The debate over NCLB Reauthorization: PR v Realism ?

Andrew Rotherham has an interesting discussion on NCLB politics over at Eduwonk.

He describes the philosophical divide over NCLB reauthorization in terms of two groups:

Some people see the accountability and performance issue as a public relations one. That's why you hear a lot of complaints about "labeling" schools. In other words, the argument goes, there are some problems sure, but overall things are pretty good and any accountability system that says otherwise threatens support for the public schools. Call these folks the Public Relationists...

...Other people, let’s call them the Achievement Realists, say that given the grim outcomes for a lot of kids (50 percent on-time high school completion rates for minority kids, low rates of college-completion, substantial gaps, multiple grade-levels, in achievement between white an minority students, etc…) any reasonable accountability system is going to identify a lot of schools as needing to do better...The Achievement Realists tend to believe that the best way to really help the public schools is to make them better and doing that might require some bad news and tough facts.

...There is a reasonable political and substantive middle ground between the Public Relationsists and the Achievement Realists...

Politically, there does have to be a way to delineate between genuinely lousy schools and ones that aren’t doing as well as they should be with some groups of students. And substantively different things should happen to those schools (the law allows for that now but it’s not really happening because of widespread evasion around really dealing with low performing schools).

What the Achievement Realists can’t budge on, however, is real transparency about performance so that this doesn’t turn into ... the “Suburban Schools Relief Act of 2007.”

So, within those broad parameters there is room for some multiple indicators beyond math and reading and graduation rates as long as they are statewide, valid, reliable, and consequently comparable.

And encouraging states to develop accountability systems that measure achievement in other subjects and introduce more stretch into the systems for
high performers, in a real way, by including those measures in federal accountability makes sense.

But, in my view and this is why I’m an equity hawk, those systems should in no way be able to prioritize the achievement of any group of students over the achievement of under-served students...

...All things considered [draft NCLB legislation presents] a reasonable place to start and if House Ed and Labor Chairman George Miller is really ready to hold the line and not let all this get whittled away, then he should be able to strike a middle ground that preserves the core tenets that the Achievement Realists want while not giving the Public Relationists the outs that they want.

In fact, done right, it could take some of their arguments off the table, something the Achievement Realists should want to see happen going forward.

Mike Rebell weighs in on the Class Size debate - Harrison Elementary goes against conventional wisdom to raise scores

EduWonk Andrew Rotherham opines that reducing class size without addressing teacher quality more broadly is akin to continually adding pitchers to your bullpen without worrying about whether any of them can even throw a fastball.

And Mike Rebell tells the New York Daily News, "As co-counsel for those who brought the landmark Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit, I know how important class size reduction ultimately will be. But improving the quality of our teachers and principals must be priority No. 1. And a premature class-size reduction mandate is likely to lower the general quality of the teaching staff at a time when we desperately need to be raising it."
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Arguably THE most consistent variable that affects student achievement is teacher quality and there is no substitute for that. But class size reductions help good teachers help struggling students.

Locally, some have misunderstood the class size issue - and have done away with the effort all together. In the past year, following a 12-point gain and the removal of the principal, Harrison Elementary doubled its class sizes - and promises to raise scores. Harrison has a high percentage of low SES kids and a fierce mobility rate. Reports indicate that about half of the students who begin the school year at Harrison, finish there. Student behavior has been described to me as a daily concern.

Not knowing anything first-hand about programs at work in the school this year, I'll bet a nickle that Harrison loses all or part of its 12-point gain in the next testing cycle. I'd bet more...but the test has been reworked and we don't really know how the new test will equate to the old test.

Class size really matters. But not as much as teacher quality.

Value Added Assessment

This from EduWonk

From Tennessee a new website giving parents value-added information about schools in the state. Could raise some interesting questions...This scatterplot shows 2006 data on school performance and poverty in Tennesee. It's all over the place suggesting that those accountability folks are onto something...

How local school leaders fight to maintain autonomy

EduWonk resurrects a 2003 report from the Progressive Policy Institute that outlines how some local school administrators in big city school districts fought to maintain control of the instructional program.

"If...principals save all the directives they receive from the central office in one 180-day school year, the stack can include as many as 400 items, all signed by a high official and issued under the authority of the school board. How can anyone direct the instructional program of a school and still comply with two new directives every day about how money is to be spent, time is to be used, employees are to be supervised, records are to be kept, or property is to be managed?

These speakers' tricks work because they have a point. Lay persons are shocked to see the documents that regulate schools and instinctively understand that they must be loaded with provisions that do something other than promote school performance.

Most state governments and big-city school boards impede the education of public school students by overregulation. They do so because of the politics of public spending. When there is tax money at stake, regulations are needed to prevent complaints about unfair allocation or inappropriate spending. "

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I wonder how many pages of central office communications a typical Fayette County principal might collect in a year. 400 feels low to me.