We Must Evaluate Our Educational Policies

The New York City school system needs help. It needs more funds and it needs better policies. This is an old story. For decades, one educational reform after another has been tried without much success – social promotion, holding students back, summer sessions, smaller schools, school-to-career initiatives, programs to combat the dropout rate. Incredibly, there has been no tracking of initiatives, no effort to discover what works and what does not work. As a result, billions have been squandered on well meaning but unsuccessful reform efforts.

No private sector company with as much invested would market its products without diligent research and development. Even such mundane products as razor blades or toilet paper are not marketed before effective evaluation. In our schools, we test the students but not the reforms. Aren’t the policies and programs that affect our children worth the same kind of rigorous analysis as the marketing of corn flakes?

After more than 10 years of landmark litigation led by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), the courts ordered New York State to provide the city school system with an additional annual $5.63 billion for operations to be phased in over a four-year period and an additional $9.179 billion for capital expenses over five years. How do we use these funds so we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past?

Developing a Plan

In order to ensure their best use, the City Council appointed an independent Commission to develop a plan and specific recommendations related to the goals of the CFE decision. I am co-chair of the Commission along with Arthur Levine, president of Columbia University’s Teachers College. The Commission’s Executive Director, Anthony Alvarado, is a former chancellor of the public school system.

The Commission’s first report made recommendations for teacher quality, class size, and the need for accountability for the entire system and for high-need low-performing schools in particular. Now a second report, dealing with a structure for research and accountability, as well as universal prekindergaten and school leadership, has been issued.

The key element of the second report is the need to institute a framework for determining the effectiveness of educational policies. The Commission found that most reforms over the last 30 years have not been targeted at instructional improvement. In short, the classroom got too little attention.

Measuring Success

Taking a page from the private sector, the Commission decided that an infrastructure for research and development was necessary to measure the success of policies going ahead. It proposes a three-part approach to link educational research and practice. The first part is the recommendation for an independent Institute for Research and Accountability, which was put forth in the first report. Two components were added to create an effective research and development structure: Lab Schools and a Lab District within the school system.

In Lab Schools, education experts will develop effective programs, including curricula. Testing of reforms will be done in a range of schools joined together as a Lab District, reporting directly to the Chancellor. The Lab Schools and Lab Districts will work in collaboration with the Institute for Research and Accountability to ensure that reforms and improvements have clear goals and measured success.

We test students
but not reforms

The Commission also believes that early childhood education must be a core component of the system. It recommends a greatly expanded prekindergarten program for three– and four-year-olds to ensure that they get the foundation skills required for learning that will reduce their need for costly remedial education. The program includes full day sessions in communities with high-need and low-performing schools.

Finally, there is the concept of leadership. The Commission feels that principals should ensure that teachers have the ability to carry out their duties effectively. It should be the principals’ responsibility to determine in what areas teachers require additional training and to provide them with such training. The commission recommends that an assessment system be created to screen principal candidates, along with a career ladder for principals that includes salary incentives.

But the linchpin of our recommendations is the linking of programs to a rigorous evaluation process. We must have the capacity to accurately measure our initiatives, replicate those that are effective, and drop those that are not.

The CFE funds present us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to base policies on results, and, in doing so, to regenerate the city’s public school system. Our children’s future depends on our success.

From the New York Amsterdam News
December 1 - 7, 2005