Charters and the school board

One way of defining the divisions on the Milwaukee school board is to look at their positions on charter schools. One group is strongly supportive of expanded charters. The other, in part reflecting opposition to charters from their teachers' union supporters, are much more suspicious of charter schools.

Ironically when it comes to holding charter schools accountable, the roles usually reverse. This is reflected in an article in this morning's Journal Sentinel about a committee meeting on the administration's proposal to end the charter for something called the Truth Institute for Leadership and Service. According to the article, strong charter supporters Danny Goldberg and Ken Johnson voted to terminate the contract, while charter skeptics Jennifer Morales and Charlene Hardin wanted to give it one more year.

Perhaps there is some logic to this apparent role reversal. If one believes strongly in charter schools, one wants to make sure they are successful. If one does not, then success or failure are less important.

Alan Borsuk has a detailed, interesting, and rather depressing series on what goes on in the Milwaukee Public Schools, particularly the heavy number of students who are unmotivated. It appears that the majority of schools have not figure out how they can demand commitment from their students. Students at private schools know there are certain expectations; not meeting these expectations can lead to expulsion. Perhaps a start for MPS schools would be to decide on the consequences for students who do not meet their obligations.

J-S Article on Morales

An article in this morning's paper, MPS board member Morales comes out as a lesbian, refers to a post in this blog, one of several profiles of school board members published in 2004 prior to the last election. For the original post, click here.

The Washington Consensus

One of the ironies of the No Child Left Behind act is that it sets basic requirements on how many students in a school need to be considered proficient, but then gives proficiency-setting authority to the states. As more than one commentator has pointed out, if a state wishes to avoid having lots of schools declared failing this creates an incentive for states to set the standards low. According to a report from an organization called Education Sector, Wisconsin has played this game particularly skillfully, better than any other state. (Click here for a Journal-Sentinel article on this report.)

A recent commentary describes the "Washington Consensus" on education. According to the authors, the Washington Consensus has three big ideas:

1. The most important goal is closing racial and economic achievement gaps.
2. Schools can overcome the challenges of poverty.
3. External pressure and tough accountability are critical to school improvement.

Both the people behind Education Sector and the two authors of this commentary have embraced the Washington Consensus. It is easy to understand the motivations behind this consensus: for too long the education of low-income and minority students was neglected, schools used poverty as an excuse for poor results, and there was no accountability for outcomes. In the historical context, the Washington Consensus was a necessary corrective. Yet in many ways, it is as unbalanced as the ideas it replaced.

By emphasizing gaps, does it encourage neglect of the best students? For example, a school where 100% of the white students and 80% of the black students are proficient has a wider gap than one where 50% of each race is proficient. By putting such emphasis on the school's responsibility, does it deemphasize the student's responsibility for his or her education? In its emphasis on penalizing schools, will it discourage the best educators from working at schools likely to be at risk?

Perhaps it is time for a more nuanced version of the Washington Consensus. It could emphasis the absolute achievement of all students. It could use the massive amount of data being collected to start to break out the effect of schools on achievement. It might recognize that asking states to set proficiency levels is silly: the educational requirements for success do not vary from state to state. Until that is done, I am not sure that Wisconsin game-playing is all that important.
The indignation reflected in the report

More math wars

I recently came across the Project 2061 evaluations of middle school math curricula on the web site of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). It is clear from these that AAAS has chosen to take sides in the so-called math wars. The textbooks rated excellent, such as Connected Math (widely used in MPS), all seem to stem from a series of standards first promulgated by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and later embraced by the National Science Foundation. Programs preferred by critics of the NCTM standards, such as Saxon, are rated much lower.

It is puzzling why the AAAS, the country's largest scientific organization has decided to take sides in this war. Recently there has been a disturbing tendency among much of the public
and members of our national administration to discount the findings of science, whether on global warming, evolution, stem cell research, or a host of other issues. In each of these cases, perhaps the most telling charge by the critics is that the scientists acting as ideological
advocates rather than on the basis of the evidence.

Unfortunately, the scientific evidence is not available concerning which type of mathematics curriculum leads to better outcomes. An analysis in 2004 by the National Research Council of 147 studies, 75 of which were of curricula supported by the NSF, concluded that these studies did "not permit one to determine the effectiveness of individual programs with a high degree of certainty." Similarly, reports by the What Works Clearinghouse on middle school mathematics programs leaves the reader unable to say whether one program is more effective than another.

My impression is that programs like Connected Math are based much more on an underlying philosophy of how students learn mathematics than any empirical research on effectiveness. It appears that the students believe that students: don't like math, need to be convinced it is relevant, learn best when they discover the principals for themselves rather than having them explained, and that there is no best way for students to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. (This latter assumption leads to a daunting array of alternative techniques.) When good research is finally done, I suspect it may show that the programs work for students to whom these assumptions apply but that for many others the results are disappointing.

Do proficiency levels give useful information?

Wisconsin has finally released its test scores from last year, described in an article in the Journal Sentinel. One odd headline--which I cannot find on-line: "Some schools above average." I would guess that about half were above average.

The tests were changed sufficiently this year that the Department of Public Instruction felt the need to reset the proficiency levels. The way they did this apparently is to take all the test scores and then set the cut off point between proficiency levels so that the same percentage of students would be in each category as last year. This seems like an efficient way to do it but begs the question of whether students are doing better or worse.

I think proficiency levels are a pretty poor way of reporting test scores. First it is not at all clear what they mean. Proficiency for what? With many jobs it is possible to define a needed level of competence, but it is not clear what should be the standard for students. The aim of most education is to prepare the student for more education. Thus the percentage of students at a given proficiency level may tell more about the people setting the levels than about the students. A recent comparison of NAEP and state proficiency standards, based on a comparison of the percentage of students judged proficient on the two exams, found huge variations between states. Wisconsin rated near the bottom with a C- compared to Massachusetts with an A. Similarly the frequently repeated comment that students do worse in high school than elementary school cannot be shown using proficiency levels. It is just as likely that the explanation lies in who sits on the committee setting the cut offs; at the high school level the members are likely to included teachers who specialize in the subject and therefore are more demanding.

A second problem is rating schools by the percentage proficient creates bad incentives. Rather than work to improve every student's score, the incentive is to concentrate on those students who are close to the cut off point. This may contribute to the common complaint of parents of able students that their children don't feel challenged.

There are a number of ways that test scores can help find out how students are doing and encourage improvement. One is to compare individual students' scores from one year to the next to make sure each student is progressing. Another is to make comparison between schools, locally to internationally (international comparisons do seem to show that American students fall further behind the longer they are in school). Finally, test scores can be used to search for factors, such as particular curricula, that affect learning.

Schools facing more scrutiny

Two recent articles (here and here) reported that some MPS schools have been singled out for intervention based both on low overall test scores and low scores on the district's value-added measurements. These schools would have a district-appointed "instructional facilitator."

This move is the first time there have been real repercussions from poor test-score results. Low enrollment, rather than low achievement, has led to schools closing or having their budgets cut, although presumably a reputation for poor achievement could hurt enrollment. Ideally this move will help schools focus more strongly on figuring out how to help student achievement.

Neither article discusses the approach the facilitators will take. This could be crucial. Too often, districts have pursued approaches that have not been shown to be effective.

Milwaukee property values rise again

Property values continue to rise within the city of Milwaukee, apparently at a higher rate than those in the suburbs. It appears that city schools have lost much of their depressing effect on property values. This does not mean that all the schools are in good shape, just that parents have so many choices they need not avoid a neighborhood because they don't like the school.

I continue to feel that a study of the relationship between schools and property values would be valuable. One complicating factor in such a study, however, is that there is unlikely to be a direct relationship between schools and property values in the immediate area of the schools, again because of the wealth of choices parents have.

It is also very likely that property values in the city still lag between those of similar property outside despite recent percentage gains, simply because city values have fallen so far behind.

Accrediting Choice schools

The recent law raising the enrollment caps for the voucher program also requires that the schools be accredited. Clearly there was a need to have someone looking over the schools' shoulder and making sure they have the basics in place. Yet I had some skepticism about the accreditation approach. Based on my experience with university accreditation, I am not convinced that, as practiced, accreditation has much value to students. Typically the accreditation process involves a lot of effort and money for the institution and tends to push colleges towards a single dominant model.

I was pleased, then, to find that the legislation offers the schools a choice of accrediting agencies, from the conventional ones to two Milwaukee-based organizations, PAVE and Marquette's Institute for the Transformation of Learning, both experienced with both good and bad choice schools. A recent article quotes Howard Fuller of the ITL as saying that the emphasis will be on student achievement. A particular challenge will be how to evaluate start up schools with no record to judge achievement.

I think the legislation sets a nice balance between the need to weed out the schools born to fail and the desirability to avoid a single gatekeeper.

More for our school

An article in the Journal-Sentinel last Tuesday described the effort of some parents at the Milwaukee High School of the Arts to convince the school board and the administration to give their school more money. The trouble is that this group's idea of where the money would come from did not go beyond taking it from other schools.

In the past, MPS gave different schools different amount of funds per student. There seemed to be no logical explanation for the difference other than history and politics. It appeared that certain schools had particular clout at one time or another.

There are several reasons why the school board may be reluctant to return to this earlier practice, including equity and opening the door to being lobbied by every school in the district. In addition, varying the payments makes opening new schools much harder, since the payment itself becomes an issue for negotiations.

I would hope that the parents and staff members lobbying for taking money from other schools for Arts would instead turn their energy and talent towards exploring other options. These might include looking at other buildings, finding out what happened with a recent fund-raising effort, and helping the principal learn to live within a budget.

Graduation Rates in MPS

A Journal Sentinel article puts the MPS high school graduation rate at 45%, one of the lowest in the U.S. Graduation rates for urban school districts are devilishly difficult to calculate. These claims are based on calculations by Jay Green and his associates at the Manhattan Institute. The Green methodology compares the number of high school graduates with an average of the eighth, ninth, and tenth grade students five, four, and three years earlier, respectively, adjusted for the growth or shrinkage in overall high school population.

This approach probably underestimates the graduation rate in MPS, but it is unclear how much. A significant number of students repeat ninth grade; essentially they are counted in the base as two students, although Green reduces this effect by averaging three grades. If, as I suspect, there is a significant number of students who start high school in MPS but graduate from other schools this would also reduce the calculated graduation rate.

The implication that 55% of the students are out of school with no degree may overstate the situation, but the true number is still too large.

Calculations that depend on following individual students also suffer from problems, but ones that may push the error in the opposite direction. Some number of students stop attending and eventually removed from the school count. But unless they tell MPS, it may be hard to determine whether they dropped out or moved to another school, perhaps in another country. Students who are recorded as transferring to other schools are removed from the count, but in some cases their moving likely reflects that they were doing poorly in MPS; thus the move itself may represent the last step before dropping out.

Finally none of these studies address the issue of the quality of education the graduates received. Did it prepare them for college or the job market?

Update 4/30: a reader points out a hanging sentence in the original post, which was removed.

The cost of choice

In the May issue of Milwaukee Magazine (not available on-line), editor Bruce Murphy has an article criticizing the Milwaukee choice program. It is not clear whether Murphy thinks the program is a bad idea that should be repealed or simply intends to point out some issues that need addressing. In support of the former theory, he throws in a kitchen sink of standard points made by choice opponents: questioning whether parents make good educational decisions, comparing MPS per student spending to that of Nicolet (a high school versus a K-8 system), and blaming MPS financial problems on the choice program (ignoring the devastating impact of health insurance costs).

The substantive issues Murphy raises are largely financial and can be grouped in three categories:

1. Milwaukee taxpayers pick up a disproportionate share of the cost of choice tuition.
2. The proportion of special education students rises in MPS as other students switch to choice.
3. The voucher payment is too low, depressing overall educational spending in Milwaukee.

Murphy's first point has received the most discussion. The best solution is straightforward: count choice students in the formula used to calculate the percentage of educational expenses picked up by the state. In fact, a measure to do this was introduced several years ago but died due to lack of support from any Democratic legislator on the Joint Finance Committee (including two from Milwaukee). My guess is that with the right political support, particularly if Mayor Barrett puts pressure on the Democrats, this problem can be solved as part of the next state budget.

There has been very little discussion so far of Murphy's second two points, particularly the unusual criticism that the voucher payment is too low. I am not aware of any proposals to address them. One possible approach that would address both points is a "weighted student formula." This idea was pioneered in Edmonton and, according to a recent article in Reason magazine, has spread to a number of American school districts. Using a weighted student formula, schools receive funds based on the number of students in various categories times a factor based on the estimated cost of educating students in those categories. Thus schools might receive a bit extra for English learners and more still for various levels of special education needs. (MPS funds schools based on enrollment but special needs are handled as a service rather than extra funding for the schools.)

Using this model, the overall education budget for Milwaukee would be the MPS per student spending times the total number of Milwaukee students, whether in MPS, charters, or voucher schools. But this total amount would be reallocated to the schools based on a weighted student formula. Thus, unlike now, a choice school with children needing special education would receive extra funding. If, however, most such students stayed in MPS, MPS would receive extra funding generated by the choice enrollment.

Is there intelligent life in the Democratic Party?

The Seventh state senate district covers Milwaukee's East Side and Bayview, and the south shore suburbs of Cudahy, South Milwaukee and Oak Creek. Politically these areas differ substantially. One way to view the political variety is to examine the three assembly districts that fit into it:

1. The 19th covers the East Side and part of Bayview. It is probably the most predictably liberal district in Milwaukee and is represented by Democrat Jon Richards. In the 2004 election, the Republicans did not bother to field a candidate.
2. The 20th covers the rest of Bayview and Cudahy. It is generally considered blue-collar, pro-union Democrat, conservative on life-style issues. It is represented by Democrat Christine Sinicki (a former school board colleague of mine). In the 2004 election, she had a Republican opponent but won easily.
3. The 21st consists mostly of Oak Creek and South Milwaukee. It is represented by Republican Mark Honadel. In the 2004 election, there was no Democratic candidate.

Currently the senate district is represented by Jeff Plale, generally considered conservative for a Democrat, particularly on life-style issues such as abortion and gun control. Although I would probably disagree with him on more issues than I would with most Democrats, I thought he showed courage as one of only four Milwaukee Democrats who broke with their party to support Governor Doyle's compromise to increase the number of school choice seats. (Sinicki was another.)

Politically his positions make the 7th a safe Senate seat for the Democrats. His relative conservatism fits well with the Democratic voters of Bayview and Cudahy, and appeals to wavering Republican as well. For liberal East Siders, he is clearly preferable to anyone likely to win the Republican Primary.

As some Republican moderates also discovered, his real vulnerability is in the primary. Republicans have recognized this. A couple of years ago they launched a recall effort after he voted to uphold one of Governor Doyle's vetoes. Apparently they hoped that a liberal would enter the race against him, splitting the Democratic vote and handing the district to the Republicans. This effort collapsed when the liberals refused to cooperate and instead raised money for Plale.

This year, however, the liberals seem to have decided to play the Republicans' game. They are running a candidate against Plale whose campaign appeals to the Democratic (East Side) base: "The 7th District is traditionally Democratic. Its people deserve a traditional Democrat in the State Senate--a Democrat who will vote like one."

Republican strategists must be delighted. If the effort is successful, it could put the 7th senate seat back into play. Second, even if they don't win the 7th, a purge of Plale could signal to voters who prefer Democrats on environmental or economic issues but disagree on lifestyle issues that they are not welcome in the Democratic Party. This will make it harder for Democrats to pick up the seats they will need to regain control of the legislature.

Michael Joyce

While I often disagreed with him, Michael Joyce made Milwaukee more interesting. I think we would be better off if some of the more liberal foundations made the same attempt to develop a strategy of funding. Too often, however, they either support squishy ideas or status quo researchers. One has the sense the left has been drifting since Vietnam, often better on specific issues but lacking a clear vision. Under Joyce, the Bradley Foundation helps shift the idea advantage to the conservative side.

That said, I think Joyce could have been more effective:

1. Because the Bradley Foundation was so closely tied to the conservative movement, ideas that might be inherently appealing to liberals, such as school choice, could be dismissed simply as part of a plan to destroy public institutions. So this concept is still struggling to get into the mainstream.
   
2. As Bruce Murphy points out this week, Joyce tended to limit his support to a select group of scholars and think tanks, whose results were often easy to predict in advance. Full disclosure: shortly after leaving the MPS board, I received a Bradley Foundation grant through MSOE to look at alternative ways of evaluating schools (abstract here). I was disappointed, however, that the foundation did not seem very interested in the results.
   

MATC again

A while back, I celebrated the controversy surrounding my appointment to the panel that chooses MATC board members. Not only did it seem like old times but all the opposition allowed me to bask in the illusion that I was a threat to the status quo at MATC.

The status quo is that too many of the present board members are too subservient to the MATC teachers' union. They make decisions that may be good for the staff but not for the community or the students. Over the years, MATC has become fat and far less effective than it could be. One problem was pointed out in a recent Bruce Murphy article detailing how MATC faculty are paid more than those at the University of Wisconsin at Madison but often have only bachelors' degrees.

But the five MPS representatives have far less power to influence the future of MATC than might appear at first glance. Real change depends on whether the suburban superintendents, who have by far the largest number of votes, will decide it is worthwhile to resist union pressure and to look for effective board members. So far, they have not. The major dynamic among the suburban superintendents at the appointment meetings I chaired was to get the process over quickly and go home. MPS representatives are in an especially weak position to influence the suburban representatives, since any conversation between an MPS representative and a suburban superintendent can be considered a quorum and therefore a public meeting under a quirky interpretation of the law.

The evil admissions standards

A while back, one of the Journal Sentinel "community columnists," a teacher at Rufus King High School, argued that schools in the voucher program could choose their students. A supporter of the choice program wrote a letter to the editor pointing out that voucher schools were required to use a lottery if applicants exceeded spaces, but Rufus King teachers could and did choose its students.

An underlying theme in both the arguments is that there is something wrong with admissions standards. Even those benefiting from the standards, like the teacher at Rufus King, seem to think they are wrong for other people. Years ago, I took the lead in allowing MPS high schools to implement an admissions process. This proposal was strenuously denounced as a threat to democracy. I noticed, however, that those most adamantly opposed subsequently sent their children to the schools with admissions standards. Apparently they felt their children would benefit by being among other children who were serious enough to go through the process.

It appears many people look for schools with high admissions standards for their own children but oppose them for others. This seems to square with the common practice in education of people expecting others to put their children in schools we would not choose for our own.

More broadly, this opposition to matching students with classes and schools makes no sense. Of course, students can be chosen for the wrong reasons. But how would an MPS ninth-grade teacher, for instance, effectively teach a class whose reading skills ranged from those of a typical third grader to those of a high school graduate? From time to time, I partially learn something on my own and wonder if I should take a class in it. But I hesitate because it is hard to tell whether the class will teach me what I already know or whether I will be completely lost. Matching a student and the educational challenge seems the first step in successful education.

School choice and taxpayers

In the final weeks before the expansion of the choice program, Tom Barrett made a major issue about the unfairness of the funding formula. This theme was picked up by others who would have opposed the expansion no matter what the funding.

The biggest problem for Barrett was that he entered the issue late. If he had been working from the beginning to both expand the number of seats and to change the funding, he would have been in a much stronger position--especially if he could have also promised some Milwaukee votes for such a package. As it was, he entered too late and too negatively to be part of the compromise. On the plus side he did help generate a recognition of the need to reexamine the funding formula.

Assuming choice school enrollment expands by one thousand in the next couple of years, the additional cost to Milwaukee taxpayers would be about one million dollars. One might compare this to the many millions Milwaukee under Barrett has been willing to give as subsidies to projects like Pabst City and Manpower. If a recent study by the Public Policy Forum concluding that choice enrollment is flattening is correct, this estimate might be high, particularly if the additional requirements under the bill discourage the opening of new schools. On the other side the bill has economic advantages for Milwaukee. Choice schools can be regarded economically as small businesses, usually located in the most economically inert parts of the city. Much of the additional SAGE money will go to Milwaukee to hire additional MPS teachers who are required to live in the city.

One element not noticed in the whole controversy was the funding of non-MPS charter schools--those chartered by the city, UWM, or (potentially) by MATC. Unless the formula has changed since I was involved, these schools are largely funded directly by the state. So the switch of a student from MPS to one of these schools saves money for Milwaukee taxpayers.

If I were Barrett's legislative advisor, I would suggest the following:

1. Discard his proposal of simply holding Milwaukee taxpayers harmless for additional choice enrollment. It is both too modest and an unnecessary complication to the funding formula. Instead, go back to the proposal of several years ago to include choice and charter students in the MPS count. This would mean that both Milwaukee and out-state taxpayers benefit when students move from MPS to the lower-cost choice program. When originally introduced, this measure was supported by Republicans but died from lack of Democratic support. So the mayor would need to line up support for it among Milwaukee Democrats.
2. Aggressively promote expansion of the city, UWM, and MATC charter programs. In the short run, this would save Milwaukee taxpayers money, particularly if schools chartered by MPS were encouraged to defect. In the long run, it would increase the mayor's bargaining power in the legislature, since Milwaukee then would be giving something up in the move to fairer funding.
   

School Coice Expanded

Yesterday Governor Doyle signed legislation to increase the cap on school choice enrollment. Only four Milwaukee Democrats in the legislature supported the bill. This strikes me as odd, because the major beneficiaries of the expansion are Milwaukee children. Apparently most feel comfortable voting against their constituents on the assumption that poor people do not vote.

The present political weakness of the Democrats is bad for Wisconsin and the U.S. in my view. But rather than presenting a broader vision, Democrats seem to believe they can ride to power by pandering to various groups, particularly the public employee unions and ideologues whose thinking has been petrified for the past forty years.

Despite the present unpopularity of the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress, it is striking that current polls show two Republicans--McCain and Giuliani--defeating the Democratic front-runners for president. I suspect a lot of this is due to the perception that these men have convictions (in part because they have crossed swords with their own party) and the Democrats do not.

While poor people may not vote, the Democratic party has always obtained much of its moral authority by representing underdogs, those without much power. People want to support a candidate who agrees with their position on most issues, but also one with convictions.

Like old times

A recent Journal-Sentinel article, suit targets MATC panel choices
brought a whiff of nostalgia. Apparently the union for the Milwaukee Area Technical College has brought a lawsuit challenging Ken Johnson's appointment of me and three other men to a committee charged with choosing MATC board members. The legal basis of the suit is that we are all men, but the true concern, it is clear from the article, is that we might appoint board members who would be less compliant to the union's wishes.

Recent articles have described a growing backlash against taxes for technical colleges in Wisconsin, along with calls for electing their boards. Since the success of the members of the union is tied to the ability of the colleges to convince the public the tax money is being well spent, one might expect the union to work for highly competent and thoughtful board members. But, as with the MPS teachers union, obedience to the union trumps competence every time.

A gender gap?

An article in the New Republic describes an increasing gap in performance as boys lag behind girls. The information in the article is largely anecdotal although it seems plausible. I can recall attending programs to honor academic achievement in majority black MPS schools and wondering where the boys were.

There has been surprisingly little attention to this issue. School districts such as MPS break out student achievement by ethnicity, but I have not seen any statistics organized by gender. When I analyzed some MPS achievement data, I looked at the effects of ethnicity, poverty (measured by free lunch), mobility, and other factors, but it did not occur to me to look at the effects of gender.

The article questions why this gap has suddenly widened in the last few years. One plausible explanation is that educational materials become more verbal, playing to the strength of girls. Certainly the math texts used in middle school have lots of words and very few numbers and symbols, especially compared to the books I remember.