Happy Friday, friends. Today’s SCHOOLED weighs in on waivers, celebrates Tracy Flick and Hermione Granger, finds the edu-angle in James Talarico’s Senate primary victory, and ponders whether IDEA is ripe for reform, all with the help of Christy Hovanetz, Matt Yglesias, Nate Silver, Tim Daly, and Dan Buck, among others.
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It’s been a few months since SCHOOLED waded into the waiver debate, but a few pending proposals give us reason to dive back in.
And we discussedthe idea percolating in Alabamato test all juniors using the ACT and WorkKeys exams and allow “passing” scores on either test to count as “proficient.” Let’s start with the Iron State, as it’s now preparing a formal waiver request. Then we’ll turn to Idaho. Both cases—along with Indiana—demonstrate that testing in the high school years is a particularly unsettled question.
Alabama’s proposal: Respect for CTE or just lowering the bar?
The last time we discussed Alabama, I expressed sympathy for the state’s underlying impulse. Namely, if we all agree that we previously went too far with the “college for all” mantra, then it makes sense to rethink our use of the ACT (or SAT) as solo accountability exams in high school. They are, after all, college entrance exams. Furthermore, the WorkKeys people have some decentevidence showing that passing scores on their instrument—at the Silver level —indicate readiness for many reasonably-well-paid jobs. So why not use that assessment, too, when determining if teens are on track?
The problem, as expressed by Christy Hovanetz, among others, is that even the Platinum level—the highest of four WorkKeys benchmarks—is quite low, and certainly lower than the “college-ready” level on the ACT. So allowing Alabama to label students as proficient when, in layman’s terms, they’d fail the ACT while “passing” WorkKeys would amount to giving up on the idea of a single, rigorous standard for all students in a given state.
And that’s a red line that Assistant Secretary Kirsten Baesler and her colleagues at the U.S. Department of Education have promised not to cross.
The compromise that Alabama and the feds should forge seems obvious: Alabama should use another set of exams for its federal high school assessments, such as 10th grade math and ELA tests, benchmarked with bona fide “proficiency” levels. And then use the ACT and WorkKeys as separate 11th grade assessments to help students understand whether they’re on track for college or career or both. And Alabama should continue to include the results of the ACT and WorkKeys in its federal measures of college and career readiness. But not proficiency.
A similar situation in Idaho
Likewise, the good folks in the Gem State want to use a “menu” of tests for its federal high school assessment, including ACT, WorkKeys, and ASVAB, instead of one statewide exam. This, too, is going to be a tough sell with the feds, and as with Alabama, Idaho should instead use the menu of exams to determine students’ college and career readiness, but another set of tests (probably in 10th grade) to gauge their proficiency in ELA and math.
Idaho also wants to use an alternative test for third grade English Language Arts—the Idaho Reading Indicator instead of the ISAT. That’s a literacy screener that the state already uses in grades K–3, so this is a bid by state superintendent Debbie Critchfield to reduce over-testing.
It’s true that too much testing remains a big problem—nationally and undoubtedly in Idaho. A new study from Education First provides an updated look at how many tests kids are taking and it’s huge: up to 88 assessments before they even enter high school. They also found that time and money are spent on redundant, low-value tests that aren’t making a dent in academic proficiency or growth.
But most of those are assigned by districts, not states. And only states have a legal obligation to make sure their tests do a good job assessing all of the key grade-level standards in ELA and math. A literacy screener can be helpful with the implementation of the science of reading, but it’s not designed to assess all reading standards, much less writing. This should be another easy case for Baesler and her team: Just say no! If Idaho wants to reduce testing, it should scrap the IRI for the spring of third grade.
What about state and local flexibility?
Perhaps it’s too easy for me and others to sit around in Washington and declare these bids for waivers as unnecessary or misguided. So please tell me if you think what Alabama and Idaho are proposing are reasonable and should be approved, especially given the Trump administration’s call for returning education to the states. Alternatively, do you think it’s essential for Uncle Sam to stand firm, not only because of the merits (or lack thereof) of these particular cases, but to keep the whole enterprise of standards-based reform and school accountability from collapsing?
Let me know what you think by responding to this newsletter or emailing me at SCHOOLED [at] fordhaminstitute [dot] org.
We’ve been debatinggrade inflationhere for the past two weeks, and now, in a pitch-perfect pop-culture laden post, Tim Daly expands the field of view to tackle the problem of student effort writ large. Come for the “Try-Hard Mt. Rushmore,” stay for some brilliant policy analysis.
There are fewer try-hards today. Over time, American schools have reduced friction in the name of worthy aims like equity, wellness, and belonging. By friction, I’m talking about the conditions—and reasonable pressures—that make effort necessary, not optional. Some changes were sensible. But collectively, we’ve watered down the notion that it takes effort to succeed—that trying is a key part of a student’s job.
The chain goes something like this:
We demand less.
Students rationally do less.
Lower effort reduces cognitive engagement.
Reduced cognitive engagement drags learning.
And this, Tim argues, surely explains at least some of the “education depression” we’re living through.
Lenient grading is part of the problem, but so are “state-sanctioned absenteeism” and lower graduation requirements.
The solution, Tim writes, is to “make effort the rational choice for students”:
Name grade inflation as a harmful instructional practice and approach it accordingly.
Back up teachers who are demanding.
Make retakes cost effort.
Treat punctuality and attendance as non-negotiable.
New York is number one in overall per-pupil spending and number two in average teacher salary. So how come teaching talent isn’t fleeing Mississippi and Louisiana for New York, where average teacher salaries are 70 percent higher?
It turns out there are good reasons for teachers not to make such a move, beyond personal preferences. One is that the cost of living is much higher in New York and similar states, mostly because blue jurisdictions are terrible at building housing. The second is that teachers risk losing significant pension wealth if they move across state lines, as a study by Dan Goldhaber, Cyrus Grout, and Kristian Holden concludes. And the third is that regulatory barriers make it tough for teachers to transfer their licensure to other states.
But the biggest problem, IMO, is that teacher compensation is heavily backloaded. It’s not just the defined-benefit pension system that remains the norm, but also the tendency for teachers unions to fight for much higher salaries for veterans than for newbies—and to resist higher pay in the high-poverty schools that need it most. “While New York pays 70 percent higher teacher salaries than Louisiana on average,” Matt writes, “its entry-level salaries are only 7 percent higher.”
Higher salaries should most definitely be on the table, but they only work when paired with reform.
On Tuesday,SCHOOLED featuredan analysis of the huge new 50CAN parent survey by John Kristof, showing that parents in high-choice states are more likely to check out state accountability ratings for schools they are considering, including their local traditional public school. Now 50CAN’s president, Derrell Bradford, offers his take on the survey. What he sees in the data is an opportunity for the politics of strange bedfellows:
In advocacy, lukewarm support for a policy doesn’t get you very far. The parents who show up are the ones who say they “strongly favor”—not just “favor”—an idea. Using that high bar, let’s look at what the survey reveals. There is strong support on the issue of whether or not states should provide free tutoring to students, with 54 percent of Republican parents (the lowest) strongly supporting the issue and 73 percent of parents identifying as members of the DSA/Green party (the highest) strongly supporting it, as well.
Free summer camp, similarly, features strong support with 47 percent of Republicans, 50 percent of Libertarians and Independents, 63 percent of Democrats, and 78 percent of DSA/Green party respondents strongly favoring the idea.
Thus, Derrell argues:
If you care about the future of ESAs, for instance, you might want to pair it with free tutoring or free summer camp to build a broader base of support. Politics is, after all, about addition.
To which I say: Sure, almost everyone loves free stuff from the government, as long as they don’t have to pay higher taxes to support it. But is this education reform?
Don’t expect James Talarico to be that sort of strange bedfellow. He won the Texas Democratic Senate primary this week by coding as a moderate, but as Nate Silverpoints out, his actual positions are quite progressive, including on education. Talarico is a former middle school teacher who led the fight against Texas’s education savings accounts program last year, saying at a debate that:
The best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. I have gone toe to toe with the billionaires who are trying to dismantle public education in this state.
Opposing school vouchers is hardly unusual for a Democrat. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the GOP making an issue of it in a bid to peel away Hispanic voters, including those excited by Talarico’s religious faith, who might be disappointed to learn that he doesn’t think they should be able to access Catholic schools at public expense.
The future of education should not be measured in efficiency or algorithms, but in minds sharpened, characters formed, and souls cultivated. If we hand over our classrooms to machines today, we risk raising a generation that can calculate, prompt, and perform—but cannot judge, choose, or flourish. Only a human can form a human.
As both a teacher and an administrator, I saw how the special education system, as it currently works, serves no one well. Students with mild conditions get coddled into helplessness, with the IEP functioning as an excuse for poor habits rather than a document to explain needed supports. Meanwhile, those who really do need assistance cannot get it, as school personnel and budgets are stretched thin.
Dan knows that an IDEA reauthorization is unlikely, but he’s right that “no law should be above criticism or reform.”
If you’re not a conservative, you might have missed the celebrationsthis week over an emergency Supreme Court decision. It overturned California’s policy banning schools from telling parents about their own children’s gender transitions. Robert Pondiscio offers a smart analysis of the development, which confirms that “the child is still not a mere creature of the state.” Expect this to be an issue that Republicans hang around Gavin Newsom’s neck as he runs for president.
Speaking of sensitive issues, Alexander Russo rightly calls on education reporters to more aggressively cover the awful and unfortunately timeless issue of sexual predators within the teaching profession.
Imagine someone like Jeffrey Epstein teaching at your local high school. He’s a good listener. He gives good advice. Maybe he’s a little bit flirty with the kids sometimes. He’s grooming vulnerable students right under the noses of classmates, colleagues, and parents.
The scenario is terrifying—but it’s not so far from reality. Epstein actually started out as a charismatic prep school math and science teacher. Sexual misconduct in schools is widespread—affecting an estimated 40,000 children each year. Usually, the grooming takes the form of inappropriate texts, images, and words, but more than 300 educators were arrested for sexual crimes in a single year, according to one 2022 news report.
It’s not just the media that’s not doing enough, Alexander points out, but policymakers, too. Everyone needs to step up and take this horrible issue more seriously.
“State takeovers are having a moment,” writes Lily Altavena, who notes that red-state leaders are increasingly losing patience with chronic low achievement and financial mismanagement by local districts, and not just in Texas. —Chalkbeat
“When Fear enters the classroom: Minnesota charter schools navigate the lasting impact of immigration enforcement surges.”—Joey Cienian, CharterFolk
“Blue states have long rejected school vouchers as bad for public schools and bad for taxpayers. Now the nation’s first federal program is making an offer that Democratic governors may find hard to refuse,” writes Laura Meckler forThe Washington Post. She and Education Week‘s Matthew Stone report this week on the pressure campaigns for blue-state governors to opt in. EdWeek has the current count, noting that several Democrat governors are reconsidering their stances:
I think that ed reformers need to thank DOGE and President Trump for creating the opportunity for a report like Amber’s to gain any traction. To be sure, implementing the changes in her report is going to be a heavy lift (and not a lot of evidence that this crew is into that), but the chances of any change happening would be close to zero if IES was not essentially wiped clean of the detritus of the past.
None of this (including the report itself) would have taken place under President Biden—I know since I spent years trying.
It is very difficult to have rigorous grading in a system that grades students before they have had a chance to learn the material. A key component of the British reforms was to ensure that students had plenty of time to master the material before being graded on it. I am not suggesting we should go all British and have all course grades come from external exams every second year, but our students are averaging a grade per course per week. Rigor under those circumstances quickly gets abusive.
What makes exam systems easier for most students is that they are tested on work that they have had plenty of time to learn. This is how ~25 percent of British students pass the equivalent of 6 AP exams. No way you can achieve that with the current frequency of assessment in America.
I’ll leave the last word to Damian Hinds, Nick Gibb’s successor as schools minister in the UK:
Pupils now have two full years of study before they sit their GCSEs or A-levels, meaning they have been able to gain a thorough grasp of their subject before they are tested on it. This level of preparation should mean fewer stressful periods, not more. It also means more opportunity to consolidate learning, to find the links and synergies within, and between, subjects.
I didn't realize your colleague, Brandon Wright, essentially made similar comments in his recent IB article. The core IB HL courses are A level clones, both ending in 3 end of course exams at the end of 2 years. UK universities generally treat them as grade for grade equivalent for admissions purposes. The IB diploma adds separate components and courses for a broader curriculum and most A levels have dropped the 30% internal project based assessment (part of the shift towards content over skills), but the core academic experience is similar.
American schools typically run it like AP and generate a separate course grade, but as they do at this school, they sometimes back down on early grading so that their grade is a closer reflection of end of course performance. That alone addresses a lot of issues without transitioning to an exam system. I have seen teachers apply a more American style grading to IB courses and it artificially inflated the difficulty of the course and made it inaccessible to more students.
The reason British education has a reputation for being miserable is that a third of British students are taking 3 courses at that level. If they don't, they have to leave their high schools to follow a technical track. Cannot blame the exam system for that.
I didn't realize your colleague, Brandon Wright, essentially made similar comments in his recent IB article. The core IB HL courses are A level clones, both ending in 3 end of course exams at the end of 2 years. UK universities generally treat them as grade for grade equivalent for admissions purposes. The IB diploma adds separate components and courses for a broader curriculum and most A levels have dropped the 30% internal project based assessment (part of the shift towards content over skills), but the core academic experience is similar.
American schools typically run it like AP and generate a separate course grade, but as they do at this school, they sometimes back down on early grading so that their grade is a closer reflection of end of course performance. That alone addresses a lot of issues without transitioning to an exam system. I have seen teachers apply a more American style grading to IB courses and it artificially inflated the difficulty of the course and made it inaccessible to more students.
The reason British education has a reputation for being miserable is that a third of British students are taking 3 courses at that level. If they don't, they have to leave their high schools to follow a technical track. Cannot blame the exam system for that.