The big news over the past week was this announcement from two of the nation's leading educational philanthropists, Bill Gates and Eli Broad. The two are joining forces on an unprecedented, $60 million campaign to make education a front and center political issue in the 2008 presidential election through use of paid TV and Radio advertisements in battleground states, an internet appeal for activists, and a national network of on-the-ground political operatives from both parties.

By first glance, one certainly has reason to be encouraged by this announcement. Two of the most prominent single issue spenders during the '04 presidential campaign, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the AARP, spent just $22.4 million and $7.8 million respectively. So the $60 million could go a long way towards compelling politicians to think seriously about their education positions and to talk more frequently about possible improvements, both of which are unqualified positive developments from within both political parties.

At second glance, the strategy that it seems like the "Ed in '08" campaign will undertake, to encourage ordinary citizens to get involved in the calls for greater attention to education, appears to be a strong one as well. It would be easy for the group just to run commercials demanding responses from candidates on key issues (the group has identified three core issues of focus: national standards, lengthening the school day, and merit pay for teachers) and then do little to follow up, but engaging parents and citizens in the process will make the initiative fuller and more effective as a whole.

But the concern that one could rightly express about the initiative is the risk that it may end up being a $60 million investment in a lot more talk, but the same amount of action, which is to say little to none. While none can contest the problem that Broad and Gates have identified--an insufficient level of discourse between candidates and the American people on big problems in our schools--this problem is actually only a precursor to a second, more significant problem: an insufficient level of action by the same candidates once election outcomes have been decided. The short legacy of NCLB might be a perfect example of this: both Governor Bush and Vice President Gore put forth significant proposals on education in 2000 (Bush more focused on accountability and choice; Gore more focused on expanding pre-K access and public school choice), but the problem has been the post-legislation follow through over how to successfully implement NCLB.

In other words, once we choose a president in 2008, how will the Gates / Broad initiative empower the citizens it has engaged on the education issue to continue holding whomever is elected to the fire over their promises? It's unclear to me whether this is a part of the "Ed in '08" campaign's plans, or whether the two philanthropists view the initiative as a short-term, one-time investment. If that is the case, they may have spent a great deal of money to buy a major increase in high-fallutin' promises by the major candidates... but little in the way of actual action.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A fascinating op-ed today in the NY Daily News written by the chief litigator in New York City's Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) Case, Michael Rebell. For those of you not familiar with the landmark CFE case, it is by many accounts one of the nation's greatest legal victories at the state level on behalf of underserved children, the result of which was an approximately seven billion dollars in increased state level funding will be distributed to schools over the next four years (nearly $3 billion of which will go to New York City Schools and the majority of the balance to other urban school districts).

One nuance of the CFE case is that it didn't win a simple "blank check" for New York state's children. Instead, each district receiving new dollars will be required to complete a "Contract for Excellence" showing how they spend the money on five critical factors that were found to be most likely to impact student achievement: improving the quality of teachers and principals; reducing class sizes; increasing student "time-on-task"; restructuring middle and high schools; and providing kindergarten or pre-K for the full day.

However, the state legislature recently added a new requirement to the spending bill. It requires the New York City school district to state a specific goal for just how much class size will be reduced over the next five years. While doing so might seem a reasonable goal (albeit a clear nod in the direction of the powerful NYC teachers unions), Rebell makes a strong claim that this additional class size requirement may in fact serve to torpedo the whole bill. As Rebell writes:

As co-counsel for those who brought the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, I know how important class size reduction ultimately will be. But improving the quality of our teachers and principals must be priority No. 1. And a premature class-size reduction mandate is likely to lower the general quality of the teaching staff at a time when we desperately need to be raising it.

His argument is bolstered by the difficult experiences and negligible outcomes of two states which recently enacted expensive, ambitious class-size reduction proposals, California and Florida. In California, because the reduction proposals were instituted prior to teacher quality enhancement proposals (a sequence which Rebell suggests should be reversed), a wave of teacher openings were filled by low-quality, low-performing teachers--particularly in the districts where high qualitity teachers were needed most. A US News and World Report article noted how the California class size plan led to the hiring of "Nordstrom clerks, a former clown and several chiropractors," and a California department of education report found that, "Particularly troubling was the proliferation of emergency-permit teachers in high poverty areas."

The implications of this debate are critical for hundreds of thousands of New York school children, but they also have meaning for children across the country. It is one of the most challenging and, as I talk with students around the nation, least clear policy debates in the education reform world. If you have a choice between hiring more teachers, which is expensive but easy to do and easy to prove, or spending comparable resources in a harder to prove, much more complicated effort to hire better teachers, which should we do? The policy wonks side with the latter camp, and unions with the former, but where should America's students and parents side?

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Monday Washington Post Op-Ed has drawn some strong responses from the ed reform blogging circles for what seems to be an over-simplified version of NCLB's impact on schools and children.

In the op-ed, a second grade teacher from Silver Spring, Maryland decries one of the consequences of NCLB which, in his opinion, has been the creation of a "skills gap" between minority and low income children and their white and more wealthy counterparts. By focusing on narrowing the "achievement gap", i.e. the basic skills like reading, writing, and math in which disadvantaged children are often as much as four years behind, the author alleges that those schools are actually perpetuating a "caste system" in which poor and minority kids are being trained for low-level jobs and the more fortunate kids are being taught critical thinking skills for the 21st century.

The main culprit, the author continues, is standardized testing, which has in his estimation and experience created two kinds of classrooms based on where a child goes to school. One is the classroom for the children who are behind, where youth are rigorously trained and taught how to read, write, add, and subtract so that they can pass the standardized tests. The second is the classroom for children who attend school in nicer, wealthier districts where the kids are taught high level, critical thinking skills (he gives the examples of learning about the Underground Railroad, performing dances based on retold versions of Cinderella, and planning how to save wolves from extinction).

The biggest problem with this Op-Ed is that it ignores the real-life consequences of what it proposes. The author seems to suggest that the children who enter fifth grade only able to read and do math at a first grade level don't need to improve on those skills in order to succeed in the 21st century. I can only infer that the author believes that if only these children knew how to retell Cinderella with their own choreography... that only then they would be prepared to succeed. As Kevin Carey from the Education Sector notes, there was a time before NCLB when schools were not asked to show how well they were teaching low-income and minority students, and when there were no punishments when the least advantaged children were simply discounted and disregarded in school. During this pre-NCLB period, our schools had exactly the kind of freedoms that the author cries out for, to do what they wanted without consequence with their low-income and minority students. Does the author of the WaPo Op-Ed mean to suggest that during these glory days, all children were receiving excellent education regardless of their family income or skin color? And how exactly is it that students will be able to do the "high level thinking" in high school if they don't possess basic abilities in reading and writing?

To be sure, concerns are well-placed any time a child in the 2nd or 3rd grade cries in school, whether its out of anxiety over a standardized test or for any other reason. But let's remember that most of the text anxiety that students create is the fault of districts and states who implement grade-promotion requirements, which are never mentioned in NCLB. And let's not forget that because of the powerful local role in education, it has always been individual schools and principals who choose whether to make test preparation a small part of an overall lesson plan, or whether to implement "drill and kill" type marathons where kids only learn how to fill out bubbles. To blame NCLB for poor pedagogical decisions made in schools would be like blaming the First Amendment for the existence of hate speech.

Lastly, we need to remember that every time we nod in shared reproach about the harmful psychological impact of testing on kids, that it is the same tests which have provided motivation and the satisfaction of high-achievement to thousands of our education system's greatest success stories in KIPP schools and elsewhere, the kinds of success stories that The Ron Clark Story and other movies glorify.

The point of this is not to cheerlead for NCLB. To be sure, there are serious problems that need addressing with the law. Too many schools are truly hamstrung by the blunt ways in which it attempts to measure proficiency, and too many schools making real progress are not given due credit because of nuances in the law. One could also argue that the basic bargain of NCLB hasn't been met either on the part of the federal government, which is that schools must be held accountable to high standards, but government must first provide the resources needed to reach those standards to begin with. And then there is the issue of those standards themselves and whether they are high enough to be meaningful. But if we decide in the next year or two not to reauthorize NCLB, please don't let it be because we want schools to have the choice to stop focusing on our nation's least fortunate children. That, I'm afraid, would be a much greater sacrifice then a child missing out on Cinderella dance practice for the sake of learning grammar.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got an email today from our friend who is a high school junior at a Chilean private school and who had spent a year in San Antonio public schools prior to going back this fall. She had a bunch of interesting observations to share about her education in Chile, and the education reform scene there in general (if you recall, there were massive student protests there last year, to great effect). Here's what she wrote:

Dear Aaron,
I'm in 11th Grade, but here it's much harder than in the USA. We have to take a "weekly schedule", meaning we don't have the same classes everyday as in the American high schools. Besides the regular school curricula for 11th Grade, we have to take classes for PSU (Chilean SAT/ACT) in the afternoon.
Per week I have: 6 hours of Biology, 4 of Chemistry, 3 of Physics, 7 of Spanish, 6 of German, 4 of English, 8 of Math, 2 of P.E., 2 of Visual Arts AND 2 hours of Philosophy.

That's why people from the conservative (school agencies) are protesting, because they say that this bill will not improve our education, but will cause money issues.

Posted by Aaron Tang at 12:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The failure of the government to provide quality education can be reasonably defended. More students from low-income communities are dropping out, segregation in public schools is increasing instead of decreasing, and graduates of public schools are unable to write at an acceptable level to secure gainful employment or to enter into higher education.

The federal government and state governments around the country have failed to deliver quality public education to the nation's students. What happens when the government fails? In this case, alternative organizations are usurping the government's responsibility and taking matters into their own hands.

There are currently dozens of organizations across the United States working to improve public education for all of the nation's youth, but particularly the under-served. For decades, students whose families can afford it have attended private schools or religious schools if they want different outcomes than those offered by their local schools. These schools are operated outside of the public system and must adhere to only some of the guidelines mandated by the state and federal governments for schools.

Now, systems are developing to serve youth who do not have the means to opt out of the public school system in favor of private education. This system is a network of charter schools, public schools set up outside of the traditional public school structure, specifically designed to serve the needs of youth from high poverty or low income families and communities.

Networks such as Aspire Schools of California, have served literally thousands of students who meet the government's definition of being impoverished. These students who attend Aspire Schools are much more likely to attend college than their peers in regular public schools, less likely to get into trouble with the law, and more equipped to ultimately be able to pursue their dreams of fulfilling and productive careers.

There are several different systems of charter schools like this one developing including the K.I.P.P. Charter Schools, The SEED Foundation Schools, and the YES Schools in Texas. There is even a competitive capital market developing for the funding of these schools, as evidenced by organizations like New Schools which funds promising charter schools and education programs outside of the typical public education program.

It's time for the federal, state, and local governments to catch up and provide quality public education, or risk being made irrelevant by outside entities. American children deserve a high quality education provided by the government.

Posted by Stacy Tolos at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our Education has long focused on the need to engage young people in the conversations and policy decisions that affect their schools at the K-12 level. But it is becomingly increasingly clear that the need for change may exist every bit as much on the higher education level, despite popular misconceptions about the quality of America's colleges.

As this Washington Post editorial notes, there are some serious problems with the quality of undergraduate education that even the most elite of our nation's colleges offer. To begin with, while nearly three-quarters of young people will enroll in college, only half of those students will actually graduate. And of those who do graduate, merely 38% of them are able to perform simple tasks like comparing two differing viewpoints in a newspaper editorial, according to the American Institutes for Research. These problems are ever more striking when one considers that students are going into record amounts of loan debt in order to afford tuition... in exchange for what appears to be a poor quality education in all to many instances.

The causes of these troubling statistics appear to be numerous. For starters, many universities and colleges suffer from a similar problem as do middle and high schools in low-performing districts, which is that many of the students enter their classrooms already lacking in important skills. A 2003 US Department of Education report found that more than 40% of students at two-year colleges and 20% of students at four-year colleges enroll in at least one remedial course in their first semester alone. Of course, this reason is never sufficient cause for a school to throw its arms up and say it can't do any better, but it's important to recognize that improvement in K-12 education will certainly have a corollary impact in higher education as well.

A second reason for poor performance of our nation's colleges and universities is that there is very little (if any) accountability for them. Though there are differing degrees of accountability that have been proposed by those with an eye towards higher education reform and none of them are perfect ideas--from adding standardized testing to stiffening accreditation rules--the truth of the matter is that we have very little information on which schools are preparing undergraduate students well and which are not. A major reason behind this is that the business of higher education is driven largely by prestige, and prestige is almost completely disconnected from the actual quality of education that is provided. US News and World Report's annual college rankings take into account admissions selectivity, SAT scores of incoming freshmen, the size of their endowments, peer-offered scores for prestige, and faculty ratios, but they do not take into account the more nuanced (and important) measures of how much students actually learn during four years in a given school.

The authors of the Washington Post editorial suggest a recipe of increased accountability for student outcomes (particularly among schools receiving public funding), re-balancing schools' preference for graduate research with the need to educate undergraduates, and by investing in ways to measure student learning and the quality of teaching. It's not a simple or eye-catching set of ideas, but they do have value. But the will to bring these changes about will not come from within the institutions themselves; it will have to be exerted from without. And who better than the very students being shortchanged at the colleges and universities to urge their school administrators to do better?

Posted by Aaron Tang at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An interesting Education Week article published earlier this week comments on the rising popularity of online classes being offered in high schools, particularly in the realm of AP (advanced placement) courses.

Turns out that two key things are happening here., and they're meeting in the middle. One is that schools are increasingly accepting the idea that education can indeed happen in a virtual medium with ever-present advances in technology (imagine if a teacher yelled at a student for having their iPod headphones on in the hallway, only to find that the student was listening to an AP US History lecture they had just downloaded from their virtual class). The second development is the recognition from all different kinds of schools and students that AP classes are a key to college access and improved school rankings, at least according to this Washington Post school ranking system that has seen its own fair share of controversy.

The result is that small schools and rural schools seeking to increase the number of AP courses available to their students are turning to companies that offer virtual AP classes, and so too are big schools with unwieldy scheduling systems that prevent many students from taking the classes they prefer.

What do make of this trend? For starters, I'd love to hear from any students out there who have had a virtual class experience in school. Are the teachers accessible? How well are your questions addressed? Do you have a similar amount of homework and time spent "in class" as in your traditional classes? Seems to me that the answer doesn't need to be yes to this last question in order for the online classes to be worthwhile, especially since the AP test results so far seem to indicate that online AP students don't do any worse than traditional students (though there may be a selection bias there). As far as the bigger picture and whether schools will convert to be much, much more online-oriented in the future, perhaps it will happen--far be it for me to be a technology nay-sayer. But it will take a long time and a lot of public pressure before it will happen; schools remain very, very stalwart institutions that are resistant to quick, widespread change. Whether or not that's for the best is a subject of a whole different debate!

Posted by Aaron Tang at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)