Thomas B. Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children?

November 1, 2006

The Fordham Report 2006: How Well Are States Educating Our Neediest Children? appraises each state according to thirty indicators across three major categories: student achievement for low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students; achievement trends for these same groups over the last 10-15 years; and the state's track record in implementing bold education reforms. It finds that just eight states can claim even moderate success over the past 15 years at boosting the percentage of their poor or minority students who are at or above proficient in reading, math or science. In addition, most states making significant achievement gains--including California, Delaware, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas--are national leaders in education reform, indicating that solid standards, tough accountability, and greater school choice can yield better classroom results.

View the press release for this report

Contents

Measuring Education Reform & Results--Reform


 

Education Reform

Indicators and Calculations

In his essay, Finn explains the four broad policy objectives that Fordham believes are necessary to boost student achievement, especially for disadvantaged children:

  1. Ensure that all children have access to a broad, content-rich curriculum;
  2. Do standards-based reform right;
  3. Do school choice right; and
  4. Deregulate the education system and reform its governance.

Unfortunately, reformers have made so little progress on the deregulation front that we can't even find reliable data with which to track state policy. We must save that for a future report. For now, we have deployed nine Education Reform indicators grouped into the first three categories above: curricular content, standards-based reform, and school choice.

None of these indicators is perfect-in part because so many of these reforms are in their infancy or not broadly applied across the states. Hence, reliable data are hard to come by. These indicators are likely to change in future reports as stronger data become available. Still, they are reasonable gauges of bold school reform efforts-those that are plausibly linked to gains in student achievement. (See our analysis below.)

 
Calculating Education Reform Grades

We chose to weight three of the nine indicators (one per category) more than the others; these are noted below. Each is a particularly good measure of its respective education reform principle and its available data are especially reliable.

We equated data for each indicator into grades, and then averaged the grades and developed a Grade Point Average for

each state, as a teacher would for students. (We used the same scale for the Student Achievement marks in the appendix.)

 
Curricular Content

Here we measure:

  • The quality of state academic standards (this indicator is double-weighted)
  • The curricular breadth of states' high school graduation tests (if any)
  • The extent of states' embrace of content-rich school models (Core Knowledge and International Baccalaureate)

Together, these are reasonable indicators of whether a state is encouraging its schools to offer all children a broad education-full of rich, challenging academic content across a "liberal arts" curriculum.

State standards are the foundation of all systemic reform efforts; moreover, as aspirational statements of what states hope or expect their students to learn, they're a good clue to state leaders' views of what curriculum is important.

A broad-based graduation test signals to students and schools that all of the subjects of the curriculum are important, not just basic skills in reading and math. (Of course, half the states don't have any graduation test, sending no useful signals to students at all.) We count the number of the following subjects tested: English/language arts, mathematics, science, and history.

A high incidence of Core Knowledge or International Baccalaureate schools demonstrates a welcoming state policy environment for content-rich, rigorous curricula. (No state has an overwhelming number of these schools but some have more than others.)

 
Standards-Based Reform

Here we measure:

  • The degree to which poor and minority students are included in determinations of "Adequate Yearly Progress" under NCLB (this indicator is double-weighted)
  • The rigor of state definitions of "proficiency" in reading and math (compared to NAEP)
  • The degree to which states have aligned their high school exit standards with college entrance requirements

In combination, these measures show whether states are serious about holding their schools to account for the achievement of all students-without playing games or lowering bars-and whether the state is focused on the most critical K-12 outcome: college readiness.

The inclusion or exclusion of poor and minority students in AYP determinations influences the incentives under which schools operate. Some states have learned that they can exclude many students from their accountability system by setting a high "minimum subgroup size" under NCLB. For example, some states set that number at 100, meaning that if a student subgroup (such as African-Americans) has fewer than 100 members in a particular school, that group's performance doesn't count separately toward a school's mark. If schools can make AYP while their poor or minority students perform poorly, they are less likely to focus energy and resources on boosting the achievement of those youngsters. States that are serious about closing the achievement gap also work hard to ensure that every child is counted.

A rigorous definition of proficiency sets a suitably high bar for students and schools, and indicates a state's honesty with its citizens and taxpayers. States that publish results purporting to show almost all students to be "proficient" create a culture of complacency-when in virtually all states, most students could and should be learning much more than they currently are. 

The degree of alignment of high school exit standards with college entrance requirements demonstrates whether states have grounded their entire standards-based reform effort in the expectations of the real world-i.e., getting K-12 graduates ready for what comes next. 

 
School Choice

Here we measure:

  • The percentage of states' public school students who are enrolled in charter schools (this indicator is double-weighted)
  • The degree to which charter schools receive fair funding
  • The availability of various forms of school choice (vouchers, tax credits or deductions, inter-district choice, and dual enrollment)

Together, these reasonably gauge a state's aggressiveness in giving education options to families  and spurring the creation of new, and better, schools.

Charter school market share is a rough indicator of the charter-friendliness of state policy. States with larger market share have given more parents choices and are thus doing more to spur competition within the public school sector.

Fair charter school funding is an important precondition for expanding access to charter schools and enabling their quality. If states really want these new options to succeed, they need to provide the wherewithal.

The incidence of other school choice measures-including private school vouchers, tax credits or deductions for private school expenses, public school choice programs that allow students to transfer between districts, and dual enrollment (high school and college) programs- demonstrates a state's commitment to giving parents a range of options and creating a competitive environment.

 
Results

 

In the category of Education Reform, three states earn honor grades-Arizona, New Mexico, and California-while half receive D's or F's. The national average is a C-. The cellar is occupied by Vermont-once considered an education reform "poster child."

In general, states' strongest performance came in the Standards-Based Reform category, where the average grade is a C and ten states earned B's, undoubtedly showing the pressure of NCLB and close to two decades of state-level attention to this reform strategy. In many cases, however,  the standards and curricular expectations underlying standards-based reform are themselves inadequate, as indicated by states' average grade of C- in curricular content. Most states received their worst marks (D+ on average) for school choice, with thirty-one earning D's or F's; unfortunately, options like charter schools are still scarce in most places. 

 
Does Education Reform Lead to Gains in Achievement?

Perhaps this report's  most interesting finding can be glimpsed in Table 11 (on page 21):  the top ten education reform states all made at least some progress-and in five cases moderate progress-

in boosting the achievement of their poor and minority students over the last decade or so. 

While this is not definitive scientific proof, it does suggest that setting clear, rigorous standards across the academic curriculum, holding schools to account for helping all their students attain those standards, and giving families education options is a winning combination, especially for our most disadvantaged students.

Yet half  the states-including such big population centers as Illinois and Wisconsin-show few signs of life when it comes to these fundamental reforms. Are we to conclude that they're satisfied with their student achievement results? With single-digit (and low teen) percentages of minority students who are reading and doing math proficiently? Are their leaders unable or unwilling to overcome entrenched interests in order to install powerful engines of change? Or is a major push for education reform-and resulting progress in student achievement-just around the corner? Please turn to the state report section to find out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


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