Last week, Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success Academy invited the press and other interested community members to watch the emotional circus of a charter school admission lottery. This prompted a mini-debate on Whitney Tilson’s blog about how much media attention charter school lotteries should receive, and whether such attention is really beneficial to the parents involved.
I understand that it might be better for Moskowitz to publicize sad parents leading children away crying; surely that means that they will be granted some of Spitzer’s new golden charter school tickets. However, my point is not that it shouldn’t happen (although I agree with some of the critics), but that when it does, the charter leaders identify it as a teachable moment. They (Harlem Success Academy) have great resources (including political influence) and the lottery stage provides a unique opportunity to educate the parents about how to take real ownership of their child's education. I will go so far as to suggest that they might have more parents present in that one evening then most of the local schools see at all of their PTA meetings combined. If parents made it to the lottery, then surely they could make it over to their child’s classroom every now and then.
Many charter proponents argue that charter schools provide a means to giving parents the “choices” that are necessary in a democratic system (see Xue's post below). In this case, I would like to suggest that charter schools could actually encourage citizens to become more democratically participative. I wonder what would happen if instead of just turning away parents whose children did not win a spot in the lottery, they turned it into a way to educate concerned parents to have a voice in their current public schools. This would give charters like Harlem Success a unique opportunity to broaden their sphere of influence in a positive way.
Many of the parents attending the lottery may not return next year, maybe they have been lotteried out of the running one too many times, maybe they feel powerless. So in addition to sending that spectacular “we need more Charter schools” message, Harlem Success could send out the even more important “we need more parents” message. Just a thought.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Saturday, March 24, 2007
How can school choice deal with socio-economic inequalities amongst parents?
As an economist by training and a liberal inspired by Mill, I’m a staunch advocate for school choice – parents should be allowed to design their children’s education in a marketplace of schools.
But posts like these worry me. Ostensibly, it’s a tragic-funny blog post about the kind of stupid complaints from parents teachers have to deal with – it makes you laugh, but it’s nothing unusual. Yet how commonplace such ridiculous parent complaints are – across countries and cultures – has worrying implications for proponents of school choice. It deals with two issues: a) parents’ lack of information, such that most of what they know about their children’s education is filtered through the unreliable lens of their children; and b) parents’ capacity to make good choices.
The first is easier to tackle – we just need to increase information flows. Websites like SchoolMatters and StandUp go a long way towards helping parents find out more about the educational landscape, from the level of the school to the level of the state. However, the concern is that the parents who need it most – i.e. the parents with children trapped in low-achieving schools – may be least likely to access this information.
And this brings us to the bigger problem of school choice: allowing parents more freedom to choose may result in the exacerbation of existing socio-economic inequalities, as differences in the socio-economic status of parents are reflected and magnified in the differences in educational opportunity and hence achievement of children. Parents of higher-SES will have more economic and social capital, allowing them to expend more time and resources to making educational decisions for their children, which presumably will result in better educational decisions for their children. In contrast, parents of lower-SES may not be able to spare the same amount of time and resources, resulting in poorer choices or them not choosing at all. This fear was realized during New Zealand’s national experiment with pure school vouchers, which resulted in greater socio-economic segregation within schools as better schools with more applicants than places were allowed to select their students (if you're interested, refer to Helen Ladd’s work on school choice). If the problem is parents being ill-equipped to exercising their right to choice, or simply not choosing at all, even progressive vouchers that give less privileged students more money - already a politically difficult policy - will not help.
I still firmly believe that individual choice is better than paternalism, that a diversity of choices will lead to better outcomes for all than a centrally-impsed one-size-fits-all model, but proponents of school choice have to take seriously the argument that sometimes, parents may not be the best people to decide a child’s education. More critically, other than progressive vouchers, how can school choice proponents design a school choice system that does not exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities amongst parents? To borrow Nancy Birdsall's definitions, how do we maximise constructive inequality that creates positive incentives at the micro level, while minimizing destructive inequality that 'reflects privileges for the already rich and blocks potential for productive contributions of the less rich'?
(NOTE: The Quick and the Ed has quite a few relevant recent blog posts on this topic, especially this one.)
But posts like these worry me. Ostensibly, it’s a tragic-funny blog post about the kind of stupid complaints from parents teachers have to deal with – it makes you laugh, but it’s nothing unusual. Yet how commonplace such ridiculous parent complaints are – across countries and cultures – has worrying implications for proponents of school choice. It deals with two issues: a) parents’ lack of information, such that most of what they know about their children’s education is filtered through the unreliable lens of their children; and b) parents’ capacity to make good choices.
The first is easier to tackle – we just need to increase information flows. Websites like SchoolMatters and StandUp go a long way towards helping parents find out more about the educational landscape, from the level of the school to the level of the state. However, the concern is that the parents who need it most – i.e. the parents with children trapped in low-achieving schools – may be least likely to access this information.
And this brings us to the bigger problem of school choice: allowing parents more freedom to choose may result in the exacerbation of existing socio-economic inequalities, as differences in the socio-economic status of parents are reflected and magnified in the differences in educational opportunity and hence achievement of children. Parents of higher-SES will have more economic and social capital, allowing them to expend more time and resources to making educational decisions for their children, which presumably will result in better educational decisions for their children. In contrast, parents of lower-SES may not be able to spare the same amount of time and resources, resulting in poorer choices or them not choosing at all. This fear was realized during New Zealand’s national experiment with pure school vouchers, which resulted in greater socio-economic segregation within schools as better schools with more applicants than places were allowed to select their students (if you're interested, refer to Helen Ladd’s work on school choice). If the problem is parents being ill-equipped to exercising their right to choice, or simply not choosing at all, even progressive vouchers that give less privileged students more money - already a politically difficult policy - will not help.
I still firmly believe that individual choice is better than paternalism, that a diversity of choices will lead to better outcomes for all than a centrally-impsed one-size-fits-all model, but proponents of school choice have to take seriously the argument that sometimes, parents may not be the best people to decide a child’s education. More critically, other than progressive vouchers, how can school choice proponents design a school choice system that does not exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities amongst parents? To borrow Nancy Birdsall's definitions, how do we maximise constructive inequality that creates positive incentives at the micro level, while minimizing destructive inequality that 'reflects privileges for the already rich and blocks potential for productive contributions of the less rich'?
(NOTE: The Quick and the Ed has quite a few relevant recent blog posts on this topic, especially this one.)
Friday, March 23, 2007
The State Board of Education in St. Louis recently voted to “unaccredit” the St. Louis School District. This was done due to the fact that the district was “underachieving.” The statistics on the districts are not encouraging, with 6 superintendents since 2003 and a high poverty district of 33,000 students. This is further compounded by the 5,800 special education students and 2,600 English language learners.
The transitional board will be led by an entrepreneur from the suburbs of St. Louis, Richard Sullivan. There is much debate over whether he will take too much of a ‘business’ approach to reform. In addition, I wonder how much of a following this leader will and does have from within the ranks of the poverty-stricken minorities of St. Louis, which is vastly different than the predominately white, middle class and wealthy suburbs.
While the State Board of Education thought that due to the low test scores and college placement it was time to take over the district, it is unclear what the new board will do differently in light of the many reforms that have already been tried. Has the issue been that the correct reforms have not been tried or that there were implementation problems? In addition, there is a lack of successful districts in the US in poverty-concentrated areas, so what will they do different to succeed when the odds are against them?
It is the time to stop expecting the State Board of Education, by itself, to turn around struggling districts. Potential answers can be the state encouraging charter school development or instituting a district-wide voucher policy. While some would argue that a voucher system would only give the poor children access to different poorly run schools, I would argue that the effect would be that while some schools would close for a short period, they would then have the impetus to start asking what the parents and students in the district want and reopen a better school. In addition, if vouchers could also be used for charter school, religious schools and other private schools this would expand the options for these children. The State Board of Education, as well as charter school organizations and entrepreneurs, would then be able to serve the demand of this most underprivileged population who the Board of Education has continually failed. It is best to open up the education market of urban St. Louis to some competition so that not only the children who can afford St. Louis Country Day School and Boroughs can get an education.
To see articles:
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/16962714.html
http://www.missourinet.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=7C24E862-0EA4-A3E6-07A8BA195AA4B69F
The transitional board will be led by an entrepreneur from the suburbs of St. Louis, Richard Sullivan. There is much debate over whether he will take too much of a ‘business’ approach to reform. In addition, I wonder how much of a following this leader will and does have from within the ranks of the poverty-stricken minorities of St. Louis, which is vastly different than the predominately white, middle class and wealthy suburbs.
While the State Board of Education thought that due to the low test scores and college placement it was time to take over the district, it is unclear what the new board will do differently in light of the many reforms that have already been tried. Has the issue been that the correct reforms have not been tried or that there were implementation problems? In addition, there is a lack of successful districts in the US in poverty-concentrated areas, so what will they do different to succeed when the odds are against them?
It is the time to stop expecting the State Board of Education, by itself, to turn around struggling districts. Potential answers can be the state encouraging charter school development or instituting a district-wide voucher policy. While some would argue that a voucher system would only give the poor children access to different poorly run schools, I would argue that the effect would be that while some schools would close for a short period, they would then have the impetus to start asking what the parents and students in the district want and reopen a better school. In addition, if vouchers could also be used for charter school, religious schools and other private schools this would expand the options for these children. The State Board of Education, as well as charter school organizations and entrepreneurs, would then be able to serve the demand of this most underprivileged population who the Board of Education has continually failed. It is best to open up the education market of urban St. Louis to some competition so that not only the children who can afford St. Louis Country Day School and Boroughs can get an education.
To see articles:
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/state/16962714.html
http://www.missourinet.com/gestalt/go.cfm?objectid=7C24E862-0EA4-A3E6-07A8BA195AA4B69F
Saturday, March 17, 2007
The First "Bunkum Award" for Logic-Train Derailment in Education Blogging
Given that we just started this blog, now might not be the best time to rag on blogs as a type of media. But a recent post on Edwize - NY's United Federation of Teachers blog – reminded me that sometimes the “everyone gets a voice” aspect of blogging creates legitimate venues for illegitimate ideas and analysis.
In this instance, Edwize’s Jackie Bennett takes on William Ouchi, UCLA prof and Grand Poobah of the Weighted Student Funding approach to education, and his description of the instances in which WSF has helped improve educational equity and performance.
Here’s Bennett writing about Ouchi’s use of Boston as WSF success story:
Actually, so much for basic reasoning.
Bennett compares WSF schools to rough district-wide averages and says that Ouchi’s analysis is flawed because he is comparing fundamentally different students. But Bennett misses the point because Ouchi actually says in the passage she quotes that he controls for “schools with similar student bodies.”
This basic logic-misstep discredits the entire post. And not to be too much of an elitist but isn’t it silly to think that a fully tenured research professor with Ouchi’s credentials would make as significant a mistake as to make claims about comparative student performance without controlling for essential student characteristics? Maybe we need some “Bunkum Awards” for education blogging.
In this instance, Edwize’s Jackie Bennett takes on William Ouchi, UCLA prof and Grand Poobah of the Weighted Student Funding approach to education, and his description of the instances in which WSF has helped improve educational equity and performance.
Here’s Bennett writing about Ouchi’s use of Boston as WSF success story:
Ouchi points to Boston schools as an example of WSF success. Ouchi says, “The results have been good. In Boston…scores on state tests…are 30 to 50 percent higher than they are at the regular public schools with similar student bodies.”
But here’s what the most recent on-line data I could find says about Boston’s WSF schools:
1. They serve substantially fewer poverty (free lunch) students (61% K-12, as opposed to 78% in the overall school population).
2. They serve substantially fewer ELL kids (3.8% as opposed to 15.8)
3. They serve substantially fewer regular special education kids (1.7% as opposed to 9.8%)…So much for Boston.
Actually, so much for basic reasoning.
Bennett compares WSF schools to rough district-wide averages and says that Ouchi’s analysis is flawed because he is comparing fundamentally different students. But Bennett misses the point because Ouchi actually says in the passage she quotes that he controls for “schools with similar student bodies.”
This basic logic-misstep discredits the entire post. And not to be too much of an elitist but isn’t it silly to think that a fully tenured research professor with Ouchi’s credentials would make as significant a mistake as to make claims about comparative student performance without controlling for essential student characteristics? Maybe we need some “Bunkum Awards” for education blogging.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Suburban Republicans Against NCLB: Proficient But Still Wrong
Congressional Republicans are close to meeting their Adequate Yearly Progress targets for Bush-bashing. The impetus for their latest mutiny? Objecting to reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act on the grounds that it endangers suburban students’ successes.
While more opposition to NCLB is always welcome, the “don’t tread on me” red staters’ reasoning is misguided. Worse, it underscores how NCLB obscures some major educational issues in our nation’s suburbs.
Weisman and Paley write in today’s Washington Post that conservative critics fear NCLB’s mandated high-stakes tests are “jettisoning education programs not covered by those tests, siphoning programs from programs for the talented and gifted, and discouraging creativity.”
Responding at the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal, Kevin Drum cringes at the thought of “pissed-off suburban voters” representing the “80% of our school systems [that] are basically okay” having the ability to sabotage NCLB’s reforms in low-achieving schools.
But Drum, the Republican critics, and the suburbanites they are trying to woo are all ignoring the real problems. The most serious danger with NCLB is that it’s already left too many suburban kids behind. And we don’t even know it.
Let’s be clear about one thing: the challenge for NCLB in the suburbs is not that it punishes successful white students. The problem is that it has artificially inflated suburban notions of success. The vast majority of students in the 80% of schools that Drum mentions are not achieving excellence, even if they are meeting proficiency on some state exam. Yet NCLB has made it easier to ignore the real deficiencies of suburban education by whitewashing the unique and significant problems in suburban schools and by rewarding the most mediocre of them for limping to the finish line.
By continuing to send the message to the majority of suburban students and parents that they are succeeding, NCLB fails to push them to greater heights and cheapens the meaning of educational excellence.
As a result, the Republicans think they can get suburban parents to worry that their kids’ successes are threatened when low-income students are expected to achieve at higher levels. That might win votes, but it misses the mark. What this country needs, what suburban parents deserve, and what will actually help all students is a more imaginative anti-NCLB groundswell reverberating throughout the suburbs.
We need soccer moms to say proficiency ain’t good enough. We need them to demand a new measurement of what excellence really should look like in their “successful” schools. We need to finally recognize that the forgotten middle in this country – measured economically, socially, politically, geographically, and educationally – is trapped behind the falsely comfortable smokescreen of NCLB accountability. And we need to add a footnote to the “success story” of suburban schools: getting by isn’t the same as getting ahead.
In short, we need a louder chorus expressing in a refined and powerful way the “self-absorbed suburban kvetching” that drives Kevin Drum crazy.
And when that happens, none of us can afford to just watch from the sidelines. When this new suburban voice for reform starts speaking, let’s listen when they say that they there’s not enough creativity in their “proficient” classrooms. Let’s applaud when they say high-stakes testing has taken innovation out of learning. Let’s cheer when they say that teachers are spending too much time preparing their students for tests and not enough time preparing them for life.
Agreeing with those statements doesn’t imply elitism or privilege. Nor does it require ignoring the serious problems facing low-achieving urban schools. But it will allow us all to finally recognize that proficiency doesn’t automatically mean excellence, and that suburban education doesn’t automatically mean success.
While more opposition to NCLB is always welcome, the “don’t tread on me” red staters’ reasoning is misguided. Worse, it underscores how NCLB obscures some major educational issues in our nation’s suburbs.
Weisman and Paley write in today’s Washington Post that conservative critics fear NCLB’s mandated high-stakes tests are “jettisoning education programs not covered by those tests, siphoning programs from programs for the talented and gifted, and discouraging creativity.”
Responding at the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal, Kevin Drum cringes at the thought of “pissed-off suburban voters” representing the “80% of our school systems [that] are basically okay” having the ability to sabotage NCLB’s reforms in low-achieving schools.
But Drum, the Republican critics, and the suburbanites they are trying to woo are all ignoring the real problems. The most serious danger with NCLB is that it’s already left too many suburban kids behind. And we don’t even know it.
Let’s be clear about one thing: the challenge for NCLB in the suburbs is not that it punishes successful white students. The problem is that it has artificially inflated suburban notions of success. The vast majority of students in the 80% of schools that Drum mentions are not achieving excellence, even if they are meeting proficiency on some state exam. Yet NCLB has made it easier to ignore the real deficiencies of suburban education by whitewashing the unique and significant problems in suburban schools and by rewarding the most mediocre of them for limping to the finish line.
By continuing to send the message to the majority of suburban students and parents that they are succeeding, NCLB fails to push them to greater heights and cheapens the meaning of educational excellence.
As a result, the Republicans think they can get suburban parents to worry that their kids’ successes are threatened when low-income students are expected to achieve at higher levels. That might win votes, but it misses the mark. What this country needs, what suburban parents deserve, and what will actually help all students is a more imaginative anti-NCLB groundswell reverberating throughout the suburbs.
We need soccer moms to say proficiency ain’t good enough. We need them to demand a new measurement of what excellence really should look like in their “successful” schools. We need to finally recognize that the forgotten middle in this country – measured economically, socially, politically, geographically, and educationally – is trapped behind the falsely comfortable smokescreen of NCLB accountability. And we need to add a footnote to the “success story” of suburban schools: getting by isn’t the same as getting ahead.
In short, we need a louder chorus expressing in a refined and powerful way the “self-absorbed suburban kvetching” that drives Kevin Drum crazy.
And when that happens, none of us can afford to just watch from the sidelines. When this new suburban voice for reform starts speaking, let’s listen when they say that they there’s not enough creativity in their “proficient” classrooms. Let’s applaud when they say high-stakes testing has taken innovation out of learning. Let’s cheer when they say that teachers are spending too much time preparing their students for tests and not enough time preparing them for life.
Agreeing with those statements doesn’t imply elitism or privilege. Nor does it require ignoring the serious problems facing low-achieving urban schools. But it will allow us all to finally recognize that proficiency doesn’t automatically mean excellence, and that suburban education doesn’t automatically mean success.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Teacher Pay
Teachers are not paid enough. There isn't much about education reform that all people can agree on, but underpaid teachers seems to be as close to a unanimous position as possible, right? Teachers in Massachusetts are required to graduate from an accredited college, take 2 expensive tests in literacy and their subject-matter, complete a professional practicum, apply for accreditation to the state Department of Education, continually take professional development courses, and attain a Master's degree within 5 years. For all this work towards professional status, beginning teachers in this state usually start at about $35,000 per year (with many states paying even less).
However, a new report by the Manhattan Institute that was reported in the February 28, 2007 edition of Education Week says that teachers on average get paid "36% more than the average nonsales white collar worker." This puts teachers salaries higher than economists, registered nurses, and architects. While this may seem shocking at first glance, it actually makes a lot of sense. Whenever I go away on vacation, my landlord tells me that he wants to be a teacher in his next life since we have it so easy. We get 3 months off during the summer, another month during vacations throughout the year, we get to leave school at 2:40, and we get tenure giving us unprecedented job security. What a deal!
Many people have begun criticizing this report saying that it misses many of the special characteristics of the teaching profession. While it is true that teachers are usually only requred to work about 7 hours each day, many come early, stay late, and bring work home with them. Most teachers are only paid for 1 hour each day when they are not instructing students, time that they can grade, plan lessons, call parents, or talk to administrators. They argue that these types of reports should compare yearly, rather than hourly, salary. With that changed, teachers will again be at the bottom of the pay scale for their categorization.
However, this may actually be the wrong debate. It is not how much they are paid, but how the pay scale is determined. Currently, teacher pay is differentiated by degrees and years of service. The teachers that are paid the most are those who have gotten their doctorate and worked in the public school system for decades, regardless of the quality of their teaching. There is, in fact, no incentive to work hard. If at the end of the year my students have learned every one of the state frameworks in my subject and I have put in an excessive amount of hours grading papers and meeting with students individually, I will get paid the same amount as someone who uses the book activities and runs out of school before the kids do at the end of the day. A more fair system might be a pay scale based on additional factors (such as supervisor observations and student achievement) with some leeway for principals to encourage exceptional teaching. Either way, the pay system currently used in most public schools is not attracting the caliber of teacher that our schools need and we should continue to look for potential fixes.
However, a new report by the Manhattan Institute that was reported in the February 28, 2007 edition of Education Week says that teachers on average get paid "36% more than the average nonsales white collar worker." This puts teachers salaries higher than economists, registered nurses, and architects. While this may seem shocking at first glance, it actually makes a lot of sense. Whenever I go away on vacation, my landlord tells me that he wants to be a teacher in his next life since we have it so easy. We get 3 months off during the summer, another month during vacations throughout the year, we get to leave school at 2:40, and we get tenure giving us unprecedented job security. What a deal!
Many people have begun criticizing this report saying that it misses many of the special characteristics of the teaching profession. While it is true that teachers are usually only requred to work about 7 hours each day, many come early, stay late, and bring work home with them. Most teachers are only paid for 1 hour each day when they are not instructing students, time that they can grade, plan lessons, call parents, or talk to administrators. They argue that these types of reports should compare yearly, rather than hourly, salary. With that changed, teachers will again be at the bottom of the pay scale for their categorization.
However, this may actually be the wrong debate. It is not how much they are paid, but how the pay scale is determined. Currently, teacher pay is differentiated by degrees and years of service. The teachers that are paid the most are those who have gotten their doctorate and worked in the public school system for decades, regardless of the quality of their teaching. There is, in fact, no incentive to work hard. If at the end of the year my students have learned every one of the state frameworks in my subject and I have put in an excessive amount of hours grading papers and meeting with students individually, I will get paid the same amount as someone who uses the book activities and runs out of school before the kids do at the end of the day. A more fair system might be a pay scale based on additional factors (such as supervisor observations and student achievement) with some leeway for principals to encourage exceptional teaching. Either way, the pay system currently used in most public schools is not attracting the caliber of teacher that our schools need and we should continue to look for potential fixes.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Does More Math and Science Really Add Up?
Last Thursday’s New York Times reported that Bill Gates thinks our economy will capsize without additional math and science teachers and resources. The actual testimony recognized the needs throughout our education system, but the NYT Business section published the AP wire about math and science. According to the article, Mr. Gates’ testimony before Congress included the savory fact that Microsoft has about 3,000 jobs that cannot be filled because of the lack of skilled workers in the United States. In response, I thought I would propose a few questions for Mr. Gates (and his foundation).
First, I argue that to be really good at math and science, our students need to be good readers and problem solvers. They need to learn how to think at the “meta” levels of the cognition taxonomy, not just have more classes in math and science. As the fear of globalization grows, I am afraid that someone as powerful as Mr. Gates might be sending the wrong message. I don’t think one subject is anymore important than the other, but we are surely not helping the matter by getting on a soapbox to proclaim that better math and science curriculums will be the economic silver bullet. The Association for Computing Machinery released a study finding the United States really needs advanced researchers, innovators, and inventors for the future of the technology industry. If our high school students can’t read, what good will millions of dollars in curriculum reforms really do?
Second, I propose that we need to be a little more specific (and realistic) about what skills are really needed. Do we need people who need to know a computer language in order to do the same rote task everyday, or do we need innovators? Business Week had an interesting article a few years ago about the kinds of technology jobs that are being sent overseas. Are routine procedural jobs the jobs we are worried about? If we need scientists, engineers, and computer programmers, what is holding back our technically savvy high school students from moving into that industry? Is it years of expensive schooling (and classes that they might not need)? Is it additional years of expensive graduate school? If all they need to be skilled is more math and science classes, are traditional college diplomas a waste? What would happen if in the next four years, Mr. Gates found 3,000 high school students that wanted to work in this industry and trained them? How much would that cost? Would he hire them?
I am not trying, with all of my graduate-student wisdom, to discount Mr. Gates’ concerns. I just want for the preachers of the “mathematics and science as salvation” doctrine to slow down, take a breath, and remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
***As an English teacher on leave, I couldn’t resist using a few idiomatic expressions, rhetorical devices, and one (somewhat) extended metaphor. I’ve even inserted a few grammatical no-no’s. If you can’t spot them- go back to English class!
First, I argue that to be really good at math and science, our students need to be good readers and problem solvers. They need to learn how to think at the “meta” levels of the cognition taxonomy, not just have more classes in math and science. As the fear of globalization grows, I am afraid that someone as powerful as Mr. Gates might be sending the wrong message. I don’t think one subject is anymore important than the other, but we are surely not helping the matter by getting on a soapbox to proclaim that better math and science curriculums will be the economic silver bullet. The Association for Computing Machinery released a study finding the United States really needs advanced researchers, innovators, and inventors for the future of the technology industry. If our high school students can’t read, what good will millions of dollars in curriculum reforms really do?
Second, I propose that we need to be a little more specific (and realistic) about what skills are really needed. Do we need people who need to know a computer language in order to do the same rote task everyday, or do we need innovators? Business Week had an interesting article a few years ago about the kinds of technology jobs that are being sent overseas. Are routine procedural jobs the jobs we are worried about? If we need scientists, engineers, and computer programmers, what is holding back our technically savvy high school students from moving into that industry? Is it years of expensive schooling (and classes that they might not need)? Is it additional years of expensive graduate school? If all they need to be skilled is more math and science classes, are traditional college diplomas a waste? What would happen if in the next four years, Mr. Gates found 3,000 high school students that wanted to work in this industry and trained them? How much would that cost? Would he hire them?
I am not trying, with all of my graduate-student wisdom, to discount Mr. Gates’ concerns. I just want for the preachers of the “mathematics and science as salvation” doctrine to slow down, take a breath, and remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
***As an English teacher on leave, I couldn’t resist using a few idiomatic expressions, rhetorical devices, and one (somewhat) extended metaphor. I’ve even inserted a few grammatical no-no’s. If you can’t spot them- go back to English class!
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Right to not be Educated?
In the current issue of Ed Week there was a front-page article entitled "Concerned About Juvenile Sex Offenders, States Move to Tighten Their Regulations" that initially failed to catch my eye. What finally made me consider the article was the end of the first sentence which reads as follows:
“several states this year are grappling with the issue of how to balance a student’s right to an education with the threat that such a student may pose.”
I have pondered on several related questions before, namely how much is it the school's (i.e. government's) responsibility to educate someone who doesn't wish to be educated; to keep someone in school who obviously doesn't want to be there; or most generally to attempt to educate all at the expense of some?
My Libertarian instincts tell me it’s not the school’s place to force an education on those who don’t want it (either explicitly or implicitly as judged by their behavior), although my Democratic sensibilities wonder how hard of a line this should be.
I think the main struggle most educators face with this line of reasoning is the fear that the school system has given up on the student; that we just didn't try hard enough. And while I appreciate this drive in teachers, I also think it is sometimes unjustified. Not because the practical concerns are too daunting, but because perhaps what this kid really needs is an education in rights.
In addition to the common problem of myopia when it comes to the relationship between my rights and yours, the right to an education seems to have had an unfortunate side-effect of making our students take school for granted. A view from the outside might be exactly what's needed while reinforcing the limits of personal rights.
Some might ask where these kids will go. Well I would argue not to in school suspension. If a student already lacks an appreciation for school it seems to do little good to not only keep him or her in school but to then take away all the things about school that might be enjoyable or engaging. I have other issues with ISS as well (such as being motivated by $$ tied to attendance), but especially for these situations it seems an inappropriate response.
In sum while public education is a powerful tool, it is also a blunt one. Occasionally our best option to help a student is to let go and allow other social forces to have a try. And just maybe if the education system stepped back more often other social institutions would step up to fill the gap. Our students' rights regarding education simply need a little clarification.
Bunkum Awards
Two university-based education policy centers have launched the "Think Tank Review Project" which takes key education think tank findings and subjects them to academic review. In a recent commentary in Education Week, the co-directors of the project argue that such a project is necessitated by the influence that think tank studies have, despite their lack of scientific rigor. To publicize their efforts, they have created the 2006 "Bunkum Awards" for the most egregious examples of faulty or ideologically motivated research, choosing prominent target such as the Fordham Foundation and Harvard's own Paul Peterson. For each of the six "winners," they present both the piece itself, and a point by point academic critique of its accuracy.
Without a careful point-by-point comparison, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the critiques themselves. And it seems a little worrying that all of the research they chose to puncture are conservative in their conclusions, suggesting that the project may not be quite as non-partisan as it claims. But the general idea is promising. As Richard Posner argued several years ago, debate in the public sphere is entirely unaccountable, and is conducted at a level that wouldn't pass muster in a good undergraduate seminar, not to mention in a peer reviewed journal. At the same time, academics have to take some responsibility for creating a void that the think tanks rush to fill. Not only the pace of academic production, but the choice of questions that are more motivated by disciplinary concerns than by public ones, has opened up a large niche for think tanks (of varying quality). What we need is a network of academics committed to working on public questions and getting their work to policymakers -- perhaps the good folks at the Think Tank Review would like to publish policy briefs through New Vision?
Without a careful point-by-point comparison, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the critiques themselves. And it seems a little worrying that all of the research they chose to puncture are conservative in their conclusions, suggesting that the project may not be quite as non-partisan as it claims. But the general idea is promising. As Richard Posner argued several years ago, debate in the public sphere is entirely unaccountable, and is conducted at a level that wouldn't pass muster in a good undergraduate seminar, not to mention in a peer reviewed journal. At the same time, academics have to take some responsibility for creating a void that the think tanks rush to fill. Not only the pace of academic production, but the choice of questions that are more motivated by disciplinary concerns than by public ones, has opened up a large niche for think tanks (of varying quality). What we need is a network of academics committed to working on public questions and getting their work to policymakers -- perhaps the good folks at the Think Tank Review would like to publish policy briefs through New Vision?
Monday, March 5, 2007
Virtual Schools - Major Reform and Major Confusion
One of this week’s Education Week front page stories ($)reports on growing support among district leaders for online learning, especially courses which blend online activities with traditional classroom instruction. Research by the Sloan Consortium finds that 63 percent of districts make use of some form of online learning, with an additional 20 percent planning to do so within the next three years.
Online learning is a heavily coded term; for some it evokes scary images of kids plugged into computers, downloading information without engaging in the human process of learning. For others it represents a new tool for preparing students for an increasingly technology driven future, while simultaneously improving efficiency by freeing up classroom teachers and effectively lowering class-sizes. These debates end up largely polarized in part due to the simple fact that most people don’t really know what online learning is or how it works.
For example, the Ed Week article states:
“Online K-12 education nationwide has grown steadily in recent years. At least 24 states have established their own online education programs, and several have created “virtual schools,” offering classes in both required subjects and electives.”
This shows how easy it is to get confused about the distinctions between various online options and their relative market shares. As a recent Education Sector report demonstrates (full disc: I’m one of the co-authors) 28 – not several – states have full fledged virtual schools, though the vast majority of them only offer courses that supplement students traditional brick and mortar experiences. In other words, students in those states enroll in the state virtual school in order to take a particular class that will then count for credit at their local school. The polarized debate between online learning advocates and critics thus becomes largely moot due to the fact that these programs work in concert with local schools and districts and don’t end up delivering the majority of any students’ educations.
But this Ed Week article is important because it points out the degree to which district leaders are becoming advocates of the benefits that online learning has to offer. Rather than being seen as a potential threat, online learning is now becoming seen as a means for increasing flexibility, programmatic individualization, and student readiness for the new economy.
State virtual school programs are serving over 140,000 public school students across the country: more than those served by better known programs such as Teach for America, KIPP, and Aspire Public Schools put together.
But more importantly, virtual schools have the capacity to really shake up the status quo of a variety of traditionally intractable issues. What do teacher transfer provisions mean when teachers can teach across district lines via the internet? Why should Carnegie Units matter when students can work at their own pace? Why should students be stuck with limited curricular offerings when they can have access to a wider variety through their state’s virtual school?
As more and more states build and expand their virtual school programs, and increasing numbers of district leaders embrace online learning, virtual schools will come to be seen as the catalyst for conversations about significant reforms to our industrial model education system.
Online learning is a heavily coded term; for some it evokes scary images of kids plugged into computers, downloading information without engaging in the human process of learning. For others it represents a new tool for preparing students for an increasingly technology driven future, while simultaneously improving efficiency by freeing up classroom teachers and effectively lowering class-sizes. These debates end up largely polarized in part due to the simple fact that most people don’t really know what online learning is or how it works.
For example, the Ed Week article states:
“Online K-12 education nationwide has grown steadily in recent years. At least 24 states have established their own online education programs, and several have created “virtual schools,” offering classes in both required subjects and electives.”
This shows how easy it is to get confused about the distinctions between various online options and their relative market shares. As a recent Education Sector report demonstrates (full disc: I’m one of the co-authors) 28 – not several – states have full fledged virtual schools, though the vast majority of them only offer courses that supplement students traditional brick and mortar experiences. In other words, students in those states enroll in the state virtual school in order to take a particular class that will then count for credit at their local school. The polarized debate between online learning advocates and critics thus becomes largely moot due to the fact that these programs work in concert with local schools and districts and don’t end up delivering the majority of any students’ educations.
But this Ed Week article is important because it points out the degree to which district leaders are becoming advocates of the benefits that online learning has to offer. Rather than being seen as a potential threat, online learning is now becoming seen as a means for increasing flexibility, programmatic individualization, and student readiness for the new economy.
State virtual school programs are serving over 140,000 public school students across the country: more than those served by better known programs such as Teach for America, KIPP, and Aspire Public Schools put together.
But more importantly, virtual schools have the capacity to really shake up the status quo of a variety of traditionally intractable issues. What do teacher transfer provisions mean when teachers can teach across district lines via the internet? Why should Carnegie Units matter when students can work at their own pace? Why should students be stuck with limited curricular offerings when they can have access to a wider variety through their state’s virtual school?
As more and more states build and expand their virtual school programs, and increasing numbers of district leaders embrace online learning, virtual schools will come to be seen as the catalyst for conversations about significant reforms to our industrial model education system.
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