The KIPP Propaganda Machine and Its Willing Saps In the Media

UPDATE: Bruce was writing about this exchange as I was. Go read what he says, then come back. Much more to come.



Tomorrow morning, if you pick up a copy of the Star-Ledger (chances are, you won't), you will see a big, fat, wet kiss to the KIPP/TEAM charter schools in Newark, right on the front of the "Perspective" section. The piece went on-line a few hours ago; you can comment if you would like...

But listen to this story before you do:

Over a month ago, I got an email from Diane Ravitch, the country's best known advocate for public education and most prominent critic of corporate-style education "reform." Diane cc'd it to me and Bruce Baker, a professor of education policy at Rutgers and my advisor in the PhD program there.

It seems that Julie O'Connor, the author of the Star-Ledger's piece, was looking for comments about KIPP/TEAM. Given Diane's stature and her well-known skepticism about charter schools, it's clear that O'Connor was looking for a contrary point of view.

Diane added a few remarks, but she also referred O'Connor to Bruce and me, knowing we've done scads of work on Newark's charters: see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (and that's just for starters).

Bruce and I then began an exchange with O'Connor, which I have reposted, in its entirety, below. Bruce did the reconstruction, and I added my original graphs.

Understand that Bruce is one of the busiest people I know, and I teach full-time while working on my doctorate. Nonetheless, we took a considerable amount of our time to explain, in great detail, why a simple "doing more with less" framework (yes, that is an exact quote from the piece) is far too simplistic and misleading when it comes to evaluating KIPP/TEAM.

You are welcome to come to your own conclusions based on this exchange. Here are mine:

- It's clear O'Connor was in the tank for KIPP/TEAM from the start. Several times, especially in response to Bruce, she either doesn't understand -- or chooses not to understand -- what we are saying. Several times, Bruce refers O'Connor to his blog posts; they are quite clear in their methodologies and sources, but it's as if O'Connor never even read them.

- KIPP/TEAM is feeding O'Connor talking points. She keeps returning to the same arguments in her exchange with us -- and these are the arguments that make it into the article. Over and over, she asks Bruce or me to rebut claims KIPP/TEAM is making, rather than acknowledging the separate points we are making. It's as if, in O'Connor's mind, the debate can only be waged on TEAM/KIPP's terms; any other points of view, no matter how valid, need not be discussed.

- O'Connor ignores the most controversial aspects of charter school expansion in Newark. Where is any mention in O'Connor's piece of Pink Hula Hoop, the byzantine real estate deal involving KIPP/TEAM first uncovered by Star-Ledger alumnus Bob Braun? What about the controversial discipline practices of the KIPP network? Or the reports of "weaknesses in KIPP Academy’s internal controls over financial operations"? Or the controversy over KIPP's attrition rates?

O'Connor glosses over the fact that KIPP/TEAM has substantial philanthropic support, one of the reasons the KIPP chain spends much more per student than comparable district schools. I'd like to think my comment below at least made her consider the possibility that this contributes greatly to the chain's "success." But in her piece, she breezily takes the charter's word that they don't spend more on operations, not bothering to confirm whether this is actually the case.

I'm going to have much more to say about this sorry exercise in "journalism." For now, however, let's let Bruce have the last word on how charter school propaganda is spread by willing saps like Julie O'Connor and the Star-Ledger:

I enter into this blog post knowing full well that this is a lose-lose deal.  Rating and comparing school quality, effectiveness or efficiency with existing publicly available data is, well, difficult if not impossible. But I’m going there in this post. 

Why? Well, one reason I’m going there is that I’m sick of getting e-mail and phone inquiry after inquiry about the same charter schools – and only charter schools – asking how/why are they creating miracle outcomes. I try to explain that there may be more to the story. The reporter then says that the charter school’s data person says I’m wrong – validating their miracle outcomes (despite their own data not being publicly available/replicable, etc. and often with reference to awesome outcomes reported in popularly cited studies of totally different charter schools). 

But we may be having our conversation about the wrong schools to begin with.  The whole conversation starts perhaps with a call from the school’s own PR lackey to the local paper, along with a self-congratulatory press release, or alternatively, from the local news outlet itself following up on preconceived notions of which schools are doing miracle work (for a slow news day).  It’s not just that it seems always to be about charter schools, but that it seems to be about the same charter schools every time. [emphasis mine]

That is exactly right. When "journalists" lazily regurgitate PR from charter schools, they do their readers a huge disservice.

More to come...

* * * * *

April 6, 2015

Reporter Inquiry

Prof. Ravitch,

I’m on the editorial board at The Star-Ledger in New Jersey, and I’m working on a cover story for our Perspective section about the KIPP schools in our state. The college attendance stats of KIPP seniors in Newark seem pretty impressive, and I was wondering if you have the same reaction, and what you think of KIPP’s forays into Camden.

Would really appreciate it if you could give me a call at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Would like to discuss KIPP in the context of your criticisms of the broader charter school movement, and whether or not you think it is an exception.

Many thanks,

Julie O'Connor

The Handoff

Julie, 

I suggest you talk to Mark Weber and Bruce Baker at Rutgers, who have studied charters in NJ. I lean on their research. The question is not whether one chain can produce successful graduates, but whether charters in general are helping the most vulnerable schools, whether they are reducing the funding and capacity of public schools, and whether their success-when it exists--is the result of selection and attrition.

Diane Ravitch

Reporter

Ok, thanks for your prompt reply. 

Prof. Baker emailed me his report on free/reduced lunch and the TEAM schools, but I have been unable to reach him on the phone to discuss KIPP or my follow up questions.

Basically, I am looking for a reaction to two claims from KIPP that seem impressive: The college attendance rates (last year, 95 percent of KIPP seniors went to college, 89% to a 4-year, 6 percent to a 2-year), and the fact that KIPP kids in elementary and high school equal or outperform the average for the state of NJ (some years they do in middle school, too, though this year they didn’t). 

KIPP kids are 87% free/reduced lunch and the state is in the 30s. I understand that Baker and others are skeptical about comparing KIPP kids to their peers in the Newark district. But what about comparing them to the state average? And what about their college attendance rates?

I would like to discuss the criticisms of the charter school movement and whether you view KIPP as an exception, or more of the same. Prof. Baker, can you please give me a call as soon as you get a chance? xxx-xxx-xxxx. We are hoping to run the story in the next week or so.

Many thanks,

Julie

Baker to Reporter

My point is, and shall continue to be that news stories on education should NOT be driven by some PR prompt from specific schools touting their "successes" through anecdotes. Thus, my only reaction is the reaction I posted previously about school performance, given analyses across all schools, using comparable, publicly available data:

https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/ed-writers-try-looking-beyond-propaganda-press-releases-for-success-stories/

The bottom line is that KIPP schools performance on comparable measures of student growth, controlling for demography, resources, etc., are relatively average (marginally above average). Many district schools, including ones in Newark, far outperform them.

Reporter to Baker

Ok. Even if KIPP students aren’t representative of their district, isn’t it still impressive that they are beating the state average, given that their student population is significantly poorer? 

KIPP says 93 percent of their students stay with them (7 percent leave their schools each year for any reason).

If what this tells us is that KIPP students have high scores and go to college, how do they fit into criticisms of the larger charter school movement? And what do you think of KIPP’s expansion into Camden?

Prof. Baker, read your blog post and would like to discuss. I am not sure how you are measuring growth in these ranked schools. Are you skeptical about the accuracy of the college attendance rates and performance numbers reported by KIPP? If so, why? Please give me a call. xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Thanks.

Baker to Reporter

Not without running a model of demographics against the same outcome measures across all schools, to see how/whether they truly deviate, statistically, from expectations. Anecdotes of this type are unhelpful for understanding what’s “impressive” statistically or not.  

For measuring growth, I’m using the state’s own reported school Median Growth Percentile – for 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Skeptical or not, context is what’s needed for them to really mean anything. The context of all other schools, and their demographics, to evaluate statistically whether the KIPP schools actually deviate from what would otherwise be expected (given enough schools to estimate a model of expectations).

Reporter to Baker

Ok. Is the state average not considered a good measure of how schools are doing? 

Is your central point in creating your own measurement for whether schools deviate from expectations that KIPP schools have more resources and classroom time and better class sizes, and that’s why their students are doing so well? 

Are you trying to account for those factors in your outcome measure, since you might not find such conditions in traditional district schools? That seems to be your argument in this blog post:

https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/the-non-reformy-lessons-of-kipp/

Trying to understand your general view of KIPP’s performance.

Baker to Reporter (w/head banging against desk)

No. State average is NOT a useful comparison.  Given the number of things that vary across schools, one needs to look at any given school in the context of all schools, with all available measures. Not just compare one school to the state average and say, for example, “it’s got higher poverty, and higher outcomes than the state average.” That comparison misses a lot of other factors that may vary across schools. One needs to see how those factors affect the outcome measure across schools and then compare against the overall pattern.

Second – I’m not “creating” my own measurement. I’m doing what I describe above. Taking the state’s measures, and making comparisons among “otherwise similar” schools along the trend of schools, given their various attributes. That is, how much higher, or lower than expected, does a school score (on growth) given all of those factors that vary.

Now, I also use the state’s growth measure,  because, for all its shortcomings, it is actually the best available New Jersey measure of what a school might be contributing to student outcomes (rather than what kids come in with, or who leaves and when). But that measure too is ONLY useful if you control for/account for the various factors. Quite simply, this is how credible analysis of this type is done, knowing full well that even this approach can’t capture some factors that affect outcomes that really aren’t about how good/bad a school is.

Their performance tends to be marginally above average, to about average, considering all schools including district schools. For that matter, several Newark district schools have higher performance. Discovery Charter school is the standout among charters. North Star seems to do well, but I believe that the model isn’t really capturing the effect of their substantially greater attrition, or different student population. But who knows.  But then again, Robert Treat has very different student population and tends to show very weak gains with adjustment for the included factors.

Reporter (who clearly never bothered to read the original post)

What factors that vary are you trying to account for? It is things like resources, classroom time and class sizes?

Baker to Reporter (direct response to ignorant question)

They are all listed in the blog post!

https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/ed-writers-try-looking-beyond-propaganda-press-releases-for-success-stories/

Outcome is Growth

Corrected for:

1. prior average scale score level

2. % free lunch

3. % disability (because I cant' break out by severity, charters like TEAM actually get an advantage here)

4. % Ell

5. total staffing expense per pupil

6. school grade range served

7. school size

More Exasperated Baker to Reporter

Schools in Newark: https://schoolfinance101.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/slide18.jpg

Charter Schools Statewide: https://schoolfinance101.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/slide24.jpg

So again, I ask, why do you feel the necessity to write a story on KIPP schools? And why the apparent obsession on trying to find a miracle in KIPP? How do these supposed miracles (that generally aren’t) come across your desk?

An objective statistical run of all schools in the state, using the state’s own best available measure as the outcome, finds TEAM in Newark to be a decent – relatively above average - school, but no miracle. There are no miracles in this complex endeavor. That’s fine. They do a pretty good job, and seem to do a better job of serving a more representative student population than some others (see also:https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/where-are-the-most-economically-segregated-charter-schools-why-does-it-matter/)

I’m not trying to rain on their parade. I’m just pointing out that if we take all of the data from schools around the state and try to figure out who’s actually “doing better than expected” given who they serve and the resources they have, we don’t identify KIPP as the standout.

Weber to Reporter

Julie, I am going to encourage you to read Bruce’s entire post, as it is far more sophisticated and comprehensive than what I am going to include here.

That said, let me put this in very simple — admittedly, TOO simple — terms:

[Note: I made this graph just for this exchange. That's how much I wanted O'Connor to understand my point.]

This is a very quick and very dirty scatterplot that shows the average scores on the NJASK Grade 8 English Language Arts (ELA) exam from last year for every school in the state. I’ve highlighted TEAM on this graph.

The NJASK score is on the vertical or y-axis. On the horizontal or x-axis is the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced price lunch, a proxy measure for student economic disadvantage (a student’s family has to be at 185% or below the poverty line to qualify for FRPL).

The first and most obvious thing to notice is the relationship between how many FRPL kids a school has and its average test score. Clearly, when FRPL goes up, test scores go down. 70% of the variation in these scores can be statistically explained by the percentage of FRPL kids at the school. 

We all know this. Poverty matters.

The green line through the middle is called a regression line: it’s a kinda-sorta “average” that predicts how well a school will do given its FRPL percentage. If you’re above the line, you’re doing better than prediction; if you’re below the line, you’re doing worse.

TEAM is above the line - hooray for them. But how many other schools do you see across the state that are at least as far above the line as TEAM? How many are way, way further above that line compared to TEAM?

Again: what Bruce did in his post was far more sophisticated than this, because he’s using a statistical model to account for other things that will affect student outcomes, like percentages of special education kids and how much a school spends per pupil on staff (yes, money does matter). He’s also judging outcomes on SGPs, which is arguably a better measure of a school effectiveness.

I’m boiling this down, however, to reinforce his point: yes, TEAM is a better-than-average school. Again, good for them… but why all the outsized attention? Why are you writing a story about them and not the many, many other schools that “beat prediction” much better than TEAM? How many district schools could be considered “miracles” relative to TEAM that get ignored by the op-ed pages of your newspaper?

Julie, you and I both know I have been the Star-Ledger Editorial Page’s harshest critic on education. I’ve admitted before that sometimes I have gone too far… but can you understand my frustration? Can you understand how unfair it appears to those of us who have taken the time to study Bruce’s work that TEAM gets all the accolades while many schools that — by TEAM’s own standards — are doing a BETTER job than they are, yet continue to be ignored?

I am asking you to listen to Bruce carefully and take the time to understand what he is saying. This stuff matters. You control arguably the most important space for punditry in the state. You owe it to your readers to get this stuff right.

If I can help further, let me know.

Mark Weber

Reporter (still not bothering to read, and returning to anecdotes provided by school)

What about the 95 percent of KIPP seniors that went to college last year? That seems impressive to me. 

Also, when you say comparing KIPP to the state average doesn’t mean anything without "running a model of demographics against the same outcome measures across all schools, to see how/whether they truly deviate, statistically, from expectations” — isn’t that what the Mathematica study does? Control for any differences in student population? 

Baker (even more exasperated) to Reporter

Why don't you write it that way then - that it seems impressive to you.  I'm not going there, with your representation of data, passed along to you most likely by the school, without opportunity run appropriate models on the data. And I don't have time to be doing that right now, or quibbling with you over your strange incessant desire to write a story on how awesome you think these schools are, without ever bothering to look at the schools in the context of all schools, where many others may, in fact be even more impressive.

And are you speaking of some Mathematica study of TEAM Academy specifically, and their graduation and college matriculation rates? Or Mathematica studies of KIPP schools generally/nationally ? [I believe only the latter exists -http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/~/media/publications/PDFs/education/kipp_middle.pdf]  

Yes, the network's results are solid. Not miraculous. But solid. Driven in part, perhaps by selection issues (see methods critiques below), and in part by resources. KIPP schools in many contexts substantially outspend their "competition" offering higher salaries, much smaller classes, longer days/years, etc. Certainly won't deny that those types of resources matter.

Comments on related methods here: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/thoughts-on-randomized-vs-randomized-charter-school-studies/

and: https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/thinking-writing-about-educational-research-policy-implications/

There are indeed limitations these methods.

Some information here on where TEAM fits on resource/demographics, etc in Newark: https://njedpolicy.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/research-note-resource-equity-student-sorting-across-newark-district-charter-schools/

Weber to Reporter

Related to the issue of resources:

Find attached the 2012 tax forms for TEAM, Friends of TEAM, and KIPP. You can access these easily at guidestar.org.

You will notice on page 42 of the KIPP 990 that TEAM received $1,053,147 in direct support from KIPP. This likely does not include all sorts of administrative, logistical, marketing, lobbying, etc. activity KIPP undertakes on behalf of TEAM.

On page 21 of the Friends of TEAM 990, you’ll find a $1,005,332 grant to TEAM. On page 9, you’ll see the group took a rental income loss of $1,813,501, likely to the school’s benefit (were I you, I’d certainly ask them about this).

In 2011-12, TEAM enrolled 1,504.5 students. If you take the grants from KIPP and FOT together, that comes to $1,368 additional expenditures per child, not including the rental loss that FOT took. So far as I know, this extra funding is not reported in the NJ Taxpayers Guide to Education Spending.

Let me be clear: it is, in my opinion (an opinion backed up by a substantial and growing body of research) that spending this extra money on behalf of these students will help their academic growth. This is a good thing.

But it is exactly the sort of issue that is not addressed by the Mathematica report, nor by any number of other “studies” that purport to show the superiority of KIPP’s methods by holding all things constant.

So how does TEAM spend all this extra money? Well, here’s one way:

At all stages of a teachers career, TEAM pays a higher salary, even when adjusted for experience, than NPS (and way more than Newark’s “local” charters). When you pay more and offer better working conditions, you can attract people who are willing to work longer hours (to a point).

But they manage to keep salary costs low by also doing this:

Notice the high number of teachers with only one year of experience at TEAM? Notice how they barely have any teachers with more than 15 years of experience? That’s when the NPS salary guide gives veteran teachers a big boost.

Is this a smart strategy? Absolutely. Is it sustainable? I say almost certainly not. Does TEAM really think they can keep recycling their staff AND expand the number of students enrolled? Are there really that many young people out there willing to make teaching at TEAM a temporary career? And is that really good for the city and its students?

As Bruce says: TEAM does a good job. They are, by the numbers, a good school. But I would argue KIPP's methods are not replicable at a large scale. In fact, THEY’D probably agree with me, because they have said over and over again that they are not interested in taking over an entire district.

Julie, if you are willing to dig into this and go behind the talking points the KIPP publicity machine feeds the press, I think you will find TEAM’s “success” raises more questions than it answers:

- If more money is good for charter schools, why isn’t it good for pubic schools?

- Is it good for the teaching profession to encourage the growth of schools that appear to run on a policy of churning much of their staff?

- When we get past the issues of different student populations, attrition, extra resources, hiring practices, test prep, etc., what, exactly, is so special about KIPP/TEAM?

Mark

Lifestyles Of The Rich and Reformy

Back in 2013, I told the story of Joe Bruno, a former accounting and health care executive who is now heads a non-profit that is one of the biggest sources of capital for charter school construction.

This picture was taken at the 2013 National Charter School Conference; apparently, charter school advocates thought that the misogynist rapper Pitbull was a fine choice for a keynote speaker that year.

To Pitbull's right is Fernando "Ferny" Zulueta; the two are partners in the SLAM Charter School in Miami. According to a series of reports by the Miami Herald, Zulueta runs the "richest charter school management firm" in Florida, Academica, a for-profit company with annual revenues of $158 million at the time of the reports. Zulueta also controls, along with his brother, Ignacio, more than $115 million of South Florida real estate that is exempt from property taxes as "public" schools.

Bruno's firm, Building Hope, is a major source of capital for Zulueta and other charter school profiteers. Bruno works essentially as a mortgage broker: he gathers up both governmental and private, non-profit funds -- both of which are subsidized by taxpayers -- and disburses those funds to firms like Zulueta's to be used for charter school construction.

Considering taxpayers both provide the capital (either directly through the government or indirectly through the tax code) and pay for students to attend these charter schools, this is a sweet deal for all involved. As I said back in 2013:

Also: while we can debate the relative merits of charter schools, one thing is quite certain: any notion that the charter industry is "all about the kids" needs to be dismissed, because there are adults who are clearly making a lot of money off of charter expansion. And it's not just people like the Zuluetas: Bruno himself, according to Building Hope's 2011 tax return, earned $388,709 in compensation and another $56,865 in benefits for a year's work. In contrast, the average Florida teacher salary is $45,723.

Tax forms for 2013 from Guidestar show Bruno made $386,576 in salary $57,668 in benefits that year. To be fair, Bruno likely made much more when he was a partner at one of the big accounting firms or running his own outfit. Still, this is a lot of money, and it allows for a very opulent lifestyle, even if you already have a good chunk in the bank.

Don't believe me? Let's ask Joe Bruno himself how life's been these past few years:

Joe Bruno and his wife, Cynthia Marini Bruno, have never been known to do something on a small scale.

The grand entrance to their Potomac estate starts when custom-designed, wrought-iron gates tipped in gold slowly glide open and reveal a spectacular fountain and stone steps reminiscent of Villa D’Este near Rome.

Inside, guests are welcomed into a breathtaking foyer with an ivory marble floor set with diamonds of multi-hewed marble and, overhead, a colorful two-story crystal chandelier hand-carried home from Venice.

“We’ve had some great parties in this house while our daughters were growing up and with our friends from the charter school world and from the Italian American groups we belong to,” says Joe Bruno, a Ferrari-driving entrepreneur who since 2004 has served as president of Building Hope, a nonprofit that provides business, technical and financial assistance to public charter schools. “There’s a story behind every painting, every collection and every piece of furniture.”

Oh, I'll bet there is, and I'm sure Bruno's "friends from the charter school world," like Zulueta and Chavous and Pitbull, just love hearing them. It sounds like the party never ends at Casa de Bruno:

Next door in the pub, which has lanterns created from 1800s London streetlamps, is a portrait of Joe Bruno as “The Godfather” complete with a rose in his lapel and a cat on his lap, a gift from Cynthia Bruno for his 50th birthday. Outside the pub, along a hall connected with multiple arches overhead, are treasures such as a Sicilian wedding chest from the late 15th century. The nearby powder room brings on a fit of mirth from the Brunos, who describe an evening when they were enjoying dinner outside and discovered that the full-size window in the powder room didn’t provide much privacy for their guests. Now a mirror fills part of the window, which has etched glass for extra protection. Overhead is another glittery chandelier, this one hand-carried by the Brunos from Rome.

Again, you don't live like this on $400K a year; Bruno obviously made his big bucks in his previous life. But it looks like every little bit helps:

In spite of their obvious love of their home, the Brunos plan to sell it to downsize. Besides, they have a near-replica of the property, although about half the size, in a condominium in Florida.

However will they manage?

Let me step back a minute from my snark and look at the big picture. A wealthy guy like Bruno is using taxpayer funds to help wealthy guys like Zulueta and Pitbull expand their charter school empires. Just like the wealthy Andre Agassi is using taxpayer funds to make money building charter schools. Just like the wealthy Vahan Gureghian uses taxpayers funds to run and expand his charter school chain. Just like the wealthy Andrew Tisch and Michael Milken count on taxpayer funds to expand their virtual charter business.

Apparently, this is just fine with folks like Kevin Chavous, the fourth chartery fellow in the picture above and one of the most prominent supporters of charter school expansion. It doesn't appear to bother Chavous in the slightest that taxpayers funds are being lavished on these reformy plutocrats; no, Chavous is far more concerned about the conflicted interests of those greedy, unionized teachers:

In essence, teachers are striking over salary issues, work hours and teacher evaluations. I agree that many of our teachers are underpaid and I have always respected the collective bargaining process and the right to strike, but I have to agree with the Mayor Rahm Emmanuel on the need to upgrade or elevate the discussion on what collective bargaining for teachers means in 2012 as opposed to 1962. 

In nearly every aspect of education in America, strangely, the interests of children are always secondary to the interests of adults. All of the major education decision-makers instinctively weigh adult considerations before thinking about the impact on kids and their academic achievement. Just as the auto industry in Detroit refocused their priorities from their workers' interests to improving the quality of their cars, we must also shift the paradigm to achieve effective outputs and deliverables for kids. [emphasis mine]

I have to wonder if this thought ever crossed Chavous's mind as he sat in Joe Bruno's Palace on the Potomac, sipping bubbly in the wine tasting room. 

As New Jersey's former Acting Commissioner of Education, Chris Cerf, famously said:

"This is a $650 billion sector, second only to health care."

Cerf left public service to pursue his own edu-preneurial dreams; he understands, as well as anyone, that education is the last vast, untapped part of the government that can be milked by privatizers and "sector agnostics." All it takes to shift monies away from middle-class teacher salaries and public school construction/refurbishment, and into the pockets of folks like Bruno and the rest, is a narrative of failure, spawned by standardized testing, and a smokescreen of righteous indignation from folks like Chavous to keep America from seeing what is actually being done with our tax money.

We are living in the age of the Education-Industrial Complex, surrounded by a new generation of Howard Hugheses, ready to reshape policy in an effort to maintain their lavish lifestyles. 

Everybody fine with that?

It's time to put kids first...

A Decade of Testing -- But Nothing's Changed

There are two things in eduction policy on which we should all agree:

- Poverty matters. The correlation between poverty and outcomes is indisputable, but that's only the beginning. We have more and more evidence of a causal link between economic disadvantage and student achievement. Children living in poverty are far less likely to have their developmental needs met, which affects their school work. There is even emerging evidence that poverty affects the development of the brain, and that the environmental stresses caused by poverty lead to hormonal changes that may affect academic outcomes.

- School funding matters. In the words of Bruce Baker:

On balance, it is safe to say that a sizeable and growing body of rigorous empirical literature validates that state school finance reforms can have substantive, positive effects on student outcomes, including reductions in outcome disparities or increases in overall outcome levels.[xi]

While some would like to put up a smokescreen and pretend that school funding is a secondary concern, the plain truth is that money does matter. You can't expect schools and teachers to be held accountable for their students' academic progress unless and until you provide those schools with the resources they need to realize that progress.

Now I understand that there are plenty of folks out there who will try to push back on these rather simple truths. But only the most intransigent won't admit that poverty doesn't have a profound affect on the lives of children, and that schools need adequate resources to do their jobs.

Are we all together on this? OK...

The latest argument for expanding our already expensive, intrusive, curriculum-narrowing testing regime is that somehow it is a civil right for children in disadvantage to take tests. Because without the vital data these tests provide, we'll never see the changes our society needs to make on behalf of children:

Our commitment to fair, unbiased, and accurate data collection and reporting resonates greatest in our work to improve education. The educational outcomes for the children we represent are unacceptable by almost every measurement. And we rely on the consistent, accurate, and reliable data provided by annual statewide assessments to advocate for better lives and outcomes for our children. These data are critical for understanding whether and where there is equal opportunity. [emphasis mine]

That's from the Leadership Conference's statement on behalf of eleven civil rights groups calling for the continuing use of standardized tests. I'd urge you to read the response to this statement from the Network for Public Education, including a ink to an extended essay by Jesse Hagopian. But let me add my own thoughts:

As these civil rights groups are no doubt aware, we have now had over a decade of standardized, high-stakes tests, mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The testing provisions of NCLB were retained and enhanced by the Race To The Top grants that came out of the 2009 stimulus package. It's not like this is new stuff; it's the current status quo, and it's been around a good long while.

But what has this decade of data done for the advocates of "better lives and outcomes for our children"? How has this decade of higher-stakes testing improved either child poverty rates or school funding fairness -- which are both critically important for advancing the academic achievement of disadvantaged children?

Let's start with childhood poverty:

Data from the US Census Bureau. Even though we know that poverty deeply affects school outcomes, the child poverty rate has increased substantially since implementation of high-stakes, federally mandated standardized tests.

And what about school funding? Let's take a quick trip around to a few states:

• New Jersey used to be a leader in funding equity; now the state is in retreat.
• New York has, yet again, underfunded its own school funding formula, leaving its district billions of dollars behind in accumulated shortfalls.
• Kansas continues to have a funding system that is "constitutionally inadequate."
• Louisiana continues to underfund schools in contradiction to its own task force's recommendations.
• Wisconsin and Alabama have seen enormous cuts to state aid for schools.
• Washington still hasn't come up with the revenues needed to provide an adequate education for the state's students.
• Illinois continues to implement an inequitable funding system.
• "Stealth inequities" run through funding systems in Illinois, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and North Carolina.
• Ohio has slashed state aid to schools
• South Carolina maintains an unconstitutional, inadequate, and inequitable funding system.

Once again, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, at least 30 states are providing less money to their schools than they did before the recession. Overall per pupil spending on education is down for the second year in a row. 

Go to the School Funding Fairness Report Card* for a national perspective on all this. From the summary:

• Most states have largely stagnant or declining funding levels, and vast disparities among states remain. In fourteen states, funding levels in 2011 were below 2007 levels, even without adjusting for inflation. There is over a $10,000 gap between the highest funded state (Wyoming) and the lowest (Idaho).
• The majority of states have funding systems with "flat" or "regressive" funding distribution patterns that ignore the need for additional funding in high-poverty districts. Recent trends show an increase in the number of regressive states and a decline in the number of progressive states. For example, Utah and New Jersey, both of which previously were among the most progressive states, experienced a significant erosion of equity.
• Most states experienced a decrease in overall revenue resulting in a declining financial base from which to fund schools; most states also further reduced effort by lowering the share of economic productivity dedicated to education. The largest reductions in effort were seen in Maine, Hawaii and Florida.

Let's recap:

- We know that childhood poverty and school funding have an enormous influence on the academic progress of children.

- The defenders of extensive standardized testing claim that we need these tests to improve the lives of children. However...

- Over the past decade, when the most extensive testing regime in American history was implemented, childhood poverty increased and school funding became even more inadequate and inequitable.

If the goal of all this testing was to create "better lives and outcomes for our children," there can be no doubt: it failed. Testing failed to reduce childhood poverty, and it failed to provide the resources schools need to educate children.

If civil rights groups need data to make the advocacy cases, there's a way to get that data without testing every child with a standardized instrument multiple times in every grade. Appropriate sampling techniques could give us all the data we need for research and advocacy and even accountability purposes.

But the fact that we have all the data we could possible need and things still haven't changed in America's schools suggests that testing isn't really the problem. With all due respect, I would suggest to these pro-testing civil rights organizations that their call for more tests is missing the larger point. Tests have their place, but they don't teach, they don't fund schools, and they don't lift kids out of poverty.

* The Report Card is authored by Bruce Baker (my advisor at Rutgers), along with Danielle Farrie and David Sciarra of the Education Law Center (who I have done work for). 

Hey Charter Schools: Get Your Own Week

This has been bugging me all week:

National Teacher Day dates back to at least the 1950s, although expressions of thanks to teachers are as old as apples. In 1985, the NEA's assembly voted to make the first week in May Teacher Appreciation Week.

This is a truly meaningful time for both teachers and parents. I've worked in several schools over the years, and the pot-luck lunches and gift baskets and cards and verbal "thank you's" go a long way toward boosting staff morale in schools. Considering the beatdown we teachers have been taking over the last few years, it really means a lot to have parents and students express their appreciation for our work.

But guess who else is celebrating this week? The charter schools.

The earliest reference I can find about an official Charter Schools Week is back in 2002, when Congress passed a resolution 10 years after the first charter was founded. That's well past the time when Teacher Appreciation Week was established.

Look, I don't have a problem with a Charter Schools Week per se. Again, I started my career in a charter school. I think they have their place, even if I think many in the charter industry are less than honest about whether they actually "do more with less." But, by all means, please go ahead and have your week; you're entitled to it.

But don't do it during our week.

Because this week was always for teachers, and there's no way the charter cheerleaders didn't know they were stepping all over our week when they started their week. Why else would they put their week on ours if not to be provocative? Or did they really think we wouldn't notice?

And what about their own staffs? Don't teachers in charter schools deserve their own special moment of appreciation, separate from any celebration of the entire charter movement itself? Why can't charter school teachers be honored as our fellow educators, separated from whatever activities the sector wants to do to promote itself?

Let me clean this up for the kids: putting Charter Schools Week at the same time as Teacher Appreciation Week is a jerk move.

Get your own week; we were here first.

A what move?

Education "Reform": The Wrong Conversation

Jennifer "Edushyster" Berkshire has been having a series of conversations with some of the titans of reforminess. As Peter Greene notes, Jennifer is just about the most charming (and consequently disarming) person you'd ever care to meet; it's not a surprise, then, that she's been able to rope in some of the biggest names in education "reform" for her blog posts.

Her latest sit-down is with one of the better-knowns of a new breed of "reasonable" reformer: Peter Cunningham, creator of Education Post. I'll confess I haven't followed Cunningham's site religiously, but near as I can tell he's running a farm system, bringing up a bunch of hot prospects to push back on folks like Jennifer and Peter and me and others who don't buy into the reformy argument.

Except that pushing back isn't the ultimate goal; instead, apparently, we're supposed to lay aside our policy differences on tenure and testing and charter schools, all for the sake of kids. Because, in the "reasonable" reformer's mind, there's just oodles of stuff we can all agree on.

Take, for example, school funding. As Cunningham himself has recently said:

Instead of a tiresome debate around accountability, we agree on simple measures of progress and shared responsibility among teachers, principals, superintendents and taxpayers.

The only way to achieve this vision in a decentralized system like ours is with a much bigger federal investment. Today, 1-2 percent of the federal budget goes to K-12 education, while 16-20 percent goes to defense, when you include the wars. But education is the real defense industry of the 21st Century so let’s talk about shifting a few percentage points from unwinnable wars and unneeded weapons programs toward public education.

Conservatives will insist we also talk about entitlement reforms that could shift dollars from the elderly to the young. We should all welcome that conversation, including those of us who no longer have kids in school and are busy tracking our retirement portfolios. Our collective interest trumps our self-interest.

Now that is a very interesting framework; it deserves some unpacking.

What Cunningham is engaging in here is an argument I called Jonathan Alter out on years ago. Alter coined this position the "Grand Bargain": teachers would have to be held accountable in a system that he didn't care to define specifically; in return they would get "a lot more pay."

As I said at the time, the details in these grand bargains are never fully spelled out -- yet we teachers are expected to agree to them, like saps at the worst used car dealer you could imagine. Ask the teachers in Newark, for example, how their "grand bargain" worked out.

Cunningham isn't down at the teacher level, but his argument runs parallel to Alter's: we'll shift more money into education, so long as we get to keep expanding segregating "choice" systems, and keep ranking teachers using innumerate test-based measures, and keep closing "failing" schools (even though that is itself a failed strategy -- and Cunningham, of all people, should know this).

But notice where Cunningham gets his money for this grand bargain: either the defense sector, or, as an outcome of a conversation "we should all welcome," the elderly. But there is no mention in Peter Cunningham's world (so far as I can find) of raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for better schools for children in economic disadvantage.

Thank goodness I'm not an old, crusty cynic. Because, if I were, I would point out that Education Post is funded by multi-billionaires Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, the Walton family, and an anonymous plutocrat -- the very people who have benefitted from our historical income inequity and our historically low taxation rate on the wealthy.

Thank goodness.

What I'll instead focus on is this idea of "shifting a few percentage points" of the federal budget to education. Remember, Cunningham was a part of the Obama administration's first term; he was there back in 2009 when the fight to get stimulus money into the economy was being waged. In Cunningham's own words, President Obama was a champion of funneling more money into the schools:

First of all, this argument overlooks obvious areas of agreement among reformers and unions. For example, most reformers join teachers in supporting more funding.

It’s worth remembering that the pro-reform Obama administration provided nearly $60 billion to save some 400,000 teaching jobs during the recession. This money came with no strings attached and dwarfed the administration’s “reform” initiatives. [emphasis mine]

See, there is common ground after all! Sure, us critics of "reform" may have a problems with the havoc that Race To The Top wreaked, what with its segregating charter schools and innumerate teacher evaluations and expansive and unnecessary testing regimes...

But RTTT was nothing compared to the massive amount of money the Obama/Duncan/Cunningham administration poured into education! $60 billion dollars! That's amazing...

Isn't it?

States are providing less per-pupil funding for kindergarten through 12th grade than they did seven years ago -- often far less. The reduced levels reflect primarily the lingering effects of the 2007-09 recession. At a time when states and the nation need workers with the skills to master new technologies and adapt to the complexities of a global economy, this decline in state educational investment is cause for concern.

Our review of state budget documents finds that:

• At least 30 states are providing less funding per student for the 2014-15 school year than they did before the recession hit. Fourteen of these states have cut per-student funding by more than 10 percent. (These figures, like all the comparisons in this paper, are in inflation-adjusted dollars and focus on the primary form of state aid to local schools.)
• Most states are providing more funding per student in the new school year than they did a year ago, but funding has generally not increased enough to make up for cuts in past years. For example, Alabama is increasing school funding by $16 per pupil this year. But that is far less than is needed to offset the state's $1,144 per-pupil cut over the previous six years. [emphasis mine]

Peter Cunningham wants us to believe that our neo-liberal president went to bat for expanded school funding and that, in exchange, we should support his plan of more tests, more charters, more closed schools, and more test-based teacher evaluations.

But the truth is more complex. Yes, President Obama did get that one-time shot of funds for schools; he then preceded to back off of a sustained increase in funding, leaving our nation's schools largely worse off fiscally than before the recession.

Overall per pupil spending in the US decreased both in 2011 and 2012 under the Obama administration. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't hear folks like Peter Cunningham making a big stink about this. Certainly, there wasn't as much ASCII spilled about funding over at Education Post as there was about how vitally important it is to implement Common Core.

I guess foisting new, "better" standards on schools is far more important than figuring out how to come up with the funds to actually meet those standards.

But if you happen bring up this incongruity, you're obviously someone who just doesn't care enough about the wee ones. At least, you don't care as much as Peter Cunningham:

So the real open question is, who are the real progressives?

Are they the ones protecting educational jobs for teachers or the ones trying to improve educational outcomes for children? Are they the ones insisting that better education cannot overcome the effects of poverty or the ones insisting that it must?

Are they the ones insisting that traditional public schools are the only option for kids or the ones fighting to give low-income parents more options?

How about this, Peter: are they the ones making excuses for a society that allows the largest child poverty rate in the developed world...

... while simultaneously overseeing an inequitable education funding system -- all while screaming for "accountability" from teachers and schools who do not have the funds necessary to educate all children?

Cunningham wants to have a "better" conversation about education.What he fails to understand is that he's having the wrong conversation to begin with. Because there are millions of people doing necessary jobs in our society who are living hand-to-mouth right now -- and a few more charter schools and a few more tests and a few more fired teachers aren't going to make their lives any better.

When Peter Cunningham is willing to stand up to his funders and look them square in the eye and say: "pay up," I'll answer his question about who the "real progressives" are. Until then, I can only dream about his problems:

EduShyster: Last question. StudentsFirst pays bloggers to promote its particular brand of education reform on social media. How is what EdPost does any different?

Cunningham: I don’t know that it is. We hire bloggers and we subsidize bloggers who are already out there and who we want to support or give more lift. I think it’s fine. As you know, I have all this money. I have to spend it. [emphasis mine]

Peter, you have all this money because they have all this money. And they have all this money because we don't get to tax them properly so we can fund schools and address childhood poverty.

Have you ever stopped to think about this?

Nope.

ADDING: As if on cue:

Today, teachers unions, and their mostly white middle-class allies, have an organized, well-funded effort underway to retreat from accountability and evade any responsibility for educating disadvantaged children. Their strategy is clear:

• Deny the public the data that shows which schools, teachers and students are struggling.
• Blame the parents for being poor.
• Deny those parents an opportunity to enroll their kids in schools of choice, some of which are doing a much better job preparing their kids for college and for life.
• And endlessly and relentlessly demand more resources without any real responsibility for spending wisely and getting results. [emphasis mine]

I'm sure that just as soon as the unions agree to every policy of Cunningham's, he'll get right on to explaining how he's going to provide those resources...

Any minute now...

One Newark: "Choosing" Segregated Schools?

Last week, I released a new brief at the NJ Education Policy Forum about One Newark, the one year-old school choice plan in New Jersey's largest city. I think this subject is important enough -- not just for Newark, but for education policy in general -- that it's worth my doing some wonk-to-English translating here to explain what I found.

A little background: last year, State Superintendent Cami Anderson, over the objections of many, implemented a "portfolio" system in Newark that calls for families to choose from a menu of both charter and district schools. The district's role in this system, called One Newark, is supposedly to be both a facilitator and an impartial arbiter, providing necessary information for families so they can make an informed decision.

As I wrote last year, economic theory suggests that consumers need high-quality information to negotiate a market, and that the state-run Newark Public Schools' role in One Newark should be to provide that information. The district does give both charter and district schools ratings under One Newark: "Great," "On The Move," and "Falling Behind."

The problem is that these ratings are tied to test scores, which have enormous biases against schools that serve more students who are in economic disadvantage, or have special education needs, or have more black students, or who even have more boys. Here's the breakdown on student characteristics and One Newark ratings:

This is, to my mind, the central question in whether One Newark will actually help improve the city's education system: What are Newark families actually "choosing"? Are they opting for "better" schools, or merely schools that have differing student populations?

Bruce Baker* has been on this for a while: see here and here. Given the unequal distribution of both students and resources across Newark's schools, it's both unfair and unhelpful to rate schools by test score outcomes. You can't ask a school with more students in disadvantage to compete with a school with fewer of those students, especially if they don't have similar resources.

And we shouldn't be surprised that schools with less challenging students and better resources are more "popular" in a choice system. In fact, given the preliminary release of the results of the initial One Newark applications, that seems to be exactly what happened. Here are the results released by NPS as reported at NJ Spotlight:

Most popular schools under One Newark are "Great" according to NPS. Again, that shouldn't surprise anyone, as the district has set itself up in the role of a sort of "Consumer Reports" supplier of information to families making school choices.

Let me add a caution here: NPS did not release all of its data on the relative popularity of One Newark schools, so we can't do a full analysis of how popularity correlates to student and school characteristics. This is a preliminary analysis, and the central conclusion I make in the brief is that we need to have all of the data on One Newark if we're going to make a full program evaluation.

That said: we have more than enough here to make an initial assessment. And what becomes clear is that the popular choices, spurred on by NPS, are likely leading to a school system that will be more segregated than it is already.

Here, for example, are the popular schools (marked in red) compared to the rest of the One Newark choices as ranked by their percentages of free lunch-eligible students:

See the trend? The popular schools under One Newark tend to serve fewer students in economic disadvantage. This becomes more obvious when looking at the percentages of students who qualify for reduced price lunch:

As both Bruce and I have explained time and again: in a district where nearly all students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, RPL is a marker of relative economic advantage. FL families have incomes at 130% of the poverty line or lower; RPL families are at 130% to 185% of the poverty line. That's surely economic disadvantage compared to families who don't qualify at all; however, RPL eligibility is relatively better than FL eligibility.

As the chart above clearly shows, popular schools under One Newark serve proportionately more students who are RPL eligible. This is true for both district and charter schools, which means we aren't seeing economic segregation just between charters and districts: we're seeing economic segregation across the entire system.

And it's not just economic segregation:

Stop and think about this graph for a moment and you'll realize just how striking it is. All of the popular schools have student populations whose proportion of black students is either above 80 percent or below 15 percent. There are quite a few schools in Newark that are relatively integrated, meaning they have a black student population between 20 and 80 percent. None of these schools, however, are "popular."

Further: all the "popular" charter schools have large proportions of black students, but all of the "popular" district schools have small proportions of black students. Those popular district schools are all in the North and East Wards, where there are relatively high concentrations of Hispanic and white families compared to the rest of the city. One Newark, then, appears to be reinforcing the patterns of racial segregation within the city itself.

To be clear: these patterns are not analogous to the segregation that occurs between New Jersey school districts. This is an intensely segregated state, and I don't mean to suggest for a second that One Newark is contributing at all to this level of segregation. Rather, One Newark seems to be reinforcing a pattern: segregated charter schools for black students, and segregated district schools for Hispanic and white students. Given the very real concerns about the abrogation of students' and families' rights at charter schools, this is a serious issue. 

As I said: it appears that test scores are driving the school choices Newark family are making. For example, here are the Grade 8 average scale scores on the NJASK English Language Arts test:

Clearly, popular schools get higher test scores. But these scores are strongly correlated to student characteristics, particularly economic disadvantage. What happens when we judge the schools not by their absolute performance, but by their "growth" in test scores?

SGPs are supposed to show how well a school performs on tests while acknowledging that students don't all start from the same place. The measures are still biased by economic disadvantage, but not as much as absolute test scores. Which means that a school with more students who quality for FL has a better chance of doing well when judged by SGPs than by mean scale scores.

Here we see that popular schools vary a lot more in their growth measures. That suggests that being "effective" -- doing well with students even if they are in economic disadvantage -- is less important for popularity than doing well by absolute measures. But, again, those absolute measures are correlated to student characteristics.

Let's state the issue plainly: "Popular" schools under One Newark may be superior on test scores measures, but they enjoy an advantage in enrolling fewer students who are economically disadvantaged. Is One Newark rewarding schools for their effectiveness, or for their differing student characteristics?

One more thing -- it's not just the students themselves who differ:

Here are the 13 popular schools, charter and district, with their percentage of black students and their suspension rates. Again, the popular charters have many more black students proportionately than the popular district schools. But note something else: the popular charters have higher suspension rates. North Star Academy, the most "popular" school in Newark, has the highest suspension rate in the city.

Are the parents clamoring to get into North Star aware of this? If so, do they think it is a good thing? Or do they see at as a price to pay for attending North Star? And why don't the popular district schools -- again, serving largely Hispanic and white students -- have those high suspension rates as well?

Another big difference is the experience of staff:

The popular charter have staffs with many inexperienced teachers. At North Star, again Newark's most popular school, more than 60 percent of the faculty has fewer than three years of experience.** Again, do the parents who chose North Star think this is a good thing? Or do they not care? Or do they care, but think staff experience isn't nearly as important as other factors -- including student population characteristics?

We don't know, and that's the critical point. We just don't know enough yet about how One Newark is going to continue to affect the city and its families to allow it to continue without fully analyzing the data from its first year. Which is why NPS needs to release its numbers immediately. From my report:

The questions require study over and above the analysis of data gathered in the administration of One Newark. Nonetheless, a complete release of the One Newark data would be an important first step in addressing these issues. To that end, NPS should release as full a set of data regarding One Newark applications as soon as possible.

Ideally, this data set would link every student to their demographic profile and locale (as designated by zip code) as well to all of the choices they and their families made under One Newark. If this is not feasible, NPS should, at the very least, release the complete list of preferred choices for each school, numbered 1 to 8, based on the One Newark application. This would allow for a more comprehensive analysis of the effects of One Newark on student sorting throughout the city. 

This is, to my mind, a perfectly reasonable request, and more than justified by my initial analysis. It's irresponsible to implement a system like One Newark without fully evaluating its effects.

Anderson has repeatedly said her goal is to create more "great schools" in Newark. While that's laudable, she should not be allowed to continue with her plans to create those schools unless and until she is willing to allow stakeholders to determine how her plans are affecting Newark's families and schools.

It's time for NPS and the state to be held accountable for what they are doing. Release the data, as soon as possible.

One Newark: buyer beware.

ADDING: As if on cue, Bruce has more on the very real issues of charter school expansion. The fact that the issues of charter proliferation fall on a racially segregated population of students and families in Newark is not a trivial concern.

Are we ever going to have a frank conversation about this?

* As always, Bruce is my advisor in the Ph.D. program at Rutgers GSE.

** I should point out that Phillip's Academy is an exceptional case. It's the only charter conversion in the state: it was a private school that converted to a publicly-financed charter school. It's reasonable to assume that at least some of the staff has significant experience teaching in a private school setting, even though their public school experience would be limited.