Monthly Archives: August 2015

The AFT vs. Science

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Statement of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall:

Rather than miraculous, the gains are similar to those in districts that adopt cost-effective, community-oriented changes like offering universal, high-quality prekindergarten or lowering class sizes.

Education researcher, Doug Harris, on New Orleans reforms:

We are not aware of any other districts that have made such large improvements in such a short time… The [New Orleans achievement] effects are also large compared with other completely different strategies for school improvement, such as class-size reduction and intensive preschool. This seems true even after we account for the higher costs.

The AFT took Doug’s study, interpreted it to mean the exact opposite of what it actually said, and then wrote a press release.

What makes me sad: the AFT represents many of the nation’s best public school science teachers.

What can we learn from the last day of enrollment in New Orleans?

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My piece on this subject is over at the 74. Read it here.

You’ll notice that the tone and style is a little different than the writing on this blog.

I prefer writing as I do on this blog, but this seems not to appeal to many readers.

Here is something I said in the piece that I don’t think we talk about enough:

By drawing on our country’s deepest values and skills – entrepreneurship, problem solving, and perseverance – New Orleans educators delivered the greatest achievement gains of any city in our country’s recent history.

We should think more deeply about aligning our educational reform efforts to our nation’s history, culture, and assets.

Here’s something I did not say in the piece (but hinted at) that I don’t think we talk enough about: by the time a school needs to be transformed or closed, thousands of people have already turned their back on the institution. The business community and political elites have focused their attention elsewhere. The district has often given up on making any real changes at that school. Families have chosen not to enroll there. Educators have avoided working there.

So it feels a little off to blame the state for the ultimate takeover or closure.

One last note: creating successful high schools in cities with high poverty rates is incredibly difficult work. Students come in very, very far behind and they are dealing with extremely difficult social lives.

A few mistakes by anyone involved can begin a cycle of events that can lead to tragedy. Violence is too common.

The work of the students and educators in these schools is worthy of our greatest admiration.

Rereading Kurt Vonnegut

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Once upon a time on Tralfamadore there were creatures who weren’t anything like machines. They weren’t dependable. They weren’t efficient. They weren’t predictable. They weren’t durable. And these poor creatures were obsessed by the idea that everything that existed had to have a purpose, and that some purposes were higher than others. These creatures spent most of their time trying to find out what their purpose was. And every time they found out what seemed to be a purpose of themselves, the purpose seemed so low that the creatures were filled with disgust and shame. And, rather than serve such a low purpose, the creatures would make a machine to serve it. This left the creatures free to serve higher purposes. But whenever they found a higher purpose, the purpose still wasn’t high enough. So machines were made to serve higher purposes, too. And the machines did everything so expertly that they were finally given the job of finding out what the highest purpose of the creatures could be. The machines reported in all honesty that the creatures couldn’t really be said to have any purpose at all. The creatures thereupon began slaying each other, because they hated purposeless things above all else. And they discovered that they weren’t even very good at slaying. So they turned that job over to the machines, too. And the machines finished up the job in less time than it takes to say, “Tralfamadore.”

That’s from the Sirens of Titans, which I just reread, along with Cat’s Cradle. Recently, I’ve been on science fiction kick, which has also included some Asimov, Clarke, Banks, and C.S. Lewis.

Here is what I most enjoy about Vonnegut:

1. He makes me feel like we’re in on the same joke: humans don’t really understand how the universe works, and much of what we’ve learned hints at the fact that our primary way of interacting with the world (conscious reflection immersed in free will and time) is probably pretty wrong. Much of his writing is just highlighting the absurdities of our condition (see excerpt above).

2. While telling tales within this joke, he accurately chronicles the worst of human behavior (descriptions of war in Slaughter House Five), as well as what might be the worst of future human behavior (descriptions of human induced existential threats in Cat’s Cradle).

3. While telling tales within this joke, he often narrates touching relationships that are based upon acknowledgement of human insecurities. At times, he points to the idea that love is the only real hope of meaning we have (while generally acknowledging the paradox that meaning as we understand probably does not make sense in world without free will or time).

___

If you caught me after a few drinks, and you asked me: what is the purpose of public education?

I might answer: to create as many Kurt Vonnegut’s as possible.

The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker vs. Science

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There are things we do not know: for example, can the New Orleans education reforms work in other cities at scale?

There are things we do know: for example, that scientific research shows that the New Orleans education reforms signficanlty increased student achievement.

____

Here is what Doug Harris, an education researcher, found when studying the New Orleans education reforms:

For New Orleans, the news on average student outcomes is quite positive by just about any measure. The reforms seem to have moved the average student up by 0.2 to 0.4 standard deviations and boosted rates of high school graduation and college entry. We are not aware of any other districts that have made such large improvements in such a short time… Given the large improvements in average outcomes in a district that is almost entirely low-income and minority, and the mixed evidence on other equity indicators, it would be hard to say the outcomes from the New Orleans reforms are inequitable relative to what came before them.

Here is what Andrea Gabor, a journalist writing in the New York Times, found when studying writing about the New Orleans reforms:

For outsiders, the biggest lesson of New Orleans is this: It is wiser to invest in improving existing education systems than to start from scratch. Privatization may improve outcomes for some students, but it has hurt the most disadvantaged pupils.

Here is what Brenton Mock, a journalist writing in the Atlantic, found when studying writing about the New Orleans reforms:

This system-wide charter-ization of public schools in New Orleans is a project that has yet to be replicated at the same scale in any other American city. So far, the experiment has produced mixed results at best.

Here is what Malcolm Gladwell, a journalist writing in the New Yorker, found when studying writing about the New Orleans reforms:

Ten years in, the results of the experiment have been mixed. Test scores have not risen anywhere near as much as had been hoped, and dozens of problems have had to be solved on the fly.

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I don’t really know what to say anymore. John White summoned up the energy to respond more gracefully than myself. You should read his piece.

All I can do is articulate a third category of knowns and unknowns:

There are things many journalists do not know but we do know: for example, that New Orleans education reforms increased student achievement.

Teachers Could Have it So Much Better If….

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Two studies just came out on professional development: one by TNTP and one on Leading Educators via Rand Corporation.

Big shout to TNTP for focusing attention on an extremely important issue and to Leading Educators for having the discipline to formally evaluate their work. Also, the CEOs of both orgs (Dan at TNTP, Jonas at Leading Educators) were generous enough to review and give feedback on this post (all thoughts below are mine only).

Highlights and analysis below.

The highlights from TNTP’s report, which studied three districts and one CMO:

  • Professional development in the three districts did not lead to significant gains in teacher effectiveness.
  • Professional development in the CMO improved teacher performance at much higher rates.
  • In the districts, most teacher improvement occurs within the first few years of teaching and then most teachers plateau in performance (before becoming very effective). See first graphic above.
  • In the CMO, teachers continued to improve overtime. See second graphic above. Keep your eyes on the blue bars.
  • A lot of money is being spent (and in many times wasted), with districts spending an estimated 18K per teacher on professional development, and the CMO in the study spending 33K.

The highlights from study on Leading Educators, which covered fellows in New Orleans (nearly all in charter schools) and Kansas City (nearly all in district schools):

  • The early findings are promising but mixed, and overall do not yet conclusively demonstrate that the program has affected student achievement.
  • There was leadership and management skill attainment across the board to a statistically significant positive degree.
  • With the exception of the positive impacts among fellows (Leading Educator participants) who teach math in New Orleans, the student achievement findings are generally inconsistent across different analysis.
  • The New Orleans math results, depending on which methodology is used, roughly equate to the benefit that students experience from attending a highly effective urban charter school.
  • There is some suggestive evidence of beneficial program impacts among mentees (teachers supported by Leading Educators fellows) in Louisiana, in two of four subject areas.

Major Takeaways:

Professional development only seems to lead to student achievement increases in charter schools!

This appears to be the major takeaway of both studies, though I haven’t seen much commentary on this point. But in both studies positive achievement effects were only found in the charter sector. In the TNTP report, it is unclear whether the teacher growth was a direct results of professional development (in that not all teachers who received PD got better). This may because even good PD will not work for everyone, or that other factors (hiring, org culture, etc.) were really driving the gains.

Both TNTP and Leading Educators hold hope that this can change.

In talking with the CEOs of both organizations, each expressed a belief that effective professional development can occur in districts.

My guess is that gains in district professional development are attainable but will be very modest.

I am not a district nihilist. I think reports such as those put out by TNTP, as well as support provided by groups such as Leading Educators, can increase district performance at the margins. I just think these improvements, as we see with most other district improvements, will be small and pale in comparison to the gains of effective charter schools.

I think we are more likely to scale effective charters than we are to see major gains in districts.

 A common retort to the aforementioned analysis is: “well, districts are where he kids are at.” In other words, it’s better to work for small gains in districts rather than large gains in charters because charters only serve ~5% of public students in our country. This is the wrong way to think about it! The question you need to ask is: is it more likely that we see can achieve major gains in districts or scale highly effective charters?

Both strategies have steep odds against them.

But I think it is more likely that we will be able to scale effective charter schools.

As such, I think focusing our efforts on charter growth is the best way to increase the effectiveness of professional development.

How I Responded on Email Chain About Rewriting NCLB

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I was recently on an email chain where very smart people were debating the NCLB rewrite.
The debate had to do with whether or not the retreat from federally mandated accountability was a  good thing.
See below for my exact response:
_________
Some thoughts:
  1. The evidence on NCLB (annual testing, data transparency, etc.) is ok but not amazing. I think the upper bound I’ve seen is .2 effects over 6 year period.
  2. We don’t yet have rigorous data on teacher evals.
  3. We do have rigorous evidence on urban charter: ~.1 effects over a 3 year period (with the sector rapidly getting better each year – effects doubled over a couple year period).
  4. And now we have rigorous evidence on NOLA charter district reforms: ~.4 effects over a 5 year period; of course under unique circumstances.
All this leads me to believe (not with absolute confidence!):
  1. The federal charter program may end up being the most important federal education intervention. Tripling it from $250M to $750M will probably do more good for low-income kids than nearly every other federal program.
  2. The testing, accountability, eval movement will likely deliver real and modest gains. But it will never change the game. I am highly skeptical that mediocre school systems get excellent due to these backend levers.
  3. The 20-50 year game, I think, is about transitioning our public operated system to a publicly regulated but non-profit operated system + better teacher pipelines + tech.
  4. This is the .5-1 standard deviation game. It’s 75% supply and at most 25% accountability.
Just some thoughts. Obviously incredibly complicated. If there was a clear answer this many smart people wouldn’t be arguing about it.
-N
_________
You can hear clear undertones of the Allure of Order and the New Orleans theory of change.
I view it is as a near impossibility that accountability will ever deliver transformational results.
I wish our national policy conversation was 100x more about supply and 10x less about standards and accountability.

From the Comments: More Thoughts on Charity

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Had some thoughtful responses (blog comments, ) to my last post on giving. I tried to tackle them below. Very complicated questions so consider the below speculative…

Is your line of work more important than your giving? [John Danner via , Ryan Hill via comments]

First, I’ll just say that being in a “good” line of work is no reason not to give. Most Americans can afford to give 10% of their income to charity, and given that this can save the lives of real people, all of us should donate. So I don’t have a ton of sympathy for not giving because you determine your career choice gives you an out. Not that folks were making this argument, but it’s worth remember that “should you give?” is a question independent of “what should you do?”

That being said, one’s line of work is important. But I think it’s not as easy as one might suppose to determine what lines of work are more important than others. Some thoughts:

1. Much of the commentary I hear on this question greatly ignores the fact that the market prices a lot of contributions fairly well. As a starting point, it’s worth understand if people will pay for whatever it is you are producing. People who make a lot of money often provide societal value. So if you’re trying to figure out what to do, I’d start there.

2. Of course, this is not always the case. Jobs in areas with major positive externalities may be under compensated, especially if these jobs involved public good, merit goods, or technological innovation. I just think a lot of people convince themselves that their jobs fall in this category when they probably don’t.

3. If I had to come up with my best answer here, it would be to: (a) try and identify existential threats to humanity where (b) there are feasible solutions that humans can work on and (c) your skills provide a significant value-add over and above the current set of people working to develop and enact these solutions.

Should you count taxes as part of your giving? [Rob Reich via ]

I said it’s ok to count 10% of your taxes as charitable giving. I based this on the fact that roughly 10% of our taxes goes directly to support people living in poverty.

Rob said this shouldn’t count.

I’m not so sure. What if the government taxed me at 80% and gave 90% of this to the poor. Under this regime, I would not feel much of an obligation to give to charity.

So I’m not sure why I should’t incorporate tax based government transfers into my giving calculation.

Should you save now and give later? [Ryan Hill via comments]

Yes, with some sound investing you can increase you giving capacity. But we don’t know what problems will exist in the future, nor how much it will cost to solve these problems.

But right now we do know that many people are dying for reasons that can be solved for not a lot of money.

So long as a few hundred dollars can save someone’s life, it seems like we should be giving rather than investing.

Of course, if you have strong reasons to believe that in the future it will be cheaper to save someone’s life, then perhaps you should invest. I just haven’t seen evidence that this will be the case.

Is giving a cop out? [Ripper via comments]

See this . Basically, if you job and lifestyle are based on a tax regime that promotes income inequality, an economy that is based on environmental degradation, and so forth… well, who cares if you give a little bit of your income away after you make your money off this corrupt system?

First, I think it’s worth noting that global inequality is decreasing and global absolute wealth is rising. The world’s poor are significantly benefitting from the current global economic regime.

That being said, I’m very sympathetic with the environmental part of the argument. As such, working in this field (either in terms of policy change or technological innovation) may in fact be one of the best things you can do (if you can add real value). But this then just reverts back to the line of work question…

So, yes, do try and understand the system you’re a part of and perhaps helping maintain, but do so objectively. There are both incredibly good (rising global wealth) and bad (environmental degradation) parts of this system.

Give and work accordingly.