The Education Gadfly Weekly: How a parent movement could revolutionize education
The Education Gadfly Weekly: How a parent movement could revolutionize education
How a parent movement could revolutionize education
In his new book, “The Parent Revolution,” school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis explains the notable plummet in the public’s trust of public education, especially in the past five years. By his telling, school choice is the answer to all that ails us. But he’s likely overselling its healing powers.
How a parent movement could revolutionize education
Charter schools cultivate knowledge, nurture social capital, and build civil society
Taking curriculum implementation seriously
In search of “just right” school ratings: Goldilocks and the three metrics
#920: Integration and charter schools, with Brian Kisida
Cheers and Jeers: May 16, 2024
What we're reading this week: May 16, 2024
What makes Britain’s most successful school tick: An interview with Headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh
Blaming charters for segregation is dumb
Recent teacher survey indicates morale crisis among educators
The A to Z of sequential bias in grading student assignments
#921: Rethinking reading comprehension instruction, with Daniel Buck
Cheers and Jeers: May 23, 2024
What we're reading this week: May 23, 2024
Charter schools cultivate knowledge, nurture social capital, and build civil society
Taking curriculum implementation seriously
In search of “just right” school ratings: Goldilocks and the three metrics
#920: Integration and charter schools, with Brian Kisida
Cheers and Jeers: May 16, 2024
What we're reading this week: May 16, 2024
What makes Britain’s most successful school tick: An interview with Headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh
Blaming charters for segregation is dumb
Recent teacher survey indicates morale crisis among educators
The A to Z of sequential bias in grading student assignments
#921: Rethinking reading comprehension instruction, with Daniel Buck
Cheers and Jeers: May 23, 2024
What we're reading this week: May 23, 2024
How a parent movement could revolutionize education
Listen to the media, and you’ll be told that the parents’ movement is a manufactured culture war designed to dismantle public education, score cheap political points, or rake in easy money for provocateurs. Read National School Boards Association memoranda or listen to Attorney General Merrick Garland, and you’ll be told that parents’ actions at school board meetings verge on terroristic.
Quite the contrary. Many schools have fallen into disrepute because they engaged in policies and practices that tarnished their reputations. And the public has grown dissatisfied with American education because the results of the system are unsatisfactory. If a restaurant served rotten food, would we blame the customer for their anger and revulsion?
Any time parental or public dissatisfaction gets brought up, rebuttals point to an oft-cited statistic drawn from annual Kappan/Gallup surveys: Trust in public education may be low, but parents still rank their own local school highly. I myself used to read these data optimistically, but it’s unclear how much these surveys really tell us. School districts are great propaganda machines, after all. Regular emailers and press releases boast about all the good things happening, school events create warm and fuzzy feelings, and inflated grades foster a false sense of security (“It’s not my kid!”).
What’s more, there’s potential for motivated reasoning. Parents want to believe that a kid’s school is pretty good because, if not, they’d have to do something painful about it—move across town or fork out private school tuition, for example. There’d be too much cognitive dissonance to both admit public school failures and keep children there, and it’s easier to tell yourself a white lie.
Ultimately, any education reform advocate must reckon with the fact that satisfaction with public education generally is the lowest it’s been since Gallup started polling on it.
In his new book, The Parent Revolution, school choice advocate Corey DeAngelis unrolls a saga that he believes explains the notable plummet in trust of public education that’s worsened in the past five years.
As you might assume, it began with pandemic-era school closures. It’s easy to forget the excesses and corruptions exposed during debates over school openings. A teachers union official defended closures while vacating in the tropics. The Chicago Teachers Union released a cringe-inducing interpretive dance video in protest of school openings and later blamed the push for reopening on “sexism, racism, and misogyny.” A school attempted to expel a young boy who had a BB gun in the background during a video call. United Teachers Los Angeles demanded socialized healthcare, defunded police departments, and pressed for a moratorium on charter schools before it would consider teaching in-person again. And countless ludicrous exhibitionist protests cropped up in cities across the country with teachers carting around open caskets.
Amidst such silliness, there was ample evidence that schools were in fact safe to open. Months into the pandemic, it was clear that they weren’t Covid super-spreaders. European countries read the evidence early on and reopened while American school children faced shuttered school doors and continued online learning. Meanwhile, closures enacted an academic and mental health crisis among teenagers.
But such goofy examples overlook an even deeper and more important corruption. The CDC drew guidance from the American Federation of Teachers that went into its school opening guidelines, mixing politics and lobbyists with the so-called “science.” Studies found that union power correlated to the length and severity of school closures, not viral spread. Throughout the pandemic, bureaucrats and advocates actively conspired against the interests of families and students.
As one bright spot throughout all this, parents discovered a few levers through which they could exert power over and control of schools. In January 2021, instead of developing plans to open schools, San Francisco’s school board wasted meeting time on renaming schools, replacing controversial titles like George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Parents mounted a campaign to recall board members, and elsewhere, parents sued districts to reopen. These were first spurts and starts of a parent’s revolt.
But there was much more to follow. After schools reopened, story after story about politicized curricula hit the headlines: mock political rallies with fifth graders, lessons that deny basic biology for kindergarteners, and policies that keep life-altering decisions from parental oversight. Soon parent organizations formed with the intent of mounting public pressure and political campaigns to counter union influence. In small-turnout elections, unions can flood the polls, but a parent constituency could shift the balance—at least in theory.
Ultimately, as a history of the parent’s movement, The Parent Revolution is a welcome and constructive contribution. Where the media exonerates school officials and slanders parents, DeAngelis tells the truth of pandemic closures and culture battles over schools. It’s an honest telling that’s doubly welcome in the face of counter media revisionism.
In the second half of his book, DeAngelis turns to potential solutions and corrections. And while I remain a proponent of school choice, he oversells that prescription. A few Tylenol might help the headache, but that doesn’t justify swallowing a bottle-full.
DeAngelis deftly surveys much of the relevant research: “Out of seventeen random-assignments studies, eleven find statistically significant positive effects and three find negative impacts.” What’s more, of the twenty-nine studies that investigate the effect of choice on traditional public schools, twenty-six find that school choice improves them. In other words, competition is better for everyone, even students not in the choice program. And school choice benefits non-academic outcomes as well: civic knowledge and engagement, crime rates, and political tolerance, for example. What’s not to love?
But most of this research investigated voucher programs targeted at low-income families. That the benefits of such policies would translate to universal ESAs isn’t clear. Perhaps research will vindicate universal private choice—and I’ll be the first to make a mea culpa if it does—but as we’ve learned from decades of testing and accountability, it’s possible to oversell a worthy policy remedy and then watch as political backlash dismantles it.
When it comes to combating “woke-ism” and progressive capture of American schools, I’m quite skeptical of school choice. If charter school networks, educators’ professional organizations, curriculum companies, teacher prep programs, credentialing and accrediting institutions, leading publications, and all of the other mediating institutions in American education share the same progressive worldview, as appears to me to be the case, I can’t see how allowing families choice will combat such institutional capture. School choice may be necessary, but it’s far from sufficient.
Amid all of DeAngelis’s data, the most moving argument for school choice comes in its opening pages, where he recounts a story from his own life: walking up blood-spattered steps in his public middle school, where violence and fights were the norm. His life trajectory changed when he got accepted into a magnet high school and encountered for the first time a rigorous education surrounded by academically-minded peers. School choice saved him from chaos and propelled him to success. This was and still is the most convincing case for school choice, each individual child who deserves something better.
In his book, DeAngelis shows that the lion’s share of American students deserves something better—something better than political interests holding them back, something better than political indoctrination, something better than academic mediocrity. The parent’s movement could, should, and very well may help to establish the institutions, staff the school boards, and win the elections necessary to achieve that “something better.”
Charter schools cultivate knowledge, nurture social capital, and build civil society
As we observe another National Charter School Week, one fact is clear: Families are voting with their feet for charter schools. Charter enrollment has increased by almost 14 percent since 2019, the last full school year before pandemic school closures. Meanwhile, district public schools have lost around 1.2 million students since the pandemic, with thirty-seven states and two-thirds of districts suffering declines. Families are choosing charters because of their educational successes and because they are sources of community renewal.
Charter school facts
As regular Flypaper readers are aware, charter schools are taxpayer-funded, independent public schools of choice for both families and educators that are accountable for the results of student learning. The movement to create them began in 1991 when Minnesota passed the first charter law. Today, forty-six such laws have enabled the creation of 8,000 schools and campuses enrolling 3.7 million students, around 7.5 percent of all public school students, according to the Data Dashboard of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. They employ around 251,000 teachers. Almost three-fifths of charters are urban, with a quarter in the suburbs and 17 percent in rural and small-town America.
According to the Data Dashboard, charter schools have consistently enrolled proportionately more students of color and children from low-income families than traditional district schools. Currently, seven of ten (70.7 percent) charter pupils are children of color compared to slightly more than half (53.8 percent) of district students, with six of ten charter students receiving free and reduced-price lunch compared to half (50.3 percent) in district schools. Hispanic students are the fastest-growing charter student group.
As educational institutions, the focus is on teaching and learning and accountability for results. Much ink has been spilled on their academic successes and failures. A report from Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes that spans the school years from 2014–15 to 2018–19 provides a useful summary of these findings:
- Charter school students have an average of sixteen more days of learning in reading and six more days in math in a school year compared to their matched peers in traditional public schools.
- Charter schools enroll and educate more diverse and academically challenged students than local traditional public schools.
- Black and Hispanic students, as well as students in poverty, have stronger growth than their traditional public school peers.
Building communities and social capital
Along with being educational institutions, charter schools function as mediating institutions in their communities that build social capital.
Charter schools are wellsprings of civic renewal and community rebirth. If Alexis de Tocqueville were to revisit America today, he would surely say that charter schools are vibrant illustrations of Americans’ enduring appetite to create new voluntary organizations to meet human needs and build communities. They serve as mediating institutions, a middle path between the impersonal agencies of government and the private affairs of individuals and families. They reinvigorate the local civic community since they interact with the people, places, and institutions where they operate.
Charter schools are also opportunities for educators to create voluntary professional communities based on shared values, goals, and instructional approaches. Teachers and principals who choose to work in the charter sector have the autonomy to choose who else works in their school, rather than having a school district bureaucracy assign an educator to the school.
Charter schools also build what sociologist James Coleman called social capital, which he saw “…as a resource for action [that includes] obligations and expectations, information channels, and social norms.” A charter school’s social capital arises out of the relationships that exist among people: the children who attend it and the adults involved with it, including parents, the educators who staff it, and the community members who support it. A school lacking social capital is not likely to be a productive learning environment nor much of a community asset.
Charters create new forms of association. While some charters are neighborhood schools in the old-fashioned sense, others transcend particular neighborhoods or geographic places. They may be organized by curricular philosophies like Montessori or classical education or by place-based geographic approaches like charters located in parent workplaces. There are also networks of charter schools or charter management organizations that cross district and state boundaries and are organized around a common mission and instructional design, like Achievement First Charter Schools, Basis Charter Schools, or High Tech High Charter Schools.
Charter schools display elements that sociologist Robert Nisbet thought essential to community association, including a high degree of personal intimacy, social cohesion, and moral commitment. As he wrote in The Quest for Community, “Community is the product of people working together on problems, of autonomous and collective fulfillment or internal objectives, and of the experience of living under codes of authority which have been set in large degrees by the persons involved.” That’s what happens in charter schools.
Stubborn particulars that unite
Charter schools are sometimes faulted for dividing communities rather than uniting them. And lately there’s been more political division around charters, though for years their support was a bipartisan political effort. Still, that hasn’t entirely disappeared. Witness the recent effort in Colorado by a bipartisan political coalition that included Democratic Governor Jared Polis to defeat a measure to make major changes that would restrict some of the freedoms that that state’s charter schools possess.
The charter model presents a vision of public education that sees K–12 schools differently than the centralized, bureaucratic view inherent in the district arrangement. The charter model emphasizes a decentralized array of self-governing, results-oriented schools run by all sorts of different providers, like educators, parents, and nonprofit community organizations.
Charter schools are “not the collectivism of organized government action from above…[but] the collectivism of voluntary groups action from below,” to borrow from the well-known management consultant Peter Drucker in his book The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition. They are at the intersection of civil society and public education.
“Charter schooling has been arguably the most influential school reform efforts of the past several decades,” conclude the authors of a 2023 report published in the Journal of Public Economics. While this is true, it’s also true that not every charter has lived up to its promise or been a source of civic renewal in communities. Many have been closed for not serving their students, families, or communities. As we observe National Charter School Week, all this is worth recalling and recommitting ourselves to creating more high-quality independent public schools of choice that are accountable for results.
Taking curriculum implementation seriously
I’ve made no secret of my fervent belief that curriculum is the overlooked lever in education reform. Replacing the slapdash, incoherent, and under-nourishing mélange of materials to which the typical U.S. student is exposed with a more rigorous and thoughtfully sequenced student experience holds promise unmatched by the “structural” reforms favored by policymakers. Over the years, I’ve also crossed swords occasionally with fellow curriculum advocates who labor under the misconception (or allow others to do so) that simply adopting high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) is a magic bullet, or who obsess over minor points of orthodoxy between programs. The larger battle to be fought and won is making curriculum—virtually any decent curriculum—central to school improvement efforts.
In fact, I’ve lately struck from my vocabulary the phrase “curriculum adoption” in favor of curriculum purchases. The word “adoption” implies a much higher bar than just forking out taxpayer dollars for a new program and calling it a day. It’s a serious and sustained effort shared within and between grades to implement curriculum rigorously and with fidelity. Such efforts remain the exception, not the rule. Thus, I’m pleased to recommend a new case study published by Rivet Education, a curriculum-focused consulting group, which lays out the steps needed to turn a curriculum purchase into an adoption process worthy of its name, and that moves the needle on student outcomes.
In 2018, teachers and leaders in Wisconsin’s Mount Horeb Area School District made the decision to adopt a new math curriculum called “Bridges in Mathematics” and produced by The Math Learning Center. Students in this small town in southern Wisconsin were doing reasonably well on state math tests, but teachers had noticed that they “struggled when given more challenging math work” including problems that required them to conceptualize, explain their thinking, or apply math to real-world situations. Mount Horeb embarked on a multi-year “journey” to fully implement Bridges. This involved multiple phases, which Rivet categorizes as “exploration; program installation; initial implementation; consistent implementation; and innovation and sustainability.”
In the “exploration” phase, district officials and (mostly math) teachers “established a vision for effective and equitable instruction, reviewing and evaluating curriculum.” They reviewed high-quality math curricula, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of a number of programs, each ultimately selecting the curriculum that best aligned with the district’s priorities. Next, professional learning providers were recruited (presumably with Rivet’s input and guidance) to educate teachers on mathematical practices, assessing student work, and the role HQIM plays in student learning.
It’s the “program installation” phase that warrants the most attention and contrasts most vividly with what I suspect is the standard experience with curriculum “adoption,” wherein teachers unbox the materials, do a “walk-through” of the new program, and sit for a day or two of professional development led by a district staffer who attended a “train the trainer” workshop at a budget hotel conference room the previous spring. If they get any ongoing professional development after that, it’s minimal. I could have pulled a muscle in my neck nodding at a quote in the case study from Latricia Johnson, a math coach who worked on Mount Horeb’s implementation. “One-and-done, workshop-based professional learning doesn’t work,” she said. “Teachers need a mix of observations, lesson studies, modeling, and [professional learning communities] for a successful professional learning plan.” Hear, hear.
Yet even that elides what is almost certainly the main impediment to successful, sustained curriculum implementation: internal resistance. As my AEI colleague Rick Hess never tires of pointing out, it’s easy to get people do something, but it’s hard to get them to do it well. It’s even harder when teachers are comfortable with what they’ve been doing for years and reluctant to change practice. I wanted to know more about how Mount Horeb built teacher buy-in—not just compliance—without which even excellent curriculum tends to underperform.
Rivet’s case study pairs nicely (or contrasts vividly) with a recent article by Hechinger Report’s Jill Barshay, which paints a concerning picture of the field’s relationship with curriculum. At the recent annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, William Zahner, a math professor at San Diego State, presented a survey of more than 1,000 math teachers. “A surprising number of math teachers,” he reported, “particularly at the high school level simply said we don’t use the district of school-provided materials, or they claimed they didn’t have any.”
Only it’s not surprising. We’ve known for a long time that nearly every teacher creates, customizes, or “curates” their own lesson plans and materials (hello, Teachers Pay Teachers!). A little of this is appropriate and beneficial but too much results in lost coherence. There’s also good evidence to suggest that teachers simply aren’t very good judges of rigor when they venture into the “curriculum bazaar.” The main screen they employ is more often than not “student engagement.”
Truth be told, the Mount Horeb “case study” is also a marketing exercise. Rivet is a consulting outfit founded by veterans of the Louisiana Department of Education who helped engineer that state’s ground-breaking curriculum and instructional reforms under then–state chief John White. They work with state and school district leaders to scale the adoption and implementation of HQIM. Nevertheless, the effort they highlight in Wisconsin is a good model for districts that seek to take curriculum seriously or wonder why their “adoptions” disappoint or fail to stick. It’s required reading for state officials, school board members, and district and building leaders who are convinced that HQIM is an essential component of student success. It paints a compelling picture of what it would look like if we took curriculum seriously as a school improvement strategy.
In search of “just right” school ratings: Goldilocks and the three metrics
In an effort to avoid prescriptive top-down mandates, the school accountability provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allow states flexibility in determining what measures they’ll use to assess school quality, how much “weight” they carry, and over what time periods they’re calculated. A recent descriptive study uses data from North Carolina to demonstrate how policymakers’ decisions can influence school ratings and, ultimately, the list of schools identified for improvement under ESSA. (States must identify their most troubled schools but have considerable flexibility in what to do about them.).
Analysts Erica Harbatkin (Florida State University) and Betsy Wolf (U.S. Department of Education) draw on eight years of administrative data from the Tar Heel State—including roughly 1,900 public schools. They develop three ESSA-compliant school quality metrics, all of which include proficiency rates, student growth, high-school graduation rates, English learner proficiency, and chronic absenteeism rates. The first four elements are required by ESSA, and the last is the most popular of the flexible “fifth indicators” that states select for themselves. The metrics vary based on weighting and the number of data points included (one to three years). For each of the three metrics, analysts simulate school ratings overall, as well as which schools would end up in the bottom 5 percent that require “comprehensive support and improvement” (CSI) as required by ESSA.
In Goldilocks lingo, the analysts undertook to identify the too-hot and too-cold tradeoffs arising from the various simulations. Their key “temperature” gauges are stability and equity. “Stability” addresses consistency, meaning whether there is volatility (unpredictable changes) at different points in the distribution. “Equity” examines whether school ratings are systematically and disproportionately lower for schools serving disadvantaged student groups—the idea being that metrics that weigh proficiency too heavily could “further marginalize” schools with students in need. Thus, analysts calculate whether the share of schools within three equal groups—defined as the 25 percent of schools with the largest share of low-income and Black students, the middle 50 percent, and the 25 percent with the smallest share of these student subgroups—would total 5 percent in each because “a perfectly equitable accountability system would identify exactly 5 percent of CSI schools in each of the quantiles.” The extent to which a given group deviates from that 5 percent threshold represents their measure of inequity (arguable as it is).
The three simulations are as follows:
- The first weights proficiency and growth mostly the same at the elementary and middle school levels, and weights proficiency twice as heavily as growth in high school (so 30 percent weight versus 15 percent).
- The second weights proficiency more heavily than growth—at 60 percent for elementary and middle schools and 45 percent for high schools.
- The third also weights growth more heavily—60 percent for elementary and middle schools again but 30 percent for high schools.
They also change the number of years of data to see how that affects their measures of interest. They toggle between a single year of data (which is what most states do, although they don’t have to under ESSA), a three-year weighted mean where the current year is weighted most heavily, and two other scenarios where they use one year of data for each of three years but alter how they classify the lowest performing schools (meaning the schools appear in three consecutive years or appear in two of three consecutive years).
Looking at stability first, they find that weighting proficiency more heavily than growth produces more stable year-to-year ratings. This is because proficiency rates are strongly correlated with student characteristics. Not surprisingly, ratings based on three years of data are three to four times more stable than those based on a single year. They also find that the “three of three rule”—meaning classifying schools for intervention that fall in the lowest performing group for three consecutive years—produces the most stable list. However, and this is important, using three years of data versus one more than offsets the loss of stability one gets when shifting from a high proficiency to a high growth index model. In other words, there’s a lot of volatility in scores when a state that once weighed proficiency heavily in its accountability system decides to weight growth heavily instead, but this volatility is taken care of (and then some) if a state uses three years of rolling data.
As for their measure of equity, the higher-proficiency index was the most inequitable and the higher-growth index the least inequitable. Specifically, under the higher-proficiency index, 75 percent of students in the lowest-rated 20 percent of schools were low-income, compared with just 39 percent in the top-rated 20 percent of schools. Under the higher-growth index, the comparable figures were 65 percent of students compared with 47 percent. Likewise, when they aggregate data into the three quantiles above, none of the simulations identify exactly 5 percent as needing CSI services, but the proficiency measure disproportionately identifies schools in the bottom that are the most disadvantaged.
Still, the bottom line for Harbatkin and Wolf is that using three years of data is imperative for consistency no matter which you weight more heavily—proficiency or growth—given that each has tradeoffs.
We endlessly debate those tradeoffs here at Fordham, underscoring the importance of a state identifying its goals before it decides how to balance proficiency and growth. If the goal is to identify schools that aren’t meeting the bar in order to target scarce resources to them, then it’s preferable to weight proficiency more heavily. But if the goal is to identify schools that are (or aren’t!) making a palpable difference in their students’ academic lives, then it’s preferable to weight growth more heavily. Another option: Follow Texas’s example and give schools two helpings of grades—and hope that bowl is just right.
SOURCE: Erica Harbatkin and Betsy Wolf, “State accountability decisions under the Every Student Succeeds Act and the validity, stability, and equity of school ratings,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (October 2023).
#920: Integration and charter schools, with Brian Kisida
In a special National Charter Schools Week Education Gadfly Show podcast, Brian Kisida, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri, joins Mike and David to discuss whether charters have impeded racial integration in American schools. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a new study investigating if intensive English learner programs benefit students.
Recommended content:
- “70 years after Brown v. Board of Education, new research shows rise in school segregation” —Carrie Spector, Stanford Education
- Tomas Monarrez, Brian Kisida, and Matthew M. Chingos. “The effect of charter schools on school segregation,” EdWorkingPaper No. 20-308, Annenberg Institute at Brown University (2020).
- Camila Morales and Monica Mogollon, “The effects of a newcomer program on the academic achievement of English Learners,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (May 2024).
Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Daniel Buck at [email protected].
Michael Petrilli:
Welcome to the Education Gadfly Show. I'm your host Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Today, Brian Kisida, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri, joins us to discuss whether charters have impeded racial integration in American schools. Then on the research minute, Amber reports on a new study investigating if intensive newcomer English programs benefit EL students. All this on the Education Gadfly show,
Hello. This is your host, Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute here at the Education Gadfly Show and online at fordhaminstitute.org. And now please welcome our special guest for this week, Brian Kisida. Brian, welcome to the show.
Brian Kisida:
Thank you, Mike, it's really great to join you.
Michael Petrilli:
Yeah, Brian is an assistant professor at the University of Missouri Go Mizzou, and we are here to talk about charter schools and integration here on National Charter School Week. Happy Charter School week to you, Brian. I'm not sure if you celebrate or not.
Brian Kisida:
Sure. I did know it was that, but I don't those things so much.
Michael Petrilli:
And also joining us as always, and a man who celebrates National charter school week every week of the year. I dunno how you'd celebrate charter school week. Exactly. I mean, other than writing about charter schools, talking about charter schools, which we're going to do, but I don't think there's any fasting or anything like that involved, unlike some other celebrations out there. Oh my goodness. Well, Brian, we are so excited to have you on the show. We invited you here because there's a new study on charter schools and racial integration that is getting a lot of attention study by Sean Reardon and his colleague. And we know you have done some great work on this subject as well, and we are really trying to make sense of it. Let's do that on Ed reform update.
I'll say speaking personally, I think this is a super important topic and then I quickly get into the weeds of the methodology and I get so confused because of how scholars have tried to figure out how to study this issue, which is not as straightforward as it may seem. So I want to get into all of that. But first, lemme just start with this is the way the press talks about this is they use the word segregation and it's always been for a long time, the case conservatism especially, don't love that word, except when we're talking about Jim Crow kind of jore segregation. That was a particular evil saying to black children, you may not go to the school because you were black. Then there's what happens when schools are not racially integrated, maybe because of housing policies. That too, though definitely had racist history.
There's also the white flight dynamic, and now we talk about school choice in charter schools where there's this question of whether we are not having schools as integrated as maybe we could have because of the choices that parents are making. And is it fair to call that segregation, especially if we're not talking about the choices of white parents, right? We're talking about the choices maybe of black parents of Hispanic parents. I don't remember seeing in the higher ed context, for example, people talking about HBCUs in the modern era being segregated, right? People take for granted that those are some fantastic schools that some African-Americans choose to enroll in and to have a proud history. And yet if the issue is that black families are choosing charter schools and therefore the traditional public schools are not as integrated as they might've otherwise been, we call that segregation. So that is my speech. You are welcome to comment on it. If you have any comments on that though, you don't have to.
Brian Kisida:
No, I definitely do. I mean, first I think arguing against terminology is somewhat a difficult task. It's really hard to change the vocabulary that people have agreed upon. But there is the incredible nuance as you point out between the idea of what historically has been called dejure segregation versus defacto segregation. So that means segregation. That was a matter of legal barriers to entry for minority populations versus people making choices. But I don't know. I've had some instances where we've tried to use other words like stratification or isolation or different words like that. And I think that it's very hard. I think some of this is media driven. Segregation is a term that can drive a lot of headlines, but I also want to, I think maybe push back on this characterization that we don't have segregation like we did in the past. I just don't think that charter schools are the source. So I mean, just to set the stage as somebody who studies education policy, if I'm at a dinner party and somebody asks me what's the biggest problem facing education today? I think the answer is segregation or whatever term we want to use, but it's like one of these problems that nobody really knows how to address. There's been all these different ways of coming at this problem, and it seems like politically there's no good solutions out there.
Michael Petrilli:
So Brian, let's get into just the background here. So, alright, some of these studies say that whatever we call this, let's call it to racial isolation has gotten worse or at least no better in recent decades. And then there's a secondary point we're going to get to, which is that charter schools are partly to blame. So first, just the overall trend. I mean, can that possibly be true that we haven't made much progress in decades when it comes to giving kids access to integrated school environments?
Brian Kisida:
So that narrative is a little bit dependent on which research study you look and how you measure segregation. But I would say that the broad best way to characterize that literature is that segregation for about the last 20 years has been flat or declining. And this has been shown in numerous studies with the exception of some of the less good studies that use these poor measures that don't actually take into account the fact that the United States just has an increasingly diverse population. So our schools tend to have more traditionally underserved minority populations. But once you account for that, the trends are largely flat. And that's confirmed and work that I've done and work that other people have done. Now with regards to this latest report by Owens and Rearden, they do find that segregation is increasing by looking at particular samples. So in some cases, they're looking at the hundred largest school districts, and in some cases they're looking at, I think somewhere around 500 school districts that tend to enroll large populations of black students. And they're finding an increase there. But by and large, if we look at all 15,000 school districts in the country, we don't find those trends. So that's not to say that it's not happening, it just seems that it's happening in particular places.
Michael Petrilli:
Yeah, no, that's interesting. I could imagine this is just a hypothesis that you may see maybe racial isolation increasing in the urban core districts that tend to be the big districts, but maybe decreasing in the suburbs as the suburbs become more diverse. And if you don't have bunch of those suburban districts in the sample, then you're going to miss that. And you've mentioned the diversity, I mean, way back when this was really a white black issue because the population of Hispanic and Asian kids was tiny, at least in most places. Now we've got this huge group of Hispanic kids and a growing group of Asian kids. So you're saying that some studies try to deal with that and some just do not.
Brian Kisida:
Right? I mean, not to point fingers, but I will mean the biggest headlines I tend to see come with the most sensational applies findings. And most of those have come out of the UCLA's civil rights project, which looks at something like, what's the proportion of schools that are 90% non-white or something like that, which we know is something that's increasing just because of demographic trends in the United States. And so that's not an appropriate measure to look at if we want to really understand, we have to take that into account. Owens and Rearden do use a good normalized measure, as have we in our research. And when you use that, you don't find striking increases in the aggregate, but it seems like they're finding these types of increases in particular large districts.
Michael Petrilli:
So now in your study and in the Rearden one, there are these findings around charter schools. So just help me try to understand what we're even looking at. Is it if there were some world where we didn't have a charter school movement, here's what things would look like versus the world we live in where we do have charter schools? Is that the way to think about it?
Brian Kisida:
Yeah, I mean, the research that I did with Tomas Menez and met Shingo at the Urban Institute, so we're doing a causal analysis. So we're looking at 20 years of data and we're looking when charter schools open, what the effect of that has on these measures of the population. And when we look at this in the aggregate, our basic takeaway is yes, there is an increase in segregation, but it's quite small. So in our national study, the presence of charters has created a 0.72 percentage point increase in segregation. So that's something that I think in terms of percentage points, that doesn't sound like a lot. If we sort of talk about that in terms of percent change, which is a number that can sometimes be misleading, we find that there's a 6% increase in segregation. And then if you look at Owens and Rearden finding effects that are two or three times larger than ours, and so they're expressing those in some cases as I think a 40% increase, which is based off of about a three percentage point increase. But again, that's looking at a small slice of the school districts in the country. But I guess either way that you look at it, it's somewhere between a one to three percentage point increase.
Michael Petrilli:
And do we know how much of this is driven by parents of color choosing charter schools versus white parents choosing charter schools?
Brian Kisida:
That's a really difficult question to answer because these studies are using aggregate data. So they're looking at the share of students of different ethnic backgrounds in the district. They're not tracking individual students. And this is actually kind of one of the things that makes this a difficult thing to research because we don't really know that a student's going from this public school to this charter school. We're just looking at how those compositions are changing over time. And in fact, one of the sort of things that we impact in our study is this idea of where you measure segregation at what geographic unit you use matters a lot. So if we just look at the school district as the unit of analysis similar to Owens and Rearden, we find a larger effect. Again, that's where we find the 6% increase or the 0.72 percentage point increase.
But if we increase that geographic area to include metro areas which contain numbers of school districts, the effect is smaller. And when we disaggregate that between the district effect and the within district effect, we actually find that charter schools have an integrating force because students are moving from one district that's more racially isolated to a district that's less. And in our analysis, that actually erases about half of the effect that we see in terms of charter school segregation. So the geography matters, and of course, I think if we were doing this just as a school district exercise, it wouldn't matter to look at school districts because that is the appropriate unit of analysis when it comes to charter schools. The point is that students can travel across district lines. The vast majority of segregation in the United States is between districts, not within districts. The basic, and this is kind of what I was getting at when I was trying to hold onto the idea that there is a such thing still as deju segregation, legal segregation, and it is actually school attendance boundaries and school district lines, because those are legal barriers to integration that you're not allowed to cross unless you go to a charter school or you break the law, or in some places where there may be interdistrict choice.
Michael Petrilli:
David, I'm sorry, I have not let you in here. What's on your mind?
David Griffith:
I'm curious to get Brian's perspective. You characterize, you started by characterizing segregation, for lack of a better word, as kind of the biggest problem in American education today. I don't know if I agree to be honest with you, but let's just go with that. I'm curious to know what you think, if anything we could do about it, right? Is there some mechanism that I haven't thought about? I know we have diversified design charters, we have weighted lotteries, we have all these things that kind of sound good in principle, and then you try them and it doesn't really seem like anything happens, at least at scale. I don't know. Is there a solution we haven't thought of?
Brian Kisida:
I don't know that there is. I mean, this is kind of, there's the famous Norman Rockwell painting, the problem we all live with, I think, and a lot of people have adopted that sort of phrase to talk about segregation in America. But I think it's better articulated as the problem we all ignore because it's this, it does kind of strike me as one of the largest hypocrisies in education policy attempts to integrate even through some sort of voluntary inter or interdistrict choice are often fought by suburban parents that don't want to open up their school to poor students or minority students, or they don't want their students to be rezoned somewhere else. And typically these tend to be parents that we would describe as left-leaning liberals who would not in agreement if we talked about the drastic issue of segregation and how important it is. But when the rubber meets the road, they're not willing to actually make the changes necessary. So it seems to be this politically impossible problem in terms of solving it that way. I do think there's other ways to address the problems that that segregation creates, but I don't know if there's much we can do to affect segregation itself through policy.
Michael Petrilli:
Well, and the history here is important. Charter schools came to life in the early 1990s. This was after a period when their big urban school districts were very much in decline, largely because of white flight and then middle class black flight disinvestment. They were kind of in this death spiral and nobody knew how to fix 'em. I mean, there were various ways of reform that weren't working. And so there was a lot of energy around doing something to start fresh and to give poor families, especially black families, a chance immediately to get something better. And so the charter school movement was born, and we quickly saw these, so-called No Excuses Schools, the kipps of the world, which basically said, look, if we are not going to bind a way to get rid of these schools with concentrated poverty and racial concentration, then we're going to figure out a way to make them work effectively.
And they did. And that seems to be a thorn in the side of some of these other folks all these years later. And look, I mean, I get it. If you really believe that the only answer is to integrate the schools, then I guess you see charter schools as a sideshow or something that is really raising questions about that strategy. But look, we know how to build charter schools, including great charter schools, including great charter schools that are high poverty and that serve all black and Hispanic kids. What you said earlier, Brian, I think is right. We don't know how to integrate our schools or at least come up with a strategy that's politically feasible.
Brian Kisida:
Well, not only that, we fight it right, not, but, so let me give you an example close to home, but this happens all over the country. So the Hazelwood School District in St. Louis executed 4,500 residency investigations over the past five years. And so they refer to this as educational larceny. So these are parents who are lying about their address to get into a better school and you go to jail.
Michael Petrilli:
Well, we will have to leave it there on that somber note, Brian Kisida at the University of Missouri, thank you so much for joining us. Do check out his study. We'll include it in the show notes. Hope you come back on the show sometime soon, Brian.
Brian Kisida:
Thank you.
Michael Petrilli:
Alright, now it's time for everyone's favorite Amber's Research Minute. Amber, welcome back to the show.
Amber Northern:
Thank you, Mike.
Michael Petrilli:
Happy National Charter Schools week.
Amber Northern:
Ah, to you too.
Michael Petrilli:
You may not know about it because I'm not sure you can really celebrate there in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Sorry about that,
Amber Northern:
Mike. You are right about that. You are right about that.
Michael Petrilli:
I know you all are trying. You're trying with those, what do you call them, those charter like schools? We
Amber Northern:
Call them lab schools, but we do not put lab schools in charters in the same sentence, Mike.
Michael Petrilli:
Oh, is that right? I'm not sure I knew that. I think I said to a reporter recently. Oh, lab schools, they're basically charter schools sort
Amber Northern:
Of. No, no, they're not. They are not between school districts and community colleges or four year universities. And we'll be putting that in Dan, do not. Do not edit that part out. Yes.
Michael Petrilli:
Sorry. Dr. Northern member of the Virginia Board of Education. Okay. Well, what you got for us on the research front,
Amber Northern:
We have a new study that examines the effect of an intensive English program on the ELA and math academic achievement of newly arrived English learners looking at tracking them for up to three years after they enter this intensive English program. So again, the program targets EL students whose initial English proficiency is deemed too low even to participate in mainstream ESL services. They offer these students services in a sheltered environment off of their main campus for a minimum of six weeks up to one year, where they're taught foundational English language and literacy skills, such as learning the alphabet, basic English vocabulary, and tech structure. Core subjects such as math and science are also taught, but to a much lesser extent as a focus is on learning the English language rather than on grade level content. Afterwards. These kids transition to mainstream ESL instruction in their neighborhood school, which is typically a combination of push in or pull out services combined with English only core content classes.
So we've got a regression discontinuity design here. They're comparing outcomes of kids whose initial English proficiency scores on the wida, which is a ELL assessment that most folks have heard of. They fall within a small band around the eligibility cutoff for this intense program. So they therefore have, the kids have comparable initial English language skills, but they otherwise receive different types of English language development supports. So you've got these EL kids who barely missed the cutoff for the newcomer program receiving this mainstream ESL support from their district. And then you've got this intensive program, so just kids falling on the margins of the cutoff. They use individual level data on the universe of kids who were screened for EL classification in grades three through eight, 2009 to 2019. They attended public schools in a large urban district in Georgia. That district serves a county that is residents to nearly 80% of the refugees who have resettled in Georgia.
Michael Petrilli:
Oh, interesting. So you say county, so maybe not. Atlanta
Amber Northern:
Serves a county that is residents to 80% of refugees. The initial sample consists over 7,000 kids of whom they have data on WIDA scores, they've got demographics, got refugee status, and they're looking primarily at their end of grade ELA and math scores at grades three through eight. Alright, what'd they find? Small and insignificant effects in the short term, which is just a year out on students' ELA scores, however, big differences by grade levels. So eligible students in the younger grades, which is three through five, had higher ELA test scores. In the short term, it's about 0.20 to almost 0.4, 0.39 standard deviations compared to the ineligible kids. They also found suggestive evidence of similar impacts on math, but the math weren't as stable. Those math results changed based on the model they were using. On the other hand, the middle school kids saw a decline in ELA and math scores 0.21, up to 0.25 standard deviations in the short term, and now they're going to go looking long term up to three years out.
And then they find that those patterns are largely panning out in the long term. So the short term gains among the younger kids remain stable over time. So they continued to score up to 0.38 standard deviations higher in ELA. Three years after that initial program started, similar programs in math and those declines in test scores, we saw who in the middle school. So grades six through seven, those kids continued on a downward trajectory by the second year. So two years after program eligibility students in the newcomer program and the middle school grades experienced a 0.56 decline in ELA end course or grade scores compared to the control kids. So they had this big discussion on the grade of first exposure to this newcomer program is a key factor upon how these trajectories evolved. But one last thing, and I thought this was interesting, these positive persistent effects that we saw on ELA were accompanied by negative impacts on English language proficiency. So they say, okay, one explanation maybe is that what they're measuring on the English proficiency test is different than they're measuring on the ELA end of grade test because English proficiency is a lot about speaking and listening, but they're like, well, maybe that's more prone to be influenced by linguistic isolation from their English speaking peers. Because we're recall that these program kids have up to a year isolated from these core content classes in their general education classes. So that's what I've got.
Michael Petrilli:
Interesting. I guess I'm surprised though that I would think that usually in my head I'd say, well, the younger kids, we should just let them sink or swim and they'll figure it out and the older kids would need more help learning the language first and yet that's the opposite of what we found here. Right?
Amber Northern:
It is it,
Michael Petrilli:
What do you think about that, David?
David Griffith:
Yeah, I don't know. I guess I'm also thinking about the counterfactual here, right? If you just miss a year of math in middle school, I don't know, maybe it means more right than it does if you miss second grade math, whatever that is. I don't know. The sort of content stuff is more fluid at the elementary level, so maybe that's part of it. But I hear what you're saying, Mike. I mean, Amber is the sense that all these kids, I don't know that they come into elementary school or middle school with kind of similarly low English skills, at least at the start, or do we think these are different populations?
Amber Northern:
No, from what they gathered, it was very similar what they're coming in to start with. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, you think that, gosh, by the time you get middle school, maybe it's just part of, it's just too late if you don't know the language. I don't know. It's confusing.
Michael Petrilli:
And that the counterfactual wasn't just, I guess I should be careful with my sink or swim. Right? They were still getting ESL in the counterfactual,
Amber Northern:
Right? In their district. But it wasn't as intensely focused on learning the language as this was.
Michael Petrilli:
Yeah. And it wasn't as isolated as this other one
Amber Northern:
Was. Right. That's right.
Michael Petrilli:
Alright, well, hey, I'm glad we're studying this stuff. This is obviously a big issue all over the country right now as we have this wave of migrant kids coming in and many of them with very low English proficiency. So good stuff. Even if it makes us scratch our heads.
Amber Northern:
Yes. And especially, I mean the English proficiency, the speaking and listening, I thought, okay, well maybe that could be it. But that was called a head scratcher too, right? The proficiency scores went down. Anyhow, yeah, we need some more black studies, Mike.
Michael Petrilli:
We want to understand what the heck is going
Amber Northern:
On going on.
Michael Petrilli:
All right, good. Well, thank you, Amber. Good stuff. That is all the time. We've got Ford this week though, so until next week,
David Griffith:
I'm David Griffin.
Michael Petrilli:
And I'm Mike Peti at the Thomas b Fordham Institute. Signing off
Cheers and Jeers: May 16, 2024
Cheers
- A Columbus school board member acknowledges the need, however controversial, to consolidate schools to account for reduced enrollment. —Columbus Dispatch
- Two high schoolers at the highly regarded Saint Mary’s Academy made history by developing a proof for the Pythagorean theorem. —CBS News
- A new study finds that scores on medical board certification exams predict later patient survival. In other words, standardized tests work. —Harvard Medical School
- “Gilroy Prep has higher test scores and fewer absent students than nearby schools, but experts caution against pinning this success on the teaching method.” —Mercury News
Jeers
- Continued glitches on FASFA software have left many prospective students in limbo, unsure if they’ll receive financial aid and unable to commit to a college. —CBS News
- Media continues to peddle the claim, based on dubious research, that educational segregation is getting worse because of charter schools. —Vox
- Despite its strong evidence base, states and districts remain hesitant to end social promotion. —Mitch Daniels, Washington Post
What we're reading this week: May 16, 2024
- Demographic changes have left America with too many half-full schools for too few students, and closures could dominate debates for the next decade. —Wall Street Journal
- “Segregation is wrong, but black students don’t need to share a classroom with white ones to learn.” —Jason Riley, Wall Street Journal
What makes Britain’s most successful school tick: An interview with Headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh
Katharine Birbalsingh has many monikers: the founder and headmistress at Michaela Community School; chair of the Social Mobility Commission, an advisory body in England’s Department for Education; Commander of the Order of the British Empire; honorary fellow at New College, Oxford; Britain’s strictest headmistress; and of course, Miss Snuffy.
In 2010, she was tapped to give a speech at Britain’s Conservative Party conference, after which she was asked not to return to the school where she was employed. She eventually resigned and established her own school in 2014. A decade later, The Michaela Community School, a British free school comparable to an American charter school, which serves roughly 800 students ranging from eleven to eighteen, regularly boasts the highest growth scores of any K–12 educational institution in England.
Even with all those demands on her time, I had the opportunity to sit down with her recently for a conversation to figure out what exactly her school does to achieve such success.
I want to start at the beginning of your career with Michaela. You’ve resigned from your previous job. You’ve decided to found a school. Talk us through what that was like for you.
Well, in 2010 when we started, we had protestors outside and infiltrating our parent information events. They would shout to drown us out when we were trying to explain the new school to the potential parents who were interested. And it was really shocking, actually, because the parents were all Black moms from the inner city and the detractors were all White middle-class people, often from outside London, who had been bused in to destroy the hopes of these poor Black moms who were just looking for another option.
They would campaign outside with signs. They had picket lines with signs calling me names. We had to hire bouncers to protect us. When we finally opened, they stood outside and gave flyers to the children telling them their lives were in danger because health and safety standards had not been met in the building. So I went to the photocopier and copied the flyer 120 times and gave it to all the kids and then I said, “when you leave this evening, wave it in their faces and say, my headmistress has already given me a copy.”
That was the fun and games of 2014. We have been fighting with people ever since to stay alive.
Critics suggest that you’re imposing the strict discipline for which you have become known on students because they’re poor or Black or minorities, that teaching children to work hard and be nice is only teaching them to comply and be subservient. How do you respond?
Well, we are an inner-city school. Gangs are a problem. Alcoholism is a problem. Drugs are a problem. But you wouldn’t believe that if you came inside. The students are so well behaved, and they know so much—more than the children at the private schools.
Children like to be safe and looked after. When children feel safe, they’re more likely to push the boat out when it comes to their learning, like putting their hands up in lessons to trying out an interesting answer. If they feel that the bullies are in control, however, then the child will not expand their learning or take risks to try out new types of thinking.
Similarly, people don’t like the fact that our corridors are silent. They imagine that children normally skip through the corridors chatting about Aristotle. But I can tell you that, in the inner city, that is not what’s happening. Normally they’re pummeling each other, sending each other to hospital, breaking each other’s noses. If children are safe in the corridor, they are much happier.
I think the people who make that criticism have never spent any time in the inner city or simply don’t know what it’s like to be in a school. If they were to spend any time there, then they would realize that what we do is what works.
Perhaps the polar opposite, at least rhetorically, to the discipline proponents is the “it’s all about relationships” crowd. Are relationships important?
Absolutely. It’s the number one thing we talk about at Michaela. When new staff come, we inundate them with training around relationships. If a child does not feel loved, and if the child does not love his teacher, he will not work for that teacher.
But we need to ask what enables a teacher to have strong relationships with their children. You need behavior systems that are applied equally and fairly to every child at all times. You will always have some teachers who are really great with kids, and they just have a way about them. And then there are other teachers who don’t have that skill. The consistency of the behavior systems supports all of your teachers to be able to build those relationships and to have an atmosphere of love.
It’s all well and good talking about relationships, but if you then deny schools consistent high-standard behavior systems, then you will never be able to connect with all of your children in a loving way.
Michaela is known for its discipline, but that’s not the only thing that sets it apart. What makes your instruction unique?
People think that in order for a child to be creative and think for himself, you must just let him go, that he’ll just figure it out and discover his love for French or science. That isn’t actually how children learn. They learn and get inspired when a passionate teacher gives them lots of knowledge, so our desks are in rows facing the teacher. The teacher is at the front of the classroom facing the children, leading the learning.
A more progressive classroom has the desks in groups where the children are looking at each other, not at the teacher, and it’s the children who are leading the learning. But when the teacher is leading the learning, they are able to teach the children so much because of course they know a lot more than the children. They have been doing this for many years, they have degrees, and the children are able to feel successful and happy.
Schools that spend their time with self-esteem lessons are wasting their time. All they need to do is teach the children properly. When children learn, it boosts their self-esteem. They feel really clever and successful. If you do it progressively, however, the child often thinks, “why am I so stupid?” And the ones who don’t have the same cultural capital coming from home sit in the classroom feeling very inadequate, eventually misbehave, get sent out of the lesson, and then that’s it for them. When they fail, we say it was because they were poor or Black. It is not because of those things. It was because we never taught them properly in the first place.
What does art look like at Michaela?
A progressive view of art instruction would be, “look at the fruit bowl and draw it.” Now, I remember being in art lessons at school where I would sit and think, “I don’t know how to draw a banana.” The fact is, I was never taught, for instance, that there are several different positions and places where you can hold a pencil, which allow a far lighter or darker shade on the paper. We start with those basics and build up from those basics so that the children actually learn how to draw.
It’s the same mentality that we have when teaching history. We will teach them the basics—some dates and general information. And over time, chronologically, we are building up their historical knowledge. That is what I think teaching should be. You break it down to its smallest component and then you build it back up again.
There seems to be this broad, progressive movement that’s just taking over education, be it instructionally progressive—let the kids do whatever they want—or very politically progressive—everything’s racist, we need to dismantle every system, deconstruct all of western society. Are we fighting a losing battle?
Well, you never go down without a fight. I do think we are losing, but it doesn’t matter. You only have a hundred years if you’re lucky on this planet. You want to reach that age of 85 or 95 and look back on your life and think, I contributed. I made the world into a better place. That’s all you can do. It doesn’t matter if we lose. What’s important is that we contributed to the fight.
What’s next for Michaela?
Well, we have tried many times to expand. We tried to open a primary school. We were blocked. We tried to open a secondary school. That was stopped. We tried to set up a leadership program for other school leaders in the country, and that was blocked. So right now, we just want to survive.
I’m particularly concerned because the Labor Party will soon be coming into power. We were blocked at all those stages under a Conservative government, so you can imagine my worries with a Labor government. I’m hoping that they’ll just ignore us, given that we are very successful and we also hold values that tend to be the opposite to what they think. But you never know. Maybe they’ll come and see the school and be convinced and change some of their ideas. I do hope so.
Blaming charters for segregation is dumb
Editor’s note: This was first published on the author’s Substack, “citizen stewart,” which covers race, education, and democracy.
Every year, without fail, someone sounds the alarm about the “resegregation of American public schools.” It’s a problem with deep roots and nasty downstream consequences for students in communities with less social capital.
Some of the discussion is grounded in solid, authoritative research. But then you get the terrifically ditzy takes, like a recent Vox article blaming charter schools—serving just 7 percent of U.S. students—for the complex systemic issue of racial segregation. That’s like blaming a storm shelter for the hurricane.
People who genuinely want to solve “the problem we all live with” often resort to shallow, careless analysis. Researchers agree that segregation has escalated to alarming levels over the past three decades. Despite the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, schools today are more racially and economically isolated than ever. However, simple explanations that indict charter schools as the culprit are unserious.
Let’s start with a little historical context
The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision marked a significant victory in the fight against racial segregation in public schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren’s unanimous ruling declared that state-sanctioned segregation violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This decision overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 and catalyzed the Civil Rights Movement. However, despite the Court’s clear mandate, there was considerable resistance to desegregation, and implementation was slow and fraught with challenges.
As time passed, the complexities of achieving integration became more evident. Dr. Kenneth Clark, whose research influenced the Brown decision, later acknowledged the underestimated resistance to integration. James Coleman’s studies in the late 1970s revealed mixed results regarding the effects of desegregation, with positive impacts in the South but more destructive effects in the North. These historical perspectives suggest that the integration imperative may not be the sole solution to educational inequality.
Shifting perspectives on integration
In 1969, most Black Americans supported integration across various aspects of life, including schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. However, over the decades, skepticism about integration has grown within the Black community. Contemporary Black thought increasingly questions whether integration is the best path to achieving educational and social equity. Black families challenge the sentiment that Black children need to attend school with white children to succeed. Many Black parents and educators now advocate for quality education in predominantly Black schools, emphasizing the importance of culturally affirming environments and community control over schooling.
Brown should have never suggested that Black schools with Black teachers were inherently inferior due to the absence of whiteness. It’s one thing to say that excluding Black people from attending integrated public schools is racist and wrong, but it’s another to say that only schools with whites can be successful. Many district and charter schools prove that wrong every day.
The current narrative around segregation is all wrong. It’s obsessed with shuffling students of color into predominantly white spaces instead of empowering marginalized communities. This viewpoint misses the mark on addressing the real roots of educational inequality and ignores the potential for building self-determination and choice within these communities. The idea that poor Black kids can’t succeed without white students around is not only flawed but downright harmful. It perpetuates the myth that Black excellence needs whiteness to thrive, undermining the value and potential of predominantly Black schools.
Positive all-Black spaces are important for the healing and development of African American students and adults. Look at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Black churches, and Black fraternities and sororities. These institutions show the immense power of culturally affirming environments. They provide role models, community support, and a sense of identity vital for Black children’s development and success. They also produce the lion’s share of our desperately needed doctors, lawyers, and teachers.
Creating empowering Black educational environments is an option we can’t overlook. The focus must shift towards improving school leadership, quality teaching, and culturally affirming classrooms. Every student deserves the chance to succeed; these environments can help make that happen.
Segregation is a problem with no easy answers
I concede that segregation in public schools is rising. There is a research basis for seeing that trend and worrying about the implications. And, yes, integration is a noble long-term goal. But what does that mean for the average Black and Latino student currently in predominantly nonwhite schools, scraping by with less compared to their peers in whiter schools? What do we do for them now?
The 2020 census tells us the U.S. is more diverse and urbanized than ever, but our schools do not reflect that reality. The chance that two random people are from different racial or ethnic backgrounds has hit 61.1 percent, but you wouldn’t know it walking through most public schools. The urban-rural divide is growing, and the non-Hispanic white population is on the decline, complicating any real push for educational equity.
What’s the urgent solution for students stuck in schools with low expectations, inadequate teaching, sub-prime curricula, ineffective leadership, and a low-key defeatist attitude that swaps academic achievement for the morphine of mediocrity? I mean the schools with fewer resources, teacher shortages, higher student-to-counselor ratios, less access to Algebra, fewer AP class options, and teacher strikes every other year that steal learning time from academically behind students?
Can we fix the ill effects of racist urban planning and social engineering at the root of segregation?
Can we change the hearts and minds of middle-class homebuyers who see life as a foot race between their kids and ours?
Is there a massive change in political will to restructure society so that children of different backgrounds are evenly distributed among schools?
I’m skeptical.
Charter schools: Controversial but effective
Love or hate them, charter schools have proven to be a lifeline for many Black and Latino kids. Nestled in marginalized communities, these schools often provide culturally affirming, safe, and supportive environments where students can thrive. Their success flies in the face of the idea that integration is the only path to educational equity. Sadly, charter schools have to constantly battle ideological wars and accusations from opponents and journalists about perpetuating segregation (and worse).
The Brookings Institute report bluntly states, “High-poverty, high-minority [charter] schools produce achievement gains substantially greater than traditional public schools in the same areas.” This isn’t just a fluke; it highlights the crucial role of school quality over racial or economic makeup. Charter schools offer a tangible solution for improving educational outcomes long before the pipe dream of perfect integration becomes reality.
Taking the charter school option away from families who choose them would barely nudge segregation figures—by a measly 5 percent—but it would rip away a world of opportunity for their students.
Blaming charter schools, school choice, and civil rights groups for stepping back from failed desegregation efforts is not just a misdiagnosis; it’s a dead end. It does nothing for a public school system that’s increasingly nonwhite and poorer.
Empirical evidence on schools and segregation
A comprehensive study looking at school enrollment by race from 1998 to 2015 found that more kids going to charter schools leads to a slight bump in segregation among Black and Hispanic students within districts.
Specifically, a 1 percentage point increase in charter school enrollment raises segregation by 0.11 percentage points.
Statistically significant? Yes. Game-changing? Not really.
The study found some interesting variations based on geography. Charter schools slightly increase segregation in towns or counties, but the effect is negligible in metropolitan areas. This means charter schools might bump segregation within districts but help decrease it between districts in the same metro area.
The debate over charter schools and segregation should weigh these potential drawbacks against their successes in serving vulnerable populations.
As America gets more diverse and urbanized, achieving true educational equity remains a beguiling riddle. Integration is a noble goal, but we also need to empower marginalized communities and ensure quality education where students are.
We must champion self-determination and community empowerment to create educational environments that meet the needs of all students, regardless of race or background.
Recent teacher survey indicates morale crisis among educators
Editor’s note: This was first published by EdChoice.
The end of the school year is rapidly approaching, and teachers are more pessimistic than ever about the state of education in the United States. This downward slide of teacher morale may be a canary in the coal mine—and, at the very least, points us towards important classroom issues that have presented serious challenges for teachers over the course of the school year.
To better understand the current perspectives and opinions of teachers, EdChoice, in partnership with Morning Consult, surveyed a nationally representative sample of K–12 educators (N = 1,031) from March 28–April 3, 2024.
In this wave of our teacher survey, we asked teachers to share their opinions on a range of topics including attitudes toward the teaching profession; daily experiences in the classroom; student use of cell phones and social media; and school choice. Additionally, we asked new questions to find out how teachers are being impacted by recent state and local regulations on curriculum content.
Read the full report, and here are some of our major findings :
Teacher morale has hit a record low
Teacher optimism about the overall direction of K–12 education has hit the lowest point in four years of our polling, sharply plummeting since May of 2023. Only 19 percent of teachers think education is going in the right direction nationally, and 39 percent of teachers feel positively about the state of education in their own local school district.
This corresponds with a general drop in public mood towards education. Our February poll of American adults indicated a four-year low 22 percent of Americans feel positively about the direction of education across the country. This time last year, 35 percent and 53 percent of teachers felt positively about K–12 education at the national and local levels, respectively. Teacher outlooks have turned more grim during the course of this school year. Back in the fall, a less overwhelming 53 percent of teachers expected the state of K–12 education to get worse in the future according to an October survey of K–12 American public school teachers by the Pew Research Center.
(All images of figures and their corresponding text come from the full report.)
Unsurprisingly, these feelings correspond with how teachers view their jobs and how likely they are to recommend the teaching profession to others. This spring, only 15 percent of teachers say that they would recommend teaching to a friend or family member—once again marking the lowest point we have recorded in four years of our teacher surveys. In our polling last spring, 36 percent of teachers were likely to recommend the teaching profession. This parallels the sharp drop in teachers’ feelings about education as a whole.
This morale crisis may reflect the challenge teachers face in keeping their students on track. Teacher views of student progress are similarly gloomy. Twenty percent of teachers report that their students are progressing very well academically, with only 17 percent and 14 percent saying the same about social and emotional development respectively. Across these metrics, teacher confidence has fallen by approximately 10 percentage points since last spring. When asked about the current school year, three-fourths (74 percent) of teachers say they are doing a substantial amount of catch-up work to bring students up to speed academically. In short, the vast majority of teachers believe that their students are falling behind in the classroom.
Inside the classroom in 2024
To understand the context of this rampant pessimism, we need to take a closer look at what’s going on inside the classroom day to day from the perspective of teachers.
Curriculum laws have become an elephant in the classroom for teachers. Forty percent of teachers say they’ve modified their curriculum or classroom discussions because of state laws, and 35 percent of teachers said the same about district policies. About a third (30 percent) of teachers say that new regulations have limited the books/educational content they can use in class. Teachers are also making adjustments to classroom content of their own accord. Nearly half (49 percent) of teachers limited classroom discussions about political and social issues in class over the past year. Curriculum restrictions, both mandatory and self-imposed, appear to have taken root in today’s classrooms.
Teachers are also grappling with absenteeism and student behavior, and they report that matters are only getting worse. When asked about student absences compared to this time last year, 40 percent of teachers say absences are more frequent now—12 points higher than in the fall.
Nearly half (47 percent) of teachers say that student misbehaviors are more frequent now than this time last year, up 8 points from last fall. In comparison, private school teachers have a rosier point of view, with only 27 percent saying they feel student misbehaviors have increased since last year, an improvement from last September (36 percent).
Finally, we asked teachers about the daily classroom environment, revealing key differences in the perspectives of teachers and their students according to our recent survey of American teenagers. Compared to teens, teachers tend to underestimate how many of their students are bored (19 percent versus 70 percent) and use their phones in class (25 percent versus 55 percent). Teachers also overestimate how many of their students want to be in school (48 percent versus 19 percent). Whether teen students are overly pessimistic about their fellow students or teachers have a sunnier outlook than perhaps is warranted, there is a clear disconnect between how teachers and students view the classroom.
Silver linings
While news from the classroom seems discouraging, teachers remain positive. Two-thirds of teachers feel a sense of purpose (69 percent) and hopeful (64 percent) when thinking about the future, and the majority of teachers are happy (56 percent). It is encouraging news that most teachers feel happy in their personal lives, despite their concerns about the current direction of education.
Teachers are also open to new ways of approaching education. Sixty-two percent of all teachers express interest in tutoring students outside of school hours. Hybrid schooling also appeals to teachers. Half of teachers (50 percent) would prefer to teach outside of the traditional in-person classroom for at least part of the week. Furthermore, about 70 percent of teachers support education savings accounts (ESAs), a type of school choice policy that gives families greater flexibility in their educational spending. From this positive reception, perhaps we can take away that teachers are optimistic about finding ways to reimagine what education can look like.
With these challenging classroom conditions in mind, it is no wonder that teachers are feeling concern about their students’ progress and the direction of education. Nonetheless, teachers remain open towards new approaches to schooling. These valuable perspectives can point us towards what to look out for as we move into next school year. To explore more of what teachers had to say this spring, read the full report.
The A to Z of sequential bias in grading student assignments
The use of technology in education—in place before the pandemic but increased in magnitude and ubiquity since 2020—is drawing increasing scrutiny from many sides. The villagers are lighting up their torches and coming en masse for cellphones, online learning platforms, Chromebook-based assignments, Smartboards, and more. A trio of researchers from the University of Michigan suggest another log to stack on the pyre: electronic grade books. Their new research shows, among other things, how even the bedrock of the English alphabet can be weaponized when brought in contact with the white heat of technology.
Specifically, the researchers look at more than 31 million grading records submitted to a learning management system called Canvas by graders from an anonymous large public university in the United States between 2014 and 2022. Canvas is the most popular system of its type, in use at 32 percent of all higher education institutions in the United States and Canada in 2020. To avoid biasing the analysis, the researchers include only human-graded assignments, removing assignments and courses that have either massive numbers of grades or an extremely small number of grades, as well as assignments graded offline and only submitted electronically. The final data set still contains a whopping 31,048,479 electronic grades covering 851,582 assignments, 139,425 students, and 21,119 graders. Data include both numerical values and textual values (comments from the grader). Timestamps allow the researchers to determine both the order in which assignments are submitted and in which they are graded. Additionally, the Canvas platform includes any comments entered by students in response to the grades after they are made available.
The bedrock finding is that electronic grading of student work appears to be a slog for most humans cursed with the task, and that using a system like Canvas—designed to ease the burden—only compounds the problems. This analysis indicates that negative impacts of electronic grading can accrue to specific individuals as a matter of course. Students whose assignments were graded later in the process—however that process was sequenced—received lower marks and more negative comments than their peers. Surname alphabetical order grading, the default setting for Canvas and comprising over 40 percent of the submissions analyzed, tells the tale clearly. Students whose surnames started with A, B, C, D, or E received a 0.3-point higher grade (out of 100) than did students with surnames later in the alphabet. Likewise, students with surnames W through Z received a 0.3-point lower grade than their earlier-in-the-alphabet peers—creating a 0.6-point gap between the Abdullahis and the Zimmermans of the world. Robustness checks among different graders, including a small group (about 5 percent) who happened to have graded in reverse alphabetical order and exhibited the same gap, confirmed this pattern. That might seem a small difference, but if it happens to the same students on every assignment in multiple classes over multiple years, the small gap could grow into a much larger one.
Grader comments on assignments evaluated later in the sequence were found to be more negative and less polite (the handful of examples included in the report would be truly disheartening for their unfortunate recipients) than those given earlier in the sequence. Grading quality seemed to deteriorate down the sequence, as well. Students with assignments graded later were significantly more likely to log questions and challenges about their marks in Canvas. Specifically, students graded between fiftieth and sixtieth in order are five times more likely to submit a regrade request compared with the first ten students graded, no matter in what order the grading is done.
While the surname alphabetical grading order illustrates sequential bias most clearly and sensationally, the same pattern was also observed across assignments graded in quasi-random order. The more assignments that must be graded, the more likely students at the end of the sequence are to be impacted. And in the case of learning management technology, that largely means students whose surnames are late in the alphabet. As noted, Canvas (and its three closest competitors) defaults to alphabetical order and must be manually changed by graders or institutions to avoid this. Together, these four systems accounted for over 90 percent of the U.S. and Canadian market at the end of 2020, so the potential negative impact to the Whites, the Williamses, and the Youngs is huge.
The researchers end with three commonsense recommendations. First, creators of learning management systems should switch their products’ default from alphabetical to random order (with educational institutions doing so manually until that time), although that would only diffuse the sequential bias effect across more students. Second, graders should be trained on the nature of sequential bias and strategies to avoid it in their work, which still leaves the problem of the slog. Finally, to address the problem fully, institutions should limit the number of assignments evaluated by any one grader. Eliminating electronic submission and grading entirely—bound to be popular with many stakeholders looking to limit technology in education—may be the most obvious option not suggested here.
SOURCE: Zhihan (Helen) Wang, Jiaxin Pei, and Jun Li, “30 Million Canvas Grading Records Reveal Widespread Sequential Bias and System-Induced Surname Initial Disparity,” Management Science (March 2024).
#921: Rethinking reading comprehension instruction, with Daniel Buck
On this week’s Education Gadfly Show podcast, Daniel Buck, Fordham’s policy and editorial associate, joins Mike and David to discuss whether and how elementary schools should teach reading comprehension. Then, on the Research Minute, Amber examines a new study investigating the short- and long-term impacts of school closures in the 1990s.
Recommended content:
- Daniel Buck, “Think again: Should elementary schools teach reading comprehension?” Fordham Institute (May 2024).
- “At long last, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. gets his due: New research shows big benefits from Core Knowledge” —Robert Pondiscio, Fordham Institute
- “We need to prepare now for the school closures that are coming” —Tim Daly, Fordham Institute
- Jeonghyeok Kim, “The long shadow of school closures: Impacts on students’ educational and labor market outcomes,” Annenberg Institute at Brown University (May 2024).
Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our podcast? Send them to Daniel Buck at [email protected].
Michael Petrilli:
Welcome to the Education Gadfly Show. I'm your host Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Today, Daniel Buck, Fordham's policy and editorial associate, joins us to discuss whether and how elementary schools should teach reading comprehension. Then on the research minute, Amber reports on a new study investigating the short and long-term impacts of school closures due to low enrollment or poor performance. All this on the Education Gadfly Show.
Hello. This is your host, Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute here at the Education Gadfly Show and online at fordhaminstitute.org. And now please welcome our special guest for this week, our very own Daniel Buck. Dan, welcome to the show.
Daniel Buck:
Thanks for having me on, Mike.
Michael Petrilli:
Yeah, Dan is Fordham's policy and editorial associate and the producer of the Education Gadfly Show, making the magic happen, usually offset, but now behind the microphone. Very exciting. Also joining us as always, my co-host, David Griffith. Hey Mike,
David Griffith:
Hey Mike, always a pleasure?
Michael Petrilli:
Well, we are here to talk about reading comprehension. Let's do that on ed reform update. Alright, Dan, when we have a Fordham person on as our guest, that only means one thing. Shameless self-promotion, and in fact, that's what's happening here. You have a new policy brief out part of our Think Again series, this one titled, should Elementary Schools Teach Reading Comprehension? Question Mark. So let's start right there. Sounds like kind of a no brainer. I mean people would say, of course elementary schools should teach reading comprehension, right?
Daniel Buck:
We at Fordham like overcomplicating all seemingly simple issues. And in this case, I mean, yes, obviously elementary schools should teach reading comprehension, but it gets a little more complex when we ask, well, what does that actually mean? We're going to be teaching reading comprehension skills as kind of the popular approach. Maybe we actually shouldn't be. There was the national reading panel 24 years ago now, I think it was, that did a lot of great work talking about phonics and fluency, but there's a big section on reading comprehension skills. So doing things like finding the main idea, making inferences, asking questions, monitoring your own comprehension. And so these had a firm grounding in the research, but what often goes on asked when we're talking about reading comprehension skills is, well, how much do we actually need to teach them? How long do lessons need to be before students get all that they can from them? And research has found that kids get these reading comprehension skills down after six to 10 lessons. It's kind of like in math classes, check your work. There's not really a lot of training or practice that goes into it. It's just kind of a habit that students instill. And what's way more important, and I'm sure we'll get into it later in this podcast and conversation, is background knowledge, factual knowledge, knowledge about the world, social studies, science history, art, music, all that kind of stuff.
Michael Petrilli:
And our listeners now are going to say, oh, okay, you're talking about the Edie Hirsch argument, which we are, right? And you said the national reading panel was what, 24 years ago? Edie Hirsch's argument probably goes back something like 34 years
Daniel Buck:
Ago, 1987 English teacher, not a math teacher. So I can't do that in my head quickly.
Michael Petrilli:
Boom. So even further. So look, Don Hirsch has been making this case for a long time. Maybe at first it was theoretical and over the years there's more and more evidence piling up. We hear people like Dan Willingham providing the evidence and others that yes, I mean if you want kids to actually be able to comprehend something, sure they need to know how to make inferences and find the main idea, but they need to be able to make sense of what the heck they're reading. And that's not just about sounding words out with the science of reading stuff and phonics, that's actually recognizing the words that they're reading because they know something about the content knowledge. You can sound out tyrannosaurus wreckx though, that's kind of a hard one. But do the bells go off in your head or not? When you sound that off to say, oh, that's a dinosaur and I know that because I've learned about the dinosaurs and so on and so forth.
So Dan, the problem then is one of emphasis, and you write in this brief a lot about the workshop model as well. Can you tell us, I mean, take us inside a typical elementary school classroom because it's probably some people who would assume, well, I mean surely this is what elementary schools do. I mean first they teach kids how to sound out the words and the early grades they're doing math. But when you're talking about English language arts, they then must be reading great books. They're probably teaching them about history, they're teaching about the world, we're learning about the presidents, we're learning about science. But you're saying that's not actually what's happening in a lot of classrooms.
Daniel Buck:
I think most of our listeners and readers, a lot of them have sort of drunk the knowledge. Kool-Aid have bought the Edie Hirsch argument about the importance of knowledge. And if they haven't bought into that argument, they at least know about it. So in the brief, I tried to then extend out, well, what does this fundamental misconception actually mean for classroom practice and the skills-based approach? If you think that reading comprehension depends largely on generalized reading skills, well then it makes sense that you're just going to model a skill and then you're going to send kids off to go practice it by themselves and independent reading in leveled books. So I try to broaden out in the second half of the brief and discuss what's called the workshop more generally, which is, like I said, a teacher might model a skill for no more than five to 10 minutes, demonstrate how to notice details in their book imagery, things like that.
And then the kids go off, they pick a book, often leveled. So it's supposed to be just not too hard, not too easy, just at the right level. And then they practice that skill for 30 minutes when they're reading that day, they're supposed to be thinking about identifying imagery and details and so many aspects of that workshop model leveled reading, picking your own books, extended reading time. Intuitively they make sense if you think that reading comprehension is a skill, but they just don't work and the research into them is functionally, and if you have a knowledge centric understanding of reading comprehension, well then they just don't make sense,
Michael Petrilli:
Right? Because you're not actually building the knowledge base that's going to allow kids to read more and more difficult stuff. I mean, the level thing is a whole other craziness. I mean for sure if there's a time in the day when the kids are supposed to be reading for fun and you say, okay, you can yes, go ahead and read Dog Man a great series. If I ever said one myself, then fine, but you haven't gone to the Dog Man series yet, David?
David Griffith:
I have not heard of Dog Man yet. Sorry,
Michael Petrilli:
It's actually a spinoff from. Captain Underpants, I think.
David Griffith:
Oh, okay. That one I've heard of. Yeah.
Michael Petrilli:
Oh, you can look forward to this. I mean, look, you want to spend a little bit of time just getting some confidence, but that kid's not going to get any better if all they're doing is reading dogman. They need to be pushed to read some stuff that's challenging for them with some help. And most importantly, if they're going to be able to read increasingly challenging stuff, including academic stuff, they're going to need to have content knowledge. And that means picking the same book. And this is where conservatives and liberals, I mean this is not an argument for drudgery. I mean pick great books of literature, children's literature from over the years, but read it together. Also though at some point in the day, whether it's within the English language block or other parts of the elementary school day, make sure you're also reading about history and civics and geography and all the rest and science again in a way that's about building that content knowledge. So a little bit of the skill building fine, but much greater emphasis on the content knowledge. David, why this been so hard? This seems like common sense to a lot of us, and yet it's man, it's like civil war out there.
David Griffith:
Yeah, I think there are a couple of reasons. First of all, I'm the wrong person to ask, but two things come to mind. One is that I think many of us actually we're not, and by us, I mean let's say the policy of lead did not get this in school. When I have this model described to me, I have an out of buy experience. Same with when it comes to the phonics, like I got phonics. Most people who can read got phonics. That's why they can read. That's how they got to the place that they are. And so I think for some people it just maybe takes a little convincing or a little bit of explanation to understand, no, actually this nonsense is kind of widespread and maybe you didn't get it at your school, which where all the teachers knew what they were doing, but actually there's some really weak construction out there and it's sort of emanating from these sources of power that we might assume would have their act together and would know better.
I'm talking about the ED schools of course, among other places at curriculum developers. So I think that's one thing, right? It's just that I think there is a certain level of education that has to go on with people who know better once they understand the problem. And then I also think that there's a certain amount of just professional embarrassment that's associated with this. It is embarrassing to be told this doesn't make any sense. And what you're doing is complete nonsense and it's inane to teach a kid to look for details and then send them off with a book and expect them to look for, I mean, that's inane, right? It's manifestly inane when you think about it, but nobody, people don't like to be criticized on that front. And so it takes a certain amount of humility and willingness and openness to change to sort of turn the direction of the ship. And I think maybe in some ways it's easier done when it's you who's figured it out. And so anyway, I think there's some challenge just to change the institutional culture at some of these places.
Michael Petrilli:
Let me ask you, Dan, or you too, David, but do you think it's sometimes that people get confused between what makes sense for say, high school kids versus elementary school kids? I mean, so forever now for decades, we've heard people say, well, why do you need to have this knowledge? You can just Google. It used to be, you can just look it up in the encyclopedia right now. We are going to have ai, right? So knowledge is expanding at such a rapid pace. Why do we need this knowledge? Well, I could understand if I hear a high school student say, why do I need to know about the mitochondria? Or pick whatever random topic you're learning and you say, well, maybe you do, maybe you don't. We just think everybody in America should have to learn these things at one point in time. Very different though than saying for elementary schools, why do you need to learn history and science and literature and the arts in the early grades here?
It's not only for the sake of learning those things that it's important to know those things, and it's fun to learn those things, but it will actually help you read that you're not going to be a good reader if you don't have at least some knowledge base about all those different fields. And so maybe a more progressive approach where at some point you're like, alright, does everybody need to know every little aspect of these different domains in high school? Maybe not, right? But you need to have a pretty good general knowledge when you're 8, 9, 10, 11 if you're going to be a good reader. I mean, does that make sense? Is that what we've got to maybe better explain is it's about a stage where kids need this information.
Daniel Buck:
I mean, I think there's a lot of information that most of us take for granted. In any newspaper column. You're going to come across hundreds and hundreds of words and references thrown out that don't get explained. Berlin Wall 1776, the content of our character. We say these things and any writer then assumes that their reader kind of knows what these are. You don't need to know the ins and outs of the Berlin Wall to necessarily understand the point that whatever New York Times op-ed writer is trying to make. But if we want our writing to be sensible, we can't have the Berlin wall which existed in this era in between these countries. For these, our writing and our communication would become incomprehensible if we had to include that many subordinate clauses and that many of positive phrases explaining every single word in every single reference that we made. And there's just a whole lot of knowledge that we need to impart to the next generation to even be able to communicate and read clearly, let alone think critically, write beautifully, build a civilization, and all of these kinds of grander ideas beyond basic reading and writing.
Michael Petrilli:
Okay, we will need to leave it there. Very well said Again, our own Dan Buck, you should check out his great think again brief again. It is called Should Elementary Schools Teach reading comprehension. Dan, I always say people should come back soon, but hey, you're the producer. You can actually make that happen.
Daniel Buck:
I do. People hate listening to themselves on the recording, but now editing this, I get to listen to myself for 15 minutes, three or four times. It should really be a Greek tragedy.
Michael Petrilli:
Thanks again, Dan. Buck. Now it's time for everyone's favorite Amber's Research Minute. Amber, welcome back to the show. Thanks, Mike. Special Greetings from Lovely store Connecticut.
Amber Northern:
Wow, I don't know where store is.
Michael Petrilli:
It's in Connecticut, right? I should look right now. I think it's Northeastern Connecticut is what I would say, I think. Okay.
Amber Northern:
All right.
Michael Petrilli:
It is. So basically east of Hartford, sort of between Hartford and Boston. Anyways, I flew into Hartford. How's that? No idea where you're right now. That
Amber Northern:
Didn't mean to trip you up on that, but
Michael Petrilli:
No, it's lovely. It is the home of the University of Connecticut Go Huskies, and it's looked really pretty. I am excited to get to be at another college campus, but man, it is spread out. I don't know how they do it. They must use those scooters these days is how the youngins must survive on these enormous campuses.
Amber Northern:
Hey, they exercise Mike. We want them exercising.
Michael Petrilli:
Yeah, that's true. Maybe Do you think they walk? I hope so. I'm going to try to find one of those scooters. I think I have to go all the way across town for this conference that I'm going to.
Amber Northern:
Okay. Good luck with that. It is a beautiful 80 degree day, Mike. I don't
Michael Petrilli:
Know. Yes, it is nice. It is nice. Alright, well what do you have for us today?
Amber Northern:
I have a new study out on the short and long-term impacts on students of school district closures. So not charters, we're just looking at district school closures and Texas, they're looking at closures in the 94 through 97 school years. So a while back, but they tracked the students from 1998 through 2015, sample restricted to schools observed again in these last, they had to have data for the last three years before and two years after the closure. So they're looking at five surrounding years. They identified 470 closures during that time span. They have student level data on absences, numbers of disciplinary action, standardized math and reading scores, high school graduation. Then they have post-secondary outcomes on Texas four year college attendance, whether you earned a bachelor's degree and employment industry and earnings data. So it's Texas big in terms of the data sources and variety of data.
They use two difference and differences models, both of which passed the test of parallel pret trends, which covers many pages. They're comparing the changes and outcomes among students affected by school closures. So those who are not, then we got to figure out, okay, how are we going to identify these control schools? So the control schools share similar observable characteristics on 12 NCES variables with the closed school at the time of closure. And then after they do that, then they match 'em within groups using a nearest neighbor matching method. And their nearest neighbor has to match the schools on their share of black, Hispanic free and reduced lunch and disadvantaged students. Then they exclude schools in the same district because of concerns about spillover effects. And then the short run analysis includes individual fixed effects and a full set of matched group by year fixed effects. And in the long run analysis utilizes variation across cohorts within school. So with the long run, they have to compare the cohorts who enrolled in the school at the same time of closure with the cohorts who graduated within the last three years relative to those at those match control schools. Hope you got all that
Michael Petrilli:
Right. So the cohorts, for example, these are people who graduated earlier and therefore weren't affected by the closure versus the kids that were affected got caught up in the closure.
Amber Northern:
That's right. Okay. Within the school. So they're still matching those kids. Alright. Finding short run, there is a small decline in standardized math and reading scores following the school closure that subsequently recovers to initial levels within three years. However, the story's a little different on the discipline front. There's a 0.2 day increase in the days of absences immediately after closure, the absences persist for four years post closure. And they also find closure results in a 0.3 day increase in the days of disciplinary action. So kids kind of getting in trouble here right after the closure. And that escalates keeps going up to 0.9 days after four years of the closure. So you've got the test scores rebounding, but the absences persisting four years after where you're still seeing them hanging in there in terms of that impact. Then they look to see how school quality might play a role in all this, and it gets even more complicated.
So they start looking at, okay, what's the difference in quality between a closed school and the nearest school? That's how they measure it. And they find that students displaced to worse performing schools experience a larger drop in test scores. Not surprising. While students displaced to better performing schools experience a larger increase in the days of disciplinary incidents, which is interesting, they dig deeper into school quality. They exclude the displaced students after the school closure and they find that the peer test scores decreased by about one eight standard deviation right after the closure. So the peers are going down. But then they also saw broadly that kids tended to move to schools historically served better performing peers. They're trying to figure out what's going on here with the peer patterns. They dig into it, they find that the kids who are moving in the schools, the move-in students have substantially lower test scores.
And the original students with suggests that the change in school quality in the year of closure is driven by these changes in student composition. Finally, then they look at the long run stuff and they find that the cohorts that experienced closure had an overall experienced overall negative effect. Almost all of those post-secondary education and labor market outcomes, they're negative, but they're small. For instance, experiencing school closure decreases the likelihood of graduating from high school by one percentage point enrolling a four year college by 1.2 percentage point and appears to lead to about $800 lower annual earnings by the age of 25 to 27. But these adverse effects were less pronounced for kids who were in the highest grade at the school because it looked like they were in the terminal grade and they would've moved anyway. So those kids had less impact. Anyway, that's a lot. But they closed with an important point, which is maybe we should be thinking about phasing out gradually instead of abruptly closing schools. They're just not sure whether that would help. We get that schools got to close sometimes, but maybe there's a better way to do it.
Michael Petrilli:
Well, that's not good. That's not good. And I guess there's different versions of bad and worse. The worst thing is to close the school and to send the kid to an even worse school than they were attending before. But I don't know mean. So all this matching stuff, I mean, does this get at, do we think, are we convinced it feels like at the end of the day somebody's making a decision about a school needing to close or not. And if it's because of enrollment, then there's some reason that school that looks similar but is under-enrolled, is under-enrolled. Or if it's because of performance. Again, same thing. I mean, I don't
Amber Northern:
Know. Well, and they actually did dig into the reasons for why the schools were closing and it was completely unsatisfactory because their main reason was 90% closed because of enrollment issues. And I'm like, well, yeah, but that mask a bunch of other stuff that's potentially leading to that enrollment loss. So yeah, it's not that helpful in terms of the reasoning.
Michael Petrilli:
David, what do you think? Are you convinced?
David Griffith:
Well, it's a little hard to be convinced in real time here, but I think it's always important to remember when you're talking about closure, the thing that I always keep in the back of my mind is that it's not just about the kids who are displaced, it's also about future cohorts. In my personal opinion, nobody really closes schools because they think it's an awesome thing for the kids who are going to be displaced. You do it because you feel like it has to happen. And what you really have in mind are the kids who haven't been enrolled in the schools yet, and as you're trying to prevent them from ever being enrolled in the schools. And so in that sense, I always feel like closure studies that focus on displaced students aren't really, I mean it's not that they're missing the point, it's an important question, but there are other important questions as well.
And I also feel like, I mean it is, I'm sure there are multiple things that contribute to any decision, but none of these studies really answer the question, which is really like, when should you close the school? Right? Because the answer can't be never, right? The answer can't be, well, this school could hold a thousand kids, but we're down to 50 and we don't want to close it. I mean, that's not the answer. So what we really need to know is that at what point should we pull the plug, right? At what point does it get so bad that it's time to bite the bullet? And I don't know. I would love to see a study that tried to assess sort of the break even point of closure. I don't know how else to put it, right? But the point beyond which it actually does sort of make sense in a larger sense. And what do you need a 50% enrollment decline, a 25% enrollment decline? My sense is it's somewhere in between those things. But that's just my opinion. So I'm not sure quite how to get at those things, but I think just talking about it as this general phenomenon doesn't really answer the question that we want to answer.
Amber Northern:
I think we've seen some phase out studies in Chicago. I was having a vague memory of covering a study that did some phase out before in Chicago, and it seemed like one of the things that they found just qualitatively was just demoralizing because your school's getting smaller and smaller and smaller every year and you are used to kind of being part of this big school and now you're looking around at a lot of empty seats. And so what is the impact of that on kids as they're left behind as the school is slowly phasing the closure?
Michael Petrilli:
Yep. Well, we got to figure these things out quick because we have a massive wave of school closures almost certainly coming thanks to our very sharp decline in student enrollment. So here we go again. Alright, that is all the time. We've got Ford this week. So until next week,
David Griffith:
I'm David Griffith.
Michael Petrilli:
And I'm Mike Petrolia of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute signing off.
Cheers and Jeers: May 23, 2024
Cheers
- Two students at a small, classical school, where boys sing the National Anthem for fun and phones are banned, made it into West Point. —Matthew Hennessey, Wall Street Journal
- Indianapolis Public Schools will offer gifted classes in all middle schools and inform all parents about the offerings. —Chalkbeat
- With thirteen schools already, The Native American Community Academy system of charter schools hopes to expand and bolster students’ traditional culture and language. —Hechinger Report
Jeers
- Indianapolis Public Schools will also eliminate grades for homework and adopt soft-on-consequences discipline policies. —Chalkbeat
- Connecticut’s new academic standards turned the climate alarmism up to eleven, mandating that schools incorporate lessons on climate change into nearly every subject in nearly every grade. —Paul Tice, Wall Street Journal
- Students are arriving on campus less willing and less able to complete assigned readings. —Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Education
- Years after prosecution, families struggle to deal with the consequences of their legal troubles for forging addresses on school enrollment forms. —The 74
What we're reading this week: May 23, 2024
- Grades continue to rise even as attendance rates and test scores drop. —Wall Street Journal
- Some 300 “segregation academics,” private schools founded after Brown v. Board of Education to educate white children, still exist in the South today. —Jennifer Berry Hawes, ProPublica
- “Lost in translation: Migrant kids struggle in segregated Chicago schools.” —Chalkbeat Chicago
- The apathy of screen-addicted teenagers is sucking the joy from teaching. —Wall Street Journal