Category Archives: Research

The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice has released an interesting new study titled “The Fiscal Effects of School Choice Programs on Public School Districts.” Author Benjamin Scafidi took a state-by-state look at total per-pupil spending, breaking out the fixed costs from the variable costs. Here’s the basic idea. Take a state’s K-12 “expenditures on capital, interest, general administration, school administration, operations and maintenance, transportation, and ‘other’ support services” and set them to one side. Subtract these “fixed costs in the short run” — as Scafidi conservatively considers them — from the total spending. What’s left over are the expenditures tied more closely to actual enrollment, which districts have shown can be easily reduced when numbers of students leave. A voucher or tax credit given to student up to that amount safely can be considered not to have any fiscal harm on the district. On a national scale Scafidi finds:

The big news from the education reform world this week is the release of the School Choice Demonstration Project’s final reports evaluating five years of matched student comparisons between the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the Milwaukee Public Schools. What can we learn about vouchers from the results of this program? The American Federation for Children summed up the top-level findings in a Monday press release: Students enrolled in the Milwaukee voucher program are more likely to graduate from high school and go to college than their public school counterparts, boast significantly improved reading scores, represent a more diverse cross-section of the city, and are improving the results of traditional public school students, according to a comprehensive evaluation of the program released today.

Last spring I told you about a growing movement to oppose the Common Core standards and accompanying assessments, as well as the momentum toward a national curriculum. Well, a recent spate of evidence suggests that the Common Core cause has fallen on hard times, to say the least: Two recent Pioneer Institute reports not only call into question the legality of the Common Core push but also estimate the transition costs at a daunting $16 billion South Carolina leaders have pushed back hard against the nationalization of education, prompting a loud response from Education Secretary Arne Duncan The only expert Education Next could find to defend the Common Core math standards in an online debate turned out not to be much of a Common Core supporter after all Once a backer of the U.S. Department of Education’s efforts, nationally-respected Washington Post education columnist and author Jay Mathews came out a couple days ago with his evidence-backed case for why Common Core standards will fail Since before I pointed out the anti-national curriculum petition nine months ago, many key Colorado education leaders (including my Education Policy Center friends) have added their names. The momentum (and the case) against the Common Core […]

Once in awhile an article comes along that makes you stand up and cheer. For me, the latest is a new Education Week column signed by “nine scholars and analysts” that lays out clearly what the research says about school choice. I was tempted to re-post the whole thing, but the big people in my life assure me that wouldn’t be right to do. So I’ll sum up. The article observes that a number of high-quality studies have been done measuring academic results for students in choice programs, somewhat less rigorous studies examining the competitive effects choice has on the surrounding public school system, and a few studies of the fiscal impacts on public schools. The clear consensus of the highest-quality research is that vouchers and tax credits show modestly positive results on all three fronts, with none demonstrating negative effects. Results for charter schools are decidedly more mixed in the academic and competitive results, with more positive impacts in the earlier grades. But the highlight and big takeaway of the jointly-authored Education Week piece is this:

Colorado’s legislative bid to enhance early literacy is getting some national attention. The bipartisan House Bill 1238 enlists parents and educators to focus on interventions for struggling readers in the early grades and requires the local superintendent to sign off before a non-proficient reader can advance past 3rd grade. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow was sought out for comment by American Family Radio News reporter Bob Kellogg: “Something needs to be done to provide consequences and hold schools accountable for helping students learn to read,” he says, “because if students just keep getting passed up through the system and graduate without those skills, we’re not preparing them well for life.” Also in the story, Ben highlights the success Florida has experienced by cutting back severely on 3rd grade social promotion. Indeed, research by Jay Greene and Marcus Winters shows the average student held back for extra reading help gained more than a half-year’s learning proficiency on struggling students who were pushed up through the system. HB 1238 isn’t exactly the same, nor quite as strong, as Florida’s law. But it does represent a significantly positive step.

I usually don’t like talking about bad news, but sometimes it has to be done. When it comes to Colorado high school graduates needing extra help in reading, writing and math at Colorado colleges and universities, the news is just that: bad. Despite the positive higher education angle headlined by the Denver Post, there’s no doubt that from a K-12 perspective things are moving in the wrong direction. Two days ago the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE) released its annual report detailing the in-state academic remediation rates for post-secondary students. The bottom line? Overall, the percentage of first-time recent high school graduates placed into remediation in at least one subject increased by 11 percent from the previous year (31.8 percentage points in 2010-11 from 28.6 percentage points in 2009-10).

Now that School Choice Week is over, and I’m able to relax a bit after my manic phase of hyperactivity, it’s back to the (fun) edublogging grind. Right out of the gate, it’s time to tackle an important education reform item that emerged last week but falls a little bit outside the school choice arena. A January 25 Denver Post story by Yesenia Robles proclaimed that “Colorado gets a C for teacher policies”: Colorado has developed good policy for dismissing unqualified teachers, but not for increasing the pool of well-prepared teachers entering the workforce, according to a report out today. The National Council on Teacher Quality, a national nonprofit, released the report today grading every state’s teacher policy. Colorado averaged a C letter grade, up from a D+ in 2009, but was ranked as No. 12 among the states making the most progress. Yes, this is the same respected NCTQ I’ve talked about before regarding their study of teacher preparation programs. In fact, my Education Policy Center friends last year recorded an iVoices podcast with NCTQ’s Sandi Jacobs about the then-latest version of their State Teacher Policy Yearbook.

Just a quick post today. More good news emerging from DPS today. Ed News Colorado highlights an intriguing new report from A+ Denver that breaks down some key performance data from the state’s second-largest school district: This report shows that Charter Management Organizations (charter organizations that manage more than one school, currently DSST, West Denver Prep and KIPP) are not only outperforming district and other individual charter schools, but are having a significant impact on the district’s overall growth and achievement scores at grades six and above.

Yesterday I peered ahead at the upcoming legislative session. Today I take a look back at a landmark piece of national education legislation. Yes, I sometimes get confused like that. Anyway, it was 10 years ago this week that then-President George W. Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). A whole decade? That makes me feel pretty young, as I wasn’t even a gleam in my daddy’s eye at that point — whatever that means. To commemorate the occasion, Colorado’s own State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer penned his thoughts on the National Journal Education Experts blog. At the time NCLB was debated and passed Congress, Schaffer was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. So his perspective on what he describes as “an enormously bad idea” is especially insightful:

From time to time you’ll see me write about or reference the work of scholars who research the nitty gritty of education policy. These are the high falutin’ number-crunchers with big degrees who work at universities. Well, the venerable Rick Hess has revealed his 2012 Edu-Scholar Public Presence Rankings to measure more than 100 American academics’ contributions to last year’s education policy public debates. Some are better known than others, which the list helps to sort out. To build out his index, Hess used Google Scholar ratings, book and article contributions, mentions in the education press and newspaper, and even mention in blogs (!) to lay out the rankings. Many — for good or ill — have graced the postings of Ed Is Watching (listed in rank order):