December 2011 Archives

Just to give readers a head's up, next week we'll be running the 2012 RHSU Edu-Scholar Rankings. The exercise is intended to counter what I think is the academy's unfortunate tendency to discount scholarly contributions that impact public understanding and policy debate. The Edu-Scholar Rankings are intended to recognize university-based scholars, of any discipline or bent, for their contributions to the public square. Impact is understood as encompassing both the corpus of one's scholarly work (how many widely-cited works a scholar has penned, the number of books, etc.) and one's centrality to public discussion in 2011 (appearances in newspaper articles, online media, and so forth).

After all, a scholar's impact on schooling is a product of several factors, including their body of scholarship, the degree to which their work has influenced today's researchers, their willingness to wade into public discourse, and the energy and effectiveness with which they write for and speak to popular audiences. This means, for instance, that veteran scholars will typically enjoy a natural and appropriate advantage in the scoring. Savvy readers will note one or two small tweaks to the rubric from last year, and also that the ranking table--now numbering over 120 edu-policy scholars--is about one-third larger than last year's.

Have a terrific New Year's, and I'll see you in 2012.

Posted by Rick Hess at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

It's the end of the year, and I always get a bit reflective. As a blogger, I've long been intrigued by the "comments." I'm frequently startled by the inchoate fury of so many postings. At an intellectual level I understand this is how many engage online--and it's of a piece with talk radio and so much of cable news--but I find it a little bizarre, and not especially constructive. That said, it poses a bit of a teaching opportunity. On that count, my indefatigable assistant Becky King put on her rubber gloves to grab a few of this year's more vociferous comments (boy, I hope my mom doesn't read these).

In response to "The World Conspires to Make Expertise Unreliable," one reader opined, "Hess has found his niche--at the AEI, where he uses his questionable 'expertise' to undermine public education and seeks to privatize education for the benefit not of the kids but of profit-seeking entrepreneurs." With regards to "Customized Schooling," the same reader noted, "Hess and [co-editor Bruno] Manno are pro-voucher fanatics who will stoop to anything to wreck public schools and teacher unions. That Harvard would have anything to do with their antics is a crying shame."

In response to "I stand with Governor Walker," a reader commented, "You have sick sense of justice and fairness. To crap on lowly teachers instead where the real problems lie is low and self serving and ignorant. Get a real job." Another reader opined, "It is fairly transparent that Hess is more mouthpiece for a Neo-con 'think tank' than someone who actually has faced the real world of educating children or providing public services."

Responding to "Needed: A Schools Supe with Grit, not Glitz," a reader wrote, "When was the last time [Hess] taught a class in an 'urban' setting? He's circling the wagon as usual, promoting his next book and next wave of so-called 'reform'...These 'think' tank types irk me and really get under my skin. His dissertation work/topic...give me a break. What about your in the trenches, real-world experience Mr. Hess? Do you have any?"

Addressing "Cheating Scandal Newsflash: Teachers Aren't Plaster Saints," another reader wrote, "No, Rick, it's your own moral turpitude that's at issue here. Your 'plaster saints' are the reform industry sponsors who enable your career and line your pockets. You're pretending to assume they're misguided do-gooders, blindsided by their undue regard for public school teachers (!!), but you know they've been the liars and cheats all along."

When teaching, whether high schoolers, undergrads, or grad students, I usually at some point address how to most fruitfully engage in public debate. I often draw a distinction between insult and argument. The above are textbook examples of "insult."

Insult is about venting. It's not intended to convince or persuade; it's not really even intended to engage with others. It presumes malicious intent on the part of those with whom one disagrees, and therefore that there's no use in empathy or value in reasoned argument. Given the presumption of ill-intent, it favors ad hominem attack, impugned motives, and a presumption of malice. Ultimately, I find this to be an adolescent strategy, one which figures "the world is against me" and therefore eschews argument in favor of vitriolic, frustrated rage.

Argument, on the other hand, is an attempt to engage with other people as reasoning minds. It presumes that opponents and third parties are reasonable people who might be persuaded to change their minds. It is marked by a desire to understand what others think and a respect for nuance and opposing views. Even when opponents are unyielding, argument presumes that most observers are sufficiently fair-minded that they can be swayed and therefore favors reason and empathy over ad hominem attack. Argument is an adult strategy, one which welcomes hard-hitting discourse but presumes that most people are reasonably fair and that there's no conspiracy silencing you.

Responding to "Want a 3.8 GPA? Major in Education," a reader wrote, "The idea that grade inflation is clearly shown by simply comparing student grades in different disciplines is somewhat foggy. Assuming that entrance requirements are similar for all students entering a particular college or university, the resulting GPA's could perhaps reflect harder study or perhaps a more understandable curriculum, not necessarily a less rigorous one. For the Engineering major, Engineering is fairly easy, while other majors will clearly state that they would not do well in Engineering... It is also not mentioned that many Education Departments require at least a 3.5 GPA."

In response to "And the Most Overhyped Edu-Entrepreneur of the Moment Is...?," another reader commented, "Hmm, overhype or part of the solution to education mess? One aspect of the Khan Academy solution, to borrow from Sal, is to 'flip the classroom.' The idea is that teacher and student time together be spent working on the problems (homework) rather than sending kids off to solve math or physics equations (or whatever) on their own...Just saying, this isn't a fad. It's one solution."

In response to "Why Education Innovations Tend to Crash and Burn," one reader wrote, "There's a simpler, alternative explanation why education 'innovations' crash and burn rather than 'scale.' We don't test the innovation, we test kids. And the tests we use have little to do with the 'innovation.' The 'promising models' are based on a 'theory of action'--on how the 'innovation' should work rather than on how the 'innovation' does work."

It's a free country, and the venters are free to vent. But, if you're inclined to spend the time and energy to read a blog and then comment on it, I'm just suggesting it'd be worth penning comments that actually point out the fallacies, educate the reader, or might change a few minds. And on that count, a few commenters may want to take a couple of lessons from some of the commenters who agree that I'm a dope--but who articulate their concerns in a constructive, and civil fashion.

Now, I know that some of my fellow Ed Week bloggers get comments that bathe them in cheerful praise. Ah, well. That's not my lot. And I'm cool with that. But, as naïve as it may be, I do think it'd be a better world if, in the coming year, we all made it a point--on the blog and in the bigger world--to insult a little less and argue a little more.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:29 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Here's my best guess at some of the key edu-headlines we'll be reading in 2012.

10] "GOP presidential nominee abandons primary season attacks on Department of Education; talks up education reform in push for moderates."

9] "Aggressive efforts to tackle bullying starting to raise questions and fuel backlash. After a number of elementary-age boys are disciplined or even suspended for 'harassment' that included routine tussling and name-calling, many parents and school board members are asking whether the anti-bullying effort has gone too far."

8] "Relentless attacks by media, Obama administration, and Senator Harkin on for-profit operators in K-12 and higher ed increasingly lead for-profit entrepreneurs to focus their energies in more receptive climes of Asia, the Middle East, and eastern Europe."

7] "Conservative lawmakers push first two or three states to reverse course and abandon the Common Core, prompting fierce breaks in Republican ranks over the Common Core to spill out into the open. Jeb Bush and leading conservative governors are the face of one side; Rick Perry and the Tea Party are the face of the opposition. Clash makes it tricky for nominee to find firm footing on education standards and accountability."

6] "Hill, administration leaders acknowledge that NCLB will not be reauthorized by year's end. Urgency around reauthorization eases as many states obtain waivers. 'We expect to win reelection, and then we're hopeful we can get it done in 2013,' says Obama administration official.'"

5] "Questions about the slow, haphazard implementation of Race to the Top promises start to fuel questions about whether the effort was oversold."

4] "Obama administration officials 'disappointed' to see that for-profit colleges are pruning enrollment and rejecting students in response to 'gainful employment' regulation. One official explains, 'Sure, we've promised to punish for-profits if they enroll students who don't graduate or earn enough after completion, but we just assumed they'd find ways to ensure that these students get a degree and a good job."

3] Even so, I expect to read: "Obama campaign makes Race to the Top, push on college affordability a centerpiece in effort to woo suburban swing voters."

2] "Despite the improving economic picture, lagging property values and competing obligations mean education dollars are coming back more slowly that district leaders had hoped."

1] And, finally, "Mixed results for the Khan Academy's 'flipped' classroom lead some educators and policymakers to worry that the model doesn't work for kids who don't do the requisite work at home. One expert notes, 'The kids who didn't do their reading or homework before are the same kids who aren't viewing their lessons and lectures now.'"

Now, I'm generally a lousy prognosticator and wouldn't bet the farm on any of these. But I guess we'll see.

Posted by Rick Hess at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Note: This week, I'm giving RHSU readers a look at my essay from Educational Leadership entitled "The New Stupid." For days one and two, see here and here.

If you see warning signs of the new stupid, what should you do? There are at least four keys to avoiding the new stupid.

First, educators should be wary of allowing data or research to substitute for good judgment. When presented with persuasive findings or promising new programs, it is still vital to ask the simple questions: What are the presumed benefits of adopting this program or reform? What are the costs? How confident are we that the promised results are replicable? What contextual factors might complicate projections? Data-driven decision making does not simply require good data; it also requires good decisions.

Second, schools must actively seek out the kind of data they need as well as the achievement data external stakeholders need. Despite quantum leaps in state assessment systems and continuing investment in longitudinal data systems, school and district leaders are a long way from having the data they require. Creating the conditions for high-performing schools and systems requires operational metrics beyond student achievement. In practice, there is a rarely acknowledged tension between collecting data with an eye toward external accountability (measurement of performance) and doing so for internal management (measurement for performance).

The data most useful to parents and policymakers focus on how well students and schools are doing; this is the kind of data required by No Child Left Behind and collected by state accountability systems. Although enormously useful, these assessments have also exacerbated a tendency of school and district leaders to focus on the data they have rather than on the data they need.

Current conditions call to mind the parable of the drunken man crawling under the streetlight while searching for his keys. A Good Samaritan stops to help; after minutes of searching, she finally asks, "Are you sure you dropped your keys here?" The man looks up and gestures toward the other end of the street, saying, "No, I dropped them down there--but the light's better over here." We must take care that the ready availability of data on reading and math scores for grades 3 through 8 or on high school graduation rates--all of which provide useful information--do not become streetlights that distract more than they illuminate.

Third, we must understand the limitations of research as well as its uses. Especially when crafting policy, we should not expect research to dictate outcomes but should instead ensure that decisions are informed by the facts and insights that science can provide. Researchers can upend conventional wisdom, examine design features, and help gauge the effect of proposed measures. But education leaders should not expect research to ultimately resolve thorny policy disputes over school choice or teacher pay any more than medical research has ended contentious debates over health insurance or tort reform.

Finally, school systems should reward education leaders and administrators for pursuing more efficient ways to deliver services. Indeed, superintendents who use data to eliminate personnel or programs--even if these superintendents are successful and vindicated by the results--are often more likely to ignite political conflict than to reap professional rewards. So long as leaders are revered only for their success at consensus building and gathering stakeholder input, moving from the rhetorical embrace of data to truly data-driven decision making will remain an elusive goal in many communities. This is especially true given state and federal statutes, salary schedules, and established policies that restrict the ability to redeploy resources and that make aggressive efforts to act on data and research exhausting and contentious. The result is a chicken-and-egg conundrum, where officials have limited incentive to track managerial data given their limited ability to use it, yet the resulting vacuum makes it more difficult to argue that flexibility will be used in informed and appropriate ways.

Research and data are powerful tools. Used thoughtfully, they are dynamic levers for improving schools and schooling. In this new era, educators stand to benefit enormously from advances in research and data systems. Let us take care that hubris, faddism, or untamed enthusiasm do not render these gifts more hindrance than help.

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

Note: This week, I'm giving RHSU readers a look at my essay from Educational Leadership entitled "The New Stupid." For day one, see here.

The second element of the new stupid is Translating Research Simplistically. For two decades, advocates of class-size reduction have referenced the findings from the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project, a class-size experiment conducted in Tennessee in the late 1980s. Researchers found significant achievement gains for students in small kindergarten classes and additional gains in 1st grade, especially for black students. The results seemed to validate a crowd-pleasing reform and were famously embraced in California, where in 1996 legislators adopted a program to reduce class sizes that cost nearly $800 million in its first year and billions in its first decade. The dollars ultimately yielded disappointing results, however, with the only major evaluation (a joint American Institutes for Research and RAND study) finding no effect on student achievement.

What happened? Policymakers ignored nuance and context. California encouraged districts to place students in classes of no more than 20--but that class size was substantially larger than those for which STAR found benefits. Moreover, STAR was a pilot program serving a limited population, which minimized the need for new teachers. California's statewide effort created a voracious appetite for new educators, diluting teacher quality and encouraging well-off districts to strip-mine teachers from less affluent communities. The moral is that even policies or practices informed by rigorous research can prove ineffective if the translation is clumsy or ill considered.

When it comes to "research-based practice," the most vexing problem may be the failure to recognize the limits of what even rigorous scientific research can tell us. For instance, when testing new medical treatments, randomized field trials are the research design of choice because they can help establish cause and effect. Efforts to adopt this model in schooling, however, have been plagued by a flawed understanding of just how the model works in medicine and how it translates to education. The randomized field trial model, in which drugs or therapies are administered to individual patients under explicit protocols, is enormously helpful when recommending interventions for particular medical conditions. But it is far less useful when determining how much to pay nurses or how to hold hospitals accountable.

In education, curricular and pedagogical interventions can indeed be investigated through randomized field trials, with results that can serve as the basis for prescriptive practice. Even in these cases, however, there is a tendency for educators to be cavalier about the elements and execution of research-based practice. When medical research finds a certain drug regimen to be effective, doctors do not casually tinker with the formula. Yet, in areas like reading instruction, districts and schools routinely alter the sequencing and elements of a curriculum, while still touting their practices as research based.

Meanwhile, when it comes to policy, officials must make tough decisions about governance, management, and compensation that cannot be examined under controlled conditions and for which it is difficult to glean conclusive evidence. Although research can shed light on how policies play out and how context matters, studies of particular merit-pay or school-choice plans are unlikely to answer whether such policies "work"--largely because the particulars of each plan will prove crucial.

A third and final element of the new stupid is Giving Short Shrift to Management Data. School and district leaders have embraced student achievement data but have paid scant attention to collecting or using data that are more relevant to improving the performance of schools and school systems. The result is "data-driven" systems in which leaders give short shrift to the operations, hiring, and financial practices that are the backbone of any well-run organization and that are crucial to supporting educators.

Existing achievement data are of limited utility for management purposes. State tests tend to provide results that are too coarse to offer more than a snapshot of student and school performance, and few district data systems link student achievement metrics to teachers, practices, or programs in a way that can help determine what is working. More significant, successful public and private organizations monitor their operations extensively and intensively. FedEx and UPS know at any given time where millions of packages are across the United States and around the globe. Yet few districts know how long it takes to respond to a teaching applicant, how frequently teachers use formative assessments, or how rapidly school requests for supplies are processed and fulfilled.

For all of our attention to testing and assessment, student achievement measures are largely irrelevant to judging the performance of many school district employees. It simply does not make sense to evaluate the performance of a payroll processor or human resources recruiter--or even a foreign language instructor--primarily on the basis of reading and math test scores for grades 3 through 8.

Just as hospitals employ large numbers of administrative and clinical personnel to support doctors and the military employs accountants, cooks, and lawyers to support its combat personnel, so schools have a "long tail" of support staff charged with ensuring that educators have the tools they need to be effective. Just as it makes more sense to judge the quality of army chefs on the quality of their kitchens and cuisines rather than on the outcome of combat operations, so it is more sensible to focus on how well district employees perform their prescribed tasks than on less direct measures of job performance. The tendency to casually focus on student achievement, especially given the testing system's heavy emphasis on reading and math, allows a large number of employees to either be excused from results-driven accountability or be held accountable for activities over which they have no control. This undermines a performance mindset and promises to eventually erode confidence in management.

Ultimately, student achievement data alone only yield a "black box." They illustrate how students are faring but do not enable an organization to diagnose problems or manage improvement. It is as if a CEO's management dashboard consisted of only one item--the company stock's price.

Data-driven management should not simply identify effective teachers or struggling students but should also help render schools and school systems more supportive of effective teaching and learning. Doing so requires tracking an array of indicators, such as how long it takes books and materials to be shipped to classrooms, whether schools provide students with accurate and appropriate schedules in a timely fashion, how quickly assessment data are returned to schools, and how often the data are used. A system in which leaders possess that kind of data is far better equipped to boost school performance than one in which leaders have a pallette of achievement data and little else.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A little while back, I published a piece titled "The New Stupid" in Educational Leadership. It's a piece that's perhaps more relevant today than when I wrote it, and one that folks continue to ask about. Anyway, given that things have slowed down for the pre-holiday week, I thought I'd share it over the next few days. So, here we go:

A decade ago, it was disconcertingly easy to find education leaders who dismissed student achievement data and systematic research as having only limited utility when it came to improving schools or school systems. Today, we have come full circle. It is hard to attend an education conference or read an education magazine without encountering broad claims for data-based decision making and research-based practice. Yet these phrases can too readily morph into convenient buzzwords that obscure rather than clarify. Indeed, I fear that both "data-based decision making" and "research-based practice" can stand in for careful thought, serve as dressed-up rationales for the same old fads, or be used to justify incoherent proposals. Because few educators today are inclined to denounce data, there has been an unfortunate tendency to embrace glib new solutions rather than ask the simple question, What exactly does it mean to use data or research to inform decisions?

Today's enthusiastic embrace of data has waltzed us directly from a petulant resistance to performance measures to a reflexive and unsophisticated reliance on a few simple metrics--namely, graduation rates, expenditures, and the reading and math test scores of students in grades 3 through 8. The result has been a nifty pirouette from one troubling mind-set to another; with nary a misstep, we have pivoted from the "old stupid" to the "new stupid." The new stupid has three key elements.

The first element of the new stupid is Using Data in Half-Baked Ways. I first encountered the inclination to energetically misuse data a few years ago, while giving a presentation to a group of aspiring superintendents. They were passionate, eager to make data-driven decisions and employ research, and committed to leaving no child behind. We had clearly left the old stupid in the rearview mirror. New grounds for concern emerged, however, as we discussed value-added assessment and teacher assignments.

The group had recently read a research brief high-lighting the effect of teachers on student achievement as well as the inequitable distribution of teachers within districts, with higher-income, higher-performing schools getting the pick of the litter. The aspirants were fired up and ready to put this knowledge to use. To a roomful of nods, one declared, "Day one, we're going to start identifying those high value-added teachers and moving them to the schools that aren't making AYP."

Now, although I was generally sympathetic to the premise, the certainty of the stance provoked me to ask a series of questions: Can we be confident that teachers who are effective in their current classrooms would be equally effective elsewhere? What effect would shifting teachers to different schools have on the likelihood that teachers would remain in the district? Are the measures in question good proxies for teacher quality? What steps might either encourage teachers to accept reassignment or improve recruiting for underserved schools?

My concern was not that the would-be superintendents lacked firm answers to these questions--that's natural even for veteran big-district superintendents who are able to lean on research and assessment departments. It was that they seemingly regarded such questions as distractions. One aspirant perfectly captured the mind-set when she said, "We need to act. We've got children who need help, and we know which teachers can help them."

At that moment, I glumly envisioned a new generation of superintendents shuffling teachers among schools--perhaps paying bonuses to do so--becoming frustrated at the disappointing results, puzzling over the departure of highly rated teachers, and wondering what had gone wrong. This is what it must have been like to listen to eager stock analysts explain in 1998 why some hot new Internet start-up was a sure thing while dismissing questions about strategy and execution as evidence that the stodgy questioners "just didn't get it."

Then as now, the key is not to retreat from data but to truly embrace the data by asking hard questions, considering organizational realities, and contemplating unintended consequences. Absent sensible restraint, it is not difficult to envision a raft of poor judgments governing staffing, operations, and instruction--all in the name of "data-driven decision making."

We'll pick up the other two elements of the new stupid tomorrow.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Hey, it's a hectic Friday, so just three quick things that I want to touch upon today.

First, Fordham yesterday released Mark Schneider's new paper "The Accountability Plateau." Mark, former NCES Commissioner (and a visiting scholar at AEI), makes a compelling argument that the accountability efforts of the 1990s and early 2000s initially had a significant impact on student achievement but have now hit a wall. It's a good analysis that makes sense. And I think Mark's interpretation makes a lot of sense when we keep in mind that the K-12 response to accountability, along with more productive measures, has frequently entailed boosting attention to reading, shifting energy and resources from untested subjects to tested ones, and moves to ensure that effective teachers are teaching in the tested grades. Such maneuvering can obviously only be done once. But let's keep in mind that we don't usually think of accountability as merely punctuating an equilibrium. Rather, we expect that public and private organizations which take accountability seriously--which bake it into their DNA--tend to consistently become better and more efficient. If there is an accountability plateau, let's understand that it probably says more about how we've responded to accountability systems than it does about the utility of educational accountability itself. This is particularly worth keeping in mind before we rush to conclude that accountability "is no longer an effective lever for raising student achievement" or search out "another 'meteor' to disrupt the system."

Second, seems to me we've got a problem with double-standards when it comes to journalistic inquiry. In response to journalist Ben Wildavsky's interview-driven look at the culture of for-profit higher education, some commentators snarked that the research was qualitative and that Ben didn't offer up a quantitative analysis. Now, I thought it interesting that education scholars who often argue the merits of methodological diversity (an argument I heartily endorse, so long as the work in question is well done), were quick to lash out at qualitative work whose conclusions they disliked. But, more to the point, I don't recall any of these same concerns being raised about the qualitative, anecdotal, and interview-driven hit jobs done against for-profits recently by The Nation or the New York Times. How about it, folks? What's the deal?

Third, yesterday, Bruce Baker and Kevin Welner published their enthusiastic attack on the U.S. Department of Education's Increasing Educational Productivity project in their Productivity Research, the U.S. Department of Education, and High-Quality Evidence (Full disclosure: Stretching the School Dollar, edited by Eric Osberg and yours truly, is one of the resources that ED recommends on the relevant web page). Bruce and Kevin explain that K-12 spending really hasn't gone up as much as the numbers might suggest before getting around to explaining how textbook studies of cost-efficiency ought to be conducted. By denying that there's much pressure on districts to pare back spending, they're able to suggest that there's no urgency so far as finding new efficiencies. They seem peeved that ED has not assembled gobs of such research before daring to suggest ways in which states and districts might save money or serve kids better. (I did find it curious that Bruce and Kevin never bothered to note that: a] thousands of education school researchers, including ed finance specialists, have shown almost no interest in such questions over the past half-century and b] that most cost-saving efforts in most sectors are based on sensible intuitions and experimentation rather than "rigorous science"). Their preferred standard seems to be that the feds not breathe a word about strategies for boosting efficiency or cutting costs until "peer reviewers" (e.g. the same scholars who have assiduously avoided such questions) decide the relevant research is conclusive. As best as I can tell, under the Baker-Welner standard, we would not yet be using ATMs, purchasing airline tickets online, collecting Medicare, or reading content labels on food--as each of these were adopted without the kinds of evidence that they demand. Ah, well, that's why it's sweet to be an academic. Ultimately, theirs is an argument that serves to justify business as usual, incidentally defending sloth and inefficiency, by setting a remarkably high bar for innovation or cost-saving strategies. It's a triumph of academic wish lists over common sense. Kudos to ED for going with common sense.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:57 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When it comes to the question of for-profits and American education, there's often more hysteria than analysis. Just this weekend, the New York Times published an extensive, shall we say, selectively sourced attack of for-profit venture K12 Inc. piling atop a similar piece a few weeks back by the Washington Post and other "the profiteers are coming!" exercises in The Nation and elsewhere. To engage in a bit of poetic license, when they look at for-profits, these journalists (and the experts that they quote) see Darth Vader.

Sure, there are valid and sensible concerns about the role of for-profits in schooling. But aggressively recruiting clients and cutting corners to make a buck is the flip side of the things that for-profits are uniquely positioned to do well--which is to squeeze cost structures, find new efficiencies, and rapidly scale. Whether for-profits do these things constructively or not is more about the rules and the marketplace than anything else. Consequently, when I see for-profits, I see not Darth Vader but the young Anakin Skywalker--a still-developing adolescent capable of doing great good or great harm.

I was flashing on this as I read Ben Wildavsky's new white paper, "Crossing to the Dark Side?" Wildavsky, a journalist, senior scholar in research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, and author of The Great Brain Race, interviewed a number of educators who have worked at both for-profit and traditional providers in higher education. Now employed at for-profits, the interviewees had previously worked as professors, deans, and presidents at institutions including Northwestern, UC-Berkeley, University of Minnesota, the University of Texas system, Princeton, University of Wisconsin, and so on. (Full disclosure: Ben penned the paper for my AEI series "Private Enterprise in American Education.")

First off, in a finding that may slightly help those who fear for-profits, Ben finds that "many interviewees were quick to acknowledge legitimate concerns over quality in the for-profit sector." Indeed, as Peter Smith, senior vice president for academic strategies and development for Kaplan Higher Education and founding president of Vermont's statewide community college system, told Ben, "I hold no favor for some of the abuses that have been discovered across the board--they're wrong; they're disgusting; they shouldn't happen."

Complicating the Darth Vader caricature of for-profits, however, is Ben's noting that the traditional and for-profit sectors have more in common than many accounts might suggest. He writes, "Notwithstanding the built-in differences between for-profits and not-for-profits on such core matters as faculty control of the curriculum, more structural similarities exist than outsiders might imagine...This is not a coincidence...because such structure and internal processes are needed to comply with accreditation requirements."

Ben also flags some of the potential strengths of for-profits. With regards to trial and error, and to measurement, he writes, "For-profits are much more entrepreneurial when it comes to creating courses, testing new modes of curriculum or instruction, and using data to measure learning outcomes and the quality of teaching. They are also much quicker to respond to market incentives to scale up a set of courses or add instructors... Harold Shapiro, former president of Princeton University and the University of Michigan, says this emphasis on responding to employer demands is a philosophical dividing line between traditional and for-profit higher education. 'In elite higher education, you think you know what people need, so you produce that. You're not out there asking firms or consumers, 'What do you want?'... Whereas at a place like DeVry, which is much more focused on career education, management is out there all the time talking to businesses, asking 'What do you want?'"

Regarding the role of faculty, Ben writes, "The primary duty of for-profit faculty is teaching, not research, which represents a huge departure from many research institutions." As such, Ben notes that, "[For-profit] faculty are evaluated much more systematically than in traditional higher education." This stands in contrast to the way many traditional institutions evaluate their faculty, said Thomas Boyd, dean of Kaplan business school and former associate dean of CSU Fullerton business school. At CSU Fullerton, Boyd recalled, "'It was sort of a protocol that you had to walk on eggshells when you talked about what they were doing in their classroom. Of course you couldn't go into the classroom and observe a professor. You could ask their permission, but you couldn't drop in on classes. That was considered very inappropriate, to watch how they were teaching.'"

When it comes to practical instruction and student support, Ben points out, "One reason among others that tenure is unheard of in for-profit colleges is that many of them hire working professionals or retired college instructors to teach courses whose emphasis is relentlessly practical. When Jorge Klor de Alva was putting together his vision for the University of Phoenix, he said having faculty with roles in the working world was crucial. 'We wanted practitioners,' said Klor de Alva. 'We used to say that you were teaching in the evening what the students would be able to apply to their workplace in the morning.'"

As for the takeaways, I think Ben's summary nails it. He writes, "To sum up, the lessons that for-profits can teach the rest of the postsecondary world begin with flexibility and speed. Institutions closely attuned to the practical needs of consumers, defined to include both students and prospective employers, can change course quickly when market demand for a particular vocational specialty changes...No doubt the for-profit nature of institutions like the University of Phoenix has contributed to some of their problems: heavy pressure for fast growth and profits, an emphasis on enrolling students quickly, and incentives to capture a growing pool of federal aid without accompanying incentives to ensure that students' future employment prospects are as strong as promised."

Sounding a lot more attuned to the mundane realities than do the spooky conspiracy theories that often pass for coverage of for-profits, Ben concludes, "For all their flaws, for all the dismaying practices and bad actors that continue to be associated with the [for-profit] sector, their innovative characteristics are well worth studying. The observations and experiences of those interviewed for this paper suggest that traditional colleges and universities will be badly mistaken if they assume that the travails of for-profits today mean that profitable lessons cannot be drawn from their successes to date--and those likely to occur in the future."

Now, for what it's worth, I think this is a far more useful take on the whole for-profit question than the histrionics that we're accustomed to.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:54 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

I'm skeptical when folks who've seemed to drag their heels offer up nifty new proposals and innovations. So, I don't want to sound all "gee, whiz" here. At the same time, it's important that skepticism not morph into reflexive dismissal. With that in mind, we've seen a couple noteworthy developments from the AFT and NEA in recent days.

First, in Minnesota, the Minnesota Guild of Public Charter Schools, a non-profit launched by the AFT local, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, has been approved to operate as a charter school authorizer. Supported by the AFT's Innovation Fund, the venture will, in the words of MFT president Lynn Nordgren, seek to "authorize schools that rely on teacher expertise to identify and use effective teaching strategies, promote engaged student learning, create educational autonomy, ensure effective organization and develop shared management." This is potentially a really interesting development, and one that ought not be merely brushed aside.

Last Thursday, in Washington, the NEA's Commission on Effective Teachers and Teaching released its notable new report Transforming Teaching: Connecting Professional Responsibility with Student Learning, (full disclosure: I served on the advisory committee). Chaired by Maddie Fennell (a former Nebraska teacher of the year) and savvily stocked with other accomplished educators (including nine other teachers who'd claimed their state's teacher of the year award), the commission could easily have churned out one more tedious document. They didn't. They explicitly embraced the notion that teachers should be responsible for student learning. The report endorses dismantling "state requirements [that] create barriers" to hiring good teachers and closing down lousy teacher preparation programs. It calls for differentiating professional development based on teacher experience and evaluations, among other criteria. It champions peer evaluation, promising that this will help ensure due process rights while expediting "dismissal" of ineffective teachers. It suggests that, in such a context, seniority should only be a factor in teacher retention or assignment when all other factors are equal. It calls for differentiating teacher compensation based on teacher effectiveness, the roles that teachers play, the difficulty of teaching assignments, and the length of the school year or school day. This is real stuff, especially when you consider the NEA's history on these issues.

Now, there's lots of room for skepticism. Will the Minnesota Guild prove to be a responsible authorizer? We've already got lots of problems with authorizer quality and Andy Rotherham has wisely pointed out that a proliferation of nonprofit authorizers raises lots of questions. How seriously will the MFT be about charter schooling? Is the AFT's stance more about politics than enthusiasm for the charter concept? And what will the NEA actually do with its big report? Will the locals and state affiliates that drive the NEA take the effort seriously, or will it gather cyber-dust on the cyber-shelf? Is the national NEA serious about any of this, or is just an effort to deflect criticism and slow down the push for policies designed to reshape teacher evaluation or pay? How many teachers does it expect to actually be moved out of the profession under peer review? How seriously should we take its talk about removing licensure barriers or closing down lousy teacher prep programs?

All of these questions are fair and valid. But, at times like these, I find it useful to recall Ronald Reagan's motto for dealing with the Soviet Union when it came to nuclear disarmament. "Trust, but verify," the Gipper advised. If it was good enough for a Cold Warrior facing down the Soviets, I think it'll do here.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Cato Institute's Neal McCluskey has energetically denounced the slimmed-down federal role that Linda Darling-Hammond and I sketched last week, offering a not-unreasonable litany of complaints about federal overreach. (It's amusing that Neal thinks I'm endorsing big government, given that most in education regard me as unduly harsh when it come to federal efforts, but that's a topic for another day.) What's relevant here is that Neal's response also illustrates the problems that bedevil those who want to get Washington "out" of education. The biggest is that even Tea Party sympathizers have shown precious little willingness to get serious about putting an end to federal ed spending.

Conservatives cheerfully promise to "turn off the lights" at the U.S. Department of Education, but even the aggressive budget put forth by House Republicans voted earlier this year called for only modestly trimming federal spending on education programs like IDEA, Title I, and Pell Grants. Not even Paul Ryan, who's admirably willing to take on Medicare and Social Security, has shown any inclination to talk about scaling back federal aid to education. Meanwhile, I've yet to see Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, or Romney actually promise to zero out (or even cut back) federal spending on student loans or special education. This isn't all that surprising, since the public may have little use for NCLB but continues to support the notion that the feds can help drive school reform.

If conservatives showed an inclination to get serious about zeroing out the federal role, I'd be happy to weigh the case for putting an end to two centuries of federal involvement in education (recall that these efforts can be traced back to the Continental Congress's Northwest Ordinance of 1787). After all, I've much sympathy for Neal's desire on this score. However, that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Now, this state of affairs need not prompt champions of small government to throw up their hands in frustration. One can seek to sharply dial back the federal footprint while maintaining that the federal government has an appropriate, specific role producing those public goods particularly suited to its place in our federal system. What are those? They are the four things that Linda and I noted.

First, when it comes to transparency, states have a collective action problem. There is both the problem of providing parents, taxpayers, and voters with meaningful transparency and the fact that state officials in each state have an incentive to manipulate performance results to their own advantage. More standard accounting and linking results to NAEP is a case of the feds providing a public good that only Washington is equipped to provide.

Second, when it comes to basic research, the market tends to underprovide. Basic research is a public good (see discussion from last Thursday) and is tough to monetize. The result is that, while the private sector is terrific at funding applied research, it tends to invest little in basic research. This is the division of labor between the NIH and the medical devices or biotech industry, for instance.

Third, even hard-charging state officials get tangled in decades of entrenched rules, regulations, and practices. The feds can help untangle this status quo by supporting officials seeking to throw off anachronistic routines but who must find ways to persuade skeptical constituents or union leaders to go along.

Finally, the federal government is obliged to ensure that constitutional guarantees of equal protection are observed. That said, this will ideally be pursued far less prescriptively than is the case today.

Anyway, it's not that Neal is necessarily wrong to be skeptical of the federal role in education, it's that he's mistaken in imagining that there's only one doctrinaire stance a principled champion of small government federalism might adopt.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:27 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

On Tuesday, Linda Darling-Hammond and I published an op-ed "How to Rescue Education Reform" in the New York Times. (I take no responsibility for the immodest title; those of you who have written op-eds know how little control authors have on that score.) The piece has generated a number of notes, with several asking how the piece came about. The piece also seemed to raise the ire of various colleagues, including Bellwether's Andy Rotherham and Cato's Neal McCluskey.

The background on how the piece came to be is only mildly interesting. Linda and I had no scheme to hatch a grand compromise. Rather, when the Senate HELP Committee held its final hearing on Harkin-Enzi last month, I was invited to testify. Linda, with whom I am friendly, reached out to say, much to my surprise, that she had heard what I had to say and that we were on the exact same page. Given that the two of us happened to agree on this issue, despite our substantial differences on many issues, we thought it worth writing something that sketched out some shared principles as to what a smart federal role should look like. We knew the "odd couple" pairing would attract notice, but we thought what was most interesting was that we could start from very different places and still agree on the shape of a sensible federal role.

Let's address my friend Andy's concerns. First, I've noticed that Andy seems to have developed a tic: whenever I make an argument he deems insufficiently "reformy," he accuses me of triangulation. His lede in discussing our piece? "Look ma! I'm reasonable!" Okay, then...

More substantively, Andy thinks I'm flip-flopping because I've frequently argued against subgroup-based accountability but here am fine with subgroup reporting for transparency purposes. There's no flipping; these are distinct questions. I've problems with subgroup-based accountability systems because they tend to steer all of our energies into "gap-closing" amongst particular subgroups. That said, I believe that transparency-minded subgroup reporting provides a valuable X-ray of how various populations are faring (though I strongly prefer basing subgroups on income or needs rather than race, because I'm skeptical of race-based policies).

Andy also takes issue with our statement, "Instead of the vague mandate of 'adequate yearly progress,' federal financing should be conditioned on truth in advertising..." Andy seems unable to reconcile this with the fact that Linda and I have previously noted that NCLB is too prescriptive. AYP is a vague mandate because it doesn't actually mean anything: its meaning changes state-to-state based on standards, assessments, cut scores, and the rest (it can even change school-to-school depending on subgroup size, safe harbor, etc.). At the same time, the machinery of the law, the AYP calculation, and the remedy cascade are unduly prescriptive. What we're advocating is a truth-in-advertising standard, where folks have a better idea what the results mean but where the feds aren't trying to rate schools or specify interventions.

Third, he seems annoyed, in noting the principled case for a federal role in supporting basic ed research, that we didn't list various administration efforts or proposals (like i3 and ARPA-ED). I won't bother here dwelling on the fact that i3 isn't basic research (key difference: basic research is a public good, leading to a dearth of private investment, while applied research has benefits for private actors and therefore is less in need of public investment. For example, the difference between investigating the chemical properties of a new compound versus designing a marketable drug, or in education, between funding research in neuroscience versus developing that research into instructional resources). And ARPA-ED was mentioned by name in the initial piece, but we had to trim in many places during the editing process. Our point was precisely the value of federal research investment and support for the principle of ARPA-ED (of which I spoke approvingly to HELP).

Finally, he objects to our relatively harsh characterization of Race to the Top as "demanding that winning states hire consultants to comply with a 19-point federal agenda, rather than truly innovate," by firing back, "Really? Of all the critiques you can level at RTT that's a pretty weak one." Andy knows that I've offered much more extensive discussions of the pros and cons of RTT (given that he's pushed back on several of my points in his blog and over beers), but I thought this phrase pithily captured the problems with RTT as an example of competitive grants. Again, if we had another 100 words, we could've said much more with more nuance; but, well, we didn't.

Anyway, it's nice to see that the op-ed prompted some conversation, which is kind of the point of these kinds of pieces.

Posted by Rick Hess at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The week before Thanksgiving, I penned "When Good Intentions Make Us Stupid." It garnered some heartening feedback from friends who found it useful. It was also quoted by many who selectively cited me in their ongoing efforts to vilify many folks whom I like and respect (as is routine when I'm critical of poorly conceived merit pay systems, federal overreach, or careless use of value-added metrics). In this case, the AFT-backed "RheeFirst" website (along with similar ventures) selectively quoted me in their ongoing war on Michelle Rhee and her StudentsFirst organization.

Now, my typical policy is not to worry about who quotes me or how they do so. I decided a long time ago, while still teaching at UVA, that it's not worth the time or energy to track who quotes me or imagine I can police how or why they do so. For one thing, since I'm not an elected official and don't claim to speak for any constituency, it's not like selective quoting of me matters all that much.

But, it was pointed out that many readers may only encounter me in these abridged snippets. Indeed, one savvy reader indicated that he's frequently uncertain about where I'm coming and urged me to speak to this. If he's unsure, I imagine others are too. So, let me try to clarify.

When it comes to "reformers," I'm trying to engage in this exercise we sometimes call "constructive criticism." Because many would-be reformers are inspired by the laudable pursuit of "social justice" rather than any deep interest in schooling or teaching, I think they frequently make poor decisions when it comes to designing merit pay or accountability, as good intentions squelch common sense or a respect for practical challenges. My criticism of many reform efforts is fueled by support, not opposition, to their aims. I too embrace accountability, choice, and paying terrific educators more than lousy ones, but I think it is crucial to do these things well and fear that reformers too often do these things badly in their rush to make a difference.

As for reform skeptics, like RheeFirst, who quote me when it's convenient, I'd welcome their interest if they showed much inclination to consider what I have to say when they're not handpicking snippets to suit their agenda. Instead, they cheerfully cherry-pick and then placidly ignore or snidely denounce everything else I say. I find that intellectually bankrupt. In truth, I think most who quote my criticisms of "reformers" are doing so in bad faith, with no interest in serious debate or thoughtful engagement. My hunch on this score is heightened every time I learn that someone has quoted me approvingly one day, only to quickly turn around and denounce me as a "privatizing, anti-teacher, patriarchal fascist" the next.

At the end of the day, all any of us can do is try to speak our truth. For better or worse, I give that my best shot. I try to both make the case for the path I endorse and to provide some guard rails when it seems like we're making missteps along the way. I suppose such nuance risks giving offense to one's friends and amusing those who wonder why you're stepping on your "message" in this era of sound bites, partisanship, and a willingness to smear the motives of those with whom we may disagree. But I don't know how to do anything else, so I figure I'll just keep doing the same.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Having opined a good bit about "innovation" (check out Ed Unbound for much of my current thinking), I'm sometimes asked about why it's so hard to scale promising programs, models, pilots, and notions. On that note, I just had the chance to spend a few days with a bunch of terrific folks discussing just this topic at a Kauffman Foundation retreat. Kaufmann will be issuing a synthesis with the collected wisdom that emerged. Meanwhile, I figured I'd share my own thinking with you.

There are at least two big sets of obstacles when it comes to "scaling" innovation. First, innovative models often rely on tough-to-replicate elements. Second, there are key structural conditions that impede efforts to grow even more replicable models.

First, seemingly successful pilots often depend more on the conditions that attend their adoption and execution than the model itself. Pilots tend to benefit from a number of advantages that disappear when these efforts start to "scale," namely:

• Philanthropic support- Dollars are often available to fund new initiatives. Such funding allows CTE or remedial programs to offer services and opportunities that prove unsustainable when the program expands to new sites that lack the extra resources.
• Expertise- Pilot efforts are, by design, promoted and supported by the experts who have conceived of the model (or intervention). They benefit from intense, sustained, loving attention by those who are most knowledgeable about and invested in the idea. Later sites have less access to that talent.
• Enthusiasm- Pilot efforts are inevitably launched where the leadership (and/or the faculty or instructors) are enthusiastic enough about the venture that they're willing to invest all the energy necessary to launch it. That passion and sense of ownership are enormously helpful in making early iterations successful.
• Accommodating policies- Pilot efforts are frequently launched where they are because the local leadership has the wherewithal to get the waivers, leeway, or support to launch the effort. So a new academic program benefits from special treatment when it comes to staffing rules or funding. When the same models are implemented in less accommodating settings, the models frequently fail to deliver the anticipated results.

Second, even promising models run afoul of several structural impediments, including:

• Reliance on entrenched institutions- In nearly every sector, transformation is the product of new ventures emerging with new ways of leveraging tools, talent, and technology. Remember, the average lifespan of a Fortune 500 company is only fifty years. Three-fourths of America's 25 biggest firms didn't exist in 1965. Most transformation is not the work of "system change" but a natural consequence of new providers replacing the old. In education, however, there's a presumption that staid institutions (in K-12 or higher ed) can and will remake themselves with the right encouragement and support. It's a noble aspiration, but it's a hell of a challenge.
• Lack of price competition- The immense subsidies and public underwriting in education, along with the fact that most public school families are insulated from questions of cost because they pay nothing (other than taxes) for their child's schooling, blunt sensitivity to cost. The problem is that the vast majority of innovation in the world is not "disruptive" but is focused on modest, incremental boosts in productivity. These frequently show up in price competition. In education, however, the inelasticity of the demand curve means that institutions have spent little time or effort trying to build or scale increasingly cost-effective models; instead, most energy has been devoted to models that are bedecked with bells and whistles.
• Lack of outcome comparability- Because there are not good or comparable measures of outcomes, it's difficult for even highly effective models to glean the benefits from their performance. This makes it hard for new models to displace familiar providers, and places a premium on marketing and perception while limiting the rewards for quality.
• Discomfort with for-profits- For-profits typically have much more ability and incentive to scale than non-profits. Whereas non-profits are driven by the passion and commitment of their leadership, for-profits are propelled by the logic of maximizing returns. This leads for-profits to take risks in pursuit of growth and to aggressively seek opportunities for expansion. Absent pressure to maximize returns, non-profits tend to default to the innate attraction of focusing on existing clients; they therefore tend to grow much more slowly. Non-profits also have a much more limited capacity to attract the capital necessary to fuel growth. Yet public discomfort with for-profits means that our hopes frequently rest on non-profits or public entities.

What can be done about any of this? It's hard to be sure. Most of what's tripping up innovators is either inherent in the enterprise or a product of deep-seated norms and arrangements. That said, three thoughts:

• Put a premium on innovations that scale easily- The most difficult innovations to scale are those that rely heavily on talent and complex implementation. The easiest to scale are those that leverage technology or other tools to provide services with few moving parts. For instance, Amazon.com or Facebook are remarkably easy to scale, because most of the quality of the experience is almost identical for thousands or even millions of users. Similarly, Tutor.com is easier to scale than is a program which depends on recruiting and training local tutors.
• Resist the notion that innovative models can readily be housed in existing institutions- Established institutions have established norms, cultures, policies, and routines. No matter how energetic and enthusiastic are those who would adopt innovative models, the difficulties of maneuvering around these realities makes innovation a bad bet. Innovations may be adopted successfully here or there when backed by committed leadership, but they can be quickly bent into unrecognizable forms when adopted by others that are less committed.
• Focus on cost and outcomes in allocating public dollars- Encouraging the successful scaling of innovative models is going to depend in large part on whether the larger environment supports such ventures. An environment dominated by formula funding, hefty subsidies, and few useful measures of quality is designed to accommodate the status quo. Changing that requires changing public policies at the federal, state, and local levels.

All of this helps to explain why "innovation" is a term of endearment in an Apple store, but more likely to sound like an epithet in the nearest teacher workroom or faculty lounge. Resolving this state of affairs will be hard, but probably no harder than watching waves of promising new ideas crash and burn.

Posted by Rick Hess at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Yesterday, at the Fordham Institute's big conference on "Rethinking Education Governance in the 21st Century," I had the chance to chat about a new paper "More than the Mantra of 'Mayoral Control'" that I penned with Olivia Meeks. When it comes to district governance, Olivia and I argue that the back-and-forth about mayoral control has too often distracted us from the need to tackle entrenched routines.

We walk through the case for mayoral control (which I find fairly convincing when it comes to large urban districts) and the reasons for caution, then point out that the relative merits of elected v. appointed officials is hardly as exotic as the edu-debates might lead one to believe. When it comes to public utilities, extensive research suggests that elected officials are more responsive to community preferences but also less inclined to fiscal discipline. In short, there is no optimal model; both election and appointment have strengths and weaknesses.

It's hard to argue, based on either theory or evidence, that school boards will drive school improvement--but it's also tough to be confident that mayoral control is likely to provide dramatically better results in most communities over the long haul. This seeming dead end helps to point to a larger truth; perhaps the problem with today's school systems is not the hands on the tiller so much as the design of the ship itself.

With that, we argue that fights about district governance could more fruitfully start (as I argue in The Same Thing Over and Over) by asking whether the familiar district governance model is suited to the challenges of twenty-first century urban education? Whether schools and systems should continue to be staffed by public employees governed by complex contractual and statutory rules? Whether the Progressive Era model of a hierarchical system governed by the dictates of 1920s-style "scientific management" is suited to seizing today's opportunities?

In their efforts to squash mere politics and professionalize schooling, early twentieth-century Progressives successfully championed reforms that made school board elections nonpartisan and moved the elections off-cycle. In shifting these races so that they were no longer held at the same time as major state or national elections, they sought to insulate schools from politics. In a time of patronage-driven politics and flagrant corruption, such ambitions were sensible enough. Progressives succeeded in separating school governance from municipal power centers, though they unknowingly did so by imposing arrangements that would eventually produce board factionalism, incoherence, and an absence of accountability.

Promoting "nonpolitical" control and rigid management routines as the proper and "scientific" way to improve education, Progressives happily sacrificed flexibility in search of uniformity. Those twin legacies, the putatively "nonpolitical" governance of school systems and the rigidity of school operations, have been with us for most of the past century. It is indeed a useful step to recognize that school districts are inevitably political entities and that governance must address that reality. However, equally crippling is the legacy of rigidity and uniformity that infuses management, staffing, compensation, and the broader educational enterprise. Those deeper, thornier problems are left unaddressed by the shift to mayoral control. If pursued as an alternative to tackling these challenges, mayoral control may serve primarily as a distraction.

The trouble with most proposed governance reforms is that they fail to note that boards themselves are only one symptom of a dysfunctional and outdated Progressive approach to schooling. Addressing that problem in a more fundamental fashion requires thinking how we might organize schooling around function rather than geography. We conclude, "It would be sad indeed if well-intentioned advocacy around mayoral control amounted to little more than a shift change at the helm of a foundering ship."

Anyway, there's loads more. If you're interested, check it out. If you do, you'll find a bunch of other terrific contributions to boot.

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