A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
September 20, 2006, Volume 1, Number 20
Contents
Editorial
Recommended Reading
Reviews and Analysis
Announcements
Editorial
Dubious Solutions
by Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Recommended Reading
Paradise Lost (in the School Cafeteria)
"They eat, they drink, and in communion quaff sweet immortality and joy," wrote poet John Milton of Adam and Eve's life before the fall. But high school students in Lafayette County, Indiana don't have to read Milton to feel the progenitorial couple's loss. Recently, leaders in the county's three school districts have replaced fattening cafeteria and vending machine delicacies like nachos and sugary sodas with more wholesome fare such as vegetables and fruit juices.
Harrison High School junior Hope Gerlach summed up the healthier victuals as simply "too gross to eat." West Lafayette junior Lauren Horner described the changes in psychological terms: "In the vending machines, there's no chocolate...It's kind of depressing."
Yet Tippecanoe School District's own Gabriel, physician Dr. Steven Lipp, insists that the changes, a response to districts' state-mandated wellness policies, will help encourage students to make better lifestyle choices.
Many students are walking more during lunchtime--to local convenience stores and fast-food joints. Paradise may be lost in the school cafeteria, but it's serving super-sized combos just down the road.
"Students Spurn Healthy Lunches," The Indianapolis Star, September, 12, 2006.
Reviews and Analysis
Urban Districts Learning to Compete
Competition from charter schools is spurring one of Ohio's most troubled urban districts, Dayton Public Schools (DPS), to improve.
So says a new report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), which examined the methods employed by DPS and Wisconsin's Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) to respond to the competitive school markets they are in.
Dayton charters are putting considerable pressure on DPS. More than 6,300 of the city's 22,000 schoolchildren (28 percent) attend charter schools. Percentage-wise, only New Orleans, whose traditional public school district was decimated by Hurricane Katrina, has more according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (see here).
Worse for DPS is the fact that in 2005-2006, Dayton's charter schools outperformed district schools in math and reading at almost every grade level (see here). At the sixth- and eighth-grade levels, gaps between charter and district proficiency levels were in the double digits.
Faced with such grim numbers, DPS has responded with fresh school and program choices of its own, as well as a serious focus on student achievement. New options include single-sex schools, the Dayton Early College Academy, and most recently the Dayton Technology Design High School. DPS has also implemented a highly centralized administrative model meant to coordinate curriculum and classroom instruction in schools across the district.
Though district leaders are loath to admit it, DPS staff surveyed in the report acknowledge their approach to educating the districts' students has changed because of competition. One DPS principal remarked, "School choice has really put an emphasis on what we do as educators...how we serve the public, how we service our students, and how we represent the district because of the competition."
Hardened skeptics should consider similar findings in Wisconsin. MPS, also facing a highly competitive school choice market, opted to respond to choice with choice--but in greater numbers. The district began offering students a slew of new schools and programs that directly compete with the city's charters. With more program opportunities also came an emphasis on student recruitment and a decentralized governing model that handed flexibility and autonomy to individual schools and principals.
Despite their different approaches, both districts are paying closer attention to achievement data and parent concerns, taking school oversight seriously, and giving families greater choices in programs. As a result, MPS has seen its enrollment numbers stabilize and test scores improve. Whether DPS can stem the tide of students leaving for charter schools is still up for debate, but the district's recent move to Continuous Improvement on the state's report card is encouraging.
Bottom line, many measures DPS and MPS have taken to compete with charter schools look a lot like those that help schools improve overall--a strong indication that school choice is working for students in Dayton (and beyond).
"Charter Schools in Ohio Gaining More Public Students," The Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 12, 2006.
Download CRPE's report here.
by Quentin Suffren
Sub-Standard Math Standards Get Help
After 17 years of promoting "fuzzy" math, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has finally found clarity.
In its new report "Curriculum Focal Points," NCTM reverses its previous recommendations that early math instruction focus on abstract conceptual skills (such as asking students to write about math instead of actually doing it) and now holds that students should master basic arithmetic and number facts.
Unlike previous NCTM reports, this one doesn't offer reams of recommendations. Instead, it limits itself to just three basic skills that students at each grade level should know.
Critics--including many parents--have long decried NCTM's 1989 report as one reason American students perform poorer in math than their peers in other countries. Results from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a test that compares student math achievement across the globe, has U.S. students ranked 15th in eighth-grade math skills--behind Latvia and the Slovak Republic, among others. NCTM's new "Focal Points" more closely resemble the math curriculum of Singapore, which ranked number 1 in the 2003 study.
The change couldn't come at a better time. Ohio's math standards are in dire need of an overhaul. They merited only a "C" in Fordham's The State of State Standards 2006, which evaluated states' academic standards. Among the most egregious deficiencies was the limited coverage of arithmetic and algebra indicators--the results of which are clearly visible on the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP). In 2005, 57 percent of Ohio's tested fourth-graders scored Basic or Below Basic on the math portion of the test. And 67 percent of eighth-graders failed to score Proficient or above.
Yet the consequences of such poor performance don't stop at the eighth grade. In Ohio, as in other states, large numbers of high school students graduate without the requisite skills for success in college or the workplace. A study by ACT (see here) found that just 45 percent of the state's graduates taking the test in 2006 were prepared for college-level math courses. And the costs of playing catch-up are mainly shouldered by taxpayers. The Alliance for Excellent Education (see here) recently found that reducing the need for remedial study would save Ohio over $69 million per year--a large portion of which is devoted to remedial math courses. Not to mention the almost $63 million a year in taxable earnings the state would net by having those students in the workforce sooner.
NCTM's sharpened focus is one step to improving students' college and workplace readiness (the Ohio Core could be another) in the Buckeye State. Ohio should waste little time sharpening its pencils--and revise its sub-standard math standards accordingly.
"Report Urges Changes in the Teaching of Math in U.S. Schools," by Tamar Lewin, The New York Times, September 13, 2006.
"NCTM Issues New Guidelines to Help Schools Home In on the Essentials of Math," Education Week, September, 12, 2006.
"New Report Urges Return to Basics in Teaching Math," by John Hechinger, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), September, 12, 2006.
Check out NCTM's report here.
by Quentin Suffren
Replicating High-Performing Public Schools: Lessons from the Field
Think creating high-quality schools is difficult? Try replicating them. This report, a collection of short papers from The Bridgespan Group (whose mission is to help nonprofits overcome strategic and organizational challenges), provides several strategies for successfully replicating high-performing schools, including thoughts on maintaining the quality and integrity of an education model, and supporting expansions with academic and central office resources.
Many of these strategies were borne of real-world experiences. Consider the example of New Tech High School in California, which rapidly expanded to 10 sites in several years. Unfortunately, not all of their new schools were thriving. By examining their mistakes, New Tech created a set of quality indicators, including funding needs, optimum school size, and non-negotiable program requirements that would produce varying degrees of success.
Two strategies for maximizing financial resources come from Bridgespan's work with charter school developers in California and Texas. In the Golden State, Envision Schools saved a bundle by opening selected charter schools two grades at a time, rather than the more common one grade per year method. And to circumvent ubiquitous charter facility issues, Houston's YES College Preparatory Schools is considering an "incubation model," by which two new schools would temporarily share one facility to promote early growth and financial stability.
The report's most interesting study involves "clustering" schools in one geographic area. California's Aspire Public Schools has consolidated costs, academic support services, fundraising efforts, and community outreach activities by operating several schools within one urban area. (KIPP is another high quality organization utilizing the "cluster" model.) Clustering also makes controlling quality and ensuring program longevity much more feasible.
Ohio's communities have much to gain from replicating high quality public schools--charters especially. This report serves as a fine primer for leaders brave enough to try.
You can download The Bridgespan Group's report here.
by Quentin Suffren
Announcements
Charter School Growth Fund Opportunities
The Charter School Growth Fund (CSGF), which provides grants and loans for the development and expansion of charter management and support organizations, is now seeking applicants for its first 2007 business planning cohort. Successful applicants will be offered a multi-year grant and loan package to subsidize a significant portion of the costs associated with operating the central office throughout the expansion period. CSGF will also provide ongoing strategic assistance. To date, the Fund has provided multi-year implementation support to selected groups of between $750,000 and $3.5 million.
To learn more about this opportunity, please visit the CSGF website at www.chartergrowthfund.org. The deadline for all Part I applications is October 15th, 2006.