It’s the start of a new year, a time for considering the future and making plans accordingly. For those of us who work with the public education system in one way or another, it might be helpful to reflect on how the system might change over the next several years so we’re ready for it.
Consider how the following major trends are going to shape public education in the future:
More kids, different kids
- According to NCES, “school enrollment is projected to set new records every year from 2006 until at least 2014, the last year for which NCES has projected school enrollment.” We’re currently at 55.1 million, and will creep up to a projected 56.7 million in 2014.
- In the year 2000, whites made up 69.9% of the total US population, with all other groups comprising 30.1%. We are on a track towards an even split by the year 2050, with whites comprising 50.1% of the population, and all other groups making up 49.9% (see here). Due to fertility rates, diversification is happening more quickly in the schools: by 2020 approximately 40% of school-aged children will be from minority groups, and by 2025 we can expect to see that the child population will comprise 15.8% blacks, 23.6% Hispanics, 1.1% American Indian/Native Alaskans, 6.9% Asian/Pacific Islanders, and 52.6% whites.
- In addition to racial/ethnic diversity, it is reasonable to assume that the special education population will continue to grow, given that it has seen steady growth from 8.3% in 1976/77 to today’s 13.7% (see here).
NCLB
- While the particulars of No Child Left Behind may change somewhat during the reauthorization process, the fundamental concepts on which it is built – equity (educating every child) and accountability – are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Advancing these two concepts in tandem, by requiring that achievement reports include disaggregated data (so we can track the performance of each subgroup), means that we can’t mask or hide our progress.
- It’s a major change because, while we’ve always talked about the importance of educating every child, we haven’t really done it. The gap between different student groups has been with us for decades, and has not changed significantly for quite some time. Another indication of our lip service in this area is the difference in dropout rates by race/ethnicity, with recent calculations indicating that 75% of white students graduate high school, but only 50% of African-American and 53% of Hispanic students do so.
School Finance
- Average per-student expenditures have increased dramatically in the past 40 years, from $3400 in 1965 to $8745 in 2001 (in constant dollars). This almost certainly cannot continue.
- In the short term, revenues will be pressed by the subprime mortgage crisis: state and local education funding is fueled in part by property taxes, and some experts predict a 15% peak-to-trough adjustment in home prices in the near term. Twenty states are already having to revise their 2008 budgets as a result.
- In the long term, we’re about to see a record number of people moving into retirement age: in 2000, we had 35.1 million people ages 65+, or 12.4% of the population; in 2050, we’ll have 86.7 million in that age group, or 20.6% of the population. These are people who were formerly paying into the system (income taxes), and are now going to be pulling out (in services). And this powerful voting group is less likely to support education funding.
- The rise in retirement will fuel an increase in the costs of Medicaid to the states, which shoulder approximately 43% of the cost of this program. Medicaid currently accounts for 22% of state spending (up from 8% in 1985), and recently surpassed K-12 education as the most expensive item on state ledgers. And it’s growing at 6% annually, twice the rate of inflation.
- While revenues are about to be pressed, expenditures are set to grow significantly. Education is a manpower-intensive business, with 6 million employees currently in the system. First, consider that states have not set aside enough money to cover the retirement benefits of employees (current retirement programs are underfunded by $731 billion). Then consider the rising cost of health insurance, coupled by the fact that many teachers receive full coverage not only for themselves, but for spouses and children as well. As one administrator said, the rising cost of health insurance “is the single most important issue facing districts nationwide."
What does all this mean? It means we’re going to have more kids than we’ve ever had before, and that the population will increasingly be made up of the kids we haven’t done a great job with in the past. We’re making a commitment to teach them all, and have a system in place to see whether we’re actually doing that, so it’s going to be a lot tougher to gloss over any shortcomings. And this is all happening at a time when budgets will either stagnate or even shrink due to major economic forces.
Thoughts?
Time to revisit Project Follow Through.
ReplyDeleteIn earnest.
"Changes come about when there is a crisis—a real crisis. Until crises occur, we rape our natural resources, blindly consume plastics, and pursue creature comforts. We also continue to support an educational system that is next to worthless. [...]
ReplyDeleteWhat is needed to create a productive response is a mobilized effort that points the finger at the law, the colleges, the districts, the educational publishers, the state and federal funding agencies, and the unions—in other words, at the entire system.
[snip]
Perhaps the most frustrating thought is that today—now—we could create incredibly smart children if we were permitted to deal with teachers and children directly, without the mediation of many agencies. The available funds are more than adequate to do the job. But the plan would see the school district as the training agency until the colleges changed and became trainers of technicians. It would see coordinated schedules, objectives, and heavy training of supervisors (with only expert teachers being elevated to higher positions).
Without support, however, we will have to accept the rape of the schools as a horrible crime that has no punishment."
Siegfried Engelmann
1982
Advocacy for Children
An absolute must-read for people seriously interested in Project Follow Through and its implications is this book by Cathy Watkins:
ReplyDeleteProject Follow Through: A Case Study of Contingencies Influencing Instructional Practices of the Educational Establishment
AVAILABLE HERE:
Watkins book
It's not only "about" PFT, but a cogent and disturbingly apposite analysis of why it failed to change instructional practice, and what we can do to shift "contingencies of reinforcement" (that's the rewards that people in the system are working for) to favor empirically validated practice. It's not a long book, and not overly technical, but trenchant and hard-hitting.
For free, here's an article Watkins wrote on a similar theme:
Follow-Through:Why Didn't We?
and related piece, also excellent, by Doug Carnine
Carnine article
Why Education Experts Resist Effective Practices (And What It Would Take to Make Education More Like Medicine)
Choice.
ReplyDeleteSchool enrollment is 55 million students.
ReplyDeleteCurrent number of employees is 6 million.
Thus, students per employee is just over 9.
"Thus, students per employee is just over 9."
ReplyDeleteThis is about right. But only about 50% of the school employees are teachers, so we get 18:1. Then consider that some of these teachers are teaching much smaller classes (think remedial reading, or special ed) and most students will be in classes of ~25 students per teacher.
-Mark Roulo
Brett!
ReplyDeleteI still haven't posted your report!
aaaauuugghh
students per employee is just over 9
ReplyDeletewow
Brilliant post. I'm going to put it in the "Greatest Hits" thread.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to be interested to see how baby boomers vote on school budgets, etc.
ReplyDeleteAre we going to be even less likely to vote "more money for the schools" than the generations before us?
I'm thinking it's possible.
I'm ordering the Watkins book.
ReplyDeleteHave you read Paul Peterson's editorial in the new Education Next?
ReplyDeleteHe opposes accountability to choice - I'd never seen accountability and choice set against each other in that way.
He says accountability hasn't worked, which I'm inclined to believe. I think (hard to say without more...data? analysis?) accountability may have made matters worse around here (walk to the middle, etc.)
Not sure, though.
I'm going to get a post up about nominally high-performing districts & accountability (thanks for reminding me that I wanted to write an accountability section).
If the hypothesis is that it can't go on, then I don't believe it. I'd like to, but many public schools already cost more per student than smaller private schools, where there is less economy of scale.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the solution is seen on a statistical basis, rather than an individual basis, then the solution will continue to focus on small, relative improvements towards a minimal goal. The goal becomes progress, not good education.
This is not about research, science, or best practices. It's about assumptions. Our public schools are "High Performing and Improving" even though they use Everyday Math. As I've mentioned before, years ago I told a couple of members of our school committee that they should hand out the Core Knowledge series of books, "What your first (second, third,..) grader needs to know", and tell parents that that is NOT the education their children will receive.
"My hope is that we’ll see institutions across the country throw open their doors and welcome community members in as true partners in the learning process. This approach ensures a focus on outcomes that the community wants to see, and is the best opportunity for generating significant levels of support – the support schools need to make up for coming shortfalls."
"true partners in the learning process"?
Fat chance. Schools are pretending to do this now, and town support won't lower costs. It would just make them happier to pay more. What if a community outcome is to pay less for education?
"a focus on outcomes that the community wants to see"
This should be a focus on what parents want to see. Education has to become individual and the only way to do that is to allow parents to choose where the money goes. I don't want anyone else deciding on my outcome, and NCLB is not a good enough outcome.
They have to drop the "public" from public (statistical) education and change it to individual education. The monopoly has to go. That's the only way to influence the cost of education (maybe) and give parents the outcomes they want. I won't hold my breath.
"He says accountability hasn't worked, ..."
ReplyDeleteWhat could possibly be wrong with accountability???
Perhaps he is mixing it up with something else, like education based on consensus (low expectations).
"Excellence Reformers Need to Make a Choice By Paul E. Peterson"
ReplyDelete"To its credit, the excellence movement halted the steady slide in American education then taking place. But reformers did better at identifying what they wanted to achieve than defining a strategy for getting there. Instead of working out a battle plan, they wandered back and forth between two contradictory goals—choice and accountability."
I can't ever say that I've ever heard of an "excellence movement".
I see that Peterson defines choice and accountability as contradictory goals. Has anyone else ever heard of this view?
Of course, choice means accountability to the parents, but Peterson seems to be talking as if we've all heard of this conflicting goal. Did he make this up? This is not helpful.
"On the one side, reformers sought to introduce more competition into American K–12 education through charter schools, vouchers, and tax credits. Andy Smarick (see “Wave of the Future”) carries that idea to its logical conclusion by calling for the revamping of urban education through a comprehensive system of charter schools that go well beyond what even Paul Vallas is attempting in post-Katrina New Orleans."
My understanding (from the Regan years) was that vouchers and choice was virtually DOA. The best that could be done was the charter school idea, where state public education maintained at least some control. In our state, that means that the state educational commission get the authority to accept or reject charter schools. (They have to be for students who don't do well in public schools; students they are glad to get rid of.) It doesn't matter now because they've gotten the state legislators to place a moratorium on charter schools.
Peterson talks about the evolution of acountability (I'll call it NCLB) over choice as a conscious decision. I see it more as what was politically doable. But you can't define NCLB as "accountability" and choice as something else. Regan would have taken choice over NCLB any day. The problem at that time (and it was my feeling too), was that this meant partial vouchers that would not help many of the kids who needed the most help.
Charters are a good solution, but they have ended up playing a minor role in the current NCLB world. Public education might go kicking and screaming into NCLB, but they won't tolerate the loss of power (money) that charter schools bring. Our state and many schools dealt with the demands of NCLB in a proactive fashion. The state public education administration defines the standards, the test, the grading, and the proficiency cutoffs (low). As I said before, our schools are "High Performing and Improving", but they still use Everyday Math. They still require large amounts of parental and/or tutoring support to get a quality education. In this sense, accountability (NCLB) has failed.
However much public schools complain about NCLB, it's nothing compared to how they complain about charter schools. They claim that it's "their" money. Our schools claim that because of their "High Performing" rating, no child should be allowed to go to a charter school. It's one thing to set up charter schools for kids who can't make it in public schools, but the public schools do not want charter schools that take away the good (easy to teach) students.
NCLB over choice was not something a group (excellence movement?) selected. NCLB evolved because it was the only way to get any sort of accountability.
"Yes, choice schools need to be held accountable. But that is best accomplished not through tighter, one-size-fits-all regulation, but through sensible performance measures and a dynamic marketplace for education in which new schools challenge the dominance of decaying ones, much as Smarick suggests.
Not everyone will agree that accountability is the reform of the past. But as the reauthorization deadline for NCLB draws nigh, it is time for the excellence movement to reassess its reform strategy."
Who the heck is this "excellence movement"? Do they have a web site?
And I don't like his definition of accountability versus choice. Even at the end, Peterson talks about "sensibe performance measures", which sound a lot like accountability. I don't necessarily disagree with Peterson, but his focus on some sort of "excellence movement" as a political force and choice versus accountability is not helpful. You can have NCLB (to enforce a minimal level of education) AND choice (to provide individual educational opportunities).
I'm confused by the terminology, too - I think he's talking about exit vs. voice. Choice essentially amounts to accountability via exit, and NCLB is an attempt at accountability via voice. I don't think these are mutually exclusive, but, assuming schools have an incentive to retain students, choice necessarily involves both exit and voice. NCLB as it stands involves voice, but only limited exit (in the form of supplemental tutoring).
ReplyDeleteI will also say that if excellence in education is defined by NCLB (low proficiency cutoffs), then I'm truly amazed. It may be excellent that no child is left behind, but it's not excellent that they are in the caboose. they should call it the 'Better Than Nothing Movement".
ReplyDeleteApparently there is something called "The Excellence Movement" in education. Just google "excellence movement, education" and lots of interesting articles, essays and entries will come up from the mid-80's/early 90's.
ReplyDeleteLook up "Urban Policy Reconsidered" by Charles Euchner and Stephen J. McGovern, 2003 and enter "excellence movement" as a search within the book. It explains the movement quite well.
http://books.google.com/books?id=4ykHEBEXqjEC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=excellence+movement&source=web&ots=uqpf5hxorX&sig=xS3_GbqqHRUCgJTHsc0UA6fgEh8
Who knew?
"But as the reauthorization deadline for NCLB draws nigh, it is time for the excellence movement to reassess its reform strategy."
ReplyDeletePeterson seems to indicate that this movement is still going on and is some kind of player. Who are these people?
My reaction to his editorial is that it is confusing and superficial.
Who are these people?
ReplyDeleteEuchner and McGovern say these people are "conservative politicians and policy advocates." The Excellence Movement is the name given to the movement inspired by A Nation at Risk.
"A core assumption underlying the movement was the the reformers of the Great Society era had gone overboard in their zeal to expan popular access to all levels of education. That egalitarian excess came at the expense of academic rigor, and leaders of the Excellence Movement felt it was now time to reorder the nation's priorities."
"The key ideas was to raise expectations regarding the academic performance of students and teachers. REformers pressed for a basic curriculum with a renewed emphasis on traditional academic courses in math, science, English, history, and a foreign language. A longer school day and year was another important element of the agenda. To track student performance, reformers urged increased use of standardized testing, and to hold students accountable for their performance, reformers advocated stricter promotion and graduation requirements. AS for teachers, the excellence movement called for improved teacher training, test-based competency, and use of merit pay to reward effort, innovation, and above all, positive results."
While the authors agree that "Challenging all students with a more rigorous curriculum and higher standards is likely to enhance academic performance and prospects for long-term success," they seem to argue that it is outweighed by the increased "costs" of academic demand.
What costs?
*more homework
*less recess
*mental and health problems
*less play time and down-time
*less time for "non-traditional" courses
They also argue that another downside is that it may not be possible or desireable to identify a core body of knowledge that all students ought to posess.
Given the points made by the authors, it sounds a lot like the Excellence Movement refers to Ed Hirsch and the Core Knowledge people.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Euchner and McGovern say these people are "conservative politicians and policy advocates." The Excellence Movement is the name given to the movement inspired by A Nation at Risk."
ReplyDeleteDo these people get together to set agendas? Do they have a web site? Who, exactly, is Peterson talking about? He is creating a strawman just to push his position; choice without accountability.
Well, choice does ensure accountability, but all good schools should laugh at NCLB accountability. Choice versus accountability is a strawman. Besides, it's not conservative politicians and policy advocates who are against choice. Choice would certainly help the Core Knowledge people.
Does anyone think that public schools would gladly accept choice to get no (low) accountability? Not in a million years. The problem is not some sort of vague agenda of an "excellence movement". It's those who will not allow choice.
I, for one, would choose a more rigorous curriculum, higher standards, enhanced academic performance, and long-term success if they were available to my children in the public schools. The problem is, there is NO choice. We've got what we've got.
ReplyDeletePeterson is talking about a specific set of people....and I'm not sure I can define them, though I "know" who they are.
ReplyDeleteI would put myself in the accountability group. Eduwonk is there, I would say....probably Fordham -- yes, definitely Fordham.
It's a fairly broad group of folks. It might even be fair to say that the "excellence" group, the "accountability" group, is the same thing as the "Washington consensus" -- although I personally have been unhappy with the Washington consensus for almost as long as I've known what the Washington consensus was.
Peterson is saying that accountability hasn't worked and isn't going to work.
I still haven't found time to write a post about my accountability "revelation" here in Irvington. For the moment I can say that Peterson is right in my own case.
My faith in accountability was almost certainly misplaced.
I will probably continue to support NCLB nonetheless. But I know what Peterson is talking about (I think) and at this point I agree.
As far as I can tell they pretty much DO "get together" to set agendas, and they definitely have web sites.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever noticed the Jay Mathews/eduwonk mutual admiration club?
Or listen to a Fred Hess podcast at Fordham. The one I heard altered my perceptions of Fred Hess forever. The guy was giggling and giddy over his brand-new appointment to Harvard ed school.
The edu-policy world is a pretty tiny place it seems.
We're not in it.
Or, I should say, we're not in it either.
We're not "in" the education world and we're not "in" the education policy world.
ReplyDeleteWe supply the students and the funding but we're not "in" it.
It's really something.
E.D. Hirsch would definitely be part of the "excellence" movement. Diane Ravitch.
ReplyDeletethe usual suspects
It really is something.
ReplyDeleteWe're not in and yet we have horse(s) in the race. We're vested in the outcome but virtually stripped of meaningful power when it comes to public school education. It's not a good place to be.
Who defined it as accountability versus choice? Talk about false dichotomies. I've long talked about how choice will work where NCLB won't (by itself). But that doesn't mean I don't like accountability that defines minimum cutoff levels. They talk as if NCLB defines some sort of "excellent" level of accountability. It doesn't. You just have to look at the cutoff levels. Look at the tests and the scoring. There is nothing excellent about it. When Peterson talks about "sensible performance measures" for his choice position, I think of NCLB!
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something? Is this the best sort of argument that educational policy makers can make?
" the 'excellence' group, the "accountability" group, is the same thing as the 'Washington consensus'"
"E.D. Hirsch would definitely be part of the 'excellence' movement. Diane Ravitch."
They are against choice?
I am definitely missing something here. Can anyone explain who the players are, what positions they hold, and which presidential cantdidates they most influence?
I can perhaps see that some of this is tempered by what is politically feasible, but there is nothing "excellent" about the movement. Let's look at where they send their kids to school.
Steve wrote: choice
ReplyDeleteSteve you know I agree 100%. But here is how choice is implemented within my school disrict (thanks to a new superindendent from the DC system):
We have a choice of thematic programming--arts, STEM, language immersion, etc.
Curriculum/textbooks, on the other hand, are identical at every school ostensibly because, as an urban district, our interschool mobility is so high that we need to be able to accomodate transfers without losing ground. Thus we are moving to even having the same daily lesson plans from the same book at the same grade in every school districtwide (40,000 students).
We can choose charter schools. But I'd really like to argue for choice *within* the district schools. Got any idea how I can counter their logic? (Wouldn't be so bad if they actually had good curriculum!! But for example, I'm trying to attract people back to our local district school and so many have left because of the math...but I can't ask for changes in the math curriculum because of this overarching philosophy).
I guess I would have to be more specific about defining choice. I don't think it's a solution. It's a process for change where parents have more control. The presumption is that this change will be in the right direction. That doesn't necessarily stop schools and districts from offering only limited choice, but still calling it choice. It's not much of a choice if you can change schools but everyone is still on the same page.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons we took our son out of private school and brought him back to the local public school was that it was local. We have a very nice community and that's where I want him to go to school. It would be tough to send him far away just to go to a Core Knowledge Charter School. He is doing crayon work for science in sixth grade, but we're dealing with it. At least the school was flexible enough to allow him to get into 7th grade pre-algebra.
It would be nice if our local school would allow more choice, but without the option (threat) of charter schools, they are not going to change. Some of the other private school parents indicated that they would return to the local schools if some changes were made. Some changes are being made in the upper grades, but the lower grades are still a big problem philosophically.
Choice does not only involve parental choice. It has to allow new choices to be easily created. If the money follows the child with few strings attached, then I could see new charter schools being started in our town. Parents would have more choices without sending their kids far away.
Even the threat of this would be enough to make major changes of choice in our local school. I've even had private school parents say that if the local public schools provided these choices, they would gladly chip in to help pay for the cost. (They are already paying property taxes AND $15,000+ to the private schools.)
The question is whether public schools will ever see their mission as teaching and not deciding on what constitutes a proper education.