Parents With Choices Seek More Information

November 8, 2017

(Guest Post by Jason Bedrick)

We’ve all heard the argument that parents can’t be trusted with educational choice because they don’t have enough information. But as my new EdChoice colleague Mike McShane explains, it’s all a matter of incentives:

[P]arents don’t have a strong incentive to look for information about school options if they don’t have the ability to take advantage of the information. If they don’t have choices, why search for information?

This creates a terrible chicken-and-egg problem. We shouldn’t give parents choices because they don’t have enough information to make good decisions, but they don’t have enough information because we haven’t given them choices!

Fortunately, new research by Michael F. Lovenheim and Patrick Walsh sheds light on how parents seek out and consume relevant information when given the incentive to do so (i.e., the ability to choose). As McShane explains:

Lovenheim and Walsh’s paper offers a path forward. They find that parents respond to expansions of school choice options by seeking out new information. The researchers were able to link more than 100 million (yes, you read that right) individual searches on the school information website GreatSchools to geographic areas that either had school choice expanded or restricted during the almost three years of their study to see how parents respond to changes in the options available to them.

They found that expansions of school choice drove increases in searches for school information. They also found that restrictions of school choice drove decreases in searches for school information.

As it turns out, parents, whose time is valuable, don’t waste their time learning about school options that they can’t take advantage of. But, when they have options made available to them, they work to find out which one is best for their child.

For more on the implications of this research — and what choice proponents can do to help parents get access to relevant information, read the rest of McShane’s blog post here.

 

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Posted by Jason Bedrick

New York’s Alright If You Like Saxophones, Taxes and Meh School Performance

November 8, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

NAEP Reading Scores from 2015 along the horizontal axis, NAEP reading cohort gains (2015 8th grade scores minus 2011 4th grade scores). Ok so stare closely at the chart around the 262 score from the bottom to the top. Arizona, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Michigan, Rhode Island, New York, Florida and Delaware all had approximately the same 8th grade math score, but took different paths to get there. Some, like Delaware, Florida and Maryland started above the national average in their 2011 4th grade scores, but had small gains. Others like Arizona and Oklahoma, started below the national average in their 4th grade scores but grinded their way to large gains to catch up.

In 2011, Arizona 4th graders scored a 212 in 4th grade reading, Oklahoma a 215. Maryland’s 4th graders scored a 231 in 4th grade reading., New York stood at 222. Maryland students had an almost 19 point advantage over Arizona students and a 16 point advantage over Oklahoma students. Maryland spends far more than either Arizona or Oklahoma, and New York literally spends more than twice as much per pupil as either of these states. It shouldn’t happen that either Arizona or Oklahoma students would tie Maryland and/or New York by the time those 2011 4th graders became 8th graders.

Keep staring at that middle portion of the chart. Is Tennessee supposed to be neck and neck with Rhode Island? Rhode Island’s 7 point lead in the 2011 4th grade reading scores and almost $7,000 per student spending gap would say no, but the Tennessee kids didn’t get the memo and ended in a dead heat by 8th grade.

Ok so spot NY on the above chart and then look at math:

Arizona, Connecticut, Kansas and Maryland had 2011 4th grade math scores of 235, 242, 246 and 247 respectively. These had current (not total) expenditures that year of $7,782,$16,224, $9,802 and $13,946 per pupil. As an Arizonan, I’m delighted to have closed the gap with Connecticut, Kansas and Maryland. If I were a taxpayer or educator in Connecticut, Kansas and/or Maryland I would not be pleased.

Now locate New York on the math chart. I guess $19,965 per pupil just doesn’t buy what it used to in New York.

Ultimately it is good news that we have examples of states with diverse student bodies making academic progress. Remember- winter is coming to state budgets as 10,000 boomers per day reach the age of 65 and health care costs continue to rise. I hope you can get that sorted out New York but in the meantime both your students and taxpayers are getting horribly short-changed by your K-12 rent-seeking groups. The founders included a solution for you in our constitutional system: federalism. Did I mention that in addition to lower taxes, it is very pleasant here in the winter? As Ling Ving once sang “New York’s alright-if you want to freeze to death!”

Be sure to bring your golf clubs:

As far as where you’ll send your kids to school, Arizona has outstanding options in the public school system in both districts and charters. Here’s some dots to connect on the average performance of Arizona charters:

Additionally if you happen to prefer a private school for your child, Arizona’s policies support your families capacity to make that decision. Tired of having the daylights taxed out of you to pay for a public school system you don’t want to put your kids in, and then paying private school tuition on top of that? I thought you might. Head south until you reach Interstate 10 and then go west young family!

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Posted by matthewladner

NAEP Math Scores by Math Gains by State

November 7, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

A conversation with Robert Pondiscio convinced me that it would be a good idea to balance progress with overall scores. Growth is dandy after all, but it is not the end-all-be-all. So here goes with math- statewide scores for 8th graders in 2015 by overall cohort progress between 4th graders in 2011 and 8th graders in 2015. Bonus-more states labeled. It’s a slow process so if I missed a desired state just let me know in the comments.

So the high performing usual suspects do better in this chart clustered over on the right side of the horizon. The 2015 NAEP math swoon hit some states very hard- yes I’m looking at you Florida, Maryland and North Carolina. Between 2013 and 2015 these states experienced a 6 point, 4 point and 5 point drops in 8th math respectively. Florida’s case was very odd as statewide charters and Miami Dade escaped the swoon. We will see what happens when the new data is released for in 2017 in January.

 

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Posted by matthewladner

Black Cohort Gains 2011 to 2015

November 7, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Hey kids guess what the fun just doesn’t stop-now with Greg requested smaller dots! Pictured above are the math and reading NAEP cohort improvement rates for states for Black students. In what can no longer be described as a surprise, Michigan did well. Bad look for Massachusetts and Delaware. Here is the same data in scale points:

 

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Posted by matthewladner

NAEP Cohort Gains in Scale Points

November 6, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Quick post just to note that the outlines of the story remains broadly similar whether you measure cohort NAEP gains as percentage increases or simply as scale points gained: AZ statewide still leads the field, AZ charters still beats the field like what Clubber Lang did to Rocky in their first encounter in the ring, Michigan charters still edge Louisiana charters, Maryland still needs to invest in ammo and a fortified island complex in hopes of surviving the nuclear zombie apocalypse. The main storyline here is that like the Credo report finding Detroit and New Orleans neck and neck, NAEP finds a similar result in 2011 to 2015 cohort gains for Louisiana and Michigan charters.

The question of which measure is better seems debatable imo so it is easier to simply present both.

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Posted by matthewladner

Michigan Charters Continued

November 5, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

When Doug Harris took to the pages of the New York Times to denounce Michigan charter schools as “the biggest school reform disaster in the country” he might have profited from an honest reading of the research literature and 10 minutes looking at NAEP data. For example, it took about 10 minutes to calculate the above chart. Michigan charters must be the fastest improving “disaster” yet seen.

Harris went on in the piece not just to trash Michigan, but to boast of the wonders of New Orleans charters. Harris used New Orleans to contrast as the Happy Hunting Grounds of charter schooling in contrast to the Detroit hellscape:

The New Orleans results have been impressive. In the decade after the reforms, the city’s standardized test scores have increased by eight to 15 percentile points and moved the district from the bottom to almost the state average on many measures. High school graduation and college entry rates also seem to have improved significantly, even while suspensions, expulsions and the rate of students switching schools have all dropped. Detroit and New Orleans represent radically different versions of school choice — and the one that seems to work is the one that uses the state oversight that Ms. DeVos opposes.

Well that sounds awfully impressive, but it perhaps less so when you check the only common metric testing data available in both Michigan and Louisiana charters-NAEP. When you plot the cohort gains of Louisiana and Michigan charter schools against state averages, it looks something like:

NAEP cohort gain calculations have their limitations, but the reader should note that similar findings to these were found in research on trends in state test scores. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to provide a link to the Credo dot chart showing nearly indistinguishable growth performance between Detroit and New Orleans in the comment section, but it was reminiscent of this chart as I recall.

Ironically, Harris also denounced Detroit charters as a “Wild West.” Just for the record- here is what a real Wild West charter sector’s results looked like between 2011 and 2015:

 

 

 

 

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Posted by matthewladner

The LINE to apologize to Michigan CHARTER SCHOOLS forms to the LEFT!

November 4, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Regular Jayblog readers may recall the tizzy that some worked themselves into about Michigan charter schools after Betsy DeVos was nominated to serve as Secretary of Education. Oh they are horrible, terrible, no good, “Wild West” etc. Max Eden and others attempted to set the record straight, noting Credo studies and other evidence showing stronger performance for Michigan charters. Not everyone much cared to consider any of that evidence business, and rumors of horrible Michigan charter school performance linger on to this day.

Well it turns out that NAEP cohort gains reinforce the conclusions of the Credo study and two other studies finding positive charter results. Those look like respectable math gains and very strong reading gains for “the biggest school reform disaster in the country” to these eyes. NAEP cohort gains are not perfect or infallible measures, but they are pointing in the same direction as the studies. Moreover, cohort gains rank above merely looking at raw scores as measures of school quality, which is **ahem** precisely one of the mistakes that critics made.

If Michigan charters are a catastrophic failure, what are we to make of the majority of state education systems (aka the blue dots)? Maryland is getting nervous with all of this disaster talk. If Michigan charters are a reform disaster then the Maryland school system just might qualify as a non-reform post-nuclear zombie apocalypse extinction event.

Maryland need brainnnns…and SPF 50,000 sunscreen!

If Michigan’s charter school skeptics would like to take a crack at explaining the above data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the three studies showing positive results the comment section courteously awaits your visit. Otherwise the line to offer an apology to educators running Michigan charters and the students making academic progress in them forms to the left.

 

 

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Posted by matthewladner

Orlando for Chief Technocat

November 3, 2017

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Back in 2013 Forbes ran a contest between a group of financial services professionals, a group of school children and a cat named Orlando to see who could do the best job investing in stocks. “While the professionals used their decades of investment knowledge and traditional stock-picking methods, the cat selected stocks by throwing his favorite toy mouse on a grid of numbers allocated to different companies.”

Orlando’s victory ought to have come to the surprise of approximately no one. Stock picking chickens began defeating money managers decades ago. Recently the Wall Street Journal ran a long article demonstrating that the mutual funds rated five stars by the Morningstar service rarely hold on to that rating for very long.

So other than the obvious (buy index funds rather than pay for “expert” advice) what does this have to tell us about a panel of experts donning their lab coats in order to predict which schools will either perform well or flounder?

Things get even more complex with regards to schools when compared to stocks. Stocks have a very straightforward metric of value- a price. A well-meaning panel of school experts lacks a comparable metric, with enrollment trend and wait lists being the closest available analogies to prices. Such panels tend to rely on test scores, but past test scores may not only fail to predict future test scores, K-12 test scores often fail to predict future success in life.

Metrics for instance used to decide chartering and charter renewals in New Orleans for instance failed to predict future test score growth. In other words…

Alas Newt the Alien apocalypse survivor died in a really unwatchable sequel, but Orlando the Cat might be available to make life and death decisions for New Orleans charter schools. Apparently, just as with finance, panels of “experts” are not to be trusted with this task. Even if such metrics did predict future test score growth, we ought not to feel overly assured as the relationship between K-12 test scores and future success seems somewhere on the weak to tenuous spectrum in the currently available research literature.

Now if you don’t like the idea of a cat dropping a toy mouse on a numbered grid to decide which charter schools get approved and which close, we might decide to leave this task primarily to the collective judgments of parents. We’ve been earnestly assured that we can’t do such a thing because it didn’t work out in Cleveland or in X, but given the complete inability of humans to forecast the future, expert panels doesn’t have much of a chance to add value anywhere over the long run.

Rather than flattering itself with the notion that their expertise has prepared someone to exercise technocratic authority properly, the reform movement should spend time investigating the conditions under which bottom-up accountability succeeds and the conditions under which top-down accountability fails. Such an investigation could move the discussion beyond stale polemics such as should the government ever close a school and towards an investigation of the sorts of conditions that lead to success. How many options do parents need before they can effectively take the lead in closing schools?

I’m guessing the answer to this last question requires more than “zoned district school and young urban charters.” Turns out that the howling wind of purifying creative destruction story is a bit much when your only options are your zoned district inner city school and a handful of young inner city charter schools. Here in Arizona zoned district school, suburban district schools, tons of other charters and private school choice seems to be putting down new charters in a mere four years despite the fact that they have a 15 year charter from the state. A large majority of closed charters aren’t lasting long enough to reach a renewal process.

The benefits of such a system as opposed to heavy reliance on a panel of experts or even a cat seem both abundant and apparent.

 

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Posted by matthewladner

You’re going to need a bigger boat

November 2, 2017

chummin-for-sharks

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

My son Benjamin was looking at the Jayblog, and I asked him “what do you think it would look like if I put Arizona charter students in one of those state NAEP cohort gain dot charts?”

He said “You’re going to need a bigger chart.”

Yup

NAEP cohort gains AZ charters

Feel free to note ways in which it is not fair to compare charter cohort gains to statewide gains (there are indeed some) in the comments section. It is also “not fair” that some of those blue dots spend twice as much per pupil for a student body of relatively wealthy kids but get an oxygen tank shot into their academic toothy maw by a majority-minority student body.

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Posted by matthewladner

District School to 5th Grader: “Snitches Get Stitches”

November 1, 2017

s-l300

(Guest Post by Jason Bedrick)

It has only been a few hours since Jay awarded the the 2017 Al Copeland Humanitarian Award posthumously to Stanislav Petrov (honestly, Matt, how were we expected to top “man who saved the world”?), but already I have an early nominee for the Higgy: Florida district school principal Traci Wilke of Samuel Gaines Academy.

In 2015, a 5th-grade student surreptitiously recorded her teacher bullying and threatening violence against a fellow student (e.g. “I will drop you!”). Following the “if you see something, say something” and “zero tolerance for bullying” policies that officials drill into our heads, 11-year-old Brianna Cooper handed the video over to another teacher. Although the school fired the bully teacher, school officials also decided to suspend Brianna for one week claiming that she “violated” the teacher’s “expectation of privacy.”

Apparently Brianna had violated one the school’s unwritten policies: “snitches get stitches.”

It was only after local and state media outlets picked up the story that the superintendent intervened and the suspension was lifted. A string of emails uncovered by the website Photography Is Not a Crime show other district school officials complaining to each other about the principal’s poor decision and lack of responsiveness.

“Did you get a response from Traci?” asked Assistant Superintendent John Lynch. “No sir! Did you think I would?” responded Superintendent Genelle Yost, “I do not believe she truly understands the magnitude of the decision.”

Later, after telling Principal Wilke that it would be “in the best interest of all, district included, to lift the suspension.” Lynch then sent a private email to Yost lamenting, “I was hoping after some time for reflection, Traci [Wilke] would come to the conclusion to lift the suspension on her own.”

Although the suspension was eventually lifted, it is outrageous that any school official would think it appropriate to punish a student for whistleblowing about physical threats made against other students. Doing so sends a clear message that the principal puts the interests of adults working at the school ahead of the physical safety and wellbeing of students enrolled there.

Such warped priorities are deserving of the Higgy.

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Posted by Jason Bedrick

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