A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
March 14, 2007, Volume 1, Number 30
Contents
Editorial
Editorial
Rock or Hard Place?
Those who care about the education of Ohio’s neediest children are stuck between two vexed options--the proverbial rock or hard place. The first are traditional district schools with decades of evidence--low test scores, high drop-out rates--of how poorly they meet many children’s needs. Yet fixing them is incredibly hard because they are set in their ways, rule bound, bureaucratic and union-whipped.
Option two are entrepreneurial-style charter schools, some of which are excellent, but some of which are appalling--as illustrated by the ongoing saga of the Harte-Crossroads Schools implosion in Columbus (see here) and other much-publicized scandals and meltdowns in other cities. Charters are hard to fix, too. Ironically, they’ve become an interest group in their own right and some of the self-policing, self-correcting mechanisms that are part of the theory don’t work so well in practice.
Despite their troubles, however, Ohio’s charter schools can legitimately take credit for two significant public achievements since the first of them opened in 1998. First, they have provided a lifeline to thousands of youngsters, many of whom are poor and minority, otherwise stuck in failing district schools without other acceptable alternatives. The education haven--I didn’t say heaven--of charter schools currently appeals to over 76,000 students statewide, a bit more than three percent of the state’s public school students.
Ohio’s 300+ charters offer a range of programs, some of which were unimaginable ten years ago. On-line “e-schools,” for example, now serve over 15,000 children statewide. Drop-out recovery schools, like Dayton’s well-known ISUS and Mound Street Academies, have turned around lives and kept young people off the streets and out of jail while helping them earn a diploma. Schools like the Graham School in Columbus have provided needy families real hope that their children will, despite adverse odds, graduate from college. It’s likely that additional high-quality charter options like KIPP will open new schools here in coming years.
Second, Ohio’s charter program has put substantial pressure on urban districts to improve their academic performance--and their competitiveness (see here). Charter schools are spurring overdue district reform and district leaders are embracing innovative ideas and practices, many gleaned from the charter experience. Consider that 50+ Ohio districts now sponsor their own charter schools, and options such as Columbus’s Academic Acceleration Academy would never have happened without the competitive pressures of school choice. Other district schools of choice like the Columbus Metro School and the Dayton Early College Academy have gotten off the ground because of opportunities and examples created by the charter program.
Ten years of experience have also yielded some important, sometimes painful, lessons about Ohio’s charter-school program. Five of the most sobering:
Ohio’s charter program can still achieve its potential. But lawmakers need to weigh the five lessons above—and some excellent recent advice from ACHIEVE and McKinsey (see here)—before rushing to impose new restrictions. They also need to recall that it does children no good to send them from badly performing charters back to badly performing district schools—any more than it does to send them in the reverse direction.
by Terry Ryan
Capital Matters
The Salad Days Are Over
Spring Fever at the Leg’
Representative Thom Collier (R-Mount Vernon) is persistent, to say the least. He’s back again this session with HB 66--the contents of which were originally introduced “back when I had hair [see here],” mused Rep. Collier. The bill would replace the required number of days schools must meet with a set number of hours and would give districts more flexibility to set schedules and avoid “calamity days” for bad weather. Critics contend that some districts might take advantage of this flexibility by forcing children into 12-hour school days or reducing the number of school days altogether--one reason former Governor Taft vetoed the measure last year. We’ve already noted that any move from days to hours should result in expanded opportunities for increased student learning time, not simply greater convenience for districts (see here).
Senator Randy Gardner (R-Bowling Green) also has his eye on school days. His bill (SB 89) would largely strip away local control of school year schedules by preventing Ohio schools from beginning before Labor Day. Never mind that other states like Massachusetts are extending the school year to increase student achievement--and finding success in doing so (see here). Let’s hope Sen. Gardner’s colleagues can break this bout of spring (or summer) fever before any students lose valuable learning time.
Other bills to watch include HB 27 that seeks to water down the state’s education performance rating system, and SB 57, which would create a special education voucher program.
Food for Thought (cause there’s nothing to eat at OBR)
Call it “Filet-gate” (at $30 apiece) or perhaps a crème of passion (for $8 brulées). Either way, the Ohio Board of Regents (OBR) is going on a diet. Turns out the nine-member Board managed to spend $3,186 in food at just six meetings since May 2005--including a dinner for 18 guests at Columbus’s Handke’s Cuisine that ran over $1,000 (see here). Lawmakers are blustering for accountability and Governor Strickland has placed a freeze on taxpayer-funded meals in all state agencies (see here). Couple the scandal over OBR’s penchant for haute cuisine with campaigns by the governor and Speaker Husted to relegate OBR to advisory board status (see here), and the result is some first-rate political dinner theater. To improve its odds of survival, OBR will appoint former Democratic state senator and U.S. House member Eric Fingerhut--Governor Strickland’s choice--as their chancellor (see here). Yet the Regents are ultimately pinning their hopes on HB 85, which would keep the chancellorship under their auspices and drastically increase the Board’s powers to set tuition and cut duplicative degree programs (see here). The competing bills see debate this week; nevertheless,
Gadfly fears OBR’s goose may already be cooked.
You’re a Member, Now
Governor Strickland recently filled the empty seat on the State Board of Education (see here) with Akron parent and Litchfield Middle School PTA president Heather Heslop Licata. “Heather’s approach to educational issues reflects the utmost importance of quality, affordable education at the local levels,” said Strickland. We’ll wait for the governor’s budget (released this Thursday) to gauge his meaning.
by Kristina Phillips-Schwartz, Quentin Suffren
Reviews and Analysis
Mistaken (and Expensive) Assumptions
If a recent University of Washington study is to be believed, reforming Ohio’s education system could cost from $1.2 to $2.4 billion more annually--a 16 to 31 percent increase in state P-12 education spending. And that’s just the state’s share (47 percent of current funding). “Education Policy and Finance for Ohio: Investments to Improve Student Performance” (still in draft form here), produced by researchers from the university’s Human Services Policy Center (HSPC), was presented to policymakers, legislators and committee members last week (see here). No doubt the price tag sent shivers down more than a few spines.
The eye-popping figures stem largely from four different scenarios aimed at changing the form of Ohio’s education system, as well as two troubling (and depressingly familiar) assumptions: 1) that more money will produce greater student performance, and 2) that Ohio’s current funding is being efficiently administered and spent.
Among other measures, the study calls for higher teacher pay (a $30,000 per year base salary and four percent annual raises); smaller student to teacher ratios (25:1 on average for middle and high schools, and even lower for elementary and low-income students); an extended school year or year-round schooling for low-income students; and expanded early learning opportunities--including voluntary all-day kindergarten and a beefed-up Early Learning Initiative (ELI) program. Fully implemented, these scenarios could increase average statewide per-pupil costs from $9,300 to over $12,000.
None of these measures is without its merits (indeed, some are worth serious consideration). Yet absent from the study’s findings are well-defined benchmarks that tie new spending to improved student outcomes. For instance, assuming four percent annual teacher raises, without attaching such added dollars to measurable results and performance, does little to ensure that more money will result in higher quality instruction or improved academic achievement. Lower student-to-teacher ratios are a favorite of teacher unions, but experience from other states shows they offer only tenuous guarantees of better academic performance. Increasing the time students spend at school (a useful tactic--as charter models like KIPP have shown), without evaluating and adjusting instructional practices for maximum effectiveness, may simply provide students with more substandard instruction. And offering expanded early learning opportunities to children without providing a standards - and outcomes-based framework for quality providers (see here) may not yield the higher rates of school readiness so desperately needed.
Just as worrisome is the study’s inherent assumption that Ohio’s current education system is being efficiently managed--and thus requires more money. As the ACHIEVE study (see here and here) noted, the lack of transparency and data about spending, particularly at the school district level, raise legitimate questions about both the cost of a high-quality education and the efficiency of Ohio’s education system as a whole. (A recent report by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also gave Ohio’s education system low marks for its “return on investment”--see here.) Under several of the scenarios put forth by HSPC, schools serving predominantly low-income students would receive increased funding. A laudable idea, to be sure. Yet these extra resources may not reach their target if districts continue to allot funding to schools based on teacher pay schedules and tenure rather than on the actual needs of students. And none of HSPC’s specifications are aimed at greater efficiency and transparency. In contrast, a well-planned weighted student funding system (see here) would fund children and their educational needs directly, and minimize district central offices by empowering principals with instructional and fiscal autonomy.
Accepting this study’s mistaken assumptions would infuse gobs more money into the current system with little account for how it’s spent. No surprise that the study’s inputs-based approach has teacher unions, traditional district groups, and school funding amendment supporters smiling. “We welcome the kind of work the University of Washington study has done and believe this is the type of discussion that is needed in the state,” said Jim Betts, spokesman for the Campaign for Ohio’s Future, which is gathering signatures for the ill-conceived constitutional amendment (see here).
Let’s hope that policymakers eschew this path and embrace the more comprehensive--and rigorously benchmarked--vision espoused by McKinsey and Company in its recent report for ACHIEVE. Sound education reform requires a healthy balance of both form and substance--tethered to clear goals and measurable outcomes. Neglecting the latter, “Education Policy and Finance for Ohio” is mostly form, little substance, and one heck of a price tag.
by Quentin Suffren
Achieving with Data
It’s no secret that data-driven decision making figures prominently in high-performing schools. What it entails and how to implement it successfully are the subjects of this report commissioned by the New Schools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy firm working to improve and reform public education.
Researchers studied four high-performing elementary school systems, including charter schools run by charter management organizations (CMO) Aspire Public Schools and Achievement First. All schools embraced six key strategies for using data effectively:
As the report notes, “Performance-driven systems rely on a systematic approach to making continuous improvements--in particular, improvements to instruction to insure that all students are learning and progressing.”
High-performing schools in the study made data-use a “non-negotiable” for staff, and used performance data to change stubborn beliefs about students’ ability to succeed. Also critical was the collection and use of multiple data types--such as “trailing” data (the results of state assessments that measure past instruction), and “leading” data (short-cycle assessment results that measure current instruction). One district used both to align student grades on report cards with results on external state and national assessments.
While much of the report will seem intuitive to data-savvy educators, leaders in districts and schools still struggling to embrace data-driven practices (plenty in Ohio) will want to take a look. The report is available here.
by Quentin Suffren
School Safety in Urban Charter and Traditional Public Schools
According to this new study, urban area charter schools appear to be safer than their traditional district counterparts. Using data collected by the federal Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), Christensen divided instances of reported safety issues into “threats to person and property” and “behavioral problems.” Both district and charter schools reported high levels of threats to person and property such as bullying, physical conflict, robbery or theft, and vandalism. Yet the frequency of such reports was lower across the board in charter schools. For instance, 58 percent of traditional district teachers cited bullying as happening at least once a month or more, as opposed to 46 percent of charter school teachers.
Similar trends were found among reports of serious behavioral problems like disrespect and verbal abuse of teachers, classroom disorder, and racial tensions. While 51 percent of traditional district school teachers reported instances of disrespect to teachers, that rate was 45 percent among charter school teachers. The only category in which charters saw a higher rate of behavioral issues than district schools was that of classroom disorder (25 percent for charters, as opposed to 21 percent for district schools).
The causes of traditional urban district schools' higher rates of reported safety problems are unclear, as both district and charter schools employ comparable measures to increase school safety (closed campuses, security cameras, random drug checks, etc.). One theory holds that parents are more involved in the life of schools they consciously choose. Parents, educators and policymakers can find the report here.
by Quentin Suffren
Recommended Reading
Charter Funding Deep Freeze
In the debate over Indiana’s K-12 education funding, House Democrats are seeking a freeze on funding for charter schools. The result would be “de facto moratorium” on any new charters, insisted Dan Roy, Indianapolis’s director of charter schools. The proposed measure would also affect existing schools (many with long wait-lists) by denying additional funds for charters in the coming years. Metropolitan High School in Indianapolis would see its funding drop by 45 percent in 2008-09 alone. Indeed, if the measure is passed, many of the 36 charters might eventually be forced to close--as charters in the Hoosier State must also pay for transportation and construction costs out of their state per-pupil allotments. The fate of the legislation (and Indiana’s charters) now resides in the state Senate, which will consider it and other education funding issues in the coming days. With Ohio’s budget debate in the offing, charters in the Buckeye State should take heed: starving a program is often easier than publicly killing it. Too bad students and parents would ultimately pay the price.
“An Educational Setback,” Editorial, The Indianapolis Star, March 11, 2007.
Announcements
Fordham Grant Opportunities and Requests for Proposals
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is pleased to announce grant opportunities for public schools of choice in Ohio (Dayton, principally). Complete grant guidelines for schools and information about the application process is available here.
Fordham is also issuing two Requests for Proposals (RFP): one for charter school service providers in Dayton (see here), and the second for special education program evaluation of Fordham-sponsored schools in Southwest Ohio (see here).
KIPP School Leadership Opportunities
Do you do whatever it takes for children to learn? Do you want to have a lasting impact? Do you want the power to make it happen?
Columbus has been selected as a new KIPP site--the first one in Ohio--beginning in 2008. Planning for the eventual launch of five schools in Columbus has already begun, and KIPP is currently seeking outstanding educators to fill school leader roles. School leaders receive a year of extensive training through KIPP’s School Leadership Program starting in July 2007 with the goal of starting a school in the summer of 2008.
KIPP schools are high-performing college preparatory public schools that ensure impressive academic gains in historically underserved communities. KIPP students around the country are developing the knowledge, skills, character, and habits necessary for success in high school, college, and the competitive world beyond.
Learn more about KIPP school leadership opportunities here.