Curious2

The Curious Case of Bill Gates

The Gates Foundation has spent billions of dollars trying to improve public education.  I can't think of one education reformer that has been impressed with their overall efforts.  The Gates behave as if they don't get the joke.  Perhaps it is because Bill has a natural sympathy for monopolies.  Maybe he fears that acting in a manner viewed as attacking unions would be bad for Microsoft.  Perhaps Bill just wants to be loved by everyone.  (Steve Jobs, on the other hand, does not seem concerned with universal love, e.g. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy.")

An article in the latest issue of Fortune investigates the Gates' latest plan to improve our schools.  In the middle of the lengthy report, the author reviews some of the their past successes:

"Both Bill and Melinda Gates relish talking about their visits to schools that beat the odds and boosted achievement for low-income students. Many of them are charter schools - public schools that operate more independently than most schools in a district.

Among their favorite examples are high schools run by nonprofit charter organizations like KIPP Academy, which operates 66 schools around the U.S.; Green Dot schools in Los Angeles; and Houston's YES Prep, which has managed to have 100% of graduates at its five urban high schools gain admission to four-year colleges...

Vicki Phillips, who now heads the Gates education program, says the foundation had originally hoped that funding successful models like these - say, 7% or 8% of schools in a district - would cause innovative ideas to "spread like a virus." But that's not what happened. Replicating success has proved to be difficult.  And so the new strategy for high schools is pushier and more systematic. "

At this point in the article, you would think that the new strategy would involve creating an environment for more independent school operators to create more schools that are not subject to the productivity-destroying constraints of typical union contracts and stifling Department of Education management.  You would be wrong.  Since the foundation's leaders "are eager to avoid opposition from teachers' unions", the new plan revolves around several enormously expensive research projects optimized to offend no one. 

Meanwhile, when Bill Gates introduced the new plan to a group of education reformers, the line that got the most applause was: "We need to give all teachers the benefit of clear standards, sound curriculum, good training, and top instructional tools. But if their students still keep falling behind, [the teachers] are in the wrong line of work, and they need to find another job."  This is the right idea, but I wonder how many years of students falling behind represents a fair chance for teachers? 

How Much Do We Spend?

One of the most common conversations I have with people about education reform goes something like this:

Me: What do you think the biggest problem is with our public schools?

Mr. Spendmore: We don't spend enough money.

Me: How much do you think we spend now?

Mr. Spendmore: Uhh... I don't really know.

In 2009, I hope that education reformers talk more precisely about how much money we are spending.  Let's look at New York City.  From the City's Department of Education website, we learn:

"For the school year 2008–09, the Department of Education’s total budget is $21.05 billion, including $3.45 billion to pay pensions and interest on Capital Plan debt. The Department will spend $17.6 billion on the day-to-day operations of the school system."

Now, some people would like us to ignore the pensions and interest on debt, because these amounts don't go towards directly operating the schools.  This is a financial maneuver that is crushing or will soon crush many city and states around our country.  These pensions and debts were created by past commitments to workers and other past borrowings.  Today, as we pay off the old liabilities that are coming due, we are building up future pension (and other) liabilities.  Perhaps someone could calculate the present value of those future liabilities.  I would bet that they are significantly greater than the current costs of our old commitments.  Without doing that work, I think the total budget of $21.05 billion is, most likely, a conservative estimate as to how much money we are spending.  I encourage others to help me to estimate these numbers more accurately. 

From another document on the DOE website, we learn that there are approximately 1,035,300 students enrolled in the system.  That comes out to $20,332 per pupil.  

Do I have this right?  I encourage readers to help us arrive at the best estimate possible. 

Charter Schools and Card Check

In early 2007, charter school supporters in New York were battling the education establishment to lift the cap on charter schools.  At the time, despite frequently arguing that charter schools would never be big enough to matter, the establishment was fighting to maintain a limit on charter school growth.  Throughout the debate, unions noted that they would be willing to lift the cap in exchange for "card check".  Many of us responded predictably: "What the hell is 'card check'?" 

"Card check" is a form of union certificaction in which, instead of a secret ballot vote, a union simply has to get a majority of employees to sign a card saying that they want a union.  Despite the secret ballot in the current system, union officials complain that management harasses employees to vote against unionization.  Skeptics (like me) believe that:

1. Union leaders don't like the fact that it is difficult to unionize organizations when the employees are given the right to a secret ballot vote.

2. With the "card check" system, union harassment will be much more of an issue than management harassment ever was.

During the cap battle, charter operators and supporters vehemently opposed "card check" and, ultimately, were successful in getting the cap lifted without it.

Fast forward to 2008, when most of these New York charter operators and supporters were firmly in the Obama camp.  Obama, though, was one of the original cosponsors for national "card check" legislation under the euphemistic title "the Employee Free Choice Act".  The unions view this act as their number one priority.  Unfortunately, most Americans have little to no idea what this legislation means.  (Ask a friend to explain "card check".)  Former Democratic presidential nominee Senator George McGovern felt strongly enough about the right of working Americans to a secret-ballot election to break with his party and write a powerful editorial along with a YouTube video:

Now that Obama has been elected, one of the most interesting questions is the fate of "card check" legislation.  Conventional wisdom amongst Democratic charter school supporters is that Obama knows it is a bad idea but had to support it (like virtually all Democratic politicians) to get elected.  But now what?  An excellent article on CNN's website outlines Obama's dilemma. 

In the end, charter supporters may have fought off "card check" for a couple of hundred schools in New York while indirectly supporting "card check" for the entire country just two years later. 

 

A Simple Request

Today is the tenth anniversary of the New York State charter law.  Editorials in the Post and Daily News give excellent summaries of the ten-year history and latest results.  Knowing that state finances are in terrible shape, organizations representing charter schools have modest requests that focus on reforms that have nothing to do with funding.  In particular, they are requesting that successful charter school operators should be able to open new charter schools with a streamlined application (as compared to the multi-hundred-page monster currently required) and that they shouldn't have to assemble a separate board of directors for each new school as is currently the case. 

These requests would cost the state no money.  They represent common-sense improvements to flaws in the current charter law.  Yet my sources tell me that Governor Paterson, widely viewed as a charter school supporter, is ignoring these requests because he doesn't want to create controversy while trying to negotiate other budget matters.  Controversy with whom?  The education establishment, of course.  As they have done throughout charter school history, the establishment tries to maintain or erect roadblocks that prevent charter school progress. 

Please contact Governor Paterson and let him know what you think about this issue.  He probably assumes that you are ignoring this matter.  Are you?

 

Linking Osama bin Laden to Traditional Public Schools

A friend pointed out an interesting editorial in the New York Times a few days ago.  The author, Art Brown, is a 25-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency and was the head of the Asia division of the agency's clandestine service from 2003 to 2005.  His editorial discusses the failures of the C.I.A. in catching Osama bin Laden.  He lists three factors underlying the C.I.A.'s poor performance:

1. "First, the agency is simply too insular.  It does not sufficiently tap in the expertise that exists across the breadth of America."

2. "Second, the C.I.A. has a terrible problem with quality control."

3. "And that brings us to perhaps the most numbing factor, the lack of performance accountability.  In my years in the agency, I cannot recall a single case where anyone was fired for failing to perform.  I cannot even remember anyone being demoted.  There is simply no job-threatening penalty for mediocrity.  Think of this on Jan. 20, when we're likely to see Osama bin Laden sending an inauguration greeting to the new president."

While all three points are relevant to traditional public schools, the third one is particularly striking.  In all high-performing organizations, leaders need the ability to terminate poor performers.  They also need the incentive to do so: they need to know that if their organization performs poorly, they will lose their jobs.  This latter incentive is difficult when there is no competition for the organization's services and no self-interested consumers that can choose amongst these competing options.  That's why eliminating teacher tenure is necessary but insufficient to solve the teacher quality problem at traditional public schools.  You also need some combination of:

1. Multiple, independently-managed school choices available to each parent.

2. A legal and regulatory environment that allows straight-forward entry by new school operators.

3. A great chancellor that has the ability and desire to shut-down poor-performing schools and fire poor-performing principals.

Of course, if the first two points are true, the chancellor only needs to provide oversight to act against gross negligence and fraud.  That's a much more realistic job description over long periods of time.

The Cost of Inflexibility

Watch Mayor Bloomberg talk about education budget cuts: 

The economy is terrible. In most industries, people are losing their jobs. We have a surplus of people that want to teach in NYC. Yet, because it is impossible to lower teacher salaries even in a weak economy while everyone else is hurting, Bloomberg is forced to increase class sizes.

Teachers and the Spread Offense

In the latest New Yorker, an article by Malcolm Gladwell asks "How do we hire teachers when we can't tell who's right for the job?"  His main point is that much like predicting who will be a successful NFL quarterback, it is difficult to know who will be an effective teacher.  He calls this the "quarterback problem": "There are certain jobs where almost nothing you can learn about candidates before they start predicts how they'll do once they're hired." 

Having hired many people in my life, I have trouble thinking of jobs that don't suffer from the "quarterback problem".  In my experience, it has always been difficult to predict job performance, even for roles less exacting than NFL quarterbacks and public school teachers.  (These are generally accepted to be the two most difficult roles in modern society.)  In the real world, managers struggle to select the most promising candidates using methods ranging from gut instincts to elaborate interview and testing processes.  When they fail in their prediction, they part ways with the ineffective employee.  Of course, this is precisely how NFL teams deal with the quarterback problem. This is also how private schools deal with the quarterback problem.  Only when we are left without the recourse of job termination are we left with a "teacher problem".   

After noting that "perhaps no profession has taken the implications of the quarterback problem more seriously than the financial-advice field" (where does he get this stuff?), Gladwell is reduced to the sloppy concluding question: "What does it say about a society that it devotes more care and patience to the selection of those who handle its money than of those who handle its children?"  Good grief.  The unions prevent us from solving Malcolm's "quarterback problem" and, therefore, our society is failing to demonstrate enough care and patience?  Malcolm, the problem is our failure to demonstrate enough honesty and impatience.

  

It's Good to be the Headmaster

In previous posts (here and here), I noted that private school teachers seem to get paid significantly less than public school teachers.  With regards to school leaders, though, the situation is quite different.  Using a sample of 37 New York City private schools, I found that the median salary for headmasters (the fancy school leader title for private schools) is about $290,000.  For principals in NYC, the salary ranges from about $125,000 to $150,000 (click on the salary schedule on this page).  Meanwhile, the median school size in my private school sample is 400 students, while the average NYC public school has about 790 students.  In other words, while public school teachers get paid more than private school teachers, public school leaders get paid about half of what private school leaders receive despite managing schools around twice as big.  This phenomenon is likely explained by, amongst other things, the relative political influence of the large number of teachers versus the small number of principals and the egalitarian sensibilities of the traditional public school community. 

Too Small to Succeed?

When the education establishment runs out of anti-charter arguments, they often fall back on the "Too Small to Succeed" argument: Charter schools are serving such a small number of students that they can't be the entire solution to our public school problems.  To be fair, many of my friends who are not part of the education establishment have the same concern.  Several thoughts:

1. The solution to our public school problems is increasing differentiated educational options and increasing the flexibility of how schools are operated.  At the moment, charter schools are the best example of those principles.

2. Since the education establishment resists increasing differentiated educational options and increasing the flexibility of how all schools are operated, it will take time for charter schools to serve a large percentage of public school students.

3. Even without the resistance of the education establishment, building high-quality schools is not an instantaneous process.  It will take time. 

4. Charter schools serve large percentages of students in several cities, e.g. 55% in New Orleans and 31% in DC.  In other words, there are several cities that demonstrate the potential of significant charter school market share. 

As an example of the "Too Small to Succeed" debate technique, education historian Diane Ravitch deployed it on me in response to my comments to her recent blog post.  I wrote:

"I would be curious to know which charter schools you have visited in New York City and what your thoughts are on how they serve children as compared to the traditional public schools in New York City that you have visited. Perhaps an idea for a future post?

I am often surprised as to the rather abstract discussions of charter schools and their merits in a city in which there are so many great charters that are excited to accept visitors."

She responded:

"I think that KIPP has many admirable qualities (yes, I did visit the Bronx KIPP). It does well for many of its students.

Bear in mind, however, that 2% of the students in the US and 2% of the students in NYC attend charter schools. On average, these schools are no better and possibly no worse than regular public schools.

Can we talk about the other 98% of the kids and what is in their best interest?"

After recovering from the momentary stunning effects of the "Too Small to Succeed" counter-attack, I responded as follows:

"I agree with you: it is unfortunate that only 2% of our public school kids have been given the option to go to charter schools, especially since there are long waiting lists to get into these schools. Consider, though:

1. The charter movement is a relatively young one that has been growing rapidly. As the movement grows, more kids will have the opportunity to attend these schools. Unfortunately, there is no instant solution to creating first-rate schools. It will take time.

2. Anti-charter activists have slowed the growth of charter schools by capping the quantity of schools, limiting funding below the funding for traditional public schools, and denying public space despite great parental demand. Just last year, anti-charter activists in New York made your argument that charter schools are too small to solve our education problems while simultaneously fighting the lifting of the cap on the number of charter schools. Incredible!

3. Charter schools educate 55% of the kids in New Orleans, 31% in DC, 28% in Dayton, 23% in Kansas City, 22% in Detroit, and 20% in Cleveland. In other words, in many cities charter schools are educating a large percentage of public school kids.

4. Charter schools may improve all schools by forcing the traditional public schools to compete for students.

I hope you will support the continued growth of charter schools so that they will have the chance to serve more students. Finally, I hope you will (continue to?) visit charter schools other than KIPP schools so that you can follow the progress of the many fine operators that are dedicated to providing high-quality educational options for low-income parents."

 

Advice for Ariel

Ariel Sacks, a teacher in Brooklyn, wrote an excellent post on her blog today in which she asks "why should I keep on working at a school that can’t provide me everything I need to reach my full potential as a teacher?"  You won't be surprised that she works at a traditional public school and she is envious of her friend, Joe, that has a teaching job at a KIPP charter school.  Here are the comments I posted on her blog:

Hi Ariel,

Great post! A few thoughts:

1. If your goal is to teach most effectively a given population of children, you should try to get a job in a school that will provide you with the best environment to succeed. I am guessing this will mean getting a job at a charter school.

2. You write "In many cases, these dysfunctions are not the fault of anyone at the school, but rather, are related to the lack of adequate funding of the school’s resources or the unstable home lives of the students." Since charter schools receive less funding than your school and teach the same population, why do you assume that the problem is school resources and unstable home lives?

3. Since Joe works at a charter school, his compensation will not necessarily be determined by test scores. It will be determined based on whatever model the school leadership thinks is most appropriate. Only at traditional public schools will you be subject to the Rube Goldberg schemes that are negotiated by the UFT and the DOE.

I hope you continue to consider the merits of teaching at a charter school.

Ken