Have we turned the tide of school segregation? In the 1960’s the rise of the Civil Rights Movement spurred massive social change

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MODULE

Seminar in Urban Problems

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University of Memphis Department of Public &

Nonprofit Administration

Euchner & McGovern (2003) Chapter 5 – Education & the

Ladder of Mobility

5

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Education & the Ladder of Mobility

 Common consensus that the public education system in the U.S. is in disrepair – lacks equity in education across schools and poor student achievement outcomes when compared to other countries

 Increased gap between urban and suburban schools during 20th century in achievement level, graduation rates, and per-student spending/funding

 Reform efforts have focused primarily on equity (1950s-1970s) and excellence (1980s-2000s)

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Education & the Ladder of Mobility

What’s the practical relevance?

“Children who attend underperforming urban schools are at a decided disadvantage in

competing for positions in a postindustrial, knowledge-based economy. Absent adequate credentials, individuals are relegated to low-

wage, low-skill jobs with disheartening prospects for upward mobility. ” (p. 188)

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Education & the Ladder of Mobility

What’s the practical relevance?

“[Schools] are also failing to prepare citizens to participate fully in civic life…A core function of

public education is to provide students with the tools to participate in public affairs and

contribute actively to the resolution of issues that affect the larger community, rather than just passively following the preferences of elites who

may or may not be motivated by the best interests of the community ” (p. 188)

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Education & the Ladder of Mobility

 The Council of Great City Schools  76 of the largest urban

public-school systems in the U.S.

 2019-2020 Annual Report

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Origins & Development of Public Education

 No public schooling (taxpayer-funded) during colonial era

 Jacksonian era brought first period of public education reform

 “Common school” ideal – for all children and to be a mix of all children regardless of race, class, or ethnicity to learn same knowledge and to learn from one another  Never included African-Americans to a significant

degree  Large White, Protestant cultural bias in curriculum  Stopped at elementary level

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Origins & Development of Public Education

 Industrial Revolution further divided the rich and the poor, and education was no different – rich White families moved their children away from diverse schools

 Progressive reform movement  Overhaul the education system via abolishing

neighborhood district system that believed was rife with corruption

 Established a bureaucratic model of education delivery, neutral from political influence (ideally)

 Established centralized district system overseen by school board and superintendent and operated by various career civil service employees in various departments

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Origins & Development of Public Education

 Drawbacks to Progressive reform movement  Increased emphasis on “instruction” rather than

“education”  Did not completely isolate political influence  Not all districts had equal level of resources –

urban schools skyrocketed in students without needed level of support

 Not all students received equal level of instruction, education, and support

 Large, bureaucratic model of schools continued; belief was to capitalize on economy of scale

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Origins & Development of Public Education

 Three prominent themes of education reform in post WWII era:  Eliminate racial segregation in public schools  Provide compensatory assistance to

disadvantaged students  Overhaul financing of public schools

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Promoting Equity: School Desegregation

 Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) – afforded of “separate but equal” (segregation) application to schools

 Brown v. Board of Education (1954) – Black children denied equal protection of the laws in segregated schools

 Initial resistance to Brown, particularly large and persistent resistance in the South

 Multiple other Supreme Court decisions and federal intervention were required between Brown and the 1970s to increase desegregation  “White flight” to private schools increased during this

time, particularly in cities  Increased racial imbalance and between urban and

suburban schools

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Promoting Equity: School Desegregation

 “Ironically, the South became the most desegregated region in the U.S. by the 1970s” (p. 198) due to government policy interventions encouraging desegregation (e.g., busing, magnet schools)

 However, voluntary segregation doesn’t often lead to drawing White students to predominantly Black urban public schools

 “Students of color in racially isolated schools are inevitably subjected to gross inequalities in resources and facilities.” (p. 201)

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Promoting Equity: Federal Compensatory Programs

 During desegregation efforts, Johnson’s Great Society also led to other reforms related to education equality  Title IX of the Educational Amendment Act of

1972 – prevented sex discrimination  Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1974 –

reduce language barriers  Education of All Handicapped Children Act of

1975 (amended in 1977 as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, “IDEA”) – provide needed support for all children

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Promoting Equity: Federal Compensatory Programs

 Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 (ESEA)  Targeted federal funds to disadvantaged students to

reduce achievement gap between rich and poor children

 Reauthorized in 2001 as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act – brought attention to continued achievement gap, but had significant flaws

 Reauthorized in 2015 as Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – attempted to address NCLB deficiencies

 NCLB vs. ESSA  Head Start – well known program; mixed

results, particularly long-term

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Promoting Equity: School Finance Reforms

 Great debate – should property taxes be the primary source of financial support for public schools?

 Inequity in funding – poor communities need to have higher property taxes than wealthy communities to obtain equitable education funding levels

 Parents tend to lean towards districts that have the financial means to better support their children as students

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Promoting Equity: School Finance Reforms

 Great debate – should property taxes be the primary source of financial support for public schools?

 Inequity in funding – poor communities need to have higher property taxes than wealthy communities to obtain equitable education funding levels

 Parents tend to lean towards districts that have the financial means to better support their children as students

 School finance reform at the federal level is unlikely due to San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973)

 State-level reform is possible (Serrano v. Priest in CA)

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Conservative Critique of Liberal Reforms

 Conservative scholars and policy-makers increased attention to education policy in the 1980s Reagan era

 Focus was on American students' steady decline in level of academic achievement

 1983 National Commission on Excellence in Education released A Nation at Risk – received widespread public attention to failings of American education system, and still resonates to this day

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The Excellence Movement

 A Nation at Risk suggested academic rigor was “left behind” during equality reforms and multi-level educational bureaucracy was largely to blame

 Excellence Movement emerged to focus on academic performance of students and teachers

 Standardized tests with consequences  Teaching to the test  Pushback from teachers’ unions

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The Excellence Movement

 What’s the best way to train a teacher?  State governments requiring teaching certificates vs.

district-led hiring  States increase accountability on school districts,

can lead to state-run takeovers of the district  Summary of movement – “… the excellence

movement succeeded in stimulating virtually every state to raise academic standards and hold students accountable…. But for many students in middle school and high school, especially those in central cities, there has been little improvement in academic achievement.” (p. 215)

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Critique of Government Control over Schooling

 Attack on education system bureaucracy (i.e., government control) aligns with the 1980/90s New Public Management (NPM) movement throughout public administration

 How did the bureaucracy get so big?  Increase in students = increase in administrators  Demands of various stakeholder groups  Power of teachers’ unions  Nationwide curriculums and standardized testing

 “The superintendent serves more as a manager of separate operations than a vigorous leader who provides vision for teaching and learning.” (p. 219)

 Suggested solution – parents need choice in the schooling of their children

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School Choice: Vouchers

 School vouchers 101 – families receive a political determined sum of money to send child to school (public or private) of their choice  Increased use of such policy tool

 Attack on government monopoly of public education by promoting competition between schools – creates a “free market” for education

 Critique – The Danger Private School Voucher Programs Pose to Civil Rights

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School Choice: Charter Schools

 Charter schools are public-private hybrid  An entity enters a contract (i.e., a charter) with a

government to establish a school and meet certain criteria

 Pubic – open to public, publicly funded, and accountable to taxpayers

 Private – not run by government  Not geography based  Prevalence varies from state to state and has

increased in enrollment but is only around 6% of all public-school students

 Information asymmetry is a concern for both charter schools and school vouchers

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The Future of Urban Education Policy

 Equality of opportunity and academic excellence continue to be the focus of public education reforms

 Debate continues – continue large role of government in public education? Increase private sector role? Increase quasi-governmental control (such as charters)? Controlled choice?

 State examples:  Connecticut – recent 2020 agreement in Sheff v.

O’Neill that increased public funds for magnet schools

 Kentucky – 30 year look at Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990

W W W. A M E R I C A N P R O G R E S S . O R G

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A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education By Ulrich Boser, Perpetual Baffour, and Steph Vela January 2016

A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education By Ulrich Boser, Perpetual Baffour, and Steph Vela January 2016

1 Introduction and summary

6 An education crisis spanning centuries

8 The success of standards-based reform

9 How serious is the nation’s education problem?

13 Recommendations

16 Conclusion

17 About the authors and acknowledgments

18 Endnotes

Contents

1 Center for American Progress | A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education

Introduction and summary

In many ways standards-based school reform is at a crossroads. On one side, the movement has made tremendous strides. The Common Core State Standards Initiative, known simply as Common Core, is now strongly established in more than 40 states.1 Many teachers believe that the new, higher academic standards have helped them improve instruction.2 And, most importantly, a solid body of data demonstrates that the standards-based reform movement has shown success in raising student outcomes.3

In some areas, outcome indicators are on the rise. Over the past two decades, for instance, the number of students of color performing at grade level in reading and math has more than doubled in elementary and middle school.4 Meanwhile, high school graduation rates are the highest they have ever been: 81 percent of the class of 2013 received their diploma within four years.5

But clearly much work remains. Achievement gaps in many subject areas remain large. For example, only 21 percent of low-income fourth-grade students achieved proficiency on the 2015 NAEP reading test compared to 52 percent of nonpoor students.6 And if students of color graduated at the same rate as their white peers, they would receive nearly two hundred thousand more diplomas each year.7

In a way, the question for education advocates boils down to: What’s next? For a few vocal observers, the answer to this question is—surprisingly—anything but standards-based reform. In other words, these observers believe that the standards-based reform effort—and its associated assessments and accountabil- ity efforts—have been a total failure. In a policy memo released last year, Kevin Welner and William Mathis of the National Education Policy Center argued that “we as a nation have devoted enormous amounts of time and money to the focused goal of increasing test scores, and we have almost nothing to show for it.”8

2 Center for American Progress | A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education

Some, such as blogger Anthony Cody, argue that policymakers should not really even focus on raising standards or improving tests or reforming accountability systems. Instead, Cody believes that policy leaders should aim to create a “healthy ecosystem” for students.9 From this perspective, resources would be better invested in improving prenatal care and child nutrition than in reforming public schools.10

One of the most vocal proponents of this view is education historian Diane Ravitch. Although Ravitch was once a leading advocate of national standards, the former U.S. assistant secretary of education has shifted her position dramati- cally in recent years.11 In interviews, Ravitch is adamant that “the current sense of crisis about our nation’s public schools is exaggerated.”12 She criticizes the Common Core as “blind faith in the standardization of tests and curriculum.” 13 Or, as Ravitch argues, “We have a national policy that is a theory based on an assumption grounded in hope.”14

The argument over the scope and nature of the education problem in the United States is particularly important to the political debate over the Common Core. In some parts of the country, there has been a backlash against the standards. For instance, almost 60,000 students in Washington state opted out of Common Core tests.15 In some affluent Washington municipalities more than 90 percent of high schoolers opted out of the math tests.16

Other states, such as Oklahoma, have simply backed out of the standards.17 And for some political leaders, such as former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), the new standards are a classic example of government overreach.18 While others, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), see them as part of a grand conspiracy.19

Part of the reason for the backlash against Common Core is the belief that schools are actually doing pretty well—particularly in affluent areas. In fact, many parents give high grades to the schools in their communities, regardless of the school’s location or background. According to a 2014 PDK/Gallup poll, around 50 per- cent of parents gave their child’s school an A or B grade.20

This sort of optimism about the state of public schools has led some parents to crusade against the new standards, arguing that the Common Core is simply too difficult. “To me we are setting our kids up to fail,” one parent told CNN.21 “The reading passages are three levels above the child’s current grade level.”22

3 Center for American Progress | A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education

To look more deeply at the state of our education system—and the state of stan- dards-based reform—the authors of this report analyzed the latest data from two national assessments: NAEP and the Trial Urban District Assessment, or TUDA.

The NAEP assessment, long known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” was adminis- tered for the first time in 1969.23 NAEP exams in math and reading are given every two years to a random sample of schools and students in each state and almost two dozen urban districts.24

While NAEP assesses student progress at the national and state level, TUDA is used to report the performance of large urban districts.25 The TUDA test was first administered in 2002 and served as a way to “focus attention on urban education” by providing district-level NAEP exams.26 In 2002, there were only six participat- ing urban districts; that number has since increased to 21 districts.

Using data from TUDA and NAEP, this report estimates the absolute number of students at or above proficient for each disaggregated group. We started with the overall percentages of students scoring proficient or above or scoring advanced or above on each NAEP exam in 2015. We then compared these data with estimates of the total school-age population for each group.27 To our knowledge, this is the first time that such an analysis has been done.

Consider, for example, Cleveland, Ohio, where 6 percent of African American stu- dents who took the NAEP eighth-grade math test scored at the proficient level or above. However, only a subset of the district’s students actually took the NAEP. 28 We estimated that, if all the African American students in the district had actually taken the test, 6 percent of the approximately 1,340 such students—or approxi- mately 80 total—would have scored proficient or above.29 For this report, the authors rounded these totals to the nearest ten for the city-specific data because the results were approximations of the exact figure. For the state-level data, we rounded to the nearest hundred, thousand, or tens of thousands.

We looked at proficiency rates for several groups of students, including students of color and students with disabilities. We used these rates to estimate the total number of students in each group that were performing at the proficient or advanced level.

Our research revealed several key findings:

4 Center for American Progress | A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education

Some states and districts are making clear gains

In Massachusetts, the percentage of fourth-graders scoring proficient or above in math jumped from 41 percent in 2003 to 54 percent in 2013.30 In other words, about 7,000 more fourth-graders in Massachusetts are reaching proficiency now than they were 10 years ago.31 In other states, such as Florida, the same rate rose from 31 percent to 42 percent, meaning around 22,000 more fourth-graders are scoring at grade level in math than they were 10 years ago.32

Many districts have also made clear gains. Since 2002, thousands more students of color in the nation’s cities have scored proficient or above on the reading and math NAEP exams.33 In Boston, for instance, nearly 1,000 more Hispanic fourth- and eighth-graders are now proficient in math.34 Similarly, the District of Columbia has also seen about 1,000 more fourth-graders scoring proficient or above in math and reading.35 In Charlotte, at least 2,000 more fourth graders can now do math at grade level.36

The state and local policy environment matters

Many of the cities and states that have embraced standards-based reform have seen clear gains. The District of Columbia, for instance, has been a national leader in the reform movement, and high school graduation rates and other student out- comes have been jumped upwards in the city.37 Or take Charlotte, North Carolina. The district has long been strong on using accountability systems and data-driven decision-making to bolster achievement and narrow achievement gaps.38

Perhaps the best example is Massachusetts, where there is a clear link between the state’s standard-based reform efforts and a large jump in student outcomes.39 Over the past decade, low-income students in the Bay State have seen a 12-point increase in scores on the fourth- and eighth-grade NAEP exams. Today, low- income students in Massachusetts are among the nation’s highest performing.40

While a rigorous analysis of the policy context in each city is far beyond the scope of this report, some reform-oriented areas have shown clear results.

5 Center for American Progress | A Look at the Education Crisis: Tests, Standards, and the Future of American Education

In many locations, students of color and students living in pover ty still have extraordinarily low achievement

According to our analysis, an estimated 120 black students in fourth grade score proficient or above on the NAEP mathematics assessment in Detroit. This is not a misprint: A reliable, high-quality exam shows that just a little more than 100 African American fourth-graders are performing grade-level work in math in the city.41

Students in other cities have similarly low results. In Atlanta, a depressing total of around 60 Hispanic fourth-graders score proficient or above on the reading NAEP exam. The numbers are even worse in Cleveland, where based on our estimates, only some 30 Latino eighth-graders would be considered proficient in math.42

While this report calculated absolute numbers to highlight the dramatic extent of the education problem, the percentage outcomes for each of these cities is just as shocking. In fourth-grade reading, only 13 percent of Hispanic students in Cleveland reached proficiency. In fourth-grade math, only 11 percent of African American students in Atlanta reached proficiency. In Fresno, California, only 7 percent of low-income eighth-graders can read at grade level.43

When it comes to students per forming at the advanced level, outcomes are also rock bottom

In the entire United States, only about 123,000 eighth-graders—or 3 percent— scored at the advance

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