Jay P. Greene's Blog

[The music festival, day 6. The crowd has grown so big the camera has to pull back a loooong way to get it all into view. The boys are again present with the college hippies. The band is playing reggae music.]
Driver: Wow, this band is so crunchy. Dude, I need more weed.
Stan: So it seems like we have enough people now. When do we start taking down the corporations?
Man 1: [take a deep drag from his joint] Yeah man, the corporations. Right now they’re raping the world for money!
Kyle: Yeah, so, where are they. Let’s go get ’em.
Man 2: Right now we’re proving we don’t need corporations. We don’t need money. This can become a commune where everyone just helps each other.
Man 1: Yeah, we’ll have one guy who like, who like, makes bread. A-and one guy who like, l-looks out for other people’s safety.
Stan: You mean like a baker and a cop?
Man 2: No no, can’t you imagine a place where people live together and like, provide services for each other in exchange for their services?
Kyle: Yeah, it’s called a town.
Driver: You kids just haven’t been to college yet. But just you wait, this thing is about to get HUGE.

The Ed Next article by Robin J. Lake, Ashley Jochim and Michael DeArmond on the challenges facing school choice in Detroit has led to a resurgence of chatter about Portfolio Districts.  The authors write:

Detroit is a powerful illustration of what happens when no one takes responsibility for the entire system of publicly supported schools in a city. Parents struggle to navigate their many, mostly low-performing options, and providers face at best weak incentives to improve academic quality. As a result, large numbers of failing district and charter schools continue to operate.

And in an accompanying blog post Lake concludes: “What Detroit needs is a portfolio manager…”

The idea that we need a Portfolio District to decide which schools of choice are allowed to open, which must shut-down, and what regulations should govern all of them has gained some traction in reform circles ever since New Orleans adopted this approach.  Now folks want to bring that same idea to Detroit and choice systems everywhere to make sure bad actors don’t get to operate schools, that failing schools are forced to close, and that a heavy regulatory framework avoids other problems.

I’ve never understood how Portfolio Districts are expected to perform these regulatory functions any better than regular old school districts.  The whole thing reminds me of the exchange quoted above from the South Park Hippie Drum Circle episode.

Portfolio District Advocate: “Yeah, we’ll have one guy who like is a Portfolio Manager, who like can close down bad schools.”

Me: “You mean like a superintendent?”

Portfolio District Advocate: “No, man, this guy will work for an independent board that makes rules for schools to make sure they don’t do bad things.”

Me: “You mean like a school district?”

Portfolio District Advocate: “You don’t get it, dude, the Portfolio District is there to make sure that only good schools open and to provide information and reduce chaos.”

Me: “Isn’t that what school districts are already supposed to do? How is a Portfolio District any different other than that you gave it a new name and believe that good people will be in charge?”

Ed reform is plagued by people not thinking like social scientists.  School districts have institutional incentives to prevent new good schools from opening, propping up bad schools that too few parents want, and imposing an excessive regulatory framework on the entire system.  Those same institutional incentives will inevitably come to dominate Portfolio Districts.

If you want to create real change, you have to change the system of incentives — not just create new institutions that will be governed by the same perverse incentives.  Choice and market competition can accomplish the same goals without being subject to the same destructive incentives as school and portfolio districts.

Yes, I know that Robin Lake and her co-authors find continued low achievement in Detroit schools and quote several people who complain about a lack of information and other challenges.  But keep in mind that the big expansion in choice in Detroit is only a few years old and that the city is starting from an extremely high level of dysfunction.  Lake and her colleagues have not used a rigorous analysis to determine whether charter schools are having a positive effect in Detroit, they just show trends in urban NAEP scores.  And the few studies on Detroit charters they do cite — the CREDO and  Mackinac studies — both find positive results for Detroit charters.  It just isn’t fast enough and dramatic enough.

Beware ed reformers in a hurry.  Real and enduring improvement takes time.  Happily it is possible, if we have the patience to let it happen.  A new study by Patrick L. Baude, Marcus Casey, Eric A. Hanushek, and Steven G. Rivkin examines the evolution of charter school quality in Texas over time.  Here is their abstract:

Studies of the charter school sector typically focus on head-to-head comparisons of charter and traditional schools at a point in time, but the expansion of parental choice and relaxation of constraints on school operations is unlikely to raise school quality overnight. Rather, the success of the reform depends in large part on whether parental choices induce improvements in the charter sector. We study quality changes among Texas charter schools between 2001 and 2011. Our results suggest that the charter sector was initially characterized by schools whose quality was highly variable and, on average, less effective than traditional public schools. However, exits from the sector, improvement of existing charter schools, and positive selection of charter management organizations that open additional schools raised average charter school effectiveness over time relative to traditional public schools. Moreover, the evidence is consistent with the belief that a reduction in student turnover as the sector matures, expansion of the share of charters that adhere to a No Excuses philosophy, and increasingly positive student selection at the times of both entry and reenrollment all contribute to the improvement of the charter sector.

Rather than imposing a Portfolio District that is likely to re-create the dysfunction and failure of traditional school districts, let’s change the system of incentives and allow choice and competition to improve school quality over time.

Below is a piece I wrote for Lenore Skenazy’s Free-Range Kids blog.

It was a staple of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movies that kids from the neighborhood would get together to “put on a show.”  Someone would get the curtains, someone would build the set, and – after some practice – they would perform a play.  Of course, these movies were works of fiction, but they were based on a kernel of truth.  Kids do like to get together, dress up in costumes, and put on shows.  They tend not to be as good as those in the movies, but kids will organize theater performances by themselves if left to their own devices.

But because kids aren’t left to their own devices as much these days, it is remarkably rare to find young people organizing theater performances by themselves.  Instead, these tend to  be part of a school or youth theater activity organized and supervised by adults.  Those can be very positive experiences, but kids don’t learn the responsibility and creativity they could from putting on shows themselves.

Happily, theater organized by young people has not disappeared entirely.  In the middle of America’s heartland, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a group of adolescents have formed New Threshold Theatre, which is run completely by young people without adult sponsorship or supervision.  My youngest son has joined the group and I’ve been incredibly impressed with the professional quality of their productions.

This year they performed the Broadway musical Into the Woods, and have four more shows planned, including two original works written by kids.  Last year they produced the Broadway musical 13, and had a live sketch comedy show on local television.  They’ve also started a film production company, Archway Productions.

They have done all of this by themselves.  They’ve secured their own performing spaces, sometimes using unused business spaces or renting an auditorium.  They find their own costumes and build their own sets.  They select the works to be performed, cast the actors, and direct the shows.  They even have their own dramaturg.

And all of this is being done by young people.  No one told them to do it.  It is not a school club.  They don’t get grades or class credit.  There are no adult advisers.   It is simply a group of kids who have gotten together to form a theater and video company completely for the fun of it.

I don’t think there is anything else quite like New Threshold Theatre out there these days.  Maybe if we structure our kids a little less, we might open up more opportunities for them to organize amazing things for themselves. That would be something to sing about!

This year’s nominees for the Al Copeland Humanitarian Award were a strong group, but one of them clearly stood out as especially worthy — Peter DeComo.

Yes, Markus Persson (nominated by Jonathan Butcher) has done something amazing by developing Minecraft, a game that millions of people enjoy.  But that accomplishment is widely recognized and praised.  The Al tends to recognize the unrecognized, or even reviled.  For some reason video game developers tend to be praised while spicy chicken developers do not.  We’re more interested in the spicy chicken kind.

Lindsey Burke’s nominee, Ira Goldman, developed the Knee Defender, which prevents airplane seats from reclining to preserve leg room.  This nominee is not widely recognized, but falls short for a different reason — the effects of the Knee Defender are zero-sum and do not make a net contribution to improving the human condition.  The device benefits the user by preserving legroom but does so at the expense of the person who cannot recline.

My nominee, Thomas J. Barratt, is generally not recognized and greatly improved the human condition by developing modern advertising.  But many others made significant contributions to the development of advertising.  As beneficial (and wrongly reviled) as advertising is, we cannot properly credit one person for this improvement of the human condition.

Matt’s nominees, Thibaut Scholasch and Sébastien Payen, are strong contenders.  They are not widely recognized.  Their introduction of scientific irrigation methods into the winery business does significantly improve the human condition.  And while French nationals themselves, they face French wine-snob opposition.  As fans of The Higgy and Indiana Jones know, everyone loves a French villain.  But how tough could these French wine-snob villains really be?  They have no legal or regulatory power to block the adoption of scientific irrigation methods.  Only tradition and snootiness stand in the way.  Scholasch and Payen will hardly need more than 6 weeks to overcome this Maginot Line and conquer all of French wine-making.

Greg’s nominee, Peter DeComo, faces a much more formidable set of foes — the FDA and the Department of Homeland Security.  DeComo’s Hemolung Respiratory Assist System might save people’s lives while they wait for lung transplants.  But if DeComo’s company, ALung, fails to fill out the equivalent of a 27B/6 Form, you’ll have to die rather than risk using an unapproved device.  By overcoming the FDA and Border Guards from Central Services to save a life, Peter DeComo has significantly improved the human condition, done so with insufficient recognition, and succeeded in the face of powerful opposition.  That makes him worthy of “The Al.”

As Matt likes to remind us, the movie Brazil is increasingly looking like a documentary rather than a work of fiction.

You’ll have to wait to learn the winner of “The Al” until this weekend.

Some people seem determined to narrow education.  I’ve been trying to make the case for a well-rounded, liberal education, but that idea has less support than I realized.  In their effort to maximize math and reading test scores, schools have sometimes narrowed their focus at the expense of the arts and humanities.  I’ve tried to document some of the benefits that students receive from art and theater.

And today Dan Bowen and I tried to defend the role of sports in schools in the New York TImes‘ Room for Debate forum on the issue.

One of the main critics of sports in school is Amanda Ripley, reprising an argument she earlier made in The Atlantic and in her book.  In today’s forum she writes:

Here, school is about learning, but it’s also about training to compete in games that the majority of kids will never get paid to play… The problem is the dishonesty. By mixing sports and academics, we tempt kids into believing that it’s O.K. if they don’t like math or writing — that there is another path to glory. Less obvious is that this path ends abruptly, whereupon they get to spend 50 years in an economy that lavishly rewards those with higher-order skills and ruthlessly punishes those without.

Let’s leave aside that her argument ignores the systematic research demonstrating the benefits of sports in schools.  And let’s leave aside that her book and articles rely on deeply flawed “selection on dependent variable” approaches that try to infer what to do to be successful by looking only at successful places.

I think we can easily see the flaws in her argument if we consider how the same logic she employs can be used to argue against schools having orchestras, theaters, and a host of other activities.  I’ll change just a few words to illustrate how her argument can be used against music instruction in schools.  I’ve bolded the changes so you can see how her argument could be used against any effort in school other than focusing on math and reading instruction:

Here, school is about learning, but it’s also about training to play an instrument that the majority of kids will never get paid to play… The problem is the dishonesty. By mixing music and academics, we tempt kids into believing that it’s O.K. if they don’t like math or writing — that there is another path to glory. Less obvious is that this path ends abruptly, whereupon they get to spend 50 years in an economy that lavishly rewards those with higher-order skills and ruthlessly punishes those without.

Or here is how her argument could be used against having school plays:

Here, school is about learning, but it’s also about training students to act in theater that the majority of kids will never get paid to do… The problem is the dishonesty. By mixing drama and academics, we tempt kids into believing that it’s O.K. if they don’t like math or writing — that there is another path to glory. Less obvious is that this path ends abruptly, whereupon they get to spend 50 years in an economy that lavishly rewards those with higher-order skills and ruthlessly punishes those without.

See how easy this is!  The real problem here is the unwillingness to appreciate the breadth of experiences that should be part of a well-rounded education.  Yes, not every student will benefit from music, theater, or sports.  And very few of them will go on to careers in music, acting, or sports.  School is not entirely about vocational training focused on math and reading skills.  Those of us who support a broad education recognize that all of these activities have important benefits for many students and should be part of schools.  And Ripley, like most supporters of efforts that narrow education, would deny that she fails to support a broad education.  She just wants to get rid of the thing she doesn’t like.  But her logic would get rid of everything other than math and reading instruction.  And that would be a very poor education indeed.

(edited for typo and to elaborate argument)