Arizona's a "Hot Mess"

Here's the 411:
The 1992 court case, Flores v. Arizona, found the state's education funding was not good enough to "ensure that students overcame language barriers," and gave the state a mandate to fix the problem.

This December, a Judge ordered fines of $500,000 a day if lawmakers failed to uphold the Flores case and enact a law by January 25th that would help support English language learners(ELLs).

So, Jan 25th arrived and the Governor vetoed the proposed plan, twice. (In all fairness, Gov. Napolitano vetoed it because she didn't think it was enough money towards ELLs and it was a tax credit plan)

If it's not bad enough that our public officials cannot come up with an adequate funding plan for ELLs, there was also contention about what to do with the fines that have accumulated since the official deadline.
On Thursday, the judge ruled the money will be deposited and be used specifically for ELLs (the one piece of good news in all of this). However, the fines will continue to accrue due to a lack of signed legislation.

Here's where it gets worse: GOP leaders are hiring legal counsel to "defend them in the Flores case." Now, they are blaming the Governor for missing the deadline and want to sue.

And really, here's the worst part: The fact that Arizona's English language learner children, who are standing by waiting for the much needed help they deserve, have to wait awhile longer because their leaders are arguing over how much they're worth.

The Reverse Gender Gap, Con't

Thanks to Emily’s sleuthing, I was able to find the testing data used in Whitmire's article:


My initial hunch was that the “plunge in relative performance” might be due to boys doing as well as ever, and girls improving a little or a little more quickly, since NAEP reading scores have been relatively flat over time. While also not ideal, this kind of gap widening would be less troublesome.

So let’s examine Whitmire’s assertion that:

What's most worrisome are not long-standing gender differences but recent plunges in boys' relative performance. Between 1992 and 2002, the gap by which high school girls outperformed boys on tests in both reading and writing--especially writing--widened significantly.

On page 28 of the report, we find the data charts. In 12th grade reading, both genders’ scale scores went *down* between '92 and '02, but boys dropped more. The gap grew from 10 to 16, due to a 8 point drop in boys’ performance and a 2 point drop in that of girls.

In 12th grade Writing, though, the gap did actually change due to opposite movement of the genders (increasing from 19 points in '98 to 24 points in '02): a 4 point scale score drop for boys and a one point increase for girls.

So, turns out that Whitmire used the HS data pretty well. But the ED report also reveals something else: the measurable worsening of the gender gap over time isn’t evident at the 4th and 8th grade levels. In reading, the gap actually *closed* slightly in 4th and 8th grade reading between '92 and ‘03 (Fourth: from 8 to 7 points. Eighth: from 13 to 11 points; in each grade, both groups’ scale scores increased a few points). In elementary writing, the gaps increased by just one point between '98 and '02. (from 16 to 17 points in 4th, from 20 to 21 in 8th). Again, both genders’ scores went up in writing, girls just increased one point more. But the story here is that the gap in early grades is pretty much the same it's always been.

In the context of the article, Whitmire’s use of NAEP would make the point that there’s not just a difference in boys’ and girls’ grades, but also in their actual knowledge. This is a meaningful distinction, since as he points out, grades are pretty tied to things like behavior (“A for Effort”), which (in our society, with our gender norms) will generally penalize boys. But I’m still struggling with how to make substantive sense of NAEP scores. In the above charts, I added shading to represent the range for a “Basic” level of performance (sadly, none of the national averages are above Basic. Links to descriptions of the achievement levels in reading and writing). So, while there *are* decent scale score gaps in HS, everyone’s still in “basic” territory, for what that’s worth. I’m sure that a 20 point gap between the genders marks some kind of qualitative difference in knowledge, but it seems pretty hard to tell how bad the difference really is.

What do y'all think?

I'll admit, I'm surprised

At first, I kind of groaned when Eduwonk mentioned yesterday’s TNR article about the lagging achievement of boys. While I'm certainly aware of the seriousness of the issue, I’ve heard the “War Against Boys” arguments before. Indeed, the article started out w/ a snippy comment about people being upset by Larry Summers. But then, further down, this:

Combine Hilton's local research with national neuroscience research, and you arrive at this: The brains of men and women are very different. Last spring, Scientific American summed up the best gender and brain research, including a study demonstrating that women have greater neuron density in the temporal lobe cortex, the region of the brain associated with verbal skills. Now we've reached the heart of the mystery. Girls have genetic advantages that make them better readers, especially early in life. And, now, society is favoring verbal skills. Even in math, the emphasis has shifted away from guy-friendly problems involving quick calculations to word and logic problems.

[…]The teachers are only doing their jobs, preparing their students for a work world that has moved rapidly away from manufacturing and agriculture and into information-based work. It's not that schools have changed their ways to favor girls; it's that they haven't changed their ways to help boys adjust to this new world. (emphasis mine).

It's the first time I’ve heard this argument: that the skills our society requires are changing--and in a way that, to a degree, naturally favors girls' aptitudes. If this is true, at least part of the reason we're seeing the decline in boys’ achievement isn’t because we’ve encouraged girls at the expense of boys, but rather that we haven't thought about how to modify the way we teach to adapt an increased need for literacy skills to boys’ learning styles.

I find this stuff fascinating, but I'm also cautious. In the past, "scientific" notions of gender difference (now proven to be ridiculous) have repeatedly been used to oppress women and justify their absence in the highest echelons of power... hence the outrage at Summer’s comments that framed the TNR article. Teasing out the influence of nature and nurture in terms of gender tendencies is sticky territory—which I suspect is reflected in the absence of its inclusion in teacher prep programs. But, if the science that's emerging now is good, we'd be silly to completely ignore it in favor of a "we're all the same" mythology. The trick is to find the balance: what scientists acknowledge as tendencies to be dealt with could easily get codified into immutable truths or worse yet, excuses for persistent poor performance. Interesting work lies ahead for us on this one, I think.

ps. Whitmire complains that the ED report was only mentioned by name in 5 articles… then why doesn’t he mention it by name in his? I did a search of EdPubs, and couldn’t find anything from “about a year ago” that looked like what he was talking about. I’m curious: where does the data that says boys are performing worse relative to girls over time come from?

Building the Beloved Community

This Monday marks the 20th anniversary of celebrating MLK day. Among his many convictions, Dr. Martin Luther King believed that the end of nonviolence and hate began with the creation of the "beloved community". As MLK Day quickly approaches, we seek to honor one of our greatest civil rights leaders, who had a dream, that inspired a nation to judge one another not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character.

Please join me on Monday, January 16th, in celebrating Dr. King's legacy in a day of community service in Southeast, DC...where at the end of the day, we will be one step closer in building our beloved community.

(if you would like to come, just email me at emilyc@gwu.edu by Saturday!)

The Vocational Education Enigma

I found Jay Mathews’ Class Struggle this week particularly interesting. Vocational Education is a topic that I don’t hear discussed meaningfully nearly often enough. Probably because it involves facing realities that make those who believe in equal opportunity through education (myself included) pretty uncomfortable.

The e-mail exchange between Mathews and California HS Teacher Chris Peters covers both sides of this debate well. Most resonant to me on the Voc Ed side was the ‘elitism’ argument advanced by Peters. We all know that a four-year education culminating with a White Collar job is better-regarded than a HS degree and a Blue Collar one. Considering that most educators see themselves in the “equal opportunity” business, why would they ‘doom’ a kid (or allow a kid to consign himself) to a life of less prestige? Instead, let's just train every student to go to a 4-year college!

BUT. In the end, if a student has barely scraped by in a college prep track and cannot (because of financial barriers) or will not (because of personal preference) pursue higher education, is this a situation where our mighty ideals are actually preventing us from providing solid opportunities for kids that desperately need them? I’m convinced that the marginalization (and overall poor quality) of Voc Ed today is largely a function of our ambivalence toward the jobs at the other end of the vocational track.

Despite the practical possibilities of vocational education, I’m torn. I know how such programs have traditionally served as educational ghettos within schools, where kids learn neither the academic nor vocational skills they’ll need to hold a good job. And if part of the reason that these programs have been terrible is that we don't value the work for which they train students, is this likely to change?

The solution, I think, is two pronged. First, develop vocational programs that deserve respect. Second, respect them as a legitimate choice. The reality is that skilled labor jobs require literacy and math skills, and kids won’t be successful in turning HS vocational training into a stable job if they can’t read, problem solve, and compute. Solid training in a vocation shouldn't preclude a student’s further formal education, but establishing good vocational courses would require us to admit that 4-year college at age 18 isn't the right path for every student. That would be quite a shift for some of us!

Florida's decision has ripple effect

Update: Florida's already impacting other states decisions about vouchers. This article discusses how Utah's voucher proposal was looking good "until [the] ground shifted Thursday when Florida struck down their voucher law"
-Sponsors of Utah's bill are in the process of modifying proposal to make sure it passes "constitutional muster"

**our resident Florida voucher expert, Rachel, has promised to post once she regains computer access, which hopefully will be later today

Right Plan, Wrong Reason

Yesterday, President Bush announced a plan to expand the learning of foreign languages in this country through a National Security Language Initiative which will create incentives to teach foreign language and increase number of foreign language teachers and resources for them.

*my two favorite quotes from his speech:
1)"When Americans...learn to speak Arabic, those in the Arabic region will say, gosh, America is interested in us. They care enough to learn how we speak." (I asked my Egyptian co-worker how to say "gosh" in Arabic. Surprisingly, there is no translation)
2) "We're going to teach our kids how to speak important languages" (whew, what a relief, I was scared we were going to shell out a bunch of money to teach our kids the "unimportant languages")

While I applaud any program trying to increase the number of students learning a foreign language, I am slightly uncomfortable with the rationale of learning another language to 'protect America and kill terrorists'.
Becoming bilingual increases one's tolerance and ability to communicate with people. Children who are in bilingual programs tend to score higher on proficiency tests than those who are monolingual. We are a country that is becoming increasingly multilingual, where around 5 million children speak a native language other than English.

We should be learning languages because we want to be part of a global community where we treat other cultures and countries equally, not because we want to train the next generation of "young soldiers on the front lines to find...killers."

update: Edwahoo just posted about this also...although he sees it in a more positive light

Supreme Court Takes Away Choice

Florida's Supreme Court ruled its voucher program unconstitutional. Read articles by edweek and the post for coverage. Also, eduwonk comments on what's next...

Personally, I am on the fence about vouchers, but here's what I found interesting:
1) Chief Justice Barbara Periente wrote that vouchers violate state's goal of providing a "uniform" system of public schooling for Florida's students (right, because all schools are the same in the state of Florida. If all schools were really "uniform" then parents wouldn't be lining up to get their kids out of really bad schools and into better ones)
2) While interest groups on both sides are either celebrating or mourning, I would hope that they remember why vouchers existed in the first place; because many public schools are failing our kids and parents wanted a better option. So whether you won or lost the battle yesterday, let's remember what it's really about; quality education for all our kids...and we need to keep working on solutions to ensure "uniform schooling" for every child.
3) Future debates and court decisions will be interesting to watch to see how Florida will influence others. See here and here for voucher debates occurring in Milwaukee and Kansas, respectively.

p.s. would love to hear comments, especially from a certain grad student, not to mention any names (Rachel Bird), who wrote a large research paper analyzing the Florida voucher system.

Employing the Next Generation of Ed Policy Wonks

It's the time of year when college seniors are hitting their career centers, and I have started getting calls and e-mail from people interested in education policy or research jobs next year. I know of lots of places doing this work, but the kicker is whether they'll hire fresh Bachelors' grads... it usually requires "insider" information to figure that out. If you know of places that hire the young and enthusiastic, post them here?

Here's some I'm sure about:
The Urban Institute
American Institutes for Research
American Enterprise Institute
Center for American Progress
Various Hill positions w/ members of the House and Senate Committees

I know y'all know of more...

"The Bell Curve" Rises Again

Just when you think society has taken some forward steps in the fight for racial equity and education; this article surfaces. The author Dan Seligman's basic premise is that;

It is not possible to close the achievement gap. ...[It] is a summons to a fool's errand. The reason that the gap will never be eliminated is that intelligence rises with socioeconomic status.

(I felt like I was re-reading The Bell Curve)

also read Eduwonk and Edwahoo for their excellent reponses to the article

Would love to hear anyone's comments on this one

***apologies for the lack of posting, but in addition to all of us being on break...I was out of town for two weeks without access to the internet (which was an interesting experience to say the least) Happy New Year!