Policy Interventions or Political Posturing?

National Journal posed the following question, to which Forum Director Chris Lubienski responds:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., last Friday visited a private Catholic school, St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans, for a tour and a discussion with local education officials and families. The purpose of the visit, (gumbo and sazerac aside) was to promote Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's education agenda, much of which has landed in court. "We want to explore what has been gained in terms of experience to see how we can learn from this at the federal level," Cantor said after the event.

Jindal, a rising star in the Republican party, last year announced an ambitious education plan for Louisiana that has been cheered by school choice advocates and booed by teachers' unions. The plan forms a virtual battleground for a difficult education debate in a state whose schools are ranked among the very worst in the country. Louisiana is the perfect place for radical school proposals, and Jindal doesn't shy away from the task. His plan includes private school vouchers, severely weakened teacher tenure, and fast-tracking for charter schools.

Last week, a Louisiana court threw out Jindal's teacher tenure evaluation measure, saying it violated the state constitution because it contained too many unrelated provisions. Late last year, the same court said the voucher program was unconstitutional because it diverted local tax dollars to private schools.

Jindal is unbowed by the setbacks. "When we embarked on this path of reform, we knew this would not be an easy fight because the coalition of the status quo is entrenched and has worked to hold Louisiana teachers and students back for decades," he said in response to the most recent court ruling.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten cheered the ruling, saying elected officials can't force radical changes on the education system without consultation and deliberation. The court decision "should be a wake-up call to so-called reformers determined to ram through top-down dictates that undermine the voice of educators and public schools at all costs," she said.

What does Jindal's plan--and Cantor's interest in it--signify about Republicans' views on education? What is the impact on the public school system from school choice initiatives like Jindal's? What is the impact of eliminating the benefits of teacher tenure? Is it a direct attack on the teachers unions? Where can Democrats find common ground with Republicans in this conversation?

Dr. Lubienski's response:

Poor John White.  The Louisiana Superintendent�s efforts to do right (at least in his mind) by the state�s school children has earned him substantial credibility with the current crop of education reformers around the country.  But he also serves a governor who seems more intent on positioning himself with the right-wing of the GOP for a presidential run than on having a lasting beneficial impact on education in the Bayou state.

His boss, Governor Bobby Jindal has been causing quite a commotion, in the schools and in the courts.  He has tried to deepen and accelerate the market-oriented reforms that proliferated in post-Katrina New Orleans, expanding them across the state.  Jindal�s plan for education reform has a number of elements, but centers on:

�       expanding Louisiana�s voucher program statewide to students at more public schools

�       growing the supply-side by inviting more groups (including businesses) to provide education services

�       opening up more opportunities for �high quality charter operators� with �proven track records� to get established (so much for the local, independent �mom-and-pop� start-ups)

�       and, of course, cultivating a teacher labor market by undercutting tenure and salary scales, giving more authority to employers, and tying teachers� value to students progress.

But then a Republican-appointed judge throws out the tenure reforms on a technicality, and rules that the voucher program undercut local control of public education resources. 

Is that a problem for the Jindal education agenda?  Hardly.  After all, the point isn�t to get these things implemented in order to improve the education of Louisiana kids.  Indeed, there�s precious little clear and compelling evidence that things like vouchers, monetary incentives for teachers, or even charter schools necessarily raise achievement for students (consider the continuing widespread failure in RSD), much less that scaling-up even these programs will work with a wider population. 

Instead, the Jindal education agenda appears to be more about positioning the governor as the standard bearer for ALEC-inspired education reforms, probably in preparation for a run for national office where he�ll need the support of influential and well-heeled conservative groups.  In that sense, it doesn�t matter if these measures �work,� or even if they�re implemented, but only that his proposals demonstrate superior commitment to the cause of attacking unions and elevating market mechanisms.

In that regard, Eric Cantor�s recent visit was likely to produce more in the way of political insights into Jindal�s electability than any policy insights into the efficacy of these programs. 

Meanwhile, as the political circus proceeds through Baton Rouge, and his boss engages in political posturing, John White has a lot of kids in need of a better education.

Replicating failure � John Banks and charter schools

The following blog was originally posted at The Daily Blog, and was written by John Minto.

�charter schools are not about raising student achievement but are a political response to a corporate problem � how can we get into public education and make private profit from government spending?�

Friday�s announcement by Act leader and Associate Education Minister John Banks of the Board which will select successful charter school applicants raises two important issues.

Firstly the appointment of the board and its announcement was premature � a slap in the face for parliament which has not yet even heard from the select committee considering the proposal, let alone passed legislation enabling these schools to be established. Fellow Act Party member and chair of the Charter School Working Group Catherine Isaacs did something similar late last year when she used her position to call for expressions of interest in running charter schools despite the select committee having not heard even the first submission.

The second issue relates to the makeup of this John Banks Board. There is not a single person on this group who has a track record of improving educational achievement for children from low-income communities despite the fact this is the very group the government says it wants to target with charter schools.

This is not surprising because charter schools are not about raising student achievement but are a political response to a corporate problem � how can we get into public education and make private profit from government spending?

But before we condemn charter schools out of hand we must ask the key question � do they raise education achievement? The answer is a resounding NO. Every country which has gone down the charter school path � the US, UK and Sweden were held up as examples by Act � has seen its education system go backwards in international comparisons such as through PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

In the last PISA tests in 2009 New Zealand was 7th in reading, 13th in maths and 7th in science � well ahead of any of the charter school countries. The US was 17th, 31st and 33rd, the UK 26th, 28th and 16th and Sweden 20th, 26th and 29th respectively of the 65 countries who took part � including all OECD countries.

These charter school countries have slipped in the rankings despite two decades of letting the private sector into their education systems. �Epic fail� would not be too strong to describe their educational performance. Charter schools have led these education systems to become fragmented and incoherent and the horror stories are thick on the ground.

Mismanagement, lack of accountability, poorly resourced classrooms, untrained, unqualified teachers on low pay and poor educational achievement are the norm.

After 20 years of charter schools in the US the most comprehensive study showed just 17% of charter schools outperforming public schools, 37% performed worse than public schools and the rest showed no difference. The high achievers either had selected intakes or sophisticated ways of expelling less academically able students. In KIPP school for example � another example paraded by ACT � 40% of African American boys �drop out� before they reach 8th grade (Year 9 in NZ)

John Banks wants the worst features of charter schools here. Untrained and unqualified teachers are essential to the private sector because they are cheaper and this allows for greater profits to be stripped from the schools. Being exempt from the Official Information Act and Ombudsman as Banks wants also means we will never know the true extent to which we and our kids are being ripped off.

Instead of mimicking failure we should emulate successful countries like Finland whose PISA results were 3rd, 6th and 2nd respectively. No charter schools in Finland � just a heavily resourced and very high quality public education system. That�s what we need here.

The government has made much of the �long tail of underachievement� in New Zealand�s education system where children from low-income families (including disproportionate numbers of Maori and Pacifika children) achieve poorly at school. We do have a longer tail than some countries but our poorest performers still do much better than the poorest performers in most surveyed countries.

More importantly though our long tail of underachievement is in fact our long tail of poverty and inequality � a situation created by the neo-liberal free market policies which ACT, National and Labour foisted upon the country from 1984.

Reversing these policies will be an important part of raising student achievement for the children of the poor.

Worth a Read: Educational Delusions? Why Choice can Deepen Inequalities and How to Make Schools Fair

Gary Orfield and Erica Frankenberg of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA have collaborated once again on a weighty book, one that looks at the civil rights implications of choice.  Just published this month by University of California Press it makes a central contribution to the policy analysis field.

I will give more space to selected excerpts here than I will consume with my own observations.  Two facets of the book I would highlight, however, are that it includes important new empirical studies, and also that it is not anti-charter and choice.  Indeed, the authors provide many examples throughout the book of ways that choice has always held integrative potential, and still does � if policymakers pay careful attention.  

The authors write:

Our intent was to produce a volume that would be accessible and based on clear evidence, to help readers critically assess assumptions about school choice and the civil rights implications of the choices and decisions being made in their communities. Because much of the debate in this arena is ideologically driven, we grounded our examination in specific cases as a way to illustrate the relationships between policies and their effects on segregation and opportunity for poor and minority families, evidence from which readers could draw their own conclusions about school choice (pp. ix-x).

The authors have largely achieved this goal.  One chapter that ought to be assigned reading for education law and policy students, by Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, focuses on the lack of directives at the state level to regulate charter school segregation levels.  In the absence of clear federal policies about preventing segregation in charters that receive federal funding, states also feel little pressure to enact such policies.  This is not only a dereliction of responsibility, but a missed opportunity:

Aside from diversity requirements and nondiscrimination obligations, there are other, seemingly race-neutral decisions about charter schools that could have significant consequences for their ability to attract a diverse student enrollment. For instance, the lack of legislation extending charter transportation across district lines undercuts one of the sector�s integrative strengths: the opportunity to attract a diverse student body across such boundaries. Since most school segregation today exists between districts, charters represent an important opportunity to override the lines dividing school systems. (p. 134)

Case studies from Louisville, Hartford, and Berkeley show such integrative possibilities and explain the policy tools used to achieve them (i.e. controlled choice, magnets, and use of planning zones), while Amy Stuart Wells and colleagues update what is known about the outcomes of inter-district transfer programs.  A recurring theme throughout is that parents are still eager for diverse schools for their children, as evidenced by competitive admissions for many urban-suburban interdistrict plans, and demand that exceeds supply for magnets in just about every metropolitan area. 

Barus Gumus-Dawes, Tom Luce, and Myron Orfield of the Institute for Race and Poverty make a sound contribution to the gridlocked debate about charter school outcomes in New Orleans, which ought to be read widely -- but probably will not be.  First, they examine achievement data to show that the achievement differences among sectors � Recovery School District (RSD), Orleans Parish Schools, and suburban schools � outweigh those between RSD charters and the city�s regular public schools.  In the RSD, the authors write, �charters can use admission requirements, enrollment processes, discipline and expulsion practices, transportation policies, location decisions, and marketing or recruitment efforts to shape their student bodies clearly implies that selection bias is almost certainly working to make pass rates in charters, all else being equal, greater than those of traditional schools� (p. 175).  They encourage a consideration of the use of magnet schools as an addition to the current almost exclusive focus on charters.  Also viable, they write, would be to explore a regional plan, similar to Raleigh�s or Louisville�s:

 �In 2009 there were three times as many students in suburban public schools as in the city system. The racial and income mix of the full regional school system clearly provides much more potential for integration efforts than the city alone. An effective regional system would also likely fare better in competition with the private system than the city alone� (p. 179).  If, that is, there are constituencies left there who would embrace higher levels of integration as a goal.  With Governor Jindal�s private-school voucher plan newly expanded, discussions of racial segregation aren�t particularly lively in Louisiana, unless you are a federal judge noting that it interferes with a standing desegregation order. 

I will give Gary Orfield the last word about the application of market incentives, unfettered, to public schools.  He writes in his chapter entitled �Choice Theories and the Schools�:

Getting the best results from competition requires enforcement of the rules of the game by government. When one uses the promise of private gains as the basic engine of change, one must channel that great force to produce real gains and limit harm. The drive for profits is a powerful motivator, and if it is possible to get more while doing less by cheating, the market will be corrupted�It is ironic that the same ideology that assumes people are inherently inclined toward evil and corruption in politics and therefore need to be watched and limited somehow believes that people in markets are not subject to the same temptations. What we see in many discussions of school choice is a school produced by an ideal type of market instead of the real situation facing the most disadvantaged schools.  (p.47)

Lesson learned: Federales necessarii sunt.  Federal regulation is not the answer to every problem in education, but in this case, some ground rules desperately need clarification and enforcement.   

By: ElizabethDeBray

In the Debate About School Choice, Relevance and Evidence Lose

During the recent �Impact of Charter Schools in Chicago� panel discussion presented by Catalyst Chicago, proponents and opponents of charter schools came together for a brawl that ended in every side (including the moderates) only further entrenched in their viewpoints.  Though no one �won� the debate, there were two clear losers: evidence and reality. While every side presented evidence in support of their argument, no one was willing to acknowledge evidence that was not ideologically aligned with their own viewpoints. Charles Payne, University of Chicago Professor, mentioned some research though he explicitly cited CREDO�s 2009 study of charter school performance. Though, Dr. Payne�s more reserved assessment of charter schools in Chicago included the CREDO study due to the mixed results from the study. Andrew Broy, President of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, cited Caroline Hoxby, a free-market economist who has studied competition in education in great detail. Hoxby�s findings typically support free-market reforms, but are also contested. Broy also mentioned certain findings from CREDO�s study of charter school performance, though ignoring some of the larger findings to focus on those favorable to charter schools. Jackson Potter, a representative of the Chicago Teacher�s Union (CTU), also blatantly ignored any studies with inconvenient findings, only to mention Diane Ravitch (not any particular study, just mentioned the historian�s opposition to charter school expansion). Though the debate was chocked full of claims, there was little evidence to support the claims being made by either Mr. Broy or Mr. Potter.

Another loser of the debate was the acknowledgment of the systemic inequities facing our nation�s schools, especially those in cities like Chicago. For the proponents of charter schools, in this case Andrew Broy (Teach For America alumni turned law student, turned lawyer, then finally self-actualizing as an education expert), market competition that pits individuals (students, teachers, schools, and districts) against each other in the spirit of neoliberalism is the best approach to solving inequality.  Fundamentally, this approach negates the obvious realities of competition � there are winners and losers.  In fact, it is this very type of competition that has created a society where we have, and largely tolerate, systemic inequality of winners and losers (haves and have not�s).  For Broy, and the likes, what is missing in our society is school �choice.�  That is, our schools are not performing well because they have no market incentives to �outperform� some other school (and their students) � and in lacking that, these schools reproduce a stratified economy.  For Broy, injecting market competition into what has traditionally been public and democratic (well, at least in theory) is the best way to fight for what he, and the other neoliberals, deem the �civil rights� issue of our time.

           

           Juxtaposed to Broy�s insistence that market ideology is the best route for reform, was Jackson Potter (Chicago Teacher�s Union).  While Potter did not make it a pivotal point of his argument, he did mention twice (once in the beginning and then again at the end � if you watched that long) that the greatest decrease in the so-called �achievement gap� occurred during President Johnson�s Great Society.  For those who point out that the achievement gap is nothing other than an opportunity gap, this is the quintessential argument.  That is, schools are not the source of inequality; rather, it is society that creates and perpetuates inequalities that predetermine the types of education that students have access to and ultimately realize.  For Broy, this point is understood in that poor students have access to bad schools � so, what they need are �better� schools.  For Potter, and most educational researchers, what matters most are not the brick and mortar schools that students attend; rather, the homes that they come from and go back to after school.  If they followed the research, the panelists � and even venture philanthropists at the Walton Foundation � would put less stock and money into school �choice� and more into ensuring that parents had access to a livable wage, affordable housing, access to healthcare, etc.  Dr. Payne, Mr. Broy, and Mr. Potter used little evidence in their assertion there is an achievement gap while ignoring the larger opportunity gap.

By: Jameson Brewer & Matthew Linick

Students with Disabilities and Charter Schools � Legal Watch

Three weeks ago, I attended the Education Law Association Annual Conference.  Over the course of the three-day conference there were many discussions regarding whether charter schools are appropriately serving student with disabilities.  These conversations were quite intriguing considering that I handled special education legal matters for almost ten years.  Over the last decade, the number of students enrolling in charter schools has increased.  Many education professionals see charter schools  as a way to fix some of America�s failing schools.  To date, much research has shown that charter schools have not achieved the significant improvements in American education that were expected.  

Charters are not exempt from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.  They are still responsible for providing students with disabilities with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).  In the recent years, there have many complaints regarding charter schools and their ability to serve students with disabilities, and advocacy groups have began disseminating publications and information regarding parent�s rights. (See here, here, here, here , and here.)  Many charter schools are trying to find ways to appropriately serve students with disabilities, including joining together to collaborate special education services and attending trainings specific to servicing students with disabilities.  

As the number of students enrolling into charter schools increases, it is vital that education professionals and policy makers have appropriate data regarding the impact that these schools have on students with disabilities.  Currently there is a lack of research available pertaining to charter schools and their ability to serve students with disabilities.  In June, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that analyzed data from 2008-2010 and found that charter schools enrolled a lower percentage of students with disabilities than traditional public schools.  However, the GAO was unable to outline the factors that contributed to the difference.  The GAO also found that charter schools faced challenges serving students with severe disabilities.   After the GAO�s report, the findings became highly publicized. (See here, here, here, here, here.) This month, a study by Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) also suggested that additional research is needed to understand why charter schools appear to have an lower enrollment of students with disabilities than traditional schools.  I am interested in seeing the data from the U.S. Department of Education 2011-2012 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). Unlike the 2009-2010 CRDC, the 2011-2012 CRDC will include enrollment data from all public schools and school districts, including charter schools, therefore giving a nationwide picture of enrollment.  

There are lessons we should learn from the GAO and CRPE reports.  First, that there is insufficient data to effectively analyze or criticize charter schools� overall ability to comply with special education law.  Second, in order to get appropriate data, it is imperative that charter school operators provides an open and untouched picture of what is actually going on in regards to students with disabilities.  Any research should take a very close look at the quality of service being provided to students with disabilities that are already enrolled in charter schools.

Based on the recent reports, I anticipate an increase in special education litigation as it pertains to charter schools.  There are already cases popping up that I will be watching.  The Louisiana case, Berry, et al. v. Pastorek, et al, is one of those cases.  In this class action lawsuit, the parents are suing the State Education Agency for the alleged violations of the charter schools.  I am waiting to hear the court�s ruling on this case because it might cause other State Education Agencies to start taking a closer look at their students with disabilities that are enrolled in charter schools.   

        

Many traditional charter schools have difficulty implementing services for students with disabilities, therefore it would not be a surprise to anticipate potential noncompliance issues with virtual charter schools.  In July, the National Education Policy Center released a study on virtual schools.  That study made recommendations for additional research questions pertaining to how virtual charters are providing services to students with disabilities and how the funding is being used? One can envision the potential complications of a virtual charter school implementing IEPs and 504 plans for some students with disabilities.  With the national campaign for digital learning, and as more school districts embrace digital charter schools, districts/charters will continue to try to determine how digital learning can work for students with disabilities.   
        

The bottom line is that we must invest in additional research in this area to ensure that student with disabilities are not discriminated against and are receiving appropriate services.  On another note, I wonder if voucher programs will receive the same scrutiny, considering some of the same arguments are being made regarding discrimination of students with disabilities.  Civil rights groups have filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)  alleging that the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program discriminates against children with disabilities. (See here, here, here.) As policies change and school reform continues, new legal issues will arise, therefore we should be prepared to handle them.  

By:  Tiffany Puckett

Turnaround, Transformation, and now Trigger: Repositioning parents in reform recipes

It is worthwhile to think about the ways parents are positioned in school reform models, old and new ones. Until 2010, parents were engaged in education policy primarily, if at all, through School Site Councils, in Chicago known as Local School Councils, which are local decision-making bodies of parents, teachers, and community members that make school policy such as but not limited to curriculum, principal hiring and termination, and budget. This has changed in some ways with the US Department of Education School Improvement Grants Programendorsed school reform models: turnaround, transformation, restarts, and school closure. Of the 4,941 eligible Struggling Schools: 71% of schools have chosen turnarounds, 21% transformation, 5% restart, and just 3% of schools have chosen closure. In turnarounds and transformation models, parents� roles are not explicitly outlined, whereas charter and voucher models position parents as consumers and choosers.

Seeking to reposition parents higher on the decision-maker ladder, Parent Trigger allows parents to choose their own reform recipe. Working closely with Parent Revolution, California Democrats passed the first Parent Trigger law in January 2010. Their bill held that parents who lived within the boundaries of, or whose children attended, an eligible failing school could sign a petition that would, with 51% parent body endorsement, trigger the school district to turnaround, transform, restart, or close the school. California remains the only state to allow all four reform recipes. With the exception of Louisiana, six other states have moved in a restart-to-charter-only direction. Here�s a state-by-state synopsis:

Revolutionary? Yes. Progressive? Sure. Policymakers are demonstrating efforts to move beyond involvement and toward engagement. Effective? We don�t know yet, but probably not. For now, here is a working hypothesis of why: The causal relationship between �pick a reform� and �watch your school transform� is weak, at best. Rather than jumpstarts, a more likely improvement scenario would include building authentic relationships around the co-construction of a school that includes community, parents, teachers, and students. Let�s look at this a bit further:

Parent Trigger supporters contend that the law will affect change, reform, and school improvement. The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, thinks this is pretty easy: �A. Organize with fellow parents; B. Pick your reform option; C. Get signatures on your petition; and D. Watch your school transform!� Yet, we can see that parents are empowered to neither change, reform, nor improve schools. In California, they are simply empowered to choose a preferred reform recipe. Elsewhere, they are simply empowered to ask for a restart. Instead, several data reveal that what parents want is to see change happen within their own schools, in their own communities, and in their own unique contexts.Parents� comments from McKinley Elementary School, the site of America�s first Parent Trigger, reveal that they wanted to see change happen within the walls of their own school. Perhaps this is why only approximately one-third of parents who signed the pro-charter petition actually moved their children to the new nearby charter school. Desert Trails Elementaryparents, reveal similar discontent: after a year-long, highly public fight to pass their pro-charter petition in Adelanto, CA, less than one-third of parents who signed the petition voted the new charter authorizer for their school. Their choice of charter authorizer came down to the charter that demonstrated experience with students and families of color, despite its �traditional� approach to education. And in March of 2012, in a last minute flood of letters to Florida Republican Senator Rory, parents demanded a recall against Trigger on the grounds of false empowerment.

These parents� perspectives do not stand alone. Data on parent engagement in school improvement reveal true value in cooperation, inclusivity, and validation of parents� roles as partners in school decision-making. Findings from a few recent studies are particularly provocative:

- The Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) found that community organizing over time led to mutual support between under-served communities and school districts that yielded several stronger metrics of school improvement;

- In her study on Chicago�s Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Soo Hongfinds that trusting relationships and equalized distribution of power are �core strategies� for school improvement;

- In their study of community organizing efforts in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, San Jose, and the Mississippi Delta, Warren et al. found that collaborations between educators, parents, and communities led to �deep, and sustainable school reform�;

- and in his participatory study with Latino/a high school students, Irizarry et al. uncover improved educational experiences for Latino/a youth through connections to Latino cultural and linguistic communities (Irizarry, 2012).

We need to do a lot more to better understand parents� roles in school improvement. Empirical evidence is indeed hard to come by, as experimental models have to draw a strong, statistically significant causal relationship between parent engagement and school improvement. That aside, the rigor and richness of the qualitative data above and of other high quality studies remind us why Parent Trigger is unlikely: it�s nothing new. It�s the same four reform recipes, at best. The �easy as A-B-C-D� Trigger process jumpstarts reform but does not necessarily extend toward improvement. Reversing the effects of a historically tenuous relationship between parents and schools, particularly for low-income communities of color, is a complex process. Perhaps new Reform Recipes should consider repairing the parent-school relationships as a vehicle by which to move from reform and toward improvement.

Irizarry, J. G. (2011). The Latinization of U.S. schools: Successful teaching and learning in shifting cultural contexts. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

By: Priya Goel

Won't Step Up: Idealism, Evidence, and Entertainment

The most interesting thing about the recent box-office bomb of Won�t Back Down wasn't just how big-money ideologues backed such a dog of a movie, but that audiences handed a resounding �two thumbs down� to this attempt to alter the time-tested teacher-as-hero formula that has been so profitable to Hollywood over the years.

In the 1980s and 90s, movies about troubled schools had a common theme:  get tough on students.  Stand and Deliver, Lean on Me and Dangerous Minds, for instance, reflected the common wisdom that charismatic educators could force those unruly urban (and usually minority) kids to shape up, allowing the US to compete with Japan in the global economy.

But the heroic teacher myth has recently been flipped to the teacher-as-villain, as indicated by a new crop of films that pounce on teachers for not improving the inner cities.  Recent Hollywood movies such as Won�t Back Down and Bad Teacher are buttressed by documentaries like Waiting for Superman, The Lottery and The Cartelin promoting the notion that education failure is due primarily to bad schools and, more specifically, to those who teach in them.  In this narrative, without finding ways of identifying, sanctioning, and firing ineffective teachers (who all happen to work at schools with lots of disadvantaged kids), the US will be unable to compete with India and China in the new global economy.  

This embrace of teacher effectiveness and rejection of student disadvantage as the primary factor influencing student outcomes has become something of a theme with the self-described �reform� crowd, as when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels made the amazing claim that �Teacher quality has been found to be twenty times more important than any other factor, including poverty, in determining which kids succeed.�  The �Rhee-formers� believe that good teaching trumps the �demographic determinism� of bad background factors.

Improving teacher quality is, of course, a laudable goal.  But what does the evidence actually tell us? 

Going back at least to the Coleman Report of the mid-1960s, researchers have consistently found that non-school factors are the primary � if not overwhelming � consideration in predicting student outcomes (see, e.g. here, here, here, here, here).  Decades of research suggest that school-factors may explain perhaps one-third of the variance in student achievement, while teaching itself may influence one-fifth, at best.  And it�s not at all clear that exceptional teaching has the sustained impact over time that we might wish.  Great teaching can make a difference, and it does for many students.  But for many more, the environment soon re-asserts itself.

Certainly, it�s much easier for policymakers to mandate better teaching than it is to mandate better parenting.  We can�t legislate that all parents care about their child�s education, take prenatal vitamins, or limit exposure to lead� and that wouldn�t make for a very good movie.

But what we see in Won�t Back Down is a willful disregard of evidence in favor of Rhee-formist idealism � the appeal of simplistic solutions to complex problems.  This is not to say that we shouldn�t try to improve the educational experiences of poor kids.  But idealism and ideological desire cannot counter data.  Without a foundation in facts, any reforms are likely to go the way of the many other efforts that are based on good intentions and ideological assumptions, but which ignore evidence.  (Recall the Gates Foundation�s expensive and ineffective foray into smaller schools.)  There will be little overall impact on academic outcomes from reforms that neglect the primary problems� outside of schools.

Divorced from evidence, idealism may make for a good movie, but it is not the best strategy for improving educational outcomes. 

By: Christopher Lubienski 

"muscular philanthropy"

Posted, too, at SM:
Muscular philanthropy--that's what Fred Hess calls the kind of Walton-Broad-Gates phalanx that has as one of its goals the charterizing (rhymes with cauterizing) of American public schools, beginning first in the urban schools where voucher efforts have been unsuccessful so far. Bill and Melinda, the darlings of the neoliberal set, are a bit queasy regarding vouchers, having the ongoing history that they do with the education establishment. See, too, "How Many Billionaires Does It Take to Fix a School System," NY Times Magazine, 3/9/08.
Now charter schools are a different matter, particularly as we have elements of the AFT and the head of the SEIU, Andy Stern, on board with Steve Barr, Eli Broad, and the Gates Foundation to craft a corporate-controlled version of public schools for the poor and working classes at a 20 percent savings to the taxpayer (and a 20% cost to teachers). Bill and Melinda, in fact, gave $7.8 million to Green Dot Public Schools, Inc. last July. That's a nifty complement to the $20+ million already dished up by the Broad Foundation for the LAUSD charter takeover.

(Photo: Andy Stern (SEIU) looks on as Steve Barr, CEO of Green Dot Public Schools, Inc. presents Eli Broad a plaque for $10 million given at the first annual Green Dot Ball, November 2007, Los Angeles).

Now I don't know if you would label corporate control of the public schools as social control. I guess some would call it corporate socialism or just plain fascism. For those, however, seeking more evidence of Bill's boyish, if slightly creaky, charm applied to using private billions to buy the public good, here are a few additional links here, here, here. I wish I had time to summarize them for Dr. Anonymous, but I am going the beach in few minutes.

The saddest part of all this is that the corporate media outlets offer ample opportunity for Broad and others of his ilk to pump the KIPP charter chain gangs (Bill and Melinda gave $7.9 million to KIPP in 2004) as the modern day solution to the "negro problem." Ed Week has only a slightly more nuanced approach, as Tmao Essj points out in this blog entry from last June:

The June 13 issued of Education Week published an article on student attrition at KIPP schools, particularly the two in San Francisco and one in Oakland, that didn't bury the lede as much as it pretended it didn't exist. Somewhat surprisingly, all manner of bloggers and commenters performed the same intellectual sleight-of-hand.

The article is trapped behind a subscription wall, making it unlinkable, but Ed Week correctly reports that fewer than half of the kids that begin the Bay Area KIPP schools as 5th graders in 2003 make it to 8th grade in 2006. In the Oakland incarnation, the attrition rate climbs to 75 percent. The article ignores the fact that these lost students are overwhelmingly African-American males. The three Bay Area KIPPs lost 77, 67, and 71 percent of its Young Black Males (YBMs) during this time period.

That's the story Ed Week. That's the story Eduwonk. That's the story, KIPP PR fixers.

There's more Black males on the KIPP website than in the KIPP. . . .

Admittedly, these attrition rates for KIPP in the Bay Area are not as bad (or good) as they were at the Hampton Institute in 1900 in Virginia (or the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama), when one out of five students who entered those industrial education/teacher training camps earned certificates to permit them to brainwash black children throughout the South in the "dignity of labor," but you have to admit the KIPP numbers are pretty impressive stats. The washouts, of course, have an economic function, too, providing as they do the future customers in the privately-managed prison industrial complex that the technocrats have devised to replace, yet another, civic responsibility.

You can be sure, however, that those black and brown KIPP-sters who make it through the direct instruction gauntlet are no less ready than the Hampton graduates to do, as Booker T. Washington did, the work that is offered by the overseers whose respect must be earned--repeatedly. WORK HARD, BE NICE--indeed.