Strengthening Our Democratic Enterprise: Education Policy in the 21st Century

This guest post is from Dr. Barbara Ferman, Founder and Executive Director, University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia and Professor of Political Science at Temple University. Please contact her directly with any questions or comments, at bferman@temple.edu .

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s White House speech on January 10, in which he heralded Action Civics as a promising model for engaging current and future generations in the democratic enterprise, appears to have generated cheers from some and set off alarm bells among others. Such debate is what democracy is all about and should be supported and encouraged. However, as is too often the case, the debate is mired in confusion as to the purpose and practice of Action Civics. As Executive Director of one of the founding organizational members of the National Action Civics Collaborative (NACC), I would like to set the record straight with regards to this very promising practice—what is Action Civics, what is the value added and what does it look like in practice?

Action Civics is an iterative process of issue identification, research, constituency building, action, and reflection that is used to address real-world experiences that apply to the lives of students. It is a process that embraces collective action, encourages youth voice, agency and leadership, and emphasizes the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democratic society. In addition to building the skills, developing the knowledge and shaping the values that underlie a democratic society, Action Civics has been correlated with improved academic and behavioral outcomes. So, what is the problem? The problem is that students may embrace perspectives with which we disagree. This is a very real possibility but isn’t that what democracy is about? For example, I do not agree with Checker Finn’s perspective but I respect and absolutely defend his right to publicly articulate it. Democracy is not about unlimited freedom or irresponsible behavior, both of which threaten democracy. Rather, it is about learning to behave responsibly within a free society. Shutting students down or teaching about democracy in ways that are incongruent with its underlying principles does a disservice to the student, to education and to democracy. If we want our young people to participate in the larger society in ways that are productive, respectful, and that preserve our democratic institutions, we need to let them practice.

So, what does Action Civics look like in practice? What do youth take on when given the opportunity and support to make their voice heard? Here are a few examples from the founding members of NACC:

• At Earth Force, youth are leaders in their community around issues like water quality, food access and energy consumption. They identify local issues important to them, and research the policy and practice behind those problems to create real, sustainable change. They meet with government officials, create awareness campaigns to share throughout their community, and work in partnership with local leaders to ensure their change is effective for the whole community.
• At Generation Citizen, high school students, under the guidance of classroom teachers and college student mentors, have collaboratively developed projects on topics like school transportation policy, gang violence and food access. By learning traditional civic content alongside skills for civic action, these students have applied their civics knowledge to help to raise awareness, inform policy makers on their views, and make their voices heard on issues important to them, their schools, and their communities.
• At Mikva Challenge, students have hosted mayoral candidate forums, served as election judges, volunteered in local campaigns, conducted action oriented research on a wide range of issues and worked closely with the CEO of Chicago schools and the Mayor to improve transportation and schools. 
• At the University Community Collaborative of Philadelphia (UCCP), high school and college students have collaborated on a youth produced TV news show that airs weekly on Public Access TV. Upset by the disproportionate amount of negative media attention, these young people decided to spotlight positive contributions of youth. Involved in every stage of planning, production, marketing and distribution, these young people have acquired a wide range of technical, project management, communication, and media literacy skills as well as a much deeper understanding of role of media in a democratic society. 
• Youth on Board, in partnership with Boston Public Schools, administers the Boston Student Advisory Council (BASC) to engage students in decision-making processes that affect their public education. BASC has been instrumental in improving learning environments by creating mechanisms for student feedback in official teacher evaluations, protecting student rights and providing recommendations on restorative justice discipline policies. 

This is only a small sampling of how youth are engaging in the democratic process to make improvements in their education, the health of their communities, the way media portrays young people, and the political process itself. They are learning to be citizens in a democratic society and behaving professionally and responsibly. This is Action Civics in practice. Hopefully, President Obama will share Arne Duncan’s passion for and embrace of, Action Civics as a powerful antidote to our engagement malaise.

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Are you there Kevin? It's me, neoliberalism

In a recent blog Kevin Carey took on Claire Potter’s critique of Obama’s higher education proposal by chastising her for using the term neoliberalism, and calling her a college professor so out of touch with the real world that she isn’t invited to the policymaking tables where he hangs out.

Dear Kevin, as you know I like you very much—so pardon me if I take offense here.  As a fellow college professor who spends quite a bit of time in DC policy circles (including with you), I think your critique of Potter is off-base. It’s also incredibly unproductive, as you set up an “education reformer versus college professor” dichotomy that's decidedly unhelpful. You accuse Potter of thinking she’s better than the DC crew, but she said nothing of the sort—instead it’s really you who calls her the idiot, seemingly for using big words. 

At the heart of the problem with your critique, Kevin, is that you’ve really missed the meaning of neoliberalism.  Yes, I’m going to keep using the polysyllabic term, since like “stratification,” it has real meaning and is useful for describing a complex concept. 

No, neoliberalism isn’t like facism—as you point out—and no one I know ever claimed it was.  It’s not widely abhorred, primarily because the term itself challenges an ideology so dominant that people have a hard time recognizing its existence.   You reduce neoliberalism to just one of its pieces: an effort to remove market regulation in the pursuit of greater liberty. Since Obama seeks, in some regards, to regulate the action of markets, markets which you rightly note already operate in education, then his policies can’t be neoliberal.  Right?

Wrong.  Neoliberalism is staring you in the face, and in today's education policies it isn’t marked solely or even primarily by a lack of market regulation, but by the promotion of privatization, erosion of worker protections,  heavy reliance on standardized testing, and the rollback of broad community input on school decisions.  More informally, neoliberalism posits that solutions to problems such as opportunity gaps lie in competition among individuals rather than long-term planning and cooperation.  It serves the few who are “racing to the top,” rather than the many who could and should work together for a just and equal society.  Frankly, neoliberal policies take the easy way out and call it “efficient”, rather than doing what’s hard but ultimately long-lasting and ethical.

Unbelievably, without a shred of evidence that positive outcomes have been achieved with the first, President Obama has proposed yet another Race to the Top, one that will undoubtedly reward institutions for policies that promote slippery-slope private partnerships (e.g. between community colleges and business), high-stakes accountability, and top-down reforms of professorial work, all in the name of enhanced productivity.  I'm on the record as for for productivity improvements in higher education, but I would never want them to be agenda #1—first we have a long way to go toward establishing a much deeper commitment public education, we must agree on goals and metrics for both educational equity and quality, we have to develop an appropriate and socially-just financing structure, and then we can work on efficiency.  Working backwards is a surefire way to cut costs and lose what’s most valuable: talent. And it’s definitely the way to create and perpetuate a 1% in education that leaves most of us behind.

Kevin, we share a deep commitment to doing whatever it takes to improve students' education experiences.  But we disagree on what we think the path to that goal must entail.  In my view, the road must include the continuation and indeed the growth of public investments in public education—not routes around it.  It must also include enhanced respect and support for educators.  There is no evidence of such support in this proposal—the importance of adequately supporting the work of professors in order to help student is not mentioned, and yet the fingers of blame are pointed in their direction (most recently by Joe Biden) for rising costs of college attendance.   The winners of this race will likely be the private institutions, who depend far less on state support, and thus will look like winners.  The students and families equipped to benefit from choice—those with more access to information and who are accustomed to “shopping,” will reap the rewards. They're the voters, and they'll love it most of all. Others who love the idea of choosing, and believe the false hopes that discussions of choice perpetuate, will similarly fall in line. That’s the neoliberal model at work—purporting to convene a fair competition, exciting the individualistic imagination of the American Dream, without placing any particular value on the principles of collective public goods or fair labor practices.  It may get people revved up in an election year, but make no mistake about it--it isn’t a progressive vision in the least.

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Thoughts on the Obama Blueprint for Higher Education

Today President Obama unveiled his latest blueprint for the reform of higher education at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, a public institution with relatively high tuition and relatively advantaged students, and a place in the midst of a dispute over graduate student labor practices. It's just miles from Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, where on July 14, 2009, Obama released his American Graduation Initiative, a blueprint for transforming the nation's community colleges, which was essentially destroyed as it was caught up in political debates over the health care legislation.

The blueprint responds to the groundswell of concern about the high and ever-expanding cost of college attendance, and the corresponding growth in the costs of financial aid. It resonates with efforts by the Occupy movement, and especially with the agendas of the Lumina and Gates foundation. It's also consonant with the work of many labor economists.

On the one hand, there are many things to like here-- for example, it's about time the Administration shined a light on the fact that tuition is rising primarily because states are cutting their support to higher education. Despite some recent unfortunate remarks by Vice-President Biden, faculty salaries don't account for much of the increase in tuition. While it is the case that the salaries of SOME professors are too high, such discussions serve only to distract from the real problems-- and have the political effect of pitting educators against students. That may be convenient for administrators, or conservatives who simply want to put the predominantly liberal faculty out of work, but it isn't solving the problem of rising tuition. We shouldn't expend effort making policy based on anecdote or a few bad apples, especially when a wealth of data is staring us in the face, pointing the way.

But in many ways, what President Obama does in this blueprint is deeply problematic. First, it demonstrates his clear adherence to market-based logics of educational reform. He seems to actually believe that Race to the Top is working so well that it ought to be replicated by creating another competition in higher education. Where's the evidence to support that? Too much faith in Arne Duncan, if you ask me.

Second, the approach of tying Perkins and SEOG dollars to these new requirements has a consequence--perhaps unintended--of restricting the abilities of financial aid administrators to exercise their professional judgment in directing aid to students. These are some of the most flexible dollars at their disposal-- and some institutions have very, very few. I'm concerned that we don't yet know whether the choices aid administrators make maximize the effects of these dollars in ways that will now be minimized-- and also that these frontline workers would seem to have little control over the institutional and state actions needed to ensure the dollars keep coming in. In other words, aid officers may have fewer flexible dollars to work with now, but no additional control over how their universities set tuition.

I'm happy to see some money to promote the adoption of practices that can increase productivity in higher education, but as Doug Harris and I have pointed out, the evidence-base on which to make judgements about cost-effectiveness of programs is very, very thin. So I'm very disappointed that this program didn't begin by first endowing the Institute for Education Sciences with the resources needed to establish multiple higher education research centers, and task them (in part) with evaluating effects of this effort.

Also, given that some of these approaches to enhanced productivity have negative effects for faculty worklife, it would have been good for Obama to at minimum urge policymakers to avoid pitting students against their educators-- as they have in criticizing teachers' unions-- and instead be cognizant that students and professors have many common interests, and those should be emphasized. I predict that next up we'll be told that faculty aren't really interested in student success, and thus can and should be replaced. Of course, no one will produce hard evidence to back that up-- and yet we'll be demonized.

When it comes to specific aid programs, it is absurd for Obama to double the American Opportunity Tax Credit without any explanation, while barely mentioning the Pell Grant. As Sandy Baum and Mike McPherson recently wrote, when "will we also debate whether government expenditures targeting low-income college students deserve much stricter scrutiny in this age of attempted austerity than government expenditures through the tax code targeting more-affluent students?"

Overall, my reaction to this proposal is a simple "Meh." (HT to Sue Dynarski) Lately Obama has come out fighting, talking about the rich and poor, and about not backing the same old policies which got us into this economic crisis in the first place. What I see in this proposal is a lot of his approach to k-12 education and it's neither radical or progressive. Sure, it resonates with the desire of moderates and conservatives (as well as so-called reformers) to hold the academy's feet to the fire, and it does talk about state responsibility. But a progressive blueprint would've referred to higher education much more strongly as a right and a public good, focused on policies that could most benefit the struggling public institutions (think community colleges and state u's-- not flagships) and left all privates out of eligibility, stressed the importance of both faculty success and student success to the definition of "quality", and instead of framing change as a "race to the top" he should have called for a "war on educational inequality."


PS. After reading my take, please consider Clare Potter's. She is spot-on, and I only wish I'd made the case as well as she did!

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Shining (a little) Light on Net Price

I must admit, I got a little excited when I (virtually) opened the Chronicle this morning and saw that the Department of Education had published its own personal scarlet letter list of the colleges and universities charging the highest net price. Finally, the government did what government can do best-- draw our attention to important national trends that make our local (personal) problems into national (public) ones.

I was also psyched about the list because it's another step towards helping change the deeply entrenched public perception that the sticker price listed by colleges is the actual price people pay. It's not-- since almost everyone get some kind of discount-- but that fact is so little known that some of us are pretty convinced that sticker shock exerts effects on the decisions made by families with little information.

But as I read about this list, I deflated. First of all, it's clearly obtuse. It's got 54 lists made up of 6 variables and 9 sectors. 54 lists. Come on...most of this country still thinks USA Today is a good, thorough read. And the thing is, some of the smarter government guys know it's too much-- but hey, Congress said so, so here we are (look at the quote by professor and NCES chief honcho Jack Buckley, who is far too polite when he says "this definition of net price is far from perfect." If only I were so diplomatic...).

There we are--getting it done, but not getting it done right.

Moreover, in talking about the power of the list, some officials clearly want to take this too far, suggesting the list tells us something about institutional "performance." Um, no-- not at all. Net price tells us nothing about the impact the institution has on students--only about the price it charges.

All that to say-- this is a decent step in the right direction but we can and must do more. This is prime time for higher education, we've got a growing cadre of smart folks paying attention to the national problems of affordability and degree completion and we need to develop metrics that deliver the kind of information parents and students can use (sorry, I refuse to call people "consumers") in a manner in which those who need it most can find it accessible. How about tweeting the highlights of the list for starters? Arne? David? Jack? You up for it?

Postscript: More coverage of this story, including a quote from me, here on Marketplace on NPR.

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Alphabet Soup

A recent report raises a fundamental education policy question that requires more than simply refuting the report's premise.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) -- a self-proclaimed "free market, limited government" non-profit, which is really just a spout of Republican policy ideas -- recently released its 16th annual Report Card on American Education. First of all, the LAST thing education needs is another report card. But I have to give it to my friends at SmartALECk which has been nothing less than persistent (in the true conservative spirit), having apparently kept this up for 16 years. Second, I note that ALEC's Board of Directors is populated almost entirely by Republican office holders. Third, I note that the report's foreward was written by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a Republican. It is no mystery for whom ALEC is shilling.

That said, the ALEC Report Card grades states based on two criteria: (1) Education Performance Rank and (2) Education Reform Grade. Specifically, a state's Education Performance Rank "measures the overall 2009 scores for low-income children (non-ELL and/or non-IEP) and their gains/losses on National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) fourth- and eighth-grade reading and mathematics exams from 2003 to 2009." A state's "Education Reform Grade" is based on the following reform criteria (few of which are central to educational outcomes, but which are all weighted equally): state academic standards, change in state proficiency standards, private school choice, charter school laws, mandatory intra- and inter-district open enrollment, online learning policies and programs, homeschooling regulation levels, alternative teacher certification, identifying high-quality teachers, retaining effective teachers, and removing ineffective teachers.

The state of Vermont provides a case in point about what is flawed about ALEC's methodology and typifies a troubling dynamic in some of today's education policy and reform conversations. ALEC ranks the Green Mountain state #1 with respect to its educational performance, but gives it the lowest grade of any state - a 'D' - on education reform. I guess the question for me is what is the fundamental purpose of the American education system: To warm the cockles of would-be reformers' hearts by adopting their pet reforms? Or to achieve educational outcomes and accelerate student learning? Assuming you don't have trouble answering that question, what does this example say about broader education policies and reform conversations? Well, it reminds me that too often we seem more interested in the means rather than in the ends. And that's a big problem.

At the federal level, the Obama Administration is onto something with its "tight on ends, loose of means" mantra. Arne Duncan's Education Department has attempted to use that catchphrase to articulate a stronger federal role over education policy while reassuring educators and policymakers that it won't make policies too prescriptive if the desired results are achieved. In a sense, it is not entirely unlike No Child Left Behind's accountability system which more or less allowed schools to keep on keeping on as long as they didn't run afoul of adequate yearly progress requirements. As Fordham's Gadfly recently noted, the future of federal education policy is very much in doubt, dependent on the outcomes of November's elections, control of one or both houses of Congress, and whether the Know Nothing Tea Party forces seize control of the GOP agenda.

But prescriptive-ness is sometimes an invisible line. The Race to the Top program probably went too far down the path of requiring certain reforms that don't have much of an evidential basis, aren't ready to be fully implemented, or aren't scalable. In addition, as Vermont Education Commissioner Armando Vilaseca (my high school principal at Essex High School in Vermont!) has noted, some of these faddish and sensible-in-certain-context reforms don't make sense or cannot be successfully implemented in a small, rural state such as Vermont. One also could ask whether RTTT scoring insufficiently weighted "improving student outcomes" -- which accounted for only 25 of the application's 500 total points (a mere 5 percent) -- in favor of promises of future reform. Again, is it about educational outcomes for students? Or it is about reform for reform's sake?

Back to the SmartALECk report: It would seem to me that ALEC is right in one sense. There *is* an argument for reducing federal regulation, and in education the answer is to leave well enough alone when a state such as Vermont is achieving great results. Now, we can argue over how those results should appropriately be measured, but that would be a more important conversation than talking about a metric such as 'reform' that is focused on pet approaches to privatizing education, firing teachers and enabling home schooling that likely have little bearing on student outcomes and that have little basis in research.

It is hypocritical of an organization like ALEC, committed to loosening regulations and limited government, to offer up such a prescriptive laundry list of reforms that states must enact to receive an 'A.' By ALEC's own outcome metric, Vermont is doing the best job of any state in the country in achieving equitable educational outcomes for low-income students. (Arguably, that is as much if not more due to Vermont's social safety net and universal health care as anything its schools are doing.) Accordingly, SmartALECk should let those results speak for themselves and save its ABCs and Ds to fill many bowls of alphabet soup during the coming winter.

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TFA 'Set Aside'

The Washington Post's Nick Anderson reports that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was grilled by Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) yesterday about why he proposed eliminating the set aside for Teach for America in the Administration FY2011 federal budget.

"We made some tough calls. And what we did is we simply eliminated all the earmarks. We increased the chance for competition," Duncan said.

"Teach for America is an earmark?" Doggett asked.

"It was a set-aside," Duncan clarified. The organization, he said, would have "every opportunity to compete and get, frankly, significantly more money."

My question is: Why should TFA receive such a set aside while other high-quality education non-profits do not? What about KIPP, Urban Teacher Residency United, The New Teacher Project? How about the nonprofit I work for, the New Teacher Center? All of these nonprofits are national in scope. Is there something special about TFA that merits direct federal funding and forces these other organizations to exclaim, "We're not worthy!"?

Frankly, I like the Administration's competitive approach. Let the cream rise to the top. That's a very American concept.

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UPDATE: Here's more on the TFA funding issue from Eduwonk.

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Rhode Island District Fires All Of Its High School Teachers

Today's Providence Journal story reports that Central Falls, Rhode Island's "tiniest, poorest city has become the center of a national battle over dramatic school reform." Even the New York Times and the Washington Post have taken notice.

While firing the entire teacher corps at Central Falls High School is a dramatic step, the school board's and superintendent's decision was largely based on the district's track record of very poor student outcomes, the teachers' rejection of a reform plan ultimatum from state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist targeting the state's lowest-performing high schools, and accountability pressures from the federal Education Department. The decision is supported by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who recently weighed in on the controversy, applauding them for “showing courage and doing the right thing for kids.” Nonetheless, the impact on individual teachers is great and undoubtedly places their lives into significant turmoil and uncertainty.

Providence Journal (2/24/2010):

Duncan is requiring states, for the first time, to identify their lowest 5 percent of schools — those that have chronically poor performance and low graduation rates — and fix them using one of four methods: school closure; takeover by a charter or school-management organization; transformation which requires a longer school day, among other changes; and “turnaround” which requires the entire teaching staff be fired and no more than 50 percent rehired in the fall.

State Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist moved swiftly on this new requirement, identifying on Jan. 11 six of the “persistently lowest-performing” schools: Central Falls High School, which has very low test scores and a graduation rate of 48 percent, and five schools in Providence. Gist also started the clock on the changes, telling the districts they had until March 17 to decide which of the models they wanted to use. Her actions make Rhode Island one of the first states to publicly release a list of affected schools and put into motion the new federal mandate.

I expect that this story will be replicated elsewhere. On one hand, dramatic change IS needed in chronically low-performing schools and districts. BUT if educators and prospective educators see the wholesale firing of staff as a likely consequence in such challenging schools and districts, are they less likely to take jobs in such environments? What is the long-term consequence for such schools' and districts' ability to attract and retain high-quality teachers?

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Overhauling Teacher Prep

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's call for an overhaul of teacher preparation programs is certainly warranted. Reports such as Arthur Levine's in 2006 have highlighted weaknesses in the training received by many graduates of traditional, university-based teacher preparation programs.

I'm one however who believes that there is role both for university-based as well as alternative providers of teacher preparation, such as Teach For America and The New Teacher Project. In a policy brief for the New Teacher Center (and related blog post), I discuss some promising partnerships between institutions of higher education and school districts -- teacher training pipelines that by and large provide the hands-on experience and training called for by Secretary Duncan and contained within many other diagnoses of what ails traditional teacher prep.

Likewise, the Carnegie Corporation's Teachers for a New Era initiative provides evidence of what effective university-based programs can and should look like.

To answer the Secretary's call, we needn't start from scratch.


UPDATE: Alexander Russo has the text of the Secretary's speech here. Secretary Duncan singles out Wisconsin-based Alverno College (among other institutions) and the state of Louisiana for praise. I also discuss both Alverno College and Louisiana's teacher preparation accountability system in my policy brief.

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