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The problem with Jay Mathews' defense ( "Measuring Progress At Shaw With More Than Numbers" ) of a Washington, DC school principal who did not demonstrate student learning gains at his school after one year is that the principal operates within an accountability system that demands such a result. In this case, both Mathews -- and DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, as described in Mathews' WP column -- are right not to have lowered the boom on Brian Betts, principal of the DC's Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson, based on a single year's worth of test scores. The state superintendent of education's Web site says Shaw dropped from 38.6 to 30.5 in the percentage of students scoring at least proficient in reading, and from 32.7 to 29.2 in math. But those were not the numbers Rhee read to Betts over the phone. Only 17 percent of Shaw's 2009 students had attended the school in 2008, distorting the official test score comparisons. Rhee instead recit

Apart from being marginally good local politics to require city employees (including teachers) to live within city boundaries, why would an urban district create barriers that make it more difficult to attract the highly effective teachers that it needs? Ask Chicago and Milwaukee . (Boston, too, has a residency requirement for city employees, but it excludes teachers.) Any others out there we should be aware of? From the Chicago Tribune (9/11/2009): The city, for its part, maintains that teachers should be contributing to the tax base that funds their schools, among other reasons. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (1/24/2008): The residency rule has been controversial for years. Some say it is unfair and MPS needs good teachers too much to restrict the pool of possible teachers. Others say it doesn't actually have much effect on who teaches overall and it's good for the city to have employees live within the city line. Efforts in the state Legislature to repeal the residen

Efforts are underway to simplify the complex, byzantine system we've created to administer financial aid, and it's about time. Streamlining the process holds promise-- take a look at the recent H&R Block study if you have any doubt. Where policymakers are starting, by reducing the complexity of the application, is a good place to begin, but we could do more. There are some basic facts about individual decision-making which are neglected in the design of the current system-- and remedying those oversights could go a long way towards enhancing participation. I don't want to argue over who figured out first that humans aren't highly rational beings. Maybe it was the behavioral economists, maybe the psychologists, maybe the sociologists. In any case, it's clear that we tend towards inertia, confusion over too many choices, and that we're highly influenced by what those around us do. And as Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein nicely articulate, the right kind of

The Musical Elective of the Month is 7 Worlds Collide: The Sun Came Out . Neil Finn is one of the great, under-appreciated singer/songwriters of the last 30 years. A New Zealand native, Neil came of age and then into the musical forefront through the one-of-a-kind New Wave band Split Enz , founded and fronted by his older brother Tim. He penned and sang the band's biggest #1 hit (in Canada, Australia and New Zealand), 1980's "I Got You." He went on to form Crowded House (1985-1996), fashioning it into an internationally renowned band ( re-formed in 2006) and a frequent visitor to critic's 'best of' lists, with hits including "Don't Dream It's Over," "Something So Strong," "Weather With You," and "Distant Sun." And Neil has recorded solo albums in 1998 and 2002 and two albums , in 1995 and 2004, with his brother under the moniker The Finn Brothers . It has been eight years since Neil's first 7 Worlds

New research led by Tony Milanowski of the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides more evidence that increasing teacher pay may not be the best approach to attract new teachers to high-need, hard-to-staff urban schools. A key finding of the study -- published in the International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership -- which explored job factors important to pre-service educators was that " working conditions factors , especially principal support, had more influence on simulated job choice than pay level." 'Policy implications' include: "[M]oney might be better spent to attract, retain, or train better principals than to provide higher beginning salaries to teachers in schools with high-poverty or a high proportion of students of color." "[I]nduction programs and curricular flexibility are important to new teachers. The finding that induction programs are attractive, combined with evidence that such programs can be effective in reducing tea

Given the recent spate of federally-funded studies showing no effect of a variety of educational innovations and interventions, my predicted answer to the question ('Can Teachers' Talent Translate Elsewhere?') posed in this Houston Chronicle story is "no." I worry, however, that the basic premise of the federally funded Talent Transfer Initiative is faulty and builds upon the notion of teaching (as reinforced by popular culture) as an individual rather than as a collective pursuit. Can 'superteachers' walk into dysfunctional school cultures and work magic that can result in a quantifiable impact on student learning? Some surely can. (It's too bad we can't clone Jamie Escalante and Frank McCourt, isn't it?) More important to ask is, should we expect them to? What is more desperately needed than an expensive scheme to redistribute 'superteachers' is a serious attention to teaching and learning conditions . My New Teacher Center coll

Today the U.S. House of Representatives voted 253 to 171 to pass the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act. It knocks private lenders out of the student loan business, and uses the savings to make transformational investments in the nation's community colleges, as well as increase the Pell grant. Some, including La Guardia Community College president Gail Mellow, have called this the most important piece of higher education legislation since the G.I. Bill. Let's hope the Senate soon follows on the House's class act! (at least the House had at least 1 class act this week...)

A quick update on the proposed legislation affecting community colleges-- HR 3221. Today, an online JAM in support of the American Graduation Initiative took place, drawing a virtual crowd of around 400 folks. Lots of good discussion happened, especially about issues of how to make the competitive grant process work well without leaving the more disadvantaged colleges behind, and questions about that required match for the construction funds. Even more exciting, the House of Representatives is poised to take a full floor vote tomorrow, after the rule governing floor debate passed , 241-149. The Senate is expected to begin taking action next week. Stay tuned...

Doug Harris and I are seeking a Project Manager for our ongoing study of financial aid, the Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study . This person will help us with administrative tasks (e.g. handling travel and meeting planning) but also become involved in the daily work of the interviewing portion of the study, and have a chance to learn alot about the research process. The position is based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and you should learn more and apply by clicking here . Thanks! Sara

With the President imploring more Americans to go to college and not give up on themselves or their nation, it's understandable that many policymakers want to join in and do their part. Making college more affordable is a very good place to start. And free tuition-- heck, free anything--sounds great, especially in a recession. Free tuition provided without changes to the state's operating budget or cuts to any other programs, or by digging a deeper deficit, sounds even better. That's probably why Michigan state representative Fred Durhal Jr. thinks he's got a good thing going, proposing to use a new lottery and casino profits to provide free tuition to more than 160,000 students. It's a win-win right? Says Durhal, "You can feel a little better about losing money to the house if you know it's going to go to children." Except that the money you are losing is being taken from your own children, and given to someone else's. And, since only stude

Some members of the media are covering the release of a new Canadian study , associated with the Educational Policy Institute , that examines the effects of a financial aid program on college-going and completion among low-income students. Researchers at the Measuring the Effectiveness of Study Aid Project tried to isolate those effects by examining what happened following a change in student aid policy in Quebec that increase aid eligibility and decreased reliance on loans. By comparing student outcomes both before and after the policy change, and comparing the outcomes of similar student in Quebec to those in other provinces (where such reforms did not occur), analysts attempted to establish a causal effect of aid. They conclude that the policy affected access (increasing overall enrollment among students from families making less than $20K per year by 4-6 percentage points), and persistence (increasing retention rates by 6 percentage points) but did not affect graduation rates--

At first glance, one might dismiss a recent policy brief authored by a former Bush Administration official as a partisan diatribe against the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Obama Administration. After all, a chief conclusion of the brief authored for the American Enterprise Institute by Andy Smarick (former Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Spellings-era Education Department and in 'W's White House with the Domestic Policy Council), is: "It appears all but certain that the ARRA’s $75 billion in formula-based education programs are a lost cause for education reform. These funds have been used almost exclusively to fill budget holes, and cash-strapped states and districts will likely use what remains of these funds for similar, reform-averse purposes." Abandon all hope (for reform) ye who enter here! That quoted summary language in the paper *is* perhaps a bit over the top. A "lost cause"? Really? And that's certainly been the tak

For several years researchers have debated the relative merits of public community colleges vs. 2 year for-profit schools, in part because the latter are deemed a relevant comparison group for the former-- they share some of the same students, offer the same kinds of degrees, etc. These comparisons have become part of the basis for assessing whether there is a "community college penalty" -- a negative effect of choosing that kind of school over an alternative. The basic numbers certainly seem damning. For example, according to a study by Ann Person and Jim Rosenbaum, among students starting college as part of the Beginning Postsecondary Study in 1995-1996, 42% of those attending a 2-year proprietary completed an associate's degree or higher within 3 years, compared to just 8% of those who began in community colleges. Of course, those differences in outcomes could be attributable to many things aside from institutional practices--and therefore the same authors have al

A spate of recent articles, including those covering Bill Bowen and Mike McPherson's new book (which I promise to review just as soon as my copy arrives), have left me a bit perplexed-- wondering aloud "where have you all been?" The punchline each time is that a fair proportion of adults starting college are not finishing. Yes, and duh. This is not new, and if it's news well I guess it's only because we've deliberately kept our heads in the sand. But there's no way that folks like New York Times reporter David Leonhardt have been deliberately oblivious, and yet he's writing about low college completion rates as if they've just been unearthed. In a recent blog post , Kevin Carey implied the same-- just as he did in a recent American Enterprise Institute report . But this has been a prominent topic of discussion for years--maybe a decade plus! Just look at Kevin's own 2004 report A Matter of Degrees (which received plenty of media covera

Sunday's New York Times features a Style section article that quite frankly turned my stomach (at least, I'm pretty sure it was the article and not the 6 month old fetus I'm carrying!). It describes a debate over Harvard's decision to sign on to a new, expensive preppy clothing line-- one that charges more than $150 for a shirt, and up to $500 for a sports coat. A variety of opinions are represented, from that of the director of admissions and financial aid ( a former aid recipient himself) to an undergraduate who said, “I think it’s good that it’s [Harvard's] doing something to make money." These deals apparently generate about $500,000 per year for the university, which (poor baby) saw its endowment decline by 30% last year. And that money goes to financial aid, so we're not supposed to worry that Harvard's being greedy. And that's the main issue the reporter tackles--whether the decision to say yes to a clothing line that portrays an elite und