I’m feeling like we’ve been in a lot of conflicts on the blog recently. It’s time to cleanse the palate with some cute animal photos. But given us it has to be cute animals… fighting… with lightsabers.
Ahhh. That’s better.
Nationalization Weasels
May 10, 2011
If advocates of the nationalization of education had greater intellectual integrity, they would openly declare that they favor nationally uniform standards, curriculum, and assessments, and that producing greater uniformity was desirable. But “intellectual” and “integrity” are not the first things that come to mind when thinking of the U.S. Department of Education–Gates–AFT–Fordham coalition pushing nationalization.
Instead of a straightforward and open defense of their agenda, I anticipate that the U.S. Department of Education–Gates–AFT–Fordham coalition (along with their two hired assessment consortia and corporate backers) will respond with weasel words. We’ve already seen some hints of their response, so my predictions will not be as impressive as those in the Fordham Report Drinking Game, but feel free to drink nevertheless.
They’ll say that they are not actually advocating a national curriculum. Instead, they will say that they are only developing “curricular roadmaps,” “multiple curriculum resources,” “instructional materials,” “content frameworks,” “model instructional units, “content modules” or similar such weasel words. Their talking points clearly instruct them to 1) use curriculum as an adjective instead of a noun since “curricular [whatever]” sounds like less than “curriculum,” 2) emphasize the plural so it sounds less uniform, 3) substitute a synonym for curriculum, such as “framework” or “model” so that you avoid clearly stating what you are developing. Credulous reporters may sometimes buy the claim that these weasel words represent important distinctions, but I suspect that members of Congress are less likely to be as easily fooled when Department of Ed officials are called for hearings to explain the legislative authority by which they are developing a national curriculum. And I suspect those hearings are not too far in the future.
The nationalization folks may also hide behind the fact that there are two consortia, so clearly they do not desire a single national set of curriculum and assessments. Having a choice among two federally funded products is a bit like the old joke where you have a choice between death and roo roo. If you haven’t heard it, you might guess or check this out, but I think you’ll agree that this is hardly a choice.
Or perhaps the U.S. Department of Education–Gates–AFT–Fordham coalition will respond that the consortia are primarily devoted to developing new assessments, not curriculum (or curricular [whatever]). Just remember that assessment can drive everything else. Once you have high stakes national assessments you have a de facto national curriculum.
And I am certain that we will hear that the entire enterprise is voluntary. Of course, there is nothing voluntary about mandating that states and localities comply if they wish to receive Title I funds when ESEA is re-authorized. If U.S. Department of Education–Gates–AFT–Fordham pledge to do nothing in the ESEA re-authorization or future Race to the Top to reward, incentivize, encourage or otherwise coerce states and localities to adopt the national curriculum and assessments that are being developed, then this claim might have some credibility. But they haven’t declared this as their position and they won’t do so precisely because they are not seeking a voluntary arrangement. We have already seen fiscal coercion from the previous round of Race to the Top to get states to adopt the Common Core national standards. Expect more of this. And saying that states and localities can choose to forgo federal funds if they don’t wish to comply sounds about as voluntary as saying that paying your income tax is completely voluntary because you can always refuse and choose to go to jail. Taking money from people and only offering them a share back if they comply is coercion.
The nationalizing coalition uses weasel words because their entire project depends on stealth. If we have an open and vigorous debate about whether it is desirable for our large, diverse country to have a uniform national set of standards, curriculum, and assessments, I am confident that they would lose. Time and time again the American people through their political and educational leaders have rejected nationalization of education when it has been proposed in a straightforward way. Having learned from those failures the U.S. Department of Education–Gates–AFT–Fordham coalition is trying to advance nationalization with piece-meal steps disguised in weasel words. With the new Manifesto against nationalization I think we have brought the debate out into the open and the U.S. Department of Education–Gates–AFT–Fordham‘s agenda cannot survive in the open.
(edited for typos)
1 Comment | 
National Standards | 
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Posted by Jay P. Greene
Closing the Door on Innovation
May 9, 2011Today a Manifesto was released opposing the effort by the U.S. Department of Education-Gates-AFT–Fordham to develop a set of national curriculum and assessments based on the already promulgated Common Core national standards. Centralization of education is bad for everyone except the central planners.
The Manifesto is being announced with 118 original signatories who come from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. The list includes former Attorney General Edwin Meese, education professor Joel Spring, law professor Richard Epsein, U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom, and many more. To see the Manifesto and a full list of those who have endorsed it, click here. Now that the document is public more names will be added as people add their signatures.
Greg has already penned a short essay on the manifesto, which you can read here.
UPDATE : Catherine Gewertz at Education Week also has this piece.
And here is the text of the press release:
For Immediate Release (May 9, 2011)
For further information, please get in touch with:
Bill Evers, bill@k12innovation.com, (650) 380-1546
Jay Greene, jay@k12innovation.com
Broad Coalition Opposes National Curriculum Initiative by U.S. Dept. of Education
Over 100 leaders sign manifesto against nationalization of schooling
Stanford, Calif. & Fayetteville, Ark. – A broad coalition of over 100 educational and other leaders representing diverse viewpoints released a manifesto today opposing ongoing federal government efforts to create a national curriculum and testing system.
The manifesto, entitled “Closing the Door on Innovation,” is available at www.k12innovation.com. It argues that current U.S. Department of Education efforts to nationalize curriculum will stifle innovation and freeze into place an unacceptable status quo; end local and state control of schooling; lack a legitimate legal basis; and impose a one-size-fits-all model on America’s students.
Congress is now preparing to debate renewal of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the main law authorizing federal aid to K-12 education. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education has been quietly funding efforts by two assessment groups to develop a national K-12 curriculum, along with a national testing system that tests every public-school student multiple times each year. This federal initiative will create a national system of academic-content standards, tests, and curriculum. It is in line with the goals of a manifesto released on March 7, 2011, by the Albert Shanker Institute that calls for a single nationalized curriculum in every K-12 subject.
“A one-size-fits-all national curriculum based on mediocre high-school standards will stifle the educational innovation essential to closing the racial gap in academic achievement,” said Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom in a joint statement on why they signed the new manifesto. Abigail Thernstrom is vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a former member of the Massachusetts Board of Education; Stephan Thernstrom is a professor of history at Harvard University.
“Closing the Door promotes what is for high schools the most important innovation in a century,” said signatory Blouke Carus, leading children’s magazine publisher, math and reading textbook developer, and chairman of the Carus Corporation. “Our schools need to offer each student a choice among six or more challenging and rigorous high school curricula, as do other, higher-performing countries.”
“The federal government’s effort to impose a national curriculum on all schools spells trouble for the educational system,” said Richard Epstein, law professor at New York University, also a signatory. “No one in Washington can craft a curriculum that works well throughout this diverse nation. Once errors are built in at the national level, corrections will be ever more difficult to make at the local level. Only decentralized control over education can prove nimble enough to root out errors and spur innovation. Washington bureaucrats should not trumpet their own omniscience, but should become more cognizant of their own fallibility.”
“To some, a national curriculum sounds like a redemptive cure-all for the shame of our public schools’ failures,” said signatory Shelby Steele of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. “And a national curriculum gives the education establishment elite a powerful warrant for ‘doing good.’ But we must not discard the proven constitutional discipline of our federalist system. Decentralization has been the engine of educational innovation. We shouldn’t trade our federalist birthright for a national-curriculum mess of pottage.”
“National curriculum becomes, in effect, a nationalization of what teachers teach,” said former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, another signatory. “We must always evaluate policy proposals in light of principles like rule of law and the logic of our constitutional system. The Education Department’s sponsoring and funding of national curriculum runs counter to both laws of Congress and the wisdom of the Founders.”
The coalition of leaders releasing its counter-manifesto today opposes both the Shanker Institute Manifesto and the U.S. Department of Education initiative on a variety of grounds:
- These efforts are against federal law and undermine the constitutional balance between national and state authority.
- The evidence doesn’t show a need for national curriculum or a national test for all students.
- U.S. Department of Education is basing its initiative on inadequate content standards.
- There is no research-based consensus on what is the best curricular approach to each subject.
- There is not even consensus on whether a single “best curricular approach” for all students exists.
With federal education law coming to the top of Congress’s agenda, the U.S. Department of Education’s push to create national curriculum and assessment is becoming a hot topic.
The manifesto opposing a national curriculum was organized by Bill Evers, research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; Greg Forster, senior fellow at the Foundation for Education Choice; Jay Greene and Sandra Stotsky, professors at the University of Arkansas; and Ze’ev Wurman, executive at a Silicon Valley start-up.
(Here and in the list of founding signers, all affiliations are given for identification only.)
5 Comments | instructional reform | Tagged: common core, national standards | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
OMG, Fordham on Vouchers Has Me ROTFLOL
May 6, 2011
Twitter must be infecting the brains of Washington and NY education policy “analysts.” I say this because I can’t figure out what else could explain the short and inexplicable missives emanating from Fordham these days. For example, The Education Gadfly declares with Twitter-length analysis: “While Gadfly supports the expansion of school choice to families in higher income brackets, he can’t help but wonder if the Year of the Funding Cliff is the right time for this idea to come of age.” That’s it. No other explanation, justification, or analysis is provided.
Uhm, don’t the folks at Fordham know that the voucher and tax-credit-funded scholarship plans being adopted during the current legislative session save states money? They have generally set the voucher or scholarship amount less than per pupil spending in traditional public schools precisely so that states would save money given the Funding Cliff that states are facing. That is an important part of the appeal of these programs to some state policymakers.
Another example of a Fordham analysis with all of the depth of a “Tweet” can be seen in Michael Petrilli’s email response to Don Boudreaux’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. Boudreaux critiques public education monopolies by asking: “What if groceries were paid for by taxes, and you were assigned a store based on where you live?.” He continues the analogy to how we provide public education by answering: “Being largely protected from consumer choice, almost all public supermarkets would be worse than private ones. In poor counties the quality of public supermarkets would be downright abysmal. Poor people—entitled in principle to excellent supermarkets—would in fact suffer unusually poor supermarket quality.”
Mike’s complete and penetrating analysis in his email response to this piece is: “Clearly Don Boudreaux hasn’t visited a Safeway or a Giant in an inner-city neighborhood, or else he wouldn’t have gone with this analogy. ”
It’s short enough for Twitter, but does it make any sense? Yes, urban grocery stores tend to be less nice, but there is no doubt that they are better than if they were operated as local government monopolies. There is ample evidence that markets help deliver better services at lower cost even for the very poor.
Why would someone as smart and nice as Mike make this stupid, one-line retort? Why does Fordham’s Gadfly dismiss expanded vouchers with the mistaken and one-line claim that they cost more money and so would not be affordable with tight state budgets?
I fear that the brains of the people at Fordham have been shrunk by over-use of Twitter. Everything is a one-line quip. No need for facts, evidence, analysis, etc… Everything is a catty little fight.
Diane Ravitch is now tweeting about 60 times per day, but Mike Petrilli is not far behind at about 30-40 per day. And their tweets are some of the dumbest, ill-conceived things I’ve ever seen from such intelligent people. Seeing how Tweeting is rotting their brains makes me worried about whether I should give up blogging before I become similarly shallow.
4 Comments | tax-credit scholarships, vouchers | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
Verdict in the WSJ: “School Vouchers Work”
May 3, 2011
Wall Street Journal columnist, Jason Riley has a must-read piece in the WSJ today. The piece features the work of my University of Arkansas colleague, Patrick Wolf, JPGB’s very own Greg Forster, as well as a reference to the competitive effects study that Ryan Marsh and I conducted in Milwaukee. There are too many highlights, but here is a (big) taste:
‘Private school vouchers are not an effective way to improve student achievement,” said the White House in a statement on March 29. “The Administration strongly opposes expanding the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and opening it to new students.” But less than three weeks later, President Obama signed a budget deal with Republicans that includes a renewal and expansion of the popular D.C. program, which finances tuition vouchers for low-income kids to attend private schools.
School reformers cheered the administration’s about-face though fully aware that it was motivated by political expediency rather than any acknowledgment that vouchers work.
When Mr. Obama first moved to phase out the D.C. voucher program in 2009, his Education Department was in possession of a federal study showing that voucher recipients, who number more than 3,300, made gains in reading scores and didn’t decline in math. The administration claims that the reading gains were not large enough to be significant. Yet even smaller positive effects were championed by the administration as justification for expanding Head Start….
The positive effects of the D.C. voucher program are not unique. A recent study of Milwaukee’s older and larger voucher program found that 94% of students who stayed in the program throughout high school graduated, versus just 75% of students in Milwaukee’s traditional public schools. And contrary to the claim that vouchers hurt public schools, the report found that students at Milwaukee public schools “are performing at somewhat higher levels as a result of competitive pressure from the school voucher program.” Thus can vouchers benefit even the children that don’t receive them.
Research gathered by Greg Forster of the Foundation for Educational Choice also calls into question the White House assertion that vouchers are ineffective. In a paper released in March, he says that “every empirical study ever conducted in Milwaukee, Florida, Ohio, Texas, Maine and Vermont finds that voucher programs in those places improved public schools.” Mr. Forster surveyed 10 empirical studies that use “random assignment, the gold standard of social science,” to assure that the groups being compared are as similar as possible. “Nine [of the 10] studies find that vouchers improve student outcomes, six that all students benefit and three that some benefit and some are not affected,” he writes. “One study finds no visible impact. None of these studies finds a negative impact.”
Such results might influence the thinking of an objective observer primarily interested in doing right by the nation’s poor children. But they are unlikely to sway a politician focused on getting re-elected with the help of teachers unions.
“I think Obama and Duncan really care about school reform,” says Terry Moe, who teaches at Stanford and is the author of a timely new book, “Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools.” “On the other hand they have to be sensitive to their Democratic coalition, which includes teachers unions. And one way they do that is by opposing school vouchers.”
The reality is that Mr. Obama’s opposition to school vouchers has to do with Democratic politics, not the available evidence on whether they improve outcomes for disadvantaged kids. They do—and he knows it.
5 Comments | vouchers | Tagged: Foundation for Educational Choice, Greg Forster, Jason Rile, Milwaukee, Ryan Marsh, school choice, University of Arkansas, vouchers, Wall Street Journal, Washington DC | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
Not Everyone is Happy
May 2, 2011Not everyone is happy about the death of Osama bin Laden. According to Reuters:
“We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs,” Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters…
In the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, Haniyeh accused the United States of pursuing a policy based on “oppression and the shedding of Arab and Muslim blood.”
“We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior,” he said.
The Palestinian Authority praised the killing of bin Laden, but they have just entered into a unity pact with their Hamas rivals, so it is unclear what the official Palestinian position is. And see the video above for Palestinian reaction in the streets to the 9-11 attacks.
8 Comments | politics | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
Obama 1, Osama 0
May 2, 2011As Hal pointed out, this is a day to emphasize our national unity. So we need to be sure to give credit to President Obama, who had the resolve to continue the effort begun by his predecessor and to carry it to a successful conclusion. Of course, there is still much to be done, but let us cheer this important victory.
2 Comments | politics | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
Old Diane Debates Future Self
April 27, 2011Old Diane Ravitch has now created one of those computer animated videos in which she debates her future self, all done with actual quotes from the once and future Diane Ravitch. This is the funniest thing to hit the internet since Homestarrunner.
If I were as tech savvy as Current Diane, I’d figure out how to embed the video here. But since I am a Luddite, just follow this link.
And in case you doubt how tech savvy Current Diane is, consider this:
If it is accurate that Diane Ravitch joined Twitter on July 22, 2009 and if she has “tweeted” 9,403 times since then (as is currently indicated on her Twitter page), then she has tweeted an average 14.62 times per day. That’s once every 57 minutes for every waking hour over the last 643 days.
That sounds normal to me.
[UPDATE: Old Diane Ravitch helpfully put her debate with Future Self on Youtube. Now I can embed it in the post. Thank you, Old Diane. You are the best (even if you were a blowhard authoritarian and perhaps a lousy scholar back then).
9 Comments | money myth, school accountability | Tagged: Diane Ravitch | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
The Wisdom of Old Diane Ravitch
April 25, 2011
It’s kind of sad to see the bizarre behavior of Diane Ravitch as she bathes in the adoration of her new found friends and financiers. In just the last hour Diane sent out 14 tweets. 14! Doesn’t she have anything better to do than to shower the world with such nuggets as:
“unions protect teachers against arbitrary firing, defend education budget in Legislature, Congress.
When does she have time to adjust her medication?
But as Matt noted over the weekend, someone has taken to “tweeting” under the name “Old Diane Ravitch,” sending quotations from Ravitch’s earlier writings. And those claims are almost as hyperbolic in the opposite direction as are her current claims.
All of this raises the same question that I raised before about whether Ravitch is really a great scholar. She hardly seems like a serious person. And it seems perfectly possible to me that her current horde of devoted followers are just as delusional as were her previous horde. They just like her for saying things that they want to hear and have no ability to judge the substance behind her various claims.
While I’ve never been a Ravitch fan and have always found her to be a bit of an authoritarian blow-hard (then and now), here are some tidbits of wisdom from Old Diane Ravitch that are just hilarious in contrast to her current declarations:
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
I object to the practice of assigning new teachers to troubled schools, often as a result of union seniority rules.http://nyti.ms/hakLGd
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
Thanks for the follow @m_rhee — the next tweet’s for you!
»
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
@m_rhee The system we have serves adults, not children. Let’s reverse that formula. http://nyti.ms/fvgSZf
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
The public school system would be strengthened by the ability to shut down bad schools. http://bit.ly/eGNq4g
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
It is unjust there is no realistic way to force the closure of schools that students and parents would abandon if they could.
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
If the current system is successful for only half of students, then new approaches must be sought to help everyone elsehttp://bit.ly/eROkHL
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
The challenge to public education today is not to reinforce the correlation between achievement and social class, but to sever it.
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
There is a tendency to rationalize poor performance by implying that poverty equals destiny and so no one is to blame for failure.
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
@
@DianeRavitch Without testing, there is no consistent way to measure success or failure. http://nyti.ms/hakLGd
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
@
@DianeRavitch Future self, I can tell that you are going to be a formidable opponent.
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
@
@DianeRavitch Many states are clamoring to reduce class size, but few are grappling with the most important questions.http://bit.ly/fOh3hY
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
@
@DianeRavitch Public contracting is often referred to as “privatization,” but that label is misleading. http://bit.ly/eROkHL
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
It may be harder to graduate from high school than to become a certified teacher. http://bit.ly/fOh3hY
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
@
@MichaelPetrilli I agree. Every school should have the power to select its own teachers, remove the incompetents.http://nyti.ms/gEEwOR
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
Texas model has successfully improved the performance of black and Hispanic students, particularly in math and writinghttp://nyti.ms/dUlirj
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
Congress should focus on the quality, not quantity, of the nation’s teaching corps. http://bit.ly/fOh3hY
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
NYC schools chancellor should have the power to close schools that consistently fail or engage in corrupt practices.http://nyti.ms/gEEwOR
OldDianeRavitch Old Diane Ravitch
Every classroom should have a well-educated, knowledgeable teacher. We are far from that goal today. http://bit.ly/fOh3hY
2 Comments | money myth, school accountability | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
The Long Knives Come Out
April 25, 2011“Allen” raised a good point in a recent comment. As money gets very tight at the state and local level, the interests of different public employee unions should start to diverge. Firefighters, police officers, and other local government workers will have to bear the brunt of the cuts if education does not share in the pain. During times of overflowing government coffers, it was easy to maintain harmony by spreading the money around to everyone. As funds shrink it is nearly impossible to maintain harmony as each tries to shift the bulk of the cuts to the others.
We are beginning to see signs of this fracture among organized government employee groups. The Fraternal Order of Police has decided to pick a fight with the American Federation of Teachers. Well, actually the California affiliate of the AFT may have started the fight when they passed a resolution in support of the convicted murderer of a police officer, Mumia Abu-Jamal. According to Mike Antonucci, America’s last and best investigative reporter on education:
the resolution claims “the appellate courts have also refused to consider strong evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s innocence,” references his “continued unjust incarceration,” calls on CFT to “demand that the courts consider the evidence of innocence of Mumia Abu-Jamal” and bring the issue to the AFT Convention “should he not have been cleared of charges and released by that time.”
In response Chick Canterbury, the president of the National Fraternal Order of Police, wrote a harsh letter to Randi Weingarten, the head of the AFT, saying:
This resolution, if it remains unchallenged by the AFT, would cast grave doubts on your leadership as well as pose serious questions as to the ability of the FOP to work with your organization at any level. On behalf of the more than 330,000 members of the Fraternal Order of Police, the families of slain law enforcement officers and the honored memories of the officers killed in the line of duty, I urge you to repudiate the resolution supporting this cop-killer.
We have taken the last few days to search the record, and except for this isolated action in California, we cannot find another incidence in which the AFT or any of our other affiliates have adopted a similar resolution. If such a resolution ever were to be raised at our national convention, I’m confident it would be soundly rejected.
Despite this effort to smooth over the cracks, this split may grow for reasons beyond Mumia Abu-Jamal. These two unions understand that they will soon be engaged in a high-stakes struggle for resources. FOP is trying to undermine the political standing of the AFT while also stifling support for a convicted cop-killer.
1 Comment | economics, politics, teacher union | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene
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