Race To The . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzz

The education media and blogosphere were aflutter yesterday with the results of the first round of RTTT grants.  Most seemed at least somewhat receptive to the selection of Tennessee and Delaware as winners.  As a current resident of Tennessee, I noticed many were abuzz with excitement.  Me?  Eh.  I'm not sure I see what the fuss is about.

You may have noticed that I've said virtually nothing on RTTT over the past few months, and that's largely because I think its import is overblown.  The selection process seems far more likely to impact education than the actual grants.  Tennessee received about $500 million to be spent over four years.  I can't seem to find the actual figures, but I believe Tennessee's education budget is somewhere around $10 billion -- and with the current state of the economy, over $100 million in state-level education spending cuts have already been proposed for next year.  Not to mention the local budget cuts in Nashville, Knoxville, and other places.  In other words, it's distinctly possible that, despite the massive grant, TN will still spend less on education next year than they did this year.

According to the LA Times, Tennessee has 964,259 students -- meaning that the extra funding equals about $500 more per pupil -- or a little over $100 per student per year.  And, yes, this is supposed to benefit all students ("We're confident that all students in both states will benefit from this program." - Arne Duncan).

Did the rush to win RTTT funds yield some important policy changes?  Yes.  But please excuse my skepticism of the notion that a grant equal to around 1% of Tennessee's educational expenditures will transform our state's schools.

Must See TV

I was absolutely captivated by ABC's new show Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution tonight.  If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth watching (the premiere is available on the website).

A little background:  Oliver is a well-known British chef who's branched out into spreading healthy food and eating habits into the schools.  An early study of his efforts indicates that his program may have had impressive effects on student attendance and achievement.  He's decided to bring his efforts across the pond, and chosen Huntington, WV b/c it has America's highest obesity rates.  His efforts in both places have earned him a TED prize.

I'm not going to go into the issue in-depth right now, but the evidence both that America's children are eating horribly and that better nutrition could meaningfully impact their school performance (among other things) is quickly mounting. 

Here are the two things I found most surprising:

1.) I fully expected the "lunch ladies" with whom he worked to be wary of the extra effort that would accompany the preparation of fresh foods every day, but I was blown away that they seemed to have absolutely no health concerns about the menu they were serving (e.g. pizza for breakfast, chicken nuggets for lunch).  Watch the video below for more.





2.) I don't expect the average first grader to know the names of every obscure vegetable, but I'd certainly expect that they could identify a tomato or potato.  Apparently I was wrong.  Watch the video below for more.

Today's Random Thoughts

-Joanne Jacobs asks why it seems to be easier to raise math scores than reading scores.  I think there's a relatively simple answer.  Reading scores are influenced more by home life than are math scores.  Which makes sense when you think about it -- kids spend a lot more time at home speaking, listening, and reading than doing math.  And it's easier to influence the way kids spend their time in school than the way they spend it at home . . . meaning it's easier to alter math scores than reading scores.

-NYC might need to fire teachers because of budget constraints.   Normally, the last ones in would be the first ones out -- but that would disproportionately affect schools in the poorest neighborhoods.  Klein argues that they could fire far fewer veteran teachers and achieve the same cost savings.  In my mind, it raises two questions:
1.) Why not offer retirement packages to veteran teachers?  2.) What happens to next year's crop of Teach for America corps members and NYC Teaching Fellows?  If NYC now has too many teachers, do they need to recruit alternatively certified fill-ins?

-Andy Rotherham argues that a lot of the firing teachers debate could be settled if principals simply hired better teachers to start out with.  There are many reasons why this doesn't happen, but the most important one might be that in a lot of schools principals don't have a whole lot to choose from when hiring teachers.  The school I taught in, for example, had a handful of vacancies -- they couldn't hire anybody (certified) to take the job, yet alone a standout who was going to set the world on fire -- and a quarter of our staff were novice teaching fellows.

-KauaiMark's story reminds me of something I had to do more than once: apologize to substitute teachers for the behavior of my class.  Except that we could find any substitute teachers to come to our school, so I had to apologize to the other teachers in my school that covered my class during their preps.  Of course, I received a lot of apologies from other teachers as well.

-Mathnew Ladner writes on Jay Greene's blog that Florida's NAEP scores have risen dramatically over the past decade and says "When it comes to education reform…I’LL HAVE WHAT FLORIDA IS HAVING!"  He may be right.  But I can't help but wonder: given the large influx of residents into Florida in recent decades, might demographic changes explain part of the score gains?

Memory Test

Anybody feel like helping me try to find an article?  I'm usually pretty good at this kind of thing, but I seem to have struck out on this one.

There was an opinion piece that ran in the NY Times (I think) about 5 years ago or so -- I think it was between 2003 and 2005 -- by, I believe, a former Clinton aide.  The op-ed proposed using federal dollars to dramatically increase (double?) teacher salaries in a certain set of high-poverty (urban?) schools.  The argument was that this would cost only a fraction of what the federal government currently spends on education and, at the same time, would do more to help close the achievement gap than what we're currently doing by attracting the best and brightest to teach in the neediest schools.

Does anybody else remember reading this?  Anybody who sends me a link to the article will receive two gold stars.

Update: The gold stars go to Aaron Pallas -- the article can be found here

As to my memory, I fared reasonably well: the article was written in 2005 by Matthew Miller, who worked for the OMB during the Clinton administration.  He mentions urban schools, but never specifically identifies which schools would receive the pay raises (he says "poor schools").  He proposes raising pay by 50% and doubling it for high-performing teachers and shortage subjects.  He estimates that such a program would cost $30 billion (so he must have x number of schools in mind) -- 7% of the federal education budget.

"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.