Higher Ed Cop Out #3

Today's topic: Score Choice

The College Board's decision to give SAT test takers the power to choose which test score they want to send colleges after they've taken the test multiple times was reportedly based on the desires of students. No surprise there--the College Board is always looking for happy customers, especially after their latest set of embarrassments in recent years. According to the New York Times, "the College Board surveyed more than 3,000 high school students from a range of income groups and ethnicities...It also surveyed 700 counselors from a diverse group of high schools across the country, and 70 percent favored Score Choice..."

This is a policy designed to make a certain set of consumers happier. It might surprise some to know that 50% of all SAT test takers repeat the exam, with 10% taking it 3 or more times (source). There is an empirically proven tendency for students to get higher scores when they retake the test.

But Score Choice will help to secure additional advantages for the already-advantaged kids. An analysis by Jacob Vigdor and Charlie Clotfelter reveals that several groups are more likely than others to retake the test: "those with low initial scores, women, Asian Americans, those who rate themselves as average or below in ability, and those who live in less affluent, rural, or predominantly black neighborhoods." As the authors state, "On their face, these simple correlations seem to dispel any notion that retaking is the exclusive or even preponderant domain of the affluent or urbanized." Good news, right?

Well, not so much. Vigdor and Clotfelter's multivariate models show that "the effect of holding constant previous scores and other variables is to reveal that retaking is indeed associated with greater affluence and parental education, among other things... Those whose parents made more than $60,000 had a 1.5 percentage point higher probability of retaking the test than those whose family incomes were below $40,000. Conditional on taking twice, applicants from these higher-income families were between 3.3 and 7 percentage points more likely to take the test a third time."

We shouldn't be surprised. Not only does the test come with direct costs (which, yes, can be waived if one knows that is available), but also incurs the opportunity costs of time spent sitting through the exam instead of doing other activities (such as working, or helping the family). Taking the test more than once requires knowing that such an option exists, and taking advantage of Score Choice requires similar kinds of knowledge. And college preparation (courses, and more informal activities) are unevenly distributed.

I don't doubt there was student demand, but while the description of the College Board's methodology implies that low-income kids wanted Score Choice as well, it is misleading. We do not know the percent of survey respondents who were low-income, nor do we know whether the stated preferences of poor kids differed from those of more advantaged kids. Furthermore, since when do high school students dictate what kinds of information about them get sent to colleges?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favor of the SAT- I don't think it predicts college success particularly well, and it acts as a gatekeeper. But I think if you take the tests, your schools should be shown to your college if the college wants them-- all of them.

Murray's Prescription for the Obama Generation

It's a weird feeling when a lefty academic finds herself even partly agreeing with the likes of Charles Murray. But to my great surprise, he got it about 10% right in Sunday's op-ed in the New York Times. What should Obama do for his generation? Murray argues, undermine the "college for all" ethic.

Because it makes me happier, let me start with where he's totally off-base-- his major argument, that some people are simply unqualified to attend college and we're doing them a disservice by encouraging them to enroll. Of course this reeks of Murray's prior work, and also of opponents to affirmative action, who contend that we'll hurt black kids by admitting them to schools where they're in 'over their heads.' Plenty of empirical evidence, including a very nice study by Sigal Alon and Marta Tienda, disproved that notion.

I wish Murray would ask himself the question: what goes into making someone "drawn towards academics?" I guess he'd say innate intelligence, when of course I'd argue that preferences of all kinds are shaped by opportunities and experiences that are unevenly distributed. Kids who've enjoyed positive experiences in high school are far more likely to be eager to attend college than those who've not been well taught, well treated, or even respected by their schools. Are we surprised that young black men rarely ever find their way to the college classroom? Is it because they're not innately intelligent enough? Oh please.

But where Murray's got a least some of my support is when it comes to the need to bust up the perpetual myth that a bachelor's degree from an elite university alters the course of one's life, ensuring success. With the intense stratification of opportunity for higher education, it's near impossible to compare the outcomes of elite college-goers with the appropriate counterfactual-- otherwise comparable kids who attend college elsewhere. Sure, plenty of studies have tried to do this in quasi-experimental ways, but unobservables abound. Those differences, not accounted for yet likely meaningful, could well explain any notable differences in outcomes associated with attending an elite school. Only through a true experiment, where we can randomly assign some kids to attend an elite school and others to go elsewhere (I can actually envision this happening if only colleges had the cojones to join such a study and prepare for the results...). Let's be honest--what attending an elite school gets you is an elite group of friends, pure and simple. Any resulting wage premium is likely due to that, not a "better" education.

Murray, of course, isn't on exactly that page-- he wants to change labor market responses to the BA-- or so he says. My sense is that underlying his call for a move to certification tests is a strong desire to maintain inequality, and keep certain folks out of the middle class. Give them options that "interest" them, work they're "better suited for"-- if only it didn't sound so utterly self-serving...

Higher Ed Cop Out #2

As promised-- an ongoing series!

Cop-Out #2: Conditional financial aid

There's been plenty written about the unfortunate shift to merit aid, a shift that disproportionately benefits the middle-class. But I've got my eye on another, related yet distinct trend-- "conditional" aid. Last week's New York Times magazine included an article on conditional cash transfer programs that provides nice background here. But in a nutshell, this is aid allocated based on performance-- maintaining full-time enrollment, a certain GPA, etc. The best example, to date, is the program MDRC is running with a lot of support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-- after demonstrating (very, very small) effects at two New Orleans community colleges, MDRC has ramped up their demonstration in multiple states.

Here's the theory of action: Low-income kids need aid, but also need some accountability requirements in order to do well in college. This is akin to the new paternalism guiding the 1990s welfare reform-- it equates purely need-based aid with a "nanny state" and aid conditional on performance with a "daddy state." If successful, simply because it works it threatens to take over, replacing need-based aid entirely.

So what's the problem-- isn't a successful program a successful program?

I'd argue NO. The move to conditional aid is premature, because we do not yet know whether strictly need-based aid-- given on need, not performance-- is effective at increasing attainment. Moreover, we do not know if current levels of performance are reflective of the underfunding of need-based aid-- the Pell has never been funded at the intended levels, and analysts have been far too quick to jump to the conclusion that it is therefore ineffective.

I'm not surprised at MDRC's involvement in this one-- after all, they're also testing NYC's conditional cash transfer program, and their evaluations were strong impetus for the welfare reforms. But I have the privilege, as an academic, of considering both theory and evidence-- and I'd say the theory thus far -- that simply providing the aid necessary to pay for college-- has not been disproven. Why, then, take a paternalistic approach to requiring things of our low-income college kids that we do not require of the middle-class kids?

Full disclosure: I'm currently co-directing a random assignment evaluation of a need-based aid program. But trust me, this is not simply because the opportunity presented itself, but because this is a strategy I think needs to be tested BEFORE we move to conditional aid "reforms." From an empirical standpoint, not doing so doesn't constitute putting the cart before the horse, but I think from a political and ethical standpoint it unnecessarily opens up a can of worms that need not be opened just yet.

At this point, conditional aid appears to be a cop-out-- a way, perhaps, to gain more middle class support for aid. But might we be just as persuaded by hard-core, gold-standard evidence of large effects of need-based aid? I say, let's start there.

Addendum:

My original post wasn't that well done, I admit. So let me clarify: I call conditional financial aid a cop out not because the current strategy (need-based aid) hasn't yet been shown to be cost effective but because it follows on, and is part of, a potentially dangerous trend whose origins seem to be well-intentioned. This is a trend towards removing social supports and replacing them with the similar (or lesser) supports combined with accountability. Yes, it's true (as Lashawn points out in the comments) that MDRC's program awards new aid attached to performance requirements on top of existing need-based aid (to the extent that existing aid isn't reduced because of aid rules). My fear is that as we've seen in the past, programs like these are too easily misinterpreted--even before results appear. Opening this can of worms makes it so much more likely that the results of a positive evaluation will lead schools, states, and feds to simply attach conditions to the existing aid students get, rather than ADD new aid with conditions. That means aid becomes performance-based funding, not performance based incentive funding, and I'm opposed to that as a mechanism for enhancing the performance of disadvantaged students and schools.

Some other forms of conditional cash transfer provide money that one would otherwise not receive--without taking away existing resources. For example, Oportunidades pays poor moms a stipend if they take their kids to the doctor. I've got no problem with that. Similarly if welfare reform had involved giving the poor more financial support with conditions, instead of adding additional requirements to their existing aid, I would've been for it.

So in sum-- my concern is with the signals sent by these conditional aid programs, and evaluations of them-- which I think, in 5-10 years we'll see resulting in opening a gateway for policymakers to believe they have hard evidence to treat low-income college students as they do welfare recipients, requiring performance in exchange for aid. I do not find fault with MDRC's well-designed evaluation or their goal of building on their past findings (and their own theories of action), nor do I fault the Gates Foundation for funding what appears to many to be a promising program. I highlighted this program to draw attention now to the broader implications of these conditional aid programs, to note how similar programs have been used and misused in the past, and therefore issue a warning that researchers and funders alike need to pay close attention to the assumptions supported by their work.

I realize my original posting wasn't quite this nuanced or that well-articulated, and for that I apologize-- I hope that clarifies my point.

Higher Ed Cop Out #1

The first in what I intend to be an ongoing series, these briefs will document practices that colleges and universities employ to supposedly accomplish an honorable goal, but are in fact practices that promote inequality and do long-term damage to higher education....

Cop Out #1: Need-Sensitive Admissions Practices

Definition: The practice of taking a student's financial need into account when determining whether to admit her. Said to only be used for "marginal cases" and with attention paid "with one eye open" this is generally used with the excuse that resources are tight and it's better to fully fund all admitted students than to partially fund a larger number.

Examples: In the past, elite universities such as Brown, Bryn Mawr, Johns Hopkins, Carleton, Oberlin and Vassar among others have admitted to this. Most recently, Beloit College in Wisconsin joined in.

The downsides: (1) This is a policy driven by an untested assumption-- that students with 100% of their need met are more successful than those with a lower percentage of need originally met. No solid research exists to back this. (2) Given the correlation between high school academic performance , test scores, and financial need, this will inevitably result in the decision to not admit greater numbers of low-income students. (3) A reduction in economic diversity of the campus could have lasting consequences-- in future prospective pools of students (low-income students, even the most talented, may well count themselves out when made aware), in the eyes of the public, in the eyes of U.S. Department of Ed and others concerned with student composition as an accountability measure. (4) Finally, there is no guarantee of real lasting cost-savings, or the relative effectiveness of this policy compared to other options.

In sum, a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem. Don't get me wrong-- I am completely sympathetic to tuition-dependent colleges who without state support are highly sensitive to fluctuations in enrollment. I really doubt Beloit's decision was independent of their recent loss of 10% of their staff after a drop in their enrollment yield of only 36 students! (Public universities considering forgoing state support in favor of private dollars ought to keep this in mind.) But the solution does not lie in this form of enrollment management which threatens to undermine a principle goal of higher education, a route to social mobility. In this day and age, a move to need-sensitive admissions would likely only exacerbate gaps in college attainment and perpetuate growth in income inequality--leaving a greater swath with even more need.

Musical Elective of the Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is a special top 10 list -- a winter edition in honor of the constant snowfall here in Madison, Wisconsin which has already broken the all-time December record and which seems destined to break last year's all-time snow record of over 100 inches. Enjoy. Stay warm.

10. "Chasing Cars" - Snow Patrol
9. "Hazy Shade Of Winter" - The Bangles
8. "Whisper To A Scream (Birds Fly)" - The Icicle Works
7. "Hounds of Winter" - Sting
6. "Winter Light" - Tim Finn
5. "The Twelve Pains of Christmas" - Bob Rivers
4. "Winter" - Joshua Radin
3. "Weather With You" - Crowded House
2. "A Long December" - Counting Crows
1. "New Year's Day" - U2

No Room At The Inn

The New York Times Caucus blog reports ('Sorry, We're Booked, White House Tells Obamas') the Bush White House has refused a request by President-elect Obama for his family to move into Blair House -- across the street from the White House -- so his daughters can begin school at the start of January.

The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”

It remained unclear who on Bushes guest list outranked the incoming President.

“It’s not a public schedule,” said Sally McDonough, spokeswoman for First Lady Laura Bush, in refusing to disclose who was staying at Blair House. “It’s not a question of outranking the Obamas. Blair House will be available to them on January 15.”

Ms. McDonough said “there’s nothing more to say other than that it’s not available and won’t be available until January 15.” She added that “you’re trying to make a story out of something that’s not a story.”

A State Department official said he didn’t know of any foreign dignitaries staying at Blair House in early January.

A White House official said that Mr. Bush does not have family or friends from Texas staying at Blair House during the period which the Obamas requested. But Blair House, the official said, has been booked for “receptions and gatherings” by members of the outgoing Bush administration.

So who does rank higher than the incoming President's family? The Bushies won't say, except that they need the space for a bunch of parties? I didn't realize there was much to celebrate, except Change.

Yeah it's Arne Duncan!

Here are a few good reasons to be psyched:

(1) Chicago Public Schools has a Department of Postsecondary Education. Yes, seriously. It was created in 2003 and Arne appointed a very smart man -- Greg Darnieder -- to lead it, and it's enjoyed plenty of success.

(2) He listens to researchers and benefits from their work. Witness his relationship with the Consortium for Chicago School Research.

(3) He recognizes talent. See above, the hire of Greg Darnieder, among others.

(4) CPS's High School Transformation and establishment of Avid programs.

An Ed leader who is focused on helping more schools create meaningful pathways to college for more kids ... imagine that.

Duncan It Is

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that President-Elect Barack Obama will announce Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan as his Education Secretary tomorrow.

UW-Madison: Researchers launch landmark study of financial aid

Sara has been busy. Don't believe me?

Check out this press release that went out earlier this week from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And check out the study's web site.

A team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers is conducting a groundbreaking study of the long-term effects of financial aid on college students. Christopher Jencks, professor of social policy at Harvard University, calls the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study (WSLS) a "landmark study of financial aid."

Participants include nearly 6,000 Wisconsin residents receiving a federal Pell grant while enrolled at each of the 42 public colleges statewide. Many are also grantees of the Fund for Wisconsin Scholars (FFWS), a foundation established by UW-Madison alumni John and Tashia Morgridge. FFWS uses random assignment to select recipients.

"It's often very difficult to isolate effects of aid, since low-income students are at the greatest risk of not finishing college, and they get the most aid. By studying a program that chooses its recipients at random, we have the chance to learn exactly how and why financial aid matters," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, assistant professor of educational policy studies and sociology. "In these economic times, producing this kind of information is more essential than ever."

The researchers expect to have preliminary results within the next year on how and why aid affects college coursework and persistence. But they have designed the WSLS to go even further, tracking participants for a decade or more. As a result, they will be able to examine effects on college completion, employment, earnings, and later outcomes. They are also conducting interviews with students to learn more about how money is affecting their college experiences.

"This study is very important because it will inform both potential private donors and government agencies about the role of financial assistance in college and how aid policies can be improved to expand degree completion," says FFWS Executive Director Mary Gulbrandsen.

Goldrick-Rab is co-directing the study with Douglas N. Harris, an economist and assistant professor of educational policy studies. In addition, Christopher Taber, professor of economics, and Aaron Brower, vice provost for teaching and learning and professor of social work, are co-investigators.

The WSLS is a collaborative effort among the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and the Wisconsin Higher Educational Aids Board. The study is also supported by UW-Madison's Wisconsin Center for Educational Research, Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, and Institute for Research on Poverty.

Nearly $800,000 in financial support has been provided by three foundations, including the Spencer Foundation and the William T. Grant Foundation.

Musical Elective of the Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is ... not a musician or band as usual. It is a primer of cool sources of music on the web.

We're spotlighting musical sources in three categories: (1) traditional radio stations, (2) web-based radio, and (3) and music-focused web sites. As regular readers know, our musical taste tends toward bands and singer/songwriters in a rock/folk/altcountry vein and music heard on some of the nation's finest Triple A radio stations.

Traditional Radio

We all have our favorite local radio stations. And some of us, fortunately, live in cities and towns where there is a station we can call home. Currently, I'll take Madison, Wisconsin's WMMM-FM over anything the Washington, DC area used to offer when I lived there. However, "Triple M" is not one of my favorites as it's far too repetitive, programmed and narrow.

Check these out instead:
KCRW (Santa Monica, California) - Especially its Morning Becomes Eclectic program hosted by Nic Harcourt
KFOG (San Francisco, California) - Check out the Acoustic Sunrise and Acoustic Sunset programs
KGSR (Austin, Texas)
WNCS/'The Point' (Montpelier, Vermont) - Small-Market Triple A Station of The Year 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
WXPN (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) - Featuring World Cafe with David Dye
WXRT (Chicago, Illinois)
WXRV/'The River' (Boston, Massachusetts)
WYEP (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) - Check out Music Lab
CKPK (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Web-Based Radio

My favorite online radio source, by far, is Pandora Radio, which allows you to create a customized station (like mine) as well as play from existing ones. Also worth checking out is Radio Paradise.

Cutting-Edge Music

My bud, Kate Bradley, a Triple-A radio programming veteran (who I used to listen to on The Point in Vermont on those long Burlington-Montpelier round-trips), recently launched Outlandos Music. Taking its name from a storied Police album, Outlandos Music is a new-music discovery service and aggregator for grown-ups. As Kate has impeccable musical taste, her site is well worth your time. For example, she's currently big on New York City-based Indie rockers The Damnwells and Aussie singer/songwriter Shane Nicholson (who is married to Kasey Chambers).

Also, check out the Association of Music Podcasting.


So, readers, what's out there that we're missing, from the coolest overlooked musical web site to the smallest or most obscure small-town radio station that readers should check out? We certainly don't have a monopoly on good ideas or good taste. So, share 'em...

Have a great weekend!

Louisiana: Accountability for Teacher Preparation

An unexpected but welcomed editorial ('What Louisiana Can Teach') appears in this morning's New York Times. It focuses on Louisiana's reform of and accountability for its teacher preparation programs.

For students to learn, they need well-trained teachers. Unfortunately, far too many teacher-preparation programs in this country are little more than diploma mills. As states and the federal government consider ways to fix this problem, they should look to Louisiana’s accountability-based reform efforts.

Louisiana already has required public- and private-teacher-education programs to offer more rigorous course work, and teachers must pass licensing exams in more subject areas than before.

The most striking innovation is an evaluation system that judges teacher-preparation programs based on how much their graduates improve student performances in important areas, including reading, math and science.

For those of you who want more information on this initiative, check out the Louisiana Board of Regents web site (including the latest statewide and institutional reports), this summary from the Center for Teaching Quality, and this Southern Regional Education Board policy brief.

Reaction:
Quick and the Ed
Eduwonk
Daily Howler

Ed Secretary Watch

Does Fordham's Flypaper blog have it right: Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Arne Duncan is the leading candidate to be Obama's Education Secretary? I'd hate to see a wish of David Brooks fulfilled -- not because I have anything against Duncan -- it's more about Brooks. According to some Chicago sources, Duncan may well be in the driver's seat at this point. We'll see if they are right -- and if I'm talking to people "in the know."

Personally, I don't have a strong preference between some of the oft-named candidates. At many levels, I don't think it lives up to all the hype. However, I think an important criteria that hasn't been written about in most of the new stories and blog posts is that the next Education Secretary must have strong communications skills. Because, let's face it, while he or she will be involved in policy decisions, one of the most important roles they will play is to communicate the President's vision and make the case for those education reforms to policymakers. Not all are equal at that task. Just look at the recent Rod Paige experience.

Using that "communications" criteria, I don't know Duncan intimately enough to say whether he floats to the top. One could make the case that many current and former governors might be somewhat more adept with the bully pulpit.

What do you all think? Chicagoans, if you can pull yourself away from the Blagojevich circus, what is your perspective?

-------------------------------

DECEMBER 13th Update: Ed Week's David Hoff reports that both Duncan and Denver Superintendent Michael Bennet have undergone FBI background checks.

College Support Programs in Beantown

Today's Boston Globe ran a terrific story ('College Counselors Fill Role Of Parent') by James Vaznis about Boston-based nonprofits that support area students in applying to, enrolling in, and graduating from college. Most of these students are low-income and first-generation college go-ers, a population much less likely to attend and achieve a degree. One of these nonprofits is the 11-year-old Bottom Line, located in Jamacia Plain ("JP").

As part of a bold effort to boost dismal college graduation rates for Boston public school alumni, city leaders and philanthropists are banking on a heavy expansion of Bottom Line and other nonprofits to get more college degrees into the hands of city residents.

Many of the nonprofits cater to low-income students who often are the first members of their family to attend college. While a few programs are devoted to the city's elite college preparatory exam schools, Bottom Line and others also serve a large number of students from the city's less prestigious high schools, where many graduates enter college ill-prepared.

In a way, the counselors in these groups equip Boston students with a powerful force taken for granted by many of their affluent peers: They fill the role of parents who closely monitor their children's progress in college and have the knowhow or the connections to cut through bureaucratic red tape when problems arise.

Here's a shout-out to my pal Elizabeth Pauley (quoted in the Globe story) at the Boston Foundation, one of the groups funding this and related work to boost the city's high school graduation rates. Nice work. Go Celtics!

Blagojevich, Day Two

Alyson Klein of Education Week's Campaign K-12 blog offers up a post reporting that the Illinois Education Association -- the state's NEA affiliate -- is calling for Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's resignation, following his arrest on corruption charges yesterday ('Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges'). Join the club.

Alyson's blog post underscores the education-related point I made in my post yesterday: that Blagojevich was decent with respect to providing funding for education, but not tackling vexing reform issues.

If Blagojevich is ousted from his post because of the allegations, it doesn't sound like education organizations in the state will miss him much.

"According to our members it would not be a huge blow," said Ben Schwarm, an associate executive director for the Illinois Association of School Boards. He said some districts had been angry with Blagojevich for his refusal to support a dedicated funding mechanism for education, although he did acknowledge that schools had gotten spending increases during the governor's tenure.

Ken Swanson, the president of the IEA, agreed that Blagojevich had been "a roadblock" to educators' push to get a designated revenue source for schools. The union endorsed neither the governor nor his opponent during Blagojevich's 2006 re-election bid.

Here's the IEA statement.

Oh, by the way, happy birthday, Rod!

Obama Ed Pick

In this week's column, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter touts the candidacy of Denver Public Schools Superintendent Michael Bennet for Obama's Education Secretary.

Obama also knows that if he chooses a union-backed candidate such as Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor active in the transition, he'll have a revolt on his hands from the swelling ranks of reformers. That's why it's more likely he'll settle on a superintendent like Arne Duncan of Chicago, Michael Bennet of Denver or Paul Vallas of New Orleans, any of whom would suit Gates and other reform-minded philanthropists just fine. (I have my money on Bennet, whose new compensation system is popular with Denver teachers, if not the union.)

There is some suggestion that an Education Secretary announcement could come later this week or sometime next.

Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges

Let the jokes about politics in Illinois begin...

Here is a lesson about how NOT to go about filling a political vacancy if you are a Governor. (Chicago Tribune: 'Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Arrested on Corruption Charges')

Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents for what U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald called a "staggering" level of corruption involving pay to play politics in Illinois' top office.

Blagojevich is accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, including alleged attempts by the governor to try to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. Blagojevich also is accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.

Innocent until proven guilty, of course. Either way, it would be pretty difficult to recover from his 13% approval rating. But, at least, he gets to keep his name on those Illinois Tollway signs, at least for a little while longer.

While in office, Blagojevich has been a decent education governor, providing needed resources to schools, but not tackling any of the truly vexing issues, such as school finance reform. That's all irrelevant in comparison to today's breaking news.

Obama's Choices for Education Secretary

There is an interesting story today ('Obama education pick sparks conflict') by national AP writer Libby Quaid about President-elect Obama's looming pick of a U.S. Secretary of Education. It summarizes the behind-the-scenes struggle between the reform crowd and the traditionalist crowd within Democratic circles. The reformers would like to see Obama nominate the likes of Joel Klein or Arne Duncan, while the traditionalists would prefer Linda Darling-Hammond, Inez Tenenbaum or any number of current or former governors.

Here are my musings from a month ago ('What's Next?').

When Only the Best Will Do....

I suppose my mom knew something about education after all (not that you'd have known it from how GWU treated her as a lecturer way back when)....

Apparently, I graduated from "the very best high school" in the whole darn country.

100% of the kids are said to be "college ready"? Well then how come lil ol' me, with my 1400+ SAT, and 4 AP classes, was counseled to attend Northern VA Community College, as I was pretty much Josie-average at that school? I was told that was the best fit for me. They were a little confused when I got into William & Mary....

That place was hard. Hard hard hard. Harder than grad school at U. Penn, and wayyyy harder than GWU. Sure, I work longer hours now-- but I'm also paid. In high school I woke at 6 am, stayed up past 1 or 2 doing homework, and studied constantly. Very little partying, play, and such.

I don't know-- it was a special place, for sure. It probably helped me 'get where I am today' (for more on where that is, see tomorrow's press release from UW-Madison). But wouldn't I have done the same with or without TJ? I wish someone would do a good study and get me the answer to that one....

The Electric Company

Alexander Russo reports that the power is back on, so to speak. PBS is bringing "The Electric Company" back to television in January. Of course, The Education Optimists passed along this news back in May ['A Live Wire: The Electric Company Returns'].

I can't wait to be able to show my two-year-old.

New Teacher Center Annual Symposium

If you're an educational practitioner, policymaker or researcher interested in supporting new educators, have I got the perfect conference for you! It's the 11th New Teacher Center Symposium on New Teacher Induction. It takes place in San Jose, California from February 2-3, 2009, with pre-conference sessions on (Super Bowl) Sunday, February 1.

The conference includes three themes central to induction: (1) Quality Mentoring, (2) Leadership and Professional Identity, and (3) Equity and Social Justice. Numerous conference presentations will be offered by NTC staff as well as representatives of state government, foreign governments, universities, school districts, teacher unions, and policy/research organizations.

The keynote speaker is Andy Hargreaves, the Thomas More Brennan Chair in Education at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College (my alma mater). Other guest speakers include NTC executive director Ellen Moir, Monica Martinez of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, and Joe McDonald, professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University and director of the NYC Partnership for Teacher Excellence. Even yours truly will be involved in three sessions, focused on state induction policy, advocating for investments in high-quality new teacher support, and a focus group for policymakers in attendance.

For more information or to register, please visit here.

Federal Funding for Teacher Quality Innovation?

This is a follow-up to my post of two weeks ago about the use of Title II, Part A funding under NCLB. In these tight economic times, it is inevitable that the focus will move from spending more money on education to spending existing dollars more wisely. Currently, most school districts are not using these federal dollars in particularly innovative, let alone effective or impactful ways.

An article by Stephen Sawchuk ('Grants in NCLB to Aid Teaching Under Scrutiny') was published in this week's edition of Education Week. In part, it discusses the findings of a recent Education Sector report on this topic.

For those of you who aren't Ed Week subscribers and may not be able to access the story, here is a peek at the story:

The Teacher and Principal Training and Recruiting Fund—better known as Title II, Part A of NCLB—is the federal government’s second-largest K-12 investment, after the Title I grants for disadvantaged students. Ninety-five percent of the funds flow to school districts, and they come with few strings attached.

Although the fund has promoted some promising local practices, Title II, in general, “is not especially aligned with leading-edge [teacher-quality] efforts, and it’s the federal government’s big entry in this sweepstakes,” said Andrew J. Rotherham, the co-director of Education Sector, a Washington think tank, and the report’s author.

...

In his paper, Mr. Rotherham stakes out one conceptual approach that Mr. Obama and legislators could consider when they revise the program as part of the reauthorization of the NCLB law: to transform Title II into a fund for seeding innovations to the education human-capital continuum, and to disallow a handful of currently authorized activities, including class-size reduction.

...

Nationally representative U.S. Department of Education survey data show that districts in 2007-08 spent 6 percent of their Title II funds on professional-growth initiatives—such as mentoring programs or incentives for teachers to pursue certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards—and 4 percent on recruitment, including performance-based pay and teacher loan-forgiveness programs.

More than three-quarters of districts’ Title II allocations subsidize professional development and smaller class sizes. In his paper, Mr. Rotherham deems those activities “low leverage” because they typically lack quality-control mechanisms and reinforce traditional human-capital structures, rather than altering them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even if I had the power to pardon, I wouldn't pardon this Turkey. But I'll bet that plenty of turkeys will be pardoned between now and January 20, 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our friends, loyal readers, and even the folks who discover our blog by searching for things like "What does Palin read?" and "Jill Biden is hot."

Despite the turmoil our country is in at the moment, we can still be thankful for the hope and promise that the recent election instilled in many of us. And for one another. Please enjoy the company of your loved ones over the Thanksgiving holiday.

We'll talk to you again in December.

Musical Elective Of The Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is Amos Lee.

Amos Lee is a Philadelphia native and has built a larger and larger fan base with the release of each of his three albums. His latest offering is Last Days At The Lodge (released in June 2008) and -- based on his recent concert here in Madison -- he has never been stronger and more confident as a live artist. He just wrapped up a U.S. tour with a five-piece band. His new album includes the tracks "Listen," "What's Been Going On," and "Street Corner Preacher."

Lee's music is a blend of acoustic rock, rock, folk, soul, and jazz. Supply and Demand -- Lee's second full-length album -- was released in 2006, featuring the recognizable "Shout Out Loud" and the title track. But do not overlook "Careless," "Night Train," and "Southern Girl." It was preceded by the eponymous Amos Lee in 2005, which was chock full of melodic hooks on the likes of "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight," "Seen It All Before," "Arms of a Woman," and "Soul Suckers," as well as the playful "Bottom Of The Barrel."

Amos Lee really got his break based upon a self-produced 5-song EP that won him a recording contract from Blue Note Records and got the attention of Norah Jones, for whom he opened during her 2004 tour. He was named one of Rolling Stone magazine's "10 Artists to Watch" in 2005.

Unlike many of our featured Musical Electives, Amos Lee truly does have a connection to education. He was a public school teacher in Philadelphia for two years before turning to music as a profession. Here's one former teacher I'm happy to count as a turnover statistic.

There's a whole lot of trouble all around
Every night the same old sirens sound
There's a whole lot of trouble all around
Children soldiers in this battleground
--"Street Corner Preacher," Last Days At The Lodge (2008)

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Extra Credit--Past Musical Electives of the Week:

Susan Tedeschi
Tracy Grammer
Matt Nathanson
Hothouse Flowers
The Decemberists
Ron Sexsmith
Kasey Chambers
Lucinda Williams
Great Big Sea
Griffin House
Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer
Neil Finn
Ray LaMontagne
Stuart Stotts
Dan Wilson
Kathleen Edwards

Don't Know Much About History...

Our Fading Heritage, a new report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute finds that Americans -- including college graduates and elected officials -- don't know much about history or civic literacy, more specifically.

More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI’s basic 33-question test on civic literacy and more than 1,700 people failed, with the average score 49 percent, or an “F.” Elected officials scored even lower than the general public with an average score of 44 percent and only 0.8 percent (or 21) of all surveyed earned an “A.” Even more startling is the fact that over twice as many people know Paula Abdul was a judge on American Idol than know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Read the press release for more. And take the quiz yourself. Are you smarter than an elected official? Not to brag, but I got 31 out of 33 for a score of 94%. Beat that!

Teacher Quality and Title II

Education Week published an incredibly important story this week by Stephen Sawchuk ("Spending On Federal Teacher-Quality Funds Questioned") and Education Sector issued an incredibly important report (Title 2.0: Revamping The Federal Role in Education Human Capital) on Title II, Part A dollars in No Child Left Behind. The notion of better utilizing existing resources is especially critical in light of the economic downturn and budgetary challenges which will make new resources harder to come by.

As I wrote in two recent posts ($29 Billion Buys You A New Education System? and Will The New President Support New Educators?), it is abundantly clear that Title II, Part A's $3 billion are not flowing toward the most impactful initiatives in schools and districts. Most are going to class-size reduction and professional development (of questionable quality).

In a nutshell, Education Sector recommends shifting "the federal government’s role from enabler of existing activities largely irrespective of quality to a driver of reform through strategic investments in new initiatives, institutions, and policy schemes to recruit, train, support, and evaluate and compensate teachers."

Easy stuff, right?

Hate Starts Young

Where do kids learn such things (Students Chant 'Assassinate Obama' On School Bus)?

(A) School
(B) Home
(C) Right-wing talk radio

I can't choose between B or C, but I'll bet you it's not at school.

Musical Elective Of The Week

The Musical Elective of the Week is Susan Tedeschi.

One of many talented Boston-area natives and Berklee College of Music grads in the music business, Tedeschi has got an incredible set of pipes, especially for a woman of such small stature. She man-handles the blues, as exemplified by her live performances and also by the 1998 album Just Won't Burn, featuring the tracks "Rock Me Right" and "You Need To Be With Me." "The Feeling Music Brings" off of 2002's Wait For Me is another stellar track. She also nails a cover of Otis Redding's "Security" on her 2005 album, Hope and Desire.

Her latest album, Back To The River, was released on October 28. This Grammy-nominated artist is currently on a tour of the U.S. Sara and I are headed to see her in Madison on Saturday evening. I've only seen her once before -- at a free concert on the grounds of the Portland, Oregon Zoo back in 2007 -- with her husband's band, the Derek Trucks Band. Good stuff.

Check out her web site for more information.

Optimists Among Us

While the Wall Street Journal (channeling the Brookings Institution's Tom Loveless) is pessimistic about the prospects of education policy in an Obama Administration, other policymakers and pundits see the glass as half full.

Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former West Virginia governor, is "bullish" on education.

Arne Duncan, Chicago schools chief, and oft-mentioned candidate for a leadership role in an Obama administration, recently said the following (as reported by Alexander Russo):

So this may not be the ideal climate for a discussion on the future of public education. In fact, several recent newspaper articles have suggested that education will not be one of Barack Obama’s top priorities.

I think they are wrong.

As I said previously, education won't be the first horse out of the gate, but it'll be in the race. After all, Linda Darling-Hammond is no shrinking violet. She recently used unflinching language (as reported in David Hoff's Campaign K-12 blog) to express President-elect Obama's continued commitment to education issues. And she should know as she is heading up his Education Policy Working Group during the transition.

Wither Education?

An article ("Obama is Expected to Put Education Overhaul on Back Burner") in today's Wall Street Journal that reads more like an opinion piece than a new story suggests that President-elect Obama will not prioritize education in the face of other policy challenges.

I disagree with the likes of the Brookings Institution's Tom Loveless (my grad school professor) whose comments alone basically provide the article's headline. Loveless says that "he expects Mr. Obama to sidestep most major issues involving public schools and instead focus on small, symbolic initiatives in the mold of former President Bill Clinton's promotion of school uniforms as a way to instill discipline in classrooms." Obama has shown a deep personal commitment to issues involving schools and urban communities as a U.S. Senator and in his prior life. Despite the economic and foreign policy challenges he faces, I don't see Obama walking away from this commitment and interest to focus on marginal educational pronouncements. Deep engagement and substantive proposals may not be offered in his first 100 Days -- a concept that should be left to history books -- or even in his first year in office, but Obama WILL expend political capital on education reform during his presidency.

The wise Jack Jennings of the Center on Education Policy gets it right on this one. He suggests that Congress will likely take the lead -- especially on contentious issues related to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (AKA NCLB) -- and that President Obama will wait for them to hash out a consensus before acting. In talking to a key Hill staffer in Washington, DC yesterday, however, it is clear that congressional Democrats are looking for signals from an Obama Administration to inform their work. Some core principles from the President will help to influence congressional action and provide structure to an eventual compromise that must win passage in both houses of Congress and earn the president's signature.

So Many Bad Ideas, So Little Time

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is struggling to retain faculty by increasing salaries while simultaneously containing costs. Challenging, to be sure.

But this Capital Times article ("UW Regents weigh pay increases against maintaining costs") reports some unbelievably bad ideas for making it happen. Among them -- reduce the size of the faculty workforce, in order to keep the others' salaries competitive. UW-Madison's provost is quoted as saying, "We'll have fewer heads because we need the money to pay appropriately the faculty that we do have. We don't like that outcome, but if that's what we need to do to maintain quality, that's life, and that's what we have to do."

But a shrinking faculty substantially reduces quality of life for the faculty in ways that even a raise can hardly offset. Take my own department. When I got here in 2004 we had 12 full-time members. Four years later, we're down to 11 with another departing next month. We're searching for two positions, but in the meantime we're operating with 11. And, oh man, even with that "small" reduction, life is challenging. Fewer hands on deck means more service committee assignments, more advisees, fewer classes to offer our students (and therefore longer time-to-degree and more complaints), the need to put more money in the pot to pay for dept functions, more time spent on searches, etc etc. While I've often complained about my salary level, and more importantly lack of increases over the last 4 years (I've gotten in total approx a 4% increase over that entire time), it is much much harder to take because of that increased workload. Honestly, we should get hardship pay just for the reduction in size of the faculty -- not just an increase to keep us from being 15% underpaid compared to our peers!

Another bad idea: Add dependent tuition benefits. In a time when it's more important than ever to target scarce resources to the neediest, moving money to that form of merit-based aid is just silly. Children of faculty are not bad off, they will manage to attend college, and UW-Madison is already a decent deal for those kids who get in-state tuition.

Instead--let's try another approach to increasing faculty retention: REWARD their efforts. Specifically, start by cutting grant getters in on the indirects. No, UW-Madison hardly needs to create an incentive for faculty to seek external funding, but it does need to create an incentive for those with grants to stick around. Those are the folks seeing their market values rise while their salaries remain stagnant. So for the duration of the grant, supplement pay or at least flex funds with 1%. I'm sure the UW could do with just a little bit less, and it'd go a long, long way.

Food for Thought

Edutopia reports on the increasing role of farms or gardens in learning.

In the broadest sense, food-related curricula are based on the idea that we should teach children to make connections between people, land, food, and their community. Eighteen states have adopted Farm to School legislation, which connects local farms with public schools and clears the way for teaching materials concerning agriculture, nutrition, and sustainability. Vermont and a few others have also adopted place-based-learning standards that dovetail with educational programs in school gardens and farms.

Related Posts:
UW-Madison Grad Students Produce Local Food Map
The Edible Schoolyard

What's Next?

Let the prognostication begin!!!

So how does President-elect Obama (boy, that sounds good!) move forward on education given the twin obstacles of a bad economy and a ballooning federal deficit -- along with opportunities presented by the pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (AKA NCLB) in 2009 or 2010 and a Democratic-controlled Congress?

It seems that education will inevitably take a back seat to economic recovery and foreign policy issues (Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, etc.). However, the good news is that some amount of deficit spending on infrastructure and investments in areas such as education will likely occur. I expect to see ESEA reauthorization as the primary vehicle for enactment of many of Obama's k-12 education reform ideas. In addition, Obama will likely rhetorically link education to economic revitalization and future American competitiveness. Aspects of his proposed focus on math and science will find a policy niche here.

A major question, of course, is who will be the next Education Secretary. Easy answer: Probably not someone from Texas. Hard answer: Who exactly from the other 49 states? Well, in my opinion, the likely candidates might include Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, former West Virginia Governor and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education Bob Wise, former New Jersey Governor (a Republican) and Drew University president Tom Kean, former South Carolina Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, and Paul Vallas, New Orleans superintendent and former Chicago Public Schools chief.

(UPDATE: Scratch Vallas off the list - he has agreed to stay in New Orleans through the 2009-10 school year. Scratch Napolitano as she has been tapped as Homeland Security secretary.)

I'm not basing these possibilities on any special inside knowledge (c'mon, I live in Wisconsin now -- wadda I know?!?!)-- just an educated guess. So it means that the next Ed Secretary will be someone NOT on this list. Other education leaders who probably won't be appointed Secretary but who are likely to play a important leadership role in the U.S. Department of Education or more broadly in the Obama Administration include Linda Darling-Hammond, Danielle Gray, Heather Higginbottom, Michael Johnston, Andy Rotherham, and Jon Schnur.

OK, that's the Obama side. What about the Republicans? I agree with Eduwonk that the Republican Party is probably headed for what he terms possibility #2.

We could see a return to the slash and burn and culture war approach of the 1990s (or its last gasp). Sarah Palin hasn’t been hostile to public schools in Alaska but if she sees these sorts of politics as a way to a political future in 2012 it’s hard to imagine she wouldn’t turn on a dime and others wouldn’t follow. This would mean a lot of ideas to effectively eviscerate the federal role in education, cut spending, devolve authority to the states and so forth. In a tight fiscal climate state “flexibility” can have a siren-like appeal because it gives states more flexibility around using federal dollars to plug other budget holes. The likely lack of Republican moderates on the Hill will only add to this dynamic.

But, if the experience in some states as well as the likely composition of the House and Senate after the dust settles is any guide, I’d bet on the second option. That means a lot of theater, but not good news if you want to see a serious national debate about ideas for improving our public schools.

Don't expect to see a major national debate about education, but probably modest changes to existing policies (a lessening of NCLB's rigid accountability provisions and an increased emphasis on value-added methodologies), some targeted investments (early childhood education, differentiated teacher pay, teacher professional development & support, dropout intervention), a focus on higher education (a college tax credit, financial aid simplification, student success at 2- and 4-year colleges), and, if the economy permits in a couple of years, some greater across-the-board investments.

My overall bet is that education policy will not transform itself nearly as much as some other policy areas -- health care, environment, energy, foreign policy -- under Obama's watch. While I think that Jay Mathews's take on this question in last Friday's Washington Post is a bit strong -- certainly the headline is ("Why The Next Education President Will Be Like Bush") -- he's definitely on the right track.

But the devil is in the details, and I predict that many important changes will be made to improve public education in general and ESEA specifically, enhance the quality of teaching, and create more successful and sensible pathways to higher education over the next four years.

Optimism, indeed, is back.

Oregon Ballot Measure Update

Oregon Ballot Measure No. 60, which would have required that state teachers be paid based on performance and not on experience or seniority, failed on a vote of 40% to 60%.

See previous post ("Teacher Pay on Oregon Ballot").

Hope is Alive

And optimism is back!

I was born 2 days before Carter was inaugurated, far too young to experience that man's presidency. I grew up inside the Beltway, listening to Grandpas Reagan and Bush preach nothing my parents believed in. I cried hard the night Dukakis was defeated, and pretty much gave up. Clinton was no salve-- by then I was old enough to be troubled by a man who clearly couldn't keep his word--not to the woman he fathered a child with, and certainly not to the thousands of poor women across the country whom he sent to work instead of college. He disappointed me time and again; by the end of his term I wished him good riddance.

W was the president that made me feel bitter and hopeless. Cynical, eager to leave the Beltway and DC far behind, dismissive of those who thought they could make a difference by working anywhere near Washington. So I find myself tonight in a small town of 12,000 in Wisconsin-- a safe haven, of sorts.

Now tonight-- the most amazing thing has happened. Despite a persistent black/white gap in educational achievement, the resegregation of our schools, rising tuition and stagnant rates of college completion...I am once again really an optimist! Because it has happened-- America has actively sought to reverse course and right the ship. It's a New Deal for us all-- Barack Hussein Obama is the President-Elect of the United States of America. Michelle Obama is the future First Lady. And the humble, forthright, and sensitive Joe Biden will replace the big Dick as VP.

GLORY GLORY Hallelujah. Obama, thank you for making it clear that this country is worthy of raising my son in.