Category Archives: Research

In his role as writer and contributing editor for School Reform News, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow recently came out with two articles on charter school developments in other states. First up is a research-based boost for nontraditional public school excellence in one of the Heartland’s cities: Researchers at Vanderbilt University’s National Center on School Choice followed students in Indianapolis who switched from traditional public schools to charter schools. The study found the group, which included students from 2nd through 10th grade, made substantial strides in math achievement and smaller gains in reading. African-Americans made statistically significant gains in math, and Hispanics demonstrated significant growth in reading. “Indianapolis was a district in high need of innovative schools,” said Anna Nicotera, coauthor of the study and director of research and evaluation at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS). “These schools appear to have filled that niche.”

An article in yesterday’s Denver Post brought attention to a new report by our friends at Colorado Succeeds that urges Colorado to follow Florida’s lead on education reforms. Where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah… Jeb Bush’s Stellar Education Reform Record Worthy of Colorado Emulation (July 2008) Bolstering the Case for Jeb Bush’s Education Reform Success (October 2009) Florida Keeps Star Role Among States in Improving Student Test Scores (March 2010) CSAP Scores Get Little Attention, But Call for Expanding School Reform Approach (August 2010) If Colorado policy makers read the report and follow the Florida formula, frankly I don’t care who gets the credit. The Denver Post story focuses heavily on two planks of the Colorado Succeeds report’s five-plank recommendation: 1) End promotion from 3rd grade to 4th grade until students prove basic literacy skills; and 2) Improve the Colorado Growth Model with clearer, easier-to-understand letter grades and other consequential refinements.

Yesterday I brought your attention to a new report on what effective teacher evaluation systems should look like, and expressed my wish that the implementation of SB 191 ends up reflecting the six principles in schools across Colorado. It wasn’t much later that local education reformer Amy Slothower posted about some of her recent frustrating experience observing Denver Public Schools stuck in a rut on — guess what? — the teacher evaluation system. Here are some key paragraphs: I’ve been working in education reform for 10 years now, and I’ve come to accept that this business is full of frustrations and battles over divergent interests and an achingly slow pace of change. However, the A-Plus Denver committee meeting I attended this morning has me so aggravated that I am moved to do something I’ve never done before: blog about it!…

It’s a dreary day outside. Maybe fall has finally fallen. Rather than pontificate and show off my brilliant vocabulary, I decided today just to point your attention to a new report by The New Teacher Project (PDF) on six key design principles for teacher evaluations (H/T Eduwonk): Annual process Clear, rigorous expectations Multiple measures Multiple ratings Regular feedback Significance Some of these principles definitely have been advanced in Colorado by Senate Bill 191. We need to keep our eye on the Governor’s Council of Educator Effectiveness as they implement the legislation. Stay tuned.

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about teachers and policies related to them. But what about those who teach teachers — at least those teachers who receive traditional certification from postsecondary schools of education? Last week the Fordham Institute released the results of a survey of more than 700 education professors “to determine how they view their own roles and what they think of myriad K-12 policy developments that have taken place over the last decade.” The report Cracks in the Ivory Tower? sheds some light on education policy debates. As Checker Finn points out, there are some modest signs of more education professors being open to reforms of teacher tenure, incentive pay and alternative certification. But overall, they still “see themselves as philosophers and evangelists, not as master craftsmen sharing tradecraft with apprentices and journeymen.” Our own State Board of Education chairman Bob Schaffer, participating as one of the “Education Experts” on the National Journal blog, is not terribly impressed. Schaffer latches onto the finding that only 36 percent of education professors see teaching math facts as “absolutely essential” compared to a much higher percentage who believe in the critical importance of teaching 21st Century […]

Today I don’t have a lot to say, but am hoping my school choice and market-reform supporting friends take a dive into Rick Hess’s new National Affairs piece titled “Does School Choice Work?” While Dr. Jay Greene is correct that we should be optimistic over the progress made thus far in building support for school choice, Hess offers some serious food for thought about what we’ve learned and where we can go from here. With little comment, I want to share a few provocative remarks from Rick Hess to spur your interest in reading his long but important article: Competition matters only when it pinches, and the reality is that competition in K-12 education has not yet been given a robust test. And:

Two days ago I commented on the big splash Denver Post story about a new study calling into question teacher performance pay. Today the Post‘s big headline touts that “Jeffco schools to increase some teachers’ pay to more than $100,000”: Top-level teachers in select Jefferson County schools could be paid more than $100,000 a year under a pilot program funded by a new $32.8 million federal grant…. Jefferson County and Colorado Springs District 11 learned Thursday that they were among 62 winners in 27 states of the federal Teacher Incentive Fund grants, which support performance-pay plans in high-need schools. [link added] More excellent coverage is available from Nancy Mitchell at Ed News Colorado, which proclaims “Jeffco launches teacher performance pay.” So given the previous news, is the state’s largest school district barking up the wrong tree?

The Denver Post reports this morning (via the Washington Post) about a newly-released Vanderbilt University study on teacher performance pay: The study, which the authors and other experts described as the first scientifically rigorous review of merit pay in the United States, measured the effect of financial incentives on teachers in Nashville public schools and found that better pay alone was not enough to inspire gains. Advocates of performance pay did not immediately challenge the methodology of the study. But they said its conclusions were narrow and failed to evaluate the full package of professional development and other measures that President Obama and philanthropists such as Bill Gates say are crucial to improving America’s public schools. Does this mean we should throw out the whole idea of incentive or performance-based pay for school teachers? Not so fast.

There a couple new education-related publications out there that shed some light on current debates. When it comes to K-12 education, public opinion, policies and results are interconnected, though the relationship often is not so apparent. If we want to help improve and maximize student learning, it’s good to be informed on all fronts. First, Education Next recently released the results of its 2010 annual survey. The bottom line? With the exceptions of school spending and teacher tenure, the divisions between ordinary Democrats and Republicans on education policy matters are quite minor. To be sure, disagreements among Americans continue to linger. Indeed, with the exception of student and school accountability measures, Americans as a whole do not stand steadfastly behind any single reform proposal. Yet the most salient divisions appear to be within, not between, the political parties. And we find growing support for several strategies put forward in recent years by leaders of both political parties—most notably online education and merit pay.

So this morning I ran across an interesting posting from Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner, based on a little research “to see which states have the public school districts with the most top-heavy bureaucracies.” As Tapscott explains, he took U.S. Census Bureau data to build a table and find out which states have the most “non-instructional employees” as a share of the state’s population. Who qualifies as a “non-instructional employee”? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, anyone who works for a K-12 public school but does NOT have one of the following positions: [C]lassroom teachers, principals, supervisors of instruction, librarians, teacher aides, library aides, and guidance and psychological personnel. Anyway, here are the top 10 states with the highest per capita ratios of “non-instructional employees”: