I remember very well the so-called "honeymoon period" of my time in the classroom. It lasted about 15 minutes on the first day of the year. I'm hoping, though, that a real honeymoon is far better.
I'm getting married this Saturday and will be on my honeymoon for the two weeks after that, so don't expect any posts during that time. But I'll be back in action on August 26th with all sorts of stored-up insights. Happy times to everyone until then.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
More Politics
A few weeks back, I wrote a post on who was playing politics with education in New York. My conclusion was that it was everybody and so it was kind of useless to try blaming one person more than another. Since that time, Mayoral-candidate Thompson wrote a column on Huffington Post provacatively entitled, "Why Joel Klein Should Be Fired." The bottom line, in Thompson's analysis, is that Klein "has consistently embraced measures designed more to sell the idea of a system helping our students to attain critical achievement goals than to target those goals directly."
Pretty serious charges, though hardly unique to the Comptroller. Still, it gets to the heart of what is wrong with a lot of educational policy in the city and in the country.
I've been reading Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada lately and it's pretty good. In one of the chapters he laments that we have "an American tendency toward quick-fix solutions to complicated problems." In other words, we throw a new system into place and expect it to work miracles on a problem that far exceeds the scope of our problems. Consider the New York school system. The impediments facing kids in trying to seek a good education are huge and far-ranging. They can include poverty, lack of health care, lack of basic social services, a values system that does not always include education, poor school facilities, poor school faculty, and more. It's going to take something more than empowering principals and instituting all sorts of measures of accountability to turn problems like that around.
Even so, the expectation is that we get solutions. So we need to see progress. So, lo and behold, the test scores start showing progress. Maybe the tests are easier. Maybe test prep factories are making the difference. Maybe kids actually are improving.
The problem is that we're more focus on making it look like kids are improving because that's what people are demanding. The kind of systemic reform that will actually bring about lasting and positive change would take years to implement. We'd be turning around decades of a growing problem. That's not going to happen overnight.
Pretty serious charges, though hardly unique to the Comptroller. Still, it gets to the heart of what is wrong with a lot of educational policy in the city and in the country.
I've been reading Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada lately and it's pretty good. In one of the chapters he laments that we have "an American tendency toward quick-fix solutions to complicated problems." In other words, we throw a new system into place and expect it to work miracles on a problem that far exceeds the scope of our problems. Consider the New York school system. The impediments facing kids in trying to seek a good education are huge and far-ranging. They can include poverty, lack of health care, lack of basic social services, a values system that does not always include education, poor school facilities, poor school faculty, and more. It's going to take something more than empowering principals and instituting all sorts of measures of accountability to turn problems like that around.
Even so, the expectation is that we get solutions. So we need to see progress. So, lo and behold, the test scores start showing progress. Maybe the tests are easier. Maybe test prep factories are making the difference. Maybe kids actually are improving.
The problem is that we're more focus on making it look like kids are improving because that's what people are demanding. The kind of systemic reform that will actually bring about lasting and positive change would take years to implement. We'd be turning around decades of a growing problem. That's not going to happen overnight.
Friday, July 31, 2009
More Than Parity
One story I've been following with a mild degree of interest is the controversy over PTAs hiring teaching assistants in their schools. Apparently, for the last several years, certain well-to-do schools - mainly on the Upper East and Upper West sides - have been using PTA money to hire extra staff for their schools. The teaching assistants don't engage in instruction, but they are another set of eyes, ears, and hands around the classroom.
Frankly, the idea seems pretty good to me. The only problem is that the teaching assistants were not unionized, which brought about a complaint from the UFT, which brought about a change in policy from the DOE, which set off a lot of upset parents in those neighborhoods.
The disturbing thing to me has been the backlash against these parents who are trying to do the best they can for their children. As one woman wrote to the New York Times, "Thank you to the United Federation of Teachers for trying to level the learning field. "
Now don't get me wrong. I'm all about closing the achievement gap, but this is ridiculous. We should be trying to close the gap by bringing up the poor schools, not by bringing down the good schools. That's a solution out of Stephen Colbert's head. (Seriously, it is. Here's the link.)
We have to keep in mind that our goal is not just educational parity. Our goal is the best possible education for every student. That includes the rich kids. So while we should focus our efforts on raising the level of achievement for those on the bottom end of the spectrum, our efforts should not try to limit the options available to those on the top end.
Also, for what it's worth, it looks like they may have found a solution (to the teaching assistants issue, not the achievement gap. We're still working on that one.)
Frankly, the idea seems pretty good to me. The only problem is that the teaching assistants were not unionized, which brought about a complaint from the UFT, which brought about a change in policy from the DOE, which set off a lot of upset parents in those neighborhoods.
The disturbing thing to me has been the backlash against these parents who are trying to do the best they can for their children. As one woman wrote to the New York Times, "Thank you to the United Federation of Teachers for trying to level the learning field. "
Now don't get me wrong. I'm all about closing the achievement gap, but this is ridiculous. We should be trying to close the gap by bringing up the poor schools, not by bringing down the good schools. That's a solution out of Stephen Colbert's head. (Seriously, it is. Here's the link.)
We have to keep in mind that our goal is not just educational parity. Our goal is the best possible education for every student. That includes the rich kids. So while we should focus our efforts on raising the level of achievement for those on the bottom end of the spectrum, our efforts should not try to limit the options available to those on the top end.
Also, for what it's worth, it looks like they may have found a solution (to the teaching assistants issue, not the achievement gap. We're still working on that one.)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Neighborhood Matters
I've got some food for thought this morning. According to a Pew Center study (as reported in the Washington Post), a hugely determinative factor in individuals' future earnings is the income level of the neighborhood in which they grew up. That is to say that people who grew up in neighborhoods with high poverty levels tended to be poor themselves when they became adults, regardless of their incomes while they were living in the community. Thus, middle class blacks (the focus of the study) who live in high poverty neighborhoods are more likely to have their children lose income as adults than middle class whites who don't live in poor neighborhoods.
That's a really fascinating finding to ponder. It's essentially saying that the neighborhood is more powerful than family influence.
The study doesn't go into what exactly causes the neighborhoods to have such a large (and negative) influence. Some of the immediate culprits that come to mind are schools, crime, peer groups, or just the general culture. It's possible that focusing on any one of those elements would bring about change, but I kind of doubt it. I continue to maintain that if we're serious about fixing urban poverty, we need to address all elements of it. That means more than opening a charter school or flooding an area with cops. If we really want to address urban poverty, we need to change how life fundamentally works in the ghettos. We need better medical care, more child care, job training, improved education, and more. Anything less and we're just sliding backwards.
That's a really fascinating finding to ponder. It's essentially saying that the neighborhood is more powerful than family influence.
The study doesn't go into what exactly causes the neighborhoods to have such a large (and negative) influence. Some of the immediate culprits that come to mind are schools, crime, peer groups, or just the general culture. It's possible that focusing on any one of those elements would bring about change, but I kind of doubt it. I continue to maintain that if we're serious about fixing urban poverty, we need to address all elements of it. That means more than opening a charter school or flooding an area with cops. If we really want to address urban poverty, we need to change how life fundamentally works in the ghettos. We need better medical care, more child care, job training, improved education, and more. Anything less and we're just sliding backwards.
Monday, July 27, 2009
What Massive Collapse?
On the Economix blog on the New York Times website, they've posted a challenge from Andrew Coulson, the director of education policy at the ultra-conservative (getting into libertarian) Cato Institute. He writes:
I’ve been claiming for some time (most recently in IBD) that K-12 education has suffered a massive and unique productivity collapse over the past 40 years: student achievement has been stagnant at the end of high school (see the NAEP [National Assessment of Education Progress, a standardized test]) and graduation rates have actually declined slightly (see James Heckman’s work), despite a more than doubling in real expenditures per pupil.
But some have challenged the claim that this economic catastrophe is unique to education, so this morning I decided to challenge readers of the Cato Institute’s blog to present an example of another field that has suffered the same productivity collapse. So far the most promising contender is live theater, but after looking into it, I find it doesn’t hold up.
Since Economix has a great many well-informed readers, and ones who are perhaps less predisposed to think ill of public schooling, I’m writing to enlist your help. Would you be willing to pass along my challenge to your readers? I’ll look into the most promising candidates suggested, and will publicly acknowledge any “winners” (i.e., fields that have seen productivity cut in half, or worse, since 1970).
Sorry to quote so extensively, but I wanted to give you the full picture of what we're discussing here. The thing is, I don't know that this "massive and unique" collapse in productivity is really born out by the facts as we know them. In fact, I think that the very premise is self-contradictory.
Let's assume that Coulson is right and that no major industry has suffered a massive productivity collapse over the last 40 years. (I've actually written before with some evidence that we have one of the most effective, efficient, and innovative economies in the world.) That would seem to indicate that the people working in these industries are (at least) competent at what they are doing or they wouldn't be able to maintain their level of productivity.
Now the question becomes, where do those people come from? Presumably, at least some of them had to have gone to American public school during the last 40 years. I think it's likely that most of them did, in fact. Thus, it would appear that the education system is able to continue to produce a workforce that meets the needs of our society and our economy. If we measure productivity by output, that seems to belie the assumption that education has suffered from a massive collapse.
To be sure, there are certain areas (notably poor urban neighborhoods) where the system is failing spectacularly. However, it's a fallacy to generalize those failures to the entire system.
The bottom line is that the education "industry" feeds into every other industry you can name. If there were truly to be a massive collapse in education, you can be sure that it wouldn't be unique.
I’ve been claiming for some time (most recently in IBD) that K-12 education has suffered a massive and unique productivity collapse over the past 40 years: student achievement has been stagnant at the end of high school (see the NAEP [National Assessment of Education Progress, a standardized test]) and graduation rates have actually declined slightly (see James Heckman’s work), despite a more than doubling in real expenditures per pupil.
But some have challenged the claim that this economic catastrophe is unique to education, so this morning I decided to challenge readers of the Cato Institute’s blog to present an example of another field that has suffered the same productivity collapse. So far the most promising contender is live theater, but after looking into it, I find it doesn’t hold up.
Since Economix has a great many well-informed readers, and ones who are perhaps less predisposed to think ill of public schooling, I’m writing to enlist your help. Would you be willing to pass along my challenge to your readers? I’ll look into the most promising candidates suggested, and will publicly acknowledge any “winners” (i.e., fields that have seen productivity cut in half, or worse, since 1970).
Sorry to quote so extensively, but I wanted to give you the full picture of what we're discussing here. The thing is, I don't know that this "massive and unique" collapse in productivity is really born out by the facts as we know them. In fact, I think that the very premise is self-contradictory.
Let's assume that Coulson is right and that no major industry has suffered a massive productivity collapse over the last 40 years. (I've actually written before with some evidence that we have one of the most effective, efficient, and innovative economies in the world.) That would seem to indicate that the people working in these industries are (at least) competent at what they are doing or they wouldn't be able to maintain their level of productivity.
Now the question becomes, where do those people come from? Presumably, at least some of them had to have gone to American public school during the last 40 years. I think it's likely that most of them did, in fact. Thus, it would appear that the education system is able to continue to produce a workforce that meets the needs of our society and our economy. If we measure productivity by output, that seems to belie the assumption that education has suffered from a massive collapse.
To be sure, there are certain areas (notably poor urban neighborhoods) where the system is failing spectacularly. However, it's a fallacy to generalize those failures to the entire system.
The bottom line is that the education "industry" feeds into every other industry you can name. If there were truly to be a massive collapse in education, you can be sure that it wouldn't be unique.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Turnaround Artist
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has gone on record as saying that his goal is to turn around the 5,000 lowest achieving shools in the country. Under the "rising tide lifts all boats" thinking, focusing on those bottom tier schools would bring about the greatest and most effective change for the entire system. I'm a huge supporter of this plan. I think that when you're trying to fix something (like an education system) it makes sense to focus on where it's broken.
A recent article in Education Week highlights educators who are asking if such an enormous goal can actually be achieved. To my way of thinking, that means that it's a good goal. If everyone said, "Yeah, we can do that," it probably means that the bar is set to low and you have an order rather than a goal. If everyone freaks out and says that it's impossible, you have to start considering whether you're too pie in the sky. But if people are questioning whether the goal is to big, it means that they think it might be able to be done, but aren't sure if it will actually work. To my way of thinking, that's exactly the range that goals should fall into.
The bigger question even than whether we can do it is how we're going to do it. Duncan's plan calls for turning around the schools through changes in leadership, staffing, and structure (i.e. traditional public vs. charter). That's one way of thinking about it, but I'm not sure if it's really going to get the most bang for the buck.
The fact remains that zip code is the most defining predictor of educational quality in America. Live in a good zip code and you're well-educated. Live in a poor zip code and the education you get reflects that. Obviously there are bad schools in good neighborhoods and excellent schools in bad neighborhoods. But if you were to boil it all down, zip code is what you're left with.
Given that the realities affecting education are bigger than what happens in schools, efforts to afffect a real turn around also need to be bigger than schools. Certainly schools should be part of that picture, but the reform can't stop at the school house gate. When we get serious about improving all the aspects that affect children's lives, we'll start seeing serious improvements in our education system. It's a big goal and I don't know whether we can achieve it, but I do know that we sure have to try.
A recent article in Education Week highlights educators who are asking if such an enormous goal can actually be achieved. To my way of thinking, that means that it's a good goal. If everyone said, "Yeah, we can do that," it probably means that the bar is set to low and you have an order rather than a goal. If everyone freaks out and says that it's impossible, you have to start considering whether you're too pie in the sky. But if people are questioning whether the goal is to big, it means that they think it might be able to be done, but aren't sure if it will actually work. To my way of thinking, that's exactly the range that goals should fall into.
The bigger question even than whether we can do it is how we're going to do it. Duncan's plan calls for turning around the schools through changes in leadership, staffing, and structure (i.e. traditional public vs. charter). That's one way of thinking about it, but I'm not sure if it's really going to get the most bang for the buck.
The fact remains that zip code is the most defining predictor of educational quality in America. Live in a good zip code and you're well-educated. Live in a poor zip code and the education you get reflects that. Obviously there are bad schools in good neighborhoods and excellent schools in bad neighborhoods. But if you were to boil it all down, zip code is what you're left with.
Given that the realities affecting education are bigger than what happens in schools, efforts to afffect a real turn around also need to be bigger than schools. Certainly schools should be part of that picture, but the reform can't stop at the school house gate. When we get serious about improving all the aspects that affect children's lives, we'll start seeing serious improvements in our education system. It's a big goal and I don't know whether we can achieve it, but I do know that we sure have to try.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Playing Politics
Yesterday, Comptroller Bill Thompson (who is running for mayor) released a report essentially saying that the graduation rate in New York isn't as great as the Bloomberg administration is saying. The "blistering audit" (seriously) looked at a sampling of student transcripts and found that 10% of their sample didn't indicate that students had met the graduation requirements. For instance, there was no record of passing the required regeant's exams or students were given multiple credits for passing the same course two or more times.
In other words, the numbers on the graduation rate may be a little bit doctored. That the Bloomberg administration may be cooking the books a little bit on this stuff is not exactly a novel concept. In fact, that's been one of the more frequent complaints about Bloomberg and one of the reasons that the Mayoral control bill that passed the Assembly (but famously not the Senate) gave oversight over educational data to the Independent Budget Office.
In responding to the Comptroller's audit, the Mayor's campaign spokesman said:
“Instead of politicizing the comptroller's office with phony attacks, Mr. Thompson should be explaining his own failed record on education. The facts are clear: When Bill Thompson ran the old dysfunctional Board of Education graduation rates were flat and dropout rates increased. Under Mike Bloomberg's leadership, graduation rates have skyrocketed and dropout rates have fallen. Bill Thompson had a chance to help oversee our schools and he failed. Why would we ever want to go back again?”
What struck me about the response is that there is no attempt to rebut Thompson's findings. The attack here presupposes that he's wrong and that the graduation rate really is better under the current administration. Otherwise, the comparison to Thompson's tenure as BOE chair is meaningless. (Note: Later in the day, there was a rebuttal to the methodology of the audit.)
At this point, the discussion (if it can be called that) has devolved into a round of throwing accusations about who's "playing politics" with education. The answer is obvious - they both are. And that's really part of the problem here.
The good thing about mayoral control is that it is designed to give accountability to the mayor for the school system. Whether this happens in practice or not is less clear, but that's the idea. However, when a politician (or anyone) is going to be judged on something, they're going to want to make sure that they make that look as good as they can. Given the deep problems of education that likely will require long term solutions, a politician caught in a four year election cycle is going to be reduced to spin and cosmetics. Maybe the long term solutions will be put in place too, but the focus is going to have to be on what's going to look good immediately.
As long as we're looking for quick fixes for deep, entrenched problems we aren't going to get where we need to be.
In other words, the numbers on the graduation rate may be a little bit doctored. That the Bloomberg administration may be cooking the books a little bit on this stuff is not exactly a novel concept. In fact, that's been one of the more frequent complaints about Bloomberg and one of the reasons that the Mayoral control bill that passed the Assembly (but famously not the Senate) gave oversight over educational data to the Independent Budget Office.
In responding to the Comptroller's audit, the Mayor's campaign spokesman said:
“Instead of politicizing the comptroller's office with phony attacks, Mr. Thompson should be explaining his own failed record on education. The facts are clear: When Bill Thompson ran the old dysfunctional Board of Education graduation rates were flat and dropout rates increased. Under Mike Bloomberg's leadership, graduation rates have skyrocketed and dropout rates have fallen. Bill Thompson had a chance to help oversee our schools and he failed. Why would we ever want to go back again?”
What struck me about the response is that there is no attempt to rebut Thompson's findings. The attack here presupposes that he's wrong and that the graduation rate really is better under the current administration. Otherwise, the comparison to Thompson's tenure as BOE chair is meaningless. (Note: Later in the day, there was a rebuttal to the methodology of the audit.)
At this point, the discussion (if it can be called that) has devolved into a round of throwing accusations about who's "playing politics" with education. The answer is obvious - they both are. And that's really part of the problem here.
The good thing about mayoral control is that it is designed to give accountability to the mayor for the school system. Whether this happens in practice or not is less clear, but that's the idea. However, when a politician (or anyone) is going to be judged on something, they're going to want to make sure that they make that look as good as they can. Given the deep problems of education that likely will require long term solutions, a politician caught in a four year election cycle is going to be reduced to spin and cosmetics. Maybe the long term solutions will be put in place too, but the focus is going to have to be on what's going to look good immediately.
As long as we're looking for quick fixes for deep, entrenched problems we aren't going to get where we need to be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
