This week, hundreds of organizations across the country--city officials, associations, schools of all stripes, and think tanks--will hold events celebrating school choice. The goal behind school choice week is to highlight the many different ways that school choice can be implemented, from school vouchers to online schools to home schooling to tax-friendly scholarships to charter schools. Not every idea will take root in every community, but the organizers hope the broader message that school choice is possible and effective will get through.
There are a lot of reasons to think that school choice can be the driver of a comprehensive education policy. First, school choice is generally bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats had no problem passing a charter school bill in the House last year. But now the two parties on House Education and the Workforce Committee are squabbling over legislation on teacher effectiveness and school accountability. "It would serve members well to remember the outstanding bipartisan work just four months ago that led to the House's successful passage of the Charter School Programs reauthorization, which would invest federal resources in expanding and replicating quality charter schools that are improving children's learning outcomes," said Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo.
Second, state legislatures are tackling the issue on their own. Louisiana's Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal last week outlined a broad education plan that includes vouchers for low-income students and expansion of charter schools. New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie is pushing for scholarship tax credits for low-income families whose kids are in low-performing school districts.
School choice comes with minefields, however. Democrats are staunchly opposed to school vouchers for private and parochial schools, an idea that is important to conservatives. Teachers unions and some community leaders worry that expanding charter schools will do nothing more than drain much-needed resources from the district-based school system.
Is school choice a useful tool to fuel common ground on education policy? Or do ideological differences eventually get in the way? Where is there broad agreement on school choice? Can the noncontroversial school choice measures improve education in any significant way? Or are charter schools and vouchers integral to the choice concept? Where does school choice fit in the larger conversation about K-12 education?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
8 responses: Sharon P. Robinson, Neal McCluskey, Laura Bornfreund, Bill Jackson, Congressman Jared Polis, Marc S. Tucker, Patrick Riccards, Renee Moore
The Education Department released a report last week arguing that civics education should be reinvigorated and reimagined. The White House is suggesting that higher education is about more than just getting a job after graduation. College students also should know about the political levers that influence change and how to conduct public problem-solving with diverse partners.
"Unfortunately, civic learning and democratic engagement are add-ons rather than essential parts of the core academic mission," the report said. Basic civics knowledge is lacking as well. The National Assessment of Education Progress reports that only one-fourth of high school graduates are proficient in topics such as the American political system, principles of democracy, world affairs, and the roles of citizens.
The administration is calling for new, interactive thinking about civics learning that avoids rote memorization of processes. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor say it's time to move beyond your "grandmother's civics" of how a bill becomes a law. The Education Department's report takes note of AmeriCorps as a model for the "next generation" of civics learning. AmeriCorps, which is supported by both government and private entities, relies heavily on college students for tutoring, disaster aid, assistance to military families, and environmental preservation efforts.
The federal government cannot dictate AmeriCorps-like curriculum, nor can it force students to engage in civic or volunteer activities. But it can encourage civics involvement by forgiving some or all of student loans for people who work in public service. The government can also ask grant recipients to include civics learning in federally-funded education programs. Mostly, the administration can use its bully pulpit. "This call to action is an opportunity to develop and improve civic learning as part of a well-rounded education so every student has a sense of citizenship," Duncan said on the day the report was released.
Has civics education been shunted to the sidelines as educators concentrate on basic employability skills? Should civic education go beyond the Constitution and branches of government to include community-level activism and volunteerism? How should civics be included in the packed curricula of schools? Is the interest level there to support civics programs? Are there resources to support such programs?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
6 responses: Fawn Johnson, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Joanne Jacobs, Steve Peha, Cynthia G. (Cindy) Brown, Lisa Guisbond
No Child Left Behind--the landmark, standards-setting elementary and secondary education law--is 10 years old this week. Born of unlikely alliances between conservatives like President George W. Bush and liberals like the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., No Child Left Behind changed the country's education landscape. For the first time, all public schools were required to report publicly on their students' annual progress in reading and math. Schools were required to break down their data by race, gender, and socio-economic status, which meant that they couldn't use average scores to hide their failing students behind the more accomplished kids.
The law's historical significance is beyond doubt. Its success is another story entirely. In a National Journal feature story published in December, I wrote about the law's (many) weaknesses and (fewer) strengths. I surveyed key players who drafted, executed, and now operate under the law, asking where it worked and where it didn't.
Here is the bottom line from my research: The one undisputed success of No Child Left Behind is its spotlight on student achievement. The intense focus on students' reading and math proficiency within different subgroups is the game-changer that will endure into the next chapter of education policy. There are some clear failures--the law's teacher effectiveness and school choice provisions are duds. The achievement gap between well-off white children and poorer minorities still exists, although all students are performing better than they did 20 years ago. The law did not achieve its defining goal--accountability--but it spurred states and school boards to rethink how they assess and run their education systems.
What is the legacy of No Child Left Behind? Is there positive value in the most problematic portions of the law, like accountability or teacher credentialing? Are there negatives associated with its most successful parts, like reports on student achievement and disaggregated data? What do we know now that we didn't know ten years ago? How will No Child Left Behind influence the K-12 debate in the future?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
10 responses: Laura Bornfreund, Sharon P. Robinson, Bob Schaffer, Patrick Riccards, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Lisa Guisbond, Steve Peha, Kevin Welner, Andrew J. Rotherham, Renee Moore
House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., is preparing a package of education bills to reauthorize the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, responding to a plea from the Senate for House legislation that would allow a conference committee to proceed. Kline's committee is expected to vote on two bills in February, one addressing teacher qualifications and another to change the law's current accountability provisions (the ones that require all public-school kids to be at grade level in reading and math by 2014). Those measures, along with the three bills the committee approved last year, will make up the reauthorization package.
The House exercise will be a partisan one. Kline is introducing the reauthorization package without Democrats' support after staff-level bipartisan talks broke down in December. Kline said he decided to move forward because the negotiations were stuck. Committee ranking member George Miller, D-Calif., said the move effectively kills the effort to update the landmark standards-setting law. "Bipartisanship is the only successful way forward," Miller said. Kline later told reporters that Miller is welcome to "influence" the measure at any time, but Miller's staffers say they haven't heard from their Republican counterparts since they walked out of the talks.
The House situation differs from that of the Senate, but only slightly. The Senate's education bill is technically "bipartisan" because it has the tepid support of a few Republicans, but they have made it clear they will bolt if the measure doesn't change before it goes to the floor.
The disagreements between Republicans and Democrats in the House have been evident all along, even when the committee staffers were in active negotiations. The only bill on last year's slate that didn't pass the committee on straight party lines involved charter schools. The other two committee bills would streamline education funding and give states more flexibility with federal dollars.
Is Kline right that something is better than nothing? Or is Miller right that any action on an education reauthorization must be bipartisan? Could the forthcoming discussion be useful, even if disagreements make it impossible to complete the legislation this year? Does a partisan approach damage the broader debate. If so, how?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
The Education Department awarded $500 million in grants to nine states last week, carrying out a promise it made in May to concentrate its limited resources on early learning. The awards are the latest to be doled out under the administration's flagship Race to the Top competitive grant program. The agency had only $700 million to work with this year, much of which it is devoting to reading and math in the early grades.
The White House considers Race to the Top to be one of its most successful domestic policy achievements because virtually all states have devoted time and money toward education reforms, even if they haven't won any of the competitions. That trend has continued. Most recently, the administration said 35 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico "have created plans to increase access to high-quality programs for children from low-income families, providing more children from birth to age 5 with a strong foundation they need for success."
Still, the grant program is being suffocated because it is unpopular among some lawmakers. (Most critics, but not all, are Republicans). The department had $4.35 billion to give away just last year. This year, the payout was reduced to $700 million. Republicans want to cut that amount by more than 20 percent.
What is the future for Race to the Top? Could this be the end? With limited funding, what happens to the concept of competitive grants? Are competitions like Race to the Top an appropriate way to drive public policy? Does the Education Department's grant program work better when it has more money and is financing larger projects? Or is it a better use of funds and leverage when the grants are tailored to more specific goals?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
4 responses: David G. Sciarra, Laura Bornfreund, Lisa Guisbond, Chester E. Finn, Jr.
President Obama isn't too pleased that the cost of college has escalated at four times the rate of inflation over the last 20 years, but there is little he can do to actually lower tuitions. Obama's White House meeting with university presidents last week showed that he will need to rely on peer pressure aimed at his higher-education buddies to push for cheaper college options.
If Obama is the good cop, where is the bad cop? It seems like there should be a scary guy standing in partial shadow behind the president whispering, "Hey, Bates College or Penn State, stop charging so much or life could get difficult."
Education Secretary Arne Duncan may be that guy. He signed off on the agency's college affordability web site that ranks colleges based on price. The goal is to make it easy to spot the bargains and the rip-offs. That's how we know that Penn State is ranked highest for tuition among public, four-year universities. Bates is ranked highest among private, four-year colleges. (The rankings are slightly skewed in the private college arena because several colleges at the top of the list, like Bates, include room and board in their tuitions.)
Duncan sounded just a little bit like a heavy last week in a speech to Florida high school students. "Colleges themselves have to be thoughtful. They have to be part of the solution. They just can't have tuition skyrocketing faster than the rate of inflation," he said. He also urged parents to think carefully about where they send their kids to school, particularly if a school's tuition is rising and its graduation rates are falling. "You have 6,000 choices," he said.
OK, so that's not very intimidating. But it's about as close as a cabinet secretary can get.
What can the federal government do to bring down the costs of college? What can states do? How can colleges be more "thoughtful" about tuition, as Duncan requests? How much responsibility should higher education institutions take for rising college costs? Is the weak economy to blame for some of the increase?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
4 responses: Paul Combe, Michael L. Lomax, Bob Schaffer, Jamie P. Merisotis
The Education Department last week weighed in on the sometimes thorny issue of equitable funding among public schools, unveiling original research showing that disadvantaged schools (those eligible for Title I funding) receive less money from local governments than more well-off schools. The law requires districts to provide equitable state and local resources to both their low-income and their higher-income schools, but there are a number of ways that districts can tweak the numbers. For example, they can ignore years of experience in teacher compensation, thus zeroing out differences between schools in the overall experience levels of their teachers.
The Education Department's findings are no surprise to civil rights groups that have been squawking for years about disadvantaged schools being shortchanged. But the administration's painstaking study of $13,000 school districts adds gravity to the argument that the comparability loopholes cause inequities.
Some local school administrators chafe at the current comparability provisions in No Child Left Behind, saying the requirements hamper their ability to freely move money to the schools that need it the most. Other policymakers say the whole point of federal funding for education is to ensure that kids at all schools, rich or poor, have experienced teachers and good curricula. That's why the comparability requirements are there.
What is an appropriate way to regulate equitable funding for schools? Is this an area that requires federal involvement? Should school districts be allowed some leeway (like the current 10 percent variation) in resource levels for different schools? Or should the funding be absolutely equal? What should be included or excluded in comparisons between school resource levels?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
12 responses: David G. Sciarra, Cynthia G. (Cindy) Brown, Cynthia G. (Cindy) Brown, Sharon P. Robinson, Sen. Michael Bennet, Karen Miles, Laura Bornfreund, Kevin Welner, Chester E. Finn, Jr., David G. Sciarra, Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., Renee Moore
I had the pleasure of sitting down recently with former education secretary Margaret Spellings and separately with Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.--two of the pillars of No Child Left Behind. I asked each of them how the Common Core State Standards changed the landscape for K-12 education policies. They were both blunt, saying the state-led effort to create college-aimed standards should not supplant the more basic academic requirements of No Child Left Behind. "The idea that we're going to be able to run a marathon without being able to run mile, I don't get that," Spellings said.
"Why don't we all take the MCATs, and those who succeed will be doctors and the rest of us just hang out," Miller suggested. Granted, both Spellings and Miller are a touch defensive about the accountability system they created, which they are now trying to salvage as lawmakers grapple with reauthorizing the law.
Not everyone agrees with them. The Common Core initiative is seen by other policymakers as the key to the next movement in education. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the education committee in the Senate, says the Common Core State Standards make it possible to move beyond NCLB toward a more innovative, state-based education system. It was NCLB that made the Common Core effort possible, Council of Chief State School Officers Executive Director Gene Wilhoit told me. Now that most states are on board, he said, NCLB has "run its course." It's time to reinstate the state laboratory of ideas.
What do the Common Core State Standards add to the conversation about academic achievement? Are they an appropriate substitute for the benchmarks created under NCLB? Does a move toward Common Core mean that the federal involvement in public schools will be diminished? How can states ensure that kids are at basic grade level in reading and math, as NCLB demands, using Common Core?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
7 responses: Thomas Toch, Laura Bornfreund, Neal McCluskey, David G. Sciarra, Cynthia G. (Cindy) Brown, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Sandy Kress
The typical college student is not the frat boy at Ohio State or the philosophy major at Bard College. According to new research from Complete College America, the typical college student is attending school part time and probably has a family and at least one job. Seventy-five percent of students are college commuters. If they are attending college part time, they are far less likely to graduate, rendering useless much of the effort that got them to school in the first place.
Students in two-year degree programs are in greater danger of wasting their money than those at four-year institutions; only about 19 percent of full-time students, and less than 8 percent of part-timers, graduate from two-year programs in four years. About half of the students seeking an associates' degree require remedial training that they should have gotten in high school. Students requiring remediation are about half as likely to graduate as their peers. (A similar pattern appears for students in four-year programs, but since only about one in five need remedial training, the graduation gap is less severe.)
Part-timers, two-year degree pursuers, community college attendees, and older students are often viewed as "nontraditional." Yet they are the wave of the future. College enrollment is at an all-time high, but the investment in higher education is not paying off. Graduation rates at or below 40 percent meant that skilled job openings go unfilled while college dropouts find themselves underemployed.
Why is it so difficult for the part-time or commuting college student to obtain a degree? How can educators and policymakers ease these students' path through college without sacrificing academic standards? What is the responsibility of high schools? Should two-year colleges and certificate programs devote a larger share of resources than four-year institutions toward ensuring graduation? If this is the "new normal" for college students, should we embrace it?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
7 responses: Cynthia G. (Cindy) Brown, Steve Peha, Peter Cohen, Sharon P. Robinson, Lisa Guisbond, Joanne Jacobs, Renee Moore
It was hard to find the silver lining in the tepid results from the Nation's Report Card issued last week by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Math proficiency for fourth graders and eighth graders ticked up one percentage point to 40 percent and 35 percent, respectively. That's the highest level yet, but it would be a failing grade in any school. Reading proficiency was flat for fourth graders at 34 percent, although it moved up about two points for eighth graders to 34 percent. Not so awesome.
There is good news to be teased out of the report, however. Proficiency rates in math have more than doubled since 1990, which is no small feat. In both reading and math, fourth and eighth graders are on a two-decade upward trajectory. What's more, as former George W. Bush senior education adviser Sandy Kress points out, test scores among minorities have improved dramatically over the last twenty years. For example, math scores among black fourth graders are up 32 points, or almost three grade levels, since 1992.
Yet the overall numbers are dispiriting. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said the results were "reason for concern as well as optimism." Reaction elsewhere seemed to dwell more on the concern than the optimism. "In both subjects, achievement gaps remain and are cause for real concern," said House Education and the Workforce Committee ranking member George Miller, D-Calif. The best take on the NAEP results came from the teachers, whose schools bear the brunt of massive budget cuts in many states. "The progress that has been made is a credit to the grit and hard work of millions of educators," said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. "But it's not enough, especially at a time when families are being devastated by the economy and childhood poverty has soared to tragic levels."
What can we learn from the nation's report card, and how can it affect education policy? Where are the limitations in the NAEP data, if any? What is the most important finding from the report? What is the least important finding? What public policies have impacted the steady climb in math proficiency? Can those policies be replicated for reading?
-- Fawn Johnson, NationalJournal.com
7 responses: Monty Neill, Jeanne Allen, Patrick Riccards, Lisa Guisbond, Chester E. Finn, Jr., Lisa Graham Keegan, Sandy Kress
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