Monday Reading List: #NoConfederate, Back to School Photos, and Youth Activism

In response to HBO's decision to greenlight production on an alternate history program focused on the idea that the South won the Civil War, a group of activists, including #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign, decided to push back. Monique Judge of The Root has the story:

Now Theodore-Vachon, #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign, screenwriter and filmmaker Lauren Warren, Shanelle Little, and Black Girl Nerds founder and managing editor Jamie Broadnax have formed a black woman Voltron and started the hashtag #NoConfederate to send a message to HBO and let them know how many people are against this show ever happening ... “The five of us came together and wanted to do something targeted about Confederate because we are concerned that there is going to be yet another show that monetizes the pain of black people, and we have truly had enough,” Reign told The Root.

I'm biased on this issue, as I shared my own thoughts about why this program is a terrible idea in a satirical article last week. A lot of people have pushed back on the preemptive protest, including my own friends, who think we ought to give the showrunners "a chance" to produce this show. The problem with that idea is that it ignores the process of creating a substantive television series. By the time Confederate reaches the masses, tens of millions of dollars will have been spent, and thousands of consequential decisions about story, hiring, and casting will have been made.

Elsewhere, The New York Times has a new photo journal with a schooling theme, and they're asking for your submissions:

As the 2017-18 academic year approaches, we invite you to submit a photo that represents this time of transition, be it to kindergarten, college or grad school. Parents, show us your children as you let them go; students, show us the opposite. No need to be literal. Express yourself. Use this form to upload your photos.

Send your photos, and make sure that your story is represented!

In other news, Linda Flanagan of The Atlantic looks at the gender dynamics of sports coaching:

[Maggie] Moriarty estimated that as many as 20 coaches guided her various sports teams before college. What united all her head coaches, across sports, was gender: All were male. Much attention and worry has been devoted to the decline of female coaches at the collegiate level since Title IX was passed in 1972. This landmark legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in all educational programs that receive federal funds, and its passage compelled colleges to ramp up the number of athletic teams for girls to stay on par with what they offered boys. While nudging a record number of girls into athletics, Title IX also contributed to an unexpected and steady drop in the number of female collegiate coaches of women’s teams, from 90 percent in 1972 to 43 percent in 2014.

There are some terrific historical anecdotes in this piece, so even if you're not as troubled by the disparities as I am, you should check it out. In the same way that the racial background of teachers sends messages to children about their own identities, so does the gender of a sports coach have an influence on young athletes's sense of self.

Finally today, Christina Veiga of Chalkbeat looks at a new effort to get young people involved in politics:

Founded by educators, organizers and members of the media, YVote plans to work backwards from issues that teens are passionate about to answer the question: “Why vote?” The aim is to recruit students who will be “18 in ’18” — in other words, old enough to vote in the next election cycle — to head to the polls and become the next generation of community activists ... About 50 teens from every borough and more than 20 different schools make up the first YVote class. They are an intentionally diverse group of various political stripes, economic backgrounds and countries of origin. Using the Freedom Summer of 1964 and other case studies, students will work throughout the year to design and test their own campaigns. The goal: to encourage civic engagement while learning to listen to others — even when they disagree.

Full disclosure: I am involved with YVote, mostly in my capacity as a hobbyist photographer. Veiga interviews students from different backgrounds, and their perspectives are worth reading. The complexity and nuance of their capacity to understand politics is striking. Their energy makes me hopeful.

Have a great week!

Thursday Reading List: College Cost Explosion and Behind the Scenes on Betsy

Jon Marcus of The Hechinger Report looks at how much colleges and universities are spending on bureaucracy:

Some small private colleges are spending almost twice as much on administration as on academics, according to a study by an association of university trustees. The study, based on financial data provided by colleges and universities themselves to the federal government, found that 64 cents was spent on administration at the smallest private colleges for every 36 cents spent on instruction. The proportions declined with economies of scale, according to the study, by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, or ACTA.

Marcus subsequently reports that the number of administrators has grown twice as quickly as the number of students in these schools in the last twenty-five years. University apologists offer a range of excuses for this explosion in costs: the need to recruit the best students through offering amenities, inflation, international competition, etc. It's hard to see, however, how any of this is sustainable, given that a huge swath of the country already is skeptical about the value of higher education.

In other news, Melinda D. Anderson of The Atlantic looks at how believing in meritocracy affects children:

... a newly published study in the peer-reviewed journal Child Development [finds] traditionally marginalized youth who grew up believing in the American ideal that hard work and perseverance naturally lead to success show a decline in self-esteem and an increase in risky behaviors during their middle-school years. The research is considered the first evidence linking preteens’ emotional and behavioral outcomes to their belief in meritocracy, the widely held assertion that individual merit is always rewarded. “If you’re in an advantaged position in society, believing the system is fair and that everyone could just get ahead if they just tried hard enough doesn’t create any conflict for you … [you] can feel good about how [you] made it,” said Erin Godfrey, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor of applied psychology at New York University’s Steinhardt School. But for those marginalized by the system—economically, racially, and ethnically—believing the system is fair puts them in conflict with themselves and can have negative consequences.

There is no real good news here. On the one hand, we want to build children's self-esteem and sense of efficacy. On the other hand, we don't want to lie to them about the nature of the society in which they're being raised.

Finally today, Lisa Miller of New York has a long, tough piece about United States Education Secretary Betsy DeVos:

Trump has hired other oligarchs to run his federal agencies, and he has staffed the Executive branch with people who, like DeVos, might have been called “lobbyists” in former lives. But DeVos is a hybrid of the two. Fortified by great wealth and strong religion in the shelter of a monochromatic community, she has throughout her life single-mindedly used that wealth to advance her educational agenda. DeVos believes passionately in “school choice,” the idea that poor families should have the same educational options as rich ones do — and that the best way to achieve this is to deregulate schools, creating an educational free market driven by consumer demand. (In the first regard, DeVos has good company; in the second, she is an outlier.) She was raised to believe she knew exactly what was right. And for decades, this certainty has propelled her ever forward, always with her singular goal in mind. But what’s right in the bubble in which she has always lived doesn’t translate on YouTube, or in Cabinet meetings, or on the battlefield of public schools, where stakeholders have been waging vengeful politics for years.

While the level of scrutiny in this piece - especially with respect to DeVos's wealth and family life - might seem over-the-top, it's important to remember that most cabinet members and high ranking politicos have been in the public eye for large portions of their adult lives. Devos, on the other hand, has operated behind the scenes. The public should know about the background, beliefs, and motivations of its most prominent officials.

Have a great day.

Wednesday Reading List: Free Houses for Teachers, From Expulsion to School Board, & Multi-Racial Achievement Data

Erin Einhorn of Chalkbeat covers a new perk for Detroit teachers:

According to a press release that’s expected to be released at an event this morning, the mayor plans to announce that all Detroit school employees — whether they work for district, charter or parochial schools — will now get a 50 percent discount on houses auctioned through the Detroit Land Bank Authority. That discount is already available to city employees, retirees and their families. Now it will be available to full-time employees of schools located in the city.

Lots of cities offer perks like this to municipal employees. The Detroit context is somewhat unique, given both the magnitude of the distressed housing situation, and the extent to which speculators are acquiring land in the city. I wonder how this policy will interact with the complexities of gentrification in the Motor City.

In other news, John Elgion is in The New York Times profiling a new school board member in Georgia:

It was 1999 and the Decatur school board responded swiftly, expelling [Courtney] Carson and five classmates, all of them black, for two years. The punishment, which was eventually cut in half, polarized this central Illinois city, largely along racial lines, and drew thousands of civil rights activists to town. Suddenly, a thriving industrial mecca became a center of racial strife ... In the 18 years since the fight and its fallout, that sentiment has evolved as Mr. Carson, 35, has turned around his life. He took up work as an activist, minister and mentor to young people going through the same challenges he faced. Then this year, he added an improbable line to his résumé: Decatur school board member.

This story is a fascinating look at how racial dynamics animate school board politics, and how trends in student discipline mirror the disparities in the criminal justice system. I hope that Elgion and the Times continue to cover Carson's tenure as a local politician.

Elsewhere, Tanzi West Barbour of D.C. K12 was shocked by a story out of Tulsa, causing her to reflect on how schools make decisions:

I was reminded of the lack that school teachers face when it comes to school supplies when I read an article about a teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma who stood on the corner of a busy street with a sign that read “Teachers Need School Supplies. Any Amount Helps!” It reminded me of how little most teachers have to ensure our children are receiving the best instruction possible while they are in their classrooms ... When I was worked in a public school system in Maryland, I was a part of the Superintendent’s leadership team. I remember the budget cut conversations and community meetings. I distinctly remember asking about affects to the classroom. The two Superintendents I worked for told me that all cuts will affect every classroom one way or the other. So how do you choose?

Read the whole thing, especially if you are unfamiliar with how school systems make budgeting decisions. Sometimes, what appears on the surface to be resource scarcity is really misallocation. Other times, what looks like abundance is just clever distribution.

Finally today, Andre Perry is in The Hechinger Report with his take on a new study finding that multiracial students perform as well as their white peers in schools:

A new study from The Brookings Institution offers insight into the complicated lives of multiracial families, institutional racism and the unique burdens of multiracial privilege. According to the study, 12th-grade students who identify as being multiracial scored, on average, the same as white students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress standardized test, and they outperformed other racial categories in reading ... The study’s findings tell the story of how race, class and privilege influence educational success ... Ironically, this new research from Brookings on multiracial families may just encourage the “diverse by design movement,” jargon for efforts to engineer diverse schools. Though the research is uneven, there is strong evidence that diversity is better both for reducing stereotyping and discrimination and for improving academic achievement. But just as it’s preposterous to copulate our way to academic success, it’s absurd to make black schools feel safer or better by making them whiter.

That last sentence makes a powerful point about the study's conclusions. More than anything, this study is further evidence that our public education system is unjust by design, and that we could be educating our students of color to a much higher level.

Have a great day!

Monday Reading List: STEM Inclusion, Scholarships for Activism, and Fact Checking Explosive Rhetoric

Kyle Walcott of Blavity looks at a push for greater diversity and inclusion in the STEM fields:

For years, this region of California’s Bay area has produced thousands of jobs and opportunities for ambitious, innovative dreamers who desire to climb the ranks as the new frontier in tech continues to rise. While a plethora of organizations in the valley promote diversity to the masses, there has been a glaring disparity in how they have practiced it, as the representation of blacks and minorities in tech stands vastly underwhelming. Although many may be quick to attack the source and fault the companies at hand, leading groups like the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) have taken the other route to recognize that the problem lies in the lack of organizations serving as a bridge between minorities and manufacturers.

The UNCF works in partnership with HBCUs to ensure that students are prepared for the rigors of STEM careers. In addition, they are creating linkages between higher education and the companies in Silicon Valley, asking managers to look beyond Stanford and the Ivy Leagues when making hiring decisions.

Speaking of HBCUs, Angela Helm of The Root looks at a new scholarship at Spellman:

The Levi Watkins Jr. Scholars Program “will call attention to the importance of making visible the courageous and significant work of LGBTQ scholar activists within and beyond the academy, especially at HBCUs,” said Spelman professor and alumna Beverly Guy-Sheftall, who is founder of the Spelman Women’s Research and Resource Center. Guy-Sheftall launched the scholars program and lecture series to explore contemporary issues of race, gender and sexuality in May with a pledge of $100,000.

I am an unabashed fan of providing resources to activists, all the more so when those resources are targeted at students from underrepresented communities. 

Meanwhile, Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat tries to sort through the research, rhetoric, and misinformation about school choice and vouchers. In particular, he debunks the claim that vouchers increase racial segregation:

There is little evidence today that vouchers targeted at low-income families increase school segregation. A key question now is whether voucher programs increase school segregation in practice. There is surprisingly little recent research on this topic, but the studies that do exist suggest that voucher programs for low-income students have no effect or they lead to small increases in school integration. A recent study on Louisiana’s voucher program, which is largely used by low-income African-American students, found that black students tended to leave highly segregated public schools — but many also moved to a segregated private school. Still, more transfers had beneficial effects on integration than harmful ones.

There are lots of reasons to dislike vouchers - which I have outlined at length in previous posts - but their putative contribution to racial segregation ranks low on that list. Neither the federal government nor states should put a lot more money into school voucher programs. Even so, people and policymakers that want to maintain segregated schooling have plenty of tools at their disposal, like gerrymandered school district boundaries, prohibitively expensive real estate, and gentrification. As I wrote last summer, some of the most segregated places in America are on the north shore of "progressive" Massachusetts.

Have a great week!

Friday Reading List: Weekend Assignments and EVENTS FOR BROOLKYNITES!

Do you need some reading to take you through the weekend?

Check out Yesenia Robles in Chalkbeat, discussing Betsy DeVos's partisan rhetoric at a big meeting of conservative lawmakers.

If that's not enough, Education Week is covering every angle on the tension between the federal government and states on education law. On the one hand, as Andrew Ujifusa writes, the states are "bristling" at the feds' feedback on accountability plans. On the other hand, Jackie Zubrzycki watched the same speech that Yesenia Robles saw, and she heard DeVos encouraging states to "take the lead."

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Beyond the reading, for my New York City readers, I want to talk about two events that are important to me. Next week, Get Organized BK will be holding a Civic Festival at the Prospect Park bandshell. The Festival will be on Tuesday the 25th from 5:30-8:30PM. There will be community organizations, activists, and performances, including a public art project by Racial Justice BK, which is a group that is important to me.

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Speaking of which, Racial Justice BK also will be co-hosting a screening of films about race and identity on Sunday July 30, including black enuf* by filmmaker Carrie Hawks, who was profiled in Colorlines earlier this summer. If you're looking for a way to get out of the heat next Sunday, and engage in some critical conversations about race, you should sign up for the free tickets here.

Have a lovely weekend!

An Imagined Dialogue Between the Game of Thrones Showrunners and a Fictional White HBO Executive (Who Thinks Critically About Race)

Yesterday, The Wrap broke news about the next big project from the creators of HBO’s mega-hit, “Game of Thrones”:

After “Game of Thrones” wraps up, showrunners David Beinioff and D.B. Weiss will continue onto their next project for HBO — an alternate history series called “Confederate,” the network announced Wednesday. Benioff and Weiss will executive produce the series, which exists in a fictional timeline where the South succeeded in seceding from the Union. In this version of the United States — or what’s become of it — slavery has remained legal and has continued into the modern era.

Like many of you, my first reaction to this news was:

And then I was like:

I wanted to write an open letter to Benioff and Weiss, as that is one of my favorite ways of holding white celebrities’ feet to the fire when they do racially insensitive things (Hi Justin Timberlake!) I wanted to ask them why they thought it was a good idea for two white producers to run a show that would involve the inevitable glorification of a lightly-fictionalized slaveholding America. The optics alone are terrible, and that’s before we even consider what the culture on the set might be like.

I realized, though, that I couldn’t blame the two showrunners alone, as this specious idea had accomplices at the highest reaches of media. Someone at HBO heard about this idea and not only didn’t laugh in their faces, but gave this show the proverbial “greenlight.”

So rather than write a stern letter to Benioff and Weiss, I decided to imagine a fantasy world, wherein the white people with power understand why this was such a terrible idea.

I know. Crazy, right?

***********************

[Scene: A corner office in an elegant high-rise in midtown Manhattan. David Benioff and D. B. Weiss sit on a leather couch, drinking Pamplemousse flavored La Croix water out of orange cans. A fictional middle-aged HBO executive – let’s call him “Wokey McWokerson” – sits behind an enormous steel and glass desk, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a Brooklyn Nets hat.]

David Benioff: Look. We all know that, after Game of Thrones, we could have just retired.

DB Weiss: It was a great run, and the Game of Thrones money was no joke. In all honesty, we don’t have to do shit again. Like, ever.

David Benioff: But it’s time to change the TV game once more, and I really think that we are the guys to do it. We have a vision, and it’s just begging to jump out of us! 

Executive Wokey McWokerson: Great! Let’s hear it! You made us so much money on Thrones, not to mention the Emmys and street cred. Our marketing department is chomping at the bit to get to work on whatever you guys have up your sleeves next. We love being in the “Benioff and Weiss” business.

Benioff: We love to hear that. So picture this: the South won the Civil War.

Executive Wokey: I’m gonna stop you right there. Say that again.

Weiss: Follow me for a minute. The new series takes place in a totally fictional America. The South won the Civil War. During the last century and a half, the Southern way of life has dominated the land that we call the United States. Slavery exists. Today. And people are still fighting over it, but there are real slaves, and slaveowners, and plantations.

Weiss: And there are also politicians who totally hate slavery, and abolitionists and stuff. Some people are still super pissed off about it.

Executive Wokey: Let me put this as plainly as I possibly can: Are you fucking out of your fucking minds?

Weiss and Benioff look at each other, confused

Weiss: No, man. That’s the idea. What’s the problem? It’s perfect for your network. There’s conflict. There’s oppression. It’s incredibly relevant to our contemporary discourse, just in a somewhat different setting. It has a lot of the same elements that made Thrones so successful.

Benioff: Let’s be clear. People are talking about race. Today. Constantly. In this country. This will be a real conversation starter.

Executive Wokey: You realize that both of you are White, right? And that viewers of color make up a disproportionate share of your audience, even though you have employed almost no black actors with speaking roles in seven seasons of one of the biggest series in television history. There are at least two hashtags whose sole purpose is to signify the people in the Black community who watch your show. Do you have any idea how your viewers would react to this?

Benioff: What does race have to do with this?

Weiss: Yeah, I mean, this isn’t really about race, per se. It’s about the erosion of the social contract. The way people use power against each other. It’s like Thrones, but in a lightly fictionalized contemporary America. Where slavery still exists.

Wokey stares at Weiss. Blinks twice. Says nothing.

Weiss: Look, if you insist on making this ALL about race, we can certainly play up that angle.

Benioff: Well actually, let’s be smart about this. The Civil War wasn’t ALL about slavery. It was about money and power and states’ rights and a whole bunch of other issues. Slavery was an important factor, but let’s not get hung up on the slavery part of this.

Executive Wokey: Get the fuck out of my office.

Benioff: Aren’t we being a little hasty here.

Executive Wokey: The fuck out. Now.

Weiss: We made you so much money.

Executive Wokey: I don’t care. Some things are more important than money.

Benioff and Weiss laugh hysterically

Benioff: Really? There are? You know we can just take this to CBS right?

Executive Wokey: Good luck. Make sure it has a white male lead. It will fit in perfectly with their nightly line-up.

Wednesday Reading List: A "Nothingburger" on Federal Oversight and Accountability in New York State

The House panel responsible for overseeing the federal department of education held a hearing about ESSA - the big federal education law - yesterday. Andrew Ujifusa of Education Week went so that you didn't have to:

At a House education committee hearing, which DeVos didn't attend, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle Tuesday expressed concern about the consistency of feedback from the U.S. Department of Education to states about ESSA plans. GOP legislators also quizzed state and local education officials about how they were taking advantage of new policy breathing room under the federal education law. Meanwhile, Democrats stressed the importance of federal oversight and how states had to ensure protections for underserved students. Funding was also a very sore spot for Democratic lawmakers and those education officials who testified. Both criticized proposed budget cuts of about $2 billion in President Donald Trump's spending blueprint and in a House education funding bill that would end teacher-training and class-size reduction programs.

So far as I can tell, the early headline from the DeVos regime vis-a-vis federal oversight of school accountability is "more than GOPers had hoped, and somewhat less than Democrats want." Despite the strum-und-drang of DeVos's confirmation process, the K-12 action from the department has been a "nothingburger" thus far.

Amadou Diallo, writing in The Hechinger Report, thinks that the city of Buffalo may have cracked the code on turning around struggling schools:

In Buffalo, a Rust Belt city still grappling with high poverty and an under-educated population, the results of the Say Yes program have exceeded expectations. Since its launch in 2012, the city’s high school graduation rate has climbed 15 points, to 64 percent, according to New York State education department figures, the highest rate the city has achieved in more than a decade. And black and Latino students have seen the most dramatic improvements, significantly narrowing the graduation gap with their white peers. According to Say Yes, it has awarded roughly 4,000 tuition scholarships, and the number of Buffalo schools classified as “in good standing” by the state’s education department has almost doubled since 2012, from 11 to 20.

The Say Yes program offers free college tuition to any student that graduates from a Buffalo high school. I'm a fan of this story, but I want to offer two caveats. First, the Say Yes program required tens of millions of private dollars, which - from the standpoint of education policymaking - we can file under "nice work if you can get it."

Second, while this piece focuses on the college access component of school improvement, it says very little about the concomitant investments that need to be made in order to ensure college persistence. I'm less impressed with the increase in graduation rates if students are dropping out of college after two or three semesters.

Elsewhere in the Empire State, accountability might get stricter for non-traditional schools. Kate Taylor of The New York Times has the story:

West Brooklyn Community High School is what is known in New York City as a transfer school. The city’s Education Department now runs 51 such schools, serving 13,000 students. The schools are small, and many of them work with community-based organizations to offer counseling, college and career advising, and internships. They have a significantly better track record than other high schools in graduating students who are two or more years behind. But because students often enter transfer schools with few credits, it can take them six, seven or even eight years in total to graduate ... Under the expected regulations, the vast majority of the city’s transfer schools would be designated as “in need of improvement” and could be at risk of being closed.

If you're not familiar with this sort of school, you should read the piece. Most folks would consider me to be an "accountability hawk," but I do not think that transfer schools and so-called "alternative" high schools should be held to the exact same standards as traditional comprehensive high schools. I'm not sure what the exact standards should be, but this is one area where I sympathize with the notion that overwrought accountability systems can take a toll on strong education programming. 

Have a great day!

Monday Reading List: School Choice Might Be DOA in Congress and Different Ways to Look at Testing

Alyson Klein of Education Week reads the tea leaves and thinks a big federal "school choice" push is unlikely this year:

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos came to Washington primarily to do one thing: Use the power of her office to expand school choice, her passion for decades. Members of her own party appeared to deal a major blow to that goal Thursday, when the House panel charged with overseeing education spending approved a bill that doesn't include two of DeVos' big budget asks: using an education research program to offer school vouchers, and allowing Title I dollars to follow students to the school of their choice.

I have dealt with this before - both on the blog and on twitter - but I will reiterate and expand upon my premise: rank-and-file GOP legislators are much less enamored of vouchers than their party's ideological policy wonks are. In part, this is the natural divide between political ideas and political practice, but there's something more specific at work here.

DeVos's plan for school choice carves the money for choice out of "Title I," which is a federal program that sends money to schools and districts based on a formula. The formula for how much money a school receives is predicated on a few factors, but the most significant one is the number of students in a school who qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch. That particular signifier is a proxy for poverty.

Even if you're a Republican legislator who HATES federal spending in theory ... in practice, every school district you represent receives a bunch of predictable federal money, which local officials depend upon to balance budgets every year. When President Barack Obama made a bunch of changes to Title I spending, in order to foster reforms through both the Race to the Top and School Improvement Grant programs, he did so while adding billions of new dollars to the program, ensuring support in both legislative chambers. DeVos will have a hard time carving school choice funds out of Title I, because every school superintendent in America will call his/her congressional representative and beg to be held harmless; that superintendent, in many cases, will be the congressperson's largest employer.

Wayne D'Orio of The Hechinger Report looks at what may be America's most popular summer school:

“My kids begged me to come to summer school,” said Chantelle Mullins, a mother of two elementary school students. More than half of the learners — 58 percent — in the 270-student elementary school are involved in summer learning programs; about 20 percent of kids at the combined middle/high school are continuing to study in the summer ... Wilder [Idaho] is part of a new national trend to customize learning to each child. But the tiny district of just under 500 students is taking the idea to the extreme. Located about 40 miles west of Boise, Wilder has erased grade levels and been awarded a state waiver to avoid seat-time requirements (meaning a student does not need to prove she spent x number of hours learning algebra, for instance). Other schools around the country are starting to take notice — and schedule visits.

As we learned last week, it's hard to determine which trends in personalized learning are worth emulating, and which are falling flat. One way to sort the wheat from the chaff is to couple real data analysis with long-form examinations, like this one. Personalized learning isn't going anywhere, so lay people and policymakers alike need to get much smarter about assessing its efficacy.

Speaking of assessment, Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat finds that some schools are trying to dodge weak assessment data by putting their least effective teachers in grade levels that lack formal testing regimes:

... it’s a big problem when schools encourage their least effective teachers to work with their youngest students. And a new study says that the pressure of school accountability systems may be encouraging exactly that ... The study, published earlier this month in the peer-reviewed American Educational Research Journal, focuses on Miami-Dade County schools, the fourth-largest district in the country, from 2003 to 2014. Florida had strict accountability rules during that period, including performance-based letter grades for schools ... The trio of researchers hypothesized that because Florida focuses on the performance of students in certain grades and subjects — generally third through 10th grade math and English — less-effective teachers would get shunted to other assignments, like early elementary grades or social studies. That’s exactly what they found.

Part of this phenomenon comes from the design of accountability systems themselves, but part of it is just bad educational management. Most state accountability systems want students to be reading at grade level by third grade. That means that schools have four years - kindergarten, first, second, and third grades - to get a student to be able to read at grade level. Giving that student the least effective teachers for 75% of that time is bafflingly stupid, even if the test itself isn't perfect.

Speaking of tests, Susan Dynarski is in The New York Times examining how to make college admissions more egalitarian:

The two standard college admission tests — the SAT and the ACT — could be administered universally and free of charge to students. That would reduce the administrative barriers to applying to college, help identify talented disadvantaged children, and increase the likelihood that they will attend a college that matches their skills. A child born into a high-income family is six times as likely to earn a college degree as one who is poor, research that I have participated in shows. This gap is largely rooted in disparities in achievement that appear as early as preschool ... Michigan began requiring public school juniors to take the ACT in 2007, and the share of high school graduates taking a college entrance exam rose immediately to nearly 99 percent from 54 percent. That growth was even sharper among low-income students; only 35 percent had been taking the test.

First, this research seems quite promising, as the costs associated with expanding free access to the the SAT and ACT are modest, relative to other potentially-transformative educational investments. Second, this article also illustrates the hypocrisy about "testing" in this country. Many of the same people who lampoon "testing" in schools also pay thousands of dollars on SAT prep classes for their own kids, so that those kids can have a privately-financed advantage when it comes to applying for college admissions. Just sayin.

Have a great week!

Thursday Reading List: Assessing Personalized Learning and Why Do Republicans Suddenly Hate College?

The concept of personalized learning is all the rage right now. Nichole Dobo is in The Hechinger Report, trying to determine if there's a way to know whether or not the idea works:

Traditional school districts that attempt to bring a new model of education that provides personally designed lessons for students often face conflicting priorities that make it difficult to follow through, according to a new report released Tuesday. And schools should not expect a dramatic or sudden increase in math and reading test scores, according to the new research from RAND Corporation ... The new report from RAND follows a 2015 study of personalized learning that generally found more positive results. The earlier research included some of the leading pioneers in personalized learning, such as Summit Public Schools and Rocketship Education. The new report includes a more diverse subset of schools that are not part of big networks. In other words, it might provide a more clear-eyed look at how personalized learning strategies play out in typical public schools. The new report from RAND found that traditional schools tended to run into roadblocks more often than charter schools did.

There's a lot to unpack here, but these results reflect what tends to happen when new ideas "scale up." The early adopters of a new approach are more likely to implement an idea with fidelity to the intent of the model, and as a result, rapid expansion can lead to diminishing returns. These results also serve as a good reminder not to place too much faith in any hot new educational idea as a panacea. The best way to kill a promising reform is to overstate its potential before it has a chance to prove itself.

Hot ideas, coming through!

Erica Green and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times look at how Betsy DeVos's administration is thinking about campus sexual assault:

In recent years, on campus after campus, from the University of Virginia to Columbia University, from Duke to Stanford, higher education has been roiled by high-profile cases of sexual assault accusations. Now Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is stepping into that maelstrom. On Thursday, she will meet in private with women who say they were assaulted, accused students and their families, advocates for both sides and higher education officials, the first step in a contentious effort to re-examine policies of President Barack Obama, who made expansive use of his powers to investigate the way universities and colleges handle sexual violence. How university and college administrations have dealt with campus sexual misconduct charges has become one of the most volatile issues in higher education, with many women saying higher education leaders have not taken their trauma seriously. But the Obama administration’s response sparked a backlash, not just from the accused and their families but from well-regarded law school professors who say new rules went too far.

Read the whole thing. While the administration hasn't changed anything yet, the rhetoric of top officials sends important messages about their values. In particular, DeVos's top civil rights official has made some flippant, offensive comments about the victims of sexual assault, which justifiably have angered activists.

In other news, David A. Graham of The Atlantic wants to know why so many republicans have turned against the concept of higher education:

In the era of Trump, institutions—and especially those that are perceived as liberal—are unpopular, and opinions divide sharply along party lines, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center. Alright, maybe that isn’t surprising. But there is one startling result in the survey: a sharp decline in conservative impressions of universities ... What could possibly account for such a steep drop in trust in universities? Several analysts, including Philip Bump, suggested that this is backlash against the rise of identity politics on college campus. Bump noted an increase in Google searches for “safe space” over the time period in which the flip happened ... Still, I’m skeptical that this explains all of the change. After all, to mix a metaphor, conservative leaders have used the Ivory Tower as a punching bag for decades ... So if “safe spaces” account for only some of the shift, what else might be at work? One theory that seems to make a lot of sense is that the composition of the Republican/Republican-leaning demographic has shifted.

While Graham does not prove any of his hypotheses, it's a cultural divide worth considering. 

If colleges want to be a stepping stone for social mobility, they need to respond to the needs of students who are upwardly mobile. To that point, Jeremy Knight is in Blavity discussing the need for first-generation college students to have a greater voice in education policy:

First-generation college students are the first in their family to attend college, and their achievements represent generations of sacrifice and the promise of upward mobility. In spite of our successful accomplishments and progress in pursuing the American dream, our viewpoint does not have enough influence in conversation about the American education system.  34 percent of undergraduates were first-generation college students in the 2011-2012 college year. As a group, we face unique issues and obstacles: The majority are from low-income families and are more likely to come from low-performing schools. Leaving our distinct firsthand experiences and valuable perspective out of the equation means ignoring a sizable hole in discussions about education generally, and more importantly, where the system falls short in preparing students who may need the most support.

Knight is with the organization Students for Education Reform, and in the interest of full disclosure, I serve on that group's board of directors. I won't add much to his perspective, except to say that there's an interesting interplay among the arguments that Graham is making in The Atlantic, and Knight is making here. In both cases, you see large swaths of the American public clamoring for a greater voice in the institutions that purport to serve them ... without getting much in return.

Have a thoughtful day!

Tuesday Reading List: Foreign Languages, American Cities, and Human Rationality is a Myth

Corey Mitchell of Education Week looks at a new study of foreign language instruction in American schools:

The reports from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and American Councils for International Education found that public schools and state departments of education are struggling to find qualified world language instructors and unequipped to track local and national trends on language learning. The American Councils for International Education survey—which sought state-by-state data on enrollment in foreign language courses—estimates that 10.6 million K-12 students in the United States are studying a world language or American Sign Language. That's only one out of every five students.

The educators in my community were waving the flag on this when I was a child, and it seems like little has changed in the intervening decades. The liabilities here stretch from international trade to national security. Moreover, there is significant academic research indicating the cognitive benefits of learning a foreign language.

In other research news, Lauren FitzPatrick of the Chicago Sun Times looks at a new report on that city's schools:

One in four African-American students in Chicago Public Schools attends a “failing” school, according to a new analysis that puts the number for Hispanic students at two in 25 and, for white students, two in 100. That’s according to a report Monday from the education advocacy group New Schools for Chicago, which also says about one in every five schools overall isn’t fulfilling the promise of a quality education ... The bulk of the lowest-performing schools are found on the South Side and West Side, serving predominantly low-income, African-American student bodies that constitute 37 percent of CPS students. Austin, Englewood, the Near West Side and West Englewood account for a quarter of them.

It's easy to get caught in the blame game, which is what this article devolves into after the data is presented. Both education reformers and traditionalists need to swallow hard and accept some difficult truths. The vast majority of America's cities contain disparities similar to those found in Chicago. Those disparities existed long before the onset of standards-based reform, much to the chagrin of traditionalists who want to blame their preferred bogeymen (i.e. charter schools! privatization!) for the problems.

But it's also important to remember that two decades of reform have not changed the fundamental performance disparities of American schools, particularly when it comes to our most vulnerable kids ... which should come as a wake-up call to reformers who have been pushing solutions for the last twenty-five years. Everybody needs to chill the f out with the finger pointing and work on improving schools.

In other news, Isaac Carey of The Hechinger Report examined a Virginia program that aimed to determine whether information about future earnings can drive college attendance decisions:

Researchers gave students at participating high schools in Virginia access to a state-backed website called gradpathva.com, which analyzed the average wage earned by graduates and the average cost of enrollment, sorted by university and type of program. The students used the website rarely, and did not seem to base their academic decisions on it. During the three-year study, researchers were able to see where students ended up going to college, and what type of programs they chose to pursue. There was no evidence that access to salary data had a detectable impact.

Gosh. It's almost as if humans sometimes make decisions that aren't 100% geared at maximizing microeconomic outcomes. 

In all seriousness, the more information that students have about the colleges they hope to attend, the better. As the author points out, though, information alone cannot reduce costs, increase student readiness to succeed in college-level courses, and otherwise prepare teens for higher education success.

Have a great day!