Curious2

Introducing Cathy Nolan

There is a constant fight to protect charter schools from the education establishment.  Behind the scenes, the establishment pressures politicians, many of whom you have never heard of, to do things to stop the progress of competitive alternatives to traditional public schools. 

The latest example in New York State comes from Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan.  Here and here are links to two new anti-charter bills that she recently introduced.  The first one would impose mandatory union membership on all charter schools.  The second one would eliminate the State University of New York ("SUNY") as a charter school authorizer. 

Why would Nolan want to eliminate SUNY as an authorizer? All charter schools in New York must be authorized by either the "Board of Regents" (which controls the State Education Department) or the SUNY Board of Trustees.  Members of the Board of Regents are, in effect, chosen by the leader of the Assembly Democrats, Shelly Silver.  Shelly Silver hates charter schools. Members of the SUNY Board of Trustees, on the other hand, are selected by the Governor.  Since the passage of the first charter school law, New York's governor has been a charter school supporter.  Nolan would like to eliminate SUNY as an authorizer so that all charter oversight went through the entity that Assembly Democrats control. 

In practice, bills like these are unlikely to become law.  Rather, they are introduced to create negotiating leverage and to please special interests.  For the Assembly member, they are usually costless, because voters don't have the time or interest to follow the details.  If you want to discuss this with Assemblywoman Nolan, this page has her contact info.

Sympathy from Paul Reville

In a recent post, I discussed the anti-charter-school behavior of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.  Although charter school results in the state have been strong, Patrick has allowed a binding charter cap to prevent further growth.  Patrick even had the nerve or incompetence to confuse the state cap (which still has room) with local district-based caps in cities like Boston: "As recently as this month... Patrick called the issue of raising the cap 'a total red herring' because 'we are not at the cap.'"  (When is this guy up for re-election?)

The good news is that Patrick's latest budget proposes raising the local cap from 9% of budgets to 12% for the 50 lowest performing districts.

Education Secretary Paul Reville noted the difficult decisions in weighing the financial needs of the education establishment versus the goal of effectively educating children:

"There are mixed feelings... There is a lot of sympathy on Beacon Hill for local communities having state aid cut, but there is also sympathy for students experiencing deep achievement gaps."

Politely Speaking the Truth

In a previous post, I wondered why Bill Gates, who has spent billions of dollars in an effort to improve public education, seemed reluctant to state and act on some of the simple truths that seem obvious to many education reformers.  One reader suggested that Gates might view a less-confrontational approach as more likely to succeed. 

Whatever the historical reasons, I was thrilled to read Gates' first "annual letter" on his philanthropic activities.  Here is the page on education.  My favorite quotes (with my emphasis on key points):

1. "Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students’ achievement in any significant way. These tended to be the schools that did not take radical steps to change the culture, such as allowing the principal to pick the team of teachers or change the curriculum. We had less success trying to change an existing school than helping to create a new school."

2. "But a few of the schools that we funded achieved something amazing. They replaced schools with low expectations and low results with ones that have high expectations and high results. These schools are not selective in whom they admit, and they are overwhelmingly serving kids in poor areas, most of whose parents did not go to college. Almost all of these schools are charter schools that have significantly longer school days than other schools."

3. "Based on what the foundation has learned so far, we have refined our strategy. We will continue to invest in replicating the school models that worked the best. Almost all of these schools are charter schools. Many states have limits on charter schools, including giving them less funding than other schools. Educational innovation and overall improvement will go a lot faster if the charter school limits and funding rules are changed."

As I had mentioned in a post on a recent editorial by the KIPP founders, all of these ideas are well-known.  However, it is fantastic to see them in writing from someone as influential as Gates, especially since he has shown the willingness to spend billions of dollars to get things done.

Another Great Charter School: Girls Prep

This past week I visited another great charter school in New York City: Girls Prep on the Lower East Side.  This school is fantastic.  They love to have visitors.  Check it out!  Here is their website and here is a ridiculously cute video:

   

Girls Prep is the only all-girls public elementary school in New York City.  They are opening a second all-girls school in East Harlem next year.  They currently serve 230 students, K-4, and they will eventually go up to the 8th grade.  Their results, in the form of test scores, have been excellent: 100% of their 3rd graders passed the state math exam (versus 87% for the district) and 80% passed the English exam (versus 61% for the district). 

To really appreciate Girls Prep, though, you must visit the school.  This is a place of joy, learning, and inspiration.  They have two teachers in each classroom of about 24 children so they typically split up into two groups that sit around small tables.  They can afford to do this because each teacher pair consists of a more experienced teacher and a new junior teacher right out of college.

One issue that Girls Prep is facing is that more and more middle-class parents are applying to the lottery.  Imagine that... a non-selective public school with excess demand from parents from all sorts of backgrounds.  Girls Prep is a terrific example of the potential of charter schools to produce extraordinary learning environments.    

Just the Facts

The Manhattan Institute has created an incredible new website called SeeThroughNY.  "It's designed to become the hub of a statewide network through which taxpayers can share, analyze and compare data from counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts and public authorities throughout New York."

How did they get this data?  They filed a very large number of "Freedom of Information Act" requests and went through the sometimes-painstaking process of getting the various municipalities and agencies to comply. 

Using their data, I was able to calculate some basic statistics related to teacher compensation at traditional public schools in New York City.

There are 66,402 general education teachers at traditional public schools in NYC.  The average annual salary is $69,762.  The median salary is about the same: $69,901.  Here is a simple frequency table:

Low	High	Count	%
$130,000	$131,000	4	0.01%
$120,000	$130,000	0	0.00%
$110,000	$120,000	11	0.02%
$100,000	$110,000	4936	7.43%
$90,000	$100,000	3095	4.66%
$80,000	$90,000	7787	11.73%
$70,000	$80,000	14144	21.30%
$60,000	$70,000	13874	20.89%
$50,000	$60,000	15309	23.06%
$40,000	$50,000	7241	10.90%
$30,000	$40,000	1	0.00%

Note that these figures are just base salaries.  They do not include any part of the controversial benefits packages that teachers receive. 

Competition, Flexibility, and Oversight

My basic philosophy on education policy is "Competition, Flexibility, and Oversight":

1. Competition: It is much more likely that schools will produce great results in the presence of meaningful competition.

2. Flexibility: It is much more likely that schools will produce great results when they have high degrees of flexibility to experiment and innovate.

3. Oversight: It is much more likely that society will be able to limit instances of unrecognized failure, exploitation and fraud in an environment with an appropriate amount of oversight.

The third point, "Oversight", is the tricky one.  What is the optimal approach to oversight?  How do we balance oversight with competition and flexibility?  How do we define failure?  Much more on this in the future...

Fight the System

Do we pay software developers too much or too little?  Perhaps we should raise the amount we pay web developers relative to database programmers?  And how about those guys that design iPods?  Are they properly trained?

The fact that these questions are not part of government policy debates is one factor that explains the productivity of our technology industry.  With competition and flexibility, business leaders figure these things out for themselves in a constant, ever-evolving optimization. 

Sadly, in public education, even market-oriented think-tanks like the Manhattan Institute often sound like central planners.  In a recent short article, Marcus Winters argues for paying math and science teachers more money than teachers of other subject areas.  This may or may not be good advice for school leaders, but Winters uses language that suggests modifying, rather than eliminating, government pay-scales:

"A better system would pay STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math] teachers more than their counterparts...  Teachers' unions support increasing the pay of STEM teachers -- so long as the pay of all other teachers goes up as well.  But spreading dollars around equally means giving small increases to all teachers instead of large pay increase to those we most need."

Whitney Tilson, a Democratic education reformer, agrees: "Marcus Winters is exactly right that we need to pay STEM teachers more."

I think we need to let school leaders decide how to pay teachers and let parents decide where to send their kids.  That's my system.  I call it the "No System".     

The Empire Strikes Back

A few days ago, I wrote a post in which I praised the first editorial I have ever read by the founders of KIPP that plainly spoke the brutal truth about labor flexibility in schools:

"At KIPP, we have the ability to hire, fire and reward principals and teachers based on their students' progress and achievement.  If we are going to hold all public schools accountable for their results -- and we should -- we need to grant this same power to all public schools.  Otherwise, public schools will not meet the goal of providing a world-class education to every child."

Yesterday, we learned that teachers at two KIPP schools are planning on unionizing.  In their letter to KIPP, the teachers write:

"We must feel secure in our employment so that concerns as well as ideas can be voiced in a trusting environment."

"Job security" as envisioned and developed by labor unions is probably one of the most damaging ideas of the 20th century.  In its most extreme form, it removes the link of accountability between workers and their managers and, as a result, is a sure-fire path to an ineffective organization.  If competing organizations are not subject to "job security" rules, the disadvantaged organizations will either:

a. Lose customers and eventually cease to exist

b. Significantly moderate their "job security" demands

c. Force the competing organizations to adopt their "job security" demands

I am hoping for (a) or (b). 

Yikes!

GothamSchools has just reported on some huge news.

Trojan Horse

The New York Times reported yesterday about the approval of a Hebrew-language charter school in Brooklyn.  Although there is something hilarious about this that I can't quite put my finger on,  I support the creation of this school as another option for parents.  Of the ten committee members that voted, only one, Dr. Saul Cohen (seriously), voted against:

“It’s a way of getting a good private school with public funds,” Dr. Cohen said.

Dr. Cohen is frustrated that public funds might be used for something akin to a good private school rather than 100% directed towards crappy public schools.  Dr. Cohen also noted that the district is predominantly black, Hispanic, and Asian and, therefore, might not be very interested in learning Hebrew.  I'll let parents make that decision, but, as the Times noted, "the district also includes neighborhoods with many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Israel." 

Perhaps the biggest significance of this new school is that it will draw a new demographic into the charter school political landscape.  Widening the array of voters that directly benefit from charters to include parents-that-want-their-kids-to-learn-Hebrew will help us to fight for better schools for everyone.