Edu Commentary

A very important must-read article in the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the state of play in the debate about education research. It’s a longish treatment of an issue that a lot of people are rightly buzzing about.

Read the whole thing but serious Edu Commentaryeteers should not miss:

A) Russ Whitehurst, head of the Department of Education’s research institute, citing the unfavorable after-school study as an example of how rigorous research can influence policy. Bad example Russ! The study was sound, but the Bush Administration using it to justify a 40 percent cut in the after-school program was a caricature of the claims by critics of more rigorous research…

B) The claim by University of Pennsylvania’s Robert F. Boruch that fewer than 10 percent of American Educational Research Association members are “knowledgeable about randomized trials”. Hmmm…fewer than 10 percent? Perhaps it falls to Edu Commentary to defend the colleges of education here, less than 10 percent…that seems unbelievable…

C) The subtle attack on Rick Hess by Paul S. Shaker.* Nice one Paul! But you should have stopped there, the vaguely conspiratorial stuff about the dark forces behind all this is not only silly but very late 1990s…

D) The argument by purveyors of single case studies and other small N qualitative research techniques that randomized trials might not have external validity…some might not, but c’mon…

E) The claim that people in colleges of education have been “clubbed into acquiescence” by proponents of more randomized research. Edu Commentary was at AERA this year, the volume of complaining about and resistance to this issue was Cicada-like…acquiescence? No.

F) Tim Hacsi of Harvard deliberately furthering the myth and spin that No Child Left Behind is overwhelmingly based on the experience of Texas…

Yes, everyone got their licks in here! And that — aside from the vital importance of the issue — is why it is important, it’s a roadmap for idle chit chat in the hallway of your next conference or meeting!

*If you don’t get it, buy, borrow, or steal this book.

Update! A concerned citizen/well-connected reader requesting anonymity emails with more! Is the What Works Clearinghouse touted by the Administration in the Chronicle article another mismanaged Bush Administration education initiative? You decide:

The Department of Education has spent more than $15 million on the What Works Clearinghouse so far from 2002-2004 ($3 million FY02, $5 million FY03, $7 million FY04) and is proposing to spend an additional $7 million again in FY2005. They are also supplementing this funding through the national technology funding account. But, to date taxpayers and the customers of the clearinghouse have nothing to show for it. The website hasn’t been updated with new material since July, 2003. The last e-mail update from the Clearinghouse was February 5, 2004 to announce that they were adding their first special topic, “Character Education Interventions: Benefits for Character Traits, Behavioral, and Academic Outcomes.” [Edu Commentary note, that sounds in character, meaning very politically driven!] When I e-mailed a question to the clearinghouse it took one full month to get an an e-mail reply.

From what I have heard, when they finally do roll out their initial 5 topics, the number of entries will be ridiculously narrow. The contractors are also behind schedule and probably have missed a majority of their due dates in the contract ED prepared. Its probably more a product of unrealistic timelines prepared by ED, but give me a break. The evaluators registry which was supposed to be on-line in 2003 is not slated to go on-line until later this year. They blame the delay on OMB clearance.

And I won’t even get into the fact that Paige is touting that the clearinghouse will evaluate and grade commercial products and curriculum which is against the law. Can’t wait for the lawsuits.

The New York Times editorial page comes out strong for direct loans…Secretary of Education Rod Paige comes out strong for No Child Left Behind in Wisconsin and takes aim at the lawsuit being discussed there.

In the Christian Science Monitor Steve Byrd strongly cautions about over-emphasis on grades…and black and Hispanic clergy members came out strong for public school choice yesterday in New Jersey (don’t miss the quotes at the end of this one…).

In The Washington Post Jay Mathews makes a strong case for programs that boost college participation rates and a front page story looks at the leading candidate for the Fairfax County Public Schools superintendent slot and the disagreement about the candidate and the process.

And, Joanne Jacobs notes that Bill Cosby continues to strongly emphasize the same themes he did in remarks in Washington last week.

The National Center for Education Statistics has created a new website that is a database on various state reform issues. Not too in-depth but a handy resource nonetheless.

Finally, here is more information on those horrible NCLB sanctions from AIR.

Update: In his online column Jay Mathews strongly supports another rigorous college prep strategy, an AZ charter school focusing on AP classes.

An article in last week’s Education Week reports on the relatively common practice of school districts using automatic telephone or standardized in-person screening devices for prospective teaching candidates and describes new innovations like a new online assessment for the same purpose. Candidates who pass these screens are then interviewed by a real person. It’s an efficiency measure.

But wait a minute! Isn’t this basically what the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence (ABCTE) is supposed to do — arm prospective teachers with a credential that they can then present to real people in schools and school districts who make hiring decisions? And isn’t one argument against the American Board that no single test or screen could possibly substitute for all the personal interaction that should (but often does not) constitute the hiring process. (Of course, as Frederick Hess tirelessly points out, this argument against allowing more people to apply for teaching jobs conflates allowing someone to apply for a job with actually offering him one.)

No wait, not fair, you say! Anyone taking one of these screening assessments will already be state certified, so that guarantees some sort of base level of quality that ABCTE candidates might not have because they only passed a test, right? Well, actually, no. Contrary to accepted wisdom the research shows no such thing…Mickey Kaus summarized the state of play reasonably accurately when he noted recently that today most teacher prep courses are “largely crap” and “leftish PC time-wasters designed to perpetuate the stranglehold of the unions and the education establishment over who becomes a teacher.” Anecdotally, teachers themselves privately say as much. By the way, Kaus isn’t quoting from any study…but he’s pretty much on the mark…For a reasonably concise indictment click here.

So let’s get this straight. These new online assessments and other automations are OK, but an alternative like ABCTE is not. Hmmm…they come from the inside so they’re OK; ABCTE, regardless of rigor (and it is rigorous), comes from the outside so it’s a favorite bete noir for ed schools…sounds like ideology over evidence…and ideology over pragmatism…

Beating A Dead Horse Afterthought: Hey! Wasn’t Dewey for pragmatism? Sure, but they don’t teach him anymore anyway!

Over the weekend The Washington Post’s Colbert I. King discussed Bill Cosby’s controversial remarks from last week. Amazingly, the only other place the Post has been running discussion of Cosby’s provocative comments has been in the gossip column…

Tamar Lewin looked at the new SAT in the NYT. Kaplan, the test prep company, is touting the opportunity that the class of 2006 has to take both versions of the SAT as a “unique one time advantage”…Edu Commentary is sure that high school students taking the SAT an extra time feel the same way since it’s such a barrel of laughs…

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel discusses different strategies to close the achievement gap, and Newsday takes a long look at racial isolation in schools in New York and revisits the same issue in today’s paper.

In Monday’s papers The New York Post takes on NYC Chancellor Joel Klein over school finance and NYT readers respond to Stanley Fish. Boston students are putting together their own guide to the city’s schools, and not everyone is happy about it, though to his credit Boston Superintendent Tom Payzant is. In The Washington Post Spencer Hsu writes about the superintendent search in Fairfax County, the nation’s 12th largest school system, and the disappointment of the local teachers association and parent groups that they were not more involved in the selection (read allowed to turn it into a three ring circus around various single issues…). Also in the Post, local education ace Rosalind Helderman takes an interesting look at the dynamics of playground building at schools.

Finally, it’s a safe bet that Armstrong Williams will not be speaking at the annual NEA convention this summer…

It’s fair to say that Joel Klein has made some slips as chancellor of the New York City schools. It’s also fair to say, however, that his intentions are right, his instincts mostly so, and he’s wrestling with an extremely tough situation.

To the latter points, do not miss his recent remarks on public charter schools which you can find here. A few highlights:

So why is it, that I —the public schools Chancellor— am an unalloyed supporter of charter schools? Frankly it’s simple: educators, families, and children want good schools. Charters are one way to create them. Charters bring in new blood. These are leaders and entrepreneurs who are not otherwise part of the system. They are people with ideas, with creativity, and who are willing to give their all for their students. On that central basis, when we have a city where there are thousands of kids not getting the education that they need and deserve, I don’t see why we would in any way shut down more options and new opportunities. In the end, I want to see every kid in New York City in a school that each and every one of you will be proud of. If those schools come from the traditional public sector or the charter sector, that’s fine with me.

I think we should support charters for another reason. Public education in large urban areas in the United States has failed. This is a somewhat heretical thing for a schools Chancellor to say. But if we are not going to be candid, I don’t think we can take the kind of steps we need to make the necessary changes. New York City is actually one of the best urban school systems in the United States, but by any measure, I guarantee you that at least half, probably more than half, of our students are not remotely getting the education they deserve…

…So why have we had so many decades of reform and so little change? I think it is because people continue to focus on program-based reform. They are unwilling to get their heads around the fact that in large urban areas the culture of public education is broken. If you don’t fix this culture, then you are not going to be able to make the kind of changes that are needed. Programmatic reform is important: curricula, class size, after-school programs, summer school—those things are very important. But unless we are prepared to deal with the culture in public education, I don’t think we can get the kinds of results that we need for our kids.

Read the whole thing…

Edu Commentary Flashback! Even the UFT is thinking about opening a charter school in NYC…

The new Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights report notes that Vermont only has four schools identified as “needing improvement” under No Child Left Behind. Upon learning this, one Democratic wag on the Hill told Edu Commentary, “FOUR schools? What the hell was Howard Dean so pissed off about and why is [Vermont Senator] Jeffords still such a sourpuss?”

Secret Weapon? If the Bushies had any sense they’d muzzle Rod Paige, Gene Hickok, and even the President himself and just send out the First Lady to talk about education if this story from The Oregonian is any indication…Karen Symms Gallagher writes in USA Today that college rankings are bunk…and in the LA Times Crispin Sartwell says the same thing about student writing — and he’s borderline unhinged over it…when political scientists attack! The Plain Dealer editorial page thinks that Common Good is on the right track. And, schools in Kansas will stay open after all, despite unresolved school finance issues.

In Friday’s NYT Stanley Fish takes a provocative look at the role of academics and universities, Michelle O’Donnell reports on the most entertaining financial audit to come along in a while, and David Herszenhorn updates the messy elections for parent councils in NYC.

Finally, in the LA Times Erika Hayasaki looks at the problem of cheating on tests –by teachers– which in the eyes of some is apparently excusable…

Several readers have emailed to ask exactly what sort of bias and/or rigor David Steiner is getting at in his analysis of education school curricula. The easiest way to find out is to read the study.

Short of that, here’s a quick example. This is the suggested reading list for incoming students to Stanford University’s STEP program, a one year teacher preparation program leading to certification and a master’s degree. The problem with the list is not what’s on it, it is what’s missing. It includes important historians like David Tyack and Larry Cuban (yes there is a Stanford connection but they’re important regardless), gifted writers like Mike Rose, and thoughtful critics of contemporary education like Deborah Meier. Yet the list overwhelmingly slants toward one point of view. Missing are classic examinations of education in society, for instance, The Republic, influential texts like Rousseau (you want to blame the French for something then start with Emile…), or — in terms of balance — contemporary writers and analysts, for instance, E.D. Hirsch, Diane Ravitch, John McWhorter, or even the late John Ogbu among others.

Hold the outrage, Edu Commentary’s not saying that Hirsch, Ravitch, and the rest offer some sort of absolute truth or are not open to criticism, but they do present important viewpoints about unsettled issues that are part of a well-rounded understanding of various viewpoints about education. Even a book like Chubb and Moe’s “Politics, Markets and America’s Schools”, which is certainly open to criticism, presents a different perspective on problems in contemporary American education that students must be able to engage with. (Why? Well, for starters because liberals are doing a terrible job of refuting Chubb and Moe’s argument right now either intellectually or through effective public policy. At least learning the argument instead of assuming the ostrich posture might be a good way to start turning that around…)

If all those books are just too many “conservatives” for Stanford to swallow (though Hirsch is actually a lefty, something lost on his critics) then even a single critique like Kieran Egan’s “Getting It Wrong from the Beginning” could at least serve to provide some balance and tip-off thoughtful students that there is more than one way of thinking about these issues. Yet neither the reading list nor the course syllabi available on the website indicate that these divergent viewpoints are presented…

Want more? Read Steiner’s chapter yourself.

Afterthought: Where is Dewey? He doesn’t make the cut either. Some sort of weird pseudo-rap East Coast – West Coast thing, or just an oversight? Dewey fell out of favor some in the 1960s but Edu Commentary sort of thought he was back…no? Update: Reader DW emails to point out a Dewey cameo in one class!

Odds On Afterthought: What’s the over-under on the number of under-represented authors that will ever be added to this list?

Another fumble by the Washington, D.C. school system is putting in jeopardy $13 million in new funds for the schools that were to accompany the new voucher pilot program there. Don’t miss the frustration quote by Gregory McCarthy. Joanne Jacobs writes up the Norfolk Public Schools in Virginia, an improving urban district with a great leader that has been nominated for the Broad Prize, she also highlights Bill Cosby’s controversial remarks from the other night.

In the NYT David Herszenhorn tells of a controversy about New York’s selective Stuyvesant High School which apparently admitted too few students last year. Joe Nathan and Frederick Hess both repeatedly point out that the “skimming” charge leveled at public charter schools is pretty disingenuous because formalized admission requirements are a fixture in many traditional public schools (and because charters are prohibited from skimming anyway although a small amount likely goes on). Also, the NYT thankfully reports that President Bush’s war on racial equality is over!

Per an earlier item, they did give state education commissioner Yecke the boot in MN.

This Christian Science Monitor story about No Child’s public school choice provisions buries the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights report mentioning it only after the usual gibberish about futility and the provisions being a proxy for vouchers…no mention of opening new public schools to create more seats either…they’re doing that in LA and elsewhere…no fun highlighting solutions though!

Finally, two reasons to read the Toledo Blade: (a) The Mud Hens (b) This story with political and educational implications.

If you needed more evidence that David Steiner was on to something with his controversial research…Dan Drezner, Matthew Yglesias, and Mickey Kaus can’t all be wrong!

Drezner probably ought to sleep with one eye open for a while…if you’re in a hurry skip to Mickey Kaus, who skips right to the chase…both eyes open…(you have to scroll down for Kaus, he’s prolific)