Edu Commentary

Get good grades, get free Krispy Kremes in Florida. Not everyone thinks it’s as great as this guy probably does.

Today’s New York Times manages to turn a pretty straightforward story into another pop at charter schools. Because of the growth of charter schools (now more than 3,000), federal researchers will now only survey a sample of charter schools for the Schools and Staffing Survey. Traditional public schools and private schools are surveyed via sample now.

The NYT take? First, reiterating — still with no nuance — the claim that charters are generally doing poorly and implying that, in light of this, something is not right with this new policy to bring the charter methodology in line with how other schools are sampled. Worth nothing, the decision to do this was apparently made several years ago. Edu Commentary would like to see more research, too, but this is a defensible position.

Incidentally, the NYT also again claims that charter schools, “are likely to grow tremendously under the federal No Child Left Behind Education Act, which prescribes conversion to charters as a remedy for chronically failing traditional schools.”

Is it just too hard to add the words “as one remedy among many?” Few charter school supporters advocate widespread or automatic conversion of low-performing schools to charters and NCLB does not require it.

Olympic Afterthought: Don’t miss this great quote, it’s a 9.5! “If we’re going to get to the bottom of the lower performance of charter students, we need to understand how the quality of charters differs from public schools,” said Bruce Fuller, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley. A summersault followed by a hard pike wrapping tendentiousness in the guise of genuine scholarly concern. Not just anyone can pull that off, must be a good training regimen!

Update: A very experienced Democratic PR hand –sympathetic to the Bushies on this issue — writes Edu Commentary to point out that, “facts don’t matter in cases like this. It’s the perception, and this looks bad.” That’s probably right. But it probably wouldn’t be so right if, across the board, the Bush Administration had not built up a genuinely remarkable record of being untrustworthy. Still, aren’t newspapers supposed to ferret out the facts anyway?

The other day Edu Commentary came to the defense of the beleaguered Bushies in the Department of Education about the charter school data arguing that they were guilty only of ineptness not nefariousness. Anyway, it’s still true on that issue, but this inordinate delay in releasing information about how Texas schools did under No Child Left Behind’s standards for “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) stinks of nefariousness. That’s in no small part because, conveniently enough, the delay in releasing the data will take us until right after the election in November.

Moreover, the state is making their school ratings (like many states Texas has state ratings and No Child Left Behind ones) available at the end of September so data on school performance do exist; it’s not like we’re waiting on a test the kids will take in October.

Four points to ponder:

*Will some enterprising souls, reporters perhaps, try to obtain and analyze the No Child data themselves?

*Will someone leak some of it? There must be a Democrat somewhere in the Texas Education Agency…

*Couldn’t this be another case of the cover-up is worse than the crime? This election will not turn on whether or not Texas schools made “adequate yearly progress” but it could well turn on whether or not President Bush’s administration can be trusted.

*Instead of lobbing cheap shots at charter schools, why isn’t the NYT looking at this? It’s a good chance to hit President Bush and, bonus, it’s factually accurate!

Isn’t this administration big on the idea of data and transparency? Release the records!

Update: Yoo hoo! NYT! Here’s another legit story.

TICAS, a new organization started by former Clinton White House aide Robert Shireman has released its first report. It’s sure not a ringing endorsement of the student loan industry! But, if you follow this issue it is very much worth reading, as is this must read from NYT’s Winter about student loans.

Does rooting for/against federal education spending really float your boat? Then you won’t want to miss this new compendium of data spanning 1980-2003 from NCES. You can relive the lean years, the fat years, it’s all here for a great trip down memory lane!

More on single-sex classes from CNN. Via Endless Faculty Meeting.

Attempted charter cheap shot in Dayton, OH, thwarted by good reporting. And, things are heating up on the anti-charter referendum in WA.

Finally, these new poverty and health insurance numbers are bad news.

The Washington Post offers four views about what the new D.C. schools superintendent should do. If you’re short on time, here’s the punchline:

Rick Hess: It’s kicking ass!

Joe Viteritti: It’s choice!

Larry Cuban: It’s hopeless!

Ron Suskind: It’s poetic!

DC Education Blog, where are you?

Update! He’s back! And not truant…

By popular demand following this post the other day, here is Edu Commentary’s one-stop shopping guide to hot-saucing: Wash Post story here, Poynter’s Al Tompkins here, AU gets all worked up here, random internet chatters here.

The second year report on charter schools in Indianapolis is now available here. Overall encouraging news. Note the transparency in what the mayor there, Bart Peterson, is doing. These reports are a model not just for charter schools, but for all schools.

Local coverage via Indy Star here.

No Child Left Behind AYP results from PA. Punchline: Sky not falling there either.

In California the NEA pulled off an ambush and some political strong-arming. They’re understandably very proud. This is clearly post it on the refrigerator caliber work! ABCTE has the facts on its side in all this, and today’s licensing and credentialing system is demonstrably broken. Yet, ABCTE seems strikingly unable to execute, even in light of the challenging politics. If ABCTE were a stock Edu Commentary would have to downgrade them to a “hold” right now.

Also in CA, Peter Schrag has more about the chaos that passes for education policymaking there. And, if you’re really a CA political junkie, Mickey Kaus has more on Schwarzenegger’s Pecker problem. David Pecker that is…get your minds out of the gutter!

RMN’s Seebach (a mathematician by training) says don’t draw too many math lessons from TIMSS or NCTM either! Who can you believe here? Perhaps we need TIMSS Veterans For Truth? Via Educationnews.org

Update: Joanne Jacobs has more.

College football formally kicks-off this Saturday with USC (-18) v. VA Tech* in Washington. To help everyone get in the spirit Wash Post’s Schlabach takes a look at big time football schools that give players academic credit for football classes. It’s a really good story and a legitimate gripe. A number of athletic directors at other schools (including some big time football ones) expressed surprise at the practice. But, in fairness, at most schools, including elite schools, there are plenty of cushy classes that upper-middle class non-athletes can take to avoid work and/or pad GPA’s. If righteous indignation is the order of the day then some ought to be directed that way, too. What’s the over-under on righteous outrage about this anyway?

NYT’s Harmon takes an interesting look at how technology is modernizing bullying. Ah…progress…

If you, or someone you know, is considering teaching then this book by Ben Wildavsky and a team from U.S. News is must-reading. It’s a thorough compilation of the policy debate and practical resources in every state.

Finally, mostly unrelated to education, but it’s August. If you’re a bluegrass fan be sure to check out the Biscuit Burners from Asheville, NC.

*USC is tough but if the Hokies can’t cover 18 it could be a really long season…

In today’s New York Times emerging national treasure Samuel Freedman takes a look at the charter school flap that seems to implicitly note that the way the Times covered it was, well, tendentious and led to a polarizing rather than illuminating debate. Paging Mr. Okrent. Freedman’s piece, a thoughtful must-read, makes the answer to the above question pretty obvious. The NYT has found gold here. It’s great that this prominent education news analysis column has a voice, Freedman’s voice, however, is conveniently backed up by evidence…

Also — There is a full-page ad in today’s NYT about all this. Mostly it’s the usual suspects (plus a Nobel laureate who is not Friedman) but Paul Hill and Mary Beth Celio are on there, too, lending extra heft in the non-Kool-Aid drinking department. Loveless too, another non-imbiber.

The new Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup Poll on education is now available. Read it because it always gets a lot of play, but not because you’re seeking too many insights into what the public thinks about public education. Although there are some interesting questions again this year, overall what was once a very useful barometer of public opinion has become a political exercise. For instance, some of the No Child Left Behind questions are factually flawed rendering the data basically worthless.

Moreover, in public opinion polls about issues they’re not very familiar with, people have a tendency to say whatever is most accessible to them even if this means their views are contradictory. See this book for a good discussion on problems with opinion research. That issue seems to be very much in play here. For example, despite understandably reacting negatively to most of the various descriptions of NCLB, when asked if support for it would make them more or less likely to vote for a candidate, a comfortable margin of voters say “more likely.” Vouchers engendered a similar, albeit more narrow, result. See tables 41 and 42.

Still, the voucher crowd will no doubt again holler about the choice questions. Mostly they’re on shaky ground doing so because they cook their own questions, too. To read a good debate between Stanford’s Terry Moe and Alex Gallup and Lowell C. Rose of Kappan about this, click here, here, and here. Moe plays it straight on this issue, if you’re really interested in all this, his book Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public is well worth reading.

Bottom line? Surprise! Results vary depending on how questions are phrased and respondents have a frustrating tendency to say about anything. And, like a mutual fund, past results are no guarantee of future performance…