July 2010 Archives

The New York Times published a front-page story about the delayed impact the best kindergarten teachers have on their students ("The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers") on the same day I wrote about the benefit in delaying evaluation of teachers until years after their students graduate ("Who's a Good Teacher").

Raj Chetty, who conducted the Project Star study reported in the Times, is an economist. As a result, he understandably placed heavy emphasis on the pecuniary benefits to students who were taught in kindergarten by an inspired teacher. He says that all else being equal, these students were making about $100 a year more at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up on standardized tests. That would come to about $1,000 more a year than a student who scored average. Projected out, the additional money that a full class of students can expect to earn over their careers totals about $320,000 - hence the headline of the article.

Although economists do not profess to know the exact reasons for this increase, it is likely due to the attitudes that successful kindergarten teachers inculcate in their students. These include such things as discipline, perseverance, patience and manners. Despite the importance of this wherewithal, reformers make no attempt to assess the ability of teachers to achieve these non-cognitive objectives. Certainly, they are aware of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II: Affective Domain (David McKay Company Inc., 1964). But it seems that their obsession to measure only cognitive outcomes in two or three subjects has blinded them to their oversight. As Bloom wrote: "The fact that we attempt to analyze the affective area separately from the cognitive is not intended to suggest that there is a fundamental separation. There is none."

In my previous post, I pointed out that it is counterproductive to teach a subject well but to teach students to hate the subject in the process. What do we gain as a nation if students are left with such strong negative feelings about what they have studied? At best, they will be reluctant to pursue further learning in that field. And at worst, they will refuse to do so. Therefore, before patting ourselves on the back when we boost standardized test scores as the sine qua non, we should ask ourselves what price we have paid for doing so.

Defenders of the exclusive emphasis on cognitive results will argue that affective outcomes are not as easily assessed. But that doesn't mean they can't be measured. One of the ways of doing so is through use of an attitude inventory that is anonymously completed by students before and after instruction. Perhaps the best known of these is the Likert inventories that were introduced in 1932. Typically, there are five possible responses to a statement, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Its format is familiar to most students today because they are used to rating movies and other content.

Reformers will maintain that these results constitute "soft" data. But teaching is more than merely instilling skills and knowledge in students. It's this acknowledgement that was conspicuously absent from President Obama's speech delivered on July 29 at the centennial convention of the National Urban League. He proclaimed that "We have an obligation to lift up every child in every school in this country, especially those who are starting out furthest behind."

If Obama genuinely means what he said, then it behooves him to explain how converting classrooms into test preparation factories in order to boost standardized test scores will serve students most in need of enrichment. Drilling has its place, but when it becomes the overwhelming - perhaps sole - pedagogy used with these students, they will continue to be shortchanged. Their attitudes about learning matter more than reformers comprehend.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

When Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired 241 teachers in Washington D.C. on July 23, the news was heralded as evidence that true accountability was finally a reality because the evaluation system used is considered one of the most rigorous in the nation. But like most controversial issues in education, there's more to the story than initially meets the eye.

The firings included 165 teachers for poor performance and the rest for lack of proper teaching credentials. These constituted 6 percent of the district's 4,300 teachers. Rhee put an additional 737 on notice that if they don't improve next year, they too could lose their jobs. George Parker, the head of the Washington Teacher's Union, said he will contest the firings because the evaluation system used was flawed.

To try to determine who's right, it's necessary to take a closer look at the actual way D.C. teachers are evaluated. They are observed five times a year by administrators and master teachers on the basis of coherent lesson plans and student engagement. After the first observation, teachers receive a detailed plan spelling out their weaknesses and are offered coaching to help them improve. Fifty percent of the evaluation of math and reading teachers in 4th through 8th grades is based on their students' growth on standardized achievement tests. (High school teachers will be included in the future.) Teachers are then placed into four categories.

Rhee acknowledged that she didn't know how many teachers were fired for low student achievement on standardized tests, and how many were dismissed for poor classroom performance. This is a crucial distinction. Despite what is widely believed, these are not necessarily interchangeable criteria. It is altogether possible for teachers to violate every principle of effective instruction while being observed and yet still post satisfactory - if not remarkable - results on the same tests. There is something about their personality and style that is likely responsible. The reverse is true as well. In Testing! Testing! (Allyn and Bacon, 2000). W. James Popham explains why it's risky to draw conclusions about effectiveness merely by observing teachers in action. He calls the research underlying the principles of effective instruction "tendency research" because teachers who follow them tend to be effective. But the results are far from conclusive.

Then there is the question of using growth - rather than proficiency - on standardized tests as a major determinant. In theory, it makes eminent sense. If teachers happen to inherit a class of students with low skills and are able to show progress in their learning, these teachers deserve credit, even though their students may still not have reached proficiency. By the same token, if teachers happen to inherit a class of Talmudic scholars, they don't deserve credit for how their students subsequently perform on the same tests unless the students have shown improvement. In other words, these teachers can't coast.

In practice, however, the growth model, which is similar to the value-added model, does not adequately control for factors outside the classroom. For example, teachers are not responsible for the influences, either positive or negative, that moving to a new neighborhood exert. Nor are teachers responsible for changes within the family in the form of divorce, unemployment, and death of a parent. These are not theoretical factors. They affect student learning in the classroom in ways that non-educators do not understand.

Finally, there is the element of non-cognitive outcomes that are not being evaluated. If teachers know that half their evaluation is based on standardized test scores, they will feel pressure to turn their classrooms into test preparation factories. This strategy will no doubt boost test scores, but it is not likely to develop a love of the subject. That's because it's possible to teach a subject well (high test scores), but teach students to hate the subject in the process (low affective scores). When that happens, are teachers to be lauded? If so, why? Isn't one of the goals of education to make students lifelong learners?

None of the above is meant to suggest that the teachers who were fired deserve to remain in the classroom. Instead, it is intended to emphasize that evaluating teachers is more complex than is appreciated. That's why I've long believed hindsight is the fairest way of evaluating teachers. So often, the influence of teachers doesn't show up until years after students graduate. With the passage of time and the insights of maturity, students are in a far better position to evaluate their teachers. For obvious reasons, the accountability movement doesn't allow this luxury. Nevertheless, it's something to think about.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:10 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Newsweek cover story proclaimed a creativity crisis exists in schools that threatens America's future ("The Creativity Crisis'). The report bases its conclusion on a steady decline since 1990 in scores on a creativity test first designed by E. Paul Torrance in 1958. The test, which involved a series of tasks, was given to a group of some 400 third graders. These tasks are considered the gold standard in the field because of their high predictive value. According to Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University, the correlation between scores on the test and lifetime creative accomplishments is more than three times stronger than childhood IQ.

The writers, Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, go on to ask why creativity scores are declining. They point their fingers at public schools, where curriculum standards have caused teachers to engage in drill-and-kill lessons designed to boost scores on standardized tests to the detriment of all else. Presumably, private and religious schools are more creative because they don't have to play by the same rules. But since Bronson and Merryman do not address this important issue, it's impossible to know exactly how creative non-public schools are. This is a vital distinction if efforts to improve creativity are to be successful.

Nevertheless, the story raises some fundamental questions. If creativity is defined as the ability to produce something original and useful, can any test identify and measure this asset? (I don't agree with the "useful" part of the definition.) Experts concede that there is no right answer on such tests because creativity involves both divergent and convergent thinking. In contrast, standardized tests are designed with only one correct answer. As a result, their very nature is antithetical to the identification of creativity. That's the problem. Standardized tests still constitute a significant portion of the evaluation of public schools under the rules of the Race to the Top initiative.

Then there is the matter of IQ. Are gifted students also creative by the definition used? In other words, is there a difference between IQ and CQ? The test used by Torrance was a 90-minute series of separate tasks administered by a psychologist. According to the cover story, it has been taken by "millions" worldwide in 50 languages. Since IQ tests are susceptible to the Flynn effect, which means that each generation posts scores about 10 points higher than the previous generation because of enriched instruction, then why have CQ tests shown the opposite trend since 1990?

One possible answer is that the reform movement began to take shape in this country at about the same time in reaction to publication of A Nation at Risk. It's impossible to prove that the introduction of standardized test-based accountability caused the beginning of the drop in CQ because correlation is not causation. But it's something to consider since experts disagree on whether creativity can be taught in the same way that subject matter can. I've always believed it's a process that builds on whatever innate talent students have. But if teachers are forced to focus their efforts overwhelmingly on tests that do not measure creativity, then it's not surprising that whatever potential students possess for creativity is not nurtured.

Although it's troubling to note the decline in CQ in America, it's important to put the observation in proper perspective. As Singapore's former Education Minister said in an interview in Newsweek in 2007, "We both have meritocracies. America's is a talent meritocracy; ours is an exam meritocracy. There are some parts of the intellect that we are not able to test well - like creativity (my emphasis), a sense of adventure, ambition. Most of all, America has a culture of learning that challenges conventional wisdom, even if it means challenging authority."

That's something to keep in mind before we begin another round of self-flagellation about our public schools.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The debate over how to improve educational quality for all students in this country is predicated on the assumption that empiricism rather than ideology will eventually prevail. But a recent op-ed in the Boston Globe by Joe Keohane calls that belief into question ("How facts backfire," July 11). "Facts don't necessarily have the power to change our mind," he wrote. "In fact, quite the opposite." Keohane goes on to cite a series of studies in 2005 and 2006 by researchers at the University of Michigan showing that facts can actually make misinformation stronger.

The reasons for this counterintuitive finding range from simple defensiveness to avoidance of cognitive dissonance. But whatever the cause, they have direct relevance to efforts now underway to turn around failing schools. The best example is the campaign being waged by the 10-year-old Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The latest issue of Bloomberg Businessweek has a cover story detailing the thinking behind the foundation's distribution of hundreds of millions of dollars toward this goal since its inception and for its plans to spend $3 billion more in the next five to seven years on educational reform ("Bill Gates' School Crusade," July 15).

What emerges from the reportage is that Bill Gates does not like to be confused by evidence. In 2000, for example, he doled out hundreds of millions to make high schools smaller in the stubborn belief that student body size is crucial to student achievement. Gates subsequently discovered to his chagrin that students at small high schools, for example, were more likely to graduate than their peers at big high schools, but they did no better on standardized tests. Never one to let the facts get in the way of his personal convictions, he is now betting that teacher quality is the solution. The foundation is investing $290 million over the next seven years in the Tampa, Memphis and Pittsburgh school districts in the mistaken belief that measuring student gains on standardized tests is the key to educational quality.

It apparently makes no difference to Gates that this strategy is not nearly as straightforward as he thinks. Cheating by educators and narrowing of the curriculum, for example, have already been well documented in connection with high-stakes tests. Nevertheless, Gates wants to replace underperforming teachers (based on progress on student test scores) with effective teachers (based on the same metric). He is convinced that teachers ranked in the top 25 percent for four consecutive years will be enough to close the black-white achievement gap. He offers no credible evidence to support his assertion, but that doesn't undermine his influence.

That's because big money has a way of making itself heard over hard data. In today's recession, school districts are so desperate to avoid layoffs and make other cuts to their programs that when the Gates Foundation or other financial powerhouses come calling it's hard to resist doing their bidding. Adding to their enormous clout are their friends in the Obama administration. Together, they are a formidable team.

Whether they will ever be open to other views about turning around failing schools is doubtful. Ideology is notoriously resistant to alteration even in the face of overwhelming evidence. This observation is true whether it applies to the richest man in America, the man in the White House or the man in the street.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:27 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A little more than a decade ago, James Traub wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine with a provocative title that I still remember ("What No School Can Do," Jan. 16, 2000). He argued that even the best schools are limited in what they can accomplish with students. Although Traub was primarily referring to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, his comments apply to other students as well.

I was reminded of this piece the other day when I was at the dog park. Parents often bring their children there while they allow their pets to blow off steam. I happened to overhear one young mother talking to her toddler. What she was doing was essentially engaging in a dialogue that required the child to answer a series of questions followed by immediate praise or gentle correction. "How many legs does that dog have?" "What color is the dog?" I wondered if she had read Terry Meier's chapter cited below?

It seems to me that this kind of interaction is precisely what is too often lacking in other families, particularly in poor families. Education Department data show that disadvantaged children enter kindergarten already three months behind the national average in reading and math skills, and never catch up. Critics of public schools like to blame ineffective teachers for this failure. But a better explanation is that these children were never given a solid foundation for subsequent learning.

In Rethinking Schools (The New Press, 1995), Terry Meier delves into this subject, which is called language socialization. In working-class black families, for example, children are rarely asked questions to which the parent already knows the answer. Instead, they are presented with questions that call for an open-ended response, e.g, "What do you think you're doing?" In contrast, in white middle-class families, parents tend to ask their children questions that are simply structured and have a known answer, e.g. "What is that bird doing right now?" The differences may seem insignificant, but they carry over into the classroom, where children who have received extensive practice answering a series of set questions perform better on average.

What can parents do to help their children become better learners beside the above? Or to be more specific, how can parents become engaged partners in their children's education? The facile answer is to buy them computers and other learning devices that are heavily advertised as "educational." But a study that will be published early next year in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that there is little or no educational benefit of home computers for children from low-income households ("Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality, New York Times, July 9).

These questions also have legal ramifications. Under a little-known provision of the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are expected to make parents partners in the educational process. Districts receiving more than $500,000 a year in Title I funds are required to spend one percent of those funds to engage parents. Last year, with an infusion from the economic stimulus program, the amount came close to $225 million nationally, according to the Education Department.

That's where an interesting program called The Learning Community comes in (thelearningcommunity.us). Founded in 1993 by Sarah Stanley, TLC is a non-profit, public-benefit corporation funded by proceeds from Ornaments to Remember. TLC provides free parenting support, including videos and links to websites. It organizes its resources according to the child's age (newborns to teens) and by format (Tips for Parents, Recursos en Espanol etc.). For Hispanic parents, TLC can be particularly valuable. A study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley found that children of Hispanic immigrants tend to start life on an intellectual par with other American children, but by age 2 they begin to fall back in linguistic and cognitive skills ("Hispanic Immigrants' Children Fall Behind Peers Early, Study Finds," New York Times, Oct. 21, 2009).

There's no guarantee that parental involvement will result in better outcomes in school. Even Start, for example, a 20-year federal early-childhood program that stressed this strategy, failed to demonstrate more literacy skills after a year than a control group. But that doesn't mean we should give up.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Corporate leaders have repeatedly demanded that teachers be paid strictly on the basis of the performance of their students because that's how the "real world" works. Yet even when they miss their goals, top executives continue to receive fat paychecks, including generous bonuses. Curiously, this double standard is given short shrift in the debate over school reform.

In the summer and fall of 2007, the Securities and Exchange Commission sent letters to 350 corporations to gather information about how executive pay is determined. The SEC expected full cooperation in light of of public anger over the issue. But instead, it had to send second letters to a majority of the same companies because of the unsatisfactory replies it received. Their lackadaisical response raised some eyebrows at the time, but nothing much beyond that reaction. What has emerged since then, however, is a three-part pattern of hypocrisy about corporate remuneration that can no longer be ignored.

First, corporate leaders reluctantly admit there are unquantifiable elements that determine their individual compensation packages. This, of course, is precisely what teachers have maintained all along about teaching. But teachers are accused of making excuses when they argue that non-cognitive outcomes, for example, are not as easily measured as numeracy and literacy.

Second, the same corporate leaders claim that linking their remuneration to earnings and stock prices would force them to excessively focus on short-term results, which are bad for stockholders. But when teachers say that judging their effectiveness disproportionately on standardized test scores would be bad for students because this metric narrows the curriculum and turns classrooms into test preparation factories, their claim is met with utter disdain.

Third, corporate leaders finally play their trump card. They huff that they can be ultimately fired when they don't deliver, whereas public school teachers cannot because of union rules. What they don't admit, however, is that in the boardroom, symbiosis exists on a scale rarely seen elsewhere. As a result, it's the exception, rather than the rule, that ineffectiveness leads to dismissal.

Here's why: the pay of the CEO is set by the board of directors - usually the compensation committee. Although the directors are elected by the stockholders via proxies, most are not returned. Therefore, the board is chosen essentially by the CEO. Once directors are on the board, they don't leave. Why should they? They get handsome pay for sitting in meetings, generous insurance, and a comfortable pension. Moreover, they fly on private jets to luxury resorts to attend conferences. Even if a CEO is finally fired by the board, he/she can walk away in one year with more money than 50 teachers earn in a lifetime. It's not called a golden parachute for nothing. As Mel Brooks quipped in The History of the World, "It's good to be the king."

Stockholders, of course, are free to turn to the courts for a remedy, but the odds are stacked against them. Big business has deep pockets and wears down plaintiffs. Yet the same coddled executives are quick to attack teachers unions for trying to protect their members' right of due process. It's enough to make any fair-minded person sick.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:13 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The role that poverty plays in learning is so well documented by now that it seems superfluous to raise the issue once again. But the cover story in the latest edition of The Nation serves as a powerful reminder that the worst is yet to come ("Inequality In America And What To Do About It"). Six essayists lay out the dire consequences for the country of the Great Recession and of the failure to take steps to address its fundamental causes.

The implications for schools stand out because narrowing the academic achievement gap between racial groups has become a top priority of reformers. In fact, on July 14, Education Secretary Arne Duncan called education "the civil rights issue of our generation" in a speech in Kansas City to NAACP delegates ("U.S. education secretary calls on NAACP to focus on schools"). But he has things in the wrong order when he said: "The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve it in the classroom."

Unfortunately, as wealth reconcentrates at the very top in a way not seen since 1928, the effects will be unavoidably felt in public schools, regardless of what Duncan maintains. As Orlando Patterson wrote: "What for white-Americans is a Great Recession amounts to a virtual depression for a substantial number of African-Americans." That's because unemployment rates for the latter stood at 15.5 percent in May, compared with the overall national rate of 9.7 percent.

This disparity between white and black wealth not surprisingly is reflected in the disparity between the performance of white and black students. The Institute on Assets and Social Policy reported that black median family wealth barely grew over the past 25 years, hovering at $5,000 in 2007. In sharp contrast, white median family wealth in 2007 was $100,000 - twenty times that of black families. It is unimaginable that this enormous difference does not have a direct effect on academic achievement.

At the same time, black and Latino students (except from elite families)) are more segregated from whites than at any time since the 1960s. According to a report issued by the Civil Rights Project of the University of California, about 40 percent of black and Latino students attend schools that are almost totally composed of their own races. The segregation is not limited to schools. It is also seen in neighborhoods, churches, clubs and other associations. As a result, whatever harm takes place in school by segregation is exacerbated by what takes place outside of school.

What is not widely known is that even before the Great Recession, the U.S. had the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world, according to UNICEF. This rate has not budged significantly over a decade. The U.S. also has the highest rate of the permanently poor of all other industrialized nations. These appalling conditions are tolerated by no other advanced democracy. Yet with the exception of sporadic populist outrage, business goes on as usual. In fact, when it comes to education, pressure is building to deregulate and privatize schools, as if doing so will somehow mitigate inequities.

Those advocating this strategy are the same people who argue for fewer controls on corporations. The rationale in both cases is that an unencumbered marketplace is the solution to both the economic and educational ills of the country. We know by now where this approach led in the case of the former. Why would the outcome be different in the case of the latter? But by the time America wakes up to reality, it will be too late to undo the damage done by this warped thinking.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Dueling views about innovative programs aimed at improving educational quality are nothing new. What is different today is taxpayer demand for evidence to support these proposals. Two recent essays about Teach for America, which was started by Wendy Kopp in 1989, serve as cases in point.

On July 10, the Wall Street Journal published "What They're Doing After Harvard" by Naomi Schaefer Riley, and in Spring 2010, Rethinking Schools published "Looking Past the Spin: Teach for America" by Barbara Miner. (Full disclosure: I weighed in on TFA in the September 2008 issue of The School Administrator with "Top Collegians Won't Solve What Ails Classrooms.")

I'll begin with Riley's piece. She writes: "The results are clear. A 2008 Urban Institute study found that 'On average, high school students taught by TFA corps members performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially in math and science, than peers taught by far more experienced instructors.' " What Riley fails to mention is that the study focused only on North Carolina. As a result, she implies that TFA produces similar outcomes elsewhere. But Linda Darling-Hammond's 2005 study of more than 4,400 teachers and 132,000 students in Houston's public schools found that the performance of TFA teachers lagged significantly behind the performance of certified non-TFA teachers.

The best way to determine who is right about this vital issue is to conduct a nationwide study of TFA and traditionally certified teachers who are randomly assigned students from similar socioeconomic backgrounds. In the absence of such data, it is exceedingly difficult to know how much confidence to place in either side's findings. Ideology is no substitute for science.

Riley also maintains that TFA's intensive summer training institute, coupled with the support and further training during their two-year stints, prepare its members for the realities of the classroom. But Miner contradicts this view. She traveled to St. Louis to interview educators. She spoke to the associate dean of teacher preparation at the University of Missouri - St.Louis, the vice president of the teachers union, and the president of the elected school board. They acknowledged the intelligence and enthusiasm of TFA members, but felt they were at a disadvantage compared to traditionally trained teachers.

Granted that these three individuals have vested interests in the status quo, but there are others who do not. Education Week published "Teaching for America" by Kerry Kretchmar on Dec. 18, 2009. She left after her two-year commitment because her mental and physical health were shot. Kretchmar wrote: "I cursed TFA for throwing me to the sharks under the false pretense that I could make a difference." In all fairness, it's important to note that she taught 32 kindergartners in a rat-infested South Bronx basement, where there was a 60 percent staff turnover rate and the majority of teachers held emergency credentials.

Then there's the question of career commitment. Riley wrote that Kopp told her: "Today we have hundreds of examples not only of teachers replicating that example (Jaime Escalante) but whole schools moving whole classrooms full of kids and putting them on a path to graduating from college at much the same pace as schools in higher-income communities." Yet given TFA's size - about 0.2 percent of all teachers - that is highly unlikely. Moreover, in 2007, for example, only 16.6 percent of students recruited by TFA were still teaching in a K-12 setting beyond their two-year commitment, according to Miner. In New York City schools, 85 percent of TFA teachers had left by the fourth year, according to Michael Winerip writing in the On Education column in the New York Times on July 12 ("A Chosen Few Are Teaching for America"). It's hard to believe that this tiny percentage is capable of achieving what Kopp said.

What is impressive is the demand by students from marquee-name colleges to be admitted to TFA. From a record 46,359 applicants this past school year, 4,500 were selected to teach in high-poverty schools. This compares with 18,172 applicants in 2007 during the economic boom. Whether the demand will hold up once the recession abates is unclear.

Riley began her essay by explaining how Kopp applied to Morgan Stanley after graduating from Princeton because it was easier than getting traditional teacher certification. I'll end this post by explaining that I graduated from an Ivy League university too and had an opportunity to work for Lehman Brothers ("Lehman and my dad would have been appalled," USA Today, Sept. 25, 2008). Instead, I turned it down to earn my teaching credential the old-fashioned way from UCLA in order to teach in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 28 years. I never regretted my decision for a moment.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The demands of the new global economy have led school reformers to place overwhelming emphasis on math and science, and to a lesser degree on reading. There is no doubt that these are vital subjects to be mastered. Strangely, however, little attention has been paid to the importance of learning a foreign language, probably because English is considered the lingua franca. This strategy is a big mistake.

While fluency is the primary goal of foreign language instruction, it should not be the sole objective by any means. There is also the matter of learning about the cultural values of the people. These include such things as manners and traditions. Executives who do business abroad know how urgent it is to overcome our hubris. More than one deal has been undermined by failure to understand the customs of others. That's because a lot of business is conducted in social situations. It helps explain why American corporations spend heavily on cram courses offered by Berlitz et al. when they would be better advised to fund classes offered by public schools, not only for their own self- interest but for the good of the country as a whole.

Nevertheless, foreign language classes continue to be widely viewed as options, rather than as necessities. By treating them that way, we shortchange students. Yet, there are some hopeful signs. According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, a higher percentage of students are studying a foreign language than at any time in history. A Gallup Poll in 2005 found that 46 percent of those surveyed want more education in foreign languages for children.

So far so good. But if one of the goals of foreign language instruction is to prepare students to compete in the global economy, there's another consideration. The real need is for strategic languages, which include Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Arabic and Farsi, and for understanding the customs of the countries involved. The trouble is that it takes an average English speaker 1,320 hours to become proficient in Mandarin, for example, according to the Foreign Service Institute, which trains American diplomats. This compares with 480 hours to learn Spanish, French or Italian. Then there's the question of classifying ability. The FSI uses five levels, with "1" meaning that the student can handle only the simplest social situations, and "5" being rarely assigned to anyone but a native speaker. In Arabic, for example, there's also a distinct difference between Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial dialects.

Our competitors recognize this importance. Schools within the European Union, for example, are moving toward requiring all secondary school students to learn at least two languages in addition to their native tongue. To achieve this goal, almost all EU countries start compulsory instruction in a foreign language in elementary school. The U.S. is slowly beginning to stress early childhood instruction in strategic languages because younger children are better able to master the pronunciation and intonation of foreign words. At last count, 50,000 elementary and secondary school students were studying Mandarin, according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. This compares with 5,000 students at both levels in 2000.

One of the problems is finding enough qualified teachers in strategic languages. It may be necessary in the short run to waive certification for teachers who have experience in their native countries and to provide mentors to help them overcome the cultural shock that invariably occurs. Whatever it takes is worth doing in light of the rapidly changing economy that students enter. The people of the world understand us more than we understand them. That's a luxury we can no longer afford.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Two recent court rulings about the right of students to exercise free speech have left me baffled. I'm referring to the decisions initially handed down in February in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia but now up for reconsideration.

One case involved a middle school student and the other a high school student. Both dealt with vulgar remarks they posted online from their homes about their respective principals. Yet despite the similarities—at least to my thinking—one panel of the federal court decided in favor of the high school student, and the other panel ruled in favor of the middle school principal. The full court reheard both cases in June, but it has not yet made a final ruling.

I'm flummoxed because I thought the issue of student free speech had finally been settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. In that case, the high court overturned the suspension of students who had defied school officials by wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War. Justice Abe Fortas wrote that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Although two later cases limited Tinker's scope, the case is still widely considered the landmark ruling.

But the issue has become complicated in the digital age because the law is murky in this area. The closest that state legislatures have come to clarifying matters is to pass laws giving school administrators power over cyberbullying, although states differ in the specifics. The New York Times dealt with the ambiguities in a front-page story on June 27 ("Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray"). The two recent cases, however, did not fall under this broad umbrella. Instead, they involved the clear intent by students to smear the reputation of their principals by remarks they made when they were off campus.

Whether this behavior meets the standard set by Justice Fortas when he wrote that school administrators could limit student speech when it would "substantially interfere with the work of the school or impinge upon the rights of other students" is unclear. The U.S. Supreme Court needs to issue guidelines, or students will be encouraged to engage in libel and slander under the guise of freedom of speech. This is a lesson in irresponsibility that is bad for students and the country.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The agreement reached last month between the District of Columbia and the union representing its 4,000 teachers was hailed by the Wall Street Journal in an editorial on July 1 as a model for school districts across the country ("Teacher Tenure Breakout").

The Journal's jubilation was understandable because the contract established the rules for tenure, seniority and pay that the newspaper and others had long fought for. Equally important - or arguably more important - in their eyes, it demonstrated that determined education reformers can stand up to hidebound teachers unions and triumph.

But the question no one is asking is whether the deal reached will help students get a quality education. It's what matters most in the final analysis. If past experience is any guide, however, the outlook is guarded.

First, teacher evaluation will be largely based on student progress on standardized tests. So much has already been written about the subject that I hesitate to comment on it. Nevertheless, it's important to emphasize once again that this obsession leads to the conversion of classrooms into test preparation factories. For the disadvantaged students in D.C. schools, this strategy will certainly boost scores, but it will not provide the enrichment that they so desperately need.

Second, teachers will also be judged by administrators and "master educators" appointed by Chancellor Michelle Rhee's office. The details have not yet been announced as I write this post. But what weight will be given to the former's ratings relative to the latter's? Will either group of observers be required to be certified in the subject matter the teacher is teaching? If not, the practice makes a mockery of evaluation.

Third, when heavy emphasis is focused on standardized test scores, the stage is invariably set for Campbell's Law to make itself felt. The more any quantitative indicator is used for decision making, the more it will be subject to corruption and the more it will corrupt the very process it is intended to monitor. This has been the experience this year in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere, where investigations have pointed to cheating by educators on standardized tests required under the No Child Left Behind Act. With teachers in D.C. able to add upwards of $30,000 to their salaries if they show progress on high-stakes tests, the provision will create enormous pressure to engage in unethical practices.

Finally, with the union weakened, Rhee will be able to ride roughshod over teachers she does not like for one reason or another. This concern is not an exaggeration. The New York Times published a series of columns a few years ago describing how Lee McCaskill, the former principal of Brooklyn Tech, one of New York City's three elite high schools, so bullied teachers that many with stellar records asked to be transferred ("Principal's War Leads to a Teacher Exodus"). Abusive administrators can make life hell for teachers. Certainly without a strong union, the potential increases.

Nothing I've said is meant to imply that change is not needed in the District of Columbia's schools. It is undeniably a troubled system. But real reform means addressing the appalling socioeconomic factors that characterize the backgrounds of too many students there. In the absence of an announcement of plans to do so, I remain skeptical.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:41 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Lost in the debate over school choice is the rapidly growing home school movement. At last count, an estimated 2 million children, or about 4 percent of the total school-age population, were receiving their education in this setting. The number of children learning at home is expanding by 15 to 20 percent a year, according to the Department of Education.

Home schooling was in the news most recently in February, when a German family was granted asylum in the U.S. because home schooling is illegal in their native land. The Romeikes wanted to teach their five children in a different environment. Although Austria permits home schooling, which would have seemed the logical place for them to move, the family was instead encouraged to come here by the Home School Legal Defense Association.

That's because home schooling is legal in all 50 states, albeit with different requirements. Tennessee, where the Romeikes settled, for example, requires all families to notify educational authorities and administer periodic assessment tests. California, on the other hand, has no law that specifically addresses home schooling. A state appellate court in August 2008 clarified the issue by ruling that parents do not have to possess a teaching credential to legally educate their children.

Parents opt for home schooling for a number of reasons, including dissatisfaction with the curriculum, aversion to competition, and fear of violence and drugs. Concerns that home schooled children don't learn as much as they would in traditional schools are not borne out by their above-average scores on the SAT and ACT. Moreover, learning to socialize seems not to be a problem. A 2003 study by the National Home Education Research Institute found that home schoolers are happier and more engaged in their communities than are their traditionally educated peers.

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the right of parents to direct their children's education. Nevertheless, in 1983 only four states had laws that specifically permitted home education. But as disaffection with public schools grew, state legislatures responded accordingly. The movement soon began to be called "unschooling" by some because it rejects the basic foundations of traditional education, including classes, curriculums and textbooks.

Although home schooling is usually associated with white conservatism, it has appeal to black parents as well. According to the National Black Home Educators Resource Association, about 5 percent of the nation's home schooled children are black. In addition, contrary to widespread belief, only a minority of parents who home school their children cited religion as a primary factor in their decision. In fact, nonreligious families now make up more than 40 percent of the movement.

Home schooling is not right for all families by any means. For one thing, parents have to spend far more time in preparing lessons than they anticipated. For another, they have to arrange field trips (including transportation) to museums and other places of educational value on their own if they want to enrich instruction. Finally, they need to take steps to avoid the social isolation that too often is characteristic of home schooling.

The most recent reminder of the effort required appeared in a column in The Guardian on July 1 ("Parents haven't time to run free schools"). Although Susie Steiner was not referring specifically to home schooling but to what resembles charter schools in this country, parent-run schools in England make similar demands. As she put it: "Parents, especially working parents, are about as stretched as it's possible to be. And though they are often devoted and imaginative about their children's education, they rarely know better than the local authority education department."

Despite these caveats, home schooling is worthy of the same support given to other options because parents should be the final judge of the education their children receive. But remember that choice has consequences. This is the view I expressed in my post on June 30 ("A Proposal for School Choice").

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:16 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Just when the heated debate over the payoff of a four-year college degree seemed to have died down, The Weekly Standard published a piece in the July 5-12 issue that is sure to reignite the flames ("Obama's Crusade Against Profits"). Andrew Ferguson, the magazine's senior editor, argued that the only genuine difference between non-profit (traditional) and for-profit (proprietary) colleges is that the latter earn a profit. He believes "nowadays that's enough to make you suspect."

Actually, there's more to the story than what Ferguson maintains. Let's start with the numbers. Despite the cost, enrollment in proprietary colleges has soared. Average tuition is about twice that of state colleges or community colleges, and approximately half that of private non-profit schools. One quarter of all adult undergraduates are enrolled in a proprietary school. If the growth continues at the present rate, 42 percent of this population will be attending by the end of the decade. This compares with seven percent of the country's overall college population enrolled in these schools.

Why would so many non-traditional students (high school dropouts, single parents, part-time workers et al.) opt for these proprietary institutions when they could attend state schools at a fraction of the cost? The answer is they provide flexibility and convenience in the form of multiple locations, rolling admissions, night and weekend classes and emphasis on online instruction. In other words, they're easier to get into and easier to graduate from than traditional colleges because the aim is to generate volume, which in turn enhances profits.

Yet it's highly doubtful in the final analysis if the degree opens more doors than a certificate from a community college would. That's a fair point because with some notable exceptions, the primary - perhaps sole - objective of these students is to land a job immediately after graduation. There's nothing at all wrong with this goal, especially in this recession. But why spend the money, time and effort to earn a degree that is of dubious value?

Charles Murray raises this same question in Real Education (Crown Forum, 2008). He believes that far greater emphasis should be placed on vocational education in high school. The notion that college is for everyone is "educational romanticism." He's right. I've written before about the unintended consequences of counseling all students to apply to college ("Rethinking the Value of a College Degree"). If more students were directed to a vocational curriculum, they would enhance their chances of being steadily employed in the decades ahead. That's because the only jobs that will be secure will be those unable to be sent abroad electronically.

There's another factor that needs amplification. Proprietary school students are more likely to default on their student loans than traditional school students. Although proprietary schools receive 20 percent of all federal loans, their students account for 40 percent of the defaults. These students typically possess characteristics that would make them candidates for default at traditional schools as well. But at least the size of their default would not be as great if they had enrolled in state colleges or community colleges. That's no small consideration when credit is so hard to get.

All college degrees are not equal because they signify different accomplishments. With all due respect, is a bachelor's degree from an Ivy League school considered the same as a bachelor's degree from a state university? By the same token, is an on-line bachelor's degree perceived in the same way as a bachelor's degree from a bricks- and- mortar college? The question is something that students need to ponder before they commit to any form of tertiary education. The trouble is that too many students have been seduced by the allure of a sheepskin.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend