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Steve Jobs: Computers won’t fix schools

October 7, 2011 by

Technology can’t fix education, Steve Jobs said. He also strongly supported school choice, notes Jay Greene on Ed Next.

“I used to think when I was in my twenties that technology was the solution to most of the world’s problems, but unfortunately it just ain’t so,” Jobs said in a 1995 Smithsonian interview.

We need to attack these things at the root, which is people and how much freedom we give people, the competition that will attract the best people. Unfortunately, there are side effects, like pushing out a lot of 46 year old teachers who lost their spirit fifteen years ago and shouldn’t be teaching anymore. I feel very strongly about this. I wish it was as simple as giving it over to the computer….

As you’ve pointed out I’ve helped with more computers in more schools than anybody else in the world and I absolutely convinced that is by no means the most important thing. The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can. The elements of discovery are all around you. You don’t need a computer.

As an entrepreneur, Jobs fired people who didn’t come up to his very high standards. He thought schools should not tolerate mediocre teachers.

Jobs attended public schools in Cupertino, California — now a very high-performing district — but dropped out of Reed College in his first year.

Filed Under: Education, technology Tagged With: , , , , ,

Fake-address mom isn’t a felon any more

September 7, 2011 by

Lying to get children into a better school should be a misdemeanor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich has decided, overruling the state parole board. Kelley Williams-Bolar, of Akron, served nine days in jail for falsely claiming her children lived at her father’s address in a neighboring school district. Her two felony convictions were reduced to misdemeanors by the governor.

Kasich is requiring Williams-Bolar to report for probation, serve 80 hours of community service, work full time, not take any drugs or drink alcohol and pay the cost of her prosecution.

Williams-Bolar’s older daughter now attends an Akron public high school. Her younger daughter uses a voucher to go to a private middle school. Williams-Bolar works as a teacher’s aide at Akron public schools and hopes to qualify as a teacher in the future.

 

Filed Under: Education, Parenting Tagged With: , , ,

Do vouchers boost achievement?

July 29, 2011 by

Vouchers have “no clear positive effect” on student achievement and mixed outcomes overall, according to a review of 27 studies by the Center on Education Policy. From Ed Week‘s Inside Schools Research:

Low-income students receiving vouchers made similar achievement gains to comparable public school students in district schools in several studies, the report found.

The report also noted that some research found that voucher students graduate at a higher rate than their public school peers, and that overall achievement at public schools was higher in those schools most affected by voucher competition. However, the report said it is difficult to tease out causation in those results, because schools most affected by vouchers often are targeted for other intensive school reform efforts.

The CEP review did not include privately funded vouchers or tax credits or voucher programs for students with disabilities or students in foster care.

“CEP’s study narrowly cherry-picks school choice studies in a handful of states and inaccurately characterizes the results of these studies,” said Andrew Campanella, a spokesman for the American Federation for Children, a voucher advocacy program based in Washington.

A rival analysis of voucher research by the Foundation for Educational Choice found large benefits for some programs, but modest gains for most.  No voucher studies have found a negative effect, said Greg Forster, a senior fellow at the foundation. “When the small, restricted programs produce moderately positive results, that indicates we should be trying bigger things,” Forster said.

 

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , , ,

Gates: Was the $5 billion worth it?

July 25, 2011 by

After spending $5 billion on education grants and scholarships, Bill Gates tells the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley,  “It’s been about a decade of learning.”

The Microsoft co-founder’s foundation is worth $34 billion, more than the next three largest foundations (Ford, Getty and Robert Wood Johnson) combined.

Small schools, an early Gates Foundation initiative, didn’t improve achievement. I was impressed by the foundation’s willingness to admit that.

Small schools improved students’ attendance and behavior, but “didn’t move the needle much” on college attendance, which is a foundation priority, Bill Gates told Riley.  “We didn’t see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that.”

The foundation decided to focus on curriculum — Gates strongly backs a core curriculum — and teacher quality — the foundation is researching what makes good teachers effective.

Many worry that a multi-billionaire has too much power, even if his intentions are noble. (And not everyone thinks they are.) And Gates tells Riley he’s trying to use his money to influence how public money is spent.

 Instead of trying to buy systemic reform with school-level investments, a new goal is to leverage private money in a way that redirects how public education dollars are spent.

However, the foundation’s approach is scientific, not political, Gates say.

“I believe in innovation and that the way you get innovation is you fund research and you learn the basic facts.” Compared with R&D spending in the pharmaceutical or information-technology sectors, he says, next to nothing is spent on education research. “That’s partly because of the problem of who would do it. Who thinks of it as their business? The 50 states don’t think of it that way, and schools of education are not about research. So we come into this thinking that we should fund the research.”

Gates supports charters — he’s a KIPP fan — but not school vouchers.

. . .  the politics, he says, are just too tough right now. “We haven’t chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high.”

Gates’ approach is doomed to fail, responds Jay Greene. While trying to influence education policy is sensible, “education does not lend itself to a single ‘best’ approach.” The foundation invokes science “to advance practices and policies they prefer for which they have no scientific support,” Greene charges.

Attempting to impose particular practices on the nation’s education system is generating more political resistance than even the Gates Foundation can overcome, despite their focus on political influence and their devotion of significant resources to that effort.

Greene’s part 2 on the Gates Foundation is here.

In a new mini-book, Greene advocates school choice as the way to create incentives for school improvement.  Here’s his interview with Jason Riley.

Community College Spotlight, which I write for the Hechinger Institute, is funded, in part, by Gates money. Gates is funding almost every innovative idea involving community colleges, notably research on how to improve remediation and boost graduation rates. I think it’s money well spent, though the research isn’t likely to find a silver bullet.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2011 is ‘year of school choice’

July 7, 2011 by

Republican electoral gains have made 2011 The Year of School Choice, writes the Wall Street Journal.

No fewer than 13 states have enacted school choice legislation in 2011, and 28 states have legislation pending. Last month alone, Louisiana enhanced its state income tax break for private school tuition; Ohio tripled the number of students eligible for school vouchers; and North Carolina passed a law letting parents of students with special needs claim a tax credit for expenses related to private school tuition and other educational services.

Wisconsin removed the cap of 22,500 on the number of kids who can participate in Milwaukee’s Parental Choice Program, the nation’s oldest voucher program, and expanded school choice in Racine County.

Even more significant, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed legislation that removes the charter cap, allows all universities to be charter authorizers, and creates a voucher program that enables about half the state’s students to attend public or private schools.

Florida, Georgia and Oklahoma have created or expanded tuition tax credit programs. North Carolina and Tennessee eliminated caps on the number of charter schools. Maine passed its first charter law. Colorado created a voucher program in Douglas County that will provide scholarships for private schools. In Utah, lawmakers passed the Statewide Online Education Program, which allows high school students to access course work on the Internet from public or private schools anywhere in the state.

Pushed by House Speaker John Boehner, Congress revived the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher program for low-income students.

Choice doesn’t guarantee excellent schools, the Journal concedes. But it drives reform by eroding “the union-dominated monopoly that assigns children to schools based on where they live.”

I’ll be very interested to see what happens in Indiana.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , ,

School choice programs grow

February 13, 2011 by

Twenty private-school choice programs now serve nearly 200,000 children in 12 states and the District of Columbia, reports Alliance For School Choice’s new yearbook.

Nearly all choice programs target children in low- to middle-income families or children with disabilities.

Choice programs that enable students to attend private schools are boosting achievement, the yearbook concludes.

Specific studies conducted in Milwaukee, Washington, D.C. and Florida last year also showed as much as a 68 percent improvement in standardized test scores for school choice participants, graduation rates more than 20 percent higher than traditional public school students, and almost universal parent satisfaction in some programs.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman has scheduled hearings Wednesday on “Saving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program” (vouchers).

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , ,

Media Bullpen joins the fray

February 11, 2011 by

The Media Bullpen, a critique of education reporting, was launched this week by the Center for Education Reform, which supports school choice, including charters and vouchers. It’s an ambitious project: CER hopes to expand its staff to a dozen analysts who will review hundreds of education stories daily.

The site isn’t designed to push an agenda, CER President Jeanne Allen told Linda Perlstein on The Educated Reporter.

“The issue is not that education is underreported,” she said. “It’s either misreported or doesn’t really focus on the issues at hand.” If there’s a bias, she said, “it’s that education is critical, achievement is down and needs to be better.”

Perlstein has doubts on the no-agenda part.

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New hope for D.C. vouchers?

January 25, 2011 by

Speaker John Boehner’s guests for the State of the Union speech tonight — he gets a box — will be students, parents and teachers, reports National Review Online. Three of the four children will be students who are using  “opportunity scholarships” to attend Catholic schools. Another guest will be Virginia Walden Ford, who runs D.C. Parents for School Choice. This is National School Choice Week.

Boehner and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, will introduce legislation tomorrow morning to reauthorize the District’s scholarship program, which was killed by the president and congressional Democrats.

A strong supporter of Catholic schools, Boehner invited teachers associated with the Consortium of Catholic Schools and Catholic-school parents.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , , , ,

School choice goes mainstream

October 5, 2010 by

When did school choice go mainstream? asks Reason.tv, which covered NBC’s week-long Education Nation.

The “summit,” held at NBC’s New York studios at Rockefeller Center, almost felt like a publicity junket for Waiting for Superman, a highly praised new documentary advocating for charter schools. A national TV audience watched as D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee chewed out teachers union honcho Randi Weingarten for spending $1 million in campaign funds to halt Rhee’s reform agenda. Morning Joe‘s Mika Brzezinski took a shot at Weingarten for resisting merit pay for teachers. And what to make of former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi working to promote National School Choice Week, slated for January 2011?

I’m amazed at the impact of Waiting for Superman on the debate. But I’m not convinced it will lead to change.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , , ,

Meeting of the minds on education

August 25, 2010 by

Only 18 percent of Americans give the nation’s schools an A or a B in two new education polls, Education Next -Program on Education Policy and Governance and Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup.

Only 28 percent of teachers give the nation’s schools an A or B, while 55 percent awarded a C and 17 percent a D or F in the Ed Next-PEPG poll.

However, both surveys found strong support for local schools, even stronger for the schools their children attend. Seventy-seven percent gave an A or B to their oldest child’s school in the PDK/Gallup poll.

Except for school spending and teacher tenure,  differences on education policy are minor and don’t break on party lines, write researchers William G. Howell, Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West in Education Next. Support is growing for merit pay and online education.

While 63 percent of the public favor an increase in “government funding for public schools in your district,” only 29 percent support an increase in local taxes to fund local schools.

Support for higher teacher pay has fallen to 59 percent from 69 percent in 2008. Telling respondents the average teacher salary in their state cuts support to 42 percent.

When it comes to school choice, charter schools and online education are “in,” while private school vouchers are “out.” The charter option is especially popular among minorities and parents in neighborhoods where charter schools are already present.

Public school teachers are split on charters with 39 percent supporting charters and 36 percent opposed.

Merit pay is gaining support: 49 percent back “basing a teacher’s salary, in part, on students’ academic progress on state tests,” while 25 percent are opposed.

The public continues to oppose teacher tenure: 47 percent say no, while 27 percent favor tenure.

Seventy-six percent of the public and 63 percent of teachers believe students should have to pass a graduation exam; 79 percent of respondents want students to pass a test before moving on to the next grade, as is now required for third graders in Florida and New York City.

While 57 percent of the public favor releasing a school’s average test scores, only 45 percent of teachers agree. Half of teachers want to keep current testing requirements compared to 62 percent of the general public.

Democrats are more supportive of vouchers and education tax credits than Republicans because of blacks’ strong support for school choice. However, Democrats are more supportive of raising teacher salaries and overall school spending and much more likely to say teachers unions have a positive effect on their community’s schools.

At the height of President Obama’s popularity in 2009, respondents were more likely to support his education policies when told his stand. By 2010, the Obama effect had waned. “Yet public opinion on merit pay, charter schools, and vouchers all shifted closer to the president’s position,” the researchers observe.

The PDK-Gallup Poll shows slipping support for President Obama’s education agenda, reports Ed Week. Just 34 percent give the president an A or B when grading his performance on education during his first 17 months in office.

Most rejected tough turnaround strategies: 54 percent opposed firing the principal or teachers at low-performing schools.

Improving teacher quality is the most important national education strategy, respondents said.

Seventy-one percent of those surveyed said teachers should be paid on the basis of their work, rather than on a standard salary schedule, and 54 percent said a teacher’s salary should be “somewhat closely” tied to the achievement of his or her students.

. . .  When asked what the primary purpose of evaluating teachers should be, 60 percent said to help teachers improve, compared with 26 percent who said it should be used to document ineffectiveness that could lead to dismissal, and 13 percent said evaluations should be used to establish teachers’ salaries based on their skills.

Compared to Ed Next-PEPG, the poll found stronger and growing support for charter schools is growing: 65 percent would back a new public charter schools in their community; 60 percent would support “a large increase” in charter schools nationwide.

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