-How much harder are teachers able/willing to work for more money?
-Would teachers motivated by money behave differently from teachers motivated intrinsically?
-How many more people would consider teaching if merit pay were common?
-How large of a role do salaries play when teachers leave the field?
-What types of people would enter teaching if pay were different?
-How well can we measure how "good" a teacher is?
-Will teachers buy-in to any measure of their success?
-Can a rewards system that is both fair and easy to understand be created?
-What type of behavior should be rewarded?
-What types of challenges or additional responsibilities should be rewarded?
-Do teachers know how to alter their behavior so that they will be more successful? (i.e. if teachers work harder, will they necessarily be better?)

I see multiple meritorious answers to all of these questions. If you'll bear with me, I have two quick anecdotal pieces of evidence that point in opposite directions. When I was teaching, I lived, ate, slept, breathed teaching. I gave it my all. If somebody had offered me $1 million if my kids improved, it wouldn't have changed my behavior any b/c I was already doing everything I could. A friend of mine, meanwhile, taught in a similar situation. He came in and out-performed all of the other math teachers in his middle school (as measured by student test scores) and then left, in part b/c he wouldn't be paid any more the next year as a result of his success -- he found it quite depressing that he would continue to earn only his 3% (or whatever) salary step bumps and make less than the older teachers in the department no matter what he did.

In short, I see arguments on both sides of the coin. I, for one, refuse to assume that merit pay either will or will not work. In order to answer that question (prepare for the most hated four words in education research) more research is needed.

Last-Second Changes

2008-07-16T10:16:00.002-05:00

I haven't come across much on this in the research literature, but I'm willing to stick my neck out and assert that one thing that absolutely drives people in schools nuts are the number of last-minute changes from above. People are told that they will be teaching different subjects or grades days or hours before the school year begins, for example. I was hired by the school at which I worked two days before the start of the school year because the previous 6th grade teacher had just been moved across the hall to be a bilingual teacher.

This is far from the most egregious example, but the state just shuffled around an awful lot of administrators in Nashville. A month before the start of the school year is a lot better than a day, but the former principals have been hiring staff and otherwise preparing their schools for the fall for two months now.

Imagine Mr. Smith hiring a new teacher in June and then Mr. Jones being installed as the new principal in July. What if Mr. Jones doesn't like the new teacher or the new teacher doesn't like Mr. Jones? It's going to take at least a year to sort these kinds of things out, and many of them could have been avoided had the state simply acted two months earlier.

"Rational" and "Stupid" are not Mutually Exclusive

2008-07-14T14:27:00.003-05:00

Back when I was studying economics, we learned all about the rational behavior in which individuals and organizations engage in response to various incentives and disincentives. "Home Economicus" is the generic rational individual that we assume all people to be -- actions are based on a rational evaluation of what actions would most benefit that individual.

Though all sorts of exceptions exist, the theory generally holds in most situations. We can predict that a person will be more likely to buy a product when the price is lowered, for example. In the same vein, we can predict that a teacher will change their behavior if offered a bonus when he/she reaches certain benchmarks. Such behavior would be considered rational.

Here's the problem that we sometimes overlook: what is rational to economists is not always in the best interest of society. Here's the latest example: Flypaper blogs about a plan in Los Angeles to allow certain students to attend school for only two hours per week. The plan is labeled "unbelievably stupid" and I largely agree.

But the plan is anything but irrational. The main goal of the program seems to be to encourage students to enroll in this new school rather than dropping out. They may not learn much by attending school for only two hours per week, but the fact that they're enrolled means that the school district continues to receive money from the state for each student -- money they wouldn't receive if the student dropped out. The plan is, in short, in the best interest of the school district. Those who came up with the idea were acting in their own self-interest.

Self-interest is a powerful motivator. But it's not always the solution.

How to Fix Testing?

2008-07-01T08:28:00.003-05:00

Maybe it's b/c my brain is still only half-functioning, but I feel like writing something today about which I know little and that will probably result in a lot of people calling me stupid.

Testing is a huge part of American education, but it's riddled with all sorts of problems. One problem is that most tests are simply not a valid measurement of student knowledge/aptitude/performance (or whatever it is that the test strives to measure). Allow me one example. My first year, all my students took the English exam at the end of the year and their performance was compared to the previous year. This makes sense on paper. But, in reality, the exam was 50 minutes long and contained 50 multiple choice questions. The internal validity, in short, was lacking. Economists would say there was "a lot of noise" in the test results -- the scores of the students varied widely from their true ability based on all sorts of random reasons. This is one flaw with the value-added formula -- if we're not really sure how much the kid knew last year, then we can't really tell how much they learned this year.

Many have also complained that students spend all day on "test prep" in the weeks or months (I was told to stop teaching social studies after Christmas and do practice English tests) leading up to the exam -- in effect, teachers are trying to teach kids to game tests. This not only robs kids of other learning opportunities but, if done correctly, artificially raises scores.

Anyway, skoolboy posted a tongue-in-cheek call for more testing on eduwonkette's blog today. While I was teaching I thought up a somewhat similar proposal to his, but my tongue was not in my cheek. Here's one way I think testing could be done that would solve a lot of the problems:

Every class in the school takes one test approximately every two weeks. The time, day, and subject matter of the test are random. The teacher and student find out that they will be taking a test a certain period the following day at the end of the previous day. They are not informed of the subject matter until they arrive in the testing room (a testing room equipped with computers is necessary to ensure that all these tests can be graded quickly). By the end of the year, each student has taken about 20 tests spread across all subjects. This provides a much broader base on which to judge students' knowledge. Since testing runs all year and one never knows on what subject they'll be tested next, test prep is impossible to do effectively or to sustain throughout the pre-test time period. The system will be a bit of a pain in the butt and will generate some complaints from teachers. A well-organized testing coordinator and a well-run testing room would have to present in each school. A wide variety of high-quality tests that can be graded largely by computer will have to be available -- national testing may be the only affordable way to do this. But, if done correctly it would solve a lot of problems.

In short, I'm not convinced that more testing isn't the answer.

Does Teacher Opinion Matter?

2008-06-27T07:58:00.003-05:00

Sorry for my sudden disappearance -- I've been off trying to deal with more important issues.

The NY Times ran an article this morning about the survey the UFT recently conducted of NYC teachers (UFT press release here, full results here). In short, it seems that teachers don't particularly like Chancellor Klein.

Methodological concerns aside, I wonder if these results matter.

I think a strong argument can be made that teachers' feelings about a particular reform will greatly influence how they implement said reform, but I wonder about their feelings toward things that are more removed from their immediate situation. Does a teacher's love or hatred for Joel Klein affect how they go about their daily business? Does it make them less satisfied with their jobs? Does it make them less likely to implement reforms he pushes? Or is "Chancellor Klein" too much of an abstraction to matter much when teaching a roomful of kids?

Home vs. School Influence

2008-06-18T11:27:00.002-05:00

I previously asserted that the largest reason for the failures at my school was not anything in the school but, rather, what took place at home.

Ken DeRosa, over at D-Ed Reckoning, took the time to thoughtfully respond to a lot of what I had to say (he disagrees with me) and I'd like to respond to some of his comments.

*The first point he makes is that my assignment of causality to home factors over school factors is suspect. He has a point. I can't be 100% sure about that. I didn't rigorously evaluate student attitudes toward school, survey parents, observe home environments, run regressions, etc. I did not use rigorous research methodology to determine what caused what and, as such, I won't be publishing it in an academic journal anytime soon. But what I did do is spend all day in the school for two years straight. I taught about 70 different kids in my two classes, and probably at least a thousand others while covering other classes. I held conferences with parents. I got to know students. I talked to teachers. I observed other classrooms. In short, I knew the school inside and out. I can't empirically prove that home factors matter more than school ones, but I have plenty of good reasons to believe it. There's certainly no way to disprove my theory either.

His second point that he makes surrounding validity is that the students' behavior was confounded by previous academic experience. All the kids should have attended school for at least 5 years prior to coming to our school (NYC doesn't mandate kindergarten), and I know very little about those experiences or how they affected learning and behavior. This is true. If I were publishing this in a journal, it would be a major weakness if not a fatal flaw. Again, I can't be 100% sure -- but given my in-depth knowledge of the situation, I'm fairly confident in my position.

*DeRosa says that behavioral problems weren't caused by poor home environments but, rather, by poor management and instructional strategies. Given that DeRosa has never, to my knowledge, stepped foot in my school it's hard for him to know exactly what was happening and why. That said, I agree to some extent. My classroom management skills were lacking, as were most of the other new teachers'. My training was not enough, and I (and other teachers) certainly could have used better techniques. But he'll have to trust me when I say that I've managed plenty of kids in plenty of situations in my lifetime and that the kids in this school were different. They were angrier. They were more defiant. They had less self-control. Of course the adults in the building failed to do enough to create a positive and structured environment, but doing so was much, much harder than it should have been because of the social norms to which the kids were exposed outside of school.

In summary of what went wrong at my school, let me be clear: myself and the other adults in the school failed the kids in many, many ways. The school was poorly run. I lacked adequate training. We could have done any number of things better (especially around discipline) and it would have helped the situation. But I stand by my assertion that the largest cause of problems at the school was the home life of the children. And I apologize for the obscene length of this post, but I'm going to explain why.

1.) When I started teaching I was convinced that the reason why schools such as mine were failing was because they were underfunded and that the teachers didn't work hard enough. I was at least 100% confident that I could turn around the life of every student I encountered. I believed I could overcome every problem they've faced simply by being inspiring, demanding, and generally awesome. But I slowly came to realize that this was not the case.

I saw many problems in my school, including: incompetent administrators (not all of them, mind you), high teacher turnover (and, therefore, inexperienced teachers), few resources and supplies, a dilapidated building, etc. I wanted to believe that with the right policies that we could be as good as any other school, but here's what I realized (and feel free to disagree on this point). If you were to lift a school from, say, Scarsdale and plop it down where our school was and then plop our school down where theirs was, you would have an interesting experiment. Our school, with the lack of resources, inexperienced teachers, etc. would now be populated by wealthy suburban kids. The Scarsdale school, with much higher expenditures, more experienced teachers, nicer facilities, smaller classes, etc. would be populated by our kids. Which school would be better?

Before I started teaching, I would've thought that the former Scarsdale school would be better. No longer. In my mind, our school would instantly become superior once it was populated by kids who were well-fed, well-adjusted, well-behaved, and had involved parents. In other words, all the of the structural factors matter less than the population of the school.

2.) My final summer in the Bronx, I taught at a private school that ran a special summer program for public school kids who had fallen behind. I taught Math, which I'd never taught before. The students came from the same neighborhoods (there was an income cap to get into the program). Despite this, the program was an unmitigated success. Students came to school on-time and ready to learn. Students smiled. Students listened when I talked. Students completed homework. Students learned. I had fun.

What was different? Certainly the program was well-run. Classes were capped at 15. I had two or three high school mentors as assistants in each class. The facilities were shiny (they even washed the board for me at night!). The teachers were good. All these things made a difference, but the largest difference was the home environment from which these kids came. The students had parents who went out of their way to apply to a selective program, come in for face-to-face interviews, make sure their kids attended so that they would be allowed to remain, and attended parent day even though they had to take a day off work.

To be fair, the program was selective and had no qualms about removing students who didn't show up or didn't cooperate. As a result, we were left with kids that came from stable families but that lived in poor neighborhoods.

Again, I have no empirical evidence -- but my experiences have convinced me that the home lives of these students contributed more to the success of the program than did the competency of the adults involved. I'm not arguing that the other stuff didn't matter, just that it mattered less than what happened at home.

3.) DeRosa argues that "The problems Corey sees may start at home, but there is no reason to believe that they cannot be solved and compensated for by schools." I disagree. I see no reason why they can't be assuaged, but schools with current levels of resources will never fully overcome what happens at home.

I'm sure just about everybody reading this could point out a school or ten that have overcome this. First of all, an exception doesn't disprove a rule. Secondly, many of the schools that have overcome home disadvantages go far beyond what we normally expect schools to do. Take KIPP schools for example, students not only self-select but are asked to leave (or simply told they will be held back if they stay) when they don't cooperate. The schools run, I believe, about 9-10 hours per day. Millions of dollars in grants are brought in to provide all sorts of extra opportunities. I think this is great. I would encourage many of the kids that I taught to go to a KIPP school if they could, but it doesn't accurately reflect what we'd normally expect schools to do.

Take, as another example, the SEED school in D.C. By all accounts, it has been tremendously successful. But it's a boarding school. If that's what it takes to overcome disadvantages stemming from students' home lives, then I'm all for it -- but we can't reasonably expect all inner-city schools to become boarding schools.

As a final example, let me provide one more anecdote. The leader of YES! Prep in Houston was on campus to speak in the fall. He opened with a question that read something to the effect of "can a school educate poor students as well as wealthy ones when they have the same resources?" And their answer was "YES!" As far as I could tell, the school did a phenomenal job. They had a dedicated staff that went the extra mile to make sure students succeeded. But they didn't provide the same resources as a suburban school, they provided the same resources as both a suburban school and a suburban family. They had extended school hours and all sorts of social activities. They raised money to provide their kids with college scholarships. They raised money to take their kids on college visits and on weekend trips to museums, plays, etc.

In short, I'm not arguing that it's not possible for a school to overcome a great deal of what happens at home, but rather that it's not possible given our current level of school resources. If somebody can figure out a way to fund a doubling of school hours, cultural trips, college visits, etc. then I'll be more open to considering schools as a full remedly for social ills rather than a partial one. Let's not forget that once a student is old enough to attend school they only spend about 22% of their waking hours inside a school building. The other 78% of the time, not to mention the first 5 or 6 years of their lives, have an awful lot of influence ((180*7/365*16) = .22).

4.) Last point, I promise. Let me get away from personal anecdotes and move on to some research. The Coleman Report was commisioned in the 1960's to prove that poor kids (especially African-Americans in segregated schools) were failing because their schools didn't have enough resources. Instead, it found that home life mattered more than what happened in school. It's now been about 42 years since the study was released, and countless follow-up studies have confirmed this finding. If there's any certainty in educaiton policy research, it's that homes influence academic achievement more than schools.

The only exception of which I'm aware is what's known as the "Heyneman-Loxley Effect" based on a paper written by Stephen Heyneman and William Loxley in 1983. The pair studies 29 countries and examined the influence of home vs. school. They found a strong correlation (-.72) between the GNP of a country and the percentage influence of home vs. that of school. In other words, schools mattered more in poor countries and homes mattered more in rich countries.

In Conclusion: I stand by my assertion that the largest problem affecting my school was the home lives of our students. This does not mean that I made excuses rather than working hard. If anything, this motivated me to work harder. This does not mean that schools can't make a world of difference. I wouldn't be studying education if I didn't think it could make a difference in students' lives. What this means is that problems exist both inside and outside of schools -- and that schools can't fix everything.

Narrowing Gap

2008-06-18T05:52:00.002-05:00

A new report out today from the Fordham Institute apparently describes how the bottom 10 percent of students have made more progress this century than the top 10 percent of students.

Given that the low-performing students in the U.S. lag behind low-performers in other countries while high-performing students hold their own against other high-performers (previous post), it's hard for me to see this as anything but a good thing.

Why TFA?

2008-06-17T21:07:00.003-05:00

The Wall St. Journal has an editorial today extolling the virtues of Teach For America. I think TFA does far more good than harm, but I can't help but notice at least two glaring errors.

1.) Near the end they cite the problematic Urban Institute study as iron-clad proof that TFA teachers are better than regular teachers. Citing one study as definitive proof of anything will continue to annoy me, no matter what the circumstances. A handful of studies with larger sample sizes have been conducted, and they should have mentioned them.

2.) They seem to imply that the only reason people apply to TFA is because they can cut through the red tape. Here's the part of the editorial I'm talking about so that you can judge for yourself:

Unions keep saying the best people won't go into teaching unless we pay them what doctors and lawyers and CEOs make. Not only are Teach for America salaries significantly lower than what J.P. Morgan might offer, but these individuals go to some very rough classrooms. What's going on?
It seems that Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy.

The chance to be put right in a classroom is certainly part of the allure of TFA and similar programs (without that opportunity I never would have applied to any of these programs), but it seems somewhat disingenuous to suggest that it's the only reason. I'm not sure if any studies have been done on the topic (please let me know if you've seen any), but I'm willing to bet that TFA applicants apply for all of the following reasons:

-the chance to "make the world a better place"
-the chance to move directly to the classroom without going through certification
-it looks darn good on a resume
-it's a good transition from college to the working world
-gives people two years to decide what they really want to do
-not a long-term commitment
-it's the cool thing to do

Additionally, TFA puts a lot of effort into recruiting people.

In conclusion: I hardly think that the fact that TFA attracts talented people proves that schools would have no problem attracting talented people if certification didn't exist.

Of What Utility is Parental Satisfaction?

2008-06-17T09:20:00.003-05:00

The National Center for Education Evaluation released a report on the D.C. Opportunity Scholars (voucher) program yesterday.

The short version is that it found somewhere between no and few academic gains for those awarded vouchers, no difference in student satisfaction, but an improvement in parental satisfaction. There are, of course, all sorts of caveats (see here for a more complete analysis of the methodology and findings), but that's essentially what the report says.

As Erin Dillon points out, the mixed findings mean that both supporters and opponents of the voucher program can cite the study to support their arguments.

Liam Julian has an interesting reaction over at Flypaper. He essentially argues that the study is irrelevant, and uses the increase in parental satisfaction as evidence of that fact. He also argues that since the voucher program is not doing any harm, that we shouldn't discontinue it.

The report and Julian's reaction both got me thinking. As to the latter point, I'm not sure that a voucher opponent wouldn't have an equally valid point if they said "it's not doing any good, so it should be discontinued," nor am I sure that the report proves that the program's not doing any harm.

But, on to the larger point of whether parental satisfaction, or anything else, proves that the program has been a success or failure:

This is what I'd like to see: before the start of a program such as this one, proponents and opponents of the plan, along with parties with no rooting interest, should define what outcomes would make the program a failure and what outcomes would make the program a success. Then we can compare the findings of the program evaluation to this criteria. The way it's currently being done, one can define success or failure any way they like based on the findings of the evaluation.

More importantly, I wonder what kind of criteria would be placed on these pre-program lists. In other words, how do we really know that schools are succeeding? "Student achievement" (i.e. test scores) is all the rage these days, so I'm sure that would make the list. I'm guessing that people would include other types of learning, such as critical thinking, behavior, safety, parent and student perceptions, attendance, and a host of other things on such a list.

There was, to my knowledge anyway, no such list for this program. So we're stuck with the findings and our post-hoc interpretations of them.

Anyway, the one firm finding in the report seems to be that parents are more satisfied with the new schools in which their children are enrolled than they were with their former schools (even though the kids aren't). That certainly seems to be a good thing but what, exactly, does this mean? Does it mean that parents are simply happier when they get choose their child's school than when they don't, or does it mean that parents are perceiving positive things outside of the scope of the program evaluation?

I could see interpreting this particular finding any number of ways. One could argue that parents care at least as much about other factors as they do about test scores. One could argue that parental satisfaction is ultimately what matters most since parents are ultimately responsible for their children. One could argue that an increase in parental satisfaction is a given in such a program.

In the end, I'm not sure exactly what an increase in parental satisfaction means. If the parent is more satisfied, you'd expect that they might become more involved in the school -- or at least become more cooperative with it. But does an increase in parental satisfaction affect students otherwise? In other words, If I enroll in a school that pleases my mother, does that mean that I'll do any better? Student satisfaction didn't increase, so it would seem that parent and student satisfaction might not go hand-in-hand. If parent satisfaction increases, but student satisfaction doesn't, will the child's behavior change? I'm not sure what the answer is.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2008-06-14T19:19:00.002-05:00

I've already posted my thoughts on what's wrong with education policy once, but I feel this is important enough to bring up again. I continue to see no reason why education policy should involve taking sides or demeaning others.

Why do I bring this up now? Two major reasons:

1.) David Brooks' op-ed in the Times on Friday makes what I believe to be a false distinction between what he terms the "status quo" and "reformist" camps. The two big press releases this week signed by large groups of people (here and here) strike him as warring factions. I see no reason why one can't agree with both. They both raise a number of good points. I already signed my name to the EPI report, and if I could figure out how to do the same for the EEP report without simultaneously signing up for e-mails then I would sign my name to that one as well.

2.) Despite the opinion of my new critic, I continue to believe that belittling others is both bad form and consequential. This all started when Chad Lykins took D-Ed Reckoning to task for calling the signers of the EPI report "jackasses" (though in strikethrough font). I simply fail to see how name-calling productively contributes to the conversation about education policy. Though he resorts to name calling (in a post already unproductively titled "A Dopier Approach to Education"), he does make some good points. But why would anybody that he's demeaned want to listen to what he has to say. Though the post is entertaining it, ultimately, seems unproductive to me. In short, I think the tone of the discussion needs to stay respectful -- otherwise we'll accomplish nothing.

In addition to the tenor of some blog posts and David Brooks' attempt to divide ed policy people, I can't help but notice that I see an "us against them" mentality pop up in blog posts all over the place. As just one example, check out this post on the Fordham blog. On the heels of a number of Fordhamites calling Eleanor Holmes Norton some pretty nasty things in light of her opposition to the voucher program in D.C., Liam Julian characterizes those advocating the maintenance of the voucher program as "on the right side of this fight." Before that he argues that Norton and others need to justify any action they take to end the voucher program. He's right, they do. But anybody who wants to keep the voucher program also needs to justify their actions. In fact, I think that anybody who takes any position on any issue needs to justify their actions. Let's have a productive discussion instead of resorting to pettiness or knee-jerk reactions to positions you don't like.

"Around The Blogs"

2008-06-12T12:20:00.003-05:00

When newspaper columnists want to take a day off they write a "notes column" -- a pseudonym for throwing together a bunch of random thoughts rather than thinking through an entire column. Bloggers tend to put an "around the blogs" or similarly named post up on their site. Granted, bloggers have no expectation of fully hashing out ideas they mention in the first place -- so I'm not sure it's technically cheating -- but I still find it somewhat amusing. Anyway, I have a lot of tabs open to interesting blog posts, and not a lot of time. So . . . around the blogs we go.

-Robert Pondiscio reports on a study that finds increasing "executive function" (which he defines as "the ability to resist distraction and focus") also boosts achievement. It makes sense to me. I've previously mentioned that I think self-control is underrated.

-Chad Lykins likes my Blog Posts In Need of Improvement Segment. He rightfully takes D-Ed Reckoning to task for a lack of modesty in the initial installment of his "The Awful State of Education Blogging" segment. Hey, they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

-NPR has an interesting blurb (with a corresponding audio clip) about a peer review system in Toledo that, though not perfect, sounds better than the current way of evaluating teachers (hat tip: Alexander Russo).

-TMAO has a looonnnggg list of thoughts about his recent resignation from teaching and some of what led to his decision.

I'll stop there. Enjoy!

A Broader Approach

2008-06-11T12:21:00.005-05:00

The blog world seems to be obsessed with the report released yesterday by EPI. I've read too many posts on the topic to cite them all. But I notice one recurring theme among a number of them: complaints that the report is tackling a problem that doesn't exist.

Let's take a step back. The report purports to take both a "bolder" and a "broader" approach to education reform than other solutions that have been floated. It argues, in short, that schools alone cannot close the achievement gap and that while improving schools is a worthy goal that it's not enough.

It seems a number of people have essentially asked "who ever said schools could do it alone?"

Maybe it's just because I'm cranky today, but this seems like a preposterous, if not disingenuous, question to me.

There is an overriding assumption behind a lot of the recent legislation and commentary on education that schools alone are expected to cure all social ills. When people argue that is not possible they're told that they're being defeatist and not to make excuses. It would be quite difficult to not to have noticed this*.

Here's the reality of the situation: schools can help, but they can't change everything. I taught for two years in an atrociously run middle school in the Bronx. Every day was filled with much chaos and little learning. And here's what I learned during my two years: the biggest reason for the failure of the school was what was happening at home. Now, that's not to say that we couldn't have done better. I could name a couple incompetent and mean-spirited administrators that should've been replaced. Us teachers certainly could have done better. The school could've been better organized. Any number of things would have helped the situation.

But that doesn't hide the fact that most of the problems existed before students ever set foot in the building. I had some horribly disruptive students my second year. The only thing that seemed to help one's behavior was calling home. But when I did that he would come back with large welts across his arms. When I would call the home of another one, his mother would tell me that she didn't know what to do. Kids would stroll into the building late with an empty stomach and an angry demeanor. When an argument erupted, it was quite difficult to defuse because kids would tell me that they were under instructions from their parents not to "stay hit." Kids would come in and fall asleep b/c they had been kept up till the wee hours of the morning by any number of activities. A couple kids disappeared for a month to go visit family in the Dominican Republic. And on, and on, and on.

Does that mean that it's impossible for a school (or a teacher) to make a difference? No. None of that stopped me from working till I dropped from exhaustion at night, setting my alarm for 5:15, and working until the bell rang in the morning. I usually stayed at school until I was too hungry to work anymore. Sometimes I'd go get dinner and find a janitor to let me back in. I kept threatening to sleep at school, but never followed through. I set high expectations from my students, and made them sign their work certifying that it was their best possible effort. But I didn't change the world. Some of the students did better, sure, but there were too many things at play for me to unalterably change the course of every life I touched.

Every person involved with a local school should focus their effort on helping children rather than making excuses, but that doesn't change the reality that schools are not only asked, but expected to do the near-impossible on a daily basis.

The report is somewhat weak. None of the policy proposals are particularly specific or ground-breaking. But I'm going to "sign" it, and here's why: the tenor of the discussion needs to be changed. I don't expect this report to do all that much, but at least it's a start. A lot of important people have signed on to the general idea that we need to improve the lives of children both inside and outside of school. I agree.

*Wording has been changed from original version to reflect a more civil tone. Thanks to KDeRosa for pointing this out.

Blog Post In Need of Improvement

2008-06-10T11:36:00.002-05:00

Despite my hesitance, my first edition of Blog Posts In Need of Improvement was a rousing success -- it remains my most-viewed post. I've been keeping an eye out for others that need improvement since then. I have a few marked that I've been thinking about, but I'm not quite ready to roll them out. In the meantime, I noticed this one on Friday and it's so glaringly problematic that I feel I need to address it ASAP. So I'll interrupt my regularly scheduled program to bring you this special edition of Blog Post (singular) In Need of Improvement.

Same rules apply as last time:

BPINI 3: Success: Over the meadow and through the woods, Flypaper (Fordham Institute)

Why: Liam Julian posits on why moving poor kids to wealthier schools doesn't help -- using an offensive and ill-fitting analogy. He cites a recent article in The Atlantic (not online yet) that chronicles the move of many former project residents in Memphis to outlying areas. Apparently the result (or at least one corresponding occurrence) was that crime spread throughout the city. Julian argues that this happened because "Dangerous neighborhoods are dangerous for a variety of reasons, but at the core it’s because they’re inhabited by... criminals, who, when transplanted to better neighborhoods, are simply able to steal better merchandise."

First of all, I find the insinuation that most people who live in the projects are criminals both false and offensive. Let's not forget that these are people that we're talking about. Secondly, the analogy that follows -- that dispersing kids to richer schools also doesn't work -- fails in a number of areas.

1. He argues that the reason dispersing poor people to wealthier neighborhoods doesn't work because they're criminals and they simply drag down the other neighborhoods. Does this mean that dispersing poor schoolchildren to wealthier schools won't work b/c they're bad people and will just drag down the students in their new school? That's the logical direction of the analogy, but it's not where Julian goes.

2. After a number of clicks, I ascertained that he was basing his assertion that spreading kids out to different schools doesn't work on this article. When I read the article, however, I found out that it was further refinement of the findings in this article that found that a group of public housing residents who applied for vouchers to move and received them did not, for the most apart, out-achieve those who applied and didn't receive them. Both articles offer a number of convincing reasons for the result. Among other things, only about half of the people actually moved, only 1/5 of that group moved to areas where the poverty rate was below the state median, and the new schools that children attended were only marginally better than their old ones. The point being that both articles raise serious caution about simply claiming that moving to a different neighborhood doesn't help. I'm not too familiar with the research base on integrating schools, but I asked around a bit and am under the distinct impression that positive effects of moving low-SES students into higher-SES schools has been found to have positive effects.

3. He eventually concludes that "Bad schools are bad not because of who sits next to whom, but mostly because of the... bad teachers and bad administrators who work in them." While there's merit to this sentiment, this does not support his argument. If schools are bad simply because of the teachers and administrators that work there, and are not influence by anything else, then moving a kid from a low-performing school to a high-performing school should work wonders. Indeed, that's the premise of the school choice movement.

After reading the post it's hard to conclude anything but that not enough thought was put into it. I don't find the misleading summarizing of previous research and offensive assumptions to be particularly helpful in our quest to improve America's schools.

Better Post, Same Blog: The Remorseful Joel Klein
Why: Mike Petrilli reports back on an interesting presentation and discussion with Joel Klein. His summary is both interesting and insightful, and he offers a pretty balanced view of Klein's tenure in NYC.

In Defense of Research

2008-06-10T09:36:00.003-05:00

Kevin Carey weighed in last night with some advice for ed researchers. Liam Julian heartily agreed today in Fordham's blog.

You can read their posts if you want to know everything that was said but, in short, they argued that education research needs to:

-get to the point
-be relevant
-be readable
-simplify
-conclude with something other than "more research is needed"

Half of me agrees and half of me disagrees with what was said. On the one hand, some researchers do need to work harder to make sure that their work is relevant and research journals are certainly not fun reading. When I first started my PhD, I would've made a lot of these same arguments. Our family Christmas letter that year said that my goal was to write a research article that could be read in one sitting w/o falling asleep.

But, on the other hand, things are the way they are for a reason. A snappy, simple, easy-to-read article has a place in ed policy -- but not usually in a top journal. It's simply not possible to fully explain research without nuance and details -- things that make reading it boring. Both complain about researchers who conclude by saying that more research is necessary. Authors do this for a reason: it's called being a responsible researcher. A responsible researcher acknowledges the shortcomings of their research. A responsible researcher acknowledges that no firm conclusions can be made in most circumstances. It is the rare article that can conclusively prove anything -- it takes a body of literature to do that. Asking authors to make strong conclusions based on weak evidence is the equivalent of asking them to be dishonest.

Before I get carried away, let me point out that the system is fundamentally broken. The average person is not going to sit down, read an education journal, and change they way they run their school(s) or classroom(s). As Mary Brabeck pointed out in EdWeek a couple weeks ago, we need research that will translate into actions on the ground level. Currently, the link between research and practice is tenuous at best. But the answer isn't to dumb down research articles -- the answer is to translate research articles into better resources for policymakers, principals, teachers, etc.

And How Much Structure is Too Much Structure?

2008-06-08T21:47:00.002-05:00

Before I started teaching, every person with whom I spoke during pre-service training said the same two things were most important in a classroom: structure and routines. I didn't believe them, and I learned the hard way. A group of chaotic students isn't conducive to learning, and is pleasant for anybody to be around. But I wonder at what point there's a trade-off between creating an ordered environment and teaching students self-control and independent thinking. If students do nothing but follow routines, what will happen to them when they're out on their own?

What got me thinking about the subject was this post on the Fordham blog. In it, the author, Christina Hentges, describes their experience riding the metro with a group of KIPP students. Here's an excerpt:

They appear as a small army of pre-teens in matching t-shirts, standing single-file on the right side of the escalator. Several adults walk alongside various points in the line while one leader holds court at one entry/exit turnstile (leaving the other three or four clear for commuters). He hands out a farecard to each child, who then goes through the gate and returns the card to an adult waiting on the other side. The children continue to the next escalator, remaining in single file as they ride up to the street or down to the train platform. While waiting for everyone to assemble, they line up in rows of 10; once everyone arrives, each child pulls out a chapter book and begins to read. They stay this way until they’re instructed to move along. The choreography is impeccable every time.

Part of me thinks this is good. It's hard to imagine exactly how it would be helping the students (not to mention the other commuters) if they ran pell-mell around the station. I like that they're being trained to respect others. I like that they're being trained to read during downtime. I like that they are under control.

And yet . . . I can't help but wonder what the students are learning from this. Are they learning that they should control themselves or that they need to follow directions? When they visit the subway station with their friends, do they walk calmly over to a bench and read quietly until the train arrives -- or do they go nuts b/c they don't have to follow directions?

Structure and order are necessary but, at some point, I have to believe that they're detrimental.

How Much Achievement is Too Much?

2008-06-07T22:33:00.004-05:00

This article on South Koreans studying abroad appears in the Sunday NY Times and I'd have to say it's a must-read. Not because it's perfect but b/c it touches on so many fascinating themes and ideas.

In short, a growing number of South Korean families are splitting up so that their children can attend school in an English-speaking country (apparently the U.S. once dominated this market, but now people with less money are moving to Canada, New Zealand, and Australia as well). Fathers stay behind in S. Korea while mothers live with the children -- usually starting in elementary school. The latest tally is that over 40,000 children are in such an arrangement.

The article claims that three main factors drive this trend: (1) Parents, especially mothers, are deeply concerned about their children's education; (2) Parents want their kids to learn English; (3) Parents want their kids out of South Korea's pressure-filled schools.

Here are a number of things that I find absolutely fascinating about this article:

1.) South Korea is a superstar in international testing -- if they're not number one on a particular test you can bet they're in the top 5. And yet, parents are so desperate to get their kids out of the educational system that they'll move thousands of miles.

2.) Parents are so concerned with their children's education that they're willing to live thousands of miles apart from their spouse for a decade or two -- with most spouses only seeing each other maybe a couple times per year.

3.) The response of the South Korean government to this phenomenon is not to try and reduce pressure on children but, rather, to hire 10,000 more English teachers (which I think either means that the govt. is out of touch or that the author of the article is mistaken about the motivation of these movers).

In my opinion, I think this is the most interesting paragraph of the article:

South Korean students routinely score at the top in international academic tests. But unhappiness over education’s financial and psychological costs is so widespread that it is often cited as a reason for the country’s low birthrate, which, at 1.26 in 2007, was one of the world’s lowest.

Now, before I get carried away, there's no way that this one article has done all of the legwork necessary to definitively define trends and establish causality. That said, even if we take this is a bit of information rather than gospel it still raises a lot of interesting questions.

The largest is probably the one raised in the above paragraph. South Korea supposedly has a model education system. And yet, people are going to great lengths to avoid it. Which begs the question: what is a perfect education system? Is it necessarily the one with the highest test scores? I think most of us agree that higher test scores are usually better, but there has to be a point at which the opportunity cost of higher test scores is too high. In other words, everybody must have a point at which the additional effort that will boost test scores isn't worth it. Maybe you'd rather your kid played soccer than attended cram classes. Maybe you'd rather your kid attended your neighborhood school rather than the better one across town. I think you get the idea.

I can't imagine living thousands of miles away from my spouse for a decade or more so that my child(ren) could attend a certain school, and I could see inferring from this article that some Korean parents are hyper-concerned about education -- that they've, in essence, gone crazy. But here's the thing: the parents who seem to most merit judgment that they've gone off the deep end are the ones who are apparently claiming that South Korea's system is too pressured.

If the article is correct in describing the level of desperation of parents to avoid the Korean education system (I'm not sure which is more extreme -- moving far away or simply not having kids), then we should all be careful what we wish for when demanding more rigorous schools and higher achievement in our country.

Teachers and Student Race

2008-06-04T12:51:00.003-05:00

I've been MIA for a few days while I busily jumped through hoops. I just read through all the blogging I missed, and here's the exchange I found most interesting:

Eduwonkette pointed out that a wide body of research has found that teachers are less likely to stay in schools with a large population of racial minority students.

Mike Petrilli responded by asking if that meant that teachers are racist and points out that KIPP schools and some others have had success attracting teachers to teach in schools with overwhelmingly racial minority student bodies.

I have two things to add:

1. No, it doesn't mean teachers are racist. Recent work has found that teachers tend to end up in schools where they feel more comfortable -- where students and teachers are from the same geographic area, social class, race, etc. as themselves. That makes sense. People like be surrounded by familiar things.

2. Pointing out that KIPP attracts teachers to teach racial minorities is a bad example for two reasons. First: I don't have statistics handy, but I don't think KIPP's teacher retention rates are too stellar. KIPP and some other high-flying charter schools rely on young idealistic teachers (including many in TFA) who are willing to devote their lives to the school for a few years before they move on to something else. Secondly, even if KIPP retained the talented teachers it recruits, that wouldn't be proof that there are enough people willing to teach in these schools across the entire country. I'll agree with his point that the working conditions probably matter more than the racial make-up of the student body, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't consider the racial make-up of a school.

Defending the Indefensible

2008-05-30T12:17:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I do stupid things. And today seems like a good day to do something stupid.

This story recently broke about a teacher who said some pretty harsh things to a 5 year-old in her kindergarten class. I won't copy the whole transcript but, in part, she said:

"I've been more than nice to you all year long and you've been ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, the whole thing! I'm done! . . . Something needs to be done because you are pathetic! If me saying these words to you hurt, I hope it does because you're hurting everyone else around you."

Joanne Jacobs immediately pounced, writing, in part, "I don’t care how aggravating this boy was. He’s five years old."

Robert Pondiscio followed that up by highlighting one of the comments on Jacobs' blog that reads “I wonder how prevalent such abuse is; could this be more widespread than it looks?”

So, back to the plan for doing something stupid. I'm going to defend the teacher's actions. She may or may not deserve it, but I'll give it a stab anyway.

Now, just to be clear, I'm not arguing that it was okay for her to say these things. I thought berating students like this was over the top in my school -- and our kids were two to three times the age of this kid. She clearly shouldn't have said these things, and I'm assuming she realizes that as well.

That said, I'm also going to stick my neck out there and argue that what she did doesn't prove that she's the worst person in the world. To answer the question highlighted by Pondiscio, I firmly believe that such verbal abuse is more widespread than people realize. And not just in schools. I've heard worse things said by teachers, administrators, and parents (not to mention from students as well -- directed at both other students and at adults). I certainly said things that I now regret while teaching, and I know many others who have as well.

Granted, the fact that other people say things that are just as bad or worse doesn't excuse her actions (I can hear my Dad saying "If everybody else jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge does that mean that you would too?"), but it does lend some context. Why do people say things like this? That's the question that I'm not hearing asked.

In my case, and I'm guessing in others as well, one has to be pretty frustrated before they would say something like this. It takes a lot to make me frustrated enough to say something mean to somebody or yell and scream but trying to teach in my school was enough to do it. I can say with utmost confidence that trying to teach in my school was, far and away, the most frustrating thing I have ever tried to do. And discipline problems were, far and away, the most frustrating thing about trying to teach at my school.

Now, I have no idea what her school is like. Maybe her school is idyllic and she didn't like that he asked for strawberry milk even though she only has plain and chocolate. I'm not going to eliminate the possibility that she's simply a monster, but I'd say the odds are against it.

Anybody out there who's reading this and had kids, has taught kids, or has otherwise spent a great deal of time dealing with kids: have you ever snapped and lost your temper? Have you ever said anything you regretted? You probably realized that it was mean and counter-productive after the fact, but you can't go back and not say those things.

In the case of teachers, they snap . . . they lose their cool . . . they say things they shouldn't. And it's because they're human. Some do it more than others, some never do it, but it's something that I think we should confront. And I don't think vilifying teachers who happen to be caught on tape is going to solve the problem. Certainly what she said was over the line and her suspension is deserved, but let's not pretend that this is an isolated incident.

If we really want to prevent things like this from happening, we need to take a closer look at discipline issues. In my school, kids were out of control and teachers were expected to control them virtually single-handedly. If a teacher had a problem with a student, it was generally considered the teacher's fault. That's not an environment conducive to kindness and understanding on behalf of teachers. We have to realize that being a teacher can be frustrating and that discipline problems are a large source of frustration for many teachers. Personally, I think we should try to create systems that intervene in these types of situations before either the teacher or the student reaches the boiling point.

New Role for TFA

2008-05-29T10:26:00.003-05:00

I was intrigued by an interesting suggestion that Robert Pondiscio made over at the Core Knowledge blog the other day, and the discussion surrounding it has me thinking. Here's a rundown for those of you who haven't been following along:

1.) Pondiscio writes that Wendy Kopp should consider a different tact for Teach For America (TFA) -- putting the new teachers they recruit in wealthy schools as fill-ins and taking some experienced teachers from these wealthy schools and putting them in poor urban/rural schools that TFA currently helps staff. This way the kids in these schools would be getting experienced teachers instead of recent college grads.

2.) Kopp takes the time to reply to Pondiscio's post and basically argues that the people she recruits are at least as good as the experienced teachers in wealthy schools.

3.) Eduwonkette calls out Kopp for some weak arguments and encourages Pondiscio to run with the idea.

The way I see it, everybody's points have some merit. Let me start with the fatal flaw of the idea and then make some suggestions on how it could be slightly modified into a one that even Kopp might like.

There are two reasons why Pondiscio's current idea will never work (other than the fact that Kopp, the head of TFA, doesn't want to implement it):

1.) Very few of the people who currently apply to TFA will volunteer to go serve in a wealthy suburban school as a placeholder while the experienced teacher from that school spends two years in a high-poverty school. I might be wrong about this, but I think the biggest draw of TFA and similar programs is the chance to make the world a better place. I'm willing to bet that almost every new TFA enrollee plans on transforming their class (if not the school) ala "Dangerous Minds," "Stand and Deliver," "Freedom Writers," etc. Serving in the suburbs for two years just doesn't have the same allure or romanticism.

2.) Wealthy suburban schools wouldn't hire uncertified TFA enrollees with no classroom experience. Many of these schools get hundreds of applicants for each open position and very few would have any problem finding a teacher they find qualified, motivated, and experienced to fill in for their teacher who's jaunting off to help save the world for a couple years.

That said, I still like the idea. I think Kopp was wrong to, essentially, summarily dismiss it. I'm maybe most disappointed in the fact that she cited a flawed study as definitive evidence that TFA shouldn't make any changes. Here are the tweaks I would make to the idea:

1.) For the reasons above I'd scrap the exchange part of the program. Why not recruit both recent college grads and experienced teachers to serve in underprivileged schools?

2.) I'd create a separate branch of TFA for experienced teachers. Similar to the Jennifer Steinberger Pease's idea of an "urban teaching corps" that I discussed earlier.

3.) I'd find some sort of incentive to draw these teachers into serving in these schools for 2+ years. TFA is quite adept at fundraising, so maybe they could raise some money for bonuses or something. I have little doubt that they could find a few thousand mid-career teachers to sign up to spend 2 years doing some community service if they pitched it correctly, could somehow guarantee them a job in their home district when/if they finished, and had some sort of incentive to boot.

TFA prides itself on its ability to select and train high-quality individuals and teachers. I see no reason why they couldn't do this with experienced teachers as well as recent college grads. If TFA is serious about upgrading high-poverty schools I think this is an idea they need to get behind.

Three Months

2008-05-28T23:09:00.002-05:00

Since I already linked to an article quoting me today, I figured I'd write one more self-serving post before bedtime. Don't worry: I won't be mentioning myself much for the rest of the week.

I realized that today is the three-month anniversary of the start of this blog -- and that I received my 2,000th hit yesterday.

Sure, Jay P. Greene's blog has received like 14,000 hits in about half the time -- but I'm more than happy with where I am. Heck, it's about 1,900 more hits than I would've expected by this point in time.

I'm going to celebrate by going to bed early.

Another Queston about News Coverage

2008-05-28T10:34:00.003-05:00

EdWeek published an article at the top of their website yesterday titled "Reading Scores Get 'Bump' From Student Incentives, Study Finds." The blurb under the headline reads "School-based reward programs that offer students such incentives as cash, free MP3 players, or other gifts appear to produce improved reading achievement across grade levels."

Meanwhile, if you read the article you find out that the this particular study found no effect of incentives on math performance.

So, here's my question: why do the headline and blurb beneath only mention half the story? Sure, the effect on reading scores is more newsworthy -- but that doesn't mean that math scores shouldn't be mentioned. How about this: "Study Finds Student Incentives Boost Reading Scores, Have No Effect on Math Scores."

Updating A Couple Recent Items

2008-05-28T10:08:00.003-05:00

1.) The NYC cell phone ban was mentioned in an article in the Spokesman-Review (Spokane) today, and I was given the job of explaining how the ban played out in NYC. My favorite quote from the article, however, is not one of mine -- it's a quote from a student that serves as the final sentence of the article: “A rule that says you can’t use your cell phone whatsoever – I can guarantee you students are going to break that rule.”

2.) Regarding charter schools and "exit doors," there was an interesting piece in the Boston Globe yesterday. The article describes the recent exodus of a number of seniors from the MATCH charter school. It's unclear exactly what happened, but it appears as though the students were afraid (or were told) that they wouldn't meet MATCH's graduation standards, so they transferred to Boston public schools right before the end of the year hoping to earn a diploma. That particular case is interesting, b/c I'm not sure that the charter school gains that much even if they advised the kids to leave (other than upholding their high standards, I guess). Mike Petrilli says that this is evidence that Boston's schools' have standards that are too low. Possibly. But it also might be evidence that some charter schools are dumping their most problematic students on local public schools. A few seniors wouldn't help them much in this regard, but the article says that the school has a 60% graduation rate -- meaning that a number of people must be leaving before senior year as well.

Best Recent Line from an Academic Paper

2008-05-27T11:57:00.002-05:00

I love it when a random amusing line is slipped into an academic paper. This one comes from "Rethinking School Reform: The Distractions of Dogma and the Potential for a New Politics of Progressive Pragmatism," by Jefferey R. Henig and Clarence N. Stone and was published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Education:

"The Teachers at most schools present more personalities and skill sets than a Baskin-Robbins does flavors."

Charter Schools and "Exit Doors"

2008-05-26T11:52:00.003-05:00

Comparing public and private schools is difficult; in part b/c private schools are allowed to select their students -- both before and during enrollment. Having taught in a school overrun with discipline problems, I tend to believe that the ability to "get rid of" students (having an "exit door," if you will) has a potentially large influence on the climate of a school.

Charter schools are much more similar to traditional public schools than are private schools; but we still run into some of the same problems when trying to compare them -- particularly regarding selection of students. The vast majority of charter schools select students through a lottery, so they can't just select the top x number of students, but parents still have to take the extra step of applying to the school. The differences, if any exist, between parents that apply and do not apply for enrollment in charter schools is another topic for another time. What I hear mentioned less frequently is the extent to which charter schools have exit doors.

At my school, a number of kids went through every disciplinary procedure possible (reprimand, phone calls, detention, parent meeting, classroom switch, suspension, etc.) and continued to harass and disrupt both their teacher(s) and classmates. At that point, the school essentially had its hands tied behind its back. I believe a couple eventually went to alternative schools, but most hung around and continued to cause headaches. You could imagine the effect it might have on the climate of the school if we could simply say "you are no longer welcome here." The child, and his/her behavior, would no longer negatively influence the school -- and other students would know that they would no longer be welcome if they chose to behave the same way.

The problem with this, of course, is what happens to the child once they're disinvited from that school -- they still have a right to an education.

Anyway, I've always wondered whether charter schools have their hands tied behind their backs to the same extent in these circumstances. I've seen video of a new cohort of kids at a KIPP school being told by the principal that they should leave if they don't like the way the school is run -- so I suspect that at least minor differences exist. My guess is that, legally, a charter school has no more right to expel a student than does a traditional public school but, given that the student is there by choice and has a free fallback option, I'd also guess that a charter school would have an easier time convincing a student to leave.

Imagine the following scenario: a principal tells a parent that their child is not doing well in their school and would probably do better in a different environment. In a traditional public school, it's going to be tough for a parent to find another place to put their child. They're either going to have to pay for a private school, apply to a charter school, or move (or apply to enroll in a different public school if NCLB says they can and seats are open). In a charter school, meanwhile, the parent has the option to enroll their child in the local public school for free -- and probably the next day.

This whole explanation is a long-winded way of saying that I find the statistics in this post about KIPP schools around San Francisco very interesting (hat tip: Education Policy Blog). The author breaks down the attrition statistics of the three Bay Area KIPP schools. I remember reading about this in the news, and thinking that it was interesting but far too early to conclude anything. In short, the three schools all enrolled about half as many students in eighth grade as originally started out in fifth grade -- a pretty high rate of attrition. That statistic, in and of itself, however, isn't all that meaningful. The students were from the first cohort to enter the schools, and there are growing pains everywhere. The students could have left for any number of reasons.

What I find interesting is the attrition rate of African-American males -- which far exceeded the overall attrition rate in all three schools. Given that, nationally, African-American males are both the lowest achieving and the most likely to be disciplined, this raises important questions about whether these schools weed out certain types of students.

The first cohorts to enter the three schools had 13, 24, and 35 African-American males enrolled in 5th grade. By the beginning of 8th grade, they had 3, 8, and 8 left -- meaning that, across all three schools, 72 started and only 17 (21%) were left by the start of 8th grade (I don't know how many actually finished).

This, of course, proves nothing -- but it's circumstantial evidence that merits further investigation.

Ok, so let's say that these three schools are, in fact, weeding out the weakest and least-focused students. A charter school that regularly makes use of their "exit door" will never be comparable to a traditional public school that doesn't have this option. So what? Maybe if all charter schools did this, and we created more charter schools, then more excellent schools would exist. In other words, maybe it's an advantage to charter schools that merits more of them rather than hand-wringing. Though somewhat perverse, I don't think that argument is without merit. But I see a major problem:

The kids that are "asked" to leave have to end up somewhere. In a scenario where more charter schools exist, maybe they simply end up at another charter school -- and maybe they learn their lesson, or simply fit in better . . . or maybe they continue to wreak havoc. But in our current situation, I have to believe that it's most likely that they will end up back in the public school for which they're zoned. In which case, it's likely that the other students in the school suffer from the disruptions that this new student creates. This not only creates a competitive disadvantage for the school, it also punishes all students who choose to enroll in the traditional public school rather than a charter school. And that's simply not fair to those students.

Granted, this is mostly speculation -- so don't read this and then decide that charter schools are evil or that expulsion is the ultimate solution -- but it's at least logical to assume that this problem might exist.

Ping Pong Balls and Children's Fates

2008-05-25T12:48:00.003-05:00

Thomas Friedman weighs in with this op-ed today about a lottery to enroll in a charter boarding school in Baltimore. Friedman's wife is on the board of the SEED Foundation, which runs charter boarding schools in multiple cities, and is opening the new one in Baltimore. The one in D.C. has, apparently, been quite successful, and the new school had 300 applicants for the 80 spots. Friedman attended the lottery through which enrollees were selected and argues that it's sad to see childrens' fates determined by ping pong balls - and that it shouldn't be this way (not in the sense that charter school enrollment shouldn't be determined by lottery, but in the sense that everybody should have access to a high-quality school).

I have a number of thoughts about the article:

1.) Boarding school. Interesting. Evidence seems to indicate that a lot of things about the home-life of inner-city students hold them back, so I guess this is one way to potentially overcome that. By my calculation, a student who attends 180 7-hour days of school spends about 14% of their time in school over the course of a year -- about 22% of their waking hours if they sleep 8 hours/night. A boarding school could potentially oversee kids for a majority of their time. I'd like to know more about how they use the extra time they have with the kids as a result of this set-up.

2.) Friedman reports that SEED schools are funded by both public and private funds. I know in most places that charter schools receive less funding per-pupil than other public schools, but I wonder how much money some of these schools raise from private sources and how their total funding (private + public) compares to other public schools in the district. If anybody has seen these figures anywhere, please let me know.

3.) I wonder how the parents of the children who applied to the lottery compare to others in Baltimore. Are parents who want to send their kids to a boarding school more concerned about their education, more eager to get rid of their kids, or no different from others?

4.) I agree that children's fate shouldn't be determined by a ping pong ball, but what's the solution? Obviously, high-quality schools for all; but is the SEED Foundation moving us toward this goal? We'll assume for the moment without further investigation that their schools are, in fact, wonderful places. Given this, are they replicable? Do we have the personnel and finances to replicate these schools for every student in Baltimore and other cities? I'm guessing not, but I'd also guess that not every student in Baltimore wants to attend a boarding school. In that case, can SEED schools be part of a system that provides excellent options for all? I don't see why not.