An Offer the States Can’t Refuse

April 20, 2011

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Fordham desperately wants you to believe that they want “transparency, not accountability” from the feds. Don’t believe a word of it. It’s true only if you define “accountability” as “school-level accountability.”

Fordham’s idea is that the feds get unlimited and unaccountable power to decide what schools should be doing, and then the states are in charge of holding schools accountable for doing what the feds have decreed they should do. It’s “tight-loose”!

The executive summary of the Fordham report – which is the only part of it most people will bother reading, and the Fordham folks know it – mouths just the right reassuring weasel-words to throw you off the scent:

Transparency in lieu of accountability. Results-based accountability throughout the education system is vital, but it cannot be successfully imposed or enforced from Washington. Indeed, the No Child Left Behind experience has shown federal “accountability” in this realm to be a charade. The federal government can’t force states and districts to turn around failing schools or offer students better options. What Uncle Sam can do is ensure that our education system’s results and finances are transparent to the public, to parents, and to educators.

In a comment on Matt’s post this morning, Mike Petrilli shows up to peddle the same line:

Hi everyone. When you look closely at our proposal (if you can get past the preface, Matt!) you’ll see that we’re all advocating more or less the same thing: Mandate “transparency” but not accountability. We can quibble about the details.

That’s pretty hard to believe given that up through the day before yesterday, Fordham was stumping for the federal-government sponsored initiative to create national standards, national curriculum, and national assessments.

And, in fact, you don’t even have to get very far into the main body of the Fordham report (which few will read) before you see how empty these gestures are.

The report considers ten policy questions, giving “the reform realism position” on each one. Question one is: “Should states be required to adopt academic standards tied to college and career readiness (such as the Common Core)?”

Jay has already pointed out that “college and career readiness” is an empty phrase. It’s a blank check that the feds can fill in later.

But let’s set that aside. What is Fordham’s position on the use of federal government power to define what schools should be held accountable for doing?

As a condition of receiving federal Title I funds, require states to adopt the Common Core standards in reading and math, OR to demonstrate that their existing standards are just as rigorous as the Common Core. Standards developed apart from the Common Core initiative would be peer reviewed at the federal level by a panel of state officials and content-matter experts; the panel itself (not the secretary of education) would have the authority to determine whether a state’s standards are rigorous enough.

So adopting Common Core is just about as “voluntary” for the states as signing Johnny Fontane was for Jack Woltz.

Governor Walker the morning after Wisconsin opts out of Common Core

How naive do these people think we are?

6 Comments | instructional reform, school accountability | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

The Fordham Report is Here. Time to Party!

April 19, 2011

The Fordham report on renewal of ESEA has been released and it is time to party!

Following the rules of our Fordham report drinking game you will have to consume 7 shots of your choice; one for each time “tight-loose” is used in the report.  33 times you will need to consume whatever the Gates Foundation and U.S. Department of Ed mandate while declaring “I do this of my own free will;” one for each usage of “Common Core” in the report.  You need to shotgun a Pabst Blue Ribbon for the 1 usage of “race to the bottom” in the report and consume 8 Milwaukee’s Best for the 8 times “Race to the Top” is used.  That’s 42 total “consumptions.”

I whiffed on predicting the usage of “smart-[blank].”  I’m sorry to say that there was nothing very smart in the report.  I also entirely failed to expect the repeated usage of the phrase, “reform realism.”  It has alliteration!  What could be more persuasive than that?  I guess that is why it appears 21 times in the report.

Greg did accurately anticipate a slew of hemisphere fallacies, where they compromise between the view that the world is a sphere and the world is flat by saying that the world is a hemisphere.  The particular manifestation of the hemisphere fallacy in this report is that they repeatedly frame the debate as saying that some people think that the federal government should mandate something (standards, cut scores, etc…) and some people think that the federal government should mandate nothing in exchange for the resources it provides.  Fordham takes the middle ground of saying that the feds should mandate standards, cut scores, etc… or allow states to prove to a panel of experts that their alternative approach is at least as good.

Where to begin?  First, in practice the Fordham approach is equivalent to the feds mandating standards, cut scores, etc… If I told you that you had to eat the food the government provides or prove that your choices were equally nutritious, most people would end up just eating whatever the government provided.  The burden of proving the merit of your alternative choices would effectively compel you to comply with the mandate.

Second, if there is one thing we do not need in education policy, it is more committees of so-called experts.  Fordham proposes a bizarre procedure by which the expert panelists could be selected.  States would choose two members, the secretary of education would propose two more, and those four would choose an additional three panelists.  And if that is not convoluted enough, the panels would need 5 votes to decide anything.  This doesn’t sound like a committee of experts.  This sounds like politics by other means.  And given how complicated and bizarre this procedure is, it is even more likely that states would simply comply with the mandate, as suggested above.

Third, as is usual with hemisphere fallacies, Fordham frames the alternative “extremes” as caricatures so that their middle position seems like the only sensible alternative.  It isn’t.  I support a limited role of the federal government in education to facilitate the education of students who are significantly more expensive to educate, such as disabled students, English language learners, and students from very disadvantaged backgrounds.  Only the federal government can ensure this type of “redistributive” policy in education because if localities attempted to serve more expensive students they would attract those expensive students while driving away their tax base.  As Paul Peterson described in his classic book, The Price of Federalism, this is the only appropriate role of the federal government in education.  So, the federal government mandates that schools serve these categories of students while also providing additional resources to facilitate that the services will be provided.  This redistributive effort describes the bulk of what the federal government has done (and should do) in education.

If we are concerned that local schools are failing to serve these categories of students adequately we can address (and have imperfectly addressed) that through legal remedies.  Families, at least in special ed, can go to the courts if their schools fail to provide an appropriate education with federal funds.  We could expand that model to the other categories of federal involvement, but I think that approach is unwise.  Instead, I would favor providing the federal funds directly to students in these redistributive categories so that they would have economic leverage over schools to ensure the provision of appropriate services.  If schools fail to address student needs, they should be able to take those federal funds to another school, public or private.

The other phrase that I should have included in our drinking game is “college and career readiness.”  That concept is referenced 44 times in the new Fordham report.  It is the criterion by which expert panels need to judge standards, cut scores, etc… It is the goal of the entire Fordham approach (and remarkably in sync with the Gates Foundation in using a phrase dozens of times that was virtually unheard of a decade ago).

The only problem is that I have no idea what “college and career readiness” means.  The Fordham folks have no idea what that phrase means.  No one knows what college and career ready means.  It has no clear, technical, objective definition.  It is yet another political slogan substituting for an idea with actual substance, sort of like “reform realism” or “tight-loose.”

And yet this empty slogan is the entire purpose of the nationalization project on which Fordham-Gates-AFT-U.S. Dept of Ed are embarked.  Only in the D.C. bubble of  power-hungry analysts who provide no actual analysis could we launch a radical transformation of our education system with little more than a series of empty slogans.  It’s enough to make you drink.  Er, I mean consume.

(edited for clarity)

10 Comments | instructional reform, school accountability | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Tight-Loose Imperial Vendor Management

April 18, 2011

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Darth Vader, pioneer of tight-loose management practices:

He doesn’t tell you exactly where to bring the fleet out of light speed, he just insists that it be the correct point for pulling off a successful surprise attack on the rebel base. If you pick the wrong point, that’s your fault – and that’s what the assessment and accountability systems are there for.

You have failed me for the last time, Governor Walker!

But for some reason I have the feeling that when the new federal tight-loose approach to standards, curricula and assessments is implemented, it will look a whole lot more like this:

2 Comments | instructional reform, school accountability | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

The Tight-Loose Sales Force

April 18, 2011

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Continuing the series, I shamelessly rip off a line from an old Dilbert comic (which I can’t find online or I’d just post it).

“Welcome to the Tight-Loose Sales Force. We don’t ask you to do anything unethical, but we set the sales quotas so high that you basically have no choice. Any questions?”

3 Comments | instructional reform, school accountability | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Tight-Loose Travel Agency

April 18, 2011

To illustrate how repeating a slogan like “tight-loose” does not necessarily mean that a policy will be tight on the ends while loose on the means, we are featuring ads for our new Tight-Loose line of businesses.

In this post we feature the Tight-Loose Travel Agency.  When you are required to get from New York to London in less than 6 hours, we can arrange to get you there in any way you like.  You can take a ride on a rocketship, jump through a kink in the time-space continuum, ask Scotty to beam you there… whatever you prefer.  When you are tight on ends, we make sure that you are loose on means.

Think about this as you read the new Fordham report, being sure to “consume” each time tight-loose is repeated.  If we nationally mandate standards, curriculum, and assessment, how much meaningful choice over means will people really have?

UPDATE — Or, as is more likely, if you are required to walk across the street rather than travel to London, the Tight-Loose Travel Agency can still handle all of your travel needs.  We know that you’ll voluntarily and without reward or compensation want to travel around the entire world before arriving across the street.  Our rocketship, time-space continuum kink, and Star Trek beam will all be here at your disposal.  Remember even with really low ends we are still loose on means.

1 Comment | instructional reform, school accountability | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Hemisphere Fallacy! Drink!

April 15, 2011

(Guest post by Greg Forster)

Fordham hasn’t even released its new report explaining why all sensible people favor the creation of an unstoppable national juggernaut to safeguard the decentralization of America’s federal system of government, and we already have to drink up.

In the new Gadfly, Mike Petrilli writes:

Speaking for the anti-“tight” right, Greene argues that “dictating the ends with a national set of standards, curriculum, and assessments will necessarily dictate much of the means.” (And, to be fair, he did so in a witty and amusing blog post, in which he proposed a “drinking game” for readers of Fordham’s forthcoming ESEA proposal, due out next week.)

But it’s unclear why he finds the concept of “tight-loose” so preposterous. Consider this: Here are the most likely potential mandates that Congress might attach to federal Title I funding in the next ESEA:

  1. States must adopt rigorous academic standards (and cut scores) in English and math that imply readiness for college and career.
  2. States must test students annually in English and math.
  3. States must build assessments and data systems to allow for individual student growth to be tracked over time.
  4. States must develop standards and assessments in science and history, too.
  5. States must rate schools according to a prescriptive formula (i.e., AYP).
  6. States must intervene in schools that fail to make AYP for several years in a row, or in schools that are among the lowest-performing in the state.
  7. States must develop rigorous teacher evaluation systems and ensure a more equitable distribution of effective teachers.
  8. States must ensure that Title I schools receive comparable resources—including good teachers and real per-pupil dollars—as those received by non-Title I schools.

The way Greene argues it, Congress has to either choose “none of the above” or “all of the above.” But of course it doesn’t. We at Fordham would select items one through four off this a la carte menu, and leave the rest for states to decide. That, to us, would be “tight-loose” in action.

Hemisphere fallacy! Drink!

Mike continues:

Does Jay believe none of these should be required? And if so, isn’t he arguing for federal taxpayers to just leave the money on the stump? Why not make the principled conservative case and say that Title I and other federal funding streams should simply be eliminated?

And:

Let’s quit with all the over-the-top rhetoric. Give the list of eight mandates above a good look. Congress is likely to move ahead with the first few and will definitely reject the last few; the real debate is about the ones in the middle. In other words, we’ll be arguing over the precise definition of “tight-loose,” regardless of what the anti-“tight” right or the anti-“loose” left have to say about it.

I’m not Jay, but I think the answer to all this is obvious:

  • Mike is wrong to question Jay’s integrity by arguing that “principle” requires him to either support federal education mandates or support repeal of Title I;
  • Mike is wrong to imply that it’s unserious or “over the top” to debate the merits of anything other than the hemisphere-style middle ground that is likely to be the locus of congressional debate in the immediate term; and
  • Mike is self-contradictory to do both in the same post.

Oh, and by the way – “tight/loose”! Drink!

10 Comments | instructional reform, politics | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Greg Forster

Nationalized Education Nonsense

April 11, 2011

(Guest Post by Ze’ev Wurman)

The betamax post about national curriculum reminded me of two incidents that illustrate the dangers of a sweeping centrally controlled policy. Both have to do with NCLB and its laudable — in my opinion — goal of making sure states are testing all kids on grade-level material and cannot game the system by testing more challenging demographics on assessments with lower expectations.

First is the case of Idaho and Computer Adaptive Testing. In the early 2000s Idaho initiated a computer adaptive statewide assessment, under a contract with NWEA. It was educationally sound and on the cutting edge of testing. No longer were kids assessed on content their grade level expected, but on what they actually knew. The test did not have the large ceiling or floor effects that made typical annual state assessments insensitive to what was actually happening with the best and the worst students, and that caused the somewhat justified attacks on NCLB as targeting the “middle kids” and neglecting the large edges of the achievement distribution.

Yet this smart and educationally sound initiative ran smack into NCLB’s inflexible rules that demand that all kids at every grade level are tested on exactly the same content. ED also argued that because kids are tested on individually-tailored assessments, this doesn’t allow perfect comparison between various educational units (schools, districts, or even classes) as NCLB requires. Under strong federal pressure Idaho folded and replaced its excellent test with a more conventional and much less educationally helpful one. But the feds in Washington were happy. Some time later ED allowed Oregon to use CAT in its testing but only after Oregon committed to use only grade-level items in the test, neutering much of the advantage and flexibility of CAT. You can read about it here (p. 29-49), here (p. 1-2) and here, as well as the poignant recollections of an Idaho Assessment & Accountability Commissioner here.

The second case turns around one of California’s brightest success stories of math education reform. In 1997 California set for itself probably the most ambitious educational goal in the nation: to make Algebra 1 the target for all its eighth graders, the same as our leading international competitors in the Far East. California was wise enough to realize such a major change cannot happen overnight and it installed a system of incentives and supports that encouraged preparation and placement of algebra-ready kids, but discouraged the placement of  unprepared students, in algebra classes; unprepared students were encouraged to take another year of algebra prep in eighth grade. The system worked remarkably well and between 1999 and 2010 algebra taking by grade 8 quadrupled from 16% to 64%, with the fraction of proficient or advanced tripling between 2002 and 2010 from 11% to 32% of the cohort. More importantly, the achievement of minority and disadvantaged students increased at even higher rates during that period. By 2005 California also embarked on an effort to design a completely new program to assist even more students to prepare for algebra in grade 8 and in 2007 it adopted multiple series of innovative algebra-readiness texts developed by publishers at its request.

Yet, again, this successful and educationally brave effort ran smack into ED bureaucracy and its central-command mindset. In 2007 ED started to send Californian threatening letters (such as here and here) trying to force it to abandon its successful transition process and adopt Washington’s one-size-fits-all solution: either all eight graders will be tested on Algebra 1, or none will. ED pressure caused a battle to erupt in California between supporters and opponents of algebra in grade 8. A lawsuit ensued that stopped the successful program, and the cherry was ED fining California for non-compliance. The losers? California students and publishers, whose innovative algebra-readiness programs and textbooks languish on the shelves of their stockrooms.

It is worth noting that all the players in those events believed they were acting in the best interests of children. There are no evildoers in this story. What these incidents illustrate is what happens when centralized decisions are made in far-away Washington, DC, and the implementation is left to unaccountable bureaucrats.

1 Comment | instructional reform, school accountability | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Jeb Bush wins Bradley Prize

April 10, 2011

 

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

The good news just keeps rolling in: The Bradley Foundation has awarded former Florida Governor Jeb Bush a prestigious Bradley Prize.

“Governor Bush has been at the forefront of education reform,” said Michael W. Grebe, president and chief executive officer of the Bradley Foundation.  “During his administration and since, Florida students have made incredible gains.  He has also been a vocal advocate for school choice.”

Congratulations to Governor Bush and to the entire Florida reform team!

3 Comments | instructional reform, tributes, vouchers | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

FRL Gains

April 6, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

So I ran the NAEP learning gains for free and reduced lunch eligible children for the entire period in which all 50 states have data available on all 4 main NAEP exams.

West Virginia, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do!

What has Maryland been up to? Underrated?

North Carolina…you really let yourself go!

Florida wins despite the fact that starting the clock in 2003 ignores large gains between 1998 and 2002.

Discuss amongst yourselves…I’m feeling a little verklempt.

16 Comments | instructional reform | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

WaPo on Florida Reforms

April 2, 2011

(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

Nick Anderson of the Washington Post ran a very nice story on Governor Jeb Bush’s education reform efforts.  A couple of quotes, first from our friend Mike Petrilli:

“He is the standard-bearer,” said Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think tank. “Those governors who are going to have religion on education reform are looking to him to be their mentor.”

and from Paul G. Pastorek, Louisiana’s superintendent of education:

“Arne and Jeb are really the most influential people at the national level right now pushing college and career readiness for our kids and improvement for our schools,” said Paul G. Pastorek, Louisiana’s superintendent of education and a Republican. “Jeb is working with statehouses and state leaders to directly impact the agenda. He is above all others on the issue among Republicans.”

Of course, journalistic ethics require “balance” and this is where it gets fun:

Many Democrats and labor leaders denounce the Bush agenda. They say that vouchers drain funding from public education and that grades of D and F stigmatize schools that need help. Critics also say other policies he espouses — including merit pay — are unfair to teachers and rely too much on standardized tests.

Florida’s academic gains, critics say, could have been much larger if Bush had sought more collaboration.

“He doesn’t believe in bringing people along with him,” said Andy Ford, president of the Florida Education Association, the state teachers union. “He just forces his will on everybody.”

Ford said many teachers were irate that Obama shared a platform in Miami with a former governor who fought the union almost nonstop for eight years. “The White House is on the wrong track by associating with Jeb Bush,” he said.

Don’t worry Andy, Governor Bush is bringing plenty of people along with him. Someday even you reactionary types may come around, but no one has time to wait for that.  As for “the gains would have been much larger if Governor Bush had sought more collaboration” claim,  strangely enough, Florida has had the largest NAEP score gains in the country. Try again. As for the President associating with Governor Bush, well, who wouldn’t want to associate with results like these:

Not to be outdone by Ford, Valerie Strauss over at the WaPo Answer Sheet Blog grasps at some additional straws:

The first is Bush’s own creation of the Florida Reading Research Center, a state technical assistance agency solely focused on providing reading assistance — complete with reading coaches — in elementary schools so that kids could read by the time they graduate third grade.

It would be hard to argue that this wasn’t a big reason for the rise in Florida’s fourth-grade reading scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress, the grade and area where the state saw the highest gains under Bush.

The former governor also never mentions any possible effects from a class-size reduction referendum in the state which he opposed but was approved anyway by voters early in his tenure.

Dorn, in a Q & A I did with him late last year, also noted that Bush was governor during a real-estate boom that allowed per-pupil expenditures in Florida to rise 19 percent. That allowed schools to hire hundreds of reading coaches. But, said Dorn: “That kind of money is not available in any state right now, and I suspect a number of states will be in for a rude shock when they try the symbolic step of assigning letter grades to schools without supporting instruction.”

Let’s take these one at a time:

1. Governor Bush happily acknowledges that the reading improvement effort strongly contributed to the overall effort to improve literacy.  No one necessarily needs to create the State X Reading Research Center. If they want to hit the ground running they can use the Florida Reading Research Center’s research.

2. The class size initiative wasn’t implemented until last year and a Harvard study found it had nothing to do with the improvement in Florida, a result consistent with the vast majority of decades of empirical research.

3. The Digest of Education Statistics shows Florida’s increase in per pupil spending as smaller than the national average during Governor Bush’s term in office, and below the national average in absolute terms.

Bless their hearts, the edu-reactionaries come across as a bit desperate to spin their way to a story that will justify what seems to be their goal: a yet more expensive version of today’s failed status-quo.  No one should take this the least bit seriously, as we cannot afford it, and it wouldn’t work anyway. States around the country are drawing inspiration from the Florida reforms for a reason, and Governor Bush is the first one to emphasize that the Florida cocktail was state of the art, cutting edge reform in 1999. Today’s reformers can take Florida’s reforms as their floor, rather than their ceiling.

2 Comments | instructional reform | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by matthewladner

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