DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 441 279 EA 030 406

TITLE Selected Readings on School Reform Summer 1999. 'INSTITUTION Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, Washington, DC. PUB DATE 1999-00-00 NOTE 175p.; For volume 3 number 1, see ED 427 140. AVAILABLE FROM Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 1627 K Street NW, Suite 600, Washington,'DC 20006. Tel: 888-823-7474 (Toll Free); Fax: 202-223-9226; Web site: http://www.edexcellence.net. PUB TYPE Collected Works Serials (022) JOURNAL CIT Selected Readings on School Reform; v3 n1 Sum 1999 EDRS PRICE MF01/PC07 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Certification; *Charter Schools; College Preparation; Competency Based Education; Core Curriculum; Disadvantaged Environment; *Educational Change; Elementary Secondary Education; Higher Education; National Programs; Nontraditional Education; *School Choice; Scores; Sedatives; *Standardized Tests; Teacher Associations; *Teacher Effectiveness; Teacher Student Ratio IDENTIFIERS Arizona; Kentucky; New York City Board of Education; Texas

ABSTRACT This compilation of reprinted journal and newspaper articles covers the following topics:(1) The Front Lines;(2) Federal Policy; (3) Charter Schools;(4) School Choice;(5) Standards, Tests, and Accountability; (6) Teacher Quality;(7) Curriculum and Content;(8) Higher Education; and (9) Grab Bag. Each section is preceded by commentaries on the subject. In "Network Notes" reviews of selected publications, books and reports are included. Information about obtaining copies and their prices is provided. Articles include: (1) "Bush Beats the Blob" (Tucker Carlson); (2) "Gore Seizes Education as Campaign Platform" (Ethan Bronner); (3) "A School of Your Own" (James Traub); (4) "A Bold Experiment to Fix City Schools" (Matthew Miller); (5) "Ohio Lowering Reading Standards" (Michael Hawthorne); (6) "A Call for Education Change" (Jay Matthews); (7) "In Search of...Brain-Based Education" (John T. Bruer); (8) "The Class of Prop. 209" (James Traub); and (9) "What the Public Schools Can Learn From Hollywood and George W. Bush" (Christian Peters).(DFR)

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. o 1 i 1

II

:

ID o I I

U S DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 'This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization I I originating it Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality

Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy

PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY e # .

ryi Peva.' A e 0

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES . 0 MI INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) a 1 0 0 a I I

...9 o '? Q 0CO 5 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 2 Selected Readings on School Reform

Summer 1999 Vol. 3, No. 3

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation 1627 K Street, NW Suite 600 Washington, DC 20006 (202) 223-5452 (202) 223-9226 (fax) (888) TBF-7474 (publications line) http://www.edexcellence.net

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.

3 Chester E. Finn, Jr. Trustees cm.--THOMAS B. President Chester E. Finn Chester E. Finn, Jr. David H. Ponitz ORDHAM Thomas A. Holton Vice President Bruce Kovner OUNDATION Bruno V. Manno Thomas A. Holton OUTSIDE THE BOX David H. Ponitz Secretary I Dvasurer Diane S. Ravitch Summer 1999

Dear Education Reformer,

In the spirit of year-round schooling, we offer you a summertime pool of worthy school reform writings. Dive in!

The big news is from Florida, where Governor Jeb Bush pushed through his A-Plus accountability plan. Its most controversialand promisingproviso provides scholarships to students stuck in failing schools. Bush's victory is documented in Tucker Carison's perceptive Weekly Standard piece, "Bush Beats the Blob."

Writing in First Things, Christian Smith and David Sikkink ask and answer "Is Private Schooling Privatizing?" Their response: not at all. In fact, private school families participate in community organizations in greater proportions than public school parents. This piece is a powerful antidote to the recent, irresponsible comparisons of voucher systems to the Balkans.

Another favorite of ours is John Bruer's superb article "In Search of ... Brain-Based Education," reprinted from the Phi Delta Kappan. Bruer debunks faulty education notions that purport to be based on brain research.

We're also proud to print Mary Eberstadt's "Why Ritalin Rules," published first in Policy Review. She carefully documents the rapid rise of Attention Deficit Disorder as the phantom menace of millions of kids' education problemsand explains the dubious uses and mixed benefits of treating this disorder with strong chemicals.

We're grateful to Danielle Wilcox, the Foundation's visiting research fellow, who did most of the work on this issue before returning to her doctoral program. Also pitching in were Monica Lee and Steve Coleman. Many thanks for their help.

We'll be back soon after fall classes begin. Until then, keep splashing.

Chester E. Finn, Jr. President

1627 K Street, NW Suite 600Washington, DC, 20006Telephone (202) 223-5452Fax (202) 223-9226 http://www.edexcellence.netPublications: 1(888) 823-7474 ii 4 CONTENTS Vol. III, No. 3 Sumnwr 1999 Eager Response to Offer of Private Scholarships Raises NET NOTES .1 Fears, Hopes. Editorial. THE FRONT LINES 7 USA TODAY. April 19, 1999. 48 Bush Beats the Blob. The Public Revolution Private Money Might Bring. By Tucker Carlson. By Terry M. Moe. The Weekly Standard. * May 17, 1999. 8 The Washington Post. May 9, 1999. 49

Turnaround in Texas Schools Looks Good for Bush in Public School Choice, at a Price. 2000. By Joseph Berger. By Ethan Bronner. The New York Times. May 2, 1999. 51 The New York Times. May 28, 1999. 12 Turning the Tables on School Choice. Board Game. By Charles Wheelan. By Matthew Miller. The New York Times. May 25, 1999. 53 The New Republic.* April 26, 1999. 15 Is Private Schooling Privatizing? All S Union Allies Fall in MPS Races. By Christian Smith and David Sikkink. By Joe Williams. First Things. * April 1999. 55 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. April 7, 1999. 16 New Test in Quebec Schools. FEDERAL POLICY 19 By Steven Pearlstein. The Washington Post. May 10, 1999. 60 Gore Seizes Education as Campaign Platform. By Ethan Bronner. Ohio Court Upholds Constitutionality of School Voucher The New York Times. May 17, 1999. 20 Programs. By Kenneth J. Cooper. Clinton's Education Power Grab. The Washington Post. May 28, 1999. 61 By Anna Bray Duff. Investor's Business Daily. May 20, 1999. 22 How Gotham's Elite High Schools Escaped the Leveller's Ax. The Education Vice President. By Heather Mac Donald. By Chester E. Finn, Jr. City Journal. Spring 1999. 62 The Weekly Standard. May 31, 1999. 24 Class Peace. Gore Curriculum. The Economist. March 27, 1999. 71 By Christopher Caldwell. The Weekly Standard.* June 7, 1999. 27 STANDARDS, TESTS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY 73 CHARTER SCHOOLS 29 Ohio Lowering Reading Standards. A School of Your Own. By Michael Hawthorne. By James Traub. The Cincinnati Enquirer. May 28, 1999. 74 The New York Times Magazine. April 4, 1999. Beating Poverty in the Classroom. Two Charter Schools' Troubles Raise Questions. By Amy Argetsinger. By Debbi Wilgoren and Valerie Strauss. The Washington Post. May 16, 1999. 75 The Washington Post. May 9, 1999. 32 Mississippi Rising. Bill Lann Lee's War on Charter Schools. By Kathleen Vail. By Clint Bolick. The American School Board Journal.* May 1999. 77 The Wall Street Journal. March 22, 1999. 34 It's No Longer Uncool to Do Well in School. Success for Kids Accustomed to Failure. By Patrick Welsh. By Gail Russell Chaddock. The Washington Post. March 14, 1999. 81 The Christian Science Monitor. April 13, 1999. Score on the SAT to Score on the Field. SCHOOL CHOICE By Joe Paterno. The Wall Street Journal. March 16, 1999. 83 A Bold Experiment to Fix City Schools. By Matthew Miller. True Tests. The Atlantic Monthly.* July 1999. 38 By Jay Mathews. The Washington Post Magazine. April 11, 1999. 84 Lesson for Public Schools When Choice is in Equation. By Mike Bowler. The Baltimore Sun. May 12, 1999. .46

iii Why Has Senior Year Lost Its Purpose for Many? HIGHER EDUCATION 121 By June Kronholz. The Wall Street Journal. March 23, 1999. 85 The Class of Prop. 209. By James Traub. TEACHER QUALITY 87 The New York Times Magazine. May 2, 1999. 122 A Call for Education Change. The Feds Strike Back. By Jay Mathews. By John Leo. The Washington Post. April 20, 1999. 88 U.S. News & World Report. May 31, 1999. 129 Certified Failure: Teacher-Training System Needs Do Too Many Kids Go to College? Overhaul. By James Bowman. Editorial. The National Review.* May 17, 1999. 130 The Columbus Dispatch. May 26, 1999. 89 'College is Better Than No College, Period. You'll Thank Method Madness. Me Later.' By Caml Innerst. By Ron Suskind. Washington Monthly. * May 1999. 90 The Wall Street Journal. April 1, 1999. 133

Selling Teachers on School Reform. GRAB BAG 137 By Richard Lee Colvin. The Los Angeles Times. May 6, 1999. ... 94 What the Public Schools Can Learn From Hollywood And George W. Bush. States Not Raising Teacher Standards, Study Finds. By Christian Peters. By Richard Lee Colvin. The Washington Monthly.* May 1999. 138 The Los Angeles Times. May 26, 1999. 98 Easy Pickings. Class-Size Reduction Doesn't Benefit All. By James Heany. By Randy Ross. The Washington Monthly.* May 1999. 141 The Los Angeles Times. April 7, 1999. 100 Why Rita lin Rules. Dueling Goals for Education. By Mary Eberstadt. By Arthur Levine. Policy Review.* April & May 1999. 143 The New York Times. April 7, 1999. 101 Class Career Moves. * Reprinted with permission; all rights reserved. Our sincere Maras to By Beth Daley. all the publishers, journals, and writers who graciously gave assent to The Boston Globe. April 4, 1999. 102 use their works in this publication.

CURRICULUM & CONTENT 105 In Search of...Brain-Based Education. By John T. Bruer. Phi Delta Kappan.* May 1999. 106 Multicultural Literacy. By Sandra Stotsky. The School Administrator.* May 1999. 114 Educators Square Off Over Algebra. By Jay Mathews. The Washington Post. April 19, 1999. 117 Schools Devalue the Drive to be Valedictorian. By Lawrence Muhammed. USA TODAY. April 5, 1999. 119

6 BESTCOPYAVAILABLE iv Network Notes

Choice & Charters Plenty of data here about the biggest charter program in the land. Obtain your very own copy for Home Schooling Works $8.54 by contacting the Arizona Department of The Home School Legal Defense Association Education at 1535 West Jefferson Street, Phoenix, commissioned a substantial study to evaluate home- Arizona 85007, by telephone at 602-542-4361, or by based education and has presented the findings in this e-mail at [email protected]. AEVL recent report. The results indicate that students Contents Standards & Tests who are home-schooled do better on average on Accountability: The Key standardized tests than to Charter Renewal their public and private Choice & Charters This meticulous 24- school counterparts. Standards & Tests page guide, written by However, as the authors Bruno V. Manno for the point out, the families Teachers & Unions Center for Education who home-school their Reform, offers those children do not represent Great Schools interested in launching or a cross-section of the Federal Policy sustaining a charter school American public (nor, so valuable advice on how to far as we can tell, did the Book Review create practical sub-set of home Etc. accountability agreements. schoolers examined here 415 Since the charter represent a cross-section movement began in 1991, of all home schoolers). They tend to be wealthier and operationalizing accountability has been one of the more educated. While this makescomparisons major hurdles for everyone involved. This guide will difficult, the results do suggest that home schooling is help both charter sponsors and operators create better benefiting many students and provides a viable means of gauging school success. Manno educational alternative. methodically covers all the major issues associated Receive a copy for $2.00 by contacting the Home with accountability, from stating the mission to School Legal Defense Association, P.O. Box 3000, dealing with the consequences of non-compliance. Purcellville, VA 20134; phone: (540) 338-6600; or He includes non-academic goals and how to on the web: www.hslda.org. S'C incorporate them into the agreements. The appendix offers helpful examples: a list of expectations from Arizona Charter School Progress Evaluation the District of Columbia Public Charter School This is the product of a yearlong study of charter Board, a sample accountability agreement from schools by Arizona State University's Morrison Chicago, and Massachusetts's annual reporting Institute for Public Policy, on behalf of the Arizona guidelines. Department of Education. Prepared by Lori A. For a copy, write to The Center for Education Mulholland, the forty-three-page report paints a Reform, 1001 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, helpful if ambiguous picture of the progress of the DC 20036, call 202-822-9000, or order it from the state's charter school enterprise over the last five web at www.edreform.com for $10 plus shipping and years. The majority of the report is aclose look at handling. Readers can also download a free copy at results synthesized from surveys of students, parents, www.edreform.com/pubs/charter_school_accountabil teachers and administrators. Although there is a lot ity.htm. ./1/LVL of information to sort through, the writing and presentation of the material are generally clear and Too Much Testing of the Wrong Kind; Too Little of concise. We wish the achievement results were the Right Kind in K-12 Education clearer, though. The comparisons here (between The ever-interesting Paul Barton, who heads the charter pupils and traditional public school students) Policy Information Center of the Educational Testing are plenty interesting but ultimately inconclusive.Of Service, devotes this short but pricey pamphlet to an course, that's often true of social science. orderly critique of "massive" standardized testing-

BESTCOPYAVAILABLE evidently E.T.S. practices academic freedomand a teachers do well. But all that really says is that future murkier plea for something else to take its place. The math teachers know more math than dance majors, something else appears to consist of more complex literature majors, etc. Finally, the study contends that assessments aligned with high quality content and schools of education accredited by the National performance standards. Along the way, Barton takes Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education on numerous timely topics, such as national testing (NCATE) produce graduates who perform at higher (he offers an alternative) and exit exams (he levels on the Praxis exam. But as Professor Michael equivocates). He's usually trenchant and clear, Podgursky of the University of Missouri points out, however, and anyone engaged in today's testing wars the data released by ETS does not allow us to know will want to know what he thinks, even when he's this for sure. They show that more students from wrong. These 32 pages will set you back $9.50 from NCATE-accredited institutions pass the exam, but Policy Information Center, Mail Stop 04-R, since passing scores vary greatly from state to state, Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Road, and we don't know the students' actual scores,we Princeton, NJ 08541. Phone 609-734-5694. E-mail cannot compare their performance nationally with [email protected]. You can also download a free copy non-NCATE students. from www.ets.org/research/pic. C'EFjr Matching Praxis scores to ACT and SAT scores was a worthwhile project. We hope ETS continues to Teachers & Unions develop its methodology and produces finer dataon prospective teachers. But we're going to keep The Academic Quality of Prospective Teachers: The watching over its shoulder to make sure its Impact of Admissions and Licensure Testing conclusions (and press hoopla) match its data. Did you think Al Gore's release of the 1998 To get your $15 copy of this rather misleading NAEP reading results felt like a political pep rally? treatise, write The Teaching and Learning Division, That paled alongside the press conference staged on Research and Data Analysis Group, Mail Stop 15-D, behalf of this report by Drew H. Gitomer, Andrew S. Educational Testing Service, Rosedale Road, Latham, and Robert Ziomek for the Educational Princeton, NJ 08541, call 609-921-9000, or download Testing Service (ETS). Leaders from every major it for free from www.ets.org/praxis/. MJP education groupincluding both teacher unions and the American Association for Colleges of Teacher How Teacher Licensing Tests Fall Short Educationshowed up to cheer its findings. Why? In this helpful 23-page report from the Education Here's a quote from the report's abstract: "In contrast Trust, Ruth Mitchell and Patte Barth reveal findings to many previous research claims that teachers lack from their recent survey of state teacher licensing the academic ability of other college-educated tests that deal with subject matter and general professionals, the data in this study suggests [sic] that knowledge. The conclusion: with rare exceptions, teachers in academic subject areas have academic today's tests are "multiple-choice assessments skills that are equal to or higher than those of the dominated by high-school level material." The larger college graduate population." authors suggest that current teacher licensing In light of the dismal standards that now pervade standards actually harm students by allowing many of America's institutions of higher education, unqualified teachers to enter the classroom. the discovery that teachers are no less able than other The report concludes with a list of short and long college grads is underwhelming. What's more, it's term action items favored by the Education Trust. not necessarily true, no matter what the authors of We agree with many of themthough we wish that this study would like you to think. At least their data Education Trust would place greater faith in the don't sustain their conclusion. They compared the school-level leaders they seek to hold accountable for SAT/ACT scores of college graduates who pass the results. Contact The Education Trust for your $2,50 Praxis teacher licensing exams with the SAT/ACT copy at 1725 K Street, NW., Suite 200, Washington, scores of other college students. All we can say with DC 20006, phone 202-293-1217, or fax 202 -293- certainty is that persons who stayed in college til the 2605. A free copy can also be obtained on the web at bitter end, won a degree, then took and passed a www.edtrust.org/pubs-online.html. teacher licensure test do not know less than all college students combined, many of whom never Kentucky's Teachers: Charting a Course for made it to graduation. KERA's Second Decade The study also compares the, math SAT scores of In this clearly written and timely report, our prospective teachers who pass the math licensure former colleague Stephen Clements, on behalf of the exam with those of all college students. The future Kentucky Long-Term Policy Research Center,

8 2 examines teacher quality in the Bluegrass State. The Smaller Classes Not Vouchers Increase Student report examines the current condition of Kentucky Achievement teachers in comparison to those elsewhere, then We confess that this report's provocative title and presents data on various indicators of teacher quality, the track record of its author, socialist University of and finishes with an outline of issues and policy Wisconsin professor Alex Molnar, led us to expect a options. Its analysis and lessons strike us as one-sided blast at school choice and a knee-jerk applicable to the country as a whole. defense of some progressive cure-du-jour. Actually, Clements finds that most extant measures of it's a fairly balanced critique of the voucher argument teacher quality in Kentucky focus on inputs rather and the present evidence, coupled with a review of then outputs and thus measure credentials, not recent class size research. We disagree with its necessarily what a teacher knows or what he or she conclusions and recommendationsPennsylvania can accomplish in the classroom. The reportalso should reject vouchers and invest heavily in class size addresses the problem of teachers who are not reduction for grades K-1but we acknowledge that it adequately trained in the subjects they teachboth gives_equal time to those who think otherwise. because of weak subject area training and because The voucher section includes historical they are teaching out of the field in which they background on the policy idea, updates on the majored. Milwaukee program, an analysis of the conflicting Like our own teacher manifesto The Teachers We research findings in Milwaukee and Cleveland, and Need and How to Get More of Them, Clements an essay on the philosophical underpinningsof encourages greater emphasis on subject matter vouchers. content. He is less critical of teacher education The class size section focuses largely on the programs, however, and assumes a major continuing Tennessee STAR experiment (and mentions Eric role for them. Mostly, though, his analysis of the Hanushek's critique of it), but also includes research existing data is on target. from California, Nevada, and Wisconsin. To order a free copy, contact the Kentucky Long- Perhaps the biggest problem with Molnar's Term Policy Research Center at 111 St. James Court, analysis is that he isolates these reforms. Few Frankfort, Kentucky 40601; Phone 800-853-2851; or voucher supporters are concerned only with the check it out on-line at www.lrc.state.ky.us /ltprc. SC achievement of students who transfer from public to private schools; most hope that competition will prod A Critical Look at Texas Colleges of Education the public schools to improve, thus lifting all boats. Joseph M. Horn holds nothing back in his Likewise, the unintended consequence of class size scathing critique of teacher training in Texas. After reductionerosion of teacher quality, especially in tackling a few broad education issues such as social disadvantaged areasmust be weighed. In other promotion and grade inflation, Horn pinpoints words, besides comparing these very different problems with current teacher preparation programs. policies with each other, their impact on the larger He argues that children fail in school mainly because education system should also be appraised. their teachers are academically deficient. Schools of Would you like to see for yourself? Contact the education not only admit weak students but also fail report's publisher, Keystone Research Center, at 412 to screen them out, creating a pool of weak teachers. North Third Street, Harrisburg, PA 17101, phone To compound the problem, these ideological 717-255-7181, fax 717-255-7193, or e-mail institutions urge future educators to focus on poor [email protected]. It's free. MJP learners rather than more able students and to give higher priority to social/emotional development than The New York City Teachers' Union Contract: to academics. This combination has and will Shackling Principals' Leadership continue to hurt Texas schools, Horn asserts, unless This terrific new report from the Manhattan major reforms are made. Institute's Center for Civic Innovation cuts to the Although a bit muddled in places, this report heart of school reform: in order to create high- offers important criticisms and recommendations for performing, accountable schools, principals need the the Texas teacher training system. To obtain a copy power to shape their own staff. They needthe (for $10), write to Texas Public Policy Foundation, freedom to hire the best people for the job, people P.O. Box 40519, San Antonio, TX 78229, call 210- who share a common education vision, and they need 614 -0080, or fax 210-614-2649. Copies can also be the autonomy to replace those who turn out to be obtained for free from the web at incompetent or uninspired. Yet this is virtually www.tppf.org/cltce.html. MNL impossible in New York City because of the union contract, explains Dale Ballou, author of the study

3 and economics professor at the University of the nation's best schools. Each short profile provides Massachusetts. the reader with a vivid look at one of these schoolsas Ballou took the closest-ever look at the United well as the practices and ideas that led to its Federation of Teachers' contract with New York transformation. City's Board of Education. He also interviewed These seven people are a diverse crew. Two are principals and district officials. He found that Teach for America alum who decided to launch a Gotham's principals have little say over teachers new (charter) school in the poorest part of Houston. transferred into their schools, little recourse to solve Others are career veterans who have now moved on problems with poorly performing teachers, and little to impacting citywide reform. All believe that the flexibility in making classroom assignments. In the key to reform is to set high standards and press new world of educational accountability, where relentlessly for them. (This philosophy is also the principals' jobs are on the line if they don't get foundation for the "No Excuses" campaign results, these restrictions practically assure failure. associated with publication of the report.) Ballou provides concrete examples of how the To receive a copy of No Excuses, write the contract gets in the way of school reform. If you live Heritage Foundation at 214 Massachusetts Avenue, in New York, this report is a must. Otherwise, it's a N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002 or call 202-546-4400. good model of the kind of study needed in every Readers can also order the booklet from the web at community with a teachers union contract. Get yours http://www.heritage.org/bookstore/ for $5.00. MNL by writing the Manhattan Institute at 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017, by calling 212 -599- Dispelling the Myth: High Poverty Schools 7000, or by surfing to www.manhattan-institute.org. Exceeding Expectations This "Civic Report" (No. 6, June 1999) is free. M113 Let's say it again: high expectations and standards can make a difference in the education of Great Schools all students, including the most disadvantaged. That is one of the chief findings of Education Trust's Portraits of Six Benchmark Schools: Diverse survey of high poverty schools. The report lists Approaches to Improving Student Achievement schools that have levels of poverty over 50% yet The cover says it all: "High standards, Multiple score within their states' top ten schools on math Changes, Strong Leadership, Collaborative Teams, and/or reading assessments or are among the top ten Committed Teachers." Gordon Cawelti, who for schools in the progress being made on state tests. many years headed the Association for Supervision What's the secret? High standards, increased and Curriculum Development (A.S.C.D.) and is now instructional time for math and reading, systems for a research consultant, penned the 70-page report. It's monitoring progress of individual students, and nicely written. All six schools are public, but they're accountable leaders. interestingly diverse. For example, one is a selective To get a copy of this helpful survey, download it college-prep school in Harlem; one is in Canada; one off the Web at www.edtrust.org or contact The is the Edison Project's showcase school in Wichita; Education Trust at 1725 K Street, N.W., Suite 200, and one is a Texas school palpably affected by the Washington, DC 20006; Phone 202-293-1217. SC Lone Star State's new standards and heavy emphasis on accountability. If you'd like a copy, contact Federal Policy Educational Research Service, 2000 Clarendon Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201. Phone 703-243-2100; fax 791- Reform and Results: An Analysis of Title I in the 7309; the publications order number is 800 -791- Great City Schools, 1994-95 to 1997-98 9308; or you can e-mail [email protected] or surf to The Council of the Great City Schools recently www.ers.org. C'EFjr published this examination of the federal Title I program as it has played out in a number of the No Excuses: Seven Principles of Low-Income country's urban school systems over a three-year Schools Who Set the Standard for High period. There are lots of useful charts and tables and Achievement some brief sketches of Title I program emphases in Written by the Heritage Foundation's Samuel particular cities. The burden of the report is that the Casey Carter, this thin 36-page booklet highlights the approach Congress took when it reauthorized Title I achievements of the seven winners of the 1999 in 1994 is bearing fruit in many communities. There Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship, all of them are lots of interesting process data here about how the school principals who transformed some of the program is being implemented. The report also country's toughest education challenges into some of claims that the post-1994 strategy has produced

4 10 achievement gains. The data, however, are shaky collection of interesting essays, the book illuminates self-reporting by school systems based on whatever the interplay of history and education policy with tests they administerand, as the report continuing attention to the role of research and acknowledges, cannot substitute for proper statistics. The contents range from the 19th century to evaluation. It also needs to be said that even the the late 20th, and from such specific programs as reported gains leave many youngsters in desperate Even Start to such broad themes as "education and shape. Random example: "The percent of urban the economic transformation of Nineteenth-Century school Title I students in grade 8 scoring at or above America." The three essays on early childhood the 50th percentile in math increased from 17.8% in education are especially interesting, as are 1994-95 to 22.3% in 1997-98." In other words, fewer Vinovskis's ruminations on the role of history in than a quarter of these eighth grade youngsters are in education policymaking. Yale University Press the top half of the national distributionand that's a (www.yale.edu/yup) 1999; ISBN 0-300-07571-5. 336 distribution based on average performance, not pages. C'EFjr external standards. You may well want to see the data for yourself, The Wasting of a People but we judge that this is a quasi-political document This idiosyncratic book by Russell Shelton is a meant to discourage major shifts in Title I during the philosophical critique of the existing state of present E.S.E.A. reauthorization cycle. Seventeen American education at all levels. He provides a pages plus appendices. Copies can beobtained from distinctive perspective on educational reform as a the Council of the Great City Schools for $10. You teacher of high school and college physics. He offers can write to 1301 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, Suite702, persuasive comments on the need for standards and Washington, D.C. 20004 or call 202-393-2427. the shortcomings of ed school classes and programs. There is also a free pdf version of the report on the In the chapter titled "Learning Unit," he proposes web at www.cgcs.org. C'EFjr individualized instruction centered around the use of technology rather than the traditional lecture method. Measured Progress: An Evaluation of the Impact of This reviewer welcomed his statement that "[a]ny Federal Education Legislation Enacted in 1994 reform that burdens the teacher further [with duties Congress mandatedand the federal Education not directly related to teaching] will fail and should Department appointeda 23 member "Independent fail." However, Shelton's analysis sometimes lacks Review Panel" to advise the government on the sophistication. For instance, he appears blind to the evaluation of E.S.E.A. and Goals 2000, as enacted in socializing and humanizing role of a liberal arts 1994. Christopher Cross of the Council for Basic education. He criticizes humanities courses as too Education chairs it. Most of the members are soft and too subjective, and as teaching little. That's prominent representatives of the public school not always so. establishment. Its short report is meant to inform Five dollars will get you a copy of this interesting Congress's deliberations during the present if uneven book. Contact Russell D. Shelton at reauthorization cycle. It's a cautious and ultimately [email protected]. SC predictable report that says progress is being made, more needs to be done, and don't rock the boat. Etc. If you'd like to see for yourself, contact the U.S. Department of Education's Publication Center for a Improving Mathematics Education Using Results free copy by telephone 877-433-7827, fax to 301- from NAEP and TIMSS 470 -1244, e-mail [email protected], or mail at ED This 48-page report published by the State Pubs, Education Publications Center, U.S. Education Assessment Center of the Council of Chief Department of Education, P.O. Box 1398, Jessup, State School Officers (CCSSO), written by Linda MD 20794-1398. You can also visit their website at Dager Wilson and Rolf K. Blank, contends that much www.ed.gov/pubs/edpubs.html. CEFjr can be learned about what needs to changein U.S. math education by deconstructing recent TIMSS and Book Review National Assessment results. Some of this analysis strikes us as perceptive and some as banal (e.g. well History & Educational Policymaking prepared teachers are a plus). Have a look if you like. University of Michigan historian Maris Contact CCSSO publications at-202-336-7044, Vinovskis knows a lot about education research as e-mail Mr. Blank at,rolfb @ccsso.org or surf to well as history and, as this book demonstrates, a good www.ccsso.org where you'llfind a copy to download. bit about education policymaking, too. Basically a C'EFjr effort. Be warned, though, that this is a fairly dense, The Educational System in the United States: Case 124-page government report. To get a copy (while Study Findings supplies last), phone 877-4ED-PUBS or write ED To provide a suitable context in which to Pubs, U.S. Department of Education, P.O. Box 1398, interpret the results of the Third International Math Jessup, MD 20794. CEFir and Science Study (TIMSS), the U.S. Department of Education conducted an intensive survey of Cities, Suburbs and Schools: Would Citizens in education in the United States, Germany, and Japan. Chicago, Cleveland and Milwaukee Support This thick volume presents the results of the U.S. Greater Collaboration? case study project, directed by Harold Stevenson and Public Agenda conducted focus group interviews Shin-Ying Lee at the University of Michigan. It in three cities and their surrounding suburbs to considers sixteen schools, representative of the ethnic investigate the public's views on regional approaches and cultural diversity in America, in an effort to to education challenges. Participants identified their construct a profile of the typical school. Readers will core concerns as safe schools, parental involvement, find not only an overview of national, state, and local quality teachers and basic skills. Regional initiatives, but also of the attitudes that parents and collaboration did not spontaneously arise as an issue teachers hold toward these mandates. The report also for most. However, when the topic was broached, deploys this overview-and-reaction format on topics participants favored voluntary approaches that did such as how schools address individual differences, not threaten existing neighborhood schools and they how they impact adolescents' lives, and how teachers rejected such top-down solutions as large-scale fare in the profession. busing and redistricting. Typical comment: "I think Due to the immense task of surveying the entire there is a lot to be said for neighborhood schools; U.S. school system, the report fails to consider any there's a spirit and community there." On the benefits topic at great length. And because it did not include of magnet schools as way to increase collaboration rural schools in its data base, this report is pertinent one participant said, "I would try it; I always try to only to metropolitan school systems. Copies are for get my kid the best education." Another plus to sale ($21) from the U. S. Government Printing Office regional collaboration was increased diversity. But a at Superintendent of Documents, Mail Stop: SSOP, number of participants expressed concern that Washington, DC 20402-9328 or by telephone at 202- collaboration not distract from needed local reforms. 512 -1800, fax at 202-512- 2250, or on the web at As one minority parent put it: "They need to www.access.gpo.gov/. The full text is also available guarantee that neighborhood schools have what they at www.ed.gov/pubs/USCaseStudy/. MNL need to teach kids. You should be able to get it right there in your own school." Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Order this report from Public Agenda for $7.50 at Attendance Patterns, and Bachelor's Degree 6 East 39th St., New York, New York 10016 or by Attainment calling 212-686-6610; visit their web site at The tireless and enterprising Cliff Adelman www.publicagenda.org. SC perhaps the ablest scholar remaining at the federal Office of Educational Research and Improvement has just published this welcome analysis of what Network Notes are written by Stephen Coleman, Chester E. leads to degree completion among people attending 4 Finn, Jr., Monica N. Lee, and Michael J. Petrilli. year colleges. It is based on several large federal data setstranscripts, test results, surveys, etc. There's a ton of insight and useful guidance here. Perhaps the most interesting (if not surprising) finding is that the greatest contributor to earning a bachelor's degree in college is the "academic intensity" of one's high school curriculumand how well one does in mastering that curriculum. It matters far more than one's socio-economic status and parents' education. This anti-deterministic, anti-fatalistic conclusion needs to be repeated again and again. Young people's education destiny isn't settled by their choice of families; it's also powerfully shaped by their choice of schools, courses, teachers, standards and academic 12

6 (SR)2 Selected Readings on School Reform The Front Lines

We've long argued that much of the real energy in school reform comes from innovative governors and enterprising mayors. Here are some cases in point. Let's start with the Bush Brothers. Tucker Carlson's Weekly Standard piece "Bush Beats the Blob" describes the historic victory of Jeb's accountability-and-choice plan in Florida. In a shrewd stroke, Bush linked vouchers to the push for standards and consequences. Under his plan, failing schools will be identified, warned, helped, and thenif they do not improvemay lose their students to vouchers. Once the initiative gets up and running, it will be the first statewide voucher program in the country. (Of course, it's not called that.) Jeb's brother "W" couldn't have been too unhappy with Ethan Bronner's boosterish New York Times piece, "Turnaround in Texas Schools Looks Good for Bush in 2000." Bronner details Texas's impressive NAEP gains during the 1990s, linked to the state's own comprehensive accountability system. Bushwho admits that this system predated himhas worked earnestly to raise the bar and make sure all kids are reading by third grade. He hasn't made everyone happy, though. Bronner explains the animus toward Bush by some conservatives concerned that Texas's tests are too soft. (Or maybe they have other motives for their continuing effort to pull him down.) Nevertheless, the Lone Star State is looking pretty good to us. On to the cities. We'll admit a touch of skepticism that urban school boards can effectively guide their districts towards improvement. There's plenty of evidence that many a board has been conquered by adult intereststeachers unions, party hacks, bus drivers, etc. More and more cities are responding by dumping their school boards (see Detroit, Cleveland, etc.). But two reform-minded mayors have found a way to turn their cities' elected school boards into reform agents. First, we learn about Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's efforts in "Board Game," a New Republic article by Matthew Miller. Riordan raised gobs of moneyand spent some of his ownto support the campaigns of a reform slate. It worked: two candidates won outright and the other forced a run-off. One local observer noted, "This is really the last best chance for the school district." A similar strategy paid off in Milwaukee. The Journal Sentinel headline tells the story: "All 5 Union Allies Fall in MPS Races." Why? Because Democratic mayor John Norquist and school board member John Gardner supported and campaigned for a reform slate. An astonishing $500,000 was spent in the campaign, which is generally being interpreted as a major political victory for supporters of choice. Said one of the victors: "I think this was a clear sign that people want change." Maybe local school boards aren't so hopeless after all.

MJP

13 7 The Weekly Standard, May 17, 1999 BUSH BEATS THE BLOB ,deb Bush Takes on the Education Establishmentand Wins By Tucker Carlson

Tallahassee, Florida similar legislation. All were outdone and out-maneu- The Florida legislature passed Gov. Jeb Bush's vered by a 46-year-old with a 12-year-old's name who education bill on April 30 and the first thing until six months ago had never been elected to any- state representative Les Miller could think of thing. was the tragedy at Columbine High School. "A bigger How did Bushdo it? First, by having the good for- threat than any kid walking into a school with a gun," tune to get electedalong with a Republican legislature explainedMiller,the minority amenable to his goals. Second, by leader of the Florida House, "is the pushing his voucher plan relent- Republican legislature putting all IF BUSH'S VOUCHER lessly. Third, and probably most important, by appropriating the the schools under siege with vouch- LEGISLATION IS ers." Betty Holzendorf, a Democrat- style of his ideological enemies. ic state senator from Jacksonville, RADICAL, HIS Jeb Bush is as conservative as any agreed with Milleran act of vio- TONE IS ALL governor in America, and much lence had just taken place. "The ACCOMMODATION more so than most. But you'd nev- vouchers in this bill," Holzendorf er know it unless you listened care- said gravely, "are the lynchings of AND EMPATHY. NOT fully, or took a close look at the the civil rights movements." AT ALL SCARY, AND bills he supports. If Bush's legisla- It takes a lot to move even Flori- QUITE EFFECTIVE. tion is radical, his tone is all da state legislators to rhetoric this accommodation and empathy. Not overheated, but Bush's education at all scary. And therefore quite bill did it. The legislation creates the country's first effective. It's a useful trick. Cynics say he picked it up statewide voucher program. Children who attend from watching Bill Clinton. More likely, it's a lesson Florida's worst public schools will soon be able to take he learned during his first campaign for governor. about $4,000 apiece in state money and use it to attend any other school of their choice, including private and religious schools. Supporters of the bill hailed it as a ongong involved with conservative foundations and historic breakthrough, a reform that, once it clears the L Bush entered the 1994 campaign with a inevitable legal challenges, will revive Florida's ailing reputation asdepending on how it was being public school system, while rescuing thousands of spuneither a straight-shooting man of ideas or a poor children from the crippling effects of an inade- hard-edged ideologue. His opponents made the case quate education. Opponents likened it to mass mur- for ideologue, and Bush gave them plenty of ammuni- der. tion. During the primary that year, Bush gave a Either way, Jeb Bush's voucher bill is a very big speech in which he said that welfare mothers "should deal. It's also wildly insultingto the educrats and be able to get their life together and find a husband." . party hacks.("the blob,'.' is William Bennett ,once One of the other Republicans in the race promptly ran described them) who. opposed it, to the leathers' ads accusing Bush of being insensitive to women. unions whose monopoly is threatened by it, to the Bush complained that his remarks had been taken out various Republican governors and state legislators of context, but the caricature of Bush as a wild-eyed who have tried hard, so far unsuccessfully, to pass right-winger stuck. "He has no track record, no conse- quential public service, and his ideas are shallow and pronounced the St. Petersburg Times. Titther Carlson is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. riditl," 8 Bush's opponent in the general election, incum- Mike Murphy, the Republican consultant who pro- bent governor Lawton Chiles, kept the wound fresh. duced Bush's advertising. While he did come off as Chiles, who himself had become rich from his invest- more gentle than he had in 1994, Murphy argues that ments in the Red Lobster restaurant chain, slammed Bush never became squishy or less committed to con- Bush as a wealthy dilettante with extreme, even dan- servative ideas. As evidence, Murphy points to Bush's gerous plans for the state of Florida, very much unwavering support for school vouchers, despite including school vouchers. As proof of his ideological polling that showed many voters, including many looniness, Chiles often pointed to Bush's running Republicans, were uncomfortable with the idea. "He mate, a conservative state representative named Tom could have listened to us political consultants and Feeney. Though there was no evidence Feeney had downplayed vouchers." Instead, Murphy says, "Jeb ever uttered a racist word, Chiles denounced the didn't blink." aspiring lieutenant governor as "the David Duke of He certainly had opportunities to. During the Florida politics." By the time the Chiles campaign campaign, the state's teachers' union spent more than spread word that Bush wanted to eliminate Social $1 million on ads attacking Bush for his position on Security, many voters were frightened enough to vouchers. Days before the election, Hillary Clinton believe it. In November, while Republicans in the rest came to Tampa to warn voters about Bush's "risky of the country were having the most successful year in voucher scheme" (as well as about his efforts to "turn memory, Bush lost to Chiles by less than 70,000 votes. back the clock" on abortion). Thanks in part to his After the election, Bush's life seemed to hover on friendly, non-threatening personal style-Bush didn't the edge of collapse. In interviews, he admitted he had seem like the kind of guy who'd want to hurt children neglected his family while running for office. During with risky schemesthe attacks bounced off. Bush the campaign, Bush said, his marriage had begun to crushed MacKay at the polls, even winning a remark- unravel. One of his children developed a drug prob- able 13 percent of the black vote. (In the end Buddy lem. Bush publicly pledged to become a better person. MacKay became governor for three weeks anyway, He stopped working on Sundays and began going to when lame duck Lawton Chiles died of heart failure church regularly. In his spare time, he teamed up with in mid-December while exercising at the governor's the head of the Miami Urban League to found Flori- mansion. MacKay immediately freed six female mur- da's first charter school, in Dade County's blighted derers from prison on the grounds they were victims Liberty City neighborhood. Meanwhile, Bush also of "battered woman syndrome.") started the Foundation for Florida's Future, a non- profit organization from which he built a new cam- paign for governor. On Easter eve 1995, he converted ush may have kept the faith on vouchers, but he to Catholicism. Bdidn't actually use the word. He couldn't, explains Jeanne Allen, a longtime school choice promoter, especially not in front of black or Hispanic audiences. ush began the 1998 campaign determined to posi- "The word 'voucher' has been so damaged by oppo- t.) don himself as a compassionate centrist. While nents," says Allen, head of the Center for Education four years earlier he had called for the abolition of the Reform in Washington. "Vouchers equate with free state's department of education, this time Bush chose market, equate with conservatives, equate with segre- that department's head, former education commis- gation.".No doubt about it, agrees Mike Petrilli of the sioner Frank Brogan, as his running mate. Bush visit- Manhattan Institute, another professional voucher ed hundreds of schools, traveled to migrant worker booster. "'Vouchers' as a term is off the table. When camps, black churches, and other traditionally Demo- people hear the word 'vouchers,' they think of anti- cratic campaign venues. He gave speeches in flawless public education. But when you talk about it in terms Spanish and waxed enthusiastic about the state's eth- of 'parental choice,' or 'child-centered education,' or nic diversity. He talked constantly about children. He `money following children to the schools of their said relatively little about abortion, school prayer, choice,' support for the idea goes up and up." homosexuality, or guns. Voters loved it. His opponent, Bush chose "opportunity scholarships" as his lieutenant governor Buddy MacKay, slipping in the trademark euphemism ("scholarship' sounds like polls, tried to use Bush's apparent change of heart something you get if you do well in school," explains against him. "We call him the kinder, gentler Bush," one school choice analyst at a Washington think said MacKay's campaign manager. tank); and even then Went out of his way to call atten- "I call him 'the Bush brother with balls," says tion to bdier, less controversial eleinents of his educa- tion platform. Bush's "A+ Plan for Education" lists There's something to this argument, and Bush has eight separate proposals to improve education in done everything possible since the election toreassure Florida, and it is possible to read the entire list with- "people in the middle" that he is a decent, practical out noticing that vouchers are among them. ("Oppor- person more interested in results than ideology. tunity scholarships" appear at number sixon the ros- Before even taking office, Bush made good on acam- ter, sandwiched stealthily between "Up to $100 per paign promise and pushed the state's tomato growers student bonus for improving and high performing to increase wages paid to migrant farm workers. schools" and "Higher standards for educators.") Tomato pickers got a nickel-a-bucket raise, and Bush When the voucher bill finally passed on the last day of became perhaps the first Republican governor in his- this year's legislative session, Bush's office issueda tory to be hailed in a newspaper headline as "A Friend press release with a picture of the to Farm Workers." His inaugura- governor standing next to a Demo- tion speech a month later contained cratic state representative from Mia- not a hint of fire or whiff of brim- mi named Beryl Roberts. Roberts stone. Instead, the man once depict- was dressed from head to toe in ed as a dangerous ideologue urged African clothing, complete with tur- his fellow citizens to help make ban and robes. The message was Florida "a better neighborhood, a hard to miss: Black people support nicer place." "This is our call to vouchersthatis,opportunity arms," he said. scholarshipstoo. It's easy to mock this rhetoric. In person, Bush is strikingly (Isn't Florida already a pretty nice direct about why he avoids the word place? Since when is it a neighbor- "vouchers." "It's like 'Christian hood?) It's harder to dismiss the Right,' it's like 'extreme Republi- results Bush has achieved using it. cans," he says. "It's a term that has Florida's voucher program really is people in the middle, people who the most dramatic education reform are concerned about their kids, wor- in the country. And if you don't ried. It changes the whole debate. believeit,consider what other Why not use language that gives politicians are offering up as the people a chance to hear you out? next Bold New Vision. In Iowa the The end result is that we use lan- other day, for example, Al Gore guage that helped us pass the most explained his plans for "change" in dynamic 'and dramatic reform of public education of education. "I'm not talking about slow, piddling any state in the countr." changes," Gore said. "I believe we need to really shake Bush is sitting in his "working office," a plain, things up and have radical, truly revolutionary change almost unadorned space about the size of a gas station in our public schools." At which point, the Wall Street men's room next door to his ceremonial office. There Journal pointed out, Gore proceeded to call "for more is what looks like a McDonald's Happy Meal toy on computers, smaller class sizes, extra teacher training, his computer, a Bible next to his mouse pad. Bush, and making preschool programsuniversal" who is in shirt sleeves and cheap-looking rubber- "reforms" so conventional it's hard to think of a soled shoes, seems as informal as the room. He speaks politician in America who has not already endorsed slowly and in much more complete sentences than his them. If Gore considers such ideas revolutionary, it's better-known male relatives. He makes a good case for hard to know how he would even categorize what Jeb why style should serve substance. Certain symbols, Bush has just done in Florida. certain words, he says, "create barriers" between a politician and the public whose lives he seeks to improve. Voters, after all, are practical, not ideologi- Bush's stealth conservatism has achieved impres- cal. "They want safe streets, they want schools that hive results. Still, at times it can seem inadequate. work. I try to use language that draws them toward During the last session, Republicans in the legislature my ideas, rather than language that pushes them passed a bill that requires doctors to notify the parents away." In other words, if the "V-word" causes trouble, of girls under 18 who seek abortions. Democrats were discard it. \Vho cares? It's the improved schools that infuriated by the bill, mostly because they recognized count. it for what it wasan attempt by people who think

16

10 abortion is wrong to curtail abortion. It's all right to April angryangry at being out-muscled by Republi- abhor abortion and use legal means to fight it. Yet cans, angry that Bush got virtually every piece of leg- Bush, who has promised to sign the bill, refuses to islation he asked for. Among the angriest was Rep. acknowledge the legislation has anything to do with Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach. Frankel was partic- something so controversial as. .pro -life sentiment. ularly miffed by Bush's education plan, which she Instead, he says, the bill grew out of "a parental rights believes was created and passed by religious extrem- question more than anything else. Why is it so bad to ists. "This is definitely a Christian Right issue," she at least give parents-the opportunity to love and con- says darkly. "Just go to the Christian Right Web page . sole? That's our aitumene." and you'll see vouchers are one of their top priorities." The problem is, it's not a very powerful argument. (Christian Right Web page? "I don't remember the If Bush believes abortion is wrongand by all name of it," she says.) accounts he does, stronglyit would be more effec- Frankel is a trial lawyer by training and a notori- tive, if politically difficult, simply to say so. And keep ously unpleasant person. She is also the new Demo- saying so. Old fashioned ideological rhetoric may be cratic minority leader in the House. She is, in other ugly: and divisive, but it changes. minds. Often the words, in a perfect position to cause Jeb Bush a great inclusive, "-nicer place variety merely soothes them. deal of trouble a year from now. She doesn't sound Not that a little soothing rhetoric can't be helpful. like she plans to. Frankel doesn't agree with Bush's In fact,; Bush's friendliness and warm personality are politics, but she is not out to get him. "He's a very about the only. things .standing between him and a nice man, very congenial, very likable, very charis- totally. obstructionist Democratic caucus next legisla- matic," she says, brightening at the thought. "You Jive.session. Democrats left. Tallahassee at the end of could see how he got elected." And how he governs.

17 11 The New York Times, May 28, 1999 Turnaround in Texas Schools Looks Good for Bush in 2000

By ETHAN BRONNER

.On a rundown road in this sprawling border city, disparate factions at a time when education is _ the Castaneda Elementary School, built in 1965 for emerging as the most significant domestic political the children of Mexican migrant workers, is still issue in the nation. housed in its original portable buildings. All of its The Texas school system is not without 360 pupils are Mexican-American; a majority detractors. Some educators complain that it puts too arrive not knowing English and a quarter spend much emphasis on standardized tests; others assert several months a year on the road with their that the tests are too easy, and still others say that working parents. the system permits too much state control. But for Yet last year, 90 percent of Castaneda's third now most educators offer praise. graders passed the state's standardized test of "People from outside come to me and say, 'He academic skills, putting it among the state's top represents the big money interests of Republicans schools. Many other schools are not far behind. In everywhere,' " said Susana Navarro, executive 1998, 76 percent of third graders in Texas passed director of the El Paso Collaborative for Academic the test, up from 58 percent in 1994. Excellence, a nonprofit group in El Paso. "But all I And on national examinations, Texan can say is that in Texas with regard to education, schoolchildren have begun to show up their peers in George Bush has managed to maintain the sort of other states. The trend has become so consistent system that insures attention, support and that Texas' public school system, long among the achievement for minority and poor kids. While he nation's most troubled, is viewed today by has been Governor, the gap between minorities and educators as an emerging model of equity, progress whites has closed rather remarkably." and accountability. This has stemmed partly from a unique It is a remarkable turnaround for a school accountability system that predates Mr. Bush's system that is more than half black and Hispanic, tenure and requires all Texas schools to give an and the causes and effects are being debated around array of standardized tests and record the results for the country. Few would dispute that children are the each subgroup -- white, black, Hispanic and chief beneficiaries. But with a Presidential election economically disadvantaged. The schools are next year, there will very likely be another judged on the performance of each group beneficiary, Gov. George W. Bush, at the moment separately. Other states give tests but no other uses the Republicans' best hope for taking control of the the performance of subgroups separately to White House. determine success. While Mr. Bush cannot take full credit for the turnaround -- and he does not try to -- his record on Building on System Already in Place education in Texas shows that some credit will When Mr. Bush was elected in November rightfully accrue to him. 1994, the accountability system, an initiative of the He readily acknowledges that the Education Commissioner of his Democratic improvements in the system were well under way predecessor, Ann W. Richards, was still new. Some when he came into office in 1995. But he and feared that he would dismantle the system. Instead, others point to his enhancement of the system -- his they say, he has strengthened it. firm support for accountability, his nonideological "In a relatively short period of time, the whole approach, his initiative on early reading -- as culture of education has changed in Texas," said evidence of his ability to lead, manage and unite Prof. Richard F. Elmore of the Graduate School of

12 18 Education at Harvard University. "Today, kids of thanks to others who preceded me. I have worked color and poor kids there are fully expected to hard to strengthen it, to continue to raise the bar." learn." The implications for education of a Bush On the last nationally administered Presidency are vague. The Governor has so far mathematics test for fourth graders, the 1996 declined to lay out any specific ideas for a national National Assessment of Educational Progress, education policy, advocating state and local control. black Texans ranked first among all black fourth That puts some distance between him and Vice graders in the country, white Texans ranked first President Al Gore, who recently called for an among white fourth graders and Hispanic Texans ambitious Federal policy that would make ranked sixth. preschool universally available and offer grants of This was in marked contrast to states with $10,000 to college graduates willing to spend four similar populations: California's black fourth years teaching in troubled schools. graders ranked 36th, and New York's Hispanic Mr. Bush says he is not sure what role a fourth graders ranked 30th. President or the Federal Government should play in National reading tests in 1998 again showed education. He mentions the "bully pulpit" and the Texas ahead of the pack. Black fourth graders in need to press for sound research and accountability Texas were ranked 9th nationally and white fourth systems that rely on testing and clear goals. He graders were 2d. says, when asked, that he may be open to the use of And a report last November by the National Federal money as a means of persuasion, something Education Goals Panel, a group that tracks President Clinton also advocates. education across the country, cited Texas and North Mr. Bush has upset liberals with his support of Carolina for their rapid gains. using public money to send children to private Texas' test gains do not follow any notable schools, but that support has not been especially increase in investment in the education system, vigorous,and Texas has not instituted a system of though its teacher/pupil ratio, 15.3 to 1, puts it vouchers for private schools. ahead of the national average of 17.3. The state's The key to the Texas accountability system other vital education statistics, such as spending per since it was instituted in 1991 has been the pupil, are slightly below the national average. relentless focus on testing. Every year, from third In an interview in his office in Austin -- glass through eighth grade and once again in high school, cases of signed baseballs against one wall recall his virtually every Texas public school pupil takes a recent ownership of the Texas Rangers -- Mr. Bush version of the Texas Assessment of Academic emphasized his new legislative proposals intended Skills, known to all in the state as TAAS. The to have every third grader reading at grade level. results, along with school attendance figures, He said research showed that after third grade, determine a school's rating in the state. catching up was much harder for pupils who fell In some districts, the administration of the behind. skills test is viewed as the end of an annual Among the proposals, most of which have been campaign, rather like the homecoming football approved by the Legislature, is one calling for five game, in which every pupil is a player. Students days of training for every teacher in kindergarten train with pep rallies and inspirational speeches; through third grade. The Legislature has already posters plaster the walls; those who pass are approved $18.8 million to carry out the training this rewarded with parties and full days at amusement summer, with $30.8 million more expected to be parks. allocated for it next summer. If, as expected, the Legislature passes the rest Critics Question All the Testing of Mr. Bush's plan in the current session, all third The approach is not universally admired. It is graders would be required to pass a reading test to opposed by the religious right because it is seen as move to fourth grade starting in 2003. Many states a centralized curriculum, and by some on the left are talking about ending the practice of advancing for the fact that minority children do less well than children to the next grade irrespective of their whites and by other parents and educators who say academic skills, but Texas would be among the first "teaching to the test" distorts the learning process. to accompany that policy with a program of early "In many years, all my daughters' teachers have intervention. done is drill them for TAAS instead of giving "I came from the ultimate results-oriented creative writing or interesting projects," said Susan world, which is major league baseball," Mr. Bush Monsees, an Austin dental hygienist, whose two said. "Every day we saw the score. Texas has a very daughters are in the ninth and fifth grades. good accountability system that began to develop

13 19 "The system may look good on paper, but I feel and literacy as they get into the upper elementary my daughters are getting ripped off," Ms. Monsees grades. Mr. Bush said he favored "what works" and said. as long as children learned English and proved, A few advocates of minority rights worry about through their test scores, their English proficiency, reliance on standardized tests because black and he had no objection to the use of bilingual Hispanic students historically do less well on them. education. The Mexican American Legal Defense and It has worked in border cities like Brownsville. Education Fund is suing the State of Texas over the Superintendent Wallace Jackson said that six years high school skills test, which students must pass to ago, based on the skills test, the Brownsville school graduate. district had 11 low-performing schools out of 43. "Some say governments shouldn't measure Today there are none. because that is too much government control," Mr. At Lopez High School in Brownsville, Sylvia Bush said. "Some say it is racist to test. I strongly Senteno, the dean of instruction, said that "for 30 say it is racist not to test because by not testing we years, no one cared how many kids dropped out." don't know and by not knowing we are just moving Today, since school ratings depend partly on children through the system." attendance and reducing dropout rates, Ms. Senteno Mr. Bush argues that the success is the result of said, "we do everything we can to keep kids in "the simple application of principles" that could school so as to avoid lowering our rating." apply to running a business: clear, easy-to- "We visit their homes," she said. "We have understand and measurable goals, staying focused improved the food. We greet the kids when they on a few things and doing them well. arrive, even hand out free pencils if we get them, His analogy to business is significant. Texas' anything to show them we miss them when they are success, most analysts agree, stems from a not here." sustained interest in education by the state's This year, Ms. Senteno said, only 5 seniors failed business leaders, which began in 1983 when a panel the skills test. Three years ago, there were 70. headed by Ross Perot made recommendations. Many were passed by the Legislature, setting the stage for the improvements to come. These included reducing class sizes in first through fourth grades and reallocating state education money so that poorer districts received a larger share.

Making Sure Minorities Succeeded To make sure the minority pupils were part of the advance, superintendents, principals and teachers were allowed to pursue the goal of having their pupils pass the skills test as they saw fit, a management approach that Mr. Bush considers vital to the improved test scores. At the Roosevelt Elementary School in north Houston, where only 8 percent of the children are white, Charlotte Parker, the principal, requires each child to hand in a writing sample every two weeks. Ninety percent of Ms. Parker's pupils, many of them in bilingual education, now pass the skills test. In fact, the use of bilingual education is noteworthy, another example of Mr. Bush's avoiding traditional Republican education politics. Last June, California banned the use of bilingual education, a move applauded' by, many Republican leaders. Texas not only permits bilingual education, many of its schools are planning to increase its use so that students who leave classes taught in Spanish for those taught in English maintain their fluency 20

14 The New Republic, April 26 and May 3, 1999

since 1971. And the big new high schoolreception he gave with his wife, tapping WEST COASTproject currently under wayBelmont,the same business pals active in the west of downtownis already a classicmayor's other causes, like charter reform white elephant: it sits atop an old oil field. two of his candidates may each spend DISPATCH With cost estimates topping $200 million, $600,000 or more, astonishing sums for the most expensive high school in state, ifa school race. Bill Carrick, a heavyweight not human, history now drowns in toxic consultant who ran the mayor's own races, cleanup fights, lavish cost overruns, and an is handling Riordan's candidates. He's orgy of finger-pointing. Belmont, whichblanketing CNN, ESPN, and other cable Board may never open, is a metaphor for chronicchannels with school-board ads for the mismanagement in Los Angeles; the first time. school district spends nine percent more The teachers' union actually backs two Game per pupil than the rest of California, but of Riordan's four candidates and cheers his just 60 cents of every dollar reaches theaims. Still, "it's a little frightening: says THE LATEST LESSON of Cali- classroom. union president Day Higuchi, "that a little fornia politics is that Republi- Yet, the school board, which Riordan oligarchy can orchestrate" these changes. can millionaires spend theirsays is stocked with "wannabe politicians Potential conflicts abound. Eli Broad, for money smarter than Democ-who are in it for their first power base:example, a big investor in the NFL fran- ratic ones do. Al Checchi, thelacks any sense of urgency. Three of four chise the city hopes to lure, has given former Northwest Airlines titan, pouredschool-board incumbents, when asked by $250,000 to Riordan's coalition at a time $40 million down a rathole in a vanity run the Los Angeles Times whether the system when the NFL deal hinges on millions of for governor last year. Now, wealthy Loswas in crisis, said "no." pending city subsidies. Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is poised Like many U.S. mayors, Riordan has lit- A bigger concern is whether Riordan's to shake up L.A.'s failing school districttle clout in the classroom, thanks to school candidates offer a coherent agenda. The with a mere $270,000. That was Rior- districts' nineteenth-centur origin as sep-mayor says he wants schools governed by dan's personal contribution to the $2 mil-arate taxing entities, plus Horace Mann's a big-picture board of directors, but the lion his Coalition for Kids has raised towell-meaning (if naive) push to keep one incumbent he's backing, David Tokov- bankroll a reform slate of four candidates schools out of municipal politics. But, assky, is a legendary meddler. Meanwhile, in the bellwether school-board election onurban woes have mounted, so has the need another incucnbent, Jeff Horton, has April 13. to act. And, in Los Angeles, the kind ofstaked out positions seemingly in line Modeled on a widely hailed overthrowauthority Illinois gave Chicago Mayorwith Riordan's, like tying teacher pay to of Sacramento's moribund board twoRichard Daley seems politically impracti-student resultsa stand that helped cost years ago, the coalition's campaign scram- cal. Unlike Chicago, L.A.'s "unified" school him the teachers' endorsement. Yet Rior- bles all the rules of traditionally union- district is bigger than the city itself; neigh- dan opposes him with Caprice Young, a dominated school races. Riordan's slate ofboring mayors won't let Riordan annex33-year-old former city hall aide who's three challengers and one incumbent will their schools. considered thoughtful but utterly inexpe- outspend opponents by as much as four So Riordan, unable to reform the schoolrienced in the schools. to one and could emerge with a workingboard from above, is trying to fix it from Still, whatever its flaws, Riordan's effort majority on the seven-member board. If it below. There's tertainly.a lot to fix. As acould put a national spotlight on urban works, the campaign could prompt otherstudy by L.A.'s blue-ribbon Committee onschool boards as catalysts for change. reformers to make these backwater races a Effective School Governance found, well-Every big-city school shakeup in recent community-based alternative to the kindrun boards (like Philadelphia's or Chi- years has required either legislation from of state-directed school takeovers seen in cago's) meet monthly to review a hand-above or a court order. School-board cities like Chicago and Detroit. ful of priorities tied to raising studentraceswith their relatively low costs and, Riordan's commitment to education isachievement. L.A.'s board, however, meets in Los Angeles, paltry 15 percent turnout deep. The former venture capitalist hasevery week, often from one o'clock in are fertile ground for determined reform- given $25 million to school projects overthe afternoon until midnight. Meinbersers with cash in hand. The Christian the years, much of it in Los Angeles. He's spend hours second-guessing principal Coalition proved school boards could be an sprinkled computer labs across the cityassignments, helping parents get theireffective battleground for cultural conserv- and funded model after-school programskids' schedules changed, and poring overatives, especially in suburbs and small that the state itself is now expanding. But expenses worth less than one-thousandthtowns in the South and Midwest. Rior- such efforts could do only so much to help of one percent of a $6.5 billion budget.dan's revoltif successfulwould adapt the nation's second-largest school system.Not even cafeteria menus or bathrooms the same strategy to secular aims. Just consider its current litany of woes. escape scrutiny. One educator watched In Los Angeles, at least, time may be Two-thirds of L.A. third-graders can't read in amazement a few years ago as boardrunning out. Without results soon, every- at grade level. The dropout rate is moremembers corralled the superintendent atthing from the Valley secession movement than twice the state average. SAT scores an awards luncheon and dictated an after- to vouchers is sure to get a stronger hear- are nearly 13 percent below the state aver- noon "to do" list of constituent errands "as ing. Says Los Angeles Times editorial page age and have fallen in the past decade.if he was a personal assistant to each oneeditor Janet Clayton: "This is really the last School libraries have five books per pupil, of them." best chance for the school district." versus a national average of 20. One in four Despite this dysfunction, board mem- L.A. teachers lacks proper credentials. bers usually scare off challengers by raising MATTHEW MILLER Next fall, when the district ends the prac- as much as $150,000 from the system's tice of "social promotion," tip to 60 percent teachers, principals, contractors, and ser- MATTHEW MILLER, a syndicated colum- of affected kids are in danger of flunking. vice workers. But not this year. With the nist, is an L.A.-based senior fellow at the Moreover, despite soaring enrollment, help of Riordan's $2 millionmost of Annenberg Public Policy Center of the just two new high schools have been builtwhich came from a $1,000-per-plate University of Pennsylvania. 15 BEST COPY AVAILABLE Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 7, 1999 All 5 union allies fall in MPSraces: Heated contests a victory for reform

BY JOE WILLIAMS

All five School Board candidates endorsed Taylor, who raised considerably less by the Milwaukee teachers union including money than Gardner, did not appear to three incumbents were defeated Tuesday in an benefit from the MTEA's big spending election the union attempted to frame as a against her opponent. Taylor ran on her referendum on school choice. experience in the system and what she said Incumbent John Gardner, the union's was a commitment to lower class sizes in fiercest foe, crushed challenger Theadoll city schools. She frequently criticized Taylor in the citywide race that generated Gardner for his support of school choice and the most attention and as much as $500,000 charter schools. in spending. Turnout at the polls was about 16%, The Milwaukee Teachers' Education much lower than what had been projected Association ran television ads and circulated earlier. City Elections Board Chairman costly fliers attacking Gardner, but did little Robert Spindell said that statistics were still to promote the credentials of Taylor, a being compiled, but that it appeared turnout retired MPS principal. was particularly low in inner-city wards. "This is not a defeat for the MTEA," The teachers union has generally been Gardner said at a campaign celebration at considered the beneficiary of low turnout the east side home of board member Bruce elections in Milwaukee because of the Thompson. "It is a defeat for the six arrogant union's ability to get its members to the white men from the suburbs who think they polls. Several of the victorious candidates run the union. They are Tuesday said that they had more support going to have to start listening to their from teachers than it appeared from the members or look for new jobs." official endorsements. As much as Tuesday's vote was a victory for Gardner and several of the winners Gardner and the slate of reform candidates, it agreed there was considerable work to be was also a victory for Mayor John 0. Norquist. done. Norquist last year successfully fought off state In his first term on the boa rd, Gardner efforts to take over the school system by was an outspoken critic of the status quo in saying voters were close to getting a quality MPS. He was part of a vocal minority that School Board. sought to get more MPS money to the "This is a great victory," Norquist said school level, closer to students, and fought Tuesday night. "I think the people of to make parents more of a force in decision- Milwaukee want to have a School Board making. that will focus on improving MPS and He now w ill be joined by four other making it a place where people will want to newcomers all elected to four-year terms put their kids. It's a real opportunity." who share many of his beliefs. Not joining him will be his frequent opponents on the 22 16 board: Leon Todd, Joe Fisher and Sandra MPS and she wanted to see these reforms Small. through to completion. The slate of five that won Tuesday will District 3, north side: Incumbent Leon remain in office for four years. The four Todd was ousted by challenger Ken other sitting board members, Warren Braun, Johnson, who led one of the most aggressive Bruce Thompson, Lawrence O'Neil and grass -roots campaigns in the city. Charlene Hardin, are up for re-election in Johnson, a journeyman electrician, 2001. raised more money than Todd and blanketed A look at Tuesday's district races: the north side district with volunteers and District 1, northwest side: Challenger literature. He had the support of former MPS Donald Werra, a former police captain, Superintendent Howard Fuller and local squeaked out a victory over board President business leaders. Joe Fisher, a retired teacher, in this district "I think the 3rd District tonight said, that is heavily populated by police officers finally, we would like our voice to be and teachers. heard," Johnson said. "This is fantastic. This Werra is chief of public safety for the is a great day for Milwaukee." Milwaukee Housing Authority. Todd is a self-employed business Fisher, a former MTEA official, said consultant who has had a knack for diving he'd like to create a new school for headfirst into controversial issues. Johnson disruptive students, along the lines of a accused him during the campaign of reform school. He also said he'd push for the operating more like a citywide School Board expansion of a statewide program to reduce member and neglecting the district. class sizes. Todd attracted considerable attention this Werra's strongest message was in school spring for his plan to seek laptop computers safety, suggesting that teachers couldn't for the city's 24,000 high school students. teach unless schools were safe and secure. Some praised him for the plan; others District 2, northern west side: Incumbent criticized its merits. On both sides, the Sandra Small, who served on the board since laptops became a hot campaign issue. 1991, was clobbered by challenger Jeff District 8, south side: Joe Dannecker Spence. beat MTEA-backed Stephen Latin-Kasper in "Talk about a referendum on educating a race that featured two newcomers toMPS the kids here in this city," Spence said politics. Tuesday night. "I think this was a clear sign The seat had been held by Christine that people want change." Sinicki, who was elected to the state Spence, an administrative t for the Legislature last fall. sewerage district, has been involved in Dannecker, an attorney in private decision-making at the two schools his sons practice, said he felt the School Board had attend, Hi-Mount and Golda Meir. He said not operated in an effective manner and his that some of Small's decisions, such as principal stand was that a better working supporting the teachers union contract for environment was needed to surround 1997-'99, had been detrimental to children. decision-making in the district. He called for Small is chair of the committee more of the budget to be spent onclassroom overseeing innovations and school reform. activities. She works in a women's clothing store and Latin-Kasper, an economist for a trade was a leader in city PTA activities whenher association, is strongly opposed to the use of daughter, now an adult, was in school. She private 'companies in public schools, a said during the campaign t hat she had position dear to the MTEA, and said he played a role in launching many changes in wanted to see more effort put into building parental involvement in schools. (SR)2 Selected Readings on School Reform Federal Policy

Ah, spring in Washington. Cherry blossoms, wildflowers, badallergies, and an all-out war to redefine the federal role in education. Two eventsthe reauthorization of the Elementary andSecondary Education Act (ESEA) and the budding 2000 presidential campaignhave combined to create acascade of federal policy proposals. We bring you some of the more important. First up is Vice President Gore's plan for American education.Ethan Bronner, in his New York Times article "Gore Seizes Education as Campaign Platform,"describes Gore's commencement address at Graceland College (in Iowa,of course). Billed as Gore's first major policy speech, it delivered a truckload of new programs. Among the moreprovocative issues he tackled: ending teaching tenure. Mostly, though, he sketched anactivist role for Uncle Sam. A few days later, President Clinton unveiled hisadministration's long-awaited ESEA proposal. Called the "Educational Excellence Act for All ChildrenAct" by its drafters, Anna Bray Duff refers to it as "Clinton's Education Power Grab,"in her Investor 's Business Daily account. The news wasn't the new programscontained in the White House proposal (though there are some) but its focus on "accountability." In returnfor their federal dollars, school districts and states would have to revise their standards,promotion, discipline, and teacher certification policies in line with administration thinking. What to make of these Clinton-Gore proposals? Our ownChecker Finn explains in his Weekly Standard piece "The Education Vice President."Finn admits that these ideas make a great deal of political sense. Voters are hungry for betterschools, seem copacetic with the feds taking charge, and want politicians speaking a language they canrelate to (smaller classes, better teachers) rather than in vague notions (competition, flexibility).Nevertheless, both plans are policy disasters. Finn tells us why. Let us return to Vice President Gore. ChristopherCaldwell of The Weekly Standard explains in "Gore Curriculum" the unfortunate circumstancesof the "resignation" of federal statistics commissioner Pat Forgione. Forgione, among others, criticizedthe Vice President for politicizing the release of the 1998 NAEP reading results. A fewmonths later, Forgione was told that he would not be reappointed to this non-political post.In our view, it's a blooming outrage, a threat to the integrity of federal education statistics, and theloss of an able public servant. Want to keep up-to-date on the ever-changing federalpolicy landscape? Check out our website (www.edexcellence.net) on a regular basis. There youwill find recent testimonies by Finn, Diane Ravitch, Marci Kanstoroom and others, aswell as analyses of proposals floated by both parties.

MJP

BEST COPYAVAILABLE

24 19 The New York Times, May 17,1999

Gore Seizes Educationas Campaign Platform

to be far below those of many teachers, improved safety-- a By ETHAN BRONNER other countries, and he asked, The New York Times principal distinction between "How long can we stay first in Republicans and Democrats has In what political aides making new discoveries if we been the opposition of described as his first policy stay dead last, out of all Republicans to involving the speech of the Presidential countries surveyed, in physics?" Federal Government in campaign, Vice President Al education. Republicans favor Gore called today for While the Vice President's local control and local "revolutionary change" and proposals reflect a growing standards and say Federal substantial Federal investment consensus among educators and control will create unwieldy, in education. He advocated contain elements found in costly bureaucracies. universally available preschool legislative plans at the state and for 3- and 4-year-olds, the Federal level, certain aspects Lamar Alexander, a Republican creation of a teachers corps of are new in a Presidential and former Education Secretary new graduates for neglected campaign, notably the call for a who is hoping to gain his schools, rigorous tests for new universal preschool and the party's Presidential nomination, teachers, the elimination of commitment for a teachers reacted to Mr. Gore's speech by large high schools and legal corps. saying it was the "right church, protection allowing parents to wrong pew." leave work to visit their Though southern Iowa is not a children's teachers during the Democratic stronghold, the From his hometown, Maryville, workday. Vice President was warmly Tenn., where he was a giving a received at Graceland College, college graduation speech, Mr. Speaking at a college a conservative Christian Alexander dismissed the Vice graduation ceremony in institution affiliated with the President's proposals as "adding southern Iowa a day after Reorganized Church of Jesus up to a national school board." opening his campaign Christ of Latter-day Saints. His Mr. Alexander said that instead headquarters in Des Moines, comments about high-quality of creating more Federal Mr. Gore said education was preschool and elevating the education programs, Federal the key to meeting the country's teaching profession drew dollars should be sent back to economic, social and moral enthusiastic applause, as did his local school boards, parents and challenges. assertion of the need for teachers to let them decide what renewed focus on discipline, is best for their students. "Let us realize that education is values and safety in schools, all the greatest anti-poverty signs that focusing his domestic But in his speech, Mr. Gore program," he said, "the most agenda on education will meet said: "Some say there is no powerful anti-discrimination with public approval. national role in helping strategy we could ever have." communities improve their He referred to international While the education goals of schools. I say that education is comparisons showing the two major parties often our No. 1 national priority for American high school students seem to resemble each other -- investing in the future. And we higher standards, better must take dramatic steps to help 25 20 states and communities provide said. But he emphasized that between parents and schools, he a quality educationfor their teachers, a traditional support said. children." group for Democrats, deserve respect. "When I see politicians He added that parents must be Neither Mr. Gore nor his aides bash our teachers," he said, "I given the legal right to take would put a price on his new have to wonder: How long time off from work for that and proposals, but they said all of it would they last in a classroom for subsequent teacher would fit within a balanced with 24 14-year-olds?" meetings. Aides said that budget. protection would come through Sandra Feldman, president of extension of the Federal Family Mr. Gore divided his proposal the American Federation of and Medical Leave Act. into seven recommendations: Teachers, hailed the Vice provide preschool for all President's speech, saying she Mr. Gore said he favored children; improve teacher supported Mr. Gore's calls for increasing the ability of parents quality partly through creation new tests and evaluations to to choose a public school for of a federally subsidized improve the quality of teachers. their children outside their teachers corps; renew the focus neighborhoods but opposed the on discipline and safety; For pupils with discipline use of vouchers supported by fundamentally reduce the size problems, Mr. Gore advocated public money to send children of high schools; turn around the creation of second-chance to private schools. Vouchers are failing schools; improve schools where troubled favored by many Republican technology for schools, and youngsters and those caught candidates as a way to expand create a tax-free savings plan with guns "can receive the strict school choice and instill for parents and grandparents to discipline and intensive competition in the system. Mr. pay for college. services they need." In many of Gore said that would siphon the nation's biggest cities, public school financing. Mr. Gore said the teachers troubled students are simply corps graduates would have to expelled. Mr. Gore ended by calling for a pass a rigorous test, and he National Tuition Savings advocated the same test for all To avoid producing many such program bringing together new teachers as well asfive- students, Mr. Gore offered a disparate state plans for tax-free year evaluations of teachersfor proposal: that parents, teachers savings for college by parents and grandparents. He also license renewal. and students meet on the first day of school every year to urged that employers help "No teaching license should be agree on and sign a discipline employees save, tax-free, for a lifetime guarantee," Mr. Gore code. This would increase ties college and job training. Investor's Business Daily,May 20, 1999

Clinton's EducationPower Grab

By ANNA BRAY DUFF But the administration's approach would do littleto Investor's Business Daily change how money is spent. Rather, it wouldchange what states and school districts haveto do to get the If you thought the era of big governmentwas over, just money in the first place. wait until you see President Clinton's plan torevamp K-12 public schools. How much will all this cost? The administration's rough estimate is $ 50 billion over thenext five years, On Wednesday, Clinton put forth a plan to impose although few of the proposals had specific pricetags strict new regulations on school districts and states attached. receiving federal funds for education. That means the programs could cost muchmore, some The plan details the administration's goalson observers say. everything from setting class size to fighting obesity, from setting teacher qualifications to requiring mental- "This was a major opportunity for Washingtonto health tests for gun-toting students. rethink its role in education," said Donald McAdams,a member of Houston's school board. "But this bill is the') But the plan's most important and potentially most same old thinking that Washington knows best andwe controversial - elements would force states and school need to do it their way even though there isno districts to meet federal standards on teacher evidence that their way is working." qualifications, class size and accountability. Here are some of Clinton's major proposals: Clinton's plan also sets the stage for a possible showdown with Congress, where Republican leaders * Teacher qualifications. Under the Clintonplan, all have been pushing programs to give states and school states would have to show that, within fouryears, at districts more flexibility in how they use federal least 95% of teachers have full teacher certificates. dollars. They argue the past 30 years- in which the federal government has taken a bigger role in New secondary school teachers -but not existingones - regulating public schoolshaven't seen improvements would be required to pass state tests in their subject in education. area, as well as tests of teaching skills. It would limit the use of teacher's aides andemergency teaching "This is a huge federal power grab," said Chester Finn, certificates. president of the Fordham Foundation and former assistant secretary of Education. "It is amazingly * Title I funds for high-poverty schools. School audacious in its reach over schools. I can'teven districts receiving Title I fundsroughly half of all imagine the regulatory apparatus needed to policesome districts -would be required to make their schools of these things. " uniform across the district. All schools would haveto have the same teacher-student ratios and teacher This year, Congress has to renew the 34-year-old qualifications, as well as similar curricula,course Elementary and Secondary Education Act or it will offerings and instructional materials. expire. The ESEA governs how states and school districts use nearly $ 12 billion in federal education * Accountability. States would be "encouraged"to funds each year. develop a single system for holding all schools accountable for improving student performance. "If we are going to change the way our schools work, we must change the way we invest federal aid in our States would have to publicly identify low-performing schools," Clinton said at a press conference districts. They'd also have to help or to shut down low- Wednesday. performing schools that don't improve in at least three years. States would also have to publish schoolwide

22 27 "report cards" listing information such as graduation you will have an effect on the results of schools, but we rates, student achievement and teacher qualifications. know that's not true. We should be encouraging a diversity of approaches," he said. * Social promotion. The plan would also require schools to end the practice of social promotion, which "This is worse than ineffective. It's harmful," Finn lets students who haven't mastered certain subjects get added. passed to the next grade. Federal money makes up only about 7% of total Still, Clinton said that schools must do this "not by spending on K-12 education. But over the past few holding students back, but by making sure they have decades, it has increasingly bought a disproportionate the support to meet the higher standards." amount of control over local schools. This would likely increase under Clinton's plan. While some criticized the plan for taking too much control over schools, others thought its approach was In Pennsylvania, for example, federal funding accounts too timid. for about 7% of total spendingbut takes 33% of the state's Department of Education employees to Amy Wilkens, senior researcher at the Education Trust, administer. In Arizona, it takes 45% of state education argues the new federal requirements for teacher staffers to administer just 6% of spending. standards aren't high enough. Paul Hill, a professor at the University of Washington "The standards only apply to new teachers, which will who has been researching Title I for over two decades, leave the bulk of the teaching force untouched," she argues that federal red tape is only one problem local said. "The second problem is that the new standards are schools have faced. pretty much the status quo, what states already require. It won't change anything." Regulations have caused principals to focus on following rules rather than teaching students, Hill says. Wilkens does back the requirement that states test teachers in the subjects they teach. "Content knowledge In recent months, Congress has taken a small step by is directly linked to student achievement," she said. enacting the "Ed- Flex" program. Lawmakers say they may try to use a similar approach when they renewthe It's also unclear how the push for federal standards for ESEA. teachers will work with the plan's mandate to cut class size. The goal is to cut classes in first-grade through "Republicans and others who value flexibility and local third-grade to 18 students. Some states already have a initiatives have a better approach," Rep. Bill Goodling, shortage of qualified teachers. R- Pa., chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said in a statement. "In "Federal money is limited, so you really ought to target exchange for flexibility, we will expect results." programs that make the biggest differencefirst," Wilkens said. "And if you look at bang for the buck, Sen. William Roth, R-Del., is proposing to give parents well-qualified teachers trump class size every time." more money to control their children'seducation. That plan would expand "Education IRAs" so they can be But Finn argues the administration's approach to used for elementary and secondary education, not just teacher quality is misguided. It relies too heavily on college, and raise the annual contribution limits. teacher certification requirements that have little, if Clinton vetoed a similar plan last year. any, link to student achievement. Houston's McAdams argues for a more radical Overall, the new federal standards will likely make it approach. "What they ought to be doing is giving a harder for states to experiment with new approaches to certain amount of money per child and have it follow improving teacher quality. the child to whatever school he goes to, not giving it to the school system," he said. "Then you hold the school He also argues that requiring uniformity among Title I district accountable for results," he said. schools for class size, curriculum and the like will discourage innovation without improving quality. "Money can make a big difference in education if you give educators a clear goal and flexibility to meet it," "It's an archaic approach to quality control," Finn said. Mc- Adams said. "But this would take taxpayer dollars "It assumes that by standardizing the inputs of schools, and wash them down the drain. "

2$23 BEST COPY AVAILABLE The Weekly Standard, May31, 1999

"national" and THE EDUCATION VICE PRESIDENT "federal." This intellectual dis- by Chester E. Finn Jr. honesty leads to policy promis- AL GORE IS NO FOOL. He knows that education cuity; but it also yields seductive speeches and happy is on voters' minds and has been a political audiences. winner for Bill Clinton. He knows he hasno I wish I had a dollar for every focus group Gore's track record as an education reformer. So on May 16, seven themes were tried out on before he shared them he seized an opportunitya college commencement with the Graceland College class of '99. They touch address in a tiny Iowa townto stake out a forceful all the bases: better and more professional teachers, position on this contentious issue. universal access to both preschool and college, charac- His timing was shrewd. No other candidate save ter and values, discipline and safety, computers, former education secretary Lamar Alexander has had school accountability, smaller classes, parent involve- much to say on the topic. This placed Gore out front. ment, "turning around" failing schools, and on and Then within days, the administration unveiled its on. massive, draconian scheme to overhaul the federal It was a good speech, for Gore, and got lots of role in K-12 education, which both boosted interest attention. Had he been running for prime minister of in the issue andremarkablymade the veep look Britain or any other country with a unitary school like a "good cop" by comparison. system and parliamentary government, it might even No, Gore's seven points don't add up to a coherent have been termed an honest speech. Listeners would plan. They're more like fine-sounding themesor have understood that he was setting forth the policies goals and some nebulous proposals. They rely ona of the government he hoped to lead and that, if he systematic blurring of the line between what a Presi- dent Gore could have the federal government do and whathecould only harangue states and com- munities to do for them- selves. That distinction makes education a tricky national issueforRepublicans. They cannot elide it as eas- ily as Gore. Their affection for the 10th Amendment and local control of schools leaves GOP office-seekers perplexed about how to tackle a nationwide con- cern without expanding Washington's role. This is a special problem in the primaries, where much of theRepublican"base" thinks Uncle Sam should have nothing to do with the schoolsa fatal stance in the general election. Gore, though, has the good for- tune to be a Democrat, and thus joins a long list of politicians who deftly erase theboundarybetween 29 MAY 31,1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 15 -24 were elected, the education system would change in them a worrisome expansion of federal control over the stated ways. the nation's schools. In the American context, however, it was basically Well, hold onto your hat and lock your children dishonest, because it was not moored in the reality of up some place safe. The era of big government is back what a U.S. president can do. To put any of these pro- with a vengeance. So far as one can tell from Riley's posals into operation from Washington would require remarks and Education Department press releases congressional assent and budget authorityand a the hundreds of pages of fine print are not yet pub- vast expansion of Uncle Sam's involvement in the licwe are looking at an epochal enlargement of fed- country's schools. eral control of U.S. schools. Not since the heyday of That prospect seems not to trouble the vice presi- the federal courts' incursions into school manage- dent. He called for widening the Family and Medical ment in the name of desegregation have we seen any- Leave Act to make employers excuse parentsfor all thing like this Potomac power grab. conferences with teachers. He con- But the lever this time is not templates new tax-exempt savings enforcementofconstitutional accounts "for job training, educa- rights. It's the lure of federal dol- tion, and lifelong learning." He lars. The administration is saying wants Washington to give a $10,000 that states and communities that scholarship to anyone who agrees want to keep getting their share of "to spend four years teaching in a the $12 billion or so in school aid school that needs your help" pro- that flows each year from Washing- vided they also "pass a rigorous ton must henceforth obey many exam." more rules that flow from Washing- Very shrewd. Gore responds to ton. The operative phrases in the widespread anxiety about teachers' Department's 17-page handout are competenceand the popularity of "require states" and "states must." making them demonstrate their The new requirementsare knowledgewhile offering more Gore would have the breathtaking in their audacity. In money to teachers, yet limits both the name of "fairness," for example, test and reward to those who serve federal government Riley would require all the schools in needy, tough, urban schools. intrude as never in a district to have "equivalent Along the way, he would have the pupil-teacher ratios, their teachers federal, government intrude as nev- before into decisions [to] have equal qualifications, and er before into decisions about what the curriculum, instructional mate- teachers should know and which about what teachers rials, range of courses and the con- schools need which teachers. But should know and dition of safety of school facilities never mind. all must be comparable." He does- Other vice presidential propos- which schools need n't mean "comparable" as in "able als are vaguer. It's impossible to which teachers. to be compared." He means identi- determine whom he expects to do cal, uniform, equal, unvarying. what to bring them about. Thus: In the name of "qualified" "We should provide bonuses to all teachers inschools teachers, the administration would require every state where students have made significant gains....N,Ve to ensure that 95 percent of its instructors are "fully need a renewed focus on discipline, character, the certified"that is, products of the teacher-education right values, and safety. ... We shouldincrease our cartelleaving districts and charter schools even less commitment to after-school care. ...We should pro- leeway to hire other people who might do a better job. vide incentives to create smaller high schools. ...We In the name of a "stimulating, career-long learn- need to make summer school much more widely ing environment for teachers," the administration available." And on and on. would require every district to set aside 10 percent of Those vague promises, however, are the good cop its Title I funding for "professional development." In speaking. A few days later, education secretary other words, take $800 million a year out of direct Richard Riley unveiled the Clinton administration's services to low income children and spend it instead plan to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Edu- on the motley array of prosperous hucksters, itinerant cation Act and Goals 2000 program.. Congress last experts, and mediocre ed schools thatdispense "in- reworked these huge statutes just before the Republi- service education." can victory of 1994, and at the time critics termed In the name of orderly schools, the administration

16 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD MAY 31, 1999 253 BESTCOPYAVAILABLE would "require states to hold school districts and Congressional leaders' initial response to the Clinton schools accountable for having discipline policies plan has been, "Yes, but." There is no sign of effective that focus on prevention, are consistent and fair." leadership on this issue on the Republican side of the Imagine the regulatory apparatus that will be needed aisle. After an initial flurry of attention, the country's to see whether 50 states have done this satisfactorily energetic "education governors" seem to have surren- in 16,000 local districts and 85,000 public schools. dered the field. Although the "Super Ed-Flex" idea But it's even more complicated, .for the White House giving a handful of states greater freedom with their is sensitive to concerns that tough discipline will federal dollars in return for evidence of improved actually lead to troublesome kids' being kicked out of pupil achievementis attracting some interest on school. So yet another provision would require states Capitol Hill, it is already being compromised with "to ensure that schools have a plan to help students conditions, set-asides, and hold-harmless provisions who are expelled or suspended continue to meet the that will render it practically meaningless. challenging state standards." Think of it as the Just as Gore is gambling that, when it comes to Bureau of High Standards for Bad Kids. education, voters prefer action to inaction and con- Were all this and more to happen, the U.S. secre- crete programs to quibbles about federalism, so are tary of education would become the national superin- Clinton and Riley assuming that the country is ready tendent of schools. Reform-minded governors and for an activist government to take charge of the mayors might as well fold their education tents. schools. Sixteen years after being declared a "nation Advocates of education improvement via school at risk," the United States still provides a K-12 educa- diversity and competition would face a historic set- tion that is perilously weak. The Democrats have back. Parentswhile they may find themselves decided that the public is weary of false starts and required to become more "involved" with their chil- excuses and is prepared to let Washington run things, dren's schoolswill have ever less say in their kids' maybe even to reward politicians who promise vigor. education. And Al Gore will be made a more honest For their partto their great shame and likely politi- man, for the country whose presidency he seeks will cal costthe Republicans still cannot explain what a have an education system far more like the unitary, better approach would be. nationalized, government-run versions of other lands. One would like to say that the education battle Chester E. Finn Jr. is John M. Olin Fellow at the Man- lines are being drawn in Washington, but it's doubt- hattan Institute and president of the Thomas B. Ford- ful the GOP will mount a coherent counterattack. ham Foundation.

31

MAY 31, 1999 THE WEEKLY STANDARD / 17 26 The Weekly Standard, June 7, 1999

Musick wrote, "that the format, tone GORE CURRICULUM and substance of that event was not consistent with the principle of an by Christopher Caldwell independent, non-partisan release of National Assessment data." Unless pASCAL FORGIONE WITNESSED A HIJACKING and such non-partisanship could be assured, Musick it cost him his job. Last February 10, For- wrote, "it eventually won't matter how much atten- gione, who heads the National Center for Edu- tion is paid to the results; people won't believe cation Statistics (NCES), was due at an Education them." Department press conference to announce the The letter leaked. In March, Los Angeles Times results of the National Assessment of Educational reporter Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar described Gore's Progress (NAEP), a periodic measure of school per- stunt as symptomatic of two devious tendencies. formance that he administers. These are generally First, to steal credit for policy initiatives he didn't low-key events, since policy forbids partisan com- develop. Second, to politicize parts of the bureaucra- ment on the data until the center's bureaucrats can cy that have been set up to be beyond partisan poli- present them dispassionately to the public. This tics. Forgione, who had devoted his career to educa- time, however, there was a last-minute change of tional testingas Connecticut's head of assessment, plan. Reporters who usually cover the education beat Delaware's state schools superintendent, and execu- found themselves roped off at the back of the audito- tive director of the National Education Goals Pro- rium. The best seats were taken by hundreds of grampopped off. He told the L.A. writer that administration-friendly lobbyists and Education interventions such as Gore's "can cloud the confi- Department activists. Standing at the front of the dence people might have in the independence of the room to announce the results and take credit was Al data." He added, "This should not happen again." Gore himself. Then he told Education Week that repeating such a Turning a non-partisan announcement into a charade would damage NAEP's credibility. campaign rally would have been an abuse even if the Sayonara, Pascal Forgione. In mid-April, For- vice president had not misrep- gione was told that his four-year appointment, resented the data. But he did which expires on June 21, would not be renewed. It's that, too, claiming big gains in not surprising that he burst into tears when he told reading scores since 1994, link- his employees he'd be leavingeveryone around ing the improvement to Clinton him was stunned. Forgione was popular and had administrationpolicies,and upped the NCES's budget. He had won praise for an drawing wild cheers from the extension of the Third International Math and Sci- assembled claque. He did not ence Study. The Advisory Council on Education Sta- mention that the 1994 scores tistics, an elite group of statisticians that advises the had shown a precipitous drop- Education Department, recommended that Forgione off since the last measures of the stay on; Andy Porter, the coun- Bush administration in 1992, cil's chairman, called his depar- and that the new NAEP ratings ture a "tremendous loss." Edu- remained belowtheir1992 cation Secretary Richard-Riley, highs. Once Gore had blown too, urged his reappointment. out of the roomwithout tak- That he was not kept on in the ing a- single questionthe task faceof suchendorsements of unsaying much of what he means the decision to oust him had just said fell to Forgione came from the White House. A and Mark D. Musick, chairman number of education newslet- of the National Assessment ters, particularly Education Dai- Governing Board, which draws ly, discerned a link between up the NAEP tests. Forgione's appeal for nonparti- The incident might have san statistics and his unsuitabil- ended there, but Musick was ity for further employment in infuri'ated. He wrote a letter to the Clinton-Gore administra- Forgione commiserating over tion. Gore's hijacking of the NAEP But then Forgione's enemies announcement. "We believe," came forth with what they said

JUNE 7,1999 27 THE WEEKLY STAN'DARD /15 BEST COPY AVAILABLE 32 was the real explanation for his President Bush prematurely ouster. For eight consecutive revealed some statistics. They years, it seems, Forgione filed stressed that the vice presi- for extensions on his federal dent's statistical interest reflects income taxes. In seven of those nothing more than his high years, he missed the August 15 degree of commitment to edu- fallback deadline. He would file cation. Republicans areless his taxes towards the end of the bothered by this line of think- year and collect a refund from ing than one would imagine. the IRS, which he would use to "Bringing attention to educa- payhischildren'scollege tion issues is not a bad thing," tuition. Forgione referred to this as forced savings; saysRepublicancommittee the White House looked at it as an "appearance of staffer Vic Klatt. "What bothers impropriety" that could sidetrack its "commitment us more is that the vice president manipulated the to education." data and then tried to claim credit for it." There are problems with this White House line. But two disturbing aspects of this seemingly First, the Department of Education had been fully minor incident show Gore to be truly Clinton's heir. aware of the practice when Forgione was nominated The first is the elevation of public relations over and confirmed. Second, none of the Republicans on public service. Gore is flinging around rhetoric the House Education and the Workforce committee about how much he cares about education, but he is showed the slightest discomfort with Forgione's unwilling to countenance a bureaucrat who wants to means of paying his taxes. That's because, while For- match that rhetoric to reality. The NCES is a key gione's practice may have been eccentric, there was federal education body, and no one has been nomi- absolutely nothing unethical or illegal about it. It is nated to head it once Forgione goes. So the "educa- illegal to pay taxes late; but as long as the govern- tion vice president" has shown himself perfectly ment owes the taxpayer money, there's no crime in willing to leave the program rudderless for months. filing for your refund late. Nobody interviewed for this Second is the need he feels to cloak brass-knuck- articleRepublican or Democrat; in Congress or les politics with trumped-up, post-facto "moral" jus- the Ed Department or the private sectorbelieves tifications. Of course, low-ranking administration Forgione was fired for his tax problem. officials, if they don't toe the line, will always be prey Forgione did not return calls for this article, but to high-ranking administration officialsand may he told Jonathan Fox of Education Daily, "I've been pay with their jobs. Of course the White House will doing this my whole life. It's bad behavior, but it's try to disguise its Machiavellian 'Motives from the my money I'm getting back." He is said to have public. But corruption is one thing and delusions of received a six-month consulting contract with the moral grandeur are another. The Forgione case Education Department. (Strange treatment if he makes us worry about Gore in much the way Travel- were really departing under an gate made us worry about the Clintons. It's the sign ethical cloud.) He appeared last of a bizarre need on Gore's part to disguise his week at oversight hearings of Machiavellian motives from himself. theHouseEducationand Workforce committee. Republi- Christopher Caldtvell is senior writer at THE WEEKLY canslike MikeCastleof STANDARD. Delaware and Peter Hoekstra of Michiganused the occasion to argue that stricter statutory independence be given to the NCES. Congressional Deinoc- ratsHarold Fordof Ten- nessee, Bobby Scott of Virginia, Tim Roemer of Indianaagain proved themselves formidable presidential historians, alluding to an incident in 1992 when

JUNE 7, 1999 16 / THE WEEKLY STANDARD 33 28 (SR)2 Selected Readings on School Reform Charter Schools

The popularity of charter schools has not waned over time; indeed, each year more states pass enabling legislation. As we reported in(SR)2 in April, even New York, a state whose teachers' and administrators' unions have been notoriously resistant to the idea, recently became the 35th state to enact charter school legislation. (Oklahoma and Oregon then became the36th and 37th.) With 13 more states to be conquered, many are starting to ask the tough questions about these new public schools of choice. James Traub, writing in The New York Times Education Life, has a few of his own: "It's an idea everybody loves to love. But will charter schools be here tomorrow, or are they just another indispensable innovation of the moment?" Traub takes an especially hard look at the feasibility of "autonomy" as a catalyst for education reform. This piece is worth your time, charter-watchers. Next up is a cautionary tale. Debbie Wilogren and Valerie Strauss, in their Washington Post article "Two Charter Schools' Troubles Raise Questions," report on the ad hoc oversight process that led to the probation of two DC charter schools. Monitors who visited these schools detected little evidence of student learning and an aimless educational mission, which led the DC Board of Education hastily to establish a probationary process. This article drives home the importance of the screening process (before the charter is granted) and the accountability system (that allows closing down a school after a charter is granted). Some charter sponsors do this conscientiously, some do not. In the nation's capital, we have examples of both! Clint Bolick, litigation director for the Institute for Justice, writes in The Wall Street Journal about the wrong way to go about shutting down charter schools. His op-ed, "Bill Lann Lee's War on Charter Schools," documents how Lee, "the thrice-nominated, never-confirmed'acting' chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division," has aimed a volley of school desegregation statutes at charter schools in a "campaign to stop charter schools in their tracks." Lee has targeted charter schools located in primarily minority districts because he fears they would draw in the few white students in the area, further disturbing the racial balances. Bolick points out that these claims are dubious: racial balance is unlikely to be worse than it already is in public schools. Moreover, charter schools might attract white students from private schools. Students at Houston's KIPP Academy show how well disadvantaged youngsters can be served in charter schools. Gail Russell Chaddock, in The Christian Science Monitor, credits this outstanding school with providing "Success for Kids Accustomed to Failure." KIPP offers an intense middle school program that allows students to make up for "lots of lost ground, because most schools lower expectations for students in the seventh and eighthgrades." Well done, KIPP.

DDW

r New York Times Magazine, April 4, 1999 School of Your Own It's an i4tea everybody loves to love. But will charter schools be here tomorrow, or are they just another indispensable innovation of the moment? By James Traub

WILMINGTON, Del. HE CHARTER SCHOOL ern ordinary public schools. The charter functions as a The first charter laws were passed in Minnesota and of Wilmington sits atop contract in which the prospective school spells out how California in 1991; since then, the movement has blos- theolddistricthigh- itplans to operate as well as what It vows to accomplish; somed, with its own think tanks, symposiums, Web sites school building like Rome on its ruins. The old school the sponsoring agency monitors the school, and chooses and committed legislators and governors as well as, was phased out .in the mid-90's in favor of four themed whether to renew the charter at the end of a specified of course, its own pantheon of rugged pioneers. mini-schools, the educational innovation of the moment. period, typically five years. Yvonne Chan started the Vaughn Learning Center in That moment turned out to be very brief: two of the The premise of the charter school movement is that Los Angeles in 1992, and quickly became a poster child mini-schools the Banking and Finance School and an the difference between good and bad schools lies not in for the charter movement. She had spent a quarter-cen- academy based on the progressive theories of Ted Sizer any particular classroom practice; but In the way the tury in the Los Angeles public school system and had a did not even attract enough students to open: The school itself is administered; or, alternatively, that with- lifetime's worth of scars to show for lt. "I tried school- Charter School of Wilmington absorbed the Math and out the self-governance made possible by a charter, the based management, I tried everything," she says, "but Science mini-school and opened on the third floor of the desired classroom reform, whatever it is, will never be they handcuff your hands with so many policies, so building in 1996.. fully realized. many rules and regulations. If your toilet seat is broken, The new school has been an instant success: its popu- "If you give children access to a mission-driven at- tough luck; you wait till everybody's get fixed." lation has already grown to 552 from 253, and next year mosphere, a school that has high expectations and a Now, she says, she uses her control over the school's it will begin creeping down into the space vacated by the structure free from bureaucracy, it's going to yield bet- $6 million budget to swing advantageous deals for com- former high school. ter results than had that child been In a traditional puters, to increase teacher training for literacy, to re- What is true in Wilmington is true generally: the char- sthool," says Jean Allen, the head of the Center for Edu- duce class size in the bilingual program and to "main- ter school movement is sweeping everything before it. cational Reform in Washington and a strong charter ad- stream" students in special education. . There were, at last count, 1,208 charter schools across vocate. the country, with 200 more scheduled for September. That theory was first articulated by John E. Chubb IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY WHAT CHARTER Even the most intransigent state legislatures are fall- and Terry M. Moe in their highly controversial 1990 schools look like. The Minnesota New Country ing: in December, after several years of stout resistance book, "Politics, Markets and Anierica's Schools." The School, in the farming town of Henderson, resem- from teachers' and administrators' unions, New York two scholars argued that public schools were bound to bles a Kinko's, with children at personalized work sta- became the 35th and most recent state to pass a law fail because they had to answer to school boards, teach- tions and teachers moving from child to child, guiding governing the creation of charter schools. Responding ers' unions, state governments and other entities whose them on long-term projects. There are Afrocentric to all this enthusiasm, President Clinton has called for interests often collided with those of children; private charter schools and Outward Bound-type charter 3,000 new charter schools by the year 2000. schools were free to make decisions according to what schools. Colorado has five Core Knowledge charter Critics are getting hard to find, while from advocates worked, and so achieved more with the same students. schools, where children study a specified and rigorous one increasingly hears breathless tales of dead schools Using data gleaned from a study of 60,000 high-school curriculum, but the state also has a school whose mis- transformed, of inner-city children engaged, of hide- students, they concluded that the difference between ef- sion statement says that it "gives equal weight to intel- bound school systems rising to the marketplace chal- fectiveand ineffectiveschool organization could lectual and character development" and "students ex- lenge with a burst of reform. amount to more than one full year of academic achieve- ercise many choices as they decide which activities, . Of course, one hears a lot of euphoria these days in the ment over the four years of high school. materials and resources they use, under the auspices of world of school reform about "multiple intelligence" "If Americans want effective schools," the authors their advisers." schools and Core Knowledge schools and parochial wrote, "it appears they must first create new institu- With the educational marketplace jammed with com- schools and a dozen other species of schools. Indeed, a tions that, in their effects on the choices of individuals, peting designs, the charter school has become the blank recent study from the University of California at Los naturally function to promote rather than inhibit the slate on which absolutely everything can be drawn and Angeles, which questions virtually all the claims made right kinds of organizations." tested. by charter advocates, concludes that "policy makers Even educators who don't share Mr. Chubb and Mr. The Charter School of Wilmington differs from a typi- who hope for a broad impact should reconsider some of Moe's faith in the marketplace might agree with their cal high school only in that it is smaller, calmer and pos- the underlying assumptions that led them to favor char- critique of the bureaucracy. Indeed, the fuel of the char- sibly more old-fashioned. The school bills itself as an op- ter school reform in the first place." The archeological ter school movement lies in the overwhelming sense of tion for students who want to take their studies se- metaphor is, after all, double-sided: is there, in fact, frustration and helplessness many educators say they riously. It gives out academic letters as well as athletic something so fundamental about this particular innova- feel in the face of "the system." ones, and holds an annual academic banquet for stu- tion that we should expect charter schools to become a Moreover, charter schools have had an unusually non- dents who make the honor roll. Students must take 24 fixed part of the school terrain, or will they subside into partisan appeal because they prescribe nothing; both courses to graduate, rather than the 19 or 20 normally the rubble of yesterday's indispensable ideas? progressives and traditionalists can create schools of required in the district, and .10 math and science Under. laws now being passed, organizations or indi- their own, leaving agnostics free to believe in the wis- courses, rather than the usual 6 or 8. All classes are di- viduals often parents and teachers can petition an dom of letting a hundred flowers bloom. Ideologically, vided into three "homogeneous groupings," the current officially designated body for a charter to operate a the charter proposal occupies a position midway be- euphemism for academic tracks. school that is free from some or all of the union and tween "choice" the idea that children can attend any Progressive doctrine hasn't made much of a dent at civil-service rules and budgetary restrictions that gov- school in their district and vouchers, which allow chil- the Wilmington charter school. In most classes, stu- dren to attend private or parochial schools with public dents sit in rows and the teacher stands at the front. At James Traub, the author of "City on a Hill: Testing the money. Liberals like choice; free-market conservatives the same time, it is not an airless place, and its students American Dream at City College," is a contributing like vouchers and, as it turns out, both have found seem respectful and attentive. It feels like the ideal pa- writer for The New York Times Magazine. they can live with charters. rochial school, which is not entirely surprising: the prir.-

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 35

30 struction, why would you choose cipal, Ronald Russo, used to run the biggest parochial a content-neutral marketplace high school in the state, and he brought a number of tings?" that is, that complicat- innovation to get there? teachers and administrators with him. ed new experiments in social pol- "If all the public schools were Delaware passed its charter law in 1995, and six of the icy tend to run into unanticipated doing what they were doing 70 state's major employers, including Du Pont and Bell At- problems and fail. years ago, with a rich, strong lantic, joined forces to sponsor a school with high stand- Mr. Sarason, a retired profes- curriculum, and the teachers un- ards. Those two companies kicked in $100,000 apiece, sor of psychology at Yale, is a derstood it, you wouldn't see me found the site and created a board of directors, who harsh critic of public schools and advocating charter schools," Ms. hired Mr. Russo. None of this is atypical; chartera strong proponent of structural Ravitch explains. But unlike Ms. schools often form linkS with local employers, and al- reform. But he argues that advo- Wells, she believes that schools most always supplement their budget with outsidecates, and especially political will change onlyifthey are money. Delaware law allows charter schools to dis- leaders, have been so beguiled by forced to. pense with the teachers' union, which the school did. the imagery of autonomy that "As long as you have a system This has freed Mr. Russo and his colleagues to hirethey haven't asked the hard in which 90 percent of the kids teachers they considered appropriate and, when nec- questions. are in the system and there's no essary, fire them. Since a third of the teachers could be "Do we have to be subjected to interior reason to change, there uncertified, as long as they were working toward certifi-yet another instance of an educa- will be this continual drift to- cation, the school hired a chiropractor with a back-tional innovation the implemen- ward vacuity and illiteracy and tation of which is a catalogue of social promotion," she observes. ground in biology to teach biology, anatomy and physiol- studenterrors of omission and commis- "But once you create these out- ogy. And Mr. Russo could spend the $6,600 per sion?" he writes. lying organizations called char- he received from the state and the district as he chose. Other critics, especially de- ters, then the people inside the The school's teachers and administrators say that au- fenders of the public schools, dis- system will say., .These people tonomy from central control allows them to direct theirpute the very premise of charterdents in poverty is slightly lowerare getting public money; you've energies toward their academic mission, just as Mr.reform. "It is time to rest thein charters. got to hold them accountable.' Chubb and Mr. Moe would have predicted. When thetired rhetoric that all bureaucra- Limiting choice in the name ofThen you produce a dynamic teachers learned they had to change the science curric-cy is bad and all autonomy-frompreserving equity might have an where even the people inside the bureaucracy is good," concludesunintendedconsequence, too. systemaredemandingreal Amy Stuart Wells, the author ofSchools that don't have to re-standards." the U.C.L.A. study. Ms. Wellsspond todissatisfiedparents Ms. Ravitch's argument rep- ulum to satisfy new state graduation requirements, theysays that charter schools in Cal-don't need to change. But Ms. resents a metalevel of school de- created a new ninth -grade science course during aifornia are excluding the mostWells argues that the virtues ofspair: you can change individual three-hour meeting. disadvantaged parents, are notthe marketplace model haveschools, but you'll never change "We are the paragon of school-based management,"being held accountable for ac-been "hugely exaggerated," andthe system without a challenge says Charles Bichl, the school's dean of math and sci-ademic performance, are notinsists that it is collaboration, notfrom the outside. This is, in fact, ence. "We control our own destiny." ujing their power over theircompetition, that drives school the nub of the marketplace argu- budget to save money, are not reform. ment. "The test of the charter SINCE FEW CHARTER SCHOOLS ARE MOREimproving academic outcomes, There is, however, another cri- schoolreformisnotthose than three years old, it's not yet possible to sayare not having any effect on the tique of the charter school ideaschools, but what happens in the whether charter status has any effect on academ-public schools are not,in that has rarely been aired. Therest of the system," says John ic performance. But charter proponents argue that theshort, accomplishing a singlepremise of the charter move-Chubb, who is now a partner in anecdotal evidence so far is positive. Ms. Allen, of thegoal of the charter movement. ment is that autonomy is thethe Edison -Project, a forIirofit Center for Educational Reform, says she knows of 60 The report is easily the harsh- most importantvariableforcompanythatrunscharter charters nationwide that have either outperformedest assessment yet published.school success; or, more mod- schools in seven states. comparable noncharter schools or produced largerDiane Ravitch, an education his- estly, other reforms won't work Mr. Chubb says that charter torian and a charter proponent,absent autonomy. But : isthisschoolshavealreadyforced gains than students had before the school converted tocalls it "a hit job," and others inreally so? The big-city publicschool districts around the coun- charter status. The Wilmington Charter School is onethe charter school world take the schools of a half-century ago try to consider the kinds of bread example. Last year, its students had the highest aver-study, and the major publicity itwhich are often taken to rep-changes they once felt they could age S.A.T. score of any public school in the state; thehas garnered, as a sign that the resent the high-water mark ofneglect. One sign of. this, he says, year before that, they registered the highest score onideological fires are still smol-educational. effectiveness is the increasingly warm recep- the state's writing assessment test. Ms. Allen alsodering. Ms. Wells insisted in anwere even more centralized andtion given to Edison, which, until points out that charter schools have succeeded accord-Interview that she favors char-bureaucraticthanthefailedrecently, many school boards ing to nonacademic indexes of effectiveness attend-ter schools but thinks they are school systems of today. Schools and teachers' unions have ance, student retention, parental involvement, teacherunfair to the neediest children.in Western Europe and Asia,scorned. Seattle is converting to satisfaction. She pOints out that three-quar-whose performance puts Amer- anautonomy-without-charters, Nevertheless, many charter schools are limpingters of California charter schools ica's in the shade, are every bitschool-based system of manage- require prospective parents toas hierarchical as our own.-- ment. Meanwhile, Ronald Russo along, and 30 schools, or 2.5 percent of the total, hav:... sign a "contract" requiring vol- There are also growing exam-says it's no coincidence that his closed so far, according to Ms. Allen. Six failed to win a unteer work. ples of academic success in pub- Wilmington district recently de- renewal, four closed voluntarily and the other 20 had "That's great for the school," lic schools that have radically re-cided toraise graduation re- their charters revoked. she says, "but if you look at itcast the conventional curricu- quirements to 24 credits. Mary Gifford, the vice president of the Arizona State from a public-policy level youlums. For instance, a Tecent Still, it's an extremely indirect start to wonder if these schools study found that Core Knowl-route to a goal. School systems Board for Charter Schools, which has sponsored about will be responding to all sorts of half of that state's 289 such schools, says that most of are creaming off some of theedge schools significantly out- most involvedparents."Ms. performcomparableconven- messages from charters, and the eight schools that have been closed in Arizona suf- Wells argues that the very notion tional schools. E.D. Hirsch, themost of them will not be aboUt fered from poor management. But the underlying prob-' of giving choices excludes less-founder of these schools, says he the virtues of either a core cur- lem, she says, was that parents were not satisfied. "The engaged parents, though studiesconsiders charter status irrel-riculum or individual instruc- charter schools lost students and had to be creative in show that one merit of the char- evant. "It depends more on thetion. They will be about hiring, operations," Ms. Gifford says. "In some cases, that cre- ter idea, and of school choice in principal," he says. On the otherbudgeting, parent-teacher coun- ativity has led to illegality; in other cases, it just led to a general, is that it increases pa-side of the pedagogical divide,cils and so on. big mess." Two schools are being investigated for shod- rental involvement. - Howard Gardner, the author of Moreover,asMr.Sarason dy, and possibly fraudulent, bookkeeping. Charter schools also attract"Multiple Intelligences" and apoints out, many of these schools Even a passionate charter advocate like Joe Nathan, the same percentage of blackleadingprogressive'thinker,will offer object lessons only in the head of the Center for School Change at the Univer- and Hispanic students as publictakes a similar position. Boththe immense difficulty of creat- sity of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, concedes that schools, according to a report agreethat whatmattersis ing schools from scratch. There Arizona has been too eager to get large numbers of commissioned bytheUnited changing classroom practices. may end up being a very large schools up and running. States Department of Education, But if you believe that what fi-gap between euphoria and test In his recent book, "Political Leadership and Educa- though the percentage of stu-nally matters is the mode of in- scores. tional Failure," Sidney Sarason rebukes charter school euphoria by asking, "Is the creation of charter schools... exempt from what we know about the creation of set-

BESTCOPYAVAILABLE

3 1 36 Washington Post, May 9, 1999

Two Charter Schools' Troubles RaiseQuestions

By DEBBIE WILGOREN; In the past three years, 19 schools every quarter. And charter VALERIE STRAUSS charter schools serving about school advocates, while A monitoring team visiting the 3,650 students have opened in the applauding the idea of putting Young Technocrats Mathematics District. Most of the schools, struggling schools on probation, and Science Public Charter School which are publicly funded but say they have concerns about the in Northeast Washington recently independently operated, appear to way the elected board approved saw strangers roaming the halls be running smoothly, and no and has monitored some schools. and students acting up in the others have been placed on The elected board, according to classrooms. At a Northwest church probation. But education advocates some of its critics, continues to that houses the World Public say the problems at Young give the green light to too many Charter School, monitors said that Technocrats and World show the schools, with too little scrutiny, many students were out sick and need for proper oversight. and does not intervene quickly that teachers were doing little but School board member Tonya enough when a school is having preparing for an assembly. Vidal Kinlow (At Large), who difficulty. The board, they say, Those findings led the D.C. heads the elected board's should have pressured Young Board of Education last month to chartering committee, said the Technocrats and World to delay hastily establish a probationary schools were placed on probation their opening in the fall when they process for charter schools and to because of deficiencies such as had trouble finding space to rent. then place Young Technocrats and high staff turnover, poor record- Instead, those schools and some World on probation. A corrective keeping, missed payrolls, weak others welcomed students amid plan from the schools is due academic programs and lax student last-minute changes and tomorrow, and monitors have discipline. They have up to six emergency repairs. scheduled follow-up visits next months to address the board's "You can't just blithely give the week. concerns or risk revocation of their stamp of approval to anything and The difficulties have deeply charter. then make it accountable," said disturbed some parents, who Probation, Kinlow said, "is a Jim Ford, a former D.C. Council enrolled their children when the step before revocation that sends a aide and a longtime school board two schools opened in the fall in signal to them that says, 'Hey, we critic who now helps charters and hopes of finding an escape from are serious about this; we intend to other schools across the country. the troubled D.C. school system. get the results that you promised "You have to really believe it can Questions have been raised about us, because we have children at meet the bar." the adequacy of the chartering stake.' " Several pro-chartering groups process and -- since administrators The board, one of two panels said they weren't surprised when at both schools dispute the authorized to establish charter the schools, especially Young monitors' reports -- about whether schools, is sensitive to the issue of Technocrats, were put on the monitoring is being carried out oversight. The ill-fated Marcus probation. They said they had fairly. Garvey Public Charter School, received frequent complaints from "I've heard some names [of which the board approved in 1996, parents about the school, long after other charter schools], but after subsequently lost its charter after other charters had overcome initial being burned... I'm leery," said the principal was convicted of start-up troubles. Tammy Smiley, who withdrew her assaulting a newspaper reporter "I think the vast majority of eighth-grade son from Young and accused of financial parents and children, from what Technocrats and put him in Paul mismanagement. I'm aware of, are very pleased" Junior High School in Northwest. But officials at Young with charter schools, said Shirley "Is there supposed to be someone Technocrats and World have Monastra, head of the District- minding the shop that is charter challenged much of the reports of based Public Charter School schools?" the monitors, who visit all charter Resource Center. Any dissatisfied 37 32 parents "will not have their Smiley said she withdrew her criticized the school as having children return next year." son because he never had poor record-keeping, high staff Congress authorized the homework. She also complained turnover and too few school days. creation of charter schools in the that some older students were Goodman, a longtime educator District in 1996, passing one of the working as security guards and who founded the private most liberal chartering laws in the that teachers dressed in suggestive Washington International School, country, allowing as many as 20 miniskirts. said the probation came without new schools a year. Young Technocrats Principal warning. The elected school board has Wali Williams said, "Everything In contrast, the appointed approved the opening of 11 charter that's legitimate, that needs chartering panel has designed a schools, including eight this past correction, we'll correct." But he multi-layered intervention process fall. The appointed Public Charter denied that students have worked that begins with a written warning School Board has authorized eight as security guards and disputed and offers help to schools before more, all of which opened this much of the school board's their charters are threatened. No school year. monitoring report, including the school has received warnings yet. The schools, which are not enrollment figures. Williams Mike Peabody, head of Friends bound by school system attributed payroll problems -- he of Urban Choice in Public bureaucracy, can experiment with and his staff have not been paid for Schools, said the elected board curriculum, staffing and programs. nearly two months -- on the need focuses "on petty stuff' and does Some emphasize rigorous to spend $ 600,000 to make not help its charters survive the academics, technology, foreign emergency repairs to Langley, way the appointed board does. languages or the arts; others target which the school system leased to He also questioned the makeup students who have disabilities or him only a month before school of the elected board's monitoring have not succeeded in traditional started. teams, particularly the inclusion of schools. "There was no roof. No Robert Artisst, an unsuccessful Nine more schools are expected electricity. No running water. No candidate for school board who to open in September, and charter functioning bathrooms," he said. was accused last fall of proponents say they could Dorothy Goodman, head of the misrepresenting his academic eventually lure a substantial World school, also took issue with credentials and is an outspoken percentage of the 72,000 students the monitors' report. She said they critic of charter schools. who now attend the city's 146 - inaccurately wrote that 26 of her Artisst, who, like other school system. students were present and 33 monitors, is paid $ 100 a visit, did In scathing reports to the school absent. Actually, she said, 33 were not return phone calls. board, the monitors said Young in school the day of the visit and Kinlow defended the board's Technocrats and World had far 26 were out because of the flu. performance, saying members fewer students than they initially Young Technocrats, which have been in frequent contact with said they would serve. Young initially said it would serve 630 the schools they charter and have Technocrats, a school offering pre- students, had only 224 in tried without success to work out kindergarten through 12th grade at attendence the day the monitors problems at Young Technocrats the old Langley Junior High in visited, according to their report. and World. She said the panel will Northeast, has lost dozens of staff Williams said 500-plus students hold a workshop Saturday to help members and teachers, in part are enrolled. charter schools prepare for next because it overspent its budget and Goodman complained that school year. has difficulty making payroll. With monitors misinterpreted her "They've got to have strong, the exception of the younger comment that she gives teachers functioning management systems," grades, the monitors said that autonomy to mean that the World Kinlow said of the fledgling academic programs were sketchy school, which teaches pre- schools. "If you don't, then you and that students were unruly and kindergarten and first grade in end up with the type of chronic did not appear to be learning. several foreign languages, has no problems we are now seeing in our formal curriculum. The report also traditional public schools."

33 The Wall Street Journal,March 22, 1999

Bill Lann Lee's Waron Charter Schools

As critics, including me, predicted, Bill studentsa dubious proposition given belongs to a guy from Washington, D.C., Lann Lee, the thrice-nominated, never- that the new school will be located in a we're in trouble." confirmed "acting" chief of the Justice De- black neighborhood. And not just in Louisiana. These early partment's Civil Rights Division, has re- But no one knows the division's reason- skirmishes have nationwide ramifica- lentlessly pursued racial preferences in his ing for sure, because it refuses to explain tions: more than 500 school districtsre- 15 months at the helm. But now be has un- itself. One frustrated member of the char- main subject to court desegregationor- leashed his forces on a new target: charter ter school committee took a photo of a ders: many of them in large cities and schools. blackboard after a meeting with Justice heavily minority school districts that Wielding school desegregation decrees Department officials in order to finally desperately need educational opportuni- that often are many decades old, Mr. Lee record something in writing. The division ties. opposed the school's motion to intervene in Another battleground is South Carolina, Rule of Law the desegregation case, and has urged the where the Civil Rights Division puta stop trial court to postpone consideration until last November to a school district's efforts it would be too late for the school to open By Clint Bolick to convert certainschools to charter next fall. schools. The division ordered the school The division's actions to prevent a com- district to maintain existing schools and pany called SABIS International fromattendance zones, period. The charter has launched a campaign to stop charteropening a charter school in St. Helena schools' impact on racial balance and edu- schools in their tracks. His actions put him Parish are even more mystifying. The cational opportunities wasn't even consid- provocatively at odds both with the goals of school district is 91% black and has only ered. desegregation and the Clinton administra- one elementary school, one junior high, Meanwhile, Mr. Lee's opposite num- tion's official education policy. and one high school, making it definition- ber in the Education Department's Office Charter schools are break-the-mold ally impossible to racially balance. More- for Civil Rights, Norma Cantu, has been public schools, freed front most bureau- over. the charter school agreed that more using the federal Individuals with Dis- cratic restraints, that tend to serve than 90% of its students would be academi- abilities Education Act to challenge char- largely minority-student populations cally at risk. ter schools. Between Mr. Lee and Ms. also the supposed beneficiaries of deseg- Again Mr. Lee's Civil Rights Division Cantu, the concept of charter schools. regation decrees. President Clinton backs objected, apparently believing that the predicated upon freedom from stifling charter schools as an alternative to charter school would draw white students state and local controls, could perish be- vouchers for private schools, going so far who attend private schools in the suburbs. neath the federal regulatory hammer. as to predict that "the only way public Of course, attracting white students to theIronically, such efforts to stifle charter schools can survive . .. is if all of our overwhelminglyblackschooldistrict schools could drive more education re- schools are eventually run like... charter would aid, not inhibit, desegregation. Even formers to embrace vouchers for private schools." if the goals of desegregation are furthered, schools. Neither law nor policy deters Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee apparently is inherently suspi- Mr. Clinton has just submitted Bill who is waging the battle against charter cious of any measure that takes power out Lann Lee's nomination to the Senate Ju- schools with the same ideological zeal with of the hands of the courts and puts it into diciary Committee for a third time. He which he fought for forced busing and the hands of parents. still must persuade Senate Republicans racial balance in public schools as a The division also supported an effort to lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense why they should support a civil tights shut down the New Vision Charter School law-enforcement official who refuses to Fund. in Monroe, but federal Judge F.A. Little Jr. abide by the Supreme Court's precedents The main battleground is Louisiana. In refused to go along. on racial preferences. Now the president East Baton Rouge, a group called Chil- Statewide, the divi- also must convince pro-charter school De- dren's Charter won local approval to open sion has demanded mocrats to support an official who is United Charter School last year to offer an racial statistics as a wielding the nation's civil rights arsenal alternative for 650 at-risk children. Resi- precondition for ap- to wreak havoc upon this vital public dents Estella and Winfield Percy wel- proving any charter school reform. comed the school for their academically schools. But how can Meanwhile, the East Baton Rouge troubled sons. "It's a very structured envi- a school that doesn't school system toils under its 43rd year of ronment." explained Mrs. Percy, "and it's yet exist provide such federal judicial control. Some of the orig- something our kids need." data? As Gov. Mike inal plaintiff schoolchildren now are 60 But the Civil Rights Division went to Foster haspointed years old. How sad that their grandchil- court to halt United Charter School from out, exact demo- dren still are denied educational oppor- opening. Longstanding desegregation or- graphics are impossi- Bill Lann Lee tunitiesand how perverse that the de- ders require all public schools to be ble until students en- privation is visited upon them by the Jus- within 15 percentage points of the dis- roll and staff are hired. Without approval, tice Department's Civil Rights Division. trict's 65% black student population and that process cannot commence, thereby United Charter School agreed to those creating precisely the Catch-22 the Civil Mr. Bolick is litigationliactor_of the In- racial parameters. But some of the dis- Rights Division clearly intends. stitute for Justice in Washington D.C. and trict's other public schools are more than "There are a lot of desegregation orders autliar4LTransfannatian:71f...Emmise 95% black, and Justice Department offi- in Louisiana. and the charter law is at and Politics of Empowerment" (1998. ICS cials apparently fear that the charter risk," remarks Children's Charter board Press). school will siphon some of the few white member Rolfe McCollister. "It the final say

BEST COPYAVAILABLE 3934 The Christian Science Monitor, April13, 1999 Success for kids accustomed tofailure

BY Gail Russell Chaddock,

You can hear the pace of the learning going He and co-founder David Levin on at the KIPP Academy, or theKnowledge came to Texas as two-year volunteers for is Power Program, long before you see it. Teach for America, a national program that recruits top college graduates to teach in Thump. Thump. CLAP! poor schools. Thump. Thump. CLAP! What prompted them to stay on and You gotta read baby read! start a school in 1995 was the experience of You gotta read baby read! watching kids they had taught 'head off to The more you read, middle school with a head of steam,' then The more you know. lose their edge, he says. Knowledge is power, "Some came back and asked me to Power is money, give them homework, because 'they won't let And I want it. us take books home.' I saw the lightin their eyes fade. They started doing drugs,getting There is nothing subtle about the rap- pregnant; then the light went out," he says. rhythm chants that pop up at about any point KIPP started out as a fifth-grade in a KIPP school day. And nothing trivial program - with 50 kids in a room - atthe about the big achievement gains that this Houston Independent School District. The public charter school is producing with at- next year, the program expanded into HISD risk Hispanic and black children in Houston. office kitchenettes and onto the stage. They Only about one-third of kids in the moved five times in four years, and wound Class of 2004 could pass fourth-grade state up in a cluster of trailers down theroad from tests in reading and math when they a Houston highway. KIPP is now a state enrolled. charter school for fifth- to eighth-graders After a year, 93 percent were passing that operates independently of the district. math and 92 percent passed reading, despite KIPP offers kids a high-level the fact that many had parents who don't curriculum with instruction that is often speak English. By sixth grade, pass rates delivered with as many laughs as a late- were at or near 100 percent. Thisyear's night TV monologue. Questions fired off to graduating class started eighth grade solving a fifth-grade class: "What'sthe capital of college-level math problems, according to a Utah?" "What's a salt lake?" "What's national survey. evaporation?" "Can you count by sevens?" The style at KIPP is anything but (Yes!) "Do it!" (7, 14, 21, 28, 35... ) traditional. It's fast-paced, funny, and edgy. Seventh-graders study algebra and read But they've based their success on attention high-school novels. The biggest smiles come to old-fashioned basics: reading, writing, when the class gets to shout in unison: and reasoning -and extensive time for "Boring!" instruction. But the heart of the program is a "We got together a lot of people not commitment to more time for learning. used to failure and plopped them down in Students attend classes from 7:30 a.m. to 5 places where people were not used to p.m. weekdays, four hours onSaturdays, and success," says director Michael Feinberg. a month every summer. That's about67 percent more time in class than in a typical A clear culture is at work that Houston public school. everyone learns on site. Feinberg teaches a "We're all running a race. They're class on thinking skills that includes KIPP behind. You need to run faster to catchup. raps along with problem-solving, SAT And we need to break a cycle of despair and analogies, and novels. This first-yearcourse failure," Feinberg explains. "Middle school "ties together the entire curriculum," he is where poor kids can make upa lot of lost says. ground, because most schools lower Teachers are encouraged to visit expectations for students in the seventh and master teachers in other states as well as to eighth grades. This is where we can catchup pursue professional development. Feinberg to the top public and private schools." credits Houston teacher and mentor Harriet With the extra time, KIPP doesn't Ball with the distinctive approach at KIPP need to commit to any one reading method. (see story, below). Fifth-graders who come in with a weak She also developed the approach to grasp of English learn phonics and also read discipline and classroom management used lots of literature. Forty-five minutes a day is at KIPP. Instead of sending kids out of class set aside for reading novels. In that period, or on suspension, they're sent "to the porch." there are no tests, drills, or grades; just Kids sent there can't talk to classmates reading and talking about books with during the day. They're also required to teachers who clearly love them. write a letter to each classmate to explain "We're looking for people who are how they are going to improve. very knowledgeable, who don't have to rely One student is close to porch duty. on the teacher's edition. They need to Feinberg takes her aside. "Get back on the connect with kids, to translate information ball. You're digging a deeper hole for into a way kids will get. And they need to yourself." (She didn't complete an make an extra effort," says Mr. Feinberg. assignment and misbehaved on the bus.) At KIPP, that extra effort means "Those five minutes the teacher had to talk regular home visits and carrying a cell to you about not doing your homework is phone - standard issue for teachers here. taking time from class." Students are required to phone teachers at Parents are part of the regime. Students, home if they have any problems with their teachers, and parents sign a "commitment to homework. No excuses. excellence." Parents commit to trying to "When teachers get together for a read with kids at night, to checking night out in a restaurant, the cell phones homework, and to letting kids call teachers never stop ringing," quips Laurie Bieber, about work. The form concludes: "We, not director of development at KIPP. "Whatwe the school, are responsible for the behavior do, anyone can do. It's the time and the and actions of our child. Failure to adhere to dedicated staff that make a difference." these commitments can cause my child to Most teachers have liberal-arts lose various KIPP privileges, spend timeon degrees and little formal training in the 'porch,' and can lead to my child education methods. More than a third are returning to his/her home school." Teach for America veterans. On paper, KIPP teachers look undercredentialed and teaching out of field, but you'd never know it to watch them.

41 36 (SR)2 Selected Readings on School Reform School Choice

Matthew Miller offers one of the most important articles onschool choice written in a long while. Entitled "A Bold Experiment to Fix City Schools" andpublished in The Atlantic Monthly, it asks, "Where is the 'voucher left'?" It asserts a "long butunappreciated pedigree" of support for choice among progressive reformers. Miller proposes a bold experiment:pick three or four big cities, boost education spending 20%, and provide vouchers to all low-incomestudents. He gets Milton Friedman, Lamar Alexander, and Kweisi Mfume, among others, to sign on. (Hefails in his attempt to recruit union bosses Bob Chase and Sandy Feldman.) Miller's a great salesman;we'll buy what he's offering: a real chance for millions of underserved kids. When the Children's Scholarship Fund (CSF), theprivate scholarship organization underwritten by Ted Forstmann and John Walton, held lotteries aroundthe country for eligible students, families signed up in droves. Mike Bowler,of the Baltimore Sun, reports that an astounding 44%of eligible Baltimore families applied for scholarships to go to private schools. AsBowler notes, "Middle-class parents always have had available school alternatives. Now low-income parentshave them, too. School choice has landed in Baltimore." CSF has also landed in 42 othercitiesupwards of one million applications were received for the 40,000 scholarships available this round.And, as a USA Today editorial notes, "Eager Response to Offer of Private Scholarships RaisesFears, Hopes." In a Washington Post essay, Stanford's Terry Moelooks at the "Public Revolution Private Money Might Bring" and predicts that grass-roots demandwill compel more Democrats and civil rights groups to support vouchers. He also predicts thatdemand will move beyond the innercity. Evidenceof desire for different schools is already visible in some suburbs.Joseph Berger, in The New York Times, reports on the phenomenon of families paying to send their kids topublic schools outside their district. Then Charles Wheelen, in his Times editorial "Turning the Tables onSchool Choice," makes the case for why Democrats should support school choice. Critics of private and home schooling often claim thatthe private and home schooled families will be self-absbrbed recluses or hermits, disengaged from civilsociety and civic life. Taking these arguments on are Christian Smith and DavidSikkink, who asked and answered "Is Private SchoolingPrivatizing?" in their recent First Things article. Looking at evidencefrom the 1996 National Household Education Survey, Smith and Sikkink conclude that thesefamilies are indeed more likely to participate in such activities as library groups, service projects, andcommunity sports teams. While choice is growing in the U.S., across ournorthern border, the Province of Quebec is moving away from a long-standingtradition of allowing families to choose which religiousschools their children attend. Steven Pearlstein, writing in The WashingtonPost, describes the mounting challenge to "confessional education" and a recent commission'srecommendation that all students take a course on world religions. Moving back across the Great Lakes to Cleveland, we serve up atimely piece about the Ohio Supreme Court's decision regarding that city'svoucher program. Although the program was struckdown Voucher Program" heralds a on procedural grounds,"Ohio Court Upholds Constitutionality of School headline in The Washington Post. Voucher programs aren't alone in having enemies.Magnet schools established to offer academically rigorous programs that would attract students across theracial divide are also being challenged. Heather Mac Donald, in her City Journal article "How Gotham'sElite High Schools Escaped the Leveller's Ax," credits the education establishment's general antipathytowards elite schools as the main reason for wanting to scrap these high-powered super schools(including such famous institutions as the Bronx High School of Science). In England, academicallyselective grammar schools are also to be abolished.The Economist article "Class Peace" details the Blairgovernment's bill to replace selective programsand school choice with muddled mini-programs.

DDW

37 42 The Atlantic Monthly, July 1999

wife's monthly rent of 5340, but offers no support beyond that. After paying for food, a phone, gas, and other expenses, Neri had no money left to put toward A Bold Experiment private school for Tina. Yet she was to afraid to send Tina to the neighborhood public school, where the wallswere coveted with graffiti, and "cholos,"or Fix City Schools gang members, had been involved in shootings that brought police helicop- A proposal for school voucherson ters to the campus. So Neri used her sister's address to enroll Tina at another which Milton Friedman, Lamar Alexander, public school, which, though twenty and Kweisi Mfume, the president of minutes away, at least seemed safer. But it is far from ideal. Classrooms each have the NAACP, all agree forty to forty-five children belonging to several different grades. Tina, sixteen, says the teachers often have the students WHEN Maria Neri's daughterthe 55,400 Los Angeles would spend to watch movies. Her math teacher was so Tina finished eighth grade, two educate Tina in public school. Neri, thir- confused about who Tina was that he years ago, her scholarship at a ty-three, earns S600 a month as a part- gave her an F for not completing many Catholic elementary time teacher's aide; assignmentsa grade he changed, with school in south-central by Matthew Miller she's looking for a embarrassment and an apology, after Los Angeles ended. second. and perhaps a Neri confronted him with Tina's com- The parochial high school in which Neri third, job. Her husband, from whom she pleted workbook. "I can see the differ- (not her real name) hoped to enroll Tina is separated, earns 51.200 a month as a ence," Neri says. "She's going down." charges 53,500 a yeara third less than laborer in a glass factory. He pays his Tina says she would go back to Catholic school if they could afford it. "I talk to my daughter," Neri explains, "and say, 'I'm sorry.'" Neri's desire to send Tina to a better school is at the heart of one of the na- tion's most important and most dem- agogic debates. Through vouchers, of- ten touted as an answer to Neri's problem, the government would give parents some or all of the money it now spends educat- ing their children to use at a school of their choice. Depending on whom you listen to, vouchers are either a lifeline or a death knell. "It is quite simply an is- sue of survival for our nation's poorest students," says Dan Coats, a Republican and a former senator from Indiana. But Kweisi Isilfume, the president of the Na- tional Association for the Advancement of Colored People, calls vouchers a "ter- rible threat," and Sandra Feldman, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, says they mean "a radical abandonment of public schools and pub- lic education." These are heated claims, especially AVAILABLE BESTCOPY given the relatively small number of stu- dents who are involved in voucher pro- 43 grams today. Just over 52 million stu- 38 dents attend grades K through 12 in the

15 United States. Only two cities offer pub- serve six million children. Despite heroic desperate but misguided urban blacks. In licly funded vouchers: in Milwaukee local efforts and pockets of success, de- fact vouchers have a long but unappreci- (whose breakthrough program was be- pressing evidence mounts of an achieve- ated intellectual pedigree among reform- gun in 1990) roughly 6,000 of 107,000 ment gap between students in cities and ers who have sought to help poor children students get vouchers; in Cleveland about those in suburbs, where, school-watchers and to equalize funding in rich and poor 4,000 of 77,000 do. In May, Florida ap- say, most schools are doing fine, largely districts. This "voucher left" has always proved a plan under which students at the because they're safer, better funded, and had less cash and political power than poorest-performing schools would getless prone to the social ills that plague its conservative counterpart or its union vouchers. Four schools are expected to be cities. Of Detroit's eleventh-graders 8.5 foes. It has been ignored by the press and eligible this year, and 12,000 of the state's percent were deemed "proficient" in trounced in internecine wars. But if urban 2.3 million K-12 kids are expected to use science on Michigan's 1997 statewide children are to have any hope, the vouch- vouchers over the next four years. Pri- exam. Fourth-graders in Hartford wereer left's best days must lie ahead. vately funded voucher programs in thir- a tenth as likely as Connecticut students Finding a productive compromise ty-one cities served roughly 12,000 chil- overall to show proficiency on the state's means recalling the role of progressives in dren last year; ten new such programs three achievement tests in 1996. Only the history of the voucher movement and came into being for the 1998-1999 school two percent of Cleveland's minority exposing the political charades that poi- year. Two wealthy investors, Ted Forst- tenth-graders have taken algebra. "The son debate. It means finding a way for un- mann and John Walton, recently an-numbers tell a sad and alarming story," orthodox new leaders to build a coali- nounced a plan to fund (along with other a special report in Education Week con- tionof liberals for whom the moral donors) 5170 million in vouchers, which cluded last January. "Most 4th graders urgency of helping city children trumps will reach 40,000 new students over the who live in U.S. cities can't read and un- ancient union ties, and of conservatives next four years. derstand a simple children's book, and who reject a laissez-faire approach to Add these numbers up and you fetmost 8th graders can't use arithmetic life's unfairness. The goal of such a coali- 74,000 childrenabout 0.1 percent ofto solve a practical problem." As polls tion should be a "grand bargain" for urban students. Add 200,000 for those stu- prove, increasing numbers of urban par- schools: a major multi-year test of vouch- dents in the 1,200 charter schools around ents like Maria Neri want a way out. It ers that touches not 5,000 but 500,000 the country (which also give parents a seems immoral to argue that they must children, and eventually five million choice), and the proportion comes towait for the day when urban public and increases school spending in the only 0.5 percent of schoolchildren. In schools are somehow "fixed." It's even process. The conventional wisdom says other words, the school-choice debate is harder to argue that bigger voucher pro- that today's whittled-down pilot pro- grams could make things worse. grams are all that is politically achievable. Yet a political standoff has kept vouch- The paradox is that only through bigger Where is the "voucher ers unavailable to nearly 99 percent of ur- thinking about how vouchers might help ban schoolchildren. Bill Clinton and most can a durable coalition emerge. leading Democrats oppose them, saying left"? Vouchers have we should fix existing public schools, not IN 1962 John E. "Jack" Coons, an ide- drain money from the system. Teachers' alistic thirty-two-year-old law pro- a long butunappreciat-unions, the staunchest foes of vouchers, fessor at Northwestern University, was are among the party's biggest donors, and asked by the U.S. Civil Rights Commis- ed pedigree among sent more delegates to the 1996 Demo- sion to study whether Chicago schools cratic National Convention than did the were complying with desegregation or- progressive reformers. state of California. Republicans endorse ders. Coons soon found that what really vouchers as a market-based way to shake interested him was a different question: up calcified bureaucracies, but they gen- Why were suburban schools so much erally push plans that affect only a few better than those downtown? Over the students. The distrust that has led to to- next few years Coons, eventually joined day's gridlock is profound. Republicans by two law students, Stephen Sugarman view Democrats as union pawns defend- and William Clune, found one answer in ing a failed status quo; Democrats think what would become a source of endur- taking place utterly at the margins. AtRepublicans want to use urban woes as ing outrage: America's property-tax- this rate, for all the fuss, it's hard to imag-justification for scrapping public educa- based system of public-school finance ine that any impact could be made on the tion and the taxes that fund it. created dramatic disparities in the re- skills and life chances of students stuck sources available to educate children. in our worst public schools in time to piISSING entirely from the debate This financial aspect of education's prevent what the Reverend Floyd Flake, is the progressive pro-voucher per- vaunted tradition of "local control" is a voucher advocate and a former Demo- spective. To listen to the unions and the rarely the subject of national controversy. cratic congressman from New York, NAACP, one would think that vouchers In part that is because it gives the nation's calls "educational genocide." were the evil brainchild of the economist most powerful citizens both lower taxes This tragedy is most pronounced in Milton Friedman and his conservative and better schools. Imagine two towns, big cities, whose public schools together devotees, lately joined by a handful ofSlumville and Suburbia. Slumville has 1 9 9 'J 16 39 Jl'L1' BEST COPY AVAILABLE 44 5100,000 in taxable property per pupil; more "local," they reasoned, than giving they maintain minimum sanitary stan- Suburbia has $300,000. If Slumville votes families direct control over the cash to use dards." In Friedman's view, market-style to tax its property at four percent, it raises at schools as they chose? competition for students would spur the S4,000 per pupil. But Suburbia can tax development of schools that were better itself at two percent and raise $6,000 perCOOHS and Sugarman, focusing on tailored to families' needs and cost less pupil. Suburbia's tax rate is half as high, school equity, thus arrived at a pol- than those run by notoriously inefficient but its public schools enjoy 50 percent icy that Milton Friedman had been urg- public bureaucracies. more resources per student. ing through a principled commitment to Friedman's and Coons's different an- In the 1960s affluent districts routinely liberty and to its embodiment, the market. gles of vision represent the ancient tug spent twice what nearby poorer ones did, Friedman's 1955 essay "The Role of Gov- between liberty and equality within the and sometimes four or five times as much. ernment in Education" is viewed as the pro-voucher campa debate the two To Coons and his colleagues, such in- fountainhead of the voucher movement. have waged since Friedman was an oc- equity in a public service was indefensi- In an ideal world, the future Nobel laure-"'hsional guest on Coons's Chicago radio ble. Beginning with Private Wealth and ate reasoned, the government might have show, Problems of the City, in the 1960s. Public Education, a book that he, Sugar- no role in schooling at all; yet a minimum Friedman today isn't bothered by issues man, and Clune published in 1970, Coons required level of education and its financ- of school-finance equity. "What's your has denounced the system eloquently. ing by the state could be justified. view of inequity in clothing and food?" It's worth sampling his arguments, be- he snapped when asked recently, say- cause the left's case for choice is usually A stable and democratic society is im- ing that such concerns reflect Coons's drowned out by the right's cheerleading possible without widespread accep- "socialistic approach." And even if pub- for markets, or by urban blacks' cry for tance of some common set of values lic schools were making every child an and without a minimum degree of lit- help. In a 1992 essay, "School Choice as Einstein, Friedman says, he would still eracy and knowledge on the part of Simple Justice," Coons wrote, want vouchers. "Private enterprise as op- most citizens ... the gain from the ed- posed to collectivism," he says, "would This socialism for the rich we blithely ucation of a child accrues not only to always be better." call "public," though no other public the child or to his parents but to other Coons is less ideological. In his view, service entails such financial exclusiv- members of the society... . Yet it is choice would improve the public schools, ity. Whether the library, the swimming not feasible to identify the particular pool, the highway or the hospitalif it individuals (or families) benefitted or which he believes would always be cho- is "public," it is accessible. But admis- the money value of the benefit and so sen by the majority, even with a full- sion to the government school comes to charge for the services rendered. blown voucher system. The prospect of only with the price of the house. If the losing students (and thus funding) would school is in Beverly Hills or Scarsdale, However, Friedman said, if this "neigh- force improvements faster than today's the poor need not apply. borhood effect" meant that the govern- seemingly endless rounds of ineffectual ment was warranted in paying for K-12 education fads. If poor children got a de- Coons's point was simple: the quality education, another question remained: cent education under the current system, of public education should not depend Should the government run the schools as he adds, he probably wouldn't have de- on local wealthunless it is the wealth well? Friedman's view was that schoolsvoted his life to these issues. of a state as a whole. "Everyone ought to could be just as "public" if the govern- The fate of disadvantaged children be put in a roughly equivalent position ment financed but didn't administer them. under a voucher regime is where the with regard to what the state will do," That notion remains virtually unintelligi- Coons-Friedman clash is sharpest. Coons Coons, now an emeritus law professor at ble to leaders in public education, per- would be glad to offer vouchers to all Berkeley, says. haps because it is so threatening. low-income students and to no one else Coons and Sugarman made a success- Friedman's analogy (adopted by every if such a step were necessary for con- ful case for the unconstitutionality of the voucher proponent since) was to the G.I. sensus. He fears that under a universal school-finance system in California's fa- Bill, which gave veterans a maximum voucher system they could get left be- mous Serrano case in 1971, beginning a sum per year to spend at the institution of hind, as schools competed to recruit bet- national movement to litigate for school their choice, provided that it met certain ter-off, smarter, healthier (nondisabled) equity. Although it was little noticed then, minimum standards. Likewise, for ele- students. The incentives are plain: such they cited vouchers as a potential remedy. mentary and secondary schooling Fried- children would be easier to teach, and The idea was to give courts a way to in- man envisioned a universal voucher schools could charge wealthy families far struct legislatures to fix things without scheme that would give parents a fixed more than the voucher amount to maxi- having to mess with local control. Asking sum per child, redeemable at an "ap-mize profit. Coons and the voucher left legislatures to centralize school finding at proved" school of their choice. Such a therefore insist that any universal scheme the state level was a political nonstarter. school might be nonprofit or for profit, re- should include protections for low-in- But through various formulas, Coons and ligious or secular. Parents could add to come and disabled children. Examples Sugarman argued, the state could give the sum if they wished. The role of gov- would be increasing the voucher amount families in poorer districts enough cash in ernment would be limited to assuring that for those children to make them more at- the form of vouchers to bring education "approved" schools included some com- tractive to schools, and letting schools spending in those districts up to that of mon content in their programs, "much as redeem their vouchers only if, say, 15 better-off districts. And what could be it now inspects restaurants to assure that (Continued on page 26)

18 40 JULY 1999 (Continued from page18) broader database from which to judge the The first response to this argument is percent of new places were reserved for impact of voucher systems. (In the first to ask, Then what's the problem? If as such children, for whom the voucher semester of the program 566 childrena practical matter unions feel that most would cover tuition. To Friedman;these taking vouchers left district schools.) For children with vouchers will remain where are unacceptable intrusions on schools' now the "no evidence" argument says they are, it's hard to see what the harm is freedom to operate as they like, turning more about union chutipah than about in trying them. A second response is that vouchers into "a welfare program, not an voucher performance. even relatively few defections from pub- education program." Vouchers drain money from public lic schools may spur efforts to improve schools.Sandra Feldman, of the Amer- them. Districts with innovative charter

M/ a link to unionswhich, ican Federation of Teachers, says that the schools have reported such a reaction._ despite the waning of their influ- SIO million Cleveland uses to give The larger answer. however, is that ence, remain one of the few sources ofvouchers to 4,000 children would be bet-'broader voucher schemes would prompt progressive ideas in American public ter spent on measures that would benefit many institutions and entrepreneurs to everychild, such as shrinking class sizes add schools and spaces to the "market." and launching proven reading programs. This would happen not overnight but A "grand bargain": But this is disingenuous. Cleveland pro- over a number of years. The initial spaces vided the S10 million in addition to more would be likely to come from Catholic combine a bigger road than $600 million in existing school schools, which account for half the pri- spending in order to mollify unions, vate-school slots in the country. Jerome which insisted that vouchers not "come Porath, the schools chief for the Los An- test for vouchers with out of the hide" of public schools. It's geles archdiocese, says that if every stu- unfair for unions to turn around and dent got a voucher worth an amount close increased per-pupil complain that the extra cash they insisted to the current per-pupil expenditure in on should have gone elsewhere. The California, over several years enough fa- spending. truth is that public schools are free to cilities could be built or rented "to ac- fund such measures now by shifting pri- commodate everybody who wanted to orities within their budgets. And when come." "We'll get out our spreadsheets broader voucher plans let the amount and figure it out," he says. Milton Fried- that public schools receive per student man adds, "You can't think of it in terms follow students who leave the system, of the existing stock of schools. There the public-school coffers are not drained will be a flood of new schools started." schools receive the resources their en- Profitisbad. Voucher foes act as if lifeliberal pro-voucher champions have rollment merits. there were something venal about the had little political impact. The muting of Vouchers are unconstitutional.Some profit motive when applied to schools. their voice, combined with the ease ofcritics say that voucher use at religious But public education is already big bus- legislating pilot programs, explains why schools violates the Constitution's ban on iness. The $320 billion spent last year on few urban children have a choice today. "establishment of religion," but the bet- K-12 schooling is lusted after by text- What's more, deceptive arguments by ter view of the Supreme Court's confus-book publishers, test designers, building both teachers' unions and conservative ac- ing jurisprudence here suggests-that's contractors, food and janitorial services, tivists keep the broader public confused. wrong. After all, no one thinks that fed- and software companies, to name only a Teachers' unions (and voucher foeseral student loans are unconstitutional few examples. This largesse inevitably generally) rely on five dubious arguments. when they are used by students to attend brings scandalsfor example, the Cali- There's no evidence that vouchers Notre Dame. Last June, Wisconsin's high- fornia flap in 1996 over whether cam- work.The trials have been so isolated, est court upheld Milwaukee's plan, be- paign contributions influenced a big text- unions say, that their results are un- cause the voucher goes to parents to use book purchase. Like health care, defense, proved. That's a nervy case to make where they like, not to any particular type and other major public services, schools when it is union opposition that has kept of school. In union hands, moreover, this will always be partly about business; the trials small. Pro- and anti-voucher legal complaint seems suspiciously tac- vouchers would simply change who con- forces have funded research in Milwau- tical. It can't be that we are constitution- trols the flow of cash. There's no reason kee and Cleveland that purports to show ally obligated to imprison urban children to think that the abuses under a voucher why Johnny is doing demonstrably bet- in failing schools. system would be worse than abuses today. ter or worse under vouchers. It is im- The capacity isn't there.Public schools Voucher foes make other unpersua- possible to make sense of these duelingserve 46 million K-12 children, private sive claims. They say that vouchers will studies, whose sample sizes are so small schools six million. Since private schools cream off the most-talented children and that results seem to turn on whether, say, can't accommodate more than a fraction the most-active parentsa worry that three children in Cleveland handed in of today's students, opponents say, vouch- seems acute primarily because today's their homework on time. Wealthy con- ers can't be a meaningful part of school voucher plans remain tiny. They say that servatives are now offering vouchers toreform. 'Where are these schools going private schools will unfairly be able to all 14,000 at-risk children in a poor San to come from?" Sandra Feldman repeat- avoid troublemaking kids by not admit- Antonio district in part so as to compile a edly asked during an interview with me. ting themignoring the fact that public JCLY 1999 26 41 46 districts themselves often send such kids must offer extras such as English as a DISINGENUOUS rhetoric, visceral to special schools of "last resort." They Second Language. breakfast and lunch distrust, maximal posturing, mini- say the oversight that will follow public programs, and transportation. When such mal progress. Political debates escape money will make private schools resem- differences are taken into account, and this kind of dead end when grassroots ble public bureaucraciesignoring the hidden subsidies for church space and pressure makes the status quo untenable, greater flexibility that most analysts say staff in religious schools are counted. the or when leaders emerge with fresh ways such schools will retain in hiring and fir- gap shrinks. Coons says that a voucher's of framing the issues. It's possible that ur- ing. resource allocation, and curriculum value needs to be no lower than S5 per-ban schools will fall so far that the poor design. Finally, they argue that it is crazy cent of total, pe -pupil spending in order revolt: or crime, bred by ignorance, might to subsidize more-affluent parents who to stimulate capital investment in new yorsen in ways that force society to act. already pay for private schoola seem- schools. Set it too low, and the result will There's a better path to hope for, howev- ingly powerful charge until one recalls be simply to fill the handful of emptyer, if new leaders can teach us to think that such families are now paying twice Catholic-school seats. differently about today's predicament. for schools, and that vouchers offered The right's claim that vouchers will de- Sounds of rethinking and compromise only to poor families would avoid the liver big savings also ignores the case for are in the air. Arthur Levine, the pres- problem entirely. spending more in many big cities, where ident of Columbia University's Teach- For their part, conservative voucher dilapidated buildings may collectively ers College, is a lifelong liberal and a fans peddle one big misconception: require as much as 550 billion in repairs. voucher foe. Yet, frustrated by the seem- vouchers can save lots of money because Some public school bureaucraciesingly hopeless troubles of inner cities, per-pupil spending in private schools is _Nyashington, D.C., and St. Louis come to Levine called last June for a "rescue typically less than half that in public mindseem so hopeless that it would be operation" that would give vouchers to schools today. It is true that religious senseless to pour new money in until two to three million poor children at the schools have fewer administrators and management has improved. But despite worst urban public schools. "For me," lower-paid teachers, and invest less in run-down buildings and higher propor- Levine says, "it's the equivalent of such amenities as theaters, labs, and gym- tions of special-needs students, cities Schindler's list." Lisa Graham Keegan, nasiums. But private schools don't have such as Philadelphia and Baltimore spend Arizona's superintendent of public in- to take costly disabled and "special edu- substantially less per pupil than do their struction and a rising Republican star, cation" children; and often public schools states overall. calls the property-tax base for school fi-

47 42 aren't poor, so we agreed to give them only to children eligible for the federal school-lunch program. This would still get vouchers to 78,000 children in Mil- waukee instead of the current 6,000, and to four million city children nation- wide. We would move pretty far toward universal coverage this way, since, sadly, two out of three city children qualify for school-lunch assistance. What about the NAACP? To date the organization has welcomed philanthrop- ic efforts, but when public funds are at issue, it stands by the unions. Julian Bond, the chairman of the NAACP, re- cently called vouchers "pork for private schools." Yet when I asked Kweisi Mfume, the NAACP president, about this proposal, he didn't hesitate. 'I don't have a problem with that at all," he said. Mfume says that NAACP opposition has been not ideological but based on three concerns: the association doesn't want programs that leave nearly every child out; it wants accountability to the public on student performance; and it wants an honest approach to higher costssuch as those for transportationthat must be paid to make the system work for poor children. The pilot programs in Milwau- kee and Cleveland fail especially on grounds one and three; the bargain I nance "pernicious" and "wholly unfair." pupil, every child would get a $6,000 sketched addresses them. Mfume said he She wants a system of "student-centered voucher. was open to the proposal as long as the funding," in which revenues from a Such a proposal, serving half a million NAACP's concerns were met, even if source other than property taxes would be children, would cost $660 million a year. that meant taking a stance different from distributed by the state on an equal per- If the voucher system were then extend- the unions'. pupil basis through vouchers. ed to all six million big-city children (a "It's a bad idea," Milton Friedman said If leading liberals are willing to ques- logical step if results of the trial were at first, arguing that any increase in spend- tion the public school monopoly, and promising), the price tag would be $8 bil- ing would "fuel the racketeers in the edu- prominent conservatives hear the call of lion a year, or 0.4 percent of federal cation business." Friedman's point is that justice, the voucher debate has a chance spending. (For purposes of discussion, I raising spending could create further op- to move forward. The sensible first step left aside the question of who outside the portunities for profit-hungry operators to would be a much bigger road test. Here's district would fund the 20 percent in- take the vouchers and run schools much the idea I have put to various players in crease, though the surplus-rich federal more efficientlynot to their benefit. the debate: Suppose everyone came to- government comes readily to mind.)Owing to systematic federal overpay- gether and said, Let's take three or four The responses to this idea suggest how ments, Medicare HMOs face just such big cities where we agree the public quickly the scale of today's debate could scams in many places today. schools are failing. (Leave out dens ofchangeand who is responsible if it But outliers like Washington, D.C., mismanagement like Newark and Wash- doesn't. aside, it's not clear that urban schools are ington, where spending is high but in- Jack Coons, the "egalitarian," said itoverspending. Given that, isn't it worth effective.) In these cities we'll raise per- sounds great. Clint Bolick, a conserva- running a little risk to get a substantial pupil spending by 20 percent, giving tive lawyer who is active in the vouchervoucher test under way? It seemed that urban schools the resources the left says movement, also thought it could work Friedman wouldn't sign on, but toward they need, and thus going far to achieve though, he said, the spending increase the end of our discussion he relented. "I'll the Coons vision of funding equity. But would mean that "some of my fellowtell you what I would go for," he said. we'll implement this increase by way ofconservatives would have apoplexy."Friedman has always believed that so a universal voucher system that finally Polly Williams, who led the drive to en- many families would flee public schools gives every child a choice. So, for exam- act vouchers in Milwaukee, was anxious if given a voucher worth even half what ple, in a city that now spends $5,000 per about extending them to students who is now spent per pupil that resources for JULY 1999 28 43 BEST COPY AVAILABLE each child remaining in the system would I asked Alexander if he wasn't think- rise. (If ten public school children have ing too small: S 1,500 vouchers would be $5,000 spent on each of them, and three nowhere near sufficient to spark the cre- leave taking S2,500 each, spending on the ation of new schools. And with vouchers seven remaining would rise about 20 per- spread thin across the country, he would cent, to just under S6,100.) So he would get no trial of how broad-based choice approve of a 20 percent increase in per- can improve schooling in a community. pupil spending for those who remained, Why not try the 20 percent spending as long as the voucher was worth only boost in exchange for universal vouchers half that. Since Friedman thinks that this in a few cities? 20 percent increase will come over time The voluble Alexander went silent for anyway, he's not compromising his perhaps fifteen seconds as he considered ideals. His principled accommodation is whether to go on record in favor of a pol- to put his money where his beliefs are icy that would raise spending substantial- and increase spending up front as part of lysomething that conservative primary the deal. voters would reject. But look where we are. Baltimore At length he said yes. Higher per-pupil spends $6,400 per pupil todayversus spending wouldn't be his preferred solu- S6,800 spent by Maryland overall. Ac- tion, of course, but if that's what it took cording to Mfume's reasoning, theto get a bold voucher plan into failing NAACP would accept a citywide vouch- cities, he'd live with it. "I would go high er at roughly $7,600. Friedman could live because the stakes are high," he ex- with $7,600 for current public school plained, "and to expose the hypocrisy of pupils but would want a voucher for the unions. If I told the National Educa- departing students at 53,800. Surely tion Association that we'd double it in the there's a deal to be made hereand a five largest cities, they wouldn't take it." chance, therefore, to help millions of chil- Was he right? I met with Bob Chase, dren while meaningfully evaluating the president of the National Education voucher efficacy, addressing questions Association, in the union's headquarters about everything from student achieve- in Washington. He made the familiar case ment to private profiteering. What about the politicians? Lamar Alexander seems the likeliest to raise Democrats should these issues thoughtfully in the 2000 elec- tion campaign; as a former Tennessee see large-scale urban governor and the Secretary of Education under George Bush, he knows more about schooling than any other presiden- voucher programs tial aspirant. He has also been down this road before. Alexander bears scars from as an opportunity, his ill-fated 1992 struggle to enact a voucher test at the federal level. Called not .a threat. the G.I. Bill for Kids, the plan would have spent $500 million in new federal dollars to give the parents of half a million low- and middle-income children each a 51,000 voucher to use at the schools of their choice. Alexander wagered (correct- ly) that conservative groups would be content with tiny sums of new money to for why vouchers are ineffectual today get their foot in the door, and (incorrectly) and would be a threatening distraction for that new cash for schools would be some- public schools if tried more broadly. Only thing the unions couldn't be seen oppos- 25 percent of the adult population has ing. In a Democratic Congress the bill children in the schools, he explained. We went nowhere. Today. Alexander says he need to help the other 75 percent under- would urge states to shift toward child- stand why financial support of schools is centered funding. And he'd go to Con- important. In this regard I sketched the gress with an updated version of Bush's deal: a handful of cities, higher spending, 1992 bill, featuring S1,500 per voucherbut only through vouchers. My tape and an overall SI billion price tag. recorder captured the staccato response.

30 44 JULY 1999 49 "Is there any circumstance under which Changing the Democratic Party's ap- that would be something that ..." proach to vouchers is therefore the only "No." way to do something serious for urban "... you guys could live with? Why?" children anytime soon. This conclusion "No." begets another political syllogism, and "Double school spending ..." an opportunity. Most observers believe "No." that if the NAACP embraced vouchers, it "... in inner cities?" would force the unions to reassess their "No." opposition. Teacher intransigence is sus- "Triple it ..." tainable only as long as minority leaders "No." support it, because the children whose fu- "... but give them a voucher?" ture is being blighted are mostly black and "'Cause, one, that's not going to hap- Hispanic. Yet as Kweisi Mfume makes pen. I'm not going to answer a hypothet- clear, getting the NAACP to change its ical [question] when nothing like that is stance would require voucher plans much ever possible." bolder and more comprehensive than to- "But teachers use hypotheticals every day's pilots. day." Thus thinking bigger makes progress "Not in arguments like this we don't.lacelier. "That's why I've taken the more ... It's pure andsimply not going to hap- radical side," explains Floyd Flake, who pen. I'm not even goipg to use the intel- quit Congress to run his church school lectual processes to see if in fact that could and pursue these issues. "It's the only work or not work, because it's not going way to force the debate." to happen. That's a fact." At some level even the unions know Sandra Feldman was similarly unwill- that their stonewalling is indefensible. ing to consider such a plan. If new money "I would never argue with an individ- is available for cities, both said, it should ual parent who wanted to figure out a be spent to improve the existing system. way to get his or her child into a better They would fund pay raises to attract situation," Sandra Feldman says. "But teachers to work downtown, turnaround to me, as a matter of public policy, that's programs for troubled schools, and gen- not a good argument. The objective is eral urban programs for health, nutrition, to make the schools goodnot to escape and parenting skills. Of course, pay rais- them." esor smaller class sizes, or any specific But what if the ability to escape might reformcould happen under vouchers, ifhelp to make the schools better? And that's what schools felt was needed to at- what if testing this proposition can't make tract students. anyone worse off? Yes, big voucher plans may require an act of faith, but it wouldn't IF one believes that urban education be the first gamble in American education won't improve under the same ap- to work. A much smaller federal gov- proach that has failed for years, the path.ernment rolled the dice on land-grant to progress through vouchers follows colleges in the 1860s with only a notion a simple logic. A progressive hand is of what would happen; the research needed to pursue the benefits of vouch- they sparked made U.S. agriculture the ers without risk to the poor. A number of world's most productive. The G.I. Bill conservatives are open to such efforts if.helped to spawn the postwar middle class. they make possible larger voucher trials. The moral urgency of today's voucher Given the disastrous state of many urban gamble is much greater. For all these rea- schools, the Democratic Party should be sons, Democrats should see large-scale the natural home of this progressive urban voucher programs as an opportuni- influence. It is not, because teachers' ty, not a threat. After all, once they em- unions loom large in Democratic fund- braced such a grand bargain, Democrats raising and campaigns. Yet the Republi- would be in the driver's seat. They retain, cans' commitment to minorities will at least for now, the moral authority to probably never be trusted to carry this is- speak in behalf of the disadvantaged, and sue alone. And, not unreasonably, Re- Republicans would not be able to shrink publicans are unlikely to increase spend- from solutions they have long sought. ing for urban schools without ensuring The alternative is a Democratic Party that that such increases are tied to system-favors its funders at the expense of its wide reform. constituents. e 45 5 Os BEST COPY AVAILABLE The Baltimore Sun, May 12, 1999

Lesson for public schools when choice is in equation Discontent: The unexpected number of city school applicants for scholarships to private schools in Baltimore can't help but send a message that students and parents want something better from public education.

By MIKE BOWLER Baltimore Sun Staff

We knew they were there. We just didn't employed the communications apparatus of know their startling numbers. the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which will take on the bulk of the scholarship winners. Late last fall, as part of a national program, (Baltimore Roman Catholic schools have group of prominent Baltimoreans launched a 2,800 vacancies.) private scholarship program aimed at low- income Baltimore students. In a mere five They also refrained from indicting public months -- without publicity or newspaper and schools, and they kept politics out of the television advertising -- the sponsors attracted program, in part by enlisting the support of 20,145 applicants, an estimated 15,000 of prominent Democrats who might otherwise them from city public school families. see in this private effort a step toward publicly financed school vouchers. That's an astonishing figure. It means that nearly a quarter of all city elementary and A couple of crucial questions remain: Are the middle school pupils would abandon public parents of those 20,145 applicants education. (The exact number is hard to "profoundly dissatisfied with their current -- determine because 30 percent of the first 500 and only -- option in education," as the scholarships will go to students already in program's co-founder, financier Theodore J. private schools.) Forstmann, maintained? Or do they simply see a better alternative in private schools? It also means thousands of parents are willing to dig into their pockets to pay tuition and We know now that there's pent-up demand for fees not covered by the scholarships. school choice in the city. And we know that poor parents do care about the education of Suzanna Duvall, director of the Children's their children. Scholarship Fund of Baltimore, said she It would be good to think that the people who "almost fell out of my chair" when she heard run public schools have taken note of the early on that the city's proportion of eligible Children's Scholarship Fund and the lode it is applicants was the highest in the nation. mining. Middle-class parents always have had available school alternatives. Now low- Final tabulations showed 44 percent of income parents have them, too. School choice eligible families in Baltimore applied, nearly has landed in Baltimore. twice the national average, 24 percent. The organizers were clever. They took full What if massacre had been in inner-city advantage of word-of-mouth, and they Denver?

4651 What if a massacre like the one in Littleton Radio talk-show hosts and columnists had occurred a few miles away in inner-city wouldn't have asked: How could it happen Denver? What if shooters and most of their here, where suburban kids are so well- victims had been black? behaved? Instead, their question would have been: When will inner-city violence ever end, The media would have descended on Denver, and what can we do to stop it? but in nowhere near the mass. National reporters would have stayed a week in Gun-control advocates would have declared Colorado, not a month. Funerals would have that the shooting demonstrated again the been covered in all their lachrymose detail, ready availability of guns in the cities. The but the media wouldn't have attempted to National Rifle Association would have gone interview third cousins of the school on, full bore, with its national conventionin principal's wife. Denver.

Only a few expert psychologists and The interne would have been fired up, but psychiatristsnot every shrink who ever saw only for a few days. Chat room participants a teen-agerwould have been interviewed would have become bored with the tragedy, about teen violence and what to do about it. and the May epidemic of school bomb threats wouldn't have occurred. The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson would have taken the mothers of the shooters under his wing and appeared with them on `"'Nightline."

52

47 The USA Today, April19, 1999

Today's debate: School vouchers Eagerresponse to offer of private scholarships raises fears, hopes

1 million parents R VIEWapply, making this a key voucher experiment. ool o ons OUblic Opinion polls show that agrOwing numberof Americans support giving pararris Forget the Poerball lottery. This week, ":;a choice of publicly funded education options,,, 1 million low-income parents are competing public charter schools and Private' for the chance to win a different type of jack- Here's a look at how support for pot: scholarships that will partially fund four ;.I' public funding of school choice has grown: years at a private school. Support public funding On Wednesday, the Children's Scholarship Fund, a private, philanthropic group, will an- 45% nounce the recipients of its national offer to provide 40,000 educational vouchers worth $170 million for students in kindergarten '1998: 54% through eighth grade. This isn't the first time a group has offered to pick up the private school tuition tab for low-income students. But it's by far the biggestgroups. So far, that kind of research base is be- such give-away. And the fact that so many ing gathered only in New York City for an ex- families applied guarantees controversy. isting private scholarship program. The first- Voucher opponents will see it as a precursoryear results there show modest gains in the to publicly funded voucher programs thatearly grades, more significant gains among the could starve .public schools of financial and pa- upper elementary grades. rental support. Voucher supporters will point With this scholarship offer, the New York to the 1 million applicants including nearlyresearch will continue, and other research will 70,000 who faxed or called on the last day be started in Washington and Dayton, Ohio. as proof that urban schools are failing students. Vouchers have come to symbolize the end They'll say vouchers are needed to force pub-of public schools as we knew them, which is lic schools to make needed changes. why they draw outsized controversy. But as a But there's a less incendiary way to viewschool-reform option, they are unlikely to live these private scholarships: They offer a low- up to their supporters' wildest dreams or their risk way to gather much-needed research on opponents' worst fears. vouchers without committing scarce public For starters, there aren't enough seats in education dollars. low-tuition private schools to turn voucher To date, research on small-scale publiclyprograms into anything more than a niche re- funded voucher experiments and private schol-form in urban districts with failing schools arship programs fails to answer a basic ques-an escape hatch for determined students. tion: Will either reduce the learning gap be- Given that reality, it is more likely vouchers tween rich and poor kids? will become a bit player alongside larger-scale Public voucher experiments under way inreforms, such as the push by states to raise Milwaukee and Cleveland aren't sheddingpublic school standards, the formation of pub- much light. In Cleveland, educational results lic charter schools and the effort to turn failing are muddled. And in Milwaukee, data showingpublic schools over to independent contractors. significant math gains for children in their But before that happens, this week's nation- fourth year of the program are disputed. al award of private tuition vouchers provides a What's needed is a high-quality researchwelcome chance to settle an important ques- study,withscientificallyselectedcontroltion: Do vouchers work?

485 3' BEST COPY AVAILABLE The Washington Post, May 9, 1999 The Public Revolution Private -Vioney Might Bnng By TERRY M. MOE is less than most private school tuition. El- ementary tuition at Catholic and other reli- American education is in the midst gious schoolswhich most of these kids of a revolution. In another decade will presumably attendis about $2,000 or two, we'll look back at the nationwide. To make up the difference, a 1990s as a truly pivotal timeand family must come up with roughly $1,000, at certain events that were especially influ- on average. The program is designed this ential. One of them began last summer, way to make families stakeholders in the ef- when businessmen Theodore Forstmann fort, even though it may be difficult for and John Walton announced the creation them financially: The average income of re- of the Children's Scholarship Fund to pro- cipient families is $18,000 to $20,000 a vide poor urban students in grades K-8 year. with scholarshipsprivately funded I am not poor. But as a parent, I have ex- vouchersso they might attend the pri- perienced the need for school choice first- vate school of their choice. hand. My daughter found her public high Forstmann and Walton each donated school in Palo Alto too big and impersonal, $50 million. They then raised $70 million and she simply turned off to academic from donors in 43 participating cities and work. Eventually, she transferred to a local put together a board of directors of leading private school that is small and informal, figures from both political parties. In the and five months later she is thriving. This meantime, they orchestrated an aggressive story had a happy ending, however, only media outreach campaignincluding pub- because I had enough money to exercise lic service announcements by baseball star choice. Why shouldn't everyone be able to Sammy Sosa and poet Maya Angelou and do the sameespecially the poor, who an appearance by Forstmann on the Oprah need it most? Winfrey showto spread the word about The Children's Scholarship Fund is a the program and attract applicants from bold attempt to do something about this. It around the country. is not the only private voucher program, Last month, the Children's Scholarship just the biggest. The idea was pioneered by lic system, and they see vouchers as their Fund held lotteries in those 43 cities, and J. Patrick Rooney, who set up the first pro- worst nightmare. They have used their 40,000 low-income children were chosen gram in Indianapolis in 1991and created considerable clout as contributors to Dem- randomly from the pool of applicants to re- a fast-growing movement. Besides the ocratic campaigns to insist that their allies ceive scholarships beginning in the fall. Children's Scholarship Fund, there are 41 vote "no" every time the issue comes up. The eligibility requirements vary from city private programs providing about 13,000 Which virtually all Democrats have done. to city. The vouchers allow these chil- inner-city kids with scholarships. Even as The second is that the NAACP and most drenmost of whom are in inner-city pub- such programs continue to grow, however, other civil rights groups have clung to lic schoolsto search for better alterna- they cannot hope to bring new opportuni- their traditional viewtoo often a valid tives in the private sector. This is a ties to more than a tiny portion of those one in the distant pastthat school choice wonderful thing for these children. And who want them. Only the government can leads to more .cgregation, as whites flee 40,000 is a big number. But consider this: do that. The obvious question is: Why minorities. They have long put their trust More than a million disadvantaged stu- shouldn't the government provide the in- in government controls, and they have dents applied for the vouchers-44 per- ner-city poor with education vouchers? weighed in against vouchers even when cent of the 46,000 students eligible in Bal- If you ask the people who are most af- proposals are designed to assist the inner- timore applied by phone, by mail or online, fected, you won't get any argument. In poll city poor. according to the fund, as did one-third of after poll, the strongest supporters of pub- This power lineup has turned the usual those eligible in New York City, Newark, licly financed vouchers are blacks, Hispan- alliancesinAmericanpoliticsupside Philadelphia, New Orleans and Washing- ics and the poor, especially in urban areas. down. The inner-city poor are typically re- ton. This is a stunning development and an It is no accident, moreover, that the only presented in education politics by Demo- undeniable indicator of the tremendous two publicly financed voucher programs in crats,civil rights groups and teachers pent-up demand among the poor for new the nationone in Milwaukee (beginning unions. But their "representatives" fiercely educational opportunities. in 1990), the other in Cleveland (1996) oppose them where vouchers are con- These families are not just responding are targeted at the poor in cities known for cerned. As a result, the urban poor have to an offer of free money. The vouchers low-performing public schools. Both pro- turned to Republicans, conservatives and range in value from $600 to $1,700, which grams are hugely popular with parents. business groupswho usuallyoppose Why don't we have more of these pro- them on social issues but sometimes sup- Terry Moe is a senior fellow at the grams? There are two major reasons. The port them on vouchers. This is the new pol- Hoover Institution, a professor of first is that vouchers threaten the estab- itics of education, in which the progres- political science at Stanford University lished interests in public education, partic- sives defend a failing status quo and the and the author of a forthcoming book on ularly teachers unions. They don't want conservatives battle for change on behalf of vouchers and public opinion. any students or resources leaving the pub- the poor.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 49 54 So far, opponents have been powerful will escape the unions' grip and move back enough to defeat vouchers almost every to their traditional constituency among the time. But the exceptionsMilwaukee and poor. Clevelandhave proven enormously influ- Eventually,civilrightsgroupswill ential and have increased the pressure for switch sides. They are already under pres- vouchers elsewhere. The opponents have sure from their grass-roots constituents to been helpless to stop the proliferation of reevaluate their position on vouchers. This private voucher programs, which is ex- will only intensify in the years ahead..Once panding the urban constituency for vouch- civil rights groups embrace vouchers, the ers and generating hard evidence for pol- unions will be isolated, and the game will icy makers that these programs can indeed be over. The civil rights groups will then work. hold the balance of power in voucher poli- tics and will have tremendous influence in The opponents will keep winning most the design and location of voucher pro- of the public voucher battles for a grams. This is another reason for them to while, but this won't last for long. jump in with both feet, and earlier, rather Here is what to expect in the years ahead: than later. Support for vouchers will continue to I'm convinced that the 'fight for inner- grow in the inner cities as voucher pro- city vouchers is destined to succeed. It will gramsespecially private onesspread. bring new opportunities to millions of dis- Low-income parents won't be willing to advantaged children, and new vitality to wait for public school reforms that are sup- urban public schoolswhich will hence- posedly just around the corner but never forth have to perform at a higher standard comeor never work. They will demand to keep students. My guess, moreover, is new educationalopportunities now that other families, wherever they live, will which is just what vouchers give them. want the same opportunities, and that the Growing numbers of Democrats will momentum for change will naturally move support vouchers. Democrats are already well beyond the inner cityand transform' terribly uncomfortable opposing the inner- the rest of the education system. city poor and defending school systems The Children's Scholarship Fund is a. that the people themselves want to leave. harbinger of all this. It is history in the. As vouchers catch on, many Democrats making.

55

50 The New York Times, May 2, 1999

Public School Choice, at a Price Many Paying to Transfer Children to MoreAffluent Districts

By JOSEPH BERGER away at integration. Len ties like Mount Vernon, allowing the neigh- MOUNT VERNON, N.Y., April 28 boring districts to skim off some of those Gary Orfield, a professor of educa- Sarver is on the school board here, so it is not tion at Harvard and an expert on surprising that he sends his 13- year -old son,cities' brightest students and making it even harder to provide integrated education."Itintegration plans, contends that "the Josh, to public school. But what bothers some system," policy ought to be to discourage school officials here is that he does not sendremoves the better kids from the transfers that undermine existing Josh to public school in Mount Vernon. said Ronald 0. Ross, the new Superintendent of Mount Vernon, where more than 90.per-desegregation plans and encourage Instead, Mr. Sarver pays $6,500 a year so transfers that increase the possibili- that Josh can attend middle school in thecent of the district's 9,800 students areblack problems we have, it ty of desegregation." more prosperous adjacent town of Pelham, or Hispanic. "Whatever Other experts take a contradictory where, Mr. Sarver believes, Josh can get amakes it more difficult. It creates theim- view. Stephan Thernstrom, a Har- more rigorous and safer education. "I'mpression that we are not doing our job." vard history professor who with his certainly not going to jeopardize my child Yet some officials point out that banning wife, Abigail, wrote a critical 1997 physicallyoreducationally,"saidMr. the practice would be futile, citing the experi- study of race-based policies, "Amer- Sarver, an electrical contractor, explainingence of Bergen County in NewJersey. In ica in Black and White: One Nation why he has spurned the schools he helps1985, high school students from the well-off Indivisible," said that a generation of govern. enclave of Englewood Cliffs, which has noexperience with integration plans Throughout Westchester County, much ofhigh school, began paying for school in Tena- had shown that they were "of ques- New York State and in several other states, tionable educational benefit" and did including Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maine, fly, another comfortable white com- not enhance black achievement. "I parents are exercising an expensive and munity, rather than their historic think integration is an important val- little-studied form of school choice, spending destination: Dwight Morrow High ue," he said, "but parental choice is between $4,000 and $12,000 to send their chil- School in Englewood, whose students an even more important one, so in dren to public schools outside their home- increasingly were black. When a se- that trade-off I would opt for paren- towns. ries of rulings required Englewood tal choice." But as this arrangement has emerged wil- Cliffs students to return to Dwight In Westchester, the number of stu- ly-nilly through casual decisions by ran- Morrow, virtually every family put dents that any single district re- dom school districts with little direction from their children in private schools. ceives from outside is not great 30 the state governmentseducators are grap- As the country experiments in- or 40 is typical but the collective pling with the fact that most of the students creasingly with school choice ,and impact can be considerable, since who transfer seem to live in more urban vouchers, the 50 states seem to have transferring students are concen- suburbs like Mount Vernon, Yonkers and a hodgepodge of policies onwhether trated in middle school and high Port Chester with large populations of black students can pay to attend a neigh- school and since a single district like and Hispanic students, and they end up at- boring district's public schools. Illi- Mount Vernon can lose students to tending schools inleafy, overwhelmingly nois, which, unlike New York, does several neighbors. Yet New York whitedistrictslikePelham,Bronxville, keep track of such students, counts State, where only 15 percent of black Tuckahoe and Rye. In fact, Mr. Sarver says 13,119 whose families are paying for students and 14 percent of Latino one reason he chose Pelham is that he does them to attend public school outside students attend schools with white not want Josh to attend a school where he is their home districts. Until this school majorities, has never adopted a poli- one of only a small group of white children. year, Wisconsin allowedreceiving cy encouraging or barringtuition- Educators and families say that those who districts to charge a limited tuition, paying transfers. Pay tuition for public school do so mainly but then joined Minnesota, Arizona, "It's a local issue, it's a parental because they feel their home schools do not Iowa, Oregon and 11 other states in issue, it's a family issue, and parents match those across the border, yet they do expanding choice by requiring dis- are free to make those choices," said not want the religious ambiance of a parochi- trictsto accept outsidersat no Bill Hirschen, a spokesman for the al school or the exclusivity of a private one. charge if they have the space. State Education Department. The parents believe they are getting good To promote integration, Massa- Not all suburban districts accept value. In the latest state report cards, 93 chusetts permits black and Hispanic tuition-paying students. Scarsdale's percent of Pelham's third graders read students incitieslike Boston or school clerk, Lois Rehm, said resi- above grade level, compared with 49 percent Springfield to transfer for free to dents feel it would be unfair for out- of Mount Vernon's. suburban districts. California, how- of-towners to get the benefits of But some school officials in New York say ever, bars transfers of white stu- Scarsdale's schools while avoiding that the state, by tolerating such transfers, dents out of cities like San Francisco the high costs of living in Scarsdale. inadvertently injures struggling communi- becausetheseassignmentschip

51 56 Superintendents of the Westches- suspects that in his district, which to Pelham two of whom are black ter districts that accept outside stu- sends 84 percent of its graduates to say it was not easy making new dents are frank in saying they do so college and offers a full palette of friends and enduring longer trips to because the costs are minimal and advanced placement courses, itis school. But they were drawn by the money can be used to add teach- not quality that prompts families to ham's distinct advantages. ers. Ards ley's 30 tuition students, emigrate. Some parents, he sug- "It's not that my parents aren't who come from Yonkers, Dobbs Fer- gests, do not want their children at- happy with Mount Vernon," said ry, Greenburgh and Elmsford, pay tending schools where the student Chad Northern, a black seventh $8,500 apiece for elementary school body is 65 percent Hispanic and 10 grader at Pelham. "It's just that and $10,500 for high school. "It's percent black. they wanted something better." close to 1 percent of our tax rate," "People make decisions on the ba- Barbara Snyder, an eighth grader, said Dr. Stanley Toll, Superintendent sis of wanting their children exposed said Pelham offered sports like la- of the Ards ley schools. "If the stu- to a culturally diverse population or crosse and field hockey that Mount dents weren't here, the residents not wanting their children exposed to Vernon could not, and far more hon- would be paying 1 percent more." a culturally diverse population,and ors classes. Michael Lynch, an eighth Generally, tuition-paying students you can read the code words into grader, who, like Barbara, is white, are admitted only in classes where that," he said. said he switched "because Mount there are vacancies. Most districts Visits to middle schools in Mount Vernon's schools were kind of dan- screen out students with academic or Vernon and Pelham point up some of gerous." Although he said "there are behavioral problems. the sharp contrasts that, in the minds stories of kids being cut up by knives Several Westchester Superintend- of some families, justify their deci- and gangs walking around," he had ents said they did not think a state sion to switch districts. Pelham Mid- not heard any firsthand accounts. policy barring tuition-paying trans- dle School, where many students Still, Mount Vernon's reputation suf- fers would have any impact on the come from affluent families, is a fered a severe setback in 1994 when a racial mix of schools, since parents cheerful building facing a verdant student was stabbed to death in a unhappy with home districts would athletic field. It is so well equipped high school hallway dispute. then send their children to private that shop students can build wooden Mr. Sarver, one of four white schools. bridges and testtheir durability members of a nine-member board "If they're going to spend $10,000 against earthquakes. At Mount Ver- that has been deeply divided along to send their kids to Ards ley, they racial lines, acknowledged some ra- non'sAlfred M. Franko Middle cial consideration in his decision. He have a lot of options out there," Dr. School, where many children qualify Toll said. Private school tuition for did not want Josh attending a school for free lunch, obscene graffiti were where whites would account for only sixth grade in New York and New scrawled on lockers, and a science Jersey averages $14,100 a year, ac- a small percentage of the student teacher appealed to the Superintend- body something that was not the cording to the National Association ent for ventilation hoods so he could case at his son's racially balanced of Independent Schools. At Roman perform chemical experiments. itranges from elementary school in Mount Vernon Catholic schools, The Mount Vernon school district or in the polyglot neighborhood in $2,000 to $10,000. spends $10,000 per student while Pel- northMount Vernon wherethe Dr. Charles D. Coletti, Superin- ham spends more than $12,000. Each tendent in Port Chester, which loses Sarvers live. "I want him to have the of Pelham's 156 eighth graders must opportunityofmeetingdifferent students to Rye City, believes state take the Regents test in earth sci- groups, but I also want him to have a policy should permit studentsto ence, and 95 percent pass; at Franko, chance to be in a white group as transfer elsewhere only for pro- 40 of the 258 eighth graders took the well," Mr. Sarver said. grams his schools do not offer. He test last year and 31 passed.The In Mount Vernon, families who put percentage of Mount Vernon stu- their children in neighboring dis- dents suspended last year was more tricts seem to irritate some school than four times that of Pelham stu- officials. Mr.Sarver'sdecision dents. seems particularly to chafe at Mr. The 12 Mount Vernon junior high Ross, the Mount Vernon Superin- school students who made the switch tendent. "It's ironic that someone who sits on the board and makes decisions for other people's children refusesto send their children to those schools," Mr. Ross said.

57 52 The New York Times, May 25, 1999 Turning the Tables on School Choice

but the one to which they have an assault from the unions, By CHARLES WHEELAN been assigned!" have attacked school choice The New York Times with superficial complaints that How would Democrats react to are far from the heart of the A llow me to propose a such a plan? They would debate. ...thought experiment for my rightfully blast it as unfair, fellow Democrats. Imagine racist, inefficient and Democrats say that vouchers Trent Lott puffing himself up in detrimental to the long-term will destroy the public schools. the well of the Senate and economic health of the country. This statement makes a great announcing a new Republican Why, then, are they so wedded sound bite, but it is probably a education proposal. (Another to the education status quo, better argument in favor of Republican Senator can be which is really nothing more school choice. The supposed substituted here; Jesse Helms than the hypothetical logic is that millions of students would work nicely.) Republican plan that I have just will stream out of the public described? schools if given the The major elements of this opportunity, leaving behind a proposal are the following: The Democrats are on the shell of a system. There are two Two parallel school systems wrong side of the school choice problems with this logic. First, will be set up. One will be for issue. The political explanation if studentsespecially the poor, predominantly minority for this decision is pathetically "best" students -- will flee students in cities. These simple. The National Education public schools like rats from a schools, housed in crumbling Association, the nation's largest sinking ship, then what makes buildings, will offer a low- teachers union, is consistently this system so worth quality curriculum, stultifying one of the top soft-money protecting? And second, the bureaucracy and few contributors to the Democratic essence of "public" education extracurricular activities. The Party. At the state level, where is that the government provides other system will be for education policy is often an opportunity for all students affluent students, who will be shaped, the teachers unions are to attend a decent school, not able to choose either to enroll always a potent force. And that all students must attend a in a private school or move to because the N.E.A. opposes publicly operated school. Do the suburb with the public school choice with every fiber we believe that the spirit of school that they favor most. of its existence, supporting Medicare has been Poor students will not have vouchers would be political compromised because the such a choice; they must attend suicide for aspiring Democratic system uses private hospitals schools in their neighborhoods. candidates. and doctors?

Imagine Trent (or Jesse or What is more disturbing (and Vouchers will benefit wealthy Strom) pounding the lectern, less easily explained) is that the families who already send their saying, "Under no Democratic Party's intellectual children to private schools. So circumstances will public. leaders, many of whom are what? Democrats are at their money be used to allow poor either outside of politics or absolute ugliest when they students to attend any school entrenched enough to withstand assume that punishing therich

53 58 and the middle class is the same parents might make? The students radically better off, as helping the poor. Is there Democratic Party has rarely even if we have strong some logical reason that a been so patronizing toward the theoretical reasons to believe family paying $60,000 or poor. that it might. $80,000 in taxes should not have the right to a subsidized Democrats also argue that Also, the devil is in the details education at a school they deem school choice must be a bad with voucher plans. How will excellent? More important, idea if the Republicans are so schools select students? Will vouchers will bolster urban tax excited about it. Ignore the parents be able to add money bases by stemming the flight of stupidity of this logic for a on to the value of their middle-class parents who move moment and recall some recent voucher? What schools will be out of the city because they do history. The Republicans were able to accept public dollars? not trust urban public schools the party of civil rights in the Can religious schools legally and cannot afford private ones. 1950's (with the strongest participate? How will students Vouchers are pro-city, which is opposition coming from with special needs be integrated something that we Democrats Southern Democrats). The into the system? are supposed to care about. Democrats took the issue away from them and have done quite These are the issues that we Some parents won't exercise well with it. need to be discussing. But we their right to choose, or will should stop clinging make a bad choice. Perhaps, but There are good reasons to move defensively to a system that, if there is ample evidence-- for deliberately on school choice. it were presented to us fresh example, in Milwaukee and Most important, the data on today, we would blast for what Cleveland -- that low-income how effective vouchers would it is: an assault on the poor, a parents will make a great effort be in improving student waste of resources and a to take advantage of voucher achievement are far from disgrace to the principles that programs. When did it become conclusive. Several small the Democratic Party stands morally acceptable to punish programs offer reasons to be for. some parents and children for optimistic. But we don't know the bad decisions that other that school choice will leave

59

54 First Things, April 1999

Is Private SchoolingPrivatizing? Christian Smith and David Sikkink

Question: Are families that choose private schools lic participation into their own narrow, self- and home education for their children more interested, private worlds. Many others, including likely than families involved in public schools to be Richard John Neuhaus, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., socially isolated and withdrawn from participation Christopher Lasch, Alan Wolfe, Richard Sennett, in civic life? Amitai Etzioni, Robert Wuthnow, and James Answer: Absolutely not. In fact, to the contrary, re- Hunter, have sounded similar concerns. America is cent survey data from the U.S. Departmentof Educa- in real danger, many able cultural observers warn, of tion show that Catholic, Protestant, and nonreli- losing its shared cultural order and common civic life gious private schooling and home schooling families to the corrosive forces ofindividualism, privatiza- are consistently more involvedin a wide spectrum of tion, fragmentation, and cultural polarization. civic activities than are families of public school chil- dren. From voting to volunteering to visiting the It is against this backdrop that championsof the old local library, private and home schooling families public school system decry our society's current vouchers, home are very much out in theircommunities and involved move toward school choice, tuition in the affairs of public life. Private schooling, it turns schooling, and the like. With all of the cultural and out, is anything but privatizing. institutional forces that are pulling America apart, These empirical findings have important implica- they implore, how can we contemplate dismantling tions for the increasingly hot debates over school one of the last publicinstitutions that historically choice, tuition vouchers, Christian schools, and have held America together? Public schools, it is ar- home education. For in the last two decades, many gued, have not only always provided for all American Americans have grown increasingly concerned about children the opportunity for a genuinely liberal edu- shared moral order cation; they have also served to integrate America's our nation's capacity to sustain a racial, ethnic, and religious diversity, and to teach and robust public life. In 1985, for example, Robert political values. Bellah and his colleagues warned in Habits of the common American cultural and Heart that American individualism is eroding the re- How can wenow, of all timesstart undermining the foundations of what may be our last institution- publican and biblical commitments that sustain a pri- vigorous civic life. Mary Ann Glendon's 1991 book al dike against a future of social fragmentation, vatized isolation, and civic indifference? Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Dis- It is important to be clear here about what counts course argued that a rampantrights-discourse is now as "civic" and "public." Criticsof private schooling undermining our shared American values and the often equate "civic" with a narrow range ofliberal common good. And in the mid-1990s,Robert Put- "Bowling Alone: and "neutral" activities, and "public" with govern- nam warned in his noted articles, mental ones. Within this framework, thesecritics America's Declining Social Capital" and "The might say. sure, Christian and home schoolers are ac- Strange Disappearance of Civic America," that tivists, but their (presumed) narrow kind ofactivism Americans are increasingly withdrawing from pub- fragments society and undermines democracy. Our approach here relies instead on a more Tocquevillian CHRISTIAN SMITHandDAVID SIM:INKteach in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. An view of civic engagement, which suggests that Amer- earlier version of this essay was presented at the Moberg Lec- ican democracy thrives on the widespread participa- tureship Series, Bethel College, St. Paul, Minnesota. tion of its citizens in a host of different kinds of asso-

0 APRIL 1999 17

ciations that mediate between the individual and the attitudes, as well as the infliction ofpsychological state, often even when those associations are not and emotional harm, including excessiveguilt and manifestly political or liberal; that the experience of repression and... diminished self-esteem." Dwyer ar- association and participation itself tends to socialize, gues that "the focus [should] always be on what is empower, and incorporate citizens in ways that stim- best, from a secular perspective, for the affectedchil- ulate democratic self-government, even if they in- dren.... States are obligated to ensure that such volve some particularity and conflict in the process. schools do not engage in harmful practices and that Be that as it may, many popular stereotypes about they provide their students with the trainingneces- private schools and home education directly feed into sary for pursuit of a broad range of careers and for concerns about the social consequences of private full citizenship in a pluralistic, democratic society." schooling. The popular imagination easily conjures We see, then, that an activist (and, fromsome per- up images ofsevere,anti-intellectual,Bible- spectives, imperialistic and paternalistic)state is thumping fundamentalist Christian schools that in- thought necessary, not only because religious schools doctrinate rather than educate their students; of allegedly damage children, but also because they Volvo-driving parents emerging from their affluent, purportedly undermine the kind of broad public ed- gated "communities" to drop their children off at ex- ucation and civic involvement necessary for "full cit- clusive private academies the central purpose of izenship in a pluralistic, democratic society." In which is to reproduce class privilege; of born-again short, Dwyer claims, private religious schooling is parents, fearful of alleged secular humanism, perniciously privatizing. pulling their kids out of public schools to give them amateur educations in the small worlds of their own But the empirical question remains: Is private private homes. How, one might wonder, will these schooling really privatizing? Here we present kids ever learn to understand and share a society with evidence from a reliable national educationsurvey other people very different from themselves? How which shows thatcontrary to these popularstereo- can these families ever pull themselves out of what types and academic critiquesprivate and home seem to be narrow worlds of religious purity, finan- schooling are definitely not privatizing. Indeed, the cial affluence, and family reclusivity in order to par- data show clearly that the most privatized American ticipate in a shared American public life? families are consistently those whose children attend public schools. Certain scholarly studies of Christian schools Our evidence comes from the 1996 National seem to validate these popular images, raising Household Education Survey (NHES), conducted by similarly troubling questions about private educa- the U.S. Department of Education's National Center tion. For example, Alan Peshkin's 1986 book God's for Education Statistics. This study surveyed a large, Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Chris- nationally representative sample of 9,393 parents of tian School portrays one Christian academy asen- school-age children. The survey used carefully con- veloping its members in a "total world" of exclusivis- structed questions to differentiate the public school- tic religious meaning, isolated and withdrawn from ers from Catholic schoolers, non-Catholic church- the pluralism of mainstream American life. And related schoolers, nonreligious private schoolers, and Susan Rose's 1988 book Keeping Them Out of the home schoolers. Hands of Satan: Evangelical Schooling in America In addition to questions about schooling, the sur- suggests that evangelicals are seeking through their vey asked parents questions about the extent of fami- Christian schools to establish religious enclaves ly involvements in a variety of civic activities. Par- within which to exercise control and enjoy autonomy ents reported whether they were members of a from secular institutions and cultures. Once again, community organization; participated in an ongo- one might easily surmise that private schooling is in- ing community service activity; went to the public li- deed privatizing in ways that erode a civil, pluralistic brary for books, tapes, lectures, story hours, or to use public sphere. library equipment; voted in a national or state elec- These apparently antiliberal tendencies of private tion in the previous five years; wrote or telephoned schooling are very troubling to some academics. In an editor or public official or signed a petition in the fact, Illinois Institute of Technology law professor previous twelve months; attended a public meeting in James Dwyer has recently published what private the previous twelve months; contributed money to a schoolers can only view as an ominous book, Reli- political candidate, party, or cause in the previous gious Schools v. Children's Riglzts (Cornell Univer- twelve months; worked for a political cause in the sity Press, 1998), which argues for heavy state regula- previous twelve months; or participated in a protest tion of religious schools to counter pedagogical or boycott in the previous twelve months. By com- practices that Dwyer deems "damaging to children." paring differences in family participation in these The book "presents evidence of excessive restriction nine forms of civic involvement, we are able to deter- of children's basic liberties, stifling of intellectual de- mine empirically whether private schooling actually velopment, the instilling of dogmatic and intolerant is or is not privatizing.

56 61 IS FIRST THINGS

The results reveal a consistent pattern: Catholic civic activitieseven when we statistically remove schooling families, other Christian schooling fami- the possible effects of seven other potentially related lies, nonreligious private schooling families, and social factors. In other words, there appears to be home schooling families are consistently more in- something particular about religious private school- volved in all of the civic activities examined than are ing and home schooling in and of themselves that in- families with children in public schools. The only creases families' participation in mostly non-school- two exceptions are that home schoolers are equally related civic activities in the public square. likely as public schoolers to attend public meetings, and that 2 percent fewer non-Catholic church-related AA Thy should this be: Fully answering that ques- schoolers than public schooling families have volun- tion 1611 require much more research, but we teered for a political cause. Otherwise, private and may already know enough about the matter to ven- home schooling families are, by an average margin ture at least a preliminary explanation. of 9.3 percent, more likely than public schooling Scholars such as James Coleman, Pierre Bourdieu, families to engage in all of these forms of civic par- Robert Putnam, and Pamela Paxton tell us that peo- ticipation. Some of the larger observed differences in ple's civic participation tends to increase when their civic participation deserve particular mention. Up lives are tied into networks of relationships charac- to 10 percent more private schooling than public terized by trust and solidarity. These kinds of associ- schooling families have attended a public meeting or ational ties form among people the "social capital" rally. Up to 13 percent more private schoolers have the reciprocal, cooperative, bonding social relations given money to political causes. Up to 15 percent that helps to foster greater involvement in public more have voted in recent elections and have tele- life. This may not be the conscious goal of these net- phoned elected officials to express their views. And works and associations. But they tend to produce this up to 26 percent more private schoolingfamilies effect nonetheless. This helps to explain at least some than public schooling families are members of com- of the differences in civic participation among differ- munity groups and volunteer at local organizations. ent types of schooling families. For the associations (All statistics are published at the authors' web site: and practices of private schooling often create denser .) relational networks of greater solidarity and shared moral culture than those of public schooling. These findings definitively answer the question at Take home schooling, for example. Of all types of hand: private schooling is absolutely not priva- nonpublic education, home schooling as a practice tizing. Private schoolers and home schoolers are def- by so closely uniting home, family, education, and initely not the isolated recluses that critics suggest (usually) religious faithmight seem the most priva- they might be. It is, rather, the public schooling fam- tized and isolated from the concerns of the public ilies that are clearly the least civically involved of all sphere. But in fact, most home schoolers are not at all the schooling types. isolated. Indeed, most are embedded in dense rela- But the evidence that private schooling is not pri- tional networks of home schooling families; partici- vatizing is even stronger than this. Most people know pate in local, state, regional, and national home that participation in civic activities is strongly corre- schooling organizations; and engage in a variety of lated with certain other social factors, such as peo- community activities and programs that serve the ed- ple's years of education and income. We also know ucation of their children. Home schooling families that, on average, private schooling families are likely meet together at playgrounds; frequent local li- to possess more education and to earn higher in- braries, museums, and zoos; organize drama produc- comes than public schooling families. Could it be tions, science projects, and art workshops; enroll that the private schooling families' greater participa- their kids in YMCA soccer and swimming classes; or- tion in civic activities is simply the result of their ganize home school association picnics and cook- higher education and income, and has nothing to do outs; and much more. Home schooling families also with schooling per se: frequent home education conferences and seminars; In order to test for precisely this possibility, we pay close attention to education-related legislative is- used the NHES survey data to create a civic partici- sues; share political information with each other; pation scale, and ran a multiple-variable regression and educate themselves about relevant legal con- analysis, controlling for differences in education, in- cerns. Far from being privatized and isolated,home come, age, race, family structure, region, and the schooling families are typically very well networked number of hours per week that parents work. The re- and quite civically active. sults, using even this conservative statistical test, con- Of course, some people do not like the purpose of firm the findings presented above. Namely, Catholic home schoolers' networking and activism. But that schoolers, other Christian schoolers, and home objection is an altogether different matter than the schoolers (but not nonreligious private schoolers) are one at hand. Presumably a broader array ofinvolve- significantly more likely than public schoolers to ments in public life are of civic value for democracy participate in public life through a broad array of than those that support a liberal or pro-public school 57 62 APRIL 1999 19

agenda. The relevant fact here is that social capital vibrant common American public life than secular generates the civic participation that strengthens liberalism's purported neutrality regarding visions public life, whether or not this is the primary inten- of the good life and society. tional goal of the associationsocial capital simply

has this unintended effect. .A.1 of this has implications for broader debates among liberals, communitarians, and others rivate schoolers do more than network, though. about just what kind of society we ought to be work- r They also frequently generate and sustain shared ing to form. Liberal political theorists contend that moral cultures that facilitate social solidarity and just society is one in which the particularistic moral trust. This too generates social capital. perspectives of the diverse communities that com- Compare this situation with the reality of contem- prise it are excluded from debate in the public square. porary public schooling. Years ago, public schools Instead, people should only employ justifications in served as institutional expressions of local communi- their arguments in public life that all participants in ty identities and cultures. But public schools and the the debate will find acceptablewhich for liberals experiences of families that use them have been radi- inevitably means secular justifications. Thus, people cally transformed by decades of increased geograph- should be obliged to restrain themselves from bring- ical mobility and social transience; educational cen- ing into the public square arguments grounded in the tralization, standardization, and professionalization; authorities of their own particularistic traditions, re- federal government intervention; economic integra- ligious or otherwise. In a liberal society, the public tion and globalization; and the imperialism of the square must be secular and "neutral" as to particular market. visions of "the good," and its citizens must leave be- No longer principally centers of local community hind the particularistic commitments and traditions identity and moral order, public schools have in- that form their identities and viewpoints (or at least creasingly become impersonal state bureaucracies must be ready to reformulate them into secular supplying standardized schooling services to poten- language). tially anonymous taxpaying consumers. Public Communitarian theorists argue by contrast that school parents need not know one another to receive liberalism's unencumbered selves are nothing but the services public schools offer. Nor do they need to theoretical fictions; that stripping certain citizens share a common moral culture. Indeed, contempo- and communities of their moral particularities fun- rary public schools are by law intentionally "neutral" damentally violates their identities and moral rea- spaces that, in keeping with liberal political theory, soning; that not all participants in public debate in exclude the particularities of distinct moral and reli- fact find secular justifications for arguments accept- gious traditions in favor of a standardized secular able, so that this requirement simply functions impe- perspective. Shared particularistic moral cultures rialistically to privilege secular moral reasoning over are not only awkward and potentially contentious in others; and, finally, that no society can avoid specify- public schools, they are by definition prohibited. Yet ing and embracing substantive public notions of we know that associations which lack the collective virtue and goodness. These are compelling critiques. solidarity and trust that shared moral cultures en- Yet communitarianismas Michael Walzer and oth- gender fail to form for their participants the social ers have notedoften ends up then characterizing capital that fosters participation in civic life. And society as if it were or should be one whole commu- partly for this reason public schooling families are nity of citizens whose shared virtues undergird consistently the least civically active of all of our strong civic republic (see, for example, Walzer's "A schooling types. Community of Communities," in Anita Allen and By contrast, private Catholic schools, other Chris- Milton Ragan's Debating Democracy's Discontent, tian schools, home schools, and even nonreligious Oxford University Press, 199S). And this communi- private schools are much more likely to be based tarian vision itself tends to gloss over the very real upon particularistic religious, moral, and other nor- and very distinctive identities, traditions, and com- matively committed traditions that embed their par- munities that communitarians claim liberal theory ticipating families in shared moral cultures that fos- fails adequately to acknowledge and embrace. ter social solidarity and trust. Despite contemporary society's widespread transience and market penetra- alternative to both liberalism's secular "neutral- tion of social life, private schools manage neverthe- ity" and communitarianism's holistic civic re- less to draw groups of families together around publicanism is the structural pluralist conception of shared, fundamental, normative worldviews. And society as, in Walzer's words, "a community of com- this, as we have seen, in turn fosters among private munities, a nation of nationalities, a social union of schoolers levels of broad civic participation signifi- social unions." This vision fully acknowledges and cantly greater than those of public schooling fami- accepts in public life the many real and distinctive so- lies. In this way, committed religious and moral par- cial communities of people whose lives are funda- ticularity appears more capable of sustaining a mentally formed by particularistic moral traditions

5863 20 FIRST THINGS that mold unique social identities. Particularistic the ideas of school choice, tuition vouchers, home communities and their members are, in this ap- schooling, and other innovative educational in.:6a- proach, recognized and allowed to live out their so- tives that challenge the monopoly of government - cial lives and to contribute to the common good in provided public schooling. Increasingly, we as a so- terms of who they actually areinstead of being re- ciety see that it is not only possible but also perhaps quired either to strip themselves of their basic identi- more just and effective to separate in our thinking ties and commitments before entering the public and policy making the state's essential public fLind- square, or to affirm as ultimate the substantive ing of education from an exclusive state provision of virtues that all members of the one civic republic education. This fundamental shift in thinking raises share. a number of very important questions about equity In the field of education, structural pluralism and integration that require careful public delibera- would affirm the necessity of public funding of edu- tion and decision making. cation, but would allow for institutional pluralism in One of these critical questions concerns the practi- the provision of education. Communities of parents cal effects on our common public life of changing the would be allowed to form distinctively Catholic, rules of the education game to allow the public fund- Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, secular humanist, or ing of private and home schooling. Will moves in this other schools (or home education associations) direction erode America's shared civic culture? Will whose curricula and practices would respect and re- this undermine civic participation by encouraging flect the fundamentalorldviews and intellectual further social fragmentation along religious and and moral traditions of the families involved. At the other ideological fault lines? Will private schooling same time, all students in all schools and associations and home education foster the kind of privatization would engage a common core curriculum, estab- that so many cultural critics now warn so strongly lished by the state in consultation with the relevant against? communities, ensuring a common baseline educa- Whatever else can be said for and against private tion for all citizens. This, many Americans might be schooling and home education, the one thing our surprised to know, is precisely the way public educa- empirical findings make clear is that neither of therh tion has been structured for most of this century in foster the kind of social privatization and isolation the Netherlands, and very successfully at that. that diminish people's participation in civic affairs'. Rather than fostering social conflict, this structur- The empirical evidence is clear and decisive: private al pluralist approach actually tends to allay social schoolers and home schoolers are considerably more conflict by allowing communities and their people civically involved in the public square than are pub- legitimately to live out in public life their distinctive beliefs and practices. By contrast, it is in fact our own lic schoolerseven when the effects of differences in current winner-take-all situation of a uniform public education, income, and other related factors are re.1 educational "neutrality" that represents, in the words moved from the equation. Indeed, we have reason td of University of Massachusetts-Amherst legal scholar believe that the organizations and practices involved Stephen Arons, a "short route to chaos." Further- in private and home schooling in themselves tend to more, our empirical evidence on the civicinvolve- foster public participation in civic affairs. If so, then ment of different kinds of schooling familiesaffords we have nothing to fear, at least on this score,about no reason to think that loosening the secular state's embracing school choice, tuition vouchers, home monopoly on the provision of public education will schooling, and related educational innovations.' privatize and isolate Americans or diminish their These things will not encourage privatization and participation in civic life. If anything, such changes widespread withdrawal from public life. Rather, if promise the opposite effect. anything. the challenges, responsibilities, and prac- tices that private schooling and home education nor- he American public, state legislatures, major mally entail for their participants may actually help I metropolitan school districts, and state and fed- reinvigorate America's civic culture and thepartici- eral courts are becoming every year more friendly to pation of her citizens in the public square. I

64 59 The Washington Post, May 10, 1999 New Testin Quebec Schoo trying to deny a central aspect of the French we denying the existence of a Supreme Challenges Mounting Canadian cultural identity. Being and denying this community an_ It was very hard for me, a shock really, important aspect of its culture in order to To Church's Key Role even though I expected such a reaction," satisfy some intellectual's sense of justice?"... said Proulx, a Catholic who faithfully at- At Our Lady of Pompeii, nearly all 406 In Public Education tends Mass at his Montreal parish. students attend Catholic religious classes at In places like Trois Rivieresa city 75 the school. And when it was time for the By STEVEN PEARLSTEIN miles northeast of Montreal where more third-graders to celebrate their First Corm Washington Post Foreign Service than 90 percent of the population remains munion last month at the modern parish French-speaking and Catholicmany view church next door, 46 of the 49 were in MONTREALTo anyone who hassecularization of schools as an intrusion attendance. The school's governing council spent time in American parochial schools,imposed on the rest of the province by last month unanimously supported the Our Lady of Pompeii Elementary on Mon-Montreal, home to immigrants from around current system of confessional schools. treal's north side would hardly seem re- the world. It is a much different story, however, at markable. But the political impetus for seculariza- Ecole Lanaudiere, a primary school in the There are crucifixes on the wall of every tion is coming not from religious minorities, gentrified Francophone neighborhood near 4 classroom and statues of the patron saint inbut from Catholics themselves. Many of the heart of Montreal that is now home to the corridor. When the principal enters aQuebec's Catholics still harbor deep resent- many of the city's artists, professors and classroom, students stand and bid him goodment toward a Church whose conservative, journalists. Of the 50 third-graders at Lan. morning in unison. Twice a week, home-authoritarian grip on virtually every aspect audiere, only 24 were enrolled in the room teachers, all of them Catholic, putof life in this province came to an end only aside multiplication tables and the study ofin the 1960s. vertebrates and turn their attention to Today church attendance among Catho- "People in Quebec still Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. lics stands at 15 percent, the lowest rate in Our Lady of Pompeii, however, is not a North America, while in such cities ashave to get comfortable-- private parochial school; it's a fairly typical Montreal and Quebec City, one-third of public school in Quebec In the only French- church buildings are available for other speaking, overwhelmingly Catholic prov-uses. The average age of priests is ap- with the idea that ince in Canada, all public education wasproaching 65, while seminaries and con- delegated to the churchesalong withvents are largely empty. And while polls religion will be given hospitals, orphanages and other social ser-show that 88 percent of Quebeckers believe vicesuntil 35 years ago. in God, less than a third say they believe in And not only are there no strictures the God portrayed by the Church. only in churches, not against mixing church and state, but the Meanwhile, so many Quebec couples are founding documents of Quebec expresslyforsaking marriage for common-law rela- schools." state that French Catholics and Englishtionships that 53 percent of births in the Protestants are both entitled to receiveprovince occur out of wedlock The birth- Diane de Cagey religiousinstructionfromthepublic rate is the lowest in the Western world, President of the French school board schools. while rates of abortion and divorce are In Quebec province Now, however, a special commission among the hienest. appointed by Quebec's government has It is among these disaffected Catholics Catholic education programand of those proposed to change all that, sending politi-that secularization has become a rallying 24, only 12 were on hand for First Commu- cal shock waves through a province thatcry. In Montreal, they recently became a nion last month at Immaculate Conception already is wrestling with the question ofmajority on the French-language school Church down the street whether it wants to remain part of Canada.boardthe successor to the old Catholic "I now spend more time preparing for my The commission proposed scrapping the School Board abolished under reforms that Catholic classes than I do for math or current system of "confessional" education, took effect last year. And the secularists Frenchand itstill doesn't work," corn-. in which every school, in effect, has ahave strong allies among the province's plained Louis Thouin, who has taught at Catholic or Protestant affiliation. powerful teachers unions. Lanaudiere for 24 years. 'The kids don't And instead of having all students receive "Eventually, I feel we will come to the want to learn or even know why they are in two hours per week of Catholic, ProtestantAmerican system, but what Proulx has class. They don't go to church. There is no or nonreligious "moral" instruction, the recommended would be a big step for- reinforcement at home. So what are we commission proposes that they be required ward," said Diane de Courcy, president of doing?" to take classes that look at all the world's the French school board, sitting in her Sitting in the carved, wooden pews of the religions from cultural and historical per- spacious office, where the outline of a cross grand and ornate Immaculate Conception spectives. can still be seen in the paneling over the Church, the Rev. Bernard Morin, the 70- "Quebec's desire to be a liberal democra- door. "People in Quebec still have to get year-old pastor, speaks for many Catholic cy, adhering to the principles of equality and comfortable with the idea that religion will officials when he concedes that the Church openness to residents of various back- be given only in churches, not schools." can no longer rely on the public schools as groundsthis is simply not consistent with Ironically, the strongest support for the the principal vehicle for transmitting the an educational structure that continues to system of confessional schools comes from faith. give special status to the Catholic and CatholicsinMontreal'spredominantly I am convinced we should spend much Protestantreligions,"saidJean-Pierre Protestant English-speaking community. As more time teaching parents to bring up the Proubc, the University of Montreal profes- a minority within a minority, English-speak- child rather than trying to teach the child sor and former journalist who headed theing Catholics here cling tightly to their directly," said Morin, who considers it .a panel. religion and their traditional lifestyle, no- good Sunday if several hundred worshipers Not everyone in Quebec agrees. At a where more so than in the Italian communi- show up at a church that drew thousands a meeting in the basement of an ornate ty around Our Lady of Pompeii. generation ago. "We have to give up this basilica in Trois Rivieres several weeks ago, "What are we doing here?" asked Rocco idea of confessional schools, work with the Proulx was jeered by an angry crowd thatBarbieri, the school principal, slamming a parents who are truly interested in religion accused him of being an "antichrist" and ofcopy of the ProuLx report on his desk. "Are and rebuild from there."

60 BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 65 The Washington Post, May 28, 1999

Ohio Court Upholds Constitutionality of School Voucher Programs By KENNETH J. COOPER, The Washington Post

Ohio's Supreme Court yesterday upheld the is to offer public school students educational options, constitutionality of a state program that provides including parochial schools. Both Maine and government vouchers for Cleveland students to Vermont provide vouchers in rural areas that do not attend parochial schools, but struck down the have their own school systems, but the vouchers controversial experiment on technical grounds based cannot be used at religious institutions. on Ohio law. With the Ohio ruling, state supreme courts have split On the central constitutional question about such 2-1 in favor of the constitutionality of government publicly funded vouchers, the Ohio court ruled that a vouchers being used at parochial schools. Last year, Cleveland program under way since 1996 respected Wisconsin's highest court upheld the Milwaukee the separation of church and state because it is up to program, and the Supreme Court declined to review parents whether their children go to religious schools. the case. Last month, Maine's top court ruled that Although the 3,700 low-income participants can use using state vouchers at parochial schools would be the $ 2,250 vouchers to pay tuition at any public or unconstitutional. private school, most have enrolled at sectarian institutions. The reason that the court cited in overturning the Cleveland program, which will be allowed to The court held any link the voucher program has continue through the current school year, is unrelated established between government and religion has to the church-state issue. Because Ohio's constitution been indirect and constitutionally permissible under limits each piece of state legislation to one subject, the First Amendment "because [public] funds cannot the court found that the voucher program had been reach a sectarian school unless the parents of a improperly authorized by a rider attached to an student decide, independently of the government, to omnibus appropriations bill in 1995. send their child to that sectarian school." "They got it half right. They struck it down but they Even though the court rejected the Cleveland voucher didn't do it for the right reasons," said Barry Lynn, program, "From a national perspective, this is a executive director of Americans United for definite victory for the school choice movement," Separation of Church and State. "We will now battle said Clint Bolick, a Washington lawyer who argued this thing in the legislature." for the program before the court. But with Republicans controlling Ohio's legislature, Cleveland and Milwaukee operate the only Bolick predicted "the odds are pretty good we'll be government voucher programs whose stated purpose able to keep this program going in September."

6"6: 61 City Journal, Spring 1999 How Gotham's Elite High Schools Escaped the Leveller'sAx Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and Brooklyn Tech are everything the public school system has mistakenly tried to eradicate.

Heather Mac Donald

ew York City brags to the world about its excellencesits peer- less business expertise, its world- class restaurants, its unparalleled sophistication,itsrenowned monumentsbut about one rare treasure, a set of elite, over- achieving public high schools, it remains largely silent. The Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High School, and Brooklyn Technical High School have nurtured nine Nobel laureates, hundreds of Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners, award-winning biologists and astrophysicists, astronauts, inventors, and captains of commerce. The Ivy Leagues clamor for their graduates, virtu- ally all of whom attend college. Their daily atten- dance rate runs at 93 percent and higher. These schools are everything the rest of the public educa- tion system is not: its reverse image, they are the positive to its negative. Why, then, hasn't success-crazed New York trumpeted these schools with as much fanfare as it expends on the Yankees or the New York Stock Exchange? Simple: they embody one of the most odious concepts in contemporary educationelit- ism. Because they have preserved, by a lucky his- torical fluke, a century-old admissions system based solely on merit, they are a horrible embar- rassment to New York's educational and public- sector establishment, wedded as itis to the philosophy of the lowest common denominator. Left to its own devices, that establishment would long since have subjected the three exam

An anxious New York ritual: waiting for the entrance exam at Stuyvesant.

68CITY JOURNAL 62 6 7 schools to the same levelling forces by which it has Roy Glauber, went directly to work on the Man- ground down the rest of the education system. hattan Project, without an intervening spell at col- Instead, it is forced to erode them more slowly, by lege. Within its first 12 years, Bronx Science would mindless bureaucratic regulation and the irritating graduate four of its five Nobel prizewinners; by friction of teachers' union rules. The recent history 1993, it had produced 50 percent more Westing- of the exam schoolsthe bitter battles fought to house Science Talent Search winners than any other preserve their excellenceperfectly mirrors the school in the country. decline of educational elitism in New York, to the Then, as now, the students made the schools. great detriment of its entire civic culture. Specialized facilities were nice, where they exist- ed, but not essential; Stuyvesant achieved won- ders in a wreck of a building for decades before During the nineteenth century, elite high it moved to its sumptuous new $150 million Bat- schools, many modeled on the colonial-era Boston tery Park City facility in 1992. But the students Latin School, sprang up across the nation. As part were a constant, and they created an environment of this movement, within the first three decades of of high competition and high achievement, thetwentiethcentury, New Yorkcreated spurring one another on with their intellectual Stuyvesant on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Brook- enthusiasms and adolescent one-upmanship. lyn Tech in Fort Greene, Townsend Harris Hall on Explaining Stuyvesant's present exalted status as the campus of the City College of New York, and an achievement hothouse, principal JinxCozzi- Bronx Science in the northwest Bronxall to pro- Perullo refuses to take credit: "This is not a model vide unlimited educational opportunity to any we create," she contends. "The kids come inwith New York pupil qualified to take advantage of it, a need to excel." including the most talented children of the city's This concentration of talent has always unset- multitudinous new immigrants. tled more than a few outsize egos. "I was used to These new schools were intensely disciplined thinking of myself as superior," recalls Seligman and highly selective, with admission based on a with amusement, "but at Townsend Harris, I was written exam of math and readingskills. just average." That remains the effect of the schools Townsend Harris, the most elite of all, and the today. Says Milton Kopelman, principal of Bronx only one not focused on math and science, con- Science from 1977 to 1990: "Students come in as big densed four years of high school into three, after shots, only to realize that they're not the smartest which its students automatically gained admis- kids in the world. It has a humbling effect." sion to City College. The workload was huge. Author and journalist Dan Seligman, a 1941 Townsend Harris grad, recalls having to get up at For their first half-century, these New York midnight to work on his homework till 4AM. schools epitomized American meritocracy. Gene "Adding to my despair," he has written, "was an Lichtenstein, a 1948 Bronx Science graduate, told observation that some of the adjacent geniuses the New York Times Magazine in 1978: "It seems seemed to be racing through their homework dur- naive today, but Science was perceived then by ing the lunch hour." The workload at the schools parents and teachers as the embodiment of the today is not much lighter. At Stuyvesant, the say- American Dream, meritocracy at work. ... For ing goes that you can choose any two of the fol- those accepted, the future could be open and unlim- lowing three items: grades, friends, or sleep. ited, despite income and family origins. It was all The curriculum was inflexible: students at the dependent on performance." The key phrase here science schools took math and science every year. is: "It seems naive today. ..." Between 1948 and Psychoanalyst Yale Kramer, a 1947 graduate of 1978, the world around Bronx Science and the other Brooklyn Tech, says of the rigid requirements, "You exam schools changed utterly. In 1948, young went to Brooklyn Tech and didn't ask questions." Lichtenstein did not have to apologize for the view The intense focus quickly paid offone of the boys that a selection system based purely on ability was in Bronx Science's first graduating class in 1941, a supreme social advance overclass, race, or reli-

70 CITY JOURNAL

BEST COPY AVAILABLE sa 63 gious privilege. When that meritocratic system schools agreed to expand a newly created affirma- proved to select some groups in higher numbers tive-action program, called Discovery, for students than others, however, its former proponents, who scored below the cut-off point on the entrance including Lichtenstein and many other members of exam, despite worries among some faculty that the the country's elites, grew uneasy. modest program was bringing in too many unpre- In a possible early harbinger of official dis- pared students. comfort with intellectual elitism, Mayor Fiore llo Less than three years later, in January 1971, a La Guardia declared his intention in 1941 to shut direct challenge rocked the exam schools. The down Townsend Harris Hall. La Guardia cited superintendent of Community School Board Three budgetary pressures and the need for space to on Manhattan's West Side, Alfredo Mathew, house a new City College business school, now charged that the admissions test at the Bronx High Baruch College. Parents and teachers waged a School of Science, then the most academically selec- fierce legal fight to preserve the school. Among tive school in the country, was "culturally biased" their allies was the New York Times, which had not a dubious allegationand worked to "screen out" yet decided that merit black and Puerto Rican was a code word for students.Mathew's bias. The Times's argu- board demanded that ments recall a remark- iiOne of the boys the schools chancellor ably different world. abolish the admissions The paper lauded the in Bronx Science's first test and admit students school's "rigid entrance graduating class went solely on the basis of requirements" for cre- directly to work on the recommendations;it ating a "homogeneous threatened a lawsuit if group of able students." Manhattan Project.' j he didn't. The"most widely Though the princi- admitted defect in our pal of Bronx Science, school system," the Times pronounced, "is that the Alexander Taffel, properly defended the entrance highly gifted are frequently held back by the tests as both culturally neutral and essential to the dullards. Townsend Harris is the one high school school's mission, schools chancellor Harvey B. where this obstacle is not permitted to arise." Such Scribner was far less certain of the school's good arguments, however, did not carry the day, and faith and freedom from bias. To the horror of Bronx in 1942, the Board of Higher Education closed Science supporters everywhere, two days after the school. (In 1984, alumni resurrected Townsend Mathew's demand, Scribner appointed a commis- Harris on the Queens College campus with sion to study the admissions tests at all the selec- a looser admissions policy, but it remains an tive schools, explaining darkly: "I have discovered excellent school.) enough to raise serious questions." Showing that he was a man of the times who had moved beyond an easy naïveté about merit, he announced that "any It wasn't until the 1960sa time when the ideal of test of academic achievement tends to be equality of opportunity gave way to demands for culturally biased." equality of resultsthat a sustained assault on edu- cational meritocracy began in earnest. The first sally came during the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville dis- cribner's apparent acquiescence in the attack turbances, in which black activists demanded "com- produced a wave of fear among the schools' sup- munity control" over schools, sparking the bitterest porters. When admissions notices for that year teachers' strike in the city's. history. Among the were delayed, rumors flew that Scribner was activists' many demands was the conversion of the manipulating the process in order to produce a three science schools to community schools, open more acceptable racial mix of students. Bronx Sci- to all. That demand failed, but it had an impact. The ence's faculty, parents, alumni, and friends

SPRING 199971

6 64 formed a council to save the school from destruc- tion. They got the attention of two Bronx state leg- islators, Senator John Calandra and Assemblyman Burton Hecht. Hecht and Calandra accused the schools chancellor of "the most insidious attack thus far upon the finest educational school in New York City." Scribner's attempt to "destroy these schools must be stopped immediately," they proclaimed. The two legislators introduced a bill to enshrine in law the admissions test. Lining up against the bill were, predictably, the Board of Education, the State Regents, Mayor Lindsay's administration, and, now, the New York Times, which had recently shed its elitist principles. In an about-face from its stand in the Townsend Harris controversy, the newly egalitarian Times accused the Assembly of "petrifying" the high schools and announced that nothing should be "sacrosanct" about the exam schools. Whereas the Townsend Harrisera Times had lauded selective admissions, the 1970s Times, speaking through education reporter Fred Hechinger, trivialized selectivity in admissions as an easy way for schools and col- leges to look good. Turning the usual argument against admissions tests on its head, Hechinger claimed that they were too good at predicting suc- cess, thus giving schools and colleges a too easily educable group of students. The Times's scorn had little effect on the state legislators, however. After passionate debate in the Assembly, both legislative houses passed the bill, in May 1971. Though the Hecht-Calandra bill seemed to have given the exam schools lasting pro- tection against New York's strengthening levelling tendencies, their students took nothing for granted. Matthew Bram, a 1974 Stuyvesant grad and now a software developer in New York, recalls that throughout his four years at Stuyvesant, the "con- cept loomed over usthe city will yank the school out. We wereterrified."For Bram, losing Stuyvesant would have meant going to Brandeis High School on Manhattan's Upper West Side, known variously as "the Drugstore" and "the Gauntlet," he recalls. "I would've dropped out of high school rather than go," he says.

An international bridge-building contest at Bronx Science.

SPRING 199973

65 70) Bram remembers disparaging comments inextricably linked; each exists, in part, because of about Stuyvesant as the "free prep school for Jews" the other." This fatal zero-sum logic has been utter- and a "privileged little ivory tower." He rejects the ly destructive for cities, including New York. Ifa charge of privilege. The typical neighborhood high school or business excels, it raises the sum total of school had far better facilities than Stuyvesant's a culture's assets. Zero-summers, however, see decaying building on East 15th Street, he recalls. accomplishment as a sign of unfair advantage that "Chalk and blackboards were our only facility," necessarily rests upon the exploitation oroppres- Bram maintains. "The only thing Stuyvesant sion of others. In this view, the only just society is offered us was a wall to protect us from the rest of one of uniform mediocrity, for as soon as someone what the city offered in high school." Within that excels, someone else by definition has been wall, students flourished. "We were only there to harmed. Zero-summing in educationmeans that learn; it was a joy," Bram says. "We would stop the only way to improve the low-achieving each other in the halls to argue about astrophysics schools is to pull down the high-achievers,an and existentialism." agenda inimical to the middle class. After having been foiled by the Hecht- Ultimately, the Board of Education purged the Calandra bill of 1971, New York's official animus educational-option schools of any possible taint of against anything smacking of "elitism" grew "elitism" by narrowing the top and bottom bands of stronger and more implacable, largely for reasons students and requiring half of all admittees to be of racial politics. Gotham was far from unique in selected at random. Thereafter, it would be nearly this respect: in 1975, a federal judge imposed racial impossible for a school, other than the exam quotas on the legendarily demanding Boston Latin schools, to select for academic talent. Fromnow School, causing standardsin the opinion ofsome on, students who had never bothered to do their facultyeventually to loosen, and in 1983 another homework would have the greatest chance of federal judge, after finding San Francisco's Lowell admission to some of the city's most popular High School too Asian, saddled it witha Rube schools, since far fewer low-achieving than high- Goldberg set of race-based ceilings on admissions. achieving students apply to them. The Washington New York fortunately managed to stay out of the Post's Jonathan Yardley astutely identified-the clutches of the courts, but in 1986 its Board of Ed implicit message of the Board's latest levelling turned against a set of eight mildly selective and action: in a predominantly minority school system, very popular high schools. These so-called educa- lower standards are "fairer" standards. 'Weassume tional-option schools chose 25 percent of their stu- that the only way to make schools genuinely demo- dents from eighth-graders reading above grade cratic," Yardley wrote in disgust, "is to make them level, 50 percent from those of average ability, and genuinely inferior." 25 percent from children reading below grade levelnot exactly an exclusive formula. But to the Board of Ed and other loud levellers in the city, 25 Since 1986, the Board has stayed its lowest-com- percent of above-average students was far too mon-denominator course. When thefederal many. The schools' fatal error? They were suc- Education Department's Office of Civil Rights ceeding. Explained Margaret Nuzum, head of the announced an investigation of the city's grade- Educational Priorities Panel, an influential watch- school gifted and talented programs lastyear, it dog group, the option schools have "an aura of got no protest from city education bureaucrats, being selective.... There is a sense that this is a bet- who have been chipping away at the giftedpro- ter school to be in." grams for years. The Board of Ed's head of high Weighing in on the controversy, then- schools explained the Board's philosophy to New Manhattan borough president David Dinkins York magazine last year. If schools are to improve, succinctly expressed the levellers' philosophy in said Margaret Harrington, "you don't talk about a letter to the New York Times. Those who say, your best and brightest, you talk about your bot- "'Don't change our schools, make the others bet- tom. ... As you raise your bottom, everyone goes ter,' " he wrote, "fail to see that the two systems are up. ... We believe that all children should have

74CITY JOURNAL

71 66 access to every program and that everyschool money to city school administrations based on should educate all children." Judith Tar lo, director attendance rates, but in turn New York City dis- of high-school support services, is more blunt: "We tributes those dollars to individual schools based are about access and sharing the wealth"not pri- on their enrollmentand these two numbers can marily academic excellence. differ dramatically. Schools with high attendance Now, decades of research by the anti-tracking figuresall of the selective schools and some oth- lobby have failed to prove Harrington's claim that ersbring extra money into the system that they focusing on the bottom makes everyone go up, and don't get back. "If a school generates a lot of rev- simple logic suggests otherwise. Moreover, it is enue because of increased attendance," explains absurd to maintain that by high school every child Neil Harwayne, the Board's director of finance, "it can benefit from, say, the advanced collegephysics still gets the same amount of money [as a school offered by the science high schools. Following this with huge truancy problems]. Otherwise, you determined egalitarianism to its logical conclusion would have greater funding in desirable school would turn New York into another Detroit districts." Nothing wrong with that, you might say; or Philadelphia, from but in fact the selective which the middle class schools get a lot less of all races has largely fundingthanother bailed out. iWe assume that the schools,sincethey Despite the Board's only way to make schools rarely qualify for the militantanti-elitism, federal special-educa- some at the city's selec- genuinely democratic tion money and reme- tive science schools feel is to make them diation money that blissfully sheltered by poursintofailing theHecht-Calandra genuinely inferior/51 schools,along with bill. "You can take us to dollarsfor dropout court, you can yell and prevention, anti-teen screamgiven the bill, you can't do anything!" pregnancy, and anti-gang programs. The selective gleefully rasps Stan Teitel, the chairman of schools used to receive additional funding based Stuyvesant's physics and chemistry department. on the high number of courses their studentstake Teitel is one of the school's most unapologetic mer- each day, but the Board eliminated that "elitist" itocrats. "I don't care if your mommy or daddy formula over a decade ago. knows the superintendent of the borough," he exclaims. "I don't want to know anything elseno portfolios, not any of the other crapall I want to t is a gauge of how deep the hostility runs in New know is what's upstairs. If you've got it, I will York toward pure meritocracy that even some work with it." administrators within the selective schools are But Teitel's confidence regarding Stuyvesant's ambivalent about them. Steven Shapiro, chairman protected status may be misplaced. Board of Ed of the Stuyvesant English department, puts his bureaucrat Margaret Harrington's credo that "every head back and thinks long and hard before reply- school should educate all children" is a direct chal- ing to the question of whether he would create lenge, whether intentional or not, to the three sci- Stuyvesant again. "I really don't know," he says ence exam schools. Yes, the Hecht-Calandralaw is slowly. "My heart lies with the poor kids of the a major roadblock to the Board'sinterference, but city; you can't skim all the kids off. I don't like that does not mean the bureaucracy has given up. skimming at all." Shapiro concedes that some kids "We're always thinking about [the admissions pol- can accomplish "great things when you putthem in icy]," says the Board's Judith Tar lo. a place where they have great mentoring"(though The Board's school-funding formulas reflect it is not the "mentoring" but the concentration of its determination to treat excellence and failure bright kids that makes the exam schools work), but alikeat best. The state distributes its education his support seems anguished.

SPRING 199975

67 Nor do the selective schools' administrators generally support the creation ofmore such schools. Though sheer historical accident has given New York three selective science high schools, rather than four or two or five, the principalsseem to have concluded, like Goldilocks, that three is just the right number. "It's a difficult question whether to carve out more schools," says Bronx Science principal Stanley Blumenstein. "Ifyou dilute the pool too much by taking kids whoare not truly gifted, you change the makeup of every classroom and hurt education as a whole." Then why not dismantle the existing schools? Well, their students are different. "For kids at the upper end, their needs are not met by general schools." Blumenstein is making a classic "anti-cream- ing" argument. Every school needs academically excited children to motivate the others, theargu- ment goes, so the smartest shouldn't be skimmed off and put in separate schools. But surely it is the teacher's responsibility, not the students', to inspire the laggards. If an academically motivated student would reach his fullest potential in an environment of his peers, it is educational exploita- tion to deny him that environment in the hope that he will kindle the interest of academically unin- spired students.

Certainly, thousands of New York families and exNew York familiessubscribe to thatsen- timent. Every year, approximately 21,000 students take the entrance exam for approximately 2,500 entering seats in the science schools. The despera- tion on their parents' faces as they await their chil- dren after the exam is a New York legend. The science schools represent tiny islands of achieve- ment in a vast sea of mediocrity or worse. But because the demand for a decent education is so great, the schools have started attracting more and more students without any particular interest in science, thus watering down their mission. Demand not only at the exam schools but at every school with a reputation for excellence is overwhelming. Other high-achieving schools, such as Townsend Harris in Queens and Mid- wood High School in Brooklyn, receive applica-

Stuyvesant's new $150 million home

SPRING 199977 tions in numbers many magnitudes higher than almost universally complain about poor teacher they have seats. Many parents don't wait around quality, about which most have grown fatalistic. long enough to see if their children will get a "Some of the teachers were so bad, we were amazed coveted place. According to Manhattan city coun- that they have any job," says Tory Brand, mother of cilman Gifford Miller, young parents in his district a Stuyvesant junior. "I thought Stuyvesant would regularly leave the city, fearful of the mediocrity have had the power to weed them out. Once I got that awaits their children in high school. These over that, it helped a lot." striving families take their tax dollars as well as The litany of parents' and students' com- their children with them, shrinking the city's plaints will be familiar to anyone with even the middle class. faintest knowledge of the public schools: teachers But the Board of Ed is remarkably blasé about who fall asleep during class, teachers who don't losing children to the suburbs. "It's not that easy to show or always come late, teachers who spend leave the city by the time your kids are high-school the period talking about their family, teachers age," asserts Dorothy Kuritzkes, executive assistant who never cover the material. "In some classes, I to Margaret Harrington. Truebut nothing pre- had to teach myself everything," recalls Stuyvesant vents them from leaving earlier. Kuritzkes agrees senior Danielle Stewart, who has a 97 average. that high-achieving students can motivate one Principals and department chairs know who the another but does not see it as the public schools' burned-out, incompetent teachers are just as much mission to make that happen: "The private schools as parents and students do. When I asked to sit can do that," she says breezily. in on the class of a Stuyvesant history teacher The only unequivocal group of meritocrats left whom parents view as a madwoman, Shapiro shot in the selective schools are the students themselves. back: "That's not a good idea; that's not some- When asked about protests against the schools where you should go." The students, of course, waged annually by Acorn, a left-wing communi- have no choice. ty-organizing group, the students are almost uni- Administrators face the standard public-school formly dismissive. "I can't understand how you dilemma: they can spend all their time compiling could make a test fair to certain races," scoffs the lengthy record needed to try to lift the tenure Vivian Chau, a Stuyvesant senior and vice presi- protection of one rotten teacher, or they can use dent of Arista, the school's honors and public-ser- their energies to groom more promising new teach- vice society. "The Acorn protest was so silly, ers. "It's aslifficult position to be in; you do what because our school has a majority minority popu- you can," reflects Stuyvesant's Stan Teitel. lationin most books, being an Asian is a minor- Frustration with the union straitjacket recent- ity." Stuyvesant senior Danielle Stewart recalls that ly led Stuyvesant's principal Cozzi-Perullo to students were yelling at Acorn, "Go back to your announce her resignation, just four years after she own schools!" "It was so annoying," she says, took over the most coveted principal's job in the 'because we were taking the AP [Advanced Place- city. "To change the schools in New York," she says ment) tests. I was, like, how dare you come into our bluntly, "you need the power of only two things: school? Even the black kids were, like, 'I got in; the ability to hire and fire at will, and the money to what's your problem?' " reduce class size." Her parting should sound an alarm throughout the city, and at least one addi- tional fed-up principal of one of the city's better But though the science schools have largely high schools predicts that he will follow her. withstood the levelling onslaughts against them, they are succumbing to other pathologies in the school systemabove all, to crippling teachers' Another threat to the exam schools is the grow- union rules. The union's powerful grip on sec- ing influence of progressive pedagogy. The three ondary education has only strengthened in recent schools have become schizophrenicmost science years. "The union protects bad teachers, not good and math classes provide a journey back 40 years, ones," sighs Steven Shapiro. Exam-school parents where, mirabile dicta, the teacher still teaches; but

78 ' CITY JOURNAL

BESTCOPYAVAILABLE

7 ', 69 the humanities are fast junking such traditional Consistent with progressive dictates, the sci- practices for the babel of "student-centered learn- ence schools don't give their students rigorous ing." In many advanced physics and calculus class- instruction in grammarwhich the kids crave and, es, an almost audible silence surrounds the according to parents and some teachers, desper- teacher's words: it is the sound of students think- ately need. Even principals acknowledge the prob- ing very hard. Even where a student presents a les- lem: "Kids are coming out of elementary school less son, as in a class on molecular genetics that I visited prepared in writing," says Stanley Blumenstein, at Stuyvesant, the teacher actively directs the ques- with considerable understatement. "It's the endem- tioning and conveys hard information. ic problem of the nineties." But don't count on the Yet that may be changing. All the schools are schools offering them formal grammar instruction trying to reduce lecturing in math and the any time soon. "Research in the field of English sciences in favor of "inquiry-based"that is, stu- language arts," Blumenstein insists, "shows that it dent-centeredgroup learning. Their model: is more effective to learn grammar in the context of classes like Steven Shapiro's highly popular twen- a lesson, in an ad hoc manner." Well, the results tieth-century literature speak for themselves= course, "Crisis in Val- the less grammar is ues."Onestudent taught, the worse stu- begins talking; he then giSome of the teachers dent writing becomes. calls on the next, who calls on the next, and were so bad, we were so on. Except for occa- amazed that they have any Despite their short- sional brief interven- comings,the exam tions,theteacher job, says the mother of a schools continue a tra- stands silent. But how- Stuyvesant junior.') dition of excellence. ever clever Stuyvesant Rather than merely tol- students may be, they erating their existence, lack the knowledge to move a discussion, say, the city should ensure that they live up to their about whether young late-nineteenth-century potential by giving them control over their staff Britons worked less or more than young Ameri- a reform every New York school deserves. And cans today and were less emotionally mature New York should create more schools for high- nominally drawn from D. H. Lawrence's Sons and achieving students. The new state charter-school Loversbeyond mere ungrounded speculation. law foolishly prohibits charter schools from select- Surely a teacher possesses knowledge about liter- ing their students, a limitation that reflects, once ature and its context that he could usefully trans- again, the educational and political establishment's mit to students. But such a view violates terror of anything that violates egalitarianism. fundamental progressive beliefs about the "con- New York exists, however, to be a stage for structed" rather than received nature of knowl- the world's greatest musicians, actors, financiers, edge. As one enthusiastic young English teacher chefs, and designerswhy not also for the greatest at Bronx Science, a recent graduate of Columbia students? "Come to New York and win an Intel Teachers College, explained: "The students are not Science Talent Search scholarship," ads aimed at here to get it from me; they're so bright, it's a sin persuading out-of-staters to move to the city could not to have them teach each other. I'm here to read. Intellectual elitism was for decades a source facilitate, not feed them." of pride in New York; once that ideal became a tar- Student-centered learning is not what alumni get of resentment, the city lost one of its most pow- of the science schools mean when they say that erful economic and cultural engines. they taught one another. They may have spurred one another on and shared what knowledge they had; they were not literally in charge of the intel- Research for this article was supported by the Brunie lectual content of a classroom. Fund for New York Journalism.

SPRING 199979

75 70 The Economist, March 27, 1999

ample, all should have the chance to studycation inspectors. Both might resist take- a range of languages. They want more spe- over, even challenging it in the courts. Both cialist schools; more computers; extra tu- are likely to find the government adamant. ition outside school hours; and teaching in There was also something for the dul- Education sets rather than mixed-ability classes. lest and most troublesome pupils. "Learn- Allowing selection within mixed-abil- ing mentors" are to be assigned to strug- ity schools is what used to be called a cop-gling pupils, giving them extra attention. Class peace out, and is now known as the third way. As Disruption will be tackled by giving each often happens with compromises, it is lia-school access to a special unit, to which C "EXCELLENCE in Cities" was notble to antagonise true believers at both children can be referred. much of a title for the government'sends of the spectrum. Left-wing teaching A separate announcement on March new policy on inner-city education, pub- unions were swift to denounce the return 25th means that more might also be done lished on March 24th. "Something for Ev- of selection by the back door. And support- for past school failures. Sir Claus Moser pre- eryone" or "In Place of Selection", mighters of the old grammar-school system argue sented a report commissioned by the gov- have been nearer the mark. that the new scheme is likely to fail both to ernment on adult literacy. His gruesome The government says it is against allow- draw middle-class parents back into the conclusion was that 23% of adults had a lit- ing schools to select children by academicstate systemwhich is apparently one of its eracy problem; they were unable to find the aptitude. Indeed it is promoting local bal-aimsand to deliver all the intended bene- page reference for plumbers in a telephone lots, which will allow parents to abolish thefits to poorer children. The point, they say, directory. The figure in Germany is 12%. In few remaining selective grammar schools, is to create schools whose entire ethos is dis- Europe only Poland and Ireland scored and it has scrapped the Tories' "Assisted ciplined and academic, not just to bolt ex-worse than Britain. Places" scheme, which gave poor children tra lessons on to inadequate institutions. Further-education colleges are where il- scholarships at fee-paying schools. Although the focus of newspaper head- literate people have traditionally been But this leaves a dilemma. Even the lines was on measures for able children,helped, but Sir Claus points out that people prime minister has said that he under-there was also something for those who who have failed at school may not fancy go- stands that parents could have reservationsworry about standards for the bulk of ordi- ing back to a school-type environment. A about sending their children to inner-city nary students, who might suffer if they are new style is encouraged, with, for example, comprehensivesas well he might, in view in weak schools or badly run areas. This programmes in shopping malls. The gov- of the arrangements he has made for his month, David Blunkett, the education sec- ernment is already running clinics named own children. So as a sop to those who retary, took schooling in Hackney, a Lon-after "Brookside", a TV soap opera, which think that these schools often fail gifted don borough, out of the hands of the local features an illiterate. children, the government is promoting a authority. Parts of its education system will The government wants to promote all variety of experiments. Not selection, you be put out to tender. In a neat manoeuvre, its measures as moderate good sense"free understand, never that. Most schools will the government got the authority to agree to of dogma", in the words of Mr Blunkett. He still have to take all comersbut they will the takeover by giving Hackney's new starwill have been encouraged that his state- then be able to pick out particularly gifted director of education, Elizabeth Reid, a big ment on inner-city education was wel- children and put them in a hot-house. role in the arrangement. comed both by the left-wing Labour MPS, One idea is to arrange summer schools However, no one is betting on a similar Diane Abbott and Bernie Grant, and the forablechildreninpoor areas.In compromise being found in the next two right-wing Tory, Sir Teddy Taylor. Yet Mr Harlesden, a London borough, standards likely candidates for takeover, Liverpool Blunkett, before the election, promised that leapt after places were awarded for a sum- and Islington. Both are notoriously weak Labour would never allow selective educa- merschool for the best pupils; it was held at which is why, when Mr Blair lived in Isling- tion. In those days, you see, dogma was all Britain's poshest school, Eton. Ministers ton, he sent his children elsewhere. Both au- right, so long as it was good dogma. want more choice for able pupilsfor ex- thorities are currently being visited by edu-

THE ECONOMIST MARCH 27TH1999 58

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 76 71 (S R)2 Selected Readings on School Reform Standards, Tests, and Accountability

The standards movement, which spread like wildfire through the states in the 1990s, may face a setback in Ohio. After thousands of students failed the 4th grade reading test, lawmakers, prodded by representatives of various education organizations and parents of failed students, are considering lowering the score that children must attain in order to be promoted to 5th grade. Writing in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Michael Hawthorne reports on the irony of creating standards to prevent teachers and school officials from making excuses for failing students, only to then lower the bar. We found a more encouraging story in The Washington Post. Amy Argetsinger writes about "Beating Poverty in the Classroom." Interestingly, principals in successful schools say, "the success of their schools has little to do with panaceas so often touted by politicians, like smaller classes and technology." They say that the answer has more to do with teamwork, coordination and parental involvement. We found another success story farther south. Kathleen Vail, in an American School Board Journal article, "Mississippi Rising," documents the Oxford school board's and superintendent's aggressive approach to raising reading scores. Patrick Welsh, veteran high school English teacher in Alexandria, Virginia, recently noted a sea change. The Washington Post title for Welsh's essay sums up his finding: "It's No Longer Uncool to Do Well in School." Though the black-white test score gap is still wide, Welsh notes that it's started to close and, from his 25 years of teaching, he's observed a dramatic change in students', particularly black students', attitudes about school work. Next, Penn State's football coach takes his argument for high standards to the pages of the Wall Street Journal. Although a federal judge repealed the NCAA's minimum test-score requirement (820 out of 1600 on the SATs), calling it a civil rights violation, Joe Paterno pledges to maintain that requirement for his team. He argues that the rule puts pressure on athletically talented youth to make academics a top priority. Speaking of tests, Jay Mathews has found a few "True Tests," which he writes about in The Washington Post Magazine. Mathews, having subjected himself to the International Baccalaureate history examinations, comes back singing the IB's praises: the program requires memory, synthesis, and depth of thought. Maybe more exposure to IB classes would keep high school seniors interested. June Kronholz, in her Wall Street Journal article "Why Has Senior Year of High School Lost Its Purpose for Many?," looks at the effect of early college decisions and 11th grade exit exams. Having their future settled by October of their senior year, students prefer to focus on outside work and play; others, who feel unchallenged academically, take AP courses or sign up at local colleges. All this is prompting schools to rethink senior year. Maybe they should rethink the rest of high school, too.

DDW

77 73 Cincinnati Enquirer, May 28, 1999 Ohio Lowering Reading Standards

By MICHAEL HAWTHORNE for the fourth-grade test. But that doesn't necessarily Cincinnati Enquirer mean students who fail the test can't succeed in fifth grade, Mr. Watts said. The 1997 academic reform law sponsored by Mr. Faced with the prospect of holding back thousands Watts ordered the state Department of Education to of fourth-graders for flunking a statewide reading test, conduct a study to validate the reading standards. The Ohio is moving to lower the score required to advance. study, to be completed this fall, is needed to defend the The proposed changes come less than two years after the General Assembly enacted tough academic standards from potential lawsuits, Mr. Watts said. "We are not lowering our standards," he said. "We standards, including a highly touted guarantee that all are strengthening them." children will read at grade level when they leave the fourth grade. Gov. Bob Taft has repeatedly cited dismal scores on the fourth-grade reading test when promoting his Children in first grade this year will be the first OhioReads program, a $ 30-million-a-year initiative to required to pass the reading test. More than half of last boost reading scores with volunteer tutors and literacy year's fourth-graders failed the exam. grants. Students passed if they met a "proficient" standard. Scott Milburn, Mr. Taft's spokesman, said the Under the revised system, there would be three governor hasn't been briefed on the proposed scoring possible outcomes: passing the test at an advanced changes and doesn't have a position on them. level; meeting the current proficient score; and simply "The governor is in favor of high standards," Mr. passing. Susan Tave Zelman, Ohio's superintendent of Milburn said. "All signs indicate this is a time when students need to demonstrate reading proficiency to public instruction, said Thursday the changes won't succeed later in life." "dumb down" the reading test. Yet Dr. Zelman also Representatives of several education groups said the new passing scorestill to be determined appeared beside Mr. Watts and Dr. Zelman at a would allow some children to advance even though Statehouse press conference to defend the proposed they need "continuing intervention services as they go on to the fifth grade." changes. But they disagreed with the senator's notion that changing the passing score won't lower the "We all know that a child who can't read can't standard set by lawmakers. learn," Dr. Zelman said. " But (the changes) won't Michael Billirakis, president of the Ohio weaken our commitment to fix reading problems early so every child has the building blocks needed to Education Association, the state's largest teachers' succeed throughout his or her life." union, said the state hasn't done enough to train teachers and support schools. If the passing score isn't changed and kids don't start to post higher scores, more than 65,000 students a "They obviously are lowering the standard," Mr. year could eventually be forced to repeat the fourth Billirakis said. "But that's OK. Kids shouldn't be grade. punished for the failure of adults to make the right decisions at the right time." Superintendents across the state have loudly complained they would be left with a logistical More research is needed to determine when students should be held back, said Gary Wooddell, nightmare, trying to find room for kids held back alongside those who have moved up from third grade. assistant superintendent of the Oak Hills Local Schools in Hamilton County. "The idea of retaining children by a test is a drastic "The fourth-grade test was designed as a sort of ,measure," said John Brandt of the Ohio School Boards Association. early-warning system for the high-stakes ninth-grade test," Mr. Wooddell said. "Using the fourth-grade test Lawmakers and education officials denied the to determine retention is a pretty serious decision about scoring changes are motivated by the slew of fourth- a child's career. But the state hasn't done anything to graders failing the test. back up the current standard." Unlike the state's ninth-grade proficiency test, Ironically, the current standard will continue to be which students must pass before graduating from high used on report cards measuring how schools perform school, the fourth-grade test wasn't designed to on standardized tests. Districts with the lowest report determine which kids should be held back, said Sen. card scores could face various forms of intervention,' Eugene Watts, R-Dublin. including a state takeover. State education officials sought to identify potential learning problems by using a higher standard

74 78 The Washington Post,May 16, 1999 Beating Poverty In the Classroom

little to do with the panaceas so poverty. Of the 97 schools placed Some Schools See Ways often touted by politicians, like on a state warning list for potential smaller classes and technology. takeover, 83 are in Baltimore, and To Do Wellon Md Tests Instead, they cite much subtler 12 are in Prince George's County. factorsteamwork, coordination, "We have students who come to By AMY ARGETSINGER parental involvement. school who are homeless, who Washington Post Staff Writer "Those schools have a more don't know where their parents difficult job, there's no doubt," said whose parents are in jail, who The stark statistics Maryland officials Mark Moody, an assistant superin- are surrounded by drug dealing unfurl every year in the form of school tendent of the Maryland State De- and violence, and we expect them "report cards", fail to convey how much partment of Education, which has to 'devote their attention to learn- progress some educators are making with performed similar studies. "But it ing how to read," said Doyle Nie- underprivileged children, a Washington doeSn't take enormous amounts of mann (Mount Rainier), vice chair- Post analysis of test scores has found. money or heroic effortsjust fo- man of the Prince George's school The Post's comparison of schools with cused, hard work." board. similarly poor student populations shows Gladys Orton, principal of a Poor students are not necessari- that some are having a greater impact than District Heights school in Prince ly Worse pupils, but because of the their raw test scores indicate, offering. GeOrge's County that regularly obstacles they must hurdle, their clues to educators about where they may outscores many schools infar teachers carry a greater burden find solutions to the challenges of poverty. wealthier suburban enclaves, than teachers in more affluent Studies have shown that a high percent- agrees. schools, Niemann said."Some age of poor students is the single biggest "It might sound like a cliche," might say they would have to do a drag on a school's performance. Indeed, said the head of Berkshire Elemen- miraculous job to obtain the same most Maryland schools with impoverished tary, "but we work hard on devel- kind of results an average teacher student bodies produce mediocre or poor oping a can-do attitude." might get with a more privileged scores on the state's standardized tests.. To some,Maryland'shigh- group." But the Post analysis of the 1997 and pressure testing system, with its Similar concerns have been 1998 Maryland School Performance AS-. implicit threat to the careers of raised in Virginia, where state sessment Program's fifth-grade exams.,re:: educators at low-scoring schools, officials have required all schools, veals that some schools with large concert seems inherently unfair. Schools regardless of their student pover- trations of poor students actually have' that do well on the MSPAP exams ty rate, to reach the same test- made remarkable progress; all but unherL, are rewarded with cash bonuses score targets by 2007 in order to aided. and certificates; those that do keep their accreditation. The study underscores the tremendOuS` poOrly are marked for staff over- State officials say they recognize disadvantages faced by educators in lcAr- hauls or even potential takeover by the challenges poor schools face income neighborhoods as they try to reach; state officials. but refuse to set lower expecta- the ambitious high standards Maryland Insteadofmeasuring how tions for them. All children are officials have set for all schools. But it also schbols compare with a state or entitled to the same, top-notch highlights the capacity of disadvantaged national norm, the MSPAP pushes education, they say, and poverty schools to beat the odds and make a schools toward a high and absolute should not be a barrier to achieve- difference in the lives of their students. standard. The goal, announced "Schools matter most for low-income ment. nearly a decade ago, was that 70 "They all have to end up going kids"more so than for any other eco- percent of children should be earn- nomic class, and both for better and for after the same jobs one day," said ing "satisfactory" scores. Ron Peiffer, spokesman for the worse, said Willis Hawley, who oversaw a But so far, only 80 of the state's similar study of Maryland school test 1,029elementaryandmiddle scores by University of Maryland research- schools have hit that markmost- ers. ly 'schools in affluent neighbor- The Post study mirrors other such hoods with few low-income stu- studies conducted by state and local offi- dents. cials but never made publicthat at- Meanwhile, those schools lan- tempt to figure out what makes even the guishing at the back of the pack poorest ischools thrive and what lessons with barely 10 or 20 percent of they might hold for others. their students proving their com- The answers may be surprising. Princi- petency on the examsare almost pals say the success of their schools has invariably those with high rates of

7 a BEST COPY AVAILABLE 75 State Department of Education. the same goals. Teachers have provementare not rewarded. Mary D'Ovidio came to Broad weekly meetings to align curricu- InPrinceGeorge'sCounty, Acres Elementary as principal sev- lum, so that when students go from some officials have complained en years ago and admits it was one class to the next, or one grade that the threat of state takeover "fairly disheartening" to see how it to the next, there is more continu- may unfairly penalize teachers and ranked among Montgomery Coun- ity. school systems with a large num- ty schools whenever test scores InDistrictHeights,another ber of poor children. But the Post were announced. working-class neighborhood inside analysis pokes holes in that com- "We were always at the bottom," the Beltway, Berkshire Elementary plaint, finding that none of the she said. also stands out from the pack. Prince George's schools on the Though scores have inched up Nearly 80 percent of the chil- state's warning list is doing better, since then, the Silver Spring school dren at the school come from poor on state tests than similarly impov- still ranks second-to-last in Mont- homes. Yet test scores are only erished schools, such as Berkshire gomery and near the bottom fifth barely below averagemore typi- in statewide scores. Elementary. Many, in fact, are cal of a suburban school with less doing somewhat worse than their Yet a different picture emerges than half that rate of poverty. demographic peers. when Broad Acres' scores are fil- Orton has brought order to her tered through the process followed staff. She nails down her new Though state officials do not by The Post, known as regression teachers for three-year commit- believe in using the results of analysis. The technique essentially ments and thus has avoided the regression analyses to reward or adjusts schools' performance for turnover that plagues many trou- punish schools, both they and income, measuring how one school bled schools. Teachers work in some county officials are using is doing compared to others in its teams by subject matter, and chil- their own research in this field economic bracket. John C. Larson, dren stay with the same group oftry to identify practices that help the coordinator of research and teachers from fourth through sixth poor schools do better. ;t, evaluation for Montgomery Coun- grade. It's no easy task, say Orton and ty schools, explains it like this: "You eliminate the loss of time D'Ovidio. Orton believes some 61 Imagine the school is a boat on learning new tasks because kids Berkshire's success is fortuitotk paddling upstream. The level of know the routine already," Orton All of her students live in the same povertyisthe current against said. In recent years, Berkshire neighborhood. Unlike most public which the boat must push. Has the also has put more emphasis on school children, they walk, rather boat managed to move faster or "hands-on" assignments, like sci- than spend hours on the bus, and slower than other boats battling ence experiments or map-drawing, share a sense of community. the same current? that are a -cornerstone of the "I don't say that it would work Broad Acres, for one, has gone MSPAP exams. for someone else," said D'Ovidio of much faster. Nearly nine out of 10 Neither D'Ovidio nor Ortonthe techniques she has tried at children come from a poor house- thinks the state's testing system Broad Acres. hold. Yet its test scores are signifi- treats them unfairly, even if re- "There are so many variables," cantly higher than those of most search shows that their high levels Orton said. schools from equally poor neigh- of impoverished children put them borhoods. at a disadvantage. They note that Staff writer DeNeen Brown and D'Ovidio notes that Broad Acres while their test scores remain far washingtonpost.com database receives some extra funds and staff below standard, both of their because of its large number of poor schools have won state and local editor Hal Straus contributed to or foreign-speaking students. Yet citations for making gains. Mark this report. it doesn't get that much more than Moody, of the State Department of Detailed test results, including its neighbors, and Broad Acres' Education, notes that such awards those adjusted for poverty, for staffing ratios are unremarkably go to schools even at the veryMaryland public schools are average, with about 23 or 24 chil- bottom of the pack if they show available at dren in a class. continuous improvement. washingtcmpost.comleducation. So what's making the differ- Meanwhile, he said, schools County-by-county results will ence? D'Ovidio said she has tried that seem to be resting on their appear in Wednesday's Prince to make sure her teachers are all on laurelsearning impressively George's Ertra and Thursday's the same wavelength, focusing on high scores, but not showing im- Maryland Weekly editions.

80 76 The American School Board Journal,May 1999 Mississippi Rising

A school board and superintendent push students tothe highest level

BY KATHLEEN VAIL Board President Earl Richard.. That was certainly the case in the 1960s, when federal marshals accompanied James Meredith to register for classes at Ole Miss after the univer- sity had been forced by federal courts to admit African- Americans for the first time. Meanwhile, the Oxford School District integrated quietly at about the same time. And the district did not suffer white flight: Today the student body ississippi is a land of paradox. The state that has produced the largest number of of 3,000 is about evenly divided: half black, half white. What's more, says board member Julie Walton, the area saw Pulitzer Prize wiping authors for litera- few so-called segregation academies, private white schools ture also has the highest illiteracy rate in the country-30 percent of its adults that popped up in the Deep South after integration. But this was still Mississippi, and education standards can't read. It is a state that takes great pride in its two domi- lagged. In 1988, the state legislature established a rating nant universities: the University of Mississippi, or Ole Miss, other. The and Mississippi State University. It is a state where the legis- system to measure school districts against each lature repealed compulsory education laws in the 1950s scale, which goes from Level 1 to Level 5, is based on 38 benchmarks, mostly achievement scores. Schools ranked leaving the public school system in shambles. (The laws Level 1 are on probation and at risk of being taken over by weren't restored until 1982.) While educators have been Thf. working hard to change Mississippi's anti-intellectual the state; Level 5 schools are considered exceotional. these schools with mon- image, public school achievement scores regularly come in state is now considering rewarding teachers. at the statistical basement of national comparisons. etary stipends for their high-performing But that rating One Mississippi school board decided not to accept the Oxford was at Level 3, or "successful." Proud of their district's status quo. Nearly a decade ago, the Oxford School Board wasn't good enough for the board. members wanted began to take a hard look at the achievements of its stu- special place in Mississippi history, board Level 5 district. "We were dents. By most accounts, they were doing an adequate job. the school to be top rated, to be a doing," says But the school board members wanted better for their dis- really concerned about how well we were trict. Their focused approach brought results, making Ox- Richard, who'led the improvement initiative. and didn't ford one of the highest-achieving schools in the state. And The board took a look at achievement scores in the process, the board showed that school boards not like what it saw. Math scores were allright, but reading was holding us back," only have a role in increasing student achievement, but they another matter. "We looked at what was also can be leaders in their district's improvement efforts. says Richard. 'Thereading scores were to6lo." beginning its examination of Like Mississippi, the Oxford School District is a study in In 1993, while the board was longtime superinten- contrasts. The city of Oxford is home to Ole Miss and was the district's performance, Oxford's mid-level administrator the home of William Faulkner, who immortalized the town dent retired. Enter John Jordan, a the state capital. In his in his novels, calling it Jefferson. (It was to Jefferson that from the school system in Jackson, asked Jordan to bring the Bundrens made their disastrous 40-mile pilgrimage with job interview, Richard says, the board their mother's corpse in As I Lay Dying.) The presence of the district to a Level 5 rating in five years. on academic Ole Miss, and Faulkner's illustrious reputation, has always "I fully expected the board to challenge me achievement," says Jordan, who tookonly three years to given the school district a high profile. highest state standard. "We stay under the microscope," says Oxford School bring the district's test scores to the

Kathleen Vail is an associate editor of The American School Board Journal.

22 NLAY 1999 THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL

Si BEST COPY AVAILABLE 77 Oxford became one of just 12 Mississippi school systems high percentage of economically disadvantaged students. that attained Level 5 status. What makes the achievement "We've become dependent on it. You can do a lot of great more significant is that Oxford is the poorest of the 12 dis- things with federal money." tricts, with 45.3 percent of its students eligible for the free In Oxford's case, those great things include hiring per- and reduced-price federal lunch program. sonnel, providing training for teachers, and acquiring mate- rials. Decisions on how to spend Title I money are made by o move the schools from Level 3 to Level 5, Jordan in- committees of teachers, administrators, and parents. vited teachers and principals to suggest ideas for im- "Teachers have to have a voice in how the money is spent," provement. One of the suggestions turned out to be says Bramlett Principal Mary Jo Rodgers. pivotal: To boost scores, the teachers wanted to try Reading But this decentralization of decision making didn't mean Recovery, a structured program for first-graders. the board gave up its oversight role: "The board asked a lot The process of increasing reading scores didn't go in a of questions about-what we were using the money for," says straight line, however. Tracking children in the Reading Re- Tutor. covery program, Jordan discovered that the program Now, the drive to maintain Level 5 accreditation is help- worked until the third grade, when most participants ing create a focus for the school system. "The biggest thing dropped back to their usual level. Something was wrong. we did was communicate to the teachers what we were The program needed to be modified. "We put out a chal- being held accountable for. Before, teachers were not made lenge," says Jordan. "We said, 'Here are the facts: You aware of what was required of them," says Jordan. "The teachers make a decision and do what's best." rules of the game have changed." At Bram lett Elementary School, which houses pre-K to second grade, the principal and the teachers decided to go ramlett reading teacher P.J. Jones is talking about in a different direction, keeping elements of Reading Recov- one of her students, a little boy who started the ery but broadening the program for use with more stu- school year far behind his classmates in reading dents. skills. When he couldn't complete a worksheet that asked Meanwhile, Jordan and Karen Tutor, director of federal him to identify drawings of everyday objects, Jones realized funds, began exploring changes in the way the district was the problem wasn't in his ability but in his background. "I using federal Title I money. The money had been used to had to show him what a broom was; what a squirrel was," support special programs, but Jordan wanted to reform in- says Jones. And this child wasn't alone. Jones says some of structional approaches that affected reading for all students. her students come to school never having been read to. "It's become incorporated into the way we do business," Jor- Some don't know lions from tigers. Some have never heard dan says of the federal money that targets schools with a of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Jones realized that

24 MAY 1999 THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL. 82

78 much of her job was telling these students about the world they were missing. Jones was one of three Reading Recovery teachers at Bram lett who saw that the program had limitations. Devel- oped by New Zealand educator Marie Clay, Reading Recov- ery is an early intervention program that calls for intensive, one-on-one tutoring of the lowest-achieving first-grade read- ers. When these students reach the average reading level of the class, they leave the program. year, Jones and her two assistants work with about 40 stu- But in Oxford, the teachers found they wanted to have dents, often in small groupssomething theyecouldn't do more flexibility about whom they could help: they wanted to with the formal Reading Recovery program in place. Chil- bend the rules. The testing the program calls for divides a dren can move in and out of the program any time they class of students into six groups, three above average and need to. three below average. Teachers had to work with the lowest "Listen, hear, write," Jones tells her students. She uses group, the sixes, before moving on to the fives and the many different ways to get through to them. She reteaches fours. Often, though, Jones says, the teachers spent a lot of the alphabet, uses phonics and computers, and tries to ap- time and energy only to discover that many children in the peal to a child's senses: hearing, speaking. and feeling. lowest group were learning disabled or needed to be classi- Jones employs techniques to teach reading kinesthetically, fied as special education students. As a result, many stu- using magnetic letters for spelling or a salt table where chil- dents who could have truly benefited from the extra help dren can spell out words and feel the letters with their fin- weren't included. "When we got to the students who just gers. Because some of her students have trouble with need a jump start, it was too late," says Jones. blends (such as sh, ch, tch, or fit), Jones brings out plastic Initially, the school system paid for three new Reading tubs filled with small objects: a rubber shark, tiny doll Recovery teachers who had to be trained in the procedure. shoes, a plastic whale, a thimble, shells, rubber cheese. The Because Reading Recovery calls for intensive tutoring, each task is to place the object in the tub marked with the correct teacher could usually work with only a couple of students blend. each semester. "We were concerned about money spent on so few students," says Rodgers. "The consensus was that we hen you walk through the halls at Bramlett and needed to look at other options." at Oxford Elementary School, it's easy to see So the teachers began modifying the program. They de- that teachers put a heavy emphasis on reading cided to use only one Reading Recovery teacher, Jones, and and writing. Student writing assignments line the walls at group her with two teaching assistants. They kept their both schools: A February lesson for Bramlett students in- focus on first-graders, but included some second-graders cluded drawing an outline of President Lincoln's stovepipe who needed extra help. They let teachers recommend stu- hat and writing on it what items they'd keep in such a hat if dents to the program on the basis of a number of factors, in- they had one. Says Tutor: "We believe writing impacts read- cluding emotional difficulties. One boy for example, needed ing." lots of what Jones calls tender loving care: He was so fearful In third grade and beyond, when instruction turns from that Jones could not turn out the lights in the classroom teaching reading as a skill to using reading as a tool, Oxford when she showed a movie. Jones and her assistants also in- Elementary has several programs in place to keep students cluded students who scored well in reading generally but focused on reading. Part of the school's effort to raise were weak in certain areas, such as a girl who needed help achievement is its after-school tutoring program. Students reading orally. who score below the 40th percentile on the Iowa Test of "We couldn't grab kids like that before," says Jones. This Basic Skills are "invited," as Tutor puts it, to attend tutoring

THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL >L-Y.1999 25

83. BEST COPY AVAILABLE 79 sessions after classes are out. Classroom teachers, paid dence of its advantages for at-risk children. Later, whena with Title I funds and money from a number of grants, state grant become available for a preschool startup, the spend an extra hour with these students four days a week. board agreed to give it a try. Walton gave suggestions to The district pays for extra buses so the students who don't staff members on how they might test and select children have any other way of getting home can still participate. for the program. "Kids require transportation if you're going to provide ser- Unfortunately, she says, few parents brought their chil- vices," says Jordan. dren to be tested in the first year, so the board opened the The buses "are a budget killer," Tutor admits. "But we program up to all interested families, including those that want these kids to participate, even if we have to get them were not disadvantaged. Walton hopes that as more parents home." hear about the full-day program, it will grow. "We need to d,) An incentive program called Accelerated Reading is an- so much more," says Walton, "if we can." other part of the literacy emphasis. Students read books from the library, then take reading comprehension tests on t's too early to tell whether Oxford's preschool initiative classroom computers or at the school's iMac lab. Books are will pay off the way the literacy effort has. But both color-coded and assigned points on the basis of difficulty. If 1board and staff are alert to the need to track perfor- the students score 80 percent or better on the test, they are mance indicators. District-wide improvement isn't just a credited with the points for the book. The points add up to numbers game, of coursepart of raising performance is prizes and other honors for the students, including hearing putting faces with the scores. But an accountability engine their name read over the intercom when they earn 100 runs on data, and Jordan can crunch numbers with the best points. The point system spurs students to seek out more of them. He has students' test scores on his computer, difficult books. "The students know what colors mean more where he can readily pull up test data and generate various points," says Principal Judith Thompson, who transferred to reports and comparisons. Oxford Elementary from Bram lett, where she was instru- In the past, the available test data didn't allow the board mental in getting its reading programs started. or administrators to track the progress of different groups To support the teachers, Jordan and the board estab- of students. As it was, they could only compare how this lished a volunteer program. The most popular of the volun- year's fifth-graders, say, compared with last year's fifth- teers are the University of Mississippi athletes, well-known graders. That was no help in identifying problems that indi- young men and women who show up in team uniforms to viduals and groups of students were having. One key to rais- read to the students. "It's always a big treat," says Tutor. ing performance levels, the board realized, was to make "Our kids think of them as celebrities." sure the new superintendent developed a system capable of tracking individual students' progress. Jordan put such a xford is now looking at other factors that might system in place, and the district now has a database of indi- not have an immediate impact on test scores but vidual test scores going back to 1994. "We identify the chil- will affect the literacy of their students in the long dren by name, not by class," he says. run. For example, both Bram lett and Oxford elementary The state's benchmark testing starts at the fourth grade, schools now offer parent education. A reading teacher at but Oxford tests its second- and third-graders with the Iowa Oxford conducts training for parents on how to select books Test of Basic Skills so problems can be ferreted out early. and read to their children. The sessions have proved popu- This year's sixth -grade class is the first that can be tracked lar: About 60 parents showed up for one class. from second grade on. And results for the class show dra- The presence of Ole Miss in. Oxfordit's the town's matic improvements. In 1994, 18.6 percent of these children largest employerhas created a wide chasm between the scored in the lowest quarter (answering only from 1 to 24 educational haves and have-nots, according to board mem- percent of the test questions correctly). Four years later, ber Walton. There's not much of a middle class in town. only 8.5 percent scored in the lowest quarter. And the num- Some of the children have tremendous educational advan- ber of children who scored in the second quarter (getting tages in their homes; some do not. "It presents a challenge from 50 to 75 percent of the questions right) increased by to satisfy the needs of both groups," she says. "You can't 7.6 percent in four years. The fifth-grade class saw an 18.2 make decisions for the middle." percent increase in the number of students scoring in the A new preschool program is designed primarily to meet first quarter (getting from 75 to 99 percent of the questions the needs of the town's less-advantaged families. Two right). In fact, all of the grades from third to ninth saw a de- classes of 4-year-olds-30 children in allare being held at crease in the number of students in the two lowest quarters Bram lett this school year. Because of the long waiting list and an increase in the number of students in the two high- for Head Start, says Tutor, lots of children who needed est quarters. preschool weren't being served. Now that Oxford has reached its goal of Level 5 status, At first, not everyone on the board was enthusiastic. Wal- Jordan and the board agree, the challenge is to keep up the ton, a professor at the Center for Speech and Hearing at Ole energy and focus on achievement. "It's nice to be recog- Miss, says she spoke at a board retreat on the importance nized, but that's not the end. We could slip again," Walton of preschool education as well as the growing scientific evi- says. "We can't ever rest." ..,,,.

26 lLkY 1999 THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL 8 4 80 The Washington Post, March 14,1999

It's No Longer Uncool to Do Well in School

By PATRICK WELSH the streets as "ghet- Avery year, when the results of standardized to"a put-down tests come back to Alexandria and other black kids use to de- school systems in this area, we learn the same scribe anything from Fgrim fact: There is a distinct gap between the the tacky to the down- scores of black and white students. right ignorant. "Peo- Local school officials wring their hands. Communi- pleheredon'tcall ty activists excoriate the schools or decry the tests as guys suckers or sell- biased. Superintendents promise that their latest pro- outs if they get good gram will turn things around. And we teachers can't grades.Those who help getting defensive: Ultimately, it seems, we will think it's cool not to share the blame if things don't improve. study are considered There's no denying the gap. Sit in on any advanced fools," says senior Co- placement or honors English course in my school and ry Cole, who iswait- then move to a "regular" course and it's right there in ing to hear from the front of your eyes. Most students in those predomi- University of North nantly white AP classes can read and interpret a 500 - CarolinaatChapel page novel such as William Faulkner's "Light in Au- Hill.SeniorEbony gust." Many kids in the overwhelmingly minority reg- Porter, who has ap- ular classes struggle to read a newspaper article. plied to the College of But what neither the scores nor a quick classroom WilliamandMary, tour can reveal are the subtle changesboth in black agrees: "Most kids I students' attitudes and performance that I havewit- know want to do well nessed over the past 25 years of teaching high school. . theyhave a sense And, like the gap, that trend is borne out by national that they have to go to tests: Over the past two decades, the test scoresof college and do some- black kids have been rising at a faster rate thanthose thing with their lives." It seems to me that of whites. The tests, given by the National the parents I know who were students of Assessment of Educational Progress, show that from 1973 to 1996 the most disad- mine in the '70s invari- vantaged students have made the greatest ably emphasize educa- tion to their kids more gains of any group. In math, between 1970 than tneir own par- and 1990, the gap between blacks and ents did to them.Take whites decreased by almost 50 percent. Dorothy( Smith and herdaughter Naomi. Dorothy was in my class23 years ago. She just It may not be as dramatic as the achieve- was the kindof bright, witty kid you ment gap, but evidence of this trend isal- don't forget. Sinceneither her mother nor class- so on display every day in my her grandmotherfinished high school, the rooms. I see more and more blackstudents big thing for Dorothy wasto get a high in my AP classesmiddle-class kids as well school diploma. "My sistersand I never had Reinforced on," as kids from poor backgrounds. a support baseto encourage us to go by a wave of African immigrants (the most she recalls, "and money wassuch a big issue determined students I've seen since Kore- we went towork right after highschool." ans poured into theschools in the early Smith, chairwoman ofthe disciplinary '70s), these high achievers are beginning to is now working on a the board at the D.C. jail, set the tone for other black kids in degree in psychology.Last year, her sister's school. daughter became the firstin the family to go I can't credit the schoolsthe adminis- after high school.Naomi, change. to college right trators or the teacherswith this who has been acceptedat Old Dominion And I don't want to exaggerate its effect. University and is waiting tohear from How- and will be the sec- But the distinction between achievers ard and Radford universities, non-achievers is slowly changing, and it's ond. "My motherdoesn't want me to go not so easily equated with race. Ithink that through what she did," saysNaomi. "She's do- it has something to do with the fact that always' on me aboutschool. If it weren't for ing well at school is no longer dismissed so her, I'd be pregnant orlocked up or just sit- often by black students as "acting white." Now Naomi and her few- ting home chillin'." In recent years, I've heard fewer and mom are competingto see which of them er black kids accusetheir classmates of be- first. school. gets a, college degree ing "punks" when they work hard in Like other students,Naomi also recognize In fact, many students I've talked torecently view the macho, wannabe gangstaculture of

81 In. BEST COPY AVAILABLE es what a powerful role friends playfor . good or badin shaping attitudes about to a Children's Defense Fund study, many school. She recalls that when she attended poor kids come into first grade with half the George Mason Elementary School, which vocabulary of middle-class kids and having has kids bused in from one of the poorest experienced only 25 hours of one-on-one sections of Alexandria, she didn't meet reading. many black kids who wanted to work. "But There aren't any quick fixes. Kids who when I transferred to Polk," she says,re- enter school with those sorts of disad- ferring to James K. Polk Elementary School, vantages need time to catch up with their "I met smart people who weren't white.... middle-class peers. Otherwise, they risk be- Black kids and foreign kids who worked coming the barely literate 15- and 16-year- hard. I wanted to keep up with them so I old girls who proudly show me the pictures started working.... If I had stayed at Geor- of their new babies, or the 17-year-old guys ge Mason, I would only know hard-core with the lowest skills and the worst atti- black kids now." tudes who boast about all the children Some students express a lingering sad- they've fathered. ness about friends who never got motivated But given the way schools have been run, to work in school. "With graduation coming every first-grader gets only so much time to around, I've been thinking of all the people I learn the material and then gets shoved on grew up with who never seemed to realize to the next grade. Many become second- the potential they had.. . and neither did graders in name only; in terms of skills and their parents. They don't know what's out knowledge, they belong in first grade or pre- there so they just settle for the lives they've school. grown up in," says Nonsom Ofulue, one of Add to that the costs of long summer va- the top students in the senior class, whose cations when kids have no escape from the mother refused to let her watch television poverty that surrounds them. Lois Berlin, for a year after she brought home a C. principal of George Mason Elementary and "Some are pregnant, some are in jail... an advocate of year-round school, says that most are still sitting in classes languishing to reach their potential, "Kids need the con- to the point that they become proud that tinuity. We spend so much time at the begin- they are ignorant." ning of the year reviewing the last year." Thatattitude dumbfounded Andrew Akindele when he arrived here from Nigeria But no matter how much progress a three years ago: "Back home, it's cool to be school makes with disadvantaged chil- smart. The top students are the most pop- dren, that school will be viewed by the ular people in the school. The faculty gives public as inferior unless it has a large num- them leadership positions, privileges and ber of middle-class kids to counterbalance power over other students. Many black kids the test scores of the disadvantaged. When here just aren't interested in school. They parents visit George. Mason to see if they think they are going to be rap artists or pro- want to enroll their children, they often ask fessional athletes. I couldn't believe it when Berlin, "How are your test scores?" And she I first came here." usually responds, "They're abysmal." On the Getting beyond those distorted values latest national Stanford 9 tests, George Ma- has not been so easy for junior Ben Terry son's average score was at the 50th percen- who lives in one of Alexandria's public hous- tile. "I tell them ... you have to compare in- ing projects. "A lot of people think I'm a dividual kids from the beginning to the end thug because I wear my hair in cornrows," of the year ... to look at the strengths and says Ben, a guy with movie-star looks who weaknesses of individual kids rather than at can switch from street jive to standard Eng- how the whole school performs. Some kids lish in a second. "When I was younger, I was go from the 20th percentile to the 25th in a a knucklehead. Then I saw the guys in the year; others go from the 92nd to the 98th. neighborhood getting in trouble and [I] For each kid, that's big improvement. You started to think about my future. Even the have to measure individual kids against older guys who have messed up and just themselves." hang around drinking in the streets started One of the more subtle effects of the em- getting on metelling me I could get out of phasis on test scores is that low-scoring kids the projects, that I didn't have to end up like come away with the message that they are them." doomed regardless of their efforts, while Ben admits having an advantage over oth- high-scoring kids feel they've got it made er kids in public housing. He came from a and don't really have to work that hard. home where everyone loved to read. "My Analyze the results along racial lines, and three older brothers all were readers. So is you have a recipe for continued failure. my mom. We always had stuff around the Test scores, like other statistics, can con- house to read," says Ben. fuse or clarify the picture. The fact that ev- That deficit is all too obvious to Otto ery year so many of those low-income kids Isaac, principal of Alexandria's Cora Kelley in my "regular" classes score below the 10th Magnet School, who grew up in what he de- percentile on the PSAT is graphic confirma- scribes as "a hard-core, self-enclosed ghetto" tion that schools have a long way to go to in Vallejo, Calif. "Many of these kids come make up for the effects of poverty. from dysfunctional families where there is What I've seen is not only more black kids little conversation going on. They are spo- studying hard, scoring higher and signing ken at in four- or five-word phrases, usually up for honors courses, but more going on to commands: 'Go to bed .... Wash those college. Gap or no gap, that's good news. dishes .... Get in the house.' By the time they are in school, their language skills are way behind those of their peers." According

82 86 The Wall Street Journal, March16, 1999

Scoreonthe SAT to Score on the Field By JOE PATERNO were getting admitted to universities when is racist have to show that it has led to a Last week a federal judge gave new they weren't prepared. Universities were significantlydiminishednumberof meaning to "March Madness" when he really exploiting these athletes. African-American students in Division I overturned the National Collegiate Athletic Since we instituted minimum test score basketball and football programs. I don't Association's minimum test-score require- requirements,we've made noticeable see it. ments for athletes. According to Judge progress.Graduationrateshaveim- In fact at Penn State we have more Ronald L. Buckwalter, these rules violate proved, especially among black student blacks on our teams than ever before, and the civil rights of African-Americans, who athletes, and kids are coming in better pre- more of them are graduating. Penn State's fare worse on these tests than white stu- pared. The NCAA standards have been football program has a graduation rate of dents do. Some college particularlyhelpful to about 80% in recent yearsand keep in coacheswelcomedthe highschoolcounselors mind that transfers to other schools count judge's decision, but Fm and coaches, who now against you in the numbers. We've been very selective academically inrecent veryconcernedabout I have a stick they can wave what will happen if we at athletes. They can tell years, and we've had more, not fewer, eliminate basic academic these students,"If you African-Americans. standards for athletes. want to go to a tig school We don't know what will happen now It The NCAA standard and be a great athlete, depends on whether the courts will grant a known as Proposition 16 you've got to do more stay of the judge's ruling, and how the was hardly onerous. To be reading, more preparing, NCAA will react to whatever happens. We eligibleto play in his more studying." at Penn State are not going to lower our freshman year, an athlete Some people say we're standards no matter what NCAA policy is. had to have a 2.0 high depriving inner-city kids The real danger is that college sports in school grade point aver- of an opportunity to go to general could revert to the pre-Proposition age and a score of 820 out college, that we should 16, win-at-all-costs atmosphere. Winning of 1600 on the Scholastic take a "chance" on some football or basketball games means an aw- Assessment Test (the av- kid who doesn't do well on ful lot to big universities, and human fia- erage score is 1017). Keep academic tests. I have no ture being what it is, some schools will in mind that SAT scoring was changed a problem with giving a kid a chance if that's bring in athletes just to have a good team, few years ago in response to complaints really why the coach is recruiting him, not and if they don't graduate, so what? that it was socially biased; it's easier to get because he needs a pivotal player for his Instituting standards doesn't mean we 820 today than in years past. team. But remember that when you admit ignore the problems of the underclass Even if a student doesn't meet that low one student you keep out another. quite the contrary. You have to address the threshold, he can still enroll in college but We don't have an unlimited number of problem of kids being raised by single par- can't play until he takes some remedial scholarships to hand out. In football each ents or no parents. But you don't help them courses and proves that he belongs in a university is allowed no more than 85 ath- by lowering standards. That problem has university. The success rate is higher with letes on scholarship at one time. In basket= to be addressed in elementary schools and this approach than if you allow an athlete ball, Division I schools are allowed 13. If high schools. We at universities have to at- to play at once; you can't do remedial you admit a poor student who's a great ath- tack the problem from our end by demand- studying if you're practicing every day in a lete, are you keeping out a better student ing certain standards for kids to be eligible high-pressure Division I basketball or foot- who's a slightly poorer athlete? Can we to play. That's the only way we'll keep the ball program. justify forcing that better student to find pressure on athletically talented young- No matter how low the current stan- loans and a job to go to college because he sters to realize that their education comes dards, the NCAA can't eliminate them alto- can't get the grant that went to someone first. gether because of the possibility that high else? Is dropping academic standards fair school grades might be bogus. We insti- to him? Mr. Paterno is the football coach at Penn tuted these standards because a lot of kids Those who argue that the NCAA policy State University.

110LE. AVMr* BESTCOPY

83 The Washington Post Magazine, April 11,1999

True Tests

By then my brain was By Jay Mathews the smart kids are listing on their limp from too much thought, so I applications to Yale and U-Va. cannot pinpoint the moment. I The George Mason teachers, think it was near the end of the amused at my playing test- second day of the International stressed teen, showed me why IB Baccalaureate 20th-century his- is even better than AP. It is avail- tory examinations at George Ma- able in only 268 U.S. schools but is son High School in Falls Church. growing fast. It has been proved to As I tried to revive my depleted stimulate youthful interest in mu- synapses for another round of sic and science and community essay questions, I heard a student announce that he service. At George Mason an extraordinary 81 percent of wanted to leave early for a baseball game. juniors and seniors are taking at least one 1B course. Erin McVadon Albright, the D3 coordinator at George Unlike most AP courses, the IB course does not allow Mason, looked at the athlete as if he had just said Winstonstudents to skip the final exam without penalty. The AP Churchill was a fan dancer. Her words vibrated in the small test is three hours, with half of the questions multiple school library: 'This is MORE IMPORTANT than baseball." choice, while my IB test was five hours of essay ques- I am not sure she was right, but I have come to see her tions. The range of IB questions reduces the student's point. The IB program has attracted many teenagers pre- need to cover everything at the risk of learning nothing. viously considered immune to deep thought. HistoricalDepth is guaranteed by the requirement of a 2,500-word synthesis or derivative analysis or any of a number of in- paper, which I had to defend before a panel of teachers tellectual exercises, done the IB way, can be as com-and experts. pelling as a two-out triple. The program also offers a way George Mason principal Bob Snee persuaded the IB out of an old debate about memory and insight that be-authorities in Switzerland to allow me to participate so devils modern educators. long as my identity was closely held. I took it as a sad indi- Taking the tests was a costly stunt, I admit. Imme- cator of the slick predictability of my paper on Sino-Amer- diately afterward I had to take a long nap. But I write ican relations that one faculty grader announced: "No stu- about high school students as an education reporter, dent wrote this. It must have come off the Internet." and I crave the pseudo-authenticity of a few hours walk- I learned something, however, by watching Abby Bur- ing in my subjects' loosely laced sneakers. roughs, George Mason '98, defend her paper on Leon I am also obsessed with high-stakes tests and how Trotsky and the New Economic Policy. Her work was they influence public education. Two years ago I per-deep and surprising and better than half the papers I re- suaded the faculty of a suburban New York high school member from graduate school. It showed how much to let me take the Advanced Placement American his-could be expected of young people asked to do some- tory test. At the last minute they pulled me out of the thing out of the ordinary. cafeteria test site and put me in a small room by myself, The District, Virginia and many other states are strug- saying they didn't want to distract the real students. My gling with new high-stakes, multiple-choice, detail-oriented theory is they feared too many 16-year-olds would see tests, reigniting the old debate between those who want this balding stranger wielding a No. 2 pencil and wonderstudents to learn facts first and then analyze and those if they were doomed to remain in high school until they who want that process reversed. Here, I think, is one pos- passed the test. sible solution: Spend a little more money for something There were good reasons for my fixation with the AP like the IB, which simultaneously demands both memory and the IB. Both tests, and the courses designed to pre- and thought. As long as the tests are independently as- pare for them, expose high school students to college- sessedthe IB has 2,500 graders in more than 60 coun- level material and provide a chance for college credit. triesno teacher or administrator can dumb down the Both were created decades ago to serve tiny elites but courses without being caught. have evolved into instruments for remaking the cul- Unlike me, trying to slide through my two days of test ture of ordinary public schools. I have seen energetic hell with cute similes and glib digressions, students teachers use the AP test, available in more than half ofwould be exploring, synthesizing, theorizing and learn- U.S. secondary schools, to change lives. There is a re-ing how to learn. Done right, that could be almost as im- markable power in showing an allegedly mediocreportant as baseball. student that she can pass the same national test that Jay Mathews's e-mail address is [email protected].

APRIL 11,1999 7 84 88 The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 1999

Academic Question Why Has Senior Year Of High SchoolLost A Long, Slow Windup of employers and 52% of professors said no. Its Purpose forMany? Forget, too, the idea that the senior year is Also forget the idea that the senior year a time to summarize or consolidate learning. is a time to develop leadership or demon- State exit examswhich sound like they're strate responsibility. Whether out of bore- Colleges Pick KidsEarlier, meant to test what a youngster has learned in dom or rebellion, 91% of seniors cut school four years of high school are over long be- now and then, the Department of Educa- Students Prefer to Work fore the exit is anywhere close. New Jersey's tion says. "They're moving on, and they exit exam is in the 11th grade, and based on start a little early," says Janice Dreis, a se- And Slackers Lose Interest 10th-grade skills. Tennessee's is in the ninth nior-class adviser at New Trier Township grade, and geared to what an eighth-grader High in Winnetka, Ill. should know. Indeed, according to educators About 60% of seniors concede that they Those 11th -Grade 'ExitExams' who monitor such tests, the only students spend fewer than six hours on homework who take exit exams in the 12th grade are every week, while 40% say they spend at those who flunked them in earlier grades. least three hours every day watching tele- By JUNE KRONHOLZ vdth the emphasis on passing enough vision. Lots of seniors tell researchers they Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREETJOURNAL courses to graduate, rather than on taking regularly read for pleasure, go to church, ALEXANDRIA, Va.Two and a half the right courses to succeed, enrollment in take music lessons and spend time with months into his senior year at ThomasA. tough math and science classes drops. Only their parents. But 27% also admit that they Edison High School last fall, AndyWong one in five seniors takes trigonometry; one in had at least five drinks in a row during learned he'd been accepted into theUni- four takes physics. The government-ap- some night Over the past two weeks. versity of Virginia freshman class for this pointed National Commission on Excellence Finally, forget the idea that it's necessar- fall. So, with 26 courses on his transcript in Education recommended years ago that all ily the kids who are to blame for the senior: five more than he needs to graduatehe's youngsters take at least four English classes, year malaise. Record numbers of seniors are using his last year of high school to earn three in social studies, and two each in math finding their courses so unchallenging that credits toward his first year in college. and science before they graduate. But 37% of they're signing up for advanced-placement, Which raises the question: What's the seniors graduate with less than those mini- or AP, classes, which earn them college cred- point of the senior year anyway? mums, and 23% graduate with just that. its while they're still in high school. The Uni- Forget the idea that it's a time to planfor All this means that the senior year has versity of Michigan in Ann Arbor says that the future: Huge numbers of kids havethat gradually become a holding tank for thou- 80% of its freshmen arrive with some college settled even before the football seasonis sands of youngsters. Almost one in fourof credits. The University of North Carolina in over. The make-or-break SATcollege-en- the country's 2.S million high-school seniors, Chapel Hill says it has admitted youngsters trance examination is in Octoberandstu- works 20 hours a week cr more, and these with as many as 48 college creditsenough dents now can sign up for it a yearin ad- aren't baby sitting jobs that might allow to make them second-semester sophomores vance. College acceptance lettersstart arriv- time to study. About 25% of seniors work in before they ever set foot on campus. ing before the leaves turn: Purdue University food-service jobs; another quarter work in Radical Rethinking begin- sales or as cashiers. Laurence Steinberg, a in West Lafayette, Ind., offers seats All this is prompting some schools to re- ning in mid-September. Harvardfills more professor of psychology at Temple Univer- sity in Philadelphia, studied seniors to see if think the senior year. Affluent, hyper-achiev- than half its freshman class by Christmas. ing New Trier, where almost everyone goes The early-decision processin which they took easier courses when they began working; a third of them said they did. on to college, still finds that "we have seniors colleges give priority acceptances to young- dying on the vine," says Mrs. Dreis. So, be- sters who then are committed toattend Perhaps not surprisingly, 22% of the stu- schoolers dents in public four-year colleges take at ginningsix years ago, New Trier gave se-. means growing numbers of high niors the option of spending the last four are locked into a collegedecision by Decem- least one remedial-education course in their colleges first year. When Public Agenda, an indepen- weeks of school on a senior project that un- ber. The College Board says 204 dergoes a jury evaluation and is exhibited for now offer early decision, andfilled 49,000 of dent polling organization, asked if recent for high-school graduates had the skills they the whole school to see. Last year's seniors, their seats that way this yearone among other things, cataloged fish for the every 17 kids going to a four-yearcollege. needed to succeed in college or at work, 68%

BEST COPYAVAILABLE

8$ 85 Continued From First Page urban schools: Half of them are minorities, Few kids are that focused, though. Oscar Field Museum, shadoweda police officer, studied Farsi, planned 30% qualify for free lunches because of family Molina, who leaves for the Marine Corps a golf tournament and four days after graduation, says he regu- practiced for a trumpet recital. income, G% are learning English as a second language, 12% are in special education. Their larly vows "to bring my grades up, and then Central Park East Secondary,a New the next day I see myself slacking again." York public school, requires SAT scores were just below the national aver- that its se- age last year, nicely above it this year. Just As the year winds down, "our marginal stu- niors take a course at City Collegeto grad- dents become more marginal," says Lonnie uate from high school, and over half go on to four-year colleges. Lowery, head of attendance and discipline: complete a 100 Andy Wong, who took early decision from hour internship at suchneighboring insti- Absences increase, discipline frays. "They tutions as the Museum of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville act out of character," he says. Michael Gra- Modern Art, the to study engineering, settled his future ham, who wants to attend St. Paul's College police station or Mount SinaiHospital (the in Lawrenceville, Va., and eventually open morgue is a popular assignment). sooner than most of his Edison classmates. Still, the once-common practice of universi- a kennel, smiles slyly at the mention of A group of high schoolsaround Ithaca, hooky"a senior obligation," he insists. N.Y., encourages students with ties sending out their acceptances in April is an interest long past. Brianna Wilkins, who plans to With their focus already straying, se. in medicine to spend theirsenior year at niors then compound the problem by tak-. the local hospital. The high study government' and law, heard from the ing jobs. Tony Rugari, a senior-class ad- schools base University of Michigan and Michigan State teachers at the hospital forEnglish and viser, tells the youngsters not to work while other required courses; seniors in December. Rosalia Gaytan, who dreams they're in school. "Most can't do it," he spend the of opening a pastry shop, was accepted into a says. But so many try that Edison is giving rest of the day with professionalmentors. "It makes the curriculum really culinary course at the College of Mexico in academic credit to Trent Conklin for work- relevant," Mexico City in early February. ing 35 hours a week at a grocery store, and says Katrin Turek, assistant superinten- Christina Manning for working 40 hours a dent of the Ithaca schools. week at McDonald'ssomething it calls "By the senior year, you already know cooperative learning. Vito Perrone, director of teacher educa- where you're going to go and what you're tion at the Harvard Graduate School of Ed- Educators who try to explain why U.S. going to do," says John Francis, who has teenagers score so poorly on international ucation, says educators have talked for been accepted by the U.S. Merchant Ma- math and science tests claim it's partly be- years about remodeling the senior year to rine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y. That cause they spend so much time at work in- require a project or recital or internship means that motivating kids who already stead of studying. The National Research "something that matters," he says. have one foot in the future can be problem- Council says 53% of U.S. teenagers hold jobs, Beyond that, parents often battle any- atic. "Kids who start out the year pumped compared with 17% of Japanese teens and 7% thing that would make their kids' high- somehow get distracted," says Luther Fen- in France. The National Restaurant Associa- school curriculum different from anyone nell, who has been a principal for 27 years, tion says that 1.5 million of the country's 10.5 seven of them at Edison. million restaurant workers are 18 or younger. else's. Harvard professor Janine Bempechat Most colleges demand final grades remembers the scuffle when she advised Christina Manning. who talks of work- a from graduating seniors to prevent a slide, ing in an office after graduation, concedes Connecticut high school to switch to block and can revoke an admission. But Esther that her McDonald's job allows little'time schedulingthat is, offering math and Eng- Ramirios, assistant director of admissions for studying, even though she leaves school lish two hours a day for one semester each, at Purdue, says that for that to happen early to go to work, and that she has taken rather than one hour a day for two semesters "you'd have to completely screw up: not go only as many courses as she absolutely each. Fearing some undefined disadvantage to class, not turn in homework, change must to graduate. She needs the money, on the SAT or in college admission, "the par- drastically." Jerome Lucido, director of she saysshe pays 850 a week to her fam- ents went nuts," says Ms. Bempechat. admissions at North Carolina, says he has ily for room and board. canceled admissions only "a handful of At Thomas Edison High here in suburban The notion of high-school seniors hold- times," and then more often for things like ing jobs to raise college tuition or help with Washington, D.C., springtime graduation cheating or being convicted of a crime. the family bills is largely a false one, rituals are gathering speed on a recent day, Things could change for some future se- though. Suburban kids, presumably more even as a winter snowstorm rages outside. niors when Virginia's tough new standard- affluent than others, work more often and There's a poll under way to choose prom col- ized tests become mandatory for graduation longer hours than do city youngsters, the ors. But, for most seniors here, that's about in the year 2004. But in any event, students Department of Education pays. It adds that the extent of the surprises. The theme for the will take them at the end of certain courses 80% of seniors use "none or only a little" of June 22 graduatiOn party is set: A city recre- beginning in the ninth grade, and could finish their earningi to help with family ex- ation center will be decorated to look like a all six required tests before their senior year. penses, and other studies find that only Exit tests and final Teports aren't neces- four in 10 save any of it for college. cruise ship. A senior-class beach week fol- sary for high achievers, of course. "We stay After 10 months on the job, Trent Con- lows that, and motel reservations already motivated because that's the way we're klin admits he has saved only "a couple are in. And most who are college-bound have brought up," says Brianna Wilkins, who is hundred" &liars toward his tuition at known for weeks, if not months, where senior-class president, takes three ad- Northern Virginia Community College in they'll be attending school next fall. vanced-placement classes, volunteers at a Fairfax County. "I blew a lot in trying to Edison is a sprawling place, built in the hospital, plays softball and works at a pizza have fun." he says. Adds Oscar Molina. the 1960s to school the early baby boomers. Re- parlor 35 hours a week. "You work hard be: future Marino: "We throw our money- modeled and enlarged, it's now educating the cause there's always somebociy out there awaywe're kips. But we're learning." record numbers of kids the record number of who wants your spot," adds John Francis, who should knowhe wants a spot at the boomers produced. Edison's 1,420 students U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. aren't much different from those at many sub-

90 86 (SR)2 Selected Readings on School Reform Teacher Quality

Everyone agrees that the quality of teachers has a powerful impact on student achievement, and, as such, it's essential for states to make better teacher quality a high priority.How states go about doing that, however, is the stuff of considerable debate. In a manifesto releasedthis spring, entitled "The Teachers We Need and How to Get More of Them," our Foundation (and dozens of prominent manifesto signers) advanced the position that states should decrease the amount of regulation that hinders talented individuals from entering theclassroom and instead increase principals' freedom to hire good candidates in return for greater accountability for their students' achievement. (The manifesto is included in Better Teachers, Better Schools,which accompanies this edition of (SR)2.) Jay Mathews of The Washington Post reports on this "Call for Educational Change" and the array of governors, educators, and researchers who signedthe manifesto. The Columbus-Dispatch follows up with an endorsement. Another astute observer of the teacher scene is Carol Innerst. Her Washington Monthly article, "Method Madness," describes the ed school mania that stresses self-esteembuilding, getting in touch with your feelings about the classroom, and all kinds of pedagogicalwizardry at the expense of preparing teachers in their subjects. Innerst calls both forhigher academic standards in education schools and for greater access to alternative certification. Next, we bring you a trio from the Los Angeles Times. In "Selling Teachers onSchool Reform," reporter Richard Lee Colvin observes that even some union bosses arecatching on to the public's sense of frustration with ineffective teachers and unaccountableschools. In response, they want raises linked to performance; however, the "rank and file remainleery." In a second article, "States Not Raising Teacher Standards, Study Finds," Colvin reports on the recent Education Trust report that found teacher licensing tests are not rigorous enoughand, on top of that, states set low cut-off scores. One reason for the low cut-off scores is to ensure asufficient supply of teachers. Randy Ross opines in "Class Size Reduction Doesn't BenefitAll" that all the fanfare over California's class size reduction has obscured another issue,namely, that smaller classes mean more teachers and this leads to more inexperienced teachers whotend to end up in poor, inner-city schools. Arthur Levine, president of Teachers College, Columbia University, in his NewYork Times op-ed, "Dueling Goals of Education," detects the same problem. Levine thinksthat smaller classes and better teachers will be at odds unless we take steps to prevent theclash. Such steps might include strengthening teacher education, improving financial incentives forthose considering the profession, and opening up alternative certification. When alternative certification is mentioned, skeptics ask about the qualityof candidates that this practice will draw. Writing in The Boston Globe, Beth Daley offers hope.Her article "Class Career Moves" profiles five talented mid-career professionals whojoined the. Boston teaching force. Open the doors and they will pour in.

DDW The Washington Post, April 20,1999 A Call for Education Change Panel Seeks New Measure of Teachers' Performance

By JAY MATHEWS not be abandoned. He said he shared the mani- Washington. Post Staff Writer festo's desire for good teaching applicafits, "but brightness and intelligence alone do not A panel of governors, educators and re- result in quality teaching." searchers yesterday called for a radical change The manifesto, titled "The Teachers .:We in educational standards thatwould put great- Need and How to Get More of Them," contra- er emphasis on teachers' in-class performance dicts efforts by many states and the federal gov- than their college training and licensing. ernment to improve teaching by improving Under this approach, school principals teacher education programs, including raising would be granted more authority to recruit the minimum test scores needed to enroll in e(F competent and imaginative teachers and to fire ucation courses and acquire a teaching license. teachers whose students do not learn and per- The proposal also runs counter to efforts by form poorly on carefully designed tests. the Washington-based National Council for Ac: The 52 signers of the unusual online mani- creditation of Teacher Education to force &id- festo include Michigan Gov. John Engler (R) cation schools to raise their standards. and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R). The manifesto said teachers should be 'We conclude that the regulatory strategy judged instead on how well they do in the dais- being pursued today to boost teacher quality is room, using techniquei such as the "viltie-. seriously flawed," the manifesto declared. "Ev- added" analysis devised by William Sanders of ery additional requirement for prospective the University of Tennessee to rate teacherS in teachers. will limit the potential supply of his state. Sanders showed that the top 20 per- teachers by narrowing the pipeline." cent of teachers boosted scores of low-achier Instead, panel members said that schools ing students by 53 percentile points, compared should "focus relentlessly on results, on wheth- with only a 14 percentile-point increase by stu- er students are learning." This new approach dents of the bottom 20 percent of teachers: will produce a larger supply of able teachers The manifesto grew out of discussioni and will tie judgments about their fitness and among education researchers brought togeth- performance to success in the classroom, not er by the Washington-based Thomas B. Ford- to process or impression," according to the ham Foundation. The signers include state ed- group. ucation officials in Arizona, Massachusetts; The proposal immediately drew criticism. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Colorado as well Willis D. Hawley, executive director of the as former education secretary William J. Ben; Washington-based National Partnership for nett and University of Virginia professor E.D. Excellence and Accountability in Teaching, Hirsch. said the manifesto overlooks the proven value Several signers said they hoped the mani- of teacher credentials. "One of the best pre- festo, at www.edercellence.net,would encour- dictors of low student performance in Prince age more states to follow New Jersey in of- George's County is the number of uncertified fering mid-career professionals ways to cut teachers at a school," he said. through red tape in qualifying to teach. Jotin Chuck Williams, director for teacher quality Truscott, Engler's press secretary; noted That. at the National Education Association, said li- "the governor can't teach a government clasi in censing teachers is still in an early stage, as li- Michigan, and yet no one in the state knovt censing doctors was a century ago, and should more about government than he does."

88 92 The Columbus Dispatch, May 26, 1999 CERTIFIED FAILURE TEACHER-TRAINING SYSTEM NEEDS OVERHAUL

Teachers who are not trained in the subjects they "how-to-teach" classes most states require for teach add up to a big problem in American schools, as certification. President Clinton noted last week, when he unveiled his College math majors and retired engineers who $ 15 billion proposal to reauthorize the Elementary and know physics and chemistry might make excellent Secondary Education Act. teachers but will be deterred by what many regard as A third of math teachers and two-thirds of science the dubious pedagogical instruction that goes on in the teachers in high schools did not major or minor in the nation's teachers colleges. subjects they teach, according to one estimate. This point was made in February by U.S. Secretary This may help explain why these also are subjects of Education Richard Riley, who said, "Too many in which American students test abysmally in potential teachers are turned away because of the competition with their peers in other advanced nations. cumbersome process that requires them to jump The president noted that overall, a quarter of through hoops and lots of them." secondary-school teachers don't have even a college Toughening certification standards only makes the minor in the subjects they are teaching. He also pointed problem worse, the manifesto argues. "The entry and out that each year about 50,000 people are employed in hiring process should be greatly simplified. Instead of U.S. classrooms with "emergency" certifications, requiring a long list of courses and degrees, we should meaning they are not fully certified to teach. test future teachers for their knowledge and skills and This shortcoming is worst in inner-city schools, allow principals to hire the teachers they need." where the turnover in classroom staff is high, as In return for such freedom, schools would be held teachers bail out for better pay and conditions in strictly accountable for higher student achievement, the suburban schools. manifesto says. The president proposes to solve this problem by But the policy prescription doesn't stop there. demanding that within four years, schools that receive "Common sense also argues that teachers of subjects in federal money end the use of uncertified teachers and short supply should be paid more than those in fields stop assigning certified teachers to subjects in which that are amply supplied, that teachers working in hard- they are not experts. to- staff schools should be paid more than those The president's proposal includes money to working in schools with hundreds of applicants . .. and toughen certification standards for teachers and for that outstanding teachers should be paid more than training and recruiting teachers. mediocre ones. Yet today, the typical public-school But despite its good intentions, this plan fails to salary schedule (and teachers union contract) allows for get at the roots of the problem, which are: none of these common-sensical practices." *The teacher-certification process itself. Finally, the manifesto urges, schools should be * The inability of most school districts to use pay able to fire teachers who prove incompetent. incentives to staff less attractive schools and to attract That Kanstoroom's recommendations, so teachers with expertise in subjects for which there is fundamental to success, efficiency and competitiveness high demand. in the private sector, are regarded as radical ideas in the Marci Kanstoroom, research director for the realm of public education seems incredible. Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which focuses on Her larger point is that the current system focuses education reform, made these points forcefully two its money and attention on regulation and inputs -- weeks ago in testimony before the U.S. House of teacher- certification rules, degrees and years of service Representatives. -- instead of emphasizing theend result: namely, Kanstoroom, who also is a research fellow at the successful students. Manhattan Institute for Policy Research in New York, If the stringent teacher-certification regulations summarized the findings in a Fordham policy already in place around the country are failing to manifesto titled, "The Teachers We Need and How to provide enough high-quality teachers, she argued, it is Get More of Them," which she presented to Congress. illogical to think that making those standards even The manifesto says that many people who are tougher will help. highly trained in science, mathematics and other subjects are discouraged from becoming teachers Editor's note: The Fordham Foundation policy because of the tedium, time and cost of taking the manifesto can be found on the World Wide Web at www .edexce I I en ce.n et/ library/teacher.htm

89 Washington Monthly, May, 1999 Method Madness

Why are public school teachersso poorly trained?

BY CAROL INNERST.

ITH A NEW SEMESTER JUST statement of the American Association of Colleges of getting underway, Paula Teacher Education explains: "First and foremoit, qual- Kelberman's' first order to her ity teacher education [programs] must be places of class of prospective elementary active conscience. The professional commitment to school teachers at East social justice, and the ethics of equity and diversity in Stroudsberg University in Pennsylvania was to the American culture must be palpable!' rearrange the tables in the classroom. They were Social justice and equity are commendable goals lined up in rows. She wanted them in a "U" shape for society, and no one could quarrel with the need for because rows are :;boring" and too "traditional!' conscientious teachers who know how to create a har- Rows also apparently promote individualism, which monious classroom atmosphere. Moreover, some ped- would-be teachers learn is bad, rather than coopera- agogical training is clearly necessary, especially for tion, which encourages students to talk and work teaching younger children (if you doubt it, try spend- together. "This is not a course that will tax you in ing a day as a substitute third-grade teacher). But the terms of ... reading," the professor continued. "I'm foundation for learning is built in the elementary not as interested in your grade as I am interested in years and too often, the basics of teaching kids to your ability to explain your own process. The final read, write, and compute lose out to educational fads product will not be as important as the effort, the that focus on building self-esteem and discouraging process you put into it!' competition. These techniquesstressing how rather than For instance, in an effort to avoid competition what to teachare common in the 1,300 colleges and and hierarchy, ed schools promote something called universities responsible for training our future teach- "cooperative learning" putting students of varying ers. Educators have complained for decades aliout the abilities to work together on a project. Cooperative failure of teacher ed programs to offer teachers any learning can be an excellent educational technique in substantial training in subject matter. But despite a some circumstances. But when used exclusivelyas it spate of reports and recommendations and flurries of often isit enforces a lowest common denominator activity in the name of teacher education reform, lit- On the group and holds individuals back. Prospective tle has changed in the way most teacher training insti- teachers are subjected to large doses of cooperative tutions go about their business. Most still attract stu- learning as well, as professors model the desired teach- dents of average or below average intellectual ability. ing techniques. Other current teaching fads include Most still make it easy for students to get into teacher "developmentally appropriate" learning, which posits education programs, often after they have failed that education is a natural unfolding that occurs at dif- coursework in another discipline. And most still view ferent times for different children and discourages their role, and the primary role of the teachers they teaching them to read and write before they are train, as change agents whose mission is to work "ready." E.D. Hirsch, the education critic and author toward social justice and equity in the classroom of The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them, rather than academic achievement. The 1993 mission testified before Congress that "this doctrine is drummed into almost all teachers who take early- CAROL INNERST is a writer who formerly covered education for education courses. The intention is to ensure caring The Washington Times. treatment of young children, yet the ultimate effect of 90 94 the doctrine is to cause social harm. To withold tematic phonics instruction is necessary for 30 to 40 demanding content from young children between percent of beginning readers. It takes a brave teacher preschool and third grade has an effect which is quite to buck the belief system and whip out flash cards different from the one intended. It leaves advantaged when she sees children struggling to read because children [who get knowledge at home] with boring they have not been taught to sound out the letters of pabulum, and it condemns disadvantaged children to the alphabet. California, which saw its reading scores a permanent educational handicap that grows worse plummet after years of whole language instruction, over time!' has ordered schools to teach phonics, but there is To make matters worse, today's prospective teach- massive resistance to this change. ers are often themselves the products of poor schooling Small wonder that 59 percent of newly-graduated andarriveoncampus requiring remediation in Massachussetts teachers, steeped in methodology math, writing, and some- times reading. Consequentlydesigned to make students feel good about themselves, textbooks used in teachers colleges have been dumbed failed a literacy exam given by the state last year. down to the point where a book used for a sophomore- level child psychology course, for example, "is written Parents complain, too, that their children reach at what used to be a 10th or 11th grade high school middle school and can't multiply because teachers reading level," according to John E. Stone, an educa- have been trained to emphasize "higher level think- tion professor at East Tennessee State University. ing skills" rather the mundane memorization of the Small wonder then that 59 percent of newly-grad- multiplication tables. Rote memorization is bad, uated Massachusetts teachers, steeped in methodolo- teacher trainees are told. Learning any facts is useless, gy designed to make students feel good about them- they hear, because information is constantly changing selves but bereft of factual knowledge about any and increasing. It would be impossible to teach or subject, failed a literacy exam given by the state last absorb it all. year. This was no isolated incident. The previous A 1997 Public Agenda survey documented a huge spring, Connetquot school district on. Long Island in disparity between what parents want their children to New York state got 758 applications in response to an be taught in school, and what professors of education advertisement to fill 35 teaching vacancies. District want them to learn. Parents want orderly schools that officials decided to narrow the pool by asking appli- emphasize the academic fundamentals. Education pro- cants to take a short version of a multiple choice read- fessors want less structured schooling that facilitates ing comprehension test taken from the state's old 11th inquiry and stresses "learning how to learn!' Despite grade Regents English exams. Just 202 applicants cor- evidence that disadvantaged children especially ben- rectly answered at least 40 of the 50 questions. efit from traditional "direct instruction" (the teacher Not too long ago it was expected that a child has information and transmits it to the pupil), Public would learn to read by the end of first grade. In recent Agenda found that even for this group education pro- years, that expectation has been pushed back to the fessors continued to preach process and learner-cen- end of third gradeand many children still fail to tered teaching in which children "construct their own learn because their teachers were never properly knowledge!' taught how to teach them. The prevailing "whole lan- guage" philosophy of reading instruction sees learn- Raising the Bar ing to read as a natural process that will come in time To become a public school teacher, college grad- when the child is developmentally ready to learn to uates have to be certified by the state. Prospective read. A good example of the chasm between educa- teachers must take required general education and tion professors and parents (and even many teachers) education courses, do a stint at student teaching, and is the language war over the best way to teach read- pass a series of general knowledge tests. The passing ingphonics or whole language. Most schools of edu- scores on these tests vary from state to state but tend cation continue to train prospective teachers in whole to be low. As a result, a lot of unqualified teachers get language even though research shows that early, sys- into the classroom. In the early '80s a few states weed-

9195 ed out the illiterates by testing veteran teachers, but applicants with high SAT scores. The inquiry pool howls from the teachers unions soon nipped that immediately dropped 17 percent, but SAT scores of practice in the bud. For their part, unions complained the freshman class topped 1200 that yearmore than that too many teachers were assigned to classes in 300 points higher than the average self-declared edu. subjects they had not trained in. A math teacher, for cation majors who took the 1996 SAT. BU also dou. example, might be asked to take over a physics class bled the amount of time prospective teachersmust because of a shortage of physics teachers. spend in math class and made an ethics course Prodded by public officials, states like Pennsyl- mandatory. vania are attempting to address the problem of Some schools, among them George Mason Uni-. teacher quality in a variety of ways, including forc- versity's Graduate School of Education, are tying ing changes in the way the teacher training schools teachertrainingtoprofessionaldevelopment' do business. Governor Tom Ridge and Secretary of schoolspublic schools that bridge the chasm Education Eugene W. Hickok have launched reform between the theorists at universities and the practi- initiatives to upgrade teacher training. The first tioners dealing with real children in real classrooms. thing they've done is make it harder to get into state These schools work closely with teacher training insti- schools of education by increasing the required min- tutions and allow prospective teachers to use their imum grade point average to a 2.5 or higher, depend- classrooms for extensive field experience. The pro- ing on the specialty. They're also making it harder gram uses the school's veteran teachers as mentors to to get licensed as a teacher and are forcing schools the student teachers and also brings university pro- to eliminate the watered-down content courses for fessors out of their ivory tower and into a real class- teachers, replacing them with rigorous curricula that room. New teachers say the extended practical expe- put the emphasis on subject mastery. There is con- rience is extremely beneficial. Dean Gary R. Galluzzo siderable resentment among the deans and other of George Mason is a strong advocate of profession- high-level administrators, but privately some facul- al development schools. He remembers going through ty members at the schools of education are cheering teacher training and not seeing any students until his the efforts. first day of student teaching. "I didn't see a teenager Pennsylvania's East Stroudsburg University, for until my first day in that school in 1973," he said. example, raised the grade point average needed to get "That's wrong!" into elementary education from 2.5 to 2.75. Students Another way to improve the quality of teaching is still need to take 60 hours in general education, but through alternative certification programs. If proper- no longer have a smorgasbord of courses to choose ly designed and executed, such programs can open from. A would-be secondary math teacher now must public classroom doors to people like Hickok, who has take the same math course a math major takes, not an taught at the college level but is deemed unqualified easier course designed especially for teachers. to teach in a public K-12 school because he has not Hickok, who gave up his tenure at Dickinson Col- jumped through the hoops of ed-school methodolo- lege to continue working on education reform during gy training. The nation's first true alternative certifi- the final four years of the Ridge administration, cation program was pioneered by New Jersey in the remains disappointed that teaching is "still attracting '80s. The program, which attracted more minorities too many students who really aren't of the intellectu- to teaching thanan the regular teacher college route, put al calibre I'd like to see. On any college campus, the college graduates with a bachelor's degree into K-12 best and the brightest aren't going into education," classrooms where they worked with a mentor teacher he said. "That will take timer Some deans of schools while taking an abbreviated teacher training program of education agree. Dean Edwin J. Delattre of Boston evenings and weekends. Pennsylvania is about to University School of Educationone of the harshest launch a similar initiative that will let bachelor's degree critics of teacher trainingsays there are no more holders teach under a mentor while taking one year than 50 good teacher training institutions among the of subject-based coursework to obtain a teaching cer- 1,300 in the country. Of the others, he says: "They tificate. The key is that the coursework will steep the admit and graduate students who have low levels of teacher candidate in the subject he or she has been intellectual accomplishment.... They are well-inten- hired to teach, not just pedagogy. tioned, decent, nice people who by and large don't This kind of alternative certification, which can know what they're doing:' bypass or at least lessen the impact of the faddish Three years ago BU began to target only teacher curricula of the teacher training institutions, could

96

92 be a potent tool for forcing schools of education to teachers are doing in the classroom. Pioneered in become responsive to and provide the kind of no non- Tennessee, value-added assessment requires new sense teachers that parentsand the larger public want teachers to demonstrate their ability to produce to see in K-12 classrooms. achievement in their students, not just pass perfor- School choice, which allows families to choose the mance-based exams that test their grasp of the cur- public or private school they want their children to rent pedagogical orthodoxy learned in teacher train- attend with state funding following the child, could ing schools. At a minimum, value-added assessment also prod schools losing students to rethink their requires annual testing of students in all grades with methodologies, putting pressure on the training insti- a reliable and valid achievement test. tutions. In many districts, parents for years have sig- Unfortunately, teacher training reform appears to naled their desire for traditional or basic schools that be headed in the wrong direction. The 1996 report put an emphasis on subject matter and are dedicated of the National Commission on Teaching and Amer- to achievement. The few public schools that feature ica's Future calls for all teacher training to be aligned structure and the basics find parents standing in line with the teacher certification standards developed for days to try to get their child enrolled. Public char- by the National Board for Professional Teaching ter schools can have the same kind of impact, partic- Standards. The National Board's standards are con- ularly if their charters successfully free them from sistent with the "latest research" that supports learn- the regulatory red tape of hostile local school boards er-center teaching and other fads already solidly in and teachers unions. place in those institutions. The current push by the Another lever for change could come through National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher the states, which accredit teacher training institu- Education to bring all teacher training under its aus- tions and license teachers. I.a school regularly grad- pices would similarly assure that social and attitudi- uates teachers who can't pass the state's uglification nal goals, not academic achievement, remain the pri- test, states can shut that school down. States can also ority of teachers. And that would add another nail to adopt value-added assessments to determine how well the coffin of teacher training reform. 0

BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 97 93 Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1999

Selling TeachersonSchool Reform Some union bosses now lead the charge for peer review and tying raises to performance. But many in rank and file remain leery.

By RICHARD LEE COLVIN

Huddled around a conference table in a fancy document. Even members of the reform network Seattle hotel, America's most reform- say they are frustrated by the slow pace of minded teachers union bosses sounded more change. like crusading politicians than advocates for the "We've been talking about these issues since rank and file. 1986," said Don Whatley, president of the Why not tie teachers' raises to their ability to Albuquerque Federation of Teachers. "But very pass demanding tests? Even better, fire slackers little of it has had any effect on teaching and who can't cut it. Or, most radical of all, pay learning in the classroom." teachers based on how much their students Still, Whatley and others say unions cannot learn. afford to retreat to their old patterns of Until recently, union leaders had been loath confrontation, lest they find themselves losing to even whisper such ideas. customers and jobs, as the auto, rubber and steel "In the past, being a union boss was like unions did in the 1970s and 1980s. being a defense attorney. If you molested kids Polls of parents and voters show growing or were incompetent, my job was to get you off support for alternatives to the public schools, the hook," said Adam Urbanski, director of the such as charter schools, which are usually not Teacher Union Reform Network, a group of unionized and operate free of most state and progressive union locals that held one of its local regulations, and voucher programs. regular meetings last fall in Seattle. "That's not "We're losing market share; the customers flying anymore." are bailing," said Day Higuchi, president of Indeed, unions nationwide are negotiating United Teachers-Los Angeles. "So we need to contracts with provisions that link teachers' say, 'What are the roots of the problem?' " skills to their pay. They are developing training programs to improve the skills of veteran Teacher Quality a Major Problem teachers. In New York, Cincinnati and Teacher quality is widely recognized as one elsewhere they are helping administrators shut of the biggest problems confronting schools down failing schools and evaluating colleagues today. who are not making the grade. In Rochester, N.Y., where Urbanski has long Selling such ideas, however, can be a been a leader in the reform movement as challenge. Teachers worry that their economic president of the union local, teachers judged interests are being downplayed to serve a unsatisfactory by supervisors do not get political agenda designed to improve the union scheduled raises. Conversely, a contract image, while administrators often regard union provision calls for top teachers who earn an reforms as encroachments on management extra credential as a reading teacher, or who powers.any administrators also doubt that the agree to be deployed in a low-achieving school, typd of reforms supported by unions--which to receive a $1,500 annual bonus. sometimes 'carry a'hefty price tag--:will lead'to In Boston; Columbus, Ohio; and elsewhere, gains in student achievement. unions have agreed to campuswide bonuses There is reason for skepticism. The results of based on a school's performance. union reform efforts have been difficult to 98 94 "The major impact" of the bonuses, said hefty, $60-million price tag and is meeting teacher compensation expert Allen Odden of the resistance from the Washington Legislature. University of Wisconsin, "is to focus people on In Cincinnati, the school board has decided the mission of the system." to trim programs--considered national models Employing another strategy, the California for how to professionalize teaching--to close a Teachers Assn. invested nearly $2 million to $20-million budget shortfall. develop a class on how to teach children who The board has decided to scale back a "career are not native English speakers. Six hundred ladder" that pays bonuses of as much as $5,000 teachers have completed that 45-hour course, to master teachers. The district's highly regarded and nearly 1,000 more are currently enrolled. peer review program, which last year The union in the San Juan Unified School recommended the dismissal of 13 rookie District outside Sacramento has worked with the teachers and four veterans, also is shrinking. school of education at the local Cal State The bottom line, said Cincinnati Supt. Steven campus to create a master's degree program to Adamowski, is that "student achievement has develop the skills teachers need to help reform not improved." He acknowledges that an overly their schools. centralized district administration is an obstacle Finally, it has become commonplace for to reform, and is working to change that. He mentor teachers to assist less experienced also says the rigid regulations of the union colleagues. Now more unions are agreeing to contract must be changed as well. have teachers evaluate the work of their But Sandra Feldman, president of the 1- colleagues and recommend dismissal of poor million- member American Federation of performers. Teachers, calls the notion that unions are But many teachers fear that the reformers are roadblocks to reform "the big lie." drawing attention away from what they contend Indeed, under the leadership of Al Shanker, is a bigger problem--a lack of books, supplies her union was among the earliest to call for and other resources. more demanding academic standards, charter The idea of acknowledging that some schools, tougher discipline for students and the teachers are doing a lousy job is "a defensive creation of national certification tests for posture, and it's not going to work," said Los teachers. Angeles teacher Joshua Pechthalt, a vocal critic More recently, the federation has been an of the union local. "It's not going to deal with influential voice touting widespread research the problems of the public schools, and it's showing the importance of phonics in early going to erode solidarity among their own reading instruction. members." The other national teachers union, the 2.4- Ed Doherty, president of the Boston million- member National Education Assn., got Teachers Union, agreed that he and his peers on the reform train more recently. must be careful not to get too far ahead of their Soon after he became president of the members. organization in 1997, Bob Chase called on the "The membership will not tolerate a union group to take risks to improve schools. For not concerned about salaries and sick days," he example, he said, the union should drop its said. longtime opposition to peer review programs. Still, he said, union leaders must persuade their members of the importance of improving 'You Don't Gain ... Support by Whining' schools. "It really is our responsibility," Doherty In the past, Chase said, teachers unions were said. vulnerable to attack because they were inveterate naysayers. Plans Can Carry Hefty Price Tags "You don't gain public support by whining," Union-led reforms are not always greeted he said in an interview.,"You,get publicsupport warmly by politicians either. In Seattle, the by not being defensiv,e andiby supporting union has proposed lengthening the school year things." , by 40 days and requiring new teachers to prove His union recently added 12 experts in their skills or move on. But that plan carries a teaching to its national staff to help members.

95 99 And, with the teachers federation, it has The 40,000-member organization has sponsored conferences for new teachers on insisted that new teachers without a credential discipline techniques. get a full week of training before entering the Chase said his union is still pushing bread classroom and is negotiating with the district to and butter issues and trying to raise the salaries set up professional development centers. of teachers, which average $42,000 a year. But, The union also negotiated a 15% raise for he said, "we hesitate to talk about it because Los Angeles teachers who complete the rigorous people say, 'Oh, there they go again.' " process of becoming certified by the National Teachers unions in Michigan, for example, Board of Professional Teaching Standards. Last are among the most militant in the country, and year, 47 Los Angeles Unified School District the teachers there are the highest paid, teachers gained that status, and nearly 200 are averaging nearly $59,000 a year. But the preparing to take the certification exams later Michigan Education Assn. has been defeated this year. time and again in legislative battles by But last fall, the union moved wages to the Republican Gov. John Engler. top of the agenda when it launched a "raise the Michigan now has 150 charter schools, a raise" campaign seeking a 4% salary boost in longer academic year and a ban on paying the middle of a three-year contract. Because of teachers who go on strike. its clout on the Los Angeles Board of "The teachers got so blinded by their hatred Education, the union was able to get a 2% raise for the governor that they almost couldn't see while agreeing only to limited teacher reality," said John Trescott, Engler's spokesman. accountability measures. Just a handful of "They do have to rethink their approach if they teachers, those judged unsatisfactory by hope to have an impact on the process." principals, will be subject to peer review. Former California Gov. Pete Wilson Yet even that concession generated regarded the California Teachers Assn. as a opposition within the union and undercut stubborn obstacle to reform. During his eight support for President Higuchi. He was recently years in office, he successfully diverted funds elected to a second term but with only 57% of that could have gone for teachers' salaries to the votes, an unusually low figure. textbooks, computers and smaller class sizes. "I think the union is looking at these big, But he was unsuccessful in ending teacher fancy reform issues, and they're not paying tenure.. attention to the bread and butter," said Warren Aware of its reputation, the California union Fletcher, who unsuccessfully challenged in the last two years has softened its rhetoric and Higuchi for the presidency. embraced some of the school reform measures Since getting reelected, Higuchi has been pushed this winter by Gov. Gray Davis. The sounding much more strident. He is already union has even endorsed the creation of more gearing up for negotiations next year, charter schools, but with an important caveat-- demanding a 30% pay raise and promising "no the group is pushing legislation requiring those contract, no work." schools to unionize. For all the talk at the national and state levels Learning From Craft Guilds about the need for unions to be partners in Elsewhere, reformers are urging bolder steps. reform, contracts get negotiated at the local Susan Moore Johnson, dean of the Harvard level. And, on that score, Urbanski said, the Graduate School of Education, analyzed record is mixed. contracts in districts across the nation and "There are indeed places in this country concluded that administrators often refuse to where the teacher unions are leading reform-- implement some of the most progressive that's the good news," he said. "But the bad provisions. On the other hand, she said, unions news is they are the exception, not the norm. In have continued to insist on seniority provisions at least as many places as they are leading that let teachers choose where and what to reform, they are blocking reform." teach. In Los Angeles, the powerful UTLA has Such policies "really do stand in the way of done some of each. reform," she said.

96 1 0 0 The foundations that support the work of the his union, proposed something more radical. He Teacher Union Reform Network are becoming wants every campus in the district to have an impatient and have begun pushing for more opportunity to become a charter school free of decisive action. The organization, founded in the central office rules. He also wants such 1995 and based at UCLA, consists of 21 locals, schools to be free to toss out the union contract. including those in Los Angeles and New York. Urbanski hopes that the teachers would still Ed Reidy, a program officer with the Pew turn to his union for help in negotiating a Charitable Trust, one of the network's contract, for teacher training, for help in supporters, said unions could learn a lesson obtaining grants and other services. from the craft guilds of the past, which "We're putting our reputation to a test," he controlled their membership through said. The bottom line, he said, must be what best apprenticeships. serves the interests of children. "Unions could say tomorrow that, from here "We believe that if the kids do well, we'll do on out, we take teacher quality very seriously well, and if the kids don't do well and we do, and you can't become a full member unless you this community won't, nor should they, tolerate meet certain standards," he said. "I don't think our doing well," said Urbanski. they're there yet." Peter Martinez of the Macarthur Foundation Teacher Compensation is also looking for the reform network to Although teachers unions are under pressure become more aggressive. to take the lead in crafting school reform, "They've got to bite the bullet on setting up a salaries remain a top priority for them. Unions good system for letting bad teachers go," he nationally and in California have succeeded in said. "It needs to be clear to everyone that, if winning steady pay raises over the past 15 you are good, you're going to be rewarded for years. that." And, if not, you won't have a job. Teachers are paid less than those in some As director of the network and president of other fields, according to these 1996 national the Rochester union, Urbanski understands averages. But teachers work an average of 37 those concerns. weeks a year. Rochester schools began experimenting with reforms in 1986. Teacher: $37,594 Teachers there were among the first to be Asst. professor, public university: $39,000 given decision-making power over their schools Accountant: $41,444 and to agree that teacher leaders ought to earn Buyer: $46,662 more for taking extra responsibility. And they Computer system analyst: $58,529 were among the first to be asked to evaluate Engineer: $61,613 struggling peers. Attorney: 65,472 Yet, for all of that, the district's academic Professor, public university: 69,760 achievement has not been sufficient to persuade most middle class residents of the city to keep Sources: American Federation of Teachers, National their children in the public schools. Education Assn. Last month, Urbanski, with the backing of

97 Los Angles Times, May 26, 1999 States Not Raising Teacher Standards, Study Finds; Many Have Minimal Requirements. The Needto Fill Jobs and Fear of Lawsuit are Citedas Reasons. By RICHARD LEE COLVIN

Are you able to read National Geographic? lawsuits by dissatisfied job-seekers, the report Did you pass junior high math? Then you too said. might have what it takes to be an eleMentary school teacher in most states. California requires all teachers to take a basic skills test. A lawsuit charging that the test, known If you managed to pass algebra and geometry, as the California Basic Educational Skills Test, is then you might also be ready to get some chalk illegal and racially discriminatory is making its dust under your fingernails by teaching those way through the courts. During that litigation, the courses to high school students. state removed virtually all questions requiring knowledge of geometry and algebra. At a time when states are striving to make far Now, that test no longer expects those who greater demands on students, they are not take it to know the difference between a median,a similarly raising their standards for what they mode and a mean--the midpoint of a series, the expect of teachers, concludes a study to be most frequent number in a series and the point released today in Washington. that is commonly referred to as the average of a series. "Millions of children are being damaged daily by under-prepared teachers, because we've refused The Education Trust is a nonprofit group that to establish high enough standards for entry into works to improve the quality of education for poor the field of teaching," said Patte Barth, a policy and minority children. Barth said those children analyst at the Education Trust who is a coauthor are the most likely to be exposed to poorly trained of the report. teachers.

Seven states have no licensing exams for new Most disturbing to the authors was that teachers. Only 29 states require prospective high teachers are not required to demonstrate that they school teachers to pass tests in the subject they have a deep knowledge of key concepts, the kind plan to teach. of knowledge that enables teachers to help students attain a similar level of understanding. The content of those tests is "within easy Instead, the licensing tests emphasize simple reach of many of the students the test-takersare recall of facts and rote skills. expected to teach," the report said. "Why should prospective teachers go to Moreover, states set low passing scores. In college if this is all they need to know?" asked Georgia, an applicant can miss more than half the Lynn Steen, a former president of the questions on a math test for high school teachers Mathematics Assn. of America and an advisor to and still earn a license. Oregon sets the highest the study. passing mark in the nation on that test, but aspiring teachers still can miss a third of the Steen, a math professor at St. Olaf College in questions. Northfield, Minn., said teachers must know far more than their students to answer their questions Passing marks are set low to ensure a and be able to "think of different ways of sufficient supply of teachers but also to avoid presenting the material to different students."

1 02 98 The report's authors recommend that, for He said states don't require prospective elementary school teachers, states create tests that teachers to take enough math in college and the measure whether candidates have at least the tests "don't guarantee they know anything either." general knowledge required of a four-year college liberal arts program. For high school teachers, the Officials of the California Commission on report recommends that states require passage of Teacher Credentialing disputed the report's the most rigorous of the now-available tests. conclusion that the tests for secondary school teachers are too easy. Candidates for teaching jobs In addition, the authors said, minimum who have completed a California-approved passing scores should be raised and states should education-related program do not have to pass any begin aligning licensing exams with academic test. Anyone with a college degree, however, can standards for students. get a temporary permit by passing two tests of their knowledge of the subject they want to teach. But Barth said states will begin raising their requirements only if the public demands better Dennis Tierney, director of professional qualified teachers. services with the commission, said that only 40% of the test-takers passed one of the two tests in "The only thing that's going to cut through ... math and only 31% passed the other, even after is if the public gives policymakers the backbone several tries. to say that we can't expect kids to meet high standards unless we expect teachers to meet high "We set the minimum standards," he said. standards," she said. "Obviously, we want teachers to know more than what the kids know. But, on the other hand, Concern over the skills and performance of legally we need to be careful that the material teachers has risen to the top of the education we're demanding that they know be material they agenda nationally. Among the factors fueling that will need to know on the job." rise are a number of studies documenting the The Education Trust report said that typical profound impact of individual teachers on the reading passages in the tests required of academic achievement of students. In addition, the elementary school teachers were written on the nation is on the verge of hiring 2 million or more level of National Geographic, which the study's teachers, as a generation of classroom veterans authors said should be readily understood by approaches retirement and student enrollments students in the fifth and sixth grades. swell.

The study criticized the tests for high school A year ago, 59% of those taking the teacher teachers in the language arts, saying that no licensing exam in Massachusetts failed to pass, questions require them to "show that they know which was seen nationwide as evidence that how to do useful things with what they know." teachers were poorly prepared. In 1998, Virginia raised the passing score on its basic skills test and The study's authors say such skills are critical, 35% of the applicants failed at least one of the given that most states now have written student three sections on the test. standards that emphasize the ability to apply one's knowledge to solve problems and to think and Arthur E. Wise, president of the National write analytically. Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, was skeptical of the new report'sconclusions. Many states waive even those minimal Nevertheless, he agreed that "teachers must know expectations in the event that they cannot readily their content and they also must know how to find enough qualified candidates. teach it."

99 103 Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1999, CLASS-SIZE REDUCTION DOESN'T BENEFIT ALL QUALITY TEACHERS GRAVITATE TOUPPER-INCOME SCHOOL DISTRICTS, WHILE INNER-CITY STUDENTS LOSEOUT.

BY RANDY ROSS

With great fanfare in 1996, California began spending (primarily those with emergency credentials). The School more than $1 billion a year to reduce the size of classes in Accountability Report Cards for LAUSD schools show that the early primary grades. Many schools in high-income many poor, inner-city children are, indeed, being taught in communities have benefited measurably from the class-size smaller classes but by less-experienced teachers. reduction program. They had no inexperienced teachers The precipitous rise in the number of inexperienced before the introduction of the class-size reductionprogram, teachers is but one part of the dark side of the story of how and they had none after. Yet, a wholesale reduction in class class-size reduction lowers the quality of teaching in poor, size nibbles away at the chances that students in poor inner- inner-city neighborhoods. Stories are rife about classrooms city neighborhoods will get a good education--even if fully in inner-city schools going without teachers during theyear qualified teachers were available to fill the new classrooms. (they employ long-term substitutes). Here's why. Does it matter that California's class-size reduction A substantive reduction in the size of classes in the program results in the redistribution of the quality of lower grades for virtually every one of California's public teachers? Yes. Poor teaching nullifies the potential benefits elementary schools triggers a frenetic stirring among the of smaller classes. A recent study of Dallas public schools existing teacher force. Schools post job openings for the suggests that spurts in academic performance take place newly created classrooms. Teachers apply to multiple sites, only when students are exposed grade by grade to quality some more attractive than others. The more attractive teaching. A single break in the quality stream causes the schools--those in middle to high-income communities-- educational wheel to spin in place, digging a deeper and receive stacks of applications along with well-honed cover deeper hole for children. letters. The least attractive schools--poorly performing What can be done to resolve this problem? Given that schools in high poverty areas--scrape far fewer applications California (as well as the federal government) seems bent from their mailboxes. on adding more fuel to the stupendous class-size reduction Of the applicants who fail to make the cut for the plum locomotive, at minimum the state should figure out how to teaching slots, some opt out of the teaching profession implement the program in ways that benefit all students-- while many others, by default, repair to classrooms in the rich and poor. inner city. A 1984 Los Angeles Unified School District One idea involves giving schools greater flexibility survey of about 2,000 Los Angeles teachers measured the over how they implement the program. In lieu of creating extent of this smarting but natural dynamic. Teachers were smaller classes, a school could reduce its reliance on asked how they felt about working in hard-to-staff schools-- inexperienced teachers by using the same resources to hire primarily schools in the high-poverty areas hit by the 1965 one full-time, out-of-classroom super-mentor teacher for Watts riots. The widespread perception was that, in these every four inexperienced teachers in a school. The focus schools, teachers were less safe and students were less would be on what to teach, how to teach it, how to assess prepared to learn and more difficult to discipline. Forty what students learned and how to organize and manage a percent said they would resign if they were forced to take classroom. on such a tough assignment. On the face of it, the predictable redistribution of teaching The California class-size reduction story is drearier. quality fostered by California's class-size reduction program The state's rapidly rising K-12 enrollment, an aging teacher looks, smells and feels a lot like triage. The three-of-20 force and the inability of schools of education to keep up teachers who view the education of inner-city children as their have combined to create a teacher shortage so gaping that calling need a lot more help than they have gotten in the past. inner-city school administrators laugh deliriously when And they certainly don't need policies that dampen their good admonished to cease hiring inexperienced and unprepared work by ensuring that inner-city kids with certainty encounter teachers. some ineffective teachers along the way. Even before the class-size reduction program, for example, the Los Angeles Unified School District had Randy Ross is vice president of the Los Angeles Annenberg begun to hire thousands of inexperienced teachers Metropolitan Project.

160 1P 4 New York Times, April 7, 1999 Dueling Goals for Education

can enter the teaching profession. Af- The second step is to improve finan- By Arthur Levine ter a decade and a half of research cial incentives for entering the teach- showing clearly that teacher-certifi-ing profession. The graduate educa- hese days you can't run cation requirements are too, lenienttion necessary to earn a master's. for public office, and that too many teachers are un-degree in teaching lasts nearly as whether the city coun-prepared to educate their students, long as that required for an M.B.A., cil or the United States raising the bar is imperative. Butyet those with M.B.A.'s earn starting Senate, without havinghigher standards are very likely tosalaries that are more than twice as an education plan. This mean shrinking numbers of teachers,high. Even when able, idealistic young phenomenon, especially noticeable insince a smaller proportion of candi-people do enter the teaching profes- last fall's elections, has been evidentdates will be able to meet the highersion, they are often drawn away by, in two recurring themes nationwide: standards. jobs with higher salaries and greater the push to raise standards for teach- So the real danger we face in simul-prestige. ers and the call to reduce class sizes.taneously pursuing higher teacher To attract and keep the best teach- Both of these ideas are excellent.standards and smaller classes is thaters, the Federal and state govern- The problem is that they clash, and if ments will need to expand bonus pro- we don't plan carefully and quickly, grams for entering the field, loan- we're likely to achieve neither. forgiveness programs and tax prefer- In the next decade the nation will Can we have ences. Above all, salaries for entering lose half of its four million public teachers must be raised significantly. school teachers, largely through re-smaller classes andIn this regard, it is a sad mistake that tirement, the United States Depart- Congressional Republicans recently ment of Education estimates. We are better teachers? voted down the Administration's fi- not educating enough new teachers to nancing proposal for recruiting new fill these jobs. Moreover, the popula- teachers. tion of school-age children is growing The third step states must take is quickly 12 percent in the past dec-we will have a small but excellentenlarging the pool of potential teach- ade, with another 3 percent projectedcorps of teachers who have met theers. Because education schools can- for the next decade. The need, then, is raised standards but a growing num-not prepare enough teachers to fill the not simply to fill the existing teacherber of classrooms that we will beanticipated vacancies, it is essential positions but to substantially increaseforced to staff with any warm bodiesto create the machinery to immedi- the namber of teachers. we can find: ately recruit people who can fill these Now add to this the notion of reduc- Do we choose smaller classes orpositions retired teachers, people ing class size. That is likely to requirebetter teachers? The fact is we canwith teacher preparation or partial another 15 to 20 percent increase inhave both and need both, but not if we preparation who went into other pro- the number of teachers. The bottomcontinue to do business as usual. Thefessions, career changers in allied line is that reductions in class size,states need to take three steps noW. fields, full-time parents and parapro- though very desirable, exacerbate the First,they need tostrengthenfessionals in education who are in teacher shortage caused by retire-teacher education. The nation has too need of additional schooling. More ments and the growing number ofmany weak education schools, with states need to establish programs tai- new students. teachers, students and curriculums lored for these nontraditional recruits Then there's the second popularthat are not up to the task at hand.that will allow them to meet higher initiative, raising standards for teach- Their students do not pass existingteacher standards. ers. A growing number of states arecertification requirementsinade- Raising teacher certification stand- becoming more selective about whoquate numbers and will certainly notards and shrinking class size are pass raised standards. It's time for among the few areas in which we can Arthur Levine is president of Teach-government . to strengthen or closehave our cake and eat it, too but ers College, Columbia University. these schools. only if we act now.

BEST COPYAVAILABLE

Ava The Boston Globe, April 4, 1999 LexingtonDoctoral candidate High BurkeJeremiahNews photographer High School E. NewtonGraduate North student JuniorAttorneyR.J. High Grey Soltware designer AsherchemistrySchool Davison biology teacher and Williamsteachercomputer Wesley Jr.science Class LesliemathIligh Schoolteacher Gray SchoolLeningtoilteacher English Joan career movesDerekSchoolFramingham Wiberg science High teacher Teaching winning recruits By Beth DaleyGLOM STAFF sher,Davison is a sionalsthanspecializedthe number theyand newsaw degreesof graduatesaboth decade midcareerturning ago. with to highly profes-teaching Yale,Kappaman with he graduate attended options. of A Phi Beta yearsDonaldof the came 350 McCallion, from teachers other hiredhuman professions, in resourcesthe last, said fiveIn di- Framingham, close to 40 percent toralon a national students. fellowship for biology doc-Yet every school day for the last, two tuteMassachusetts of Technology Insti- colleges,ter'shiredtherector roughly degrees in for the including the 100last ortown's better,year,teachers Tufts school almost some McCallionand system. allfromHarvard. had top Ofhasmas- MuchistrySchool,foryears, a insteadclassroom morethe teaching pony-tailed money, of makingin basic Lexington in theDavisonbiology his world mark, High andhas of and bio-chem-opted thecationnumbernew state teachers confrontsschools of teacher arrive who the candidateshave atissue a failedcritical of the fromthe time, largeThese new edu- as unusually well-credelitialed advancedtherofchemical new come teachers research. degreesfrom inother couldMassachusetts careers command or whose who higherDavison ei- is one of an unusual number notdecade,retiringcertification producing andin Massachusetts teachingtest. enough colleges high-quality over alone theThere teach-next are will be a record 35,000 teachers 106 tiontendentssalaries say in theyand other graduateare fields. seeing schoolsSchool nearly superin-ofdouble educa- BEST COPY AVAILABLE temsers to arefill eagerthose vacancies.to tap other So teacher school can-sys- TEACHERS, Page Al2. 107 New !aces, tleas Tomorrow's join teaching ranksteachers

TEACHERS High School, who is retiring this year.Wesley Williams Jr., 51 Continued from Page Al "And they are totally committed to help- School: Jeremiah E. Burke ing kids." didates, particularly those with expertise High School, Boston. Com- They are newcomers like Desire puter teacher, grades 9-12. in science, math, or foreign languages. Greene, a 21-year-old MIT senior study- Joan Lenington, 47, just left her 17- ing environmental engineering. Greene Years teaching: 2. year law practice to become an eighth- never gave teaching a thought until she Education: Master's in edu- grade teacher in Acton: worked with youngsters one summer cation, Cambridge and Har- "There was no magic moment; it was who said they wanted to see more black i. yard; in doctoral program a long process," Lenington said of decid- teachers in their school. She now takesfor computer science at UMass-Boston. ing to become a teacher. "It was tied to teacher education courses, along withPersonal: Married with eight children, four both a feeling of a lack of satisfaction inclasses in her major, at MIT. who graduated from Boston public schools, the long-range significance of my job and "If you were blessed with whatevertwo now enrolled. what I saw as the huge impact teaching intelligence you have and you were just Job History: News photographer for had on children." going to use it for self-gain, I just don't Like most midcareer professionalsthink that is fair," she said. Channel 7; co-owner of Broadcast Video going into teaching, Lenington said it Greene's field is probably one of theProductions. would have been impossible to do so iflower-paying specialties at MIT, sheWhy teaching?: "I got used to filming kids not for the booming economy and ansays. Still, it can command $35,000 toin body bags. I realized I wanted to see a "emotionally and financially" supportive$40,000 for graduates with a bachelor'schange. I tell these kids they need to tune spouse. degree. Greene could expect to makeinto reality and they can excel at whatever These professionals and top gradu-$30,000 in an urban school district herthey want to do. What greater gift in life ates say .they are choosing teaching forfirst year of teaching, but it will takecan you do?" several reasons. For example, the good years to get to $40,000. Biggest reservation: "We need to find a bet- economy gives new graduatesconfidence MIT started its special program fiveter way to get the kids to discipline them- that higher-paying jobs await them ifyears ago to lure math and science ma-selves, to take more personal responsibility." teaching doesn't work out. And the ro-jors like Greene into teaching. bust economy gives midcareer profes- Now other colleges are attempting toJoan Lenington, 47 sionals a degree of financial freedom. follow that lead. In April, the Association School: R.J. Grey Junior Also, top colleges, including severalof American Universities, representing High School in Acton, part- around Boston, are starting special pro-the top 62 research universities in the time English teacher, country, plans to announce a program grams to encourage morehigh-perform- eighth grade. ing undergraduates to go into teaching,giving math and science majors the just as huge public attention is beingchance to earn a teaching certificate with Years teaching: 1. paid to education. their bachelor's degree. The colleges are Education: Bachelor's in En- Veteran teachers alsodescribe aalso researching other ways to make glish, 'Rifts ; law degree, wave of idealism among teaching more attrac-Northeastern; master's in teaching, Simmons. the newcomers that tive, such as studentJobs Held: Attorney for 17 years. they say reminds them loan forgiveness. Along with the pushPersonal: Mdried; two children, of the 1960s. ages 18 and 14. "Many of these peo- "Many of these for better teachers, re- tention remains a big is- ple can make a fortune people can Why teaching?; "I saw the effect good and in different fields, and sue. Greene, like dozensbad teachers had on my own two children." they are choosing teach- make a fortune of her peers interviewedBiggest reservation: "Until you are in a ing. They all bring the in different by the Globe, 'concededclassroom trying to teach upwards of 110 desire to give young that these new teacherstudents a day, you can't appreciate the candidates don't view people the same oppor- fields, and they multiple skills teaching demands and the tunities they had, and teaching as a lifelonghours required to do the job well." are choosing career. This is in sharp they come with specific [talents]," said acting teaching.' contrast to those whoLeslie Gray, 26 entered teaching 30 headmaster Cornelia CORNELIA KELLEY left School: Newton North Kelley of Boston Latin Boston Latin School years ago, when few the profession, which is High School, math teacher, School. "I see it .all the .7;1 grades 9, 11 and 12. time lately, and it's why so many are retir- ing in the next 10 years. 1 Year's teaching: 4. wonderful." Elle111,111111MINIONII Virginia Kerrigan, "I want to teach, but Education: Bachelor's in math 29, saw her salary cut almost by halflastI just am interested in so many things," 7; and music, Williams; master's year when she left herjob working withsaid Michael Ferraro, 19, a sophomore in education, Harvard. start-up software companies to pursuestudying computer science at MIT. Personal: Single. Ferraro and many other students teaching. She's working in Harvard's Why teaching?: "When I was at Williams,. special events office while waiting tosaid they had high confidence in their fir 103 BEST COPYAVAILABLE 108 hear whether she's been accepted by its ture earning potential outsid: :Thing, aI worked with at -risk boys living in a cor- graduate school of education for amas-confidence that comes from having been rectional facility as a teacher's assistant. It ter's program in risk prevention. schooled during the most prosperouswas gratifying, challenging, and exciting." "Some people do look at you funny.American economy of this century. Fer- And a lot of people my age are making a Biggest reservation: "Most people are ac- raro, for instance, already earns moneyknowledging that the teaching profession is hell of a lot more money," said Kerrigan. doing consulting. "But this is something I always wanted a valuable one. But there still are murmurs Several midcareer professionals alsoof the If you can't do, you teach' philosophy." to do." said that the economy has given them a Indeed, half of the 120 finalists forpsychological freedom to try somethingDerek Wiberg, 38 the state's 50 new-teacher signing bo-new that they wouldn't have had in a less nuses come from other careers, including School:Framingham High robust economy. School science teacher, auniversity professor and a producer for "It's becoming a more attractive grades 9-12. the children's television show, "Blue's field, in part because the economy is Clues." The $20,000 bonuses are payablegood and people feel free to try other Years teaching: 4. after four years of teaching. things," said Wellesley's Whelahan. Education: Bachelor's in bi- Yet these new teachers with their But some educators worry about too ology and computer science, great resumesand the schools they en-many future teachers using school doors State University of New terface immense challenges. The cur- as career turnstiles. It can take a decadeYork; master's in education, Harvard. rent turnover rate for teachers is high: or longer just to learn how to teach well,Job History:Software development at nationally, 30 percent of all new teachersthey say. Massachusetts General Hospital; devel- quit within the first five years, according "I know the new generation looks tooped ATM network for Goldome Bank. to Recruiting New Teachers, a nonprofit teaching as a stepping stone, and I don'tPersonal: Married. group dedicated to expanding the teach- know how I feel about it," said Maurice ing force nationwide. Page, 52, a math teacher at CambridgeWhy teaching?: "Sure, you take a pay cut New teachers can be disillusioned byRindge and Latin who has taught thereBut you have all these open minds looking up at you. It's an amazing thing." a lack of public respect, support, andsince 1972 and says he has every inten- money. The more career options thattion of continuing. Page also instructs Biggest reservation: "A lotof teachers do new teachers have, the harder it may beprospective teachers at MIT and Har-good work, but more needs to be done to for a school system to keep them. vard. sustain them. There needs to be more sup- While some systems, including. Lex- "When we started teaching, it wasport of teachers in their development, ington and Northborough, are startingsomething we were going to do for the their education, their trade." programs to support new teachers, such long haul," he said. "I didn't become the retention programs are still rare. teacher I am today because of the firstJudi Freeman, 41 "We are calling for dramatic changes, five years of teaching." School:Boston Latin, and we may be getting good people," student-teacher of histo- said Katherine Boles, a Brookline If they are to stick with the job, new teachers say, there must be more room ry and social studies, fourth-grade teacher who has taught for grades 7-12. 22 years. for career advancement. The advance- "But if they go in, they will take thement track in teaching tends to be pain- Education:Bachelor's in $20,000 signing bonus and leave. The job fully flat, compared to other professions. history of art, Vassar, maiL will grind them down," predicts Boles,That's why new teachers with options ter's in history of art, who is writing a book with her co-teach- are not likely to stay, many.say. Johns Hopkins; master's in history of art, er, Vivian Troen, called, "If you are So Teaching salaries do need to in-Yale; post-graduate work, Harvard and Uni- Smart, Why Are You Still Teaching ?" crease, Davison says, but he has a differ-versity of London; earning master's in teach- Charlie McCarthy, principal of Ar-ent ruson for planning to teach publicing history. lington High School, says that while it is school for only several years. Ultimately, Jobs Held:Independent museum curator; essential to convince talented new teach-he sees himself in educational researchcurator for Portland Museum of Art; cura- ers to stay, it should not be taken forand academia, work that he passionately tor for Los Angeles County Museum of Art. believes requires prior experience in a granted that someone from another pro- Personal: Married; two children, ages 7 classroom. fession will excel in the classroom. and 14. "They may have a brilliant intellect, After graduating from Yale with a but it doesn't mean they can engagedegree in molecular biophysics and bio-Why teaching?: "As a parent, I see the enor- kids," McCarthy said. "Just because youchemistry, Davison's interest in teachingmous value in the strong relationships my have good credentials doesn't mean led him to defer the fellowship to MIT sochildren have with teachers. If you could you're going to be a good teacher." that he could teach at Phillips Academytake an awareness of how to present mate- Indeed, Lexington High School in Andover for a year. Davison eventual-rials, and infuse it with the special relation- asked two teachers with doctorates fromly went to MIT to explore science re-ships betweeri really engaged teachers and MIT to leave in the last seven years be-search and earned a master's degree instudents, I think education can be stronger cause they simply weren't good teachers, biology. and even revitalized." officials there say. "I don't feel all of the public genuine. Biggestreservation: "Theamount of mater- But overall, the qualifications ofly esteems teaching," he said. "But it's aial needed to cover for the MCAS is going these new teachers strike many old-tim7noble field, for anyone who chooses it. I to make it difficult to explore material in ers as a vote of confidence in their field. consider it a great honor to be an educa-depth." "I am so impressed With the qualitytor, and I have tremendous respect for of teachers coming in," said Andy Whe-anyone that devotes their whole life to BEST COPY AVAILABLE lahan, the head of guidance for Wellesleyclassroom teaching." 109 104 (SR)2 Selected Readings on School Reform Curriculum and Content

John Bruer, in his superb article "In Search of ...Brain-Based Education" in Phi Delta Kappan, takes on the education establishment for playing fast and loose with scientific research findings to fit its own pre-conceived notions. Specifically, Bruer questions such popular assumptions as the "educational significance of brain laterality" (right brain versus left brain) and the claim that neuroscience has established the existence of a "sensitive period" for learning in the earliest years. Next up is Sandra Stotsky's critique of reading fads that diminish basic skillssuch as phonicsin the name of multiculturalism. Writing in the School Administrator, Stotsky argues that it's a mistake for diversity goals to dominate reading instruction because it leads to such mistakes as including multiple foreign words in basal readers. Valuable time and mental energy are spent learning words students never use again. Another curricular question under debate is when to introduce students to algebra. "Educators Square Off over Algebra," reads Jay Mathews's headline in the Washington Post. We know that students who take algebra in eighth grade are more likely to select serious math and science courses in high schools and then do well in college. Yet the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and some principals, teachers, and parents are resisting this urge because of their fear that students who do poorly may damage their self-esteem and lose interest in math altogether. (Strange logic if you ask us.) Concern about self-esteem reappears in the disappearing valedictorian. More and more high schools and colleges are thinking twice before assigning class rank. Complex calculations cause hurt feelings and spawn lawsuits, explains Lawrence Muhammed in his USA TODAY article "Schools Devalue the Drive to Be Valedictorian." Can we no longer honor someone who does better than others?

DDW

105 Phi Delta Kappan, May 1999 In Search of... Brain-Based Education

zetc===acmassanntaurszsecers===cm BY JOHN T BR(JER

The "In Search of ..." television series is no way to present history, Mr Bruer points out, and the brain-based education literature is not the way to present the science of learning.

WE HAVE almost survived the Decade of the Brain. During the 1990s, government agencies, foundations, and advocacy groups engaged in a highly successful effort to raise public awareness about advances in brain research. Brain science became material for cover stories in our national newsmagazines. Increased public awareness raised educators' always simmering interest in the brain to the boiling point. Over the past five years, there have been numerous books, conferences, and entire issues of education jour- nals devoted to what has come to be called "brain-based education." Brain-based educators tend to support progressive education reforms. They decry the "factory model of education," in which experts create knowledge, teachers dis- seminate it, and students are graded on how much of it they tan absorb and retain. Like many other educators, brain-based educators favor a constructivist, active learn- ing model. Students should be actively engaged in learning and in guiding their own instruction. Brain enthusiasts see neuroscience as perhaps the best weapon with which to destroy our outdated factory model) They argue that teachers should teach for meaning and understanding. To do so, they claim, teachers should create learning en- vironments that are low in threat and high in challenge, and students should be ac- tively engaged and immersed in complex experiences. No reasonable parent or in- formed educator would take issue with these ideas. Indeed, if more schools taught for understanding and if more teachers had the resources to do so, our schools would be better learning environments. However, there is nothing new in this critique of traditional education. It is based on a cognitive and constructivistmodel of learning that is firmly rooted in more than 30 years of psychological research. Whatever scientific evidence we have for or against the efficacy of such educational approaches can be found in any current text-

[ psychology.2 None of the evidence comes from brain research. , 1 - :3 book on educational

,, it comes from cognitive and ,developmental,psychology; from the behavioral, not the ,biological, scienes; from our scientific understanding of the mind, not from our sci- , entific understanding ofthe brain. To the extent that brain-based educators' recipe for school and classroom change is well grounded in this behavioral research, their message is valuable. Teachers should know about short- and long-term memory; about primacy/recency effects;

106 1 11 The danger with much of the brain-based THE DANGER WITH MUCH OF THE education literature, as with an "In Search of..." episode, is that it becomes exceed- ingly difficult to separate the science from BRAIN-BASED EDUCATION LITERATURE the speculation, to sort what we know from what we would like to be the case. If our interest is enhancing teaching and learyi- IS THAT IT BECOMES EXCEEDINGLY ing by applying science to education, this is not the way to do it. Would we want our children to learn about the Exodus by watching "In Search of Ramses' Martian DIFFICULT TO SEPARATE THE SCIENCE Wife"? We might think of each of the numer- ous claims that brain-based educators make FROM THE SPECULATION. as similar to an "In Search of ..." episode. For each one, we should ask, Where does the science end and the speculation be- gin? I cannot do that here. So instead I'll about how procedural, declarative, andfind more compelling than the "soft" dataconcentrate on two ideas that appear prom- episodic memory differ; and about howthat come from psychological science. Butinently in brain-based education articles: prior knowledge affects our current abil-seductive appeal and a very limited brainthe educational significance of brain lat- ity to learn. But to claim that these arescience database are a dangerous combi-erality (right brain versus left brain) and "brain-based" findings is misleading. nation. They make it relatively easy to for-the claim that neuroscience has established While we know a considerable amountmulate bold statements about brain sci-that there is a sensitive period for learn- from psychological research that is perti-ence and education that are speculative ating. nent to teaching and learning, we knowbest and often far removed from neuro- much less about how the brain functionsscientific fact. Nonetheless, the allure ofLeft Brain, Right Brain: and learns.' For nearly a century, the sci-brain science ensures that these ideas will ence of the mind (psychology) developedoften find a substantial and accepting au-One More Time independently from the science of the braindience. As Joseph LeDoux, a leading au- "Right brain versus left brain" is one (neuroscience). Psychologists were inter-thority on the neuroscience of emotion,of those popular ideas that will not die. ested in our mental functions and capaci-cautioned educators at a 1996 brain andSpeculations about the educational signif- ties how we learn, remember, and think.education conference, "These ideas areicance of brain laterality have been circu- Neuroscientists were interested in how theeasy to sell to the public, but it is easy tolating in the education literature for 30 brain develops and functions. It was as iftake them beyond their actual basis in sci-years. Although repeatedly criticized and psychologists were interested only in ourence."' dismissed by psychologists and brain sci- mental software and neuroscientists only And the ideas are far-ranging indeed.entists, the speculation continues.6 David in our neural hardware. Deeply held the-Within the literature on the brain and ed-Sousa devotes a chapter of How the Brain oretical assumptions in both fields sup-ucation one finds, for example, that brainLearns to explaining brain laterality and ported a view that mind and brain could,science supports Bloom's Taxonomy, Magpresents classroom strategies that teach- and indeed should, be studied independ-eline Hunter's effective teaching, whole-ers might use to ensure that both hemis- ently. language instruction, Vygotsky's theory ofpheres are involved in learning.' Follow- It is only in the past 15 years or so thatsocial learning, thematic instruction, port-ing the standard line, the left hemisphere is these theoretical barriers have fallen. Nowfolio assessment, and cooperative learn-the logical hemisphere, involved in speech, scientists called cognitive neuroscientistsing. reading, and writing. It is the analytical are beginning to study how our neural hard- The difficulty is that the brain-basedhemisphere that evaluates factual materi- ware might run our mental software, howeducation literature is very much like a doc-al in a rational way and that understands brain structures support mental functions,udrama or an episode of "In Search of ..."the literal interpretation of words. It is a how our neural circuits enable us to thinkin which an interesting segment on Egyp-serial processor that tracks time and se- and learn. This is an exciting and new.sci-tology suddenly takes a bizarre turn thatquences and that recognizes words, let- entific endeavor, but it is also a very younglinks Tutankhamen with the alien landingters, and numbers. The right hemisphere one. As a result we know relatively littlein Roswell, New Mexico. Just where didis the intuitive, creative hemisphere. It gath- about learning, thinking, and rememberingthe episode turn from archaeological facters information more from images than at the level of brain areas, neural circuits,to speculation or fantasy? That is the samefrom words. It is a parallel processor well or synapses; we know very little about howquestion one must constantly ask whensuited forpattern recognition and spatial the brain thinks, remembers, and learns.reading about brnin-based educaticin. 'reasoning. It is the hemisphere that recog- Yet brain science has always had a se- Educators; like. all professionals, shouldniies faces, places, and objects. ductive appeal for educators.° Brain sci-be interested in knowing how basic re- According to this traditional view of ence appears to give hard biological datasearch, including brain science, might con-laterality, left-hemisphere-dominant indi- and explanations that, for some reason, wetribute to improved professional practice.viduals tend to be more verbal, more ana-

107 112 lytical, and better problem solvers. Females,ing information verbally while the righttically useful. Our folk theory can neither we are told, are more likely than males tohemisphere codes information visually. Al-explain what the brain is doing nor gener- be left-hemisphere dominant. Right-hemis-though teachers spend much time talkingate useful predictions about where novel phere-dominant individuals, more typical-(and sometimes have their students talk)tasks might be computed in the brain." Un- ly males, paint and draw well, are good atabout the learning objective, little time isfortunately, it is just such a crude folk theo- math, and deal with the visual world moregiven to developing visual cues." To en-ry that brain-based educators rely on when easily than with the verbal. Schools, Sousasure that the left hemisphere gets equalframing their recommendations. points out, are overwhelmingly left-hem-time, teachers should let students "read, Visual imagery is another example. From isphere places in which left-hemisphere-write, and compute often."10 the traditional, folk-theoretic perspective, dominant individuals, mostly girls, feel What brain scientists currently knowgenerating and using visual imagery is a more comfortable than right-hemisphere-about spatial reasoning and mental image-right-hemisphere function. Generating and dominant individuals, mostly boys. Hem-ry provides counterexamples to such sim-using visual imagery is a complex opera- ispheric dominance also explains why girlsplistic claims as these. Such claims arisetion that involves, even at a crude level of are superior to boys in arithmetic it isout of a folk theory about brain laterality,analysis, at least five distinct mental sub- linear and logical, and there is only onenot a neuroscientific one. components: 1) to create a visual image correct answer to each problem while Here are two simple spatial tasks: 1)of a dog, you must transfer long-term visu- girls suffer math anxiety when it comesdetermine whether one object is above oral memories into a temporary visual mem- to the right-hemisphere activities of alge-below another, and 2) determine whetherory store; 2) to determine if your imag- bra and geometry. These latter disciplines,two objects are more or less than one footined dog has a tail, you must zoom in and unlike arithmetic, are holistic, relational,apart. Based on our folk theory of the brain,identify details of the image; 3) to put a and spatial and also allow multiple solu-as spatial tasks both of these should beblue collar on the dog requires that you tions to problems. right-hemisphere tasks. However, if weadd a new element to your previously gen- Before we consider how, or whether,delve a little deeper, as psychologists anderated image; 4) to make the dog look the brain science supports this traditional view,neuroscientists tend to do, we see that theother way demands that you rotate your educators should be wary of claims aboutinformation-processing or computationalimage of the dog; and 5) to draw or de- the educational significance of gender dif-demands of the two tasks are different."scribe the imagined dog, you must scan ferences in brain laterality. There are tasksThe first task requires that we place ob-the visual image with your mind's eye. that psychologists have used in their stud-jects or parts of objects into broad cate- There is an abundance of neuroscien- ies that reveal gender-based differences ingories up/down or left/right but wetific evidence that this complex task is not performance. Often, however, these differ-do not have to determine how far up orconfined to the right hemisphere. There ences are specific to a task. Although malesdown (or left or right) one object is fromare patients with brain damage who can are superior to females at mentally rotatingthe other. Psychologists call this categor-recognize visual objects and draw or de- objects, this seems to be the only spatialical spatial reasoning. In contrast, the sec-scribe visible objects normally, yet these task for which psychologists have foundond task is a spatial coordinate task, inpatients cannot answer questions that re- such a difference.' Moreover, when theywhich we must compute and retain pre-quire them to generate a mental image. do find gender differences, these differ-cise distance relations between the objects.("Think of a dog. Does it have a long ences tend to be very small. If they were Research over the last decade has showntail?") These patients have long-term vi- measured on an I.Q.-like scale with a meanthat categorical and coordinate spatial rea-sual memories, but they cannot use those of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, thesesoning are performed by distinct subsys-memories to generate mental images. All gender differences amount to around fivetems in the brain.12 A subsystem in thethese patients have damage to the rear por- points. Furthermore, the range of differ-brain's left hemisphere performs categor-tion of the left hemisphere." ence within genders is broad. Many malesical spatial reasoning. A subsystem in the Studies on split-brain patients, people have better language skills than most fe-brain's right hemisphere processes coor-who have had their two hemispheres sur- males; many females have better spatialdinate spatial relationships. Although thegically disconnected to treat severe epi- and mathematical skills than most males.research does point to differences in thelepsy, allow scientists to present visual stim- The scientific consensus among psychol-information-processing abilities and bias-uli to one hemisphere but not the other. ogists and neuroscientists who conduct thesees of the brain hemispheres, those differ-Michael Gazzaniga and Kosslyn showed studies is that whatever gender differencesences are found at a finer level of analy-split-brain patients a lower-case letter and exist may have interesting consequencessis than "spatial reasoning." It makes nothen asked the patients whether the cor- for the scientific study of the brain, butsense to claim that spatial reasoning is aresponding capital letter had any curved they have no practical or instructional con-right-hemisphere task. lines." The task required that the patients sequences.' Based on research like this, Christophergenerate a mental image of the capital let- Now let's consider the brain sciencesChabris and Stephen Kosslyn, leading re-ter based on the lower-case letter they had and how or whether they offer support forsearchers in the field of spatial reasoningseen. When the stimuli were presented to some of the particular teaching strategiesand visual imagery, claim that any modelthe patients' left hemispheres, they per- Sousa recommends. To involve the rightof brain lateralization that assigns conglom-formed perfectly on the task. However, hemisphere in learning, Sousa writes, teach-erations of complex mental abilities, suchthe patients made many mistakes when the ers should encourage students to generateas spatial reasoning, to one hemisphere orletter stimuli were presented to the right and use mental imagery: "For most peo-the other, as our folk theory does, is sim-hemisphere. Likewise, brain-imaging studies ple, the left hemisphere specializes in cod-ply too crude to be scientifically or prac-of normal adult subjects performing image-

108 113 ry tasks show that both hemispheres are active in these tasks.16 Based on all theseTHE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM WITH data, brain scientists have concluded that the ability to generate visual imagery de- pends on the left hemisphere. THE RIGHT-BRAIN VERSUS One of the most accessible presentations of this research appears in Images of Mind, by Michael Posner and Mark Raichle, inLEFT-BRAIN CLAIMS IN THE which they conclude, "The common belief that creating mental imagery is a function of the right hemisphere is clearly false.""EDUCATION LITERATURE IS THAT Again, different brain areas are special- ized for different tasks, but that special- ization occurs at a finer level of analysis than "using visual imagery." Using visualTHEY RELY ON INTUITIONS AND imagery may be a useful learning strate- gy, but if it is useful it is not because it involves an otherwise underutilized rightFOLK THEORIES ABOUT THE BRAIN. hemisphere in learning. The same problem also subverts claims that one hemisphere or the other is the site of number recognition or reading skills.numbers." This simple task is already tooparts and wholes simultaneously. Rather Here is a simple number task, expressed...-complex for our folk theory to handle. For-than number comparison or categorical in two apparently equivalent ways: Whatget about algebra and geometry. spatial reasoning, the Caines provide a is bigger, two or five? What is bigger, 2 Similar research that analyzes speechmore global example: "Consider a poem, or 5? It involves recognizing number sym-and reading skills into their componenta play, a great novel, or a great work of bols and understanding what those sym-processes also shows that reading is notphilosophy. They all involve a sense of the bols mean. According to our folk theory,simply a left-hemisphere task, as our folk`wholeness' of things and a capacity to this should be a left-hemisphere task. Buttheory suggests. Recognizing speech sounds,work with patterns, often in timeless ways. once again our folk theory is too crude. decoding written words, finding the mean-In other words, the 'left brain' processes Numerical comparison involves at leastings of words, constructing the gist of aare enriched and supported by 'right brain' two mental subskills: identifying the num-written text, and making inferences as weprocesses."2° ber names and then comparing the numer-read all rely on subsystems in both brain For educators, the Caines see the two- ical magnitudes that they designate. Al-hemispheres.'9 brain doctrine as a "valuable metaphor that though we seldom think of it, we are "bi- There is another different, but equallyhelps educators acknowledge two separate lingual" when it comes to numbers. Wemisleading, interpretation of brain later-but simultaneous tendencies in the brain have number words e.g., one, two toality that occurs in the literature of brain-for organizing information. One is to re- name numbers, and we also have specialbased education. In Making Connections,duce information to parts; the other is to written symbols, Arabic numerals e.g.,Renate Caine and Geoffrey Caine are crit-perceive and work with it as a whole or a 1, 2. Our numerical bilingualism meansical of traditional "brain dichotomizers"series of wholes?"' Effective brain-based that the two comparison questions aboveand warn that the brain does not lend it-educational strategies overlook neither parts place different computational demands onself to such simple explanations. In theirnor wholes, but constantly attempt to pro- the mind/brain. Using brain-recording tech-view, the results of research on split brainsvide opportunities in which students can niques, Stanislaus Dehaene found that weand hemispheric specialization are incon-make connections and integrate parts and identify number words using a system inclusive "both hemispheres are involvedwholes. Thus the Caines number among the brain's left hemisphere, but we iden-in all activities" a conclusion that wouldtheir examples of brain-based approaches tify Arabic numerals using brain areas inseem to be consistent with what we havewhole-language instruction,27 integrated cur- both the right and left hemispheres. Onceseen in our brief review of spatial reason-ricula, thematic teaching, and cooperative we identify either the number words or theing, visual imagery, number skills, and read-learning?' Similarly, because we make con- Arabic digits as symbols for numericaling. nections best when new information is em- quantities, a distinct neural subsystem in However, following the folk theory,bedded in meaningful life events and in so- the brain's right hemisphere compares mag-they do maintain that the left hemispherecially interactive situations, Lev Vygotsky's nitudes named by the two number sym-processes parts and the right hemispheretheory of social learning should also be bols." processes wholes. In their interpretation,highly brain compatible." Even for such a simple number task asthe educational significance of laterality To the extent that one would want to comparison, both hemispheres are involved.research is that it shows that, within theview this as a metaphor, all I can say is Thus it makes no neuroscientific sense tobrain, parts and wholes always interact.that some of us find some metaphors more claim that the left hemisphere recognizesLaterality research thus provides scien-appealing than others. To the extent that numbers. Brain areas are specialized, buttific support for one of their principles ofthis is supposed to be an attempt to ground at a much finer level than "recognizingbraiwbased education: the brain processeseducational principles in brain science, the 14 109 aliens have just landed in Egypt. ries about the brain, rather than on whatscribed as `sensitive periods' or `windows Where did things go awry? Althoughbrain science is actually able to tell us. Ourof opportunity: "" Eric Jensen, in Teach- they claim that laterality research in thefolk theories are too crude and impreciseing with the Brain in Mind, also writes that sense of hemispheric localization is incon-to have any scientific, predictive, or in-"the brain learns fastest and easiest dur- clusive, the Caines do maintain the piecestructional value. What modern brain sci-ing the school years."" of our folk theory that attributes "whole"ence is telling us and what brain-based If there were neuroscientific evidence processing to the right hemisphere andeducators fail to appreciate is that itfor the existence of such a sensitive peri- "part" processing to the left hemisphere.makes no scientific sense to map gross,od, such evidence might appear to pro- Because the two hemispheres are connect-unanalyzed behaviors and skills read-vide a biological argument for the impor- ed in normal healthy brains, they concludeing, arithmetic, spatial reasoning ontotance of elementary teaching and a sci- that the brain processes parts and wholesone brain hemisphere or another. entific rationale for redirecting resources, simultaneously. It certainly does although restructuring curricula, and reforming ped- it probably is not the case that wholes and agogy to take advantage of the once-in-a- parts can be so neatly dichotomized. ForBrains Like Sponges: The Sensitive Period lifetime learning opportunity nature has example, in visual word decoding, the right given us. If teachers could understand when hemisphere seems to read words letter by A new and popular, but problematic,sensitive periods begin and end, the think- letter by looking at the parts whileidea found in the brain-based literature ising goes, they could structure curricula to the left hemisphere recognizes entire wordsthat there is a critical or sensitive periodtake advantage of these unique windows the visual word forms." in brain development, lasting until a childof opportunity. Sousa tells of an experi- But again, the parts and wholes to whichis around 10 years old, during which chil-enced fifth-grade teacher who was upset the brain is sensitive appear to occur at quitedren learn faster, easier, and with more mean-when a mother asked the teacher what she a fine-grained level of analysis catego-ing than at any other time in their lives.was doing to take advantage of her daugh- ries versus coordinates, generating versusDavid Sousa presented the claim this wayter's windows of opportunity before they scanning visual images, identifying num-in a recent commentary in Education Week,closed. Unfortunately, according to Sousa, ber words versus Arabic digits. The Caines'titled "Is the Fuss About Brain Researchthe teacher was unaware of the windows- example of part/whole interactions theJustified?" of-opportunity research. He warns, "As the left-hemisphere comprehension of a text public learns more about brain research and the right-hemisphere appreciation of As the child grows, the brain selec- through the popular press, scenes like this wholeness relates to such a highly com- tively strengthens and prunes connec- are destined to be repeated, further eroding tions based on experience. Although this plex task that involves so many parts and confidence in teachers and in schools:29 wholes at different levels of analysis that process continues throughout our lives, it seems to be most pronounced between This well-established neuroscientific it is trivially true that the whole brain is the ages of 2 and 11, as different devel- "finding" about a sensitive period for learn- involved. Thus their appeal to brain sci- opment areas emerge and taper off... . ing originated in the popular press and in ence suffers from the same problem Koss- These so-called "windows of opportu- advocacy documents. It is an instance where lyn identified in the attempts to use crude nity" represent critical periods when the neuroscientists have speculated about the theories to understand the brain. The only brain demands certain types of input to implications of their work for education brain categories that the Caines appeal to create or consolidate neural networks, and where educators have uncritically em- are parts and wholes. Then they attempt to especially for acquiring language, emo- braced that speculation. Presenting spec- understand learning and exceedingly com- tional control, and learning to play music. ulation as fact poses a greater threat to the Certainly, one can learn new informa- plex tasks in terms of parts and wholes. public's confidence in teachers and schools This approach bothers neither to analyze tion and skills at any age. But what the child learns during that window period than does Sousa's fifth-grade teacher. the brain nor to analyze behaviors. will strongly influence what is learned During 1993, the Chicago Tribune ran The danger here is that one might think after the window closes." Ron Kotulak's series of Pulitzer-Prize- that there are brain-based reasons to adopt winning articles on the new brain science. whole-language instruction, integrated cur- In a recent Educational Leadership ar-Kotulak's articles later appeared as a book ricula, or Vygotskian social learning. Thereticle, Pat Wolfe and Ron Brandt prudent-titled Inside the Brain: Revolutionary Dis- are none. Whether or not these education-ly caution educators against any quick mar-coveries of How the Mind Works. Kotulak, al practices should be adopted must be de-riage between brain science and educa-an esteemed science writer, presented the termined on the basis of the impact theytion. However, among the well-establishedfirst explicit statement that I have been have on student learning. The evideneeneuroscientific findings about which ed-able to find on the existence of a sensitive we now have on whole-language instruc-ucators can be confident, they include,period between ages 4 and 10, during which tion is at best inconclusive, and the effi-"Some abilities are acquired more easilychildren's brains learn fastest and easiest.x' cacy of social learning theory remains anduring certain sensitive periods, or `win-Variations on the claim appear in the Car- open question. Brain science contributesdows of opportunity. Later they continue,negie Corporation of New York's 1996 pub- no evidence, pro or con, for the brain-based"During these years, [the brain] also haslication, Years of Promise: A Comprehen- strategies that the Caines espouse. a remarkable ability to adapt and reorgan-sive Learning Strategy for America's Chil- The fundamental problem with theize. It appears to develop some capacitiesdren, and in Building Knowledge fora Na- right-brain versus left-brain claims thatwith more ease at this time than in thetion of Learners, published by the Office one finds in the education literature is thatyears after puberty. These stages once calledof Educational Research and Improvement they rely on our intuitions and folk theo-`critical periods' are more accurately de-of the U.S. Department of Education.31

1 10 nnn c 1 15 A /I AV 1 A report released in conjunction withcur just as all those synapses are form-all the brain areas they examined, meta- the April 1997 White House Conferenceing."" bolic levels reached adult values when chil- on Early Brain Development stated, "[B]y To be fair, these educators are not mis-dren were approximately 2 years old and the age of three, the brains of children arerepresenting Chugani's views. He has of-continued to increase, reaching rates twice two and a half times more active than theten been quoted on the existence and ed-the adult level by age 3 or 4. Resting glu- brains of adults and they stay that wayucational importance of the sensitive pe-cose uptake remained at this elevated lev- throughout the first decade of life.... Thisriod from age 4 until age 10." In a reviewel until the children were around 9 years suggests that young children particu-of his own work, published in Preventiveold. At age 9, the rates of brain glucose larly infants and toddlers are biologi-Medicine, Chugani wrote: metabolism started to decline and stabi- cally primed for learning and that these lized at adult values by the end of the teen- early years provide a unique window of The notion of an extended period dur- age years. What the researchers found, then, opportunity or prime time for learning." ing childhood when activity-dependent was a "high plateau" period for metabolic If the sensitive period from age 4 to [synapse] stabilization occurs has recent- activity in the brain that lasted from rough- age 10 is a finding about which educators ly received considerable attention by those ly age 3 to age 9. can be confident and one that justifies the individuals and organizations dealing with What is the significance of this high early intervention to provide "environ- plateau period? To interpret their findings, current fuss about brain science, we would mental enrichment" and with the optimal Chugani and his colleagues relied on ear- expect to find an extensive body of neuro- design of educational curricula. Thus, it scientific research that supports the claim. is now believed by many (including this lier research in which brain scientists had Surprisingly, brain-based enthusiasts ap- author) that the biological "window of counted synapses in samples of human peal to a very limited body of evidence. opportunity" when learning is efficient brain tissue to determine how the number In Kotulak's initial statement of the sen- and easily retained is perhaps not fully and density of synaptic connections change sitive-period claim, he refers to the brain- exploited by our educational system." in the human brain over our life spans. In imaging work of Dr. Harry Chugani, M.D., the late 1970s, Peter Huttenlocher of the at Wayne State University: "Chugani, whose Oddly, none of these articles and re-University of Chicago found that, starting imaging studies revealed that children'sports cite the single research article thata few months after birth and continuing un- brains learned fastest and easiest betweenprovides the experimental evidence thattil age 3, various parts of the brain formed the ages of 4 and 10, said these years areoriginally motivated the claim: a 1987An-synapses very rapidly.' This early, exuber- often wasted because of lack of input!'"nals of Neurology article." In that 1987ant synapse growth resulted in synaptic den- Years of Promise, the Carnegie Cor-article, Chugani and his colleagues, M. E.sities in young children's brains that were poration report, cites a speech KotulakPhelps and J. C. Mazziota, report results50% higher than the densities in mature presented at a conference on Brain De-of PET (positron emission tomography)adult brains. In humans, synaptic densities velopment in Young Children, held at thescans on 29 epileptic children, ranging inappear to remain at these elevated levels un- University of Chicago on 13 June 1996.age from five days to 15 years. Becausetil around puberty, when some mechanism Again referring to Chugani's work, Kotu-PET scans require the injection of radio-that is apparently under genetic control caus- lak said that the years from 4 to about 10active substances, physicians can scan chil-es synapses to be eliminated or pruned back "are the wonder years of learning, whendren only for diagnostic and therapeu-to the lower adult levels. a child can easily pick up a foreign lan-tic purposes; they cannot scan "normal, With this background, Chugani and his guage without an accent and learn a mu-healthy" children just out of scientific curi-colleagues reasoned as follows. There is sical instrument with ease. "34 Years of Prom-osity. Thus the 1987 study is an extremelyother evidence suggesting that maintain- ise also cites a review article published byimportant one because it was the first, ifing synapses and their associated neural Dr. Chugani that is based on remarks henot the only, imaging study that attempt-structures accounts for most of the glucose made at that Chicago conference." Rethink-ed to trace brain development from in-that the brain consumes. Their PET study ing the Brain, a report based on the Chica-fancy through adolescence. measured changes in the brain's glucose go conference, also cites the same sources, The scientists administered radioactive-consumption over the life span. Therefore, as does the U.S. Department of Educationly labeled glucose to the children and usedthey reasoned, as the density and number document. What's more, Wolfe, Brandt, andPET scans to measure the rate at whichof synapses wax and wane, so too does Jensen also cite Chugani's work in theirspecific brain areas took up the glucose.the rate of brain-glucose metabolism. This discussions of the sensitive period for learn-The assumption is that areas of the brain1987 PET study provides important in- ing. that are more active require more energydirect evidence about brain development, A 1996 article on education and theand so will take up more of the glucose.based on the study of living brains, that brain that appeared in Education WeekWhile the scans were being acquired, thecorroborates the direct evidence based on reported, "By age 4, Chugani found, ascientists made every effort to eliminate,counting synapses in samples of brain tis- child's brain uses more than twice the glu-or at least minimize, all sensory stimula-sue taken from patients at autopsy. In the cose that an adult brain uses. Between thetion for the subjects. Thus they measuredoriginal paper, the scientists stated an im- ages 4 and 10, the amount of glucose athe rate of glucose uptake when the brainportant conclusion: "Our findings support child's brain uses remains relatively sta-was (presumably) not engaged in any sen-the commonly accepted view that brain ble. But by age 10, glucose utilization be-sory or cognitive processing. That is, theymaturation in humans proceeds at least in- gins to drop off until it reaches adult lev-measured resting brain-glucose metabo-to the second decade of life."41 els at age 16 or 17. Chugani's findings sug-lism. However, if you read the 1987 paper gest that a child's peak learning years oc- One of their major findings was that, inby Chugani, Phelps, and Mazziota, you

654 PHI DELTA KAPPAN BEST COPYAVAILABLE NEITHER CHUGANI, tremendous amount of information during HIS CO-AUTHORS, the early years, most learning takes place after synaptic formation stabilizes."45 That is, a great deal, if not most, learning takes NOR OTHER NEUROSCIENTISTS place after age 10 and after pruning has. occurred. If so, we may turn into efficient general learning machines only after pu- HAVE STUDIED HOW QUICKLY OR berty, only after synaptic formation stabi- lizes and our brains are less active. Finally, the entire discussion of this pur- ported critical period takes place under an EASILY 5-YEAR-OLDS LEARN AS implicit assumption that children actual- ly do learn faster, more easily, and more deeply between the ages of 4 and 10. There OPPOSED TO 15-YEAR-OLDS. are certainly critical periods for the devel- opment of species-wide skills, such as see- ing, hearing, and acquiring a first language, but critical periods are interesting to psy- chologists because they seem to be the ex- will not find a section titled "The Rela-neuroscientific research. The claim thatception rather than the rule in human de- tionship of Elevated Brain Metabolism andthe period of high brain connectivity is avelopment. As Jacqueline Johnson and Elis- Synaptic Densities to Learning." Neithercritical period for learning, far from be-sa Newport remind us in their article on Chugani nor any of his co-authors have-ring a neuroscientific finding about whichcritical periods in language learning, "In studied how quickly or easily 5-year-oldseducators can be confident, is at best neu-most domains of learning, skill increases learn as opposed to 15-year-olds. Nor haveroscientific speculation. over development."46 other neuroscientists studied what high syn- Chugani accurately described the sci- When we ask whether children actu- aptic densities or high brain energy con-entific state of affairs in his Preventiveally do learn more easily and meaning- sumption means for the ease, rapidity, andMedicine review. He believes, along withfully than adults, the answers we get are depth of learning. some educators and early childhood ad-usually anecdotes about athletes, musicians, To connect high brain metabolism orvocates, that there is a biological windowand students of second languages. We have excessive synaptic density with a criticalof opportunity when learning is easy, ef-not begun to look at the rate, efficiency, period for learning requires some fancyficient, and easily retained. But there isand depth of learning across various age footwork or maybe more accurately,no neuroscientific evidence to support thisgroups in a representative sample of learn- sleight of hand. We know that from earlybelief. And where there is no scientific evi-ing domains. We are making an assump- childhood until around age 10, childrendence, there is no scientific fact. tion about learning behavior and then re- have extra orredundant synaptic connec- Furthermore, it would appear that welying on highly speculative brain science tions in their brains. So, the reasoning goes,have a considerable amount of researchto explain our assumption. We have a lot during this high plateau period of excessahead of us if we are to amass the evi-more research to do. brain connectivity, "the individual is giv-dence for or against this belief. Neuro- So, despite what you read in the papers en the opportunity to retain and increasescientists have little idea of how experi-and in the brain-based education literature, the efficiency of connections that, throughence before puberty affects either the tim-neuroscience has not established that there repeated use during a critical period, areing or the extent of synaptic elimination.is a sensitive period between the ages of deemed to be important, whereas connec-While they have documented that the prun-4 and 10 during which children learn more tions that are used to a lesser extent areing of synapses does occur, no reliablequickly, easily, and meaningfully. Brain- more susceptible to being eliminated?'"studies have compared differences in fi-based educators have uncritically embraced This, of course, is simply to assume thatnal adult synaptic connectivity with dif-neuroscientific speculation. the high plateau period is a critical period.ferences in the experiences of individuals The pyramids were built by aliens Linking the critical period with learn-before puberty. Nor do they know whetherto house Elvis. ing requires an implicit appeal to anoth-the animals or individuals with greater er folk belief that appears throughout thesynaptic densities in adulthood are nec- A February 1996 article in Newsweek history of the brain in education literature.essarily more intelligent and developed.on the brain and education quoted Linda This common assumption is that periodsNeuroscientists do not know if prior train-Darling-Hammond: "Our school system of rapid brain growth or high activity areing and education affect either loss or re-was invented in the late 1800s, and little optimal times, sensitive periods, or win-tention of synapses at puberty." has changed. Can you imagine if the med- dows of opportunity for learning." We get Nor do neuroscientists know how learn-ical profession ran this way?"47 Darling- from Chugani's important brain-imaginging is related to changes in brain metabo-Hammond is right. Our school system must results to a critical period for learning vialism and synaptic connectivity over ourchange to reflect what we now know about two assumptions, neither of which is sup-lifetimes. As the developmental neurobi-teaching, learning, mind, and brain. To the ported by neuroscientific data, and nei-ologist Patricia Goldman-Rakic told edu-extent that we want education to be a re- ther of which has even been the object ofcators, "While children's brains acquire asearch-based enterprise, the medical pro-

656 PHI DELTA KAPPAN 112 117 fession provides a reasonable model. We7. David A. Sousa,How the Brain Learns: A Class-mental Nonlinearity and Developmental Patholo- gies," in R. W. Thatcher et al., eds.,Developmenta. the room Teacher's Guide(Reston, Va.: National Asso- can only be thankful that members of ciation of Secondary School Principals, 1995). Neuroimaging(San Diego: Academic Press, 1996). medical profession are more careful in ap-8. M. C. Linn and A. C. Petersen, "Emergence andpp. 187-95. plying biological research to their profes-Characterization of Sex Differences in Spatial Abil-36. Debra Viadero, "Brain Trust,"Education Week, sional practice than some educators are inity: A Meta-Analysis,"Child Development,vol. 56, 18 September 1996, pp. 31-33. applying brain research to theirs. 1985, pp. 1470-98. 37.Better Beginnings(Pittsburgh: Office of Child We should not shrug off this problem.9. Sally Springer and Georg Deutsch,Left Brain,Development, University of Pittsburgh, 1997); A. Right Brain(New York: W. H. Freeman, 1993). DiCresce, "Brain Surges," 1997, available on the It is symptomatic of some deeper prob- 10. Sousa, pp. 95, 99. Web at www.med.wayne.edu/wmp97/brain.htm; lems about how research is presented to11. Christopher F. Chabris and Stephen M. Koss -and Lynell Hancock, "Why Do Schools Flunk Bi- educators, about what educators find com- lyn, "How Do the Cerebral Hemispheres Contributeology?,"Newsweek,19 February 1996, pp. 58-59. pelling, about how educators evaluate re- to Encoding Spatial Relations?,"Current Directions38. Harry Chugani, "A Critical Period of Brain De- in Psychology, vol.7, 1998, pp. 8-14. velopment: Studies of Cerebral Glucose Utilization search, and about how professional de- vol. 27, 1998, pp. 12. Ibid. with PET,"Preventive Medicine, velopment time and dollars are spent. The 184-88. 13. Ibid. "In Search of .." series is a television pro- 39. Harry T. Chugani, M. E. Phelps, and J. C. Maz- Visual Agnosias(Cambridge, Mass.: 14. Martha Farah, ziota, "Positron Emission Tomography Study of Hu- gram that provides an entertaining mix ofMIT Press, 1991). man Brain Function Development,"Annals of Neu- fact, fiction, and fantasy. That can be an 15. Stephen M. Kosslyn et al., "A Computational rology,vol. 22, 1987, pp. 487-97. amusing exercise, but it is not always in-Analysis of Mental Image Generation: Evidence 40. Peter R. Huttenlocher, "Synaptic Density in Hu- from Functional Dissociations in Split-Brain Pa- structive. The brain-based education liter- man Frontal Cortex Developmental Changes of tients,"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Gen- ature represents a genre of writing, most Aging,"Brain Research,vol. 163, 1979, pp. 195- eral,vol. 114, 1985, pp. 311-41. 205; Peter R. Huttenlocher et al., "Synaptogenesis often appearing in professional education16. Stephen M. Kosslyn et al., "Two Types of Im- publications, that provides a popular mix in Human Visual Cortex Evidence for Synapse age Generation: Evidence for Left and Right Hemis-Elimination During Normal Development,"Neuro- Neuropsychologia,vol. 33, 1995, of fact, misinterpretation, and specula-phere Processes," science Letters,vol. 33, 1982, pp. 247-52; Peter R. tion. That can be intriguing, but it is notpp. 1485-1510. Huttenlocher and Ch. de Courten, "The Develop- always informative. "In Search of ..." is17. Michael I. Posner and Mark E. Raichle,Imagesment of Synapses in Striate Cortex of Man,"Human no way to present history, and the brain-of Mind(New York: Scientific American Library,Neurobiology,vol. 6, 1987, pp. 1-9; and Peter R. 1994), p. 95. based education literature is not the way Huttenlocher and A. S. Dabliolkar, "Regional Dif- 18. Stanislaus Dehaene, "The Organization of Brainferences in Synaptogenesis in Human Cerebral Cor- to present the science of learning. Activations in Number Comparison," Journalof Cog- tex,"Journal of Comparative Neurology,vol. 387, nitive Neuroscience,vol. 8, 1996, pp. 47-68. 1997, pp. 167-78. 1. Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine,Mak- 19. Mark Jung Beeman and Christine Chiarello, "Com-41. Chugani, Phelps, and Mazziota, p. 496. ing Connections: Teaching and the Human Brainplementary Right- and Left-Hemisphere Language42. Chugani, "Neuroimaging of Developmental Non- (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1994); idem, "Build-Comprehension,"Current Directions in Psycholo-linearity," p. 187. ing a Bridge Between the Neurosciences and Edu-gy, vol.7, 1998, Pp. 2-7. 43. Heiman T. Epstein, "Growth Spurts During Brain cation: Cautions and Possibiliti es,"NASSPBulletin,20. Caine and Caine, p. 37. Development: Implications for Educational Policy vol. 82, 1998, pp. 1-8; Eric Jensen,Teaching with 21. Ibid., p. 91. and Practice," in S. Chall and A. F. Mirsky, eds.,Edu- the Brain in Mind(Alexandria, Va.: Association for22. Ibid., pp. 9, 48, 91. cation and the Brain(Chicago: University of Chica- Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1998);23. Ibid., pp. 127-30. go Press, 1978), pp. 343-70; and Chipman, op. cit. and Robert Sylwester, ACelebration of Neurons 24. Ibid., PP. 47-48. 44. Patricia S. Goldman-Rakic, Jean-Pierre Bour- (Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and 25. Beeman and Chiarello, op. cit. geoii, and Pasko Rakic, "Synaptic Substrate of Cog- Curriculum Development, 1995). 26. David A. Sousa, "Is the Fuss About Brain Re-nitive Development: Synaptogenesis in the Pre- 2. See, for example, Michael Pressley and C. B. Mc- search Justified?,"Education Week,16 Decemberfrontal Cortex of the Nonhuman Primate," in N. A. Cormick,Advanced Educational Psychology for Ed- .- 1998, p. 35. Krasnegor, G. R. Lyon, and P. S. Goldman-Rakic, ucators, Researchers, and Policymakers(New York: 27. Pat Wolfe and Ron Brandt, "What Do We KnowDevelopment of the Prefrontal Cortex: Evolution, HarperCollins, 1995). (Baltimore: Paul H. from Brain Research?,"Educational Leadership,Neurobiology, and Behavior Schools for Thought: A Science of 3. John T. Bruer, November 1998, p. 12. Brooks, 1997), pp. 27-47. Learning in the Classroom(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT 28. Jensen, p. 32. 45.Bridging the Gap,p. 11. Press, 1993); and idem, "Education and the Brain: 46. Jacqueline S. Johnson and Elissa L. Newport, A Bridge Too Far,"Educational Researcher,No-29. Sousa, "Is the Fuss About Brain Research Jus- tified?," p. 35. "Critical Period Effects on Universal Properties," vember 1997, pp. 4-16. Cognition,vol. 39, 1991, p. 215. 30. Ronald Kotulak,Inside the Brain: Revolution- 4. Susan F. Chipman, "Integrating Three Perspec- 47. Hancock, p. 59. NC tives on Learning," in Sarah L. Friedman, Kennethary Discoveries of How the Mind Works(Kansas A. Klivington, and R. W. Peterson, eds.,The Brain, City: Andrews McMeel, 1996), p. 46. Cognition, and Education(Orlando, Fla.: Academ- 31.Years of Promise: A Comprehensive Learning Ott Or, :Thoughts' ic Press, 1986), pp. 203-32. Strategy for America's Children(New York: Car- tom, 5.Bridging the Gap Between Neuroscience and Ed- negie Corporation of New York, 1996), pp. 9-10; I 00;'brief; ucation: Summary of a Workshop Cosponsored byand Office of Educational Research and Improve- the Education Commission of the States and thement,Building Knowledge for a Nation of Learn- A30;Minuteiicleo In which John Charles A. Dana Foundation(Denver: Education ers(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Educa- Commission of the States, 1996), p. 5. tion, 1996). Bruer follOws:Up`On Rethinking the Brain: New Insights 6. Chipman, op. cit.; Howard Gardner,Art, Mind,32. Rima Shore, mai a61e' f rom P De ta Kappa and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity(Newinto Early Development(New York: Families and Work Institute, 1997.), pp. 21, 36. International. at 890/7,66-1 1 56,-- York: Basic Books, 1982); Mike Rose, "Narrowing v vx> the Mind and Page: Remedial Writers and Cogni-33. Kotulak, p. 46. -$19 95 Members tive Reductionism,"College Composition and Com- 34. Ronald Kotulak, "Learning How to Use the Brain," zg 95 Nonmembers. munication,vol. 39, 1988, pp. 267-302; and Jerre 1996, available on the Web at http://www.newhori- Levy, "Right Brain, Left Brain: Fact and Fiction,"zons.org/oft ;lcsebrain.html. Product'Code FT. 599; Psychology Today,May 1985, p. 38. 35. Harry of "Neuroimaging of Develop-

113 MAY 1000 4C7 School Administrator, May 1999

Multicultural Literacy Schools' treatment of diversity places students into categoriesand applies ineffectual learning methods to these stereotypes

By SANDRA STOTSKY

The meaning of the word "diversity" has been in which the children or grandchildren of early badly abused in recent decades. American 20th century immigrants were as numerousas the educators have long honored diversity in the only children of those whose families had lived in the educationally meaningful sense of the word-- town for several hundred years. individual difference. As children, we all knew each others' For generations teachers were trained to look at backgrounds. We knew who spoke Italian, students as individuals. Each student was Armenian, Greek, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Polish supposedly endowed with a different combination or French Canadian in their home. We knew of talents, abilities, interests and opinions. There which families attended the local Catholic church, is no question that this way of understanding one of the many Protestant churches in town or diversity created strong positive educational the synagogue in a neighboring city. But notone outcomes and could continue to do so. Intellectual of my teachers, in my presence, ever denigrated or social conformity has never been an American our ethnic, linguistic or religious backgrounds. trait. Indeed, what they emphasized was something all our parents wanted them to stress. All of us, we But in an Orwellian transformation of the were told repeatedly, were American citizens. meaning of the word, diversity has come to mean And we were individual American citizens, not looking at a student as a representative of a Lithuanian Americans, Irish Americans and so on, particular demographic category. It nowconveys even though our parents may have belonged to the the erroneous notion that, for example, all girls local Lithuanian, Polish or Italian social clubor think and learn in one way, all boys in anotheror read an Armenian or Polish newspaper. We were that all black students think and learn inone way, not classified into racial or ethnic categories for all Asians in another, all white students in yet any purpose. another. To see students as members of a particular racial category or "culture" (to use Yes, there was prejudice in America. Why should current educational jargon), rather than as unique this country be different from the others? But we individuals, makes all the difference in the world. all knew from our families there was even more prejudice elsewhere in the world, especially in Few positive outcomes are possible in an those countries from which our families had educational system that slots all students into come. Furthermore, the prejudice here was not spurious racial categories and then attaches just in those families who had been here for fictitious ways of thinking, learning and knowing generations, it was also in the newcomers. to each. The result is not the elimination of stereotypes but the freezing of them. Every group had its own prejudices toward outsiders, as we all learned through experience, Classified by Category We always have had and it didn't bother us much. It was just another different races and ethnic groups in our schools, one of life's many hurdles to surmount. What was although not in the same numbers or kinds in all more important was that we all lived under the schools. I grew up in a small Massachusetts town same set of laws as American citizens. These were

114 119 ideals, to be sure, not always realities, but they can be seen in just the listing of restaurants in a were official ideals with teeth behind them,and telephone directory for any city in this country. we learned that they could be appealed to or Almost all of the various European ethnic groups I drawn on, as women found in the early part of the grew up with have been excluded. Insteadof the century in gaining the right to vote or as court real America, we find a highly shrunken decisions and civil rights legislation showed us in mainstream culture in most series, surrounded by the 1950s and 1960s. Native Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans and Hispanics, none of whom seem to Fortunately for us, our teachers didn't subject us to interact much with each other. endless lessons on tolerance and on how to be respectful of each other's "culture." They simply Nor do today's readers give children an informed modeled tolerance for us and dealt, briefly, with understanding of the real world within which they problematic incidents whenever they arose in live. Nowhere do children read about the first school. We were thus able to spend most airplane flight, the first transatlantic flight, the of our school time on academic matters. Our main first exploration of space, the discovery of responsibility was to go to school every day, to be penicillin or the polio vaccine or how such respectful of our teachers and to do our inventions as the light bulb, radio, telegraph, homework. steamboat, telephone, sewing machine, phonograph or radar came about. Apparently, It's true we didn't see our home cultures in what accounts of these significant discoveries or we read in school, but we identifiedwith each inventions have been banished from students' other as American citizens, something we and our common knowledge because most portraythe parents were proud to be, despite our country's accomplishments of white males. flaws. We probably would have welcomed attempts at a realistic curriculum that included But without the stories about the pioneers in more information or literature on the many science and technology (a few of whom were immigrant groups in this country, as well as on the females, like Marie Curie), both boys and girls are African Americans and Native Americans, but unlikely to acquire a historically accurate only if it did not end up making it more difficult timeframe for sequencing the major discoveries for us to learn how to read and write English or that have shaped their life today. The greater loss giving us a warped or dishonest view of our own is that of an educational role model. The current country and the larger world within which we substitutes for these stories in the readers--stories live. about people who have overcome racism or sexism or physical disabilities--are unlikely to Negative Connotations It is highly ironic that give children insights into the power of multiculturalism has evolved as an educational intellectual curiosity in sustaining perseverance or philosophy from its original and positive meaning the role of intellectual gratification in rewarding of inclusion to mean something very negative, this perseverance. especially for us. This was one of the major findings of my research on the contents of all Wayward Literacy The most visible problem I the grade 4 and grade 6 readers in six leading found in the readers is at the level of language basal reading series, published between 1993 and itself. The kinds of selections now featured in the 1995, as reported in Losing Our Language. readers make it almost impossible for children to develop a rich, literate vocabulary in English over Rather than broadening students' horizons about the grades. In some series, children must learn a the ethnic diversity of this country, today's version dazzling array of proper nouns, words for the of multiculturalism has led to the suppression of mundane features of daily life, words for ethnic the stories of most immigrant groups to this foods in countries around the world and other country. Overall, the selections in these readers non-English words, most of which contribute little convey the picture of an almostmonolithic white if anything to the development of their world, with none of the real ethnic divers competence in the English language.

115 name of building self-esteem and group identity. For example, consider this paragraph near the end But using precious class time for frequent of a story in a grade 4 reader: "In thewee hours of conversations about intellectually barren topics the morning, the family made a circle around that draw on intellectually limited vocabularies Grandma Ida, Beth and Chris. Grandma Idagave deprives the very students who most need it of the tamshi la tutaonana: Tin this new year letus opportunities to practice using the lexical building continue to practice umoja, kujichagulia, ujima, blocks necessary for conceptual growth and ujamaa, nia, kuumba and imani. Let us strive to do analytical thinking. something that will last as long as the earth turns and water flows. '" The present version of multiculturalism may well be largely responsible, through its effects on Or consider this sentence in another grade 4 classroom materials and instruction, for the reader: "The whole family sat under wide trees growing gap between the scores of minority and ate arroz con gandules, pernil, viandas and students and other students on the National tostones, ensalada de chayotes y tomates and Assessment of Educational Progress examinations pasteles." in reading.

Or these sentences in a grade 6 reader: "On the We need public discussions of the goals that engawa after dinner, Mr. Ono said to Mitsuo, should dominate reading instruction. Do we want 'Take Lincoln to the dojo. You are not too tired, teachers absorbed with the development of their are you, Lincoln-kun? '" children's egos, intent on shaping their feelings about themselves and others in specific ways? Or Not only are children in this country unlikely to do we want teachers to concentrate on developing see any of these Swahili, Spanish or Japanese their children's minds, helping them acquire the words in any of their textbooks in science, knowledge, vocabulary and analytical skills that mathematics or history, they are unlikely to see enable them to think for themselves and to choose them in any other piece of literature as well. They the kind of personal identity they find most have wasted their intellectual energy not only meaningful? learning their meaning but also learning how to pronounce them. It is not clear why these Sandra Stotsky is a research associate with the academically useless words, some of which are Philosophy of Education Research Center at the italicized, some not, are judged to be of Harvard University Graduate School of importance by contemporary teacher educators. Education, Appian Way, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. E-mail: [email protected]. She is the These educators also seem to think that children author of Losing Our Language: How should spend a considerable amount of class time Multicultural Classroom Instruction Is engaged in conversations with each other about Undermining Our Children's Ability to Read, each other's ethnic cultures and daily lives--in the Write and Reason.

121 116 The Washington Post, April 19, 1999

Proponents of early algebra say it is unfair to steer students away from the math-science trackbefore they have even entered high school. TomNuttall, Educators math coordinator for Fairfax schools, said hisgoal is for every student in the county to completealgebra by the eighth grade, although he knows that many teachers, principals and parents feel otherwise, Square Off "Politically, we are not ready for that right now," he said, "but if we are serious aboutcompeting internationally, we cannot think of anything less." Over Algebra About 25 percent of students nationwide take algebra before high school. In the Parents Also Join Debate Washington area, the figures range from 21 percent in Anne Arundel On Value of Earlier Lessons C,ounty to 45 percent in Fairfax. Despite the general movement By JAY MATHEWS toward earlier exposure to algebra, Washington Post Staff Writer only. five. Washington area sys- Jackie Lewis's daughter, Denise, had always done tems-Lthe District and Arlirigton, well in math, so Lewis was surprise when the Fairfax,Charles and Fauquier principal at Denise's elementary school in Montgom- countiesautomatically enroll a ery County declined to put the girl on a track to take middleschoolstudentinthe high school algebra in the seventh grade. course if ,a parent requests it. In The first step would be for Denise to pass a test to many districts, school officials' de- get into a pre-algebra course in sixth grade. That cisions are influenced heavily by kind of acceleration was just not done, the principal students' scores on pre-algebra said. She -would not recommend Denise for the tests. exam. But Lewis pesisted, and in seventh grade, her Some parent groups, such as the daughter completed algebra at the top of her class at Gifted and Talented Association of Tilden Middle School. 'Despite the school system's qualms, "I knew that Montgomery County, have criti- she was in the right place," said Lewis, whose cized local school administrators daughter is now a ninth-grader. for placing too many barriers in the Lewis had good reason to push for her daughter to path,of aildren who want to take take algebra before high school, many education the course early. researchers say. Several recent studies have conclud- , Charles K. Walsh, supervisor of ed that algebra is a crucial gateway to more rigorous nAth, instruction in St. Mary's math and science courses in high school and Courtly, said he wants to increase collegeand that those who haven't learned it by algebraenrollmentinmiddle eighth grade are less likely to have a successful schdol,.. bUt within reason. Hewor- career in medicine, engineering, computer program- nes about the effects of failure on ming and other scientific fields. young students already fearful of In response to such research, many school sys- is and y'S. tems in the Washington area and throughout the 4.14 that it is better for them country are rapidly expanding their seventh- and to do it "When they can do it well eighth-grade algebra classes and are introducing more algebra concepts in elementary school. Fairfax and. master it rather than get frus- County, for example, had45 percent of its eighth- Itated and turn off of mathemat- graders complete first-year algebra last year, com- hesaid. pared with 27 prcent in 1993. ..'Aniong many educators; how- But the trend has sparked widespread debate. ever', .concerns about youthful dis- Some parents and teachers worry that many chil- ap'poinbrient have been shoved dren will fail algebra if they take it early and then will aside byaSeries orreports suggest- lose interest in math. And a committee of the ihg :American children are Reston-based National Council of Teachers of Math- heloW 4here they should be in ematics last year recommended against teaching absorbing complex math concepts. algebra to middle schoolers, warning thatsuch The Third International Mathe- acceleration and specialization can have negative matids -andScienceStudy consequences for children." (TDISS), an exam given to stu- 122 117 dents -in 41 countries in 1994, showed U.S. eighth-graders scor- ing below the world average. U.S. scores were even lower among 12th-graders taking the test. Researchers who reviewed the Getting a Jump on Algebra TIMSS results concluded that U.S. elementary schools were covering The figures below show what percentage of the students math topics too lightly and too who finished eighth grade in 1998 in Washington area repetitively compared with Euro- school systems had completed first-year algebra. The pean and Asian schools. They also chart also shows which school systems automatically said U.S. middle schools had to teach algebra or students would enroll children in algebra in the eighth grade if their not have enough time in high parents request it. school to advance to calculus, which is taken by about only 5 School system Eighth-graders Automatically enroll percent of American high school completing algebra at parent's request students but is common in second- D.C. 36 percent Yes ary schools overseas. Vaiious studies also have shown Alexandria 23 percent No that 'students who take algebra Arlington 25 percent No before high school score higher on Fairfax 45 percent Yes the math portion of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and are Fauquier 36 percent Yes more' likely to be admitted to a Lot clOun 42 percent No selective college. Prince William 34 percent No The TIMSS study led the Ameri- can Federation of Teachers last Stafford 25 percent No summer to recommend a national, Aone'Arundel 21 percent No voluntary math test for eighth- Calvert 31 percent No graders with "much more algebra Charles and geometry than. . ..currently 25 percent* Yes contained in our curriculum." The Frederick 39 percent No California state school board has Howard 30 to 35 percent* set a goal for all eighth-graders to No learn algebra, and several states, St. Mary's 25 to 30 percent* No including Virginia, now require Montgomery 33 percent No students to take statewide tests in Prince George's 30 percent algebra in middle or high school. No

Leading the other side of the *School officials' estimate SOURCE: Washington area school systems debate is the committee of the THE WASHINGTON POST National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. In its draft report dents to have early algebraso they eighth grade. For those eighth- released in October, the committee could better understand concepts graders who are not ready for a full said algebra classesin middle in chemistry and physics. But dose of the subject, he has institut- school were a bad ideanot be- some question the quality of math ed a two-year algebra course that is cause of the danger of high failure instruction in middle school. taught at half-speed and completed rates but because students would "I've been dismayed at the alge- at the end of ninth grade. Teachers miss out on other kinds of math. bra of many of my students,even can move students in the slower "Students are likely to have less many taking calculus," said Jim course to the fast one if they seem opportunity to learn the full range Jarvis, chairman of the Science to be doing well in the first few of mathematics content, especially Department at Fairfax's Chantilly weeks. topics in geometry and data analy- High School. "It is as if the system In Arlington, the entire math sis, that are expected in the middle is more interested in getting the curriculum has been redrawn in grades," the report said. It recom- right word on the transcript rather the last year to introduce algebraic mended filling all middle school than ensuring that the students ideas in elementary school and to math classes with some algebraic know anything well." build skills for more success in concepts. Nuttall, the Fairfax math coordi- eighth-grade algebra, math coordi- RichardL.Rose,Loudoun nator, said he hears complaints nator Pat Robertson said. But, she County's supervisor for math and from teachers about the quality of said, she is worried about pushing science instruction, scoffs at that work in expanded middle school too hard and too fast. advice. "It is like teaching someone algebra classes. But it is their job to "We have this philosophy that to drive by showing them one year make it better, he said. we have algebra for everyone, but I what a tire is and the next year In Loudoun, 42 percent of last am concerned about it being every- what the engine is," Rose said. year's eighth-graders had complet- one before they get to the ninth "Algebra is not a mystical subject. ed algebra, a jump from 17 percent grade," she said. "How many kids It does not have to be taught that in 1992. Rose said he wants to get are we going to lose because it is so delicately." every child into algebra by the over their heads?" Many high school science teach- ers say they would like more stu- 1 1 8 123 The USA Today,April 5, 1999

Schools devalue the drive tobe valedictorian

Claiming she'd been cheated out of the title, her parents Complex calculations cause mounted a failed court chal- lenge that pitted lassie's class- hurt feelings, spawn lawsuits mates against one another and divided the town. But some educators worry that "The whole issue has gotten By Lawrence Muhammed out of hand," says Charles USA TODAY singling out the top achievers diminishes the accomplish- Sykes, author of Dumbing Ricky Steelman wasments of others. Down Our Kids: Why Ameri- bald in patches from Also,thecriteria have can Kids Feel Good About alopecia his freshmanchanged. Valedictorian once Themselves but Can't Read, year of high school.signified mastery of a high Write, or Add (St.Martin's school's coursework as graded Press, $14.95). "In some ways, He had no friends. this is the academic version of "I had no eyelashes or eye-on a 4-point scale. Now honors and college courses can boost Little League parents from brows," says Steelman, 17, a hell. But frankly, valedictorians senior at Oak Hills High School GPAs to 8 and above. And administrators say the and salutatorians are among near Cincinnati. "I was called the relatively few coveted hon- names like 'Mr. Clean.' It was a complicated formulas to de- cide the head of the class in- orsfor students who study real rough time." hard. And we're eliminating His big dream was to be the volve too many variables. "The valedictorian of the seniorreason some schools move them because we're afraid that away from valedictorian titles the kids who don't win will feel class. "I set that as a goal for 0' bad. Or we're blaming competi- myself, an honor I could striveis that students take different- for," he says, "that no matterlevel academic courses that are tion. I think that's a mistake." very rigorous, and to weigh With tracking programs, what I looked like or what any- honor rolls and college apti- one called me, they couldn't those equally becomes difficult at times," says John Lammel, tude tests under scrutiny, the take that away." challengetovaledictorians Or so he thought. director of high school services for the National Association of may come as no surprise. In a policy change thiS year, But some of the most bitter Oak Hills no longer recognizes Secondary School Principals. Oak Hills changed its pro- valedictorian conflicts involve valedictorians and salutatori- the extra weight given honors ans, though Steelman's hard-gram last year after naming a valedictorian who was second and college courses and wheth- earned 7.461 GPA is first out of er they count a separate 663 students in his class. in the class. The student with problem, says Gary Crosby He'll still get special recog-the best grades, who already Brasor, associate director for nition, but as one of 15 academ-had enough graduation credits, took more classes at the Uni- theNational Association of ic achievers with grade point Scholars, an education reform averages of 3.9 or above. versityof Cincinnati senior year than at Oak Hills and was ,41 group. "It used to be in high Says Jim Williamson, the By Von Pozner. The Cinonnan Enquerer school you had a perfect grade principal: "If other people are disqualified. of 4.0. Then they said 4 is the performing well academically, "I. didn't take any college Pomp and bad circumstances: Oak Hills (Ohio) High senior Ricky courses because I knew it could Steelman worked hard to become valedictorian but lost the chance. best you can do except when why not honor a larger group? you do a 5. That's obviously go- What we've tried to do is ex-cause problems," Steelman ing to lead to disappointment, says."I stayed loyal to myseveral students taking Ad-ings, and the other students pand that number." would know what we scored,"acrimony and anger. In any Typically,thetop studentschool. Now I'm being pun-vanced Placement courses sur- passed her in grade rankings. says Davis, now a sophomore atsphere, and not limited to aca- would be named valedictorian,ished." demics, you're going to have a title that comes with schol- Some driven students vying A Long Island, N.Y., senior the University of Northern Col- to be No. 1 are taking the con- battled in state court in 1996 af- orado. "They'd say, 'Shane's up difficulty if you don't have a sta- arship eligibility in many pro- ble measurement." grams. But schools across the tests to court. ter her high school changed its5%' or 'l'assie's up 5%.' We policy and counted grade pointhung out in the same groups Students involved say the ti- country are knocking them off A student in Snyder, Texas, tle of valedictorian is still worth their lofty perch. Rockford, Ill.,challenged the title co-valedic-averages in the second semes-and were pretty close." ter of the senior year instead of Up until the third quarter of shootingfor. "What my old public schools no longer recog-torian in federal court in 1995 school is going to do now is hon- nize them. Neither do two-because she was ineligible forthe first, denying her the top senior year. honor. She had a cumulative That's when Davis wasor the top 10%, which isn't the thirds of the public schools instate-fundedcollegetuition same as the best," Davis says. available to the valedictorian score of 95.62: the other studentcrushed to learn that college Montgomery County, Md. courses she was taking, paid "Valedictorian was showing us Some schools in Californiaonly. The judge ruled against had 95.67. we always had to strive for the have multiple valedictorians, her in what was the first suit of How can academic rivalry for by the high school because its kind in the state. get this serious? Consider theshe'd earned enough credits to best." while others have none. graduate, had hurt her chances "It's an honor to be in the The schools in Jefferson Par- Parents of a White House, case of Cassie Davis in Nunn, Colo., last year. Since middle for valedictorian. Olympics," Steelman says, "but ish, outside New Orleans, areTenn., senior expecting saluta- they're all striving for the gold considering cum laude titlestorian honors in 1997 tried toschool, she and Shane Dan- "They pulled us in the princi- ielson had competed to be thepal's office and said Shane had medal. Valedictorian is like the for dozens of honors graduates. stop publication of the year- gold medal of academics in book and demanded a publicsmartest kid in class. come out ahead by one one- At most schools, public and hundredth of a point," she says. high school." private, the tradition continues. apology to their daughter after "We would look at class rank- BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 1 24 19 (S R)2 Selected Readings on School Reform Higher Education

Affirmative action again dominates the higher education news. First, James Traub follows the "Class of Prop. 209" in his New York Times Magazine piece. He discovers that California campuses are "managing to maintain diversity without racial set-asides." As predicted, the state's premier public campusesBerkeley and UCLAsaw minority enrollment cut in half; but many of the students declined by Berkley and UCLA were admitted at less selective U.C. campuses, such as Irving, Riverside and Santa Cruz. Greater outreach to minority students is another of Prop. 209's outcomes: "U.C. campuses are now reaching down into the high schools, the junior highs and even the elementary schools to help minority students achieve the kind of academic record that will make them eligible for admission, thus raising the possibility that diversity without preferences will someday prove to be more than a fond hope." California's approach may soon be illegal if the Clinton Administration has its way. A new federal civil rights regulation being floated among higher education officials would disallow standardized tests as the primary factor for acceptance into colleges if they have a "disparate impact" on various racial groups. In U.S. News & World Report, John Leo opines that this measure is "an attempt to decapitate traditional assessments of merit at a single stroke and push the colleges to accept large numbers of applicants that are well below their standards." Others call it "bureaucratic terrorism." Next, James Bowman, writing in the National Review, poses the question: "Do too many students go to college?" His answer: Yes. Citing studies indicating that graduates gain little advancement from their time in college, Bowman concludes that too much attention and money is directed towards funding students to go to college to learn thingslike readingthat they should have learned in high school. He concludes that not everyone is cut out for college and, moreover, that college isn't all it's cracked up to be. Kathy Morgan disagrees. Profiled by Robert Suskind in the Wall Street Journal, she is the college counselor at All Hallows High School in the South Bronx who had a 100% college acceptance rate last year and is attempting a repeat performance. Although many of her students need remedial education once in college, Morgan is confident that they benefit academically and otherwise from attending college. Hence her determination to get themevery last one of theminto college.

DDW

1 2 5 121 The New York Times Magazine, May 2,1999

THE CLASS OF PROP. 209 In the wake of affirmative action, campuses in California are managing to maintain diversity without racial set-asides. This will satisfy.neither liberals nor conservatives, but it's looking a lot like the future.

BY JAMES TRAUB Photographs by Gail Albert Halaban

THE CAMPUS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY IN SPRINGTIME IS about as close to Shangri-La as most mortals are likely to get. When I paid a visit last month, the dogwoods and the cherry trees were in splendid bloom, and the broad, sunny plaza in front of the Mario Savio Steps at Sproul Hall was jammed with stu- dents. I had arrived during campaign season, and kids were milling around the plaza holding placards and bedsheets promising better, wiser, bolder student government. Berkeley must be one of the few universities with standing political parties, and several of the parties had set up booths. One of the loneliest of them, never staffed by more than a student or two, belonged to the Defend Affirmative Action Party. A year earlier, when the ban on the use of affirmative action enacted by the Board of Regents of the university and confirmed by voters in Proposition 209 went into effect, freshman minor- ity enrollment at Berkeley had been cut by half. Conservatives had got their wish, but it had led to precisely the disaster predicted by affirmative action's backers. It wouldn't have been surpris- ing, then, if preferences were a roaring issue on campus. I asked a student if the Defend Affirma- tive Action Party had a chance of winning a seat in this spring's elections in the student govern- ment. He consulted a friend. "Not really," he said. A poll taken at the time of Prop. 209 showed that in fact most students opposed affirmative action. Across the plaza, one of the most popular parties, Calserve, was handing out fliers urging stu- dents to vote yes on Proposition 3, which, by contrast, was considered a shoo-in. It called for stu- dent fees to be increased by $3 in order to support outreach efforts to increase the flow of minority students from local high schools. Berkeley students, in turns out, are like most Americans: they want diversity without the zero-sum calculus that inevitably accompanies affirmative action. Ending affirmative action on campus has had many fewer nightmarish effects in California than you might have thought from the initial returns. Many, though scarcely all, of the minority

126 122 students who didn't get in to Berkeley or master plan, the top eighth of graduates in the himself. But thanks to a campus-based program U.C.L.A. the first year after Prop. 209 was pas- state are eligible to enroll in one of the U.C. for minority students, Wright had spent parts of sed enrolled instead at one of the less selectivecampuses; the top third may attend one of the the summers after his sophomore and junior U.C. campuses, including Irvine, Santa Cruz Cal State colleges, and the remainder can enroll years in high school on the Riverside campus, and Riverside a phenomenon known in thein junior college and eventually transfer to a where he worked on science projects with a pro- affirmative action world as "cascading." What's four-year institution (though few actually do). fessor, and that heady experience had sold him more, thanks to some deft fiddling with admis- In recent years, however, as increasing numbers on the school. sions criteria, Berkeley found that the zero-sum of high-school graduates have trained their "I think I am more prepared in terms of grad- calculus was not quite as inexorable as it seemed. sights on Berkeley and U.C.L.A., the U.C. uate school than I would have been if I had gone In early April, the admissions office announced system has developed a meritocratic ladder of its to U.C.L.A.," Wright said. "Some of the profes- that Berkeley had admitted 30 percent more mi- own. The campuses at the bottom, including sors there are not necessarily as humble as they nority students than it had the year before. Ap- Santa Cruz and Riverside, accept all U.C.-eligi- are here." The accepted wisdom on campus was parently it takes a year to get the fiddling right, ble students, but you have to be in the upper that U.C.L.A. was so big and overcrowded and since Boa lt Hall, Berkeley's law school, expe- third of that group in the top 4 percent of the the professors so unapproachable that students rienced a comparable jump in its second post- state to make it into Berkeley or U.C.LA. rarely had a chance to speak to their instructors preference entering class as well. Not many Latin& and a minuscule number of and often had to wait a semester or two to take Finally, ending affirmative action has had one blacks, make it into this pool-within-a-pool. the courses they wanted. unpublicized and profoundly desirable con- And so the essential function of affirmative ac- I met a surprising number of students who, sequence: it has forced the university to try to tion in California has been to redistribute mi- like Wright or Coleman, had got into fancier expand the pool of eligible minority students. nority students from the bottom to the top of schools but had chosen to enroll at Riverside, Outreach programs like the one underwritten the U.C. ladder. Berkeley's gain, until recently, and none of them had come to regret it. A black by Proposition 3 have proliferated; the Statehas been Riverside's loss. Now it's working the student named Mark Thomas told me that he Legislature authorized $33.5 million for such ef-other way around. One way to think about the had been accepted at U.C.L.A., Berkeley. Yale fortslast year and has required the public consequences of ending affirmative action, then, and Princeton, but that he had chosen River- schools to spend an additional $31 million on is to ask, How bad is it to go to Riverside? side because it was much cheaper than the by similar initiatives. U.C. campuses are now reach- It's not a question that goes down well on the Leagues and had offered scholarship money ing down into the high schools, the junior highs Riverside campus. One afternoon in March I sat unavailable at the other U.C. schools. Thomas and even the elementary schools to help minor- around a table with a group of black and Chica- was majoring in biochemistry. "This year," he ity students achieve the kind of academia record no students who were involved in Riverside's said, "I've already spent two and a half to three that will make them eligible for admission, thus outreach program. (Chicanos are Latinos of hours with my academic adviser; I've heard that raising the possibility that diversity without Mexican extraction.) When I asked Kenya Cole- the average at other places is about half an hour." preferences will someday prove to be more thanman, a black student who was majoring in busi- I spoke to only a few freshmen who felt bitter a fond hope. Academics and administrators ness, whether she felt that students denied ad- about ending up at Riverside after failing to gain throughout the system admit that the university mission to Berkeley would be losing out on admission to U.C.L.A. or Berkeley. I also found would never have shouldered this burden had it something at Riverside, she bristled slightly and several Asian upperclassmen who felt that they not been for the elimination of affirmative ac- said, "If they end up here it would be a blessing had been denied a shot at a more prestigious tion; and many say that the price is worth pay-in disguise." school by the end of affirmative action, but even ing. As Saul Geiser, head of student academic Coleman had infact been acceptedat most of them believed they they weregetting a services for the U.C. system, says: "CaliforniaU.C.L.A., but had elected to come to River- rigorous education, at least in the sciences. has brought this whole new thing to the country side. Another student, Ricardo Vargas, was just Riverside has almost all the trappings of a se- with Proposition 209. Maybe we can be the onesas loyal to the campus and even less inclined to rious university: a first-rate engineering school, who begin to show what's on the other side." give lip service to affirmative action. Vargas said a supercompetitive biomedical program, a grassy What's on the other side is not so much a co- that his parents had been farmers in Mexico.-"I quad crisscrossed by pathways, a clock tower. herent alternative to affirmative action as it is a grew up in a poor family," he said. "My parents Still, Riverside is deep in the boonies: 60 miles series of impromptu adaptations. Elements of instilled in me the fact that education is the east of Los Angeles. in the heartof what is this unsystematic system may frustrate ideo- only way to succeed. If I can burn the midnight known as the Inland Empire. It is considered a logues on both sides of the debate: liberals think oil and work hard, I don't see why everyone fairly dead town, and students say that entertain- that cascading represents a terrible denial of op- else can't." ment near campus is limited to onemovie thea- portunity, and conservatives 'think that fiddling U.C.R. is a cozy institution where classes are ter and one Starbucks. The parkinglots near the undermines the principle of merit. The question small and professors keep long office hours and dorms are jammed, since almost everyone drives is whether the new dispensation is preferable to freely give out their home phone numbers. Vir- home on weekends. It's the kind of technocrat- the old one. The answer is yes. tually every student I talked to remarked on ic,friendly, bland and utilitarian institution what a welcoming place it was. Black students, summed up by the words "second-tier." THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IS, LIKE GAUL, who report feeling uncomfortable or belea- Riverside is much stronger in the sciences divided into three parts. According to the 1960 guered on many campuses, brought this up again than in the humanities. An upper-level political and again. Bert Wright Jr., a senior with a shaved science class I attended was positively torpid. James Traub is a contributing writer for the mag- head, wire-rimmed glasses and a scraggly Ho One student, Josh Phillips, a whitekid from azine. His most recent article, on House Repub- Chi Minh beard, said that his father had gone to Orange County who had scored a 1,400 on his licans, appeared in February. U.C.L.A. and that he had been accepted there S.A.T.'s but hadn't been able toafford Berkeley

46 BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 127

123 because of the higher housing costs, said tartly, tive action unnecessary for one group atter an- About 125 people. mostlyparents and stu- "I'd rather be a number at U.C.L.A. than an in- other. In California, women were dropped long dents. had gathered in the auditoriumto hear the dividual here." Phillips was working 20 hours a ago from the category of "underrepresented" chancellor; 30 or so listenedon headphones to a week, taking 20 credits and keeping a high groups. Filipinos were once underrepresented, simultaneous translationin Spanish. Orbach G.P.A. without apparently breaking a sweat. and then they weren't. So many non-Chicano came out and said. "This is the finest public uni- The intellectual life at RiversiS seemed at least Latinos have been making it into the cop eighth versity in the world, and each ofvcu has an op- as meager as the social life. When I asked about that the category was being phased out at some portunity to attend a campus of tha: universitv" campus politics, Bert Wright said, "There aren't campuses even before the regents' decision. That was it for the rhetoric; there:: was practi- too mans- issues that rile students up." He Chicanos remain the most disadvantaged of cal, blunt advice. Orbach showed the audience thought for a while. "There's fees, of course, California's major minority groups, with many a chart indicating the magnitude of the earnings and parking." first-generation parents both impoverished and Still, Riverside is much more than a creden- differential between a college anda junior-col- illiterate. Nevertheless, a slightly higher frac- lege degree. He talked about financial tialing factory. Many of the minority students I tion of Chicanos than blacks make it into U.C., arrange- met were involved in the school's innumerable and at both Riverside and Berkeley I met a re- ments that would allow the child even of the poorest parents to afford the S13,000 or so in outreachprograms.Indeed,onereason markable number of Chicano students who had an- nual costs. And then he painstakingly led them scarcely anyone could get agitated about affir- overcome every imaginable disadvantage to be- through the sequence of math mative action was that Riverside has an active come U.C.-eligible. Second-generation Chica courses that their child would need to take in order sense of social mission that made the whole is- nos will almost certainly do better than first to end up at sue of preferences seem almost irrelevant. generation ones, and the terrible problem o pre-calculus in 12th grade, as the universityre- When I paid a visit to Carlos Velez - Ibanez, black students will remain. quires. "Your child," he admonished, "should be Orbach is a thickset, bustling, enthusiosti able to add. subtract, multiply and divide frac- dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and tions by sixth grade." Afterward, all the character, an ardent booster who believes, lik ques- Social Sciences, he started telling me about a tions were about money. Most of the program he had devised to bring minority stu- Kenya Coleman, that no rational student mu!, parents regret enrollment at Riverside. Almost ever, were poor, very few had been to college and the dents from a local community college to the idea that their children could attend the week the chancellor rides the circuit of the re extraor- campus for an intensive five-week summer dinary university that the chancellor course inresearch and statistical methods. gion's high schools; the day I saw him he hap was talking about plainly strained their sense of credulity. Eleven of the 13 students he had worked with pened to be heading out to Indio High Schoo near Palm Springs, and he invited me to corns Riverside's relationship with Indio has been had gone on to Stanford or to a U.C. college; assimilated into a statewide School-University he said that he planned to expand the program. along. We were running late for the schedulec Partnership program created by the to the high-school and then tothe junior-high parents' meeting at the school, about 60 miles tc new legisla- level. "What we're not doing is making deci- our east, and so Orbach roared along at 75 tion. Riverside now has similar ties withseven sions based solely on race or ethnicity or gen- m.p.h. as he delivered a town-by-town analysis school districts, in each case comprising one der," he said. "But we're still acting affirmative- of U.C. potential on either side of U.S. 10. high school and a junior high school and two el- ly, giving people a chance to be excellent." Af- "We're passing through the Moreno Valley here ementary schools that feed into it. Two of those firmative action, at least as he understood it, very poor area, very few kids going to four- high schools are virtually all black and Latino had mostly involved a rather trivial form of re- year colleges." Then came Banning and Beau- and have about the lowest U.C.-eligibility rate in shuffling within the elite. "Seventy-five percent mont, where the candidates were slightly more the state 1 or 2 percent. Obviously, it remains of African-American and Mexican families are plentiful and the campus had a relationship with to be seen how much of a difference Riverside working class," said Velez-Ibifiez. "My gestalt the high schools. Then, on the flat, wind-swept can make by reaching downward into the public is to look at the 75 percent and provide oppor- plains on the other side of the San Andreas Fault schools. Pamela Clute, the math professor who tunities for them." were Desert Hot Springs, Palm Springs, Thou- was appointed to run the program, which now spends S5 million a year, is one of those who be- The pipeline-expanding idea that is novel sand Palms. Orbach said there had been gang vi- elsewhere in the system has been close to the olence at one school not long before. There is lieve that it took the prospect of a world without core of Riverside's identity throughout this probably no job that promotes orotundity and preferences to make the university wake up to decade. When a physicist named Raymond Or- the global perspective like being a university its own obligations. "Until about a Year ago," bach was appointed chancellor in 1992, he real- chancellor. And yet Orbach had strapped him- she says, "what outreach meant was (tizzy, feel- ized that the key to growth was to recruit more self to his provincial neighborhood and ab- good stuff come to the campus on Saturday, see the buildings, look at the daffodils. Now, it's of the Asian, Chicano and black students from sorbed its nuances like a social worker. taken on a life of its own, and it's been put at the the surrounding region. Riverside and the We reached Indio High School by about 7:30 core of the university's existence." neighboring San Bernardino Counties are P.M. and were met by the principal, Rudy Rami- Perhaps it will prove to be beneath the digni- among the poorest regions in California served rez, a restless, demanding figure straight but of ty of scholars at a place like Berkeley to huddle by a U.C. campus; in 1990, only 6 percent of "Stand and Deliver." Indio is a largely Chicano with high-school teachers and to give pep talks graduates in the area were U.C.-eligible. Or- school that for years had sent virtually no one to bach made it a universitywide mission to in- a U.C. campus. On the drive in, Orbach had to parents; that's not, after all, what any of crease the supply of eligible students through told me that Ramirez had confronted him at a them had in mind when they ground their way recruitment as well as academic coaching, and meeting of local principals several years earlier, through their doctorates. Robert Berdahl, the he appears to have proved that the problem is not saying. "Our students are much better than you chancellor of Berkeley. says flatly, "The Uni- quite as intransigent as it seems. Between 1990 realize, only you won't let them in." Orbach versity of California in its eight institutions can and 1996, for instance, the fraction of U.C.-eli- had agreed on the spot to have his admissions not reform the public schools." What is strik- gible students declined in almost every region staff interview seniors whom Ramirez felt could ing, though, is the extent to which Riverside, a of California; in Riverside and San Bernardino succeed at Riverside despite an academic record far more humble and pragmatic institution, has Counties, the figure rose from 6 to 8.1 percent. that would not qualify them for U.C. admis- begun to reshape itself around the mission of Orbach told me that only a thousand black sion. Only 13 of the 36 seniors he chose ulti- expanding the pool of eligible minority stu- graduates in the state had made it into the top mately graduated, but a relationship sprang up be- dents. Clute says that by placing the program eighth, but he was wrong; the most recent sam- tween the two institutions. Indio is now sending under the control of a scholar like herself, the ple, from 1996, put the number at 547. And the two dozen or so students, out of a graduating chancellor is sending a signal to her colleagues not merely a success of Asians, many of whomcome from senior class of 400, to U.C. campuses each year. that outreach is an academic function of the university. poor immigrant families, onlyunderscores this Orbach had come often to harp on his favorite public relations gulf: the same study found that 30 percent of subject: students must take algebra in eighth There has been discussion of weighing com- munity service more heavily when considering Asians graduate in the top eighth, but only 12.7 grade if they expected to be U.C.-eligible: Rami- percent of whites, 3.3 percentof Latinos and 2.8 rez had, in turn. initiated a 30-day intersession promotions and merit raises. Ray Orbach is not a national figure like Rob- percent of blacks do so. An Asianstudent, in class for students who failed algebra. A team of other words, is 10 times as likely as a black stu- instructors from Riverside had rt:entl come ert Berdahl or like Derek Bok and William Bow- dent to be U.C.-eligible. out to review the transcripts of the entire junior en, the former presidents of Harvard and Prince- ton, whose book, "The Shape of the River." has Indeed, blacks have been left behind as social class. And the Indio faculty would s:an be going change and social mobility have made affirma- to the campus to work on curriculum.

124 1 2 8 helped make the case for affirmative action. But versity of Texas, it dropped only slightly afterRiverside, has it backward: once you have been Orbach has arguably done more than any ofHopwood went into effect. "I don't think weadmitted to the rarefied community of a Har- them to advance the cause of minority education.can conclude that it's impossible for even thevard or a Yale or a Berkeley, you are almost not flagship schools to get the numbers where theyallowed to fail. As Bok and Bowen observe, in DESPITE ORBACH'S EXTRAORDINARY SUCCESS were before the use of preferences," Pell says.the sample of 28 elite schools they studied, in expanding minority enrollment, it is he whoIn fact, the Texas experience will probably be,':even those black students in the lowest S.A.T. wrote the position paper in which all the chan-the norm for most public universities, since fewband (those with combined scores under 1,000) cellors in the U.C. system laid out their objec- are as selective as Berkeley. graduated at higher rates, the more selective the tions to the regents' anti-affirmative action At the graduate-school level, however, evenschool they attended." The elites, in short, pro- policies. Orbach made a point of telling me, "Ithe cheery Pell concedes that "it's going to take a tect their own. don't want this to be perceived as somehow afew years" before the fraction of minority stu- What is true is that at lower levels of selectiv- replacement for affirmative action." He is not dents at the most desirable graduate schools ity the gap can be very large: 72 percent of white convinced that what has worked fcir Riversideincluding Boalt and the University of Texas Law students, but only 39 percent of black students, will work at the much higher level of selectivitySchool return to affirmative action levels. typically graduate from Colorado University at required to bring minority students to Berke-And as Jerome Karabel observes, more than half Boulder. ley. Indeed, in California and in Texas, where athe applicants in any given year are not accepted But what about the actual experience? Bok 1996 court decision, Hopwood v. Texas, pro- into any medical school. And so, without affir-and Bowen concede that minority students do hibited the use of affirmative action in hiaher mative action, many minority students may notnot flourish academically at elite schools; the education, the end of racial preferences is_.,be able to attend medical school at all. average black admittee in their study graduated widely seen as the harbinger of a tremendous What about those who do cascade downward at the 23d percentile of the class, while the aver- catastrophe for minority students. what kind of harms will they suffer? None,age Hispanic was at the 36th percentile. Many Jerome Karabel, a Berkeley scholar and asay many conservatives. Stephan and Abigailof the minority students I met at Berkeley had leading authority on affirmative action, callsThernstrom, authors of "America in Black andbeen stunned by how hard the work was and the rollback "the biggest negative redistribu-White," write that historically black colleges had thrashed around unhappily for a while. Su- tion of educational opportunity in the historyproduce more black engineers and doctors thansana Morales, a slight girl with a piping voice, of the country" Technically, that may be true. all of the Ivies and the other great universities. In tortoise-shell glasses and a shy smile, admitted But the sky-is-falling position assumes botha critique of "The Shape of the River," Martinthat, at first, she had been overwhelmed at that elite institutions will not have significantTrow, an emeritus professor at Berkeley and aBerkeley. "It took me about three semesters to minority representation without preferencesprominent critic of affirmative action, writes,learn everything," she said. "I had to learn how and that students who descend a tier in educa-"The notion that you have to go to one of theto read critically. I had to learn how to think tional prestige will suffer a devastating loss.most selective universities to fulfill your poten-critically. I had to learn how to study critically. And both those assumptions seem hyperbolic. tial, or to become a leader in America, betrays anIt's still very hid for me to compete." There's no question that what began in Texas elitist conception of American life." But yoU could also argue that students like and California is now moving on to other Conservatives have consistently argued thatMorales profit more from the challenge than do states. An organization called the Center foraffirmative action does not benefit its beneficia-their more blasé classmates. Morales, who is Individual Rights, working through local plain-ries. The Thernstroms write that black studentshoping to pursue a Ph.D. in cultural psychol- tiffs, has filed two lawsuits, which are expectedare likelier to succeed academically, and to grad- ogy, said that Berkeley "was everything I ex- to be heard in the late summer or fall, againstuate, at institutions for which they are qualifiedpected." She had been thrilled to discover that the University of Michigan and its law school,than at those to which they have been grantedher professors were part of larger intellectual as well as another against the University ofspecial access. Mark Thomas, the black bio-currents she had never recognized before. "In Washington Law School. Any public institu-chemistry student at Riverside, agrees. "The my class on drugs and the brain," she said, "ev- tion practicing affirmative action is potentiallymodel of affirmative action is better here," he ery day I would go home and read an article that subjectto14th Amendment due-processtold me. "It's more a question of getting you in,was parallel to what the professor was saying." claims, and since most law schools and medicaland once you're here we're going to try to make And if Susana Morales had gone to Riverside? schools, and about the upper fifth of under-you succeed. The other way is, We can get youIn all likelihood, she would have been quite hap- graduate institutions, practice affirmative ac-in, but we don't think you're going to be able topy, as most of the minority students I met there tion to a significant degree, similar lawsuits can do the work.'" were, and she would have gone on to a produc- be filed in many other states and almost cer- And yet this view, too, is overdrawn, as a tive, successful life but at a somewhat lower tainly will be if the plaintiffs win in any of thecomparison of Berkeley and Riverside makestrajectory. A large fraction of the female stu- current cases. clear. The Thernstroms make great use ofdents I spoke to at Riverside, minority as well as Yet, even if the plaintiffs in these cases pre-Berkeley, where until recently the black gradu-nonminority, planned on a career as teachers vail, "redistribution" will probably not becomeation rate was only 60 percent. By 1998, howev- a very modest ambition compared with pursu- widespread. Terence Pell, the senior counsel ater, the graduation rate was up to 71 percent foring a Ph.D. in cultural psychology. According to the Center for Individual Rights, points outblack students and 78 percent for Latinos. AtDeborah McCoy, Riverside's head of place- that only 6 of the 74 colleges, universities and Riverside, the graduation rate for the entirement, very few minority students go on to med- graduate programs in California and Texas suf-class was only 68 percent. For blacks it was just ical school, and the law schools they choose fered from a loss of minority students in the60 percent. You'dthink,that rigorous schoolstend to be the local or regional institutions, like first year; even at those six, minority enroll-would have higher dropout rates, but in fact the U.S.C., Loyola Nlaryrnount or McGeorge Law ment increased in the second year. At the Uni-opposite is true. Mark Thomas, the student at School at the University of the Pacific.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

125 12-9 What, then, is at stake in affirmative action? It hand, it is a good that one would very much pre- him enormous, even "unfair," advantages over is certainly not true, as you sometimes hear, thatfer to see accomplished without recourse to ra-many minority students, but he had concluded the black orHispanic middle class depends oncial preferences. There is alliird way. that "it makes much more sense to send stu- affirmative action for its survival and growth. dents who aren't prepared to community col- Only about 20 percent of the nation's colleges lyOU CAN EXPLODE A LOT OF MYTHS lege," from which they could transfer. the prestigious ones that everyone has heard about affirmative action by the simple Most of the white and Asian students I talked of even use preferences to a significant de- expedient of talking to students. One to, both at Berkeley and at Riverside, were rigor- gree. The vast majority of four-year institutions morning I sat down at a table in theous meritocrats; they took it for granted that admit all or almost all of the students who apply.main campus commissary at Berkeley caffeS.A.T. scores and G.P.A. measured something Most important, the number of blacks enrolling latte, croissants, grilled cheese across from afundamental. Of course, they viewed affirmative in college has continued to rise: they now con-white freshman named Eric who wore armlets ofaction less in ideological than in personal terms; stitute 11 percent of the college-going popula-braided black leather straps and hair moussedas one freshman said to me, "I felt like I was a tion, up from 8.8 percent in 1985... straight upward. Eric looked like the latter-daytarget."I found very few ardent supporters What's at stake is not a place in the middleversion of the classic Berkeley radical, but whenamong white or Asian students. Vinnee Tong, class, but a place in the elite in the famous I asked about the elimination of affirmative ac-the editor of the student paper, The Daily Cal- universities and graduate schools and in the law tion, what came out of his mouth was pure Nor- ifornian, told me, "At the last minute, I voted firms and banks and foundations and so on that man Podhoretz. "I don't think it's such a badno," on Prop. 209, and then she added, "but if lie at the apogee of the culture and that offer thething," said Eric (who felt sufficiently nervousyou asked me again, I might vote yes." big rewards. Another way of putting it is that af-about his position to keep his last name to him- Does it matter what students think? When I firmative action permits minority students to self). "I don't believe that the S.A.T.'s are biasedasked Chancellor Berdahl, he said, "I don't hap- compress their climb up the ladder of social mo- against minority students. If you know yourpen to believe that that means a whole lot." And bility by a generation or so and thus speeds theirEnglish vocabulary, then you know your Englishyet Berdahl, like virtually all university admin- assimilation into the larger culture. Thisis vocabulary; that's it." Eric acknowledged thatistrators, also takes the position that affirmative hardly a good to be dismissed. On the otherhis North Hollywood high school had givenaction is good indeed,Continued on page 76

130 126 AFFIRMATIVE ACTION licia Brown, a black junior,evidence that this is so. Foryou don't feel it? Of course,new ethic will help solve the one thing, most of the mi-the stigma hovers some-problem in the long run; in Continued from page 51 put it, "The color lines here are very distinct; it's verynority students I have spo-where between the minor-the short run, there's that profoundly good for stu-rare that there's any kind ofken to, at Berkeley and else-ity students who might feelmurky if necessary fiddling. dents like Eric and Tong. "Ifcrossing." What about inwhere, do not believe thatit and the whites and Asians the campusispredomi-the dorms? It turned outthey are affirmative actionin whose eves they would PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES, UN- nantly white and Asian." hethat Brown had decided tobeneficiaries, even when thefeel it. I did speak to onelike private ones. have tradi- said, "the kind of educationlive in the all-black "theme"facts cry out that they are.black student, Norell Gian-tionally selected candidates those students are going todorm. As Susana Morales put it: "Icana. who said, "When youaccording to strict numeri- receive is going to be dif- Indeed, racial self-segre-don't think I needed affir-want to start a study group, cal performance: You ferent, and I would argue, itgation is such a widespreadmative action. I took theit's hard: there's a stigmaawarded a certain amount would be deficient. I thinkphenomenon on campushardestcoursesatmythat you're not as capable."of weight to S.A.T. scores the beneficiaries of affirma-that you can hardly say thatschool, I had a good G.P.A.Norell. who may have beenand a certain amount to tive action are both sides ofit is caused by affirmativeand I wrote a really good es-unusually candid, consid-grade-point average or class the racial divide." In otheraction. But it wouldn't besay." The minority studentsered this a genuine flaw ofrank, and you chose every- Words, Berdahl takes the ex-surprising if the preoccupa-all seem to have written ter-affirmative action. On theone who made it over a giv- act opposite position from en threshold. (The rule did the Thernstroms: affirma- not apply; of course, to such tive action is a benefit for Affirmative action is not only a set of practices but sheltered categories as ath- everyone. also a way of thinking. And the truth is that letes or legacies or children University administra- of prominent statelegis- tors and concerned faculty it is not a way of thinking that even its advocates feel lators.) Affirmative action memberstalkendlessly was initially administered about the benefits of "di- terribly comfortable about. by simply selecting a lower versity" by which they gen- threshold for minority stu- erally mean ethnic back-tion with supposed racial orrific essays, though until re-other hand, shesaid, "Idents. Then the Bakke deci- grotind. Admissions depart-ethnic points of view, not tocently the essay counted fordon't think we're at a pointsion confused everything ments also select studentsmention the very existencevery little in the admissionsin our society where we canby prohibitin. racial quotas on the basis of, say, geo-of a separate set of admii-process. Only when she ad-do without it." and the dual admissions graphic diversity, but yousions standards, had the ef-mitted that she had scored It would be convenient,systems used to administer rarely hear about the impor- fect of reinforcing bound-990 on her S.A.T.'s aboutfor the critics, if affirmativethem, but permitting ad- tance of "the Midwesternaries of identity. And this350 points below the Berke-action really harmed its ben-missionsdepartmentsto viewpoint" nor do suchsat very ill with studentsley average did Moraleseficiaries; then you wouldn'taward minority students a forms of diversity requirewho did not wish to be de-concede that she might havebe in the position of oppos-"plus" factor in order to in- muchpreferentialtreat-fined by their ethnic back-benefited from affirmativeing the objective interests ofsurea"diversestudent ment. ground. Vinnee Tong said toaction. many minority students. Itbody" Most public univer- Alex Saragoza, a profes-me: "They have a week of Perhaps this evasion onlywould be equally conven-sities,including Berkeley, sor in the ethnic studies de-orientation when you firstproves Steele's point. Andient, for the supporters, ifcontinued to use a numeri- partment, said to me, "Kidsget here, and they give youyet you wonder if the stig-diversity really were a fun-cal grid, but now added a need to understand that di-this talk about diversity ma argument doesn't havedamental good and came atconfusing additional layer versity is fundamental." Butwhat kind of place do youmore to do with how criticsno expense to some otherof admissionscriteriain the problem is, they don't.come from, what kind ofthink students ought to feelgood like merit forwhich "diversity"earned The students I spoke topeople did you live with?than how they actually do.then you could tell whiteapplicants a certain number viewed diversity as a worth-TheyreallyshovethatThe typical point of viewand Asianstudentsthatof bonus points. Even one while goal, but scarcely adown your throat. I comewas Felicia Brown's: "Withthey, too, came out ahead onprominent supporter of af- fundamental one. If diversi-from a predominantlyor without affirmative ac-balance. Alas, you can't. Af-firmative action says that ty required paying a price inwhite, Republican town intion, I deserve to be here."firmative actionforcesa the principal imperative of merit, then they would sac-Northern California, and allMinoritystudentslookcomplex calculus of costsadmissions departments in rifice some diversity. What'sof a sudden I'm an Asianaround and realize that theyandbenefits. For allitsrecentyearshas been more, diversity felt moregirl, whether I like it or not.have had to fight their waygoods, affirmative action vi-"opacity" And conserva- like a piety than a vivid reali-I really resented it." through thickets unheard ofolates a broadly held faith intives have played a gleeful ty. Most of the white and If talking to white andin North Hollywood. Saulthe neutral principle of mer-game of unmasking that ex- Asian students I spoke toAsian students demolishesMercado, a senior, said: "I it(however determined),poses the yawning gaps in felt quite cut off from blackone shibboleth of affirma-come from a family of 11judges people according toacademic qualification that and Latino students. Socialtive action, talking to thekids. My father got as far asgroup membership ratherlie beneath the rhetoric of life was largely balkanizedbeneficiaries demolishes an-thirdgrade; my motherthanindividual attributes,diversity and "special gifts" by ethnic identity. Only aother the "stigma." Instopped at second grade.subtly reinforces racial andand so on. fewclassesweresmall"The Content of Our Char-There was no talk of school.ethnic identity and infects The ending of affirmative enough for the kind of sus-acter," Shelby Steele writes,I was swimming against thethe atmosphere with uneasyaction has provoked a fe- tained discussion that"Preferential treatment, notide at home, and societaleuphemisms. The con-.verish new round of innova- would feature the black ormatter how it is justified inexpectations as well." As farsequences of eliminating ittions in admissions policy; Latino"view" And thethe light of day; subjectsas Mercado was concerned,are cascading, which is se-the common theme is reduc- number of minoritiesinblacks to a midnight of self-triumph over adversity easi-rious but not tragic, and aing the importance of the such upper-level classes wasdoubt, and so often trans-ly trumped test-score meri-new ethic of outreach andnumerical grid and accepting very small. Most of the mi-forms their advantage into atocracy academic development,students on a one-by-one nority students I spoke torevolvingdoor."Wellit More to the point, howwhich isdifficult but won-basis, as elite private univer- said the same thing. As Fe-might. But try and find thecan you be stigmatized ifderful. You hope that thissities have long done. Thus,

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 127 in the aftermath of Hop-"holistic" than they hadhigh schools, they might aspartmentshave simplyfigure for blacks drop from wood, the University of Tex-been. Each file would be ex-well be in two different"tigured out how to cir-5.1 percent to 2.8 percent? as invited applicants to de-amined by two readers; stu-worlds." It is, after all, a lotcumvent the lass;" thoughOne answeristhat the scribewhatever disadvan-dents were to be evaluatedmore impressive to excel inhe concedes that "whetherschools have been starved tages might"puttheiron a range of academic andan environment where prac-you can ever deal with thatfor funds; it is a quandary achievements into context"nonacademic achievements,tically everyone is hellbentthrough some legal meanslost on no one that affirma- andrequiredtwoessays personal qualities and onon failure than to do so in ais a question." Thernstrom,tive action was eliminated highlighting personal expe-"diversity in personal back-school where success is tak-like Graglia and Jack Cit-just as California was drop- rience."The processhas ground and experience." Allen for granted. One Chica-rin, holds the meritocraticping to 49th place in state nothing to do with race orachievements were to beno student I talked to, Hec-principle sacred. educational spending per ethnicity" says Bruce Walk-considered "in the contexttor Coronel, said that it was But perhaps we should ac-capita. An equally valid an- er, the director of admis-of the opportunities an ap-so unheard of at his highcept a dent in meritocraticswer is that in recent years sions. It does, however, cre-plicant has had, any hard-school to attend a top-ran-purity as a fair price for ad- state educators have run af- ate the kind of opacity thatships or unusual circum-ked college that his counsel-mitting students as individ- ter every kind of faddish makes admissions decisionsstances the applicant hasor told him not to bother touals, not group members. educationalpractice.It's almost unchallengeable. Andfaced and the ways in whichapply to Berkeley. He didThis may turn out to be ahard to think of a more though fewer minorities ap-he or she has responded toso, he said, "out of spite."very popular middle ground. powerful corrective for the plied in the year Hopwoodthem." But the new formulaHector had a G.P.A. of onlyI asked Bob Laird if, in retro- latter than the insistent fo- went into effect, Texas wasproduced a freshman class 3.1andS.A.T.'s"underspect, he now felt uncom- cus on standards coming able to accept the same frac-that was only 10.7 percent1,000," but it was hard tofortable about the use of ex- from people like Ray Or- tion of them it had before. black and Chicano. begrudge his admission toplicitly racial criteria, and he bach. In the aftermath of the And so the admissionsBerkeley: said, to my surprise: "From Whatever is lost with the regents' decision, the num-departmenttriedsome- There is a real danger thatwhere we are now yeah. elimination of affirmative bers crunchers in the cen-thing new It distributed tostate legislatures will reactWhen I look to what we action, what's gained is a tral administration of thereaders a detailed profile ofto the abolition of prefer-were doing then no." new sense of mission for UniversityofCaliforniaan applicant's high school,ences by forcing elite insti- schools anduniversities. tried valiantly to come upso that the reader couldtutions to lower their bar-AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS Riverside is considered one with some legitimate cre-award greater weight to ariers to admit more of ev-not only a set of practices of the more "left" of the dential that they could se-student who succeeded de-eryone. A post-Hopwoodbut also a way of thinking U.C. campuses; yet the left lect that would happen tospite attending a substand-law requires the Universityabout race and ethnicity, commitment there has to correlate with race. Theyard school who had, inof Texas to accept anyoneabout merit, about elite in- do with dedication to the triedlow socioeconomiceffect,overcomeeduca-who graduates in the top 10stitutions. And the truth is painstaking work of im- status or first-in-the-fam-tional rather than socioeco-percent of any state highthat it is not a way of think- proving minority perform- ily-to-go-to-college ornomic disadvantage. It sug-school. A state legislator ining that even its advocates ance. John Briggs, the head some combination of thegested that readers considerCalifornia Called for a sim-feelterriblycomfortable of Riverside's writing pro- two; what they got wereS.A.T. scores "in light ofilar law; but a study by theabout. In "The Ordeal of In- gram, told me that he had mostly working-class whiteseach applicant's history andregents found that such ategration," the Harvard begun driving around to and Asians. The truthis circumstances." And thesystem would enroll thou-scholar Orlando Patterson high-schoolEnglishde- that most affirmative actionnew formula appearstosands of vastly underpre-sweeps away every argument partments12 years ago, beneficiaries are only rel-have worked, increasing theparedminoritystudents.against affirmative action talking about the kind of atively disadvantaged. Thefraction of minority stu-Instead, the regents agreedand then calls for an end to curriculum that would pre- average black student ap-dents in the admitted poolto accept the top 4 percentthe practice after 15 years, pare students for college plying to the University ofto 13 percent. ofgraduatesstartinginwithout offering any ev- and offering to bring teach- California comes from a Berkeley had, in effect,2001, and even then to ex-idence that it won't be need- ers to the campus. Last family whose incomeis established a new form ofclude students who had noted then. Implicit in Patter- year, he and 10 of his ten- $38,000. (The figureformerit that turned out to betaken the required college-son's argument is the rec- ured faculty members vis- whites is $75,000.) Behind mildly correlated with racepreparatoryclasses.Thisognition that it cannot be ited 90 to 100 classrooms, this fact lies an appallingand ethnicity. Was that bad? will raise the number of eli-good for black students to and talked to 3,000 kids. statistic:nationwide,theJack Citrin, a professor ofgible black students by 30be seen as the perpetual ben- "What affirmative action is averageS.A.T.scoreofpolitical science and one ofpercent and of Latinos byeficiariesof specialtreat- supposed to be about," black students from the up-the rare public opponents24 percent, though it will doment. More broadly, how Briggs says, "is making a permost quarter of the so-of affirmative action on therelatively little to cure theircan it be good for our collec- concertedefforttoin- cioeconomic scale is lowerBerkeley faculty, quit theunderrepresentation. tive selves to be handing out crease the pool of available than the average score ofadmissions committee How should we feel aboutbenefits on thebasis of students, and that means whites or Asians from thewhen the new criteria werethe murky; opaque fiddlinggroup identity rather than better preparation and bet- lowest quarter. What thispromulgated. "I don't thinkthat is bound to fill the vac-individual attainment? ter counseling." Ulti- means is that impoverishedwe're in the therapy busi-uum created by the abolition Affirmative actionlets mately,ofcourse,that black students are not evenness," Citrin says. "I thinkof preferences? Critics likeschools off easy; eliminat- means better schools. in the running, while mid-what we have happeningLino Graglia, a professor ating it compels an act of dle-class students only dohere is an attack on the ideathe University of Texas Lawself-scrutiny. Why isthe well enough to get into theof merit as conventionallySchool, have ridiculed thefailure rate among minority affirmative action pool. defined." On theotheridea that minority status isstudents so high? Why; in As affirmative action washand, Bob Laird, the direc-correlatedwithanythingCalifornia, did the overall being eliminated, Berkeley,tor of admissions, observes,schools can actually selectfractionofU.C.-eligible like Texas, drafted new ad-"When you look at the dif- for,like"leadershipabil-graduates drop from 12.3 missions criteria that wereference between the high-ities." Stephan Thernstrompercent in 1990 to 11.1 per- more "comprehensive" andachieving and low-achieving saysthat admissions de-cent in 1996? Why did the

128 132 U.S. News and World Report, May 31, 1999

The Feds Strike Back

By JOHN LEO interrogations, and the threat of losing federal funding. Non-Asian minorities tend to score lower on Turning more and more to subjective admissions standardized tests used for college admissions than do criteriaessays, extracurricular activities, "life Asian-Americans and whites. The obvious answer to this experiences"would allow more minorities to gain gap is better schools in minority neighborhoods and admission over higher-scoring Asians and whites. But better study habits. But the Clinton administration has a only a dishonest use of subjective factors is likely to quicker fix: Let's just declare the tests invalid. change the numbers a lot. And subjectivity would open The draft of a new "resource guide" by the U.S. the schools to more litigation and federal complaints Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights says over bias, not less. The education department would that "the use of any educational test which has a surely be back in the face of the colleges asking for an significant disparate impact on members of any explanation of subjective standards that don't produce particular race, national origin, or sex is discriminatory" rough racial quotas. unless the school using the test can prove otherwise. That The text is vague about how much impact a test must makes almost all educational tests suspect. Specifically, have to be regarded as suspect. All it must do is to the department is warning that the SAT and ACT tests "contribute to a disproportionate denial of an educational are presumed to be invalid if they are a significant basis benefit or opportunity." People who intend to bully like for college admissions and financial-aid decisions that to use vague and broad language so that the victim will fail to produce proportional representation by race and surely be guilty of something. gender. Does the administration really think this plan will The department says the guide is merely a useful fly? Maybe the idea is to provide cover for colleges to "synthesis of settled law," but it is surely one of the four back away from standards and toward more affirmative or five most amazing positions taken by the Clinton action while saying that they are being forced to do so administration. As usual, the administration acted with a under federal pressure. Not all colleges are "reeling" at stunning lack of candor and straightforwardness: no the prospect of more racial preferences. public announcement, a ho-hum pretense that staking out Perhaps the real intent is to soften up the public and a radical position is just business as usual, word casually the courts for heavier doses of disparate-impact theory. passed to colleges, that they have just four workdays to The text opens the door to using the theory to rearrange respond (lengthened until the end of the summer after every aspect of education, from professors' grades, final protests). exams, and the racial makeup of faculty to the new The Chronicle of Higher Education Web site says standards being set for public schools in many states. All that officials are "reeling" from the announcement. No cutoffs of test scores would surely be depicted as grossly wonder. It's an attempt to decapitate traditional unfair: A college that requires a 1300 score would have assessments of merit at a single stroke and push the to explain why a student with a 1290 score couldn't colleges to accept large numbers of applicants who are expect to succeed at the institution. Control of these well below their standards. The department is in effect matters would pass from schools and local governments saying that colleges using standardized tests can expect to the courts and the federal bureaucracy. to be called in for long and grueling interrogations that Then again, the obvious is true: In Democratic most of us would call harassment. Terry Pell of the administrations, the posts of civil rights chief at the Center for Individual Rights calls this "an extralegal Education and Justice departments are the two key form of bureaucratic terrorism." outposts of the cultural left in Washington. These jobs, War of attrition. Sample questions from the draft currently held by Norma Candi and Bill Lann Lee, are guidelines: Has the school developed its own evidence conceived as platforms to pursue (mostly behind the that the procedure is valid? What is the form of scenes) a heavy ideological agenda built around race and evidence? Who conducted the study and how recently gender preferences and proportional representation. The was it done? For what use was the test or assessment president speaks like a moderate and plays to majority procedure validated? Answer these and the department opinion, but the two appointees reliably head in a will offer dozens more to wear you down. different direction, mostly unnoticed. In this case, it's The intent seems to be to bully schools into dropping important for the Republicans to wake up and hold tests, or at least de-emphasizing them. That would be the congressional hearings on what the Clinton only sure way to avoid the legal costs, the withering administration really has in mind for our schools.

BEST COPY AVAILABLE 129 13, National Review,May 17, 1999

The Graduates

Do too many kids go to college?

JAMES BOWMAN

HOLDEN CAULFIELDonce pointed out that Pencey Prep's claim that "since 1888 we have been molding boys into splendid, clear-thinking young men" was "strictly for the birds," since "I didn't know anybody there that was splendid and dear-thinking and all. Maybe two guys. If that many. And they probably came toTencey that way." Then as now those who spend a lot of money for edu- cational prestige don't really require the splendidness and clear thinking as advertised. They know that what they learn at places like Pencey will matter far less than the fact that they have been there. But what has always been true for the educational elites is now true for the prestige-seekingmasses.Nowadays, even quite humble state universities are selling prestigenot the prestige of brand-name institutions but the generic prestigegivenbyourcredential- obsessed culture simply associated with having been to "college." Now that even many unskilled, entry- level jobs require a college degree, while a high-school diploma does not even guarantee basic literacy, this qualifica- tion is a sort of passport to white-collar statusand to cold, hard cash. In 1997, for example, the average college gradu- ate earned $40,478 while the average high-schoolgraduateearnedonly $22,895. And the value of a college edu- cation is continuing to increase. Degree- holders can now expect to earn 76 percent more than those without a degree, whereas in 1975 the difference

Mr. Bowman is the American editor of theTimes Literary Supplement.

130 134 betweentheirrespectiveearnings prospects was only 57 percent. High- school graduates in 1975 could expect to earn 92 percent of the average wage; now that figure is only 77 percent. Hardly surprising then that in 1996, 27 percent of the college-age population was attending college, whereas in 1975 only 20 percent was. The more people go, the more they think they have to go. But does a university degree amount to anything more than an essential line on a résumé? Does it imply any substantive attainment whatsoever! In a study of the available data on this question in the journal Academic Questions, Daniel Casse and Bruno V. Manno note that "the population that graduates from

Degree holders can now expect to earn 76 percent more than those without a degree.

two-year and four-year postsecondary institutions may be self-selecting. It may be the subset of the population that, prior to any college experience, already possesses higher literacy levels and the requisite skills to obtain more lucrative employment. . Compared to children who'd() not attend college, those who subsequently graduate from college come from wealthier homes, have more highly educated parents, and 'demon- strate stronger math and verbal skills before they receive any postsecondary training." In other words, like the one or two splendid and clear-thinking boys at Pencey Prep, they probably came there that way. As Edwin S. Rubenstein of the Hudson Institute argues, the studies that seem to suggest a huge gap between college-educatedandhigh-school- educated wage earners do not control for the different socioeconomic back- grounds and IQs of the two groups. Studies that do control for these fac- tors indicate that the value added by college itself is only about 15 percent. But the illusion of "lucrative employ- ment" to be won by a college education leads students into ruinous debt and devalues their education still further by attracting far coo many unqualified stu- BEST COPYAVAILABLE

131 .1' 35 dents into higher education, so feeding According, to the Chronicle of Higher Columbia University, told the New Yo: the vicious cycle by which "college" Education, at colleges across the country Times that one reason was "updatir comes to seem a necessity when it man- dormitories are full and the overflow are dormitories and dining halls to keep u ifestly is not. being packed into hotelsand this at a with the demands of students and the Naturally the Clinton administration, time when tuition costs are increasing at parents for standards that increasing which justly regards the professoriat as more than double the rate of inflation. seek to match those of hotels ar. one of its most loyal constituencies, is In fact, according to Richard Vedder, restaurants." encouragingthismisuseofsocial professorofeconomicsatOhio The most scandalous source of tl- resources with more money for higher cash in which the system is awash com, education in the form of the president's from the debt students are pathetical signature "Hope" scholarships. These The most scandalous source eager to incur in order to go to "college amount to $1,500 in tax credits for the As tuitions are increasing, most final first two years of higher education, but of cash in which the system cial aid now comes in the form of loan. their real effect was indicated when is awash comes from the and' increasingly unsubsidized one. Richard Riley, the secretary of educa- Loans are now 60 percent of financi; tion, recently wrote to university heads debt students eagerly incur. aid where twenty years ago they wer asking them not to take the opportunity about 40 percent. This means that th of the new money available to raise universities are putting the squeeze o tuitions. Of course that is exactly what University, "In the past decade and a their cash cowthe thing that they will do and are doing already. half, tuition costs have increased 195.3 responsible for the explosion in colleg California, which enacted a tuition cu5,-percent while the overall consumer price costs over the last quarter-centur last year, is now set to raise its rates again index has risen just 63.3 percent." In namely the realization in the 1970s tha so as to "increase the effective federal other words, students are paying more the qualification they were offering ha subsidy of California's higher education and getting less for their money. become so valuable that students wet programs." This is only what should be expected willing to take out a lien on their future As the Wall Street Journal points out, when demand is so heavy, but surely to get it. The universities didn't have t publicuniversities likethosein eventually even those whose brains hike tuition at all. They did so becau.t California would be foolish to charge less the suckers keep coming, even at th than the $2,000 that allows them to take higher prices. full advantage of the amount of free Worst of all, perhaps, is that the mor money provided by the government. people are pitchforked into high( (The scholarship covers 100 educationforeconomic an percent of the first $1,000 social rather than for education., of tuition and 50 percent reasons, the more lower educatio of the second $1,000.) can get away with not doin: Yet this gift from the Already, remedial education Treasurytomainly a huge part of the college cu Democratic and often riculum, even at many elit radically left-wing acad- institutions. If you add in tl- emics is politically fool- stuff that is not called remedi proof,sincecollege - but would have been covert educated but dim-wit- already if public high schoo ted soccer moms, con- were doing an even adequa- vinced that their job, you begin to realize that, i children face a choice substance, what people a' between college and the willing to pay so highly for gutter, continueto mostly only what they haN believe that they have already paid for (though n( received a benefit from received) through local prof their president in Wash- erty taxes devoted to educ: ington. It is hard to tell which is more tion. impressive, the political elegance of the have been ruined by American What a racket! Conserv; program or its moral cynicism. higher education must catch on? When tives should lead the way i Can people ever be disabused of the the news came out last October that calling attention to it, in hiring thcx notion that they are actually getting tuition costs .had risen by 4 percent in who have the courage and good sense I something valuable for the vast sums the previous year, two and a half times Stay out of college, and in fighting eves they spend on higher education? So far it the rate of inflation, the universities attempt, public or private, to put mot seems not. College admissions officers scarcely even bothered to try to justify money in the hands of the educatio are beating the applicants off with sticks. the increase. George Rupp, president of establishment.

132 136 The Wall Street Journal,April 1, 1999

By Ras SUSKIND ered at All Hallows only after years of slow `College Is Better Than Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL growth. The school, which opened near NEW YORK Because Kathy Morgan Yankee Stadium in 1931, was flirting with a believes in the Christian doctrine of free wrecking ball six years ago. There were No College, Period. will, she offers her students at All Hallows sound reasons for it to closehigh drop-out Catholic High School a choice about their rates, fewer than 20% of graduates going to You'll Thank Me Later' future. college, an inability to attract teachers "So, you want to get out of the South that stemmed from familiar shifts during Bronx?" she asks 17-year-old Brian Sey- the last century in large American cities. With a 100%Acceptance Rate, mour, who just slumped into a chair in her It is an urban history that is bound to pin-neat office. No response. She waits. the history of the school. In the 1930s, All A Brazen Counselor Tries "Yo, Brian. It's a simple yes or no." Hallows was a home "Umm, yes, Ms. Morgan," says Brian, for poor or lower- For Repeat Performancewho has no parents, a home on a night- middle-class Catho- mare street and a class rank of 88th... out lickids Irish, of 88 seniors. "I mean, I definitely want to mostly, some Ital- BeyondJobs With Paper Hatsget out. Who wouldn't?" ian who lived "Fine, I'll take it from here," she says, along the Bronx's allbusiness and in-your-face,as she GrandConcourse. shoves an application form for all the state The Christian universities of New York across her desk. Brothers, then a ro- "Have this back to me tomorrow morning. bust order housing First thing, or I'll come looking for you." 25attheschool, There are many people at All Hallows were educators with a three-story brick box under a statue of a penchant for disci- the Virgin Mary, hard beside an open-air pline. They drilled drug marketinvolved in the effort to send students on the clas- every one All Hallows' 88 seniors to sics and carried leather straps in the deep college. But none is more brazen than pockets of their robes. For any infraction, Kathy Morgan, the school's lone college- kids held out their palms. placement counselor. "I'd stand in the back of the line, so by A College Try the time they'd get to me, their arms would Last year, initiatives led by Ms. Mor- be tired," says Walter O'Hara, 63, looking gan somehow got all of All Hallows' seniors down at his palms as though they might accepted to four year colleges, an astonish- still be red. "We knew what was expected ing 100%. The struggle, as spring ap- of us. No questions asked. I'm a product of proaches, is to do the same for this year's that place." By the time he graduated in 1952, Mr. O'Hara recalls that the neighbor- senior class, despite their average com- hood had already risen to "more of a bined SAT score of 870 out of 1,600, despite the fact that nearly two-thirds are from middle-class area, very nice, with Irish, single-parent families and are on public Jewish and Italian, mostly. The Yankee assistance, despite the opposing tug of ballplayers kept apartments at a hotel on relentless mayhem all around. the Grand Concourse, which was like "I'm not a particularly religious per- Broadway, like Fifth Avenue." son," says Ms. Morgan, a 39-year-old with Mr. O'Hara, unearthing memories, a Brooklyn accent and a demeanor that gazes out the window of his managing might be called Rosie O'Donnell with an director's office at Allen & Co., the invest- ment bank, which overlooks Fifth Avenue, edge. "But I figure God must really have a as he recalls getting word in 1993 that his sense of humor to drop me in this spot. On celestial television, this has got to be ahit old school was failing. The neighborhood sitcom. This week on 'Morgan in Hell,' had long since become famous more for blight than baseball. "It wasn't the school Kathyrunsscreamingthrough .the I'd known. And those kids may look differ- halls... ." This weekthe first in MarchMorgan ent than we did, but that shouldn't make a difference. We were allowed to get to the is hustling to save her last stragglers,a handful of students who have ducked, plate to take three good swings. Those kids faked, hid and otherwise managed to elude deserve three good swings, too." He called other Irish-American invest- her grasp. Her mission is to guide them ment bankers, many of them All Hallows past problems with confused, often belea- alumni, and raised money to keep the guered parents and rigid,by-the-book teachers toward a foreign idea: that they school open. Soon, facilities were up- actually belong in college. graded, a new administration was hired, and a bridge was stretched between one That ideathat notion of what is possi- Please Turn to Page A8,.Column 1 ble for poor black and Latino kids flow-

1 3 313 7 BEST COPYAVAILABLE ContinuedFT0111First Page Initiatives were launched to gather group who made good from the Bronx and teacher recommendations and financial- another fighting just to make it out. aid forms by the end of junior year. For the It remains a rickety bridge. The school latter, Ms. Morgan regularly interrupts is supported almost exclusively on about classes with this message: "Listen, I don't S1.3 million raised each year in donations, care if you get into Harvard. You don't fill and the recent college-acceptance rates out the financial-aid forms, you Won't be though stunning are the result of a sort of going anywhere except that Burger King academic trapeze act, without net, effected down the street to spend the next 25 years each day in the halls. in that really attractive paper hat." She Ms. Morgan, like most All Hallows bundles applications and sends them off teachers, is the product of.. no-nonsense herselfhundreds of them.. Catholic schools. The nuns at her all-girls It is odd that so much authority would

academy, she says',were always in your be seized by a guidance counselor, so often . face. it was, 'Do it, or else.'." Such lessons a sleepy custodian of college-application came . in handy, years later,.:hen she materials at many better schools. In fact, worked as a college basketball' coach, a she is one of three guidance counselors, physical-education teacher at Manhattan's each of whom has a full plate of social-work plush Columbia Preparatory School and, responsibilities. But it is the way Ms. Mor- eventually; an English teacher at a school gan has elevated her added job, college in impoVerished Monterey, Mexico. counselor, into the endgame of years of Returning to New York in 1995, she re- work by countless teachers on behalf of calls having an t!irreSistibIe profile: sin- students that has won her such clout. gle, Irish-Catholic -gir141no.job;. no life, no "The difference with Kathy Morgan," future.. Last resort..for41k theWayward, of says Mr. O'Hara of Allen R Co., "is that course, is to call tfiearcfidiOCese. So, they she views what she does in an entrepre- tell me, 'Well, let'S.see, now .. we've got neurial way. I'm used to seeing entrepre- something in the South Bronx; I said, 'You neurs who are forceful about their ideas. In better give me direction.s.'11 her area, though, you don't find many peo- Ms. Morgan began to experiment with ple who take control." her role in 1996. The Christian Brothers Of course, most guidance counselors re- and Mr. O'Hara had just hired a new prin- spect the autonomy of their students. Ms. cipal. Thirty-five kids were expelled that Morgan says that is a luxury her students year, sending a strong message to stu- can't afford. "When it comes to their fu- dents. A mandatory daily reading period tures, you can't rely on them getting direc- for the whole school was instituted. tion from elsewhere. Look, often there are 'You Want Diversity?' no parents at home, or parents who have But discipline only went so far, Ms. no idea what's 'outside of South Bronx. I Morgan recalls. Most of the kids "weren't have to make decisions. College is better even applying to go anywhere. Lots of than no collegeperiod. So, I tell them, 'I've them would just graduate and go back to picked out a couple of colleges you can get the streets. But I heard colleges all talking accepted to and that's where you're going. about 'real diversity,' both racial and eco- You'll thank me later, when you're presi- nomic. So, I figure, 'You want diversity? dent.' " I'll give you diversity.' " She planned for The Stragglers six top students to secretly visit Holy Cross After a year poking and prodding the College, the competitive, mostly white col- class of 1999, some seniors have started lege in Worcester, Mass., where she had getting letters of acceptance. Meanwhile, developed some contacts. time is running out for her last two strag- When All Hallows' new principal, Sean glers, Brian Seymour and Andres Sierra, Sullivan, found out about the trip, he ob- who haven't yet applied anywhere: jected, saying there was no way they would A stream of crises washes across her be accepted to such a selective college. desk. A 'kid comes in who doesn't know They went anyway. A few months later, ac- what his mother does, so he can't fill out ceptance letters came back: six for six. the financial-aid form. Ms. Morgan dead- '"We were all shocked," Mr. Sullivan says eyes him: "Ask her about her job ... now. "After that, I told Kathy, 'Keep doing tonight!" An administrator arrives with whatever it is you're doing. I'm giving you bad news: A top student has been sus- anopen,field. Just go crazy.' pended for skipping school and forging a She did. All Hallows, like many urban notefrom his mother. A meeting is sched- schools, forces juniors to take a -class in uled with the school's dean of discipline. SAT preparation. Ms. Morgan created a Expulsion is possible. "Don't worry," Ms. second curricular. requirement: the writ- Morgan tells' the administrator. "This ing of a college-application essay. "JuSt to kid's had some problems at home and he's make sure, I gave them a couple of models. got good numbers. No one's touching him. The thing is, these kids really have some- He's looking at college, not expulsion." He thing to write about," says Ms. Morgan, seems relieved, knowingas she does who has All the essays neatly filed in her that everything is now secondary to immi- desk drawer before senior year begins: She nent college acceptances. pulls out this year's thick folder and starts As the afternoon passes, she works the flipping pages. "Look at these, one after phones. New York has particularly strong anothershootings, drug-dealing, want- educational- opportunityprogramsthat ing to find a better life in America. HoW help her. get application fees waived and can you say 'no' to these essays?" get kids who are academically and finan-

134 138 cially underprivileged into colleges in New time for quiet reading and homework for York. For out-of-state schools like Holy kids who failed two or more classes in the Cross, results mostly come through brow previous marking periodBrian walks beating. Those first six, trailblazing kids into the nearly empty halls. He'd rather who were accepted into Holy Cross in 1996, not see anyone. He'd like to just edge out actually ended up going to Notre Dame and let this day be over with. And he does, University, Middlebury College, Skidmore slipping out onto a sunny sidewalk in front College and Trinity College, all of which of- of the school, taking a deep breath. fered generous financial-aid packages. Ms. Morgan files in behind him. He The next year, Ms. Morgan made copies of turns, surprised. each college's package and sent them to "Tough day, huh?" she says. Holy Cross. "I told them, here's what your "Yeah, not so good," he mumbles, look- competition is doing," she says. "You ing away. want my kids, get with the program." Last "You're going to make it. Right?" she year, Holy Cross did, enhancing its finan- says, blocking his path. "We agreed. cial-aid packages for six 1998 graduates, all Right?" of whom enrolled. "I hope so, Ms. Morgan: I hope so." He Sitting at her desk, Ms. Morgan calls up meets.her gaze. the Holy Cross admissions office to talk Back in her office a moment later, she about this year's applicants and check on bores in on her other straggler. Andres alumni who are now students. "Everyone Sierra, ranked 64, disappeared from All OK up there?" she asks pensively, part of Hallows in January when his mother could- the regular checkups she does on previous n't pay $500 in tuition for the semester. Af- graduates who are now in college. The ad- ter a few days at the Bronx's Taft High missions official, who administers pro- School, with its metal detectors and chaos, grams for underprivileged students, as- an alumnus paid Andres's tuition and he sures her all All Hallows graduates are still returned to school. Now, Ms. Morgan is enrolled and thriving. pressing him on her single issue: "In three 'Once They Can Clear-Their Heads' months you're going to walk down the aisle She hangs up, relieved. "I'm always at graduation, sothe questionwhat will nervous that they'll fail when they get to you be doing in September?" college. But they never seem to. It's amaz- Andres is ready: "Marines." ing. I've got kids with combined SATs of "No way, you're not going to the 600 who are at colleges. Not Yale. Decent Marines." Ms. Morgan recently pulled two places, though. People gasp about this. But seniors out of the Navy. Both are now ac- the kids do fine. What I've learned is that cepted to college. our kids are incredibly adaptable, inge- Andres, a handsome kid who works af- nious at survival, and they can't afford to ter school at a health club, and is anxious fail. Once they get away from the madness to get to his job, seems confused. "But ... of their lives in South Bronxonce they I sort of decided." can clear their damn headsthey eventu- "All right, why do you want to go into ally figure things out. That's what I tell the the Marines?" colleges. Give them a little time, they'll do He says that his older brother is in the you proud. The colleges are finally figuring Marines and "says it's pretty good and that out." all." She closes the door and, over the next Of the several hundred students she has 15 minutes; iCiobes Andres's psyche, even- placed, she has had time to personally tually learning that Andres's mother actu- check up on at least three-quarters, she ally wants to him to go to college and that says, all of whom are still in college. She his brother, whom he looks up to, isn't all says she has heard of a couple of kids who that happy in the Marines. have moved between colleges, and a hand- "Guess what, Andres? You're going to fulshe estimates only four or fivewho learn from your brother's mistakes." have dropped out. The next morning at He laughs and fumbles with his blue All 8:15 in the cafeteria, Ms. Morgan plucks Hallows sweatermandatory hereand caps off students' heads before homeroom his Mickey Mouse tie. She pulls out his (no hats are allowed in the school) as she SATs: 360 verbal. 200 math. "Let me spots her prey: "You got something for guessyou were flirting with some girl in me?" the test center." He blushes. "Two of Brian Seymour hands her his completed them." She closes the deal. "All right, application. "Surprised?" he says. you're taking the SATs again at the end of "Not in the least, my man," she says. March and you're filling out this college- "This is all I need." application form and bringing it to me in After the strong start, though, Brian's the morning." She shoves it in his hand. day soon collapses. He gets into a verbal The room is quiet. Andres sits for a mo- exchange with a teacher and is ejected ment, uncertain. "You really think I can go from class. Teachers and administrators to college?" he says tentatively, having Ms. Morgan includedhuddle. They rec- dropped his cool shield. ognize that Brian is under acute stress: al- Ms. Morgan gets up, walks around the tercations at school with teachers and stu- desk, and puts her hand on his shoulder. dents. academic pressures, and worries "College, right now, looks like Mount Ever- about the elderly aunt who raised him and est. It's not. It's, a gentle hill, long but gen- has severe diabetes. They set up a program tleand you, my man, are going all the of tutoring and after-class work to get him way up. For the rest of the day and tonight, to graduation. I want You to say, 'I'm going to college.' After an hour in after-school study a See how good it feels."

V (SR)2 Selected Readings on School,Reform Grab Bag

Kicking off our Grab Bag section is an instructive article.by Christian Peters. 'Writing in The Washington Monthly, he explains "What The Public Can Learn From Hollywood And George W. Bush." The entertainment industry's shift from the 1940's highly centralized, top-down factory model to the deregulated, focused-on-a-hit model that we know today provides.a lesSon for public education. Free up the process, give directors and stars (principals and teachers) "creative freedom for which they are expected to generate a hit movie or TV series. If they do they get renewed. If they don't they're homeless. Simple." Of course, one might wonder, will this work in schools, too? Peters points to the example of Texas and George W. Bush to demonstrate that it can. Also making a plug for accountability in the pages of The Washington Monthly is James Heaney. In "Easy Pickings," he takes Buffalo school administrators to task for receiving the::, city's highest public salaries while being held the least accountable for results. Heaney cites: shocking statistics: Seventy-five school administrators made more in 1996-97 than the mayor; seventeen principals made more than the police commissioner, and so on These salarieSwould be less shocking if these school officials were getting results. We finish with a little chemical stimulation. What should we make of kids.on Ritalin?Mary EberStadt tells us in "Why Ritalin Rules," published in Policy Review: According to Eberstadt, Attention. Deficit Disorder (ADD), the condition that elicits a prescription for Ritalin, is overly - diagnosed and has, in effect, become the ailment du jour for white, middleclass folks. Why?' Ritalin provides all kinds of benefits, some physiologicala drug-induced energy surge," far stronger than a Starbucks grande mochaccinoarid some academicuntiMed tests (SATs and' LSATs included). Then there's the lure of cash: Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI)'coilitor of Uncle Sam, because of this "disability." Eberstadt is less than sanguine about Ritalits effectsit mimics cocaineand the ambiguity of the diagnostic process,-.which can be: easily,,: manipulated.

DDW

140 137 The Washington Monthly, May 1999 What The PublicSchools Can Learn FromHollywood And George W.Bush BY CHRISTIAN PETERS

AM A MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER IN SAN What was truly wonderful about Jay, Mike, and Ed Bernardino, Calif.; a small blue collar city out though was the way that they would bring that oth- where the eastern fringe of the Southern erwise achingly dull workplace to life. Virtuallyevery California sprawl begins to dissipate into the morning one or the other of them would come bar- Mojave desert. I have been at it for fiveyears reling into the office nearly exploding with thestory now and truly love my work more and more each idea, sitcom character, cartoon, or song he'd stayed year. And just as much, I like the people I work with. up late the night before composing. And not only Teachers are. by and large the most caring, decent and were they eager to share their own ideas, when they altruistic group you'll find anywhere. Yet one thing didn't have any of their own they would relentlessly has increasingly nagged at the over the five years I pester me to share pages from whatever screenplay I have taught. It has to do with my life before teaching. was working on. They were forever on the lookout for Prior to becoming' a teacher, I was an aspiring an opportunity to collaborate or form a partnership. screenwriter living in" Los Angeles and circulating Indeed, one of the things that made me realize Iwas- through the hustling, scuffling fringes of the enter- n't cut out for the movie biz was seeing how much tainment industry. During those Hollywood wannabe harder these guys hustled than I was willing to. days there were three people who, in retrospect, Now, five years later, despite my being engaged in embody for me the creative, optimistic, resourceful a more satisfying profession with more nobly inten- best of The Business. Far from being the hot shot, tioned colleagues, I find myself...well... missing Jay, Tarentino -esque prodigies I most envied at the time, Mike, and Ed. Not that there aren't teachers as creative they were Jay, Mike, and Ed, my co-workers in the and dynamic as they were. It's just that I have a hard wire service room at the hyper-conservative Investor's time finding anyone who is eager to share new ideas Business Daily where I supported myself by clipping or seek anykind of feedbackwhatsoever on his or her articles and writing quarterly report summaries. They work. were like me, aspiring something-or-others in their Now I have plenty of friends among mycurrent twenties; Jay from Pennsylvania, Mike from England co-workers. Indeed, I know and chat easily with all of and Ed from Michigan. They were a few of the thou- them and socialize with many of them. But I have sands of young people from all over the country who hardly a clue what they do in their classrooms, what populate Los Angeles' west side, toiling in restaurants, they are accomplishing or not accomplishing, or what video stores, back offices and telemarketing boiler I could learn from any of them. rooms while pursuing their writing, acting, directing, So much is the organization of secondary school producing, songwriting, or maybe all-of-the-above curriculum and the school day still a compartmen- dreams in their spare time. talized, factory-like industrial-age artifact that, like an assembly line worker, I spend my days entirely isolat- CHRISTIAN PETERS is.4 public school teacher in San Bernardino, ed in my little assembly bay (classroom) absorbed in California. slamming rivets of knowledge into the literally hun- dreds of kids who sail by me at 45-minute intervals. I ative freedom in return for which they are expected have little time to think or involve myself with any- to generate a hit movie or TV series. If they do they thing else oreven worse than an assembly lineany get renewed. If they don't, they're homeless. Simple. way of assessing or finding out if my rivets have held Now whether this structure is a good formula for in place. artistic success or even for the mental health of its par- In public education, there is little time and even ticipants is open to debate. What is not open to debate, less incentive for teachers to exchange ideas, critique however, is its monumental economic success. During and push each other as aspiring screenwriters do in the past 25 yearsoften referred to as the "Block- Hollywood. Indeed, among many teachers it's con- buster era" the profits of most of the "Big Seven" sidered almost a faux pas to inquire too much into whatIn public education, there is little time andeven they actually do in their class- rooms or to ask to observe one less incentive for teachers to exchange ideas, of them; an intrusion on the order of asking about their reli- critique, and push each other as aspiring gion or their sex life. Teaching's dirty secret is that we're all screenwriters do in Hollywood. intensely insecure and uncer- tain of just what the hell it is we're supposed to be doing in those classrooms. At studios have grown at a greater rate than during any worst, we suspect that everybody else knows what equivalent period in history. And most importantly, we're supposed to be doing except us. it's a system that draws more and more bright, ambi- What Hollywood can teach our schools lies in the tious, nervy Jays, Mikes, and Eds to L.A. every year; passion of Jay, Mike, and Ed and their motivation, people willing to work their asses off for years even as relatively self-centered people, to share and despite the slim odds of success and near-certain push and collaborate with one another. It is also direct- prospect of poverty and repeated rejectionin hopes ly traceable to an upheaval that took place in the of eventually landing a big studio development deal. entertainment industry 40 years ago. Over an amaz- Is there anything the virtuous world of public ingly brief time during the 1950s and early '60s, the education can learn from these on-the-make Holly- major Hollywood studios were forced to completely wood types? Consider that the nation's school system redefine their role in the movie making business. As today is still arguably at the same place the studio sys- the '50s began, the studios were structured along a tem was 40 years ago. It is stuck in an industrial-age highly centralized, top -down, factory model, much as organizational structure that is widely perceived as no the vast majority of school districts and individual longer getting the job done. The only difference is that school sites still are today. But with the Paramount while the old studio system failed because it could no antitrust decision of 1949 and the simultaneous advent longer maintain iron control over the creative means of television and the increased power of big stars, of production, in the case of the school system, the independent producers, and talent agents, the studios problem is the ambiguity of the product itself. That were forced to alter their structure drastically in order is, the main difference between schools now and to survive. schools say, 25 years ago, is that they are expected to What they did was stop doing the things they educate a vastly increased and more diverse popula- could no longer do effectivelycontrol talent and tion of students while at the same time addressing the the creative processand focus on what they could particular needs of an ever-increasing number of spe- still uniquely do: provide independent producers with cial groups. Obviously this makes the standardized, cash and access to the vast technical and distribution centralized, assembly line approach to education, infrastructure they still commanded. A new system which worked so well for the better part of the cen- therefore evolved whereby independent production tury, entirely obsolete. companies (run by dynamic, creative, risk-taking Jay, So how would the Hollywood approach apply to Mike, and Eds) contract with studios based on their schools? Easy. Just like the studios in the '50s and '60s, proven track records to produce a given number of school districts and state education bureaucracies need films over a given period of time. They are budgeted, to stop trying to do what they can no longer do given office space on studio lots and almost total cre- wellmandate educational strategies for addressing BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 1391 42 an impossible diversity of educational needsand unions, conservative politicians and "the educatior focus on what they can do well: allocate resources and elite" (education professors and writers) don't like monitor and reward achievement (i.e. improved school Texas' outcome-based approach. achievement = hit movies), thereby freeing the front- Administrators don't like it because it diminishes line troops at the school sites to figure out the best their role. Unions (along with the liberal politicians way of meeting their students' needs while still being with whom they are closely aligned) don't likeit held accountable to the bottom line. because they feel it leads down the slippery slope There are currently only a few states, most of toward pitting teacher against teacher. Manyconser- them southern and conservative such as Texas, Ken- vative politicians are still suspicious of it because it tucky, South Carolina, and Virginia, that have taken allows teachers too much freedom to pursue liberal steps toward this approach. The furthest along and agendas such as bilingual classrooms and "whole lan- most demonstrably successful of these states appears guage' reading instruction. Finally, intellectuals don't to be, believe it or not, Texas under the leadership of, like it because they view the standardized testsupon believe it or not, George W. Bush. There the state which the state standards are primarily based as crass has largely withdrawn from the business of mandat- political raw meat that has little to do with the devel- ing curriculum approaches and focused almost entire- opment of the "whole child:' ly on establishing strict, concrete standards of achieve- All of these arguments have some merit, but they ment that every school is expected to meet. all equally fail to see the scarier writing on the wall For instance, when Bush is asked about his posi- in the form of private school voucher initiatives, the tion on bilingual education, instead of proffering the growth in private school enrollment in general by expected conservative-nativist boiler plate, he regu- those who can afford it, and even the dramatic growth larly surprises listeners by saying he really doesn't care in home schooling that recently merited a Newravek how schools choose to teach as long as they show cover story. As the studio moguls realized in the concrete results. That's state policy. Schools, like Hol- '50s, the system was changing with or without them, lywood production companies, are given near-total and they had to do something to drastically alter the freedom to produce a successful product in the man- way they did business. The Progressive era education ner they see fit and are in return expected to produce system in this country is fast fading and will eventu- concrete results in the form of improved standardized ally disappear as surely as did the old studio system test scores. If they succeed, dollars, resources and of the 1920s - '50s. And education must change just recognition flow their way. If they fail, they risk state as Hollywood did. 0 takeover and the firing or forced transfer of their fac- ulty and administrators. Simple. What's more, the evi- dence dramatically suggests that this approach is work- ing. Texas' students performance on standardized tests have risen to consistently place in the top 10 nation- wide. Meanwhile my own state, California, with a nearly identical socioeconomic spread and ethnic diversity, continues to languish in the bottom 10. It is no coincidence that the California education hierar- chy also continues to issue endless top-down pre- scriptive edicts while failing to hold schools account- able for maintaining any ironclad standards. Fortunately, Congress brought the rest of us a step closer to the Texas approach by passing the Education Flexibility Partnership Act of 1999. The "Ed-Flex" bill permits all 50 states to waive some of the bur- densome regulations that are currently attached to federal aid for schools. But it's too early to tell what kind of effect the bill will have. Many states may shrink from the kind of strict accountability Texas has imposed, largely because the four main influence groups in educationschool administrators, teachers'

140 143 The Washington Monthly, May 1999 Easy Pickings

Few public officials are better paidor less accountablethan school administrators

BY JAMES HEANEY

OST BUFFALO SCHOOL While the city high school principals' pay administrators are former teach- $94,486is higher than those in the suburbs, most of ers who have learned that there is their students' academic performance is not. Most good money to be made running city high schools are at the bottom of the achievement a poor district. School officials ladder among schools. Student performance is not accounted for 81 of the city's 100 highest paid admin- tied to principals' pay. istrators in 1996-97. The district's administrators rank among the best How much better paid are school administrators paid managers in city governmentand the least than their city government counterparts? Seventy-five accountable. They're rarely evaluated. And forget made more in 1996-97 than Mayor Anthony Masiel- about demotions or dismissals. All but a handful have lo, who ranked 91st overall among city administrators. what amounts to lifetime job security. Even assistant The schools' top budget official earned nearly $24,000 superintendents are members of a union and expect- more than the mayor's chief number cruncher. Seven- ed to supervise and, if necessary, discipline fellow teen principals made more than the police commis- members of their union. sioner, including four who pulled down more than The situation in Buffalo is worse than in many other $100,000. Even the School Board's secretary made more districts, but in many ways it typifies the entrenched than most of the city government's top administrators; bureaucrats found in school systems throughout the Alvina Staley earned $63,189, much of it in overtime, nation. "I think the public education system is about as and her pay topped those of the commissioners of unaccountable as anything the human mind has con- parks, streets, and community development. ceived," says Joe Nathan, director of the Center for Sixty-five percent of the administrators in the School Change at the University of Minnesota. "What's city who made over $65,000 work for the schools. In happened in Buffalo and a number of other places is 1996-97, 191 school administrators were paid more that the preferences of adults have become more impor- than $65,000, including 40 who earned more than tant than the needs of children. Our school systems are $80,000. Superintendent James Harris topped the list: fundamentally set up as employment agencies rather His $135,000 salary makes him the city's highest paid than educational institutions!' public official. Benefits for city school administra- Buffalo City. Comptroller Joel Giambra com- tors are vastly superior to those of the mayor's man- plains that there's no link between the high salaries agement staff. School administrators who retired the being earned by school administrators and the per- summer of 1996, for example, walked away with an formance of their students. The district usually eval- average of $49,940 in early retirement incentives and uates new administrators before they're granted per- compensation for unused sick time; department manent status after three years on the job, butthe heads in the city get nothing when they leave. evaluation criteria is fuzzy, and it's rare that anyone is turned down. A curriculum audit conducted in JAMES HEANEY is an editor at The Buffalo News, where be cov- March 1997 by a team of national experts found a ered education as a reporter for five years and wrote the series from haphazard and incomplete evaluation process. Audi- which this article is adapted. tors randomly pulled the files of 40 administrators

141 t.44,,, and found 24 had no evaluations. The grading system been the most aggressive in holdingadministrators used, on the remaining 16 was generous. Administra- accountable. Linking job securityto student perfor- tors were given the highest grade possible 87percent mance has been a cornerstone of efforts to improve of the time and unsatisfactory ratings were issued in the district, says G. Alfred Hess, directorof the Cen- less than 1 percent of the categories in whichthey ter for Urban School Policy at Northwestern Uni- were graded. "It's been 24 years since my last evalua- versity and an observer to the Chicago reformmove- tion," one administrator told auditors. "Thereisn't ment. "We saw principals' lifetime tenure asone of an evaluation system after administrators become the major problems in getting school improvementto tenured," another said. happen," he says. "The leadershipwas not account- When James Harris came aboardas superinten- able for the performance of the kids," dant nearly three years ago, he inherited a management staff of about 220, including assistant"Our schoolsystems are fundamentally superintendants, directors and supervisors who work out of the set up as employment agencies rather central office, and principals and assistant principals working in than educational institutions." schools. He had the authority to replace only six of the 220: three associate superin- The Illinois State Legislature enacted reforms in tendents, two special assistants focusedon budget and 1988 and 1995. Councils consisting primarily ofpar- media relations, and a labor negotiator. Removingany ents have gained greater control over school budgets of the others would have required the districtto prove and can hire and fire principals. Themayor appoints incompetence or misconduct. Simply doinga mediocre the school board and hires thetop five central office job, or the emergence of someone better suited for the administrators. The teachers union'spower has been position, are not sufficient cause toremove or demote reduced and principals lost theirtenure altogether. a school administrator in Buffalo. As a result, ineffective teachers and administratorsat Unions have such a stranglehold that Harris poorly performing schools can be fired. "The differ- couldn't even hire his own confidentialsecretary. ence is night and day," Hess says. "Previously, princi- Union work rules dictate who he got and, unlike the pals understood their main jobwas to make sure their situation in most workplaces, she isa union member school didn't get into the news,except for something and not considered confidentialmanagement. In con- wonderful. And as long as they kept their schoolout trast, the mayor not only can hire his own secretary, of trouble, nobody cared what happened. Nobody but also commissioners, deputy commissioners anda ever got fired because the kids didn't learn. Now the host of other managers. In all, themayor has control primary question about the performance of school over 42 management positions that are exempt from officials is whether their kids are learningor not!' union representation. The reforms are paying off. Thepercentage of Masiello describes the district's lack ofmanage- students reading at national norms climbed from 24 ment rights as "an obstacle!' "Management needs to to 35 percent from 1990 to 1998. "I would say 85 per- have the rights and flexibility tomanage and hold cent of the credit for changes in student achievement people accountable," he said. relate to the ability to change the principalat the But the times are changing elsewhere. A growing school," Hess says. "Effective principals makeor break number of states and school districtsare holding prin- improving schools!' cipals and other school administratorsmore account- "If you want to improve student achievement,you able by regularly evaluating their performance and in have to tie job security to whether kidsare learning some cases eliminating tenure. While tenure for prin- more. Otherwise educators' prejudice about the abil- cipals is embedded in New Yorkstate law, it is being ity of low-income and minority kids to learn gets in challenged around the country. Massachusetts, Geor- the way of change," Hess says. "If you cansay 'It's not gia, North Carolina and Oregon have stripped their my fault, it'sthe kids I have to teach,' you're not principals of tenure in recent years, reducingto 16 the going to get much change in those schools. But if number of states that provide principals with tenure. people say, 'Your job security depends on whether The Chicago school system, consideredone of kids in your classes are learning,' thenyou have a the nation's most troubled districts in the '80s, has whole different lever for change!' 145

142 Why Ritalitt Rules centmentionsan inestimable sincethe firstonly 1990, entry. half in passingor of Butthat the for thedecade the number reader alone, of struck thatschoolchildren production by some of takinghas the increasedfacts the the drug Times 700 may per- for example, that Ritalin use inure than doubled Policy Review, April & May 1999 verymaterialdotenow, will nearlyby somenowonly matched explain onestimates, offer, by so fora Fortunately,much. bepublishing the approaching explosion boomat least thein dedicated Ritalinfor4 million the consumption curiousto markthat same reader, phenome-has there been is a great deal of other mere anec- Why Rita lin Rules DisorderregimenIngcrsoll'snon.Child, Its harbingers foramong(ADD, now-classic what thecalled we include, first now ADHD 1988works call for Your example,Attentiontowhen popularize Hyperactive it includesBarbara Deficit a drug Behold the uniquely By MARY EBERSTADT iHERE AREThen STORIESplace thcrc that arc THAT they stories demand arc so emblematic to be dcsignatcd cultural landmarks.mcrc signs of thc tortes, of a particular time and and 'Cramertheandhyperactivity). better-off Ritalin helped prescriptions neighborhoods Five fuel years the boomlatcr, already and withwith schools,rising ADD his bestselling steeplydiagnoses Peter D.in psychotropic Americanuniverse, linc, "For School Nurses, More"Rita lin, Rita lin, seizure drugs, JanuarySuch a story 18 appearing was the New undcr York of noontime" Thanfor a typicalTending school the Sick." nurse Rita lin," in thc words of its sing-song the tame, cvcn soporific hcad-Times' front -page report on in East tant,forthereby"cosmeticListening the psychiatrists advocatesinadvertently to pharmacology" Prozac ofEdward Ritalin. broke intoM.new In Hallowell the 1994,conceptual vernacular most and groundimpor- John and a book that put the phrase pediatrics zone. opening.acrossnurse,fromBoston class "Sotheas "as for country,goesto she class,her thctrots counterparts dispensingrhythm her tray the day's routine is now driven of pillsbrown into plastic outstretched vialsin middle- and young paper and water upper-middle cups by what the Tunes dubs "a palms." For this class schools Distraction:J. RatcyforceChildhood inpublished the Recognizing to subsequent Adulthood, their own and proliferation a bestsellingCopingbook that with ofwas Driven ADD Attention perhaps diagnoses; to theDeficit single as Disorder its most opening powerful from sen- takingticklish1990 Rita question,"figure, lin estimatedwho to should wit: at "With be "Withgiving nursesout often serving more "the whole middle of the day can well over three million, more than the number of children across than onethe pills?" school at a time," be taken up in a the countrydouble the the story all Armstrong'sthetenceabout, same accurately you'll enthusiasm. Thesec itprophesied,Myth everywhere." One ofNot the noteworthy everyone ADD"Once Child, you received dissent catch which theseoncame attacked to soundings whatin 1995 both this with fromthesyndrome scientificThomas the psychotropic is beyond with goestotakenschool-to-school shareison particularly to thehavingexplain, burden. the low,scurry nurse "many to deputize dole out drugs." In Florida, where the ratio schools have clerical workers "anyone from a principal to a Massachusetts, for its part, has of school nurses to students hand out the pills." secretary" groupsnouncementsgizing"claims madeto of harbor normal on by behalf thcthe children. fearNational of that ADD DissentADD Education and would what also Association Armstrongbetook used the to form stigmatizedecried (NEA), of wary as one minoritythe public of "patholo- several chil-pro- Soauthorities manyplace pills, where to and do? "psychiatric so fewBehold the uniquely American medications in general haveprofessionals become more to go around. What psychotropic universe, pediatrics zone There are by now else arc the common a dren.AdministrationtheFromout Meanwhile, hcrcDrug the and middle Enforcement there scare(FDA), to in thestories the thelate mass medical Administrationon 1990s, themedia, abuse journals,other and and interested a sidethenational (inn), National effects parties thecontroversy of InstitutesFood Ritalin from andall poppedwas of over HealthDrug born. millionsin schools"Mary of storiesEberstadtand where, in orbit is in consulting hcrc,of how the drug has induced a 146 particular, "Rita lin dominates." editor to Policy Review.and the particularprofessional one chosen labor shortage by the Times is no doubt Internet.throughand(Nut), Adults and countless especially with Attention reports, the extremely Deficitconferences, active Disorder) advocacypamphlets, group and CHADD exchanges (Children on the further stoked the debate 147 the critical side of the ledger,To this have outpouring just been of added: information Richard and opinion Mary Eberstadt two new books, both on DeGrandpres ratingreinforcing of euphoria, effects similardrug liking to those and ofactivity, d-amphetamine and decreases including in sedation." Why Ritaliri Rules increases in For appearanceChildren,H.Humaniconoclastic Diller's Consciousness Society superbly marks Rita lin andan analytical Nation: unusually Performance(Simon Rapid-Fire Runningand opportune Schuster, in Culture moment 1999), and andin the which physician Transformation to sift through of a Pill (Bantamon Rita Books,lin: A Physician 1998). Their Reflects on Lawrence putamphetamine;potentialcomparative the point adverse conversely,purposes, they physiological arc, thatas as the Richardsame table effects DEA shows, DeGrandpre of report both nearly methylphenidate includes does identical in Ritalin (see and below). Nation by a table listing the dextro- To ifsome anything,both ten terms years' we into worthhave household learned of informationLet's words. from put the the on national questionRita lin experimentand bluntly: ADD Howand that to has ask it what, come to pass that in fin-de- has made drenwhichpharmacologicalquoting in is the anowone 1995U.S." ofthe thereport mostactions most commonly in reinforcingthat the areArchives veryprescribed and similar of addicting General psychotropic to those of Psychiatry, the of abusedmethylphenidate,medicine "Cocadrugs, for chil- hasinc. tothat,childrensiecle tell"anti-drug" as theAmerica, one are difference"? journalist being catechism where legally accurately every by drugged heart, child summarized millions withfrom preschool of the middle- science, onward and "it upper-middle takes class a substance so similar to cocaine can recite the a chemist self-administernumerous studies. comparative DeGrandpreSuch doses reports Crystalpharmacological of cocaine that Lite? "lab and Potentialanimals similarities Ritalin given Adversedo have the choice been Effects explored to of Ritalin and Dexies over the years in not favor one (---1---iE FIRST that methylphenidate, to use the generic What is methylphenidate?THING THAT has made the Ritalin explosion possible IS term, is perhaps the most Cardiovascular IncreasedTachycardiaPalpitation blood pressure1.*4,ft 1"77177107.4TachycardiaIncreasedPalpitation blood pressure aboutstudiedis, as Lawrence the drug nature in pediatrics,"Diller of the observes drug most itself in laymen Runningand about remain its underpharmacological widely misunderstood drug in America today. Despite the fact on Ritalin, "the most intensively a misimpression both effects on that it Central Nervous System DizzinessPsychosisExcessive CNS stimulation DizzinessPsychosisExcessive CNS stimulation itterizationchildren. is "a mild that stimulant appeared of elsewhere theWhat central most in thenervous people Times believe piece quotedabout this earlier drug is the system that, for reasons not same erroneous charac- that AttacksIrritabilityNervousnessInsomniaHeadache of Gilles de Ia AttacksIrritabilityNervousnessInsomniaHeadache of Gilles de Ia ment,lant"impulsivefully hereunderstood, depends andis at hyperactive partlyleast often medically on helpsthe settle dosage, childrenaccurate. down and and who "Mild,"partly concentrate." on whether The the word reader are chronically distractible, a more ambiguous judg- "stimu- can Gastrointestinal NauseaAnorexia Tourettetic syndromes or other NauseaAnorexia ticTourette syndromes or other course,name:methylphenidateimagine "dories"), cocaine. describing But ismethamphetamine closely the chief asrelated. "mild" substance These (street any ofinclude dosage thename: Times' dextroamphetamine "crystal of formulationthe drugsmeth"), here and, of to which (street Endocrine/metabolic WeightDryStomachVomiting mouth loss pain DryStomachVomiting mouth pain acknowledged,mysterythat the reasons ,is, as an whyinformed enduring Ritalin"Methylphenidate," publicwriters does whatmyth. from it does all over in the the words debate of havea 1995 long to children remainDEA a medical background paper on Other HypersensitivityLeukopeniaGrowth suppression reaction BlurredSkinGrowthWeight rash lossvisionsuppression or hives 148 cocaine."the drug,pharmacological Further, "is a central it "produces nervouseffects behavioral, ofsystem amphetamine, (cr4s) psychological, stimulant subjective, methamphetamine, and and shares many of and Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration BlurredAnemia vision 149 Why Rita lin Rules erenceersameover finding another"fashion studies" for and Ritaof that non-human lin "a as similar they would primatesstudy for showed cocaine." (emphasis monkeys The added). DEA would reports In Driven to that methylphenidate is actually "chosen over cocaine in pref- Mary Eberstadt work in the anoth- mentscaffeinelevels further of and 'self-medicating' in nicotine.") an obvious comparison,aroundA third the myth world" "this about probablyin methylphenidatethe form explains of "stimulants the is thathigh likeit, alone among drugs of its whenthatinterchangeableDistraction, "people they take withpro-Ritalin Rita nature ADD lin [emphasisoffeel psychiatrists methylphenidate focused added]." when Hallowell they Moreover,and takecocaine and cocaine, methylphenidate Ratey when just underlinethey as observe they (like thedo other stimulants) appears to increase tolerance for quiteflourishedkind,entof thetrue ispattern immune drug, thatalongside haselementarywhich toemerged being theis presumably boom schoolchildrenabused. among in Rita teenagersTo kept linthe away prescription-writing. arecontrary: and unlikely from adults littleAbuse to who hands,ingest statistics have Though extraa verythe havedosesmanual differ-it is Ritalin`works' on thanRitaple,related thatlindo drugs. others.turn when to Recent cocaine, Topeople summarize, evidence accustomedthey seek againindicates, higher fromto prescribed dosesfor the exam- DEA of it abusefastersnortdexterity their ofthan methylphenidate to contents oralopen ingestion). prescription (a method inAccording schoolyardsFor bottles that this puts group, andto andthe the statisticsondrugDEA, wherewithal the into streetfor on theexample, arethe bloodstream to dramatic.proliferating chop as upearly and far as 1994 Rita lin was the stimulantswaychildren related the report,childrenbehavioralfor cocaine "it is inclear paradigms." theand thatsame d-amphetamine methylphenidate wayAll thatof which related in substitutesais numberstimulantsto say that of Rita lin "works" on seniorsfastest-growingemergencybetween in Texas. the room ages amphetamine In visits1991, of 10 connected reports and being 14 DeGrandpre years with used Ritaold "non-medically" werelin in abuse. Rita involved lin In Nation,1995, byin highonly just "children fourschoolabout years 25 adults.work on oldequallytionwork street span on predictable adults whenparlance; the valleys drug"rebounding," kicks ("coming in and in down," Ritalinese) producing in the sharpening the short-term atten- tion.entrepreneursthesewaslater, about Fromthatand othernumberthe 1990 samehave measures to had 1995,numberresponded climbed ofthe ofmethylphenidate's DEA visitswithto more reports, interestas forthan cocaine." there to400 therecreational visits,were drug's Not aboutwhich surprisingly, increased appeal, 2,000 for this criminaltheftscircula- groupgiven of drencounselofwith areparticular the subject parents two most concern.to tothe seecommon same theirThat adverse doctor is why, ifeffects forthey example, feelas adults their handbooks childilubibing is losing such on ADDtoo drugs, much will when the effect wears off. Just as predictably, chil- appetite suppression and insomnia being drugsmethylphenidate,that diverted the drug from "ranks most licensed in of the them handlers." top night 10 most break-ins frequently at pharmacies reported pharmaceutical meaning scheduledOrwellianscribedweight, andsedatives phrases times, why someintypically to the help childrenpsychotropic themon weekends who sleep. universe, take It ormethylphenidateis schoolalso "drug why holidays"vacatioes, one ofarc thewhen also more pre- the meaning DeGrandpre1995, "is now notes a popularthat at his high own on college campus in Vermont, Ritalin was cited as grounds.to it,ECAUSE methylphenidate "The SO prescription MANY is TEENAGERS particularly drug Ritalin," likely' and college reported to be abusedstudents Newsweek on have school access in with some serious side effects." thetureorderdosage same that to of keep itway methylphenidate no itslongerto suchadverse even Justdrugs, effects as,appears is so contrarylowered too in checkindo quotations. the orto thefolklore,physiologies drug temporarily the adultof all andpeople, withdrawn child regard- physiologics in respond in is now so common in the litera- countrycomment,theseveral third-favorite over undercoverscores several ofdrug individualpages narcotics to snort of his in abuseagents book. a campus stories whoIn Running survey.confirm from newspaperson He that Ritalin, also "Ritalin runs, Diller across iswithout cheapercites the it,less not."improvesin of a whetherpoint Writing theechoed they inperformance the arc by Public diagnosedmany Interestotherof anyone with sources, lastADD year, ormethylphenidate hyperactivity. psychologist AsKen "potentially Diller Livingston puts child or not, ADD-diagnosed or brotherheroinespecially,oneand easierparticularly ortakes cocaine.to do purchaseit notunder hazardous consider To a at doctor'sthe playgrounds factcontrary: the prescription,aboutdrug to"theyRitalinthan be onanywhere thinkit abuse, themust street." that benamely near safe."since He as that furthertheir dangerous teenagers, younger reports as stituteingprovideddiagnosisprove the ofmid theaMental similarseventies ofperformance ADHD, Health" summary to onearly whichoftasks ofmosteighties the requiring "clearly people,research, by Judith showedgood regardless citing Rapaportattention." thit"studies of stimulant of ("Indeed," theconducted National drugs he dur- im- In-com- 150 whether they have a some,thosephetamine, who Ritalin value and is is itsto abused medicinalchildren likeIn whatshort,effects an amphetamine. Prozac methylphenidate tend to and explain other Perhaps the psychotropic looks drug not likedifferently. surprisingly, an "moodamphetamine, To acts like an am- 161 tybrightening" and performance. drugs arc But to the adults analogy is misleading. Prozac and its sistcrs Mary Ehersladt a short-term fix for enhancing personali- arc opment offering new benefits for those diagnosed with ADD. On these and Why Ritalin Rules focus,"vocatesketnot forstimulants drugs asin CHADD:Hallowell like with these. stimulant that and Even "Just Ratcy more sideas explain, a effects;pairpeculiar of "so glasses there is the is, helpanalogy ipso the facto, nearsighted can medication help the person favored by the ad- no black mar- person tive,"CHADDsourcesother and fronts of has is information ofthe a interest,track one yourecord CHADD arecanOne ofouttrust." of delivering there,"CHADD'Sleads the as speedyADD a particular slogan world. on strengths "No its wcbsite is that promises, it is exquisitely media-sensi- responses to any reports on matter how many taking),glasses,rareplainedwith butADD noreither dramaticallyfeeling even see thethe of worldfaintestsadness chilling more risk that possible clearly." of sometimes toxic effects. But psychosis, there accompanies is pediatric nor loss of appetite, insomnia, "dysphoria" (an unex- no black market for eye-to cite one of Ititalin's Ritalin- mediagoalstiveRitalin one and campaign"or fundraising ADD objectives that and theletter as"challeng[ing] group "conduct[ingj from deems 1997, inaccurate.negative, where a proactive the inac- Dillerorganization listed its quotes as representa- chief pealMyth"sec best. of Ritalin the "Many ADD and middle Child related fourand drugsWhat upper-middleyears almostis methylphenidate as `cognitiveclass "really" steroids' like? that Thomas Armstrong, ago, probably summarized the drug's ap- parents," he observed then, writing in The can be used information,exhortStreetwithcurate ADD." Journal reportsreaders innuendo, Citingand thatinto Forbes, demean"fighting "savage ignorance the or lettertheseattacks" undermine and alsobattles outright in went the ofpeople Wall mis-hos- on to rhetoric herethe- wagonsThe circle thethistheoneto day way, help bigcan the cup theirargue, attraction from kids that Starbucks focus after-lunch to Ritalin on theirthat hitmakes millions schoolwork of low-dose considerable of adults better methylphenidate swig than the is much like but only in some ways. There is no dramatic upswing in hospital sense. Into some get them ways, through next kid." Put hereologicaltility appearstoward disorder." CHADDto be typical The and Certainlycircle-the-wagons adultsof the whogroup, it have was as is with therhetoric zeal. missionary fervor that a neurobi- appearstypical to ofbe the thoseofbrainemergency a developing beingchildren joltedroom is child;not visitsawake legally and, and in availableone ofpharmacy course, and the break-ins ubiquitous substance due caffeine, doing to caffeine abuse; the case is that of an adult, and in the other that the jolting on butall a substance means,phenidate,paignCHADD, to among make inas 1995,mentioned, other Ritalin mounted things, easier is a that anSchedule toextraordinary the obtain. DEA II drug. mustMethyl- cam-That ap- group, as is the zeal. stimulantsthethat samethe DEAand controls, other insists powerful andon calling for drugsthe a sameSchedule like morphine. II drug, meaning reasons of abuse potential, as related that it is subject to refillsRitalinthoseprove"shortage." whocannotan be annual writtenrely simply onIt production also init, triplicatebesince means called it raisesquota forthatinto the thesomethefor pharmacyspecter,the states substance if require only in that theory, prescriptions of purpose of monitoring its use, and that as they can for Schedule HI a fact that irritates a Ritalin for jiHIS sonMENTION for the Ritalin OF SCHEDULE explosion IIin drugs this decade. brings us That to a issecond the extraordi- What is CHADD? rea- manyscribeousdrugs compounds (forparents,Ritalin example, in who usedquantity, dislikelow-dosage to treat are having migraine).inconvenienced opiates to stop Doctors,like by Tylenol by the thisparticularly doctor's requirement.with codeine, office those andwho every Sotime too are vari-pre- includeFoundedADD support 35,000 in 1987, groups families CHADD and and a lobbying 600 had, chapters according organization nationally. of demonstratedIts nary political and medical clout of CHADD, by far the largest of the to Diller, grown by 1993 to professional adviso- prowess. example,methylphenidate'sthatitthe makes Ritalin"some claim children pharmacists,runs that Schedule out. feelone Moreover, stigmatized;of in IIthe theirclassification most attemptmany the authors toin complyprinciple, of Driven with federal regulations, common problems parentsin treating and ADD doctors is alike object to on the grounds thatto Distraction, for ganizingclearing-housethery ADD board, world,speaking he andnotes, a veritable information events, "includes Likewho's issuing center mostmost who a support forinofmonthly research." theits burgeoning mostgroups newsletter prominent in self-help membership academicians America, in CHADD functions partly as (Chadderbox), or- Neurology,Schedulemake consumers III and drug. it [of wasThis Ritalin] also petition Forsupported feel all was as of though theseco-signed by other reasons, they distinguishedby CHADDthe American petitioned medical Academy thebodies, DEA of are obtaining illicit drugs." to reclassify Ritalin as a itemsoperatingputting for out sale.an a exceedingly glossy Particular magazine scrutinyactive (named,website is given stockednaturally to with enough, on-line fact every legal and political devel- Attention!), and sheets and forDiller'sAssociation,including he is account a the doctor and American of the who this American hasepisode Academy himself Academyin Runningof written Pediatrics, of many Child the prescriptionsand American Adolescent Psychological for Psychiatry. Ritalin on Ritalin is particularly credible, in 163 dissentingcases where strongly he has judged from the it to effort be indicated. to decontrol Nevertheless, it he found himself Mary Eberstadt an effort that, as he petition),failed in the on attemptother legislative to decontrol fronts Ritalin cumin) (in wasthe end, garnering the group one withdrewvictory after its Why Ritalhi Rides televisionDiller's"couldwrites, words havewasdocumentary "a "unprecedentedhad bombshell." a profound revealedWhat For impacthappened in thatbefore the Ciba-Geigy onhistory thethenext, DEAavailability ofwhile Schedule had(now CHADD officially calledof theH substances" Novartis),drug."awaited responded, the the andaDEA'S verdict, was in another.withandADD social a Bydiagnoiis letter the service from end could ofbenefits.the the U.S. lead 1990s,In Departmentelementaryto an thanks impressive largely andof Education high array to aschool lADDof to educational, stateclassrooms, and schoolits allies, financial, superin-a turning an point came in 1991 Ciba-Geigythe$900,000pharmaceuticals contributions to CHADD to giant all over but that afive fewmanufactures years, selected and members.that Rita CHADD lin, had had contributed failed to disclose nearly the background report citedThe responseearlier, was from harsh the andDEA, which appeared in receiveabilitiesputsfortendents special it. Thisaccess outliningEducation education directive to special "three Actservices was educationways(IDEA), based in in publicon which which and/orthe schoollandmark children "mandatesrelated under labeled 1990services, existing that Individuals ADD eligibleand laws," couldthat withchildrenthisas qualify Diller edu-Dis- hadcontributed alarmingofture,anduncompromising. CHADD'S well this overforreport those effortsa 100amounted whoBacked sourcesand have a meticuloustoby readin a scores thepublic it, medical of of description,excoriationthe footnotes realities litera- cationassignments,classrooms,entitledan individualized be designed by law learningand to to more.a program. longmeet specialists, The list each ofIDEAAs child'sservices, a result, alsospecial unique means including ADD-diagnosed equipment, educationalthat separatepublic tailored school needs" special-educationchildren districtshomework through arc now un- $900,000nearlyCHADD to over Instead,abusetotureof parents,"Rita prepared liability lin methylphenidate use the for andor DEA publicactual abuse. charged, abuseconsumption "Mostis routinely "doesof of methylphenidate. the not portrayedADHDand address available litera- as the a vateable education.to accommodate such children may be forced to pick up9N the THE tabRitalin-taking forFIELD pri- OF students HIGHER has EDUCATION, recently landed, where an ADD the first diagnosis wave of can be five stimulants."thatyears. methylphenidate shares the same abuse potential as other Schedule II anabusebenign, abundance or mildserious stimulantof effects.scientific Inthat literaturereality, is not however, associatedwhich indicates there with is manyoneinbased the particularly requestsclassrooms,course of for themeasurable extraincluding 1990s. time Yet way oncollege theSATs, of exampleassessing classrooms, LSATS, of ADD'S suchand similar mcKrshigh-profile impact "accommodations" have on parlayededucation;risen tests sharplyis onlyinto in other sorts of special treatment. Diller reports that ADD- phenidate."observed,relationship "stands betweenIt further to CHADDbenefit observedThe DEA from and wentthat Ciba-Geigy."a changetheon toUnited note in itsscheduling Ciba-Geigy,Natior4 "concerns" International of overthe methyl- DEA "the depth of the financial caseloadrefusetor'stellsarc made meletters "accommodation" that shows. informally and students pills" A 1996 with atand a article is student'sanrequesting to ADD risk in Forbes a diagnosisdemand. hornet's extra cites time nestnowA theprofessor for ofcome example routineliabilities, to inhim assignments.of the Whittier"wavingas Ivy a growing League Lawdoc- To AmericanADD."activelymentalNarcotics organizations (Thelobbying Controltaste rest for forof BoardRitalin. theandthe world, (mica)medicalparental Sweden, hadit useassociationsshould for "expressed of example, methylphenidate be noted, in concernhad the has methylphenidateUnited aboutyet for to Stateschildren non-govern-acquire that with-with theare measure:anextraSchool, expensive minutes which banning legalper was hourlongpop battle,sued quizzes by settled examan "becauseADD-diagnosed theinstead suit. ADD of It afurther fullstudents student hour. undertook need Thefor givingseparateschool, a preventive only fearingrooms 20 percentdrawngrowingconcluded from of Ritalin problemthe with market production the among documentedin 1968 school-age is followingconsumed observations children," a in spate the Unitedof thatthat abuse "abuse"ADHD States.) cases. data TheadultsToday, indicate report have 90 a andofusageics. extra what The (as time." NationalDiller do the calls U.S.College its and "possible ConcessionsAthletic International acuteAssociation have performance-enhancingOlympic also (NCAA) been Committees won once by prohibited advocatestoday) benefits." because Ritalin in theIn area of college athlet- ofhigh sufferedthesetoday's incidence issues youth on are accountof being substanceof great ofadministered thisconcern."Yet disorders," setback whatever methylphenidate turned and public that out embarrassment "with to be three short-lived.on a tochronic fiveCHADD percentThough basis, and itits supporters may have 164 participatingtolated. ingest1993, Today citingRitalin, ina legalletterthe even Olympics jeopardy from though the ifas team that hea reason were samephysician to for athlete test changing willpositive would suffice course, for be stimulants. todisqualified allowthe NCAA an athlete fromcapitu- 165 the name of ADD. With adultsNor arc now children accounting and collegefor the fastest-growingstudents the only Mary Eberstadt ones to claim benefits in formulation echoed by many, "three decades of medical science have Why Ritalin Rules yet to Equalworkplace.of ADD Employment diagnoses, The enabling servicesOpportunity regulationsand accommodations Commission here are (EEoc) 1997 which guidelines linked from the are also proliferating in the traits like subset Grail-likeResearchproduce any on quest substantive the forneurological something, evidenceNonetheless, side anything, to ofsupport ADD the that suchhaseffort can comea claim."to be produce tosaid resemble to suchset the evidence has been prodigious. a Holy ADD mentments,"words,chronic analyst thelateness,meaning for sorts the ofpoortraits traits judgment,that people are protected getand fired hostility under for the law. As Wall Street Journal recently observed (and as CHADD re- to coworkers to "psychiatric impair- one manage- in other Thecometonin,brain most apart toneurological famous be categorized of these damage, asstudies, a neurobiological lead and poisoning, the chief disability, thyroidgrounds problems, was reported and genes, imbalances of brain chemicals like dopamine and scro- on which ADD has in more. The gularlyclocks,byzantineofficelist of reminds furniture,accommodations and organizational other its readers),special "reminders") equipinent forthese schemes ADD-diagnosed EEOC designed such(color guidelines asto coding,tapekeep employees, haverecorders such buddy already employees including and generated laptops, special systems, alarm on track. and a newMentalZametkinNew positron England Health and emission colleaguesJournal(mtmii). tomography of These Medicineat the researchers National (PET) in 1990 scanning Instituteused by thenAlan of - Research giveand"Employers," forcedthem promotions to restore this writer theas Anwell discharged ADDwarned, as back diagnosis "could peoplepay canfind to theiralso themselves be old helpful facing in acquiring civil suits Supplemental or reasonable accommodation." positions, or even Security glucoseaAccordingto statistically betweenmeasure metabolism to hyperactivedifferences thesignificant study's results,inadults difference glucose andwhat ametabolizingin emergedcontrol the rates group.was of a difference hailed by many neurological side has on the ingvidedfitstheIncome the inADDnow class principle, (ssi) available, diagnosed;composition benefits. on accountas in evenssi ofthat, takesthe ofthis it ADD-diagnosedthe is incomebrief andiagnosis exception review into accountindicates, tointo the trend.in haveproviding Most of benefits the per se. Seen this way, and tak- account, it is no won- come to be pro- bene- to argue,basisobservers for at ADD. length, as the firstthat medicalthe DillerZametkin "proof" and study DeGrandpre of a established biological are only the latest to Holy Grail-resemble a come to nowoperate,prescription.der marching that morein effect, into Theand medical aspharmacologicalmore affirmative people, offices actionas demanding Diller charms for and affluent of aRitalin letter, white quitea people.diagnosis, and many other doctors report, are apart, ADD can a theuppointno originalmethodological suchstudies, of thing.view, result. as DillerFormost DeGrandpre, problems starters importantdocuments, with for "failed thehis studypart, to confirm"details itself and from the scientific a series of follow- that the participants like quest. What is Attention DeficitNOTHER Disorder? FACTOR THAT has put Ritalin into millions of medicine foundingtionshipwasmajoritywere "no adults evidence"to ofvariable behavioral the rather Ritalin-taking thatthat than activity; hadthe children, reportednothing thatpopulation themeaningtodifference do study with were wasthat inADD," unclearmetabolismfurther the implicationsnamely plaguedat best; bore that bythat anythe for"a thererela- the con- Thomastheed bypast Armstrong,the century." American "has Psychiatric gone through Association at least 25 in different1980, and whichcabinets it is has prescribed to do with the protean nature of the disorder for a disorder that was officially so designat- onename that, changes to cite in groups,eventrol group if there"this included study had been tells far fewerusaNumerous valid nothing male difference about subjectsother the attempts in thancause metabolism the of to ADDthese locate betweendifferences." the missing the two link between ADD and group; and that, cHADD;."theCHADD,blindness, theof beliefcourse, question that it ADDofis whataDespite "neurobiological is aADD neurological the issuccessful remains disease," disorder," passionatelyefforts to andhave disputed. not ADD only construed as Diller.writes, alsoas a disability like Toto theseunderlyingchildbooks.brain respondsandactivity So othertoo biological isare positively authorsthe likewise causal disorder. emphasize, to fallacy dissectedRitalin, This prevalent drugs piecethat by response Dilleroflike in illogic ADDRitalin and "proves" is literatureDcGrandpre easilyhave the thatdismissed. he in has their As that if a an 166 ADDserveand"prevails "is isas reflected somethinga well-established today in among elsethe leading medical disorder journals researchers of the of brain,"psychiatry." and asuniversity DeGrandpre What teaching the puts faculty"it in that "despite highly successful efforts to define critics ob- a on becomejust about more everybody. focused and InGive less whethersum, aggressiveit toand almostor as not Thomas there any werechild, Armstrong "symptoms" and the noted child of four ADD will years in the ago first in place. one might say, easier to manage The Myth ofsame effect 167 nesses."tivelythe ADD Instead,idcntificd Child, doctors inADD the samedependremains way on an as a elusive polio,series heart ofdisorder tests disease, designed that or"cannot other to measure legitimatebe authorita- the ill- Mary Ebcrstadt Nationalmuch in Institutesthe eye ofof theHealthThus beholder." convened the business In a conference1998, of diagnosing partly on forADD ADDthat with reason, remains, hundreds the as Diller puts it, "very Why Rita lin Rules tionperformanccreferentialmoverpanoply throughout in this and of chaintasks" ADD infallible." a series of (errs)symptoms. tests; of thatSome norepetitive Firstrequire Toresearchers, Test cite actions. the for Armstrong person ADD for A popularexample, thatbeing again: has tested beencrr use "there is declaredto "continuousthe pay is Gordon no atten- self- prime mightchildrennotnewspapersof participants reach become should agreement reported risky.and take a panelEvenon drugsat severalthe moreof fortime, 13 ADD, importantinteresting,doctors broke or noandwhether points new conferenceeducators. and when Thismembers drUg conference, couldtreatment not as ground, and indeed could for instance, how long havepressedDiagnostic. suggested, every System, time although a a particular box thethat score flashes combination that numbers, results appears. iswhose supposed Yet lever as toisnumerous supposedtell us about critics to be a rathergiven child's ambiguous; ability perhaps,to attend, asits Armstrongactual significance analyzes, is cinctly,noseagree the on "The disorderwhat diagnosis is arguablyin the isfirst a themess." place. rather As one panelist, a fundamental question of how to diag- pediatrician, put it suc- putpediatricianAs one it soullesstest,ing"it only to thetask." a repetitivetells diagnosis how seriesa childof ADDofIn will meaningless the inperform absence both childrenwhennumbersof any. attend- positive onand a medical or scientific (" i--(7..., TEST THIS S HY POTH ESquestionnaire Ito 5 complete2 I gave copies to it 20and of people totalHallowell up (let's the and call number Ratcy's them of subjects) times and asked them Who has ADD? they checked "yes." succinctly,diagnosisThe is a Statisticsforsivelyadults children, depends,on behavioral Manual according today (Dsm-tv), criteria. as toa decadethe The latestinclude ago,diagnostic Diagnostic almost six or criteria exclu- more and ThehaveAlthough,Rateyed full readers seenquestionnaire note, as already,can "reflectthey take observe, appearsnothing it those themselves. "thisat ancan), the experienced quiz conclusion it "Thesedoes cannot "offer questions,"ofconfirm diagnostician this a rough piece the as diagnosis"soassessment Hallowellthat would interest- (as as and we to ask." mess.'read the list is to understand why boys are diagnosed with ADD three to five things,difficultying,months' squirming, interrupting, worth waiting of distraction someturns, ignoring 14blurting activities by adults, extraneous out answers, suchand soas stimuli, on.fidget- losing (To femalesthatwhether are answered takeprofessional the test. `yes,' All help the Inwould shouldmorea stab be likely at bedubbed methodological sought." it is middle-that In ADD short, or soundness, mayupper-middle "the be morepresent." I had questions class, equal numbers of males and all dren"criteriaastimes Diller generally.as for oftenunderstates the as first girls.) time the The point, is diagnostichow "what common often latitude these strikes offered symptoms those by encounteringthis are list among is obvious; DSM chil- althoughtakinglyandbut reflects onethe populationgroupare some the or wassocioeconomichave subjects politically isbeen drawn. may professionals havediverse poolAs guessedto from the of whichmatter one what sort mostthe of or questionnaireobserver another,of the current interference,all arewas Ritalin- white, look- which is to say, the sample accurate- questioncultytion,include getting impatience, test such fororganized, ambiguous ADD impulsivity, in Thechronic Driven phenomena DSM and procrastination,to criteriaDistraction, mood as aswings. for sense adults an a of Hallowellelaboratelysearch underachievement, are iffor anything and high extrapolated Ratey's stimula- even diffi-100 more - expansive, and whowithouting for, completed allany of accompanying them the (myself test, Wetwo materialexcepted, begindelivered with to of prejudice"yes" course)results scores attooktheir the of the responses. lower8 testand "blind,"end10 (a of professor the that scale. is, Of the 18 subjects alwaysorderdistracted?"tionsversion range("Do onof thethe fromyou "Do DSMgo, change youthe even checklist, straightforwardfidget whenthe aradio lot?") youillustrates station don't to ("Are more reallythis in you yourelusive profound want impulsive?" car ways tofrequently?" elasticity.be?" of eliciting"Are"Do Their youyou "Are the have easilyques- youdis- a else's.of son.simply"yes"English In We, results,"real" call and however, these hissocial as wife, lowit science,turnedshall scoresan atinclude out,-home according"outliers" were them, mother at andto ifleast some active throw threefold expert inthem philanthropy). sources, out lower for the thanwe same Thesewould anyone rea- only on the amateur grounds of betweenbecause,tionhard betweentime ADD inreading the andwhat authors' normala bookis pathological behavior."words,all the way "There and through?"). whatis no isclear notThroughout, lineremains of demarcation theunclear distinc- 168 ers"editorialscrupulousness. managed assistant to answer and a yesTheschool almost next nurse. lowest a third That "yes" of is the to tallies timesay, even(remember, these "low "the morescor- 29 in each case were achieved by an 169 Mary Eberstadt Why Ritalin Rules scoresFollowingsent").questions in the After that, that40s. fullythem, arcThese answeredsix we includesubjects, find a'yes,' thissingle magazine'sthe "yes" editor, two at-home or a third of the test-finishers, producedmore likely it is that ADD may be pre- score of 33 (an assistant editor). mothers samplescoresthe sample, in answered the answeredhigh yes40s roughlyright yesMy behind morefavorite half thanof them. thecomment half time. In otherof onthe words,the time, .exercise roughlywith a .came number half offrom the of the school nurse (who guished(oneThe apublications, graphic drug designer, Policy the Review's other a poct),business inestimable Washington. 49 Proceeding into the upper echelons, the headmastera writer offor a Timeprivate and school other distin- manager, and scoringa novelist an thedesignedandscored, test therefore onehad to recalls, elicit.made realized Whenher a relatively think whatshe hard called lowkind about 29). to of report Shediagnosisthe wholehas her a result,background ADDthe questionnaireshe issue. said in "My psychiatry,that good-taking was whatchildrenmakes their do achievedatiesaswho 57. 55, to isA Harvardand alsomale a a 60,an renownedBritish at-homeandand Washingtona journalist female demographicmother American and reportedthink at-home tanksexpert journalist her father with scored score prescribedhave."ness," sheThis concluded,corollary, brings us Ritalin: to"it the looks fourthThe like nurse reason the iskind right. for of the thing explosion almost ofanybody ADD and could its parentsteachers and lichomeand relations, at-home mother, garneredmother this one (me) a with65.In got the a former lead, at least of the test-finishers, a 62. Still another at- career in pub- was a ( amost single of themword children, that crops are up now everywhere taking Ritalin in FOURTHthe can dry-bones be summarized AND literature MOST in obvious reason millions of Americans, What is childhood? withoutthemcannot to it: get do tionsadvancedestimableofbestselling anonymity, on behalfthe satiristscore cause Patrick of ofwhom of his75. science O'Rourke; 16-month-old we"Mr. shallby O'Rourke" answering call, he producedfor daughter; the further purposes ques- an Thatthatcannottinueson someADD drugsi---iiE toget children andmake likethem its childrenRitalin drugto are do bornof without are choice:do with awhat godsend it: orcompliance. theirSit develop down, isparents true behavioralshut Oneand and up, daysad. teachers keep at Itproblems ais still,time, also either pay theirrelevant so will attention.drugsevere not con- toor still,shutSit down, up,pay keep failedplace.reason,Thenaccording there toOne were finish towereof unablehisthese the the proud test subjects twoto completebecause report,subjects called he'd who,the test for in whatever the first to say thatwas he'd the result. inableathe more Your explosion and nuancedHyperactive less argumentative,"in psychostimulantpurpose Child. as prescriptions.Barbara Ingersoll For most,put it theover drug a decade is serving ago that of "help[ing] your child to be more agree- to countattention. them up. Finally he said "50 would be about right," take gothimchecking irritated for some, offand so refused, any, many final yes saying tally answers." hefor was When "koo Ilazy" me to include, he "gotten bored it or leave pressed ThereprovedRitalinand is the no their literaturedenying child's that of school advocatesmillionsThere performance, ofare, andpeople as critics was benefit their mentioned, alike home from all lives,having illustrates millions often children of thiseven stories takepoint. their in the Ritalin universe, the many, many parents who will attest that the drug has im- nowteam.delivertiveit. beingHe securities. Heis anyaused isWall thescore as OurStreetprofessor a blanketdespite last investment subject, mentioned repeatedfor procrastination perhaps banker reminding earlier, thespecializing the and shirking most pathological of all, failedphone to callsone fromwho reported the research that ADD is in the creation of deriva- childrenforclassrooms,own the marriages; (frequently, disorder); and thehave andit teachersis gonetheteachers doctors on who towho proselytize havewho, first beenwhen suggest relievedother faced that parents with aby child its all of effects bethese other checked grateful inunruly their gersweringalous the two possibility "yes" scores to atof leastanten ADD and a quarterNow under,diagnosis, on of allto the interpretingtheat questionsleast in those the medical results. Apart from rest of the subjects reported an- the exceedinglysurely anom- enough to trig- on campus. lookingtoparents medicate andfor them.ateachers, child These is intense."find, Someare as the Diller other stories finds, stories standing that seep "at behind through times the the the clinical pressure literature accounts for too,me but only if one goes 170 thirdalone.)ever,dubs ofhe Fully "Ritalin theis obviously questions 15 mills."of the entitledor finishers,(As for to the untold ADD bonus points for more. Eight of the finishers, or 40-plus percent of one subjector who 80-plus reported percent, no result answered whatso- yes to one- offices Dillerthat reason culledTheseratherorof teenagersof fromare the than the childrencase swallow, storieswho studies lie who standing and anotherthroughout cry say in they've behindlinguisticdoctor's the taken literature:such offices innovation thestatements day's and"It takes "cheek" doseof Ritalinese)as over when the the offollowing, they pillme at [sic];(hidehaven't, home. it 1 71 it takes control." "It numbed me." "Taking it meant I was dumb." "I feel Mary Ebcrstadt wantperhapsrotten to takc about most it any taking evocative more." pills;But whyof theseall, Inc?" "I quotes,don't "It makes know as any howme reader feel to explain. like will a recognize, baby." I just And,don't appeal only to sentiment; inghasscience,establishment. blessingmade for the itsof Rita Inpart,the a lin Americanparticularly has outbreak long medicalsince enthusiasticnot only declared establishment possible account its loyalties. but ofinevitable the In drug the is inend, thc a recent ongo-what and not only that dependingmatesreserved"weissue arc of ofnow theexclusively the on extendingNew prevalence the Yorker, expert), for to the the writer ofold." if young ADDanything HeMalcolm further(upcognitive "tooto Gladwcllsuggests10 few"aids percent ofchildren exultsthat,a kind of given the inthatarc the population, experttakingused idea to esti- thatthe be tolosingmuchdrug. be calledSurely more,things, childhood.toall ignoring reducethese experts fidgeting,adults, haveand squirming, alla point. those Surely talkingother pathologiesthis excessively, country ofcan interrupting, what do more, used 172 The New Yorker, March 22, 1999

174

152 I 11 0 AA A S6 ORDHAM CUNI)A I ION otitsint tot

The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation 1627 K Street, NW Suite 600 Washington, D.C., 201)1)6 'Telephone: 1202) 223-5-152 FAX: 1202) 223-9226 htt p://www.edexcellence.net

'n)order puldicat ions: 1-8Fiti-'I'131 -7-17.11singlecopies are free

BEST COPYAVAILABLE 175 U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) National Library of Education (NLE) ERIC Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)

NOTICE

Reproduction Basis

This document is covered by a signed "Reproduction Release 0 (Blanket)" form (on file within the ERIC system), encompassing all or classes of documents from its source organization and, therefore, does not require a "Specific Document" Release form.

This document is Federally-funded, or carries its own permission to 0 reproduce, or is otherwise in the public domain and, therefore, may be reproduced by ERIC without a signed Reproduction Release form (either "Specific Document" or "Blanket").

EFF-089 (3/2000)