Dr. John Stuppy, President, TutorVista.com.

At the Arizona School Administrators’ fall conference, Dr. Jeff Van Handel, Superintendent of Camp Verde, Arizona, described how his district had lost students to charter and private schools, and was forced to deal with a dwindling budget, more high-need students, and a shortage of qualified teachers.

Compounding these challenges, Camp Verde’s teachers were faced with a wider disparity between the best and worst performing students, and the challenge of teaching to a wide range of skills. For example, some students were Limited English Proficient, while others were repeat discipline students who performed on average two grade levels behind their fellow students.

Dr. Van Handel needed qualified teachers in secondary math, science and English but had limited availability of teachers and an inadequate budget. Previous attempts to hire a single teacher with a Master’s degree in mathematics had been unsuccessful for over two years. Facing mounting pressure from parents and the community, Dr. Van Handel thought “outside the box” to come up with a cost-effective solution to the district’s education crisis.

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("The Letter From" is on hiatus through December. This is an "encore presentation" from April 19, 2004 - before edbizbuzz came on the scene. Consider it an opportunity to judge my predictive capacity and to revisit the school improvement industry trade groups' Washington strategies. For those of you who were expecting something on venture capital, I apologize for the change of mind.)

Always stay in with the outs.
David Halberstam

Inside Washington and out, the school improvement industry is associated more with Republicans than Democrats and more with conservatives than liberals.

Some examples: Edison drew intellectual strength from Republicans like Checker Finn and voucher advocates like John Chubb. Jeanne Allen, of the pro-voucher Center for Education Reform, has long been a featured speaker at education industry investor conferences and is tied to the EMO’s trade association. Bill Bennett chairs K12, Inc. The Education Leaders Council, which advances systemic reforms essential to our industry, is predominately Republican.

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The Evolving Market in Program Evaluation Services

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Yesterday, I described the bill on DC central office terminations passed by the City Council on December 18. It has one more session, now scheduled for January, where it is likely to be voted into law.

My analysis:

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The “biz” in edbizbuzz stands for “business” in the broad sense of a “market,” rather than the narrow sense of “vendors.” I tend to pick stories for what they tell us about classes of actors in the school improvement market: for and nonprofit providers as “sellers”, school districts and charter schools as “buyers”, state education agencies and the U.S. Department of Education as “regulators,” along with the executive, legislative and judicial branches; the full range of “investors," from angels to Wall Street; and of course the environmental “surround” of interest groups, philanthropy, media and evaluators that influence market activities.

For example, I’ve written a good deal about SES providers - to explore the issue of “value – results at a price.” Evaluations indicate that the services tend to be quite expensive yet tend to offer improvements in student performance with little educational significance. The series on K12’s IPO was intended to explore the calculations of investors. I’ve started this week to write about the Edvance review of the Texas preschool program - to expand on the issue of Scientifically Based Research and the practical implications of evaluation in an emerging industry like school improvement. I’ve taken the same approach to interest groups, philanthropy and the media.

If this reads like an apologia for what follows, it is. I never intended to get into the District of Columbia Public Schools reorganization mess to the extent I have. I was really drawn into the issue by a Washington Post article on the Chancellor’s public comments about the central office that I found odd to the point of bizarre. I came away with three theories: the Chancellor was quoted out of context by the reporter, was in need of better PR coaching, or made the remarks quite deliberately. I honestly thought it was the first, and was blown away as it became clear that the third theory was on the money.

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Staci Hupp of the Dallas Morning News writes that the Texas Education Agency has released a third party review of the Texas Early Education Model (TEEM) managed by the Texas Health Science Center (THSC) in Houston. The study, conducted by Edvance Research, finds that TEEM does no better preparing kids for school than other preschool programs. (The report is available with the article.)

In the 2006-07 school year TEEM served 27,000 children. Ultimately, the program is to be offered statewide via an interesting dissemination model. Head Start and private childcare centers are offered substantial financial incentives to adopt the model. The initiative has cost Texas taxpayers $45 million since 2003. It will cost a great deal more if implemented across the state. So the evaluation matters.

Hupp reports the usual reactions from those who would like to kill TEEM off, and the developers who want to keep going. What’s a policymaker – or taxpayer - to do?

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("The Letter From" is on hiatus through December. This is an "encore presentation" from April 18, 2005 - before edbizbuzz came on the scene. Consider it an opportunity to judge my predictive capacity, an introduction to academia's dean of business strategy, and an application of his analytic approach to the school improvement industry.)

Consolidation strategies to overcome fragmentation in the school improvement industry were discussed last week. If structural factors foreclose consolidation, providers will need to develop coping strategies, accept sub-par returns, or exit. This not about market dominance, but provider success given fragmentation.

Today’s providers survived an investment climate of “nuclear winter” after the internet bubble burst (and spring may be some way off). Nine of their approaches to an environment of scarce capital are also described as ways of coping with fragmentation by Harvard Business School Prof. Michael Porter in Competitive Strategies (1980).

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Professional Development in Physical Education for Every Teacher (at $1000 per)

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Here's a classic:

Announcement: Arizona Government Education Fund (contract with federally-chartered national veterans’ organizations that have at least fifty years of experience providing high school civics education courses) Due January 4 (Dec 17) Arizona Department of Education.

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Rather than a new item, I've responded in some depth to reader comments on my December 13 posting.

Read here.

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Nancy Van Meter is Deputy Director, Office of the President, American Federation of Teachers

This week’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) by K12, the Herndon, VA-based operator of virtual charter schools, generated much less attention than the buzz surrounding Edison Schools’ much-heralded IPO nearly ten years ago. Edison’s pioneering IPO was greeted with predictions that innovative reforms, improved student achievement and economies of scale would follow the private sector expansion into operating public schools. By contrast, K12’s IPO received scant notice beyond newspaper business sections. AP reported that investors “embraced” K12’s offering while The Washington Post reported that K12’s shares rose 36%.

However, the offering raised only about 63% of the $172.5 million sought by the company, according to their prospectus filed this summer.

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Why is edbizbuzz "picking on" District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty and Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee's in their efforts to reorganize that city's troubled system? There are plenty of other dysfunctional urban districts, what's so special about their problematic approach to management? Why should a blogspace devoted to the emerging school improvement industry spend so much time on what's happening in one school district? What’s the relationship between Rhee and the industry?

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("The Letter From" is on hiatus through December. This is an "encore presentation" from April 11, 2005 - before edbizbuzz came on the scene. Consider it an opportunity to judge my predictive capacity, an introduction to academia's dean of business strategy, and an application of his analytic approach to the school improvement industry.)

Last week‘s letter concluded that the school improvement industry is fragmented for most of the reasons identified by Prof. Porter in Competitive Strategy (1980); not merely the “newness” that goes with emergence.

These factors include the: ease of entry into the market, lack of significant economies of scale the closer the offering gets to the teaching-learning relationship; diseconomies of scale in community relations and quality assurance activities; diverse demands placed on providers by schools and districts; balkanized nature of government regulation; and large numbers of owners interested less in profit margins than personal fulfillment or social mission.

This week's letter reviews the prospects for industry consolidation.

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Working With Youth and Teachers Visiting America

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21st Century Schools for California

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Yesterday, I provided provisions of the District of Columbia Code relevant to the present debate over the status of employees in the DC Public Schools central office. Today, my analysis. It may be somewhat unexpected.

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Media interest in District of Columbia Mayor Adrian Fenty's proposal to make the public school system's central office staff "at will" employees, with job security subject to the Chancellor's discretion, has focused on politics rather than content. On the one hand, Chancellor Michelle Rhee's assertion that current administrative procedures to terminate those who can't or won't do their jobs are too difficult to follow has been allowed to pass without much review. On the other, the powers the Mayor is asking the DC City Council to give the Chancellor have hardly been scrutinized.

Today, I've excerpted the laws that govern central office staff hiring and firing today, and those portions of the bill put forward by the Mayor that would replace the current system. It's easy reading. You can form your own opinion as to the whether the Mayor and Chancellor need the requested powers to turn around the school system, and whether they raise questions about the proper administration of government in a democratic society.

Tomorrow, I'll offer my analysis.

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Alan J. Carter is Vice President of the Education Industry Association and Chief Executive Officer of University Instructors, Inc.

Many years ago, when I was but a young lad and could claim I didn’t know any better (even though I probably did); we had a pool table. Known only to my family (and those we had duped), this table was slightly warped on the playing surface and had a distinctive ‘break’ in front of the right side pocket. Those unaware of this feature would regularly miss shots, which we chalked up to offense against the Billiard Gods. My brother and I employed this to our economic advantage until the defect became commonly known and our friends stopped betting with us.

I have since reformed my ways, but this story is a classic example the ‘unlevel playing field’. In like manner, participants in the Supplementary Educational Services (SES) arena are often confronted with the odds sliding in favor of either a competitor or a district because the rules of the game are routinely ignored or not enforced. Most participants play by the rules and assume that others will do likewise.

Sadly, this is not the case when it comes to the marketing phase of SES.

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According to the Center on Education Policy's report released December 6th, Making Mid-Course Corrections: School Restructuring in Maryland is not working.

In 2006, 233 schools were in some stage of improvement under NCLB, roughly 16 percent of the state's 1,444 total. Seventy-three, or 5 percent were planning or implementing restructuring - 58 under the jurisdiction of Baltimore City Public Schools. All of the schools in implementation were in Baltimore City or Prince Georges County Public Schools.

More schools are entering the restructuring process, few are coming out the other side. In the fall of 2004. 46 schools were in restructuring implementation. Over the next three school years, 36 schools entered the implementation phase. Twelve more raised student achievement enough to get out of the "in needs of improvement" dog house. Another sixteen in the restructuring planning phase made AYP and avoided implementation in the next year. Today, 64 schools are in implementation restructuring.

The report doesn't show exactly which schools have entered and exited over time, so it is hard to say precisely how many have been in some kind of restructuring status for how long. Somewhere between 34 and 44 have been in restructuring implementation since the fall of 2004, between 53 and 63 since the the fall of 2005. Any way you slice the data, restructuring is starting to look like a black hole.

The policy question is whether the implementation of restructuring under NCLB will de facto constititute a terminal status for failing schools, or become a real way station to school improvement. The Maryland experience suggests the former.

Schools doing the best job of leaving children behind are being permitted to keep on keeping on. Does the CEP study tell us why this is happening or how to change course?

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("The Letter From" is on hiatus through December. This is an "encore presentation" from April 4, 2005 - before edbizbuzz came on the scene. Consider it an opportunity to judge my predictive capacity, an introduction to academia's dean of business strategy, and an application of his analytic approach to the school improvement industry.)

The terms “fragmented” and “emerging” are often conflated in discussions of the school improvement industry. In Competitive Strategy (1980), Michael E. Porter explains that while new industries can be fragmented, fragmentation need not be a function of age. The distinction is important - many providers’ profitability and investment potential depends on an assumption of scale that implies industry maturation based on consolidation.

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Wanted: Turnaround Specialists for Los Angeles Unified Schools

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Two RFPs The Bureau of Indian Education Doesn't Want You to See?

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There's a lot being made of the inequities in school staffing.

New teachers are assigned to inner city schools that administrators find hard to staff. If they don't leave the profession, when they have enough seniority to get first dibs on an opening, many move to schools in less demanding neighborhoods. The argument is that schools in wealthier, or less disadvantaged, neighborhoods get more experienced, and therefore better, teachers.

Intuitively obvious, but does evaluation show that teacher experience per se is educationally significant?

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From the email I've received over the course of my ongoing critique of Chancellor Rhee's approach to school reform, and Mayor Fenty's apparent support, many edbizbuzz readers have the impression that I'm opposed to her objectives and belong to the same camp as those who oppose her because her objectives are contrary to their self-interest.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and nothing in my writing at RAND, for the Center on Reinventing Public Education, or articles written as an entirely independent observer would indicate that I'm a great fan of central office activities or teachers unions approach to working conditions that impinge on what was once considered management prerogative. (See more by clicking on "About the Author" at the upper right hand corner of this page. Listen to several years of weekly editorials from SIIW • The Podcast here. )

Indeed there is only one area of policy I can think of where I disagree with Rhee and Fenty fundamentally.

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