How to fix education in the US: A new approach Steve Kirsch

How to fix education in
the US:
A new approach
Steve Kirsch
stk@propel.com
This presentation is available on the web at:
http://www.skirsch.com/presentations/education.ppt
Agenda
• Why we need dramatic change
• Why existing reforms have not worked
• A new approach
• How you can help
’95 TIMSS results
42 countries
Education is broken
• Huge room for improvement
- It’s not diversity: our kids start out being among the best in the
world and slip to last by 12th grade; we beat South Africa, Cyprus
- Even our top schools need major help: our top 10% =
Singapore’s bottom 15%
- High urban HS dropout rates: 50% in NYC; 53% in Houston
- Serious teacher shortages. >50% of 92,000 principals will retire or
quit in the next 5 years.
• We are not getting any better
- Net negative progress on our own National Education Goals
- Gephardt: US Government analysis shows virtually all federal
education programs were ineffective
- Only a few state programs work: Connecticut teacher quality
- Local control/competition doesn’t work. Charters are no better.
- We can’t even agree on how to measure “success.” Very political.
Even experts fooled by test results rhetoric; “Texas Miracle”
- We need MAJOR reform, but get piecemeal bills (federal/state)
Agenda
• Why we need dramatic change
• Why existing reforms have not worked
• A new approach
• How you can help
Why existing reforms
have not worked
• They enable, but do not ensure success (Goals 2000)
• They lack guidance for schools on proven ways for how to improve
(Goals 2000) and/or suffer from Catch-22 (“Rewards for Results”)
• There is no scale. We have limited funds, but no efficiencies with 50+
different standards and over 30,000 local school districts (LSDs).
• They attack small pieces of the problem
- No legislation requires all the key components for success
• They are not tested and proven on a small scale before being
implemented nationally
- We create programs we think should work, when
we should just be
copying what works in other countries, e.g., Cambridge Assessments,
national standards, …
- We incentivize programs such as SFA despite a complete lack of credible
data showing it has impact; we are not rigorous enough
- We experiment on our kids! Our intentions are good, but our outcomes
are unpredictable, e.g., Texas TAAS v. TASP, CSRD
• We will never know if we are successful because we have no national
standards or assessments
Texas had state/local control…
imagine what a focus on testing
can do for the rest of the country!
Agenda
• Why we need dramatic change
• Why existing reforms have not worked
• A new approach
• How you can help
What do we need to do?
• We have a huge gap to bridge
• This requires dramatic change:
- Understand why we have failed in the past
- Avoid those mistakes
- Realize that this is a federal problem: the states have
had their chance for over 200 years, yet no state
“stands out” of the pack (NAEP). State/local control can
make things dramatically worse, e.g., Texas’ results on
TASP.
- Understand why other countries have succeeded and
adopt “best practices” of top performing countries.
Copying first to get to parity, innovating later.
- Have the leadership and courage to do things
dramatically differently than we are today
- Create a vision and a believable strategy based on
what has proven to work
The vision
All students in the USA receive the
best K-12 education in the world
TIMSS
12th grade
4th grade
The big idea
• In aviation, a pilot uses an extensive proven
checklist to ensure a safe flight…
Why not offer a substantial on-going cash
incentive to enable schools to pass a proven
checklist of statistically proven replicable
requirements that ensures a quality
education?
Why don’t we run schools
like airlines?
A. Airlines governed by national safety standards
(not set by airlines!)
B. All pilots are qualified and certified to fly the plane
type (no unqualified substitutes allowed!)
C. On-going pilot training
D. Pilots who don’t perform can be fired
E. Planes that don’t meet code can’t be used
F. Pilots free to determine how to fly the plane, but
not the destination
G. Require pilots to go through a proven safety
checklist (that ensures a successful flight) before
takeoff
Strategy:
“Obey-Porter on steroids”
• Provide substantial on-going cash incentives to
individual schools only if ALL key components are
either committed to or “in place” and “working”
• This is essentially an “improved” Obey-Porter/CSRD:
- All schools eligible (not just Title 1 or 3,000 schools)
- Big incentive ($1K/pupil minimum; >$2K/pupil for low
performing schools)
- $ incentive phases for adoption, implementation, gains
- Startup and on-going support (not limited to first 3 yrs)
- Funding sustained only if high performance sustained
- More comprehensive: ensures ALL key pieces
-More rigorous: Like FDA, require components to be
approved by a non-partisan panel of experts
Components must prove a high level of efficacy
School test results must be interpreted by experts
Five key components
necessary for improvement
A proven whole
school design
Learning environment
Ready to learn,
Class size
Pre-K program
Single national
Stable funding
standard and
assessment;
Choice of curricula
and materials
(all aligned)
Teaching effectiveness
Principal/teacher pay based on performance,
ability to easily assign/fire teachers/staff,
differential pay in certain geographic/subject areas,
on-going professional development
What happens if the key
components are in place?
NCEE “America’s Choice” in public schools
only 12 months into implementation (of 60)
Area
Plainfield, NJ
Rochester, NY
Duval County, FL
Improvement
63%
105%
69%
Pass rate improvement on state exams measured by CPRE
National Standards
• “Copy first to get to parity. Innovate later.”
• George H.W. Bush called for National Standards in ‘91! As has
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Sen. Bingaman since the early 90’s. It’s time to heed the call.
We have national standards for food/drugs, airline/auto safety,
environment, but not education!?!
We are the only country in the world with >1 standard
We have over 50 education standards in the USA; Nebraska
alone has 6 different standards! Why? Who is leading this?
Result is smaller states get the poorest materials!
We have a mobile economy. People move all the time
throughout the US. Kids shouldn’t have their education
disrupted.
We are wasting time. Agree on one existing standard and one
assessment now. Focus on optimizing curricula and materials.
Two excellent stds/assessment options: NCEE’s (done in
collaboration w/22 states) or Singapore’s. Any better choices?
Top state experts want
you to take action
“This is a good idea that should be very
seriously considered.”
– Reed Hastings
President, California State Board of Education
“This approach makes total sense. You
have my support.”
– Delaine Eastin
California State Superintendent of Public Instruction
“This
is a comprehensive approach that
has a high probability of success.”
– Ted Lempert
Former chair, Joint Committee on Master Plan for Education in California
Additional benefits of
proposed legislation
• Decrease bureaucracy and cost
• Increase speed of implementation
• Increase choice
• Increase local control
• Increase standards
• Increase accountability
• Increase predictability
• Better performance/outcomes
Financing the plan
• Stats: 40M kids; 105,000 schools; 30,000 LSDs;
Obey-Porter participation is 2% after 4 yrs
• Assuming $1.2K/pupil (average)
- @ 2% participation: under $1B/yr
- Worst case (100% participation): $40B/year
• Sources of funds
- Bush has said that education is the #1 priority for
America
- $1.3 trillion tax cut came from the “surplus” from
money “left over after we funded our priorities.”
Agenda
• Why we need dramatic change
• Why existing reforms have not worked
• A new approach
• How you can help
Summary
• All our schools need major help
- A national disaster relative to what is possible. We can’t
even make positive progress against our own goals!
• Federal problem
- States have had >200 years to solve the problem, but
things are getting worse. No country has achieved
international parity without national standards.
• Incentivize only what has proven to work consistently
- It’s time to copy what other countries have done and we
have already proven works in schools throughout the US
• An “improved” Obey-Porter bill can ensure success
- NCEE’s “America’s Choice” hints at what is possible if all
key components are in place
• We will work w/you to draft legislation/mobilize support
Your advice?
• Objections/ideas/feedback/suggestions?
• What do we need to do to get your support?
• Would you potentially co-sponsor a bill like this?
• Are you/others ready to take a stand?
- Change will not happen without federal leadership.
Example: NEA membership is split on key issues
(national standards), so you must make the call. If you
are happy with the status quo, vote to maintain it.
• Is there a better, more credible plan to get to
international parity?
• How should we approach national standards? Pass
a toothless standard or incorporate into this bill?
Backup slides
Education is seriously
broken
• TIMSS shows America ranks in virtually last place
on an international scale
- Our diversity isn’t the cause because
4th graders do just fine
Schools/states with more homogeneous populations do no
better than schools/states with diverse populations
- It isn’t limited to math and science; the reasons we are
behind are independent of the subject
• Zero to negative progress on our own National
Education goals
• Charters/choice isn’t the answer: Charters have
mixed results and in Texas, they are uniformly
worse
The solution is both
simple and obvious
• If you want to get to international parity, study
the successful countries and COPY WHAT
WORKS (adopting to the US if required)
• For example, this is precisely the approach
NCEE took (11 years)
Legislative approach:
Obey-Porter on steroids
• If you pass the checklist each year, you get
$2K per year per student
Year 1
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All schools eligible
Components must be proven to be effective AND scalable (certify by OERI)
All components must be present
A checklist to ENSURE
success: Sample items
• Align standards, curriculum, assessments
- Adopting national standards is the simplest and a
superior way to achieve alignment
- Adopt best practices for standards, curriculum,
assessments
• Whole school design including professional
development, e.g., NCEE’s America’s Choice
• We must run education like a business; you can’t
hold people accountable if you don’t give them the
responsibility and authority
- Principals must be able to fire teachers
- Teacher pay should be based on job performance
Desired outcome
• To inform
- To share with you a new comprehensive approach to
revolutionize education in the US
- To create awareness of our plans to make it happen
• To convince
- We must take dramatic action now at the federal level
- That if we take action now, we can be #1 in 10 years
• To listen
- Your advice?
- What do we need to do to get your support?
- Who is interested in getting more involved today?
About me
• Founder of 4 high tech companies
-Propel, Infoseek, Frame, Mouse. High profile investors.
-Red Herring: “Top 10 Entrepreneurs of 2000”
-San Jose Magazine: “The Power 100 of Silicon Valley”
• Motivation: enlightened self-interest, 2 kids
-$50M Kirsch Foundation: environment, world safety, medicine
-Worth: “100 Most Generous Americans”
-NSFRE: “Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year”
-Tech Museum: “Inspiration Award”
-Junior Achievement: “Hall of Fame”
-City of Sunnyvale: “Heart of Silicon Valley Award”
-Aspen Institute: Crown Fellow
What makes you an
expert on education?
• I don’t think I am an expert in education. I am one of
the top rated entrepreneurs in the country so I can
tell you about how to improve and how to innovate.
• I’m unbiased. I don’t have a vested interested in any
education approach. I’ve attended numerous
educational conferences and listened for stories of
what works.
• I know how to interpret data: I’m one of the few
people in the world who can explain the “conflict” in
the RAND papers.
• You don’t have to believe me. Is there a better
approach that is more likely than my approach to
achieve international parity? My interest is in the
best solution for America, not pushing my own
agenda!
Interesting facts
• Schools avg 42 yrs old. $127B needed to bring schools into
code compliance.
• There are more librarians working in prison libraries than in
public school libraries
• In many schools, janitors are paid more than the teachers
(and the school principal can’t tell the janitor what to do or
fire them)
• Local control has gone wild with little to show for it:
- In California, there are 988 independent school districts (but only
58 counties). 58% have 2,500 or fewer students. Only 300 have a
web site.
- There are 18 school districts in San Jose, but only 1 in Los
Angeles
• State control is filled with politics
- Number of times in two years that CA Gov Davis has met with the
state Superintendent of Public Instruction: 1
Interesting facts
• California Governor Gray Davis says education is
his top priority. Yet neither he nor his Secretary of
Education were aware of NCEE’s 11 years of
research on what works in other countries. He has
never visited any of the 20 NCEE schools in
California.
• We have no one tracking how well our states are
doing relative to each other on educational
improvement.
-The RAND analysis [Klein, Oct 2000, Tables 1 and 2]
has not been extended to other states even though it is
a trivial calculation (simple subtraction)!
Existing reforms
• Texas TAAS, 1994
-Testing, accountability, local control, high standards, …
enable, but do not ensure success. Scores on all other
exams (including NAEP) were flat to down. A disaster.
• Goals 2000, 1994
- Proved local control doesn’t ensure success
• Obey-Porter (CSRD), 1997
- Provides funds to help pay for the costs of adopting
proven, comprehensive school reform designs
- Read this: http://www.alt-sfa.com/pogrow_kappan2.html
• “No child left behind,” 2001
- May get same negative effects as in TX, GA, SC, NY.
• We are experimenting on our kids. It’s irresponsible!
Is Bush an expert on education?
Is his “track record” real?
• “Texas is one of 2 states with greatest progress on
education”
- Fact: In Feb 2001, NEGP recognized 20 states for
“significant progress” and “high achievement” and Texas
didn’t even make the top 20!
• “Texas minority Students Rank Highest in Math”
- Fact: It’s been that way for over a decade!
• “Bush narrowed the achievement gap”
- Fact: It got wider for Hispanics and Blacks on both
NAEP reading and math (RAND/NAEP)
• “# passing TAAS increased by 51%”
- Fact: TAAS is crap; Every other score (SAT, ACT,
TASP, and NAEP) were all flat to way down in Texas.
“Conflicting” RAND
reports
• “Is it raining outside?” “Yes” and “No” are both correct…it
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depends on whether you are talking about immediately
outside or somewhere in the world. The RAND report
“conflict” is similar.
Both reports were right, but they said the same thing if you
read the fine print. The press never asked the RAND
authors to explain/resolve the conflict. But I did!
RAND (Grissmer): Texas was a top performer from 1990 to
1996… but if you throw out the 1996 4th grade math score,
Texas is average. All NAEP scores are flat since Bush took
office. The 1996 one-time gain was due to the introduction of
high-stakes testing (before Bush took office).
RAND (Klein): Texas showed no gains relative to other
states on NAEP from 1992 to 1998. Achievement gap
widened on NAEP. TAAS is a useless metric.
Bennett/Finn who criticized Klein’s report have never replied
with any data or error that disproved Klein’s report
Lessons from RAND
• We allow politics to get in the way of
interpreting test results; we need an nonpartisan group to define/measure success
• If you attack a peer reviewed paper, attack it
with facts. There has never been a peer
reviewed challenge to either RAND paper.
• We have got to de-politicize testing and the
interpretation of test results!
• Note: Also need to de-politicize dropout rates,
per pupil spending and define these in a
standard way
Bush’s single education
accomplishment
Students in Texas are terrific at taking the TAAS test
• This is useless since THE ONLY SCORES THAT
IMPROVED were the TAAS scores.
• If you have true learning, it shows up everywhere!
• The focus on testing and accountability had an
unfortunate side effect: learning and subject matter
was seriously compromised
• Note: TAAS was instituted before Bush took office
so even if you believe it is successful, he can’t take
“credit” for it
Is the education bill the
answer?
• Unlikely. There is no test case or basis for that belief.
• LDH (Stanford) believes it’s a negative. May achieve
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the same effect as in TX, GA, SC, NY, i.e., it may
make matters MUCH worse!
Silent on 3 of the 8 national education goals
The Bush principles of accountability, local control,
high standards, … do not ensure success. They
ensure nothing. Like Goals 2000. Don’t we ever
learn? Insanity=repeating and expecting diff results.
Can anyone tell me the expected average gain in
NAEP scores as a result of this legislation? If we don’t
know, how do we KNOW it will be positive?
We are experimenting on our kids. This is
irresponsible!
8 National Education Goals
Official Dec ’99 assessment
• Ready to Learn: No way to measure
• HS Completion >90%: No improvement
• Student Achievement: Some improvement
• Teacher Education: Worse.
• 1st in world in Math & Science: Last place.
• Adult Literacy & Lifelong Learning: Worse. % in
adult ed has dropped. Achievement gap widened for
college degree.
• Safe schools: Got worse.
• Parental participation: Hard to measure. No change.
Source: http://www.negp.gov/reports/negp31.pdf
The single best measure:
the dropout rate
• Dropout rate is the single best measure of how we
are doing as a society in educating our students is,
as Leonard P. Ayres wrote in 1909:
-No standard which may be applied to a school system
as a measure of accomplishment is more significant
than that which tells us what proportion of the pupils
who enter the first grade succeed in reaching the final
grade.
• We made ZERO progress in increasing this in the
1990’s
• 50% HS dropout rate in New York City; 43% in LA
• Bush chose Paige, who has almost the worst
dropout rate in the country (53%), for Secty
Education… “No child left behind”?!?!
How? Copy what works!
• If we adopt world-wide best practices, we can
achieve international parity!
• We’ve had 200 years to make our educational
system the best in the world. It’s the worst.
Why? We don’t measure!
• Without national standards, we can’t tell you if
how many schools in the US are performing
at or above international levels.
• We keep making the same mistakes over and
over again.
Five key components
• A comprehensive design/entire-school reform model
- Aligned standards, curriculum, assessments
- Parental involvement
- Ability to customize; support and training
• Teacher/principal quality
- Superior pay to attract the best talent. Ability to fire non-
performers.
- Trained, qualified, and certified to perform their jobs
- On-going professional development
• Environment conducive to learning
- Small class sizes
- Safe. Sanitary. Well maintained.
- Available learning materials: books, library, …
• National standards, curriculum, assessments
• Stable funding
Can this work today?
Yes!
• School Design
- NCEE’s “America’s Choice” (AC) works. AC can set a
high standard for what constitutes a Qualifying Program.
• Teacher/Principal training/pay
- AC teacher training
- Connecticut’s teacher development program
- Raising pay should be straightforward
• Environment
- Should be straightforward
• National standards, curriculums, assessments
- Optional, but highly recommended. Other countries
have done this. We have national standards! We could
adopt AC’s curriculum, assessments nationally.
National Center on
Education and the Economy
• Non-profit. Carnegie funded. Sen. Clinton has
served on Board of Directors
• Spent 11 years and over $50M of charitable
donations to study “best practices” in education in
the top performing countries.
- If you align the standards, curriculum, assessments,
teachers, parents, … and you adopt “best practices” for
each component, you achieve remarkable results
- National standards/curriculum/assessments is how the
top performing countries achieve this alignment. This is
the simplest way, but not the only way.
• Created “America’s Choice” (AC) for use w/CSRD
- Adapted best practices to US market
- Allows for customization: Each AC school is unique
What is NCEE’s
“America’s Choice”?
• Unique goal: ensure all students ready for college
without remediation
• 200 public schools in US use it, doubling every year
• Entire-school design (K-12)
standards, curriculum, assessments
student learning (Planning for Results System)
teacher training (professional development program)
community supports
parent-public involvement
a strong technical assistance program
a design structure for the school staff to implement the
design; schools must hire a “Design Coach”
- provides all materials; no technology required
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More info: http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/catalog/ModelDetails.asp?ModelID=2
AC results
• The worst result
-A 63% improvement in 12 months on a 20%
implemented program
• Now imagine what’s possible
- 100% implementation; 13 years of cumulative
effect.
Legislation components
• A national problem: states failed, so solve at the national level
• We can’t mandate this, but we can incentivize it
• Provide sufficient funding to incentivize and enable a school to:
- Adopt a Qualifying Program for school design
- Adopt the national standards and assessments, and choose one of the
approved national curricula (OK to add state/local requirements on top)
-Pay teachers and principals what they are worth and ensure that they
are trained/qualified and there is on-going professional development
- Provide an environment suitable for learning including small class size
- A substantial majority of faculty must be committed to the program
- Demonstrate achievement of implementation milestones, performance
gains, and sustained high performance (assessments, dropout rate)
- Negotiate a stable funding source from the state
• You only get the incentive if all the pieces are in place/working
• Phased roll out ensures it works w/o unintended consequences
Other components
• Principals must be able to fire teachers (a
generous severance should compensate for
the “school year” cycle of employment)
• Mandatory Kindergarten
• Incorporate components from RAND study:
- Low teacher/pupil ratio; high per pupil
expenditures; adequate resources for teaching;
Pre-K; low teacher turnover stats
Objections
• Experts will not agree. Education is like advertising:
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everyone has an opinion
“States have too much invested in their
bureaucracy, standards, and systems. It’s politically
impossible and expensive for them to change.”
“One size doesn’t fit all; national standards and
curriculum can work in a small country, but it can’t
work in the US because we’re too diverse”
State law changes may be necessary to allow
schools to “opt in” to this program
Current bill tells states: make up your own tests.
This bill would encourage states to use national
tests. That’s confusing leadership.
Overcoming the
objections
• The proposed legislation is essentially a stronger
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version of Obey-Porter. It complements existing
legislation.
May 2001: Georgia state Board of Education
adopted NCEE’s AC for 223 low-performing schools
Public schools all over the US have adopted AC
even without incentives because it can be tailored to
the school and because it works
National standards can work in the US. For
example, NCEE standards work just fine in all
states. NAEP is a de facto national assessment that
is widely accepted. States and local districts can
supplement national standards.
Is there a better plan? What are we waiting for?
Suggestions/Issues
• Too hard to get people to agree/use national
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standards. Instead, leverage current focus on
testing and push “national assessments” (i.e.,
NAEP) instead. That will drive national curriculum
and standards. It’s backwards, but may be much
more politically feasible.
Allocate 35% of incentive to increasing pay?
Allow the schools to decide $$ allocation?
Maybe the key is agreeing on how to objectively
measure success. If everyone agreed on the right
yardstick, models like NCEE would spread on their
own.
Need to take into account reduced standards for
Special Needs students
Is this a good idea?
• Everyone has an opinion. Education is a soft
science to many: 12 experts can give you 12
different points of view on this issue.
• No single expert has all the facts or all the answers.
• In some cases, they have the facts wrong.
• Two ways to get to determine the proper approach
to fixing education:
- Traditional approach: Listen to all the data and try to
put it all together yourself (works for simple issues only)
- Business approach#1: Appoint, using a non-political
process, a small commission of complementary experts
to evaluate this proposal. Listen to their point(s) of view
and decide.
-Business approach #2: Look at all proposed solutions
and pick one w/the greatest chance of meeting the goal
Process
• Draft a strawman summary of the bill
• Get input from leading educators
• Use a non-partisan technique to assemble a small
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panel of experts to critique, refine, and endorse the
bill
Obtain support from 50 major organizations of all
types
Find Democratic and Republican co-sponsors
Focus on coordinated PR
Only a few hundred schools will opt for the
incentive; but as there performance skyrockets,
public will pressure remaining schools to join in
How I can help
• Hired former Washington insider
- Kathleen Moazed, Chief of Staff, International
Relations Committee
• Singular focus
• Outside perspective
• Financial resources
• Coordinating resources and support
-Engage leading educators and legislators in drafting
legislation
• Fund PR efforts
How you can help
• Educate your peers
• Support early, consistently
• Visit an “America’s Choice” school