A Right Denied-The Critical Need for Genuine School Reform

11/14/14

The full version of this presentation, a

documentary of me presenting it, and other

resources are posted at: www.ARightDenied.org

To be added to my school reform email list, simply

email me at: [email protected]

By Whitney Tilson

-2-

A documentary of Whitney Tilson presenting

these slides can be seen at:

www.ARightDenied.org

$0

$20,000

$40,000

$60,000

$80,000

$100,000

$120,000

HS Dropout HSGraduate

SomeCollege

Assoc.Degree

BA MA Ph.D. Prof.

The more you learn, the more you earn.

Over the course of a lifetime, a college grad will earn

more than $1 million more than a high school grad.

Source: U.S. Census Current Population Reports, Series P-60, from Digest of Education Statistics, 2005.

-4-

Wages for men have stagnated for 40 years, and for

women they’ve stagnated over the past decade.

Note: Adjusted for inflation, in 2010 dollars.

Source: U.S. Census via The Hamilton Project, The Brookings Institution, in NY Times, 10/22/12, http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-american-wages.

-5-

Median male earnings in

2010 were the same as

in 1964 — nearly a half

century ago

Wage trends are ominous for men without a college degree.

A high school diploma used to be sufficient to have a fair shot at the American

dream, but no longer. A college degree is required.

Source: Inherited Opportunity for Higher Education, Association for Institutional Research, 5/16/06.

-6-

Inflation-

adjusted

income

Median inflation-adjusted

earnings for a man with a

high school diploma fell

by 41% from 1970-2010

New job trends are ominous for

those without a college degree.

Source: The College Advantage, Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, 8/15/12.

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A closer look at job losses during The Great Recession.


-8-

The returns on education (and penalty for lack of

education) have been greater for women in recent years.


-9-

Even a bachelor’s degree isn’t enough.

Source: The State of Working America, Economic Policy Institute, 12th edition, advance release, 8/22/12;

cited: www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/08/17/education-and-the-recession-continued/

-10-

98.3% of job gains among those with

at least a bachelor’s were realized by

those with advanced degrees

By 2018, 62% of all jobs will require post-secondary

credentials vs. only 28% in 1972.

.

Source: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2018, Center on Education and the Workforce, 6/10.

-11-

Require at least some

college training

Require high school

diploma or less

Education is also highly correlated with employment

and workforce participation.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2010 unemployment data; Current Population Survey (left);

Digest of Education Statistics, 2009 (2008 data) (right).

High school dropouts today have 3x the

unemployment rate of college graduates.

52% of high school dropouts are not in

the labor force and an additional 19%

are looking for work.

-12-

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Dropouts High school completers, notenrolled in college

HS Dropouts HS Completed,

Not Enrolled in College

Employed

(29%)

Looking for

Work (19%)

Not in

Labor

Force

(52%)

Employed

(56%)

Looking for

Work (20%)

Not in

Labor

Force

(24%)

Male high school dropouts were 47 times more likely

than a college graduate to be incarcerated.

Black males had the highest incarceration rate.

Source: NY Times, 10/9/09.

-13-

A lack of education is literally deadly.

Mortality Rate by Education for Adults 25-64 years:

More Than

High School

Only High

School

Less Than

High School

206.3/100,000

477.6/100,000

650.4/100,000

30% of people in poverty report that their health is poor or fair, almost

five times the rate reported by the wealthiest 20% of the population.

Source: Social Policy as Health Policy, Steven H. Woolf, Journal of the American Medical Association, 3/17/09.

-14-

$3,000

$4,000

$5,000

$6,000

$7,000

$8,000

$9,000

$10,000

$11,000

$12,000

$13,000

1956 1959 1962 1965 1968 1971 1974 1977 1980 1983 1986 1989 1992 1995 1998 2001 2004 2007

Overall K-12 education spending has grown rapidly over time.

Per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, has more than quadrupled over the past 50 years to $12,463 in 2006-07.

We spend more per pupil than any country other than Switzerland, Norway and Luxembourg.

Note: Total expenditure per pupil in average daily attendance in constant 2007-08 dollars (total expenditure is the sum of current expenditures allocable to pupil costs, capital outlay, and interest on school debt).

Source: Digest of Education Statistics, 2009.

-16-

We spend more per pupil than any country other than

Switzerland, Norway and Luxembourg.

Source: OECD Education at a Glance, 2013, p. 165, www.oecd.org/edu/eag2013%20%28eng%29--FINAL%2020%20June%202013.pdf

-17-

We are also spend more on education as a percentage of our

GDP than all but five other countries.


-18-

The rise in spending has been driven mainly by a tripling in the

number of public school teachers over the past 50 years,

which has led to a 43% reduction in the student-teacher ratio.

Note: In addition to 3.25 million public school teachers, there are 456,000 private school teachers in K-12.

Source: Digest of Education Statistics, 2009.

-19-

The long-term trend of more and more teachers may be

reversing: educational services (teaching) was one of the

few professions to gain jobs during The Great Recession

– but is also one of the few to lose jobs in the recovery.


-20-

Average class size in the U.S. is slightly below

the OECD average.


-21-

Despite a doubling of spending since the mid-1970s,

average educational attainment has stagnated.

Percentage of persons 25-29 years old, by highest level of educational attainment.

Source: Digest of Education Statistics, 2008, pg. 13.

-22-

SAT scores haven't budged since the early 1970's.

Source: Wikipedia.

-23-

NAEP scores have stagnated as well.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of

Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 1971–2008 Long-Term Trend Reading Assessments.

-24-

A sliver of good news: Hispanics have been making

strong progress in math in the past decade.

Source: Math Scores Add Up for Hispanic Students, Child Trends Hispanic Institute, 11/14.

-25-

(10 points = one full grade level)

Another sliver of good news: dropout rates are falling.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau October 2014 Current Population Survey.

-26-

(10 points = one full grade level)

http://scholasticadministrator.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f8c25c9883401b7c6ec6666970b-popup

More good news: The percentage of young people of

both genders and all ethnicities earning college

degrees has risen in recent years. The biggest gains have been made by women.

Note: Adjusted for inflation, in 2010 dollars.

Sources: Left chart: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_009.asp in NY Times, 6/12/13, www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/education/a-sharp-rise-in-americans-with-college-degrees.html;

right chart: "Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education," David Autor and Melanie Wasserman, in NY Times, 3/20/13,

www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/business/economy/as-men-lose-economic-ground-clues-in-the-family.html. -27-

Why hasn't additional money

resulted in improved results?

1. Teacher quality has been falling rapidly over the past few decades

2. Our school systems have become more dysfunctional, bureaucratic and unaccountable

3. As a nation, we have been so rich for so long that we have become lazy and complacent.

Our youth are spending more time watching TV, listening to iPods, playing video games

(up 25% in recent years), going to sporting events, etc. rather than studying hard. These

two pictures capture what's happening in China vs. the U.S.:

-28-

37% of American

college students

have, in the previous

two weeks, engaged

in binge drinking,

defined as drinking

five or more drinks in

a row -- University of Michigan

study, 2009

The childhood

poverty rate is

higher in the U.S.

than any other

developed

country. And it’s

particular

pervasive among

Black (39%) and

Hispanic (34%)

children.

Note: Poverty here is defined as relative to the national median, not on an absolute basis, so it makes the US rate appear higher.

-29-

Americans watch more than twice as

much TV as any other country.

Source: OECD Communications Outlook 2009; http://browse.oecdbookshop.org/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9309031E.PDF#page=202.

Hours of TV/Day

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Overall, students at all grade levels are spending far

more time watching TV than doing homework.

Source: No Excuses.

-31-

Over the past decade, American youth are spending much more time

watching TV, listening to music, using a computer and playing video

games – a total of 7½ hours every day in front of a screen.

The only thing they're spending less time doing is reading!

Source: Kaiser Family Foundation, as reported in the NY Times, 1/20/10 (www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html); Pew Research Center.

-32-

Average time spent with each medium in a typical day among 8-18-year-olds

3:47

3:51

4:29

1:48

1:44

2:31

:27

1:02

1:29

:26

:49

1:13

:43

:43

:38

:18

:25

:25 2009

2004

1999

TV Music Computer

Video

games

Print

(reading) Movies

10:45

8:33

7:29

• Half of American teenagers (ages 12 through 17) send 50 or more text

messages a day, and one third send more than 100 a day.

• In 1960, students at four-year colleges in the U.S. studied 24 hours

per week. Today, the average is 14 hours per week, 42% less.

The percentage of U.S. students who read for enjoyment

is 25th out of 29 OECD countries. Only 3 of 29 countries showed an increase from 2000 – 2009.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage of students who read for enjoyment in 2009.

Source: OECD Education at a Glance, 2011, p. 107, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf.

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300 350 400 450 500 550 600

Shanghai

Finland

Hong Kong

Singapore

Japan

Korea

New Zealand

Canada

Estonia

Australia

Netherlands

Germany

Liechtenstein

Taiwan

Switzerland

United Kingdom

Slovenia

Macao

Ireland

Poland

Belgium

Hungary

United States

Czech Republic

Norway

Denmark

France

Iceland

Sweden

Austria

Latvia

Portugal

Italy

Luxembourg

Greece

Mexico

300 350 400 450 500 550 600 650

Shanghai

Singapore

Hong Kong

Korea

Taiwan

Finland

Liechtenstein

Switzerland

Japan

Canada

Netherlands

Macao

New Zealand

Belgium

Australia

Germany

Estonia

Iceland

Denmark

Slovenia

Norway

France

Austria

Poland

Sweden

Czech Republic

United Kingdom

Hungary

Luxembourg

Ireland

United States

Portugal

Latvia

Italy

Greece

Mexico

300 350 400 450 500 550 600

Shanghai

Korea

Finland

Hong Kong

Singapore

Canada

New Zealand

Japan

Australia

Netherlands

Belgium

Norway

Estonia

Switzerland

Poland

United States

Iceland

Liechtenstein

Germany

Sweden

Ireland

France

Taiwan

Denmark

United Kingdom

Hungary

Portugal

Macao

Italy

Latvia

Slovenia

Greece

Czech Republic

Luxembourg

Austria

Mexico

Our 15-year-olds trail most other OECD

countries in reading, math and science.

Source: PISA 2009.

-35-

• The U.S. ranks 27th

out of 29 wealthy

countries in the

proportion of

college students

with degrees in

science or

engineering

• The U.S. 48th out

of 133 developed

and developing

nations in quality of

math and science

instruction

• In American

graduate schools,

nearly half of

students studying

the sciences are

foreigners

#16

Reading Math Science

#31

#23

Avg: 493 Avg: 496 Avg: 501

-36-

Source: NAEP and OECD data, in Teaching Math to the Talented, Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson and Ludger Woessmann, Education Next, Winter 2010

The U.S. ranks 29th in the world in the percentage

of students at the advanced level in math. Even our #1 state, Massachusetts, is ranked 15th.

We get very little bang for our education buck.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics; US Census Bureau; OECD; GovernmentSpending.com; McKinsey analysis;

Appeared in The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, McKinsey & Co., 4/09.

-37-

Our relative performance is weak and declines

dramatically the longer our students are in school.

Source: NCES 1999-081R, Highlights From TIMSS. Slide courtesy of Education Trust.

Math Performance

-38-

U.S. students go to school fewer hours per day and

fewer days per year than students in Asia.

Source: Business Week, James P. Lenfestey.

-39-

Our high school graduation rate

lags nearly all other OECD countries.

Source: OECD, Education at a Glance, 2007; 2005 data; Appeared in The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, McKinsey & Co., 4/09.

-40-

More and more Americans attend college…

-41-

Source: US Dept. of Education; Bureau of Labor Statistics; The Tuition Is Too Damn High, Washington Post, 8/26/13,

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/26/introducing-the-tuition-is-too-damn-high

…But our overall college success rate – barely above

50% – is among the worst in the developed world.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of the proportion of students who graduate from tertiary education with at least a first degree.


-42-

The U.S. is among the leaders in college participation but

ranks 16th – in the bottom half – in college completion. We only earn ½ a degree per college student, whereas in Portugal, for example, it's 1:1.

Source: National Report Card on Higher Education, http://measuringup.highereducation.org.

-43-

Our college completion rate has stagnated,

allowing our economic competitors to pass us. Of 36 OECD countries, the U.S. has dropped from 4th in the world to tied for 12th.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage of 25-34 year-olds who have attained tertiary education (i.e., earned at least a two-year college degree).

Source: This chart is from the 2011 OECD Education at a Glance (p. 30, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf), but in the 2013 OECD Education at a Glance (which didn’t

have a chart), the U.S. rose to 43% among 25-34-year-olds, up from 41% among 55-64-year-olds, making the U.S. tied with Sweden and France for 12th among 34 OECD countries

(plus Brazil and Russia) for 25-34-year olds. -44-

Nearly every other country has made greater gains than

we have over the past 30 years. The college completion rate among American men has actually declined!

Notes: Countries are ranked in ascending order of the difference in the proportion of 25-34 year-old women and 55-64 year-old women with tertiary education.

Israel and Germany are special cases. The data for the former is skewed by nearly 1 million Russian Jews, most of whom have college degrees, who immigrated to Israel. Excluding

these immigrants, Israel would have shown gains. As for Germany, most students, rather than earning college degrees, enter career training schools where they learn specialized

skills that help make Germany a manufacturing and export powerhouse.

Source: OECD Education at a Glance, 2013, p. 33, www.oecd.org/edu/eag2013%20%28eng%29--FINAL%2020%20June%202013.pdf -45-

The story is similar for high school graduation rate. Of 35 OECD countries, the U.S. has dropped from 1st in the world to 12th and is the

only country to show no gain in the past 30 years.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage of 25-34 year-olds who have completed “upper secondary” education (i.e., high school,

presumably including GED in the U.S.).


-46-

It’s not just the U.S. – women are earning college

degrees at a higher rate than men in every OECD

country except Japan and Turkey.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of women’s graduation rates from tertiary-type A education in 2009.


-47-

The higher educational attainment of women is

translating into higher earnings. Young women’s earnings outpaced young men’s from 1979 to 2010

at every education level.

Source: "Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education," David Autor and Melanie Wasserman, in NY Times, 3/20/13,

www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/business/economy/as-men-lose-economic-ground-clues-in-the-family.html.

-48-

The U.S. still maintains an absolute advantage in the

number of adults with college degrees.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage of 25-34 year-olds who have completed “upper secondary” education (i.e., high school, presumably including GED

in the U.S.).

Source: OECD Education at a Glance, 2011, p. 32, www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf; China data: “The Race That Really Matters: Comparing U.S., Chinese and Indian

Investments in the Next Generation Workforce”, Center for American Progress and the Center for the Next Generation, 8/12. -49-

But the U.S. advantage is fading. By 2030, China will have 200 million college graduates —

more than the entire U.S. work force.

Source: UNESCO (degrees, enrollment); China finance ministry, via CEIC Data (spending); appeared in The New York Times, 1/16/13,

www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/chinas-ambitious-goal-for-boom-in-college-graduates.html.

-50-

American students score highly in only one area relative

to their international peers: self-confidence. We don’t have a self-esteem problem, just one of knowledge and achievement.

Source: OECD.

-51-

The Black-white achievement gap is one year in

kindergarten, which can be explained entirely by

demographic factors, and begins widening immediately.

Note: In the figures above, the Raw Gap represents the actual difference in test scores between Black students and white students. The Adjusted Gap represents the remaining inter-ethnic test-score gap after adjusting the data for

the influence of students' background characteristics. Adjusted results control for socioeconomic status, number of books in the home, gender, age, birth weight, WIC participation, and mother's age at birth of first child. All adjusted

gaps are statistically significant at the .05 level. Where the results indicate that the gap is negative, Black children with similar characteristics actually score higher than their white counterparts.

Source: Authors' calculations based on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort (1998), U.S. Department of Education, appeared in Falling Behind, Fryer & Levitt, Education Next, Fall 2004.

-53-

By 4th grade, the majority of Black and Latino

students struggle to read a simple children's book.

This has devastating consequences for their future.

Source: 2009 data, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde;

Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters (Annie E. Casey Foundation).

/Advanced

-54-

22%

51% 52%

36%

32%

16%

42%

• Up until the end of third grade, most children are

learning to read. Beginning in 4th grade, they are

reading to learn.

• Up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is

incomprehensible to students who read below

that grade level.

• High school graduation, can be predicted with

reasonable accuracy by knowing someone's

reading skill at the end of third grade. A person

who is not at least a modestly skilled reader by

that time is unlikely to graduate from high school.

The achievement gap widens every year.

Source: US DOE, NCES, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Summary Data Tables, data for public schools;

Appeared in The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, McKinsey & Co., 4/09.

-55-

Black and Latino 12th graders read and do math

at the same level as white 8th graders.

Source: NAEP 2005 data. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

-56-

The U.S. overall is 15th in the world on the PISA reading test for 15-year olds. U.S. Asian girls are #1 while Black boys are last, trailing Mexico.

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300

350

400

450

500

550

600

Source: 2009 PISA results.

U.S. Asian girls #1 in the world

U.S. girls #8 in the world

U.S. boys #23 in the world U.S. Hispanic boys

#34 in the world

U.S. Black boys

#36 in the world

Over the past 20 years, the achievement gaps

in reading have remained persistently wide.

Source: NAEP 2008 Trends in Academic Progress.

-58-

In the past 18 years, the achievement gaps in math

have remained persistently wide as well.

Source: NAEP 2008 Trends in Academic Progress.

-59-

There are large racial gaps in high

school graduation rates.

Note: College ready in NYS is defined as a score 80 or better on the math Regents exam and 75 or better on the English Regents exam.

Source: The Graduation Project, 2006.

-60-

As bad as these numbers are,

they're far worse in many cities.

The Black male dropout rate is

80% in Indianapolis and Detroit,

69% in Baltimore and Buffalo,

and 66% in Atlanta and

Cleveland.

In addition, graduating from high

school does not mean that a

student is college ready. In New

York state, for example, the

reported graduation rate is 77%,

but only 41% are college ready.

Some cities do a better (or less bad) job than others:

Even after adjusting for parental education, the

achievement gap varies widely among cities.

Source: USDOE, NCES, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, 2007.

-61-

-3

0

3

6

9

12

K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

White students Black & Latino students

In summary, Black and Latino children start school one year

behind and fall further behind every year.

But KIPP and other high-performing (mostly charter) schools reverse this trend.

Note: The entire gap achievement gap in kindergarten can be explained by the following background characteristics: socioeconomic status, number of books in the home, gender, age, birth

weight, WIC participation, and mother's age at birth of first child. The widening of the gap cannot be explained by a change in background characteristics.

Sources: Previous slides, KIPP data, Whitney Tilson estimates.

-62-

KIPP students

Few Black and Latino students make it to

college and even fewer graduate.

Sources: U.S. Dept. of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, State-level Enrollment and Degree Attainment Data. U.S. Census

Bureau, 2003 Current Population Survey, Educational Attainment in the United States, June 2004. Slide courtesy of Education Trust.

-63-

Latino Black

65.5%

59.4%

46.8%

40.5%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Asian White Hispanic Black

Only 56% of students who begin a four-year college

ever earn a degree. And there are vast differences among ethnicities.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2010.

-64-

National average: 56.1%

70.7%

49.0%

30.3%

19.8%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

Asian White Black Hispanic

Only 42% of students who begin a two-year college ever

earn a degree. And, again, there are vast differences among ethnicities.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, 2010.

-65-

National average: 41.6%

In New York State, of those in 9th grade in 2002, only 13% of

Black and Hispanic males and 7% of English Language

Learners were in their second year of college six years later.

Source: NYS data, 2010. -66-

67%

48%

37% 40%

21%

13%

26%

10% 7%

43%

27%

16%

84%

67%

54%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

All 9th graders in '02 4-year HS graduation rate Post-secondary enrollment % in year 2 of college

All students

Other (excl. other

3 categories)

Students with

disabilities

Black and

Hispanic males

English

Language

Learners

A college degree is critical to helping poor kids

escape a life of poverty.

Source: Who Gets to Graduate, Paul Tough, NY Times Magazine, 5/15/14.

-67-

Very few children from low-income households are

graduating from any four-year colleges.

Notes: 2003 data. Household income limits: Top quartile: $95,040+; 2nd quartile: $62,628-$95,040; 3rd quartile: $35,901-$62,628; Bottom quartile: <$35,901.

Source: www.postsecondary.org/archives/Reports/Spreadsheets/DegreeBy24.htm.

-68-

Very few children from low-income households are

graduating from any four-year college. And there has been little improvement over the past 40 years.

Source: Inherited Opportunity for Higher Education, Association for Institutional Research, 5/16/06.

-69-

Second Income Quartile

Bottom Income Quartile

Third Income Quartile

Top Income Quartile

The wealthiest families are spending more and more

on educational enrichment for their children. This is an important contributor to higher college completion rates.

Sources: College graduation rates by family income and test scores: analysis of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 by Matthew M. Chingos, Brookings

Institution; share of students who enter and complete college: analysis of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 and 1997 by Susan Dynarski and Martha Bailey,

University of Michigan, in “Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances,” edited by Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane;”

enrichment spending: Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane, “Whither Opportunity.”; chart appeared in: For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall, the NY

Times, 12/22/12, www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html. -70-

32%

drop out

69%

drop out

Wealthy children with below-average test scores are

more likely to earn a college degree than poor

children with above-average test scores.

Sources: (left chart) College graduation rates by family income and test scores: analysis of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 by Matthew M. Chingos,

Brookings Institution; share of students who enter and complete college: analysis of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 and 1997 by Susan Dynarski and

Martha Bailey, University of Michigan, in “Whither Opportunity: Rising Inequality, Schools, and Children’s Life Chances,” edited by Greg J. Duncan and Richard J.

Murnane;” enrichment spending: Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane, “Whither Opportunity.”; chart appeared in: For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard

Fall, NYT, 12/22/12; (right chart) Who Gets to Graduate, Paul Tough, NY Times Magazine, 5/15/14. -71-

Poor kids are not attending the schools they should. Their college application patterns are illogical, demonstrating that they are

getting bad advice – which leads to a terrible problem of “undermatching”.

-72-

Source: The Missing “One-Offs”: The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low Income Students, Hoxby and

Avery, www.brookings.edu/~/media/Projects/BPEA/Spring%202013/2013a_hoxby.pdf, cited in How elite

universities are killing the American dream, Matthew O'Brien, The Atlantic, 6/19/13, http://qz.com/95845/how-

elite-universities-are-killing-the-american-dream; and How Top Students of Different Incomes Apply for

College, NY Times, 3/16/13, http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/03/17/education/How-Top-Students-of-

Different-Incomes-Apply-for-College.html.

This makes no sense

Where students would be

expected to go to college

Reach

schools Safety

schools

There is very low social mobility in the U.S. Rich kids without a college degree are 2.5 times more likely to end

up rich than poor kids who do graduate from college.

Source: Pew Economic Mobility Project, www.pewstates.org/uploadedFiles/PCS_Assets/2012/Pursuing_American_Dream.pdf, cited in How elite universities

are killing the American dream, Matthew O'Brien, The Atlantic, 6/19/13, http://qz.com/95845/how-elite-universities-are-killing-the-american-dream

-73-

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/educationandmobility.png

Children from low-income households are falling by

the wayside at every step of the educational ladder.

Source: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J.P. Morgan Summit on U.S. Education, 2010.

-74-

92%

81% 77%

71%

41%

9%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

All students Graduate High School Start college Earn 4-Yr Degree

Top income quartile

Bottom income quartile

74% of students at elite colleges are from top

quartile households and only 9% are from

bottom half households.

Notes: Elite colleges are the 146 most selective, as determined by Barron's: Profiles of American Colleges, 24th ed.

Source: Socioeconomic Status, Race/Ethnicity, and Selective College Admissions, Carnevale & Rose, Century Foundation.

-75-

The dearth of low-income students in college

is in part due to the rising cost. Since 1983, tuition and fees at four-year public colleges have risen by 257%, while

typical family incomes have advanced 16%.

Source: US Dept. of Education; Bureau of Labor Statistics; The Tuition Is Too Damn High, Washington Post, 8/26/13,

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/26/introducing-the-tuition-is-too-damn-high

-76-

The cost of higher education in the U.S. is far higher than in

any other country, nearly double the OECD average.

Note: Countries are ranked in descending order of expenditure per student by educational institutions in primary education.


-77-

In spite of rapidly rising costs, however, nearly all

college-ready high school students are going to college. The problem is that our K-12 schools are preparing far too few

students – especially Black and Hispanic ones – for college.

Source: Education Myths, year 2000.

-78-

Even the better students – the ones who go to

college – are alarmingly unprepared.

Source: At 2-Year Colleges, Students Eager but Unready, New York Times, 9/1/06; National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, 2009.

• Close to half of the students who enter college need remedial courses:

- At Cal State, the system admits only students with at least a B average in high school, yet

37% of the incoming class last year needed remedial math, and 45% needed remedial

English

• According to scores on the 2006 ACT college entrance exam, only 21% of students

applying to four-year institutions are ready for college-level work in all four areas tested:

reading, writing, math and biology

• Lack of preparedness leads to nearly half of all students beginning higher education by

attending a community college, which has negative consequences:

- One study showed that 73% of students entering community college hoped to earn four-year

degrees, but only 22% had done so after six years (and only 35% had earned a college

degree of any sort)

- 41% of students at public two-year colleges drop out after their first year and only 28% have

earned a two-year degree after three years

- A study by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that three-quarters of community college

graduates were not literate enough to handle everyday tasks like comparing viewpoints in

newspaper editorials or calculating the cost of food items per ounce

-79-

The failure of so many of our schools costs

our society enormously. • If U.S. students had met the educational achievement levels of higher-performing

nations between 1983-1998, America's GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to

$2.3 trillion higher.

• We are paying higher and higher taxes to pay for the increasing cost of our public

schools, yet they are failing to deliver improved performance

• To compensate for underprepared workers, U.S. industry spends about $25 billion on

dropouts yearly on remediation, and illiteracy costs American businesses more than

$60 billion each year in lost productivity and health and safety issues

• High school dropouts:

- Are more likely to be unemployed, earn lower wages, and have higher rates of

public assistance

- Cost our society $260,000 each in lost earnings, taxes, and productivity

- Are more likely to be single parents and have children at a young age

• 52% of males who fail to finish high school father a child out of wedlock

- Are more likely to become criminals and end up in jail…or dead

• 75% of America's state prison inmates and 59% of federal inmates are

high school dropouts

• 63% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate

• 52% of African-American men who fail to finish high school end up in

prison by their early 30s

-80-

Sources: Harlow, C.W. (2003). Education and correctional populations, bureau of justice statistics special report. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice; ProLiteracy; Western, B., Schiraldi,

V., & Zienberg, J. (2004). Education and incarceration. Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, p. 1; Early Warning! Why Reading by the End of Third Grade Matters (Annie E. Casey Foundation).

Why are low-income, minority students performing so poorly?

• There are many reasons why low-income, minority children are performing so poorly academically – and

many of these reasons are beyond the control of schools

- There is no doubt that children from troubled communities and families, in which few people have completed

high school, much less college, are a challenge to educate

- Of course parents matter – a lot! So much so, in fact, that today, sadly, demography is destiny for most children

- If I could fix either all of the parents or all of the schools in America, I'd choose the former in a heartbeat. But I'm

not sure it's possible to fix the parents – and I know it's possible to fix the schools

• When asked to explain the achievement gap, surveys show that most Americans cite lazy, unmotivated

students and parents who don't care about education

• But there are many (mostly charter) schools that are generating extraordinary academic success with the

most disadvantaged children, usually selecting students by lottery, spending less money per pupil, and often

sharing the same building as chronically failing schools. We now know that very high-quality schools can

meaningfully change the life trajectories of the great majority of even the most disadvantaged students,

proving that demography is not destiny!

• Thus, we must reject a "blame the victim" mentality: children are not failing our schools; rather, our schools

are failing far too many children

• However, given that many low-income, minority children enter school with two strikes against them, they

need the best schools and teachers to change their life trajectories – but instead our educational system

gives them the worst. They overwhelmingly get the lowest quality teachers and schools -81-

In summary, the color of your skin and your

zip code are almost entirely determinative of

the quality of the public education this

nation provides.

-82-

This is deeply, profoundly wrong and is contrary

to everything this nation stands for.

-83-

Overview of our K-12 public school system today.

• 49.3 million public school students in 98,706 schools

in 13,809 independent school districts

• Total spending in K-12 public schools of $602 billion

dollars annually, exceeding all areas of government

spending except healthcare

• A high degree of state and local autonomy No scale/R&D

No common metric of success

Fiscal inequity

• A "delivery system" that has changed little for

generations

• Entrenched bureaucratic system of top-down

governance

• Overall, there are a small percentage of excellent

schools, usually serving the most privileged students,

a wide swath of mediocrity, and a catastrophically

failing system among the bottom 25% of schools,

which victimize mostly low-income, minority children

Source: Digest of Education Statistics, 2010 (2008-09 data); chart: The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, McKinsey & Co., 4/09.

-85-

$602 bn.

1. Lifetime tenure (i.e., cannot remove ineffective performers)

2. Lockstep pay

3. System driven by seniority (not merit)

"These three pillars need to be replaced with a culture that

differentiates based on merit and organizational need."

– Joel Klein, Chancellor, NYC public schools

Too many school systems today are dominated by

the "Three Pillars of Mediocrity."

-86-

There are two general

approaches to fixing our schools:

improve the current system and

create alternatives to it.

-87-

1. Adopt the right strategy and tactics • Set high expectations and standards, benchmarked against international standards

• For political reasons, most states have engaged in a race to the bottom

• No state set its own reading proficiency standard for fourth-graders at a level that met or exceeded

NAEP's "proficient" standard

• 34 states set their proficiency standard so low that it falls below the NAEP's "basic" reading level

• From 2005-07, 15 states lowered their proficiency standards in fourth- and eighth-grade reading or math,

while only 8 states increased rigor of standards in one or both subjects and grades

• Create more choice among public schools and empower parents via a “Parent Trigger”

• Focus on recruiting high-potential teachers

• Develop effective training and mentoring programs for all teachers, especially new ones,

to ensure that they reach their potential

• Develop robust evaluations systems, including value-added data, to better measure

teacher effectiveness and identify the most effective and ineffective teachers

• Distribute teacher talent more equitably

• Introduce differential pay based on three factors: subject areas (e.g., pay math and

science teachers more), "hardship pay" (for those willing to teach in the toughest schools);

and merit (pay top performers more)

• Renegotiate onerous provisions in union contracts (e.g., make it easier to remove

ineffective teachers, make it harder to get tenure, eliminate seniority "bumping" rights and

layoffs driven entirely by seniority)

• Use proven curricula

• Extend the school day and year

• Eliminate social promotion

Improve the current system

4 steps for fixing any broken system (1):

-88-

2. Hire and train great leaders and then empower them

• Give principals the power to manage their schools by giving them more control over

their budgets and staff; in particular, they need the ability to hire great teachers and

have a reasonable process for removing ineffective ones

3. Measure results

• Better measure student achievement and teacher and principal effectiveness by

improving the collection and use of data and establishing rigorous, comprehensive

evaluation systems that include, but are not limited to, test scores

• We must eliminate "happy schools" – schools in which the students are happy, the

parents are happy, the teachers are happy and the principal is happy – the only

problem is that the children can't read!

4. Hold people accountable

• Identify and reward the best people in various ways, including differential pay

• Put ineffective principals and teachers on probation, give them training and support

and, if they do not improve, remove them

• Grade all schools, make the results public, and take strong actions to address

chronically underperforming schools, including the possibility of requiring all adults

to reapply for their jobs and/or shutting the school down and turning the building

over to proven operators

Improve the current system

4 steps for fixing any broken system (2-4):

-89-

• Execution and implementation are critical

• The system is so large and so broken that it will take decades to truly fix it – it's like turning a supertanker

- But the journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step…

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

$7,000 $8,000 $9,000 $10,000 $11,000 $12,000 $13,000 $14,000 $15,000 $16,000 $17,000

Facts:

• Overall spending, even adjusted for inflation, has risen steadily…and large

city schools are spending the most per pupil

• More spending is not correlated with better outcomes among cities:

Why isn't spending more money on my list

of necessary reforms?

-90-

• In the absence of genuine reform, simply increasing spending has proven to be a waste of money

(e.g., Kansas City); in fact, it can do harm by further entrenching the status quo (e.g., New Jersey)

• However, more money is a critical element to grease the wheels of reform

• The key is to marry reform with additional resources (e.g., NYC, Washington DC, Austin)

Austin

Charlotte

Houston

Percent of

4th grade

students

proficient or

advanced in

reading

Per Pupil Spending

Chicago

San Diego

LA

Cleveland

Atlanta

Boston

DC

NYC

In not even one of the 11 cities

are more than 35% of 4th

graders reading proficiently

Sources: NAEP Data Explorer (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/naepdata/dataset.aspx);

U.S. Census Bureau Public Education Finances 2007, pp. 95-110

(www2.census.gov/govs/school/07f33pub.pdf).

Under Gov. Jeb Bush, who was elected in 1998 and served for eight

years, Florida adopted a broad, ambitious reform agenda that included:

• Giving all schools grades

• Money to schools and directly to principals and teachers to reward

success

• Allowing parents to opt out of chronically failing schools

• Ending social promotion after 3rd grade

• Raising high school graduation requirements

• Setting up alternative routes to teacher certification

• Reforming teacher evaluations and tenure

• Tying evaluations to teacher pay

• Eliminating layoffs via LIFO

• Requiring mutual content (i.e., principals must approve any teacher

transfers into their school)

• The full gamut of choice: various tax credit scholarships, charter

schools, vouchers for pre-kindergarten, and virtual education

Florida: a statewide case study of success.

-91-

• Both NAEP and state FCAT scores skyrocketed

• Graduation rates jumped and remediation rates fell

• AP exams taken and passed soared

• The number of schools rated A or B went up 4x while the number

rated D or F fell 73%

• Best of all, the largest gains were among low-income, Black, and

Hispanic students.

Florida has shown dramatic improvements.

-92-

Examples of Florida’s dramatic gains:

-93-

There is a limit, however, to how much improvement

can be made, even by the greatest reformers, within

the constraints of the existing system - We can move from an F to a C, but not to an A

To move to an A, a new “relinquisher” model is

needed, which is being pioneered in New Orleans - Replace a school system with a system of schools

- “Let government set standards and hold schools

accountable. Let educators operate schools and measure

teacher performance however they choose. And, most

importantly, let parents choose schools for their children.”

-94-

– Neerav Kingsland, CEO, New Schools for New Orleans

• Hurricane Katrina wiped out the existing school system, one of the worst in

America, which was replaced with a system of choice, primarily via charter

schools, which educate nearly 80% of all students now (soon 100%)

• Many of the top school reform organizations in the country made large

investments in New Orleans: KIPP, Teach for America, New Leaders for

New Schools, etc.

• The percentage of poor and African American students hasn’t changed:

Creating alternatives: the New Orleans case study.

-95-

The percentage of students performing

on grade level has risen sharply.

-96-

The gap between New Orleans and the

state has narrowed dramatically.

-97-

State District Performance Score

Source: Educate Now!

Note: The DPS is the most comprehensive measurement of school and student performance. It includes all students, all tests, and all grade levels, as well as dropout and attendance data.

The DPS for New Orleans includes all RSD and OPSB schools, both charter and direct-run.

Since 2005, the DPS for New Orleans has grown 36.8 points, more than any other

district, and closed the gap between our schools and the state average by 70%.

State

New Orleans

New Orleans charter schools significantly

outperform national averages.

-98-

The number of failing schools has been

cut in half in five years – and there will be

almost none by 2016.

-99-

2/3 of parents in New Orleans say schools are better

after Katrina, including 79% of charter parents.

-100-

Source: "Spotlight on Choice" project by the Scott S. Cowen Institute for Public Education Initiatives at Tulane University, 2011.

• Even where it’s not possible to implement a

“relinquisher” (most places), it’s important to

create choices outside of the traditional public

system via charter schools and tuition

vouchers/tax credits

- The goal is both to create better options for

many students and also to spur the regular

public schools to improve, thereby

benefiting even the students "left behind"

Alternatives to the current system.

-101-

• Charter schools are tuition-free, non-selective public

schools that operate with greater autonomy – and

accountability – than regular public schools

• There are 4,936 charter schools in 39 states and the District

of Columbia, serving nearly 1.5 million students (roughly

3% market share)

• Charter schools serve a higher percentage of low-income,

minority, and urban students, and a lower percentage of

special ed students and English Language Learners

• As with regular public schools, the quality of charter schools

varies widely

• Any school, whether charter or not, that is consistently

failing to properly educate children should be shut

down

• In states with strong charter laws, charter schools are

showing greater student gains than nearby regular public

schools

• Of the few hundred best schools in America that are truly

changing life trajectories of low-income, minority children, a

wildly disproportionate number are charter schools such as

KIPP, Achievement First, and Uncommon Schools

Overview of charter schools:

-102-

Charter schools have achieved high market

share and number of students in certain cities.

-103-

1. They identify and train top-notch school leaders who are

empowered and held accountable for building outstanding

schools

2. The school leaders focus on recruiting, training, motivating and

retaining top teachers

3. Extended school day and school year

• KIPP students get 60% more class time than they would in

regular public schools

4. Character and culture

• Work hard, be nice, there are no shortcuts, we're climbing the

mountain to college, etc.

• One study showed that grit and determination were twice as

powerful as IQ in predicting life success:

How do KIPP and a handful of other (mostly

charter) schools succeed with the same students

who are failing in regular public schools?

-104-

Source: "Self-Discipline Outdoes IQ in Predicting Academic Performance of Adolescents" by Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. Seligman,

www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/PsychologicalScienceDec2005.pdf

1. High Expectations. KIPP schools have clearly defined and measurable high

expectations for academic achievement and conduct that make no excuses

based on the students' backgrounds. Students, parents, teachers, and staff

create and reinforce a culture of achievement and support through a range of

formal and informal rewards and consequences for academic performance and

behavior.

2. Choice & Commitment. Students, their parents, and the faculty of each KIPP

school choose to participate in the program. No one is assigned or forced to

attend these schools. Everyone must make and uphold a commitment to the

school and to each other to put in the time and effort required to achieve

success.

3. More Time. KIPP schools know that there are no shortcuts when it comes to

success in academics and life. With an extended school day, week, and year,

students have more time in the classroom to acquire the academic knowledge

and skills that will prepare them for competitive high schools and colleges, as

well as more opportunities to engage in diverse extracurricular experiences.

4. Power to Lead. The principals of KIPP schools are effective academic and

organizational leaders who understand that great schools require great School

Leaders. They have control over their school budget and personnel. They are

free to swiftly move dollars or make staffing changes, allowing them maximum

effectiveness in helping students learn.

5. Focus on Results. KIPP schools relentlessly focus on high student performance

on standardized tests and other objective measures. Just as there are no

shortcuts, there are no excuses. Students are expected to achieve a level of

academic performance that will enable them to succeed at the nation's best high

schools and colleges.

KIPP schools share a core set of operating principles known

as the Five Pillars, and every teacher, parent/guardian and

student signs a Commitment to Excellence.

Source: www.kipp.org/about-kipp/five-pillars.

-105-

The Five Pillars Teacher's Commitment

• We will always teach in the best way we know how and we will do whatever it takes for our

students to learn.

• We will always make ourselves available to students and parents, and address any

concerns they might have.

• We will always protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the classroom.

Parents'/Guardians' Commitment

• We will make sure our child arrives at KIPP every day by 7:25 a.m. (Monday-Friday) or

boards a KIPP bus at the scheduled time.

• We will always help our child in the best way we know how and we will do whatever it takes

for him/her to learn. This also means that we will check our child's homework every night,

let him/her call the teacher if there is a problem with the homework, and try to read with

him/her every night.

• We will always make ourselves available to our children and the school, and address any

concerns they might have. This also means that if our child is going to miss school, we will

notify the teacher as soon as possible, and we will carefully read any and all papers that

the school sends home to us.

Student's Commitment

• I will always work, think, and behave in the best way I know how, and I will do whatever it

takes for me and my fellow students to learn. This also means that I will complete all my

homework every night, I will call my teachers if I have a problem with the homework or a

problem with coming to school, and I will raise my hand and ask questions in class if I do

not understand something.

• I will always behave so as to protect the safety, interests, and rights of all individuals in the

classroom. This also means that I will always listen to all my KIPP teammates and give

everyone my respect.

• I am responsible for my own behavior, and I will follow the teachers' directions.

The Commitment to Excellence

• KIPP and a handful of other similar schools are both laboratories of

innovation – developing, testing and implementing new educational

practices that can then be adopted more widely – and are also "black

swans."

• Just as the existence of even one black swan proves that all swans aren't

white, even a small number of high-performing schools proves that,

without spending any additional money, schools have the capability to

change the life trajectories of children and send nearly all low-income,

minority students to college. They prove that demography is not destiny!

• KIPP schools have been a major catalyst in transforming the debate about

the achievement gap, from one focused on excuses ("we just need to

spend more money") and blaming the victims ("it's impossible to educate

those kids") to one that centers on how to make every school as

successful as KIPP schools.

Given that fewer than 1% of low-income, minority

students nationwide attend high-performing schools like

KIPP, why are such schools so important?

-106-

• School choice, in the form of tuition vouchers and tax

credit scholarships, redirects the flow of education

funding, channeling it directly to individual families

rather than to school districts, which allows families

to select the public or private schools of their choice

and have all or part of the tuition paid

• Most voucher programs are carefully targeted at

disadvantaged students (disabled, low income,

and/or attend chronically failing schools)

• Voucher programs have a long and successful

history in this country: G.I. Bill, Pell Grants, Town

Tuitioning in Maine and Vermont

• Vouchers are enormously popular with students and

parents

• Studies are mixed, but many show that vouchers

benefit students who take advantage of them and

that public schools respond to the competition, so

even the students "left behind" benefit from them

• Food stamps are vouchers that don't require the

recipients to shop at only certain supermarkets; ditto

for HUD's Housing Choice (Section 8) Vouchers

Voucher and tax credit programs are in effect in only a few areas.

-107-

• Charter schools provide critical lifelines for needy children, and are

also laboratories of innovation and models for change

• While the “relinquisher” model isn’t politically feasible in most districts,

there’s no reason why every school in America couldn’t be charterized,

in the sense that the adults in the building have to set five-year goals,

are given the power, autonomy and resources to achieve those goals,

and then are held accountable for results

• If they fail to deliver them, then they can lose the right to occupy the

building and teach the children and other adults can be brought in

• Once they reach a critical mass, choice programs/schools do indeed

create pressure for change – New Orleans, DC and Harlem, for

example

• For the foreseeable future, however, the vast majority of children will

continue to be educated at their local public school

• First and foremost, parents don't want choice – they want a good

neighborhood school!

We need to adopt both strategies.

-108-

What might a successful system look like?

We don't have to look very far.

The United States has two educational systems:

One is performing poorly, while the other is

the envy of the world.

-109-

• Only people with means can afford to opt out of the public

schools

• Public schools have dominant market share

• Students and their parents typically have little or no choice of

school; they are assigned to one school based on where they

live

• Money doesn't follow students; if they don't attend their local

public school, they get nothing

– If students or their parents are dissatisfied with a school, they

have few options

• Failing schools typically face few consequences

• Teachers, even the most ineffective teachers, almost always get

tenure within a few years

• Very little innovation and specialization among schools

Characteristics of our K-12 public

school system:

• Public, private and religious schools all compete fiercely for

students

• No one type of school has dominant market share

• Students and their parents choose among a vast array of options

when determining which school is best, depending on each

student's interests and needs

• Money in the form of scholarships and student loans – both

public and private – largely follows students

– If students or their parents are dissatisfied with a school, they

can easily switch schools

• Failing schools face severe consequences

• It takes many years for teachers to earn tenure, and the process

is generally rigorous and competitive

• Tremendous innovation and specialization among schools

Characteristics of our post-secondary

system:

-110-

• U.S. military

- 3 million active and reserve military personnel

- A broken, demoralized institution after Vietnam

- How did we fix it?

• Wal-Mart

- Over 2 million employees worldwide, including 1.4 million in the

U.S.

- How does Wal-Mart manage its workforce?

• The NYC police department

• The number of murders declined by 81% from 1990-2012

• How was it turned around?

• Doctors

• How do we select, train, evaluate and reward doctors?

Other relevant examples:

-111-

Parents are most important, but among

school-based factors, numerous studies have

shown that the most important determinant of

student achievement is teacher quality.

The Importance of Teacher Quality

-112-

The importance of teachers.

Chart courtesy of New Leaders for New Schools.

Source: Marzano, R.J., Waters, T., & McNulty, B. (2005). School leadership that works: From

research to results. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development..

-113-

School-Based Factors Affecting Student Achievement

Human capital accounts for nearly

60% of a school's impact on student

achievement

"Teacher effects are much stronger than class-size effects. You'd have to cut the average

class almost in half to get the same boost that you'd get if you switched from an average

teacher to a teacher in the 85th percentile." – Malcolm Gladwell, Most Likely to Succeed (www.gladwell.com/2008/2008_12_15_a_teacher.html)

• Three Ivy League professors studied 2.5 million children (mostly likely NYC) over 20 years, from

fourth grade through adulthood.

• There were huge differences among teachers, who were ranked based solely on student test

scores, using a value-added methodology, which proved to be quite reliable “even after observing

teachers’ impacts on test scores for one year.”

• “Students assigned to higher value-added teachers…are more likely to attend college, earn

higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods, and save more for retirement. They are also less

likely to have children as teenagers.”

• “Teachers’ impacts on students are substantial. Replacing a teacher whose true VA is in the

bottom 5% with a teacher of average quality would generate lifetime earnings gains worth more

than $250,000 for the average classroom.”

• “If you leave a low value-added teacher in your school for 10 years, rather than replacing him

with an average teacher, you are hypothetically talking about $2.5 million in lost income.”

• “As a rough guideline, parents should be willing to pay about 25% of their child’s income at age

28 to switch their child from a below-average (25th percentile) to an above-average (75th

percentile) teacher.”

• “Overall, our study shows that great teachers create great value – perhaps several times their

annual salaries – and that test score impacts are helpful in identifying such teachers.”

A new study underscores the importance of teacher quality.

Source: The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthoood, Chetty, Friedman, Rockoff, National Bureau of Economic Research, 12/11.

-114-

A study in Dallas compared two groups of

students, both of which started 3rd grade at

about the same level of math achievement.

Source: Heather Jordan, Robert Mendro, and Dash Weerasinghe, The Effects of Teachers on Longitudinal Student Achievement, 1997. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

-115-

Three years later, one group vastly outperformed the other. The

only difference: Group 1 had three effective teachers, while Group

2 had three ineffective teachers (results were similar in reading).


-116-

Effective teachers turned low-performing Dallas 4th

graders into high-performing 7th graders.


-117-

There is enormous variation in teacher effectiveness. Teacher impacts on math performance in year 3 based on their ranking

after their first two years:

Source: Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job, Hamilton Project, April 2006.

-118-

One study in Boston concluded that "one-third of

the teachers had no measurable effect on the

reading and math skills of their students."

Notes: 10th grade students at non-selective Boston public schools; average student scores prior to 10th grade were comparable

(670-687 range); excluded bilingual and special education students.

Source: Boston Public Schools, Bain & Company, 3/31/98.

One frustrated principal said, "About

one-third of my teachers should not

be teaching"

-119-

If we could replace the bottom 6-10% of teachers

with merely average teachers, U.S. students would

rise to the level of top-performing countries.

-120-

Source: Eric Hanushek, cited by Malcolm Gladwell, Most Likely to Succeed (www.gladwell.com/2008/2008_12_15_a_teacher.html).

We Face Two Big Problems When It Comes to

Teacher Quality:

1. Overall teacher quality has been declining for

decades

2. Teacher talent is unfairly distributed

-121-

• Among high-school students who took the SAT in 1994-1995, those who intended to study

education in college scored lower on both the verbal and math sections than students expressing

an interest in any other field

• In 1998 the mean SAT score for students who intended to major in education was 479 math and

485 verbal – 32 and 20 points lower than all college-bound seniors

• Once in college, education majors were more likely to be in the bottom quartile and less likely to

be in the top quartile than any other major

• When Massachusetts made it harder to become a teacher, requiring newcomers to pass a basic

literacy test before entering the classroom, more than a third of the new teachers failed the test in

the first year

• A 2010 study of teacher-prep programs in 16 countries found a striking correlation between how

well students did on international exams and how their future teachers performed on a math test.

In the U.S., researchers tested nearly 3,300 teachers-to-be in 39 states. The results? Our future

middle-school math teachers knew about as much math as their peers in Thailand and Oman—

and nowhere near what future teachers in Taiwan and Singapore knew

Problem #1: Teacher quality has been declining for decades.

By any measure, most new teachers are now drawn from the

bottom third of college graduates.

Source: Thomas D. Snyder, et al., Digest of Education Statistics 1997, U.S. Department of Education, p. 135; Tyce Palmaffy, "Measuring the Teacher Quality Problem," in Better Teachers,

Better Schools, edited by Marci Kanstoroom and Chester E. Finn, Jr., Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, pp. 21-22; Robin R. Henke, et al., Out of the Lecture Hall and into the Classroom:

1992-1993 College Graduates and Elementary/Secondary School Teaching, U.S. Department of Education, p. 58; Your Child Left Behind, Amanda Ripley, The Atlantic, 12/10.

-122-

Top-performing high school students are

far less likely to enter teaching.

Source: Teaching at Risk-Progress and Potholes, The Teaching Commission, March 2006.

-123-

College seniors who plan to go into education

have very low test scores.

Source: General Test Percentage Distribution of Scores Within Intended Broad Graduate Major Field Based on Seniors and

Nonenrolled College Graduates, Educational Testing Service, www.ets.org/Media/Tests/GRE/pdf/5_01738_table_4.pdf.

-124-

• More career opportunities for women and minorities - 40 years ago, 52% of college-educated working

women were teachers; today, only 15% are

• Ineffective recruiting and training practices

• Abysmal schools of education - Three-quarters of the country's 1,206 university-level schools of education

don't have the capacity to produce excellent teachers

- More than half of teachers are educated in programs with the lowest

admission standards (often accepting 100% of applicants) and with "the

least accomplished professors."

- More than 60% of alumni say "schools of education do not prepare their

graduates to cope with classroom reality" (and principals agree)

• Lack of accountability in the system

• Increasing difficulty of removing ineffective teachers

• Outstanding performance is not rewarded - Differential pay has all but disappeared

• Teacher pay is determined almost entirely by two factors, seniority and

certifications, which have little to do with student achievement

Why has teacher quality been declining?

-125- Source: Educating School Teachers, Arthur Levine, 9/06.

Broadly speaking, there are four ways to improve teacher quality:

1. Attract more talented people into the profession

2. Upgrade the skills and teaching ability of current teachers

3. Better retain effective teachers

4. Remove ineffective teachers

The best schools and districts do all of these things; unfortunately, most don't

What can be done to improve teacher quality?

-126-

Imagine that we trained doctors the same way we train teachers: that our least accomplished college

grads went to medical schools, which were noncompetitive schools of quackery that taught students little.

Upon graduating, new doctors had to pass nothing more than an eighth-grade level test (or none at all)

and were immediately thrown into emergency rooms, treating the neediest patients. Of course, the

mortality rates would be off the charts for these patients, almost all of whom are poor and minority.

(Incidentally, it's easy to imagine what defenders of this outrageous and immoral system would say: "It's

not the doctors' fault. Look at how many of our patients are obese, have bad diets, drink and smoke too

much, etc. What can we be expected to do when you ask us to treat such patients???" (This is, of course,

exactly what the unions say.))

In an ideal world, the teachers in this country would go through a rigorous development program, as

doctors do, that would look something like this:

1. Ed schools would be highly competitive (the nations with the highest achieving students like Finland

and Singapore only take teachers from the top 10 percent of college graduates);

2. Ed schools would be rigorous and provide students with real preparation;

3. Graduates would have to pass a tough exam demonstrating that they'd mastered the content;

4. New teachers would enter a carefully controlled and monitored environment, with seasoned mentors

by their side to make sure they learned (and did no harm);

5. Effective teachers would be rewarded and given more responsibility; and

6. Ineffective ones would be given additional support and, if that didn't work, counseled out.

In our dysfunctional, Alice-in-Wonderland education world, not one of these six things happens with any

regularity.

If we had a system to select, train and evaluate teachers that was as good as the one for doctors, the

resulting quality would be as good and the public would surely support paying teachers as well as doctors.

A comparison of how teachers and

doctors are trained in the U.S.

-127-

• Tap talent pipelines like Teach for America and KIPP that have a proven ability to recruit and retain highly

effective teachers

- In 2010, 11% of all Ivy League seniors applied to Teach for America

- At Harvard 18% of all seniors, including 40% of African-American seniors, applied

• If layoffs are necessary, do them based on merit, not seniority

- A 2010 study of California's 15 largest school districts revealed that "if seniority-based layoffs are applied for teachers

with up to two years' experience, highest-poverty schools would lose some 30% more teachers than wealthier schools,

and highest-minority schools would lose 60% more teachers than would schools with the fewest minority students"

• Hire/train better principals and give them more control over their staff

• Ensure that the placements of voluntary transfers and excessed teachers are based on the mutual consent of the

teacher and receiving school

- End the "dance of the lemons" (aka, "pass the trash" and "the turkey trot")

• Introduce differential pay (e.g., pay more to the most effective teachers, teachers willing to teach in the schools

with the greatest concentration of the most disadvantaged students, and hard-to-find teachers, such as those in

math, science and special ed)

• Improve the recruiting process: make it more selective, hire teachers earlier in the year

• Provide better training and mentoring for new teachers

• Improve overall teacher training; substantially reform ed schools

• Developed value-added systems to better measure teacher effectiveness and identify the most effective and

ineffective teachers

- Studies show that teacher effectiveness can be identified relatively quickly

• Don't grant tenure to ineffective teachers

- Today, virtually all teachers who stay on the job get tenure, regardless of effectiveness

• Streamline the process of removing ineffective teachers, while maintaining appropriate protections against

arbitrary firings

Specific steps to improve teacher quality:

-128- Source: Unintended Consequences, The New Teacher Project, 11/05; The Center for Reinventing Public Education, www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/csr_pubs/340.

On average, they are much more likely to be taught by teachers who:

• Didn't major or minor in the field they are teaching

• Are inexperienced

• Did poorly on SATs and other standardized tests

• Got poor grades in high school and college

• Attended noncompetitive colleges

Problem #2: By any measure, low-income,

minority students are not getting their fair

share of high-quality teachers.

-129-

Low-performing 4th graders in Dallas were far more

likely to be assigned to ineffective teachers. In fact, when the researchers found a low-income Black child with three consecutive effective

teachers, they had to manually check the data because it was more likely to be a data error!

Source: The Real Value of Teachers, Education Trust, Winter 2004.

-130-

High-poverty schools have far more teachers who did poorly on

SATs and attended non-competitive colleges.


-131-

Poor and minority high school students nationwide are

more often taught by teachers who did not major or minor

in the field they are teaching.

Source: Teaching Inequality, Education Trust, June 2006.

-132-

High-minority Schools

(50% or more)

Low-minority Schools

(15% or fewer)

High-poverty Schools

(50% or more)

Low-poverty Schools

(15% or fewer)

All Schools

High-minority schools in Illinois have by

far the lowest-quality teachers.


-133-

I don't believe that there's someone in every school system in

America that says, "Let's take the most disadvantaged kids, who

most need the best teachers and schools, and instead stick them

with the worst." Instead, it's the "banality of evil." It's just the way

the system works:

• Experienced teachers use seniority to get placed at "good"

schools

• Rookie teachers are disproportionately assigned to schools

with teacher shortages (i.e., those serving low-income,

minority students)

• The best principals (who tend to attract the best teachers)

tend to end up at more affluent schools

• Affluent parents demand high-quality principals and

teachers – and know how to raise a ruckus if they don't get

them

Why is teacher talent distributed so unfairly?

-134-

Our school system is run by the government,

…Which means it's ultimately controlled by politicians,

…Which means that changing the political dynamic is the key to

improving the system.

The primary struggle over the past two decades has been to create

hundreds of "no excuses" schools, almost all of them public charter

schools, that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that even the most

disadvantaged children can be educated to a high level, with the same

parents and students (chosen by lottery), spending the same amount

of money per student and, in some cases, even sharing the same

buildings as failing regular public schools.

We now know what works and what needs to be done.

The primary battle over the coming decades will be to overcome the

political and institutional barriers that stand in the way of reform.

-136-

• Over the past two decades, it has been proven beyond all doubt that

even the most disadvantaged children can achieve at high levels

• The broad outline of what needs to be done has become clear (high

standards, a focus on teacher and principal quality, greater

accountability, more school-level autonomy, less onerous labor contracts,

greater parental choice, etc.), so why has change been so slow?

• Simple: the system, while failing millions of children, isn’t broken. Rather,

it operates just the way it was designed to: to serve the interests of the

adults in the system. On that measure, the system is working well:

- Over time, there have been five clear trends: more jobs, higher pay,

better benefits, fewer hours worked, and greater job security

- It's not just teachers who are benefiting; it's principals, administrators,

custodians, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, etc.

• The school system is the largest employer in most cities, so it's a huge source

of jobs, money, patronage and political power

Why hasn't more been done to improve the system?

Answer #1: Jobs, Money, Power and Politics.

-137-

• The adults are well organized and extremely politically powerful,

especially in large cities (where, not coincidentally, the schools are

the worst)

• These powerful entrenched interests benefit from the status quo –

and fight fiercely to preserve it

• In contrast, the victims of the failing system – primarily low-income,

minority children and their parents – are the most marginalized,

powerless people in our society

• It's therefore not surprising that the system is highly resistant to

change

• There is little doubt that if wealthy, white families had to send their

children to failing schools, there would be a hue and cry and

schools would be improved quickly


Answer #2: An unfair fight.

-138-

The teachers' unions are the single most powerful interest group in the

country, and are particularly influential in the Democratic Party

• 4.6 million members, accounting for 2% of all U.S. adults

• Public employees are the only growing force in the labor movement

• "NEA/AFT revenues at all levels probably exceed $1.3 billion a year, not

including their PAC funds, foundations, and a host of special funds under their

control." – Dr. Myron Lieberman

• Not just money, but grassroots organization to get out the vote, etc.

- Turnkey campaign operation

- Filings, yard signs, mailings, telephone calls, volunteers, fundraising

- Crucial foot soldiers in elections

• Teacher union representatives account for approximately 10% of the delegates

at the Democratic National Convention, more than any state except California

• Often very influential in electing school board members

- In such cases, they are, in effect, negotiating with themselves

• As one Southern governor said: "There's only one thing you have to know about

politics in my state. Every teacher has every summer before every election off."


Answer #3: Kids don't vote and don't have a union.

-139-

The teachers' unions are the most powerful and organized opponents of genuine

reform, and have a very consistent agenda:

• Increase spending and reduce class size (e.g., more money to more teachers)

• Maintain a seniority-driven system, especially in the case of layoffs

• Oppose differential pay for teachers, other than for certifications and seniority

• Weaken charter schools and reduce their number

• Vehemently oppose any type of voucher/tax-credit program

• Fight for rapid tenure and greater job security (e.g., make it difficult to remove any

teachers, even the most ineffective ones)

• Oppose systems to measure teacher effectiveness

• Defeat politicians and school superintendents who are serious about reform

• Water down or, ideally, kill NCLB

It's important to understand the difference between teachers – who in many cases

are doing heroic work – and their unions

• For example, when asked whether seniority should be the sole factor considered when

determining who should be laid off (a union priority), 74% of teachers say no, including

64% of tenured teachers and 55% of teachers with 20+ years seniority

• Teachers are forming alternative organizations like Educators4Excellence to represent

their views and challenge their unions

Over the years, the teachers' unions' behavior has become less and less like a

professional association such as the American Bar Association or American Medical

Association, and more and more like the longshoreman's union -140-

The union agenda.

• Many school reformers are outraged that the teacher unions are often not

fighting on behalf of schoolchildren

• This is an unreasonable expectation. Just like any other union, they exist

to fight for the interests of their members

• Like most unions, among their major goals are more jobs, higher pay,

better benefits, shorter work hours and greater job protection

• They have been extraordinarily effective at achieving these aims

• They have been very clever to embrace the children, such that any attack

on them or their interests appears to be an attack on children and

children's interests

• In fact, the interests of teachers are often completely contradictory to the

interests of children

- For example, it is obviously in the best interests of children if ineffective teachers

can be removed quickly, yet the unions fight – generally very successfully – to

make it extremely difficult to remove even the most ineffective teacher

- Among the unions favorite prescriptions to fix our schools is to reduce class size,

which obviously benefits unions because it requires hiring many more teachers,

yet the evidence shows that this is very costly yet does little to help students –

and may even harm disadvantaged students

• School reformers must make it clear that they, not the unions, are the

ones who are putting the interests of children first -141-

Thoughts on the unions.

• Even in states where the unions are weak, the same

problems exist and the system is highly resistant to change

• The unions aren't the primary cause, but rather mostly the

result of the terrible system

- Organizations tend to get the union they deserve

• Reform is often viewed as a threat to good jobs for local

residents – there are huge racial dynamics at work

• The real problem isn't the unions, but "The Blob": the whole

system of millions of jobs, the politicians who feed off it, the

bureaucratic inertia that's built up over decades, etc.

• Even if we overcame the political obstacles, implementing

reform and improving such a big, broken system is

enormously difficult and will take a long time

- It's important to have realistic expectations – but also not to

get discouraged

- The journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step – and

we're many steps into the journey and making real progress

But it's not just the unions.

-142-

• Mission: To move the Democratic Party to champion genuine school reform

• Rationale: Only Democrats can move the Democratic Party, so DFER is founded,

run and funded by Democrats

• We must change the debate from Republicans vs. Democrats to those who defend

the educational status quo vs. those who demand more for our children

• DFER seeks to influence the Democratic Party at all levels, with an emphasis today

at the national level, plus 16 state affiliates (California, Colorado, DC, Florida,

Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode

Island, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin)

• DFER began supporting Barack Obama when he was a relative unknown, before he

was elected to the Senate and even before his 2004 speech at the Democratic

National Convention

• Once elected, President Obama picked a reform-minded Secretary of Education,

Arne Duncan, and they have moved aggressively to challenge the status quo

• DFER played a critical role in conceiving of, getting the funding for, and

implementing Race to the Top -143-

• A historic opportunity for reform: President Obama has a chance to

reinvent the relationship that exists between the federal

government and the states

• $4.3 billion in new, one-time federal funding (part of the stimulus

package)

• Awarded competitively to states that embrace reforms favored by

Obama administration

• States all over the country moved rapidly to make reforms and

pass legislation to improve their chances of winning RTTT funds

• 46 states and DC applied in one or both rounds of RTTT

• DC and 11 states won: Delaware, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia,

Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,

and Rhode Island

Overview of Race to the Top:

-144-

Race to the Top funds dwarf philanthropic

money available for reform.

Arne Duncan has

twice as much

discretionary money

as his eight

predecessors over

the past 29 years

combined!

-145-

Great Teachers & Leaders

(138 points/28%)

State Success Factors (125

points/25%) Standards & Assessments (70

points/14%)

Turning Around Lowest-

Achieving Schools (50

points/10%)

Data Systems to Support

Instruction (47 points/9%)

Support High-Performing

Charters (40 points/8%)

General/STEM

(30 points/6%)

Race to the Top is focused on comprehensive reform.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/executive-summary.pdf.

• Providing high-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals (21 points)

• Improving teacher and principal effectiveness based on performance (58 points)

• Ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals (25 points)

• Improving effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation programs (14 points)

• Providing effective support to teachers and principals (20 points)

• Articulating state's education reform agenda and LEAs' participation in it (65 points)

• Building strong statewide capacity to implement, scale up, and sustain proposed plans (30 points)

• Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps (30 points)

• Developing and adopting common standards (40 points)

• Developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments (10 points)

• Supporting the transition to enhanced standards and high-quality assessments (20 points)

• Intervening in the lowest-achieving schools and LEAs (10 points)

• Turning around the lowest-achieving schools (40 points)

• Fully implementing a statewide longitudinal data system (24 points)

• Accessing and using state data (5 points)

• Using data to improve instruction (18 points)

-146-

• Be informed

- You have to know what's going on at the local, state and national level

- Join my email list and I'll do the work for you – just email me at [email protected]

• Support grassroots programs, but also become politically active on this issue

- Showing up at political events and writing checks to politicians isn't sexy (and only

political junkies like me think it's fun), but it is by far the most leveraged way to bring

about large-scale change that benefits large numbers of children

• Let your voice be heard – at events and in the press

• Increase the percentage of your philanthropy that goes toward advocacy

What you can do: Do's

-147-

• Build in the costs of advocacy (particularly parent advocacy)

into school budgets

- The education reform movement overall has done a

terrible job of organizing our greatest political asset: our

parents (there are a few notable exceptions: Eva

Moskowitz with Harlem Parents United; Steve Barr and

Green Dot in Los Angeles; John Kirtley in Florida)

• Meet regularly with politicians and decision-makers, attend

political fundraisers and ask tough questions, and contribute to

politicians who are helpful – and hold those who aren't

accountable

School Choice Rally in Tallahassee, FL, March 2010

• Host a showing of Waiting for "Superman"

• Bring people to visit local high-performing schools such as certain charter schools

- People don't really understand charter schools and what is possible with even the most disadvantaged kids until

they see it with their own eyes

• Join DFER (www.dfer.org), sign our statement of principles & become part of the team! -147-

• Don't assume that running a great school matters when it

comes to advocacy

- Case study: KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore

• Don't assume that politicians understand the issues, or even

the politics behind them

- Tennessee legislators didn't know President Obama is a

supporter of charter schools

• Don't think that effective advocacy is cheap

• Don't allow reform opponents to define the debate

It's time to play offense!

What you can do: Don'ts

-148-

1. Get educated by downloading my slide presentation and signing up for my

email list at www.arightdenied.org or email me at [email protected].

2. Sign up for email updates at www.dfer.org, www.edreformnow.org,

www.studentsfirst.org, www.standforchildren.org and www.edtrust.org.

3. Go visit a high-performing school and get involved as a mentor, tutor, board

member, etc.

4. Be an advocate: sent out emails, use Facebook and Twitter, etc., and bring

your friends to visit a high-performing school. You can talk to people until

you're blue in the face (and they're sick of hearing from you), but seeing is

believing.

5. Host a showing of Waiting for "Superman", which is available on DVD and

Netflix.

6. Get politically involved: show up at political events and ask tough questions of

the politicians (who tend to be ignorant and/or gutless weasels on this issue)

and, if you're able, write checks to support reform-friendly politicians.

What you can do right now

-149-

• It's nice to fantasize about an 18-day, Egypt-style revolution that

throws out the old order, that's not going to happen. The system is

much too big, too entrenched, and too decentralized to fix quickly.

• It's taken us 40 years to go from having the best system of public

education in the world to having one that is, at best, middle of the

pack among developed countries, and it will, sadly, likely take as

long to get back to the top.

• It will be a journey of 1,000 miles. We are many miles into the

journey and are making progress, albeit in a three-steps-forward-

two-steps-backward manner.

• Don't be discouraged! There has been more progress in the past

few years than in the previous 20, so it's an incredibly exciting time

to be a school reformer!

Don't Get Discouraged!

…But do have realistic expectations

-150-

The full version of this presentation, a

documentary of me presenting it, and other

resources are posted at: www.ARightDenied.org

To be added to my school reform email list, simply

email me at: [email protected]

By Whitney Tilson

-1-

Appendix 1: Table of Contents

1. Progress is possible Page 2

2. The government’s obligation Page 6

3. Steps to fixing the system Page 7

4. The importance of effective school leaders Page 8

5. More on teacher quality and distribution Page 11

6. The impact of lockstep pay for teachers Page 18

7. Other steps to improve teacher quality Page 25

8. The importance of high standards Page 29

9. End social promotion Page 30

10. The hidden teacher spending gap Page 32

11. Seven big myths

• Myth #1: Low-income, minority students don’t want

to and/or can’t learn Page 37

• Myth #2: Students are overworked Page 41

• Myth #3: Students are worse off today Page 42

• Myth #4: We’re not spending enough Page 44

• Myth #5: Reducing class sizes is an effective way to

boost student achievement Page 49

• Myth #6: Teachers are underpaid Page 52

• Myth #7: NCLB is costly and unnecessary Page 55

12. The importance of political and community advocacy Page 62

13. The Democrats’ Dilemma – And Obama’s Solution Page 68

14. What we are fighting against: a story from the trenches Page 70

15. Recommended reading Page 74

-2-

Progress is possible: In 2003 in math, both Black and Hispanic 4th

graders in Boston did not stack up well compared to NYC, the

averages for large cities, and all public school students

Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), various years, 2003–2009 Trial Urban District Reading Assessments,

http://nationsreportcard.gov/math_2009/district_g4_motion.asp.

-3-

Over the past six years, Black and Hispanic 4th graders in

Boston and NYC have made great strides in math



-4-

White 4th graders have made progress as well, so the

stubborn two-year black-white achievement gap remains



-5-

The white-Hispanic two-year achievement gap

remains as well



Avg

. Sco

re b

y H

isp

an

ic S

tud

en

ts

-6-

The Government’s Obligation

• Federal, state and local governments have a moral and practical responsibility to provide every family with a good local public school – or must provide an alternative

• The current status quo, in which parents – mostly low-income, minority ones who can’t opt out of the system – are forced to send their children – millions of them – to schools that everyone knows are dangerous and chronically failing is simply unacceptable

• Given the widespread failure at the state and local level, a greater role for the federal government is called for to, for example, set standards and demand accountability. Such a role is consistent with the federal role in other important breakthroughs such as Brown vs. Board of Education and the Great Society

-7-

Steps to Fixing the System – Big Picture Most Big-City School Systems Are Caught in “Doom Loops”

In Good to Great, Jim Collins contrasts the culture of discipline inside truly great organizations with those of struggling competitors. The highly successful companies found a "hedgehog concept" - what they could be the best in the world at - and they slowly, methodically built their business around this concept, gaining momentum each year. The image Collins uses to describe this momentum buildup is of the great companies pushing a huge flywheel; the first three, five, 15, 100 turns take exceptional effort, but once the flywheel is turning, the momentum makes it easier for each turn to go faster with less effort. The pattern within these companies creates sustained excellence: steps forward consistent with hedgehog concept, accumulation of visible results, personnel energized by results, flywheel builds momentum, steps forward consistent with the hedgehog concept. In contrast, the companies with chronically poor results were caught in devastating "doom loops" that were characterized by a familiar yet highly destructive pattern: disappointing results, reaction without understanding, new direction/program/ leader/event/fad, no accumulated momentum, disappointing results. Collins writes:

“Instead of a quiet, deliberate process of figuring out what needed to be done and

then simply doing it, the (poorly performing) companies launched new programs - often with great fanfare and hoopla aimed at 'motivating the troops' - only to see the programs fail to produce sustained results. They sought the single defining action, the grand program, the one killer innovation, the miracle moment that would allow them to skip the arduous buildup stage and jump right to the breakthrough.”

Source: www.achievementfirst.org/about.lessons.html

There is no magic bullet, no 100% solution. We need 100 1% solutions.

The Importance of Effective School Leaders • Great principals establish the right

“culture” at a school and attract and retain great teachers

-9-

Principals Are Increasingly Being Held Accountable

for Their Schools’ Success or Failure Yet in Most Urban Districts, They Have Limited Ability to Hire and Fire Staff

Source: Unintended Consequences, The New Teacher Project, 11/05

“Nine out of 10 times, the person that is coming is not succeeding in his or her

school . . . [E]veryone wants to keep their good teachers.” – Urban Principal

-10-

We Need to Hire and Train Better School Leaders, Give Them

Greater Autonomy and Then Hold Them Accountable for Results Case Study: New York City Empowerment Schools

• Principals sign performance agreements that lay out principals’ new powers, resources, and responsibilities in exchange for:

– Increased authority over instructional practices, professional development, organization, school schedule, and summer programming

– Substantially greater discretion and fewer restrictions over school budget

– Additional money, in place of mandatory DOE programs and services, with which to decide what services to purchase – either from outside vendors or the DOE itself

• For each school, $100,000 in newly unrestricted funds and about $150,000 in in funds previously managed centrally on behalf of the school

– Fewer administrative requirements and reduced reporting and paperwork

– A significant voice in selecting and evaluating a dedicated support team charged with serving each school. Each dedicated support team will be a partner for principals, assuring that schools’ needs are satisfactorily met

• There are annual assessments and each school receives a progress report and overall letter grade (A through F)

– Schools that receive a grade of “D” or “F” (or a grade of “C” in three consecutive years) are subject to consequences, including the use of intervention teams and leadership changes

• Empowerment School principals will form into “networks” of no more than 20 schools – Networks will choose “network support leaders” who will work with small teams to help

principals learn from each other and solve problems

– An Integrated Service Center will support the network support teams

• 48 schools participated in a two-year pilot program – 80% met their target goals

– They outperformed citywide averages as well as their own past performance prior to entering the pilot program

• 331 schools (including the original 48 plus 10 charter schools) – approximately 1 in 5 schools in the city – recently volunteered to become Empowerment Schools

More on Teacher Quality and Distribution

-12-

College Readiness Increases With Teacher Quality*

Source: Teaching Inequality, Education Trust, June 2006; Presley, J. and Gong, Y. (2005). The Demographics and Academics of College

Readiness in Illinois. Illinois Education Research Council.

Percent of

Students

1. % of Teachers with Emergency/Provi-sional Certification

2. % of Teachers from More/Most Selective Colleges

3. % of Teachers With at Least 4 Yrs of Experience

4. % of Teachers Failing Basic Skills Test on 1st Attempt

5. Teachers’ Average ACT Composite and English Scores

55%

39%32%

24%

30%

30%

29%

26%

15%

31%39%

50%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Lowest TQI Lower Middle TQI Upper Middle TQI Highest TQI

Not / Least

College Ready

Somewhat / Minimally

College Ready

More / Most

College Ready

55%

39%32%

24%

30%

30%

29%

26%

15%

31%39%

50%

0%

25%

50%

75%

100%

Lowest TQI Lower Middle TQI Upper Middle TQI Highest TQI

Not / Least

College Ready

Somewhat / Minimally

College Ready

More / Most

College Ready

* The Teacher Quality

Index is Based on

Five Factors:

http://ierc.siue.edu/documents/College Readiness - 2005-3.pdf


-13-

College Math Readiness Is Affected More by Teacher

Quality Than by the Level of Courses Taken

Source: Teaching Inequality, Education Trust, June 2006; Presley, J. and Gong, Y. (2005). The Demographics and Academics of College

Readiness in Illinois. Illinois Education Research Council.

% of Students

Most/More Ready

6 611

25

48

18

42

67

20

52

76

57

81

1621

0

25

50

75

100

Algebra II Trigonometry or

other advanced math

Calculus

Highest

TQI

Quartile

Upper-

Middle

TQI Quartile

Lower-

Middle

TQI Quartile

Lowest

11-25%

TQI

Lowest

10%

TQI

Lowest Quartile

A student who takes

Algebra II with even a 3rd

quartile teacher is better

prepared for college than a

student who takes Calculus

with a bottom 10% teacher



-14-

Poor High School Students Are More

Often Taught by Less-Qualified Teachers

Source: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future,

What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future (p.16) 1996. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

Percentage of Teachers Who Majored or

Minored in the Field They Are Teaching

28%

14%19%

16%

40%

20%

31%

18%

0%

50%

Math Science English Social Studies

less than 20% Free Lunch greater than 49% Free Lunch

-15-

Poor High School Students Are More Often

Taught by Inexperienced*

Teachers

*Teachers with 3 or fewer years of experience. High and low refer to top and bottom quartiles.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics, “Monitoring Quality: An Indicators Report,” December 2000. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

High- and low-poverty schools High- and low-minority schools

Percentage of

Inexperienced

Teachers

20%

11%

21%

10%

0%

25%

High-poverty schools Low-poverty schools

High-minority schools Low-minority schools

-16-

High-Poverty Schools in Illinois and New York Have Far More

Teachers Who Did Poorly on State Certification Exams

Source: Chicago Sun Times, 2001 (Illinois data).

• In Illinois, children in high-poverty schools were five times more likely to be taught by teachers who failed the state teacher licensure exam at least once, and 23 times more likely to be taught by teachers who failed it at least five times

– One Chicago teacher failed on 24 of 25 tries – including all 12 of the tests in the subject area in which she taught – yet is still teaching

• In New York, of those teaching minority students, 21% of teachers failed one of the state’s certification exams vs. 7% of those who teach white students

-17-

High-Poverty Schools In New York State Have Far More

Teachers Who Attended Non-Competitive Colleges


• The 10% of public schools in New York State with the highest-income students have almost no teachers who attended “least-competitive” colleges

• In the 10% of public schools with the lowest-income students, more than 30% of teachers attended “least-competitive” colleges

• Minority students in New York are more than twice as likely as white students to be taught by teachers from the least-competitive colleges

Lockstep Pay for Teachers Is Having Devastating

Consequences for Teacher Quality

-19-

To Compete With the Private Sector, Schools Need to

Pay Math and Science Teachers More – But Aren’t

Source: Teacher Pay Reforms, Center for American Progress, 12/06.

-20-

Teachers With High Test Scores Used

to be Paid More – But No Longer Are Is It Any Wonder, Therefore, That Numerous Studies Have Shown That

Fewer and Fewer Top Students Are Becoming Teachers?

Sources: Teaching at Risk-Progress and Potholes, The Teaching Commission, 3/06; Teacher Pay Reforms, Center for American Progress, 12/06.

-21-

Female Teachers from Highly Selective Colleges

Used to be Paid More – But No Longer

Source: Wage Distortion, Hoxby and Leigh, Education Next, Spring 2005.

-22-

It’s Not Surprising, Therefore, That Far Fewer Women Who

Attend Highly Selective Colleges Are Going Into Teaching

Source: Wage Distortion, Hoxby and Leigh, Education Next, Spring 2005.

-23-

Under Most Teacher Contracts, It Is Virtually Impossible to Pay

Any Teacher More for Exceptional Duties or Performance

Source: Breakdown, Eva Moskowitz, Education Next, Summer 2006.

For example, to pay a teacher in New York City more for exceptional

duties, the following steps are required:

1. An audit is conducted

2. The Division of Human Resources reviews the audit

3. The United Federation of Teachers is consulted

4. The chancellor approves the salary; and

5. Any disagreement is arbitrated

-24-

Teacher Pay Should Be Tied to Many

Factors That Are Not Currently Used

• The best teachers – defined primarily as those who deliver high

student achievement – should be paid more

• Teachers willing to teach in the schools with the greatest

concentration of the most disadvantaged students should be paid

more

• Hard-to-find teachers, such as those in math and science, should be

paid more

-25-

Set Up “Value-Added” Systems So Effective (and

Ineffective) Teachers Can Be Identified Such Teachers Can Be Identified Relatively Quickly

Source: Identifying Effective Teachers Using Performance on the Job, Hamilton Project, April 2006.

-26-

Streamline Removal of Ineffective Teachers In Many Cities, It Is Virtually Impossible to Remove Even the Most Ineffective Teacher

• Out of 95,500 tenured teachers in Illinois, an average of only two (0.002%) are fired each year for poor performance

– In the past 18 years, 94% of school districts have never attempted to fire a tenured teacher

• In another study of five cities’ school systems, of 74,600 teachers, fewer than four (0.005%) per year were fired for poor performance

• In another study (The Widget Effect, http://widgeteffect.org) of 12 districts in four states:

– 81% of administrators and 58% of teachers said there was a tenured teacher in their school who was performing poorly, and 43% of teachers said there was a tenured teacher who should be dismissed for poor performance, yet…

– Fewer than 1% of teachers were rated unsatisfactory

– At least half of the districts had not dismissed a single non-probationary teacher for poor performance in the previous five years

– 41% of administrators reported that they had never denied tenure to a teacher or “non-renewed” a probationary teacher

Sources: www.thehiddencostsoftenure.com; Unintended Consequences, The New Teacher Project, 11/05; The Widget Effect, The New Teacher Project, 6/09.

-27-

Reform Schools of Education

• Three-quarters of the country's 1,206 university-level schools of education

don't have the capacity to produce excellent teachers

• More than half of teachers are educated in programs with the lowest

admission standards (often accepting 100% of applicants) and with "the

least accomplished professors"

• When school principals were asked to rate the skills and preparedness of

new teachers, only 40% thought education schools were doing even a

moderately good job

• Teacher U in New York City, a collaboration among KIPP, Achievement

First and Uncommon Schools is an exciting model

• As with ed schools today, a century ago many medical schools were

schools of quackery

– But they were reformed because people were dying in the care of poorly

trained doctors

– People die (or end up in jail, on welfare, or lead ruined lives) when poorly

trained teachers fail to educate, so there needs to be a similar hue and cry to

reform or shut down the many ed schools of quackery

Source: Educating School Teachers, The Education Schools Project, Arthur Levine, 9/06; www.edschools.org/teacher_report.htm.

-28-

Other Key Steps

• Until national standards are adopted, states need to set high

standards

• End social promotion

• Address the hidden teacher spending gap

-29-

The Importance of High Standards

• One of the biggest flaws of No Child Left Behind is that it lets states

set their own bar for proficiency/passing

• To their everlasting shame, the vast majority of states engaged in a

race to the bottom so politicians and educators could tell the public

that the vast majority of students were doing well – when they

weren’t

• One of the few exceptions was Massachusetts, which set high,

internationally benchmarked standards, developed rigorous tests

(MCAS) and publicizes each school’s results.

• As a result, Massachusetts’ students are doing exceptionally well – if

it were a country, it would be among the top 5 in the world

• At about the same time, neighboring Connecticut, which had similar

demographics and performance, adopted loosey-goosey watered-

down standards and has now fallen far behind Massachusetts

-30-

Ending Social Promotion Is A Powerful

Accountability Mechanism

• No longer can schools get rid of the most difficult-to-educate children by promoting them and, eventually, passing them along to other schools (or until they drop out)

• Instead, the messages to the system are clear:

1. “You must educate every child”; and

2. “If you fail to educate any child, then you have to try again”

• It helps combat the reprehensible yet widespread practice of assigning least effective teachers to the most difficult students

• “In the immortal words of Roberto Duran, we are saying, ‘No mas!’ We will educate students and then promote them, not the reverse”

-- Joel Klein, Chancellor, NYC Department of Education

-31-

Florida Students Benefited When the

State Ended Social Promotion

Source: Getting Ahead by Staying Behind, Greene and Winters, Education Next, Spring 2006.

Students Potentially Affected By

the Retention Policy Did Better… …As Did Students Retained

-32-

The Hidden Teacher Spending Gap

• Funding gaps between school districts—inter-district funding discrepancies—have been the subject of much debate and numerous lawsuits. Less attention, however, has been paid to the funding gaps separating schools within the same school district

• Virtually all districts nationwide, when budgeting for each school in the district, apply the average teacher cost for the district to all teachers at a school, even if some schools – typically those serving primarily low-income, minority students – have a higher percentage of low-paid teachers (e.g. those with less experience and fewer credentials)

– “In virtually every school district, schools are given teacher allocations, not budget allocations. That is, a school is told it can hire 40 teachers, not that it has $2 million dollars for teacher salaries.”

• The hidden effect of this budgeting is that significantly less is actually spent on schools with a high concentration of low-income, minority students than is reported

Source: California’s Hidden Teacher Spending Gap: How State and District Budgeting Practices Shortchange

Poor and Minority Students and Their Schools, Education Trust, 3/05.

-33-

Impact of the Hidden Teacher Spending Gap Low-Income and Minority Students Were Shortchanged in New

York, Though Recent Reforms Have Addressed This

• Schools in New York State’s high-poverty districts receive $2,040 less

per pupil than schools in its low poverty districts

– $51,000 less for a classroom of 25

– $816,000 less for a school of 400

• The state’s high-minority districts receive $1,797 less per pupil than

schools in its low-minority districts

– $44,925 less for a classroom of 25

– $718,800 less for a school of 400

Source: Education Trust calculations based on U.S. Department of Education school district revenue data for the 2001-2002 year.

-34-

Impact of the Hidden Teacher Spending Gap Case Study: Low-Income and Minority Students are Shortchanged in California

• Of the 50 largest school districts in California, 42 of them (84%) spend less on teachers in schools that are in the top quartile of low-income and minority students (compared to schools in the bottom quartile)

– At schools in the top quartile of poverty, the average salary gap is $2,576/teacher/year or $87,584/year for a typical school with 34 teachers

– At high minority schools, the gap is even larger: $3,014/teacher/year or $102,476/year for a typical school

• The gaps are even larger in the 10 largest school districts in California, which account for 22% of all public school students in the state

– At high-poverty schools, the average salary gap $3,388/teacher/year

– At high minority schools, the gap is the largest: $4,119/teacher/year

• Conclusion: “For a student in high schools serving mostly Latino and African-American students, the estimated average teacher salary is $4,119 less per teacher than in a high school serving the fewest minority students. Assuming this student has six teachers a day, he is taught by teachers paid $24,714 less per year than his counterparts. Over the course of a four-year high school career, $98,856 less is spent on his teachers as compared to the teachers teaching in schools serving the fewest concentrations of Latino and African-American students. If this student attended the schools serving the highest numbers of Latino and African-American students from the time of kindergarten through high school, California will have spent a total of $172,626 less on all of his teachers (K-12) than on the K-12 teachers in schools with the fewest Latino and African-American students.”

Source: California’s Hidden Teacher Spending Gap: How State and District Budgeting Practices Shortchange

Poor and Minority Students and Their Schools, Education Trust, 3/05.

-35-

One Solution to the Hidden Teacher Spending Gap

Is Weighted Student Funding

• A proposal in which: – Funding from all levels follows every student to whatever public school

he or she attends

– The amount varies according to the student’s needs

– Funding arrives at schools as real dollars that can be spent flexibly, with accountability gauged by results rather than inputs, programs, or activities

• Proposed by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, it is winning bipartisan support for educational leaders such as former Secretary of Education Rod Paige, former San Francisco superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Center for American Progress President John Podesta

• Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein in New York City and Governor Spitzer in New York State have proposed “Fair Student Funding”

• For more information, see www.edexcellence.net/fundthechild

-36-

Seven Big Myths

To move forward, we must first understand the reasons – and associated “solutions” – that do not explain the underperformance of low-income minority children:

1. They don’t want to and/or can’t learn

2. Students are overworked

3. Students are worse off today than in the past

4. We’re not spending enough

5. We need to reduce class size

6. Teachers are underpaid

7. No Child Left Behind is costly and unnecessary

-37-

Myth #1: Low-Income Minority Students Don’t

Want To and/or Can’t Learn

Fact: Many schools are proving that this is nonsense

• Especially the “no excuses” charter schools like KIPP

-38- Source: Education Trust analysis of data from National School-Level State Assessment Score Database (www.schooldata.org).

Poverty vs. Achievement

in Kentucky Elementary Schools

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Percent FRPL

Ele

me

nta

ry M

ath

Perc

en

tile

Sc

ore

Percent of Students Who Qualify for

Free or Reduced-Price Lunch

Not Surprisingly, As Student Income

Levels Decline, So Do Test Scores

-39-

Source: Education Trust

analysis of data from

National School-Level

State Assessment Score

Database

(www.schooldata.org).


in Kentucky Elementary Schools

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Percent FRPL

Ele

me

nta

ry M

ath

Pe

rce

nti

le S

co

re

Percent of Students Who Qualify for

Free or Reduced-Price Lunch

Yet There Is Enormous Variability Among Schools

Some schools

are delivering

high student

performance in

spite of low

income levels

http://www.schooldata.org/

-40-


in Indiana Elementary Schools

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Percent Economically Disadvantaged

3rd

Gra

de M

ath

Perc

en

t P

rofi

cie

nt

an

d A

bo

ve

Source: Analysis of Indiana Achievement Data by the Education Trust, 2006.

The Same is True in Indiana

-41-

Myth #2: Students Are Overworked

Facts:

• Filled with vivid anecdotes, recent books such as The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids and The Case Against Homework: How Homework is Hurting Our Children and What We Can Do About It, have led to the widespread misperception that American children are being overworked

• However, the facts show that, with the exception of a small number of schools and parents, not enough is being demanded of students

• 71% of U.S. students told the Public Agenda Foundation in 2006 that they do the bare minimum to get by and only two in 10 students say they have too much homework

• A 1995 study showed that American students spend on average just 1.7 hours a night on homework, compared with 2.7 hours for students in other nations

– Not coincidentally, however, U.S. 12th graders who took advanced math and science reported having homework more often than their international peers

• Another study by Brookings (2003) found that typical American students spent an hour a day on homework – a pattern unchanged in the past quarter-century

• Only 5% of American schoolchildren have more than two hours of homework per night

• Almost half of high school students acknowledge that they should do homework, but don't – The Homework Myth, Martin Davis, NY Post, 8/27/06

• “UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute regularly asks about 400,000 college freshmen how much homework they did in high school. About two-thirds say only an hour a night or less. Remember, these are the homework habits of students who went on to college.” – Too Few Overachievers, Jay Mathews, Washington Post, 8/21/06

• “The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research collects time diaries from American teenagers. These documents make clear our youth are not taking long walks in the woods or reading Proust. Instead, 15- to 17-year-olds on average between 2002 and 2003 devoted about 3 1/2 hours a day to television and other "passive leisure" or playing on the computer. (Their average time spent in non-school reading was exactly seven minutes a day. Studying took 42 minutes a day.)” –Mathews

-42-

Myth #3: Students Are Worse Off Today Than in the Past

(And Therefore Schools Aren’t to Blame for their Failure)

Fact:

• Students are better off today

-43-

According to a Study That Measured 16 Factors,

Students Today Are the Most “Teachable” Ever Yet Their Performance Has Scarcely Budged

Source: The Teachability Index: Can Disadvantaged Students Learn?, Greene, Forster, 9/04; www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ewp_06.htm#01.com.

-44-

Myth #4: We’re Not Spending Enough The Widespread Failure of Schools in Large Cities is Not Due to Less Spending

Sources: Chart 1: Savage Exaggerations, Marcus Winters, Education Next, Spring 2006

Chart 2: Top 25 school districts of over 10,000 students in per-pupil spending, 2002-03 school year, US Census Bureau, March 2005.

Cities with some of the very worst schools such as Newark, Camden, Washington DC and Hartford spend among the most per pupil of any U.S. cities

-45-

There is No Correlation Between Higher

Spending and Better Outcomes Among Cities

Source: USDOE, NCES, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2007 data; U.S. Census Bureau 2007 Public

Elementary-Secondary Education Finance Data; ACCRA Cost of Living 2000 composite index.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

0 2,000 4,000 6,000 8,000 10,000 12,000 14,000

Total current spending per student

Houston

Charlotte Austin

San Diego

Chicago Los Angeles

Cleveland

Atlanta

DC

Boston

2007 urban district spending per student vs. proficiency rates

Percent

of 8th

grade

students

proficient

or above

in math

New York City

-46-

If Spending More Money Leads to Better Student Outcomes, Then

Why Do Private School Children Do Just As Well, Despite Private

Schools Only Spending Roughly Half What Public Schools Do?

• “The report from the Education Department…concluded, after compensating for socioeconomic differences and other factors, that public-school students score slightly better on tests in fourth grade, while private-school students score slightly better in eighth grade.”

• “[Yet,] According to federal surveys, the typical private school’s tuition is only about half what a public school spends per pupil…General Motors would not celebrate the news that its $40,000 Cadillac performed almost as well as a $20,000 Honda.”

Source: www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/20060715report.pdf;

Spinning a Bad Report Card, John Tierney, New York Times, 7/18/06; chart: Education Myths.

-47-

Spending More Money – Even A Lot More Money – Does Not Lead to Improved

Student Achievement Unless It is Accompanied by Major Reforms

Kansas City Case Study

• "Sometimes we even crank up the intensity with which we write these checks, but because the system is built in a way that puts other needs ahead of children, our students don't benefit. In Kansas City, Missouri, where tumultuous conditions wore out 20 school superintendents in 30 years, a court ordered that an extra $2 billion be spent over a dozen years [$167 million/year] (between the mid-1980s and late 1990s) as a supplement to the district's $125 million per year operating budget to improve education for minority students. School officials used the unprecedented cash infusion to boost teacher salaries and build 15 new schools [both among Kozol's big recommendations]. They included such pricey luxuries like an Olympic-size swimming pool with an underwater viewing room, television and animation studios, a robotics lab, a 25-acre wildlife sanctuary, a zoo and a model United Nations chamber with simultaneous translation capability. Unfortunately, after a dozen years very little had really changed and the district still failed to meet any of the state's performance standards. Structure matters in education, particularly when school systems are configured in ways that assure that the needs of adults are addressed first and foremost.“ – Cheating Our Kids

• “Fifteen years and $2 billion later, the schools were no more racially integrated than in 1985, and despite a student-teacher ratio of thirteen to one (among the lowest in the nation), test scores were just as dismal. A local attorney who had served as a court-appointed monitor for the program summed it all up: ‘The only things we have to show for $2 billion in new educational spending in Kansas City are beautiful buildings, highly paid, grossly inadequate teachers and a huge administrative staff that I estimate has cost us $43 million.’…Even Professor Gary Orfield of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, one of the country’s staunchest proponents of court-ordered desegregation remedies, admits that ‘Kansas City is a very, very sad story. They really can’t show much of anything, though they spent $2 billion.’” – No Excuses

-48-

More Money – Accompanied by Major Reforms –

Made a Difference for Two Schools in Austin

“As part of a settlement in a desegregation case in the late 1980s, 16 high-minority, high-poverty elementary schools in Austin, Texas were given a very substantial increase of $300,000 a year for five years on top of their regular budgets. Did it promote greater student learning? Five years later, it turned out, no improvement at all was visible in 14 of the sixteen schools.

These 14 schools had spent the extra money reducing class size, but the teachers were simply doing what they had always done and their students were learning no more. The other two, though, did make impressive gains, because they had innovative and dynamic principals who devoted great effort to involving parents, to reshaping the curriculum, and to training the teachers to handle their classes differently. The extra money helped make these changes possible. But more money was no magic bullet – which the record of 14 made clear.”

Source: No Excuses.

-49-

Myth #5: Reducing Class Sizes Is an Effective

Way to Boost Student Achievement

Facts:

• Teacher quality is far more important than class size…and reduced class size initiatives often lead to lower teacher quality – Would you rather have your child in a class of 25 students led by an

excellent teacher or a class of 18 students with an ineffective teacher?

• Reducing class sizes is extremely expensive, yet there is little evidence that it results in gains in student achievement

• Teachers support it because it because smaller classes are easier to manage and they can spend more time with individual students – This is no doubt correct, all other things being equal…

– But all other things are not equal; large-scale initiatives to reduce class sizes lead to rapid hiring of many new teachers, thereby diluting average teacher quality

• Because it requires hiring many more teachers, this “reform” is strongly favored by the teachers’ unions

Sources: Education Myths, No Excuses.

-50-

Two Studies: One Instructive and the Other Not

• Proponents of smaller class size cite the STAR program in Tennessee in the 1980s, in which students in smaller classes did better, but the findings are unreliable

– Unclear whether students were randomly assigned to small classes

– Unclear if results could be replicated on a large scale

• In 1996, California appropriated $4 billion ($1 billion/year) to reduce elementary school class sizes by 1/3 to a max of 20 students in grades K-3

– From 1996-96 to 1999-2000, average class size fell from 29 to 19

– 46% more teachers were hired in only three years (62,226 to 91,112); previously, only 4,000 K-3 teachers were hired each year

Sources: Education Myths, No Excuses.

-51-

California’s Class Size Reduction Failed Due to

Far More Uncertified and Inexperienced Teachers

“The small-class mandate in California forced the hiring of many teachers who were apparently ill-qualified, especially in schools where the need for strong instruction is greatest. The sudden jump in the demand for teachers allowed those with better credentials – whether new or experienced – to move to schools in safer, more pleasant neighborhoods. Reading scores rose only slightly and math scores actually declined in the most heavily black schools in the state…

The lack of academic progress should have been expected. The smaller the average class, the more teachers a school needs, and the harder it may be to maintain teacher quality…

In their desperate search for additional staff, California’s high-minority, low-income schools evidently had no choice but to hire the weakest teachers in the pool. The disappointing results would seem the logical consequence.” – No Excuses

Sources: Relationships Between Class Reduction, New Teachers and Student Achievement, PPI, 6/02; No Excuses.

“I’d rather have one good teacher than two

crummy teachers, any day” – Irwin Kurz, principal

of a very successful New York public school with

low-income students and large classes

-52-

Myth #6: Teachers Are Underpaid

Facts:

• Some teachers are indeed underpaid, but overall teachers are quite well paid

– And have excellent benefits

• The problem is how teachers are paid

• Certain teachers should be paid more, but only those who deliver high student achievement, are willing to teach in the schools with the greatest concentration of the most disadvantaged students, and teach subjects in which there is a teacher shortage such as math and science

-53-

$- $10 $20 $30 $40 $50 $60

Doctor

Lawyer

Dentist

Nuclear engineer

Physicist

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER

Mechanical engineer

Psychologist

All prof. specialty & technical

Architect

Physical therapist

Librarian

Nurse

Editor/reporter

All white collar

Legal asst.

PRIVATE SCHOOL TEACHER

Social worker

Clergy

Overall, Teachers are Not Underpaid They Earn 61% Per Hour Than Private School Teachers and Significantly

More Than Other White-Collar Workers, Even Specialty/Technical Ones

Hourly Wages

Source: How Much Are Public School Teachers Paid?, Greene & Winders, January 2007, www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_50.htm.

-54-

Teachers Also Receive Excellent Benefits

And Have Extraordinary Job Security

Source: Is There a “Qualified Teacher” Shortage?, Michael Podgursky, Education Next, Spring 2006.

-55-

Myth #7: No Child Left Behind is Costly and Unnecessary

Facts:

• NCLB requires much-needed performance measurement

• Creates much-needed accountability, which is leading to…

• Much-needed improved performance

• And the cost is small relative to other reform measures

-56-

What Is No Child Left Behind?

• The central aim of NCLB is to make every public-school student proficient in reading and math by the year 2014. It has three core principles:

1. “A core principle of NCLB is that every student must reach the desired level of performance: no group of students—minority, disabled, poor, limited English proficient, mobile—should be left behind.

2. Another core principle of NCLB is that every child is capable of attaining proficiency, defined in an appropriate way. Thus, while progress is important, NCLB deliberately emphasizes reaching proficiency, not making gains each year, regardless of past performance. NCLB provides no special recognition to students or schools that exceed the minimum. This is not a good thing or a bad thing, but it clearly demonstrates that the focus of NCLB is on bringing low-achieving students to a sound level of academic achievement.

3. A third principle of NCLB is that it works through the states, long the workhorses of the country’s education system. States and localities provide more than 90 percent of funding for schools, so it makes sense for them to exercise control. Furthermore, with fewer schools to watch, states are in a much better position than the federal government to monitor multiple targets. Thus, even though NCLB monitors only proficiency, it encourages states, in their own accountability systems, to reward schools that make gains along the entire spectrum of achievement.” – Inadequate Yearly Progress, Hoxby, Education Next, Summer 2005

• “Passed with strong bipartisan support in 2001 [Ted Kennedy was one of the sponsors], the law requires states to develop accountability goals and use a standardized test to measure whether students are reaching those goals. NCLB provides sanctions for schools that fail to make adequate gains for several years in a row. These include the diversion of a portion of schools’ federal subsidies to tutoring for failing students, and allowing students to transfer to other public schools. States are also held accountable for their overall performance through the diversion of portions of their federal funding.” – Education Myths

-57-

No Child Left Behind Is Proving To Be a Highly

Effective Piece of Civil Rights Legislation

• NCLB forces schools (and states) to break out test results by race

• This exposes the dirty secret of far too many schools: that children

who are perceived to be slow learners – disproportionately low-

income, minority children – are assigned the least effective teachers

and essentially given up on

• "I think it represents the greatest piece of civil rights legislation since

the passage of the [1965] Voting Rights Act.“ – Steven Adamowski,

new Superintendent of Hartford public schools

-58-

The 2005 National Teacher of the Year Has

Changed His View of No Child Left Behind

From an article in the Washington Post about Jason Kamras, 2005 National Teacher of the Year:

In Virginia, a middle school principal pulled him aside. He told Kamras that before No Child Left Behind, he used to assign "a warm body" to teach his low-performing classes.

Now, the principal said, he puts his best teachers with his lowest-performing students so they can meet testing standards. It changed Kamras's opinion of the legislation.

"Like many teachers, I had thought NCLB was an attack on public education," Kamras said. "Now I have a much more positive view, because it's forcing everyone to pay attention to the achievement of children who'd been ignored.“

The anecdote became a part of his talks. If the story made a difference in Kamras's philosophy, he said, maybe it could inspire other teachers to embrace some parts of the act.

Making a difference in education policy began to pique his interest. Kamras is now considering taking a more political role to continue bringing issues of inequality to public attention.

Source: Washington Post, 7/13/06.

-59-

Testing Leads to Accountability Which Leads to Improved Results States With Statewide Testing Systems Showed More Improvement in the 1990s

Source: Do We Need to Repair the Monument?, John Chubb, Education Next, Spring 2005.

-60-

Opponents of NCLB Label It an “Unfunded

Federal Mandate” and Decry Its Cost But In Fact the Cost of Accountability Testing is Low Relative to Other Reform Measures

Source: Education Myths.

-61-

Opponents of NCLB Mischaracterize NCLB The Box on the Left Was Circulating the Internet; My Rebuttal Is on the Right

No Child Left Behind: The Football Version

1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals. If no child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.

No Child Left Behind: Revised Version

1. All teams must play hard and do their best. If a team is poorly managed and disorganized, it will be put on probation until it improves, and the coaches will be held accountable. The children and their parents will not be blamed for the failure of the coaches.

2. All kids will be expected to play. Obviously, some kids will play with more skill than others, but all kids will be expected to work hard and perform at a proficient level. Some kids may need to work extra hours to achieve proficiency. The coaches will be expected to put in those extra hours with the kids to ensure their success.

3. Coaches will not focus their resources solely on the handful of players who demonstrate unusual proficiency at an early age. Coaches will be held accountable for the success of EVERY player.

4. Games will be played year round, and statistics will be collected, analyzed and widely disseminated frequently.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every kid learns the necessary tools to succeed. Just because some children get ahead, it's not acceptable that many children get left behind.

-62- Photo: Liz Marie

The Importance of Political and Community Advocacy

-63-

The School System is the Largest

Employer in Many Cities

1995 data

Largest Private Employer School System

Baltimore 8,000 11,414(Baltimore Gas & Electric)

Detroit 13,659 18,822(Chrysler)

Washington DC 5,756 14,235(Georgetown)

-64-

Government Jobs Have Been the Primary Route

to the Middle Class for African Americans

• Statistics in a 1976 study for the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education by Harvard University economist Richard Freeman reveal the importance of government employment:

– Overall, about 51% of all male Black college graduates are employed by governments – either federal, state, or local – compared to about 25% of college-educated white males.

– Although the largest number are teachers, there are high proportions of Blacks employed by governments in other fields as well - about 28% of Black lawyers, compared to 14% of lawyers overall; 47.5% of personnel and labor relations professions, compared to 25% overall; and 24% of all Black men who are managers, which is about double the overall proportion.

• Freeman also reports that 72% of Black women college graduates work for some branch of government.

-65-

Government is a Particularly Important

Employer for African Americans…

Source: Testimony of Douglas J. Besharov, American Enterprise Institute to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, July 15, 2005.

-66-

…Especially for College Graduates

Source: Testimony of Douglas J. Besharov, American Enterprise Institute to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, July 15, 2005.

-67-

Perceptual, Ideological and Communal Bonds Are

Major Impediments to School Reform

“The politics of jobs can be – and often is – an impediment to systemic school reform, but the power of education professionals rests on more than the votes and campaign contributions they can muster from within their own ranks. African-American educators in black-led cities share perceptual, ideological, and communal bonds with elected officials, parents, and other important community actors, including the black churches that play a pivotal role in shaping the political life in many inner-city areas. These bonds help to account for the fact that community mobilization around school issues often takes the shape of protecting jobs and their incumbents instead of demanding higher levels of performance and structural change.”

Source: The Color of School Reform

-68-

The Democrats’ Dilemma – And Obama’s Solution

Fact 1: America’s public schools are failing urban children of color on a mass scale

Fact 2: Urban minorities are a critical base of support for the Democratic party

Fact 3: Urban leaders could drive the political agenda, but with a few notable exceptions remain passengers on someone else’s policy bus

Fact 4: The party’s two core constituencies – urban minorities and education status quo – are on a collision course

Fact 5: Until Obama was elected, the Democratic party was paying a high and increasing price for being on the wrong side of this issue

Fact 6: As a candidate and now as President, Obama has embraced a reform agenda, both because it’s the right thing to do, but also it’s smart politically

- Shows he’s a centrist and demonstrates political courage by being willing to buck his party’s strongest interest group

- He is poised to be to education reform what Clinton was to welfare reform

-69-

Equation for the Average Democratic Politician

Support Genuine School Reform

• Lose unions’ financial backing and organizational support

• More likely that party or union will run someone against you in the primary

• Accused of hurting your party and being a closet Republican

• Perhaps cost your constituents jobs

BUT

• Do what’s best for children and stay true to your principles

Toe the Party Line

• Gain financial backing and organizational support

• More likely to run unopposed in the primary

• Be “part of the team”

• Protect good jobs (and perhaps patronage)

BUT

• Don’t do what’s best for children

Case studies: Cory Booker (first election), Eva Moskowitz

This equation is changing somewhat, however, thanks to President

Obama’s leadership and the political cover it provides

-70-

What We Are Fighting Against:

A Story from the Trenches

I taught in the South Bronx with TFA back in the late nineties. I want to emphasize here that I no longer

teach in the Bronx, so I have little idea how things have changed and have seen the current

Administration take a number of important steps that may be making a great impact. I'm not close enough

to the ground to know, but my guess is that there are still plenty of schools in the Bronx and in every

other low-income community in the country that reflect some of the miserable stuff I saw in my school.

You should really start collecting a book of stories like these. Among all the people I know who've done

TFA, these stories are just a few among many sad ones.

As I filled out the survey, I was first reminded of the art teacher in our school. She was truly a

caricature of bad teaching. Like something out of the movies. She spent almost every minute of every

day screaming at the top of her lungs in the faces of 5-8 year olds who had done horrible things like

coloring outside the lines. The ART teacher! Screaming so loud you could hear her 2-3 floors away in a

decades old, solid brick building. When she heard I was looking for an apt, she sent me to an apt broker

friend of hers. I told the friend I wanted to live in Washington Heights. "Your mother would be very upset

with me if I let you go live with THOSE PEOPLE. We fought with bricks and bats and bottles to keep

them out of our neighborhoods. Do you see what they have done to this place?" This same attitude could

be heard in the art teacher's screams, the administration's ambivalence towards the kids we were

supposed to be educating and the sometimes overt racism of the people in charge. The assistant

principal (who could not, as far as I could tell, do 4th grade math, but offered me stop-in math

professional development for a few minutes every few months with gems like "these numbers you see

here to the left of the zero are negative numbers. Like when it is very cold outside.") once told me "I call

them God's stupidest people" referring to a Puerto Rican woman who was blocking our way as we drove

to another school. She also once told me I needed to put together a bulletin board in the hallway about

Veteran's Day. I told her we were in the middle of assembling an Encyclopedia on great Dominican,

Puerto Rican and Black leaders (all of my students were Dominican, Black or Puerto Rican). "Mr. ____,

we had Cin-co de May-o, and Black History Month, and all that other stuff. It is time for the AMERICAN

Americans."

-71-


A Story from the Trenches (2)

Not everyone in the school was a racist. There were many hard working teachers of all ethnicities

who did not reflect this attitude at all. But the fact that the leadership of the school and a number of the

most senior teachers was either utterly disdainful of the students they taught, or has completely given

up on the educability of the kids, had a terrible effect on overall staff motivation. And many of the well-

meaning teachers were extremely poorly prepared to make a dent in the needs of the students even if

they had been well led. The Principal told more than one teacher there that "as long as they are quiet

and in their seats, I don't care what else you do." This was on the day this person was HIRED. This

was their first and probably last instruction. He never gave me a single instruction. Ever. And I was a

new teacher with nothing but TFA's Summer Institute under my belt. The Principal proceeded to get a

law degree while sitting in his office ignoring the school. When we went to the Assistant

Superintendent to report that the school was systematically cheating on the 3rd grade test (i.e., the

third grade team met with the principal and APs, planned the cheating carefully, locked their doors and

covered their windows and gave answers) she told the principal to watch his back. A few months later,

inspectors came from the state. After observing our mostly horrible classes for a full day, they told us

how wonderful we were doing and that they had just come down to see what they could replicate in

other schools to produce scores like ours. And the list goes on and on.

Like when I asked the principal to bring in one of the district's special education specialists to

assess two of my lowest readers, both of whom had fewer than 25 sight-words (words they could

recognize on paper) in the 3rd grade, he did. She proceeded to hand one of the students a list of

words that the child couldn't read and tell her to write them over again. Then she went to gossip with

the Principal. After explaining to him in gory detail, IN FRONT OF THE STUDENT, that she had just

been "dealing with a case where a father had jumped off a roof nearby and committed double-suicide

with his 8 year old daughter in his arms", she collected the sheet with no words on it, patted the child

on the head and left. No IEP was filed nor was I allowed to pursue further action through official

channels (I lobbied the mother extensively on my own). I never asked for her to come back to assess

the other student.

-72-



Our Union Rep was said to have tried to push another teacher down a flight of stairs. The same

Union Rep, while I was tutoring a child, cursed out a fellow teacher in the room next door at the top of

her lungs so the child I was tutoring could hear every word. When I went to address her about it, the

other teacher had to restrain the Rep as she threatened to physically attack me. And when the

cheating allegations were finally take up by city investigators, the same Union Rep was sent to a

cushy desk job in the district offices. I hear that most of the people I'm referencing here are long gone

now, and some of them actually got pushed out of the system, but how rare can this story really be

given the pitiful results we see from so many of our nation's poorest schools and how far the system

goes to protect horrible teachers and administrators like the ones I worked with?

At the same time as all of this was happening, by the way, the few good teachers in the building

often became beaten down and disillusioned. One of the best in my building was consistently

punished for trying to make her corner of the school a better place for learning. They put her in a

basement corner with no ventilation, no windows and nothing but a 6-foot-high cubicle-style partition

separating her from the other 5 classrooms in the basement. After fighting the good fight she went to

teach in the suburbs. When I got a financial firm to donate 20 computers, the principal said he didn't

have the resources to get them setup for use and refused to allow them into the school. When I had

my students stage a writing campaign to get the vacant lot behind the building turned into a

playground, the principal wanted me silenced.

The saddest thing about the whole damn mess was that our K-3 kids still REALLY WANTED TO

LEARN. Every day they came eager for knowledge. And every day this cabal of cynicism, racism and

laziness did everything within their powers to drain it out of them. It was unreal. Don't get me wrong.

There were some good teachers there. And some well meaning, but poor teachers. But in many

classrooms, the main lesson learned was that school became something to dread, many adults

thought you were capable of very little, and some adults couldn't be bothered to lift a finger.

-73-



I hope if any of the good, hard-working teachers who fought so hard to rid the school of this mess

read this, they'll know I'm not lumping them in with the rest. But the problem was, when I addressed

the worst practices in the school at a staff meeting, the bad teachers laughed and the good teachers

took it the hardest and thought I was criticizing them.

Let's make these stories known.

-74-

Recommended Reading

• Whitney Tilson’s school reform resource page: www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/SchoolReform

• Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education, Joe Williams

• Work Hard, Be Nice, Jay Mathews

• Escalante, Jay Mathews

• Crazy Like a Fox, Ben Chavis and Carey Blakely

• Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools--And Why It Isn't So, Jay Greene

• No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom

• Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America, Donna Foote

• Stupid in America, 20/20 television report, posted at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx4pN-aiofw

• The Education Gadfly (email [email protected] to receive it)

• Education Intelligence Agency, www.eiaonline.com (email [email protected] to receive weekly emails)

• Sign up for the Charter Schools News Daily by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools at www.publiccharters.org

• Andy Rotherham’s blog at www.eduwonk.com

• Education Trust’s web site, www.edtrust.org

-1-

Appendix 2 (last updated summer 2007)

Table of Contents

1. More on Achievement Gap #1: American students are

falling further and further behind their international peers Page 2

2. More on Achievement Gap #2: There is an enormous gap

between in achievement between our low-income,

minority students and better-off students Page 8

3. Creating alternatives: Charter schools Page 18

4. Creating alternatives: Vouchers Page 33

• There is substantial evidence that public schools do

respond when alternatives are offered Page 43

5. More on teacher quality, distribution and pay Page 46

6. Adopt a rigorous high school curriculum Page 53

7. Barriers to change Page 62

-2-

Achievement Gap #1

• Despite a doubling of spending over the

past 30+ years, our students’ achievement

has barely budged and we are falling

further and further behind other countries

-3-

U.S. 15-Year-Olds Ranked 24th out of 29

OECD Countries in Mathematics And Only Slightly Better in Literacy (15th)

300

350

400

450

500

550

Fin

lan

d

Kore

aN

eth

erla

nds

Japan

Cana

da

Belg

ium

Sw

itzerla

nd

New

Ze

ala

nd

Austr

alia

Cze

ch R

epub

lic

Icela

nd

Denm

ark

Fra

nce

Sw

ede

n

Austr

iaG

erm

any

Ire

land

OE

CD

Ave

rage

Slo

vack

Re

pub

licN

orw

ay

Lu

xem

bo

urg

Pola

nd

Hung

ary

Spa

inU

nited S

tate

sP

ort

ugal

Ita

lyG

reece

Tu

rkey

Mexi

co

Avera

ge S

cale

Sco

re

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), PISA 2003 Results,

data available at http://www.oecd.org/. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

http://www.oecd.org/

-4-

Even Our Highest-Performing (Top 5%)

Students Are Performing Poorly… The U.S. Ranks 23rd out of 29 OECD Countries

300

350

400

450

500

550

600

650

700

Belg

ium

Japan

Kore

aS

witz

erla

nd

Neth

erla

nds

New

Ze

ala

nd

Fin

lan

dA

ustr

alia

Cana

da

Cze

ch R

epub

licD

enm

ark

Sw

ede

nG

erm

any

OE

CD

AV

ER

AG

E

Austr

iaIc

ela

nd

Fra

nce

Slo

vak R

ep

ublic

Norw

ay

Hung

ary

Lu

xem

bo

urg

Ire

land

Pola

nd

United S

tate

s

Spa

in

Ita

lyT

urk

ey

Port

ugal

Gre

ece

Mexi

co

Ave

rag

e S

ca

le S

co

re

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), PISA 2003 Results, data available at

http://www.oecd.org. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.


-5-

…As Are Our Students from Wealthy Families U.S. Ranks 23rd out of 29 OECD Countries

300

350

400

450

500

550

600

Belg

ium

Neth

erla

nds

Fin

lan

dC

zech

Re

pub

licC

ana

da

Japan

Kore

aS

witz

erla

nd

Austr

alia

Germ

any

New

Ze

ala

nd

Fra

nce

Denm

ark

Sw

ede

nA

ustr

iaH

ung

ary

OE

CD

AV

ER

AG

ES

lova

k R

ep

ublic

Lu

xem

bo

urg

Ire

land

Icela

nd

Pola

nd

Norw

ay

United S

tate

s

Spa

inP

ort

ugal

Ita

lyG

reece

Tu

rkey

Mexi

co

Ave

rag

e S

ca

le S

co

re

Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), PISA 2003 Results, data available at

http://www.oecd.org/. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.


-6-

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Grade 4 Grade 8 Grade 12

Nations scoring higher than the U.S.

Nations scoring the same as the U.S.

Nations scoring below the U.S.

Our Relative Performance is Weak – and Declines

Dramatically the Longer Our Students Are in School

Science Performance

Source: NCES 1999-081R, Highlights From TIMSS. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

-7-

The United States is Still Among the Top Nations in the

Proportion of Older Adults Holding a College Degree

But It Drops to 7th in the Educational Attainment of Young Adults

Source: National Report Card on Higher Education, http://measuringup.highereducation.org/

-8-

Achievement Gap #2

• The achievement of low-income, minority

students is dramatically worse than their

better-off peers

– This achievement gap widens the longer

students are in school

-9-

4032

10 10

47

49

4235

1319

4755

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Black Latino White Asian

Prof/Adv

Basic

Below Basic

The Gaps in Math Are Smaller Than

Reading, But the Performance of Black and

Latino 4th Graders Is Still Alarmingly Bad

Source: 2005 data, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/

-10-

6045 46

5643 39

2516 21

3021 27

2842 38

2942

39

3543 37

3341

38

13 14 16 15 16 21

41 41 42 37 36 34

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Bla

ck-4

th

Bla

ck-8

th

Bla

ck-1

2th

Latino-4

th

Latino-8

th

Latino-1

2th

White-

4th

White-

8th

White-

12th

Asian-4

th

Asian-8

th

Asian-1

2th

Prof/Adv

Basic

Below Basic

In Reading, All Races Do Better from 4th Grade to 8th

Grade; from 8th Grade to 12th Grade, Latinos Do Better,

Blacks Are Flat and Whites and Asians Do Worse


-11-

63 69 6854 59 57

21 24 26 27 25 23

31 26 29

37 33 39

46 4253

4034 44

5 5 3 8 8 4

33 3420

3341

34

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Bla

ck-4

th

Bla

ck-8

th

Bla

ck-1

2th

Latino-4

th

Latino-8

th

Latino-1

2th

White-

4th

White-

8th

White-

12th

Asian-4

th

Asian-8

th

Asian-1

2th

Prof/Adv

Basic

Below Basic

In Math, All Students Except Asians Do

Worse the Longer They Are in School

Source: 2000 data, 4th grade data for Asians not available in 2002; National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data

Explorer, http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nde/

-12-

23 2641

23 2736

10 1021

7 1224

63 61

50

60 5751

57 52

51

52 48

50

14 13 817 17 13

34 3827

41 4126

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Bla

ck-4

th

Bla

ck-8

th

Bla

ck-1

2th

Latino-4

th

Latino-8

th

Latino-1

2th

White-

4th

White-

8th

White-

12th

Asian-4

th

Asian-8

th

Asian-1

2th

Prof/Adv

Basic

Below Basic

In Writing, All Students Do Worse the

Longer They Are in School


-13-

0%

100%

200 250 300 350

Average Scale Score

Percen

t o

f S

tud

en

ts

White 13 Year-Olds African American 17 Year-Olds Latino 17-Year Olds

African American and Latino

12th Graders Do Math at the Same Level

As White 8th Graders

% of

Students

Source: NAEP 2005 data . Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

-14-

The High School Graduation Rate

for Latino and Black Students

in New York State is Very Low The 47% Graduation Rate for Blacks is the Lowest in the Nation

42%47%

75% 77%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Latino Black Asian White

Note: The percentage of students statewide who entered the ninth grade in 1997 earned a standard diploma within 4 years.

Source: The Education Trust * EdwatchOnline 2004 * State Summary Report

-15-

Rather Than Educating Our Youth

Properly, We’re Spending Enormous

Amounts to Lock Them Up As Adults

Source: Justice Expenditure and Employment in the U.S., Sidra Gifford, Bureau of Justice Statistics

1977-1999 Increase in State & Local Expenditures

0%

200%

400%

600%

800%

1000%

1200%

1400%

1600%

Education All State

Functions

Corrections Judicial & Legal

System

-16-

Rather Than Educating Our Youth Properly,

We’re Spending Enormous Amounts to

Lock Them Up As Adults (2)

-16%

184%

-50%

0%

50%

100%

150%

200%

250%

300%

350%

400%

Higher education

spending

Prison spending

Source: Cellblocks or Classrooms?The Funding of Higher Education and Corrections and It's Impact on African American Men,

Justice Policy Institute, 8/02; http://www.justicepolicy.org/reports/report-b-cellblocks.html

California, 1985-2000

24%

346%

-50%

0%

50%

100%

150%

200%

250%

300%

350%

400%

Higher education

spending

Prison spending

Texas , 1985-2000

-17-

Connecticut Spent More for

Corrections Than Higher Education

for the First Time in 2007

Source: Connecticut Alliance for Great Schools

Under the Proposed Budget, Connecticut Will Be

Spending More for Corrections Than Higher

Education in 2007 for the First Time* General Fund Expenditures

$-

$100.0

$200.0

$300.0

$400.0

$500.0

$600.0

$700.0

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05

06 (p

ropose

d)

07 (p

ropose

d)

$ i

n M

illi

on

s

Corrections Higher Education

* Not including detention, juvenile, and adult services (CSSD) or Ct

Juvenile Training School (DCF), totaling $117 million for 2006 and $120

million for 2007

Under the Proposed Budget, Connecticut Will Be

Spending More for Corrections Than Higher

Education in 2007 for the First Time* General Fund Expenditures

$-

$100.0

$200.0

$300.0

$400.0

$500.0

$600.0

$700.0

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05

06 (pr

opose

d)

07 (pr

opose

d)

$ i

n M

illi

on

s

Corrections Higher Education

* Not including detention, juvenile, and adult services (CSSD) or Ct

Juvenile Training School (DCF), totaling $117 million for 2006 and $120

million for 2007

-18-

Creating Alternatives

Case Study: Charter Schools

-19-

Charter Schools Are Tuition-Free, Non-Selective Public

Schools That Operate With Greater Autonomy – And

More Accountability – Than Regular Public Schools

“A public charter school is a publicly funded school that, in accordance with an enabling state statute, has been granted a charter exempting it from selected state or local rules and regulations.

A charter school may be newly created, or it may previously have been a public or private school; it is typically governed by a group or organization (e.g., a group of educators, a corporation, or a university) under a contract or charter with the state.

In return for funding and autonomy, the charter school must meet accountability standards. A school's charter is reviewed (typically every 3 to 5 years) and can be revoked if guidelines on curriculum and management are not followed or the standards are not met.”

Source: http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/glossary.asp#c

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/glossary.asp

-20- Source: The Center for Education Reform, 2006-07 school year

Charter Schools Are Spreading

Rapidly Across the Nation There Are 4,600 Charter Schools as of 2009 in 40 States and DC

Charter School Market Share is Highest in These 4 Cities & 12 States

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

N.O

rlean

s

Day

ton

DC

Det

roit

AZ

CO M

IOH FL W

ICA P

AM

NNC TX N

Y

-21-

Charter Schools Typically Serve the

Most Disadvantaged, “At Risk” Children

Source: Gray Lady Wheezing, Howell and West, Education Next, Winter 2005; Caroline M. Hoxby, Harvard University

Contrary to popular perception, charter schools do not “cream” the best students.

Charter school students performed worse, relative to their fellow students, when

they were in regular schools prior to attending charter schools.

-- 4.5 NPR points worse in reading and 6.7 points worse in math

-22-

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Charter schools

lagged

Equal Charter schools

better

Nu

mb

er

of

Stu

die

sDespite Taking the Most Difficult Students, Most Studies Show

That Charter School Students Are Making Greater Gains Than

Comparable Students in Nearby Public Schools

Source: Bryan C. Hassel, Public Impact

Analysis of 26 Studies

That Compared Student

Progress Over Time

But what about the studies that appear to show

that charter schools are underperforming?

• Charter school students do indeed have lower test scores

than regular public schools (according to 12 of 18

“snapshot” studies), but that’s because they serve higher

concentrations of disadvantaged, “at risk” students. The

gold standard is to measure student progress over time

• The snapshot studies failed to adequately adjust for

critical factors such as household income and parents’

education and marital status

• The 2003 data used for these studies included only 5% of

all charter schools

• University of Washington researcher Mary Beth Celio’s

dismissed the widely publicized 2004 study as “one of the

most unsophisticated, low-level analyses I’ve ever seen.”

• The editorial board at the Chicago Tribune deemed the

findings “about as new as a lava lamp, as revelatory as

an old sock, and as significant as a belch.”

62%

23%

15%

-23-

Some Charter Schools Are Achieving

Nothing Short of Educational Miracles

With the Most Disadvantaged Children

• Especially the “no excuses” charter

schools like KIPP (Knowledge Is Power

Program), Achievement First (Amistad)

and Uncommon Schools (North Star)

-24-

The KIPP Charter Schools – More Than 50

Nationwide – Are Showing What Low-

Income Minority Students Can Achieve The red bars are the test scores when students first enter KIPP schools;

the blue bars are the scores the following Spring or Fall

Source: An Academic Impact Analysis of the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), Educational Policy Institute, August 2005

* *

-25-

Another Case Study of Gap-Closing

Performance: Amistad Academy

• 97% Black and Latino students

• Selected by lottery from the City of

New Haven

• 84% free or reduced price lunch

• 246 students in grades 5-8

• 10% Special Education

• 100% participation on Connecticut

Mastery Test

• On average, incoming fifth graders

are two years below grade level in

reading and math, according to

baseline tests.

-26-

Amistad Is Achieving Extraordinary Success And Is Spending Less: $10,700/Student

vs. More Than $12,000 New Haven Average

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

New Haven Connect icut Amist ad

6th Grade 8th Grade

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%


6th Grade 8th Grade

Source: www.achievementfirst.org

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%


6th Grade 8th Grade

Reading (% at Mastery) Math Writing

-27-

Amistad’s “12 Lessons About School Reform” 1. "These Kids" CAN Learn. Amistad Academy's students, who are 98 percent African-American

or Latino and 84-percent free/reduced lunch, outperformed the Connecticut state average in every subject tested. Since Amistad's students were selected by a blind lottery run by the New Haven Public Schools and the school has a higher percentage of poor and minority students than the district as a whole, the argument that poor, minority students cannot achieve seems clearly false. Our measure of success will never be to do just a little bit better or to compare ourselves only to other schools serving poor, minority students. We are not interested in reducing the achievement gap; we want to close it. Every Achievement First school will be expected to raise student achievement to at least the state average within three years, and each AF school will be expected to have 90 percent of all students who have been at the school for five or more years at or above the proficiency level in all tested subjects. These will always be our most important metrics. All Achievement First schools will also be unapologetically college preparatory.

2. Leadership Matters – Mightily. Great leadership at the school site is the most vital variable for institutional success [so] Achievement First will aggressively recruit the finest educational professionals to lead its schools. As Achievement First grows, we will consciously and systematically groom our best teachers to assume leadership roles, providing them with the finest training in the nation.

3. Teachers Are More Important Than Curricula... In the past 50 years, policymakers and superintendents have tried (in vain) to fix American education by changing curricula and programs. The result has been wave after wave of educational fads and a lack of attention on who is in front of the classroom. Unfortunately, all of this often misguided energy around program has obfuscated a dirty little secret in American education: the teachers in front of the student aren't always good enough. The number one predictor of student achievement is teacher quality. The message is clear: Get great teachers in front of students, and they will have great results. What does this mean for Achievement First? Achievement First will aggressively recruit some of the finest teachers in America. We have already developed a rigorous recruiting process…, a comprehensive plan for casting a wide net to increase the candidate pool, and a two-year professional development program to rapidly accelerate the skills of rookie and early-career educators.


http://www.achievementfirst.org/about.lessons.html

-28-

Amistad’s “12 Lessons About School Reform” (2) 4. ...But Some Curricula Are Better Than Others. There is a remarkable similarity among the

curricular of the schools that have closed the achievement gap are in terms of curriculum. All are intensely standards-based, taking away the endless debate about what is taught, an ceaseless discussion that cripples most schools. We have done extensive research to find the best curricula, visiting high-performing schools, talking to experts and curriculum reps, and reading the research literature. Through the process, we have picked or developed curricula that have a proven track record of producing dramatic student achievement. We do not believe in taking chances with children's futures; instead, we have picked the best curricula, and we will invest extensively in the professional development of our teachers so that they know these curricula well. A great curriculum combined with the knowledge and skill of a master teacher is a winning combination.

5. "Mere Mortals" not "Superhumans". We also recognize that almost all of the high-performing charter schools, including Amistad Academy, have relied on one or more "heroic leaders" who combine an incredible 75-plus-hour-a-week work ethic and a charismatic leadership style. Achievement First does not believe that a "heroic leader" is necessary in every school. In fact, we think that "heroic leaders" are not usually the best leaders for long-term, systematic change. We do believe that a strong, passionate, talented leader is necessary at each school unit, but we also believe that, in the past, "heroic leaders" at great urban schools had to be heroic to succeed because their schools did not have the necessary supports. Achievement First's model focuses on finding and training great instructional leaders; surrounding them with dedicated, talented teachers; giving these leaders and teachers a strong, proven school-based model to implement; and providing strong "back office" support so that the teachers and leaders can focus on student achievement. This "back office" support takes two forms: school unit and central office.

6. An Unwavering Focus on Student Achievement. Before No Child Left Behind, the discussion about equity in schools most often focused on inputs: per pupil funding, class size, student to teacher ratios and others. The urban schools that have closed the achievement gap have all spent the same or less than their host districts and almost always have larger class sizes and less experienced teachers than the other schools in the city where they are located. However, by focusing exclusively on one output, student achievement, these schools have test scores that often double or triple the average scores of other students in the district. Our name, Achievement First, was consciously selected to constantly reinforce our unwavering focus on producing dramatic, life-changing student achievement, chiefly as measured by statewide, criterion-referenced tests. Furthermore, the entire focus of Achievement First teachers and leaders will be on outputs. Each school will create a "Yearly School Report Card" that highlights key output metrics, which will be mailed to all parents and posted on the Achievement First website.



-29-

Amistad’s “12 Lessons About School Reform” (3) 7. Interim Assessments and the Strategic Use of Data. Achievement First realizes that

schools that thrive are those that live their data. Achievement First has developed scope and sequences that clearly outline what standards are to be taught when. Teachers at Achievement First schools are empowered by data; knowing clearly their students strengths and weaknesses, Achievement First teachers pick the best strategies to ensure that every student masters the material.

8. One Hundred 1% Solutions. School reform efforts in the past have focused on finding the "magic bullet" that will fix the schools. Whether the holy grail was reduced class size, a specific curriculum or increased teacher pay, schools have gone from fad to fad, each time believing that the latest solution was the magic answer. What the high-performing urban schools realize is that it takes all of the following (and more) to close the achievement gap: solid leadership, talented teachers, structured curriculum, effective policies, targeted professional development, no-nonsense school culture, parent engagement, and smooth systems. Brett Peiser, the achievement-oriented principal of South Boston Harbor Academy, says, "There is no 100 percent solution to creating a great school. At South Boston, we have 100 one percent solutions.“

9. Serve ALL Urban Kids. Building on the strong legacy of Amistad Academy, Achievement First schools will locate all of its schools in high poverty areas with a history of low student performance and will commit to serving the same student population as the host district. Our schools also commit themselves to firm policies against expulsion except in the most extreme cases. Publicizing for student admission will be equal across the entire school catchment area (the entire city for New Haven schools and large swaths of a borough for New York City schools). Achievement First schools will also have 100 percent of students take the state tests each year, and unlike other public schools, we will publicize attrition rates clearly so as not to inflate achievement scores or graduation rates.



-30-

Amistad’s “12 Lessons About School Reform” (4) 10. Sweat the Small Stuff. Walk into one of the few great urban schools in America and there is a

palpable, immediately noticeable difference from the chaos, disrespect, and disorder that mar the typical urban school. We reject the dominant paradigm - pick your battles and don't worry about the "small stuff", such as rolling eyes, untucked shirts, or leaning back in chairs. Our schools set extraordinarily high expectations for student behavior, and they are relentless in ensuring that students live up to these expectations. Achievement First recognizes that dramatic academic achievement can only occur in schools with a no-nonsense, structured, positive, achievement-oriented, college-focused environment. Because their teachers are persistent, insistent, and consistent, students' behavior rises to the high expectations.

11. Fidelity to a Clear, Successful Model is Important. When Alan Bersin became superintendent in San Diego, he found a district with over 50 reading and math programs and a professional development system characterized by "drive by" sessions in which a guru or external expert would impart his or her educational views without any connection to the curriculum in use or assessment standards. Such fragmentation makes it impossible to drive systemic reform, and Bersin quickly moved toward having common curricula and providing teacher coaches well-versed in the curricula and standards. Achievement First will not be a loose network of schools, each interpreting a broad set of standards in its own way. Curricula, systems, and school culture approaches will be very similar across the schools. Each teacher new to Achievement First will go through a two-year sequence of professional development activities designed to have them fully understand the mission, vision, and values of Achievement First and become master teachers of the Achievement First curriculum.

12. Flywheel v. Doom Loop. In Good to Great, Jim Collins contrasts the culture of discipline inside truly great organizations with those of struggling competitors. The highly successful companies found a "hedgehog concept" - what they could be the best in the world at - and they slowly, methodically built their business around this concept, gaining momentum each year. The pattern within these companies creates sustained excellence: steps forward consistent with hedgehog concept, accumulation of visible results, personnel energized by results, flywheel builds momentum, steps forward consistent with the hedgehog concept. In contrast, the companies with chronically poor results were caught in devastating "doom loops" that were characterized by a familiar yet highly destructive pattern: disappointing results, reaction without understanding, new direction/program/leader/event/fad, no accumulated momentum, disappointing results. Achievement First will avoid this "doom loop" by sticking to our "hedgehog concept" - our clear school model. Instead of lurching toward new programs, we will continually tweak and improve (not replace) our systems and develop in our people the ability to consistently use our model to produce great results. Instead of looking to "savior leaders" from the outside to run our schools, we will rely on leaders steeped in how to effectively implement our school model.



-31-

A Third Case Study of Gap-Closing

Performance: Roxbury Prep • Serves 195 Black and Latino 6th, 7th and 8th graders in Boston’s

Roxbury neighborhood

• Like most successful school, there is a strong focus on culture.

• Core values: 1. Scholarship: We think critically and aspire to and achieve academic

excellence.

2. Integrity: We are honest and ethical in our words and our actions.

3. Dignity: We have self-respect and honor our heritages.

4. Responsibility: We are accountable for our decisions and our actions.

5. Perseverance: We are resourceful, work hard, and always strive to do our best.

6. Community: We use our talents to make positive contributions to our communities.

7. Leadership: We act on the principle that if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem.

8. Peace: We resolve conflicts with compassion and help others to do the same.

9. Social Justice: We endeavor to make our society more just.

10.Investment: We are reflective, act with foresight, and invest in our futures.

-32-

Roxbury Prep Has Been

Extraordinarily Successful • Roxbury Prep students outperform White students in Massachusetts,

thereby reversing the achievement gap

• It is the highest performing urban middle school in the state

• It has the highest test scores of any predominantly Black school in the state

Only 10%

of these

students

were at

grade level

in math in

4th grade,

before

attending

Roxbury

Prep

-33-

Creating Alternatives

Case Study: Vouchers

-34-

There Are Many Misperceptions

Around Vouchers That Lead Many to

Conclude That They Are a Bad Idea

Facts:

• Voucher programs have a long and successful history in this country

• Nearly every study of vouchers shows that they benefit students who take advantage of them

• Studies show that public schools respond to the competition and thus even the students “left behind” benefit from them

• Vouchers are enormously popular with students and parents

-35-

Overview of Vouchers • School vouchers redirect the flow of education

funding, channeling it directly to individual families rather than to school districts. This allows families to select the public or private schools of their choice and have all or part of the tuition paid

• Vouchers can be funded and administered by the government, by private organizations, or by some combination of both

• Most voucher programs are carefully targeted at disadvantaged students

– Disabled, low income and/or attend chronically failing schools

-36-

Voucher-Like Programs Have a

Long and Successful History Federal-Level Examples: Pell Grants and G.I. Bill

• Pell Grants – Federally funded grants (not loans) help about 5.3 million full- and part-

time college and vocational school students

– Currently up to $4,050/year (average: $2,230), based on need and other factors

• Most Pell awards go to students with family incomes below $20,000

• The G.I. Bill – Signed into law it 1944, it allowed returning veterans to use publicly funded

vouchers to pay for education and training at the institution of their choice, religious or secular, public or private

– Colleges expanded hugely; had awarded degrees to 160,000 graduates in 1940, but were teaching 2,328,000 students in 1947 as 2 million returning G.I.s chose to pursue higher education

– Opened higher education to all – including those who previously had been discriminated against. Quotas restricting admission of Jews and Catholics disappeared as schools were swamped with veterans. Previously all-white colleges admitted African-Americans. In fact, one-third of veterans at college between 1946 and 1950 were black and many went on to become leaders in the civil rights movement

Sources: Big Hike Approved for GI Bill Vouchers, School Reform News, www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9743

http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=9743

-37-

Voucher-Like Programs Have a

Long and Successful History (2) State-Level Examples: Maine and Vermont “Town Tuitioning”

• Maine and Vermont Town Tuitioning – “Under a system that is well over a century old, many small towns in

Maine and Vermont do not maintain their own high schools, and some do not even maintain elementary schools. These towns instead “tuition” their students to schools in other locations. That is, they raise education funding through local taxes and use it to pay for students to attend either public or private schools nearby. In some cases the town designates a school to which all its students go, often because it is the only school nearby. However, in most cases parents may send their children to any qualifying school, public or private (not including religious schools). All students living in towns that do not maintain schools in their grade level are eligible.” More than 6,000 students in Maine (55% of those eligible) and nearly 4,500 (43%) in Vermont use these vouchers to attend private schools, some even out of state.

Sources: Using School Choice, Forster, October 2005, www.friedmanfoundation.org/usingchoice.pdf

http://www.friedmanfoundation.org/usingchoice.pdf

-38-

School Voucher Programs Are

in Effect in Only a Few Areas

-39-

Special Education Students Who Received Vouchers

Are Far More Satisfied With the Private Schools

They Transferred To, As Are Their Parents

Source: Education Myths

-40-

Vouchers Have Been Very Successful in

the Few Places They’ve Been Tried Contrary to Opponents’ Claims, the

Data on Vouchers is Not Inconclusive

In addition to extremely high rates of parental satisfaction

and evidence that affected public schools are spurred to

improve, the students who receive vouchers do better in

every case:

Source: Education Myths

-41-

But What About the Recent Study That (Supposedly)

Showed That Public School Students Do Just

As Well As Those At Private Schools? It Was Treated As a Public-School Triumph That “Casts Doubt on the

Value of Voucher Programs,” As The Wall Street Journal Described It

• “If anything, the report from the Education Department did just the opposite. It concluded, after compensating for socioeconomic differences and other factors, that public-school students score slightly better on tests in fourth grade, while private-school students score slightly better in eighth grade. Given a choice, would you rather be ahead in the fourth inning or later in the game?”

• “According to federal surveys, the typical private school’s tuition is only about half what a public school spends per pupil…General Motors would not celebrate the news that its $40,000 Cadillac performed almost as well as a $20,000 Honda.”

• “The most scientific way to compare schools is with the kind of randomized experiment that has been conducted in New York, Dayton and Washington. In these cities, students from low-income families were given a chance to apply for school vouchers. After the vouchers were awarded by lottery, researchers tracked the voucher students in private schools and compared them with a control group: the losers of the lottery who remained in public school.

After three years, the white and Hispanic voucher students were doing as well as their counterparts in public school, and the African-American voucher students were testing a full grade level higher than the blacks in the control group. The parents of all the voucher students — white, Hispanic and African-American — reported that there was much less fighting, cheating, vandalism and absenteeism in their schools than did the public-school parents.

Even though the private schools spent less money per pupil than the public schools, the parents were much more satisfied with them. Happier parents, better students, lower costs — those are the clear advantages of private schools and voucher programs.”

Source: Spinning a Bad Report Card, John Tierney, New York Times, 7/18/06; www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/dnw00x.pdf

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/dnw00x.pdf

-42-

Case Study: Milwaukee’s Highly

Successful Voucher Program • The oldest voucher program in the nation, launched in 1990

• More than 15,000 students, equal to 15% of the city’s students, attend 125 schools, 70% of them religious

• Families/students have an abundance of choice, the main elements of which are: 1) there is open enrollment within the public school system, meaning students can apply to schools in any district with open seats; 2) for low-income families there's the voucher program; and 3) charter schools.

• Due to political wrangling, there hasn’t been a study since 1995 of how the voucher students are doing, but high school graduation rates are much higher (64% vs. 36%) and parental satisfaction is extremely high

• Highly successful for both the voucher students and the students in Milwaukee public schools

– Two studies showed that as the program expanded, there was a marked improvement in test scores at the public schools most affected by the program (those with low-income students eligible for the vouchers)

– In 13 of 15 categories, public school student scores on state standardized test increased between 1997 and 2005

– The dropout rate declined from 16.2% to 10.2%

– The program saves money: Public schools spend more than $10,000/student; private schools get less than $6,400/voucher student

– Far from draining money from the public schools, per pupil spending, inflation adjustment, has risen 27% from $8,888 in 1990 to $11,317 in 2005

Sources: Milwaukee’s Public Schools in an Era of Choice, School Choice Wisconsin, 10/05;

Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee, Greene, 9/04

-43-

There Is Substantial Evidence That Public Schools

Do Respond When Alternatives Are Offered Whether From Other Districts, Charter Schools and/or Vouchers

• Harvard University economist Caroline Hoxby found that competition sparked improvement in neighboring public schools in Arizona, Michigan, and Milwaukee and concluded: "If every school in the nation were to face a high level of competition both from other districts and from private schools, the productivity of America’s schools, in terms of students’ level of learning at a given level of spending, would be 28 percent higher than it is now."

Sources: Caroline M. Hoxby

Arizona's Regular Public Schools,

Before & After (a little) Competition from Charter Schools

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

Reading Math

NP

R P

oin

ts

Before Charter Competition

After a Little CharterCompetition (6% ofEnrollment)

Data from Arizona

-44-


Do Respond When Alternatives Are Offered (2)

• A study in North Carolina, which created charter schools in 1996, compared public schools that faced competition from charter schools and those that didn’t. It concluded:

– “These comparisons provide consistent evidence that charter-school competition raises the performance composite of traditional public schools by about 1 percent. This represents more than one-half of the average achievement gain of 1.7 percent made by public schools statewide between 1998–99 and 1999–2000 and is, from a policy perspective, nontrivial.”

• The Washington (DC) Teachers’ Union recently reversed long-standing positions and agreed to allow teachers to earn bonuses tied to student performance and to opt out of some union work rules

– According to an article in the Washington Post:

Union President George Parker said the changes are needed so that the District's traditional public schools can compete more successfully with the public charter schools, which have lured away thousands of students.

"The landscape has changed. Our parents are voting with their feet," Parker said. "As kids continue leaving the system, we will lose teachers. Our very survival depends on having kids in D.C. schools so we'll have teachers to represent."

Fifty-one charter schools are operating in the city. In five years, charter school enrollment has grown by 7,000 students, to 17,500. During the same period, enrollment in the D.C. school system has dropped by about 10,000 students, to 58,000.

Sources: Friendly Competition, Holmes, DeSimone and Rupp, Education Next, Winter 2006; Washington Post, 6/6/06

-45-


Do Respond When Alternatives Are Offered (3)

• In Milwaukee, two studies showed that as the voucher program expanded, there

was a marked improvement in test scores at the public schools most affected by

the program (those with low-income students eligible for the vouchers)

Note: The results were similar using Stanford-9 test results

Source: Competition Passes the Test, Greene, Winters, Education Next, Summer 2004

• In Florida’s A+

program, which

offers vouchers to

all students at

chronically failing

schools, students at

schools faced with

the threat – or

reality – of losing

students to

vouchers improved

the most

-46-

The Importance of Effective Teachers

• Numerous studies have shown that the most

important determinant of student

achievement, by far, is teacher quality

• There is enormous variability among

teachers

-47-

One Study in Dallas Compared Two Groups of

Students, Both of Which Started 3rd Grade at

About the Same Level of Reading Achievement…

59 60

0

20

40

60

80

100

Group 1 Group 2

Avera

ge P

erc

en

tile

Ran

k

Beginning of 3rd Grade

Source: Heather Jordan, Robert Mendro, and Dash Weerasinghe, The Effects of Teachers on Longitudinal Student

Achievement, 1997. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

Average

Percentile

Rank

-48-

Three Years Later, One Group Vastly Outperformed the Other.

The Only Difference: Group 1 Had Three Effective Teachers,

while Group 2 Had Three Ineffective Teachers

59 60

76

42

0

20

40

60

80

100

Group 1 Assigned to Three

EFFECTIVE Teachers

Group 2 Assigned to Three

INEFFECTIVE Teachers

Avera

ge P

erc

en

tile

Ran

k

Beginning of 3rd Grade End of 5th Grade

Source: Heather Jordan, Robert Mendro, and Dash Weerasinghe, The Effects of Teachers on Longitudinal

Student Achievement, 1997. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

Average

Percentile

Rank

-49-

Now That We’ve Established That Teacher

Quality Matters A Lot, Let’s Examine How

Teacher Talent Is Distributed

• By any measure, low-income, minority

students are not getting their fair share of

high-quality teachers

– Teachers in schools nationwide that primarily

serve such students have consistently told

me that 20-30% of teachers in these schools

are highly ineffective

– This is reinforced by the Bain study cited

earlier

-50-

High-Poverty Schools in Illinois Have

By Far the Lowest-Quality Teachers*

Nearly 60% of

teachers in the

highest-poverty

schools are in

the bottom 10%

of the Teacher

Quality Index*

1.% of Teachers with Emergency/Provi-sional Certification

2.% of Teachers from More/Most Selective Colleges

3.% of Teachers With at Least 4 Yrs of Experience

4.% of Teachers Failing Basic Skills Test on 1st Attempt

5.Teachers’ Average ACT Composite and English Scores

* The Teacher Quality

Index is Based on

Five Factors:

Source: Teaching Inequality, Ed Trust, 6/06

-51-

In Contrast With Public Schools, Charter

Schools Have Highly Variable Pay

Source: Caroline M. Hoxby, Harvard University

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

%Increase in Pay for

Higher Aptitude (10

Percentile Pts)


College Science (10

Courses)


Extra Instructional Hrs (10

per week)

Per

cent

age

Incr

ease

in P

ay

Regular Public Schools

Charter Schools

-52-

It Is Possible to Change Teacher Compensation Denver Teachers Voted Overwhelmingly to Adopt a New System

Source: The Uniform Salary Schedule, Brad Jupp, Education Next, Winter 2005

The Traditional Pay System The New Pay System

-53-

The High School Curriculum

Needs to Be Strengthened

Freshman Year, Fall

• English

• Health Ed/Academic Foundations

• Conceptual Physics

• Volleyball

Courses for a Typical U.S. High School Student

Freshman Year, Spring

• Algebra

• Auto Shop

• Auto Shop

• Volleyball

Sophomore Year, Fall

• English

• Spanish

• Chemistry

• Open Period

Sophomore Year, Spring

• Geometry

• World History

• Volleyball

• Open Period

Source: Education Trust Analysis of High School Transcripts; 2005

-54-

The High School Curriculum

Needs to Be Strengthened (2)

Junior Year, Fall

• Mythology

• Algebra

• Auto Shop

• Career Choices

Courses for a Typical U.S. High School Student

Junior Year, Spring

• Algebra 2

• American History

• Arts Tech

• English

Senior Year

• To embarrassing to even show…

Other Sample Courses

• Pre-Spanish

• Future Studies

• Exploring

• Principles of PE

• Teen Living

• Life Management

• Food Fundamentals

• Winter Activities Source: Education Trust Analysis of High School Transcripts; 2005

-55-

There Are Big Differences in Rigor

Between Courses With the Same Name Example #1: Grade 10 Writing Assignment

A frequent theme in

literature is the conflict

between the individual and

society. From literature

you have read, select a

character who struggled

with society. In a well-

developed essay, identify

the character and explain

why this character’s

conflict with society is

important.

Write a composition of at

least four paragraphs on

Martin Luther King’s most

important contribution to

this society. Illustrate

your work with a neat

cover page. Neatness

counts.

Rigorous Non-Rigorous

-56-

Example #2: 9th Grade

Paper on The Odyssey

Comparison/Contrast Paper Between Homer's Epic Poem, The

Odyssey and the Movie "0 Brother Where Art Thou"

By nature, humans compare and contrast all elements of their

world. Why? Because in the juxtaposition of two different things,

one can learn more about each individual thing as well as

something about the universal nature of the things being compared.

For this 2-3 page paper you will want to ask yourself the following

questions: what larger ideas do you see working in The Odyssey

and "0 Brother Where Art Thou"? Do both works treat these issues

in the same way? What do the similarities and differences between

the works reveal about the underlying nature of the larger idea?

Rigorous

-57-

Example #2: 9th Grade

Paper on The Odyssey

Divide class into 3 groups:

Group 1 designs a brochure titled "Odyssey Cruises".

The students listen to the story and write down all the

places Odysseus visited in his adventures, and list the

cost to travel from place to place.

Group 2 draws pictures of each adventure.

Group 3 takes the names of the characters in the story

and gods and goddesses in the story and designs a

crossword puzzle.

Non-Rigorous

-58-

High School Curriculum Intensity is a Strong

Predictor of Bachelor’s Degree Completion

82

9

0

20

40

60

80

100

Most Intense Curriculum Least Intense Curriculum

Perc

en

t o

f S

tud

en

ts C

om

ple

tin

g a

Bach

elo

r's D

eg

ree

Source: Clifford Adelman, U.S. Department of Education, The Toolbox Revisited, 2006. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

Curriculum quintiles are composites of English, math, science, foreign language, social studies, computer science,

Advanced Placement, the highest level of math, remedial math and remedial English classes taken during high school.

-59-

A Rigorous High School Curriculum*

Greatly Increases Bachelor’s Degree

Completion for All Students

55

66

51

6971

86

0

20

40

60

80

100

All College Entrants College Entrants with

a Strong High School

Curriculum

Perc

en

t E

arn

ing

a B

A

African American

Latino

White

*Rigorous Curriculum is defined as the top 40 percent of high school curriculum and the highest

high school mathematics above Algebra 2.


Note: These numbers reflect outcomes for high school graduates who enter four-year institutions with no delay.

-60-

A Rigorous High School Curriculum*

Greatly Increases Bachelor’s Degree

Completion for All Students

40

59

8189

0

20

40

60

80

100

All College Entrants College Entrants with a

Strong High School

Curriculum

Pe

rce

nt

Ea

rnin

g a

BA

Low SES

High SES

*Rigorous Curriculum is defined as the top 40 percent of high school curriculum and the highest

high school mathematics above Algebra 2.


Note: These numbers reflect outcomes for high school graduates who enter four-year institutions with no delay.

-61-

Source: Prospects (ABT Associates, 1993), in “Prospects: Final Report on Student Outcomes”, PES, DOE,

1997. Slide courtesy of Ed Trust.

Students in Poor Schools Receive

‘A’s for Work That Would Earn ‘Cs’

in Affluent Schools

87

35

56

3441

22 21

11

0

100

Perc

entile

- C

TB

S4

A B C DGrades

Seventh Grade Math

Low-poverty schools High-poverty schools

-62-

Barriers to Change

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when

his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

– Upton Sinclair

-63-

The Teacher Union Contract Can Be an

Enormous Barrier to Needed Reform Case Study: New York City

The teacher union contract is more than 200 pages long; with the various side agreements and state laws that supplement the terms of the contract, it grows to 600. These pages determine nearly every aspect of what a teacher does, and does not do, in a New York City school, and what can and can’t be done to them. For example, a high-school teacher in New York City cannot be asked to teach for more than 3.75 hours per day.

Nor can a teacher be asked to…help special-education students on and off the bus, help college applicants prepare their transcripts, score city-wide tests, or write truant slips. One New York City teacher cannot be paid more, or less, than any other teacher at the same level of seniority, regardless of the particular teacher’s talents and effort or the difficulty of recruiting a teacher for a hard-to-find position such as math or science…The right to fire a teacher is limited by teachers’ “retention rights” and a complex and lengthy set of due process procedures. Assistant principals have similar rights.

In short, although principals are supposed to be the CEOs of their schools, they have little control over their management teams. Hiring, firing, promoting, setting compensation, determining work hours and assignments, setting requirements and expectations: these powers, taken for granted in most organizations, are, for all practical purposes, outside the purview of a principal.

Source: Breakdown, Eva Moskowitz, Education Next, Summer 2006

-64-

Steps for Giving a Tenured Teacher a Poor

Performance Rating in New York City Under the contract, a principal can give an unsatisfactory (“U”) rating to a teacher at the end of any school year, with or without providing interim feedback or support. Typically, however, a principal may first informally speak to a teacher who has performance problems and suggest ways to improve, perhaps through counseling memos “or other non-disciplinary means” (p. 128 and Memorandum of Agreement). The principal’s authority to do so is limited, however.

A principal may also seek a formal conference with the teacher or attempt formal peer intervention (p. 132). This process is repeated as often as the principal deems necessary and can spare the time to do it. If these steps fail, the teacher eventually receives a “U” rating.

After a teacher receives a first “U” rating, the teacher cannot transfer to another school and must be offered professional development to improve performance. If problems persist, the cycle of documenting problems continues and, if no improvement occurs by the end of a second year in the classroom, another “U” rating is given.


-65-

The Principal Union Contract Can

Also Be an Enormous Barrier Case Study: New York City

School principals, whose union contract is a slim document (150 pages) by New York City union standards, also work by rules that reward uniformity before excellence. Principals are paid in lockstep, regardless of their performance, abilities, or even the size of the school they oversee. Their agreement also spells out in mind-numbing detail the circumstances under which a superintendent can relieve a principal of his or her responsibilities. Tenured principals have to do something truly egregious to be fired. The process for removing a principal begins with sending letters of complaint to the personnel file, any and all of which can be appealed by the principal. The process, if successful, can take as long as 150 days, which is most of a school year.

By the same token, even small procedural details in the contract can have profound effects on the operation of a school. Principals and assistant principals, for instance, are not required to notify superintendents in advance of their retirement, a circumstance that can create significant disruptions. You can “retire” in the middle of the year and head off to Bermuda, as my son’s principal did, without any penalty or deduction from the pension.

Remarkably, while the school system purports to hold children to a standard of excellence, principals can be removed only if they engage in “persistent educational failure.” Intermittent failure or persistent mediocrity is perfectly acceptable.


-66-

How Has the Party Managed to Sustain

This Dissonance This Long?

• Minority leadership has failed to own, much less force the issues – Three reasons: Power, History, Lack of

Knowledge/Apathy

• Union message has dominated the debate: – More money, less class size

• Party managed “straddle” brilliantly – Sometimes support charter schools, the “safest”

alternative among reform initiatives

– Largely avoided taking the issue seriously (other than early support of NCLB)

– Kerry’s “evolving” position a perfect example

– No outrage; serious reform simply not a priority

-67-

But a Day of Reckoning is Near • A handful of established Democratic politicians

are moving on this issue

• More importantly, a new wave of Black and Latino leaders is poised to seize control of the nation’s education agenda – Well funded

– Of unimpeachable credentials/credibility

• And are on the verge of doing so …. – With the right leadership and funding

– Examples: • Barack Obama

• Cory Booker (Newark mayor)

• Adrian Fenty (DC mayor)

Documents

A Right Denied-The Critical Need for Genuine School Reform