November 2010 Archives

Faced with the daunting task of turning around failing schools, a number of cities over the past 20 years put their mayors in charge of the job. Although this strategy ran counter to a long tradition of school board independence, it was seen as the most effective way to speed up the pace of reform.

The most dramatic example was New York City, home of the nation's largest school district. In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg convinced the state Legislature to grant him the power he sought. Whether he has been successful depends largely on who is queried. What is undeniable, however, is the controversy surrounding Bloomberg's recent appointment of Cathleen Black to be the new chancellor, replacing Joel Klein, who will take a post with News Corp.

The problem for Bloomberg was that New York State requires a waiver for anyone who lacks education qualifications. The mayor succeeded in getting the waiver by agreeing to allow Shael Polakow-Suransky to be named the chief academic officer to serve under Black. This concession satisfied Education Commissioner David Steiner ("Mayor Reaches Deal With State On School Pick," New York Times, Nov. 27).

The deal came after six of eight members of a panel voted to deny granting an exemption. Steiner initially expressed "serious concerns" about the waiver. But he caved, despite a poll by Quinnipiac University finding that 47 percent of city voters disapproved of Bloomberg's appointment of Black, with 29 percent in favor and 25 percent undecided. More important, voters with children in the city's public schools disapproved of the appointment by 62 to 25 percent.

What this controversy underscores are the potential disadvantages of mayoral control of schools. For one thing, when mayors run for election (or re-election), schools become only one issue in the minds of voters. As a result, their votes are hard to interpret. Did they approve primarily what the mayor wants to do (or did) for schools, or did they approve primarily what the mayor wants to do (or did) to reduce crime?

For another, when power is vested in one person's hands alone, personal ties play an inordinate role in appointments. This is certainly the case with Black. She and Bloomberg move in the same social circles. But what about others who do not? Are they out of consideration? That's another reason Bloomberg has been criticized. Most searches for school leaders involve transparency through a public process. Bloomberg operates in secrecy. It's his arrogance that has soured many parents in New York City on mayoral control ("Behind Anger Over an Appointment, Discontent With the Mayor," New York Times, Nov. 26).

Finally, mayoral control gives one person the means to shape the education debate on his terms. Bloomberg has been able "to deflect criticism, dominate the media, and use the schools as campaign props" because of his absolute power, according to Manhattan Institute senior fellow Sol Stern ("PR but not the 3 Rs," Los Angeles Times, Mar. 25, 2006). It was concern about cronyism and corruption that caused reformers more than 100 years ago to remove operation of schools from mayoral control. The belief then was that electing members of a school board would be more democratic.

Unless clear evidence emerges that school districts perform better when mayors are in charge, it may be time to rethink our love affair with the current trend. Right now, the evidence is mixed.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Although Davis Guggenheim's "Waiting for Superman" has received the lion's share of media attention, it actually followed in the footsteps of "The Lottery," which was released in May after being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival the month before. Directed and edited by Madeleine Sackler, who was also a co-producer, the documentary focuses on the attempts of four desperate families to get their children admitted to the Harlem Success Academy through the use of a chance drawing.

Despite the similarities between the two documentaries, I wanted to give Sackler an opportunity to respond to a series of questions about what I considered to be essentially an infomercial. She consented, even though she knew that I had already written a 900-word scathing op-ed about "Waiting for Superman" that was published in the Sacramento Bee on Oct. 16 (" 'Superman' offers mirage, not a miracle"). What follows is a condensed and edited version of the interview.

Q: What was your purpose in making "The Lottery"?
A: I wanted to give poor families who were dissatisfied with traditional public schools a chance to make their voices heard. For too long, their children have been underserved. I thought the best way to do that was to present case studies.

Q: How do you respond to critics who say "The Lottery" is an infomercial?
A: I understand why some viewers will think it was not balanced. However, I offered the teachers union an opportunity to make its case. I repeatedly tried to contact Randi Weingarten, but her office dragged its feet until I finally gave up.

Q: Why didn't you at least include the Darling-Hammond study showing that charter schools don't perform as well as traditional public schools?
A: My purpose was to focus on what families go through to get the best education for their children. I was not interested in presenting studies. I'm a documentary maker - not an academic. I'm not saying that all charter schools are good, but when they don't produce results, they go out of business. That's not what happens with other public schools.

Q: Do you think that the success of the Harlem Success Academy can be replicated in other cities with large numbers of poor students?
A: I don't know, nor do I think anyone else knows either. But I believe that we can't stop trying because of the daunting challenge. Too much is at stake.

Q: What about parents who are not involved in their children's education enough to take advantage of the opportunities open to them?
A: The way lotteries in Harlem are operated practically makes it impossible for parents not to participate. Charter operators there go door-to-door to make parents aware.
All they have to do is fill out a simple form and return it to qualify for the drawing.

Q: Since "Waiting for Superman" followed "The Lottery," why do you think it has received far more publicity? Do you resent the disparity?
A: It may have to do with the amount of money available for promotion. Also, Davis Guggenheim has a following because of the success of his first documentary. But I have no hard feelings at all.

Q: Do you have any other documentaries on education in mind?
A: Not at the moment. "The Lottery" was my first one. I hope it won't be the last.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Just when it seemed as if vouchers were moribund, the school board in Douglas County, located south of Denver, announced it is considering allowing parents to use public funds to send their children to private schools. What makes the story unusual is that the county is one of the wealthiest in the nation, with median family income of $105,000 and only eight percent of students qualifying for free lunches. Never before have vouchers been attempted in an affluent suburban district with high-performing public schools, according to the Wall Street Journal ("Board Floats Voucher Plan," Nov. 20).

To make matters more interesting, all private schools in Douglas County beyond first grade - with one exception - are Christian-based. If parents decide to use the vouchers in similar schools, it would result in public funds supporting religious schools. However, the Supreme Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris in 2002 ruled by 5-4 that as long as individuals directly received the vouchers rather than institutions, the plan was constitutional. (It also listed four other conditions.) The high court said that if all criteria were satisfied vouchers enabled parents to "exercise genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious."

The last time vouchers were in the headlines was in Nov. 2007 when voters in Utah overwhelmingly defeated the country's first universal voucher program. In Sept. 2010, vouchers again appeared less prominently in the news when the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania came out in favor of "education grants" for disadvantaged students. Nevertheless, it's important to bear in mind that millions of voters in more than 25 statewide referendums across the country between 1967 and 2004 rejected vouchers or their analogues by an average margin of 2-to-1.

One possible explanation for the thumbs-down vote over the years is that vouchers have not produced the academic results their supporters had hoped. In the first full-scale longitudinal study of the country's oldest voucher program that began in 1990 in Milwaukee, low-income students who attended private schools still were scoring about the same as their peers in public schools ("New data shows similar academic results between voucher and MPS students," Apr. 7, 2010). And a study in June 2009 of students using vouchers to attend private schools in Florida reported that they were doing no better and no worse than similar students in public schools.

It's too soon to know if the Douglas County school board will go through with its plan. If it does, we can expect to see other affluent districts follow suit. But remember that parents do not choose schools solely on the basis of academic results. As I wrote recently, they often make their choices for holistic, social and logistic reasons. Therefore, studies focusing only on academic outcomes do not tell the whole story.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:24 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Whether the country is ready or not, parental choice of schools is here to stay. As readers of this column know, I support the policy because I believe that ultimately only parents know what is best for their children's education.

But at the same time, it's important to realize the limitations of the strategy. The fate of children whose parents are not involved in their education unfortunately is given short shrift in the debate. If they are considered unavoidable collateral damage, then there's nothing further to discuss. However, I don't think most people will accept that outcome.

New Zealand serves as a case study. In the early 1990s, New Zealand implemented the most dramatic transformation of a state system of compulsory education ever undertaken by an industrialized nation. Under an ambitious program known as Tomorrow's Schools, the government allowed parents to apply to any school they wanted. The equivalent of a voucher followed children once they were admitted.

The trouble was that the most involved parents immediately took advantage of the opportunities. The best schools rapidly filled up and began turning away hard-to-teach children, disproportionately poor minorities. Those rejected were forced to return by default to their schools of origin, which became significantly more polarized along socioeconomic and ethnic lines than before. Realizing that its grand experiment was not working as intended, New Zealand began to pull back.

What is also overlooked is that when students in their schools of choice do not measure up for one reason or another, they are often pushed out. This can happen in a very subtle way. When this occurs, they return to their original schools, which become the schools of last resort. I use that term because traditional public schools cannot by law also push out underperforming students. Only if they are found guilty of stipulated acts of violence or other egregious conduct can they be expelled.

Chicago is an example of how counseling-out works. Parental choice supporters like to point to the 11,000 students on waiting lists for admission to charter schools in the city as evidence of their popularity. But they don't talk about the other side of the story. According to an investigative report published on WBEZ, more than 2,500 students left charter schools in Chicago last year - or about 11 percent of the total charter enrollment. Some of the most coveted charters lose upwards of 25 percent in a year ("Chicago charter schools struggle to hold onto weakest students"). By getting low-performing students to leave, charter schools boost their test scores, attendance figures and graduation rates. The overwhelming majority return to the neighborhood schools they originally fled.

It's impossible to know the exact details of the choice movement in the years ahead. But whatever develops, it's unfair to expect traditional public schools to be able to compete with schools that play by different rules. Yet critics with their own agendas ignore this issue, instead preferring to harp on what they call the intrinsic inferiority of traditional schools. This double standard does a disservice to all stakeholders.

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

With consensus mounting that teachers are the single most important in-school factor in student achievement, it's time to take a closer look at the programs designed to prepare them for the classroom. On Nov. 16, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed on the subject ("Training better teachers") and on the same day the Wall Street Journal ran a news article on the same issue ("Teacher Training Is Panned").

What emerges is a scathing indictment of the nation's 1,450 colleges and departments of education. Specifically, the charge is that too many teacher preparation programs focus far too heavily on theory at the expense of clinical experience. This criticism is not new. In 2004, David Labaree, professor in the School of Education at Stanford, wrote The Trouble With Ed Schools (Yale University Press), in which he acknowledged the shortcomings of some teacher training programs. Education Secretary Arne Duncan went a step further in a speech delivered at Teachers College at Columbia on Oct. 22, 2009, calling them "mediocre."

There's no question that changes are needed. But rather than repeat the familiar solutions, I think it's important to look at the matter another way. The numbers tell why. The responsibility for educating 50 million students in 90,000 public schools falls on the shoulders of 3.2 million teachers. Every year, schools hire more than 200,000 new teachers for the first day of class in the fall. But by the time summer rolls around, at least 22,000 have quit. Those who make it through the crucial first year aren't likely to stay. About 30 percent bail out after 3 years, and 45 percent are gone after five years.

Whether this churn-and-burn rate would decrease if teacher training were made more practical is the question. Certainly, it would help by providing aspiring teachers with the wherewithal to deal with the realities of the classroom. Nothing is more dispiriting to new teachers than finding themselves unable to cope with the day-to-day issues they face. When the stress becomes unbearable, teachers quit.

Recognizing a similar problem, England is considering the possibility of shifting teacher training from a partnership between universities and schools to making the training mainly school-based, according to the Independent ("Are universities still the best places to train our teachers?" Nov. 11). The issue is controversial because Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) rates almost 85 percent of the existing program as good or outstanding.

But let's not forget that recruiting and retaining the number of highly qualified teachers needed in the U.S. is a monumental task. Finland is often cited as a model for the U.S. because of the excellence of its schools. But Finland is a tiny country of just five million people. As a result, the number of teachers needed to fill its classrooms is infinitesimal. That's one of the reasons Finland will admit only 10 percent of applicants to its teacher training programs within universities, and why candidates are required to earn the equivalent of master's degrees, stressing subject matter and pedagogy. Finland can afford to be highly selective.

Nevertheless, there is one readily applicable part of Finland's approach: its policy of combining classroom instruction with teaching internships. New teachers are guided by mentor teachers who expose them to a variety of classroom situations throughout their entire training. As a result, when new teachers are finally put in charge of their own classrooms they don't suffer from the same shock as teachers in the U.S. This one step alone would help reduce the estimated $7.3 billion annually that the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future says it costs public schools to replace departing teachers.

Those responsible for teacher preparation are under rightful pressure to change. Whether they will is another story. Tradition dies hard.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Promoted as a way of finally transferring power from school officials and teachers unions to parents where it rightly belongs, California's Parent Trigger Law is unlikely to have the impact its supporters hope. Under the law, if 51 percent of parents in a failing school sign a petition, the result could mean closing a school, firing all the staff and rehiring new teachers and administrators, or turning over the school to a charter operator.

Despite the fanfare since the law went into effect in Jan. 2010, few parents have taken advantage of their new leverage to create change. That's not at all surprising. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, which has been in existence since 2002, parents have had the right to transfer their children out of failing schools. But few have done so.

There are several explanations. In 2003, a study by the University of Texas found that parents often chose schools for idiosyncratic reasons, with low-income parents more satisfied with their schools despite low test scores. Echoing this finding, in 2005, the National Center for the Study of Privatization reported that parents frequently opted for schools based on holistic, social, logistic and administrative factors.

These findings call into question whether parental disaffection with traditional neighborhood schools is as pervasive as reformers have claimed. In an essay published in the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 13, David Feith points out that 1,300 of California's 10,000 schools qualify as eligible for triggering because they have failed to make "adequate yearly progress" according to state standards for four consecutive years ("The Radical School Reform Law You've Never Heard Of"). Yet only a tiny handful of parents have taken advantage of the opportunity to begin collecting signatures.

Supporters of the law are not sure how to read the less than enthusiastic response so far. It's hard to disentangle genuine parent concern from outside pressure from charter groups. Parent Revolution, which was responsible for the Parent Trigger law, is not a parent group, despite its name. It's essentially Green Dot public schools, the large charter management organization. As a result, there is rightful skepticism about conflict of interest.

Perhaps if other states had a Parent Trigger law, the outlook would be brighter. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, five states have waitlists of more than 10,000 students. If parents were legally empowered, they would be able to pressure their legislators to raise the cap on charter schools in order to provide their children with the education they want.

But this is speculation. All that is known to date is that most parents in California have been indifferent. However the Parent Trigger Law ultimately plays out there, I don't think it will make much of a difference in improving schools. There are still too many factors that account for educational quality beyond the control of even the best teachers.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

With reformers relentlessly demanding that schools produce measurable outcomes, it's curious that the Gini Index is rarely mentioned. I say that because what Italian statistician Corrado Gini wrote in 1912 has direct relevance to today's debate.

Sometimes referred to as the Gini coefficient, it measures the range of income inequality in a society from 0 (no inequality) to 1(total inequality). Sweden, for example, has an index of .23, while Namibia has .7. The U.S. has one of the world's worst Ginis for an industrialized country at .468 in 2009. This is not surprising since wealth is being reconcentrated in the upper one percent of the population in a way not seen since the Gilded Age.

The change has not escaped the attention of commentators. In his Nov. 7 New York Times column, Nicholas D. Kristof wrote that the U.S. "now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana" ("Our Banana Republic"). Echoing this view, on Nov. 8, the Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely based on a sample of 5,000 people, including young and old, men and women, rich and poor, liberal and conservative. They found, among other things, that "Americans reported wanting to live in a country more like Sweden than the United States" ("Spreading the wealth").

The implications for schools are inescapable. Researchers have repeatedly emphasized the effects that poverty has on performance. According to UNICEF, the U.S. already had the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world long before the latest Census Bureau report showed that one in five children are now living in poverty. Overall, the share of Americans in poverty climbed to 14.3 percent in 2009, the highest level since 1994.

If Gini were alive today, he would find great material for his index. When any society is characterized by a high index, it is bound to exhibit the kind of socioeconomic differences that impact schools. Students can overcome their backgrounds, but they tend to constitute a small percentage of the overall population. That's why it makes little sense to compare test scores of one country with the test scores of another. Just as Zip codes serve as a reliable predictor of scores on standardized tests, so too does a country's Gini serve an equally valuable purpose.

This does not mean that inspired teachers can't help students from chaotic backgrounds. As Richard Rothstein recently explained in his keynote at ASCD's 2010 Conference on Teaching and Learning ("One-Third Agenda Won't Close Gaps"), teachers are the most important in-school factor in achievement. But teachers are not miracle workers. By themselves, they cannot compensate for the deficits that students bring to the classroom. These out-of school factors play a disproportionately large role in academic performance. The Harlem Children's Zone recognized the distinction. That's why it provides its students with wraparound services, which are underwritten by wealthy philanthropists.

In light of these facts, I have a proposal. Require that whenever test scores are published, the Gini index must be published with them. After all, federal law has long mandated that stocks may not be sold to the public without a prospectus. Why should test scores be any different? They are evidence of investment in public education. The more relevant information taxpayers have, the better able they will be to make judgments about the performance of schools.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The appointment of Cathleen Black to be chancellor of the nation's largest school district should come as no surprise to followers of the reform movement. Despite her lack of education experience (except for sitting on the board of the Harlem Village Academy but not yet having attended a meeting), Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose her to replace the departing Joel Klein, who moves on to become an executive vice president at News Corp.

The trend of going outside the educational community to run troubled school districts will be applauded by those frustrated and angry at the pace of school improvement. They will argue that it is precisely what is called for. After all, they will claim that what works in business, the military or the law will work in schools. If nothing else, these outsiders will shake things up. If reformers are right, then Black, who was chairwoman of Hearst Magazines where she was highly regarded, is a solid choice for chancellor.

There still remains the formality of Black getting a waiver from New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner because of a law that went into effect in 1970 requiring all school chiefs to have at least a master's degree and professional certificate in educational leadership, in addition to three years' experience in schools. But Steiner is expected to defer to Bloomberg's request, making Black the new chancellor.

Nevertheless, as I've often written before, education is unique. Teachers are not motivated by the same factors that shape the behavior of workers in other fields. As a result, choosing chancellors or superintendents who do not understand the teaching profession because of their lack of classroom experience is likely to be counterproductive. A quick review of other large districts explains why I remain skeptical.

In October 2006, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest, hired Navy Vice Adm. David Brewer as superintendent. It did so in the belief that the qualities making for a successful career in the military would make for success in education. But a scathing 115-page report by Evergreen Solutions issued in April 2007 concluded that the district with 78,000 employees, 700,000 students and an $11-billion annual budget at the time was inefficient and ineffective. Brewer resigned in early 2009.

The San Diego Unified School District appointed former U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin to run its schools from 1998 to 2005. But he resigned when it became obvious that his leadership was not up to expectations. Prior to Joel Klein, New York City's 1,500 schools were headed by Harold Levy, a former Citibank executive. He too was found lacking in the necessary skills to lead the 1.1 million-student district. And in 1995, Chicago hired Paul Vallas, a former legislative staff member and budget manager for the city. He balanced the school district budget, but test scores dropped, leading Mayor Richard Daley to push him out.

This list of failures does not always mean that appointing school chiefs with zero or few educational credentials is doomed. Bringing in those with a fresh perspective and knowledge of running large organizations sometimes can be beneficial. But it's vital to remember that teachers work best under leaders who have a deep appreciation of the difficult work they do. No matter what outsiders say, it's hard to believe that most of them possess that quality.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:35 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider this term whether school tuition organizations that were set up in Arizona in 1997 pass constitutional muster. The law permits residents of the state to contribute up to $500 that they would otherwise pay in taxes to a nonprofit school tuition organization. In turn, the STOs give scholarships to students to attend non-public schools. The only two conditions are that STOs can't award the scholarships to one school, and they must take financial need into consideration.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of taxpayers who challenged the program on the basis that the donations are gifts from the state because they are credited against state tax obligations. In other words, the lower court saw STOs as thinly veiled end runs around the wall separating church and state.

It's hard to know how the Supreme Court will decide the case. But if the past is any guide, I think it will rule in favor of STOs. In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the high court in 2002 upheld a school voucher program in Cleveland, saying that parents, rather than the state, decided how to use the vouchers. It mattered not a whit to the high court that 96 percent of parents in Cleveland used their vouchers for Catholic private schools.

By the same token, it is parents - not the state - once again in Arizona who decide whether they should use their tax credit for a religious or non-religious STO. Moreover, because none of the plaintiff's money is at risk, they can't argue that they have what is known in law as "standing." If this is the case, then plaintiffs may be on legal thin ice to sue.

Nevertheless, I doubt that the issue will disappear no matter what the Supreme Court decides. Parental choice is inevitable. The only imponderable is what form it will take. All the more reason to make traditional neighborhood schools so attractive to parents that they will have no incentive to look elsewhere.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

With China and the U.S. competing to be the world's superpower, it's a propitious time to take a closer look at the contrasting ways the two countries are attempting to reform schools. Although the U.S. has only 98,000 public schools serving 50 million students, compared with China's 600,000 schools serving 230 million students, both can learn from each other.

Schools in China are slowly trying to break away from their emphasis on memorization toward adopting strategies that stress creativity. Until now, schools believed that the former was the best way to score high on the gao kao. This exam has long been the key to acceptance to the best universities. But recognizing that the approach is counterproductive in the new global economy, China is attempting to change. However, much of the last year of high school is still spent reviewing for the exam, according to the New York Times ("The China Boom," Nov. 7).

Moreover, elite universities have resisted granting admission to students whose high schools recommended them if they did not first make the cut on the gao kao. According to John Richard Schrock, director of biology education at the University of Kansas and an expert on Chinese schools, the public is also vehemently against making changes. In an e-mail to me from China, where he is presently advising educators, Schrock attributes the opposition to familiarity with the system that has been in place since 1949.

In the U.S., a different trend is underway. Convinced that high-stakes tests are the best way to measure educational quality and assure our economic hegemony, reformers are running roughshod over those who believe otherwise. By now, the details of the Race to the Top initiative are well known. Competition among states for funding in the midst of the deep recession practically guarantees that measures will be adopted to undermine creative instruction. Yet the harm done won't become apparent for years. Test scores will undoubtedly rise, but at a steep price.

In an attempt to learn from each other, the Ministry of Education in China and the College Board in the U.S. have formed a partnership to exchange educators. About 325 guest teachers from China have volunteered to work for up to three years in the U.S., with their salaries subsidized by the Chinese government. Some 2,000 American school administrators have visited China at Beijing's expense. One of the first things they have reported is the contrast in attitudes toward teachers. In neither country do teachers earn much money. But in China, teachers are accorded great respect because teaching is considered an honorable career.

Whether a healthy balance can be achieved between the two approaches to educating the young is unclear. Tradition is hard to overcome, even in the face of new realities. But it is ironic to note that just when the U.S. is engaged in increased testing, China is moving away from a strictly examination culture.

Correction: John Richard Schrock is at Emporia State University.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Is there another, better way of determining what teachers have taught and what students have learned than the standardized tests presently in use today? There is, but it is almost as controversial as the present approach. It's called performance assessment. It's not exactly new, but it's far more authentic.

Performance assessment is applicable to any subject taught. It allows students to demonstrate their creativity and problem-solving ability more comprehensively than the standardized tests currently in use. Here's how it works. English teachers, for example, have students create portfolios of their essays over the semester. The work is initially graded by the teacher, but the grade is subsequently confirmed by other English teachers. Science teachers can ask their students to carry out experiments before panels of other teachers, who in turn rate the demonstrations.

So what's preventing its use? Although performance assessment goes back a century to the start of the progressive movement in education, it was only in 1990 that Vermont implemented the first statewide program of portfolio assessment. But two years later, the RAND Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank, issued a report calling into question the subjectivity in grading. Specifically, it raised the issue of rater reliability. Not wanting to be seen as undermining educational quality, Vermont began to move away from its innovation.

In 1990, Kentucky also enacted a portfolio-assessment program. But after a few years, a state review panel found that there was grade inflation, most likely because teachers in the students' own school scored the work. Moreover, it said that it was impossible to compare student performance fairly because the time allotted for opportunities to revise work differed from classroom to classroom.

A decade later, a network of nontraditional schools in New York State requested permission from Education Commissioner Richard Mills to use individually tailored projects instead of the standardized Regents exams in English that were required for graduation. Mills said no. Although the New York City-based New York Performance Standards Consortium representing 28 schools finally received a waiver from the Regents exams, the exemption doesn't cover the English exam and expires with the class of 2013.

There's no question that grading subjectivity needs to be addressed before performance assessment is widely adopted. But it is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. By establishing clear guidelines for grading, known as rubrics, and training teachers how to use them, reformers can overcome the problem. Even the new SAT, for example, now includes a 25-minute essay section.

Beside the issue of reliability in grading, there is also the issue of cost. Unlike standardized tests, which are graded by machine cheaply and quickly, portfolios and their variants are time-intensive undertakings. In today's economy, states are not likely to adopt assessment policies that add to their deficits.

That's understandable but shortsighted. If we genuinely want to graduate students who can compete in the new global economy, we need to ask what other countries are doing. Finland, which has the world's best schools, uses performance assessment.

Ultimately, the debate comes down to each side saying it cannot trust the other. Supporters of standardized tests say the tests are objective; supporters of portfolios say the tests stifle creativity. It's a classic duel, with students watching anxiously on the sidelines.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Spared for years by criticism aimed at K-12 schools and four-year institutions of higher learning, community colleges are now in the dock for failing to perform their missions. The main venue is California, whose Master Plan for Higher Education in 1960 conceived community colleges as an affordable way for students to complete the first two years of college before transferring to a four-year school and for students seeking an associate's degree or career certification.

In a report by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy, researchers found woefully low student transfer and completion rates at California's 112 community colleges serving 2.9 million students ("Community colleges must commit to change," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 27). Only one-third of the 250,000 first-time students from 2003 through 2009 received any credential whatsoever. For students aiming to transfer to the University of California or California State University, only 23 percent had done so six years later. For black and Hispanic students, the numbers were worse - 20 percent v. 14 percent, respectively.

Recognizing the problem, the Long Beach College Promise center was established three years ago. It is a collaboration between the Long Beach Unified School District and California State University Long Beach that seeks to provide a coordinated system of "information, intervention and academic preparation from kindergarten to graduate school," according to the Los Angeles Times ("In Long Beach, a promise to help struggling students," Oct. 29).

The question is why community colleges have done so poorly. When the issue is students who are counseled to apply to a four-year college or university directly from high school even though they have neither the aptitude nor desire, the answer is clear: They are the recipients of bad advice. But how do we explain the examples of students who want to go to a community college to earn an associate degree or a certificate as their terminal educational goal? Can we claim that they are also the victims of bad advice? Or is there some other explanation that bears looking into?

It may be that for many young people a brick-and-mortar campus is obsolete. At least, this is what Charles Murray believes (Real Education, Crown Forum, 2008). The Internet provides many students with the training they are seeking in a way that they are most familiar with. Let's not forget that the millenniums have grown up with technology on a scale that the baby boomers have not. Even the argument about the need for interaction between teachers and students or between students themselves no longer applies when e-mail exists. Distance learning and Facebook seem to be enough. Moreover, work-bound students believe that their employers will provide them with all the on-the-job training they need. Why spend the time, effort and money in a community college?

It's something to think about.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Competition for admission to coveted schools has been so well documented by the media by now that I thought I had seen it all. But a news article in the New York Times on Oct. 28 about the battle for acceptance to private preschools in New York City convinced me otherwise ("For Some Youngsters, a Second Chance at an Exclusive School").

The report described how children from some families are allowed to take the Educational Records Bureau a second time if their score the first time did not make the cut for admission. The E.R.B. is a one-hour intelligence test designed for preschoolers that is administered one on one by a licensed psychologist. It costs $510.

Private preschools in New York City disproportionately rely on the test's results, although they also consider to a lesser degree interviews, reports and letters of recommendation. The second test costs over $1,000 and is derived from the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence.

Because the preschools are private, they can grant admission to any child they wish. But some parents charge that the schools are not fair when they allow only certain children to take the E.R.B. a second time. The preschools readily admit that they retest children whose parents are in some way connected to the school, or are an excellent candidate. The latter is code for children of celebrities, or children from wealthy parents willing to contribute to the school's endowment.

If this were the sum and substance of the story, it would not qualify as much more than a dispute among the ultra wealthy in New York City. But the E.R.B. is involved in a larger controversy. Its Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence test is used by private schools across the country to select children for kindergarten and other grade levels.

Beginning in the late 1960s, the Educational Records Bureau became the de facto gatekeeper to New York City's private schools when the admission association decided to use one uniform test. The E.R.B. partnered with Pearson, a test development company, to design the exam, which is revised every decade or so. As competition has heated up, not surprisingly has the demand for tutoring and test preparation materials.

In addition to the complaint about special treatment, the debate is over the validity of the inferences made about the test. If it is coachable, then wealthy parents will always have a built-in advantage. Yet despite the evidence calling into question its predictive value, the test continues to be used in the belief that it remains the only "objective" measure of ability.

I wonder where this testing frenzy is headed. If we believe that a four-year old's intelligence can be measured, then why not administer tests to even younger children? What about a test for the newly born? Don't dismiss that possibility. It could happen.

Posted by Walt Gardner at 8:12 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend