Ed Policy Watch

Happy Thanksgiving from Ed Money Watch

Jennifer Cohen — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:08:00 -0500

Ed Money Watch will be taking the week off in honor of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and gathering friends and family around the table to enjoy them. Check back for new posts on December 1st. Happy Thanksgiving!

Friday News Roundup: Week of November 16-20

Emilie Deans — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:26:00 -0500

At Ed Money Watch, we discuss and analyze major issues affecting education funding. In our Friday News Roundup, we try to highlight interesting stories that might otherwise get overlooked. These stories emphasize how federal and state policy changes can affect local schools and districts.

Alabama Considers Charter Schools in Pursuit of Federal Race to the Top Funds

New York Plans to Reform Teacher Preparation Efforts

Missouri Freezes Higher Education Tuition

Florida Will Request $1 Billion in Federal Race to the Top Funds

Alabama Considers Charter Schools in Pursuit of Federal Race to the Top Funds
As Alabama grapples with a recession that continues to eat away at its education budget, the state is contemplating charter school legislation to increase the state's chances of receiving a slice of the federal Race to the Top (RttT) pie. In the past, Democratic state legislators, backed by the Alabama Education Association, have opposed charter schools. State Representative Max Gipson, a Republican, introduced charter school legislation a few years ago, but the bill never made it out of committee after opponents accused him of trying to re-segregate schools and take money away from traditional public schools. However, with a potential $175 million in federal RttT funds for Alabama, many legislators are re-thinking their stances on charter schools. By enacting charter school legislation, they hope to improve their chances of receiving a large chunk of the competitively awarded RttT funds, which will help them finance K-12 schools overall. More here...

New York Plans to Reform Teacher Preparation Efforts
The New York state Board of Regents this week approved a plan to change the way the state prepares new teachers. The reforms would place more emphasis on classroom experience and streamline the process for professionals in other fields that want to become teachers. Under the new plan, cultural institutions, research centers, and nonprofits would be allowed to certify teachers - a job currently dominated by universities. Bonuses of up to $30,000 would be awarded to teachers in high-demand fields who agree to teach in high-needs schools. The Board of Regents plans to include colleges, teachers unions, and community groups in the planning and implementation of the new plan. More here...

Missouri Freezes Higher Education Tuition
Missouri Governor Jay Nixon this week announced that the state's public four-year colleges and universities will freeze in-state tuition for the second year in a row. The agreement must still be passed by Missouri lawmakers and college and university governing boards, which appears likely. Lawmakers and higher education officials seem to agree that keeping higher education affordable is a priority. The freeze came in response to a decade of annual tuition hikes - averaging 7.5 percent - in Missouri. Though Governor Nixon and higher education officials don't yet know where the 5.2 percent in spending cuts to higher education will come from, they agree that improvements must continue to be made even while cutting costs. Ultimately, Governor Nixon says, keeping higher education affordable will be one step to turning the economy around. More here...

Florida Will Request $1 Billion in Federal Race to the Top Funds
Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith this week announced that the state will likely apply for $1 billion in federal Race to the Top (RttT) funds - nearly one quarter of the overall budget for the competitive grant program. According to guidelines released by the U.S. Department of Education, Florida and two other states are eligible to receive between $350 million and $700 million if they are awarded grants. But states may apply for higher amounts if they believe their proposals warrant it. Union and school district officials are working together on plans to align Florida's system with each of the four reform areas given priority in RttT awards. The reforms will likely include proposing teacher merit pay systems, getting involved in a consortium with other states on student achievement standards and testing, developing more rigorous teacher certification exams, and establishing school reforms like extended school days or year, or expanded full-day pre-K. Because of these plans and existing reforms, the state appears to be well positioned to win a large chunk of federal RttT funds. More here...

Briefly Noted

Kansas regents hold meeting to outline higher education budget issues.

The Proliferation of Federal High School Intervention Programs

Jennifer Cohen — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:58:00 -0500

The dismal state of America's high school graduation rates - less than 75 percent nationally and below 50 percent in some areas - has become a key federal public policy issue in the last decade. Existing federal programs, including TRIO and GEAR UP, already seek to improve high school graduation and college going rates in underserved populations. But recent developments, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, and President Obama's 2010 Budget Request, have brought new high school intervention programs to the table. Are these programs really all that different? And what resources could the federal government commit to these efforts?

TRIO/GEAR UP
TRIO Talent Search, TRIO Upward Bound, and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) are three existing federal programs that attempt to increase high school graduation and college going rates in low-income students through small programs aimed at individual students or groups of students. These programs include out-of-school programs or pull-out sessions during the regular school day, after-school and weekend instruction, tutoring support for core academic subjects and college and financial aid applications, and counseling, mentoring, academic support, and college outreach services.

Research suggests that TRIO/GEAR UP are inadequately funded and contain significant overlap and redundancies. While evaluations favor GEAR UP somewhat, neither program has shown significant benefits. In fiscal year 2009, GEAR UP received just over $313 million and the TRIO programs received $905 million in federal funds. The President's 2010 budget request funded both programs at 2009 levels.

Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) Proposed Programs
The House passed its version of the SAFRA bill in September including a College Access and Completion Innovation Fund and an American Graduation Initiative, both aimed at increasing college going and graduation rates, but not through interventions in high schools. Although the Senate has taken no action on companion legislation, an unofficial Senate version of SAFRA has circulated within the education policy community that contains a new high school program called the Pipeline to College Initiative.

This five-year, $2.5 billion program ($500 million annually) would provide competitive grants to states to improve student achievement and graduation rates and implement various high school reform and improvement systems in schools with particularly low graduation rates. This proposed reform program requires states that receive awards to annually evaluate high schools based on a series of benchmarks to determine whether they are making continuous and substantial progress toward academic goals.

Additionally, under the proposed Pipeline to College Initiative participating states must create early warning indicator and intervention systems for struggling students and distribute grants to local education agencies to implement school improvement programs in failing high schools.

Unlike the TRIO and GEAR UP programs, which are small programs aimed at select students within schools, the Senate Pipeline to College Initiative would use a whole-school approach to high school interventions, seeking to improve the system in which struggling students receive their educations rather than supporting them individually.

President's Budget Request
The President's 2010 Budget Request, and House and Senate 2010 Appropriations bills pending in Congress, all include a new $50 million program called the High School Graduation Initiative that would provide grants directly to local education agencies to run intervention programs for schools and students. Much like the Senate's Pipeline to College Initiative, it would provide funds for the creation of early warning indicators for struggling students and allow for partnerships with outside organizations. The funds could also be used to create comprehensive plans for keeping at-risk students in school or bringing students have dropped out back into the system. The program is meant to provide opportunities to evaluate and learn from new innovative programs at the local level that could later be expanded.

Should Programs Focus on Schools or Students?
The existing and proposed high school programs vary widely in cost ($50 million for the High School Graduation Initiative versus $905 million for TRIO) and more importantly on whether they focus on groups of students or entire schools. While TRIO and GEAR UP provide assistance to groups of students from low income families, the Pipeline to College and High School Graduation Initiative involve reforms at the school level and extensive use of data. Conflicting evidence exists on the successes of GEAR UP and TRIO, so it is unclear if programs directed at groups of students are enough to propel America's high school graduation rates above 75 percent. The new approach envisioned in the Pipeline to College Initiative and the High School Graduation initiative will provide a glimpse into the potential for programs directed at entire schools, not just a handful of students.

Greetings from the Financial Aid Office!

Ed Policy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:30:00 -0500

[Last week, we reported (see here and here) on the fact that some of the student loan industry's most fervent supporters in the financial aid world are potentially putting their schools and students at risk by refusing to take even the initial steps to prepare for a possible shift to direct lending next fall. Since then, we've been wondering how these aid directors would explain their inaction to students. So, after hearing the comments that financial aid administrators and lenders made at last week's Lexington Institute event and on the Finaid-L listserv, we decided to write up a fictional account of how these aid officials might explain themselves. We hope you enjoy it.]

Dear Students,

As you may have heard, we have recently taken action that could potentially disrupt your ability to obtain federal student loans next fall. But we want to assure you that there is absolutely nothing to worry about. Our good friends in the student loan industry have a sure-fire strategy in place to stop any efforts in Washington that would force us to change the way we do business. And for that we're very grateful because we can't imagine doing things any other way.

Here's some background. Last month, we received a letter from U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan urging us to take at least the initial steps to become "Direct Loan-ready" for the 2010-11 academic year. As you may know, the Obama administration has proposed ending the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program in favor of 100 percent direct lending. Under the plan, tens of billions of dollars in savings from making the switch, and eliminating lender subsidies, would be used to provide a substantial boost in spending on Pell Grants, which go to the most financially needy students. This may sound good but it won't help us much because we don't enroll many of those students. In other words, the upper middle income students we predominantly serve will be left out in the cold!

Now it's not exactly clear where this legislation is headed. As of now the measure appears to be stalled in the Senate, where the never-ending health care debate drags on. But even if this bill doesn't go anywhere, we won't be out of the woods. That's because a federal law that has been propping up the FFEL program over the last year and half -- known as ECASLA -- is set to expire in July and neither the Obama administration nor Congressional Democrats want to extend it. If lenders can't get access to government financing to make federal student loans, the FFEL program will be sunk. At least that's the excuse Secretary Duncan is giving us for why we need to be prepared to flip the switch. But we told him to take a hike. That's a lot of nerve, telling us how to run a federal program that benefits students.

You see we used to be in the Direct Loan program more than a dozen years ago, and the program ran into some administrative difficulties. At the same time, Republican Congressional leaders tried to kill direct lending, and when that failed, they did everything they could to put it at a competitive disadvantage to FFEL, including preventing the U.S Department of Education from being able to market the program to schools and preserving generous subsidies for lenders that they used to woo financial aid offices like ours. So it is not surprising that we had lenders literally banging down our doors each week trying to convince us to switch back to FFEL. Some of the offers they made were just too good to pass up, and they are worth holding out for despite what the Obama administration says! [Enough said about that. We don't want to get into any details just in case that jerk Cuomo gets hold of this letter -- no offense intended, of course, Mr. Attorney General.]

Yes, we know that some of our colleagues in the financial aid world have made the switch to direct lending and say that it went much more smoothly than they had imagined. The problems we experienced a dozen years ago have long since been fixed, they say, and in fact are ancient history. But do we really want to take that risk? Our lender friends -- at least those that in the student loan business because of the help they received as a result of ECASLA -- say we shouldn't. Because after all, what has the government ever done right?

So please don't be worried about your loans because there's really no need for concern. Our friends in the loan industry assure us that they can spread enough fear and confusion on Capitol Hill to convince Congress that a switch to 100 percent direct lending would lead to a catastrophic breakdown. But in order to help them, we must do our part. If enough colleges like us dig in their heels, and refuse to take even the most rudimentary steps to prepare, we may be able to help lenders scare lawmakers away from enacting any real student loan reform and maybe even get them to extend ECASLA for another year.

So have no fear. This is definitely a gamble worth taking. Because if there's anything the loan industry does well, it's spreading fear and confusion. What else do you think they hire those high-priced lobbying and communication firms to do?

Sincerely,

Your trusty financial aid director

Duncan: Early Ed Can Get Schools Out of 'The Catch-Up Business'

Lisa Guernsey — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:37:00 -0500

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan presented the fullest picture yet of his vision for a birth-to-8 education system in remarks yesterday at the opening of the annual meeting of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

In a wide-ranging speech that emphasized the importance of "raising the bar" on the quality of early learning environments, Duncan said that early childhood advocates now face two challenges. One, he said, is the need for better transitions and "follow through" between pre-K and the K-12 years. The other is what he sees as a necessary shift in thinking about how to measure quality -- moving from "inputs" like teacher qualifications and child-to-staff ratios to "outcomes" that indicate whether children are developing and learning well.

Duncan praised the NAEYC, the nation's largest membership organization of preschools, child care centers, kindergartens and public elementary schools, for its insistence that to close the achievement gap, we must prevent the gap through high-quality early learning experiences.

"I want our schools to get out of the catch-up business," he said. "To prevent the gap," he continued, "we must be ready to dramatically improve outcomes for our children."

Later in his speech he provided more context for how he might define "outcomes," noting that measures of "school readiness have historically been treated as if they are apart from a child's social and emotional development." Today, he said, "We recognize that a child's ability to engage in self-regulation and cooperative play are critical to school readiness success ... It's time to recognize that they are inextricably linked."

Duncan did not address how those outcomes might be measured and used. Here at Early Ed Watch we see this question as critical and expect to be digging into it over the coming year. We agree that without indicators of children's progress - without measures of "outcomes" - we will never have a full enough picture of how well an early learning environment is meeting their needs.

We also agree with the need for "follow through" into the K-12 years. His remarks regarding the need for "better transitions" were especially encouraging.

"The best early learning system is of little use," he said, if a child ends up in "an inadequate or lousy elementary school." He added: "We cannot diminish the importance of K-12 reform."

As longtime readers of this blog know, we strongly support PreK-3^rd strategies that align curricula, standards and assessments from pre-K to kindergarten and on up through the third grade. Instead of educators focusing on the divide between early childhood community and the K-12 world, children would be far better served by a system that makes no distinctions, providing children with rich instruction, content knowledge and social interactions that are aligned and build on each other throughout each year of their early lives.

Duncan briefly mentioned the prospect of new public funding for early education in the proposed Early Learning Challenge Grants, the Race to the Top initiative and the Investing in Innovation, or i3, Fund. He also spoke about the Education Department's relationship with the Department of Health and Human Services (which administers Head Start). He said he sees a "new sense of partnership" between the two agencies, adding that Jacqueline Jones, senior advisor for early learning in the Ed Department, and Joan Lombardi, deputy assistant secretary of the HHS's Administration for Children and Families, work together daily.

The secretary also gave voice to some of the obstacles to creating high-quality environments by describing what he called the "iron triangle" that affects publicly funded preschools and child care centers. On one side, providers are being asked to open more slots for more children, otherwise known as "increasing access." On another side, providers are being asked to "boost quality," by paying higher salaries that attract more qualified teachers and investing in professional development. And on the third side, they are being asked to cut costs and show savings.

He did not offer step-by-step guidance on how to break free of this iron triangle, but he did commend several states for making progress. He singled out Oklahoma for "showing it's possible" and praised Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey for being leaders in building high-quality early learning systems. He also singled out the Harlem Children Zone and the CLASS observational assessment developed by Robert Pianta at the University of Virginia.

Nor did Duncan's speech answer the toughest questions in early childhood -- such as how to improve teacher compensation, how to do appropriate assessments and how to use assessment data, and where states should look for sustainable funding streams. But he was interrupted by applause throughout his remarks and the audience of thousands -- sitting amid rows and rows of chairs in the cavernous Washington Convention Center -- gave him a standing ovation. As the NAEYC meeting goes into full swing over the next several days it will be interesting to see how preschool teachers digest the many details in his speech. We'll keep our eyes and ears open, and we encourage you in the blog comments below to give us your take on Duncan's vision.

UPDATE 11/19 1:35 PM: The full text of Duncan's remarks is now available on the Ed Dept web site, and J.M. Holland over at Inside Pre-K has posted an audio recording.

ECACs: The Next Step in Systems-Building

Christina Satkowski — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:24:00 -0500

Over the past several months, I have spent a lot of time talking to early childhood stakeholders about collaboration, and today the Early Education Initiative is releasing a policy brief based on that reporting. "The Next Step in Systems-Building: Early Childhood Advisory Councils and Federal Efforts to Promote Policy Alignment in Early Childhood." It provides a status report on all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

You'd think that sharing information and working together nicely would be second nature to leaders in early childhood policy. After all, it is something they teach in kindergarten. But in practice, collaboration -- or more specifically, policy alignment -- is more than just a matter of making sure everyone knows what everyone is doing and playing nicely. It takes hard work.

What makes policy alignment so hard? Government programs serving young children and their families are spread across departments of education, health and welfare. Non-profit organizations and private childcare providers also play a significant role in caring for and improving the lives of young children. The result is a tangled web of avoidable dysfunction. Low-income parents may not know that their children are eligible for Medicaid or Head Start, kindergarten teachers are given no information on the background of their incoming students, providers file redundant paperwork for different agencies, and the list goes on.

In recent years, several states have taken steps to address this issue by bringing policymakers and stakeholders together in early learning councils and having them, as a group, outline aligned policy objectives across multiple fields and ultimately create a high-functioning system of early childhood services. Based on the success of councils places like Illinois and Pennsylvania, Congress mandated that every state designate a State Early Childhood Advisory Council (ECAC) as part of the Head Start Reauthorization passed in December 2007.

After floundering for a year, ECACs are suddenly attracting new attention in Washington and in state capitols. Through the stimulus, ECACs finally received promised funding - ranging from $500,000 to more than $10.6 million per state, depending on size. ECACs also play a central role in the proposed Early Learning Challenge Grants legislation that is expected to be taken up by the Senate in the coming months. ECACs are being positioned to play a major role in early childhood policy, but what do we know about them?

First, the good news: States are making good progress on developing their ECACs, with much of the activity taking place this fall. In fact, many states already had something close to an ECAC in place in 2007 when the Head Start law was reauthorized. These states are being re-energized by the new federal guidelines, which is helping them fine-tune their council's structure and vision, individuals close to the process tell me. Of course, the funding is a big boost too, as many states had no funding at all for their ECACs. More importantly, several states are creating ECACs for the first time, finally bringing together relevant stakeholders to build an early childhood system in their state. (See the report for a state-by-state breakdown of ECAC development and funding). I was especially impressed by those states that were able to get multiple stakeholders together on an email chain or on a conference call with me - having this kind of natural communication network is an important first step.

But don't get your hopes up yet. In many states, the men and women I talked to had a story to tell about similar councils that started a few years back and showed so much promise but became effectively defunct because they lost funding or suffered from turnover in a state's governorship. Most states also receive grants from the five other federal programs that promote early childhood systems-building (such as the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative) but these programs have not been a uniform success. In a couple of isolated cases I was told of some real tension (such turf wars) between key individuals or organizations involved in early childhood policy. And sometimes, officials were not well-informed about the roles they are supposed to play. In reporting this paper, I came across people who were obvious potential members for their state's council, even people who are required to be on the council, but who were first hearing about it from me.

This time around, we should see these councils making a greater difference. Because of higher-level membership requirements -- as well as the requirement that the states develop a plan to be submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human services -- ECACs are more likely to create a comprehensive system-building plan and will have the right people at the table to make sure it happens. Plus, the federal funding commitments give them a buffer against cyclical state budgets. Yet there is also a risk that ECACs could go the way of the several attempts at policy alignment that came before them. This means those states that are already ahead on the policy alignment front could emerge as winners, in a better position to win competitive federal grants, while those states that are just starting their system-building process could falter once again. Of particular concern is South Dakota, which has officially decided not establish an ECAC due to insufficient state funds.

The convenings, discussions and decisions that will determine the vitality of ECACs are happening right now, and new information about ECACs can be found every week. As states work to finalize their applications for federal ECAC funding by the August 1, 2010 deadline, we have 10 recommendations for state and federal policymakers to make sure that ECACs can live up to their promise to power a vision for effective early childhood systems. Read those recommendations and the full report here.

Comparing House and Senate School Facilities Programs in the Student Loan Bill

Jennifer Cohen — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:31:00 -0500

In July we analyzed funding for K-12 school facilities in the student loan reform bill, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, as passed by the House Education and Labor Committee. The full House passed the bill in September and preserved the $2.0 billion per year school repair program. Although the Senate has not yet acted on a similar student loan reform bill, a version drafted by the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee was leaked a couple of months ago. The leaked bill suggests the Senate is headed in a different direction than the House when it comes to funding school facilities construction.

Both of these pieces of legislation provide a glimpse into the federal government's first major foray into directly funding K-12 school facilities and neither propose an insignificant amount of money. The most striking difference between the two versions is that the House includes a two-year, formula-based investment in K-12 school facilities, and the Senate bill creates a five year competitive program for K-12 school repair, renovation, and construction.

The House bill distributes funds for repair, renovation, and modernization among states and school districts according to each state and district's share of total federal Title I dollars. This means that every school district in the nation that receives Title I funds will receive some share of its state's school facilities funds after the state withholds up to 1 percent for administrative purposes.

Unfortunately, the House bill spreads just over $2.0 billion in each year over more than 13,000 eligible school districts. In the end, it's likely to amount to a drop in the bucket relative to the total expense of modernizing schools. Additionally, the House bill prohibits spending on new school construction, with the exception of $30 million each year for Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

The leaked version of the Senate bill, however, avoids the danger of spreading the funds too thin by creating a competitive program administrated by the states but funded by the federal government. Essentially, the program distributes $500 million each year from 2010 to 2014 to states according to their share of Title I funds, much like the House program. However, once states receive their funds, they must create a competitive grant program through which they will award funds to selected school districts and charter schools within the state.

The Senate version does place some restrictions on how the funds must be divided among schools. For example, the proportion of each state's facilities funds distributed to charter schools must reflect the proportion of funds that charter schools receive under Title I. For example, if charter schools received 30 percent of a state's Title I allocation, then 30 percent of the state's facilities funds must also be awarded to selected charter schools. Similarly, the Senate legislation states that the competitive grants must be awarded to both selected high-need and rural school districts in proportion to the amount of Title I funds each type of school receives. Any remaining funds can be distributed to regular, high-need, and rural districts or charter schools as the state sees fit.

Additionally, the Senate bill outlines some priorities for the competitive grants including districts with large impoverished populations, high need for school repair and construction, plans to support "green" practices, or a lack of fiscal capacity to fund construction or repair activities.

The Senate bill also requires that school districts provide matching funds for the federal grants for facilities they receive. However, the required match amounts can be determined on a sliding scale based on the relative size of the impoverished population in each district in a state. Charter schools are not required to supply matching funds.

In all, the Senate program for school facilities is much more likely to have a lasting impact on the condition of school buildings in America. It provides consistent funding over five years, rather than two, for select districts and charters identified through a competitive grant process. As a result, it will provide an infusion of funds in particularly needy schools rather than a small amount of money across the board. It also targets high-need, rural, and charter schools which typically require the most assistance with facilities. Additionally, it requires matching funds, assuring that districts and charters are committed to the facilities investments they are making and that the federal dollars go as far as possible.

The student loan legislation represents a major shift in the federal government's role in K-12 school facilities. Past efforts have mainly involved tax credit bonds and programs for schools with large populations of students that live on military bases or Indian reservations. Although we don't know whether the Senate version of the student loan bill has changed since it was leaked over the summer, we hope that it maintains the targeted and competitive aspects that are likely to make it more effective.

Demand Value in Higher Education

Michael Dannenberg — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0500

[Editor's Note: A version of this post ran yesterday in the Albany Times Union]

The College Board reports tuition is up nine percent this year in inflation-adjusted terms, despite declining prices throughout the economy and stagnant median family income. Parents want to know why the sharp increase and why college costs so much in the first place.

The answer, in a word, is demand. Until we channel higher education demand in a more rational direction, tuition will continue to outpace inflation, grant aid, and family income.

Higher Ed Watch readers know that demand isn't the only factor driving tuition. College supply is relatively limited. Higher education is slow to embrace productivity gains seen elsewhere in the economy. Most important, states cut higher education funding to balance budgets, and colleges backfill those cuts by hiking tuition. Banks act as enablers, supplying big student loans to anyone willing to borrow.

But at its base, tuition rises because suppliers, including those who finance them, take advantage of high, under-informed, and often irrational consumer demand. As families shop colleges this fall, they would be well served to focus on value. The Department of Education can help by protecting consumers from the worst deals. We need a lemon law for colleges that cost too much and deliver too little.

Families are limited in their ability to assess the value of most colleges. Popular guides like US News & World Report rank only the top 10 percent of schools and focus on inputs like class size instead of outcomes like how much students learn. Families therefore rely on proxies, including the newness of non-academic facilities like residence halls and athletic fields, advertising, and price. It's the Neiman Marcus phenomenon. If it costs more, it must be better. Wrong.

It's not easy to compare colleges in terms of student learning because there isn't comparative testing at the post-secondary education level. But we can compare schools according to what consumers most want out of higher education: good jobs and financial security.

Congress recently required colleges to report average net price after financial aid. A private web site, www.payscale.com, lists average starting and mid-career salaries for graduates of more than 300 institutions of higher education. And the Education Department knows the percentage of students leaving each college who default on their student loans. With that information and more like it, Secretary Duncan can construct a "higher education p/e ratio," price of college to expected future earnings, for each school.

Consider SUNY Binghamton and Niagara University, for example, both in upstate New York. From a purely financial standpoint, Binghamton is a great deal. Its sticker price is approximately $17,000 a year, and graduates earn a median income of $52,000 within five years of separation, according to Payscale.com.

In contrast, Niagara's sticker price is $35,000 a year, and graduates earn a median starting income of less than $38,000 within five years of separation.

The lemons tend to be in the for-profit trade school sector. Not all trade schools are poor options, but we should make the really risky ones warn consumers in all marketing materials, just like politicians have to say they approve campaign commercials.

"Warning: One in three Acme College borrowers defaults on a student loan within three years of separation from Acme College. Acme graduates earn an average starting salary of $22,000 a year. Be careful before assuming substantial student loan debt to attend Acme College.''

True, higher education is about more than future income. Most music and art schools will have a worse higher education p/e ratio than science and engineering schools. That's fine. Students can and should still study music and art, and they should consider more than financial returns in choosing a college. But a well-publicized higher education p/e ratio will empower students who want to study music, art, or anything else to choose programs and institutions with a more informed eye.

Schools will want to be identified as good-value options and shudder at the prospect of being on a lemon list. To avoid it, they'll be less quick to raise tuition and more interested in making sure their students get good-paying jobs.

Until we nudge students toward good value options, tuition everywhere will march upward, unabated. We can slow that march though by helping families become better consumers in the higher education marketplace.

Michael Dannenberg, the founding Director of New America's Education Policy Program and Higher Ed Watch, is currently a Senior Fellow with the foundation.

Department of Education Releases Race to the Top Application

Sara Mead — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:47:00 -0500

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education released the application and notice of final priorities for the Race to the Top competition, a $4.35 billion grant program that rewards states that have shown the most commitment to and progress on education reforms to improve student achievement. The final priorities and application reflect a number of changes from a draft the department released in July that drew more than 1,100 comments.

The change of greatest interest to the early education community is probably the addition of a new invitational priority specifically focused on improving early learning outcomes. As we reported previously, a number of RTT commenters, including major associations and several major foundations that invest in early childhood, urged the Education Department to place greater emphasis on early learning in designing the grant program. The addition of the new invitational priority for early learning doesn’t give these groups everything they wanted. An invitational priority means states don’t get any extra points for including early ed in their applications. But it does indicate that the Secretary believes early childhood is an important component of a larger education reform agenda and wants states to include reforms that address or integrate school readiness and linkages between preschool and elementary schools in their RTT applications.

Colorado Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brien, who’s been tasked with leading her state’s efforts to secure RTT funding, and is generally regarded as leading the pack on RTT reforms, clearly knows this. She’s been a strong advocate in her state for both early learning and what is often called a “P-20” approach to reform – one that integrates early childhood with K-12 school reform efforts and the elementary years. As other states start working on their RTT applications, they could do worse than follow O’Brien’s lead.

Here at Early Ed Watch, we’ve promoted these kind of linkages as well, often couched in terms of a PreK-3^rd approach – the creation of a seamless system from pre-K up through the early elementary grades. In fact, we see several ways that states could integrate early learning programs and PreK-3^rd reform to address the other RTT selection criteria, as well as ways that states could use the reforms encouraged by RTT to support a PreK-3^rd approach.

For example, take one of the selection criteria: a state’s commitment to turning around the lowest-achieving schools. A growing number of schools and districts, including Union City, N.J. and Montgomery County, Md., have used PreK-3^rd approaches (like comprehensive literacy programs that span pre-K up through 3^rd grade) to dramatically improve results in low-performing, high-poverty schools. States and school districts could make implementation of comprehensive PreK-3^rd reforms an important part of their strategy for turning around low-performing elementary schools, particularly now that these final priorities give districts greater flexibility to implement district-driven “transformational” interventions in these schools.

Requirements to “provide effective, data-informed professional development, coaching, induction, and common planning and collaborative time” for teachers could also support PreK-3^rd alignment and reform. More broadly, states that are serious about improving student achievement and narrowing achievement gaps will include a variety of policies and steps that support PreK-3^rd reforms in their RTT applications, because providing children with high-quality, seamless PreK-3^rd early learning experiences is essential to driving student learning gains over the long term.

For folks who are following this issue more closely, here are some other key changes in the final RTT priorities:

Creation of a new section at the beginning of the selection criteria in which states are expected to lay out their coherent, coordinated, statewide reform agenda, and provide evidence of buy-in to that agenda from school district in the state, state capacity to implement the agenda, and the ability to significantly improve educational outcomes. Some criteria in this section previously appeared in other sections in the proposed priorities.
Extension of the deadline by which states must commit to adopting new, common K-12 standards, because some states found the previous timeline too short to be feasible. Under the final priorities, states must adopt common standards by August 2, 2010, or demonstrate commitment to doing so at a later date in 2010.
Increased emphasis on use of data at the local level to inform professional development and improve instruction, in addition to the creation of statewide longitudinal student data systems.
Clarification that “teacher effectiveness” should be measured by multiple measures, including, but not limited to, gains in students’ academic achievement over time. Other factors might include high-quality teacher observations. While this change is getting a lot of attention from RTT watchers and the media, it’s not clear whether it’s actually that much of a change. While the proposed guidelines emphasized the importance of linking student performance data to individual teachers and including student achievement in measures of teacher effectiveness, Education Department officials have been publicly saying for some time that multiple measures, including observation, should be used to measure teacher effectiveness.
Increased emphasis on and clarification of points related to professional development and support for teachers and other educators.
A variety of changes related to requirements to turn around low-performing schools. The proposed priorities included four turnaround strategies, but they limited school districts’ ability to use the fourth strategy, “transformation,” other than as a last resort when other, more aggressive models could not be used. That limitation has been lifted, but districts with more than nine persistently low-achieving schools may not use the transformational approach in more than half of their schools. In addition, some provisions relating to creating a hospitable state policy environment for charter schools have been moved from the “turning around lowest-achieving schools” section to the “general” section, to clarify that the Department does not see charter schools as the sole or chief remedy for turning around low-performing schools, but views improving such schools as a competency all districts should have.
Addition of a new criterion inviting states to describe how they allow school districts to operate innovative, autonomous schools other than charter schools.
Expansion of the invitational priority for P-20 coordination, to include not just vertical coordination from early childhood to K-12 and up through higher education, but also horizontal coordination between schools and other agencies and organizations providing comprehensive services for children.

The final priorities have been getting lots of comment, from education policy experts, advocacy groups, and bloggers. Here’s some other coverage and analysis worth reading:

Education Week, “Rules Set for $4 Billion Race to the Top Contest” http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/11/11/12stim-race.h29.html
New York Times, “After Criticism, Administration is Praised for Final Rules on Education Grants,” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/education/12educ.html?_r=1
Eduwonk, “Racing to the Top” http://www.eduwonk.com/2009/11/racing-to-the-top.html
Education Gadfly, “Evaluating the Race to the Top Final Criteria” http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2009/11/evaluating-the-race-to-the-top-final-criteria/
Eduflack, “The Race Officially Begins Now” http://blog.eduflack.com/2009/11/11/the-race-officially-begins--now.aspx

Friday News Roundup: Week of November 9-13

Emilie Deans — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:57:00 -0500

New Mexico Lawmaker Proposes Budget Fix Using Endowment Fund

Colorado Cuts to Education Bigger than Expected

More Cuts for South Carolina Schools

New Mexico Lawmaker Proposes Budget Fix Using Endowment Fund
New Mexico State Senate Majority Leader Michael Sanchez this week laid out a proposal to tap into the state's $9 billion Land Grant Permanent Fund to help balance the state's budget. The fund makes yearly payments to school districts, universities, hospitals, and other public institutions. Sanchez's plan would take $2 billion from the fund to pay for these and other critical government operations and minimize tax hikes over the coming years. Sanchez also seeks to bolster state finances for projected state deficits for next year and potentially slow economic growth over the next few years. The state already needs $400 million to fill a hole in the fiscal year 2011 budget. Opponents to the proposal claim that removing the money will slow the fund's growth and result in smaller payments to schools and the other beneficiaries later. If Sanchez's proposal passes the state legislature, voters will have to approve it in November because it includes a change to the state's constitution. More here...

Colorado Cuts to Education Bigger than Expected
Cuts to spending on K-12 education in Colorado for fiscal year 2011 will total 6.1 percent despite Governor Bill Ritter's claims that it is only 4.6 percent. According to a calculation by the Colorado Department of Education, cuts to spending on education in the fiscal year 2011 budget total $374.1 million, or 6.1 percent of what schools would have normally expected for that fiscal year. Governor Ritter's calculation, they say, made cuts appear smaller because it was done using the current fiscal year 2010 budget as a baseline. The cuts to spending on schools will likely mean increasing class sizes, teacher and staff layoffs, salary cuts or freezes, and possible service reductions. However, categorical funding for transportation, special education, and some other programs will not be affected by the proposed cuts. Funding for full-day kindergarten programs is also expected to hold steady. For higher education, Governor Ritter's plan includes a modest $1.98 million growth in spending despite a projected decline in support from federal stimulus funds. The spending growth would come from a proposed 9 percent tuition increase. More here...

More Cuts for South Carolina Schools
The South Carolina Board of Economic Advisors this week released a reduced estimate of state revenue, citing concerns over the nearly half million people in the state who are unemployed. Given this new estimate, Governor Mark Sanford told the state's K-12 schools, colleges, and prisons to prepare to cut another $120 million from their fiscal year 2010 budgets. This comes on top of a $328 million cut from the current budget to these services over the summer. It is not yet clear where exactly cuts will come from at the state level, so school districts are waiting for more information before they make any final decisions on where to trim their budgets. More here...

Briefly Noted

Alabama Board of Education endorses proposed "plan of survival" for K-12 schools.
Illinois budget cuts squeeze the state's universities.