Fool's Gold from Hoxby

If her study is above reproach,

Why hide the data?

In September, conservative Hoover Institution economist Caroline Hoxby released an update to her 2007 study of charter schools in New York City. Hoxby claimed that compounded gains for an average student continuously enrolled in third to eighth grade in a charter nearly closed the “Harlem-to-Scarsdale” achievement gap and implied that the trend would continue, although that was apparently outside of the scope of her data. Technical report here.

At last, charter school advocates had some good news in a sea of equivocal data. The news was so good that pro-charter political groups began broadcasting Hoxby-as-gospel without pausing for that customary scholarly requirement; a peer review.

Why should they? The Hoover Institution's mission is "collecting knowledge, generating ideas, and disseminating both" in support of "private enterprise"as opposed to "governmental, social or economic action." According to Jim Horn at Schools Matter, it was charter advocates who ordered the study - which one assumes, is what rich politicians do when they don't like the existing studies.

It was a huge embarrassment to Gates, Broad, Bloomberg, and other corporate school charterizers when the first peer-reviewed national study of charter schools showed that charters outperform public schools in less than 20 percent of the cases. Since then the oligarchs have brought in the hired gun economist, Catherine Hoxby, who never saw a charter school she didn't like, to slime the study as best she can.

Bloomberg has even sweetened Hoxby's pot, asking her for a good-news study of New York's charter schools, a study whose methodology Hoxby immodestly refers to as reflecting the "the gold standard."

Princeton's Jesse Rothstein objected to Hoxby's method in an earlier study in a series of back and forth papers where he complains that,

1) Hoxby has not made available the data that were used for her original paper.
2) Hoxby's basic result holds only when we rely on her specific construction of the larger streams variable. She has never presented estimates that do not rely on this variable; all such estimates that I have computed yield small, insignificant effects of choice on test scores.
3) There are several odd aspects of Hoxby.s particular larger streams variable that cast doubt on its validity.
4) There are serious errors in both the program code and data that Hoxby has distributed.
5) Hoxby has not released the code that was used in her Reply, but she offers no indication that these errors have been repaired.

Once Rothstein published that he was unable to replicate Hoxby's study due to its flaws, she was quick to suggest in an interview with the Harvard Crimson, that the dispute was part of a larger issue of “race and gender bias” in higher education. Hoxby is black, while both Rothstein and his dissertation adviser at University of California, Berkeley, Professor David Card, are white.

Hoxby was similarly skewered over the 2009 study by the late Arizona State University research debunker Gerald Bracey, in the Huffington Post. Bracey wrote,

The study was conducted by economist Caroline Hoxby, the only person in the whole country who consistently finds results that favor charters. Here are a few cogent items about the study:

1. Many of the data that would be needed to draw conclusions are not presented.
2. The study is limited to New York City.
3. The study has not been peer reviewed.
4. The study was published by a pro-charter advocacy group staffed with people
   who used to work in charter schools.
5. The editorial writer, Jo-Ann Armao, lacks the background in econometric research to actually know how to interpret the study. She was, therefore, engaging in faith-based editorializing but passing it off as evidence-based.
6. Even if the study proves to be sound (unlikely according to some other researchers who have also looked at it), it is only ONE study. Strong conclusions in any field should never be drawn on the basis of only one study.

Where did all this furor begin? Over at SusanOhianian.org, Bracey tells the story of how certain well-funded private think tanks ignored the evidence (because it disagreed with their ideology) and moved the political playing field from the laboratory to the newspapers.

The "gold standard" Hoxby likes to refer to is the mere existence of a lottery used at most charter schools when applicants outnumber capacity; known as being oversubscribed. But this would never pass for gold standard research in biomedical research.

Hoxby's study is no clinical trial.

The "gold standard" applies to double-blind experimental studies with random assignment. That means that some research participants get the experimental treatment and some get a placebo, and both are assigned randomly. It also means that neither the researchers nor the participants know who is getting which treatment. After all, expectations are important, and the mind can set us up for all kinds of things. The fact that Hoxby's study fails to meet the rigor of the gold standard seems to bother her fans - not at all.

Where is the placebo?

Without a placebo subjects who know they are receiving a treatment may behave differently. On the other hand, what impact might non-selection have on a student denied entry to their desired school?

What about peer effects?

From a personal level, if you have a child, you don't care about controlling for peer effects. Actually, you want the effects to be left in so that you can take advantage of them. If charter schools have "better" students, that's a reason to send your own child to a charter school. However, if this analysis is done for policy purposes, to influence policy-makers, then peer effects do matter. If you are thinking about all students, not just the select few who can get into the "better" school, you need to control for peer effects.

Then there's selection bias on the School Level .

The goal of this lottery-based study design is to avoid self-selection bias in the data. However, those who use it do not acknowledge the additional selection problems they create.The most important problem is that not all charter schools are oversubscribed, so not all charter schools can be included in these studies. This wouldn't be a problem if we had good reason to believe that a random selection of charter schools were included, but that is obviously not the case. Clearly, the "better" charter schools are far, far, far more likely to be oversubscribed than the "worse" charter schools. This biases the sample rather severely towards better charter schools.

And a really strong public school is not going to lose a lot of students to a simply above-average charter school; which introduces another bias toward charters.

Finally generalizability remains a problem.

Lottery-based studies only include the kinds of students and families that apply to charter schools in the first place. Even if the previous issues could be corrected, how can one know that other sorts of students and families would see the same benefits? The fact is that different populations might benefit less or more from going to a charter school. It is simply impossible to know from this kind of study. Of course, if you are only concerned about benefitting the kids of families who already opt for charter schools, then this is not a problem. But if you aim to help a broader population than that, you need a better methodology.

As Bracey put it,

In June, 2009, another study of charters--this one more of a national look-- concluded that 46% of charters did no better than comparable public schools, 17% outperformed the publics and 37% did worse. "We've got two bad charter schools for every good one," said Margaret Raymond, the Stanford University researcher who conducted the study. Raymond has been known as a charter supporter so her willingness not to flinch in the face of these data is admirable. Would the FDA approve a drug that had adverse effects twice as often as positive effects?

In reality, the rigors of double-blind studies would be nearly impossible to adhere to in social sciences, which, for this and other reasons, should never be compared to biomedical research. Social scientists have relatively poor control over their variables; but sometimes like to act as if they do.

On a policy level, we need to be concerned with charters more generally than that. If we ... approve new charter schools, we have to expect an average charter school to result, not an exceptional one.

Hoxby compares test results of students enrolled in NY’s charter schools to the results for those students who applied to a charter but were not selected for admission. This approach shines light on the probability that charters enroll more motivated families.

As the former principal of Cassidy School, I can attest, first-hand, to the power of a unified team of adults (parents and teachers with resources) working cooperatively for the benefit of all of their children. I suspect it is this "motivation" that is the cause of stronger student achievement. To the extend that those motivational forces can be marshaled in any given public, or charter, or private school; I think you get a much better school. I suspect the "charter school effect" is some manifestation of that teamwork by a community of responsible, hard-working adults.

This from EdWize:

Hoxby’s findings are encouraging: by the third grade, the average charter school student was 5.8 points ahead of the lotteried-out counterpart in math and was 5.3 points ahead in English Language Arts. As Hoxby follows students’ achievement from 2001 to 2008, she also finds that the average charter school student gained 3.6 more points each year in math and 2.4 more points each year in ELA. For an average charter student continuously enrolled in grades four through eight, the effect is larger with annual gains of 5.0 points in math and 3.6 in ELA above the performance of the lotteried-out student. (Last year, nine charters enrolled students across all of these grades.)

Such a dramatically-presented conclusion is sure to feature prominently in charter advocates’ efforts to expand the number of charter schools across the city and state. And if it’s true, then why shouldn’t we?

Even if we assume Hoxby's data are correct - a rather large assumption under the circumstances - states ought to be somewhat concerned about resegregation.

Hoxby finds that 92 percent of charter students are black or Hispanic, compared to 72 percent in district schools and concludes that “the existence of charter schools in the city therefore leaves the traditional public schools less black, more white, and more Asian.” Such racial segregation is consistent with research on charter schools in other states including North Carolina, Texas and elsewhere.

Although this statistic is likely to be a function of charter schools’ location in largely black and Hispanic neighborhoods, Hoxby also reports that fewer white students are applying to the charters; although 14 percent of residents in the charter school
neighborhoods are white non-Hispanic, only 4 percent are applying.

Additionally, Hoxby confirms that the city’s charters enroll fewer English language learners (4 percent) than district public schools (14 percent) — despite their location in Hispanic communities.

On another key measure of economic diversity, it’s puzzling that Hoxby compares charter school free- and reduced-price lunch participation rates, which she pegs at 91 percent, to the citywide rate of 72 percent. For a report that prides itself on apples-to-apples comparisons, this charter-to-city comparison is a glaring inconsistency. As Edwize has demonstrated here and here, a better comparison is between charters and the surrounding district/feeder schools. By this comparison, charters have fewer students eligible for free lunch, suggesting that the city’s charters are more affluent than the neighboring district schools.

It’s also worth remembering that charter schools do not have attendance zones and can, in theory, draw students from across neighborhoods. But as the demographic statistics reveal, if charters are attracting applicants from beyond their immediate neighborhoods, it is not generating more racial, ethnic, and economic diversity.

Incidentally, Hoxby’s updated report makes no mention of student attrition from charter schools to district schools, despite the fact that she has access to student-level data over many years.

Presumably she can, and should, confirm or reject the anecdotal reports of this occurrence, as student attrition biases achievement results. Attrition is also a measure of equity, as district schools must educate all of the students who come through their doors while charters, with site-specific discipline codes and the power to expel students, do not.

Moreover, the report provides tacit evidence that all of the students and families who apply for a charter are in fact different from the other public school parents and students who don’t apply. Whether they are more motivated, place a higher emphasis on education, or some other unmeasurable characteristic, Hoxby finds that “lotteried-out students’ performance does improve and is better than the norm in the U.S. where, as a rule, disadvantaged students fall further behind as they age.”

Given this and the other demographic findings, it is unclear how the report “lays to rest the persistent myth that charter schools “cream” the best students,” as one charter advocate maintains. Quite the opposite — the achievement results for all charter applicants suggests there is likely to be some truth to the creaming “myth.”

Hoxby's data ought to give pause to those charter advocates who are concerned with issues of social justice. Any system that resegregates school children by race is suspect. It is not a satisfactory explanation that such resegregation is being caused by parental choice; segregation has always been caused by parental choice. It is not conclusive that charters have that effect, but Hoxby went some distance showing that it just might.

Hoxby maintains that her method is the “gold-standard” approach when seeking to determine the unique impact of charter school effects, but EdWize questions "two complications that would otherwise moderate her findings."

First, it is conceivable that low-performing charters are undersubscribed and may not have a large “lotteried-out” population to study. In effect, this could under-weight the results of poor performing charters and biases her data in favor of higher-performing charters. A technical version of the paper or scholarly access to her data could ascertain if this is in fact occurring. And despite the reports sweeping conclusions, there are low-performing charters in her study: Hoxby finds that 31 percent of students attend a charter that is performing no better than or worse than the schools attended by lotteried-out counterparts in math and 24 percent are doing no better or worse in ELA.

Second, it’s not clear that Hoxby’s methodology takes into account peer effects — the straightforward concept that students not only learn from their teachers but are also influenced by their peers. Charter schools benefit from the fact that 100 percent of their students hail from motivated families; as a result, a charter student is surrounded by peers who are there by choice — rather than by attendance zone. In contrast, the “lotteried-out” students may not benefit from such an intensive peer effect...

This from Equity Overlooked - Charter Schools and Civil Rights Policy:

The expansion of charter schools is a central policy focus of the Obama administration. Charter schools encompass a variety of schools with different priorities serving many communities and students from a range of backgrounds. There are outstanding and diverse charters, some of which have been highlighted
by this or prior administrations.

While the administration has acknowledged the importance of regulating and closing low performing charter schools, it has yet to respond to concerns raised about continued racial isolation in charter schools. Why is this lack of civil rights oversight so troubling? Without necessary safeguards against the segregating effects of charter schools, disadvantaged families are left to comprehend and cope individually with the complicated landscape of school choice.

Access to the educational marketplace is unequally constrained by a number of factors, including contact with advantaged social networks through which information regarding school quality is exchanged, language barriers, socioeconomic status and the ability of parents to arrange transportation for their schoolchildren. Unless proactive equity measures – like extensive outreach and free transportation – are embedded in the design of charters, and subsequently monitored and enforced, this popular version of education reform simply reinforces unequal educational opportunity.

In the 61-page "Charter Schools' Performance and Accountability: A Disconnect," Bracey summarized the research of others, not doing any original work--found a number of studies showing poor charter school performance.

Diane Ravitch, who served as the Education Department’s assistant secretary for educational research and improvement under President George H.W. Bush, doubts the evidence upon which two of the Obama administration's education efforts are based.

“What is extraordinary about these regulations is that they have no credible basis in research. They just happen to be the programs and approaches favored by the people in power,” writes Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, in her blog, Bridging Differences, which is hosted by edweek.org.

In the meantime, a new 2009 study of Baltimore charter schools concluded:

• The number of charter schools increased from 12 in 2005-06 to 22 in 2007-08
• Enrollment in charter schools increased from 2,925 students in 2005-06 to 5,520 in 2007-08, an increase of almost 89%.
• There is significant variation among charter schools on most measures of school and student performance.
• On average, charter school students are less disadvantaged than non-charter school students. Charter school students are less likely to be eligible for special education services, to be over-age for their grade, or to be FARMS-eligible.
• Overall, charter schools do not enroll a higher proportion of students from outside the district or from non-public schools than non-charter schools. There is, however, significant variation among individual schools in the enrollment of students new to City Schools, with selected schools enrolling a larger proportion of students from outside the district.
• Some charter schools attract a significant proportion of their enrollment from surrounding non-charter City schools.
• Charter school students are less likely to leave the district at the end of the school year and are more likely to re-enroll in their schools the following school year compared with non-charter school students.

The fact is the evidence on charter schools is not in. Some are great. Some are terrible. Most are somewhere in the middle. Just like public schools.

Charters outperform public non-charters is some places (apparently both Hoxby and CREDO agree that New York is one such place) and the reverse is true elsewhere.

The reason for the performance of students in the best schools (of any variety) seems less likely to be due to anything specific to charters. Rather, it is more likely to be due to site-specific conditions of parental and teacher motivation to build a good school.

The amount of time students spend engaged in academic work also seems to be central to school success. In some cases, under binding arbitration, union restrictions on the amount of time a teacher may be asked to work, might play a role.

Political think tanks that promote Hoxby's study as definitive are suspect for political and ideological motivation and provide strong evidence that they are not truly research facilities.

All this being said, Kentucky still has several schools that have languished in tier 4 and 5 purgatory for some time now. We must assume that the school districts where these schools exist, have faithfully tried, but failed to make a difference for the children under their care. In such cases, resisting a fresh new approach - even a privately run approach like charters - suggests a greater devotion to the feelings of adults than the needs of students. Kentucky needs a strong, but limited, charter law that continues the effort to produce a high-quality school in every community.

Study: Charter school growth accompanied by racial imbalance

The disequalizing aspect of charter schools is becoming clearer. KSN&C backstory.

This from the Washington Post:

Seven out of 10 black charter school students are on campuses with extremely few white students, according to a new study of enrollment trends that shows the independent public schools are less racially diverse than their traditional counterparts.

The findings from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, which are being released Thursday, reflect the proliferation of charter schools in the District of Columbia and other major cities with struggling school systems and high minority populations.

To the authors of the study, the findings point to a civil rights issue: "As the country continues moving steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates," the study concludes, "the rapid growth of charter schools has been expanding a sector that is even more segregated than the public schools." ...

AP participation up, Scores not so much

The number of students taking Advanced Placement tests hit a record high last year, but the portion who fail the exams — particularly in the South — is rising as well, a USA TODAY analysis finds. (Failure rate for AP tests climbing)

Hat tip to Alexander Russo.

Raise Your Hand If Mr. Hamm Taught You How To Project!

Celebrity juice, not from concentrate, but from Perez Hilton:

Before he was a Mad man stealing the hearts of women viewers everywhere, he was just Mr. Jon Hamm of St. Louis teaching drama at John Burroughs High School.

Ironically enough, one of his students actually ended up in the industry right along side him! (and on the same Thursday night line-up!)

Ellie Kemper, the new receptionist on The Office, recalls having the 30 Rock guest star as her high school drama teacher and rearranging her schedule so she could ogle him! Ellie says: "He was a heartthrob! All the girls would sign up for his class…for a good reason! In addition to being really handsome, he was an excellent teacher. He taught me drama work, mostly improvisation, which I did a lot of in college and in New York."

Lobbying Imperils Overhaul of Student Loans

This from the New York Times:

Four months ago, it appeared all but certain that the White House and Democrats in Congress would succeed in overhauling the student loan business and ending government subsidies to private lenders.

President Obama called the idea a “no-brainer” last fall, predicting it would take billions of dollars from the profits of private lenders and give it directly to students, and many colleges were already moving to get loans directly from the federal government in anticipation of the next move by Congress.

But an aggressive lobbying campaign by the nation’s biggest student lenders has now put one of the White House’s signature plans in peril, with lenders using sit-downs with lawmakers, town-hall-style meetings and petition drives to plead their case and stay in business.

House and Senate aides say that the administration’s plan faces a far tougher fight than it did last fall, when the House passed its version. The fierce attacks from the lending industry, the Massachusetts election that cost the Democrats their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and the fight over a health care bill have all damaged the chances for the student loan measure, said the aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

But they said the administration had recognized the threat and was beginning to push back in an effort to get the plan approved...

KSN&C backstory.

State School Boards Raise Questions About Standards

This from Education Week:

States that adopt proposed common academic standards must use the entire document word for word, leaders of the initiative said this week.

Answering questions from state school board members at a meeting here, representatives of the two groups leading the effort to design common standards said that states may not revise them or select only portions to adopt.

“You can’t pick and choose what you want. This is not cafeteria-style standards,” said David Wakelyn, the program director of the education division of the National Governors Association’s Center for Best Practices.

“Adoption means adoption,” said Scott Montgomery, a deputy executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which is organizating the common-standards endeavor with the NGA.

Mr. Wakelyn and Mr. Montgomery sought to clarify an element of the agreement that 48 states signed last year in pledging support for the Common Core StandardsInitiative. It said that the common standards, which are being written for English/language arts and mathematics, must represent “at least 85 percent of the state’s standards” in those subjects....

Henry County Supt says "no way" his high school is among "Dirty Dozen"

This from the Henry County Local:

‘That’s a mistake, there’s no way’

Abrams says HCHS placed on ‘Dirty Dozen’ list,

but is not facing closure or state takeover

It was news that stopped Henry County Public Schools Superintendent Tim Abrams in his tracks.

Working out on his treadmill after putting in a full day at the office on Jan. 7, Abrams received a call from a fellow superintendent. That colleague had just left a meeting of the Kentucky General Assembly’s House Committee on Education, in which Henry County High School had been identified as one of the 12 “persistently low-achieving schools.”

“That’s a mistake, there’s no way,” Abrams remembered telling his colleague. He immediately called assistant superintendent Kricket McClure, who started crunching numbers.

The next day, Abrams was on the phone with the Kentucky Department of Education and the new education Commissioner, Terry Holliday.

“They knew why I was calling,” Abrams said...

As knowledge of that list, only semi-affectionately referred to as the Dirty Dozen, worked its way into the public, parents, teachers and students were concerned that Henry County High School was in danger of being shut down.

Variations of the rumor included statements that the state would remove principal and half of the staff with the state taking over, that the state would close the school or that all athletic programs would be stopped until the school’s performance improved.

None of those rumors are true...

Hat tip to KSBA.

Chenowith hired to write reciprocal agreement appeal for Corbin Schools

A reciprocal agreement dispute between Corbin Independent and Knox County schools is headed to Commissioner Terry Holliday for some referreeing, and KDE spokeswoman Lisa Gross says any decision made will likely be firm and decisive.

A reciprocal agreement allows "non-resident students" who live in one district to attend school in another district free of charge. SEEK funds follow the child.

But a recent decision by the Knox County School Board to disallow its students from attending school in Corbin set off sparks in the community and 500 showed up at the next meeting to let the board hear about it. Early last week, the board in Corbin voted unanimously to appeal the issue to the Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday. Frankfort attorney Bob Chenowith...is getting ready to file that appeal.

In the meantime, the education guardianship tango has begun.

This from the News Journal:

District recounting number of students affected,

say it is likely to be more than 169

...Knox Schools superintendent Walter T. Hulett said that mounting financial woes, including dwindling state SEEK funds, and higher operational costs, made the decision not to renew the reciprocal agreement with Corbin a necessary one.

...After a somewhat heated discussion with Hulett following last Tuesday's Knox board meeting, Corbin parent Jim Lacefield said he would favor taking the issue to court via a class action suit if necessary. While a possibility, in the interim, some parents are seeking educational guardianships so that their children may attend Corbin schools next year. Officials with Knox District Court say the number of parents making such a move has not been overwhelming.

Although the exact number is not known, court officials say only about 10 or so have been granted.

An educational guardianship allows parents to specify a guardian to oversee their children's education decisions. If the guardian is within the Corbin school district, the child can attend school in Corbin. In order to obtain an educational guardianship, both parents or legal guardians must appear in district court, along with the prospective guardian.

Once a judge signs the paperwork, the document is filed in the Circuit Clerk's office.

Another possible option for parents is an educational power of attorney, a simpler procedure that requires only the filing of a form designating someone besides parents to make educational or medical decisions for a child. The Corbin School System currently accepts students who have either guardianships or powers of attorney.

Gross said that while guardianships and similar concepts are legal, and would allow a student to attend school in a certain district, SEEK funds would only technically follow students who actually live in the district where they attend school. In many cases, while guardians may live within the district, the student does not...

Charters: neither Savior nor Satan

In the Kentucky School Advocate this month, [Page 27] KSBA Communications Director Brad Hughes wonders if school officials are listening to their customers; and whether schools failing to do so has contributed to the "claimed clamor" for charter schools in Kentucky. He challenges his KSBA readers to maintain schools that are responsive to the public.

Hughes also offers his reading of the charter school literature. It should sound familiar to KSN&C readers.

What I think I've learned [after reading numerous articles, research and op-eds] is that charter schools are neither the geat savior for frustrated parents and overregulated schools nor the great Satan against public education in the U.S. As with so many things, it's all in the details.

How Value Added looks in Ohio

This from the Columbus Dispatch:

12 local schools on state's 'worst' list

Twelve central Ohio schools are among the worst 5 percent statewide.

Their academic struggles mean they are eligible to receive federal money to help them transform or start over. A list of these schools was released yesterday by the Ohio Department of Education.

Six Columbus City Schools buildings are on the list of the worst-off, as are four in Cleveland and 16 in Cincinnati. Several charter schools -- six of them in central Ohio -- also made the "top" rung on the list.

"No one is going to like the fact that they're on this list," said Mark Real, who heads the Columbus-based nonprofit KidsOhio, which studies education issues. He's been monitoring stimulus-related spending and improvement programs. "But this is not just a 'label and leave it' approach. These schools are in for some pretty intensive care."

This from the non-partisan KidsOhio:

Ohio’s 8 Large Urban Districts and Charter Schools

Rank Higher on

Educational Progress

than on

Absolute Test Scores

KidsOhio.org’s new analysis of state education data shows that many of the state’s lowest-rated schools, both Ohio 8 schools and charter schools, rise to near the middle among schools statewide when ranked according to the state’s own “value-added” measure of annual educational progress.

KidsOhio.org ranked Ohio’s public schools - both traditional district schools and charter schools - according to their Performance Index scores (measuring student achievement on state tests in a given year) and their Value-Added Gain scores (the state’s measure of students’ academic progress from year to year). The analysis covered the 2,688 Ohio schools that received scores for both measures in 2008, and the data revealed that:

• Ohio 8 district schools ranked, on average, 2,199 out of 2,688 schools on test scores, but jumped 663 places to an average ranking of 1,536 on student progress.
• Charter schools taken as a group had an average ranking of 2,288 on test scores, but an average ranking of 1,362 on student progress, an increase of 926 places.

The analysis also identifies further common ground between traditional district schools in the Ohio 8 (Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo and Youngstown) and public charter schools: both groups of schools serve high percentages of economically disadvantaged students and students with special needs.

In addition, KidsOhio.org ranked all of Ohio’s 610 traditional school districts on the two measures. Each of the Ohio 8 districts ranked higher on educational progress than on absolute test scores. Graphics showing each of the Ohio 8 districts’ ranks on the two measures are available here. You can download KidsOhio.org’s full report on the analysis here. For data on all 2,688 ranked schools, click here; and for data on all 610 school districts, click here.

Hat tip to KSBA

Gay NY Teen's Harassment Suit Gets Federal Notice

This from ABC News:

Gay teenager's harassment lawsuit against NY

school draws interest of Justice Department

The bullying by classmates and taunts of "homo" only got worse after Jacob began dyeing his hair and wearing eyeliner in eighth grade. One student scrawled "I hope you die" on his shoe, he said; another drew a pocket knife on him.

Jacob's grades dropped, and he missed school from fear. His father tried repeatedly to get school officials in their working-class village in upstate New York to help protect his son from harassment. The response by the Mohawk Central School District, according to a federal lawsuit, was to do "virtually nothing."

"Everything was bad," Jacob — who is identified as "J.L." in the lawsuit and didn't want to draw attention to his new school by having his last name used in this story — said this week. "I hyperventilated when I left the school ... and I didn't want to come back the next day, or ever."

The 15-year-old might soon get a measure of satisfaction. The lawsuit filed by Jacob and his father against the school district with the New York Civil Liberties Union could be close to settlement, according to both sides.

The negotiations come as the U.S. Department of Justice seeks to intervene in the case, citing the "important issues" it raises in enforcing federal civil rights
laws.

"There is a growing recognition across the country that schools need to take harassment based on gender expression and homosexuality seriously," said NYCLU attorney Corey Stoughton. "If there is a settlement in this case, that's an affirmation
of that principle."

Justice officials say it's the first time since 2000 that they have argued that Title IX, the antidiscrimination law affecting schools that receive federal funding, covers sex discrimination based on gender stereotypes — such as when a boy does not act or look stereotypically male...

Mercer teacher assaulted; student charged

This from Advocate-Messenger:

Police and school officials are investigating after a Mercer County Senior
High School student allegedly punched a teacher Wednesday morning.

Harrodsburg police said the male student was taken into custody and later released to his parents. The student has been charged with third-degree assault and second-degree terroristic threatening.

Police could not provide any more details to The Advocate-Messenger. Police told WLEX-TV on Wednesday that the student punched the teacher multiple times. The teacher allegedly began defending himself after five or six punches.

The student eventually was restrained by other students and teachers. The teacher was treated by the school nurse and may have bruises on his face, WLEX reported.
Mercer County Superintendent Chuck Hamilton said the school is conducting its own
investigation into the incident, separate from police. The student and teacher had been involved in another incident on Tuesday, when the teacher had tried to get the student and several others to stop throwing snowballs, he said.

Hamilton said the student likely will be suspended pending an investigation, but he could not confirm that that has happened. Mercer High Principal Terry Yates could not be reached for comment before deadline.

Advocates rally for sex education

This from the Courier-Journal:

Advocates for sex education in the public schools rallied in the Capitol Thursday in support of legislation that would require schools teaching the subject to use a science-based curriculum.

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat who is sponsoring House Bill 119, said the measure is needed to protect teens not only from teenage pregnancies but also from sexually transmitted diseases.

“We're in the 21st century,” Marzian said in expressing outrage that sex education standards are not in place in the schools. “You would think teaching sex education was teaching voodoo or whatever.”

She said she decided to sponsor the legislation after her daughter, a public school teacher, told her of questions her students asked during health class that were based on wrong assumptions.“It terrified me,” she said.

Sex education isn't currently required in public schools. Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, said a 1980s law requiring it was repealed by the 1990 Kentucky Education Reform Act.

Marzian's bill requires that a school teaching sex education must use age-appropriate, culturally sensitive and medically accurate information and not limit instruction to discussion of abstinence or contraception...

Quick Hits

Paraniod Georgia legislation a sign of the times?: There is no threat. But just in case, the Georgia State Senate passed legislation (SB 235) yesterday by a vote of 47 to 2 to prevent Georgians from being forced to have a microchip implanted against their will. Sen. Chip Pearson, who sponsored the bill, says it's a proactive measure aimed at anticipating technological advances that may infringe on people's rights. Sen. Vincent Fort, one of the two senators who opposed the bill, says it's a "solution in search of a problem" and a waste of time during the state's budget crisis. (Macon.com) Possible future laws include: Prohibitions against teleporting individuals into the state of Georgia against their will.

More schools take on service projects to enhance curriculum: More schools in and around Washington, D.C., are integrating community service projects that address global issues such as the recent earthquake in Haiti as well as local concerns into their curriculum. One suburban Virginia school is aiming to combine service projects with subjects such as art, science and technology, and Virginia's Fairfax County will add a community service requirement for sixth-graders next school year to help students "be respectful and contributing participants in their school, community, country and world," according to the school board. (The Washington Post)

Review ordered of Seattle math curriculum: A Superior Court judge called the Seattle school district's decision to use the Discovering Series to teach math this school year "capricious" and "arbitrary" and ordered the district to review its choice. Parents sued the district over the use of the inquiry-based curriculum in high schools, complaining that it is inferior and discriminates against English-language learners because it is based heavily on verbal instruction. District officials are reviewing the ruling. (The Seattle Times)

Retired educator lists top 10 qualities of effective teachers: Six Colorado school districts are embarking on a two-year, $45 million teacher-effectiveness study funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but retired Colorado teacher James D. Starkey argues that he can save them the trouble. Starkey contends that great teaching cannot be taught, but that it happens when knowledgeable and interested educators direct and interact with students. No matter their strategy or methodology, Starkey argues, great teachers need 10 important qualities, with No. 1 being a sense of humor. (Education Week)

Washington state to pilot online standardized tests: Some Washington state schools will soon administer standardized tests online, and the goal is to transition to testing all middle-school students online in reading, writing and math by 2012. Teachers and students already are preparing for the change by studying sample tests and viewing online tutorials. (The Olympian)

Proposed change to education-technology funding prompts concern: Education-technology groups are concerned about changes in the federal budget proposed by President Barack Obama that discontinue a dedicated source of funding for school technology. Under Obama's budget plan, the Enhancing Education Through Technology program would lose all funding, with money for school technology integrated into the overall education budget. While the Obama administration has pledged its support for continued progress in education technology, the groups are calling for a "tangible" commitment. (T.H.E. Journal)

Is the E-rate program behind the times in education technology?: The federal E-rate program, created in 1996 to help fund technology in schools, covers few services schools now use to provide technology to students, some experts and educators say. The program is credited with helping schools move into the age of the Internet, but confusing rules often keep many schools from seeking funding for innovative technology. "The scope of technology is expanding, but the E-rate is not there yet," one state's E-rate coordinator said. (Education Week)

Research: School choice an "illusion" for many Philadelphia students: Expanded school choice for Philadelphia high-school students has not kept most from attending large, struggling neighborhood schools, a study by the nonprofit Research for Action shows. A lack of information disseminated to disadvantaged students combined with a difficult selection process and a small number of seats at magnet and lottery schools have contributed to the problem. The head author of the study concluded that "high-school choice is an illusion" for most Philadelphia students. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Opinion - Revised No Child Left Behind should keep schools accountable: The Obama administration should preserve and strengthen provisions of No Child Left Behind that hold schools accountable for employing effective teachers and narrowing the achievement gap between disadvantaged and well-off students, the editorial board of the New York Times writes. Despite its flaws, No Child Left Behind has helped direct attention to student achievement, and revamping the law should include financial rewards for schools making progress, the board writes. Not doing so would mark a return to a system with vague goals that produced few results, the board argues. (The New York Times)

Award-winning math educator is tutor, mentor to students: A Florida math teacher and athletics coach helps his students succeed by providing on-the-spot tutoring after class wherever he can squeeze it in. Ed LaRose, who was recently honored as Hernando County Teacher of the Year, says he tries to connect with students in and out of the classroom to let them know he cares. "I think that's the key is making sure your students know you don't just want them to pass, you want them to succeed in life," he said. (Hernando Today)

Super Bowl lesson plans are a big win for New Orleans students: New Orleans teachers are capitalizing on the success of the New Orleans Saints -- who will compete in their first Super Bowl on Sunday -- by including the team in classroom lessons and creating excitement among students and teachers. One group of third-graders learned how $4,000 might be spent attending the Super Bowl, and another group is using statistics to determine which NFL team is the best -- a project the students began before the playoffs. Teachers have infused football and the Saints into other lessons as well, including writing, poetry and history. (The Times-Picayune)

Union resistance to reforms comes at a cost for some Mass. districts: A number of Massachusetts school districts chose to opt out of the bid for federal Race to the Top money because the unions representing their teachers did not support having teachers' jobs linked to student test scores. The districts that did not support the state's bid are ineligible to receive funding the state may win during a time when many are short on funds for new teachers, professional development and other programs, and some officials are lamenting the loss of potential assistance. (The Boston Globe)

Documentary film is being used to enhance black-history curriculum: Educators across Florida are supplementing their black-history curriculum with a film that details some lesser-known examples of positive contributions by black people during the Civil War era as engineers, artisans and inventors. "Kids think that with the exception of a few well-known blacks, everyone was in the field picking cotton, they were enslaved, they were beaten, they were treated wrongly. That is a fact, but we were still doing some wonderful things," the director of the film said.(Orlando Sentinel)

Pennsylvania exit exams come under fire from Pittsburgh officials: School board members in Pittsburgh are questioning the state's plan to adopt new high-school exit exams, which they say may create additional roadblocks for disadvantaged and minority students and could conflict with proposed changes to federal education law. "If students don't graduate on time now, how's a test going to make them graduate on time?" one board member asked. The state plans to introduce the Keystone exams through 2017. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Profile examines Duncan as centrist, influential leader: Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- the former CEO of Chicago's public schools -- has been given extraordinary political leverage with more than $70 billion in federal stimulus money for states to spend on education and a long history and close relationship with President Barack Obama. This New Yorker profile on Duncan -- an abstract of which is available -- provides an overview of his background and rise as a centrist political figure as well as the challenges he faces as he creates a legacy that may make him one the most influential education secretaries the country has seen. (The New Yorker)

Boston charters launch drive to recruit English-language learners: Efforts are under way by parents, educators and advocates to recruit more immigrant students who are English-language learners to Boston charter schools. The push is a bid to comply with a law that requires enrollment at charter schools to reflect the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods. The recruitment drive will include television, radio and newspaper advertisements as well as canvassing with fliers printed in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and Chinese in neighborhoods known to have large immigrant populations. (The Boston Globe)

Dueling Rulings

This from ABC News:

Rulings Cloud Issue of School MySpace Suspensions

Federal appellate judges wrestling with whether schools can discipline students for Internet speech posted offsite reached different rulings Thursday in two Pennsylvania cases.

One 3rd U.S. Circuit Court panel upheld the suspension of a Schuylkill County eighth-grader who posted sexually explicit material along with her principal's photograph on a fake MySpace page.

However, a different three-judge panel said that school officials in Mercer County cannot reach into a family's home and police the Internet. That case also involves a MySpace parody of a principal created by a student at home.

And, in dissent, a judge in the first case said his colleagues were broadening the school's authority and improperly censoring students.

"I believe that this holding vests school officials with dangerously overbroad censorship discretion," Judge Michael Chagares wrote in the case, which upheld the March 2007 suspension of a Blue Mountain Middle School student.

"Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever allowed schools to punish students for off-campus speech that is not school sponsored and that caused no substantial disruption at school," Chagares wrote.

School boards, free-speech advocates and others had been awaiting the rulings for
clarity on how far schools can go to control both online speech and offsite behavior.

"The law was unclear and now it's in a state of chaos," said lawyer Witold Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union, who argued the Mercer County case.

Similar free-speech cases have surfaced across the country, with different rulings, but none have reached the Supreme Court....

JCPS to Cancel seven tuition-based Preschools

This from Toni Konz at C-J:

Saying it’s losing too much money, Jefferson County Public Schools will close seven of its 14 tuition-based pre-school sites this fall, leaving hundreds of middle-class families with fewer pre-kindergarten options for their children.

Officials decided to end tuition-based preschool at Chancey, Jeffersontown, Middletown, Smyrna, Wellington and Zachary Taylor elementary schools, as well as at Waggener High School, because of declining enrollment and insufficient revenue from tuition, said Harriet Thomas, director of early childhood for the district.

“Understandably, parents and staff have been disappointed to learn that these units will be closed in 2010-11,” Thomas said. “It was a very difficult decision for us to make, but it is one we feel is necessary to meet fiscal expectations.”

The district lost $283,644 last year on the program, and enrollment fell from 482 last year to 303 this year, in part, Thomas said, because the tuition went up to help cover costs....

EKU Launches Program To Attract Black Teachers

This from EKU:

Eastern Kentucky University has become the first college in the state to join an initiative aimed at attracting more black males to the teaching profession.

The program that was launched at Clemson University is known as Call Me MISTER, which stands for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Modeling.

Five EKU freshman are enrolled in the program for the fall. In order to qualify, students must maintain at least a B average, complete two essays and participate in an interview.

Organizers are hoping to eventually launch a similar program targeting Latino males.

Failure rate for AP tests climbing

This from USA Today:

Schools' pressure for standards questioned

The number of students taking Advanced Placement tests hit a record high last year, but the portion who fail the exams — particularly in the South — is rising as well, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Students last year took a record 2.9 million exams through the AP program, which challenges high school students with college-level courses. Passing the exams (a score of 3 or higher on the point scale of 1 to 5) may earn students early college credits, depending on a college's criteria.

The findings about the failure rates raise questions about whether schools are pushing millions of students into AP courses without adequate preparation — and whether a race for higher standards means schools are not training enough teachers to deliver the high-level material.

"The standards don't teach themselves," says Stanford University's Linda Darling-Hammond, a noted teacher-quality expert who says schools shouldn't treat AP as "another silver bullet" that will raise standards and assure academic success.

"You have to build the whole system. You can't just bring in one thing and think that it's going to solve everything," she says.

The newspaper's analysis finds that more than two in five students (41.5%) earned a failing score of 1 or 2, up from 36.5% in 1999. In the South, a Census-defined region that spans from Texas to Delaware, nearly half of all tests — 48.4% — earned a 1 or 2, a failure rate up 7 percentage points from a decade prior and a statistically significant difference from the rest of the country.

College Board officials say it's misleading to lump all scores together, because some tests have vastly different historical pass rates. Scores on AP Physics tests, for example, are consistently up; those for AP English Literature are dropping. The physics success builds through a sequence of courses, says Trevor Packer, a College Board vice president who oversees AP. He also says enrollment growth means the raw number of students earning passing scores is climbing, even if the overall failure rate is up.

Statistical models predicted a rise in failure rates, because students took about 1.8 million more AP exams last year than in 1999. Typically, standardized test scores fall as more students — many of them with weaker academic records — take them....

Thanks to Jeanie Gertz

Shelly Berman on Charter Schools

Shortly after the 16 January KET show on charter schools I got a call from Dick Innes of the Bluegrass Institute. Innes apparently felt that I had "been a little rough" on BIPPS and that there were apparently some unnamed people who were thinking about picketing my home!?

Well shucks. First of all I'm never home, so I'd suggest my office at EKU. But I couldn't remember what it was I had said about them. At least, not recently - although whatever it was, I'm sure I meant it.

As usual, Innes and I agreed on some things and disagreed on others; but came at things from different directions.

At any rate, the conversation turned to the KET debate on charter schools (KET VIDEO). Bill Goodman's participants Rev. Jerry Stephenson, chair of the Kentucky Education Restoration Alliance, Jim Waters from BIPPS (who, now that I think of it, I have criticized Waters for his passing acquaintance with accuracy and his introduction of creationism into conversations about Kentucky schools - was that it?) KEA's Sharron Oxendine, and JCPS Superintendent Sheldon Berman.

Innes and I agreed that Berman's assertion that Charter Schools were a failed reform, was at least premature, if not inaccurate. Then Innes informed me that he had uncovered an earlier (and inconsistent) quote from a report Berman wrote:

"What we're saying is it's possible to have public schools and charter schools stand side by side and learn from each other."

Innes wrote about it over at his place. I said I'd look into it when I got the chance.

The public record on Sheldon Bernman and charter schools seems to begin in 2004 when he served as superintendent of the Hudson School District in Massachusetts. At that time the Massachusetts Board of Education was considering their first seven charter schools. (Boston Globe 16 Jan 2004)

Berman attended a rancorous meeting where accusations were exchanged in a packed auditorium. Berman and other officials were "concerned about the charter school's proposal because it lists a 15 percent attrition rate" which suggested that the charter schools did not intend to educate everyone, as it promised, but instead planned to create an elite school, skimming the best pupils from the communities.

The Massachusetts board approved three of the seven charter applications including the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School, Community Charter School of Cambridge, and KIPP Academy Lynn Charter School. (Globe 25 Feb 2004)

Berman complained to the Boston Globe that residents were never able to comment on changes that were made after the period for public input. "This final proposal did not receive public review," Berman said. "To create an elitist academy is antithetical to the role of public education."

Berman responded with a lawsuit along with school officials from Marlborough and Maynard. "I think there are some substantive issues that have not been fully addressed and deserve a second look," Berman said. (Globe 26 Feb 2004)

The three communities contended in the suit that the Board of Education's review of the charter school was "egregious enough" to justify legal action, said Hudson School Superintendent Sheldon Berman . "We were appalled by the lack of thoroughness and fairness in the process," Berman said. "The [charter school's] application did not meet the standards set by the board itself." Berman said the suit had "a viable chance" to succeed. "We're on strong ground here." (Globe 21 Mar 2004)

The Boston Herald called our Berman by name in its (27 Mar 2004) editorial titled, Oh no, not competition!

In an astonishing display of narrow-mindedness, school committees in Marlborough, Maynard and Hudson are suing the state because they DON'T want to compete with a charter school approved for the region.Talk about fear and loathing! The three school committees filed suit against the state Board of Education in an effort to halt the scheduled fall 2005 opening of the Advanced Math and Science Academy Charter School. Sheldon Berman , superintendent of the Hudson schools, said, "I think we have a ate] [sic] board with an ideological agenda. It's supportive of privatization and not that clearly in support of public education."

A year later, the Advanced Math and Science Charter School has said it exceeded enrollment projections and held a partial lottery. Berman said the enrollment figures only represented parents of students who were interested in attending the school. The Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, which opposes charter schools on the grounds that they drain funding from public schools, will issue a report next week asking the state to require official enrollment registration before funding the schools, Berman said. (Globe, 20 Mar 2005)

Then, in what reads like an olive branch toward charter school advocates, a report co-authored by Berman and released by the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents Task Force on Charter Schools said that tensions between charter school advocates and traditional public school advocates had become so intense that it was difficult to dispassionately assess the effectiveness of charter schools. But the report also called for a host of changes to shore up the charter school application process.

Marc Kenen, executive director of the Massachusetts Charter School Association, said he was encouraged by the tone of the superintendents' report. ''For them to say that charter schools can coexist with traditional public schools, it's certainly a big step for them to take," Kenen said. (31 Mar 2005)

But it didn't end there.

By April 14 2005, (Globe) Berman and his colleagues had amended their lawsuit saying that the charter school's proposal for teaching special-education students was deficient. Berman said newly discovered documents "lend validity to the issues we raised" particularly the special education issue and strengthen the school districts' position. Four of seven independent evaluators who assessed the school's application in 2003 as part of the Department of Education's charter school review process gave the school low marks in its plan's "commitment to serving the needs of special populations of students." Berman said state officials only recently disclosed these documents, which the suit called "clear evidence of the arbitrary and illegal nature of the board's decision."

The Boston Globe called Berman an unofficial spokesman against the charter schools, being one of three districts that sued the school and the state Board of Education in an attempt to overturn the board's approval of the academy. "And he has rallied at least a dozen other school systems from Worcester to Boston to join a complaint against the state Department of Education for approving the charter school, one of the largest complaints against a single charter school so far." (Globe 22 May 2005)

Berman said he had visited Russia and Japan to study their educational systems. He said that not all students with special learning needs would be able to keep up with such rigorous programs and would ultimately drop out. It's an issue that Berman understands well. Several years ago, he authored a report on special education that received national attention and led to increased funding in Massachusetts and other states. Berman also contends that the academy would drain funding and talent from the public schools and undermine their efforts to beef up curriculum. "We have some of the most advanced science and math courses in the state," he said of Hudson High School. "We offer four calculus courses. I don't think there's another school around that does that."

Berman said he does not oppose charter schools in general but considers the Marlborough academy an attempt to create an elite private-styled school at taxpayer expense, he said. He said the school only recently provided more than 4,000 pages of documents that lawyers had requested, and that many of the signatures on petitions used to show support for the charter school were names that could not be verified. "They're very intent on getting their own way," Berman said. "They have essentially subverted what we believe are important regulations . . . and misrepresented themselves."

Berman, 56, said a background in competitive fencing he was a former assistant fencing coach at Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taught him a lot about public policy debate. "It isn't all about attack," he said. "It's about being calm and handling things in the most appropriate way. In fencing, it's most effective to let [the opponent] fall on your point. It's also that way in public policy." But Berman is not sitting idly by. Brookline School Superintendent William Lupini said he joined the complaint after realizing his school would be affected by the new charter school. "Shelley has been the workhorse, the driving force in putting together very research-based, very reasonable position papers," Lupini said. "I can't think of anybody I'd rather be working with on this issue."

Boston Globe readers responded to Berman's position saying,

"The basis of the suit, filed by Superintendent Sheldon Berman of Hudson, seems
to be that "not all students with special learning needs would be able to keep up with such rigorous programs." Yet it is many of those "special learners" not being served in their current public schools who AMSA is attracting. Massachusetts testing procedures ensure that children are held to a minimum standard of learning. But where are the services for those who go beyond the minimum?"

And this:

Berman is a master at whipping local school boards into a frenzy about things like the academy because he is absolutely terrified of competition. So are the other school superintendents. Several are already changing curriculum to better compete and that's good. Hopefully Berman's specious arguments against the academy will be rejected by any judge that has to review the case. It is the future. So is increased competition in the K-12 education business. It's been a monopoly for way too long. As a result, as Alan Greenspan often says, our children are behind the rest of the world in math and science after about the fourth grade. Folks who have lots of money already have, and take advantage of, a plethora of alternatives to public schools. It's time that folks who can't afford to pay twice for schools have access to some alternatives. (Globe 29 May 2005)

Berman's colleagues responded with recognition. Opposition to charter schools was among the reasons that Superintendent Sheldon Berman recently received the prestigious President's Award from the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents. Berman believes he was recognized because most of the state's superintendents "have become aware of how significant this issue is," he said last week. This is the second time he has gotten the award. "I am very, very honored," he said. (16 Jun 2005)

Amid cries that Berman had somehow manipulated the data, a report by Worcester Polytechnic Institute graduate students showed that "several local charter schools [were] enrolling disproportionately small numbers of special education and limited English proficient students."
Robert Harrington, superintendent of the Abby Kelley Foster Charter Public School, accused Mr. Berman of being "full of "hatred." Berman, who co-chair the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents' Charter School Task Force, said they proposed the study to WPI because the state didn't seem to be researching the issue. (Worcester Telegram & Gazette, 7 June 2007)

If the implication from Innes is that Berman didn't tell the whole truth by declaring charter schools to be a failed reform - having already declared that public schools and charter schools could stand side by side - I'm not sure that holds up.

(I would have asked Berman myself if past information I had received from had held up, but it didn't. When I was defending him I exchanged several amiable messages with Berman. But when his information turned out to be untrustworthy, and I asked him about it, he stopped writing. I'm still waiting for his explanation as to why that is the case.)

The record would seem to indicate that Berman has been and remains a charter school foe, the 2005 report notwithstanding.

The record also suggests that Berman didn't have to wait two seconds before he considered charters to be a failed idea. He told the Globe in 2005 that "he does not oppose charter schools in general," but the evidence suggests he does.

But Innes had another concern.

If I heard this right, at one point, Jefferson County Superintendent of Schools Sheldon Berman claimed that only two of the 50 charter schools in Massachusetts – where he served before coming to Kentucky – were really performing well.

I wondered about the same thing. Innes wanted me to know he had the goods on this one from a 2006 Massachusetts Board of Education report. It looks to me like he does.

The study of 56 Massachusetts charter schools found:

• When there is a statistically significant difference in MCAS performance, it is much more likely to favor the charter school than the CSD.
• In both English Language Arts and Mathematics, at least 30 percent of the charter schools performed statistically significantly higher than their CSD in each year with the exception of 2001. In 2001, 19% of the charter schools performed statistically significantly higher than their CSD in English Language Arts and 26% in Mathematics.
• The percentage of charter schools performing higher than their CSD each year has remained fairly constant in English Language Arts and Mathematics while the number of charter schools and the number of students tested in charter schools has increased.
• The percentage of charter schools performing lower than their CSD has declined to approximately 10 percent in Mathematics and dropped below 10 percent in English Language Arts.

Similar patterns existed for all demographic subgroups, with the likelihood of the significant difference favoring the charter school being most prevalent for the African American, Hispanic, and Low Income subgroups.

Because eighteen charter schools were located within the city of Boston, the aggregate performance of those schools was also compared to the Boston Public Schools. In this comparison, the analysis showed that:

• Charter school students in Boston as a combined cohort have performed statistically significantly higher than students enrolled in the Boston Public Schools each year from 2001 to 2005 in both English Language Arts and Mathematics, except there was no statistically significant difference in performance in English Language Arts in 2001.
• Among the African American, Hispanic, Low Income, and Special Education subgroups, charter school performance was statistically significantly higher than the CSD in each year since 2002 in both content areas.
• Charter school students in the White subgroup performed statistically significantly higher than their counterparts in the Boston CSD in 3 of the 5 years in Mathematics and 4 of the 5 years in English Language Arts.

Now, the only problem with all this is that the study acknowledges that the demographic characteristics of students attending a particular charter school may differ from the demographic characteristics of the students in the CSD...which was one of Berman's original complaints.

Revisionaries: How a group of Texas conservatives is rewriting your kids' textbooks

Texas has long been a leader in textbook adoptions. Owing to their impact on the textbook economy, many smaller states, like Kentucky, have found themselves the recipients of decisions made in other places. That has not changed. Publishers will do whatever it takes to get on the Texas textbook adoption list.

This from Washington Monthly:

Don McLeroy is a balding, paunchy man with a thick broom-handle mustache
who lives in a rambling two-story brick home in a suburb near Bryan, Texas. When he greeted me at the door one evening last October, he was clutching a thin paperback with the skeleton of a seahorse on its cover, a primer on natural selection penned by famed evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr.

We sat down at his dining table, which was piled high with three-ring binders, and his wife, Nancy, brought us ice water in cut-crystal glasses with matching coasters. Then McLeroy cracked the book open. The margins were littered with stars, exclamation points, and hundreds of yellow Post-its that were brimming with notes scrawled in a microscopic hand.

With childlike glee, McLeroy flipped through the pages and explained what he saw as the gaping holes in Darwin’s theory. “I don’t care what the educational political lobby and their allies on the left say,” he declared at one point. “Evolution is hooey.”

This bled into a rant about American history.

“The secular humanists may argue that we are a secular nation,” McLeroy said, jabbing his finger in the air for emphasis. “But we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles.

The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan—he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

Views like these are relatively common in East Texas, a region that prides itself on being the buckle of the Bible Belt. But McLeroy is no ordinary citizen. The jovial creationist sits on the Texas State Board of Education, where he is one of the leaders of an activist bloc that holds enormous sway over the body’s decisions.

As the state goes through the once-in-a-decade process of rewriting the standards for its textbooks, the faction is using its clout to infuse them with ultraconservative ideals. Among other things, they aim to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy, bring global-warming denial into science class, and downplay the contributions of the civil rights movement...

“Remember Superman?
The never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way?
Well, that fight is still going on.
There are people out there who want to
replace truth with political correctness.
Instead of the American way they want multiculturalism.
We plan to fight back—and, when it comes to textbooks,
we have the power to do it.
Sometimes it boggles my mind the kind of power we have.”

---Don McLeroy

Hunger up across U.S., especially in Appalachia

This from the Rural Blog:

An unprecedented number of Americans are seeking charity food, says a new study from the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization. Feeding America reports in a news release "more than 37 million people, one in eight Americans -- including 14 million children and nearly 3 million seniors -- receive emergency food each year through the nation's network of food banks and the agencies they serve."
The data represents a 40 percent increase from the organization's last comprehensive study in 2006.

The God's Pantry's report, "Hunger in Central and Eastern Kentucky," says 310,170 people in the 50-county service area live in poverty and the group serves 12 of the 25 poorest counties in the nation. Among those served: Owsley and Clay counties, which the U.S. Census Bureau ranks as the third and fourth poorest counties in the country.

Obama's education budget bad for rural schools, National Schools Boards Association says

This from the Rural Blog:

President Obama has proposed big changes to federal education funding and the No Child Left Behind Act with the unveiling of his fiscal 2011 budget. It includes a 6.2 percent increase in funding for the Department of Education, but most of that money will go to competitively awarded programs, Alyson Klein of Education Week reports.

Programs that use set formulas to allocate funding such as Title I, based on the number of poor children in a school or district, received little or no increase in budget."The focus on competitive grants and the decision to provide no increase to Title I means rural districts and children in the poorest parts of the country will be left behind," said Anne Bryant, the executive director of the National School Boards Association. "Those districts do not have the capacity to compete for grants—unless you want to shift money from teachers to grant writers." ...

"While there is much to applaud in the budget, we are concerned that virtually all of the proposed increase is for competitive grants, while Title I — the lifeblood for our most disadvantaged children — is flat-funded," Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement. "Students with the most needs should not have to rely on how well adults compete for dollars."

Hopes, Fears, & Reality: A Balanced Look at American Charter Schools in 2009

This is the fifth annual report from the National Charter School Research Project (NCSRP).

Download Full Report (PDF: 1953 K)

Thanks to President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, charter schools are being promoted as an important tool for improving U.S. public schools. This latest look at the national charter school landscape contains reasons for cautious optimism about whether the charter school sector is poised to take advantage of the opportunity.

The 2009 edition of Hopes, Fears, & Reality finds that charter school growth has been “robust and consistent,” mostly in urban areas, suggesting a steady appeal, especially from low-income and minority parents. The report also finds that high-performing charter schools offer important lessons for other public schools. Namely, school culture must exude “a palpable urgency that communicates that the work is important,” a tight alignment of lesson content with state curriculum, and frequent “formative assessments that mirror high-stakes test conditions and items.”

With the “Race to the Top” program encouraging the expansion of charter schools as part of the effort to reform the nation’s lowest-performing district schools, charters are getting a new look—particularly in states that now ban or severely limit them. In response, many states are considering legislation to expand the number of charter schools allowed.

However, charter school advocates and state policymakers need to address shortcomings that threaten to limit the sector’s ability to become a mainstream option for American families.

The report finds that:

• School turnarounds require much more than good intentions. They succeed only about 30 percent of the time.
• If charter schools are to effectively replace chronically low-performing schools, the charter school sector needs to quickly develop a stronger cadre of excellent principals and capable governing boards.
• States and localities can use charters as a tool for better schools, but they must be prepared to close charter schools when they fail to succeed. Some states rarely close a charter school; others consider it a regular and necessary function.
• Boston charter schools that succeed in raising test scores do not always perform well on college entrance exams. To fully demonstrate that such schools are an important new model for urban schooling, the sector may need to pay greater attention to critical thinking and other skills needed for college success.
• Teachers unions are increasing efforts to unionize charter schools; how charter schools respond to this challenge may be pivotal for the sector. While charter
  unionization has attracted much attention recently, to date relatively few charter schools have unionized, and observers remain split over the impact on
  charters.
• Though there are exceptions, most school districts that have lost and continue to lose students do not respond competitively. States could change that by increasing incentives for school districts to develop plans to compete with charters.

KCSS releases 2009 School Safety Report

The tenth annual report produced by the Kentucky Center for School Safety was released this week and once again my old buddy Jon Akers is doing the happy dance.

This from the Kentucky Center on School Safety:

The most significant good news is that a comparison of the data presented here with past reports reveals 10-year lows in the number of expulsions (both with and without services) and corporal punishments for Board Violations, which declined to the lowest levels since we began tracking the data in the current format in 1999-2000.

Additionally, these data reveal a dramatic reduction over the five-year period presented here in:
Total Disciplinary actions for Board Violations
Disciplinary actions for Disturbing class
Disciplinary actions for Board
Violations at each grade level in grades K-9
Disciplinary actions for Drug Possession

Additionally, for the tenth consecutive year, no criminal homicides or forcible rapes were reported.

Furthermore, encouraging developments can be seen in the fact that:

Part II Law Violations decreased over the past year.

There were very few disciplinary actions for menacing or abuse, disciplinary actions we began tracking this year as a result of KRS 158.156.

Nevertheless, not all the news from this report is good news. Despite decreases in both Board and Law Violations over the five-year period for students in grades K-9, disciplinary actions for both Board and Law Violations for 10th, 11th, and 12th graders increased over the five-year period. Additionally, both students that received free and reduced lunch and nonwhite students continue to be disproportionately represented in disciplinary actions for both Board and Law Violations.

Disciplinary actions for serious law violations also increased slightly from 2007-2008, with most of that increase in disciplinary actions for larceny-theft and robbery.

Finally, disciplinary actions for simple assault and drug distribution also increased from 2007-2008 totals, as did the total days that students were absent from school due to Out-of-School suspension. These findings suggest that, despite the many positive findings in this report, there are still areas where further study and efforts are needed....

KCSS reported that the the data collection process for 2008-2009 remained relatively unchanged from the previous years with two exceptions. The first was the addition of several Law Violation codes designed to more accurately measure threats and harassments by students in the school setting...

The second exception involved a statewide transition from the previous data collection system (STI) to a new data collection system known as Infinite Campus (IC) for all of the school districts. The transition caused a number of data issues, delaying the release of the 2007-2008 report for at least four months. But KCCS expressed confidence that successive reports using IC data will be even richer and more reliable because of the enhancements offered by that system....

The most important shortcoming in the data collection process that we continue to try to overcome involves the current inability to connect each disciplinary action to a particular student through a unique identifier.

Individual-level data (gender, ethnicity, grade, lunch type, special education classification, limited English proficiency, mobility, etc.) remain available at the school level; however, we currently do not have access to that information.

This continues to prohibit us from matching disciplinary actions with individuals. If we had that capability, data analysis could be more thorough and detailed. For example, examination of offender recidivism is currently not possible. This connection could assist schools in evaluating programs targeted to repeat offenders...

Arizona Principal Suspended for Sarcastic Letter

"The math we do is really easy.

If your child is either too lazy or too stupid

to finish it in class, I'm sending it home

so that you can work with them and judge for yourself

whether it is laziness or idiocy that inhibits your child's progress."

--Litchfield Elementary School principal Ron Sterr

This from Fox News:

An Arizona school principal who penned a sarcastic letter that chided parents for children who were either "too lazy or too stupid" to complete their assignments in class was suspended after the missive was mistakenly sent home...

Ron Sterr has called each parent individually to apologize and take responsibility, the Litchfield school district said.

The letter sent home Jan. 26 with second graders also contained passages about students with peanut allergies and emotional problems stemming from puppy deaths.

Sterr explained that the letter was a "joke" written in response to comments made by "an individual" and was intended to mock those views. A teacher sent it home.

Sterr told the Associated Press that nothing in the letter represents his views toward children.

"I have always loved the kids, and I believe they know it. For anyone to assume
that I have those kinds of views is uninformed."

But Superintendent Dr. Julianne Lein, who one assumes is informed, said the district apologizes for the incident and removed Sterr from Litchfield Elementary as he faces demotion and possible termination.

Hat tip to James Smith.

Quick Hits

If we project what the world will be like 10 years from now

without innovation in health, education, energy, or food,

the picture is quite bleak.

Health costs for the rich will escalate, forcing tough

trade-offs and keeping the poor stuck

in the bad situation they are in today.

In the United States, rising education costs will mean

that fewer people will be able to get

a great college education and the public

K–12 system will still be doing a poor job for the underprivileged.

---Bill Gates

Gates explains "high risk" of teacher-effectiveness grants: Bill Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently spent $335 million to improve teacher effectiveness, called the investment "high risk" in an annual letter from his foundation. The efforts to develop new measures for evaluating teachers and helping them improve will take place in four districts selected in part because the initiative had support from teachers unions. "Previous efforts along these lines seemed to thrive for a few years," Gates wrote, "but if the system is not well-run or if teachers reject differentiation, it gets shut down." (Education Week)

Black literature courses are coming to Pittsburgh schools: Beginning in the fall, students in all Pittsburgh high schools will be able to enroll in a 12th-grade English class that focuses on black literature. Educators say the class will be offered as a core course, cover familiar topics -- such as slavery -- in new, creative ways and expose students to content and themes they may not have seen. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

Little girls are made of sugar and spice, and learn that math is not nice: One of the first lessons that girls often learn in elementary school is that boys are better at math.Although this incorrect lesson is certainly not part of the curriculum, first- and second-grade teachers, who are predominately female and math-averse, communicate that math is not their strong suit to some female students, according to a study published January 25 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers found that the girls who got the idea that math ability falls along gender lines had the worst achievement in this subject during the school year. (Scientific American)


Is the iPad better than Kindle for education?: Apple's iPad may be a promising alternative to Amazon's Kindle DX as an electronic-textbook reader for students, according to this comparison of the two devices. The e-readers are similarly priced and have the same-sized screen, but the iPad has significantly more features -- such as games and Internet browsing that may be distracting for students -- and a color LED-backlit screen that can support images, diagrams and other sophisticated features of digital textbooks that the Kindle cannot. The Kindle, however, may be better suited for heavy readers. (PC World)


Individualized learning may not be far off with new technology: New classroom technology could provide the tools needed for teachers to individualize lessons for their students, experts say, and a number of technology-immersed classrooms across the country are already providing such models of dynamic, customized learning for students. In one New York City middle school, the School of One program combines face-to-face instruction, online lessons and software-based activities to move middle-school math students through the curricula at their own pace. (Education Week)


Educators await Obama's replacement for AYP measurement: Educators are likely to support President Barack Obama's plans to scrap Adequate Yearly Progress benchmarks under No Child Left Behind, but it is unclear what will replace it. Obama has said his plan will reward teachers and schools that demonstrate students' progress and prepare them for college or careers, not only those that reach proficiency standards on reading and math tests. "What that says is, 'Let's focus on the student and not some arbitrary, high-stakes test score,' " said Dennis Van Roekel, the president of the National Education Association. (The Washington Post)

Experts doubt smooth or timely rewrite of No Child Left Behind: Experts say a revision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will be difficult to complete this year because of political differences among lawmakers and competing legislative priorities. The last revision of the law, in 2001, which resulted in its renaming as No Child Left Behind, took an entire year even with a strong bipartisan consensus that is no longer in place. "One can only wish them well, but reworking this monstrously complex statute is apt to prove almost as challenging as health care," one former education official wrote. (The New York Times)

State lawmakers group is critical of federal education mandates: The National Conference of State Legislatures, which opposed federal mandates under No Child Left Behind, is also critical of education policies being developed by the Obama administration, according to a report released by the group. Although the priorities for reform differ under the new administration, the lawmakers argue that the approach is essentially the same. "This is still the federal government picking what they see as winning strategies and telling states, 'You should do this, do this, and do this,' " one state lawmaker said. (Education Week)


Duncan on Katrina Comment - "It Was a Dumb Thing to Say": Education Secretary Arne Duncan apologized this morning for saying last week that Hurricane Katrina was "the best thing" for the New Orleans school system.“I said it in a poor way and I apologize for that. It was a dumb thing to say. My point was a simple one, that subsequent to that devastating, devastating tragedy we have seen remarkable progress and that school system has improved so rapidly it’s been amazing to watch,” Duncan said this morning on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” (ABC's Political Punch)


Hands-on learning motivates student scientists at Massachusetts school: Middle-school students from a Massachusetts Montessori school are studying science the way that scientists do through a marine-ecology course in Duxbury Bay. Students conducted research on water pollution and then began their experiments into the field to test their hypotheses. They will also work together to build a small wooden boat. Both hands-on activities help make learning more interesting to students, said their teachers. They "motivate the more theoretical studies. They make the kids much more receptive to the course work," the author of the course said. (The Boston Globe)

Florida students choose arts over gym class under waiver program: Some 15,000 middle-school students in Central Florida have submitted waivers to opt out of physical-education classes under a policy adopted by the state this past fall. Students who skip gym take other electives such as music and art -- which have been shown to improve their performance on state tests -- while some receive remedial courses in reading and math. But critics of the waiver program say it shortchanges students on physical activity and skills they need to lead healthy lifestyles. (Orlando Sentinel)

Students at Massachusetts school go wild for "Survivor" math: Students, teachers and parents at a Massachusetts elementary school took part in a math competition modeled after the reality-television show "Survivor," with students in grades K to 5 working in "tribes" to complete "Survivor"-themed math challenges. Tribes designed their own flags and competed for awards such as extra recess or an ice cream party. "The kids were so excited to work on math, and work together with their classmates on math challenges. There was a great energy," said the school's principal, who added that the event taught students to work collaboratively. (The Andover Townsman)

New Critiques Urge Changes in Common Standards: A draft of grade-by-grade common standards is undergoing significant revisions in response to feedback that the outline of what students should master is confusing and insufficiently user-friendly. Writing groups convened by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association are at work on what they say will be a leaner, better-organized, and easier-to-understand version than the 200-plus-page set that has been circulating among governors, scholars, education groups, teams of state education officials, and others for review in recent weeks. The first public draft of the standards, which was originally intended for a December release but was postponed until January, is now expected by mid-February. (Ed Week)

Group criticizes state teacher policies nationwide: The nonprofit National Council on Teacher Quality says in a report expected to be released today that states have "broken, outdated and inflexible" policies in place that protect ineffective teachers and ultimately harm student learning. The council says the report is "a blueprint for reform," but teachers union leaders say the report is flawed. "This was more of a 'gotcha' document rather than, 'here's what's working, let's celebrate it, let's share it,' " says Jeff Hubbard, president of the Georgia Association of Educators. (Los Angeles Times)

Education Budget Signals Sea Change For NCLB

This from the National Journal:

Administration Continues Move

Towards More Competitive Funding

Specifics of the Obama administration's plan for reauthorizing No Child Left Behind, the landmark education bill enacted by the Bush administration in 2002, were laid out for the first time in the budget proposal unveiled today.

The administration put forward two fundamental changes to the structure of NCLB, also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act: a new yardstick to hold schools accountable for compliance with the law and a shift from formula-driven federal funding to a model that emphasizes competition and performance. Both are controversial.

Renewal designs call for replacing "adequate yearly progress," the key-measuring tool under NCLB, with new and still undetermined standards for college and career readiness. Without the old measurement standards, which require schools to test students on their proficiency in English and math, the bill's original goal of having 100 percent of students proficient in these areas by 2014 is essentially null.

The budget proposal includes $14.5 billion for states to adopt accountability systems linked to college- and career-readiness standards -- but those standards don't exist yet. Ostensibly, the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a state-led effort to produce common standards in English and math for grades K-12, will create them. Every state but Texas and Alaska has signed on to Common Core, and Secretary Arne Duncan has often praised the initiative's efforts. However, Common Core has yet to produce a finalized version of the standards. The administration says it will work with congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle to create the new accountability system in the coming months...

HT to KSBA.

Balancing the Budget in Kentucky

On the left side of the scale:

Every House member up for election in November.

On the right side are such lightweight issues as:

Hundreds of millions in structural imbalances
Decreasing revenue due to outmoded tax structure

Ability to procrastinate by cobbling

together a budget for the first year
Dreams of more federal dollars
State Programs cut

State planning damaged
But Special Projects funded

Special Session in 2011...

after the election

Is that about right?

This from WAVE 3 TV:

Budget writers still working on plan

A leading House budget writer says nothing is safe from possible budget cuts as Kentucky lawmakers look to plug a massive shortfall for the state's next budget.

House Appropriations and Revenue Committee Chairman Rick Rand told reporters Tuesday that it appears there will be no new revenue to help balance the next two-year budget.

Rand said top House budget writers are still considering several options, but said lawmakers will consider everything when looking at possible budget cuts.

He listed funding for elementary and secondary public schools as the last place lawmakers would look in seeking budget cuts. He also downplayed tapping school contingency funds.

A slowdown in tax collections caused by the recession has led to a projected $1.5 billion shortfall over the next two-year budget cycle.