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January 10, 2013

Superfluous grades; StudentsFirst ranking considers performance last

January so far is looking like Michelle Rhee month. Last night the self-described education reformer was the hour-long focus of PBS’s Frontline series. The day before, her organization StudentsFirst released its report card on the state of education policy in which Rhee and her colleagues “flunked” most states. The headlines wrote themselves (see here and here).

But before we collectively freak out about our own states’ GPA, let’s take a critical look at what StudentsFirst is grading. First — and I can’t emphasize this enough — there are no points awarded for education performance. None. Zero. So if you’re concerned about that ‘F’, Vermont, relax.  You are still a high-achieving state.

What they did look for were state education policies that aligned with the StudentsFirst agenda. These include teacher and principal staffing decisions based on student achievement measures among others, and “empowering parents” through charter schools and vouchers.  Limiting their rankings to policies, however, leads to some strange juxtapositions.

In the following table, I list the top ten performing states in education as identified in KidsCount, the annual report card published by the Anne E. Casey Foundation.  The KidsCount education index includes pre-k participation, NAEP scores in reading and math and high school graduation rates. I then compare these to each state’s StudentsFirst grade:

Not much relationship here between achievement and StudentsFirst policy preferences. When looking only at the StudentsFirst grades in school choice, the relationship is even sketchier: 6 of the top ten states earned an “F” while the highest grade was a “D.”

Brookings Institute released a much less publicized report card before Christmas that graded urban districts on school “choice and competition,” but like StudentsFirst, placed little value on actual performance. Likewise, the Brookings’ rankings look a little wacky when compared to district performance. For example, New York City was ranked second with a letter grade of B+.  Yet its eighth-graders performed significantly below the overall national average on NAEP in math. Number three-ranked D.C. (a “B”) was 19th out of 21 urban districts on the same test. In contrast, middle-schoolers in urban Austin exceeded the national average of all students. Brookings gave that Texas school district an F.  (Comparable data was not available for number one-ranked New Orleans.)

We can probably go overboard drawing conclusions from these inconsistencies. To begin with, we can’t say for sure that the Brookings/StudentsFirst agendas work against achievement. But we can say one thing: there are many high-profile organizations that are promoting education reform policies that do not have a proven track record to support them.

Filed under: Charter Schools,Data,Teacher evaluation — Tags: , , , , , — Patte Barth @ 9:07 am




November 20, 2012

More evidence to rebut Milton Friedman Foundation report

Last month I wrote about how a close look at district staffing data doesn’t support the Milton Friedman Foundation’s claim that districts have been on a spending surge of ‘non-instructional staff’. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the increase in administrator hiring was in the hiring of instructional coordinators and aids, positions that certainly impact student instruction.

To bolster my claim districts have not been using taxpayer money to bolster central office bureaucrats I recently came across financial data from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) that shows districts are actually spending less of their budgets on administrators than they were two decades ago. In fact in 1989 the average school district spent 11.2 percent of their budgets on administrators which decreased to 10.8 percent in 2009. Over the same time period districts spent relatively the same amount of their budgets on instruction (60.9 percent in 1989 and 61.0 percent in 2009).

Over the past two decades districts have made a greater investment in their student and teacher support staffs by increasing their proportion of district budgets from 8.2 percent to 10.2 percent from 1989 to 2009. Such staff typically includes instructional coordinators and aids that indirectly benefit classroom instruction. It is likely not a coincidence that NAEP achievement increased significantly over this time as well.

While it may be popular to imply that districts are wasting taxpayer money on highly paid administrators that don’t improve student achievement, both data on district staff and expenditures show a much different picture.  Districts have been investing more in supporting students and teachers which appears to have had a significant positive impact on student achievement over the past two decades.—Jim Hull

Filed under: Data,funding — Jim Hull @ 4:00 pm




November 13, 2012

The science of persuasion

One week after a surprisingly decisive re-election by President Obama and the redux on how his campaign did it continues. Big Data or the process of collecting, distilling and making sense of mountains of information has taken center stage, as it’s become clear the Obama team elevated research in a way that’s never been done before in a presidential campaign.

One of the revelations I found most intriguing is the Obama camp’s investment in a so-called “dream team” of behavioral scientists. It’s a clue that the president and his aides understood that identifying would-be supporters was only half the battle— mobilizing them to act was the greater and far more difficult task.

Any school district that has attempted to a pass a construction bond, recruit more volunteers or engage more parents in their child’s education, understands the truth to this claim. So what does the research say about motivating people to take action?

  • Past habits are a powerful predictor of future behaviors. “People want to be congruent with what they have committed to in the past, especially if that commitment is public,” Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist and academician who conferred with the Obama campaign, told the New York Times.
  • Ask for small commitments and build from there. Cialdini, who wrote the national bestseller “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion,” points to a classic study by two Stanford researchers to illustrate this point. The pair of psychologists found that once people agreed to place a sign in their window about the importance of safe driving, they were more willing to put a huge sign in their front yard urging passersby to “Drive Safely.”
  •  Developing a plan to do something increases the likelihood that it will actually get done. This one is a no-brainer but you’d be surprised how many people leave things to chance. Don’t let them. Ask for details. Offer help. And most importantly, show them the plans you’ve developed. – Naomi Dillon
Filed under: Data,research,science — Tags: , , , , — NDillon @ 2:49 pm




November 9, 2012

Hi Ho Nate Silver

It’s the Friday after Nov 6, Florida has finished its final vote tally and this election cycle has come to an end (mercifully for us swing state voters!). But the big winner in this long campaign wasn’t on any ballot. It was the numbers-crunchers, led by the 538 master Nate Silver, whose predictions turned out to be spot on by identifying changing demographics and voter attitudes better than the pundits. Mathematics — take your victory lap.

CPE is all about data and research, so we celebrate when the data geeks come out on top. That’s why it was so jarring when I came across this quote from a Johns Hopkins mathematician no less:

You never see a question about statistics or probability on a college placement exam, thus making statistics and probability irrelevant for college preparation.

W. Stephen Wilson was referring to the emphasis data, probability and statistics (DPS) get in the new common core state standards for math. He had other criticisms of the CCSS, too, but his dismissal of DPS really stood out.

Now as a poor refugee from literary criticism programs, I’m really not in a position to question a mathematician. And given his credentials, I’m sure he is speaking knowledgeably about what it takes to succeed in his academic department.  Fortunately, I have data to speak for me.

David Conley and his team at the University of Oregon surveyed over 1,800 faculty of two- and four-year postsecondary institutions nationwide. The respondents were asked about the relevance of the CCSS for freshman general education courses and workforce training programs. The mathematicians among them rated DPS at slightly over 3 on a 4-point scale of importance. The instructors overall ranked DPS 2.9, or “more important” for success in freshman courses. The importance rating for DPS was comparable to number and quantity, algebra and functions. CCSS mathematical practices had the highest math ratings, standards that Wilson also pooh-poohed by the way.

This is important for us to keep in mind because Wilson isn’t alone. Indeed, other mathematicians have also been critical of CCSS and their views are being promoted by organizations like the Pioneer Institute that have political objections to the common core.

We also need to remember that college preparation is only one purpose of public education. Knowledge of data, probability and statistics is essential to performing a growing number of jobs, as well as conducting our day-to-day lives. Plus, to this data-phile, DPS is the math of citizenship.  I think this recent election proves it–Patte Barth

 

Filed under: Data,national standards,Public education,standards — Tags: , — Patte Barth @ 1:19 pm




September 25, 2012

FairTest’s Ironic Misuse of SAT Results

I find it ironic that an organization whose sole mission is to end the misuse of tests then blatantly misuses test scores themselves. That is exactly what the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest) did yesterday with their claim that yesterday’s SAT results show that NCLB has been a detriment to our students’ achievement and that the U.S. education system is headed in the wrong direction. For an organization that consistently argues that a single test shouldn’t be used to make broad claims they know that overall SAT results cannot be used to accurately measure the impact of NCLB or to make any broad claims about the state of our education system which FairTest does in their press release.

In making such claims about NCLB and the overall quality of the U.S. education system FairTest ignores these simple facts:

  • Since the SAT is voluntary and typically only taken by those students who expect to go onto college SAT results are not even close to being representative of all 2012 seniors.
    • In 25 states less than 40 percent of students took the SAT.
    • In only three states did more than 90 percent of students take the SAT
  • Declines are likely due to the fact since 2006 more disadvantaged students, particularly minority and non-native English speakers, now see college as an option, hence more are taking the SAT.
    • Such students are typically lower performing students which may negatively impact SAT results in the short-term.
    • The increase of such students taking the SAT is a success for our public schools not a detriment.
  • Between 2006 and 2012 SAT scores have declined by 20 points as FairTest notes, however over the same time period ACT scores remained flat even though just as many students take the ACT as SAT.
  • Other indicators show that our high schools have been making significant progress.
    • Between 2006 and 2009 the national on-time graduation rate has increased significantly from 69 percent to 73 percent.
    • The number of black and Hispanic students taking more rigorous high school courses that research shows prepare students to get into a good college and succeed has increased significantly over the past decade.
    • There was a greater increase in students enrolling in college post-NCLB than prior to NCLB.
      • 27 percent more students were enrolled in college in 2010 than in 2002, the year NCLB was implement..
      • 16 percent more students were enrolled in college in 2002 than in 1994.

Of course, FairTest may have a valid concern about the potential impact of high stakes testing on our students. However, SAT results are not a valid tool to evaluate such impact. It is a voluntary test taken by students in just half the states who expect to go on to college. So as more students expect to go onto college it is impossible to make apples to apples comparisons between years. FairTest focuses their argument about NCLB on the decline of SAT scores between 2006 and 2012 but fails to recognize the type of students who took the SAT in 2006 is significantly different than in 2012. Unfortunately, this doesn’t stop FairTest from making their argument that U.S. education is headed in the wrong direction. Nor do they recognize the number of positive outcomes our schools have made over the same time period. Can I say those positive outcomes are due to NCLB? No, that would be irresponsible and unfair.  – Jim Hull

Filed under: Assessments,college,Course taking,Data,Graduation rates,High school,Public education,Testing — Tags: , , , , , , — Jim Hull @ 9:54 am




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