Education Reform

Together with healthcare reform and energy policy, one of President Obama's highest long-term priorities (aside from dealing with the current economic woes) is education reform. When we see such figures as those showing the U.S. in the bottom half of industrialized nations in math & science proficiency, etc., we must conclude that schools simply are not doing a good enough job.

In his "Harlem Miracle" column in today's New York Times, David Brooks offers a view of how we can begin to make truly meaningful change. He describes a charter school program in Harlem that has achieved breathtaking improvements, leading the Harvard economist Roland Fryer, upon examining the data, to comment, “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.”

Fryer and a colleague undertook an in-depth assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone, and found that "the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced 'enormous' gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile."

"Forgive some academic jargon," Brooks continues, "but the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.

"Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. 'The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,' Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is 'the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively.'"

So what is it that the Harlem Promise Academy does to achieve these sorts of jawdropping results? Basically, Promise Academy is a no excuses school. Brooks explains, "The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values....

"Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

:They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn’t return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.

"The approach works. Ever since welfare reform, we have had success with intrusive government programs that combine paternalistic leadership, sufficient funding and a ferocious commitment to traditional, middle-class values. We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap. Which city is going to take up the challenge? Omaha? Chicago? Yours?"

Inspiring stuff.

"Fresh Start Education" - An Approach for All

In his NY Times column a week or two ago, David Brooks wrote a piece entitled "Fresh Start Conservatism" to which people and politicians of all political persuasions should take heed. In it he elaborates upon the reason the United States became a leader and world power during the past century: an excellent educational system available to all.

As he comments, "[The] quality work force [created through the educational system] was the single biggest reason the U.S. emerged as the economic superpower of the 20th century. Generation after generation, American workers were better educated, more industrious and more innovative than the ones that came before."

He notes, however, that "that progress stopped about 30 years ago. The percentage of young Americans completing college has been stagnant for a generation. As well-educated boomers retire over the next decades, the quality of the American work force is likely to decline."

What's the solution? Brooks suggests, "If I were advising the Republican nominee, this is one of the places I’d ask him to plant his flag. I’d ask him to call for a new human capital revolution, so that the U.S. could recapture the spirit of reforms like the Morrill Act of the 19th century, the high school movement of the early 20th century and the G.I. Bill after World War II."

This is advice that should transcend politics, and whoever is the next President, whether Republican or Democrat (or Ralph Nader), should take it to heart.

Brooks continues, "[Calling for a human capital revolution] would mean taking on the populists of the left and right, the ones who imagine the problem is globalization and unfair trade when in fact the real problem is that the talents of American workers are not keeping up with technological change.

"Doing that would also mean stealing ideas from both the left and right. Liberals have spent more time thinking about human capital than conservatives, who have tended to imagine that if you build a free market, a quality labor force would magically appear....

"[We need to lay[] down lifelong policies. Human capital development is like nutrition — you have to do it every day...."

To this end, Brooks suggests specific approaches:

-Address the "poisonous spiral of economic stress" among the lower-middle class. "A new working class tax credit applied against the payroll tax would reduce some of the stress. So would a larger child tax credit and increases in the Earned Income Tax Credit. The federal budget should bestow less on seniors and more on young families."

-Bolster early-childhood education. "There could be nurse-home visits for children in chaotic homes so that they have some authority in their lives. Preschool should be radically expanded and accountability programs put in place."

-"Loosen the grip of the teachers’ unions. Certification rules have to be radically reformed to attract qualified college graduates. Merit pay has to become the norm. Reforming superintendents need the freedom to copy the models — like KIPP Academies — that actually work."

-Encourage national service [perhaps with tuition credits]. "The real reasons [so many students don't complete college] are that students are academically unprepared and emotionally disengaged. National service should be a rite of passage for 20-somethings, and these volunteers could mentor students through high school and college years."

These are ideas we can all live by. In sum, as Brooks suggests, "positive government can help prepare people for the rigors of competition, so they can have an open field and fair chance."