|
Timing Probably Key In Education Reform Even so, decisions will be made in the coming weeks that could not only have a major impact on how the package plays politically in 2004 - but also, more importantly, will determine whether the proposal helps improve America's lowest-performing schools in time to help this fall's kindergarteners before they would graduate high school in 2014 (the year some actions to correct failing schools in the Senate version of the bill might actually take effect). So it might be worth the White House's time, and that of supporters of real education reform, to pay attention and make their voices heard during this critical endgame. Under the House version of the education package, for example, parents whose children attend a failing school would enjoy public-school choice options after the first year the school fails to make needed improvement. Under the Senate version, they'd have to wait three years. The Senate version would require that failing school districts face a state takeover, or conversion to a charter-school system, after five years of insufficient improvement. But the House version gives such districts only three years. These are only examples, but instructive ones. For it is the consequences of the all-important math and reading tests for elementary school students - how the results will be reported, evaluated and used, and how quickly sub par results will require decisive action - that form the crux of the difference between the Senate and the House versions. One important distinction concerns the clarity with which a school is defined as failing to make sufficient improvement. For individual schools, both the Senate and the House bills define a "failed school" as one that fails to meet its state's minimum standards for performance on reading and math tests. To avoid the consequences of remaining a failed school, it must make a certain improvement against the gap between its performance and the standard. The House bill defines a school's overall improvement as sufficient if it closes about 8 percent of that gap per year, for a gap of close to zero within 12 years. The Senate bill also says that a school overall would have to close any achievement gap to the state minimum within a decade. It defines the change, however, using an astonishingly complicated mathematical formula that will be difficult for parents (or even math teachers) to comprehend, let alone apply. With such confusing - yet limited - annual requirements, it is conceivable under the Senate bill that a school that had made only slight improvements for even nine years might not be required to make any changes. Add an additional two years to implement the program and a year to conduct the first tests, and any prospective kindergartener this fall, a member of the high school Class of 2014, could have their diploma (or drop out) before needed changes are made. Differences over the consequences for failure are not as pronounced, at least if we assume they are ultimately applied, but there are ways in which the House provisions are tougher. The House bill absolutely requires a state takeover of failing individual schools within three years. The Senate version only permits one such "experimental" takeover in the same three-year period per school district. And Senators would, in some ways, actually reward failure by giving schools initially showing poor test scores additional aid. The timing of rewards and punishments is the most striking difference, and arguably the most important one. Under the House bill, some parents would probably be enjoying "portability" options for their children within public schools, or for after-school programs such as tutoring, as early as 2005. Under the Senate bill, such limited school choice would take place no earlier than 2007. And this is the fastest of the carrots and sticks. Replacement of superintendents and other administrators in entire school districts that fail takes place in two years under the House bill. Under the Senate bill, it's five years. Do these differences matter? Probably so. As anyone who has studied school systems and education reform appreciates, an extra two or three years can be an eternity in trying to bring about change in the culture of failing schools. As one college administrator put it, you would tell a child that isn't doing his or her homework that he's going to have to go to study hall five or 10 years from now. While no one is suggesting that schools should be forced to make such changes within the matter of days or hours used to discipline students, the comment emphasizes the fact that where incentives are concerned, simplicity and prompt action are vital. Experience from the states affirms these lessons. In Florida, parents whose children attended failed schools in Pensacola were given a voucher for not only public, but also some private schools, within two years of the passage of Gov. Jeb Bush's "A-Plus Program." More than 100 school districts facing state-declared "failure" in the spring of 2000 and 2001 took note, and worked furiously to improve their test scores - and succeeded. A survey of public school teachers in Florida, conducted in 2000 by Teacher Choice, found a majority of the respondents opposing vouchers as a policy - but grudgingly admitting that the threat of school choice in their district was an important factor in the turnaround. In Texas, even without such structural incentives, many districts were also able to make significant improvement. It happened, as Deputy Secretary of Education William Hansen said during a recent interview with Teacher Choice, because many administrators - including then-Houston Superintendent of Schools and now Secretary of Education Rod Paige - took prompt action. "He went in and promoted people, demoted people, fired and hired principals, retrained others," Hansen noted of Paige. Giving Paige, and state and district administrators similar tools - and in some cases mandates - to act similarly in implementing the Bush program may be the key to whether testing makes a difference. One good indication that testing and incentives matter is the strong
reaction of the National Education Association, which has actually passed
a resolution encouraging parents to have their children boycott
performance tests. But where schools and incentives are concerned, reform
can be sabotaged as effectively by providing for meaningful change -
provided it's not enacted for another decade or more. |
