School Snapshot

A snapshot of a few articles on schools, going back to school to find out what works.

Charlotte Allen, Weekly Standard, "Read it and Weep": Why does Congress hate the one part of No Child Left Behind that works?:

One reason many critics of Reading First have grown silent of late is that what Rep. Miller deems a criminal enterprise is possibly the most successful federal education program in history. According to an April 19 report from the Education Department, 97 percent of the school districts participating in Reading First reported gains from 2004 to 2006 of 16 percentage points for first-graders and 15 percentage points for third-graders in meeting fluency goals. Comparable gains were reported in reading comprehension: 15 percentage points on average for first-graders and 12 percentage points on average for third-graders. The progress was across the board: for African Americans, Hispanics, English-language learners, disabled students, and the economically disadvantaged, as well as for the white middle class. These results have confounded both the education-school types who hate the idea of intensive phonics, vocabulary drilling, and standardized testing, and also the many small-government conservatives who believe that the entire No Child Left Behind Act represents unprecedented federal intrusion into education, which has traditionally been strictly a state and local concern.

I have supported NCLB from its inception, as I believe too many local school boards are mere cheerleaders for the teachers' union, and too often teachers are "hobby teachers" who would rather do art projects than teach reading, though we need to hold states' accountable for not implementing NCLB standards and enabling children to leave failing schools.

WSJ on Obama's bow to the failed old ideas of the teachers' union. (Previous post on Obama backing off on school choice.) The NEA spouts off in response. A letter to the WSJ editor nailing the NEA, in full:

Dismal GRE Statistics for Education Fields>

"When public officials want to reduce crime," says Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, "they listen to police officers. When they want to control flooding, they talk to engineers. . . ." (Letters, July 16). Implication: Want to improve education? Talk to the teachers union. A laughable proposition. Digest these data:

Applicants for graduate study in education administration -- tested between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2004 -- had a combined mean total GRE (Graduate Record Examination) score of 950 (Verbal, 427; Math, 523). That is sixth from the bottom of 51 fields of graduate study tabulated by the Educational Testing Service.

The mean total GRE score across all fields was 1066. Which applicants had still lower total GRE scores than applicants in education administration? Social work, 896; early childhood, 913; student counseling, 928; home economics, 933; special education, 934 -- education fields all. Other fields with mean GRE scores on the far left side of the GRE bell curve? Seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th from the left tip of the curve, respectively: public administration ("practices and roles of public bureaucracies"), 965; other education, 968; elementary education, 970; education evaluation and research, 985; other social science, 993. Note the pattern: Eighty-plus percent on the far-left-side-of-the-GRE-bell-curve are headed for -- or, more likely, already employed by -- public education systems. Ninety-plus percent are headed for some form of government employment. This GRE snapshot of the capabilities of the people who run government schooling monopolies is not unrelievedly bleak: There is one education "outlier," secondary education, that has a mean score of 1063, in the middle of the bell curve distribution.

Tom Shuford
Lenoir, N.C.

Adopt school choice and more high-quality people will be attracted to the profession, as parents vote with their feet and merit pay and educational excellence prevail. The Tribune on the success story that is charter schools, and a tired old NEA argument demolished:

The group determined that the amount of money transferred to charters from the districts was less than the percentage of students being served by those schools. During the 2003-04 school year, the four districts transferred 0.9 percent to 2.5 percent of their operating funds to charter schools, while the number of district students attending those schools ranged from 1.3 percent to 3 percent, according to the study. "The schools are not a burden to these districts, but in fact the cost per pupil is significantly less [than at traditional public schools]," Msall said. He said the group plans to conduct a separate study on Chicago charter schools. Most of the state's 34 charter schools are in Chicago.

Finally, the best and simplest solution of all, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. Harvard professor Paul E. Peterson, WSJ:

To achieve racial balance, let parents choose their school, and let oversubscribed schools admit students by lot. If parents of all races and ethnicities seek admission to a particular school at the same rate, then a lottery will ensure that the school's social mix reflects that of the school district, the very goal Seattle said it tried to achieve. [snip]

In many urban areas, parents are now being given the choice of attending one of the country's nearly 4,000 charter schools -- publicly funded schools operated by nonprofit or for-profit organizations. Most are so popular they are over-subscribed and must turn some students away. They're especially attractive in big cities, because they typically provide smaller, safer and friendlier educational environments. To comply with state laws and regulations as well as to live up to their own egalitarian ideals, charters usually rely upon a lottery to pick which students to admit (unless they are siblings of a student already at the school).

Charter schools serve a higher percentage of minorities and disadvantaged students than traditional public schools. According to a Department of Education survey, 33% of charter school students are African-American, as compared to 18% in traditional public schools. For Hispanics, the proportions in the two sectors are 15% and 13%, respectively. Nor are the well-to-do crowding out the economically disadvantaged: 54% of charter-school students are income eligible for the subsidized lunch program, as compared to 46% of those in public school.

Parental choice works better than group entitlements in achieving racial balance as well as educational excellence. We just need the political will.