Last week, I had an exchange with the Fordham Institute's "school choice czar" Adam Emerson, in which I argued that Emerson showed an unfortunate disregard for the legitimate concerns of parents and taxpayers in Zachary, Louisiana, in upbraiding them for not opening their schools to the state's new voucher program. I didn't mean to pick on Emerson in particular. I fear that too often even putatively "conservative" advocates for school choice slip into self-righteous rhetoric that dismisses or denigrates the concerns of middle-class or suburban households.

Indeed, the most telling reaction to the back-and-forth was over at the Daily Kos, a prominent progressive website, where plthomasEdD wrote, "Hess doesn't see a problem with families putting themselves and their children first, including protecting their home values." The peculiar thing was that he saw this stance as some kind of slip, deeming the column "valuable not for his intended messages, but for what [Hess] reveals about education reformers committed to choice and competition."

Of course, a choice supporter believes that families will put the needs of their own children first. Otherwise, the whole thing kind of breaks down. Indeed, I find such behavior normal, commendable, and healthy. There's nothing secretive here. I expect and hope parents will do their best to advocate for their own children, and to lawfully protect their homes, neighborhoods, and communities.

Look, let's stipulate that "zip code" schooling is unfair. It is unfair that students born to some parents go to terrific schools, while students born to others are trapped in awful schools. It is also unfair that some children are raised in households with two parents, or filled with love, or that enjoy access to fresh air and green fields... and that others are not. No argument here. The question is what to do about it. There are two different responses: the Tocquevillian and the Occupier.

A Tocquevillian recognizes that fairness is not the only value that Americans cherish. Parental love for their progeny is another. Diligence, thrift, and responsibility are others. The trick, of course, is that parents who work hard, play by the rules, and love their kids will inevitably give their children advantages. Indeed, perhaps the most admirable reason that parents work hard is precisely so that their children will have better lives than they did. In other words, there is a real and unavoidable tension between encouraging virtuous adult behavior and creating inequities for kids.

The Tocquevillian respects these competing values. He acknowledges them and crafts policies and rhetoric with that in mind. He doesn't view school choice as a redistributive exercise or discuss it in the language of class conflict. Rather, he embraces charter schools for creating options for those who wish to attend them and voucher plans for permitting students to escape their current school in favor of other schools that wish to enroll them. He sees virtual schooling as offering options without forcing uncomfortable change on hesitant families. These are all win-win scenarios. Moreover, they promise to gradually weaken the relationship between zip code and school and to subtly alter attitudes and norms regarding that relationship. This is all to the good. Indeed, such an incremental, step-by-step course is likely to win broad support, avoid alienating suburban voters and legislators, and produce a stable, socially beneficial outcome.

Then there's the approach of an Occupy Wall Streeter. Thrilled to have identified another injustice and by his own goodness, the Occupier has no time to worry about competing values, incentives, unanticipated consequences, or bourgeois concepts like "property." He has no time for win-win solutions. Instead, he is excited, right here and right now, to denounce inequity and insist that everyone else do the "right thing." The Occupier loves heated rhetoric and is all too ready to attack parents watching out for their kids and their home values as selfish and mean-spirited.

It's a free country and choice advocates are free to say what they like, but the Occupy school choicers are likely to alienate middle class and suburban families and convince them that school choice is part of a radical redistributive agenda rather than a slice of Americana (just recall what careless advocates and troubling program design did to busing). The Occupier's is the bitter, divisive language of the ineffectual fringe. That's because most Americans think ideas like filial love, property, hard work, and incentives are good ones, and actually incorporate those into their notions of what's "fair."

Americans have shown a consistent willingness to try to combat unfairness, so long as they feel their concerns and the values they cherish are respected. School choice advocates would do well to keep that in mind.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I recently had a chance to chat with Neerav Kingsland, recently named CEO of New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO). NSNO has been a pivotal player in New Orleans' post-Katrina reform landscape. A Tulane and Yale Law School alum, Neerav previously served as the chief strategy officer for NSNO. You may also recall him as a former guest star at RHSU. Neerav is taking the reins from Sarah Usdin, the founder of NSNO who is stepping back after a half-dozen years at the helm. Given the centrality of New Orleans to various reform debates, including those over charter schooling and "recovery districts," I thought it worth chatting with Neerav about NSNO and the work of transforming education in New Orleans. Here's what Neerav had to say.

Rick Hess: For those unfamiliar with New Schools for New Orleans, what is it? What does it do?
Neerav Kingsland: NSNO is a city-based organization that focuses on three areas. The first is strategic leadership. We try to work with thought-leaders in the city to set a vision for the future of education in New Orleans. The gateway there is creating the nations' first high-performing charter school district. Right now, 80 percent of kids go to charter schools and that's going to keep on rising. We want to make sure those charter schools are excellent. The second thing we do is launch charter schools and support CMO expansions; so we raise money and fund entrepreneurs and organizations to grow excellent schools. The third piece we do is what we call the landing pad. We invest in the start-up and scaling of support providers, who are then contracting with charter schools to provide some supports that an individual school might not be able to provide on their own.

RH: How big is NSNO? How much does it cost to do this work each year?
NK: We're roughly 15 people. Traditionally, we've been running at 4 million to 5 million [dollars] a year. We're in an extended state right now in that we have two major federal grants: an i3 grant and a TIF grant. So, our budget this year and over the next year or two will be more in the 10 to 12 million dollar range.

RH: You've been with NSNO pretty much since the start. What are a couple of the key things you guys have learned about this work along the way?
NK: I think the two key takeaways for us are that people are incredibly, incredibly important. Anytime we're launching an organization or making an investment, we look at the management team and the leadership team. Additionally, systems are really important. The governmental system, the regulatory system, the accountability system, moving away from a government monopoly to a more decentralized state of education, is highly important. I think some people focus solely on people and they don't think about markets and systems and accountability. And I think some people focus solely on the accountability and ignore the importance of people. Our biggest takeaway is you need to get both right.

RH: New Orleans has got a lot going on. It can be confusing from outside. What's the relationship of NSNO to the Recovery School District, to the local charter school operators, and to the state education agency?
NK: It's been remarkably fluid and good in terms of relationships. We sometimes joke that this is kind of like the Silicon Valley of Ed Reform. Whatever it was like in the '70s, when Steve Jobs and Bill Gates used to drink beers and envision the next generation of computers... I think there's some of that going on in New Orleans.

RH: Are there ever any tensions or points of conflict with the RSD?
NK: I think what we're trying to figure out here is, "What's the proper role of government, long term, in a decentralized system?" When government's not operating schools, not hiring teachers, not evaluating teachers, what should they be doing? In our minds, they should be doing two primary things. One is being a performance manager and ensuring great schools can expand and failing schools can close. And the second thing is ensuring equity. It's particularly in the second piece where you can start walking a fine line of what the government role is and what the school's role is.

RH: What are a couple of the biggest missteps you guys have made along the way? What can folks learn from that you've gotten wrong?
NK: There is plenty that we got wrong. I think the quality variance in chartering at the outset wasn't exactly what we wanted...I think some schools got approved that probably shouldn't have and if we would had been a little tighter, we could have prevented kids from being in situations they shouldn't have been in. We just didn't have the vision in place where we were setting up whether it would be a 100 percent charter district or a 90 percent charter district. And, I think we're thinking about those things a little late. If the city was doing this now, I think setting the end vision of what the city's going to look like in ten years and then building that system now, would be a huge advantage to the situation we were in.

RH: There's been a lot of conversation about the academic results in New Orleans. How do you characterize the results so far? What do you see when you look at the data?
NK: I think, in laymen's terms, we'd characterize it as a move from "F" to "C." New Orleans was perhaps the worst school district in the country in 2005. We've stabilized that system. We closed the gap between New Orleans and the state by over half in terms of proficiency ratings. We've reduced the number of failing schools from 80 percent to 40 percent. We had CREDO [the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, based at Stanford University] do a quasi-experimental analysis of our charter schools and we out-performed the national averages by three times the amount of charters who are highly effective. So, in so many senses we've made huge gains and can unequivocally say kids are in a better situation now than they were before the storm.

That being said, the fight for a move from "C" to "A" is going to be an incredibly hard battle, and no urban district has ever gotten to "A." That's what lies before us. I'd say data-wise, maybe a quarter of the schools in the city are truly high-performing, and that needs to go from 25 percent to 100 percent before we can say we've truly accomplished our mission.

RH: One of the critiques is that efforts like NSNO and the influx of charter schools into New Orleans represent a racist, exploitative effort launched by folks from outside the community. How do you react to those kinds of critiques?
NK: Well, I think you have to be sensitive to historical context and given the state of public education in the city over the past couple of decades, I would be highly suspicious of any reforms if I were a parent who had basically been ill-served by the powers that be. I don't want to underestimate the amount of trust that needs to be rebuilt. [But] I think going to jumps like "racist" are jumps I wouldn't make. I mean, on a personal level, given my own race, it'd be somewhat odd positioning for me to be called a racist given the work I do.

But I don't really find credit in those criticisms, and I think really anybody who would come down here and spend time with the educators in New Orleans would find some of the most incredible, devoted people that you'll find anywhere in the country. Trying to make kids' lives better, people are working incredible hours, and are really making this their life's work. So, I don't find much credence in the idea that what's happening is a racist reform, but I do want to validate the emotional bridge that needs to be [spanned] for this to truly be a unified system where everybody believes that everybody's working in the New Orleans children's best interest.

RH: Louisiana's RSD model is now being imitated elsewhere, in places like Michigan and Tennessee. Are there lessons from the New Orleans experience that apply in other states as they're trying to use the RSD model?
NK: I'm both excited and worried about the expansion of this because execution matters so much. You know, the analogy we use is this is sometimes akin to the transition from communism to capitalism. You can end up with a Poland or a Czech Republic, which are vibrant economies...or you can end up with a somewhat corrupt oligarchy [like] Russia.

So, decentralization is, I think, a very useful way to approach this work, but it's not a silver bullet and it can go wrong very quickly if you're not thoughtful about it. I think things to think about when you're replicating this model are keeping an extreme eye on the quality. That's really the role of government, to act as a good regulator. Also, I think focusing on talent is huge. An economist I know once said something akin to, "Conservatives always overestimate the power of markets, and liberals always overestimate the power of people." I think you need to get both right.

RH: How important has philanthropy been to the work that NSNO has done?
NK: It's been hugely important. [Especially] to the extent that philanthropy's invested on the edges of reform...you're not necessarily going to get tax payer dollars funding the kinds of things we've been doing right off the bat. My hope is that long-term, philanthropy doesn't have to carry the burden. Long-term, states need to be allocating resources to their highest needs students in a way that works around whatever philanthropy would give. I think, [when it comes to] being a first mover, philanthropy can be incredibly important. But I think the long-term game is for state leaders to understand what it takes to create a vibrant educational reform dynamic, and state dollars should be carrying that.

RH: Looking forward, now that you're really charged with leading NSNO, are there new directions or priorities you're going to be emphasizing over the next year or two?
NK: The first, as I mentioned before, is we just don't have enough great schools yet. So, we are increasingly asking, "How can we scale our best local operators to serve more students?" And then, "Do we need to look nationally and bring in a couple of new operators so we can get every kid in an excellent school as quickly as possible?"

For the second piece, I would argue, New Orleans has one of the most talented groups of educators in any city in the country, but a lot of it is raw talent. It's either people who've been working in the system for years and it's just plowed through out of sheer will, or you have a lot of young folks coming in who are incredibly driven but don't yet have the skills...now we need to go to training the best.

RH: Last thing, we talk a lot about accountability today. How do we hold an outfit like NSNO accountable? What are the metrics by which you gauge your own performance?
NK: At the end of the day, we are morally accountable to the students of New Orleans and that's what motivates our staff. More practically speaking, we're accountable to where we get money from. That's the only reason we operate, is because other folks invest in us with the belief that we can drive student achievement in New Orleans. So, just like anybody else we have to prove our worth and every couple of years we have to go back to the folks who have invested in us and show them results for them to continue investing. The results we would like to be held accountable for is the success of the schools and the providers we've launched.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The other day, the Fordham Institute's Adam Emerson attacked Louisiana's Zachary school district for having the temerity to not participate in the state's new voucher program. After expressing initial interest, Zachary opted not to partake. The voucher program, championed by Governor Bobby Jindal, would allow students who attend Louisiana public schools earning a C, D, or F on the state's accountability system to attend a private or another public school.

Emerson denounced Zachary for "erect[ing] a fence around its public schools" and thundered at "those who make 'sacrifices' for the best [but] want to keep their investment exclusive." (I'm not sure what's up with the air quotes around "sacrifices.") He also attacked Michigan's Grosse Pointe school district for similarly opposing Governor Rick Snyder's proposal to make mandatory the state's voluntary interdistrict choice program. Emerson denounced a Grosse Pointe resolution for seeking "to preserve the 'personal sacrifices' of its citizens who opted to invest 'in premium housing stock.'" (Again, I don't know what's up with the air quotes.)

In the end, Emerson laments, "If [advocates] can't convince better-performing schools to open their doors to low-income, low-achieving children, then their legislative victories will be short-lived." While he may or may not be right on that score (kind of depends on the emergence of new school options), Emerson's analysis suggests zero comprehension of how to make that happen or of how to win over suburbanites.

What's the problem? Simply put, it's the gooey-minded, self-righteous disrespect shown for parents, taxpayers, and voters. Emerson penned not a word acknowledging the legitimate concerns of Zachary's families or taxpayers or the right (or obligation) of parents to do what they think best for their children. The whole thing reminded me of where choice advocates have so often gone wrong, ignoring the lessons of history while sanctimoniously lecturing middle-class families. Driven to a fit of nostalgia, I went to the vaults and unearthed a piece I wrote in April 2003. It seemed worth revisiting:

School voucher proponents are on a hot streak...Some giddiness is to be expected.

Nonetheless, in a fit of self-righteousness, voucher proponents may be heading for a train wreck. Strange as it may seem, voucher advocates are in much the same place as that of the architects of the Great Society a generation ago. Voucherites find their ideas ascendant, possess dynamic spokespersons, can credibly claim to be promoting social justice, and yet...

Like the architects of the Great Society programs before them, they are puzzled as to why suburbanites and middle America haven't embraced their proposals. Increasingly, voucher advocates criticize white suburban families for being insufficiently concerned with the education of disadvantaged urban children.

This is no way to wage a policy fight. Thirty years ago, the Great Society's champions berated middle-class America smack into the arms of their opposition. Enthralled by their own virtue, liberal reformers forgot about simple democratic notions like self-interest and skepticism. They believed that if they could only make middle America see its selfishness, voters would fall into line.

It didn't happen that way. Showing the good sense typical of a democratic majority, they opted for Republicans and moderate Democrats who addressed their concerns rather than belittling them. As a result, much that was promising in the Great Society fell into disrepute...Proponents of school vouchers risk repeating this mistake. While vouchers are routinely supported by 65 percent of urban residents, support levels are barely half that amount in the suburbs. Voucher proponents have grown increasingly frustrated with this resistance, and have yet to deal with the fact that suburban resistance to choice is entirely reasonable and unlikely to be nagged away.

Families that purchase homes in good suburban school districts typically buy, in large part, because of the "seat license" it confers in local schools. Choice-based reforms allow students to attend schools where their family hasn't bought a "seat license", reducing the value of existing licenses. Duke University economist Thomas Nechyba has modeled how this dilution could dramatically alter property values by making homes in bad districts worth more and those in good districts worth less.

Those who own homes in districts with good schools risk losing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity, may no longer be able to assure their children services they had purchased, and will find that local schools may no longer enjoy first crack at quality teachers or provide as uniformly desirable a peer group. One can be troubled by existing inequities and still recognize that these families may justifiably feel they have fairly purchased their advantages.

If we recognize that homeowners in good suburban districts will tend to oppose choice-based reform, will likely prove pivotal in determining the fate of choice-based reform, and that even copious amounts of finger-wagging reprimands won't change their minds, what are the implications?

Choice proponents will have to respect rather than ridicule the concerns of homeowners in high-performing districts. The requisite compromises may prove a frustrating compromise for those committed to social justice and may require some soul-searching on the part of voucher proponents...

For school choice supporters, seething indignation is not the way to make a real difference for America's children. To frolic down that morally superior path is to opt for the self-indulgent over the substantive, a course that cost the architects of the Great Society their electoral and, eventually, their moral authority. Whether proponents of choice-based reform fare better is in their hands.

Back in '03, I suggested a few strategies that choice advocates might consider. They included convincing families that their schools were worse than they thought or that competition will so improve all schools that everyone will come out ahead (though I wrote, "It's unlikely that such a rhetorical approach will go very far.") I noted that encouraging choice-based provisions which featured schools focused on "child-care services, alternative school-day schedules or school calendars, [or] advanced courses that are not [otherwise] available" might make choice more relevant to suburban families. I suggested perhaps providing "some kind of compensation to homeowners whose property rights are constricted by state action...Such a move would offer some succor to those whose property value falls sharply, especially for working families that had scraped to purchase a home in a district known for its schools."

I expect pols and parental rights groups to favor rhetoric and indignation. But ideas and fresh thinking are kind of what Fordham is there for.

For instance, one new twist is that post-NCLB accountability focuses on low-income, minority, and low-performing students. Since that is precisely the population Emerson wants Zachary, Grosse Pointe, or other high-performing systems to import, it's eminently reasonable for families to fear newcomers would quickly be given a higher priority than currently enrolled students. Choice advocates might consider offering schools and systems safeguards which would protect them from being labeled as "failing" for taking on less proficient kids and which would reduce concerns that resources and instructional time would be redirected from current students. I'm fully aware that some gap-closers would scream bloody murder about such safeguards, but they're certainly worth discussing.

States might offer districts which opt into choice systems waivers from some onerous restrictions or financial inducements (e.g. "carrots," if we're playing the air quote game). As I've noted before, shifting from "school choice" to "educational choice" may make it possible to also address the needs of those who already like their schools. Yet, any such thinking was conspicuously absent in Emerson's piece. If this is the stance of sophisticated choice advocates at leading think tanks in 2012, seems to me that school choice has got bigger problems than the good residents of Zachary.

Last word: Some have high hopes for an Emerson-like "shaming" strategy, thinking it'll leave the residents of Zachary or Grosse Pointe so cowed that they'll cave. I doubt it. I'd look to the history of school busing. Rather than obey the moral instruction of do-gooders, middle-class and suburban families tend to put themselves and their kids first (and, for the record, I don't see the problem with that; hell, it's kind of the logic of school choice, after all). If accepting school choice means that suburban communities are going to be pressed to open their schools up in ways that may adversely impact their kids and home values, those families may well stop being disinterested observers of the school choice debates and instead become active opponents.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Given concerns about the economy, jobs, and health care, education policy isn't likely to be a make-or-break issue in November's presidential election. But it matters a great deal, nonetheless.

As was the case for George W. Bush in 2000 and Barack Obama in 2008, Mitt Romney's stance on education will powerfully color how Americans view his broader domestic agenda. Romney's been largely silent on the issue. But now's the time for him to speak. A good place for Romney to start is by explaining what Obama has gotten right during the past four years--and then pointing out precisely where the president got things wrong.

First, the good. The president and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have broadened the Bush administration's school reform agenda, bringing more attention to teacher evaluation, teacher pay, charter schooling, and higher education. They've used their bully pulpit to argue the need to spend school dollars more intelligently and challenge colleges to control their costs. And they've acknowledged the need for flexibility when it comes to some of the burdensome elements of the No Child Left Behind Act, while singing the praises of innovation more generally.

On these counts, credit is due. But while Obama's education efforts have featured good ideas and terrific rhetoric, he has also been guilty of the same troubling hubris and undisciplined policymaking that have characterized much of his administration.

First, his reform playbook has relied on a prescriptive, sprawling role for Washington bureaucrats. While his marquee Race to the Top program sounded sexy from a distance, it was in reality a 19-point federal checklist in which states and their big-dollar consultants competed to see who could most enthusiastically promise to toe the president's agenda. (All of the dozen winners, it should be noted, now lag behind on implementing their pledged reforms.) In dangling much-needed flexibility on NCLB in the form of waivers, Secretary Duncan bizarrely opted to require that states adopt various Obama priorities--which are found nowhere in the law itself--to get relief. This novel constitutional strategy sets a troubling precedent of unbounded executive authority.

Second, even when it comes to the putatively "state-led, voluntary" push for common math and reading standards, the president has been unable to resist the urge to get Uncle Sam involved. Instead of letting states implement the reforms under their own power, they've tried to pick winners and losers: rewarding Race to the Top applicants with money for promising to adopt the Common Core standards, berating South Carolina for expressing second thoughts about the standards, and spending $350 million in federal funds to design tests and materials built on the standards. All of this helped turn a sensible effort into a heated debate about federal overreach.

Third, for all the administration's handsome talk about the need to do more with less, the whole of the Obama school reform strategy has rested on pledges of huge new spending. The president's recipe for community colleges? About $10 billion or so. For school "turnarounds"? Another $3.5 billion. In fact, the much-heralded Race to the Top program itself was funded with $4.35 billion in crumbs from Obama's more than $100 billion in education-related stimulus borrowing that mostly went to propping up the status quo. Most recently, of course, the president proposed $30 billion to continue the supersize subsidy on Stafford loans.

And while the Obama team deserves credit for supporting charter schools and "innovation," it has also shown a troubling hostility to dynamic new problem-solvers in education. The administration has essentially declared war on for-profit educational providers, setting out draconian new regulations for colleges while restricting their participation in the K-12 "investing in innovation" fund. One tiny problem: It's precisely the for-profits that have shown the most willingness to rethink old models, hustle to serve more students, find cost savings, and develop and best use new technologies. The president has also demonstrated hostility towards school voucher programs, doing his best to strangle the Washington Scholarship Fund (despite its positive results and passionate local support) and to dismiss major voucher initiatives in Indiana and Louisiana.

The president has done enough right to win plaudits from the likes of the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks. And Romney is going to have trouble beating him on education. Yet Obama's missteps are serious enough that explaining them--and how a Romney administration would correct them--would illuminate a picture of smarter, more humble domestic leadership.

Note: A version of this article first appeared in The Daily.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A number of years ago, in my 2005 book With the Best of Intentions: How Philanthropy is Reshaping K-12 Education, I pointed out that media coverage of education foundations tended to be wide-eyed and sycophantic. At that time, I analyzed the coverage of the five leading edu-foundations by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, and The Associated Press between 1995 and early 2005. Researchers coded each story on K-12 giving as positive, negative, factual, or balanced. Of the 146 articles identified, just five were critical, while nearly half were laudatory.

On the one hand, who could blame the press? Wealthy individuals choosing to give away millions in order to benefit schools and children is a good thing. And, as I noted in Best of Intentions, there's a "natural inclination [for] journalists to frame stories about generous gifts in a positive manner" and for "newspapers to write positively about professionally endorsed school reforms." Meanwhile, I observed, "Reporters have a difficult time finding local educators or scholars who will publicly criticize philanthropic initiatives."

On the other hand, given that most researchers, advocates, and policymakers have lots of reasons to be cautious when it comes to criticizing influential foundations, the media has a crucial role to play as truth-teller and honest chronicler. Absent careful media scrutiny, it's easy for public discussion of edu-giving to amount to little more than pleasant banalities--punctuated only by the jeremiads of conspiracy-minded scolds. Clearly, in the years before and after NCLB, major media were not up to the challenge.

Today, as I noted recently in Phi Delta Kappan, major donors are playing an increasingly aggressive role when it comes to policy. I think this a good and sensible thing. But it also means that more givers are unabashedly trying to shape public policy and influence the use of public funds, making no-fluff inquiry more appropriate and more necessary. Indeed, Chris Tebben, executive director of Grantmakers for Education, has acknowledged, "As philanthropy plays a more active role [in public policy] and its involvement increases, we attract more scrutiny from the general public and the media."

So, has the press improved its game at all in the era of Race to the Top, Stand for Children, Common Core, StudentsFirst, and all the rest? To see, my crack research assistant Taryn Hochleitner replicated the earlier analysis, for 2006 to 2011. First, there certainly appears to be more coverage of edu-philanthopy. Within the five outlets, there were 140 stories that addressed at least one of the five biggest edu-donors (Gates, Walton, Kellogg, Dell, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, according to The Foundation Center) during the five years in question. That's about twice the rate at which these outlets ran stories on edu-giving in the decade between 1995 and 2005.

Second, the coverage does appear to be modestly more critical. For our purposes here, let's fold in coverage of the Broad Foundation's K-12 giving and of Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million gift to Newark (since each got substantially more news coverage than any donors except Gates). Adding Broad and Zuckerberg yields a total of 181 stories. Of those, 74 were positive and 17 were critical. Put another way, about 41 percent of stories were positive, nine percent were negative, and the rest factual or balanced. Compared to the previous findings, which found 13 positive stories for every critical one, the mix has noticeably improved--to about four or five to one. Note: when it comes to the subjects of the critical coverage, all of the stories in question dealt with Gates or the Zuckerberg gift.

Bottom line: things are getting incrementally better when it comes to coverage of edu-giving. There's more coverage and a little more skepticism. But there's still lots more room for tough-minded, careful treatment. And it seems like reporters would do well to extend their critical gaze beyond the efforts of the Gates Foundation and young Mr. Zuckerberg.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When it comes to reforming our nation's public schools, we hear a lot about what educational leaders can't do. Contracts, laws, and regulations assuredly handcuff school and system leaders. But the ardent drumbeat for "reform" has obscured the fact that school and system leaders can actually do much that they often complain they can't, if they have the persistence, knowledge, ingenuity, and motivation. In truth, it's tough to know how much blame should be apportioned to contracts and laws and how much to timid school boards and leaders who prize consensus and stakeholder buy-in.

There are genuine legal and bureaucratic obstacles that hinder leaders. A few states, including Pennsylvania and West Virginia, mandate that seniority be the sole determinant of who gets cut when laying off teachers. Regulations governing the use of federal funds can be equally burdensome. "It is hard to overemphasize the number of federal compliance requirements that apply to states and districts," explain education attorneys Melissa Junge and Sheara Krvaric. They note that the Office of the Inspector General has estimated that Title I alone contains 588 discrete compliance requirements.

Still, these obstacles are less burdensome, and more surmountable, than many leaders or reformers seem to understand. The problem is that in selecting, training, socializing, and rewarding leaders, we do not equip or encourage them to lead. Traditional educational leadership counsels tell leaders that they should rely wholly on coaching and consensus -- while placidly accepting contractual, bureaucratic, or policy barriers. Meanwhile, would-be reformers divert attention from lethargic leadership by rushing to blame "the union." The result is that school and system leaders operate in a timid "culture of can't." As the Center on Reinventing Public Education's legal analyst Mitch Price has noted, contractual or regulatory issues can serve as "smoke screens for those people who don't want to do something."

Take the issue of "last in, first out" (LIFO) layoffs. Across the country, reformers who lament the way in which senior teachers are systematically protected, regardless of performance, at the expense of their younger counterparts are calling on states to change their laws to end this practice. However, the National Center on Teacher Quality's database of collective bargaining agreements from large school systems makes it clear that many district leaders have chosen to use LIFO of their own volition. Sixty of the seventy-four contracts examined in August 2011 contain LIFO provisions. Of the sixty, two-thirds (41) were in states that had no law requiring LIFO. This is not a problem with state law or nefarious forces; this is a problem of school boards and superintendents having historically caved at the bargaining table.

Happily, across the country there are examples of determined state chiefs, principals, superintendents, and school boards who are ready to stop getting pushed around. In Sacramento, many low-performing "turnaround" schools have been staffed with bright young teachers. The problem: California is one state where state law meant these teachers would be the first to go during layoffs. Rather than play the victim, researcher Heather Zavadsky reports that the district figured out a work-around. The superintendent battled with the union, negotiating a deal which stipulated "that if a teacher had been specifically selected for a turnaround school, and the district could document that the training was different and specific, then the teachers would not be subjected to seniority-based layoff. The district was smart about it. They literally scheduled the training at a different time of the year and carefully documented how the training was different."

Upon his arrival in New York to head up the Teacher Performance Unit for Chancellor Joel Klein, accomplished attorney Dan Weisberg noted that the Department of Education had a hard time getting principals to rigorously evaluate teachers because any negative result soaked up enormous time and energy. He explains, "Not only was every piece of negative feedback subject to a three step grievance and arbitration process that went through the local superintendent to the chancellor and then to an arbitrator, the prevailing view was that principals had to personally show up to these proceedings. It was big deal, because it meant they had to leave their building and go downtown. Principals complained about this and used it as an excuse of why they couldn't document poor performance when they saw it. So we asked why they didn't simply attend the meetings by phone. And the answer we first got was, 'No, we can't do it. We've never done it that way.' And I said, 'Where is that in the contract? Where is that in some policy?' And the answer is nowhere. So we just did it." Sure, the contract was a factor, but its impact can be sharply curtailed by savvy educators (or exaggerated by timid ones).

When it comes to equipping and encouraging leaders to do better, there are two rules of thumb to keep in mind. First, to paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of what K-12 leaders cannot do are greatly exaggerated. Second, crucial allies in doing better are those with expertise when it comes to figuring out what is and is not possible -- we call these folks attorneys. Most school systems lack access to talented legal staff, and the counsel they do use are far more intent on ducking conflict than on helping educators solve problems.

There's a degree of self-fulfilling prophecy behind so much of the "culture of can't" in school systems. Laws, rules, regulations, and contracts are a problem, but they're not as big a problem as our school and system leaders have made them out to be. Any reform agenda which focuses on policy but turns a blind eye to the successes and shortfalls in leadership is going to disappoint.

Note: This article first appeared in The Atlantic as part of their "America the Fixable" series. It was co-written with Whitney Downs, research assistant at AEI.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education blogger Naomi Schaefer Riley posted a tough, skewering (dare we say "mean-spirited") item blasting what she sees as a lack of academic rigor in black studies departments (hardly an earth-shattering observation, given that similar complaints have been made about all sorts of race and gender studies programs). For her trouble, on Monday she was fired from her gig as a paid columnist for the Chronicle. Given that the Chronicle is routinely filled with enthusiastic defenses of ethnic studies and casual attacks on "conservatives," you'd think they'd welcome the occasional touch of intellectual diversity. Turns out, not so much.

Riley's prose was hard-hitting but certainly no more so than so many of the jeremiads I've read in CHE and other K-12 and higher ed outlets about idiotic conservative policymakers, heteronormative bigots, and all the rest. Riley wrote that "some of the dissertations being offered by the best and the brightest of black-studies graduate students" are "a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap. The best that can be said of these topics is that they're so irrelevant no one will ever look at them." This is certainly tough stuff, but hardly beyond the pale.

Nonetheless, Riley's critics weren't content merely to denounce her as racist and sexist. Instead, they immediately sought to deny her a perch and to silence her voice. Within days, critics were circulating a petition with more than 6,000 signatures calling on the Chronicle to fire her. They succeeded, of course. Abby Schachter noted in the New York Post that "multiple responses on the Chronicle of Higher Education have called her a bigoted racist for deigning to 'beat up on' a bunch of 'poor' graduate students." Even my friend Sara Goldrick-Rab, a University of Wisconsin professor with an acerbic tone, and someone who I would usually expect to stand as a supporter of free speech in the world of higher education, flatly dismissed Riley's prose as "emotion-laden spewing, a venomous disdainful piece directed at young women scholars of color." Indeed, Goldrick-Rab even suggests that Riley's critique was "libelous."

Ahh, now we get to it. When University of Wisconsin faculty were denouncing Governor Scott Walker as "Nazi" and a "fascist," in blogs, online forums, and on signs, I don't recall anyone suggesting they were behaving in a libelous manner. Indeed, I remember the higher education community issuing hearty paeans to free speech. When Occupy Wall Street was disrupting campuses while hurling invective at businesspeople and conservatives, I mostly recall the media showering them with warm attention. I don't recall many faculty fretting about libel. Indeed, I mostly remember enthusiastic support.

Indeed, I get puzzled by the double-standards. When the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration published a refereed article by Fenwick English naming the "ten most wanted enemies" of public education, I couldn't rouse a single academic to express even modest concern--much less circulate an angry petition. Authors like Kevin Kumashiro and Michael Apple casually charge "right-wing think tanks" with seeking to destroy public education. Think tanks like AEI (my own modest abode) are attacked in scholarly outlets as right-wing, fascist, bastions of oppression and dubious scholarship. Strikes me that all this is an even more virulent version of what Riley is accused of. After all, it's a broad, typically unsupported characterization of people, their work, and their organizational home based, primarily, on anecdote and visceral reactions. And yet I hear not a word of outrage and nothing about libel. Indeed, such accounts are routinely cheered in academic circles.

So, here we are. CHE's one regular "conservative" contributor has penned an acerbic take on race- and gender-based academic programs. Some of us (though perhaps few in an academy that claims to prize diversity of thought) think Riley's criticisms ring true. And yet, her mere blogging provoked a concerted (and successful) effort to silence her. Riley's husband, Wall Street Journal editorial writer Jason Riley, may have put it best, writing, "The Chronicle has fired Naomi. The mob rules." I find it hard to take seriously scholarly concerns for academic freedom when its practitioners move so quickly and aggressively to silence those with whom they disagree.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I recently wrote a piece for Phi Delta Kappan exploring a couple of the key developments in edu-giving since 2005. That's the year I published With the Best of Intentions: How Philanthropy is Reshaping K-12 Education, in which I (in my usual mean-spirited fashion) used the dismal experience of the then-recently concluded $1.1 billion Annenberg Challenge as a jumping-off point.

Today, a lot has changed. Back in 2005, Gates Foundation officials were, for the first time, seriously considering whether to play an active role in shaping public policy. Race to the Top, the Common Core, Democrats for Education Reform, and StudentsFirst were unimagined. No one would seriously suggest New Orleans, Washington, D.C., or Newark as hotbeds of school reform. Diane Ravitch was still a champion of school choice and accountability, and few had heard of Michelle Rhee, Deborah Gist, Jon Schnur, or Geoffrey Canada. No Child Left Behind was still novel and fairly popular, and not a single state was trying to build teacher evaluation around value-added systems.

Today, the world looks real different. These developments all (for better and worse) owe something to policy-oriented giving. "New sector" philanthropy has helped shift the school reform landscape. For a quick glimpse of what's happened, just compare the biggest givers in 2010 and those a decade before.

According to the Foundation Center, the five biggest K-12 givers in 2010 were:
1. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- $209 million;
2. Walton Family Foundation -- $110 million;
3. W.K. Kellogg Foundation -- $58 million;
4. Michael and Susan Dell Foundation -- $55 million; and
5. Silicon Valley Community Foundation -- $35 million

Back in 2000, the Foundation Center reported that they were:
1. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation--$276 million
2. The Annenberg Foundation--$88 million
3. Walton Family Foundation--$48 million
4. J.A. & Kathryn Albertson Foundation, Inc.--$32 million
5. The Ford Foundation--$25 million

While the Gates Foundation has remained the biggest player over the past decade, the Walton Foundation has substantially upped its investment. Meanwhile, once-influential entities like Annenberg and Ford have declined in import.

All this has profound implications for the way we view education philanthropy. As I write in PDK:

A decade ago, a big frustration for edu-philanthropists was the sense that they would invest in exciting programs or practices, but that these never seemed to deliver lasting improvement. A piloted reading or mentoring program would offer promising results, only to disappoint when scaled. Or a foundation would underwrite professional development or a new curriculum for several years, only to see it die on the vine when outside funding dried up. Or funders would help launch dynamic schools, only to see them fall apart when the charismatic founder left.

Where an earlier generation of donors had chalked up the challenges to problems of implementation or program design, the new philanthropists were much more receptive to the notion that the problem was the inhospitable cultures, systems, and policy environments in which those scale-ups were being attempted. New donors who had made their fortunes in the new economy frequently staffed their foundations with Teach For America alums, MBAs, or other nontraditional educators and focused on problems posed by system rigidity, leadership, and policy. The new givers gravitated towards a strategy that rested on three key insights, all sketched out in The Best of Intentions:

First, University of Arkansas professor Jay Greene's seminal analysis pointed out that the amount of edu-philanthropy is so small that it's ridiculous to think that investments in programs or practice will have a noticeable impact. Using various approaches, Greene calculated that all private giving combined amounts to perhaps 1% of total K-12 spending -- or, maybe, one penny on the dollar. Consequently, he argued that philanthropy only mattered when it funded "high-leverage investments" (e.g. when it altered policies or practices governing the long-term use of the public funds that account for 99% of school spending).

Second, Don McAdams, founder of the Center for Reform of School Systems, argued that philanthropy typically entails limited dollars in the grand scheme of things, but has an outsized influence because this money is nimble and can be used to drive a state or a district's reforms, where it's hugely difficult to redeploy more than a sliver of public funds.

Third, a vital piece of leverage was producing research and supporting advocacy in a manner that would shape policy. Policy analyst Andy Rotherham argued that this kind of investment could be aptly captured by the old adage: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Foundation-backed advocacy, research, and proof points that new rules were possible offered a way to alter public policies and priorities.

Back in 2005, I heartily endorsed the policy-centric approach that the contributors had encouraged. I continue to do so today. And I think the results speak to the potential impact of this tack. At the same time, I've long wrestled with the repercussions. I've worried about foundations being wedded to reformers who tell them what they want to hear, the perils of groupthink, and the disinclination of critics to challenge deep-pocketed funders. And I've worried how all of this gets even dicier when foundations are linking arms with the federal government.

I've no easy answers, other than the surety that these are questions we need to talk about and openly discuss more frequently, more productively, and with less hostility than has been the norm.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I was tasked with emcee'ing an open mike night a couple nights ago for the annual New Schools Venture Fund summit. Good time. Great people, lots of friends, terrific conversation. Anyway, I took the opportunity to share a few school reform slogans that folks have dreamed up over time, but that didn't quite make the grade. I always find that kind of glimpse behind the curtain an interesting exercise. If you're of like mind, read on.

The National Education Association almost rolled out a whole national campaign around the inspiring phrase "You can teach some of the children some of the time"

Democrats for Education Reform came within a hair of embracing "Pass this bloody bill now, or we're going to go all Charlie Barone on you"

Not so different was the near-motto considered by Stand for Children: "Get your butt in line... or we'll have the SFER kids key your car"

I was taken by the near-honesty of the Delivery Institute: "We don't know what the hell we're talking about, either"

Mayor Michael Bloomerg's America Achieves nearly went with the straightforward "And you thought GATES was a shadow conspiracy"

Bellwether Associates considered and then passed on the inspirational "We seek, we strive...to blow with the wind"

Just this week, Gates Foundation honcho Tom Kane tipped me off to this near-motto for the Measures of Effective Teaching Project: "Cut us some slack, we're making this stuff up as we go"

Arne Duncan, our earnest Secretary of Education, was apparently taken with a t-shirt that would commemorate ESEA Waivers with "Victory Tour 2012" on the front...and "Dance, monkeys, dance" on the back

Another ESEA waiver slogan that received enthusiastic consideration at the Department: "Yo, Tony Bennett, who's your daddy?"

I'm told the Department of Ed is predictably flush with proposals for Common Core slogans, including: "So, South Carolina, how do you like me now?" and "Since 2009, doing for Common Core...What NCLB Did for Accountability"

Finally, it turns out that ED considered replacing those embarrassing Bush-era plastic schoolhouses outside the Department of Education with something fresher: a banner announcing "Welcome to the Gates Foundation, East Coast division"

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Readers may know that I'm currently finishing the manuscript of my Cage-Busting Leadership book for Harvard Education Press, with the crack assistance of Whitney Downs (who coauthored this post). Writing the book has made it clear that one major problem with leaders failing to take advantage of the operational freedoms they already enjoy is that it forces advocates and policymakers to try to compensate with the crude tools at their disposal. Absent bold leadership, reformers feel they have little recourse but to resort to crude policy proposals that often fail to address real chokepoints and let timid boards and superintendents off the hook.

Case in point: the hundreds of Massachusetts school boards and superintendents who, by failing to lead assertively, have set the table for a lose-lose fight over a ballot initiative (Petition #11-20) which would micro-manage how schools across the commonwealth must evaluate, retain, and dismiss teachers. It would require school districts to either use "model educator evaluation standards" or a state approved evaluation system when deciding how to measure teacher quality and how to weigh teacher experience. It would require school systems to use a state system that is brand new and evaluations that aren't even half-baked, and in which few have been trained. In late January, the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) filed suit to block the petition.

The union stance is predictable and understandable. The real culprits here are the superintendents and school boards who have cheerfully relied upon quality-blind layoffs. Seniority is the sole or dominant factor when it comes to layoffs in 69 percent of Massachusetts school districts. More troubling still is that low-income districts are much less likely than other districts to pay any attention to performance, with nearly 60 percent percent of low-income districts relying only upon seniority.

So, the status quo is a mess. But the proposed solution isn't so hot, either. If it passes, Massachusetts will wind up with crudely drawn policies, hurried efforts to adopt not-yet-ready-for-prime-time metrics, and a debilitating litigation. The teachers' union, school committee leaders, and Secretary of Education Paul Reville have all raised legitimate concerns. Richard Hebert, a Scituate School Committee member accurately observed, "This one-size-fits all approach is dangerous and simplistic ... and ignores the special circumstances each community faces."

So why the push? Because initiative supporters legitimately fear that otherwise the existing evaluation regulations will remain toothless. In the end, the conundrum is the result of a disconcerting truth. Given the freedom to craft sensible, quality-sensitive evaluations that thoughtfully give some weight to seniority, the state's school boards and superintendents have... punted.

Many casual observers are under the impression that current Massachusetts law requires teacher seniority to drive staffing decisions. That's inaccurate. Even Stand For Children, which is energetically backing the ballot initiative, has noted, "Current [Massachusetts] law leaves the procedure for layoffs among teachers ... [to] the local level." In other words, districts already have the freedom to choose quality over seniority when deciding which teachers to let go. Indeed, three in ten Massachusetts districts have dumped blind adherence to seniority in favor of smarter approaches to making layoffs. The problem is not that leaders can't act, it's that too few choose to do so.

When educational leaders fail to lead, reformers and policymakers justifiably feel a need to step in. Yet, in demanding action, reformers often excuse lethargic leadership by blaming it all on "the union." Teacher unions deserve blame, but so do irresponsible superintendents and school boards. Until we start to insist upon and see responsible district leadership, reformers will have no choice but to embrace half-baked, one-size-fits-all state policies. And that's a pretty dismal recipe for racing to the top.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend