The Rebels in the Hills Throw the Capital into Disarray

August 17, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Libya? Well yes at the moment but also NCLB as the Department has decided to allow states to retroactively “reset” their proficiency goals.

Over at Eduwonk, Andy grouses that if you have your attorneys study the fine print, it is actually 92 percent proficiency, and not 2014. He may be right, but the state departments of education either don’t agree or don’t realize it. The AMO charts I have seen all end with 100 percent proficiency in 2014.

McNeil and Klein write:

By letting a state retroactively revise its proficiency targets so that schools do better under the law, the department is setting a precedent that it’s willing to use any loophole or technicality to, depending on your perspective, help states out or avoid making tough decisions against states. This, too, despite vows in June that the Education Department would “enforce” the law.

After a similar faceoff with Idaho chief Tom Luna, the department also let that state keep its proficiency targets level, too, because Idaho hadn’t taken advantage of the three-years-in-a-row allowance.

Department officials say they want to give states breathing room until the details of the package come out next month. But one question I have is: If states can just go back and redo their proficiency targets so schools keep making AYP, why apply for a waiver, especially if you have to adopt reforms prescribed by the Obama administration?

Why indeed? State officials seem likely to draw the conclusion that the Department is profoundly reluctant to employ their only real weapon (withdraw of federal funds) in pursuit of a goal which Secretary Duncan has (correctly) described as utopian. A great loophole hunt may be silly, but it beats having states simply drop their cut scores or openly defy federal law while still taking federal money.

Let’s see what happens next…

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Emanuel Chooses a School as a Father Rather than a Mayor

August 10, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Choice for me but not for thee, episode 5,486.

It’s easy to send a torpedo slamming into the USS Rahm below the waterline on this, but for the record, I think Emanuel should make schooling decisions as a father, rather than as a Mayor or the leader of the Chicago Public Schools. I also however think that if choice is good for his family it is also good for all families. Morality is best when private matches public.

I wouldn’t put my children in CPS, neither would you. Barack Obama also of course chose an elite private school for his daughters. They made the right decision as fathers, hopefully they will come around as leaders.

Others already have done so.

Back in 2006, we parental choice supporters in Arizona were thrilled when Janet Napolitano became the first Democratic governor to sign a new parental choice law.

Since 2006, it has become old hat.

Since 2006, Democratic governors have signed 9 private choice expansions, including a new voucher program in Oklahoma last year and a new tax credit in North Carolina this year.  This comes in addition to widespread and growing support for charter schools, which to its credit includes the administration.

Jay has correctly noted in the past that the idea that parents should have the ability to choose schools is now only a debate over the degree to which this should happen, within the bounds of respectable opinion. Oh sure, there are plenty of Ravitch-zombies out there crying in their beer, but the reason these people are angry is precisely because serious people have tuned them out.

Many great things that have happened over the last two years. It is worth noting however that the average low-income child in this country is attending a school almost entirely dictated by their zip code. That average low-income child finds themselves being taught by a teacher who will neither be rewarded for excellence, nor will be dismissed for ineffectiveness. Mayor Emanuel obviously didn’t want this for his own children (who would?) and I hope, that as the leader of the Chicago Public Schools, he will do everything in his power to see that those less fortunate than himself also enjoy expanded opportunities.

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American Airlines is Dead to Me

August 6, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

So last night I boarded a plane in New Orleans heading back to Phoenix after the ALEC conference. The flight was delayed a bit by weather, and three of my former comrades from the Goldwater Institute were on the same flight. We had to change planes in Dallas to reach Phoenix, and knew that the connection would be tight.

As luck would have it, we arrived in Dallas a mere three gates away from the flight to Phoenix. The four of us arrived at the gate 10 minutes before the scheduled departure of the plane, only to learn that American Airlines had sold our seats out from under us. They had no other flight to put us on, nor did any other airline. Back in the day, an airline might use their advanced data base technology to hold a plane for a few minutes to get someone three gates down onto their flight, but American Airlines apparently prefers to simply sell your seat.

Instead of the flight home that we had purchased, we were given a night in a hotel and a flight out in the morning. In my case, this meant rescheduling a flight my wife and son had scheduled for Saturday morning at a nontrivial expense.  A person at the hotel told us that they hear this sort of story on a routine basis and sometimes get 50 stranded passengers a night.

Now at this point, many of you may be asking yourself “Self, why in the world would he put up an image of Airplane 2: The Sequel when the far superior Airplane was available?” Ah, well, glad you asked. I chose Airplane 2: The Sequel because this is in fact the second time in the last three years that American Airlines left me stranded in Dallas. On October 1, 2009 they left me stranded in Dallas and were not going to be able to get me to my destination in time for me to make a debate a couple of hours outside Atlanta after I had received assurances that they would be holding flights.

American Airlines won’t receive a third chance to strand me, and I was foolish to give them a second. Feel free to keep this in mind the next time you book a flight.

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NEPC’s attempt at strategic nihilism

August 4, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

In the American film classic Animal House there is a scene where students smoke marijuana with their English professor, played by Donald Sutherland, and speculate that it could be the case that the molecules in your fingernails each contain a microscopic universe.

You can’t prove that there aren’t microscopic universes in your fingernails, after all, so they might be in there!

A nice post from Mike Petrilli on the Florida NAEP score gains prompted a response from Kevin Welner from NEPC that shows that the spirit of Sutherland’s Professor Dave Jennings is alive and well at the University of Colorado.

Again there is no attempt to address any of the gaping holes in retention theory. These holes include the fact that Florida’s 4th grade reading scores had improved substantially before the retention policy went into effect, and that they have continued to rise even as retention has fallen off substantially, and that they have fallen off substantially because of a very large improvement in 3rd grade scores.

Welner attempts to tiptoe around this by noting that our EdNext article addressing these points were addressed to a previous Walter Haney paper on the subject rather than the NEPC stuff, which is a distinction without much of a difference. The Chatterji paper contains a carbon copy of the Haney analysis. Amazingly, Chatterji dinged Burke and I for not doing a literature review (not the norm in our tribe) and then cites neither the Education Next paper nor Haney’s analysis. At best, she employed a double standard and at worst, she owes Professor Haney an apology.

Welner’s broader project is to attempt to use the causation problem as a shield. We don’t know, after all, exactly what caused Florida’s remarkable learning gains. Florida’s reformers had to implement their reforms in the real world rather than in a petri dish or in an Intention to Treat Random Assignment study. Welner believes that this allows him the opportunity for strategic nihilism:

The truth might be: (a) there are not actual improvements (the current study is too weak to say whether or not there are), (b) there are improvements, and they’re caused by a combination of all these things, (c) there are improvements, and they’re caused by something none of us pointed to (perhaps the green shirts??), or (d) there are improvements, and they’re caused by some of the things we’re pointing to BUT some of the other things we’re pointing to are actually harming students (just not enough harm to overcome the benefits of the other things).

In other words, when it comes to understanding the FL package of reforms, we are flying blind.

Welner is flying blind all right, but it is by choice. Let’s take each of these little gems on one at a time:

A. The NAEP results show very substantial improvements, as do other indicators.

B. I have always held that the exact cause for the improvement is impossible to know, because Florida’s reformers enacted multiple reforms simultaneously. The logical response to this is not to do none of the Florida reforms, but to do all of them.

C. Florida lurked near the bottom on NAEP for many years, enacted reforms in 1999, and then enjoyed sustained gains over time. While it could be the case that some mysterious X-factor caused the improvement, I’ve yet to hear a plausible theory regarding this. Dan Lips and I addressed multiple possibilities in the Education Next article, including demographic change, spending, etc, and found no evidence to support them.

D. This could be the case, but I haven’t seen a single scrap of evidence to suggest that it is actually the case- return to B above.

Welner is of course correct that there is a correlation and causation problem to consider. As a practical matter, there is nothing else to do but to carefully examine the evidence and history and draw the best conclusions that we can. Dan Lips and I did this in the Education Next article. Florida’s reforms coincided with the student population becoming poorer and less Anglo. State lawmakers increased funding per pupil, but it wasn’t by much and is still below the national average. NEPC complains about a lack of mention of the preschool voucher program when those kids have yet to age into the 4th grade NAEP sample. The class size amendment was implemented very slowly, long after Florida’s scores had begun to rise.

If Dr. Welner would like to provide a plausible explanation for why Florida’s NAEP scores increased so much after 1998, I’d be very interested to read it.

If he prefers to attempt to continue to play games, NEPC’s credibility will go on double secret probation.

 

 

 

 

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News Video on Arizona ESA program

July 29, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

 

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The Gates Foundation and the Rise of the Cool Kids

July 28, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Jay and Greg have been carrying on an important discussion concerning the Gates Foundation and education reform. I wanted to add a few thoughts.

Rick Hess and others have noted the “philanthropist as royalty” phenomenon in the past. Any philanthropist runs the danger of only hearing what they want to hear from their supplicants, and Gates as the largest private foundation runs the biggest risk. The criticism of the Gates Foundation I had seen in the past emanated from the K-12 reactionary fever swamp, hardly qualifying as constructive.

The challenge faced by philanthropists: how do you challenge your own assumptions and evaluate your own efforts honestly? Do you hire formidable Devil’s advocates to level their most skeptical case against your efforts?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, just that if I were Bill Gates I would be terrified of everyone telling me how right my thinking is because they want my money. This is however the best sort of problem to have…

Jay’s central critique of the Gates Foundation strategy seems to be that they have put too much faith in a centralized command and control strategy. They would be wise to entertain this thought. If command and control alone were the solution, then we wouldn’t have education problems-district, state and federal governance have all failed to prevent widespread academic failure for decades.

The Gates strategy does however embrace decentralization. Over the years they have supported charter schools, and fiercely opposed the worst one-size fits all policy of all: salary schedules and automatic/irrevocable tenure. Riley’s WSJ article makes clear that Gates understands the benefits of private school choice, but that he falls for the Jay Mathews fallacy of thinking it is just too politically difficult.

Sigh…perhaps next year Greg can make a dinner bet with Bill.

Gates is also the primary backer of Khan Academy. This new article on Sal Khan in Wired magazine makes clear that Khan understands the danger of being swallowed by school systems and that he is not going to allow it to happen. Khan academy is both radically decentralized and is in the early stages of being used by people within the centralized school system to improve outcomes.

Whatever the mistakes to date, the Gates Foundation has in my mind has succeeded in serving as a counter-weight to the NEA, mostly through funding the efforts of a myriad network of reform organizations collectively known as the Cool Kids. Today, there is a struggle for power going on within the Democratic Party over K-12 policy and the Gates Foundation deserves some credit in my mind for supporting  the ideas behind the “Democrat Spring” on education policy. This spring is following more of the Syrian than the Egyptian model thus far, but it is happening, and it is very important.

Does that mean that they are the “good guys” and Jay should lay off of them? Of course not-reasoned critiques of large philanthropists are in short supply for all of the factors cited above. Jason Riley wished that Gates were bolder in embracing decentralization reforms, but noted that in the end that it was the Gates rather than the Riley Foundation. This is absolutely true, but it doesn’t make the royalty problem go away, and leaves a continuous question of how the emperor gets feedback on his new clothes.

I don’t agree with the Cool Kids about everything. The next time I hear someone ask a question about having Common Core replace NAEP (the very pinnacle of naive folly) for instance I may pull out entire tufts of my graying, thinning hair in utter exasperation. Reformers of all stripes need to be on guard against the ship-wheel conceit, which is to imagine that if only my strong hands steered the ship, we’d sail through the rocky shoals of ed reform without a hitch.

The East Germans ran a much better economy than the North Koreans, much to the benefit of Germans and to the detriment of Koreans. This is real and important in human terms- I do not make this point glibly. I never heard about an East German famine decimating the population, but food shortages have even soldiers starving to death in North Korea (pity the women and children). Better quality management is good and desirable, but…it will only take you so far. Today, Chinese apparatchiks are noisily crediting themselves for the tremendous economic progress in China without the slightest hint of irony. Without the market forces Deng introduced and with more apparatchiks, China would revert back to a starving backwater. With fewer apparatchiks, her progress would almost certainly accelerate.

As Sara Mead correctly noted in this guest post at Eduwonk, today’s education debate largely involves a mixture of technocratic and market-based reforms (neo-liberals) on one side and a group of reactionaries lacking realistic solutions on the other. A third of our 4th graders can’t read and have been shoved into the dropout pipeline. We need both technocratic and market based reforms, and we need stronger reforms of both sorts than those fielded to date.

Jay’s critique concerns the right mix of reforms within the bounds of the neo-liberal consensus. This of course is a matter of debate, and debate is the path to deeper understanding. The sheer size of the Gates Foundation has the potential to stifle such debate as it relates to their efforts, even passively, and reformers should recognize the danger in allowing it to do so. This isn’t about them so much as it is about us.

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Posted by matthewladner

Arne Duncan on Atlanta Cheating Scandal

July 21, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Political scientist Donald Campbell postulated that “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” The Army of Angry Teachers has seized upon the Atlanta cheating scandal as proof that the whole process of testing and transparency is destructive and ought to be done away with.

Arne Duncan weighs in on the Atlanta cheating scandal as a part of a roundtable at the WaPo. Duncan provides a bit of much-needed perspective on the problems of testing, noting that although the Atlanta scandal is the worst uncovered, that it involves 44 schools out of thousands in Georgia.

Secretary Duncan goes on to acknowledge a number of problems in state academic testing, including the far larger problem of states dummying down their cut scores in order to proclaim improvement.

One elephant in the room: test security. It isn’t difficult to infer that while the state of Georgia performed erasure analysis on the tests (thus uncovering the cheating) that they failed to let it be known that they would be doing so on a large-scale (and thus failed to deter the cheaters, who thought they could get away with it). States need to not only employ these techniques, they need to employ them as deterrents.

People are quite clever, however, and constantly develop new ways to cheat if provided incentives to do so. It seems possible that a system of third-party administration of tests will need to be developed as we attach greater consequences to test scores, including school ratings and merit bonuses. This could be a simple as the way you took the SAT test, or it could have a more high-tech look to it.

Another Campbell’s Law problem that strikes me as more serious than systematic answer changing by staff is the practice of teaching to test items. I fear that this is quite widespread, although it is difficult to quantify. The idea behind the standards movement is to teach to a set of academic standards, and to use testing to measure success. If teachers instead teach to a set of test items then the whole process can devolve into a farce.

A skillfully managed system of student testing can and has played a leading role in improving student outcomes. It’s difficult to pull off, and easy to foul up. We should be concerned about staff led cheating. We should be even more concerned about low cut scores, item exposure and test study guides.

 

 

 

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Random Pop Culture Apocalypse: Harry Potter vs. Scooby Doo Mashup

July 17, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Shaggy: Zoinks, like I don’t know that it was a good idea to have the mystery machine shipped to England man! The food here is bad enough to keep even Scoob from wanting to eat!

Scooby: No ray! Find Indian food again!

Velma: Look guys we’re here! Hogwarts castle!

Professor Mcgonagall: Welcome to Hogwarts, and thank you for agreeing to help us. We’ve had some very strange things going on. Our tourist revenue is down 60% since the rumors started about Hogwarts being haunted began. Tom will show you to your rooms, and I will meet you in the main dining hall at 7 pm.

Shaggy (walking through Hogwarts): Like this place is really creepy man! Did something in that painting just move?!?

Fred: Isn’t it bad enough that you are a hippie with the constant munchies? Do you have to be afraid of your own shadow as well?

Daphne: FRED!

Fred: I’m sorry, that’s been building up for 40 plus years.

Shaggy: Yeah, well, like whatever man- at least you won’t ever see me wearing a scarf!

Tom: Here are your rooms, I’ll be back at 6:45 to escort you to the dining hall.

Velma: thanks Tom!

Shaggy (in room with Scooby): Like this place gives me the creeps Scoob!

Scooby: Zeah, me too!

< Enter Voldemort through a secret door>

Shaggy: Like it is a super-pale creepy monster without a nose! Let’s get out of here Scoob!

Voldemort: Idiots! I have a nose, it is just really flat! Now feel my wrath!!!!

Shaggy and Scooby: ZOINKS!!!!!!!!!

<Extended chase scene ensues>

<Chase ends in Voldemort’s capture. Just go with it…>

Fred: This Voldemort wanted to drive Hogwarts out of business so he could buy it for a song out of foreclosure! Now let’s find out who Voldemort really is!

TOM RIDDLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shaggy: Like no man, it’s “I would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids and their dog! ” If Scoob hadn’t destroyed your horcruxes while running around the castle, we never would have captured you!

Scooby:

SCOOBY DOOBY DOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Sea Change in Tenure Policy

July 13, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Ed Week delivers a solid piece on the changes around the states on teacher policy- LIFO, tenure reform, etc. Money quote:

Jennifer Dounay Zinth, a senior policy analyst at the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, which has been tracking the legislation closely, said the protracted interest in revamping the teaching profession amounts to a “sea change.”

“It’s hard to get your arms around—not just the number of bills being enacted but the breadth and depth of changes being made,” she said.

Note that while Red states are in the lead, even deep Blue states like Illinois have undertaken reform as well.

Randi Weingarten seems to have noticed, as the NYT reports:

Ms. Weingarten, who has long opposed the cuts — both budgetary and rhetorical — made to teachers, told her audience that the current debate on education “has been hijacked by a group of self-styled reformers” from “on high” who want to blame educators’ benefits and job security for states’ notorious budget problems. Calling the union gathering “an affirmation,” she countered that change to the education system should instead come through greater community support for teachers themselves and recognition for the commitment to children they already demonstrate. 

“Hijacked from self-styled reformers from on high”

…oh sorry…

…just savoring the moment.

We are still in what I view as the early stages of divorcing ourselves from the entirely indefensible practice of treating teachers like interchangeable widgets. We have a great deal to learn, and may need to develop a reliable system of third-party academic assessment as we seek to attach greater consequences to student learning gains if techniques like erasure analysis ultimately fall short. Rather than an argument for the status-quo, this is all the more reason to get on with it.

The debate hasn’t been hijacked Randi, it’s been won fair and square.

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Oregon’s Governor has Big K-12 Plans

July 12, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

The plot thickens in the Pacific Northwest with this very interesting story from the Portland Oregonian about Governor John Kitzhaber’s K-12 reform plans. It turns out that Governor Kitzhaber fought a major education reform push back in the 1990s that was swallowed by systemic inertia. The plan now:

Kitzhaber envisions the board using financial incentives to shift the focus of public education from what he calls “seat time” to learning. The board might, for example, financially reward districts for each student, whether 15 or 18, who meets high school exit standards…A more individualized approach to education would be more efficient by allowing some students to advance faster while reducing needs for remediation, said Duncan Wyse, president of the Oregon Business Council who is helping Kitzhaber design a budget based on outcomes. It also fits the growing diversity of Oregon’s school population and suits learning for the 21st Century better than the current system rooted in the 19th Century, he said.

Kitzhaber’s plan is still taking shape, could still be crushed by the blob, and is a good ways off from Indiana’s reform touchdown. Nevertheless, there is more than one path to the top of the mountain, and Governor Kitzhaber has obviously recognized the urgent need to improve the achievement of Oregon public school students.

Read the Oregonian story, and keep an eye on Kitzhaber.

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