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The Ohio Education Gadfly |
A Bi-weekly Bulletin of
News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham
Institute Volume 4, Number 25. September 29, 2010 |
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The new normal in public education: doing more with less
Based on education spending over the last two decades, the governor’s comment is reasonable. Chart 1 below shows inflation-adjusted per-pupil revenue for K-12 public education in Ohio, which has risen by 60 percent since 1991. There is no doubt that public education in Ohio – as across the rest of the country – has held a privileged position when it comes to spending. In fact, when controlled for inflation, school spending has been increasing substantially for a century. Why should anyone expect the future to be any different? Chart 1: Inflation-adjusted Per-pupil Revenue for K-12 Public Education in Ohio, 1991 to 2010 In Stretching the School Dollar, a new book published by Harvard Education Press and co-edited by Fordham’s Eric Osberg,there is a chapter ominously titled “A Warning for all Who Would Listen – America’s Public Schools Face a Forthcoming Fiscal Tsunami.” The chapter’s authors, Vanderbilt’s James Guthrie and Arthur Peng, outline the forces that have contributed to public education’s unique status and why it’s been so protected:
They conclude, “Almost no other economic endeavor enjoys such a spectrum of insulating conditions.” But, despite protectionist attitudes toward public education, our K-12 system has not delivered results commensurate to the resources and hopes invested in it. In most states, in fact, student achievement has largely been flat for decades, as charts 2 and 3 show below. When it comes to high school graduation rates – a benchmark on which America led the world for much of the 20th century – the US is now 20th. Only three in four Americans graduate from high school while most other advanced nations average 90 percent or higher. Chart 2: Percent of Ohio 4th and 8th Graders Scoring Proficient or Better in Math on NAEP, 1992 to 2009 Chart 3: Percent of Ohio 4th and 8th Graders Scoring Proficient or Better in Reading on NAEP, 2002 to 2009 Further, public education has remained stalled over the last few decades while at the same time almost every sector of the America economy has achieved productivity gains. Labor costs in education have steadily increased: from 1980 to 2006, public school enrollment in the United States grew by roughly 18 percent while total school employment grew by 48 percent.
But Ohio can no longer afford unmitigated increases in spending. As we approach what Marguerite Roza, education economic advisor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, says is an unavoidable fiscal cliff in 2011-12, we may very well see education lose its privileged position in the public spending food chain. Guthrie and Peng warn:
Further, demographic realities are conspiring against the public schools. As America grays and families shrink, other interests will be competing against the schools for scarce public dollars. Guthrie and Peng point out that:
If demographics are indeed destiny, then one should take seriously Guthrie and Peng’s conclusion that:
The evidence is persuasive that we are entering a “new normal” when it comes to school spending. In practice, this begs the question: how can Ohio, and other states, actually bend the cost curve while improving the quality of its schools? This is a difficult question for politicians and educators alike, but one that can no longer be easily ignored or summarily dismissed. For the sake of our children’s education and our state (and national) economic future, we need to figure out how to adapt to the new norm of doing more with less.
Recommended Viewing
Spending on K-12 education has increased continuously over the last several decades, while achievement remains flat. What can districts and schools do, especially now that Ohio faces a $6-8 billion budget cliff in the next biennium? District superintendents, treasurers, lawmakers, policymakers, and education reformers gathered September 27 in Columbus to find answers at Fordham’s Stretching the School Dollar event (read about the book, published by Harvard Education Press, here). To discuss smart cost savings, we invited economist Marguerite Roza, Steven Wilson of the NYC-based charter management organization Ascend Learning, and Fordham’s own Eric Osberg and Terry Ryan. The overwhelming consensus? The time is ripe for dramatic reforms, a complete overhaul of how we view teacher compensation/benefits as well as class-size reduction policies, a rethinking of online learning and productivity in education, and more. You can view the panelists' Power Point presentation here. And be sure to check out the full video of our event, “Stretching the School Dollar: Insights for the Buckeye State,” online here. Capital Matters We at Fordham will be the first to admit that Ohio charter school law allows for blurred lines of responsibility among operators, authorizers, and school boards. In fact, Fordham testified to the Ohio House and State Board of Education last spring in support of efforts to clarify the roles and responsibilities of sponsors (aka authorizers), governing boards, and operators. Some of Policy Matters’ findings are, without question, worth taking seriously. For example, if some charter schools’ governing board structures are out of compliance with state law, as the report alleges, that’s a problem that absolutely needs to be addressed post haste. However, other items in the report raise an eyebrow about the validity of some conclusions. First, the methodology is messy. The report compares Ohio lawregarding multiple facets of the charter school program to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers' principles for authorizers. Not Ohio charter laws to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools’ model charter law. Not Ohio laws specifically regulating authorizing to the NACSA principles for authorizers. The report is essentially a comparison of management company contracts to NACSA's principles for authorizers – apples to oranges to say the least, and more than a bit misleading. Then there is the research, which from Fordham’s vantage point as a charter school sponsor, is flawed. Two Fordham-authorized schools, both operated by EdisonLearning, are included in the report. Policy Matters makes three faulty claims against these schools:
Second, Policy Matters’ bias toward traditional district schools and away from charter schools rears its head in several places. For one, the report goes after charter school board members who are compensated for their work, but is silent on the fact that district school board members are similarly compensated; as are many other non-profit board members. The report is also quick to dismiss the positive academic performance of more than a few charter schools, saying that just “a handful of charters have solid academic records.” In fact, in Ohio’s urban areas, where most charter schools are located, charters often perform on par with or better than their district peers. The Dayton Daily News, for example, ran a story just this month under the headline “Eight of 10 top public schools in Dayton are charters.” The anti-charter bias reemerges in the author’s description of Fordham as "a national think tank with a free market orientation toward education reform." Yes, Fordham is a staunch supporter of school choice, but we’ve been saying for years (in fact, gasp, for a decade) that choice for choice’s sake isn’t sufficient. There must be high standards and accountability for all public schools, and persistent failure isn’t an option. In fact, we take this so seriously that, as an authorizer, we have closed three schools and put several others on notice. It’s encouraging when a left-of-center organization like Policy Matters joins our camp and call for smart improvements to Ohio’s charter school program (as it does in this report), rather than the obliteration of charters altogether. But this report has so many faults in terms of its methodology and facts that it hurts the cause of a sensible middle ground by giving ammunition to both ardent anti-charter foes and zealous supporters of all charters irrespective of quality or performance. Is teacher performance data ready for primetime in Ohio? The Los Angeles Times brought the concept of value-added education data front and center before the public when it conducted an analysis of teachers’ value-added scores in that city, and then published the findings – complete with teachers’ names attached – on its website. The Los Angeles story is the most prominent example of a national movement to link student data to individual teacher performance. Federal Race to the Top dollars will fund more than a dozen states’ – including Ohio’s – efforts to incorporate value-added data into teacher evaluations. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other philanthropies, are investing millions in teacher effectiveness initiatives. In Ohio, public value-added results are available by district, school, grade level, and subject – teachers and administrators have access to more robust student-level data. And districts participating in the federally funded Teacher Incentive Fund program will use value-added data along with other measures to award performance bonuses to teachers. Three state education experts interviewed by The Gadfly believe it is time to use value-added here not only for informing teachers about their students’ progress but also to evaluate the teachers themselves -- to help them improve, but, if necessary, dismiss ineffective ones. “Clearly other districts use value-added as part of evaluation of performance, but the difference between [what happened in] Los Angeles and [what takes place in a district like] Winston Salem, N.C., is that they use value-added to assess but the data are not made public,” said Thomas J. Lasley, retired dean of the School of Education and Allied Professions at the University of Dayton. “Principals have access to it but parents do not. It’s more logical to have building leaders who understand the nuances...so they can know how to work with teachers.” In Winston Salem, Lasley said, if low value-added student scores indicate a teacher is having problems, the teacher is placed on a professional development plan and if there’s no improvement, eventually, there’s a move toward dismissal. While Lasley thinks it could be 20 years before value-added teacher data are accurate enough for public release, Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett plans to make the teacher data public – names and all – on the Indiana Department of Education’s website this year or next. Bennett thinks putting heat on teachers will lead to better teaching. “(If I’m a parent) I can go to the principal and say I want the best teacher for my child,” he told education policymakers in Cleveland recently. But Mahoney cautions that using value-added data for evaluation purposes won’t work unless curricula and assessments are aligned, and that remains a major problem. Also, as powerful as value-added analysis can be, he said it should never be the sole measure of teacher effectiveness. Multiple measures such as attendance, student surveys of teacher performance, and knowledge of content are also important. “A lot of this is in the power of the relationship between the teacher and the student,” he said. Beyond the classroom, Mahoney said value-added data could be used to track graduates of teacher colleges (Ohio promised in its winning Race to the Top application to connect student achievement data back to the colleges that prepared teachers) and to help clarify the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of alternatively trained teachers (like Teach For America corps members) versus those that are trained in colleges of education. Identifying good teachers and understanding why they’re good is vital. “Some people are generating huge gains and it is not random luck,” he said. Even so, Mahoney issued a caution, “This is a very powerful measure but there’s no one measure that should be used or can capture the essence of great teaching.” One problem with Ohio’s value-added measure, especially if it were used to evaluate and publically identify teachers, is that it is not transparent. The model in use is proprietary, and it’s not clear how the calculations are actually done. But there are other models. Indiana uses one developed in Colorado. And Ohio’s participation in the Common Core State Standards Initiative could bode well for the future of value-added here. “As you get common standards those commons standards are going to drive us toward more common assessments and that will drive us toward more common value-added procedures,” Lasley said. Another problem is that value-added measures are not applied to all school subjects. Right now, value-added analysis is done only in the fourth through eighth grades in reading and math, though Governor Strickland’s 2009 education reform legislation and the state’s Race to the Top grant promise to expand value-added across more grades and subjects and tie the results to the classroom level. That’s a good thing, according to Deb Tully, director of professional issues for the Ohio Federation of Teachers. “It’s important to weed out bad teachers, she said. “[As a teacher,] I don’t want the kids the next year after they’ve had somebody terrible,” said Tulley. Tulley said there needs to be agreement in a school district concerning how value-added data will be used. “When you locally develop a (teacher evaluation plan) everyone can agree on we don’t have a problem using value-added as one of the measures,” she said. However, the measure must be fine-tuned first, she said, since Ohio’s current value-added model was never designed for teacher evaluation or (determining) compensation. “We are concerned about is using it incorrectly or using data that doesn’t give a clear picture of what a teacher is doing in the classroom,” she said. News & Analysis This ranking of the top 20 is all the more impressive considering that middle school-aged students are traditionally among the hardest to serve well (see this week’s review on “Stuck in the Middle”). Last year following the state’s report card release, the Columbus Dispatch ran an article about the district facing up to “ugly truths,” namely that none of its middle schools met federal targets in reading and math that year, that two in five (38 percent) didn’t teach a full year’s worth of material to students, and that nearly three in every four were rated D or F. Other cities struggle as well (to varying degrees) to improve the achievement of middle school students. But there are several scattered across the state that are doing a phenomenal job. The table below lists them in order of PI score and includes the percent of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch. Table 1: Top 15 highest-performing urban middle schools A few things jump out from the table. First, among the top 15 are middle schools in nearly every city: Columbus, Cleveland, Akron, Toledo, Youngstown, and Canton. (Dayton and Cincinnati schools break down grades differently and have primarily K-8 buildings and high schools, rather than true middle schools.) In nearly every urban area, there exists a model (or several) when it comes to reaching middle school-aged students. Second, the list reflects a mix of charter and district middle schools. But it’s worth noting that given the relatively small number of middle school students that charters serve (compared to their home districts) they are overrepresented on this list. Charter schools’ freedom to set their own curriculum, school calendar and school day schedule, and behavioral and academic expectations for students undoubtedly plays an important role in their success. Third, we’d be remiss not to note that several of the highest performing public middle schools in Ohio’s urban centers serve high percentages of poor students (as measured by free and reduced-price lunch eligibility). Ohio lawmakers, leaders, and educators should take pride in these high-performing urban public middle schools and do everything in their power to ensure conditions for their success. You can also view a PDF of the full rankings, which includes all Ohio public urban middle schools. High-performing, high-poverty schools Our recent study, Needles in a Haystack: Lessons from high-performing, high-need urban schools, lifted up the successes of, and tried to extrapolate lessons from, urban schools that serve large numbers of poor kids well. But poverty exists beyond city borders. Ohio’s highest unemployment rates exist in rural communities, and Appalachian southeastern Ohio in particular has long struggled with chronic poverty. Still, just as we find in the big cities, schools in rural areas and small towns are also succeeding at delivering large numbers of poor students to high levels of achievement. Using data from the Ohio Department of Education, we examined the 2009-10 academic performance of the 542 public schools where 75 percent or more of the students were eligible for free- or reduced-price lunch last year. This analysis includes rural, urban, and suburban schools, and district and charter schools alike. Chart 1 shows the distribution of students in these schools by building rating. Far too many -- nearly half -- of these students attend a school rated D or F by the state. But it’s promising that fully 20 percent are in an A or B school. Chart 1: Students in high-poverty schools by building rating, 2009-10 In terms of raw achievement, several of these schools are doing very well. A school’s “Performance Index score” gives an overall indication of how well its students are doing on the state’s tests, across all tested grades and subjects. The PI score scale runs from 0 to 120 – the higher the score, the better achieving the school. Of the high-poverty schools we examined, eight met the state’s goal of 100 or better for their PI score. Another 72 had a PI score above 90, which is still outstanding, especially for schools serving highly challenged populations. Incorporating the state’s value-added measure of student progress lets us see which schools are also helping their students make adequate annual academic progress. As chart 2 shows, 65 percent of students in these high-poverty schools attend schools that are meeting or exceeding the state’s value-added expectations. Chart 2: Students in high-poverty schools by building value-added rating, 2009-10 Combining both achievement and progress allows us to ascertain the state’s very best high-poverty schools. Table 1 lists the top 15 high-performing, high-poverty schools last school year. Table 1: Top 15 high-performing, high-poverty schools, 2009-10 Ohio’s economy is recovering, but slowly. The issue of how best to educate children in poverty will be a front burner issue for many of the state’s public schools for years to come. It’s encouraging to see high-poverty schools doing well, proving that they can beat the odds and deliver challenged populations to high levels of academic achievement. Data from three education surveys converge around the importance of effective teaching If you’re clamoring to know what Americans think about myriad K-12 education issues, then you’ve just struck gold. Three recent surveys provide a plethora of opinion data on issues ranging from charter schools and teachers unions, to taxpayer-funded increases in education spending and hot-button issues like teacher evaluations. That the surveys have varying methodologies and unique questionnaires makes it all the more significant that common themes emerged – especially those that point to shifting attitudes about teacher-related reforms (i.e., evaluations, compensation, and tenure). The first, conducted by Education Next and Harvard’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG)—and based on information from a random and nationally representative sample of 2,776 respondents— casts the results in a political light. Researchers found that when it comes to education policy, “divisions between ordinary Democrats and Republicans… are quite minor.” Most interesting findings include that: the public doesn’t want to increase local taxes to foot the education bill (only 29 percent favored it); 62 percent “completely” or “somewhat” support retaining NCLB’s testing requirements (against just 12 percent who don’t); a majority of respondents didn’t have an opinion as to whether Race to the Top was a federal “intrusion”; 45 percent believe ineffective teachers should be fired rather than counseled; and 49 percent favored basing teachers’ salaries on students’ academic growth (compared to 26 who opposed). The second, the well-known annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll, was derived from telephone interviews with 1,008 adults recruited randomly. The poll shows that a majority of respondents think that improving the quality of teaching is the best lever to improve education overall. Parallel to what Education Next found, Americans rated their own local schools more favorably than schools generally. When it comes to teacher pay, 71 percent think teachers should be paid on the “basis of their work” rather than on a standard scale (a ten percent increase since 1983). Time Magazine joins the survey action with this opinion sample of 1,000 adults. It found that 56 percent of respondents would be willing to pay higher taxes to improve schools (yes, but is that local dollars?); a sweeping majority (67 percent) think America’s schools are “in crisis”; 64 percent support student growth being configured into teacher evaluations; more than twice as many oppose tenure than support it (66 to 28 percent); and a full half believe that unions are “obstacles” to school improvement. It’s encouraging to see several themes emerge from the data – in particular, broad recognition that teachers are paramount and that it may be time to rethink policies related to how we evaluate, pay, and retain them. Overall, the surveys indicate that the American public is willing to think fairly innovatively in this realm. Now we just need lawmakers, politicians, and teachers unions in Ohio to agree. Short
Reviews This thoughtful McKinsey report examines the advantages and feasibility of boosting the quality of the American teacher workforce by attracting more of the top third of graduates. Today, the authors estimate, we draw 23 percent of new teachers from this upper-tier—and in high-poverty schools, just 14 percent. After the requisite extolling of the benefits of having smarter and better educated teachers (especially for needy kids) and reminding us that high-achieving countries do far better than the U.S. at making the teaching occupation appealing to high-ability people, the authors break into the meat of their report. Here, they offer a number of strategies for upping the reputation of U.S. teachers. Some are costly (e.g., boosting salaries overall); others are less expensive in dollar terms but challenging in other ways. (For example, they suggest making high-need schools safer and better led, giving performance bonuses to top-achieving instructors, and focusing on “turnaround” and/or STEM schools.) Cautiously, the paper points to possible offsetting savings, such as targeting a larger share of the school dollar on instruction; they estimate that we could redirect $50 billion by simply lowering our high “non-educator expenditures”(e.g. admin, transport, and ancillary services) to the OECD average. They are even so bold as to suggest larger classes and more extensive use of instructional technology, which would of course mean fewer—but better paid and presumably abler—teachers. This is the kind of fresh thinking that American education sorely needs. If we were more willing to engage in it and then act on the basis of it, perhaps we’d spend less time and energy waiting for Superman.
Stuck in the Middle: Impacts of Grade Configuration in Public Schools Middle schools aren’t working. At least, that’s the conclusion made by Jonah E. Rockoff and Benjamin B. Lockwood in their new study “Stuck in the Middle,” featured in the latest edition of Education Next. The pair tracked data from approximately 200,000 of New York City’s middle schoolers on their journey from grade three through grade eight during the 1998-99 through 2007-08 school years. They found that both mathematics and English language arts test scores of students who had attended K-5 or K-6 schools, then went on to attend a middle school, dropped significantly in both English and math in the students’ first year of middle school compared to their peers who attended K-8 schools. Their scores continued to drop at least through grade eight, the highest grade level the study covered, although at the significantly lower rate per year. The researchers suggest two reasons for this disparity. First, cohort sizes (the number of students in a given grade level at a particular school; note – this is not related to class sizes) in middle schools were more than double those in K-8 schools, and the researchers hypothesize that large cohort sizes may therefore be detrimental to student achievement. Further, surveys of parents and students at the schools examined in the study indicate that both the students at K-8 schools and their parents were more satisfied than their middle school counterparts with the safety, academic rigor, and educational quality provided by their respective institutions. The researchers suggest this is indicates an inherent flaw in the middle schools studied, but they speculate little about the reasons for the existence of this flaw. These findings – though based on achievement data of New York City students – have parallels in other places. For example, Columbus City Schools was frustrated last year with the performance of its own middle schools, as more than 70 percent of them received a D or an F on the 2008-09 report card. This study confirms that K-8 buildings – for whatever reason – may serve urban students better than middle schools. The Cincinnati and Dayton city school systems have implemented the K-8 model over the last several years. Perhaps Columbus would do well to consider similar changes to its model. Read about Rockoff’s and Lockwood’s findings here.
Reinventing Alternative Education: An Assessment of Current State Policy and How to Improve It This report from Jobs for the Future analyzed all 50 states’ and the District of Columbia’s policies that guide their overall approach to and operation of alternative education programs. The authors, through a review of state policies and legislation, examined the extent to which each state’s alternative education policies incorporated seven elements that comprise what JFS deems a model alternative education program. States should:
What the report found was not surprising: overall states have a lot of work left to do when it comes to educating students through alternative programs. The District of Columbia and 40 states have implemented at least one of the policy elements but no state has adopted all seven. Ohio, along with thirty other states and DC, has put into place policies that broaden student eligibility for alternative education beyond troubled youth. No state has adopted sufficient policies to ensure high-quality staff within alternative education programs On the seven indicators Ohio finds itself in the middle of the pack: it only met one policy element fully and another four partially (clarify responsibilities, strengthen accountability, ensure high quality staff, and enrich funding). Overall, the report shows that while states are starting to embrace alternative education there are still fundamental policy changes that must occur in order to capitalize on all that alternative education can offer. To read the complete report click here.
Flypaper's Finest That question, and others, is posed on 25 billboards throughout greater Cincinnati. The Michigan-based Education Action Group bought the billboard space in southwest Ohio as part of a public awareness campaign to highlight what it sees as wasteful spending by Ohio school districts. Read the rest here.
85,000 students eligible for Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship This summer it became evident that Ohio’s EdChoice Scholarship (a statewide voucher program for students in low-performing schools) would reach its cap and students would be waitlisted. Currently the EdChoice voucher program has a 14,000 student cap, which has never been reached until this year. Read the full post here.
Editor's Extras
Announcements Today Fordham released results from a national survey of education school professors in the US. Cracks in the Ivory Tower finds that more than eighty percent of the nation’s ed professors think it’s “absolutely essential” that teachers be lifelong learners, and are more likely to view the role of an educator as “facilitator of learning” (84 percent) rather than “conveyor of knowledge” (11 percent). While not entirely surprising that most education professors espouse these philosophies, it stands in stark (and somewhat worrisome) contrast with their views on other education concepts. For example, only 24 percent say it’s “absolutely essential” that teachers understand how to work with state standards, tests, and accountability systems. In terms of hot-button issues, some results are encouraging: 83 percent of professors of education show support for financial incentives for teachers working in challenging schools, 66 percent think that current teacher prep programs “need many changes” and 63 percent think programs like Teach For America are overall a good idea. Read more of the findings here. |
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| The Ohio Education Gadfly is published bi-weekly (ordinarily on Wednesdays, with occasional breaks, and in special editions) by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Have something to say? Email the editor at [email protected]. Would you like to be spared from the Gadfly? Email [email protected] with "unsubscribe gadfly" in the text of your message. You are welcome to forward the Gadfly to others, and from our website you can even email individual articles. If you have been forwarded a copy of Gadfly and would like to subscribe, you may email [email protected] with "subscribe gadfly" in the text of the message. To read archived issues, go to our website and click on the Ohio Education Gadfly link. Aching for still more education news and analysis? Check out the original Education Gadfly.
Nationally and in Ohio, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, along with its sister organization the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, strives to close America's vexing achievement gaps by raising standards, strengthening accountability, and expanding high-quality education options for parents and families. As a charter-school sponsor in Ohio, the Foundation joins with schools to affirm a relentless commitment to high expectations for all children, accountability for academic results, and transparency and organizational integrity, while freeing the schools to operate with minimal red tape. The Foundation and Institute are neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.
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