STEIGER REPORT: Nothing extraordinary about charter schools’ formula for success

(Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 17 March 2011)

TERRE HAUTE — Charter schools are different. I’ve been reading the websites of the 30 charter schools listed on the Indiana Department of Education’s website. I’ve also been reading the websites of a selection of conventional public schools. I wanted to see if I could sense the charters’ freedom from bureaucratic and regulatory restraint, the aspect of charters that is supposed to make them better than conventional schools.

What I found is irony. Apparently, sometimes more regulation is less regulation, as in the current Indiana Senate Bill 1. According to Dale Chu, Indiana’s assistant superintendent for policy, charter schools have not lived up to their potential, in part, because they are still required to follow too many rules but also because of a lack of accountability. SB1 will correct those shortcomings. More accountability means more regulation, doesn’t it?

What I found in my examination of the Indiana charter schools is a lot of rules and regulations. The student (and parent) handbooks are about 50 pages long, listing all the laws the charters must comply with. The handbooks from conventional schools were similar. Is part of regulatory relief freedom from laws and regulations that constrain schools from imposing stricter (more rigorous?) requirements on students and parents?

Both conventional schools and charters have dress codes. Many charters require uniforms, specifying acceptable colors, styles, and list stores from which to purchase them. Anderson Preparatory Academy, a “military-style academy” complete with a commandant instead of a principal, requires students to wear Air Force Academy-style uniforms. Uniforms could impose some “order” in schools (a common goal in charter schools). Order is needed when so many kids live in chaotic homes. So, why not? Why not free conventional schools from regulatory barriers to uniforms?

Many charter schools have longer school days and longer school years than conventional schools. KIPP Indianapolis College Preparatory requires students to arrive at 7:15 a.m. and remain at school until 5 p.m., Monday-Thursday, and until 2:30 p.m. on Fridays. There is school on some Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. KIPP summer school is also required. That is remarkable. The results? Fifty-two percent of their students passed the English and language arts ISTEP and 49 percent the Math section. So, why not? Why not fund conventional schools for full-day kindergarten, year-round school, 10-hour school days, or Saturday school?

Charter schools don’t just involve parents through volunteer opportunities, parent teacher conferences, newsletters, and serving on committees; they require commitment(s) from parents. Indeed, what I like most about Indiana’s charter schools is the up-front, in-your-face admission that the most important factor in a child’s education is parents. So parents sign a contract with some teeth.

At Andrew J. Brown Academy in Indianapolis, parents sign a “Commitment to Excellence” contract in which, among other things, they “will attend parent-teacher conferences, volunteer for school activities, and complete parent satisfaction surveys.” They will also “read school correspondence, check my child’s homework, and promptly notify the school if he/she will be absent.” There is also a homework commitment. Grades K-3 can expect homework four days a week, and grades 5 -8, five days a week. Expected time spent on homework per night varies from 15-30 minutes for kindergartners to 90-120 minutes for eighth-graders. “Tiger Moms” would approve!

At Galileo Charter School in Richmond, parents commit to providing 50 hours of family service to the school each year. BASIS Schools, Inc., manages charter schools (one organization Indiana hopes to attract to Indiana through SB 1). Their website is so littered with accolades it is hard to find any information about them, but I did find the “Master Teacher Campaign” which is how BASIS, in part, pays its teachers. BASIS asks “that families commit to contributing or raising $1,500 annually (or $125 a month over 12 months), to help support their child at BASIS.”

What kind of teeth do these contracts have? At Charter School of the Dunes in Gary, the line in bold above the parents’ signature line reads: “Returning this signed form to CSD is mandatory. Failure to do so by August 23, 2010, may result in expulsion of the student.” At KIPP Indy, this statement is just above the parent’s signature line: “Failure to adhere to these commitments can cause my child to lose various KIPP Indianapolis College Preparatory privileges and can lead to my child returning to his/her home school.” Wow! So if parents don’t do their part, their kids may not be able to continue. That has to help the school’s test scores, if they can get rid of students (and parents) who don’t follow rules. So, why not? What regulations stop conventional schools from holding students accountable for their lame parents?

Charter schools are not just involved in the three Rs, some include additional curricula, such as morals education (Andrew J. Brown Academy) or character education (Charter School of the Dunes). Disciplinary infractions of school behavior codes “may deem public service a necessary component of the disciplinary action” which “include, but is not limited to: repairing or cleaning property damaged as a result of the offense(s); participating in landscaping, gardening and/or other projects aimed at beautifying school property or the community; and/or providing services that improve the quality of life for community members.”

These schools require more than grades and test scores, they require students to be decent human beings. So, why not? What regulations stop conventional schools from forcing students to do community service for infractions of dress codes, tardiness, having a cell phone or not doing their homework?

Charter schools are smaller than conventional schools. They limit class size to 18 or 19. Conventional school classrooms may be as much as a third or more larger. So, why not? Why not budget enough money so conventional schools can limit class sizes, too?

Some charter schools feel like a local eatery — a lack of polish maybe, in an old building, but with a lot of local color. Indeed, emphasizing locality is what is unique about the Rural Community Academy in Graysville. But others seem “corporate,” like visiting the website of a chain restaurant. Several Indiana charters are “managed” by nonprofit charter school companies who offer “franchises.” BASIS Inc. is one; so are American Quality Schools and National Heritage Academies. I wonder how free the local schools are to vary from the “franchise agreement?” After all, “local control” is a cornerstone of the current push for education reform. Why not free conventional schools of “state control” and return them to the local control that has characterized American public education throughout its history, until recently?

I think charter schools have hit on the recipe for a good education: keep class sizes small, hold students and parents accountable for their actions, and get rid of those students who are problems. What could be simpler?

So, why not give the same freedom to conventional schools? Give conventional schools the same regulatory and bureaucratic freedom given to charter schools so they can create more enforceable expectations for student and parent behavior. Why not?

Ironic, isn’t it?

When schools are profit centers, wreckage will be the norm

(Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 12/12/10)

A recent poll of Indiana parents revealed that 80 percent are satisfied with their local schools. To listen to Gov. Daniels or Education Sup. Bennett talk about Indiana public schools, those parents must be mistaken, duped, or school teachers. This is a problem for radical education reformers. While parents might believe there are some problems with the “education system,” the vast majority are satisfied with their local schools. Those that are not, approximate the percentage of students and families underserved by our public schools. Herein lies the need to paint Indiana schools in as bad a light as possible.

Why? An easy answer is that the “take no prisoners” approach is about Gov. Daniels’ presidential aspirations and Sup. Bennett’s gubernatorial aspirations. While I think those factor somewhat into it, I think the reasons lie more in conservative ideology.

Don’t be fooled. While Gov. Daniels hasn’t pursued a socially conservative political agenda, avoiding those hot button issues has permitted him to pursue an otherwise very conservative agenda. He has cut spending, capped property taxes, privatized great swaths of government, with both positive and negative outcomes. Keep in mind that conservative ideology is about smaller government and lower taxes. The inevitable outcome of such an approach is a reduction in “public goods.” For Gov. Daniels significantly reducing the size of government requires altering the state’s relationship to education, both K-12 and higher education. States have been getting out of the higher ed business for years. Tuition rises as state support declines. If current trends continue, public universities will probably be put up for sale or lease to education management companies (think the toll road in Northern Indiana). If conservative ideology continues to prevail, the same will be true of K-12 schools.

It’s easy to see the coordinated and persistent propaganda campaign against public education beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan and his message of government is the problem, not the solution. The aim of that campaign is to undermine public support for public education.

And conservatives are impatient. NCLB and Indiana’s PL 221, brought us more school ratings. The performance standards are ultimately unreasonable eventually leading all schools to fail and/or it will lead to “cheating” and the cheating scandals will help fuel the undermining of the public’s support for public education. Yet, despite many years of annual reporting in the papers, this effort to undermine public education has not translated to great reductions in individual’s support for their local schools and transfers “out” of failing schools have not happened the way the radical conservative reformers hoped. So, in response, Indiana will assign a single letter grade to each school.

We do not give a student one letter grade for their entire academic performance. Rather they receive a grade for each subject or skill. As has been reported in these pages, sometimes schools are struggling, “failing,” in a particular area. Why not issue a more detailed report card, actually providing better information from which parents could judge their school’s performance. “Better” information does not serve the underlying goal.

The conservative vision for public schools, if not ending them, is public finance of private schools. It will start with vouchers, and then the funding for vouchers will shrink, either absolutely or relatively, private schools will charge tuition beyond the value of the vouchers and the inevitable inequities in a private school market for education will help to ensure the reproduction of current social inequalities. This is the model for public universities and what has transpired over the last 30 years. The current public school system doesn’t eliminate social inequality, it reproduces current social inequalities, but with some notable progress that is less likely under a mostly for private school system. Social inequality relative to a public good is a moral problem, but not for a private good. By decoupling education from government, the moral imperative to address social inequalities in education, which is where so much of the problems lie, is eliminated. Conservatives don’t see social inequality as a problem, it is just the inevitable outcome of the market. In fact, it is a necessity.

When schools are profit centers, there will be mom and pop versions, franchise versions, Wal Mart versions, “exclusive country club versions,” and out of business versions. Just as we see one company buyout another one and strip it of its assets, leaving wreckage in its wake, that will be a regular occurrence in a future where education is a private, rather than, public good.

Are teachers not part of the learning equation?

Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 12/5/10

TERRE HAUTE — “A teacher’s influence on student achievement scores is 20 times greater than any other variable — including class size and student poverty.”

This is a quote taken from Gov. Mitch Daniels’ “Legislative Priorities” (www.in.gov/gov/files/112310slides.pdf). It didn’t read to me as something he or even one of his staffers wrote. So, I donned my sleuthing persona, and quickly found the quote repeated in many sources, the Houston Chronicle, some foundations, eventually though I traced the quote to Kati Haycock, the director of the Education Trust, an education policy advocacy group.

The Education Trust is a fairly mainstream group. They are funded by such groups as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and others. I suspect Kati Haycock would smile at some of Indiana’s proposed education reforms and frown at others.

Haycock is not a statistician. Among other things, she edits an in-house journal. She, I think, is making a rhetorical claim, based upon the research of William L. Sanders, who is a skilled statistician/econometrician from Tennessee, who created the Tennessee Valued Added Assessment System (TVAAS). This is an assessment and accountability system ushered into Tennessee under Gov. Lamar Alexander in the mid-1980s. In fact, the model underlying the assessment system is known as the “Sanders Model.”

Many of the claims being made by Gov. Daniels and Education Superintendent Bennett stem, I think, from Sanders’ claims. And he makes some pretty remarkable, albeit controversial, claims. Among them is that class size, heterogeneity of the classroom, social class and other commonly found influences in other research are not important. It is as though once students enter the classroom only the influence of the teacher matters. What I find interesting is that there is a lot of sophisticated research using data from Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Kentucky.

Tennessee may have the best data, but I can only find research using TVAAS data by Sanders. Essentially, the creator of the system is the only one who has evaluated the system. (Perhaps the databases I use, which located Sanders’ articles, just don’t find articles published by others using TVAAS data.) Maybe Tennessee won’t grant access to any other researchers? Sanders’ claims cannot be tested by other scholars if the data is not made available.

The value-added model of assessment makes sense for students. To use the same model to assess teachers raises some questions. Any occupation can be divided into quintiles based on productivity, job satisfaction or height. No matter how well the bottom quintile (20 percent) does, they are still low-performing relative to the top. And if you eliminate the bottom quintile and redistribute, there will still be a lowest quintile.

What we need to do, if we are going to adopt value-added assessment to evaluate teachers, is to establish a minimum acceptable absolute performance, not a relative one.

There are other troubling findings in this literature. There is no observable teacher characteristic that consistently correlates with student outcomes. It doesn’t matter the quality of the school a teacher attended, it doesn’t matter how well they scored on any teacher licensure exam, their own SATs, how experienced they are, whether they have a master’s degree, nothing. The idea that good teachers are born, not made, is the inevitable conclusion.

They burn out quickly, however. Research consistently shows that except for the first 10 to 15 years, a teacher’s experience is generally negatively related to student achievement, especially in math.

Superintendent Bennett uses sports metaphors all the time. The research on teacher experience and student achievement suggests this one: Teachers are like NFL quarterbacks. They improve through the first few years, hit a plateau, and then decline. Time to draft a new one.

All of Tennessee’s students take the ACT. In 2010, not one of the areas ACT covers shows Tennessee’s students exceeding national averages in readiness for college. Fewer students in Indiana take the ACT, but Indiana’s students exceed the national averages in readiness for college in each category.

There is not a lot of research on home-schooled students. What research I found shows that home-schooled students do better on standardized achievement tests than formally schooled students. Who home schools? Married couple families with one or two children, highly educated, single-earner families in the mid-$70,000s, and either Mom or Dad stay home to exclusively teach their kids. Interestingly, those parents who happen to also be certified teachers don’t do as well as the students of non-certified teachers. So maybe teachers are not the most important factor; perhaps it is parents’ emphasis on education, small class size, and highly tailored curricula.

Note: Steiger is married to a public school teacher.