Education Reform (Point Counterpoint)

POINT COUNTERPOINT

Education Reform

POINT COUNTERPOINT Affirmative Action

Mental Health Reform

Amateur Athletics

Miranda Rights

American Military Policy

Open Government

Animal Rights

Physician-Assisted Suicide

Bankruptcy Law

Policing the Internet

Blogging, Second Edition

Prescription and Non-prescription Drugs

Capital Punishment, Second Edition Child Custody Issues Disaster Relief DNA Evidence Education Reform Educational Standards Election Reform, Second Edition Energy Policy Environmental Regulations and Global Warming The FCC and Regulating Indecency Fetal Rights

Prisoners’ Rights Private Property Rights Product Liability Protecting Ideas Racial Profiling Regulating Violence in Entertainment Religion in Public Schools Reproductive Rights The Right to Die The Right to Privacy

Food Safety

Rights of Students, Second Edition

Freedom of Information

Search and Seizure

Freedom of Speech, Second Edition

Smoking Bans, Second Edition

Gay Rights

Stem Cell Research and Cloning

Gun Control, Second Edition Hate Crimes Immigrants’ Rights After 9/11 Immigration Policy, Second Edition

Social Security Tort Reform Trial of Juveniles as Adults Unions and Labor Laws Universal Healthcare

The Internet and Crime

The War on Drugs

Juvenile Justice

The War on Terror, Second Edition

Legalizing Marijuana, Second Edition

Welfare Reform

Mandatory Military Service

White-Collar Crime

Media Bias, Second Edition

Women in the Military

POINT COUNTERPOINT

Education Reform

Victoria Sherrow

Series Editor

Alan Marzilli, M.A., J.D.

Education Reform Copyright © 2011 by Infobase Learning All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Learning 132 West 31st Street New York, NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sherrow, Victoria. Education reform / by Victoria Sherrow. p. cm. — (Point/counterpoint) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60413-903-7 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4381-3884-8 (e-book) 1. Educational change—United States. I. Title. LA217.2.S54 2011 370.973—dc22 2011001006 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.infobaselearning.com. Text design by Keith Trego Cover design by Alicia Post Composition by EJB Publishing Services Cover printed by Bang Printing, Brainerd, Minn. Book printed and bound by Bang Printing, Brainerd, Minn. Date printed: September 2011 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

POINT COUNTERPOINT

Foreword

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introduction

Education in America

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Expanding School Choice Improves Education

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Expanding School Choice Harms Education

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High-Stakes Testing Improves Education

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High-Stakes Testing Harms Education

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Teachers Unions Benefit Education

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Teachers Unions Hurt Education conclusion

Other Topics for Debate Appendix: Beginning Legal Research Elements of the Argument Notes Resources Picture Credits Index

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FOREWORD Alan Marzilli, m.a., j.d. Washington, D.C. The Point/Counterpoint series offers the reader a greater understanding of some of the most controversial issues in contemporary American society—issues such as capital punishment, immigration, gay rights, and gun control. We have looked for the most contemporary issues and have included topics—such as the controversies surrounding “blogging”—that we could not have imagined when the series began. In each volume, the author has selected an issue of particular importance and set out some of the key arguments on both sides of the issue. Why study both sides of the debate? Maybe you have yet to make up your mind on an issue, and the arguments presented in the book will help you to form an opinion. More likely, however, you will already have an opinion on many of the issues covered by the series. There is always the chance that you will change your opinion after reading the arguments for the other side. But even if you are firmly committed to an issue—for example, school prayer or animal rights—reading both sides of the argument will help you to become a more effective advocate for your cause. By gaining an understanding of opposing arguments, you can develop answers to those arguments. Perhaps more importantly, listening to the other side sometimes helps you see your opponent’s arguments in a more human way. For example, Sister Helen Prejean, one of the nation’s most visible opponents of capital punishment, has been deeply affected by her interactions with the families of murder victims. By seeing the families’ grief and pain, she understands much better why people support the death penalty, and she is able to carry out her advocacy with a greater sensitivity to the needs and beliefs of death penalty supporters. The books in the series include numerous features that help the reader to gain a greater understanding of the issues. Real-life examples illustrate the human side of the issues. Each chapter also includes excerpts from relevant laws, court cases, and other material, which provide a better foundation for understanding the arguments. The

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Foreword

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volumes contain citations to relevant sources of law and information, and an appendix guides the reader through the basics of legal research, both on the Internet and in the library. Today, through free Web sites, it is easy to access legal documents, and these books might give you ideas for your own research. Studying the issues covered by the Point/Counterpoint series is more than an academic activity. The issues described in the books affect all of us as citizens. They are the issues that today’s leaders debate and tomorrow’s leaders will decide. While all of the issues covered in the Point/Counterpoint series are controversial today, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, it is entirely possible that the reader might one day play a central role in resolving the debate. Today it might seem that some debates—such as capital punishment and abortion—will never be resolved. However, our nation’s history is full of debates that seemed as though they never would be resolved, and many of the issues are now well settled—at least on the surface. In the nineteenth century, abolitionists met with widespread resistance to their efforts to end slavery. Ultimately, the controversy threatened the union, leading to the Civil War between the northern and southern states. Today, while a public debate over the merits of slavery would be unthinkable, racism persists in many aspects of society. Similarly, today nobody questions women’s right to vote. Yet at the beginning of the twentieth century, suffragists fought public battles for women’s voting rights, and it was not until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 that the legal right of women to vote was established nationwide. What makes an issue controversial? Often, controversies arise when most people agree that there is a problem but disagree about the best way to solve it. There is little argument that poverty is a major problem in the United States, especially in inner cities and rural areas. Yet, people disagree vehemently about the best way to address the problem. To some, the answer is social programs, such as welfare, food stamps, and public housing. However, many argue that such subsidies encourage dependence on government benefits while unfairly

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penalizing those who work and pay taxes, and that the real solution is to require people to support themselves. American society is in a constant state of change, and sometimes modern practices clash with what many consider to be “traditional values,” which are often rooted in conservative political views or religious beliefs. Many blame high crime rates, and problems such as poverty, illiteracy, and drug use on the breakdown of the traditional family structure of a married mother and father raising their children. Since the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s, sparked in part by the widespread availability of the birth control pill, marriage rates have declined, and the number of children born outside of marriage has increased. The sexual revolution led to controversies over birth control, sex education, and other issues, most prominently abortion. Similarly, the gay rights movement has been challenged as a threat to traditional values. While many gay men and lesbians want to have the same right to marry and raise families as heterosexuals, many politicians and others have challenged gay marriage and adoption as a threat to American society. Sometimes, new technology raises issues that we have never faced before, and society disagrees about the best solution. Are people free to swap music online, or does this violate the copyright laws that protect songwriters and musicians’ ownership of the music that they create? Should scientists use “genetic engineering” to create new crops that are resistant to disease and pests and produce more food, or is it too risky to use a laboratory to create plants that nature never intended? Modern medicine has continued to increase the average lifespan—which is now 77 years, up from under 50 years at the beginning of the twentieth century—but many people are now choosing to die in comfort rather than living with painful ailments in their later years. For doctors, this presents an ethical dilemma: should they allow their patients to die? Should they assist patients in ending their own lives painlessly? Perhaps the most controversial issues are those that implicate a Constitutional right. The Bill of Rights—the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution—spells out some of the most fundamental

Foreword

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rights that distinguish our democracy from other nations with fewer freedoms. However, the sparsely worded document is open to Â�interpretation, with each side saying that the Constitution is on their side. The Bill of Rights was meant to protect individual liberties; however, the needs of some individuals clash with society’s needs. Thus, the Constitution often serves as a battleground between individuals and government officials seeking to protect society in some way. The First Amendment’s guarantee of “freedom of speech” leads to some very difficult questions. Some forms of expression—such as burning an American flag—lead to public outrage, but are protected by the First Amendment. Other types of expression that most people find objectionable—such as child pornography—are not protected by the Constitution. The question is not only where to draw the line, but whether drawing lines around constitutional rights threatens our liberty. The Bill of Rights raises many other questions about individual rights and societal “good.” Is a prayer before a high school football game an “establishment of religion” prohibited by the First Amendment? Does the Second Amendment’s promise of “the right to bear arms” include concealed handguns? Does stopping and frisking someone standing on a known drug corner constitute “unreasonable search and seizure” in violation of the Fourth Amendment? Although the U.S. Supreme Court has the ultimate authority in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, its answers do not always satisfy the public. When a group of nine people—sometimes by a five-to-four vote—makes a decision that affects hundreds of millions of others, public outcry can be expected. For example, the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that abortion is protected by the Constitution did little to quell the debate over abortion. Whatever the root of the controversy, the books in the Point/ Counterpoint series seek to explain to the reader the origins of the debate, the current state of the law, and the arguments on either side of the debate. Our hope in creating this series is that readers will be better informed about the issues facing not only our politicians, but all of our nation’s citizens, and become more actively involved in resolving

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these debates, as voters, concerned citizens, journalists, or maybe even elected officials. Former President George W. Bush remarked after leaving office in January 2009 that he wanted to be remembered for championing the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, which instituted radical changes in the federal government’s role in state-run school systems. Many praised the law, which sought to hold schools and individual teachers accountable for student performance, as measured by performance on standardized tests in core academic subjects. On the other hand, many—particularly the labor unions representing teachers—argue that the law’s legacy is one of failure, causing teachers to “teach to the test” rather than inspire learning. That said, teachers unions are themselves controversial, with some people suggesting that they put their members’ financial security above the needs of students. The unions have ample cause for concern about the future of their profession, not only due to accountability measures, but also because many systems are seeing considerable numbers of students move to nonunionized private schools and charter schools that are supported by public funds. This volume presents both sides of these controversial issues.

INTRODUCTION

Education in America

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mericans have always regarded education as important for democracy and economic success, as well as an end in itself. Since colonial days, people have discussed the goals of education and what should be taught and how. The education system has grown and changed significantly, reflecting social and economic developments since the 1700s. Education reforms have reflected personal and social values and political opinions about the roles of federal, state, and local government. In colonial days, education was a private matter. There were no systems of free or compulsory public education, although some towns did organize schools. Children also went to “dame schools,” where women taught from home. Wealthier families hired people to teach their children or sent them to England for their education. Boston Latin School, founded in 1635, was the first public school in the nation.

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Education Reform The main goals of education were to teach reading and help boys prepare for careers in medicine, law, teaching, or the ministry. Many children did not need much formal schooling for their future livelihood. Sons tended to follow the same trades as their fathers, while daughters were expected to become wives, mothers, and homemakers, and perhaps help with the family farm or business. They learned these jobs at home. Government began to authorize schools in 1647, when Massachusetts Colony passed a law stating that every town with at least 50 or more families must provide an elementary school. Communities, not the state, controlled schools. Towns were empowered to levy school taxes, within certain limits. People could pay in cash or donate goods or services, including firewood, repair work, or room and board for the teacher. Under this same law, towns with more than 100 families had to establish a secondary school. Usually only wealthy males went to secondary schools, or they attended private academies, where they studied Greek, Latin, literature, philosophy, and elocution. By 1700, schools were compulsory in every New England colony and some other colonies. Seminaries and colleges provided opportunities for higher education. Harvard University, the nation’s first college, opened in Massachusetts in 1638, followed by the College of William and Mary, founded in Virginia in 1693. Schools were less common outside New England. People in the Middle Atlantic and Southern colonies lived farther apart and tended to be more diverse in terms of religion and national origins. Because they were less likely to agree on where to locate schools and what to teach, education was often a family matter. Wealthier families hired tutors or sent their children to private academies. As people moved west, they set up schools in frontier communities. Many schoolhouses were makeshift buildings with untrained teachers and little equipment. Students learned basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, but poor children often missed school because they had to work.

Education in America

This illustration depicts a one-room school in colonial Pennsylvania of the 1700s. In colonial America and in the early years of the American republic, education was not a public institution but a private matter. Prior to the tax-supported system of education that exists today, families who wanted education for their children paid for it out of their own pockets.

“A Crusade Against Ignorance” After the Revolutionary War (1775–1783), Americans discussed the idea of free public schools for the new nation. Thomas Jefferson championed this idea, calling this “crusade against ignorance” vital for a free society.1 Jefferson believed that education would provide mass literacy and foster a meritocracy—a society where citizens achieve careers and leadership roles based

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Education Reform on ability and performance, not their socioeconomic status. He also wanted Americans to be educated in the United States, not abroad. In 1787, he wrote to his friend James Madison, “Above all things, I hope the education of the common people will be attended to; convinced that on their good senses we may rely with the most security for the preservation of liberty.”2 People tended to agree that literacy was desirable, although some did not support funding public education. Nevertheless, the 1800s saw a significant increase in the number of what were called common schools—free public schools open to all. The nation’s first public high school opened in 1821 in Boston; between 1830 and 1870, the common school movement spread. Schools remained under local control, but some states regulated teacher standards, attendance, and the curriculum. In the 1840s, funding changed so that parents and other residents paid for schools indirectly, through taxes. Horace Mann led this movement, after giving up his law practice in 1837 to become the first secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education. Pointing to the social benefits of public and secular (nonreligious) education, Mann said that government had a duty to ensure universal access. He founded a teachers’ journal, the Common School Weekly, and spoke to numerous citizens’ groups. The movement succeeded, despite opposition from people who opposed a larger government role in education.

Schools for a Growing Nation Immigration, mostly from Europe, swelled during the mid- to late nineteenth century, and educators looked for a core curriculum to suit the increasingly diverse population. Public schools served a key role in teaching immigrants from diverse backgrounds English and transmitting a common culture and national identity. Mann and others said that education could promote patriotism, harmony, and social virtues, including honesty and tolerance.

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Seen here, a schoolhouse for African-American students run by the Freedmen’s Bureau in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 1865. Prior to the Civil War, slaves were banned from obtaining their educations. In the years just after the war, schools like this one were established to educate newly freed slaves. It would, however, take another century to ensure that black and white Americans received the same quality of education.

As industrialization transformed the economy, schools added courses in accounting, bookkeeping, navigation, and typing to prepare people for specific occupations. As more parents entered the workforce, they had less time to spend with their children.

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Education Reform Therefore, schools played an even greater role in helping young people become good citizens as well as productive employees. In the South, public schools grew in number after the Civil War ended in 1865, but poor communities, especially in rural areas, had trouble funding them. Like other public facilities, schools were racially segregated. Laws banning slaves from learning to read or write created generations of illiterate southern blacks. After the war, black Americans also faced severe social and economic disadvantages. Housing patterns, which reflected income levels, led to segregated schools around the nation. Poor urban children struggled to improve their lives. Children as young as five worked long days in textile mills, canning factories, clothing production, and other jobs. These children attended school sporadically, if at all. The few dollars they earned each month helped their families to survive. Parents saw the value of schooling, however, and often made sacrifices so their children could attend. For hundreds of thousands of immigrants, education was a path to the “American dream” and offered the hope of rising from poverty. Conflicts erupted when people disagreed about cultural values, foreign languages, and religious schools. In 1889, Wisconsin passed the Bennett law, which required all schools in the state to teach major academic subjects in English. At that time, German Lutherans, German Catholics, and Norwegian Protestants operated private schools to preserve their language, religion, and culture. The law was seldom enforced until William D. Hoard, a Republican, became governor. A coalition of religious leaders and German Americans in Wisconsin worked to elect Mayor George W. Peck of Milwaukee, a Democrat, as governor. Peck opposed the Bennett law, which was repealed in 1891. States began to require school attendance, starting in 1852 with Massachusetts. In 1870, just 2 percent of the nation’s 17year-olds graduated from high school. By 1900, 31 states required young people ages eight to 14 (sometimes 16) to attend school.

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In 1910, 72 percent of children in the United States attended school, about half of them in one-room schoolhouses.3 By 1918, all states required children to complete elementary school. During the early 1900s, thousands of elementary and secondary schools were built to serve the growing population and demand for trained workers. In many places, the school year was lengthened to fill most of the year. Rural schools, which tended to serve fewer students, often had a shorter academic year so farm children could help with planting and harvesting. This was the basis of the long summer vacation that persists in most school systems today. After World War I (1914–1918), people expressed concern about immigration and states passed laws to encourage patriotism. A court case involving church-state relations emerged in 1922. Oregon passed a citizens’ initiative called the state Compulsory Education Act. It eliminated an exception in Oregon’s education act that allowed students ages eight to 16 to attend state-recognized private schools instead of public school. This law would have closed parochial schools, most of them

Wisconsin’s Bennett law, enacted 1889 The Bennett law was an 1889 law that required all public and parochial schools in Wisconsin to teach certain subjects only in the English language. German Catholics and Lutherans saw it as an attack on their parochial schools and on their culture and language. It was repealed in 1891. The following is an excerpt: “[N]o school shall be regarded as a school unless there shall be taught therein, as part of elementary education to children, reading, writing, arithmetic and United States history, in the English language.” Source: Wisconsin Historical Society, Dictionary of Wisconsin History. http://www. wisconsinhistory.org/dictionary/index.asp?action=view&term_id=831&term_type_ id=3&term_type_text=things&letter=B.

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Education Reform Catholic, as well as military academies and other private schools. Opponents filed a lawsuit claiming that although a state might require school attendance it could not tell parents which school they must use or not use. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed, and struck down this law in 1925 before it took effect. The Court reasoned that the act abridged the freedoms of schools and families, and said the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause protects a parent’s right to choose a school. It declared that children are not “the mere creature[s] of the state” and that, when it comes to choosing a public or private school, “This responsibility belongs to the child’s parents or guardians.”4 The twentieth century saw increasing government control over education. Districts were enlarged and consolidated. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Americans relied more on the federal government to solve massive economic problems, and that outlook influenced education policies. Every state eventually made school compulsory, usually to age 16. The percentage of American youths earning a high school diploma increased from nine percent in 1910 to 50 percent in 1940.5 Schools received more attention and funding after World War II (1939–1945). During the 1930s and early 1940s, buildings deteriorated and funding for personnel and supplies declined. Education experts offered new ideas about how to run schools. People debated what schools should teach. Should everyone have a liberal arts education? Take classical courses, such as Latin and Greek? What about trigonometry? Should some students pursue a trade-oriented education? Many schools grouped students into college-preparatory courses, vocational or business courses, or general coursework in English, mathematics, geography, history, and science. Schools were also monitoring students’ health and offering more opportunities for recreation, team sports, and socializing.

Addressing Inequality Racial inequality became a prominent reform issue in the 1950s. For centuries, many African-American children either lacked

Education in America

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access to education or had to attend inferior schools. Before the Civil War, laws banned slaves from attending schools; afterward, poverty and racism posed major obstacles. Laws passed during Reconstruction (1865–1877) promoted public education, and the federal Freedman’s Bureau helped to set up schools for newly freed slaves. Southern states complied by establishing schools, which were segregated by race, except in New Orleans. Despite these obstacles, more than 30,000 trained black teachers were working in Southern schools by 1900, and the literacy rate increased to more than 50 percent in less than 40 years after the war ended.6 Schools remained segregated, however, in both North and South. In the South, this resulted from laws, and in other places, it resulted from housing patterns and various forms of subtler discrimination. People challenged segregation laws, but without success. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation was permissible in public facilities. Homer Plessy, a man of mixed racial heritage, had taken a seat in the “white” car of a train operated by the East Louisiana Railroad. When Plessy refused to move to the “colored” car, he was arrested for violating the Separate Car Act. His attorney argued that the law violated Plessy’s rights under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

THE LETTER OF THE LAW Delaware State Constitution, Article X, Education §l. Establishment and maintenance of free public schools, attendance. Section l. The General Assembly shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a general and efficient system of free public schools, and may require by law that every child, not physically or mentally disabled, shall attend the public school, unless educated by other means. Source: Delaware State Constitution. http://delcode.delaware.gov/constitution/ constitution-11.shtml.

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Education Reform The case reached the Supreme Court, which upheld the law, saying that separating the races does not necessarily brand one race as “inferior” and that separate accommodations can be “equal.” Known as the “separate but equal” doctrine, this ruling was used to justify segregation laws for decades. Critics noted that schools for black students were usually far from “equal” in terms of their physical buildings, equipment, and other features. Textbooks were often discarded older editions from schools for whites, and many students had to share books. As the civil rights movement progressed during the 1950s, Americans learned more about racial inequality. In 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Plessy when it unanimously ruled that states may not deliberately segregate public schools on

FROM THE BENCH Plessy v. Ferguson 163 U.S. 537 (1896) The case of Plessy v. Ferguson would have repercussions for generations of black Americans. The following is an excerpt from Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissent: [I]n view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved. It is therefore to be regretted that this high tribunal, the final expositor of the fundamental law of the land, has reached the conclusion that it is competent for a state to regulate the enjoyment by citizens of their civil rights solely upon the basis of race.€.€.€. In my opinion, the judgment this day rendered will, in time, prove to be quite as pernicious as the decision made by this tribunal in the Dred Scott Case.

Education in America a racial basis. At that time, 21 states had laws that segregated their schools. In Topeka, Kansas, third-grader Linda Brown had to walk to a bus and then ride to a school for blacks, even though Summer Elementary, designated “whites only,” was much closer to her home. In 1951, her father, Oliver Brown, and other parents sued the Board of Education. When their case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, lawyers from the NAACP, including Thurgood Marshall (who later became a Supreme Court justice), argued that separate was not equal. Experts explained how separate facilities sent a message of inferiority that kept children from reaching their potential. The Court agreed, basing its reasoning on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Critics said the Brown decision violated individual rights and the rights of states and communities. People also called the ruling too vague. The Court had told states to desegregate schools “with all deliberate speed.” But exactly how should they comply and what would happen if they did not? Some cities desegregated their schools quickly and peacefully. In other places, Brown sparked years of debates, protests, conflicts, and tactics to avoid compliance. Moreover, the Court had not addressed de facto segregation, which was far more common because housing patterns led to predominantly white or black communities. Concerns about racial and economic inequalities in education have persisted. Presidents John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) and Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) promoted civil rights legislation and school desegregation. As part of his War on Poverty, Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, which set up the National Teacher Corps, Head Start (preschool for low-income children), and Title I funding for lowincome schools. Johnson’s commissioner of education, Harold Howe II, a former history teacher, principal, and superintendent, opposed segregation and wanted to help children living in poverty. The Johnson administration used federal aid to schools as leverage to boost integration.

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Education Reform By the late 1960s, other social movements sparked reforms. Women challenged sexism in education and the workplace. People sought changes in textbooks to show the previously ignored contributions of minorities and women. Inequities persisted, however, and critics said the federal government should do more to improve education.

Expanding Federal Involvement Federal aid for education had increased after World War II. Excellence in education was regarded as essential for America’s political and economic power. Wartime had sparked American scientific innovation, as when scientists built the first atomic bomb. Years earlier, American Robert Goddard developed the first liquid-fueled rocket, which paved the way for space exploration. Educating talented young people was bound to bring advances in medicine, industry, and other fields. In 1957, the United States was shocked when the Soviet Union launched the first space satellite, Sputnik 1. To meet the Soviet challenge, U.S. schools boosted programs in science, math, technology, and foreign languages. President Dwight Eisenhower (1953–1961) supported the National Defense and Education Act of 1958. His successor, Kennedy, urged Congress to fund the U.S. space program, which put the first men on the moon in 1969.

THE LETTER OF THE LAW U.S. Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1 (1868) No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Education in America School funding patterns were changing. In 1920, local funds made up 83 percent of the revenues for public schools. The local share shrunk from 68 percent in 1940 to 50 percent in 1980. State funding jumped from 16 percent in 1920 to 30 percent in 1940 and more than 40 percent in 1980. Federal spending on education grew from less than 2 percent in 1940 to about 8 percent in 1980.7 Critics said the federal education budget increased too much in the 1960s and 1970s. President Jimmy Carter (1977– 1981) tried unsuccessfully to reduce it. To appease people who wanted even more federal money for education, he made the secretary of education a Cabinet-level position. Meanwhile, discussions about equal opportunities continued. New laws called for equal spending on school programs for male and female students and set forth the rights of students with disabilities and non-English speaking students. The Equality of Educational Opportunity Study of 1966 (also known as the Coleman Report) found that the two strongest predictors of academic achievement were the socioeconomic status of a student’s family and the socioeconomic status of the school he/she attended. The U.S. Supreme Court also decided two new cases involving desegregation. In the 1968 case of Green v. County Board of New Kent County, the Court ruled that “freedom of choice” plans must be replaced with more effective plans to desegregate schools. Three years later, the Court ruled that busing students was a constitutionally permissible way to achieve racial balance.

“A Nation at Risk” The 1980s brought new concerns about education as the global economy heightened competition. American students were scoring lower on international tests than their peers from Japan, Germany, Canada, and other countries. Critics said U.S. schools were not setting high enough standards for achievement and that many students were not prepared for their roles as citizens and future workers. High school students showed glaring gaps

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Education Reform in their knowledge of history and geography. College teachers said that many incoming freshmen lacked basic skills and the strong work ethic of previous generations. People expressed special concerns about low levels of literacy and poor scores in mathematics and science. Dropout rates were high, especially in troubled urban schools and among minorities. Some city high school dropout rates exceeded 50 percent. In 1978, education analyst Leonard Billet wrote, “The education, or rather the uneducation, of black children from low income families is undoubtedly the greatest disaster area in public education and its most devastating failure.”8 In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education, appointed by Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell, issued A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. This report on the state of the nation’s schools warned: Our once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technology innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world.€.€.€. [W]hile we can take justifiable pride in what our schools and colleges have historically accomplished and contributed to the United States and the well-being of its people, the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people.9 In the wake of such reports, the various concerned parties discussed solutions. Teachers said they did not receive the respect or salaries they deserved and had little influence over how schools were run. Experts said that many students were not physically or mentally ready to learn and lacked language skills. Many students who were at risk for low achievement and dropping out lived in communities with high rates of poverty and crime. They attended schools with inadequate staff and facilities and larger-than-average class sizes. Teen pregnancy rates reached new

Education in America highs. Single working mothers were raising more children with no other means of support. Schools dealt with problems caused by homelessness, poverty, substance abuse, unstable families, transience, and child abuse. In High School, Ernest L. Boyer, then president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, said that schools were expected “to provide the services and transmit the values we used to expect from the community and the home and the church.”10 High dropout rates in urban areas were especially disturbing. People offered solutions, including giving students a choice of schools. In a 1987 report, Dealing with Dropouts: The Urban Superintendents’ Call to Action, a group of educators said families should be able to “choose the school based on the students’ abilities, needs, and interests.”11 Public options expanded to include magnet schools, alternative schools, and charter schools, which debuted in 1991. A charter school is a publicly financed and authorized school run by people or groups, not a school district, and open to any child, often through a lottery. Early supporters hoped that groups of teachers would develop charter school programs for students who were not doing well in traditional public schools. As these debates took place, President Ronald Reagan (1981– 1989) worked to cut about 20 percent from federal education spending and initiated changes to give states more control over schools. The Reagan administration focused on reforms that reduced federal government involvement and aimed to advance economic productivity. In response to A Nation at Risk, schools implemented reforms to improve instruction, and states increased high school graduation requirements. Businesses and corporations partnered with schools and offered incentive programs. Problems persisted, however, in the form of weak reading skills, high dropout rates, uneven quality from school to school, and achievement gaps between rich and poor. The gap between whites and nonwhites had narrowed since 1970, but progress stalled in the late 1980s.

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Recent Reform Efforts President George H.W. Bush (1989–1993) declared, “The most important competitiveness program of all is one which improves education in America.”12 His Educational Excellence Act of 1989 included plans to reward top schools; recognize National Science Scholars; encourage school choice, including magnet schools; and offer “drug free schools emergency grants.” Bush supported alternative certification plans for people with subject-matter expertise who wanted to become teachers without earning an education degree. Education was a major political issue in 1989. Polls showed that Americans wanted more federal government involvement in education, with 70 percent favoring national goals and standards.13 In September 1989, Bush held a summit meeting on education with the nation’s governors, where people discussed school readiness, curricula, achievement, evaluations, school culture, and other issues. Bush appointed a Governors Task Force to meet with various experts to study education from preschool through high school. The Task Force recommended reforms and set education goals for the year 2000. This discussion continued into the administration of President Bill Clinton (1993–2001). As governor of Arkansas, Clinton had worked with Bush’s task force. In 1994, Clinton signed the Educate America Act.14 Participants at the 1996 National Education Summit, including business leaders, governors, and educators, pushed for curriculum standards and assessments. An independent group outside the federal government developed national education standards. States were encouraged, but not required, to adopt them. As 2000 arrived, it was clear that the lofty goals of the Educate America Act had not been met. In 2001, President George W. Bush (2001–2009) proposed reforms to spark competition and add incentives to the system. The ESEA Act of 2002, also known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), had broad bipartisan support in Congress. Education analysts called it

Education in America the most significant federal education reform since the Brown decision in 1954. NCLB emphasized higher standards, annual measurement, accountability, and more flexibility in federal education spending. One stated goal was to make sure all children learned certain basics. Student test scores would be used to assess achievement and evaluate schools—a provision that became increasingly controversial. For testing purposes, students were divided into subgroups, including special education, and each group was expected to reach test score targets. State officials would review schools that fell short. These schools could be restructured, taken over, or closed, making these high-stakes tests. NCLB also provided that if a Title I school (a school in the bottom half economically) did not make enough annual progress for two consecutive years, students could transfer to a better-performing school, and the school district must finance transportation. NCLB mandated that 100 percent of the nation’s public school students in grades K–12 would meet state proficiency standards in reading and math by the year 2014—a goal many experts called admirable but impossible. Critics claimed that NCLB gave the federal government too much control over education, while supporters noted that states could determine their own performance standards and the consequences when schools did not make adequate yearly progress (AYP). Individual schools could tailor the core knowledge program to their needs. According to other critics, this approach let states set standards too low. Supporters said that NCLB promotes equity by giving people the option to attend a better school, regardless of their address and economic resources. Studies showed that transfer rates were low, however. Statistics from 42 states and the District of Columbia showed that fewer than 1 percent of the students who were eligible to transfer in 2003–2004 did so.15 In Chicago, about 1,000 of the 19,000 students who sought to transfer found places in higher-performing schools.16 In many districts, high-quality

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Education Reform alternatives were simply not available. Many parents and students, especially English-language learners, did not want to leave their neighborhood schools. Education historian Diane Ravitch notes, “Some excellent schools failed to meet AYP because only one subgroup—usually children with disabilities—did not make adequate progress. In such schools the children in every other subgroup did make progress, were very happy with the school, did not consider it a failing school, and saw no reason to leave.”17 NCLB supporters suggested ways to make the transfer process easier and offered incentives for successful schools to accept, and even recruit, students from failing schools. They suggested allowing students to transfer outside the district. In states that used financial incentives, transfer rates increased. Missouri, for example, gave extra funding to suburban districts that joined a transfer program. Finding ways to boost student success while keeping them in the public system appeals to teachers unions and others who want public education to thrive. Reviews of NCLB have been mixed. Some studies saw no gains in achievement; others found rising scores in reading and math for elementary school students.18 Scores for the average high school student did not show much progress on international tests, though. As of 2010, American students ranked seventeenth in science and twenty-fourth in math, placing them near the bottom among developed nations.19 When NCLB was up for reauthorization in 2007, people debated various provisions. Many agreed that the act was useful for identifying achievement gaps between groups of students and schools that needed improvement. Critics, however, said the law was too punitive and often unreasonable. They said states and districts should give competent assistance to troubled schools, including leadership, knowledge, training, and resources. Such efforts can foster long-term improvements, not just temporary fixes to avoid penalties. As of the end of 2010, under President Barack Obama (who began his presidency in January 2009), Congress had not

Education in America reauthorized NCLB. Debates continued as the Obama administration announced its own plan, including the “Race to the Top” education initiative. It set aside an unprecedented sum—$100 billion—for education. About $4.3 billion was earmarked for states that proposed the best reform plans, based on raising standards, tracking student performance, turning around schools, and putting top-notch teachers in low-performing schools. Supporters said that although not every state would receive the extra money, everyone would win as states reassessed and improved their school systems. Effective programs could also inspire other states. The Obama plan replaced the NCLB expectation of 100 percent proficiency by 2014 with the goal that by 2020 all students will graduate from high school prepared for higher education or a career. It kept provisions for yearly testing, using enhanced data systems, but said the focus would be on “student growth” during the academic year rather than the percentage of students who reach preset proficiency standards.20 Debates over “Race to the Top” continued throughout 2010. The nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association (NEA), opposed the idea that states would compete for extra funding. Many teachers unions disagreed with the idea of using student performance to measure teacher effectiveness or determine salaries.21 Some state officials expressed enthusiasm about the chance to gain extra funding for schools. In the first round, Tennessee and Delaware won the “Race.” Eighteen states and the District of Columbia were finalists for the second round.

Current Concerns As of 2010, about 99,000 public schools in the United States were educating more than 48 million students. People on all sides of the education debates agree that young people must gain the skills to compete in a global economy, where some jobs can be shipped around the world via the Internet. In 2004, former

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The above chart shows the achievement levels of U.S. eighthgraders in reading, math, writing, science, history, and geography, as of 2009. Also shown is a list of guidelines for applying for federal funds for education reform available through the Race to the Top fund.

Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said, “There is a palpable unease that businesses and jobs are being drained from the United States, with potentially adverse long-run implications for unemployment and the standard of living of the average

Education in America American.”22 Bob Wehling writes, “We cannot continue to blame American job loss on lower foreign wages, when it is also higher qualifications that attract U.S. companies to hire overseas.”23 Education deficits for students in high-poverty areas persist. Millions of students drop out each year and another million graduate with lesser knowledge and skills than graduates from low-poverty schools.24 A staggering 6.2 million students dropped out in 2007—about 16 percent of all Americans ages 16 to 24. Most were black or Latino. Nationwide, dropout rates were 12.2 percent for whites and 21 percent for blacks —numbers that corresponded with poverty levels.25 From these numbers it is clear that reforms aimed at reducing dropout rates have not produced adequate results. The severe recession that emerged in late 2007 also meant tighter budgets. School districts throughout the country cut programs and laid off teachers and other staff. People asked how schools could improve while coping with larger class sizes, fewer teachers and counselors, no art and music classes, and no field trips or other enrichment activities that motivate some students to stay in school. Moreover, people disagree about how schools should be funded and how that money should be distributed. Should funding be equalized for all public schools, regardless of their ZIP code? Critics of the current system say taxpayers do not get their money’s worth. Costs have steadily increased from about $3,000 per pupil annually in the mid-1970s to more than $8,000 in 2005. Some districts now spend more than $16,000 a year per pupil.26 In Washington, D.C., despite spending $16,344 per student in the 2002–2003 school year, more than many private schools charge, only 12 percent of the system’s eighth-graders scored at grade level or better on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress tests given in the District of Columbia and all 50 states. Figures for math were even worse: 7 percent.27 Some critics note that schools in Japan and Europe spend a lower percentage of their gross domestic product (GDP) on

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Education Reform education yet their students score higher on average on achievement tests. These nations spend a higher percentage on teacher salaries than American schools and less on buildings, administration, and bureaucracy. How much funding and control should come from local, state, and federal government? Should the government set national goals and standards? Should government fund schools but not run them? People who advocate privatizing the system say that removing government bureaucracies would be costeffective and more efficient. Others say that a business model would encourage profiteering, more inequities, and other problems. Despite efforts by districts and states, many schools still lack diversity. Minority students are concentrated in fewer schools, often in poor city neighborhoods, leading to economic and racial segregation. Blacks and Hispanics make up the majority of students in 46 of the nation’s 57 big-city school districts. Just 10 districts, out of the national total of more than 15,000, educate 19 percent of all black schoolchildren.28 School choices continue to expand even as people discuss the pros and cons. Public school choices include neighborhood schools; magnet schools; alternative schools; “second chance” schools; and intradistrict, interdistrict, or statewide enrollment plans. The number of public charter schools has increased since the first one opened in 1991. Other states have approved laws that authorize charter schools and, by 1999, 1,682 charter schools operated in 31 states and Washington, D.C., and served about 35,000 students.29 By 2010, New York City alone had more than 100 charter schools. Other options include private schools (sectarian, college preparatory, profit and nonprofit, cultural identity schools), and homeschooling. Should students receive education vouchers they can use to attend any school, whether private or public? People even ask whether the problems can be solved. Some say schools cannot compensate for what happens in students’

Education in America lives outside school. Others say that these factors might make learning more difficult but students can still achieve. They point to teachers and schools that excel, despite the odds.

Summary Public education in America has traditionally prepared young people for citizenship, careers, and higher education. The education system grew as schooling became compulsory. Schools expanded their curricula and roles as the nation became increasingly diverse and dealt with other social and economic changes. Government involvement in schools has greatly increased since the 1960s. Reforms at the federal, state, and local level have tried to level the playing field. New programs assisted children living in poverty, and court decisions struck down segregation laws and policies that discriminated against students based on sex, race, or religion. Since the 1980s, reforms addressed concerns about low scores on international tests, high dropout rates, and lower levels of achievement for students living in poverty, especially minorities. Recent laws set education standards in each state and called for testing students to make schools accountable. Which reforms are most likely to improve achievement, prevent dropout, and attract and retain the best teachers? How should programs be funded and implemented? These are urgent questions for all those who care about education.

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Expanding School Choice Improves Education

T

he idea of giving people a choice of schools is not new. In the 1950s, economist Milton Friedman suggested that parents receive vouchers to use at the school of their choice. These education vouchers—monetary grants with a certain value—could be used for tuition at any school, public or private. Friedman said that a free market would make education more efficient and effective than a government-run monopoly and provide options for people who lacked the money for private schooling. Since then, support for “consumer choice” in education has gained increasing attention. Alternatives for traditional neighborhood schools include public magnet schools and charter schools, private schools, and voucher programs or tax credits. Some systems offer a choice of public schools within a given district, in multiple districts, and even statewide. Since 1988, 14 states have passed laws permitting students to attend any public

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Expanding School Choice Improves Education school in the state that has room for them. As of 2007, about 300,000 to 500,000 students were crossing district lines.1 More controversial are voucher programs that let people choose between public and private options, including religiousaffiliated or parochial schools. Public-funded voucher programs have faced political opposition and legal challenges. For years, courts disallowed plans that let students enroll in religious schools, citing the establishment clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees that the government may not make any law regarding an establishment of religion. After decades of court battles that limited public voucher programs for this reason, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that certain voucher programs with sectarian/religious school options do not violate this clause. Other voucher plans have been struck down based on state laws. In 1999, Florida became the first state to pass a statewide voucher program. Using standardized test scores, it assigned schools a letter grade from A to F. Students in failing schools were allowed to attend private schools of their choice, including sectarian schools. A state Circuit Court judge struck down this program in 2000, saying, “Tax dollars may not be used to send the children of this state to private schools.”2 This ruling was based on a 1998 amendment to the state constitution that said it was “a paramount duty of the state” to provide an “efficient, safe, secure and high-quality system of free public schools.”3 Supporters of voucher plans say sectarian schools should be included because public school options are too limited. A lack of competition hurts education, and broad school choice can improve accountability, raise achievement, and encourage innovation. More school choice might even reduce costs, and competition could produce more value for the money. Not surprisingly, many school choice advocates are conservatives who favor less government. Some say the entire education system should be privatized. Liberals, however, have also supported choice programs, saying they provide more equity in education.

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Competition can improve all schools. Under the traditional public education system, children are automatically assigned to a district school run by government officials and funded with tax dollars. Schools need not worry about “customers,” since their students form a captive audience. Parents who wish to send their child elsewhere may lack the means. The poorest families, who are least able to afford private schools, often live in neighborhoods with ineffective schools. In this way, the public school system acts as a monopoly. Economic theories say that a monopoly tends to provide fewer and/or lower quality services than markets where people compete to sell goods or services. Monopolies are less likely to inform people about how well they are performing or compare their performance with other service providers. They need not improve or innovate to stay in business. Letting students choose their schools ends that monopoly. If neighborhood schools are not guaranteed students, they must earn the right to stay in business. Competition can force schools to be more accountable to those they serve. Informed people will patronize successful schools; poor schools will be forced to close. According to David Brennan, a businessman who operates for-profit charter schools, “The power of choice in the hands of the consumer is the most awesome power to guarantee quality, effective cost, effective delivery, and consumer responsiveness.€.€.€. The demands to satisfy the needs of the users drive quality. If they have captive users, where’s the drive?”4 Other countries understand the value of competition. Belgium is among the countries where high school students outscore Americans on math and science tests. The Belgian government funds education and allocates a set amount for each child, much like a voucher, to pay for schooling. Schools without enough students do not last. A Belgian school principal told reporter John Stossel, “If we don’t offer them what they want for their child, they won’t come to our school. You can’t afford 10

Expanding School Choice Improves Education teachers out of 160 that don’t do their work, because the clients will know, and won’t come to you again.”5 Competition could encourage more variety in schools, including creative approaches to teaching and learning. Already, different approaches have been designed to serve specific populations. These include progressive schools, back-to-basics schools, anti-drug schools, outward-bound schools, family-centered schools, single-sex schools, and foreign studies schools.

Supply can increase to meet demand. Opponents of school choice warn that “demand” will exceed “supply.” They claim there will not be enough options for those who want a different school. Experts, however, foresee the growth of new schools. Authors David Boaz and R. Morris Bennett note that a voucher plan could create revolutionary demand for new educational institutions. If each and every family had the option of spending several thousand dollars on education—the millions that have heretofore gone to the government in taxes—we could reasonably expect educational entrepreneurs to respond.€.€.€. Schools would expand; new schools would be established; some schools might lower their tuition or offer scholarships.6 Jerome Porath, the schools chief for the Catholic Church’s Los Angeles Archdiocese, says that if every student got a voucher worth an amount close to the per-pupil expenditure in California, over several years enough facilities could be built or rented “to accommodate everybody who wanted to come.”7 Across the country, nonprofit and profit groups have founded schools and are interested in developing more. Supporters of choice offer practical suggestions for increasing options. To reduce the sizeable costs of opening

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Education Reform schools, school systems could lease public-owned facilities. The management of failing schools could be changed so that, instead of closing, these schools would become charter schools or private schools. Different education providers can share overhead costs by operating in the same building or campus, as they already do in some places. Separate schools within one setting can offer different teaching approaches or curricula. If students achieve more by attending classes in more than one school, funding could be given on the basis of courses rather than a per-student cost each year. Technology, including e-learning, can further expand options.

Choice can promote equity and diversity. For generations, students in more affluent districts have attended schools where higher taxes provide more generous budgets. These schools often have better facilities and equipment, smaller classes, and more qualified teachers than high-poverty schools (schools where at least 75 percent of students qualify for the free lunch program). Differences in quality and outcomes show up in studies that compare high-poverty schools with middle-income and highincome schools. High-poverty schools with fewer resources typically have lower achievement scores and higher dropout rates. Students at high-poverty schools have lower-than-average reading and math scores on tests from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.8 By graduation, these students are about four grade levels behind students in middle- and highincome schools.9 Studies also show more teacher attrition at high-poverty schools and more than twice as many teachers teaching outside their field in core academic subjects. In middle-class schools, a higher percentage of the newly hired math and science teachers had master’s degrees as compared to those in high-poverty schools.10

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The buying power that comes through a voucher system or subsidies to low-income families offers more equity. With that goal in mind, several urban voucher programs have been designed specifically to help economically disadvantaged students and those in failing schools. A school voucher program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was spearheaded by Polly Williams, state representative and former welfare mother, who said that poverty prevented people in her district from choosing the best schools for their children. A program in Cleveland, Ohio, also targeted disadvantaged students. Supporters of traditional public schools emphasize their historic function as part of America’s “melting pot.” Centuries ago, students attended their town’s only school. That changed as cities expanded and suburbs developed around urban areas. Friedman notes that the image of public schools as a melting pot “in which rich and poor, native- and foreign-born, black and white have learned to live together .€.€. was and is largely true for small communities, but almost entirely false for large cities. There, the public school has fostered residential stratification, by tying the kind and cost of schooling to residential location.”11 Friedman says voucher plans can actually make schools less homogeneous, especially

QUOTABLE Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti Far too many students in New York City are assigned to schools that are too large, too decrepit, too overcrowded, or too dispirited to provide good education. Wave after wave of reform has washed over the system, promising changes that never materialized. Source: Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti, “New York: The Obsolete Factory,” in New Schools for a New Century: The Redesign of Urban Education, eds., Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999, p. 18.

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Education Reform when schools pick a specific focus, such as foreign languages, sciences, or arts, that will attract diverse students.12 Choice programs can foster equity and diversity. Lottery systems can use quotas that include geographic factors. Schools in a choice program would agree to accept a certain number of students from specific neighborhoods. Although opponents of choice programs say that schools would avoid high-poverty neighborhoods, this need not occur. In Michigan, for example, charter schools offering a choice from traditional public schools have chosen to locate in mostly low-income, racially segregated districts.13 Private schools that participate in the system would agree to accept all students, regardless of religion, gender, race, or sexual orientation. They could receive financial incentives for accepting students with disadvantages or learning problems. Schools could be banned from screening applicants to choose only the most gifted, although schools with a specific focus, such as music, could use some selection criteria involving ability or talent. Lotteries could be held for spots in schools that are oversubscribed and then conducted in a way that distributes ability levels. Some states require charter schools to include programs for students with special needs and students who are learning English. Individual charter schools have also been organized to serve students with particular needs, such as children with autism. Experts have said that private schools are less selective than many people think and cannot afford to reject too many students. According to education writer Jay Greene, the expulsion rate is about the same for private and public schools—about 1 percent.14 Critics of choice plans say that “cream-skimming” can leave the weakest students behind in public schools. When Paul E. Peterson studied voucher programs in several large American cities, he found just “a slight difference between those who take the voucher and those who don’t.”15 Other researchers who

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studied the student populations in choice programs did not find evidence of “cream-skimming.”16

School choice improves student achievement. After looking at extensive research measuring student achievement in school choice programs, authors John C. Goodman and Matt Moore wrote, “Evidence from around the country supports the contention that allowing parents to choose a child’s school improves the child’s test scores.”17 In a privately funded voucher program, New York students who attended private schools for three years scored 9 percent higher than their peers on standardized achievement tests.18 Greene looked at eight studies that compared similar student populations to measure the results of voucher programs in Milwaukee; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dayton, Ohio; New York City; and Washington, D.C. Greene writes, “Every one of the eight random-assignment studies finds at least some positive academic effects for students using a voucher to attend a private school.”19 He notes that in seven of the studies, the benefits for voucher recipients were statistically significant.20 After studying a voucher program in Florida, Greene found that “when chronically failing public schools faced competition from vouchers, they made very impressive gains compared

QUOTABLE John C. Goodman and Matt Moore America has a nationwide school choice system that rations educational opportunity through the housing market. In this market, failing schools have become concentrated in low-income inner-city urban areas where housing prices are lowest. Source: John C. Goodman and Matt Moore, School Choice vs. School Choice, National Center for Policy Analysis. April 27, 2001. http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/bg155.pdf.

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Education Reform to the performance of other schools.”21 Greene said that he was “not aware of a single study that has found that a school choice program harmed the academic performance of a public school system.”22 He noted that a study of the D.C. program found that students using vouchers to attend private schools were four months ahead of the average public school student in reading after three years.23 Charter schools have demonstrated their ability to raise test scores. In 2000, Ben Chavis, a former school principal, took charge of the American Indian Charter School in Oakland, California. Although the school spent thousands of dollars less per pupil than nearby public schools, Chavis managed to pay teachers more than the typical salary in the area. The middle school turned around to attain the highest test scores in Oakland. In 2009, all of the eighth-graders attending the middle school scored proficient or higher in algebra. The school was ranked as the fifth-best middle school in California.24 These results are important as people look for ways to reduce the achievement gap between low-income and middleincome students. Richard D. Kahlenberg writes, “Part of the gap can be explained by differences in home environment, but lowincome students also generally are assigned to inferior, highpoverty schools marked by inadequate funding, under-qualified teachers, negative peer influences, discipline problems, low levels of parental involvement, low expectations, and the like.”25 When people have choices, they are not likely to choose schools with these conditions.

School choice is cost-effective. Many private schools achieve similar or better academic results while spending the same amount or less and often have lower administrative costs. Catholic schools tend to operate at a lower cost per pupil than nearby public schools. While researching an article on school vouchers, Boaz and Bennett found that

Expanding School Choice Improves Education the average tuition for all private schools (elementary and secondary) was about half the average cost-per-pupil in public schools.26 Yet inner-city Catholic schools had lower dropout rates, higher graduation rates, and better test scores. High-performing charter schools can deliver results while spending less than traditional public schools. Supporters of charter schools often point to the Harlem Success Academies in New York City. Harlem Success Academy 1 opened in 2006 and operates at a lower cost per pupil than nearby public schools. In 2009, 72 percent of the third-graders read at grade level, with 23 percent reading above. In a nearby regular public school, 51 percent of third-grade students were reading at grade level and 49 percent read below level. High math scores put the charter third-grade students in a tie with the top-performing school in the state.27 In 2010, test scores for the school’s disadvantaged students (those who qualify for the free or reduced-price lunch program), showed that 88 percent of third-graders passed the reading test and 98 percent passed the math test.28 Opponents say that voucher programs take money from public schools, but this need not occur. In Cleveland, public schools received the same funding they received before vouchers were introduced. What about the cost of administering vouchers and other school choice programs? Today’s technology makes the process faster, easier, and less expensive than it would have been years ago.

Choice programs can require accountability. Opponents of expanding school choice express concerns about poorly run schools, unqualified teachers, and discriminatory admissions procedures. Accountability measures can prevent such problems. Schools can be autonomous in terms of their structure, programs, and staffing, yet still be accountable in terms of the results they deliver and the protections they provide for students in terms of health, safety, and other factors.

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Certification requirements can be set for people who work in schools. Such standards permit innovation while still setting a baseline for fair practices and accountability. While maintaining more independence, charter schools are required to follow the standards that states set for other public schools. Charter school employees can also choose to have collective bargaining rights. When charter schools do not deliver the results, their charters are revoked. Performance contracts have been designed to provide accountability. A performance contract or charter agreement defines the terms that the public authorities and education providers have set. It makes sense to hold a school to certain performance standards in exchange for receiving public monies. All schools can be required to release information about demographics, staff and students, staff turnover, finances, academic achievement, attendance, and other relevant matters. Databases can gather and distribute information to help people make informed choices about various schools. Districts can provide pamphlets, hold meetings, conduct tours, and post information on the Internet. Such materials can describe each school’s academic focus, admissions procedures, transportation options, faculty, and other features. They can show how well schools meet state standards, based on testing that provides a basis for comparisons. Government could play a role in ensuring that this information is reliable and available to whoever needs it.

Summary Americans should have choices of both public and private schools, including plans that would pay for some or all of the tuition with government vouchers or credits. Such choices should not be limited to people who can afford homes in wealthier school districts. Expanding choice can increase diversity and equal opportunity, which makes it an important civil rights issue.

Expanding School Choice Improves Education Government can play a different role in a more marketbased approach to education by developing safeguards and equitable guidelines. It can set standards for quality and measuring school performance, and help to provide information so families can make appropriate choices. Research in the United States and other countries shows that school choice has a positive impact on student achievement. In a competitive environment, schools must perform well to survive. As Boaz and Bennett point out, “The time has come to give the competitive market economy—the system that has given us two centuries of dramatically increasing living standards .€.€. —a chance to improve our educational system.”29

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COUNTERPOINT

Expanding School Choice Harms Education

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ublicly funded school choice programs, including vouchers, do not produce the social or educational benefits their supporters claim and can also increase education costs. The word “choice” can be illusory, since choices of schools may be quite limited, especially in certain areas. Moreover, an unfair two-tiered system arises when schools are held to different rules and standards and serve different kinds of students. One cannot compare educational outcomes for private vs. public schools when private schools need not deal with a complex bureaucracy, open enrollment, teacher tenure, or laws that dictate how students can be suspended or expelled. Since choice programs put money into private schools, which are mostly religious, they also raise constitutional questions involving government support for religion. Furthermore, using

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Expanding School Choice Harms Education taxpayer money for vouchers or other choice programs drains funds that can improve public schools.

School choices are often limited. Supporters of expanding school choice overlook or downplay the fact that many places offer a limited choice of schools, or no choices at all. In rural areas, a single school may serve a large region. Many urban neighborhoods also lack private school options. Existing schools have limited capacity. Magnet and charter schools have waiting lists, as do many private schools. Frederick M. Hess writes, “Indeed, advocates routinely forget that choice is only half of the supply-and-demand market equation. Proposals that increase parental choice may boost demand but typically do not address the supply of quality options.”1 As a result, vouchers have benefited a limited number of students. Voucher systems or other choice programs often start with a “first come, first served” approach, followed by a lottery if vacancies remain. Although people theoretically can use vouchers for private schools, spots fill quickly, especially in highly desirable schools. Students often are not assigned to the school they chose. Studies also show that voucher programs enroll fewer students in certain populations that public schools serve, including English language learners (ELLs), children with special education needs, and homeless children. One report said that a New York City charter school in a high-poverty neighborhood that included nine homeless shelters did not enroll any homeless students. In 2009, only 111 of the 51,316 homeless public school students in New York were enrolled in any of the city’s dozens of charter schools.2 Private schools may restrict admission based on student ability, academic records, gender of the student, religion, special needs, behavioral history, and other factors. Some private schools also will not take part in voucher programs, and others

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Education Reform refuse to increase their enrollment significantly. In one poll of 1,000 private schools in California, the majority said they would not accept many more students, while 25 percent said they would not participate at all. Another 70 percent said they would not increase their enrollment by more than 15 percent.3 When Florida made plans for a statewide choice program, at least 93 percent of the private schools in the state said they would not enroll voucher students.4 In a Department of Education survey taken in 1998, 70 to 80 percent of schools said they would “definitely or probably” not join a voucher program if they had to admit students with “special needs, such as learning disabilities, limited English proficiency, or low achievement.”5 Private schools often lack the staff, programs, and other resources to serve students with special needs or those who lack English fluency. Other private schools say they will take part only if they can select students, rather than being part of a lottery. Choice advocates claim the marketplace will respond by developing enough good schools for “education consumers.” Schools are expensive to operate, however, and funding might not be available, especially if people want to make a profit. Investors may avoid a business that is nonprofit or low profit. People who open schools for profit might skimp on quality and pay people lower wages. Those who seek to open schools face other obstacles, including political and regulatory conditions. Hess notes that proposals to increase school choice may be missing “efficient support services, effective quality control, or a stable political and regulatory environment.”6

Private schools are held to lesser standards than public schools. In some places with voucher programs, private schools encountered fewer regulations and were less accountable than public schools. Private schools can decide what they teach and how, and which students they accept. They are not required to hire certified teachers or to administer the same achievement tests

Expanding School Choice Harms Education as public schools. Private schools need not hold open meetings, disclose records, or account to taxpayers in ways that laws require of public schools. Issues such as these emerged in 1989, after Wisconsin passed the nation’s first real educational voucher plan, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. At the time, private schools in the program did not have to be accredited by an outside agency, and their curricula did not have to be reviewed or approved by such an agency. Schools had to meet only one of four requirements: At least 70 percent of the students in the school had to advance one grade level each year; average attendance at the school had to be at least 90 percent; at least 80 percent of the students had to show significant progress; or at least 70 percent of the families of enrolled students had to meet the criteria for parental involvement set by the private school.7 In contrast, public schools must accept every student and comply with laws designed to guarantee an appropriate education for students with special needs. Looking at schools in the Milwaukee program, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) found that 42 percent did not offer services for students with special needs.8 Some critics say that unless private schools agree to serve all students, they should not receive public funding. The AFT also points out the dangers of what it calls “€‘flyby-night’ schools run by uncredentialed entrepreneurs,” citing examples of schools run by people with criminal records and schools funded by terrorist organizations. The AFT says that cases of fraud and misuse of public funds have occurred in voucher systems.9

School choice does not improve achievement. Studies do not show a significant difference in the academic performance of students in public schools versus voucher students. The Milwaukee voucher program that began in 1989 is one example. After more than two decades, research showed that reading scores in Milwaukee schools actually declined.

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Education Reform Comparing reading and math scores for similar students in voucher schools and public schools, researchers noted “no overall statistically significant difference.”10 Some researchers emphasize the importance of comparing similar student populations. Albert Shanker and Bella Rosenberg write that the National Association for Educational Progress (NAEP) found that private and parochial schools do not achieve better results than public schools when working with the same kinds of students.11 In a 2006 report, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics compared the performance of students attending district vs. charter schools. It stated, “After adjusting for student characteristics, charter school mean scores in reading and mathematics were lower, on average, than those for public non-charter schools.”12 Detroit, for example, has more than 20 percent of students enrolled in charters. Yet, in 2008, Detroit had the highest dropout rate of the nation’s largest school systems.13 Researchers have found that charter schools vary widely in performance. A team at Stanford University conducted a study of 70 percent of the students in U.S. charter schools in 15 states and Washington, D.C. They found what they called a “virtual twin” for 84 percent of the charter students by matching their demographics, English proficiency, and other features with a comparable student in a local public school. The results showed that only 17 percent of the charter schools delivered “superior education opportunities for their students” while “nearly half .€.€. have results that are no different from the local public school options and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their student would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.”14 What really improves students’ performance? Studies show that class size and well-trained teachers make a difference. Alex Molnar of the University of Wisconsin looked at regular public schools, voucher schools, and schools in Milwaukee

Expanding School Choice Harms Education that implemented the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program. The public schools in the SAGE program reduced class sizes and added professional development for teachers. Students at those schools performed better than their peers in Milwaukee’s other public schools and private schools.15

Choice programs do not save money. People who support choice programs say they save taxpayer money, but some voucher programs cost more per student than public school. Certain costs are also hidden. The tuition at some private schools might be lower than the cost-per-student in public schools, but private schools also receive donations and endowments that help to cover the actual costs of educating students, which can exceed the costs in public schools. If tax money goes to vouchers for private schools, taxpayers end up paying for both public education and other options. Distributing vouchers to everyone, without regard to income or neighborhood, could give students who are already in private schools money for tuition. This has already happened, even in voucher programs targeting less-wealthy students. In the Cleveland program, for example, two-thirds of the students who used vouchers had attended private school the previous year.16 In California, a study of the 2000 voucher proposal Proposition 38 showed that it would cost $3 billion annually by the fourth year just to pay for students, many of them from high-income families who already attended private schools.17 In addition to the cost of the vouchers themselves, choice programs cost money to administer. More costs accumulate when students require transportation to another district, as frequently occurs. Additional costs come from gathering and disseminating information to help families choose schools. Money diverted to voucher or other choice programs could be spent improving public schools, which are responsible for educating about 90 percent of the nation’s students. Public

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Education Reform schools must still serve students who cannot be served or would not be accepted at private schools. If large numbers of more advantaged and higher achieving students use vouchers for private schools, public schools are left to educate an even more challenging and less diverse student population. Schools operating at partial capacity are not cost-effective. More costs arise when students change schools. In 2000, a study showed that about half of the students who received private scholarships in Dayton, Ohio; New York City; and Washington, D.C., returned to public schools by the second year of the program.18 Many students in other cities have also returned to public schools after receiving scholarships for private and parochial schools, and some returned at midyear. The budgets at those public schools were reduced by the cost of scholarship programs for the private schools that served those students just part of the year. Critics add that because the public has no control over private schools, using public money to fund them amounts to taxation without representation. Vouchers cost more than other proven reforms. For example, several studies of the program Success for All, which involves intensive reading activities, show impressive gains in achievement, accomplished at a lower cost than vouchers. Since 1986, the Success for All program has been implemented in 1,300 schools in 47 states.19

Public education reflects American values. Throughout the nation’s history, public education has been a key part of the American “melting pot,” as people of different religious, racial, economic, and cultural backgrounds share a common educational experience. Public schooling has helped to blur economic and class distinctions while offering people the chance for upward mobility. Voucher programs, however, might increase segregation of rich and poor and also segregate students by ability. With universal vouchers, wealthier families would have even more means to use private schools.

Expanding School Choice Harms Education More school choice leads toward privatizing education and abandoning community schools. Families who live far from their children’s schools are less likely to be involved with PTA and other school activities than those whose children attend neighborhood schools. Proximity helps parents to play an active role in their children’s education. Describing changes that occurred as New York City revamped its high schools, Diane Ravitch writes: Neighborhoods were once knitted together by a familiar local high school that served all the children in the community, a school with distinctive traditions and teams and history. After the neighborhood school closed, children scattered across the city in response to the lure of new, unknown small schools with catchy names or were assigned to schools far from home.20

Education may not lend itself to free-market approaches. It is difficult to apply economic theories to education as if it were a homogeneous “product” that can be measured and replicated consistently. Such economic theories work better when products and consumers are standardized and interchangeable. This is not true for education services, service providers, school facilities, or students. Competition is a key part of the market approach, yet competition probably would not occur in sparsely populated areas. Students in such communities might have just one school to choose from. Schools also would need to be measured fairly to see how they are “competing.” Can a free market truly exist if some schools can pick their students and others cannot? Julian R. Betts notes that, in a free-market system, “firms must be willing to sell their good or service to any consumer for perfect competition to develop. If firms discriminate in some way against certain types of consumer, then the full benefits of competition

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will not emerge.”21 Betts further notes that if test scores hold schools accountable, this “creates an incentive for schools to accept only the highest achieving students.”22 Do consumers know as much as professional educators about what makes for a quality school? They might not clearly understand their options or exactly what services they will receive. People also may choose schools for reasons unrelated to academics. For example, at a school fair in New York City, young people offered these reasons for their choices: “I want a school that’s cool,” and “The school has a track; I like to run.”23 How would students be educated if their schools fail and are closed and the independent schools leave? Ravitch describes how this process can unfold. New York City decided to offer students a choice of high schools and organized hundreds of smaller high schools, usually built around a curriculum theme. As the small schools multiplied, Ravitch notes, students who were left behind were sent to the remaining large schools, which then “became more overcrowded and enrolled disproportionate shares of students with high needs.”24 As these schools struggled to meet state requirements, they, too, were closed, meaning that the students were reassigned again.

QUOTABLE Julian R. Betts and Tom Loveless Although perfect competition can improve the efficiency of the provision of goods or services in a market, society cares about equity as well as efficiency. Indeed, one of the most prevalent concerns about expanding school choice is that it would further widen the gap between “have” and “have-not” families.€.€.€. Competitive markets can produce a range of efficient outcomes, both equitable and inequitable. What determines the outcome is the initial allocation of “buying power” among families. Source: Julian R. Betts and Tom Loveless, eds., Getting Choice Right: Ensuring Equity and Efficiency In Education Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2005, p. 4.

Expanding School Choice Harms Education Support for school vouchers is low. Public support for school vouchers is less widespread than choice advocates contend. Since 1967, voters have rejected 23 ballot proposals designed to give tax monies to parochial and other private schools. In 2000, voters in both Michigan and California rejected such proposals by a ratio of more than 2 to 1.25 Voters have also rejected proposals for tuition tax credits, championed by the Reagan administration in the 1980s. Between 1981 and 1998, voters in District of Columbia, Oregon, and Colorado rejected tuition tax credits. When a Gallup poll in August 2001 asked people whether they would prefer school vouchers or improving and strengthening public schools, 71 percent favored boosting existing schools; 27 percent chose vouchers.26 In places where vouchers were offered, a relatively small number of people used them. For example, in Cleveland, less than 5 percent of the students (4,195) used vouchers in the 2001–2002 school year. In Milwaukee that year, voucher users made up 10 percent of school enrollment. A total of 15,000 were offered, and 10,739 students used them, but thousands of those students were already enrolled in private schools. This leads critics to say that vouchers often just provide rebates for private school students.27 Although school choice advocates say these programs give people more freedom and are more “democratic,” choice plans have been enforced in places where people do not want them. This happened in Washington, D.C., where Congress imposed a voucher system after voters rejected it.28 A poll released in December 2002 showed that 76 percent of the voters, including 85 percent of all black voters in D.C., opposed a voucher system.29

Summary Expanding school choice with vouchers and other methods threatens America’s system of a free public education for all. The growth of new schools has been slower than reformers expected, and many new schools have been ineffective or even corrupt.

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Education Reform Without enough quality, well-regulated schools to choose from, choice is meaningless. Schools in many choice programs have not been as accountable as public schools, and studies show that students in those programs are not achieving more than comparable students in public schools. Choice programs could lead to schools where people are segregated by race, religion, economics, ethnicity, and other factors. Students with the most needs or those who were unable to navigate the system would probably be left in public schools with fewer resources. Finding ways to remove a small percentage of students from public schools, which educate 90 percent of all American students, does not produce real progress. Reform efforts should focus on strengthening every public school, not draining resources from public education or encouraging people to enter the “education business” for profit. Real equity of educational opportunity would mean that every American child is able to attend a high-quality school within a reasonable distance.

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s No Child Left Behind took effect in 2002, many American citizens applauded the requirement that states develop and implement statewide learning assessment programs with specific elements. More accountability and transparency in education helps people evaluate and compare schools. The act required annual achievement testing of students in third through eighth grades. The stakes were high, since scores are publicized and sanctions are imposed when schools do not meet certain test-score goals. States determine the positive or negative consequences for school performance. This approach was not entirely new, however, because more than half of the states already had some form of high-stakes testing. Though some people criticize test-based accountability, how else can schools determine whether students are learning what they should learn? Many agree with Louis V. Gerstner Jr.,

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Education Reform who writes that “the question schools must answer is ‘What is the added value of schooling?’ What difference does going to school make?”1

Testing promotes accountability. People have long complained about a lack of transparency and accountability in schools. More money was being spent on education, but student achievement was disappointing and dropout rates remained high. Major gaps in achievement persisted, most often in low-income urban areas with high dropout rates. Many students moved from grade to grade without acquiring basic skills. Some students who did earn diplomas were several grade levels behind graduates from higher-achieving schools. Tests, although imperfect, provide at least one objective way to assess teaching effectiveness and learning outcomes. Education policy analyst Chester E. Finn identifies standards and real accountability as a way to “describe what children should learn and how well they are expected to learn it.”2 Finn writes, “Without clear standards and reliable indicators of performance in relation to precise objectives, it is impossible to hold anyone—student, teacher, principal, school system, or state—accountable for success or failure.”3 Education writer Jay Greene comments, “Right now, schools, administrators, and teachers have no—or very few—rewards or sanctions attached to whether they make wise or unwise choices. They can choose bad curricula, bad teaching approaches, bad compensation systems, and there are no consequences.”4 Americans have a huge stake in an effective education system. In September 1989, a Gallup poll on education found that 70 percent favored “national goals and standards for education,” 69 percent wanted a “national public school curriculum,” and 77 percent wanted “national testing programs to measure achievement.”5 Accountability can foster improvements. Federal guidelines in NCLB require states to take action when schools fail to make

High-Stakes Testing Improves Education adequate progress. Schools can also receive help to improve. Unless schools are accountable, however, millions of students will continue to move through the system without mastering key knowledge and skills that educators in each state have defined as basic and important.

Tests are fair and reliable ways to measure progress. State-mandated tests are a reasonable way to show how well schools are performing and are also more objective than people’s opinions or observations. The high-stakes state tests mandated by NCLB are meant to be clearly linked to the curriculum—to measure what is being taught, based on the state standards— making them both relevant and informative. Critics say these tests are not reliable because they are subject to manipulation and even cheating. Fear of harsh sanctions could lead people to ask certain students to stay home on test days and fix wrong answers on test sheets. Although such things may happen, there is no proof that such activities are widespread. A few manipulated tests or missing students also would not negate thousands of other test results. The testing process can be conducted in ways that minimize the chances for cheating or manipulation. Studies have verified the reliability of tests. Greene reports that researchers have found that scores on different standardized tests are strongly correlated.6 If the tests were not effective, these test results would be random, not correlated. Greene writes, “When a state’s high stakes test scores go up, we should have confidence that this represents real improvements in student learning.”7 The tests are not meant to be so burdensome that teachers and students spend excessive time on test-taking skills or drills just to memorize facts for the tests. Andrew J. Rotherham writes, “Overall the state tests in grades three to eight upon which the [NCLB] law is based are mostly low-level tests of general knowledge and skills. This is why schools with strong teachers

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Education Reform and well-developed curriculum do not struggle with ‘teaching to the test.’€”8 People are working together to make sure that testing is not the only method for evaluating performance. In 2010, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said: Teachers also worry that under new systems, their job security and salaries will be tied to the results of a bubble test that is largely disconnected from the material they are teaching. So let me be clear: no one thinks test scores should be the only factor in teacher evaluations, and no one wants to evaluate teachers based on a single test on a single day. But looking at student progress over the course of year, in combination with other factors like peer review and principal observation, can lead to a culture shift in our schools where we finally take good teaching as seriously as the profession deserves.9 Critics often say that tests do not measure real learning, or different kinds of learning, including more sophisticated skills. Yet the tests do measure skills in literacy and mathematics, and teachers need to know that students are mastering key basics from year to year. It makes sense to teach and then test these basics to provide learners with a solid foundation before they pursue more advanced work.

Accountability enhances instruction and achievement. Accountability gives schools incentives to perform well and to improve instruction—a key to higher student achievement. In the process of learning materials for state tests, students also learn discipline, focus, and other effective study habits. With standards and assessments in place, teachers can follow a curriculum framework that covers important basics. Each state has developed curriculum frameworks for its schools

High-Stakes Testing Improves Education through a consensus process in which groups of educators decided what was most important and how to make classroom instruction meaningful. Teachers are expected to help provide this foundation. States believe these basics must not be ignored, and testing shows how well they have been covered. In the process of covering these materials, teachers also prepare students for corresponding test questions. Studies show that accountability on test scores has produced higher levels of achievement. Since standards-based reforms were implemented in the early 1990s, National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores have risen in math among fourth- and eighth-graders, and in reading among fourthgraders. In a study by Margaret Raymond and Eric Hanushek of Stanford University, students in states with high-stakes tests during the 1990s made significant gains in their math scores on the NAEP tests. They found these improvements in fourth- and eighth-graders when they compared them with similar students in states without high-stakes testing.10 In other studies, test scores have been correlated with the strength of the state’s accountability system. Martin Carnoy and Susanna Loeb of Stanford University rated accountability systems based on the strength of the sanctions that would be imposed on failing schools. They found that states with the strongest accountability averaged significantly higher gains on the eighth-grade math NAEP test than states with low-stakes or no accountability.11 Critics have charged that high-stakes testing encourages schools to hold back students who might score poorly on the next year’s tests and hurt the school’s average. In addition, they say that more students drop out when high-stakes accountability exists. This proved untrue in the Carnoy and Loeb study. Students in these states did not have either higher retention rates or lower school completion rates.12 Testing also seems to help schools narrow the achievement gap. In 2007, Congress considered removing accountability pro-

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Education Reform visions from NCLB. Opposition came from civil rights groups, the Council of Great City Schools, and Community Education Partners (CEP). These advocates said that disadvantaged students fared better with NCLB accountability in place and cited studies showing that teacher expectations impact learning. They argued that teachers should have high expectations for all students and that every school should set high goals. A study in Florida confirmed that accountability systems help failing schools. Jay Greene and Marcus Winters found that chronically failing schools that were threatened with sanctions improved their test scores much more than similar schools that were not threatened with sanctions.13 In Florida, elementary schools were given grades for their performance, and officials said they would reduce funding for failing schools and let parents choose other schools. Schools that received an “F” increased their student test scores the next year. Scores in math increased 14 percent on state tests and 8 percent on national math tests, while scores in reading increased 10 percent on state tests and 7 percent on national tests.14 To study how some schools succeed against the odds, Greene devised a measurement tool called the Teachability Index. The index included 16 factors that researchers have identified as affecting academic outcomes, including poverty, family structure, and health. Greene calculated the level of achievement that students in each state would be expected to reach, and found wide variations from state to state. After studying education policies and practices intensively, Greene concludes: “One reform that has been shown to work is measuring each school’s performance through standardized testing, and then providing rewards or sanctions based on a school’s performance.”15 Greene says that such a system gives a school district “a direct incentive to educate its students well.”16 Does high-stakes testing narrow the curriculum and force teachers to spend too much time “teaching to the test”? Critics

High-Stakes Testing Improves Education say that schools have become grim places where children no longer enjoy naps, recess, field trips, art, or even time for social studies and science. Some individual teachers and schools might spend a great deal of time on test-taking techniques, but this should not be necessary and can end once students learn those techniques. Greene points out that teachers can respond to the testing process by changing their curricula and presentation in ways that help students learn more.17 Critics also complain that teachers must focus so much on reading and math that students lack enough time for other coursework. Researchers have investigated whether student achievement on so-called “low stakes” subjects declines as a result of testing accountability. A group led by Winters found that student achievement in science improved in Florida schools that had received a failing grade the previous year. The gains on the science test were similar to the gains made in reading and slightly smaller than the gains made in math from one year to the next. The research group theorized that students who improve their reading and math skills then bring stronger skills to the study of science. Gains in those basics may well enhance achievement in other subject areas.18

Testing provides useful information. Test results that show students’ strengths and weaknesses allow teachers to plan accordingly. Such information is especially important when children are struggling and people have a choice of schools. Test scores provide a standard measuring stick that can show differences among schools in the same district, in the state, and around the country. They also show parents how a particular student is doing in relation to peers in the school, the community, the state, and the nation. Without measuring educational outcomes independently and objectively through testing, how can we know which reform efforts are working?

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A young student takes a standardized test in a classroom in Washington, D.C. The use of standardized tests has divided Americans. To some, scores from standardized tests provide a measuring stick that shows differences among schools in the same district, in the state, and around the country. To others, preparing for such tests takes time away from providing a wellrounded education to students.

Summary Assessment has long been an integral part of education. Measuring progress goes hand in hand with instruction as teachers present materials and then test students’ skills. Tests can be quite useful when they are developed with care and used and interpreted properly. Research shows that state tests being used for school accountability are reliable, reasonable, meaningful, and informative. They are tied to the curriculum standards each state sets for its schools. This information can be used to improve schools and make sure children receive a solid education.

High-Stakes Testing Improves Education Public schools must be accountable to the public. They use public monies and other resources and are charged with the responsibility of educating new generations. Americans naturally want to know how well schools are doing this vital job since it affects society in so many ways, and tests help to provide that information.

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ince 2002, every state has been required to develop education standards and measure results with standardized tests. States use test results to make critical decisions about schools and the people who work there. Scores on statewide tests have been used to fire teachers and principals, distribute monetary awards, and close schools. Setting high standards and ensuring that students learn is obviously imperative, but test-based accountability produces negative effects. It can lower the quality of education; yield unreliable results; and harm schools, teachers, and students. It also produces conflicts of interest as schools strive to meet state requirements. High-stakes testing could unintentionally hurt the students it was meant to help the most.

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High-Stakes Testing Harms Education A focus on testing narrows the education experience. High-stakes testing can stifle genuine learning. Quality learning means that students think, share ideas, and connect what they learn to real-life experiences. Educator Alfie Kohn says, “The best teachers understand the need to involve students in designing their own projects, allowing them to develop a style of, and a proficiency at, intellectual exploration.” Kohn asks: “Are they excited about learning? Do they talk about what they are learning? Are they learning by doing? Do they participate in the process and also in evaluating their own progress? Do they gain understanding as well as information? Or focus too much on the specific things that will be tested, while ignoring other things besides English and math?”1 Others agree that high scores on tests should not be the main goal of education. Gerald Grant writes, “As a nation, we have over-focused if not fixated on testing. But test scores explain only a small part of the reasons why people are successful in later life.”2 Christopher Jencks studied people in terms of occupational status and income and found that school grades and test scores explained about a fifth of their success in their careers and personal lives.3 People are concerned about worker productivity and the national economy, but experts such as Larry Cuban ask whether standardized tests “measure the analytic, creative and practical skills and positive attitudes valued by employers.”4 Cuban says the United States is much more productive than critics allege, and suggests that we ask more questions about whether our educational system is creating moral citizens and independent thinkers. Civic engagement should not be ignored in efforts to prepare students for higher education and jobs. Studies show that high-stakes testing does not lead to better education outcomes. Audrey Amrein and David Berliner of

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Education Reform Arizona State University explored the impact of high-stakes graduation testing in 16 states and found that it correlated with higher dropout rates, decreased graduation rates, and more students taking the GED exam instead of earning a high school diploma.

High-stakes testing is unfair to teachers. Tying teachers’ salaries or jobs to the results of standardized tests makes teachers solely accountable for a process that involves many variables. Teachers can control some of what happens in the classroom, including how they prepare lessons. They can do their best to motivate students. They have limited control, however, over other facets of school life, including, in many districts, the curriculum. A teacher cannot force students to attend class, pay attention, do homework, or study. They cannot make sure students arrive each school day ready and eager to learn. One St. Louis teacher said that “in many cases we’ll have students who will come into the high school with an inability to read—they can’t add or subtract—and we’re supposed to perform miracles and bring them up to speed and make high performers out of them.”5 Such problems have become increasingly apparent. Arne Duncan, the secretary of education under President Barack Obama, noted that No Child Left Behind originally contained “perverse incentives.” He said that “NCLB says that a fifth-grade teacher who helps a student reading at a second-grade level reach a fourth-grade level within one year has missed their goal. In fact, that teacher is an excellent teacher and should be applauded.”6 Pass-fail scores do not accurately reflect teaching ability or tell teachers how to improve. Looking at individual student progress is a better way to measure teaching skills. In cases where students need little help to pass tests, teaching is often less important than in cases where teachers work hard to help children improve, even if they do not pass. Value-Added Assessment evaluates progress, based on the growth of a student’s achievement instead

High-Stakes Testing Harms Education of a specific test score. It bases expectations on the “individual student’s previous growth and achievement patterns.”7 Many of the qualities and behaviors that make for good teaching are difficult to quantify. For example, a standard in a 1996 report from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards says, “Accomplished teachers create a caring, inclusive and challenging environment in which students actively learn.” As authors Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky point out, “good teaching decisions depend greatly on context.”8 Teachers do not object to testing per se and even see the benefits. A survey taken in 2003 showed that 87 percent of the teacher respondents thought students should pass a standardized test to be promoted and those who fail should either attend summer school or repeat the grade. A total of 80 percent agreed with the following statement: “Having guidelines for what students should learn helps improve academic performance.”9 Teachers can use test information to plan lessons and help individuals who are struggling. Tests can motivate students to study harder. Testing, however, should be used for positive purposes, not to punish teachers. Along with these concerns, people wonder how all teachers can be evaluated for their effectiveness when some subjects are not tested. As of 2010, reading and math were tested; science was to be added next. Other subjects, such as art and music, do not lend themselves well to standardized tests. Will teachers of only certain subjects be tested and eligible for merit pay, bonuses, or other rewards? After studying how high-stakes testing affected one school’s culture, administrators, teachers, and students, sociologists Katie Weitz White and James E. Rosenbaum conclude: High-stakes are warranted when actors are lazy and when the organization only has a few narrow goals. However, none of the teachers in the school were lazy, and no one ever asserted that teachers were not following

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Education Reform prescribed procedures that would have accomplished the desired goals. Moreover, prior to accountability, the school’s goals were broader than those that can be posed in any accountability scheme.10

High-stakes testing harms students. When high-stakes tests are employed, the school becomes more like a business that works to deliver a certain product—passing scores. Schools that fear lower scores have a vested interest in rejecting students who can hurt those scores, including students from failing schools, English language learners, and others. Dropout rates could increase with high-stakes testing. If standards focus on memorizing specific detailed facts, dates, and other things students find irrelevant, it is likely more of them will quit. Tests also create additional barriers for students—if schools retain more students in the same grade to improve test scores, those students are then at a higher risk for dropping out. With high-stakes testing, certain students receive less attention than others. Schools tend to devote time and other resources to students who can improve their scores. Experts who work with schools that are threatened with closure because of low test scores have advised them to focus on students who are close to the pass level. Weitz White and Rosenbaum write, “High-stakes accountability creates strong incentives to ignore students far below or safely above pass level.”11 High-stakes testing affects people’s attitudes. Teachers and administrators may regard low-performing students as a threat to their jobs and the school. Other students may also regard lowscoring classmates that way. Such results conflict with important goals of schooling, including fostering mutual respect. Researchers have found that more schools are labeling students as “special education” so they can test with a different student group and not affect the mainstream class score. Teachers have told researchers how they identify students who are not likely to improve and then make a case for a special education

High-Stakes Testing Harms Education classification. Studies also show that schools with high-stakes testing tend to place students with disabilities in more restrictive settings.12 This is a step backward, since schools have been trying for decades to help students with disabilities take part in mainstream classes whenever possible. Toward that end, schools worked to use the least restrictive environment (LRE) rather than segregating special needs students from others. Moreover, bright young people might not pursue teaching careers if they fear having to worry about tests and the problems associated with this kind of education system. Teachers might avoid working in schools where high-need students are less likely to pass state tests. Schools that are threatened with closure represent unstable workplaces. Faced with daunting sanctions, states have found ways to improve test outcomes. One strategy is to make tests easier. Some states have lowered their standards to increase pass rates. NCLB allowed states to set their own standards, and critics say these are often too low. This kind of “watering down” does not help students achieve at high levels.

High-stakes testing can narrow the curriculum. As teachers work to help students pass tests, schools have dropped innovative classroom activities that engage students. Research has shown the sacrifices schools make to prepare for tests. Principals have said their schools cut recess, art, music, physical education, and other activities, or reduced the number of these activities per week. The loss of these activities are most devastating in high-poverty schools where children often have less enrichment outside of school. Schools have also taken funds from other programs to add special tutoring sessions for test preparation. Many teachers say test preparation takes up too much classroom time. Since school time is limited, this means sacrificing worthwhile assignments. For example, teachers have stopped assigning research papers in order to finish more pages in the

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textbook so that students can answer more test questions. Schools have cut award-winning courses, language studies, museum visits, nature walks, and other enriching programs, to make more time for math and reading. High-stakes testing also leads to focusing on tested subjects (reading and math under the 2002 mandate). Researchers found that some schools stopped teaching science and history. Educators also point out the value of physical education and the arts for improving student health, concentration, and learning skills.

Punishing schools is unfair and unproductive. The goal of educating all students to reach their potential is noble and worth pursuing, but test scores should not be used to punish schools if goals are unrealistic. To understand the impact of using test scores to sanction schools, researchers looked at schools in Minnesota, a state that ranks at or near the top nationwide in terms of both scores and graduation rates. The state auditor looked at what might happen in 2014 if schools raised test scores at a high, medium, or low rate and concluded that most Minnesota schools would not reach NCLB’s goals. About 80

QUOTABLE Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers What have we learned from the No Child Left Behind Act? In a word: lots. Unfortunately, most of what we have learned shows that while the law’s mission of creating high standards for all children was critical, its focus on stakes (the faulty emphasis on tests) and sticks (punishing schools in need of help) hasn’t strengthened public education. Source: Randi Weingarten, “Education: Good Objectives Weighed Down by Fatal Flaws,” U.S. News & World Report, January 1, 2010, p. 36.

High-Stakes Testing Harms Education percent to 100 percent of the elementary schools seemed unlikely to make what the law calls adequate yearly progress.13 Researchers concluded that if Minnesota is having these problems, schools in many other states must be even worse off. Schools cannot be fairly measured if certain groups have little to no chance of meeting rigid test score targets. Schools are hard-pressed to help every student receive passing scores at grade level. Some students, for a variety of reasons, need more time to master the same materials as other students. How can we determine cause-effect relationships when so many diverse factors influence results? Sociologist Jennifer A. O’Day addresses that dilemma with a compelling example: Only 15 percent of the third graders in Bryant Elementary are reading independently by the spring assessment. Do we conclude that the third-grade teachers are not teaching appropriately? And if so, in what particular ways was the instruction inadequate? Are the textbooks too difficult? Are they too easy? Are they boring? Perhaps the low performance is due to the constant interruptions during reading time or lack of order in the school. Maybe the problem is that the students do not see any reason for reading, or perhaps they speak a language other than English and do not have the requisite English vocabulary. Perhaps the real problem lies in first- or second-grade instruction, in the fear induced by violence in the neighborhood, or in the low expectations of the adults. Perhaps it is all or some combination of the above.14 O’Day says it can be even more difficult to determine the causes of success. Using the above example, if most of the students were doing well, researchers might attribute that to class background, school selection processes, motivated teachers, effective instruction, or some combination of factors.15

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In addition, new requirements can strain limited school resources. During a time of budget cutbacks, schools were told to do more. In 2010, National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said that “the accountability system of this ‘blueprint’ still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers. We were expecting more funding stability to enable states to meet higher expectations.”16 The goal should be to improve instruction and learning, not to destroy schools, disrupt neighborhoods, and dislocate students and teachers. Instead, says president of American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, “The result has been unproductive punishments for some schools and inadequate support for others.”17

Summary A focus on test-taking skills and memorizing specific materials does not necessarily enhance key parts of learning—curiosity, creativity, critical-thinking skills, and a love for reading. Test scores do not accurately determine the quality of a teacher. Teachers cannot control many factors that affect student learning. Summarizing the problems, Kohn writes, “Talented teachers have abandoned the profession after having been turned into glorified test-prep technicians. Low-income teenagers have been forced out of school by do-or-die graduation exams. Countless inventive learning activities have been eliminated in favor of prefabricated lessons pegged to state standards.”18 Real reform considers all of the factors that foster student learning and supports school efforts to raise achievement. The process of punishing and closing schools seems like a ploy to move toward privatizing the school system. Yet research shows the problems involved with various “choice” programs and new kinds of schools. As Scott Franklin Abernathy points out, “The country is accelerating very quickly down a road whose contours are not fully understood and whose potholes may be much larger than anyone has imagined.”19

POINT

Teachers Unions Benefit Education

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eachers unions play an active role in education. The National Teachers Association, which was formed in 1857 and later became the National Education Association (NEA), grew from a few thousand members in the early 1900s to about 330,000 members in the mid-1960s, when collective bargaining first took place. As of 2010, the NEA had 3.2 million members.1 The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), founded in 1916, later joined the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). With 1.5 million members, the AFT includes other school-related personnel, such as those in health care.2 Critics say that teachers unions hurt education and block necessary reforms. They often blame teachers and unions for problems in schools and public education that are beyond teachers’ control. Yet unions have changed education for the

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Education Reform better, and they support reforms that offer genuine hope for improving education. Unions have used their collective voice to achieve better working conditions, including safer facilities and adequate equipment, which benefit students as well as teachers. Teachers have faced numerous situations that require union protection and support, including low wages, unfair treatment, and discrimination because of race, religion, or sexual orientation. They have been harassed or fired for arbitrary or bogus reasons. Disgruntled parents may attack a teacher who does not give their child a high grade or whom they just dislike. Students sometimes make false accusations. In one poll, 77 percent of teachers said that without the union, “teachers facing unfair charges from parents or students would have nowhere to turn,” and 81 percent said that “teachers would be vulnerable to school politics or administrators who abuse their power.”3 Union contracts prevent teachers from being fired for personal or political reasons, or because of favoritism. Procedures for firing union teachers require solid evidence of incompetence or wrongdoing. People have objected to seniority rules in union contracts. In most states, laws or union contracts use seniority to determine salary scales and to decide which teachers to retain when layoffs occur. It makes sense to protect experienced teachers from being laid off or fired when budgetary cutbacks are made. Seniority rules also prevent school systems from trying to save money by firing older teachers to hire less experienced teachers at lower salaries. Some contracts give the most experienced teachers first choice to fill positions that become available in their school or at other schools in the district. This makes sense, because teachers with seniority have shown loyalty to the profession and bring more experience to the job. Studies also show that experienced teachers are more effective. In the New York Times, Jennifer Medina cited studies that show “teachers just beginning their careers are more likely to struggle than more experienced instructors. A New York Times analysis of the city’s own reports

Teachers Unions Benefit Education on teacher effectiveness suggests that teachers do best after being in the classroom for at least five years.”4 Political battles over seniority rules have occurred around the country. After a severe recession began in 2007, districts began firing large numbers of teachers. State legislators introduced bills to end seniority-based layoffs and let principals decide which teachers to fire. Most lawmakers, however, understand the benefits of seniority-based layoffs. Eric T. Schneiderman, a state senator from New York, said, “It does open the conversation about how to ensure that there are quality teachers, but the idea of giving the administration total discretion to pick and choose who is fired with no standards is not going to fly.”5 Expressing the sentiments of many, AFT President Randi Weingarten said, “There is no good way to lay people off.” Weingarten did note that more experienced teachers are better prepared to cope with the results of budget cuts, including larger classes and supply shortages.6

Unions help retain good teachers. Good teachers are more likely to stay in the profession when their rights are protected and they approve their contracts and working conditions. Education researchers say teacher turnover makes it harder to ensure that each classroom has a qualified teacher. Besides causing teacher shortages, turnover may bring in more inexperienced teachers who need time to develop classroom skills. Experienced teachers need less supervision and assistance and can mentor newer teachers. Changing teachers during the school year and using substitutes can disrupt classroom instruction and routines, which, in turn, can stall student progress. Turnover is costly, too. In a 2007 report, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) estimated that the annual cost of teacher turnover was more than $7.3 billion in 2003–2004. Costs were highest in urban school districts, which often face the most challenges.7

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Teachers unions have negotiated contracts that set maximum class sizes, resulting in lower student-teacher ratios. This enables teachers to give students more individual attention and address learning problems more effectively. Research has shown that small classes are especially important for younger children, and unions promote that goal. Unions also advocated bringing aides into the classroom to provide extra help for students who need it. Contracts protect teachers from being forced to carry out nonteaching tasks, so they can focus on what matters most: teaching students. Unions promote and implement approaches that improve teaching. Research has shown that some teachers need support in their first years on the job. Working with the Department of Education in Massachusetts, the teachers union and school management devised a plan to give teachers a qualified, trained mentor during the first three years and instructive evaluations twice each year. Weingarten called these evaluations “actually more stringent than what’s required by the state standard.”8 Critics say that unions block reforms that involve evaluating teacher performance, but unions support many such efforts, as shown by the Massachusetts program above. The state union in Tennessee supported legislation to make student test scores 50

QUOTABLE Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association NEA is a firm proponent of providing all children with the critical, intellectual, and personal skills they need to be successful in the 21st century. This is why we serve on the board of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21)—a coalition of business, education, community, and government leaders focused on infusing creativity and innovation into K–12 education. Source: https://sites.nea.org/neatoday/0811/presview.html.

Teachers Unions Benefit Education percent of annual teacher evaluations. Many union leaders and members agree that testing is part of the evaluation process and support using evaluations to improve performance, rather than just punishing or dismissing teachers.

Unions promote educational standards and values. Unions sponsor events and programs that improve classroom instruction and help children. At the biannual AFT Shanker Institute, named for former AFT President Albert Shanker, people attend workshops on teaching skills, curriculum standards, and other things to improve education. The AFT has also provided millions of dollars for grants to help schools in need. Teachers unions have developed plans for student and teacher assessments. Union members engage in community service programs, including collecting school supplies for homeless children. Critics complain that unions oppose measures to expand school choice, but such plans are often poorly designed and potentially damaging. In some states, unions have criticized charter school initiatives that lacked adequate standards. In California, the state teachers union made sure that a proposed law required credentialed teachers and state accountability standards for charter schools. Unions have also fought to add fiscal accountability provisions to bills that authorize charter schools. These provisions can protect the public from fraud and other economic abuses, especially when people run schools for profit. Unions have worked hard to diversify the teaching profession. The National Collaborative on Diversity in the Teaching Force said that research shows “minorities tend to do better in class and face higher expectations when taught by teachers from their racial or ethnic group.”9 According to the AP article describing the report, the six groups that make up this group say that diversity and cultural competence are priorities for recruiting and training teachers so they can understand a student’s culture and incorporate it in class.10

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Education Reform The NEA has noted that the teaching population is less diverse ethnically and racially than the student population, saying, “With 40 percent minority students and 5 percent minority teachers predicted for 2010, a critical shortage of educators and role models who reflect their race and ethnicity may be at hand. This shortage could lead to a failure of all American students to acquire the academic, personal, and social skills they need in a multicultural society.”11 Teachers unions have supported efforts to recruit teachers who can relate to diverse students in terms of language, culture, and race. Although people often generalize about union activity, a closer look shows that state and local unions and various union leaders are not a homogenous group with one opinion on every issue. Local unions have supported reforms or policies that differ from the position of their national group. They have cooperated with school boards to implement programs and changes, including giving up certain benefits in the interests of their schools and students.

Unionization does not harm student achievement. Anti-unionists claim that unions harm schools in ways that hurt students’ academic performance. Yet states with fewer unionized teachers do not show higher achievement scores. In fact, states with more unionized teachers, including Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York, boast higher test scores than states with fewer unionized teachers, such as Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.12 Several studies that compared unionized states to nonunionized states found that students’ SAT scores and ACT scores were higher in the unionized states.13,14 A study of fourth-graders using preand post-tests found math scores were 5 percent higher for students in schools with collective bargaining agreements.15 Analysts have concluded that student achievement in schools where teachers unions have collectively bargained for contracts show very small differences, whether positive or negative.16 After reviewing 17 prominent studies that looked at the links between unions and student achievement, Robert M. Carini of

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Indiana University wrote, “Given the empirical evidence, unions have a solid track record of supporting policies that boost achievement for most students.”17 Critics often compare schools with vastly different populations to support their claims that private schools, without union contracts, perform better. These comparisons are unrealistic and unfair when private schools and public charter schools have different demographics, resources, and organizational structure than traditional public schools. Public schools must serve everyone, including higher percentages of students who are disabled, homeless, poor, and/or English language learners, and these schools often have fewer resources. Comparing costs can likewise be misleading. Private school tuition may reflect just part of the actual cost per pupil, which can come from endowments, donations, and fund-raising efforts.

Opposition to merit pay is well founded. Unions have been criticized for opposing merit pay and differential pay for teaching different subjects. In fact, they have supported pay based on teachers’ experience and educational credentials. Although seniority and educational credentials do

QUOTABLE Secretary of Education Arne Duncan I urge union leaders, administrators and schools boards all across America to follow the example of their reform-minded colleagues and have a more open mind toward common-sense reforms.€.€.€. The only real threat to them—and to all of us—is academic failure. I also challenge reformers to stop blaming unions for all the problems in American education. If unions were the only problem, all of our right-to-work states and charter schools would be outperforming the nation—which is not the case. That’s the old frame. In the new frame, people are working together. Source: “The Quiet Revolution: Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks at the National Press Club,” U.S. Department of Education, July 27, 2010. http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/ quiet-revolution-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-national-press-club.

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Education Reform not tell the whole story, they at least offer objective ways to calculate salaries. Merit pay might sound good, but problems can occur, including administrative costs and time devoted to meetings. Merit pay can treat teachers unfairly, because performance in a classroom is extremely hard to measure. How can people objectively measure the many facets of teaching ability that include a teacher’s personality, or compare people who teach different subjects in diverse classrooms and schools for different kinds of students? How will such ratings be consistent and impartial? Administrators face these and other problems when trying to evaluate teachers for merit-based pay. Some people think student test scores should be part of this measurement system, but do they always reflect the efforts a teacher has made? Using test scores as a key measurement could disproportionately reward teachers who work with the most capable and motivated students. One cannot compare test scores for teachers in special education, for example, with those who teach other students. When test scores determine rewards, teachers who work with the most disadvantaged students tend to lose, even if their students improve greatly during the school year. In 2007, in Hillsborough County, Florida, nearly 75 percent of the teachers who earned merit bonuses worked in the affluent schools in the district.18 Test scores do not adequately reflect all that students learn, including critical-thinking skills. Some students learn a great deal but perform poorly on standardized tests. It is hard to measure performance in important areas of teaching and student development or adequately gauge a teacher’s innovative programs. An alternative plan would reward teachers whose students improved, but such a plan could penalize teachers whose students were already doing well. Teachers have discussed the pitfalls of merit pay. In places where it was tried, people found it divisive. It can lower teacher morale and lead to friction among teachers and between teachers

Teachers Unions Benefit Education and administrators. In one survey, 52 percent of the teachers said that if merit pay were in place, principals might play favorites.19 Competing for extra pay could hurt collaboration, since teachers would compete individually rather than working together to educate everyone in the school. Parents might insist that their children be assigned only to teachers that earned merit pay. Studies have not shown a positive correlation between merit pay and student achievement. Researchers who studied meritpay plans in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and Texas saw no significant difference in student test scores. When the Urban Institute studied merit pay plans, it found positive short-lived effects, but concluded that most of them “did not succeed at implementing lasting, effective .€.€. plans that had a demonstrated ability to improve student learning.” The same study found “little evidence from other research .€.€. that incentive programs (particularly pay-for-performance) had led to improved teacher performance and student achievements.”20 Unions have offered to discuss merit-pay plans to make sure they are fair and realistic, and teachers themselves have said they could support pay differentials based on other things besides test scores—for example, higher salaries for teachers who work more hours and those who make more sacrifices by working in low-performing schools or with hard-to-reach students.21 For merit plans to work, teachers would have to agree on standards with objective criteria, both for evaluating student progress and evaluating teachers. Ways of assessing teachers would need to be consistent, impartial, and tailored to the needs of the school district. “If you don’t engage teachers in the process of what the incentives are—they put them out there, and teachers don’t understand them and don’t believe they will work or be workable—they are not going to be incentives that mean anything. They’ll actually do the opposite. They will demoralize people,” Weingarten said.22 Some teachers are insulted by the idea that they will not do their best unless they receive monetary bonuses. In 2010,

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Education Reform a survey conducted by Harris Interactive polled thousands of teachers. As Dorie Turner writes, “most said they value nonmonetary rewards, such as time to collaborate with other teachers and a supportive school leadership, over higher salaries. Only 28% felt performance pay would have a strong impact and 30% felt performance pay would have no impact at all.”23 Lester C. Thurow points out that the atmosphere and attitudes in a setting often determine outcomes, even when salaries are the same. Comparing two departments in which he taught, Thurow writes, “Good teaching occurred in the department with good teaching because there was a very strong social ethos that good teaching was your first responsibility and would be rewarded with peer respect.”24

People blame unions for problems outside their control. Critics blame unions and teachers when children fail to achieve in school. Unions, however, point out that teachers are not responsible when students come to school tired, hungry, in poor health, unprepared, or unmotivated. Teachers cannot prevent mental health problems, poor parenting, minimal English skills, spotty attendance caused by frequent moves or truancy, or any of the other factors that affect learning. Unions have encouraged reformers to examine the root causes of school failure and find real solutions. Two key factors that influence school achievement are family background and poverty. In one Public Agenda study, eight in 10 teachers said that their schools had serious problems with parents who did not hold their children accountable or set appropriate limits at home.25 Schools that serve large disadvantaged populations may suffer from inadequate funding. Bill Perkins, a state senator from New York who represents Harlem, has said that it is “stupid and unfair to blame unions when the reason the schools in this community are failing is because they lack resources.”26

Teachers Unions Benefit Education The NEA supports political efforts to help children achieve levels of health and well-being that promote success in school. In its “Call to Action,” the NEA mentions things that children need, including “access to quality health care and healthy food and decent affordable housing. They need safe and stable neighborhoods. They need to come from homes where adults earn a living wage. And they need a parent, or a family member or guardian, who knows how to help prepare them for school and life.”27

Summary A collective voice through their unions has enabled teachers to boost the profession and the education system. Better working conditions and other union gains benefit teachers as well as students. Knowing that unions protect their rights enhances morale and professional dignity, which helps to attract and retain quality teachers. Unions have sound reasons for their positions on seniority, merit pay, and dismissal policies. Seniority is, at least, an objective way to make salary and staffing decisions. People complain about contract provisions and laws that protect teachers’ jobs. Just because a few ineffective teachers remain in classrooms does not mean that other teachers do not deserve a strong collective bargaining voice. Unions are criticized for challenging certain reforms, but teachers have legitimate concerns about how reforms are implemented. Unions oppose choice programs that take needed resources from public schools, and they advocate standards for all schools. Unions and the teachers they represent have been unfairly blamed for problems they cannot control. Reformers should, instead, encourage the kind of school structure and support for teaching that promote genuine learning. They must boost education for all, not just experiments or piecemeal efforts that

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Education Reform improve education for a few, improve nothing, or make things worse. As NEA President Reg Weaver said in 2003: Teachers understand that politically motivated panaceas such as merit pay and eliminating tenure do nothing to improve teacher quality. Our members are open to alternatives, but we will always oppose quick fixes designed to weaken the voice of teachers and effectiveness of education employees in all jobs.28

COUNTERPOINT

Teachers Unions Hurt Education

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abor unions have long played an important role in American history. Before fair-labor laws were in place, employers could exploit workers and pay unreasonably low wages. Workers formed unions to improve their bargaining position and prevent abuses. Today, however, critics argue that some unions are so powerful that they go far beyond protecting workers. Through lobbying, campaign contributions, and other political pressure, powerful unions can impose their will on others, make sure their candidates for political office are elected, push for laws and policies that favor their positions, and demand high salaries and good benefits, regardless of economic conditions. Together, the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association have more than 4.6 million members— about a quarter of all union members in the United States.1 The NEA, the largest union in the nation, is regarded as a powerful

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Education Reform political force. Teachers unions collect hundreds of millions of dollars in dues and employ thousands of staff members. Since 1980, they have contributed about $57.4 million to federal political campaigns.2 “After the U.S. Postal Service, schools are the most unionized activity in America,” says Lamar Alexander, a former secretary of education.3

Union goals can conflict with students’ interests. The primary goals of unions—to maintain power, increase membership, protect members’ jobs, and gain maximum benefits for members—can conflict with things that improve schools and student performance. To promote job security, unions support seniority rules and pay plans over plans that reward teachers based on merit and performance. They oppose measures that make it easier to fire incompetent teachers as well as plans to make teachers more accountable when students do not reach educational goals. Unions have rejected plans that offer more school choice and have lobbied lawmakers to restrict the number of charter schools. Union contracts can be long and rigid, with burdensome regulations for schools. Contracts often limit teachers’ roles so they cannot do things that could improve schools and student performance, such as working more hours or responding to parents’ phone calls. Schools may be required to hold meetings only on certain days and at certain times, even if all of the teachers prefer a different time. Unions have been criticized for telling teachers not to do extra work or deviate in any other way from their contracts. Critics object when unions prevent promising new educational ventures. In 2002, philanthropist Robert Thompson offered the city of Detroit $200 million to set up 15 independent charter schools, with a goal of preparing at least 90 percent of their graduates for higher education. Thompson had retired from a road-construction business. After distributing $128 million to his employees, he and his wife decided to donate large

Teachers Unions Hurt Education sums to education. They focused on Detroit, an economically troubled city that has one of the lowest public high school graduation rates in the nation. Thompson’s privately funded plan for charter schools offered to boost education for some of the city’s most disadvantaged students. Some public officials initially welcomed this offer, but political pressures soon developed. The Detroit Federation of Teachers opposed the idea. Union members staged a one-day walkout from the city’s schools and then rallied in protest at the state Capitol, where lawmakers were discussing the proposal. Critics said the union was concerned that members might lose jobs, because charter schools can hire nonunion teachers. The union argued that the charter schools might have unqualified teachers and inadequate regulations. Thompson withdrew his offer in 2003, but did go on to support the University Preparatory Academy (UPA) in Detroit and has helped to fund a science and math middle and high school, affiliated with the UPA, through the Thompson Education Foundation.4,5 Although supporters say that unionization does not negatively affect student achievement, research shows otherwise. A study of 10,000 school districts, conducted between 1960 and 1990, found that unionized districts had a 2.3 percent higher dropout rate than nonunionized schools.6

Unions wield too much power. With their vast memberships and financial resources, teachers unions have become the foremost political spender in the United States.7 The NEA has more than 3 million members, operates in every state, and collects $400 million a year in member dues, along with other revenues. The AFT has 1.5 million members and is active in 43 states.8 Critics say these unions, collectively, have more power than parents, school boards, and others in the education system. When PTAs or school boards disagree with teachers unions, unions can prevail because of their extensive financial resources

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and political power. Yet unions are not accountable to the public. Political scientist and education writer Terry Moe notes that “schools are basically run by the administration and the unions through these joint committees or whatever which meet on a variety of different issues, and basically run the schools. The schools are supposed to be run by elected officials who are responsible to constituencies.”9 Unions have used their power to strike, shut down schools, and delay school openings. They have proposed a new system that would take more power by regulating teaching, a role that elected state governments now carry out. Under this new system, teachers, teacher educators, and school administrators would form boards to set standards for accreditation and licensure. Since teachers unions already have so much bargaining power, this idea troubles critics.

Unions oppose pay based on performance. Most Americans support merit pay for teachers. This is a common way to reward talent and extra effort. Differential pay can

QUOTABLE Ron Paige, former secretary of education Collective bargaining has, in effect, shut out parents from having a say in their local schools.€.€.€. [It] has rendered the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) almost useless as a representative of parents’ needs.*

Milton Friedman, economist and libertarian Poor teachers are grossly overpaid and good teachers grossly underpaid. Salary schedules tend to be uniform and determined far more by seniority, degrees received, and teaching certificates acquired than by merit.** * Rod **

Paige, The War Against Hope (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006), p. 35.

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 95.

Teachers Unions Hurt Education encourage productivity and motivate people in their jobs. The many dedicated teachers who work harder and achieve excellence deserve financial rewards. Many people see a fundamental unfairness when two people are paid the same but one does a much better job, and especially when less-effective employees receive more pay. Studies have shown the benefits of merit pay, including higher student achievement. At Meadowcliff Elementary School in Arkansas in 2005, test scores increased 10 points after merit pay was offered. Researchers from the University of Arkansas found that achievement improved in five schools in Little Rock after a merit-pay plan was introduced.10 According to Gary W. Ritter, professor of education: Our two years of analysis of test data in ACPP [Achievement Challenge Pilot Project] schools in Little Rock reveal consistent findings: Students of teachers who are eligible for performance bonuses enjoy academic benefits. Further, many of the criticisms of merit pay programs simply have not proven true in Little Rock.11 Teachers unions have fought any plan that would pay teachers based on merit. In Los Angeles, for example, United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) opposed a plan in 2000 to tie pay raises to student achievement.12 In 2010, Florida legislators passed a measure that would enact merit pay in public schools. Union pressure against the bill was intense, and Governor Charlie Crist vetoed it.13 Union leaders have called merit-pay systems unfair because they often use student test scores as one measure of performance. Merit pay plans can evaluate performance in other ways, including professional development and objective classroom observations, with provisions to prevent favoritism or other bias during the process. Regardless of the union position, individual teachers have approved of merit pay as long as the performance standards are clear. They have also supported higher

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Education Reform salaries for teachers who work in difficult schools or with challenging students. Unions have fought proposals to pay higher salaries for hard-to-fill teaching positions, including math, science, special education, and foreign language. In 2000, the NEA Representative Assembly reportedly passed a resolution that read: “The Association opposes providing additional compensation to attract and/or retain education employees in hard-torecruit positions.”14 Yet many states have teacher shortages in certain areas and more than enough teachers in others. In a free market, supply and demand would adjust salaries to attract and reward teachers with credentials schools need.

Tenure and seniority rules protect bad teachers. Union contracts, including tenure provisions, protect teachers, regardless of their skills. Tenure and seniority rules give teachers more job security than nearly any other college-educated workers. Tenure can be gained just a few years after teachers begin their careers. As a result, incompetent or unmotivated teachers may remain on the job, protected by their union. Other professionals face regular performance tests and reviews, pressures to produce, and work quotas. Seniority rules negotiated by unions require schools to retain teachers based on seniority, not performance, when staffing cuts are made. This may result in laying off the most energetic, talented teachers while keeping less effective ones. Some states have challenged this policy. Colorado, Tennessee, Delaware, and Oklahoma passed laws that say teacher performance may be considered when making decisions about tenure or firing. Arizona made it illegal to consider seniority for decisions about layoffs, tenure, or rehiring.15 Few teachers, however, are ever terminated, even in schools where student-achievement scores and graduation rates are dismal. In Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, and Vermont, fewer than half

Teachers Unions Hurt Education of the fourth-graders pass proficiency tests in reading or math. Yet the average school district did not remove any tenured teachers during the 2007–2008 school year.16 The costs of firing teachers are high, both in terms of legal fees and time. The dismissal process can take years. In some cases, teachers who were convicted of criminal behavior continued to receive salaries while they were in jail because union lawyers were still fighting their cases in the courts. Moe explains, “On average, it takes two years, $200,000, and 15% of the principal’s total time to get one bad teacher out of the classroom. As a result, principals don’t even try.”17 In an interview with reporter John Stossel in 2006, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said it was “just about impossible” to fire bad teachers. Klein said that in situations where he believed teachers should not be in the classroom, he had to keep them on the staff and pay them, even though they were not teaching. These teachers reported on school days to so-called “rubber rooms.” In 2006, the cost of salaries for these nonteaching teachers totaled about $20 million. In four years, just two teachers out of 80,000 were fired for incompetence.18 Principals also must hire teachers who are transferred, often because of poor performance. These principals do not have the option to fill positions with the best-qualified people. When a vacancy arises, senior teachers have first choice.

Unions oppose reforms that can improve schools. Teachers unions have a big stake in resisting certain reforms, including those that bring more competition to traditional public schools. Unions have fought laws and policies that add accountability, including the No Child Left Behind Act. In 2005, the NEA worked with school districts in Michigan, Texas, and Vermont to file lawsuits against NCLB. Critics say the NEA has given millions of dollars to fund the work of organizations that criticize and oppose the law.19

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One of the great questions facing the U.S. public school systems nationwide is whether or not underperforming schools should be closed. Seen here, parents of public school students protest proposed school closures due to students’ poor progress on standardized tests in Texas.

When Klein, who left his position as schools chancellor of New York City on January 1, 2011, decided to use test scores as one criterion to evaluate teachers for tenure, the teachers union lobbied state lawmakers, who responded by passing a law that bans using test scores in determining tenure for teachers in New York state. Unions also oppose measures that close schools judged to be performing poorly. They have criticized President Barack

Teachers Unions Hurt Education Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for supporting the idea of closing failing schools. In Central Falls, Rhode Island, school superintendent Dr. Frances Gallo tried to work with the teachers union on strategies to fix the failing high school, where fewer than half of students graduate in four years. The federal government offers options for failing schools, and Gallo chose the “improvement plan.” She asked teachers, whose salaries range from $60,000 to $80,000, to work 25 extra minutes a day and to eat lunch with students once a week. The union refused. Gallo offered $30 extra pay an hour, but union representatives demanded $90, so she decided to fire the entire staff of 74 teachers. People who approved of Gallo’s bold action rented a billboard in town praising her.20 Unions oppose voucher plans to increase school choice, even though many students remain in substandard schools. Unions also have opposed charter schools, which compete with public schools for students and receive public funding, and urged legislatures to set “caps” on the number of charter schools. As of 2010, about 5 percent of the nation’s schools were charter schools. During the 2007–2008 school year, fewer than 1.3 million students were attending charter schools out of nearly 49 million students nationwide.21 Yet charter schools often have long waiting lists. In New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, for instance, 14,000 children applied for only 2,700 spots in the admission lottery for the fall 2010 school term. In New York City as a whole, 43,000 students were turned away in 2010 after available spots were filled in charter schools.22 When the New York Legislature tried to lift the cap the union had insisted upon, the union fought to defeat the bill, so the cap remained in place. Moe notes that since unions have used their political power to limit charter schools in the United States, “As a result .€.€. we have 4,600 charter schools .€.€. [and] over 90,000 public schools. So this is a drop in the bucket. And meantime charter schools have huge waiting lists of people who are desperate to get in.”23

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These maps of New Orleans, Louisiana, show the growth of charter schools in the city following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. After the hurricane displaced thousands of people, reformers sought to transform the city’s public education system through the development of charter schools.

Unions focus on monetary solutions. Although increasingly higher education budgets have not improved educational outcomes, unions continue to advocate more spending to improve education. They advocate higher salaries, hiring more teachers, reducing class sizes, and revamping school facilities. Researchers have found that the total cost of instruction is 8 percent to 10 percent higher in union schools.24

Teachers Unions Hurt Education Large sums of money have not solved problems in various places, including Washington, D.C. In 2003, the district spent $11,000 per pupil, well above the national average of $8,100. Yet the city’s schools had a dropout rate of about 40 percent.25 Other urban systems also have an average per-pupil spending rate above the national average coupled with low achievement test scores and high dropout rates. What about smaller class sizes? Setting mandatory limits on class size can increase expenses and lead to other problems. Two experts who studied the research on class sizes wrote, “Although shrinking the size of classes in a particular school has obvious benefits, it has been found that reducing class size on a large scale can create a shortage of effective teachers, increase the use of unqualified or ineffective teachers, and result in higher costs without any corresponding benefits.”26

Summary Teachers unions wield formidable political power in the United States. Large and well-funded, they negotiate contracts that provide teachers with enormous job security and other benefits. Critics say they have blocked numerous education reforms, including choice programs, charter schools, and merit-pay plans that would reward teachers for excellence and extra effort. They oppose measures that bring more accountability to the system, including using test scores to evaluate schools and teachers. Rod Paige, a former secretary of education, has criticized teachers unions. In The War Against Hope, he writes, “America has yet to muster the courage, and the political will, to confront the major barrier to authentic public education system reform: the National Education Association (NEA) and other selfaggrandizing teachers’ unions.”27 Terry Moe argues that competition can answer many questions about unions: “[T]he healthiest environment for everyone is a competitive environment.” By watching the results of competition, we can determine whether unions help or hurt. Moe

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Education Reform writes that if “unions impose restrictions on schools that are bad for the schools, and unproductive, in which kids don’t learn as much, they have to compete with other schools that don’t have to labor under those restrictions.”28 People can choose schools that offer the best educational services.

CONCLUSION

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ost Americans agree about certain goals for education but disagree about how to reach them. Some ongoing debates involve national learning standards, funding for schools, diversity in school populations, and how to best serve students at risk for school failure.

National Learning Standards For decades, Americans have discussed the pros and cons of national education standards. These discussions intensified during the 1980s, when people tried to define the content and learning goals for students in each grade. In 1991, Congress established the National Council on Education Standards and Testing (NCEST), which explored ways to set national education standards and then assess how well they were being met. The National Education Standards and Improvement Council

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(NESIC) was established in 1994 when President Bill Clinton signed the Goals 2000: Educate America Act into law. NESIC was authorized to review and certify the national education standards and voluntary state standards that were developed for Goals 2000. As of 2010, 30 states had adopted the Common Core Standards for language arts and math. Supporters say that national standards help to guarantee a quality education for all Americans by offering young people similar educational options, no matter where they live. National standards could also reduce gaps in programs between rural and urban areas and affluent suburbs. Employers would know that high school graduates had achieved certain standards, regardless of which schools they attended. Standards also make sense in a society where people move around, even during the school year, say supporters. Education expert Bob Wehling notes that the United States is the most mobile society in history: “Why should a family that must relocate from Maine to Louisiana find their children subjected to materially different standards, expectations, curricula options and assessments?”1 Wehling says he has come to believe that local control can lead to “an uneven system which does not offer all children a world-class education opportunity.” He suggests that Americans move from the idea of local control to “local support.”2 Standards could ensure that children have a solid foundation for literacy. Education expert E.D. Hirsch and others say that a coherent program of acquiring the base knowledge and vocabulary needed for speaking, writing, and reading and understanding written materials in the early grades is vital for later success. Reading comprehension requires a knowledge base as well as reading skills because students need to understand the context of the materials they read. Hirsch writes that “[v]ocabulary growth, which is a long process that gradually accumulates a large number of words, must be fostered intensively in the earliest grades if we are to bring all children to proficiency in reading as quickly as possible.”3 Tests show that vocabulary knowledge

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in second grade reliably predicts students’ academic achievement in eleventh grade. National standards can also prevent states from setting standards too low. Under No Child Left Behind, states were required only to make sure schools meet at least minimum standards and ensure that a high school diploma reflects a certain level of achievement. States and school districts retain the right to set standards, choose their tests, set their curricula, and hire personnel in their schools. Supporters of national standards and assessment programs point out that students in other nations that have these systems outscore U.S. students on tests. A solid basic curriculum tied directly to clear, high standards can provide a more predictable and higher-quality educational experience for all. People who oppose national standards say that a nationwide curriculum and uniform standards would give the federal government too much control over education. These should be determined at the state and local levels where people know more about their schools and student populations. Whose standards will prevail in a national system? Even at the state level, people have trouble agreeing on what standards should be adopted and how they can be assessed. Common standards are incompatible with personalized learning, say critics. Children do not learn at the same pace and

QUOTABLE Education Secretary Arne Duncan The biggest problem with NCLB is that it doesn’t encourage high enough learning standards. The net effect is that we are lying to children and parents by telling kids they are succeeding when they are not. Source: Zach Miners, “A new version of No Child Left Behind is coming, but did the original help students?” U.S. News and World Report, January 1, 2010, p. 32.

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should not be expected to do so. They arrive in kindergarten and first grade with major differences based on their experiences during the preschool years. They cannot all be taught the same materials in the same way. Later, teens move forward at different paces based on their attitudes about homework and goals for the future. Author and teacher Alfie Kohn concludes, “High standards don’t require common standards. Uniformity is not the same thing as excellence—or equity.”4 Critics point out problems that can arise with standards. Years ago, the city of Chicago decided that credit in algebra would be required for graduation. In schools where students were not ready to tackle this course, teachers said that three-quarters might fail a standard algebra course. If they taught a math course at the students’ level, however, that would not qualify as algebra.5 This kind of edict does not improve education unless it includes a realistic and practical plan to achieve the goal. Top-down mandates can have other negative effects, say critics. Zalman Usiskin writes: National standards with teeth have a tacit assumption: Our teachers cannot be trusted to make decisions about which curriculum is best for their schools. That is a recipe for disaster, a recipe for pushing the best people out of our profession, a recipe that in the long run will result in a devastated teaching force and, as a consequence, poorer performance from our students.6 Educators with classroom experience say they are best suited to develop standards. In the 1980s, for example, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) worked on standards for content and teacher development that provided a basis for curricula without being overly detailed and limiting. “The NCTM standards model the possibility that professional standards can be tools for rethinking practice rather than regulations that constrain it,” writes teacher and

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author Linda Darling-Hammond.7 They “articulate professional knowledge and allow for professional judgment,” DarlingHammond writes.8 People looking for common ground say that if standards are implemented nationwide, they must be reasonable and flexible enough to reflect individual differences and respect local autonomy.

Spending How much money should be spent on education, and how should those funds be distributed throughout the system? Some schools seem underfunded while others range from adequate to luxurious. Teacher salaries are another issue. People disagree about whether higher salaries will improve recruitment and retention of excellent teachers. Are public schools underfunded? People who operate in rundown buildings with crowded classrooms, too few teachers and counselors, outdated textbooks, and other problems would say yes. Others, such as author Jay Greene, call lack of money a “myth” that has been perpetuated by the media, teachers unions, and misinformed people. Greene points out examples of schools that produce good results with less money than public schools spend per pupil.9 Some people who say that more money is not the answer note that between 1983 and 2003, the budget of the Department of Education increased from $14 billion to $55 billion, and it exceeded $64 billion in 2009.10 The total spending for elementary and secondary education in the United States was $628 billion in 2007–2008.11 The cost per pupil per year more than doubled. Are teacher salaries too low? Greene says that teacher salaries are in line with, or better than, salaries for people in comparable professions and people with a similar amount of education. Greene notes that teachers earned about $31 per hour in 2005— similar to, or more than, salaries paid to civil and mechanical engineers, chemists, and biologists. Salaries averaged $44,600 in

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2002 for working the school year.12 Greene points out that nurses made about $45,000 for working a full year, and most people would agree that nursing is not easier than teaching.13 According to Greene, teachers work about 7.3 hours a day for 180 days a year, an annual total of 1,314 hours. Most Americans (working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. all year with two weeks of vacation) work 1,928 hours a year. He calculates that if teachers worked the same hours yearround with the same two-week vacation as most Americans, their average salary in 2002 would have worked out to $65,440.14 People with more educational preparation, such as physicists, researchers, and dentists, did not earn much more per hour. Police, nurses, firefighters, social workers, and newspaper editors earned less.15 People sometimes compare U.S. teacher salaries to those in Europe and Asia, but critics of higher teacher salaries note that Japan and other countries have longer school years. Some countries also set stricter academic and training requirements for teachers. Furthermore, salary comparisons fail to include health and pension benefits, which are sizeable for U.S. teachers. In support of higher salaries, teachers explain that they do more work away from the job site than other professionals, including planning lessons, developing projects, gathering materials, and grading tests and written assignments. Greene draws this conclusion from research findings: “[T]he average teacher in a departmentalized school (where students have different teachers for different subjects) taught fewer than 3.9 hours per day in 2000. This leaves plenty of time for grading and planning lessons during regular school hours.”16 Does more spending correlate with higher achievement? Critics say that states or districts that spend the most often rank low in achievement (for example, Washington, D.C.), while states that spend less rank higher (Minnesota and Iowa). Increased spending per pupil and higher teacher salaries have not produced better test scores or graduation rates. After teacher salaries rose in the 1980s and class sizes were reduced, scores on achievement tests did not improve.

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Critics point out how spending money differently can make a difference. In a report for the ABC program 20/20, reporter John Stossel told the story of an 18-year-old from South Carolina who was reading at a first-grade level: “Although his public schools had spent nearly $100,000 on him over 12 years, he still couldn’t read.” The program sent the young man to a private learning center where his reading level went up two grade levels after 72 hours of instruction using workbooks and computers.17 Critics say education funds in the United States are spent on the wrong things. In other countries, more money is spent on preparing and supporting teachers to promote excellence in the classroom. In contrast, half of the education dollars in the United States go to personnel and activities outside of the classroom.18 People who favor a free-market approach with limited government and a system of privatized education complain that Americans cannot even determine how much tax money actually goes to public education. Sheldon Richman writes, “Generally, it is easy to tell what we pay for the various goods and services we buy. But when every level of government, taxing us in a variety of ways, puts money into the schools, how can anyone know precisely what he has been forced to contribute?”19

Equal Funding for All Public Schools? Picture two public schools, one in a high-poverty inner-city neighborhood and one in a suburban neighborhood 10 miles (16 kilometers) away. One building, almost new and costing tens of millions of dollars, contains wide hallways, a landscaped campus with several athletic fields and tennis courts, an Olympic-sized pool, computers and Internet access, and televisions in every classroom. The inner-city school has peeling paint, broken windows, and sections of the roof are collapsing. Students share a few computers and use textbooks that the suburban school would consider out of date. The heating system does not always work properly. States and individual districts have long complained about economic inequities among schools. Since colonial days, local

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real estate taxes funded public education, and wealthier districts had more generous budgets for buildings, maintenance, salaries, equipment, and other things. Yet students in high-poverty schools often have higher needs for remedial learning, counseling, social work, and other services. Large organizations, including the National Education Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) have supported government aid for districts that lack resources. Since the 1960s, more federal education money has gone to the states. People who oppose federal involvement say that this threatens the longstanding tradition of local control. Some people also object to the idea of any federal money going to sectarian/parochial schools. In the 1970s, states began paying a greater share of education costs, allocating a larger share to districts with the greatest need. Some states now fund 50 percent or more of education costs.20 States have equalized funding for all schools, often after lawsuits declared old funding methods unconstitutional. Between 1980 and 1994, funding disparities among districts decreased in most states. The Kentucky Supreme Court, for example, directed the state to equalize funding for schools, so the General Assembly passed the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990. 21 The system allowed wealthier districts to supplement that amount by up to 30 percent. Other states use similar approaches. A legal battle over school funding took place in 1989 in Texas, which has the second largest school system in the nation, after California. The state’s highest court ruled unanimously that the Texas system for funding public education was unconstitutional. The court said that “glaring disparities” between spending in rich versus poor school districts violated a provision in the Texas Constitution that requires the state legislature to support and maintain “an efficient system” for the “general diffusion of knowledge.” In his opinion for the court, Justice Oscar H. Mauzy wrote, “More money allocated under the present system would

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reduce some of the existing disparities between districts but would at best only postpone the reform that is necessary to make the system efficient. A Band-Aid will not suffice; the system itself must be changed.”22 Advocates of equal funding say that unequal school funding is unfair and divisive. An equitable formula is more dependable and efficient. It can save time and energy. Instead of spending time trying to pass school levies, people could use that time to improve school programs. Opponents of this approach argue that citizens work hard and make sacrifices to afford homes in neighborhoods that fund high-quality schools. If they want to do more for their children, should they not be permitted to do so? A middle ground has been reached in places where a certain baseline of funding is appropriated for each school. Districts may then choose to fund their schools above that baseline. As more states tackle this issue, new ideas for reform may emerge.

Diversity Issues A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2007 said that public school districts may not use race as the deciding factor in assigning students to schools, thus banning voluntary desegregation plans. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice John Roberts said that this kind of racial classification accords “differential treatment on the basis of race.”23 The Court ruled that race can be one factor among many that school districts consider as they work toward a diverse student body, but it cannot be the major factor that determines which students are admitted to the most popular schools in a district. As a result of this decision, plans for diversifying schools in Seattle, Washington; Louisville, Kentucky, and other cities were struck down. Previous decisions had said that race could be used as one factor for achieving diversity in schools. The Court has said that while officials have a compelling interest in avoiding racial isolation and achieving a diverse population, they cannot use certain

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mechanistic formulas to achieve these goals. (For more information, see the cases Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger.) Critics expressed concern that the 2007 decision would end decades of efforts to desegregate schools and lead to more de facto segregation. Along with race, many schools are segregated by economics, since minority students, on average, come from families with lower incomes. People expressed confusion about how to follow the Court’s direction to “remain faithful to the promise of racially integrated schools under the landmark 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education, but do it without paying inordinate attention to the racial or ethnic background of the students.”24 People who favor more diversity in schools say that research shows that an economic mix of students can enhance school achievement. They cite statistics showing that low-income students attending middle-class schools achieve at higher rates than their counterparts in high-poverty schools. Studies done in 2005 showed that low-income students who attend middle-class schools perform better on NAEP tests, on average, than middleclass students in high-poverty schools.25 Richard D. Kahlenberg has said that diversifying schools on the basis of economics can do more to reduce achievement gaps than a mandate that says all schools will somehow produce specific test results in a given year. He writes that the “numerical majority of students set the tone in a school; so long as concentrations of poverty do not reach above the 50 percent level, the academic achievement of middle-class students does not decline.”26 Those who agree note that the Coleman Report of 1966 found that the socioeconomic status of a school was the second most important (after family influence) determinant of a student’s academic success.27 They cite newer studies showing that all children do better in middle-class schools, regardless of their background. A study from 2005 showed that a school’s socioeconomic status was as important to achievement as a

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student’s individual economic status.28 A research team led by Douglas N. Harris of Florida State University found that middleclass schools were 22 times more likely to be consistently highperforming than high-poverty schools.29

What Works? Although some people say that problems in education are too vast and complex to overcome, others contend that schools can succeed against the odds. Education analysts have examined the reasons for their success. In It Takes a City, a group of researchers studied seven policy approaches for school reform and examined schools to see which ones made a real difference. They concluded that “every system-wide reform strategy must have three strong and interdependent elements: incentives for school performance, ways of increasing school capabilities, and opportunities for school staff to change how they serve students.”30 Schools that invested in

QUOTABLE John Dewey, educator and philosopher What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.*

Richard D. Kahlenberg Most everything that educators talk about as desirable in a school—high standards, good teachers, active parents, adequate resources, a safe and orderly environment, a stable student and teacher population—are more likely to be found in middle-class schools than in schools with high concentrations of poverty.** * John

Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), p. 5.

** Richard

D. Kahlenberg, Helping Children Move From Bad Schools to Good Ones (New York: The Century Foundation, 2006), p. 4. http://tcf.org/publications/pdfs/pb571/kahlenbergsoa6-15-06.pdf.

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school and teacher capacity through professional development and leadership development and had freedom to take action to reach their goals were most successful, according to this group. In her books It’s Being Done and How It’s Being Done, Karin Chenoweth describes how individual schools in high-poverty areas developed programs where students with many disadvantages, including lack of fluent English, not only met standards but showed above-average achievement. She identified high schools that managed to turn things around so that most or all students graduate and the majority go on to college. Chenoweth concluded that a dynamic and skillful principal and a “collaborative, supportive culture,” where creative and flexible skilled teachers work together, were key features. These teachers, she says, reflect the attitude that students can learn and learn well. One example is George Hall Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama. The school was threatened with a state takeover in 2004, but a new principal and reorganization led to impressive gains. By 2010, Chenoweth writes, the school had become “one of the highest achievers in the state, outperforming much wealthier schools.”31 At Elmont Memorial Junior-Senior High School in Nassau County, New York, as of 2010, 99 percent of the students were graduating and 97 percent went on to college, compared with a graduation rate of 50 percent for African Americans and Latinos statewide.32 At Graham Road Elementary in Fairfax County, Virginia, teachers planned innovative ways to increase vocabulary and knowledge base, using rhyming games, songs, and word games in the early grades. In other schools, teachers have boosted core knowledge and vocabulary so students would improve reading comprehension and abilities to make inferences and draw conclusions. They introduced new words in various classes and planned ways for students to use them in different ways. Field trips, hands-on learning, and other activities enhanced achievement. Chenoweth writes, “when teachers and administrators pool their knowledge with an eye to ensuring that all

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children master a rich and demanding curriculum, remarkable things happen.”33

Trends in Reform A recurring idea for reform is to add more time to the school day and/or the school year. Some reformers advocate longer school days, longer school years, and even school on Saturdays. Several prominent charter schools with high achievement have increased school hours. Students in other nations with higher test scores tend to spend more time in school. Education expert Lester C. Thurow notes: If you look at the foreign countries that outperform America on education (and that includes virtually all of the world’s industrial economies), they all have two characteristics: First, the school year and day is much longer. American children typically go to school 180 days a year; Japanese children go 240 days per year. Second, one must pass a national achievement test to get out of high school. The nation sets a standard that local schools are expected to achieve.34 Some communities have changed from a half-day to fullday kindergarten program. School systems have programs for early intervention. When young children show signs of learning difficulties with speech or other developmental tasks, they can receive services. Early intervention aims to prevent problems that lead to school failure and the cascade of problems that follow. Research has taught scientists more about how the brain works when people read. Literacy experts are using that information to help children with dyslexia and other reading problems. Education analysts note rising support for more choice and accountability and broader application of these ideas. Experts predict that merit pay for teachers will become more common, too. These reform ideas are part of what some analysts call the

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“incentivist” outlook. Other people look toward other reforms that involve paying closer attention to curriculum and instruction methods. They believe that a topnotch curriculum and effective teaching are more important than market-oriented reforms. As this debate continues, critics point out that just having choices does not guarantee a healthy, effective, or dynamic marketplace of schools to choose from. “Simply put, market reform is not just about choice; it is also about enabling market mechanisms to channel human energy and ingenuity into solving problems and satisfying needs,” writes Frederick M. Hess.35 People have called for self-policing and safeguards to protect the public from problems that have occurred through the years with charter schools. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools are addressing these matters. Reformers continue to ask: How can teaching professionals best be trained, deployed, evaluated, and rewarded? Nobody disputes the value of good teaching, and federal mandates call for an excellent teacher in every classroom. Schools have found ways to support teachers, especially new ones, with mentoring, ongoing professional development, and collaboration in order to improve skills and prevent turnover. Many teachers quit around the time they have become most effective in the classroom. Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky note, “Studies of teachers’ career patterns show that between 40 and 50 percent quit within the first five to seven years of service.”36 Researchers continue to study education systems to understand the results of different reforms. Because they are dealing with people and diverse social systems, researchers face the challenge of devising accurate research tools. They must then sort out which changes occurred because of specific reforms and which are incidental. As new ideas are put into practice, more sophisticated research tools can help people understand their impact. Schools can then implement effective programs and reject those that do not work.

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Summary Education is of major importance, along with health care, housing, jobs, and other things that affect daily life. The nation has a strong stake in a well-educated citizenry. Americans can point to a proud history of free public education and generations of progress. Problems with the system, however, have persisted for decades, despite laws, presidential panels, increased spending, and reform efforts enacted to correct them. While viewing various issues from different philosophical and political “lenses,” people seek ways to make sure every child has the best possible education, regardless of where they live. Ideas are emerging as states implement plans based on federal mandates and local initiatives. Programs that prove successful can be implemented more widely. As these debates have shown, issues in education reform are complex, but they can and must be tackled. Today’s students— the voters, parents, educators, and political leaders of tomorrow—will continue to reform the system as the nation seeks the best ways to prepare new generations for jobs, citizenship, and satisfying and productive lives.

APPENDIX Beginning Legal Research The goals of each book in the Point/Counterpoint series are not only to give the reader a basic introduction to a controversial issue affecting society, but also to encourage the reader to explore the issue more fully. This Appendix is meant to serve as a guide to the reader in researching the current state of the law as well as exploring some of the public policy arguments as to why existing laws should be changed or new laws are needed. Although some sources of law can be found primarily in law libraries, legal research has become much faster and more accessible with the advent of the Internet. This Appendix discusses some of the best starting points for free access to laws and court decisions, but surfing the Web will uncover endless additional sources of information. Before you can research the law, however, you must have a basic understanding of the American legal system. The most important source of law in the United States is the Constitution. Originally enacted in 1787, the Constitution outlines the structure of our federal government, as well as setting limits on the types of laws that the federal government and state governments can enact. Through the centuries, a number of amendments have added to or changed the Constitution, most notably the first 10 amendments, which collectively are known as the “Bill of Rights” and which guarantee important civil liberties. Reading the plain text of the Constitution provides little information. For example, the Constitution prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures” by the police. To understand concepts in the Constitution, it is necessary to look to the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, which has the ultimate authority in interpreting the meaning of the Constitution. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in Kyllo v. United States held that scanning the outside of a person’s house using a heat sensor to determine whether the person is growing marijuana is an unreasonable search—if it is done without first getting a search warrant from a judge. Each state also has its own constitution and a supreme court that is the ultimate authority on its meaning. Also important are the written laws, or “statutes,” passed by the U.S. Congress and the individual state legislatures. As with constitutional provisions, the U.S. Supreme Court and the state supreme courts are the ultimate authorities in interpreting the meaning of federal and state laws, respectively. However, the U.S. Supreme Court might find that a state law violates the U.S. Constitution, and a state supreme court might find that a state law violates either the state or U.S. Constitution.

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APPENDIX Not every controversy reaches either the U.S. Supreme Court or the state supreme courts, however. Therefore, the decisions of other courts are also important. Trial courts hear evidence from both sides and make a decision, while appeals courts review the decisions made by trial courts. Sometimes rulings from appeals courts are appealed further to the U.S. Supreme Court or the state supreme courts. Lawyers and courts refer to statutes and court decisions through a formal system of citations. Use of these citations reveals which court made the decision or which legislature passed the statute, and allows one to quickly locate the statute or court case online or in a law library. For example, the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education has the legal citation 347 U.S. 483 (1954). At a law library, this 1954 decision can be found on page 483 of volume 347 of the U.S. Reports, which are the official collection of the Supreme Court’s decisions. On the following page, you will find samples of all the major kinds of legal citation. Finding sources of legal information on the Internet is relatively simple thanks to “portal” sites such as findlaw.com and lexisone.com, which allow the user to access a variety of constitutions, statutes, court opinions, law review articles, news articles, and other useful sources of information. For example, findlaw.com offers access to all Supreme Court decisions since 1893. Other useful sources of information include gpo.gov, which contains a complete copy of the U.S. Code, and thomas.loc.gov, which offers access to bills pending before Congress, as well as recently passed laws. Of course, the Internet changes every second of every day, so it is best to do some independent searching. Of course, many people still do their research at law libraries, some of which are open to the public. For example, some state governments and universities offer the public access to their law collections. Law librarians can be of great assistance, as even experienced attorneys need help with legal research from time to time.

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APPENDIX Common Citation Forms Source of Law

Sample Citation

Notes

U.S. Supreme Court

Employment Division v. Smith, 485 U.S. 660 (1988)

The U.S. Reports is the official record of Supreme Court decisions. There is also an unofficial Supreme Court (“S. Ct.”) reporter.

U.S. Court of Appeals

United States v. Lambert, 695 F.2d 536 (11th Cir.1983)

Appellate cases appear in the Federal Reporter, designated by “F.” The 11th Circuit has jurisdiction in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia.

U.S. District Court

Carillon Importers, Ltd. v. Frank Pesce Group, Inc., 913 F.Supp. 1559 (S.D.Fla.1996)

Federal trial-level decisions are reported in the Federal Supplement (“F. Supp.”). Some states have multiple federal districts; this case originated in the Southern District of Florida.

U.S. Code

Thomas Jefferson Commemoration Commission Act, 36 U.S.C., §149 (2002)

Sometimes the popular names of legislation—names with which the public may be familiar—are included with the U.S. Code citation.

State Supreme Court

Sterling v. Cupp, 290 Ore. 611, 614, 625 P.2d 123, 126 (1981)

The Oregon Supreme Court decision is reported in both the state's reporter and the Pacific regional reporter.

State Statute

Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982, 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. 3203-3220 (1990)

States use many different citation formats for their statutes.

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Cases Plessy v. Ferguson 163, U.S. 537 (1896) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “Jim Crow” laws created to segregate the races were permissible, and the Court used the rationale of “separate but equal” to justify segregated rail cars, restaurants, theaters, public schools, and other facilities.

Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus, 268 U.S. 510 (1925) Based on the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state could not tell parents which school they must choose for their child. A law in Oregon had been passed that would have forced all children to attend public schools. Catholic schools and private schools filed complaints against this law.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that legally enforced segregation in public schools violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and directed school systems to move “with all deliberate speed” to desegregate schools.

Green v. County School Board of New Kent County, 391 U.S. 430 (1968) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “freedom of choice” programs in this county were not effective at achieving desegregation and must be replaced with policies that were effective in achieving “racial balance in schools.”

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that busing black and white students to achieve racial balance in schools is permissible under the Constitution.

Rose v. Council for Better Education, Ky. 780 S.W. 2d 186, 60 Ed. Law Rep. 1289 (1989) In this case, the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the system of organizing, financing, and implementing public education did not satisfy the state’s constitutional requirement of “substantially equal opportunity for all children.”

Edgewood v. Kirby, Texas 777 S.W. 2d 391 (1989) The Texas Supreme Court ruled that unequal funding for rich versus poor school districts results in “glaring disparities” that must be addressed. The decision was based on a provision in the Texas Constitution that requires the state legislature to support and maintain “an efficient system” for the “general diffusion of knowledge.”

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002) The U.S. Supreme Court held that the use of school vouchers for religious schools was permissible under certain circumstances. The Court said that the voucher program must offer various alternatives, including nonreligious schools, and also not feature incentives that lead people to choose the religious schools over nonreligious schools.

Gratz v. Bollinger, 549 U.S. 244 (2003) The plaintiffs challenged an admission process at the University of Michigan that used a point system in which 20 points (one-fifth of the total needed for

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admission) were automatically awarded to certain minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans). The Court ruled 6–3 that this particular system was too mechanistic in using race as a factor for admissions. It was therefore declared unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.

Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003) The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that schools could use race as a factor in determining admission procedures because there is a compelling interest in having a diverse student population. The plaintiff alleged that she was not admitted to law school because she was white and that minority applicants with lower grades and test scores were admitted. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said that the equal protection clause “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions.”

Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, 551 U.S. 701 (2007) and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education In a 5–4 decision, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that school districts could not use explicit racial classifications when assigning students to schools; racial imbalance is not the same thing as legally enforced segregation. This struck down programs in Seattle, Washington; Louisville, Kentucky; and Raleigh, North Carolina. In this case, the Court declined to view racial balancing in the schools as a compelling state interest.

Statutes Bennett Law (1889) The state of Wisconsin passed this law, stating that all schools in the state, whether private or public, must teach major subjects using the English language. The law, repealed in 1891, united German and Norwegian Protestants and Catholics in the state to fight against a law they regarded as an attack on their religious freedom, culture, and languages.

Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 This act was part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty and was designed to help states fund education programs for disadvantaged children, starting with preschool. Title I of this law sets forth funding and guidelines for educating disadvantaged children.

Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Formerly called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, this law requires public schools to “make available to all eligible children with disabilities a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their individual needs.” Schools are also required to develop an individualized education plan for each student. The law details due-process rights for students and parents during this process.

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ESEA 2002: No Child Left Behind (NCLB) This 2002 reauthorization of the ESEA added more accountability to education programs by requiring states to set standards for all schools, statewide, and test children in grades 3 to 8 each year to make sure they were making adequate yearly progress. Schools that did not reach goals were subject to various sanctions.

Terms and Concepts Achievement gap Adequate yearly progress (AYP) Charter school Collective bargaining Common school Curriculum standards De facto segregation De jure segregation Education vouchers English language learner (ELL) High-stakes testing (also called Accountability Testing) Jim Crow laws Magnet school Merit pay (pay for performance) Meritocracy School choice Sectarian Secular Segregation Seniority Tenure Title I school

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NOTES Introduction: Education in America 1 The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Merrill D. Patterson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), p. 76. 2 Ibid., p. 84. 3 U.S. Department of Education, Education in the United States, Fact index. http://www.fact-index.com/e/ed/ education_in_the_united_states.html. 4 Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, Why the United States Led in Education: Lessons in Secondary School Expansion, 1910–1940 (Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1997). 5 Pierce v. Society of Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus, 268 U.S. 510 (1925). 6 James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South: 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1988), pp. 244–245. 7 Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), p. 155. 8 Leonard Billet, The Free Market Approach to Educational Reform (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1978), pp. 27–28. 9 Terrel H. Bell, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983). 10 Ernest L. Boyer, High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1983). 11 Susan J. Gruskin, Mary A. Campbell, and Nancy Paulu, Dealing with Dropouts: The Urban Superintendents’ Call to Action (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 1987), p. 54. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ ED286992.pdf. 12 George H.W. Bush, first address to Congress, quoted in Lawrence J. McAndrews, The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965–2001 (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006), p. 133. 13 Martin Medhurst, The Rhetorical Presidency of George H.W. Bush (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2006), p. 108.

14 Educate America Act, Public Law 103227, 103d Cong. 2d sess. (March 31, 1994). http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/ GOALS2000/TheAct/index.html. 15 U.S. Government Accountability Office, No Child Left Behind Act: Education Needs to Provide Additional Technical Assistance and Conduct Implementation Studies for School Choice Provision (Washington, D.C.: Government Accountability Office, December 2004), p. 15. 16 Ibid., p. 26. 17 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York: Basic Books, 2010), p. 100. 18 U.S. Department of Education website, No Child Left Behind Is Working, December 2006. http://www2.ed.gov/ nclb/overview/importance/nclbworking. html. 19 Kim Clark, “Can School Reform Ever Really Work?” U.S. News & World Report, January 1, 2010, p. 23. 20 Ibid. 21 “Teacher Unions: Friend or Foe?” PBS NewsHour, March 26, 2010. Transcript. http://learningmatters.tv/transcripts/ newshour/RacePt3.pdf. 22 Alan Greenspan, “The Critical Role of Education in the Nation’s Economy,” speech to Greater Omaha (Nebraska) Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting, February 20, 2004. Transcript. http://www.federalreserve.gov/ boarddocs/speeches/2004/200402202/ default.htm. 23 Bob Wehling, ed., Building a 21st Century U.S. Education System (Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Teaching for America’s Future, 2007), p. 20. 24 Ibid., p. 13. 25 Center for Labor Market Studies, Left Behind in America: The Nation’s Dropout Crisis (Boston: Northeastern University, 2005). http://www.childtrendsdatabank. org/pdf/1_PDF.pdf. 26 U.S. Census Bureau, Federal, State and Local Governments Public Elementary-

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NOTES Secondary Education Finance Data, Washington, D.C. 27 “D.C.’s Distinction: $16,344 Per Pupil But Only 12% Read Proficiently,” Human Events, March 23, 2006. http://www.humanevents.com/article. php?id=13458. 28 Paul E. Peterson, ed., Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, Our Schools and Our Future .€.€. Are We Still at Risk? (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University, 2003). 29 Center for Education Reform website, National Charter School and Enrollment Statistics 2010, October 2010. http:// www.edreform.com/_upload/CER_ charter_numbers.pdf.

Point: Expanding School Choice Improves Education 1 Cynthia G. Brown, Choosing Better Schools: A Report on Student Transfers Under the No Child Left Behind Act (Washington, D.C.: Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights), p. 67. 2 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, The Changing Face of the Three R’s: Vouchers and Charter Schools, March 2000. http:// www.afscme.org/issues/1510.cfm. 3 Florida State Constitution, Amendment 6. 4 David Brennan, interview on Frontline, PBS, Transcript. http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/vouchers/ choice/choice.html. 5 John Stossel, “John Stossel’s ‘Stupid in America,’ How Lack of Choice Cheats Our Kids Out of a Good Education,” ABC News, January 13, 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/ story?id=1500338. 6 David Boaz and R. Morris Bennett, “What Would a School Voucher Buy? The Real Cost of Private Schools.” Cato Institute, March 26, 1996. http://www. cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-025.html. 7 Matthew Miller, “A Bold Experiment to Fix City Schools,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1999. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/ docs/issues/99jul/9907vouchers.htm. 8 U.S. Department of Education, The Condition of Education (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education

Statistics. May 2010), pp. iii, iv. http:// nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010028.pdf. 9 U.S. Department of Education, Unequal Opportunities in Education (Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Statistics, August 2000), p. 16. 10 Richard D. Kahlenberg, Helping Children Move From Bad Schools to Good Ones (New York: The Century Foundation, 2006), p. 4. 11 Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), p. 166. 12 Ibid., p. 167. 13 Julian R. Betts and Tom Loveless, eds., Getting Choice Right: Ensuring Equity and Efficiency in Educational Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2005), p. 10. 14 Anne McGrath, “A Counterintuitive Take on School Reform,” U.S. News & World Report, September 22, 2005. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/ articles/050922/22education.htm. 15 Paul E. Peterson, interview on Frontline, “The Case for Vouchers,” PBS, Transcript. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/vouchers/choice/ provouchers.html. 16 John C. Goodman and Matt Moore, School Choice vs. School Choice (Dallas: National Center for Policy Analysis, April 27, 2001), p. 13. http://www.ncpa. org/pdfs/bg155.pdf. 17 Ibid. 18 Goodman and Moore, pp. 10–11; Paul E. Peterson, The Theory and Practice of School Choice, p. 11. http://www.dallasfed. org/research/pubs/ftc/peterson.pdf. 19 Jay P. Greene, Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools—And Why It Isn’t So (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), p. 151. 20 Ibid. 21 Jay P. Greene, “Education Myths: Debunking the Fictions That Obstruct School Reform,” American Enterprise Magazine, July–August, 2006. 22 Ibid. 23 Jay P. Greene, “Vouchers: Not Dead Yet,” National Review, April 8, 2009. http://

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NOTES article.nationalreview.com/390832/ vouchers-not-dead-yet/jay-p-greene. 24 Mitchell Landsberg, “Spitting in the Eye of Mainstream Education,” Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2009. http:// www.latimes.com/news/local/la-mecharter31-2009may31,0,6518091,full. story. 25 Richard D. Kahlenberg, Helping Children Move From Bad Schools to Good Ones (New York: The Century Foundation, 2006), p. 4. 26 Boaz and Bennett, “What Would a School Voucher Buy?” 27 Steven Brill, “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand,” New York Times Magazine, May 17, 2010. 28 Harlem Success Academy website, HSA 3rd and 4th Grade State Test Results Are In, July 28, 2010. http://www. harlemsuccess.org/node/119. 29 Boaz and Bennett, “What Would a School Voucher Buy?”

Counterpoint: Expanding School Choice Harms Education 1 Frederick M. Hess, “The Supply Side of School Reform,” Phi Delta Kappan, November 2008. Reprinted by the American Enterprise Institute. http:// www.aei.org/article/28910. 2 Vanessa Witenko, “Most Vulnerable Students Shut Out of Charter Schools,” InsideSchools.org, May 19, 2009. http:// insideschools.org/blog/2009/05/19/ most-vulnerable-students-shut-out-ofcharter-schools/. 3 R.R. Dianda and R.G. Corwin, The Private Sector Considers Educational Vouchers in California (Los Alamitos, Calif.: Southwest Regional Laboratory, 1992). 4 National Education Association website, School Vouchers: The Emerging Track Record, April 2002. http://www.nea.org/ home/16970.htm. 5 U.S. Department of Education, Barriers, Benefits, and Costs of Using Private Schools to Alleviate Overcrowding in Public Schools, 1998. http://www.eric. ed.gov/PDFS/ED432063.pdf. 6 Hess, “The Supply Side of School Reform.”

7 American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, The Changing Face of the Three R’s: Vouchers and Charter Schools, March 2000. http:// www.afscme.org/issues/1510.cfm. 8 American Federation of Teachers, School Vouchers: Myths and Facts, 2006. http://www.aft.org/pdfs/teachers/ vouchersmythsfacts06.pdf. 9 Ibid. 10 Alan J. Borsuk, “Study Finds Results of MPS and Voucher School Students Are Similar,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 26, 2009. http://www.jsonline. com/news/education/41868652.html. 11 Albert Shanker and Bella Rosenberg, “Private School Choice: An Ineffective Path to Educational Reform,” in Hakim, et. al., p. 59. 12 Henry Braun, Frank Jenkins, and Wendy Grigg, A Closer Look at Charter Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 2006). 13 “Diplomas Count: Ready for What?” Education Week, June 12, 2007, p. 5. 14 Stanford University Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States, June 2009, p. 1. http://credo. stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_ CHOICE_CREDO.pdf. 15 Alex Molnar, Philip Smith, John Zahorik, Karen Ehrle, Anke Halbach, and Barbara Kuehl, 1999–2000 Results of the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) Program Evaluation (Milwaukee: University of WisconsinMilwaukee, December 2000). 16 Jonathan Plucker and Patricia Muller, Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program, Technical Report 1998–2004, (Bloomington, Ind.: Center for Evaluation & Education Policy, February 9, 2006). http://ceep.indiana.edu/ projects/PDF/200602_Clev_Tech_Final. pdf. 17 Public Analysis of California Education, University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, September 2000. 18 Paul E. Peterson and William G. Howell, School Choice in Dayton, Ohio: An Evaluation After One Year, Harvard

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NOTES University Program on Education Policy and Governance, PEPG00-07, February 2000, and Paul E. Peterson, Patrick J. Wolf, and William G. Howell, School Choice in Washington D.C.: An Evaluation After One Year, Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance, PEPG00-08, February 2000. 19 Geoffrey D. Borman, The Long-Term Effects and Cost-Effectiveness of Success for All (Baltimore: Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, Johns Hopkins University, 2001). http:// www.successforall.net/_images/pdfs/ LTEffectsandCostEffofSFA-2003.pdf. 20 Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York: Basic Books, 2010), p. 84. 21 Julian R. Betts, “The Economic Theory of School Choice,” in Getting Choice Right: Ensuring Equity and Efficiency in Educational Policy, edited Betts and Tom Loveless, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2005), p. 23. 22 Ibid. 23 Quoted in Thomas Toch and Todd Adelman, Matchmaking: Enabling Mandatory Public School Choice in New York and Boston, (Washington, D.C.: Education Sector, 2000), p. 5. http:// www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/ ChoiceMatching.pdf. 24 Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, p. 82. 25 Americans United website, Should You Pay Taxes to Support Religious Schools? http://www.au.org/resources/brochures/ should-you-pay-taxes-to-supportreligious-schools/. 26 33rd Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll, “Public Attitudes Toward Public Schools News Release,” August 24, 2001. http://www.ncpublicschools.org/ newsroom/news/2001-02/20010824. 27 National Education Association, School Vouchers: The Emerging Track Record. 28 National School Boards Association news release, “District of Columbia Voters Strongly Oppose Vouchers, NDBA/ Zogby Poll Shows,” December 2, 2002. 29 Ibid.

Point: High-Stakes Testing Improves Education 1 Louis V. Gerstner Jr., Roger D. Semerad, and Denis Philip Doyle, Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America’s Public Schools (New York: Penguin, 1994), p. 69. 2 Chester E. Finn Jr., “The Politics of Change,” in New Schools for a New Century: The Redesign of Urban Education, edited by Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti, (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 241. 3 Ibid. 4 Anne McGrath, “A Counterintuitive Take on School Reform,” U.S. News and World Report, September 22, 2005. 5 Martin Medhurst, The Rhetorical Presidency of George H.W. Bush. (College Station Texas A&M University Press, 2006), p. 108. 6 Jay Greene, Greg Forster, and Marcus A. Winters, Education Myths: What SpecialInterest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why It Isn’t So (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005). 7 Jay P. Greene, “Testing High-Stakes Tests: Can We Believe the Results of Accountability Tests?,” Civic Report 33 (February 2003). http://www. manhattaninstitute.org/html/cr_33.htm. 8 Andrew J. Rotherham, “Education: Moving From ‘What’ to ‘How’ in Education Policy,” U.S. News & World Report, January 1, 2010, p. 37. 9 Arne Duncan, speech at the National Press Club, July 27, 2010. Transcript http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/quietrevolution-secretary-arne-duncansremarks-national-press-club. 10 Margaret E. Raymond and Eric A. Hanushek, “The Effect of School Accountability Systems on the Level and Distributions of Student Achievement,” Journal of the European Economic System (April–May 2004), pp. 406–415. 11 Martin Carnoy and Susanna Loeb, “Does External Accountability Affect Student Outcomes? A Cross-State Analysis,” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (December 21, 2002), pp. 305–331.

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NOTES 12 Ibid. 13 Jay Greene and Marcus Winters, “Competition Passes the Test,” Education Next, June 6, 2004. 14 Cecilia Elena Rouse, Jane Hannaway, Dan Goldhaber, and David Figlio, Feeling the Florida Heat: How LowPerforming Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure, (Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2007), p. 44. 15 Jay P. Greene, “Education Myths: Debunking the Fictions That Obstruct School Reform,” American Enterprise Magazine, July–August 2006. 16 Ibid. 17 Greene, Forster, and Winters, Education Myths, p. 124. 18 Jay P. Greene, Julie Trivitt, and Marcus A. Winters, The Impact of HighStakes Testing on Student Proficiency in Low-Stakes Subjects (New York: The Manhattan Institute, September 3, 2008). http://www.ednews.org/articles/ the-impact-of-high-stakes-testing-onstudent-proficiency-in-low-stakessubjects.html.

Counterpoint: High-Stakes Testing Harms Education 1 John O’Neil and Carol Tell, “Why Students Lose When ‘Tougher Standards’ Win: A Conversation with Alfie Kohn,” Educational Leadership 57, No. 1 (September 1999), pp. 18–22. 2 Gerald Grant, Hope and Despair in the American City (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), p. 171. 3 Christopher Jencks, Who Gets Ahead? The Determinants of Economic Success in America (New York: Basic Books, 1979). 4 Larry Cuban, “Making Public Schools Business-Like . . . Again,” Public Schools Online (April 2004), p. 238. 5 Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson, and Ann Duffett, Stand by Me: What Teachers Really Think About Unions, Merit Pay, and Other Professional Matters (New York: Public Agenda, 2003), p. 13. http://www.publicagenda.com/files/pdf/ stand_by_me.pdf. 6 Alex Altman, “Education Reform: Obama’s Bipartisan Issue,” Time, March

17, 2010. http://www.time.com/time/ politics/article/0,8599,1972820,00.html. 7 D. Sean Surtleff and Jesus Loredo, Beyond No Child Left Behind: ValueAdded Assessment of Student Progress, (Dallas: National Center for Policy Analysis, October 23, 2008). 8 Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky, “Professional Licensing and Advancement,” in Conflicting Missions: Teachers’ Unions and Educational Reform, edited by Tom Loveless (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 94. 9 “Where We Are Now 2003,” cited in Stand By Me, p. 13. 10 Katie Weitz White and James E. Rosenbaum, “Inside the Black Box of Accountability,” in No Child Left Behind and The Reduction of the Achievement Gap: Sociological Perspectives on Federal Educational Policy, edited by Alan R Sadovnik (New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2008), p. 112. 11 Ibid., p. 105. 12 State Accountability for All Students, “Students With Disabilities Report Executive Summary: Preliminary Findings March 2004.” http://www.fairtest. org/executive-summary-preliminaryfindings-march-2004. 13 Scott Franklin Abernathy, No Child Left Behind and the Public Schools (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), p. 55. 14 Jennifer A. O’Day, “NCLB and the Complexity of School Improvement,” in No Child Left Behind and the Reduction of the Achievement Gap, pp. 25–52. 15 Ibid. 16 Cynthia McCabe, “NEA President: Reauthorization ‘Blueprint’ Disappointing,” National Education Association, March 13, 2010. ������������������� http://www.nea.org/ home/38526.htm. 17 �����������������������������������尓 Randi Weingarten, “Education: Good Objectives Weighed Down by Fatal Flaws,” U.S. News & World Report, January 1, 2010�������� , p. 36. 18 Alfie Kohn, “Debunking the Case for National Standards,” Education Week, January 14, 2010. http://www.edweek.

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NOTES org/ew/articles/2010/01/14/17kohncomm.h29.html. 19 Abernathy, No Child Left Behind and the Public Schools, p. 55.

Point: Teachers Unions Benefit Education 1 National Education Association website. http://www.nea.org/home/1594.htm. 2 American Federation of Teachers website. http://www.aft.org. 3 Steve Farkas, Jean Johnson, and Ann Duffett, Stand by Me: What Teachers Really Think About Unions, Merit Pay, and Other Professional Matters (New York: Public Agenda, 2003), p. 17. http://www.publicagenda.com/files/pdf/ stand_by_me.pdf. 4 Jennifer Medina, “With Teacher Layoffs Coming, Battle Turns to Seniority Rules,” New York Times, April 25, 2010. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 7 Gary Barnes, Edward Crowe, and Benjamin Schaefer, The Cost of Teacher Turnover in Five Districts (Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, 2007). http://www.nctaf.org/resources/ demonstration_projects/turnover/ documents/CTTExecutiveSummaryfinal. pdf. 8 Intelligence Squared U.S. debate transcript, “Don’t Blame Teachers’ Unions for Our Failing Schools,” March 16, 2008. Transcript. http:// intelligencesquaredus.org/wp-content/ uploads/Teachers-Unions-031610.pdf. 9 Associated Press, “Not Enough ‘Teachers Of Color,’€” November 9, 2004. http:// www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/09/ national/main654503.shtml. 10 Ibid. 11 National Education Association website, “Research Spotlight on Recruiting & Retaining Highly Qualified Teachers.” http://www.nea.org/tools/17054.htm. 12 Jerry Adler, “Debate: Are Teachers’ Unions the Problem or the Answer,” Newsweek, March 19, 2010. http://www. newsweek.com/2010/03/18/debate-areteachers-unions-the-problem-or-theanswer.

13 Carol Wright and David E. Gundersen, “Unions and Teachers: Differences in the State of the Nation,” ALSB Journal of Employment and Labor Law, Vol. 10, Iss. 1, (Fall 2004), pp. 6–7. 14 Robert M. Carini, Brian Powell, and Lala Carr Steelman, “Do Teacher Unions Hinder Educational Performance? Lessons Learned from State SAT and ACT Scores,” Harvard Educational Review (Winter 2000), pp. 437–467. 15 Randall A. Eberts and Joe A. Stone, “The Effects of Teachers’ Unions on American Education,” paper presented at annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, 1986. 16 Tom Loveless, ed., Conflicting Missions: Teachers’ Unions and Educational Reform, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 3. 17 Robert M. Carini, “Teacher Unions and Student Achievement,” http://www. epicpolicy.org/files/Summary-10.Carini. pdf. 18 Ron Matus, “Gates Grant and Earlier Changes Put Hillsborough in Sweet Spot,” St. Petersburg Times, April 10, 2010. http://www.tampabay.com/news/ education/k12/gates-grant-and-earlierchanges-put-hillsborough-schools-insweet-spot/1086430. 19 Farkas, Johnson, and Duffett, Stand by Me. 20 Education Commission of the States, “Teacher Merit Pay: What Do We Know?” Progress of Education Reform 11, No. 3 (June 2010), p. 3. http://www. ecs.org/clearinghouse/86/40/8640.pdf. 21 Farkas, Johnson, and Duffett, Stand by Me, p. 24. 22 Dorie Turner, “States Push to Pay Teachers Based on Performance,” USA Today, April 8, 2010. http://www.usatoday.com/ news/education/2010-04-08-teacherspay_N.htm. 23 Ibid. 24 Lester C. Thurow, “Merit Pay Alone Is No Answer to America’s Educational Failings,” in The Great School Debate: Which Way for American Education? edited by Beatrice and Ronald Gross (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), p. 476.

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NOTES 25 Farkas, Johnson, and Duffett, Stand by Me, p. 12. 26 Steven Brill, “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand,” New York Times Magazine, May 17, 2010. 27 National Education Association website, “A Call to Action.” http://www.nea.org/ home/29873.htm. 28 National Education Association, “Poll Finds Teachers’ Support for Unions Is Strong,” June 4, 2003.

Counterpoint: Teachers Unions Hurt Education 1 Steven Brill, “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand,” New York Times Magazine, May 17, 2010. 2 Ibid. 3 Peter Brimelow, The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), p. 52. 4 Dan Lips, “Detroit Teaches Another Lesson in Special Interest Politics,” Heritage Foundation website, September 1, 2006. http://www.heritage.org/Research/ Education-Notebook/Detroit-TeachesAnother-Lesson-in-Special-InterestPolitics. 5 Joe Klein, “How the Unions Killed a Dream,” Time, October 26, 2003. http:// www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/ article/0,9565,526339,00.html. 6 Caroline M. Hoxby, “The Toll of Teachers’ Unions,” The Economist (October 19, 1996), pp. 33–34. 7 Mike Antonucci, “The Long Reach of Teachers’ Unions,” Education Next 10, No. 4 (Fall 2010). http://educationnext. org/the-long-reach-of-teachers-unions/. 8 American Teachers Federation website. http://www.aft.org/about/. 9 Brookings Institution, transcript of panel discussion on “Teachers’ Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform?,” April 11, 2000. http://www.brookings.edu/events/2000/ 0411education.aspx?p=1. 10 “Study Finds Merit in Teacher Performance Pay,” Washington Times, January 29, 2008. http://www.washingtontimes. com/news/2008/jan/29/study-findsmerit-in-teacher-performance-pay/.

11 Ibid. 12 Louis Sahagan and Richard Lee Colvin, “Cortines Seeks 1,000 Staff Cuts,” Los Angeles Times, February 24, 2000. http:// articles.latimes.com/2000/feb/24/news/ mn-2073. 13 Hannah Sampson and Cristina Silva, “Gov. Crist Vetoes Florida Teacher Pay Bill; What Happens Next?” Miami Herald, April 16, 2010. http://www. miamiherald.com/2010/04/16/1582150/ why-charlie-crist-vetoed-the-teacher. html?asset_id=Crist%20veto%20sets %20the%20Capitol%20ablaze&asset_ type=html_module. 14 EIAOnline.com, “Merit Pay Without the Sugar Coating.” http://www.eiaonline. com/intercepts/2009/03/11/nea-onmerit-pay-without-the-sugar-coating/. 15 Pat Wingert and Evan Thomas, “Chicago’s Lessons in Layoffs,” Newsweek, July 17, 2010. http://www.newsweek. com/2010/07/17/chicago-s-lesson-inlayoffs.html. 16 “Debate on school reform. Our view: Unions protect bad teachers, harming kids’ education,” USA Today, March 11, 2010. 17 Intelligence Squared U.S. debate transcript, “Don’t Blame Teachers’ Unions for Our Failing Schools,” March 16, 2008, p. 5. Transcript. http:// intelligencesquaredus.org/wp-content/ uploads/Teachers-Unions-031610.pdf. 18 John Stossel, “John Stossel’s ‘Stupid in America’: How Lack of Choice Cheats Our Kids Out of a Good Education,” ABC News, January 13, 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/ story?id=1500338. 19 Joe Williams, “Echo Chamber: The National Education Association’s Campaign Against NCLB,” Education Sector (July 10, 2006). http:// www.educationsector.org/analysis/ analysis_show.htm?doc_id=382069. 20 Emily Friedman, “Rhode Island District Fires All 74 of Its Teachers,” ABC News. February 23, 2010. http://abcnews. go.com/WN/rhode-island-school-fires74-teachers/story?id=9911693. 21 National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Numbers

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NOTES and Types of Elementary and Secondary School Students From the Common Core of Data: School Year. 2007-08. http:// nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010305/tables/ table_03.asp. 22 Brill, “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand.” 23 Intelligence Squared U.S. debate transcript, “Don’t Blame Teachers’ Unions for Our Failing Schools,” p. 6. 24 Tom Loveless, ed., Conflicting Missions: Teachers’ Unions and Educational Reform, (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 3. 25 Paul E. Peterson, ed., Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, Our Schools and Our Future .€.€. Are We Still at Risk? (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 2003). http://www.hoover. org/publications/books/8314. 26 George W. Bohrnstedt and Brian M. Stecher, eds. Class Size Reduction in California: Summary of Findings in 1999–00 and 2001–02, CSR Research Consortium, California Department of Education (February 2002). 27 Rod Paige, The War Against Hope, (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2006), p. xii. 28 Brookings Institution, transcript of panel discussion on “Teachers’ Unions: Do They Help or Hurt Education Reform?”

Conclusion: Other Topics for Debate 1 Bob Wehling, ed., Building a 21st Century U.S. Education System (Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Teaching for America’s Future, 2007), p. 14. 2 Ibid., pp. 17–18. 3 E.D. Hirsch, The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), p. 59. 4 Alfie Kohn, “Debunking the Case for National Standards,” Education Week (January 14, 2010). http://www.edweek. org/ew/articles/2010/01/14/17kohncomm.h29.html. 5 Zalman Usiskin, “Do We Need National Standards With Teeth?,” Educational

Leadership 65, No. 3 (November 2007), p. 42. 6 Ibid. 7 Linda Darling-Hammond, The Right to Learn, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001), p. 226. 8 Ibid. p. 227. 9 Jay Greene, “Myths of the Teachers Unions,” Front Page Magazine (January 9, 2007). http://archive.frontpagemag. com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=708. 10 Tom Bethell, “Our Schools Are Still At Risk,” Hoover Digest 2003, No. 3 (Summer 2003). http://www.hoover.org/ publications/hoover-digest/article/6307. 11 U.S. Department of Education website, Fiscal Year 2009 Summary, February 4, 2008. http://www2.ed.gov/about/ overview/budget/budget09/summary/ edlite-section1.html. 12 Greene, “Myths of the Teachers Unions.” 13 Jay P. Greene, Education Myths: What Special Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools—And Why It Isn’t So (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), pp. 73–74. 14 Ibid., p. 75. 15 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey: Occupational Wages in the United States, July 2002. http://www.bls. gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl0539.pdf. 16 Greene, “Myths of the Teachers Unions.” 17 John Stossel, “John Stossel’s ‘Stupid in America,’ How Lack of Choice Cheats Our Kids Out of a Good Education,” ABC News, January 13, 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/ story?id=1500338. 18 National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, What Matters Most: Teaching and America’s Future (Woodbridge, Va.: National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, September 2006). http://www.eric.ed.gov/ PDFS/ED395931.pdf. 19 Sheldon Richman, Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families (Fairfax, Va.: The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994), p. 14. 20 Roberto Suro, “Texas Court Rules Rich-Poor Gap in State School Spending Is Illegal,” New York

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NOTES Times, October 3, 1989. http://www. nytimes.com/1989/10/03/us/texascourt-rules-rich-poor-gap-instate-school-spending-is-illegal. html?scp=2&sq=?pagewanted=1. 21 Rose v. Council for Better Education, Ky. 790 S.W.2d 186 (1989). 22 Edgewood v. Kirby, Texas 777 S.W. 2d 391 (1989). 23 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 426 F. 3d 1162 (2007), and Crystal Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 416 F. 3d 513 (2007). 24 Ibid. 25 U.S. Department of Education, The Condition of Education 2006 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006), p. 47. 26 Richard D. Kahlenberg, Helping Children Move From Bad Schools to Good Ones (New York: The Century Foundation, 2006), p. 4. 27 James Coleman, et al., Equality of Educational Opportunity (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966). 28 R.W. Rumberger and G.J. Palardy, “Does Segregation Still Matter? The Impact of Student Composition on Academic Achievement in High School,” Teachers College Record, 107, No. 9 ( 2005), pp. 1999–2045. 29 Douglas N. Harris, Ending the Blame Game on Educational Inequity: A Study of “High Flying Schools” and NCLB (Tempe: Arizona State University,

Educational Policy Research Unit, March 2006). http://epsl.asu.edu/epru/ documents/EPSL-0603-120-EPRU.pdf. 30 Paul T. Hill, Christine Campbell, and James Harvey, It Takes a City: Getting Serious About Urban School Reform (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 24. 31 Karin Chenoweth, “Many Schools Find Ways to Close the Achievement Gap,” U.S. News and World Report, December 17, 2009. http://politics.usnews.com/ news/articles/2009/12/17/many-schoolsfind-ways-to-close-the-achievementgap.html. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Lester C. Thurow, “Merit Pay Alone Is No Answer to America’s Educational Failings,” in The Great School Debate: Which Way for American Education?, edited by Beatrice and Ronald Gross (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), p. 474. 35 Frederick M. Hess, “Fulfilling the Promise of School Choice,” American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research website, September 25, 2008. http://www.aei.org/outlook/28679. 36 Dale Ballou and Michael Podgursky, “Professional Licensing and Advancement,” in Conflicting Missions, edited by Tom Loveless. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 81.

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RESOURCES Books Abernathy, Scott Franklin. No Child Left Behind and the Public Schools. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2007. Anderson, James D. The Education of Blacks in the South: 1860–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1988. Betts, Julian R., and Tom Loveless, eds. Getting Choice Right: Ensuring Equity and Efficiency in Education Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005. Braun, Henry, et al. A Closer Look at Charter Schools Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 2006. Brimelow, Peter. The Worm in the Apple: How the Teacher Unions Are Destroying American Education. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Chenoweth, Karin. How It’s Being Done: Urgent Lessons From Unexpected Schools. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Education Press, 2009. ———. It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007. Cookson, Peter W. Jr. School Choice: The Struggle for the Soul of American Education. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. Darling-Hammond, Linda. The Right to Learn: A Blueprint for Creating Schools That Work. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001. Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Gamoran, Adam, ed. Standards-Based Reform and the Poverty Gap: Lessons for No Child Left Behind. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2007. Gerstner, Louis V. Jr., et al. Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America’s Public Schools, New York: Penguin, 1994. Greene, Jay P., with Greg Forster and Marcus A. Winters. Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About Our Schools and Why It Isn’t So. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2005. Hakim, Simon, Paul Seidenstat, and Gary W. Bowman. Privatizing Education and Educational Choice. New York: Praeger, 1994.

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RESOURCES Hill, Paul Thomas, et al., It Takes a City: Getting Serious About Urban School Reform. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000. Hirsch, E.D. The Knowledge Deficit: Closing the Shocking Education Gap for American Children. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Loveless, Tom, ed. Conflicting Missions: Teachers’ Unions and Educational Reform. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000. McAndrews, Lawrence J. The Era of Education: The Presidents and the Schools, 1965–2001. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Meier, Deborah, and George Wood, eds. Many Children Left Behind: How the No Child Left Behind Act Is Damaging Our Children and Our Schools. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. Paige, Rod. The War Against Hope: How Teachers’ Unions Hurt Children, Hinder Teachers, and Endanger Public Education. New York: Thomas Nelson, 2007. Patterson, Merrill D., ed. The Political Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Ravitch, Diane, and Joseph P. Viteritti. New Schools for a New Century: The Redesign of Urban Education, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1997. Richman, Sheldon. Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families. Fairfax, Va.: The Future of Freedom Foundation, 1994. Sadovnik, Alan R., et al. No Child Left Behind and the Reduction of the Achievement Gap. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008.

Articles, Reports, and Transcripts Adler, Jerry. “Debate: Are Teachers’ Unions the Problem or the Answer,” Newsweek, March 19, 2010. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/03/18/ debate-are-teachers-unions-the-problem-or-the-answer. Altman, Alex. “Education Reform: Obama’s Bipartisan Issue,” Time, March 17, 2010. http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1972820,00. html.

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RESOURCES Bethell, Tom. “Our Schools Are Still At Risk.” Hoover Digest 2003, No. 3 (Summer 2003). http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/ article/6307. Borsuk, Alan J. “Study Finds Results of MPS and Voucher School Students Are Similar.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. March 26, 2009. http://www. jsonline.com/news/education/41868652.html. Brill, Steven. “The Teachers’ Unions’ Last Stand,” New York Times Magazine, May 17, 2010. Brown, Cynthia G. Choosing Better Schools: A Report on Student Transfers Under the No Child Left Behind Act. Washington, D.C.: Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights, 2004. Carini, Robert M., Brian Powell, and Lala Carr Steelman. “Do Teacher Unions Hinder Educational Performance? Lessons Learned from State SAT and ACT Scores.” Harvard Educational Review, Winter 2000. Carnoy, Martin, and Susanna Loeb. “Does External Accountability Affect Student Outcomes? A Cross-State Analysis.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, December 21, 2002. Chenoweth, Karin. “Many Schools Find Ways to Close the Achievement Gap,” U.S. News and World Report, December 17, 2009. http://politics. usnews.com/news/articles/2009/12/17/many-schools-find-ways-to-closethe-achievement-gap.html. Clark, Kim. “Can School Reform Ever Work?” U.S. News & World Report. January 1, 2010. Coleman, James, et al. Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966. Cuban, Larry. “Making Public Schools Business-Like . . . Again.” Public Schools Online, April 2004. Dianda, R.R., and R.G. Corwin. The Private Sector Considers Educational Vouchers in California. Los Alamitos, Calif.: Southwest Regional Laboratory, 1992. “Diplomas Count: Ready for What?” Education Week, June 12, 2007. Duncan, Arne. “The Quiet Revolution: Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks at the National Press Club.” July 27, 2010. Transcript. http://www.

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RESOURCES ed.gov/news/speeches/quiet-revolution-secretary-arne-duncans-remarksnational-press-club. Eberts, Randall A., and Joe A. Stone. “The Effects of Teachers’ Unions on American Education.” Paper presented at annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, 1986. Education Commission of the States. “Teacher Merit Pay: What Do We Know?” Progress of Education Reform, June 2010. http://www.ecs.org/ clearinghouse/86/40/8640.pdf. “Education Groups Push for Greater Diversity in Teaching Force.” Black Issues in Higher Education, December 2, 2004. http://findarticles.com/p/ articles/mi_m0DXK/is_21_21/ai_n8572596/. Farkas, Steve, et al. Stand by Me: What Teachers Really Think About Unions, Merit Pay, and Other Professional Matters. New York: Public Agenda, 2003. http://www.publicagenda.com/files/pdf/stand_by_me.pdf. Greene, Jay P. “Education Myths: Debunking the Fictions That Obstruct School Reform.” American Enterprise Magazine, July–August 2006. Hess, Frederick M. “The Supply Side of School Reform,” Phi Delta Kappan, November 2008. Reprinted by the American Enterprise Institute. http:// www.aei.org/article/28910. Kahlenberg, Richard D. Helping Children Move From Bad Schools to Good Ones. New York: The Century Foundation, 2006. Klein, Joe. “How the Unions Killed a Dream.” Time, October 26, 2003. http://www.time.com/time/columnist/klein/article/0,9565,526339,00. html. Kohn, Alfie. “Debunking the Case for National Standards.” Education Week, January 14, 2010. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/14/17kohncomm.h29.html. McGrath, Anne. “A Counterintuitive Take on School Reform.” U.S. News & World Report, September 22, 2005. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/ articles/050922/22education.htm. Miller, Matthew. “A Bold Experiment to Fix City Schools.” Atlantic Monthly, July 1999. http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/99jul/ 9907vouchers.htm.

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RESOURCES National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education, Numbers and Types of Elementary and Secondary School Students From the Common Core of Data: School Year. 2007–08. http://nces.ed.gov/ pubs2010/2010305/tables/table_03.asp. PBS website. The Battle Over School Choice: Competition, School Choice & Charter Schools. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ vouchers/choice/choice.html. Peterson, Paul E., ed. Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, Our Schools and Our Future . . . Are We Still at Risk? Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 2003. http://www.hoover.org/taskforces/education. Stossel, John. “John Stossel’s ‘Stupid in America,’ How Lack of Choice Cheats Our Kids Out of a Good Education.” ABC News, January 13, 2006. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338. “Study Finds Merit in Teacher Performance Pay.” Washington Times, January 29, 2008. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jan/29/studyfinds-merit-in-teacher-performance-pay/. U.S. Government Accountability Office. No Child Left Behind Act: Education Needs to Provide Additional Technical Assistance and Conduct Implementation Studies for School Choice Provision. Washington, D.C.: Government Accountability Office, December 2004. Usiskin, Zalman. “Do We Need National Standards With Teeth?” Educational Leadership, November 2007. Wehling, Bob, ed. Building a 21st Century U.S. Education System. Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Teaching for America’s Future, 2007. Weingarten, Randi. “Education: Good Objectives Weighed Down by Fatal Flaws,” U.S. News & World Report, January 1, 2010.

Web Sites American Enterprise Institute http://www.aei.org A private, nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution that conducts research and education on issues of government, politics, economics, and social welfare.

American Federation of Teachers http://www.aft.org National teachers union with state and local affiliates.

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RESOURCES Annenberg Institute for School Reform http://www.annenberginstitute.org/ Its mission is “to develop, share, and act on knowledge that improves the conditions and outcomes of schooling in America, especially in urban communities and in schools serving disadvantaged children.”

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation http://www.gatesfoundation.org Philanthropic foundation dedicated to improving global health and education.

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/ An independent policy and research center for education that focuses on teaching practices that promote learning.

Education Commission of the States http://www.ecs.org/ Nonpartisan organization that helps states to develop public education policy and practice by providing data, research and leadership.

KIPP Schools (Knowledge Is Power Program) http://www.kipp.org/ This national network of open-admission college-preparatory charter schools focuses on underserved areas.

National Education Association http://www.nea.org The nation’s largest teachers union.

U.S. Department of Education http://www.ed.gov/ Federal government site containing documents, statistics, history, and other information about education in the United States.

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PICTURE CREDITS PAGE 13: North Wind Picture Archives/ Alamy 15: The Art Archive 30: Carr/MCT/Newscom

64: dbimages/Alamy 94: Bob Daemmrich/Alamy 96: Setzer/MCT/Newscom

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INDEX A Abernathy, Scott Franklin, 74 accountability, 43–44, 48–49, 57–61, 79, 90 achievement. See Student achievement adequate yearly progress (AYP), 27 Alexander, Lamar, 88 American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 49, 75, 87 American Indian Charter School, 42 Amrein, Audrey, 67–68 attendance requirements, 16–17, 18

B Ballou, Dale, 69, 112 Belgium, 36–37 Bell, Terrel H., 24 Bennett, R. Morris, 37, 42–43, 45 Bennett law, 16, 17 Berliner, David, 67–68 Betts, Julian R., 53–54 Billet, Leonard, 24 Board of Education of Topeka, Brown v., 20–21, 108 Boaz, David, 37, 42–43, 45 Bollinger cases, 108 Boyer, Ernest L., 25 Brennan, David, 36 Brown, Linda, 21 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 20–21, 108 Bush, George H.W., 26 Bush, George W., 26

C “Call to Action” (NEA), 85 Carini, Robert M., 80–81

Carnoy, Martin, 61 Carter, Jimmy, 23 charter schools, 25, 32, 43, 44, 50, 79, 88–89, 95, 96, 112 Chavis, Ben, 42 Chenoweth, Karin, 110–111 church-state relations, 17 citizenship, 23 class size, 50, 97 Clinton, William, 26, 100 closures, 95 Coleman Report, 23, 108–109 College of William and Mary, 12 colonial times, education in, 11–13 Common Core Standards, 100 common schools, 14 Community Education Partners (CEP), 62 competition, 36–37, 53–54, 105 Compulsory Education Act, 17–18 costs, 31–32, 42–43, 51– 52. See also Funding County Board of New Kent County, Green v., 23 cream-skimming, 40–41 Crist, Charlie, 91 Cuban, Larry, 67 curriculum, 62–63, 67– 68, 71–72, 99–103

D Darling-Hammond, Linda, 102–103 day length, 111 Dealing with Dropouts report, 25 Delaware State Constitution, 19

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demand, supply and, 37–38, 47 desegregation, 23, 107. See also Segregation Detroit Federation of Teachers, 89 Dewey, John, 109 diversity, 38–41, 79–80, 107–109 dropout rates, 31, 61, 70 Duncan, Arne, 59–60, 68, 81, 95, 101

E Educate America Act, 26 Educational Excellence Act, 26 Eisenhower, Dwight, 22 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), 21 Elmont Memorial Junior-Senior High School (New York), 110 endowments, 51 Equality of Educational Opportunity Study (Coleman Report), 23, 108–109 establishment clause, 35 Europe, 31, 104

F fairness, 59–60, 68–70, 72–74, 82–83 Ferguson, Plessy v., 19–20 Finn, Chester E., 58 First Amendment, 35 Fourteenth Amendment, 18, 19, 22 Freedmen’s Bureau, 15, 19 free-market approaches, 36–37, 53–54, 105 Friedman, Milton, 90 funding, 22–23, 31–32, 35, 103–107

INDEX G Gallo, Frances, 95 George Hall Elementary School (Alabama), 110 Gerstner, Louis V. Jr., 57–58 global economy, 29–31 Goals 2000: Educate America Act, 100 Goddard, Robert, 22 Goodman, John C., 41 Graham Road Elementary (Virginia), 110 Grant, Gerald, 67 Gratz v. Bollinger, 108 Green v. County Board of New Kent County, 23 Greene, Jay, 40, 41–42, 58, 62–63, 103–104 Greenspan, Alan, 30 Grutter v. Bollinger, 108

H Hanushek, Eric, 61 Harlan, John Marshall, 20 Harlem Success Academies, 43 Harris, Douglas N., 109 Harvard University, 12 Hess, Frederick M., 47, 112 hidden costs, 51 High School (Boyer), 25 high-stakes testing accountability and, 58–59 achievement and, 60–62 advantages of, 57–58 disadvantages of, 66 fairness of, 59–60, 68–70, 72–74 as harmful to students, 70–71 narrowing of curriculum and, 62– 63, 67–68, 71–72 reliability of, 59–60

school choice and, 41–42 as unfair and unproductive, 72–74 useful information from, 63 voucher programs and, 35 Hirsch, E.D., 100 Hoard, William D., 16 homeless students, 47 How It’s Being Done (Chenoweth), 110 Howe, Harold II, 21

I immigrants, 14, 16, 17 incentivist outlook, 112 It Takes a City report, 109 It’s Being Done (Chenoweth), 110

Mann, Horace, 14 market approach, 36–37, 53–54, 105 Marshall, Thurgood, 21 Massachusetts Colony, 12 Mauzy, Oscar H., 106– 107 Meadowcliff Elementary School (Arkansas), 91 Medina, Jennifer, 76 merit pay, unions and, 81–84, 90–92 meritocracies, 13–14 Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, 49 Moe, Terry, 90, 95, 98 Molnar, Alex, 50–51 monopoly, public schools as, 36 Moore, Matt, 41

N

J Japan, 31, 104, 111 Jefferson, Thomas, 13–14 Jencks, Christopher, 67 Johnson, Lyndon B., 21

K Kahlenberg, Richard D., 42, 108, 109 Kennedy, John F., 21, 22 Kentucky Education Reform Act, 106 Klein, Joel, 93, 94 Kohn, Alfie, 67, 102

L languages, 16, 47 least restrictive environment (LRE), 71 Loeb, Susanna, 61 lottery systems, 40, 47 Loveless, Tom, 54 low-stakes subjects, 63

M Madison, James, 14 magnet schools, 25, 26, 32

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A Nation at Risk report, 24–25 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, 31, 38, 61 National Association for Educational Progress (NAEP), 50 National Board for Professional Teaching Standards report, 69 National Commission on Excellence in Education, 24 National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF) report, 77–79 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards, 102–103 National Council on Educational Standards and Testing (NCEST), 99

INDEX National Defense and Education Act, 22 National Education Association (NEA), 29, 75, 85, 87–88, 89, 106 National Education Standards and Improvement Council (NESIC), 99–100 National Education Summit, 26 National Science Scholars, 26 National Teacher Corps, 21 NCLB. See No Child Left Behind New Kent County (County Board of), Green v., 23 New Orleans, 19, 96 No Child Left Behind (NCLB), 26–29, 58– 62, 68, 93–94, 101

Porath, Jerome, 37 private schools, 32, 35, 40, 47–49 privatization, 32, 35, 53, 105 progress, ratings based on, 68–69

R

Obama, Barack, 28–29, 94–95 O’Day, Jennifer A., 73

race, 31, 107–109 “Race to the Top” education initiative, 29, 30 racism, 15, 16, 18–21, 23 Ravitch, Diane, 28, 39, 53, 54 Raymond, Margaret, 61 Reagan, Ronald, 25 recession, impacts of, 31 Reconstruction, 19 reliability, 59–60 religion, 35, 46 Richman, Sheldon, 105 Ritter, Gary W., 91 Roberts, John, 107 Rosenbaum, James E., 69–70 Rosenberg, Bella, 50 Rotherham, Andrew J., 59–60 rubber rooms, 93

P

S

Paige, Rod, 90, 97 parochial schools, 17–18 Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), 78 pay-for-performance programs, 83 Peck, George W., 16 performance contracts, 44 Perkins, Bill, 84 perverse incentives, 68 Peterson, Paul E., 40 Plessy, Homer, 19 Plessy v. Ferguson, 19–20 Podgursky, Michael, 69, 112

salaries, 103–104 Schneiderman, Eric T., 77 school choice accountability and, 43–44 achievement and, 41–42, 49–51 advantages of, 34–35 American values and, 52–53 competition and, 36–37, 53–54 cost-effectiveness of, 42–43, 51–52 disadvantages of, 46–47

O

138

equity, diversity and, 38–41 impacts of, 112 inconsistency and, 48–49 limited choices in, 47–48 low support for, 55 NCLB and, 26–28 supply, demand and, 37–38 unions and, 95 school closures, 94–95 school day/year length, 111 school taxes, 12, 51 science education, 22 second chance schools, 32 segregation, 15, 16, 18–21, 52. See also Desegregation seniority rules, 76–79, 92–93, 94 “separate but equal” doctrine, 20 Shanker, Albert, 50, 79–80 Shanker Institute, 79–80 slavery, 15, 16, 19 social reforms, 18–22 socioeconomic status, 23, 108–109 space exploration, 22 spending, controversy over, 103–105 Sputnik 1 (satellite), 22 standardized testing. See High-stakes testing standards, 99–103 Stossel, John, 105 student achievement, 41–42, 49–51, 60–62, 80–81, 104–105 Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program, 51

INDEX student-teacher ratios, 78 Success for All program, 52 summer vacation, 17 supply, demand and, 37–38, 47 taxes, 12, 51 Teachability Index, 62 teacher training, 50 tenure, 77–79, 92–93, 94 testing. See High-stakes testing Thompson, Robert, 88–89 Thompson Education Foundation, 89 Thurow, Lester C., 84, 111 Topeka (Board of Education of), Brown v., 20–21, 108 transfers, 27–28, 52 Turner, Dorie, 84

achievement and, 80–81 advantages of, 75–77 disadvantages of, 87–88 extreme power of, 89–90 merit pay and, 81–84, 90–92 monetary solutions and, 96–97 opposition to reform and, 93–95 problems outside control of, 84–85 standards and values and, 79–80 students’ interests vs., 88–89 tenure, seniority and, 77–79, 92–93, 94 United Teachers Los Angeles, 91 University Preparatory Academy (Detroit), 89 Usiskin, Zalman, 102

U

V

T

unions. See also Specific unions

Value-Added Assessment, 68–69

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Van Roeckel, Dennis, 74, 78 Viteritti, Joseph P., 39 vocabulary, 100–101, 110 voucher programs, 34–35, 39–40, 55. See also School choice

W waiting lists, 47, 95 The War Against Hope (Paige), 97 War on Poverty, 21 watering down, 71 Weaver, Reg, 86 Wehling, Bob, 31, 100 Weingarten, Randi, 72, 74, 77, 83 White, Katie Weitz, 69–70 Williams, Polly, 39 Winters, Marcus, 62, 63 Wisconsin, 16, 17, 49 women’s rights, 22

CONTRIBUTORS Victoria Sherrow is a freelance writer and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers. She is the author of many books for middle and high school readers, including several titles in the Point/ Counterpoint series. Alan Marzilli, M.A., J.D., lives in Washington, D.C., and is a program associate with Advocates for Human Potential, Inc., a research and consulting firm based in Sudbury, Mass., and Albany, N.Y. He primarily works on developing training and educational materials for agencies of the federal government on topics such as housing, mental health policy, employment, and transportation. He has spoken on mental health issues in 30 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; his work has included training mental health administrators, nonprofit management and staff, and people with mental illnesses and their families on a wide variety of topics, including effective advocacy, community-based mental health services, and housing. He has written several handbooks and training curricula that are used nationally and as far away as the territory of Guam. He managed statewide and national mental health advocacy programs and worked for several public interest lobbying organizations while studying law at Georgetown University. He has written more than a dozen books, including numerous titles in the Point/Counterpoint series.

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