The State Department of Education responds
The State Department of Education takes issue with a February report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that gives Oklahoma a “D” in educational effectiveness.
The report, found here, gives Oklahoma high marks, an “A,” only in the category of having a “21st Century Teaching Force.” The chamber defines this as requiring teachers to pass basic tests, subject knowledge tests, and offer alternative certification with rigorous exams for potential teachers.
The report was very critical of Oklahoma in academic achievement, truth in depicting students’ proficiency, and data quality. The state Senate and House education committees met Tuesday morning at the Capitol to discuss the findings.
The report’s use of dated figures from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, to determine academic achievement was something the state strongly criticized.
NAEP, which bills itself “the nation’s report card,” comes from representative sample test results from students from across the country in reading, math, science, writing, U.S. history, civics, the arts and geography.
The statement, which Superintendent of Education Sandy Garrett issued Tuesday, notes the chamber used data from 2003 and 2005 without taking into account subsequent improvement efforts.
“We’ve done much, including implementing the Achieving Classroom Excellence law, establishing early reading programs and expanding pre-kindergarten education, to name a few. Moreover, the Council of Chief State School Officers said of the report in February – when it was released – that it did not take into account regional differences and demographics, and other critics across the country have said its methodology is far from statistically sound.”
Some of these objections are legitimate: Federal data often lag several years behind and thus may offer an incorrect picture of how a state or district is performing, and regional differences may well exist. Whether they should be taken into account is a separate issue.
However, attacking a study’s methodology is a time-honored tradition for those with whom the study finds fault. I can’t say whether that’s the case here, but it’s easy to criticize someone else’s statistics without saying what was wrong. Yet, when it comes to studies and statistical analysis, the devil truly is in the details.
Garrett’s statement continues:
“Here are some of the facts about the state of Oklahoma public education:
The state is slightly below the national average in its average ACT score, which many believe is a much more reliable measure for comparing states in terms of college and workforce preparedness.
The state also is slightly below the national average on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 4th grade reading and math, though it is above the national average in 4th grade science. It has reached the national average in 8th grade reading and 8th grade science and is slightly below the average in 8th grade math.
The state is significantly below the national average in its per pupil expenditures, ranking 47th nationally and next to the last among neighboring states.
The state is significantly below the national average in what it pays its teachers, ranking 48th nationally and dead last in its region. Arkansas ranks 36th, Texas 33rd, New Mexico 40th, Colorado 23rd, Kansas 41st and Missouri 43rd.
Students’ test scores improved from 2005 to 2006 on all state tests in Grades 3 through high school that are used for federal accountability purposes.
Oklahoma’s lack of financial investment relative to the rest of the nation in the areas of student expenditures and teacher pay obviously has a direct impact on its schools’ ability to expand innovative programs and educational offerings, modernize facilities and resources, and simply keep up with rising utility and transportation costs. This negatively impacts their ability to be nationally and internationally competitive. To reap dividends, expand capacity and achieve long-term success, businesses must make investments in their employees, facilities and delivery systems. The same is true for schools.”
What are your thoughts on the quality of education in Oklahoma and out-of-state groups’ attempts to rate it? Let me know.
Lamenting loans
The New York Times has a story online about a young chef working at an Austin bistro and struggling to pay back student loans on his $10.50 hour wages.
It’s a story that can be told anywhere, in any profession. But it seems particularly heartbreaking for those with jobs that may never lead to big-time salaries.
The Times also is recording reader comments about student loans. Take a look, and then come back here and tell me your story, and what you think should be done to help those in debt and facing debt — just to attend college and pursue the American dream. (You might have to register with the Times Web site to read the story but it’s free.)
http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/when-student-loans-dont-pay-off/
Primary nonsense
Upon returning from Los Angeles Saturday night, this story awaited me Sunday. I just can’t resist commenting on it.
From The Associated Press:
Florida lawmakers OK plan to move up presidential primary
TALLAHASSEE — The Florida House on Thursday passed and sent to the governor a plan to move the state’s 2008 presidential primary to Jan. 29, bypassing at least a dozen other states that have recently moved their primaries to Feb. 5.
Gov. Charlie Crist, who has consistently voiced his support for giving the nation’s fourth-largest state more say in the nominating process, is expected to sign the bill (HB 537). The House voted 118-0 to pass the measure.
The Senate last week voted for the plan, which also would replace touch-screen voting machines in 15 counties with a paper-trail system.
Moving up the primary, which is currently in early March, would put Florida’s contest behind only the Iowa and Nevada Caucuses and the New Hampshire primary – and on the same day as South Carolina’s Democratic primary.
National Republican and Democratic leaders have said they will take away delegates to the nominating conventions if Florida moves its primary earlier than Feb. 5. The Democratic National Committee has said a candidate who campaigns in Florida for a primary earlier than Feb. 5 will be ineligible for receiving any of the state’s delegates.
State party leaders have supported legislators who have argued Florida’s diversity and size merit more influence in deciding the nation’s leadership.
Has it occurred to anyone else that maybe we should just do what community groups and nonprofits often do and just select a president-elect when we choose a president? That would clear up the uncertainty states like poor ol’ Florida must feel when a dark horse gains the favor of those wacky, live-free-or-die New Hampshire folk.
Just think about it. Candidates soon will be able to visit all the coffee shops and barber shops and pancake houses in Florida just like the do in New Hampshire. And Florida residents doubtless will do their homework, asking intelligent, tough questions of the candidates and making sure the best move on.
While we’re on it, the Sunshine State shouldn’t be happy with deciding just one election every eight years; Palm Beach County should be able to decide both.
But then what about Iowa, and the smaller states that only matter as a Super Tuesday block, you ask?
Well, that’s where my brilliant plan comes in. When the nation plans its presidency a term or two in advance, we can take a cue from the business world and plan long term. We’ll know who our leaders will be, giving us a chance to mold them. Want a Democrat in 2012. Sign up now.
The stability this will bring will far outweigh the effect on the democratic process.
I’m kidding, of course, but that’s what all this silliness deserves to be treated as such.
A Lesson in Stretching
Students should reach high, but higher education isn’t the only bar they can grab. That’s one of the messages today by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He said a strict emphasis on gaining a four-year degree can stigmatize other educational paths also essential to the workforce and economy.
Vocational and technical schools prepare many of our nation’s nurses and other healthcare workers, train skilled tradesmen and teach highly technical fields like automotive repair.
“These are important professions we need in this state,” he said.
They are important in our state as well. Oklahoma’s CareerTech system is one of the best in the nation and offers college credit as well as vocational technical training through partnerships with state colleges.
Look here, Governor. Oklahoma leaders will tell you that we are setting the bar.
What do tests measure?
Some free-flowing thoughts on federal education policy….
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who spoke last night to a room full of education reporters at the National Education Writers Association conference in Los Angeles, strongly defended the No Child Left Behind Act.
No surprise there.
Also no surprise that many teachers and administrators hate (search the thesaurus for a stronger word) federally mandated tests, and some researchers and legislators are lashing out at what NCLB-required tests really measure — and, more importantly, don’t measure.
Their objections, which Spellings attempted to counter, are well-known. They include claims teachers must spend all their time “teaching to the test,” and that the art of teaching is lost amid bubble tests and No. 2 pencils.
Covering schools’ results under the No Child Left Behind act often feels like a horse race — win, place and show, with the hobbling nags pulling up the rear.
This is a problem I imagine many education writers share.
To me, federally mandated tests provide a floating benchmark, sort of like a country tying its currency to another’s. What do tests like the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills and the Oklahoma Core Curriculum Test really measure other than a year-to-year change in basic concepts?
Yet how do reporters measure educational progress without using standardized tests? And who am I to decide how it’s done?
Some advocates say NCLB should evolve from schools’ accountability to law to adults’ accountability to children. Seems like a good idea on the surface. I hope recommendations explain how this should be done, and how to encourage and reward teachers such as the inner-city L.A. English teacher who explained at Friday morning’s session that students who come to class (as opposed to those who don’t) are there to learn.
Seems obvious, but it’s easy to lose sight of that amid the often-grim news from Title I schools. The teacher described capturing students’ attention by tying deceased rapper Tupac Shakur’s poetic rhymes to the classic poems of Dylan Thomas.
His students got that day’s lesson: Life will kick you in the gut, but keep on trying. But his students likely still will finish high school reading a grade level or three behind where they should be, and their test results will reflect this.
He recommended an as-yet-undefined “growth model” of student assessment.
As Spellings and others said, numbers don’t tell the whole story. Reporters and policymakers need to focus on schools that truly, consistently, are failing rather than those who miss NCLB thresholds.
Duly noted.
Any thoughts on all this?
Produce Section
Here’s a lesson in apples and oranges. At Harvard University — an apple in this case — 98 percent of students persist to graduation.
At Oklahoma State University — an orange, of course, just 59 percent of students make the finish line to commencement.
Is it fair to compare the two? Of course not. They serve completely different types of students.
But you can compare OSU to a dozen similier universities across the nation.
Ed Trust has a data base that lets you see peas of the same pod. www.collegeresults.org
Plug in your alma mater or your child’s school and check it out. Then let me know what you think.
Of course, grad rates alone don’t tell the story of a university’s success. In fact, they are pretty irrelevant to college bean counters. That’s because state funding is tied to enrollment — getting students in the door, not out.
“There’s no emphasis or reward for success once you get students in the door,” said Kay McClenney, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.
That may be changing. Accountability is a key focus of the U.S. Ed Secretary Margaret Spelling’s plan for higher ed. She’s pressuring accreditation agencies to focus more on outcomes like grad rates and job placement stats.
Will she succeed with her big stick, and what’s the carrot to motivate colleges?
Well, here we are again at the produce section.
the new old media
I am now a new-media-savvy, blog-casting, pod-blogging, video-shooting, RSS-feeding, cross-platform content provider.
Otherwise known as a print reporter.
As is the case with many journalists, new and veteran alike, I am ambivalent about the idea that Web sites will be our future, that the newspaper that lands on hundreds of thousands of front porches will be secondary to a Web site.
Anyone can put up a snazzy Web site. What ultimately sets us apart?
Our newspaper is more than a century old — a lot of history, pride and people’s lives have gone into The Oklahoman over that time. I add mine to that, so I am hardly unbiased.
But communication is communication, regardless of medium, I keep telling myself, and it’s our century of covering the state that sets us apart, not our blue printing press.
Part of the draw in coming to Los Angeles for the National Education Writers Association conference was to learn more about reaching out to and engaging readers through blogs and other evolving media forms.
Yesterday, several bloggers, some of whom are independent of newspapers and trade journals and some of whom blog in addition to writing news stories, spoke of their successes.
I find blogging enjoyable enough but have a natural trepidation in offering anything that would resemble an opinion about what I cover every day. The standards are different, right?
Maybe not as different as I once thought.
Presenters emphasized things they said made for successful blogs and an effective salvo in the war to keep newspapers from losing readers. They said it’s OK to lose the “institutional voice,” or that peculiar way of writing that readers expect to find in the paper. Instead, it’s fine to be clever and opinionated, as long as the facts support it.
Obviously this is subjective, but perhaps it shouldn’t be threatening to a journalist who really does care about being objective.
After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck….
Which brings me to another point from the presenters: Not only do readers comment in a thriving blog, but an honest back-and-forth dialogue will build people’s trust and lead them to pounce on the few who post inane comments or drive discussions on unintelligible tangents.
In other words, people will behave responsibly and take ownership of their online public square. Cool.
So, I make a pledge as I sit here, blogging from a downtown L.A. hotel, no longer a stodgy, grayscale journalist: I will make every effort to blog regularly — hopefully daily — offering a variety of content, occasional opinion, analysis and tidbits.
If I am talented, boorish, incorrect, off-base or dead-on, I encourage you to let me know via e-mail or by leaving a comment. I will use my space online to inform people of things I can’t do in print. If your school has something going on that I could never get to personally, let me know. If you want to discuss education, start up a forum — I’ll add my two cents from time to time.
Journalists no longer sit on-high, dictating what the masses will believe.
Your desks are probably bigger than mine, anyway.
No Co-Ed Left Behind?
When asked if No Child Left Behind will be expanded to higher education, Spellings said no … but then said there needs to be more accountability because parents have no way of knowing if their children are getting a quality education.
Spellings said she’s personally invested in the issue — she’s spending “several hundred thousand dollars” to send her daughter to an elite private college.
“Is she going to know anything when she gets out? Can she write?”
The questions are going to go on for a bit longer. What do you want to know from the U.S. Ed Secretary?
Susan Simpson
Higher Education Reporter
Ringing the Bell?
Margaret Spellings didn’t hestitate to answer the first query, posed by Josh Benton from The Dallas Morning News. Josh said Texas was a bellweather for testing in the past but now some lawmakers, even Republicans, are saying enough is enough.
Spellings said bold and agressive education reform is bound to create waves.
“It’s making some people mad,” she said. “It’s causing people to squirm.”
She also addressed some post-secondary issues, saying that most jobs of the future will require a level of technical expertise that brings together the missions of vocational schools, community colleges and traditional universities.
But to prepare students for a successful post-secondary education, she said high schools need more rigor and relevance, and to offer more Advanced Placement courses.
Spellings Bee
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings made some early brownie points before a big group of education reporters tonight. “Free margaritas after the last speaker tonight, and that’s me.”
Spellings then went on to plug No Child Left Behind, but said much more must be done to hold schools accountable for student success.
“It’s hard and we are a long way from doing that,” she said. “But we are well on our way.”
Now the tough part: an hour of questions that are bound to put her on the spot. Several hundred journalists are gathered here at the national Education Writers Association conference in Los Angeles.
Susan Simpson
Higher Education Reporter
