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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The challenges surrounding the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) plan to replace principals at underperforming schools across the nation (New York Times: "U.S. Plan to Replace Principals Hits Snag: Who Will Step In?") reminds me of the unintended consequences of California's class size reduction policies during the 1990s.
As the New York Times reported yesterday about the ED's $4 billion plan to radically transform the country’s worst schools by installing new principals to overhaul most of the failing schools, "[T]here simply were not enough qualified principals-in-waiting to take over."
California experienced a similar human capital problem when it reduced class sizes statewide in grades k-3. An unintended consequence of its state policy was the hiring of more emergency-credentialed and unqualified educators as a result of the additional teaching positions needed to enable smaller class sizes. As this Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning report noted, "[T]he implementation of class size reduction ... dramatically increased the shortage" of fully qualified teachers. In addition, the Public Policy Institute of California reports that it exacerbated educational inequality and disproportionately affected schools that served low-income and minority students:
CSR led to a dramatic increase in the percentages of inexperienced and uncertified teachers. In 1990, there were few differences in these characteristics by racial/ethnic and income groups. Even as late as 1995–1996, the year before CSR, schools with high percentages of nonwhite and low-income students were only slightly more likely than other schools to have inexperienced teachers who lacked full certification and postgraduate schooling. By 1999, large gaps in teacher qualifications had emerged between schools attended by nonwhite and low-income students and other schools. For black students in schools with more than 75 percent of the students enrolled in subsidized lunch programs, nearly 25 percent had a first- or second-year teacher; almost 30 percent had a teacher who was not fully certified. At the other extreme, for white students attending schools with 25 percent or fewer of the students enrolled in subsidized lunch programs, only 12 percent had a first- or second-year teacher, and only 5 percent had a teacher who was not fully credentialed. These differences reflect the varying levels of difficulty that many schools experienced in attempting to attract and retain teachers following the implementation of CSR.
With all the current hullabaloo about wanting to fire more underperforming teachers as a chief reform strategy, the critical question is: "Who will replace them?" The belief that 'we can do better' does not necessarily make it so. We've got to attend to and recognize such human capital challenges before we put forth such policies, however well intended.
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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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EPILOGUE (8/24/2010): Well, my predictions below didn't quite pan out. FL and RI came in strong, but IL and SC flopped (but by mere points, of course). I was almost right that with two large states funded -- Florida and New York -- it would limit the number of winners. But the predicted nine became ten with the surprise inclusion of Hawaii (75 mil) among the winners, along with DC (also only 75 mil). For more on the winners, see here.
Based on Phase 1 scores, reviews of Phase 2 applications, and other considerations, I believe Florida, Illinois, Rhode Island and South Carolina are locks for Phase 2 funding. [UPDATE (8/4/2010): One thing that should be concerning to Georgia is an extremely low level of district buy-in (14%) to its application. The only two other states below 50% buy-in are California (18%) -- by design -- and Pennsylvania (32%). As a result I've moved Georgia from a 'lock' to a 'strong' contender.]
Further, I think that Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania have strong chances at winning Phase 2 funding. (That would place the remaining finalists -- Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Hawaii and New Jersey -- outside the winners' circle.) That said, which and how many states will eventually be funded from the remaining pot of $3.4 billion is largely contingent upon the successes of the Big Three, each eligible to win $700 million: Florida, New York and California. The presence of numerous $400 million eligible states in the mix also has the potential to limit the number of winners.
Let's look at a variety of scenarios, assuming in each case that Florida can bank on the $700 million. Of the three, I think New York has the next best shot at the dollars, with California's chances slightly less. In each case, I have listed the states in Phase One rank order (so feel free to replace any with your preference).
Scenario #1 (Florida only) TOTAL = $3.375 billion11 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD
$700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK
4
Georgia
$400,000,000
3
Illinois So. Carolina
$400,000,000 $175,000,000
5 6
Pennsylvania Rhode Island Kentucky
$400,000,000 $75,000,000 $175,000,000
7 8 9
Ohio
$400,000,000
10
Louisiana
$175,000,000
11
No. Carolina
$400,000,000
12
DC
$75,000,000
16
Scenario #2 (Florida & New York) TOTAL = $3.425 billion9 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD
$700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK
4
New York Georgia
$700,000,000 $400,000,000
15 3
Illinois So. Carolina
$400,000,000 $175,000,000
5 6
Pennsylvania Rhode Island Kentucky
$400,000,000 $75,000,000 $175,000,000
7 8 9
Ohio
$400,000,000
10
Scenario #3 (Florida, New York & California) TOTAL = $3.325 billion8 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD
$700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK
4
New York California Georgia
$700,000,000 $700,000,000 $400,000,000
15 27 3
Illinois So. Carolina
$400,000,000 $175,000,000
5 6
Rhode Island Kentucky
$75,000,000 $175,000,000
8 9
DC
$75,000,000
16
Scenario #4 (Max. Applicants w/ Florida) TOTAL = $3.4 billion 12 States
STATE Florida
MAX. AWARD $700,000,000
PHASE 1 RANK 4
Georgia
$400,000,000
3
Illinois
$400,000,000
5
So. Carolina
$175,000,000
6
Pennsylvania
$400,000,000
7
Rhode Island
$75,000,000
8
Kentucky
$175,000,000
9
Ohio
$400,000,000
10
Louisiana
$175,000,000
11
Massachusetts
$250,000,000
13
Colorado
$175,000,000
14
DC
$75,000,000
16
Unless Florida somehow manages to fall on its face in Phase 2, I don't think it is realistic to envision more than 12 applicants receiving funding -- and that would require one of the $400 million-eligible states (such as North Carolina or Ohio) to be eclipsed and knocked out by a smaller state ranked lower in Phase 1 (such as Colorado, Massachusetts and/or the District of Columbia) or by Maryland, which did not apply in Phase 1 [see Scenario #4]. So although the U.S. Department of Education has dangled the possibility of as many as 15 Phase 2 winners, I don't see realistically how we can get there.
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Education Week's Michele McNeil and Alyson Klein at Politics K-12 have the scoop on the Race to the Top, Phase 2 finalists. There are 19 of them:
Arizona
California
Colorado
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maryland
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Generally, I think this is about the number of and group of applicants that most expected, including me. The two biggest surprises on the list are Arizona (although it received support from Gates in Phase 2) and Hawaii. There are no shocking omissions from the list, although some felt that the likes of Arkansas, Connecticut, Michigan, Oklahoma and Utah had outside shots at success.
Want to read all the finalists' applications to see what's so good about 'em? You can find links to all the applications here.
Winners are expected to be named by the U.S. Department of Education in late August or early September.
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6/25/2010 UPDATE:Per the Capital Times story this morning about Wisconsin's chances, I stand behind my contention that the state is an unlikely Phase Two winner. As is the case with numerous states that fell in the middle or bottom of the pack in Phase One (WI was 26 out of 41 applicants), I don't believe that Wisconsin passed significant enough reforms since then to improve its competitive chances (as compared to Colorado, Connecticut, New York and Oklahoma, for example). However, state education leaders - including State Superintendent Tony Evers - deserve credit for authoring a much stronger proposal this time and for gaining widespread buy-in for the proposed reforms.Hopefully, many of those ideas can be carried forward regardless of the RTTT outcome. Although this is a joint blog, this post is entirely my own and not Sara's. -- Liam Goldrick
Final Race to the Top Phase Two applications are not yet publicly available, so this may be a bit premature. But everyone likes fun parlor games, right? Plus, I hear that there may be a Race to the Top void to fill.
If one assumes that states with the highest Phase One scores will come in strong again in Phase Two -- and that's a significant "if" -- one can look at recent policy changes to determine which states may have strengthened their hand. Conventional wisdom suggests that Colorado, Louisiana and New York have moved on up as a result of recent legislative activity.
There are numerous wild cards, of course, including six new applicants (Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, and Washington), reduced Phase 2 requested budgets that will change the elements of nearly every state's application, and stronger (or weaker) support for state applications from unions and school districts that may change the overall calculus.
Here is my early look at the competitiveness of states in Phase Two (with their Phase One ranking (if applicable) in parentheses):
FRONTRUNNERS Colorado (14) Florida (4) Georgia (3) Illinois (5) Kentucky (9) Louisiana (11) Massachusetts (13) North Carolina (12) Ohio (10) Pennsylvania (7) Rhode Island (8) South Carolina (6)
That's 12 states. If one believes the U.S. Department of Education's public statements that no more than 10-15 states will be funded in Phase Two, there's not much (any?) room left in the winners' circle, assuming none of these applicants are knocked out of the running.
CONTENDERS Arkansas (17) District of Columbia (16) Maryland (n/a) Michigan (21) New Jersey (18) New York (15)
DARK HORSES California (27) Connecticut (25) Oklahoma (34) Utah (19)
What's your take? Are there "frontrunners" from Phase One that shouldn't be considered as such? Are there other "dark horses" who should be on this list? Do any of the six new applicants have a real chance?
As state applications become available, we'll take a closer look and provide further analysis as time allows.
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Today the U.S. Department of Education announced[video] that 16 states have been selected as semifinalists in Phase One of the Race to the Top (RttT) competition. Forty-one states (including DC) applied in Phase One.
States selected as semifinalists are:
COLORADO DELAWARE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FLORIDA GEORGIA ILLINOIS KENTUCKY LOUISIANA MASSACHUSETTS NEW YORK NORTH CAROLINA OHIO PENNSYLVANIA RHODE ISLAND SOUTH CAROLINA TENNESSEE
These states will be invited to bring a team to Washington, D.C. this month for formal presentations before RttT reviewers. From those presentations, Phase One finalists will be selected. Non-selected states as well as those that did not apply during Phase One will be eligible to apply for funding in Phase Two, applications due on June 1, 2010.
I am somewhat surprised by the inclusion of New York, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, but that surprise is tempered significantly by the fact that 16 states(!) were selected as semifinalists. If there's any state that I'm surprised not to see on this list, it's Indiana and perhaps California, given what I thought was a strong application.
Sixteen states seems like a lot, given the Department's earlier suggestion that only a small number of states would be selected in Phase One and that there would be plenty of money left over for the Phase Two competition. We'll have to see if more states than expected are selected in Phase One, or if most go away disappointed in April and prepare to reapply in Phase Two. It certainly seems like the toughest decisions were not made at this stage of the selection process.
By and large, my assessment last week of the likely candidates was accurate. If I'm brave, and despite Rick Hess's protests, I may offer up my likely Phase One favorites before finalists are announced in April.
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