Category Archives: Research

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so it seems. The article in today’s Denver Post, headlined “Nearly one in three Colo. graduates needs remedial courses in college, study finds”, almost could have appeared the year before … or two years ago … or the year before that. To be exact, the new report from the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (PDF) finds that 29.3 percent of Colorado’s 2008 high school graduates who attended a Colorado two-year or four-year college needed formal remedial help in math, reading and/or writing. Six years ago my Education Policy Center friend Marya DeGrow completed an issue paper on the same topic, titled Cutting Back on Catching Up (PDF). Using the same CCHE data, she noted that 26.6 percent of Colorado’s 2002 high school graduates needed remediation — at a cost of $18.9 million to the state of Colorado and $15.4 million to the college students themselves.

It’s a busy day in Eddie’s world, so I don’t have a lot of time to write. But I would feel badly if I didn’t point you to some good news about the success of the Milwaukee Voucher Program. Research by the University of Minnesota’s John Robert Warren (PDF) confirms that voucher students have significantly more success in terms of graduating form high school than their public school counterparts. Hip, hip, hooray for school choice!

Being the cute little kid that I am and all, you’d probably think I’d be all on board for raising more federal dollars to fund the long-running, early childhood school readiness program known as Head Start. If not as a blogger, at least as a stage prop … right? Wrong. I mean, it sure sounds like a nice idea on paper. But when you look at the long-awaited comprehensive research on Head Start that finally was released last month, you realize the billions of dollars spent every year is not accomplishing a whole lot of results beyond making us feel good about ourselves. What do I mean? Check out the report by the Heritage Foundation’s David Muhlhausen and Dan Lips. In the dozens of measurements that made up the areas measured — cognitive development, social development, child health and parenting outcomes — virtually none showed a positive impact from Head Start. Their conclusion?

As Ed News Colorado reports today: The number of full-time students attending online programs across the state grew 12.5 percent to 13,128, or the equivalent of the 19th largest school district in Colorado. The remarkable point in the story is that 12.5 percent is the second-lowest rate of annual growth for Colorado public online programs in the last six years. Still, it’s gigantic compared to the state’s overall enrollment growth of 1.7 percent. Ed News Colorado points out one reason why the demand continues to grow:

Update: House Bill 1036 passed unanimously out of the House Education Committee this afternoon. Ben’s report and testimony added some important information and perspective to the discussion. Now the legislation heads to the floor of the lower chamber for a full 65-member vote. Stay tuned as I continue to cover the two school transparency bills as they move through the legislature. Many months ago, after a heated debate at last year’s legislative session, I pointed out that opponents of public school financial transparency were running out of excuses. Well, I’m proud to say that several school districts in Colorado have received the message, and at least one has done a remarkable job of making user-friendly detailed spending information available. I’m talking about Jefferson County Public Schools, the state’s largest school district. You really have to check out their online searchable spending database. My Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow explains some more about where Jeffco’s idea came from and how much it cost, etc., in his new issue backgrounder “What Should School District Financial Transparency Look Like?” One key advantage has been to build greater trust with members of the community, by providing key details to each spending transaction. It […]

Education Week blogger Stephen Sawchuk reports that Georgia may be taking a bold step in reforming teacher compensation: Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue has announced plans to support legislation that would overhaul the statewide teacher-salary schedule and allow teachers to opt into one that determines pay partly on performance-based measures. States have tried to do statewide performance-pay before, but this example stands out because it sounds as though it would fundamentally restructure how the salary schedule operates. Teachers opting in would no longer get supplements for advanced degrees, which have only weak correlations to student performance. Instead, they would win additional compensation based on observations of teachers and growth of student performance to determine teacher effectiveness and base compensation on those results. The plan would go into effect in 2013, and current teachers could “opt into” the plan or remain on the current salary schedule. Teachers hired after Jan. 1, 2014, would automatically be enrolled in the system.

Writing for the new edition of The Atlantic, Amanda Ripley talks to the Teach for America (TFA) crew about what they’ve learned about quality teaching from their vast stores of data. We know quality instruction can make a huge difference, but you may be surprised to learn what characteristics TFA finds match up with making the biggest positive impact on student learning: What did predict success, interestingly, was a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record. In the interview process, Teach for America now asks applicants to talk about overcoming challenges in their lives—and ranks their perseverance based on their answers…. But another trait seemed to matter even more. Teachers who scored high in “life satisfaction”—reporting that they were very content with their lives—were 43 percent more likely to perform well in the classroom than their less satisfied colleagues. These teachers “may be more adept at engaging their pupils, and their zest and enthusiasm may spread to their students,” the study suggested.

You can write about education issues a lot, have your eyes focused on the future, and still miss some of the debates that are going on out there. Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss says that schools need to hire more male teachers, especially in the early grades, for the sake of boys. Citing Richard Whitmire’s book Why Boys Fail, blogress extraordinaire Joanne Jacobs responds: “Boys can learn without male teachers.” While I don’t have much to add to the debate, I at least have a vested interest in the discussion. As a boy, I want a smart and caring teacher who keeps the standards high and doesn’t let me get away with nonsense. (Someone who believes in homework quality over quantity, and has a soft spot for Legos and Mr. Potatohead, would also be appreciated.) More important for troubled boys than whether their teacher is male or female is expanded opportunity for an excellent education through school choice. That’s what Independence Institute senior fellow Krista Kafer persuasively argued for in “The Boy Crisis in Education” (an Independent Women’s Forum publication), and that’s what I’m sticking with.

Did you miss me while I was gone for a couple weeks there? Okay, hopefully not too much. One of the articles I nearly missed right before Christmas makes the case for a type of reform that could be easily overlooked in the Race to the Top. From December 21 of last year (last decade even!), Cognitive First leaders Larry Hargrave and Mickey Elliott wrote in a Denver Post column about the need to focus on student “learning capacity”: Discoveries in brain science and innovations in educational theory have recently converged and made it possible to cultivate learning capacity and enhance academic performance by addressing weak cognitive skills and strengthening giftedness. Just as researchers in medicine work to understand physical disorders by their causes, cognitive skill development allows education to move beyond an academic and correlative model to a new understanding of learning that is foundational and prior to improving academic performance.

Remember the poor kids in our nation’s capital who benefit from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program? Last night D.C. Parents for School Choice Executive Director Virginia Walden Ford sent out an email alerting supporters about a new troubling development from Capitol Hill: Just an hour ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the omnibus bill that kills the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). This is devastating news, and it means that if this bill makes it through the U.S. Senate and is signed into law by President Obama, the OSP will slowly die, with no new students permitted to access great schools through this groundbreaking program. When we began the fight to save this program more than a year ago, we pledged that we would fight hard and fight long and fight to the finish. We said we wouldn’t give up–regardless of the odds. Tonight is no exception. The House passed the voucher-killing omnibus by a tiny margin. The Senate must still act. So, we have not yet been defeated in our effort. To get the full picture, check out a new Weekly Standard piece by Sheryl Blunt aptly titled “The Teachers’ Unions that Stole Christmas”: