redefinED

Michael Horn: On digital learning, feds can support conditions for transformation

By Michael B. Horn on August 16, 2012

With the rapid growth of online learning – both in full-time virtual learning environments and even more often in blended learning in schools – there is an opportunity to transform the nation’s education system from its factory-model roots to a student-centric one that can customize affordably for different learning needs and thereby bolster every student’s learning and America’s competitiveness.

One of the main reasons the country’s education system fails so many students is because it was never built to help each child realize her fullest potential. Because students have different learning needs at different times – students learn at different paces, have different aptitudes, and have different levels of knowledge when they enter a classroom – harnessing the power of technology to do the positive things it has done in so many other sectors of society is vital.

Although this is an important national opportunity, it does not mean the best way to drive this innovation is from the federal government. That is one reason Digital Learning Now!, an effort led by former Governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise to seize this transformational opportunity, focuses on the things states should do to create a student-centric education system.

That said, it is important that the federal government support the conditions for transformation – and eliminate onerous requirements for educators on the ground. To further this end, there are several steps it can and should take.

Implement backpack funding: Title I and Title II dollars should follow students down to the educational, not just school, experience of their choice. With the growth in online learning courses, it is important to allow students to access great teachers and the right learning experience for their needs regardless of their zip code.

Promote individual student growth as the measure of performance: Move away from No Child Left Behind’s AYP school site accountability model. Create transparency by having states focus on the growth in learning for each individual student. Given that a student-centric system will recognize that each student has different learning needs at different times, it only makes sense to move to a system that leverages technology and captures how each child is doing in near real time, not just on an annual basis, and can give credit to educators that help a student make meaningful progress regardless of where she started. To the end of creating transparency in the education system around student learning, as well as creating a bigger market to spur private investment in digital learning, supporting the Common Core state standards is also an appropriate role for the federal government – whereas acting as the nation’s education venture capitalist is not. Continue Reading →

Joe Williams: On ed reform, GOP should throw Tea Party under the (school) bus

By Joe Williams on August 15, 2012

I spend a lot of my time navigating the tumultuous internal conflicts and ideological inconsistencies within my party, the Democratic Party, when it comes to public education. In fact, that’s more or less my job description. So I have to admit that it is somewhat pleasurable to watch the emergence of similar tensions on the other side of the aisle amongst my Republican allies, especially when it comes to education reform and school choice. Maybe pleasurable is not the right word. Perhaps it’s perplexing. Even a little depressing.

Nearly a year ago, we watched with great interest as a fascinating left-right alliance formed in Washington between the teachers unions (who didn’t like the concept of federal accountability in schools) and the Tea Party (which didn’t like the idea of any kind of federal involvement in schools.). Together, this alliance wound up shaping proposed changes to existing federal law that would let states and districts off the hook for improving the academic performance of millions of disadvantaged children. Historically reasonable folks like poor John Boehner started looking like the helpless, powerless substitute teachers we used to torment back in middle school.

I don’t intend this to kick a speaker while he is down, but to point out the obvious as Republicans consider their path on education issues: they have to figure out whether they are Boehner Republicans (willing to cut a deal involving a federal role in school choice and accountability issues) or Tea Party Republicans (who would seem happiest if there were no schools, let alone taxpayer-supported public schools). They need to figure out who among them is willing to let the federal government act as a catalyst for some key needed policy changes, and who among them oppose any federal education policy whatsoever just as a misguided point of principle.

I don’t mention this glibly. The tremendous pull that the Tea Party has had on domestic policy issues, including education, has folks on our side of the aisle looking back longingly at the groundbreaking work that President George W. Bush and Boehner were able to accomplish with liberal icons like Senator Teddy Kennedy and Rep. George Miller. You know, back in the good old days where at least both parties agreed that government could be an enabler of good, rather than just an overpriced agent of evil.

So, understanding that tips from a Democrat will be taken with a grain of salt at the RNC, I nonetheless offer these nuggets for consideration:

1. Throw the Tea-Baggers under the bus: If you don’t do it for issues of substance, do it for the politics alone. Continue Reading →

Checker Finn: Even with limited leverage, Uncle Sam can promote school choice

By Chester E. Finn Jr. on August 14, 2012

Mitt Romney’s plan to voucherize (though he doesn’t call it that) Title I and IDEA has considerable merit – but it’s not the only way the federal government could foster school choice and it might not even be the best way.

It’s not a new idea, either. I recall working with Bill Bennett on such a plan – which Ronald Reagan then proposed to a heedless Congress – a quarter century ago.

It had merit then and has even more today. As America nears the half-century mark with Title I, we can fairly conclude that pumping all this money into districts to boost the budgets of schools serving disadvantaged kids hasn’t done those kids much good, though it has surely been welcomed by revenue-hungry districts (and states). Evaluation after evaluation of Title I has shown that iconic program to have little or no positive impact, and everybody knows that the No Child Left Behind edition of Title I hasn’t done much good either. It has, however, yielded an enormous number of schools that we now know, without doubt, are doing a miserable job, particularly with disadvantaged kids, but we’re having a dreadful time “turning around” those schools. One may fairly conclude that Title I in its present form isn’t working and probably cannot.

So why not try strapping the money to the backs of needy kids and letting them take it to the schools of their choice? This would help them escape from dreadful schools. It would make them more “affordable” for the schools they move into. It would remove one of the main barriers (the non-portability of federal dollars) that discourages states and districts from moving toward “weighted student funding” with their own money. And it would certainly go a long way to change the balance of power in American education from producers to consumers.

Having said that, a word of caution is needed. Few federal education initiatives work nearly as well as intended. (NCLB is again a large, recent, case in point.) Legitimate questions persist about what, exactly, is the federal role in the K-12 sphere, particularly in reforming it. A good case can be made for Washington to generate sound data, safeguard civil rights, support research, and assist with the costs of educating high-risk kids – but setting the ground rules for schools and operating the system is really the job of states. Moreover, the federal share of the school dollar – a dime – isn’t big enough to yield much leverage over how the system works. That’s why the Romney plan is apt to do some good in states (and districts) that want to extend more school choices to their students – the federal dime can join the state/local 90 cents in the kid’s backpack – but won’t make much difference in places that aren’t willing to put their own resources into this kind of reform.

Similar caveats must be attached to other possible methods by which Uncle Sam could try to foster school choice. Which isn’t to say such possibilities don’t exist. Indeed, I can think of four more opportunities. Continue Reading →

Margaret Spellings: Status quo benefits if feds don’t push ed reform, school choice

By Margaret Spellings on August 13, 2012

Giving parents and families the opportunity to choose the very best education options available for their children is not only the right thing to do, but it leads to accountability for results.

School choice plus standards, assessments, transparency for results, and consequences for failure has been the recipe our nation’s public schools have been following for the past decade under No Child Left Behind.

This work has not been easy. I didn’t think it would be. In fact, it’s been hard. It’s why a lot of adults in the system have pushed back so hard. They don’t like change. They don’t want to be accountable for results. And some simply don’t want the “feds” telling them what to do, which is something they weren’t shy about telling me!

I know it won’t surprise you to hear I fielded the occasional question during my years in the White House as head of the Domestic Policy Council, and then as a Cabinet secretary, about the legitimacy of the U.S. Department of Education. The questioner would ask where in the Constitution it provided for the establishment of the agency, knowing such language did not exist. The message was simple: the federal government should simply stay out.

Sadly the “stay out” message has been exploited and leveraged by powerful teachers’ unions and other entrenched interests, who, with no principled opposition to a federal role in education, just want more taxpayer dollars with fewer strings attached. This “unholy alliance” between the unions and those who want no role for the federal government in education is propping up the status quo on the backs of our most vulnerable children. It’s shameful beyond words.

Here’s why there’s a legitimate role for the federal government in education.

When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was signed into law in 1965, by any measure, poor and minority students were overwhelmingly denied meaningful educational opportunities because of the abysmal quality of the schools they attended. Then, and now, education remains a civil rights issue. While the federal role in education has been and remains limited, providing less than 10 percent of the total funding for the nation’s public schools, it is focused on our disadvantaged students, helping them to have a shot at the American Dream. Continue Reading →

redefinED roundup: school choice demand in Florida, American heritage charter school in Idaho and more

By redefinED staff on August 13, 2012

Idaho: State education offficials approve the American Heritage Charter School, which will emphasize American history, patriotism, money management and free market economics. (Idaho Statesman)

Florida: Demand continues to surge for the state’s tax credit scholarship program, as the chart at left shows. (Tampa Bay Times’ Gradebook blog). The number of charter school teachers in the state tops 10,000, more than double the number from five years ago (redefinED).

Mississippi: Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush encourages Mississippi officials to follow Sunshine State education reforms, including vouchers and charter schools. (Associated Press)

Washington: A parents group forms to fight a ballot initiative to bring charter schools to the state. (The News Tribune)

Georgia: Debate heats up over a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow the state to authorize and fund charter schools. (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Louisiana: The ACLU threatens to sue a charter school for policies banning pregnant girls from classrooms and requiring girls suspected of being pregnant to submit to a pregnancy test. (Associated Press)

Maine: Applications are withdrawn for two proposed on-line charter schools, but the groups behind them say they’ll be back next year. (Kennebec Journal)

Utah: State education officials discuss additional financial and academic accountability measures for charter schools. (Salt Lake Tribune)

New York: State education officials will consider seven new charter schools in Queens, including one with a Chinese-based curriculum and mandatory martial arts training. (New York Daily News)

California: A former charter school administrator, fired after allegedly ordering his staff to cheat on standardized tests, is paid $245,000 in a settlement. (Los Angeles Times)

Uncle Sam and school choice

By Ron Matus on August 10, 2012

Oh how the blog gods have smiled down upon redefinED.

The 2012 Republican National Convention will be held in downtown Tampa this month – six blocks from the building that houses Step Up for Students and our humble blog. I received press credentials to cover the convention. And next week, as a lead-up to the event, we’ll be posting essays from some of the leading voices in school choice and education reform.

Here’s the line up: former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings; Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute; Robert C. Enlow, president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice; Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform; Michael B. Horn, executive director for education at the Innosight Institute; and Eva S. Moskowitz, founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.

With the RNC and November elections as a backdrop, we asked our contributors what – if anything – the federal government can do to promote school choice. It goes without saying that the responses are thoughtful, insightful and informative. They’re also diverse. They’ll give you plenty to think about – and even a few things to laugh at.

First up Monday: Secretary Spellings.

Know your history: The “voucher left”

By Ron Matus on August 10, 2012

Last week’s commentary in Salon was typical when it comes to the dominant narrative about school choice. Written by Michael Lind, policy director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation, it describes choice as an “eccentric right-wing perspective” and “an untested theory cooked up by the libertarian ideologues at the University of Chicago Economics Department and the Cato Institute.”

Well-respected newspapers and fringe blogs alike echo that view, though rarely with such creative flourish. The result is a near blackout of a richer, more fascinating and more historically accurate story line – one in which, for decades, if not longer, leading liberals and progressives also thought school choice was a good idea.

Now whether the left has a more compelling case for vouchers and charter schools is a debate for another day. But if more progressives knew their ideological ancestors saw school choice as a powerful tool for social justice, that awareness alone might go a long ways towards creating the conditions where a fair-minded debate is possible.

To that end, we’re introducing a new feature today, “Know Your History,” – an occasional effort to highlight school choice’s roots on the political left. Maybe we’ll single out an academic journal article. Maybe we’ll spotlight an old op-ed. Or maybe we’ll get hold of the Congressional document that lists the 24 Democratic senators who supported legislation, introduced in 1978 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, to give tax credits to families paying private school tuition.

Former redefinED editor Adam Emerson, now writing the Choice Words blog at the Fordham Institute, diligently mined this historical vein during his tenure here (with insightful posts like this one, and this one, and this one). But we’re confident there are plenty of other nuggets worth digging up that will add value to the conversation.

Today’s artifact: a lengthy 1999 piece from The Atlantic. Written by Matthew Miller, “A Bold Experiment to Fix City Schools” sketches the left’s reasoning for embracing vouchers and notes the contributions of John E. Coons, the Berkeley law professor who also serves as a co-host for redefinED. Here’s a taste:

To listen to the unions and the NAACP, one would think that vouchers were the evil brainchild of the economist Milton Friedman and his conservative devotees, lately joined by a handful of desperate but misguided urban blacks. In fact vouchers have a long but unappreciated intellectual pedigree among reformers who have sought to help poor children and to equalize funding in rich and poor districts. This ‘voucher left’ has always had less cash and political power than its conservative counterpart or its union foes. It has been ignored by the press and trounced in internecine wars. But if urban children are to have any hope, the voucher left’s best days must lie ahead.

The voucher left. Has an interesting ring to it, no?

Choice nuggets: Surging demand for Florida tax credit scholarships, creationist fears, horse therapy and more

By Ron Matus on August 9, 2012

Number of the week: 87,062

That’s how many low-income Florida families began applications for tax credit scholarships this year, up from 69,000 last year. It’s another sign of fast-growing demand for the largest private school choice program of its kind in the country.

Demand is so high, in fact, that Step Up For Students, the Tampa-based nonprofit that administers the program (and is home to redefinED), had to close applications last week to new students for the 2012-13 school year. More than 50,000 scholarships have already been approved, and thousands more are in the pipeline.

Not all families who begin applications finish them. And not all students who are approved for scholarships take them. That’s in part because some families determine they can’t afford the difference between the scholarship amount ($4,335 this fall) and the private school’s tuition and fees. The scholarships are only available to students whose families meet the income eligibility requirements for free- or reduced-price lunch.

Last year, the tax-credit scholarships program served 40,248 students, according to a Florida Department of Education year-end report posted Monday. That’s nearly double the 21,493 it served just five years ago. In the spring, the Legislature bumped up the program cap from $219 million to $229 million so about 9,000 additional students could be served.

A bigger problem for science in Louisiana

Two widely circulated stories recently noted the anti-scientific teachings of some private Christian schools that will be participating in Louisiana’s new voucher program.

The first, from the Associated Press, quoted a science advocate who lamented that public money will be used to finance creationism and other “phony science.” Meanwhile, Mother Jones headlined, “14 Wacky ‘Facts’ Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools.” Tops on the list: “Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out.”

From a scientific standpoint, such teachings are indefensible. But as I’ve written before, the poor track record of public schools in science instruction, particularly with low-income and minority students, can’t be defended either.

According to the latest NAEP results in science, Louisiana ranked 46th of 50 states. Twenty-two percent of its eighth-graders were deemed proficient.

And Florida’s next education commissioner will be … Continue Reading →

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