New School

So the first week is done, and I feel much as I did at the end of the first week last year - we're five days in and I'm five weeks behind already. I haven't put attendance into the electronic grade book. I haven't set up the electronic grade book to accept scores for the homework assignments I've given, or for the quiz on Monday (which I haven't written yet). I indicated to students I'd get their homework back to them within 24 hours and I'm already 2 days behind on the promise. Et cetera, et cetera.

On the other hand, I was standing in the hallway at the end of the day on Thursday, and one of the other math teachers said I seemed remarkably calm and relaxed. She assumed it was a facade. In truth, it was liberation from the battlefield that is the school from whence I came. I've assigned homework every day and not only has no one complained, virtually everyone has turned it in. I got no pushback from any student about my cell phone policy (the first time I see it, I take it and keep it until I speak with the parents), and I have yet to see a cell phone in my class. The problem child in my Algebra I / Intensive Math class, with whom I've had two stern discussions, seems to believe she actually needs to do the work, rather than fight with me all year.

Also, it's hard to describe the difference in attitude with respect to the administration. They seem clearly on the side of trying to make teachers' jobs easier, not harder, where possible. They seem clearly to believe that the teachers here at NHS are really good at what they do, and the kids are lucky to have them. As one example, according to other teachers, the administration backs up teachers who flunk students. Importantly, the students know that, too. I had one student say he was going to flunk math, and when I asked him why he believed that, he noted he'd gotten grade recovery 4 times in middle school, but "now that I'm in high school, that's not going to happen anymore."

One more similarity to last year - I spent the entire week saying "If I can just make it to the weekend, I'll be able to catch up on this," and now I'm realizing I have 6 or 8 days worth of things to catch up on. I'll be lucky if I have the homework checked by Monday. But hey, why should that be any different this year?

Happy New Year!

A couple of new things...

I have a new gig, teaching in the district immediately south of the one I was in previously. My old district was one of the worst in the state, which is one of the worst states in the nation relative to SAT and ACT scores. The 17 high schools in Old District can be grouped into 4 categories, with about 4 schools in each. My old high school was in the middle of the 3rd best group.

My new district has been the best in the state for each of the past 3 years, based on scores on the state-mandated tests. My new high school is essentially tied for worst in the district, although there are only six. For perspective, Old District has 4 magnet high schools. Three of the 4 magnets, plus one "standard" school, are the upper echelon of Old District. My new school, worst in New District, would be in the upper echelon in math and just outside it in English in Old District. (New District has no magnets, but does have one technical high school.)

New District is very rich and very white. New High School (hereinafter referred to as NHS) is much, much poorer than the rest of the district and also less white, although whites still comprise roughly 80% of the student body. The area is very rural, whereas the rest of the county is very suburban. So I'm still teaching a somewhat disadvantaged group of kids, although without the oppressive environmental issues associated with urban poverty (e.g., single family households, students having significant out-of-school family responsibilities, relatively low value placed on education). We'll see how big a difference that makes.

The other interesting thing about this year is I'll be teaching Algebra I + Intensive Math, the lowest of the low in terms of math skill. It's a challenge I'm actually looking forward to, although I fear I may change my tune in a month or two. In the meantime, however, I can't wait to get to work.

So if you quadruple the number of exams taken, the number passed will... ?

I was browsing a few old files in preparing to clean up my hard drive, and noticed this one... 

In 2006-2007, a huge push was made to get more students to take AP courses, because (I love this) students who take AP courses are more likely to graduate than those who don't. So being in AP courses obviously motivates kids to stay in school. Move along, logicians -nothin' to see here. Principals were given incentives to increase AP enrollment as much as possible.

What harm could it do? Even if a bunch of kids who didn't really belong in the course were in it, the ones who did belong would still get what they needed, right? And the kids who didn't belong would realize that and either drop out or struggle through.

But wait, there's more. If a senior is taking a core course - say, in math, English or science - that is also an AP course, they generally must pass that class to graduate. Principals are also highly incentivized to increase the graduation rate. So flunking, say, 8 or 10 seniors who don't belong in your AP course is  (a) a great way to never teach another AP course, and (b) futile, since the administration will find a way to pass them in the final 3 weeks of school anyway.

Given that, if you teach an AP course at my school, you have two options: (1) teach the course as a regular AP course, lose 1/3 to 1/2 of the class within 8 weeks, resign yourself to having those students stay lost for the next 30 weeks and thus learn absolutely nothing in your course, but give them a C anyway, or  (2) water down the content to the point that everybody learns a little something but only the most diligent have any hope of passing the exam, and then only by doing a lot of independent study.  For the past 7 years, AP Statistics was taught using option 2, and no one has passed the exam. I chose option 1. We'll find out in mid-July if I did any better.

But meanwhile, it seems clear that a lot of teachers choose option 2. (After all, who wants to teach a class every day in which half of the students have given up weeks ago, but know they're going to pass anyway?) Here's what that does to the number of students passing the AP exam:

In the first year (2007), exams passed increased by 9% while exams taken increased by 350%. After that, exams passed declined significantly, and is now at 60% of the number it was at prior to flooding the classes with unprepared students.

Addendum: I did have a student pass, which I'm told is the first time in 7 years anyone from MHS has done so. However, I only had one other student get a 2, with the other 18 in the class getting a 1. I was somewhat disappointed with this result, and would have loved to take another shot at it in 2011-12. Nonetheless, I did prove that Option 1 at least provides a few students the chance to pass the course. I'm convinced that if all AP classes were run that way, fewer unprepared students would take the course, but a much higher percentage would pass.

Another in a long, long line of excellent examples of unintended consequences. Although in this case, it should not have been (and wasn't, by some) unanticipated consequences.

Wired Loops

Wired is an awesome magazine (thanks, Abe!). This month, the cover story is about how our brains and behavior are driven by feedback loops. According to the story, in the 1960's, Albert Bandura "observed that giving individuals a clear goal and a means to evaluate their progress toward that goal (in real time) greatly increased the likelihood they would achieve it." (I added the parenthetical "in real time," because elsewhere in the article that element is shown to be critically important.)

We provide lots of feedback to students, but a lot of it is time-delayed, and very little of it is directly applicable to evaluating their progress (or the extent of their progress) toward the goal (which is often poorly defined anyway.)

So I've been thinking about (1) how to very clearly define the goal in a course, (2) what role interim goals should play, (3) how to measure progress toward the goal or interim goal, (4) how to give immediate feedback about that progress, and (5) how to publicly track my students' progress while keeping each individual's information private.

Here's where I am so far... (more as I think more about it)

Create a pre-test for each 3-week block of work.

Lay out the calendar for the next 3 weeks, showing what's going to be covered each day and which questions on the pre-test could then be answered based on what's been covered through that day.

Give exercises (via class work) on whatever got covered that day.

Have students self-grade that work, and turn in a slip of paper with their name and score so I can track and publish it (with the names stripped out).

Give homework based on their scores (higher score = less homework). Caveat: if their quiz grade is significantly lower than their self-reported class work grades, they automatically end up in the "most homework" category.

Give quizzes I can grade within 10 minutes (10 questions, answers are right or wrong, worksheet pre-configured to spit out grade after answers are typed in). Give an in-class assignment on quiz days so that the class looks like: 5 minute warm-up, 15 minute quiz, 15 minute in-class exercise (while I grade the quizzes), 10 minute quiz return and wrap-up.

Give tests I can grade during my planning period (45 minutes) so I can return them the next day.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

My principal doesn't want me back next year... OK, I can live with that. Thus, he'd rather not praise me at today's end-of-year luncheon... makes sense to me. Unfortunately for him, my kids did really well on the state-mandated exam, and he likes to use the luncheon to hand out awards to teachers for various accomplishments during the school year. So to avoid handing me a lovely inkjet-printed certificate, he made up a category for which I didn't qualify, available only to teachers of "standard" courses (since I taught only Honors). But he neglected to notice the person he gave it to instead of me also didn't teach any standard courses. Sad, really. If he'd just come to me before-hand, I'd have told him to make the category "Most gains by a teacher who isn't me," and we could have all enjoyed the award.

The Sociological Value of Understanding the Concept of a Local Maximum

To improve the quality of education in America, the graduation rate and the number of students passing the state-mandated tests must fall dramatically.

We've done an enormous disservice to our children by relaxing graduation standards, badgering teachers into passing students who shouldn't, enrolling students in classes they shouldn't be in (thus watering down the content for everyone in the course), focusing exclusively on the lowest-performing students' results on the state-mandated tests, and redirecting blame for failure from students to teachers.

The three step, no additional cost, plan for success:

1. Hold all students to much, much higher standards for passing classes in the core curriculum and for graduating from a "traditional" high school.

2. Provide alternative track educational opportunities for children who do not wish to or are not capable of completing a traditional high school education.

3. Get out of the way.

(Aside: I distinctly recall coming home from school with a bad grade on an English test and complaining that the teacher didn't explain the material. I suppose it's possible my parents called the school to complain and demand she be replaced with someone I could better relate to, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't their first response.)

Books I Want Next Year's AP Stats Class to Read

These are some books I've read that would be valuable for people who are going to deal with statistics. Please tell me about others in the comments section, or comment on the ones I've listed.

(other books and info to come as addenda to this note)
The Black Swan / Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb
The Science of Fear / Risk - Dan Gardner
The Tipping Point / Blink / Outliers / What the Dog Saw - Malcolm Gladwell
Guns, Germs and Steel - Jared Diamond
Inevitable Illusions - Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini
The Rational Optimist* - Matt Ridley
On Being Certain** - Robert Burton, M.D.


*Haven't read this one, but have read others by the same author and based on the book's blurb, think it would be the best option.

**Reading this one now; may or may not come off the list

Decaf nofat no whip latte.

Our principal today announced he would be holding an assembly for all 9th and 10th graders on Friday, effectively eliminating the last opportunity I would have to teach mathematics to my 10th graders prior to the hugely important state-mandated test. The subject of the assembly: "Do well on the hugely important state-mandated test."

So, in order to ensure our students do well on this hugely important state-mandated test, we've spent 3 days doing "benchmark" testing, to see where the students were at the beginning of the year, in the middle of the year and one month later. We've already held at least one other assembly to pump up the kids for the upcoming benchmark test, which of course doesn't count at all, except that good scores on the benchmark test make the principal look good in the eyes of his district bosses.

We've also held (and funded) a middle-of-the-school day "dance" for students whose scores improved on the 2nd benchmark test, and promised a similar event for students whose scores improved on the 3rd benchmark test. The principal attempted, in the faculty meeting today, to set the 2nd dance for tomorrow. He may have been persuaded to wait... until Friday.

We've also had to take most of a class period for each of our classes in order to take our kids to the computer rooms to practice taking the test on the computer.

On the plus side, we haven't conducted a fire drill all year, so we've saved all that time in favor of classwork. Of course, monthly fire drills are mandated by our state, but hey, what's child safety when the school's hugely important state-mandated test score is on the line?

Of course, I've also lost class time to pep rallies, donut sales, and all the other detria associated with high school life -- for example, none of the senior girls will be in my class on Friday because they will be getting their hair done for the prom. This is not just hyperbole to have an excuse to skip my class... first of all, my seniors don't need an excuse to skip my class, and second, I've actually asked several of the girls who have weaves (and a significant majority do, despite (or possibly because) of the fact I'm at a Title I school) and they've all told me it's a 4- to 6-hour process, at a minimum.

The principal justified his "test-prep" rally by saying that if they don't have it now, they're not going to get it in the last day prior to the exam. So why, last week, were we required to prepare a "3 day plan" to prepare them for the test in the week and one day we had remaining (meaning 3 per class, since I only see each class every other day)?  If we only needed 2 days, why didn't we have a 2 day plan? If the kids who're being taken out of my class to go to the assembly don't need my class, can I just give the rest of my classes a free day, since they must not need it either?

Enough.

California Dreamin'

The title of this post has nothing to do with the post itself, except that I'm visiting a friend in California as I write this.

Wednesday's USA Today (3-30-11) had a front page story on the investigation of several of DC's public schools for "irregularities" in their standardized tests. Apparently, USA Today previously published a report that more than half of DC schools were cited in the past 3 years for having unusually high "erasure rates."

First, the quote from the acting chancellor of the public school system, Kaya Henderson: "The integrity of test scores is perhaps more important to us than any other district because we use the test scores in important ways - evaluation, compensation."

Hmmm... let's see if we can find anything not to like about that sentence. It will be hard, but I'll give it a shot:

1. She's claiming that, in other districts, integrity is (perhaps) less important. Go ahead, kids (and teachers) -- if you're not in the DC public school system, cheat all you want, it's not that important.

2. The reason scores matter more in DC is that they use those test scores in important ways, which pretty clearly implies that the ways they're used in other school systems aren't that important. If the way we're using test scores doesn't matter, can we PLEASE stop using them?

3. The important ways the test scores are being used are "evaluation" and "compensation." I believe it's fair to assume she's not speaking of evaluating the students, because all tests in all districts are evaluating the students, and she's distinguishing DC's use from other districts. So the evaluation and compensation she's speaking about is of teachers and administrators. Therefore, I'm shocked -- shocked, I tell you -- to discover some teachers and administrators, believing their compensation and in all likelihood, their jobs were on the line, cheated to obtain higher scores.

We now have at least two examples (Atlanta being the other one) of the following scenario:

1. New head of the district's public school system arrives and promises to dramatically increase standardized test scores in the district.

2. New head of the district's public school system makes it clear to every teacher and administrator in the district that scores on the standardized test will be used to evaluate and compensate them. Moreover, to the extent possible, job retention decisions will also be based on these scores.

3. Test scores rise dramatically, immediately.

4. Someone investigates the scores, and finds that there is very widespread evidence of activity that is statistically improbable to the point of inconceivable, unless that activity is intentional (i.e., cheating).

5. "Deeper" investigation finds conclusive evidence of cheating at a very small number of schools, exonerating the rest of them.

6. Deeper deeper investigation finds that perhaps the first deeper investigation wasn't entirely uninfluenced by the school district's desire to depict the problem as a few rogue administrators and teachers, rather than a system-wide response to the school district's leadership.

For those of you keeping score at home, here's what we have:
Validity of standardized testing in assessing student progress: very suspect (e.g., this article, along with hundreds of others)
Validity of using standardized testing to assess teacher competence: even more suspect (this paper and others)
Likelihood of cheating by school administrators if standardized test scores are the primary measure of competence: very hard to say, but a study from the 90's showed 4% - 5% of teachers cheated to improve student scores when stakes were relatively low, and cheating doubled when stakes got higher for the students. When stakes get higher for the teachers and administrators, the number is likely to be much, much higher. The New York Times recently reported on investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and Texas. There are undoubtedly many more cases that have not been uncovered.

Solution? Not "No Child Left Behind," obviously. Unfortunately, President Obama's Race to the Top program, while acknowledging the failure of the current standardized tests, essentially just asks for new ones.

Perhaps we should be looking for ways to assess teachers and administrators based on the kinds of things assessments in the private sector are based -- peer review, on-going evaluation and guidance by an immediate supervisor, multiple evaluations from multiple sources (to reduce the likelihood of individual bias in evaluations) and student learning gains, properly placed in context with all the other assessment information.

I guess I'm California dreamin' after all...

Good Grief

I proselytize regularly about the professionalism of most teachers, the fact that the vast majority care a lot more about having the freedom to teach the kids in their charge than about the salary they get to do it, and the high standards most uphold, despite often being treated like children or worse. Then one of them posts this as her facebook status:

"I voted for the people who supports the police and fire did you?"

My head hurts.

Why CEO's Should Care About Public Schools, Even If No One They Know Has Ever Been In One

There is a cost associated with the deterioration of public schools, and it is borne by the entire community, not just the poor.  CEO's in particular bear a significant portion of the burden, which makes the current assault on public schools by Republican governors and state assemblies (who are presumably pro-business) all the more frustrating, if not particularly surprising.

Here is an incomplete list of ways businesses lose when the quality of the public school system declines.

1. It becomes harder to recruit executive talent, as potential new hires consider where their children will attend school. If finding talent becomes 5% harder, total incremental cost to a company to hire one executive with a salary of $100,000 is approximately $17,000.[1] A company with 10% turnover in its executive ranks and 50 such employees would incur about $85,000 incremental annual cost due to poor schools.

2. It becomes harder to recruit entry-level and mid-level talent from the local job applicant pool, as top students become a scarcer resource. Reducing the costs above by 2/3's results in an estimated incremental cost per entry- or mid-level job of more than $5,000; assuming the company experiences 20% turnover among its 200 entry- and mid-level employees, this amounts to $200,000 annually.

3. Training costs increase, as new employees enter the workforce more poorly prepared to start, and less competent at learning the necessary skills for the job. Assuming the 40 new entry- and mid-level employees take 2 weeks longer to learn, and use the resources of their peers and/or supervisor for 2 additional weeks, the incremental training cost is approximately $150,000 in lost work time, assuming an average total compensation (salary + benefits) of $50,000 for trainers and trainees.

4. Turnover increases, as employees who have become dependent on safety nets -- grade recovery, differentiated instruction, "response to intervention," 70% - 80% group work in classes, unlimited retakes on failed quizzes and tests, plus dozens of other safety nets mandated by district school boards as band-aids for students in failing schools -- discover the "real world" has many fewer safety nets and much harder landing areas for those who fail. If turnover increases from 20% to 25% in our hypothetical company with 200 non-executive employees, filling the additional 10 slots each year will cost approximately $200,000 in lost work time, recruitment costs and paid non-productive time for trainer and trainee.

5. The tax base declines, requiring higher taxes or poorer public services such as road maintenance, water, sewer and electric utilities, as less-prepared graduates' salaries start lower and take longer to increase. Quality of life in the area impacts each of the factors above; I'll leave the dollar estimate on that as an exercise for the reader. However, if the property tax were raised 5% to cover the public services needed, the 250 employees of our hypothetical company would pay an extra $45,000 in taxes.[2]

6. The cost/value relationship of a private school education increases, and more people will decide this option is affordable, given their alternatives. This means more of the company's executives must pay for private schooling, which will put upward pressure on salaries. It also means that private schools will have increased demand, which leads, of course, to higher prices. So even the CEO's whose children are already in private schools will see increased direct costs. Assuming 1 out of every 3 of the executives of the company have children in private school (with an average of 1.5 students per executive) and private school costs go up $5,000, the cost to the executive team is $125,000.

Consider the impact of poorer public schools on unemployment. Students who might have stayed in school because they could play in the band or take art classes or play one of the "minor" sports will drop out. Students who might have been able to pass Chemistry if free tutoring had still been available will flunk it and give up. The students who do graduate will be largely unprepared for college. (Even today, 70% of my county's graduates must take remedial courses in their first year of college). Unprepared students entering college become significant drop-out risks at that level. High school and college drop-outs are at much higher risk of unemployment throughout their careers than their peers with degrees.[3] Therefore, higher unemployment will inevitably result from a reduction in the quality of public education.

As a result of higher unemployment,

7. Businesses will pay higher unemployment taxes. States are reducing unemployment benefits as those costs soar in the face of the recession, but that is a strategy that decreases "visible" costs at the expense of creating much higher secondary costs. This year, the unemployment tax is expected to nearly triple, to as much as $72 per employee versus the current $25 maximum. If higher unemployment in the future causes an additional $25 per employee rise, the cost to our hypothetical 250-person business is $6,250.

8. The non-violent crime rate will go up, costing businesses in ways such as higher premiums for property insurance, increased security costs and employees' decreased sense of well-being and safety. Again, the true cost of this issue is the reduced desirability of the city as a place to work, impacting all the factors above.

9. Health insurance premiums will go up even faster, as unemployed and minimum-wage earners are much more likely to use emergency room services and very unlikely to be able to pay for them. Hospitals must provide the care, and must therefore pass along their costs to those who pay -- namely those with health insurance. Companies will undoubtedly pass most of this cost through to its employees, but even a $100 per year increase would cost a 250-person company an incremental $25,000 each year.

10. Social services such as prisons, alcohol treatment centers, homeless shelters, etc. will either reduce services or require more resources. It is significantly cheaper to provide the services than pay for the unintended consequences of not providing them, but in either case, costs to all taxpayers increase. As with the crime rate and reduced public services, reduced social services make the city less livable, which impacts all aspects of the cost of doing business within it.

In summary, as public schools decline enough to make it 5% harder to recruit and hire a high-quality workforce, even a small company of 250 people would experience a nearly $850,000 increased annual cost of doing business in the city. The same analysis would show that if public schools improve by that same amount, that company could save $850,000 annually. Imagine if CEO's of the 400 or so companies of that size or larger in my city each decided to kick in $250,000 to public education, and the roughly 700 companies with 100 - 250 employees added $100,000 each. That's an additional $170,000,000 invested in our schools each year, paid for by companies who recognize that it's an investment on which they'll earn at least double their money annually.

Most of these costs are also borne by all taxpayers, so all of us should be insisting our federal, state and local governments make high-quality public education a major priority, instead of allowing our legislators to cut public school funding year after year, reduce teachers' real wages even in good years, and discuss options like school vouchers to take even more money out of the public school system.

If our public schools were doing a better job educating the American populace, the American populace would understand why we must do a better job educating the American populace.

Notes

[1] Incremental salary cost: $5,000. Incremental benefits cost: $3,000 (60% of salary). Incremental search cost: $1,000 plus $1,000 (20% of salary plus estimated expenses incurred by additional interviewees). Incremental cost of current employees' extra time spent involved in the job search (e.g., interviews, paperwork, etc.): $2,000 (estimated 4 executive-days per interviewee). Opportunity cost of unfilled position for additional 2 weeks: $5,000 (assumes the lost opportunity cost of the unfilled position is no less than the cost of filling it; otherwise the company would leave it empty).

[2] According to CLRSearch.com, there are more than 325,000 households in my city. Nationally, census data shows that about 2/3's of households own their own home; that statistic is very close to being correct in my city, meaning approximately 210,000 households own a home. Property tax collections in 2010 were just over $1,000,000,000 according to the County Property Appraiser, so a 5% (2 mill) increase in property taxes would result in an average $250 increase per household among home owners.

[3] According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment among college graduates aged 25 and up was 4.4% in March 2011, compared to 9.5% for high school graduates with no college. For people under age 25, these numbers double - college graduates: 8.5%, high school grads with no college: 20%.

21st Century Robin Hoods

The newly-elected Republican governors of several states are attacking public education on several fronts. Making national headlines, of course, is Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who is attempting to strip public sector unions' ability to collectively bargain. A bill being considered in the Ohio legislature does the same thing, in addition to eliminating guaranteed sick days and pay increases for experience. Chris Christie in New Jersey is considered by many the leading Republican presidential hopeful (despite his continued denials he will run) because of his aggressive "standing up to" unions in his effort to slash public employees' pensions. Rick Scott in Florida is advocating a voucher system for all of the state's school-age children, reducing per-student spending from $7,000 to $6,000, thereby saving $2.6 billion annually. Maybe I'll tackle collective bargaining and unilateral benefit-slashing in another post. I'm interested in vouchers today.

First, let's examine who Governor Scott's proposed system would benefit. Florida taxpayers, of course, would get $2.6 billion in savings - that's $140.54 per year for each of Florida's 18.5 million residents. Although if he doesn't simultaneously give each individual a $140.54 tax credit, any tax savings will disproportionately benefit those who pay more taxes - i.e., the working upper class. Nationally, the top 1% of taxpayers (people earning more than $364,000), pay 21% of income taxes (earning 39% of gross income), so they'd each  get over $2,900 per person of tax savings benefit. The next 9% would get $511 each. For the bottom 50%, this $2.6 billion windfall results in $36 in reduced taxes. [1]

Of course, the biggest economic benefit would accrue to those who are already sending their children to private school. They receive an immediate $6,000 bonus. And don't forget - that $6,000 is completely untaxed. No federal income tax, no payroll tax, no unemployment insurance, etc. So it's more like $10,000 pre-tax. In summary, Floridians earning $365,000+ and sending two children to private school receive approximately $23,000 in benefit from this tax savings, whereas the 75% of Floridians earning less than $62,000 receive less than $110 in benefit. But wait, there's more.

Kids who now go to magnet schools outside their "home area" generally take a bus to their home school, then another one to the magnet school, if a parent or nanny doesn't drive them. Total commute time can be as much as 2 hours each way in some cases, and is more than 1 hour in virtually every case.

Suppose you are the single parent of a 16-year-old child. Because you dropped out of high school, you work for near-minimum wage -- say $22,500 a year. You want something better for your daughter. Of course you can't give her a car, so she's in for a 2-hour round-trip commute if you use your voucher to send her to a better school. Unfortunately, she also has after-school obligations that you can't relieve her of -- either baby-sitting younger siblings while you work at your second job, or working at a part-time job of her own. (The part-time job isn't for hair weaves and high heels -- it's so she can buy the clothes she wears to school, and that her younger sister will be wearing two years from now.) Let's say that job is a 4 hour shift at McDonald's. Unfortunately, your work schedule means she has to walk to the job and wait for you to pick her up after her shift... call it another hour. If she gets 8 hours of sleep (one less than is recommended for teens), that leaves two hours for everything else, including homework.

Given that, how will your child be able to keep up with a rigorous academic curriculum in a class full of kids whose parents or housekeepers drive them to and from school, hire private tutors for when they're falling behind, and insist that they forgo jobs in favor of study? Moreover, those kids' applications for college will be filled with extracurricular activities, volunteering in the community, interesting (and expensive) hobbies like photography or astronomy, and all the other items college admissions boards love to see. Your daughter's will have 3 years' work experience at McDonald's. So your best option is probably to keep her at her "home" school.

That school is already performing poorly because of underfunding, outdated infrastructure, inability to attract and retain the best teachers, and lack of community support (in large part because most people in the community, including you, cannot afford to spend the time to become deeply involved in the school [2]). Now, some higher income families who previously couldn't economically justify private school or a public magnet school will flee the poorer school for a different one. The school they're leaving just got worse.

Meanwhile, consider the other end of the spectrum. Suppose you run "Blue Blood Academy of the Arts and Sciences," which charges $17,000 tuition annually in order to fund state-of-the-art science labs, notebook computers for every incoming 9th grader with wireless access throughout the campus, smart boards in every class room, a guest lecture series featuring well-known artists, scientists and politicians, and a 2,000 seat theater on par with the best venues in the city. You already turn away applicants. Now, every parent just got a $6,000 per child voucher that can only be used to pay for schooling. How much do you raise tuition? And what will you spend that money on?

Let's assume the following things:
(1) America needs an educated workforce to compete in the global economy
(2) America's students are, on average, slipping further behind each year in every objective measure of academic preparedness
(3) Students in America's top secondary schools are currently competitive with students from other countries (at least, less uncompetitive than the bulk of our students). I make this claim based on the fact that America's top universities are recognized as the best in the world, and the American students those universities admit -- the vast majority of whom are from very competitive high schools -- do about as well as foreign students.

Given that, look again at the voucher program. It quite clearly provides an enormous economic and educational benefit to the wealthiest families (who don't really need it) at the educational expense of the poorest (who desperately do). And by "poorest," I don't mean the 2% or 5% or even 10% of families at the far edge of the economic spectrum -- I mean the 50% of families below the median income. How can that possibly improve our strength as a nation?

Vouchers are the political equivalent of a magic trick -- watch as I fold a $10 bill in half, turning it into a $20. The "bottom line," which ex-businessmen turned politicians love to invoke, is that spending $2.6 billion less on education in Florida will result in a Florida educational system that is $2.6 billion less effective than it is now. If funding goes away, the programs supported by that funding would go away. The benefit students receive from those programs would go away. No amount of hand-waving and shell-shifting can change those facts. Budget shortfalls over the past several years have already caused administrators to trim budgets and eliminate wasteful spending, so the $2.6 billion that vanishes will not be $2.6 billion in wasted or unnecessary or duplicative programs. It will be $2.6 billion in programs that are vitally important to maintaining a system at its current level of proficiency. At a time when the need to improve American education has never been clearer, vouchers are a major restructuring which will obviously and inevitably take education in the opposite direction.

Supporters of a voucher system would have you believe vouchers will make public education a competitive marketplace, and the competition thus engendered will magically improve all surviving competitors (weeding out the ones that can't compete). But education isn't laundry detergent. People "choosing" cheaper, less effective education don't just have slightly less sparkling clothes, they impose a cost on society in the form of reduced earning (and tax-paying) power, higher incidence of criminal behavior, higher incarceration rate, and poorer productivity, affecting America's global competitiveness. Unlike laundry detergent, people are not free to choose any one they desire -- education is rationed both economically, in the case of private schools, and geographically in the case of public schools which must admit local students prior to non-local ones. The "best" schools are filled to capacity now, and there's no factory to churn out more. Moreover, businesses whose revenues drop do not, in the short term, focus on product improvement -- they focus on cost-cutting. School administrators would be under greater pressure than ever to cut costs, resulting in fewer training days for teachers [3], fewer resources such as paper [4], books for students [5], and classroom technology, fewer electives such as art and music, and fewer after-school activities such as clubs and athletics. Teachers with lower salaries would be favored over those with more experience. Staff reductions would mean teachers would shoulder even more of the administrative burden than they currently do, further reducing the amount of time they can spend tutoring students and planning and preparing high-quality lessons.

Vouchers won't cause the public education system to suddenly become a competitive marketplace, feeding dollars to the best schools as smart consumers vote with their children's feet. Some schools might get slightly better. A very small percentage might get dramatically better. But the vast majority of schools would get somewhat worse, and some would get dramatically worse. Overall, it is impossible to conclude that any objective measure of student performance would increase, on average, under a voucher system. Don't get me wrong - public education desperately needs dramatic restructuring, possibly even restructuring that makes it look more like private enterprise. But don't let the rhetoric fool you. Vouchers are nothing more than (yet another) way to steal from the "poor," (the 75% of people making less than $62,000) and give to the rich (the 1% making more than $364,000). The exploits of the merry band of Rick Scott, Scott Walker, Chris Christie, et al., make Robin Hood's aspirations seem both puny and pathetic. These men have turned their considerable rhetorical skill and the marketing muscle purchased by donations from the very rich to objectives such as stealing $2.6 billion from middle and lower class Florida taxpayers in one fell swoop. It is impressive, even as it is tragic.


[1] Florida figures estimated based on national data - http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/22652.html.
[2] At the middle school my son attended in an affluent part of a large city, the president of the PTA was the nanny of one of the children. The PTA was extremely active, with most members able to devote several hours a week to it.
[3] At the school where I teach, paid training days have been eliminated for the remainder of the year.
[4] Since mid-January, we have been placed on a "700 page" monthly paper quota. That may not sound restrictive, but trust me, it's about 1/3 what I need.
[5] We have only classroom set of Algebra II and Geometry textbooks, so students cannot take them home to study. The workbooks available to each student provide practice problems but no instruction, so if they're lost and their parents can't help, their resources are limited.

Judge Not, Lest Ye Become One

So I'm sitting in court yesterday waiting for my 15 seconds of infamy... "Guilty, Your Honor"... (and the opportunity to pay $300 in court costs) because I had been driving with a suspended license. I had been driving with a suspended license (unknowingly) for nearly a year, because I had been driving without insurance (unknowingly) for over a year, because (I'm guessing) as I was moving from one state to another, back to the first state and then two more moves before finally settling in where I am now, I missed several notices from my insurance company.  I apparently also missed a notice from the state, telling me they'd suspended my license, but  all of this is not why I write.  (Aside:  the cop who ticketed me for driving with a suspended license was incredulous that I could have gone a year without paying my car insurance, and not noticed that fact.  Clearly, he doesn't know me very well.)

Before he started hearing cases, the judge took about 15 minutes to explain the rules of the court and the process that would occur depending on the outcome of the hearing.  After the first 4 people came before him and answered "No" to the question of whether they'd obtained a valid driver's license, he sighed and began a 5 minute lecture on the importance of taking care of the problem now, before it becomes a bigger one (with a 5 year prison sentence possibility), just for driving without a license.

While edifying, the thing that really struck me was how much he sounded exactly like me in the classroom, admonishing my students that they needed to do the class work and homework... not for my benefit, but their own.  The more he spoke -- with that exasperated tone that said clearly he knew his words were falling on deaf ears, but he felt the need to say them anyway -- the more he seemed to be in exactly the same role as I am in every day.  He's talking to a lot of people who don't want to be there.  He has information they need.  Information they are fighting to avoid learning, and that he's fighting to make them learn, despite the fact that he receives no benefit from their learning it, and they receive enormous benefit.  It's like force-feeding wounded birds to keep them alive.  It pisses them off, it does you no good while saving their lives, and they're not only not grateful, they're actively hostile.

As Buckaroo Bonzai said many years ago, no matter where you go, there you are.