THE
OHIO EDUCATION GADFLY: SPECIAL EDITION
A Bi-Weekly Bulletin of News and
Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Volume 4, Number 18. July 30, 2010
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While Gadfly has been sunning its wings in the summer sun, we have been hard at work pulling together the latest education policy papers and reports. We're pleased to bring you this special issue of the Ohio Education Gadfly with recommendations for your end-of-summer reading list.
Charters & Choice
Charter School Funding: Inequity Persists
Meaghan Batdorff, Larry Maloney, Jay May, Daniela Doyle, Bryan Hassel
Ball State University
May 2010
Have you ever wondered how charter and district school funding compare? This report answers the question by expanding on an earlier Fordham report that used 2002-03 data to provide an updated and comprehensive look at funding disparities between charter and district schools. To calculate funding disparities, researchers evaluated data from 25 states, accounting for 93 percent of the nation's charter school population.
Ohio is home to a large number of charter schools and students, making these findings important to consider as large numbers of schools and children are impacted by funding inequities. District schools in the Buckeye State received an average of $9,779 per student in 2006-07 school year, compared to $8,190 for charter schools. This $1,589 gap represents a 16.2 percent difference. At the district level, disparities can be even starker. In Cleveland, revenue for district school students stood at $13,016 apiece, compared to only $8,931 for charter students. In Dayton, revenue for districts students was $13,121, while charter school students only received $8,585.
Why such a gap?
One explanation is the manner in which Ohio funds its charter schools. Charter schools receive federal funding in the same manner as other public schools and a uniform per-pupil amount from the state. However the same can't be said for other state and local resources. For example, while district schools typically levy for additional operating revenue, charter schools cannot ask local taxpayers for support. Also, district schools have access to financial aid from the Ohio School Facilities Commission and local taxpayers for renovation or new construction of school facilities. Charter schools do not, and must pay for their school buildings out of their per-pupil allotment.
To learn more about this timely issue and to read more about how Ohio compares with other states, check out the report in its entirety here.
by Stafford Palmieri and Bianca Speranza
Comment
Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
Institute of Education Sciences
June 2010
In 2004, Congress passed the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act, creating the first federally funded private school voucher program in the United States, now known as the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). The purpose of the scholarship was to provide low-income students (below 185 percent of the poverty level) who attended schools in need of improvement an opportunity to attend a private school. Upon creating the scholarship, Congress instructed that the program be assessed to determine its impact on students and families.
This report compares the outcomes of 2,300 eligible students who were awarded a scholarship and those who were not (based on a random lottery system). Researchers looked at the impact of receiving a voucher on students' test scores, high school graduation rates, and perceptions of school safety and satisfaction over a period of five years and found that:
This report is timely for Ohio, home to one of just a few voucher programs nationwide and where for the first time since its inception the EdChoice Scholarship program has reached its cap of 14,000 students. EdChoice is a scholarship available to Ohio students (in the annual amount of $4250 for elementary students and $5000 for high schoolers) who attend or would attend a public school that was rated Academic Watch or Academic Emergency for two of the last three years. If the impacts of receiving a voucher in DC can be generalized to Ohio, this is bad news for those students enrolling in the EdChoice lottery and not getting a scholarship. According to this report, it may mean they'll be less likely to graduate. All the more reason to lift the cap and expand EdChoice Scholarship to more students in Ohio's failing schools.
Read this report in its entirety here.
by Bianca Speranza
Comment
Urban Catholic Education: Tales of Twelve American Cities
Thomas C. Hunt and Timothy Walch, Eds.
Alliance for Catholic Education Press
June 2010
This collection of essays, inspired by the 2008 Fordham report Who Will Save America's Urban Catholic Schools?, chronicles the history and challenges of urban Catholic education in twelve of America's major urban hubs. Cincinnati, one of the earliest Ohio cities to host a large Catholic population, is featured among the profiles. These essays delve deeply into the historical and social contexts that shaped Catholic schools in each city. While the accounts are unique in their own right, they do share common themes.
Early Catholic schooling coalesced amid colonial anti-Catholic sentiment as well as an immense wave of Catholic immigrants reaching U.S. shores in the late nineteenth century-- which would provided a huge boon to urban Catholic schools for many decades. In Cincinnati, church leaders made the construction of parish schools a priority in order to preserve and promulgate the Catholic identity. The second bishop of Cincinnati, John Baptist Purcell, was known as a champion of Catholic education and helped generate interest nationally in the movement for parochial schooling. A national council of bishops established Catholic schooling as a major priority by decreeing that every Catholic parish should construct and maintain a school unless it could not afford one. Nationally, dioceses undertook large-scale projects of school construction up through the Great Depression.
As Catholic schooling grew, bishops often found themselves overseeing parochial systems educating a significant portion of their city's youth, and as such sought public funding. Most of these attempts were met with stiff resistance and quickly dismissed. What truly allowed urban parish schools to flourish and remain financially feasible was inexpensive staffing. Most urban parochial schools were staffed entirely by dedicated religious orders of nuns working for little pay. As social attitudes toward religious vocations shifted in the 1960s, dioceses often found themselves with an aging workforce and few replacements willing to work for the level of pay they could afford.
Most of the essays conclude before 1970 or 1980, when "white flight" to suburbia dynamically shifted the social demographics of most major cities. Justin D. Poché's narrative of New Orleans is one of few to prominently feature the role race played in Catholic schooling. Notably, the Crescent City's Catholic schools had a long history of segregation and struggled with integration, leaving a mark on the city to this day.
Today, many urban Catholic schools nationwide and in Ohio are closing due to shifting demographics and lack of funding. As they strive to reinvigorate themselves and remain viable, this book serves as a hopeful reminder that they have weathered similarly daunting challenges in the past. Buy the book here.
by Eric Ulas
Comment
Transforming the High School Experience: How New York City's New Small Schools Are Boosting Student Achievement and Graduation Rates
Howard S. Bloom, Saskia Levy Thompson, and Rebecca Unterman
MDRC
June 2010
A recent report by MDRC shows that New York City has had success with school choice in the form of opening multiple small public high schools and doing away with school assignments based on attendance. Beginning in 2002, New York City Public Schools has opened over 200 new secondary schools and allowed students to request placement through a district-centralized admissions process. Over 60 percent of the new schools are non-academically selective public high schools. These schools do not focus on a particular theme, nor do they screen for academic achievement.
The report uses data from the lottery-like high school admissions process to identify a sample of students who requested enrollment in these small schools of choice. MDRC researchers compare achievement by students who were assigned to their chosen school with the achievement of students who signed up for the lottery but didn't "win" and who were assigned to one of the district's other 400 schools. Data were collected for four cohorts of incoming ninth graders who entered high school in the fall of 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. The data did not track the roughly 8 percent of students who did not enroll via the lottery.
Researchers found favorable results for the students attending the choice schools, with graduation rates for students attending their chosen schools (by their fourth year in the schools) up by 6.8 percent compared to students who attended non-choice schools. Students enrolled in their chosen schools were also more likely to achieve "on-track" indicators in ninth grade, earn more course credits, and have better attendance records.
This research suggests that school choice -- specifically at the secondary level -- may improve graduation outcomes and other important indicators relevant for school success. Further, the rigorous competitive bidding for the creation of these small NYC high schools may illustrate that innovation is a key part of making choice work well. Cincinnati has a high school choice program wherein middle schoolers must select the school of their choice. Other Ohio cities would do well to adopt similar initiatives. For the full report, click here.
by Lauren Karch
Comment
Teaching & School Leadership
Principal Attrition and Mobility: Results from the 2008--09 Principal Follow-up Survey
Danielle Battle & Kerry Gruber
The National Center for Education Statistics
June 2010
While there's no dearth of statistics on America's teacher-turnover problem, data on principal attrition are sparser. Leave it to the National Center of Education Statistics -- as part of the Institute of Education Sciences' Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) -- to fill in the gaps. This 2008-09 survey of 117,140 public and private school principals casts light on principal attrition rates and mobility patterns, and breaks down findings in a variety of ways (by gender, experience level, attitudes and level of "enthusiasm," and school type, to name a few).
Overall, it finds that nearly one-fifth of principals nationally turned over between the 2007-08 school year and the 2008-09 school year. Of all principals of public schools in the 2007-08 school year, 80 percent remained at the same school the next year. Seven percent moved to a different school, and 12 percent left the profession altogether. Principal turnover was slightly higher in charter schools than in traditional public schools. Twenty-eight percent of charter schools said goodbye to their principals in 2008, compared to 21 percent of traditional publics. Among private schools, 28 percent left.
The report also highlights where principals went. Of public school principals that left in 2007-08, about half moved to a school within the same district. Of principals that left the profession entirely, 45 percent retired. The second largest group of former principals (33 percent) continued working in education in some capacity, but not in a K-12 school. The next largest group of former principals (15 percent) worked in a K-12 school, but not as principals.
Principals with less experience were more likely to move to different public schools, a finding that has serious implications for the most disadvantaged schools that may be assigned less-experienced leaders. The report doesn't disaggregate the data state by state. Still, we know that leadership turnover -- especially in Ohio's neediest schools -- can have significant and negative impacts on student achievement. Fordham's 2010 Needles in a Haystack report highlighting high-performing, high-need urban schools recognized this and recommended ways to reduce turnover or soften the negative impacts of it, such as by offering bonuses to leaders at hard-to-serve schools, or enabling them to lead more than one school (as a "mini-district") for a higher salary. To read the report, click here.
Denver ProComp: An Outcomes Evaluation of Denver's Alternative Teacher Compensation System
Edward W. Wiley, Eleanor R. Spindler, & Amy N. Subert
University of Colorado at Boulder
2010
Could Denver's ProComp pay program be responsible for attracting better teachers and increasing retention rates in hard-to-serve schools? Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder seem to think so. This report (the first of two) sums up the impact the innovative pay program has made on student performance, teacher retention, and teacher attitudes and behaviors. Researchers tracked student and teacher data for eight school years beginning in 2001, and specifically matched student data to teachers in order to determine value-added teacher "effects."
The analysis includes several noteworthy findings about the pay program. One is that teachers who opted to take part in the ProComp system slightly outperformed their peers who did not join the system in their first year of teaching. While on the surface this seems like encouraging news about innovative pay structures, the finding must be taken with a grain of salt because it can't be determined whether ProComp spurred improvement or because teachers opting into the program were already effective teachers. Perhaps a more durable finding is that schools with higher numbers of ProComp participants experienced higher retention rates. This also proved to be true in hard-to-serve schools (although to a lesser degree than the retention boon experienced by less hard-to-serve schools).
Merit pay for teachers has long been a contentious issue, even more so as several states have written performance-pay plans into their Race to the Top applications. Some believe that linking student performance to teacher pay is as basic as two times two, while others think that this approach is inexact and unreliable because teachers can't control which kids walk into their classrooms. The ProComp system is relatively new (fully implemented in 2006); however, it's one of the most comprehensive plans and therefore isn't as bogged down by problems inherent to smaller pay plans, which are harder to generalize from and usually experience implementation issues.
The findings -- specifically those denoting improved teacher retention -- hold lessons for districts wishing to reduce turnover in the hardest-to-serve schools. The report also sheds light on critical implementation issues inherent to such performance pay initiatives -- a complete overhaul of the teacher salary system is more effective than layering on small performance rewards; buy-in from teachers union may be key to long-term success; and effectiveness is difficult to measure (and may take awhile), so a dose of patience when restructuring teacher pay is recommended.
Check out the complete study.
by Bianca Speranza
Comment
Impacts of Comprehensive Teacher Induction
Institute of Education Sciences
June 2010
This report is the third and final report of a series that examines the efficacy of comprehensive teacher induction programs, which are intensive, formalized mentoring programs that many districts have adopted and developed in order to boost student achievement, increase teacher retention, and provide a system of support for new teachers.
From 2005 through 2008, Mathematica researchers (as commissioned by IES) examined the effects of comprehensive teacher induction on 1,009 beginning elementary teachers in 17 urban districts that had previously not been providing any form of comprehensive induction. Specifically, the study examined the impact of induction programs on workforce outcomes (teacher attitudes and retention) as well as classroom outcomes (as measured by student achievement and observations of teachers' instructional delivery and classroom culture). In seven of the districts, researchers studied teachers participating in a one-year induction program; in the remaining ten districts, they followed participants in a two-year induction program. Control groups in all districts participated in traditional and less formal induction programs.
The report found that both one- and two-year comprehensive inductions had no impact on teacher attitudes, such as feelings of preparedness or satisfaction. Inductions also had no impact on teacher retention or on the composition of the workforce -- in other words, participation in the induction program didn't lead to retention of more effective teachers, or teachers with more professional qualifications (unfortunately).
In terms of classroom outcomes, neither induction program had an impact on teachers' lesson content, delivery, or classroom culture, but two-year inductions did have an impact on student achievement, as expressed in teachers' third year of teaching. The impacts were equivalent to moving the average student from the 50th percentile in reading and math to the 54th and 58th percentiles, respectively.
This survey holds policy lessons for in Ohio in two ways. (Ohio has had comprehensive induction programs in place for several years; last year's biennial budget bill, HB 1, embedded teacher mentoring programs in the state's new four-tier licensure program and requires them for teachers to earn professional licensure.) First, for districts implementing comprehensive teacher induction programs, this report provides evidence that longer induction programs have greater impact in terms of improving teacher effectiveness when it comes to student achievement. Second, in order to reduce teacher turnover, Ohio should be aware that that comprehensive inductions are not a plausible remedy. You can find the report here.
by Eric Ulas
Comment
Mixed Bag: Productivity in K-12 Schooling, Poverty, and Kindergarten
Curing Baumol's Disease: In Search of Productivity Gains in K-12 Schooling
Paul Hill and Marguerite Roza
Center on Reinventing Public Education
July 2010
This white paper by school finance gurus Paul Hill and Marguerite Roza spotlights the phenomenon of "Baumol's disease" in public education and explores solutions from other sectors for combating it. Baumol's disease, named after the economist who first observed the trend, is "the tendency of labor-intensive organizations to become more expensive over time but not any more productive." Labor-intensive industries cannot trim staffing without also reducing productivity. Employees' salaries increase in order to remain competitive with wages earned by workers in other sectors. Thus, costs constantly rise.
Hill and Roza assert that public education suffers from this malady. Academic achievement (productivity) has remained stagnant for decades, while spending has increased exponentially (due in great part to teachers' salaries and benefits, which increase steadily and often automatically, regardless of productivity or educational outcomes of students).
But labor-intensive sectors aren't doomed to suffer indefinitely from Baumol's disease. Organizations and whole sectors have beaten it, and reduced costs without losing output. The authors point to eight examples of advances that have contributed to this cure. At least a few seem translatable to public education:
Hill and Roza note that identifying productivity enhancements has not been one of public education's strengths. The trend in K-12 schooling is to focus on improving academic outcomes, without paying mind to the costs of the necessary inputs, and to add new budget items but never remove any.
Giving another nod to industries that have beaten Baumol's disease, the authors recommend a five-step R&D process for uncovering ways to increase productivity in schools:
As Ohio races toward an unprecedented budget crisis, lawmakers and K-12 leaders need to identify ways to increase, or at least maintain, academic outcomes without increasing spending A look at how other sectors have accomplished this, under the R&D framework set up by Hill & Roza, seems a smart place to start.
by Emmy Partin
Comment
The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation
Steve Suitts
The Southern Education Fund
2010
This report by the Southern Education Fund paints a stark picture of our nation's children living in poverty, and the impact it has on their education. The number of children living in extreme poverty has risen considerably during the last decade -- in 2008 more than 5.7 million children lived in extreme poverty conditions. Though these children are concentrated largely in the South, the report singles out Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan as non-southern states with high levels of child poverty.
The 10.5 percent unemployment rate in Ohio is just one indicator of the hard economic times that this state is facing, and children are feeling the impact of the recession. Nine percent of children in Ohio live at or below 50 percent of the poverty level (or, roughly $11,100 total annual income for a family of four).
Furthermore, among the 100 school districts with the highest poverty rates nationally, Ohio shows up 14 times, with Warren City Schools in Trumbull County sitting atop the list. Thirty-five percent of its students live in extreme poverty. Three other Ohio districts -- East Cleveland, Youngstown, and Portsmouth -- were also noted for having more than one in four students in extreme poverty; and Ohio has three districts which reported no children living in extreme poverty.
What do these dire stats mean for children's education?
Children born into poverty-stricken families face challenges right from the start. They will be exposed to and learn fewer words, will be read books less frequently, and rarely attend museums or educational exhibits. When these children enter kindergarten they are far behind the average income student, and are forced to play catch up. Some students even come in without knowing basic colors and have never been read to.
Education can be one of the most effective means to help get young people out of poverty. While a good education does not mean an end to poverty, it can help to equip children with the necessary skills and lessons to lift themselves out of it and end the cycle. Despite these facts most states and local governments struggle to adequately address the needs of children in poverty. The report laments that state departments of education have only a few programs to address the needs of the extreme poor, most notably the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program. Ohio's school funding system allots additional funding for disadvantaged children; however, the state has little ability to require districts to spend the additional funding on the students it is intended to benefit. This isn't to say that other state and local agencies aren't combating child poverty (through a variety of initiatives related to children's health, child care, early learning, etc. or through subsidies directly to poor families). But the report should at least raise alarm regarding the number of Ohio children falling into poverty, and instill a sense of urgency around improving educational outcomes especially for these youngsters. Read it here.
by Bianca Speranza
Comment
PreK-3rd: Putting Full-Day Kindergarten in the Middle
Kristie Kauerz
Foundation for Child Development
June 2010
This policy brief from the Foundation for Child Development recommends that full-day kindergarten (FDK) be at the forefront of national and state-level education reform efforts. Specifically, it recommends that all states integrate FDK into their education systems regardless of what systems are currently in place -- or what costs this might impose -- and that states require licensure in early childhood education for all kindergarten teachers, and implement professional development and rigorous assessments to improve the quality of FDK.
Currently, 12 states require districts to provide FDK to all students, though many of these states allow parents to request traditional half-days for their kindergarteners. Fewer than half of states fund full-day kindergarten at the same level as first grade. Ohio will join the list of kindergarten-mandatory states in the 2010-11 school year (however, many districts are seeking to waive this requirement for at least a year, so in practice FDK in Ohio won't be comprehensive until at least 2012-13). By 2011-12, districts in Ohio will no longer be allowed to charge tuition for full-day kindergarten.
The report touts the necessity of FDK, but offers little compelling evidence as to why universality is necessary. It cites longitudinal research showing that children who participated in full-day programs made gains in early reading skills by the end of the kindergarten year, although most research also shows that such benefits wear off for most children, and tend to be concentrated among disadvantaged students. The brief also names "convenience for working parents" as justification for states implementing FDK, a reason that is flimsy in the face of mounting budget deficits.
Early learning opportunities such as full-day kindergarten (and public preschool) have a hugely important role to play for Ohio's neediest youngsters -- those low-income children who already come to school a step behind their wealthier peers (as the review above illustrates). But this brief does nothing to differentiate between kids who would benefit the most from FDK and those whose current home learning environments are sufficient. Further, there is no mention of cost, or acknowledgement that many states are facing budget crises and simply can't afford to impose unfunded mandates like FDK on districts. Read the report here.
by Lauren Karch
Comment
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Join us August 11 for two discussions of Fordham's new book
Are you curious to know more about Fordham's unique role as both an education think tank and an authorizer of actual charter schools on-the-ground in Ohio, or would like to have a conversation with co-authors of Fordham's latest book, Ohio's Education Reform Challenges: Lessons from the Frontlines? Mark your calendars for two events on August 11.
From 8:30 to 10:00 am at Horizon Science Academy Columbus High School (1070 Morse Road, Columbus, Ohio 43229), Fordham President Chester E. Finn, Jr., along with Vice President for Ohio Policies and Programs Terry Ryan will be discussing the book during a breakfast hosted by the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter Schools. This event is free to the public. If you're interested in attending, please RSVP to DeEdward Robinson at [email protected] or (614) 744-2266 by August 9, 2010.
Then from 12:00 to 1:15pm at the Athletic Club of Columbus (136 E. Broad Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215), Chester E. Finn, Jr., along with director of Battelle-OSU STEM Education and Economic Development Engagement, Brad Mitchell, and Battelle for Kids Executive Director Jim Mahoney, will speak during a regular Wednesday forum. Tickets can be purchased through the Columbus Metropolitan Club registration website or by calling (614) 464-3220.
Visit our website to read excerpts and media coverage of Ohio's Education Reform Challenges: Lessons from the Frontlines, as well as to learn how to purchase the book from publisher Palgrave Macmillan at a discount.
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The Ohio Education Gadfly is published bi-weekly (ordinarily on Wednesdays, with occasional breaks, and in special editions) by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Have something to say? Email the editor at [email protected]. Would you like to be spared from the Gadfly? Email [email protected] with "unsubscribe gadfly" in the text of your message. You are welcome to forward the Gadfly to others, and from our website you can even email individual articles. If you have been forwarded a copy of Gadfly and would like to subscribe, you may email [email protected] with "subscribe gadfly" in the text of the message. To read archived issues, go to our website and click on the Ohio Education Gadfly link. Aching for still more education news and analysis? Check out the original Education Gadfly.
Nationally and in Ohio, the Thomas
B. Fordham Institute, along with its sister organization the Thomas
B. Fordham Foundation, strives to close America's vexing achievement gaps
by raising standards, strengthening accountability, and expanding high-quality
education options for parents and families. As a charter-school sponsor in Ohio,
the Foundation joins with schools to affirm a relentless commitment to high
expectations for all children, accountability for academic results, and transparency
and organizational integrity, while freeing the schools to operate with minimal
red tape. The Foundation and Institute are neither connected with nor sponsored
by Fordham University.