________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT November 21, 2005 - Vol. 5, No. 45 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  Covering education news in Vermont and beyond... Informative, provocative, unique... Published by Vermonters for Better Education  VBE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. Libby Sternberg, executive director: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... STATE BOARD TURNED DOWN USING ACT INSTEAD OF NSRE Maine and Michigan recently announced they would use a college entrance exam (SAT for Maine and ACT for Michigan) as their state's high school assessment tests. A similar proposal was before the Vermont State Board of Education recently, but at the October meeting, the SBOE deep-sixed a plan to let Vermont high schools use the college-prep ACT test instead of a state test to see how students are faring. The board postponed action on whether to allow private schools that accept tuitioned students to use the ACT to assess those students. State board members who voted for use of the ACT instead of the state's own test were: Chris Robbins, William Corrow and Susan Schill. SBOE members who voted against this initiative were Diane Mueller, Tom James, Ruth Stokes, Rick Manahan, Lisa Cox and Lindy Caslin. One of the stumbling blocks for some board members, according to the SBOE minutes, appeared to be the cost of "augmentation." That is, because the ACT is a national test, The Vermont Department of Education argues that additional testing of students might be required in order to ensure the tests measure how well students are mastering Vermont's standards. However, the VDOE presented materials on the "cost implications" of the ACT plan that were not completely accurate. According to a hand-out on this issue, the VDOE claims the "base costs of the ACT and SAT with a writing component are $42 and $41..." while the NECAP (the state test - not yet used in high schools) will likely cost between $40 and $45. But they estimate the cost of "augmentation" of the ACT to meet state standards will run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. In reality, the ACT can cost as low as $27 to $29 per student, without the writing component, which is an extra. (The ACT already tests English skills.) And the ACT has an added benefit not yet included in Vermont's high school testing -- the ACT tests in the area of science. The ACT has other advantages as well -- it is a national test, thus allowing Vermonters to see how students fare compared to their peers nationwide; it takes less time to administer and it can serve as a springboard to more opportunities for students. In fact, the ACT only takes a few hours to administer and test results are often available within 30 days -- both are far shorter timeframes than those available with current state testing. In addition, the ACT, because it is a college entrance examination, carries more weight with students and thus is more likely to capture more accurate reflections of achievement. In fact, one high school administrator points out that where the ACT is used as a school assessment in other areas of the country, some students who didn't think they were college material re-evaluated their future plans as the result of their good scores. In other words, scoring well on the ACT can become a motivator for further academic achievement, so the test becomes more than just a test -- it becomes a tool for individual improvement. Did the VDOE present a fair and accurate picture of the ACT issue to the SBOE? It's hard to tell. In the case of reports on the early education rules presented by the VDOE to the SBOE many months ago, the VDOE did "fudge" information presented to the board. During the presentation of material related to proposed early ed rules, the VDOE included names of people alleged to be supporting their scheme when, in reality, those people had had little input and didn't necessarily agree with the report being presented. Perhaps when the ACT test comes up for a vote again -- for use by private schools with their tuitioned students -- the SBOE will at least consider using it as a "pilot" project, to test the efficacy and possible value of this nationwide test.  *   *   * FROM ELSEWHERE... FROM....The Fordham Foundation On the web at: http://www.edexcellence.net/ PROVOCATIVE THOUGHTS ON TEACHER QUALITY Tough choices on teacher quality....by Michael J. Petrilli OK, school reformers, it's pop-quiz time. Take out your # 2 pencils and circle the answer with which you agree. To boost teacher quality, policy makers should: a. Allow principals to hire the best teachers they can find, regardless of credentials; or b. Require new teachers to pass a rigorous test of subject matter knowledge or possess a major in their field. Do you find yourself wanting to answer "both, of course"? If so, join the club. And consider yourself part of the problem, because, frankly, together we have made a mess of teacher quality policy. It's not for lack of good intentions. Unlike the teacher unions, whose positions on this issue cannot be disentangled from their members' self-interest, reformers can claim purity of heart and selflessness of intentions. But we are also of two minds. We feel the tug of competing values. And, too often, we try to split the difference, to have it both ways. The values at war are deregulation versus academic rigor. Let's examine the case for each. The argument for deregulation is strong. Much of the rhetoric of the standards-and-accountability movement (and its cousin, the charter school movement) is about results in return for flexibility, giving principals more power in return for stronger outcomes. Now that school leaders are in the hot seat, facing exposure and sanctions under No Child Left Behind if they don't boost achievement, they have every incentive to hire great teachers who can help them succeed in making adequate yearly progress (AYP). This was not always the case; in the bad old days before accountability, principals might have been tempted to engage in nepotism, or been too lazy to search out the best and the brightest. After all, results didn't much matter. But no longer. Surely any principal worth his salary knows that teacher quality is the number-one determinant of student achievement, at least among factors within his control. Besides, so much of what makes a teacher effective is hard to measure (at least until the value he or she adds to student achievement can be determined). One study by analyst Dan Goldhaber found that 97 percent of a teacher's effectiveness could not be predicted by easy-to-measure factors such as test scores or certification status. While teachers with majors in their field, high scores on Praxis, and Ivy League pedigrees might, in general, outperform teachers without those attributes, exceptions abound. And a principal--who can interview the teacher candidate, talk to his or her references, even watch a mock lesson being taught--will have far better information than any regulator or bureaucrat with which to make a shrewd decision and maybe find a diamond in the rough. Consider the experience of Teach for America. TFA recruits more teachers every year than all but the largest districts, and it seems to have cracked the code on identifying teachers who succeed in challenging classrooms. While the program is well-known for attracting Ivy League grads with lofty test scores, its unheralded genius is its extensive selection process (essays, interviews, practice lessons, etc.) that pinpoints subtle differences among candidates, differences that seem to predict classroom success. TFA has been particularly effective in finding individuals with high expectations. According to a survey released earlier this month, seven of ten second-year TFA teachers disagreed with the statement, "Students who don't have basic skills by junior high or middle school will never be able to catch up," and almost the same proportion believe that their own expectations have a significant impact on their students' achievement. NCLB's obliviousness to such subtle indicators of quality is what makes its "highly qualified teachers" provision so maddening to many principals. Imagine a school leader in Appalachia who employs a dynamic, inspiring math teacher who gets great results in the classroom and helps all her students reach proficiency. Should the state or federal government care if that teacher majored in chemistry instead of math? How should that principal feel when told that this fine math teacher must jump through a bunch of hoops to meet the "subject matter competency" requirement? It makes you want to yell: "Cut the red tape! Peel back the bureaucrats! Trust the results!" And yet, the case for academic rigor is also strong. Mounds of evidence show that school districts have not made academic credentials a top priority when hiring teachers. To wit: according to the latest federal Schools and Staffing Survey, 38 percent of all middle- and high-school math teachers did not major or minor in math (or even math education). One-third of English teachers are also teaching "out of field," as are 28 percent of science teachers, and about one-quarter of social studies teachers. To think that the people who hire teachers will suddenly change their ways and put a premium on academic credentials because of the pressure to raise test scores is to enter the zone of wishful thinking. After all, K-12 educators and ed school professors have long downplayed the importance of subject matter knowledge. One could even argue that the dominant cultural trait of the education system is anti-intellectualism. That's not likely to change overnight without a strong push. And unless we can infuse the system with smart, well-educated teachers, it may never change. Furthermore, even if a principal understands that he should recruit knowledgeable teachers, he lives with imperfect information. He lacks access to candidates' Praxis scores, much less their SAT results. And with trendy fads overwhelming the college curriculum, especially the obsession with "depth over breadth," it's hard to know whether even candidates with a major in their subject (say, history) actually know enough of the content that the state requires students to learn. Why not, at the least, require them to pass a test in that subject? Better yet, why not make their test scores (not just "pass" or "fail") available to employers? The trifling inconvenience of making prospective teachers endure a test is a small price to pay for quality control. And if recruiting knowledgeable teachers with a passion for their subjects helps tamp down the progressivism that dominates our schools ("all that matters is learning to learn"), so much the better. Raise the bar! Down with mediocrity! Let's start valuing intellectual pursuit! Which brings us back to where we started. Can't we have it both ways, giving principals more hiring flexibility (allowing them to engage uncertified teachers, for instance), with the single caveat that all teachers be knowledgeable in their subjects? Have we ever tried that? Enter Section 9101(23) of the No Child Left Behind Act, which explicitly exempts charter schools from the law's requirement that schools hire certified teachers (at least in states where the charter law provides this same flexibility). However, it does not exempt charters from the mandate that their teachers, too, demonstrate subject matter competence in the subjects that they teach. So we have a nice natural experiment. Take Washington, D.C., for example, where charter principals have almost unlimited freedom around hiring decisions, except that their teachers must "demonstrate subject matter competence" by passing a test, majoring in their field, or meeting the "High Objective Uniform State Standard of Evaluation" (HOUSSE). Seems reasonable. But how's it playing out? It's a mess. The subject matter exams (Praxis II in D.C.) aren't offered very often, and for some subjects (arts, physics, some foreign languages) they aren't offered at all. Almost four years into NCLB implementation, D.C. still doesn't have a "HOUSSE" process. The rules for what counts as a "major" (set by the District of Columbia Public Schools-the charters' main competitor) are arbitrary: 33 semester hours, of which 18 hours must be in 300-level courses and above. Consider the headaches of this respected D.C. charter school: "We had one Teach for America corps member with a mechanical engineering degree who was not 'highly qualified' to teach math or physics because he did not have enough credit hours in either subject. We had a teacher who was fluent in German, had passed the government tests in German, but was not 'highly qualified' to teach German. We had a teacher who was a talented artist and architect and a business major who was not qualified to teach the arts and architecture class." In other words, charter principals are dealing with a thicket of confusion, paperwork, and one-size-fits-all regulations-exactly what they sought to escape when they "went charter." Their autonomy has been severely curtailed. What's the lesson? It's simply not possible to have it both ways. We must either give principals full autonomy to make hiring decisions, or we must require all teachers to demonstrate subject matter knowledge. Trust principals, or don't. On which side of that divide are you?  *   *   * SUPREMELY SENSIBLE Recommended Reading...from The Fordham Foundation Parents who contend that schools are failing their special needs children will now have to do more than make the claim in order to get the additional services they desire. They'll have to prove their case. The Supreme Court's decision on Monday that parents, and not school districts, bear the burden of proof when contesting the goals and instructional methods spelled out in their children's individualized education plan(s) (IEP) could greatly reduce the number of cases that go to court for resolution.  Districts see an opportunity to save big bucks. In the District of Columbia, the amount spent on IEP appeals jumped from $499,000 in 2001 to $2.9 million in 2005. "This will help us pare down the amount of money spent on special education and allow us to use that money to give students a world-class education in the D.C. school system," says the D.C. school board president. We'll see about that. Others worry that the children of parents unable to afford costly litigation will suffer most.  The Fordham Foundation wonders: why not leave the school systems in charge of the services they provide (which the ruling does) but also offer parents scholarship money so, if they disagree with their district's special education approach, they can move their children to another school? "In Special-Ed Case, Court Backs Montgomery Schools," by Charles Lane and Lori Aratani, Washington Post, November 15, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111400690.html "D.C. Schools See Opportunity to Pare Back," by Lori Aratani and V. Dion Haynes, Washington Post, November 15, 2005 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/14/AR2005111401645.html "Parents Carry Burden of Proof in School Cases, Court Rules," by Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, November 15, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/national/15scotus.html *   *   * PYTHAGORAS KNOWS BEST From The Fordham Foundation In Penfield, N.Y., high-flying math whiz Jim Munch looked to be the poster child for constructivist math curriculum. He scored a 5 on the A.P. Calculus exam, and hopes to become a theoretical mathematician. Turns out, he succeeded in spite, not because of, his school's progressivist training. Munch's parents (one an engineer, the other an educator) instructed him by night as his school teachers pushed "fuzzy" math by day. (See here http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/publication.cfm?id=338 and here http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/gadfly/issue.cfm?edition=&id=175#2105 for more on the problems of this fad.)  "Kids do not do better learning math themselves," young Munch said. "There's a reason we go to school, which is that there's someone smarter than us with something to teach us." A novel idea, that. Ardent constructivists, such as the folks who lead the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the Penfield School District, don't think "old-fashioned" math skills (including learning basic items such as multiplication tables) are necessary for academic success. That simply doesn't compute. "'Innovative' Math, but Can You Count?" by Samuel G. Freedman, New York Times, November 9, 2005 http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70A1FFD3E5A0C7A8CDDA80994DD404482 (abstract only -- there's a charge for the full article) <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!  <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> WHO COVERS EDUCATION IN VERMONT? We do! Consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, Vermont 05701. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.  *   *   * The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact VTBetterEd@aol.com for more information.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

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