Guest Post: Teacher Opposition to VAM

by Kerri Tobin, PhD

Teacher opposition to value-added modeling gets portrayed in the media as teachers refusing to take any kind of responsibility for student learning or academic growth. But most teachers do not balk at the idea that they should be accountable for advancing their students’ knowledge. What they oppose is value-added modeling, or VAM, the highly-imprecise tool that is being used to measure teachers' impact on students' learning.. When the New York Times won the right to publishteacher VAM scores this spring, only the tiny print noted the inaccuracy of the data, including some standard errors larger than the purported effect sizes. Researchers familiar with value-added modeling have repeatedly voiced their concern about its use in high-stakes decisions like teacher evaluations (for example: here, here, and here).

Often, opponents of current uses of standardized testing fall back on attempts to draw parallels between teaching and medicine: “It’s like grading doctors on how many of their patients die!” But these analogies are imprecise; they do not do the problem justice. John Ewing’s fertilizer analogy is fascinating but perhaps too long for the common person. What we need is an “elevator speech” – one that can be delivered in the time it takes to get from the ground to the 3rd floor – to explain why teachers oppose VAM. A better analogy is this: using VAM to evaluate teachers is akin to evaluating chemotherapists based on how much their patients’ tumors shrink every year. The expected rate of tumor shrinkage is calculated based on patients’ race and socioeconomic status. So if a patient’s tumor shrinks more, over that year, than expected, the doctor gets a positive score. If it shrinks less than it “should,” the doctor gets a negative score. The average of these patients’ scores becomes the doctor’s overall VAM score. Sound reasonable? Maybe, until you consider that a) different kinds of tumors respond differently to chemotherapy; b) the doctor has no control over what patients do outside the office (for example, lung cancer sufferers who continue to smoke); c) his patients saw a different chemotherapist last year and will see another one next year; and, perhaps most importantly, d) the doctor is not allowed to treat any co-morbid conditions (for example, a cancer patient with diabetes gets no treatment to manage his blood sugar) – even if he wanted to, and even in cases where the patient or his family might prefer that other conditions be treated instead of the cancer (e.g., when parents value social or self-confidence issues more than test scores), there simply aren’t enough hours in his day. Factors like the overall health of the patient, his lifestyle, eating habits, substance use, weight, and blood pressure might impact the effectiveness of the chemo. But the doctor cannot control these, in much the same way teachers cannot control where students live, if they have enough to eat and get regular medical care, whether anyone reads to them at home, how much TV they watch, or what time they go to bed at night. And in the same way our VAM-assessed doctor would be powerless to decide that a patient dying of AIDS needs antiretroviral therapy before he can tolerate chemo for a concurrent cancer, teachers have neither the time, resources, nor training to solve the problems in their students’ lives – emotional problems, health challenges, family issues, etc. – that impact their academic growth. This is how VAM works, and why teachers oppose it.

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Kerri Tobin is Assistant Professor of Education at Marywood University in Scranton, PA, where she researches the educational needs of students living in poverty and prepares teachers and school leaders to meet those needs.

The Two Types of TFA Alums

Almost ten years ago now (where has the time gone?), I figured out what I wanted to do after college: I wanted to join Teach For America.  Eight years ago, I began teaching in The Bronx through a sister program, the NYC Teaching Fellows (one of many organizations under the umbrella of The New Teacher Project, started by a TFA alum -- the interviews for TFA and the three TNTP programs I applied to were almost exactly identical).  While in NYC, many of my closest friends were NYCTF or TFA members and I left for grad school with a rosy picture in my mind of how we would change the world.

I think it's precisely because these types of programs are so near and dear to my heart that I've grown so frustrated with TFA.  For over 20 years now, they've done a world of good in countless ways.  But I've always believed that their greatest impact would be the actions of their alumni.  The recruitment materials I pored over my junior year in college told us that we could see how the system was failing from the inside and then go out and fix it -- whether that be by remaining in the field of education or as a lawyer, politician, school board member, concerned citizen, or whatever other route we chose.  The idea was that, over time, an army of active citizens with elite credentials and experience in our failing inner-city and rural schools would wield enough influence to finally fix what ails our educational system.

That's starting to come true.  Countless TFA alums have become principals, begun charter schools, and so on.  One became the head of the whole DC school system.  And now we're beginning to see TFA alums entering politics (my local school board race in Nashville, for example, featured two TFA alums both vying to unseat the chair of the board).

For most of the past decade I've waited for this day with bated breath.  Finally, I thought, we'd start to see some change.  The conditions that I couldn't believe our society would tolerate while I was teaching would finally start to be addressed.  But now I'm worried.

While I don't doubt that TFA alums will have an outsized influence on our educational policy in the coming decades, I'm no longer convinced that the results of this influence will be all good.

Why?  Because too many TFA alums took the wrong lesson from their experiences in the classroom.  I've interacted with (both personally and professionally), heard, and read countless TFA alums over the past decade, and I now generally lump them into one of two groups: the humbled and the hubristic.  It's a crass generalization, and many alums I know don't neatly fall into one group or the other, but I still think it's helpful in thinking through what changes we should expect as TFAers gain clout.  So, without further ado, here are the two types of TFA alums:

1.) The Humbled - If I chose one word to describe my classroom experience, it would be "humbling" ("frustrating" would be a close second).  I went in believing that I could change the world in one fell swoop, that I would surely be the world's greatest teacher, and that we could easily fix most of our problems if only we could find more miracle workers like myself.  By day two I realized that I wasn't the world's greatest teacher on that day.  And by day five I started to think it might not happen for at least a couple more weeks.  What followed was two years in which I valiantly fought losing battle after losing battle until I was utterly exhausted.  During those two years, I saw the underbelly of one of the lowest performing middle schools in NYC (its closure was announced the spring of my second year), and formed quite a few opinions regarding its failure.

But one notable item missing from my list was the quality of the veteran teachers in the building.  I knew I was smarter than some of them.  I knew I worked harder than all of them.  But I'll be damned if most didn't teach circles around me -- and many found a way to do it for decades while I lasted all of two years before I became a statistic.

My major takeaway from that experience was that fixing the problems that look so simple from the outside is really hard.

And I know a lot of TFA and TNTP alums who will tell you something similar.  Some are disillusioned.  Some are frustrated.  Some are neither.  But all came to realize that they can't do this on their own, and that it's not going to be easy.

This group of humbled alums are more likely to push for educational and societal reforms and policies that change the context in which schools operate.  They know that if you can address poverty at the family and neighborhood level, then school will go a lot smoother; that if you can change the attitudes and outlooks of students they'll learn a heck of a lot more regardless of the teacher; that if teachers are treated as professionals they'll rise to the occasion; that if teachers are given resources and support they'll both stick around longer and teach more effectively while they're there; and that schools, in general, need our help.

2.) The Hubristic - Many TFAers had very different experiences than I.  Research on TFA generally finds that their teachers' students make gains equivalent to or slightly higher than other teachers (sometimes even higher than veteran teachers).  Which means that a lot of corps members receive results each year telling them that they are the world's greatest teacher (or at least one of the best in their school).  Some of these are flat-out better teachers than I, some simply found the right fit, landed a position at a top-performing school, or received oodles of support.

Some, though not all, of these teachers see their school -- and its veteran teachers -- very differently from how I saw mine (or, in the case of TFA members who teach at high-flying charters, see other schools and their veteran teachers differently).  They think to themselves "this isn't so hard; if we could find more people like me, we could lick this problem in no time".  I hear stories from them of how mind blowingly lazy, stupid, and/or incompetent the veteran teachers at their school were.  And they leave their school with a distinct sense that they could fix our schools if somebody would let them -- and if everybody would listen to them.

As a result, hubristic alums are more likely to push for educational reforms and policies that aim to separate the wheat from the chaff.  They know that if we can recruit better people into teaching, get rid of the dead weight (or at least get them to fall in line), stop making excuses, and give the superstars the reins that our schools will shine in no time; in short, that schools need to be shaken up.

It's good that different people bring different perspectives and ideas to the table, but I get the distinct sense right now that the latter group is winning in a rout.  And I'm not sure that's going to be good for our schools down the road.  I don't doubt that improving teacher quality would yield positive results, but I do worry that our narrow focus on such a nebulous trait will prevent us from addressing other, more serious problems.

If we focus solely on the human capital of our teaching force, we will fail to address the home lives or emotions of our students, the competence of our school leaders, the quality of our curriculum, or any number of other challenges our system faces on any given day.

Where will that leave us?  Best case scenario, we're left with a whole bunch of superteachers who miraculously and dramatically raise achievement regardless of any outside challenges or distractions.  Worst-case scenario, we're left with a crumbling system full of disenfranchised teachers who are unable to overcome the shortcomings of their school context, school leaders, curriculum, and other factors and either give up or leave rather than take the blame (or just get fired).

I don't doubt that TFA alums are well intentioned, earnest, and sincere, but right now we're closer to the latter than the former.  And they're not helping.


cross-posted on Blog of the Century

More Liberal Arts for the Least Affluent

I've disagreed with Peter Meyer multiple times in the past, bot in posts (here, here, and here), and in comments on his blog posts (which I'm not going to take the time to dredge up).  So I think it's fair that I point out that he recently wrote what I think is an outstanding post last week on college attendance and poverty.  Also, digging up those old posts just made me realize I've been misspelling his name; my sincere apologies.

Anyway, Meyer makes a strong case regarding why, in an ideal world, we should want everybody to attend college -- and how obtaining a broad, liberal education particularly advantages the most disadvantaged.  Among other things, he points out that:

-exposure to new ideas, new institutions, and new styles of thinking is particularly beneficial for those who were exposed to the fewest of these in their childhood

-a college education opens more options for students compared to limitations placed on them by hyper-specific vocational training

-underemployed college grads still make far more than non-college grads in the same field (a college educated dishwasher makes 83% more, for example)

-increasing college attainment hardly solves our problems but not sending more kids to college creates more

While zillions of logistical hurdles stand in the way of all students procuring a top-notch liberal college education, Meyer concludes by arguing that:

I personally don’t care if a kid decides not to go to college. I would, however, demand that every high school graduate at least be capable of reading (and understanding) David Leonhardt’s story—i.e., your options are probably pretty constrained if you don’t go to college—and that every district superintendent be judged by the number of his or her truly college-ready graduates. If a student decides not to go to college, fine. But at least he or she would have, I would hope, the option of going if he or she wanted to—which is better, I would assume, than not having that option after twelve years of schooling.

I can only find two small points of contention in the post:

1.) the argument that teaching poor kids "a new kind of thinking -- reflection" is the key to getting them out of poverty is either inartfully expressed or demonstrates a lack of understanding.  I'm leaning toward the former, since he also wrote a pretty good piece explaining the genesis of that quote.  At first glance, it might look like Meyer is arguing that kids are poor because they think wrong.  I think, though I could be mistaken, that this was actually was a way of saying that exposing kids to more culture, society, and ideas (e.g. plays, museums, concerts, lectures, etc.) will benefit those who previously had the least exposure.  Indeed, the program driven by this notion was the result of the suggestion of an impoverished prisoner who said that kids needed to get more involved with the what was happening downtown in order to interact in new ways with government, society, etc.

2.) While I agree with Meyer that, ultimately, we shouldn't force every kid to get a high-quality college education: that giving every kid both the option to obtain it and the understanding of how it will benefit them is a better policy goal, I do hope that he personally does care which path any given student chooses.  Given that he argues that more students obtaining high-quality educations improves the lot of our entire society, I'd certainly hope he would then wish that all students chose to obtain that type of education.

Non-Academic Skills and Enterprise Rent-A-Car

One of my principal complaints about current educational policy debates and the educational blogosphere as a whole has been the myopic focus by many on academic skills when so many people (students, parents, employers, and society at large) care at least as much about a long list of other things (e.g. sports, drama, arts, critical thinking, physical health, social skills, sleep, commute distance, peers, and on and on).

So this one tiny example caught my eye last week.  This is from the textbook we're using in the Organizational Theory class I'm teaching (it's on the first page listed in this search):

A focus on customer service enabled Enterprise Rent-a-Car to overtake Hertz and become the biggest firm in its industry. Enterprise wooed its midmarket clientele by deliberately hiring "from the half of the class that makes the top half possible" -- college graduates more successful in sports and socializing than in class. Enterprise wanted people skills more than "book smarts" (Pfeffer, 1998, p. 71) 

I wasn't surprised to read that a firm considered more than academic record when hiring employees, but I was surprised to read that a firm deliberately hired large numbers of recent grads with less-than-stellar academic records specifically because they were heavily involved in their college's social scene.  So I did some more digging and found the source of that little blurb.

 This is from page 71 of Pfeffer's book:

Simply hiring the "best and the brightest" may not make sense in all circumstances. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is today the largest car rental company in the United States . . . In a low wage, often unionized, and seemingly low employee skill industry, virtually all of Enterprise's people are college graduates. But these people are hired primarily for their sales skills and personality and for their willingness to provide good service, not for their academic performance. Dennis Ross, the chief operating officer commented "We hire from the half of the college class that makes the upper half possible . . . We want athletes, fraternity types . . . people people." Brian O'Reilly interpolates Enterprise's reasoning:

The social directors make good sales people, able to chat up service managers and calm down someone who has just been in a car wreck.

Granted, this is almost 15 years old at this point, but I have no reason to suspect that this is no longer true (and anecdotal experience that indicates it is), but it would appear to be evidence that, popular to conventional wisdom, at least one firm does care about that blurb about your fraternity on your resume.

To be fair, O'Reilly goes on to assert that "The Enterprise employees hired from the caboose end of the class have something else going for them . . . a chilling realization of how unforgiving the job market can be".  So one could argue that this hiring practice is based on the desire for cost-savings as well.  But I'd argue that if that were truly the main motivation, then Enterprise wouldn't hire college grads.

Indeed, Pffefer then continues to assert that "organizations should screen primarily on important attributes that are difficult to change through training and should emphasize qualities that actually differentiate among those in the applicant pool." -- One could make a strong argument that the types of social skills referenced above fit those criteria.

In the end, I suspect we all know -- at some level -- that other factors matter more than academic skills (in choosing a school, in gauging a student's/school's success, and in life), but the education commentariat sure doesn't seem to like to act on that knowledge.

Mad Libs for Writing about Strikes

The commentariat and blogosphere sure love a showdown between a union chief and schools chief -- as evidenced by the flood of articles and posts this week on the strike in Chicago.  Unfortunately, about 90% of what's written is entirely predictable and, in the end, utterly useless.

Why?  Because almost every article is written using a secret mad libs cheat sheet that gets rolled out every time there's any controversy involving unions.  The result is that we could replace a few words in just about any piece to fit any strike or labor dispute anywhere in the country.  Regardless of the location, context, or actual issues at stake.  I've posted the cheat sheets below so that you can follow along:


For those opposed to teachers' unions

The [insert controversy] in [insert city] could be a turning point for educational reform in this country.  The union's [insert mildly derogatory adjective] leader, [insert name], has decided to place the needs of adults over the needs of children and [insert local leader] has finally stood up to make sure these children aren't forgotten.  While teachers and unions in most other cities have gotten the memo, the teachers in [city] are stubbornly clinging to the past; the evidence that value-added scores matter is overwhelming, and yet they're standing firm against the district's plan to use VAM scores to account for [X]% of a teacher's evaluation.  It looked like the union might see the light, but after [leader] said [quote taken out of context], it's clear that he/she has his/her head buried in the sand.  This is, indeed, a sad day for the children.  All hope of rescuing our abysmal education system now lie with [district/city leader], who seems to be embracing this challenge, saying [quote taken out of context].  We should all wait with bated breath while this most important of events plays out.


For those who defend teachers' unions

The [insert controversy] in [insert city] could be a turning point for educational reform in this country.  The union's [insert synonym for "heroic"] leader, [insert name], has decided to stand up for the rights of teachers and unions everywhere while [insert local leader] refuses to treat teachers like human beings and is determined to bust the union.  While teachers and unions in most other cities have caved and accepted the anti-union agenda, the teachers in [city] are standing up for their rights and what's best for children; the evidence that value-added scores are unreliable is overwhelming, and yet the district refuses to budge from their plan to use VAM scores to account for [X]% of a teacher's evaluation.  It looked like the union might cave, but after [city/district leader] said [quote taken out of context], it became clear that the union must finally decide that enough is enough.  This is, indeed, a glorious day for unions, the dying middle class, and potentially our entire country.  All hope of preventing the gutting of our indispensable public education system now lie with [union leader], who seems to be embracing this challenge, saying [quote taken out of context].  We should all wait with bated breath while this most important of events plays out.

Why Not Blame Principals and Superintendents?

I'm teaching a course in organizational theory this semester, and our textbook lays out some basics right off the bat.  Among these is that "The most common improvement strategy is upgrading management." (p. 9)

Which struck me because few in ed policy seem terribly concerned with it.  Sure, we have some mayoral takeovers and some turnaround schools and new charters of course need to hire new leaders.  But, in the grand scheme of things, I see little to no effort to seriously upgrade the management of schools -- at either the district or school levels.

Our attention, instead, focuses disproportionately on teachers.  I don't want to suggest that blaming somebody else would be particularly productive, but I genuinely understand why more people aren't blaming educational leaders.

The authors continue "Modern mythology promises that organizations will work splendidly if well managed."  Which also struck me, since I rarely here about a school needing only a great principal to succeed.  And, actually, outside of a few success stories (e.g. the KIPPs), I don't hear much of anything about great school leaders.

So I guess the flip side would be that people don't particularly credit school and district leaders for success either.

I should add one caveat to both of those conjectures, though: at the very local level (think of your child's school or your local district), I think educational leaders tend to receive a fair amount of scrutiny and both the flak and praise that go along with that.

At the national level, though, I hear almost nothing.  Concerted efforts to recruit or train more talented leaders are few and far between.  New evaluation and merit pay schemes for leaders have been quietly implemented some places, but received little attention.  And op-ed pages are silent about the need to upgrade our school management if we want to solve the civil rights problem of our generation.  Puzzling.

Instability: Deal With It, or Address It?

One of the facts of life for many high-poverty schools and districts is constant flux and turnover among district leaders, school leaders, teachers, families, and students.  A typical high-poverty school, for example, sees about 20-25% of its teachers leave each and every year (and that's just at a typical school: imagine what happens at the thousands of atypical schools out there).

I got to thinking about this while listening to a presentation last month on the failure of a curricular reform.  The research that was being presented identified this turnover as the main reason for said failure.  And I buy that explanation: almost every teacher they trained left before the new curriculum was fully established (as did the Superintendent, and the new one wanted to push a different curriculum).

But the larger question, to me, is what to do about this instability and turnover.  The presentation concluded with the argument that future reforms should take this instability into account and essentially be turnover-proof.  That's certainly a pragmatic approach.  But it always makes me squirm when people propose what are essentially dumbed-down reforms for the most troubled schools while others get to do the real thing.

So I had a different thought: why not attack that instability directly?  If a new curriculum can't be successfully implemented because teachers, principals, and district leaders are constantly in flux, why not try to stabilize those three?  For example, a group of teachers and administrators at a school are given a bonus if they stay in place for, say, 5 years.  And the district could lock-in the new curriculum for the same period of time so that it won't change even if the district's leadership does.

Maybe that would be too difficult to do on a large scale, but somebody could certainly try it on a smaller one -- a single charter school might be a good place to start.  After all, charters were started to serve as incubators and laboratories for ideas that traditional public schools hesitate to try.

I'm Back . . .

Hello again, everybody.  The last six months have been busy and eventful, but things are settling down enough now for me to resume writing in this space.

The major update in my life is that I am now an Assistant Professor of Leadership and Policy at Niagara University (just up the road from the eponymous falls).  I'm excited to work with their new PhD program in Leadership and Policy, and I'm particularly excited to work at a college with such a deep commitment to serving the community -- especially the poor and the oppressed.  The city of Niagara Falls has fallen on hard times, and the University's tireless work to help revitalize the community is one of the major reasons that it's among only 24 schools in the country to be recognized as a "Best College" for service learning.

(And it doesn't hurt that the school consistently appears on the honor roll of The Chronicle of Higher Education's "Great Colleges to Work For".)

Anyway, I have a number of great posts in store for you as I face new challenges and embrace new opportunities.  I hope you'll come along for the ride.

update: we, once again, were named as one of 27 schools with exemplary programs in service learning

Education and the Declining Median Class

A column a while back by David Brooks and numerous other reviews of Charles Murray's new book raise an issue I've been meaning to write about: the growing gulf between different classes (or "social tribes," as Brooks labels them) in the U.S. -- not just in earnings, which we hear a lot about, but in both achievement and a number of behaviors related to achievement.  As Brooks writes about the White population Murray discusses:

There are vast behavioral gaps between the educated upper tribe (20 percent of the country) and the lower tribe (30 percent of the country) . . . Roughly 7 percent of the white kids in the upper tribe are born out of wedlock, compared with roughly 45 percent of the kids in the lower tribe. In the upper tribe, nearly every man aged 30 to 49 is in the labor force. In the lower tribe, men in their prime working ages have been steadily dropping out of the labor force, in good times and bad. People in the lower tribe are much less likely to get married, less likely to go to church, less likely to be active in their communities, more likely to watch TV excessively, more likely to be obese.

The NY Times followed up with a story about the achievement gap growing between rich and poor students in the United States.  The article was based largely on two chapters from a book that was released last fall by the Russell Sage Foundation (which, as I've previously mentioned, I highly recommend).

In one chapter, Sean Reardon from Stanford finds that "the achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier" and that the gap between students from families in the 90th and 10th percentiles of income is now "nearly twice as large" as the gap between blacks and whites (the opposite was true 50 years ago).

Since I've spent my entire post-college life either trying to teach low-income students or researching low-income students, the chapter jumped out at me when I first saw a preview of it last summer.  The fact that the achievement gap between rich and poor was actually growing (while the black-white achievement gap has essentially plateaued the past 20 years), jibed with what I've read about, and seen in, both our schools and our society.

But then, when I was preparing to discuss the chapter with my students last fall, I took a closer look at the trends.  And this is what I discovered: the real growth in the gap between rich and poor isn't actually between the richest and the poorest, it's between the richest and those in the middle.

I've pasted one chart from the Reardon chapter to show what I mean.  The gap between those at the 50th percentile and those at the 10th percentile -- the middle-poor gap, if you will (represented by the dashed line) has been fairly steady.  The gap between those at the 90th percentile and those at the 10th percentile, meanwhile -- the rich-middle gap, if you will (represented by the solid line) -- has grown rapidly, from under a quarter of a standard deviation for children born in the 1940's to almost three-quarters of a standard deviation for children born in the 21st century.

I actually missed that point when I first skimmed the chapter, but to me it's maybe the most pressing policy issue of the next few decades: how will middle-income Americans work and live?

As somebody who studies the effects of poverty, I'm pre-disposed to believe that poverty, and the low performance of children living in poverty, poses the largest educational problem.  And there's no doubt that that problem is large.  Even if the poorest kids aren't falling further behind the middle-income students, they're still far behind where they ought to be and farther behind the wealthiest kids than before.

But if the middle of the income distribution falls far behind as well, that could leave us in really serious trouble.  This chart of wage growth that EPI offered in response to Brooks' op-ed is one way of looking at the issue.  The wages of the working poor are awful, but it's the hourly wages of the middle-income folks that have seen the lowest growth in the last 20 years.  Indeed, the median household made only slightly more in 2010 than it did in 1978 ($49K vs. $46K -- Table H-6) when adjusting for inflation.

As the table below indicates, from 1991-2010, median income by education level declined considerably for the nearly 60% of the population with a high school diploma, some college, or an associates degree, held steady for the 20% or so with a bachelor's degree and increased for the 10% or so with a master's or professional degree (to reduce visual clutter, I leave off the 13% or so of Americans who did not reach, or did graduate from, high school and the 1% who earned a doctorate degree*).  Now, education levels increased a bit during the time -- so part of the explanation may be that there were more people in each of the higher groups -- but not by enough to change the fact that Americans with median levels of education are earning less now than they were 20 years ago.

Median income by education level.  Source: US Census, Table H-13

It's hard to imagine a burgeoning economy in any country that sees no real income growth for those at the middle of the income distribution.  But Murray, Brooks, and others (including liberals as well) also note other worrying trends concerning health, marriage, childbirth, etc.

Indeed, another recent NY Times article reported that the majority of babies born to women under 30 are now born out of wedlock.  But more important are the different rates by social class: "About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less".  And while the number of babies born out of wedlock has risen for all three groups, it's the middle group that's seen the starkest increase: in 1990 only 11% of children born to women in their 20's with some college were born out of wedlock, but by 2009 that number had more than tripled to 34%.

Again, the problem is more pervasive among the least-educated women (the comparable number is 51%), but the largest change is in the middle of the income distribution.

Now, you may have noticed that I titled the post "Median Class" instead of "Middle Class," and that's because what a lot of people define as "middle class" isn't actually comprised of people in the middle of the income distribution.  People often talk about college-educated adults belonging to the middle class, but fewer than 30% of adults have a 4-year degree.  Depending on which model of social class one uses, those in the middle of the income distribution (those who fall right around median) are usually classified as lower-middle-class or working class.  And I want to be clear that I'm talking about those who fall right around the median of the income distribution.

It seems to me that a large part of the challenge is economic.  Jobs that pay high wages to employees without high levels of educational attainment are fast disappearing (one could write "high wage/low skill" jobs as shorthand, but I don't possess the skills for most of these jobs so that seems inaccurate to me).  We still have a not-insignificant number of jobs in construction, trucking, the trades, manufacturing, and so forth that pay fairly well, but the number of those types of jobs has declined dramatically -- largely due to globalization and/or technology -- in recent decades.  And it seems unlikely that this trend will dramatically reverse.  In other words, it seems unrealistic to expect anywhere near 70% of the population to find stable employment with decent wages without a 4-year degree.

The result, it seems to me, is that instability and low wages are no longer the domain of only the poorest Americans.  And it seems reasonable to assume that the growth in the rich-middle achievement gap is due, at least in part, to the spread of this job instability to the median earners.

In short, it seems like there's a growing bulge in the middle of the income and education distributions that is lost.  Fewer and fewer can make a good living without a college degree.  They're falling further behind the wealthy academically.  And to make matters worse (to be intentionally and melodramatically blunt), recent reports say they're increasingly divorced, fat, and lazy as well.

That's worrying.  But what really worries me is that I don't see an easy solution. Brooks' integration idea may be a small step in the right direction, and improving our educational system would certainly be another. But neither seems likely to prevent the problem from getting worse in the next 20 or so years.  It seems unlikely we can do any, yet alone all, of the following in a short period of time:

1.) dramatically increase the number of stable, high-paying jobs for those without college degrees
2.) dramatically** increase the number of college-educated adults while also increasing the number of stable, well-paying jobs for those with degrees accordingly
3.) reverse social trends and encourage more two-parent households, more civic engagement, less obesity, etc.

But I hope I'm wrong.  I hope 20 years from now I'm writing about the resurgence of the median class and not about the spread of poverty to children of middle-income households.  Either way, I think recent data indicate we need to adjust our focus when we discuss ways to boost performance of the lowest achievers.  If we want to focus research and policy on those lagging behind, we need to broaden our scope beyond just the 10 or 20% lowest-income Americans.  Those in the middle aren't doing that much better.



*median income increased slightly from 1991-2010 for those with less than a 9th grade education --  from $20,640 to $21,254, decreased from $27,375 to $24,787 for those who attended, but did not graduate from, high school, and also slightly decreased for those with a doctorate as well -- from $121,693 to $119,825.


**"dramatically," in this case, does not mean the 10 percentage point increase we've seen over the past 25 years for adults over age 25 and especially does not the 10 percentage point increase we've seen over the past 35 years for those aged 25-29

Thoughts on "Educational Productivity"

Last week, Matthew Ladner produced a stunning chart showing an "implosion" in our nation's educational productivity.  Productivity here seems to be defined as ratio of per-pupil expenditures on public education to average NAEP test scores.  The former has tripled since 1970 while the latter has essentially remained flat for the upper grades.  I'm not sure of the impetus behind that particular post, but the Bush Center has written a similar post that makes all the same mistakes.

Before I delve into those mistakes, I'll point out that they've also created a nifty website that allows people to compare students' standardized test scores in any district's to the scores of other students in the state, nation, and world.*

So, what's wrong with comparing spending to achievement?  Seems straightforward.  And the graph is certainly compelling.  But, alas, the statistics that seem the most straightforward are often the least useful.  Among other issues:

1.) Spending and test scores are on different scales.  Spending can multiply almost infinitely while the test scores have a ceiling.  In the chart on the site, the average 17 year-old scored 306 out of 500 on the NAEP math test in 2008.  Which means that even if every kid in the country earned a perfect score the next time around, the average score would only increase about 63%.  Since school spending has tripled, the ratio of spending to achievement would still be far greater now than it was 40 years ago.

2.) Why would we assume that it takes the same level of effort for a school to get a student to earn a certain score now as it did in 1970?  A zillion factors other than education spending influence achievement levels.  If parenting ability, economic circumstances, living conditions, and such increased dramatically then we shouldn't think it's miraculous if scores increase with no additional school spending.  Similarly, if societal conditions worsen in some way, then it would necessarily mean that more effort is necessary to achieve the same scores.  I have no idea whether it's now harder or easier to get the average 17 year-old to score 306 on the NAEP now than it was in 1970, but we'd need to know that answer to accurately measure educational productivity.

3.) Why would we assume that the same level of spending is commensurate with the same level of effort on behalf of districts now as it was in 1970?  The economic and social context of schooling is dramatically different.  Perhaps most importantly, the number of women in the workforce -- particularly in fields outside of education -- has exploded.  Simple economics dictates that it must cost more to buy the services of an equally qualified teacher.

4.) Test scores were not the sole goal of that increased spending.  Surely, we also aimed to increase the number of high school and college graduates (I don't have the HS stats handy, but almost twice as many 25-29 year olds have bachelor's degrees now as did in 1970 (though it's increased by only about a third since 1975)).  I think a reasonable argument could be made that it's increasingly costly to get each additional student to graduate (i.e. moving the HS graduation rate from 50 to 60% is easier than moving it from 80 to 90%), so we might not expect the same returns per dollar on those measures.  And, surely, we also aimed to improve many other skills (e.g. critical thinking, physical/emotional health, social skills, art appreciation, etc.) that aren't measured by the math and reading tests listed.

So, should Ladner's alarming chart worry us?  I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.  I wouldn't be the least bit shocked if our returns to effort and spending have decreased the past 40 years.  But we can't tell whether productivity has decreased, remained steady, or increased by looking at that chart.  The most compelling figures he presents are the large increases in non-teacher staff in schools, but some unknown number of support staff are certainly invaluable so even that doesn't prove all that much.

And, by the way, those same four problems apply to any international comparison of a simple spending : test score ratio.  Were we to completely eliminate schools, culture, society, and a myriad of other contextual factors would still produce kids who scored much higher and lower on tests in different countries; it would be harder and easier and cheaper and more expensive to change that in different countries; and each country emphasizes different outcomes to a different degree.

I'll be the last person to argue that our nation's schools are just fine -- we face countless problems with a nearly infinite number of solutions -- so please don't interpret my criticism as an argument for the status quo. I hate the status quo.  But also realize that Ladner's chart gives us exactly zero information about what ails our schools.

*The "world" here is 25 developed nations.  On another note, here's a fun game: they don't seem to have compiled the list of the top-performing districts, so go see which ones you think might rank highest.  So far, I've found:

-The average student in Chappaqua, NY outscores 89% of students internationally in reading and 82% in math

-The average student in Chatham, NJ outscores 88% of students internationally in reading

-The average student in Brookline, MA outscores 77% in math.