Falling into the Gap Trap. Race to the Top and the Proverbial Achievement Gap Discourse

By: Anjalé D. Welton (and Christopher Thomas)

Race to The Top (RTTT) serves as the Obama Administration’s declaration for states to rapidly design school reforms that support the needs of persistently low performing schools with the assumption that competition for federal funding will promote the design of innovative state level policies aimed at bolstering student achievement and equitable outcomes (U.S. DOE, 2009).  Incentivized reforms such as RTTT have far-reaching aims to address the achievement gap.  Predictably not unlike any previous reforms that are hurriedly placed on the national policy agenda, RTTT outlines the solutions to the achievement gap without a sophisticated recall of how we arrived at the so-called gaps in student achievement in the first place. There are serious implications for student equity given RTTT has made such an impact on the policy agenda for state grant recipients in such a short period of time.

In the summit of its implementation scholarly debates emerged (and still continue) as to whether No Child Left Behind’s (NCLB) emphasis on disaggregating data to reveal gaps in achievement among certain student groups either provides the visible evidence to force educational leaders to face inequities or further reifies deficit perspectives about certain students groups’ academic abilities (Gutiérrez, 2008; Leonardo, 2007; Milner, 2012). McKenzie and Scheurich (2004) coined the term equity trap to describe deficit oriented thinking and practices in education. Similarly, school reforms should be mindful of falling in a deficit-based “gap trap” as focusing on gaps in achievement suggests that certain subgroups of students—typically racially minoritized groups, students with disabilities, children living in poverty, and English Language Learners—are the root cause of these gaps, versus exploring systemic and structural as well as policy-based explanations for disparities in achievement (Guiterrez, 2008; Leonardo, 2007; Milner, 2012). Simply put, school reform initiatives that function within an achievement gap framework acknowledge “the symptoms, but not the causes of the achievement problem affecting” these surveilled student groups (Leonardo, 2007, p. 269).

Particularly, current reforms, like RTTT, fail to provide a critical analysis of the underlying causes of disparities in achievement among student groups. Rather, RTTT is undergirded by deficit-based understandings of the root causes of educational inequities that may generate structures and practices that could be harmful to students from historically marginalized backgrounds (see Milner, 2012). For example, the RTTT application criteria sends a federally backed deficit-based message about students’ academic capacities by compelling states to use prescriptive definitions for terms such as “high-need LEA,” “high-minority school,” “high-poverty school,” and “high needs students” (U.S. DOE, 2009, p. 12-14). In addition to the above deficit-based categories for certain institutional types and student groups, the federal criteria is also definitive about how states should approach closing the achievement gap awarding up to 30 points to state applications that demonstrated “significant progress in raising achievement and closing gaps” (U.S. DOE, 2009, p. 7)

Ultimately, despite the federal policy’s effort to “encourage and reward States that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform,” the way in which RTTT delineates specific approaches for targeted subgroups and institutions and its narrow articulation of the achievement gap causes one to question whether state recipients will have the flexibility to consider equity and develop truly equitable learning conditions for students upon implementation (U.S. DOE, 2009, p. 2). Because of the stealthy achievement gap language in the policy text, leaders tasked with implementing RTTT could misleadingly interpret that they will be “awarded” for instituting simplistic deficit based student categories when measuring student performance. For example, Illinois a round three Race to the Top recipient included the following language in its state grant application:

The systems and resources developed by this Plan are particularly critical to closing the achievement gap and dramatically improving performance in Illinois' lowest performing schools. As a result, for the Black, Hispanic, and Low-Income subgroups, the State's goals are more aggressive, both in the timing and trajectory of student outcomes. (State of Illinois, 2011, p. 7)

Unfortunately, Illinois’ RTTT application provided only limited snapshots of student performance data to substantiate why the above highlighted subgroups would require an aggressive approach for improving student outcomes. As research has shown technical, outcomes based solutions such as the one articulated in the example from Illinois are mere quick fixes that only in the end reproduce inequities and even exacerbate gaps in student achievement (Holme, Diem, & Welton, 2013; Welton, Diem, & Holme, in press). It is problematic for incentivized school reforms such as RTTT to declare equity as a goal when its use of an achievement gap framework only searches for students’ shortcomings and never the assets they may offer to school and their own learning (Milner, 2012).  

While data-informed decision-making using standardized measures does give a glimpse into educational disparities, data presented in this manner provides only a narrow, simplistic version of the story. Ultimately, complex counternarratives to the achievement gap framework are needed that acknowledge systemic and structural explanations for the proverbial gap in achievement.

Note: This blog entry is adapted from research on the implementation of Race to the Top and evaluation systems in collaboration with Christopher N. Thomas from the University of San Francisco.

References

Gutiérrez, R. (2008). A "gap gazing" fetish in mathematics education? Problematizing research on the achievement gap. Journal for Research in Mathematics    Education, 39(4), 357-364.

Holme, J. J., Diem, S. D., & Welton, A. D. (in press). Suburban school districts and          demographic change: The technical, normative, and political dimensions of  response. Educational Administration Quarterly.

Leonardo, Z. (2007). The war on schools: NCLB, nation creation and the educational        construction of whiteness. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10, 261-278.

McKenzie, K. B. & Scheurich, J. J. (2004). Equity traps: A useful construct for preparing            principals to lead schools that are successful with racially diverse students. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40(5), 601-632.

Milner, H.R. (2012). Beyond a test score: Explaining opportunity gaps in educational practice. Journal of Black Studies, 43(6), 693-718.

State of Illinois (2011). Race to the Top application for Phase 3 funding CFDA Number:  84.395A. Retrieved October 22, 2013 from http://www.isbe.net/racetothetop/PDF/phase3_app.pdf

U.S. Department of Education (2009). Race to the Top Program Executive Summary. Retrieved October 22, 2013 from  http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/executive-summary.pdf

Welton, A.D., Diem, S.L., & Holme, J.J. (in press). Color conscious, cultural blindness: Suburban school districts and demographic change. Education and Urban Society.

Exploring Growth Trends in the Education Management Organization (EMO) Industry

On November 26, 2013, the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) released its annual EMO report entitled, "Profiles of For-Profit and Nonprofit Education Management Organizations: Fourteenth Edition – 2011-2012."  The report is the latest edition in a series of reports examining the status and trends of school management in charter and brick-and-mortar schools.  The authors (Miron & Gulosino, 2013) differentiate among the varied types of EMOs in terms of their sizes, profit-nonprofit orientation, and enrollment growth.  In the report, the authors define education management organizations (EMOs) as private entities that manage public schools, including charter schools via contracts to produce specified academic and financial results.  EMOs have management authority over a school, and are thus distinct from vendors hired to meet particular education-related services. In what follows I will not take a stand on EMOs as much as to discuss the principal findings of the report (Miron & Gulosino, 2013) and two pressing issues from prior research on EMOs.

Rapid Growth

One indicator of the success of EMO-managed schools is their rapid growth.  This is a particularly valid indicator of EMO viability because students attend EMO-managed schools voluntarily and have the option of returning to brick-and-mortar schools if EMO-managed schools prove unsatisfactory.  A cornerstone of the market theory is the assumption that there are no barriers to entry that prevent EMO-managed schools from increasing their share of the market.  The ability of EMO-managed schools to differentiate the quality of their services from those offered by brick-and-mortar schools while charging zero tuition as brick-and-mortar schools make EMO-managed schools potentially strong competitors to existing brick-and-mortar schools in the market for students.

A. For-Profit Operators

During the 1998-1999 school year, 5 for-profit EMOs enrolled approximately 1,000 students; during the 2011-2012 school year 97 for-profit EMOs had a total enrollment of 462,926 students.  While the actual number of for-profit companies has grown very little over the past few years, many of the large- and medium-sized EMOs are expanding into new service areas, such as supplemental education services and virtual schooling.

B. Nonprofit Operators

Since the 1998-1999 school year, the number of nonprofit EMOs has increased from 46 to 201, and the number of schools managed has increased from 92 to 840.  Enrollment has grown from 5,426 students in 1998-1999 to 445,052 in 2011-2012.  Nonprofit operators have shown more robust growth in regular public school settings than for-profit operators, both in terms of new nonprofit EMOs and new managed schools. KIPP, the Knowledge is Power Program, a national charter school network, remained the largest nonprofit EMO, with 98 schools and just over 35,045 students in 2011-2012.

C. Virtual Schools

The number of virtual schools operated by EMOs has increased from 60 in 2009-2010 to 91 in 2011-2012. This represents 10.8 percent of all schools (a total of 840) managed by for-profit EMOs.  The average virtual school enrollment is 1,388.

Issues

A. Academic Achievement

Critics of EMO-managed schools question whether or not they will improve the educational achievement of students, particularly students from poorly performing inner-city schools (Brown et al., 2004).  Broad generalizations about the academic impacts of EMO-managed schools should be viewed with skepticism unless buttressed by supportive evidence (Betts & Tang, 2011).  Policy-wise, however, the present context for education reform focused on academic achievement has provided an enabling environment conducive to the growth of EMO-managed schools. In particular, the Obama administration's Race to the Top (RTTT) reform has included an increased emphasis on the role of EMOs generally and a specific emphasis on EMOs-managed charter schools in replicating best practices to "turn around" the lowest performing 5% of the nation's public schools.  Tennessee and particularly Memphis has become an epicenter of the RTTT reform.  Since being awarded RTTT funding in 2010, Tennessee has seen the number of EMOs grow from 2 to 8.  The majority are located in Memphis (i.e., Yes Prep; Scholar Academies; Green Dot; KIPP Memphis; The Influence 1 Foundation, LEAD Public Schools; Aspire Public Schools).  A verdict on their contribution to academic achievement will take time to fully determine.

B. Funding

EMOs also have had significant support from venture philanthropy networks, from corporate giving and family foundations to individual donors (Hentschke et al., 2003).  Critics of K-12 funding formula argue that the pace of school change has been too slow, that educational bureaucracies have been able to resist major changes, and as a result, the many millions of dollars invested into schools have produced minimal results (Colvin, 2005; Hess, 2005; Lake et al., 2009). Venture philanthropies respond to this criticism by seeking a return on their investment in the form of for-profit and nonprofit education management or supporting the growth in a new school industry (i.e., virtual schools). Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, NewSchools Venture Fund (NSVF), The Broad Foundation, and The Walton Family Foundation are leading these efforts.  Such venture philanthropy networks can influence policymakers, education officials, and charter school authorizers, and can circumvent formal policy processes to get reforms enacted (Ravitch, 2013).  In this way, they can ignore the traditional democratic processes by which educational policies take shape, directly impacting school structure, curriculum, and personnel issues without necessarily engaging in public deliberation (Reich, 2005; Ravitch, 2013).  Educational researchers are just beginning to investigate the strategies the venture philanthropy networks employ (Hess, 2005; Wohlstetter et al., 2011), and how their efforts are have helped fuel the expansion of EMOs. A more detailed examination of EMO scale-up strategies, such as budgets, financial plans, and locational decisions is clearly warranted. 

Some of the most important finance questions that have remained unanswered are: Are they profitable or cost-effective?  In what ways has the sector transformed since 1999?  How do venture philanthropy networks affect the design and delivery of education by EMO-managed schools?  Finally, mergers, acquisitions, and non-profit/for-profit arrangements seem to be the cutting edge in EMO growth and yet there is no systematic research into what is going on and what it means for schools.  Given the budget crisis all schools are facing, more empirical studies are needed on how to help EMO-managed schools reduce costs or enhance revenues if they are to be used as vehicles for educational innovation. 

As a cautionary tale, the range of venture philanthropy networks providing financial resources to EMO-managed schools is diverse and our understanding is fragmentary (Wohlstetter et al., 2011).  There is no single repository to which researchers can access data on the contributions and donations from private sources or on the amount that they give.  In addition, the determination of the profitability of a single EMO is very difficult since they are not required to report that information.  The findings from NEPC's latest profile report on EMOs should form the starting point for more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis into how EMOs fund their growth.

by Charisee Gulosino

REFERENCES

Betts, J. R., & Tang, E. (2011). The effect of charter schools on student achievement: A meta-analysis of the literature. Seattle, WA: Center for Reinventing Public Education.

Brown, H., Henig, J., Lacireno-Paquet, N., and Holyoke, T. T. (2004). Scale of operations and locus of control in market- versus mission-oriented charter schools. Social Science Quarterly, 85(5): 1035-1051.

Colvin, R. L. (2005). A new generation of philanthropists and their great ambitions. In F. M. Hess (Ed.), With the best of intentions: How philanthropy is reshaping K-12 education (pp. 21-48). Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Hentschke, G., Oschman, S., & Snell, S. (2003) Trends and best practices for education management organizations. Policy Perspectives, WestEd, San Francisco.

Hess, F. M. (Ed.). (2005). With the best of intentions: How philanthropy is reshaping K-12 education. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Lake, R. J., & Hill, P. T. (2009). Performance management in portfolio school districts. Seattle, WA: Center on Reinventing Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/view/projects/1

Miron, G., & Gulosino, C. (2013). Profiles of for-profit and nonprofit education management organizations: Fourteenth Edition—2011-2012. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center. Retrieved [date] from http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/EMO-profiles-11-12

Ravitch, D. (2006). Bill Gates, the nation's superintendent of schools. The Los Angeles Times.

Ravitch, D. (2013).  The reign of error: The hoax of the privatization movement and the danger of America's public schools. New York: Random House, Inc.

Reich, R. (2005). A failure of philanthropy. Stanford Social Innovation Review (Winter), 33.

Wohlstetter, P., Smith, J., Farrell, C., Guilbert, H., & Hirman, J. (2011). How funding shapes the growth of charter management organizations: Is the tail wagging the dog? Journal of Education Finance, 37 (2), 150-174.

An incredibly important speech on education by Diane Ravitch

That is a brief clip of Diane Ravitch addressing the Representative Assembly of the National Education Association on July 6, where she was receiving an award as the 2010 "Friend of Education."

Please keep reading.

The complete text of Diane's speech can be read here. She has given me permission to quote as much as I deem appropriate, including the whole speech if necessary.

I won't do that. You can follow the link to read the entire text if so inclined.

Let me offer some selections to at least whet your appetite, as well as offer a bit of commentary of my own.

... in all of this time, aside from the right-wing think tanks, I haven’t seen met a single teacher who likes what’s happening? I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that No Child Left Behind has been a success. I haven’t met a single teacher who thinks that Race to the Top is a good idea.

I remind readers that the Representative Assembly passed a resolution of no confidence in Race to the Top.

And as I talk to teachers, by the end of my talk, I hear the same questions again and again: What can we do? How can we stop the attacks on teachers and on the teaching profession? Why is the media demonizing unions? Why does the media constantly criticize public schools? And why does it lionize charter schools? Why is Arne Duncan campaigning with Newt Gingrich? Why has the Obama Administration built its education agenda on the punitive failed strategies of No Child Left Behind?

Newt Gingrich - now there's a great ally for a supposedly progressive administration, eh? And during the campaign, Obama railed against NCLB, yet too much of the administration policy continues to rely on the failed policies of that approach.

I will continue to speak out against high-stakes testing. It undermines education. High-stakes testing promotes cheating, gaming the system, teaching to bad tests, narrowing the curriculum. High-stakes testing means less time for the arts, less time for history or geography or civics or foreign languages or science.

We see schools across America dropping physical education. We see them dropping music. We see them dropping their arts programs, their science programs, all in pursuit of higher test scores. This is not good education.

I have been told by some people in the Obama Administration that the way to stop the narrowing of the curriculum is to test everything. In fact, the chancellor in Washington, D.C., the other day announced she plans to do exactly that. That means less time for instruction, more time for testing, and a worse education for everyone.

Some of us have worried about this trend for years - I remember a group of elementary school art teachers asking their state for a test on art so their classes would not be eliminated. As it happens, my course is one in which there is a test that has high stakes - students in theory must not only pass a government course but also a state test in government in order to graduate from high school (although the latter requirement has some loopholes). Let me say that for too many students their course in government gets reduced, especially in the Spring as the test approaches, to drill and kill, practice for the test. For a subject that should excite them, because it has direct affect on their lives, they get bored and frustrated.

In speaking out, I have consistently warned about the riskiness of school choice. Its benefits are vastly overstated. It undercuts public education by enabling charter schools to skim the best students in poor communities. As our society pursues these policies, we will develop a bifurcated system, one for the haves, another for the have-nots, and politicians have the nerve to boast about such an outcome.

Public schools, as I said before, are a cornerstone of our democratic society. If we chip away at support for them, we erode communal responsibility for a vital public institution.

Bifurcated - even worse than what we have by geography, where wealthy communities have excellent public schools rich in resources and the students have access to all kinds of elective courses, and poor communities, whether in inner cities, inner rings of suburbs or the hinterlands, lacking equipment, with decaying buildings, and overwhelmed with students arriving st school with less background and current problems.

democratic society - if we really believe in it, economics would not be the sole basis on which we make arguments about our schools.

Last year, a major evaluation showed that one out of every six charters will get better results, five out of six charters will get no different results or worse results than the regular public schools. A report released just a couple of weeks ago by Mathematica Policy Research once again shows charter middle schools do not get better results than regular public middle schools.

Unfortunately, the general media coverage of the Mathematica report was badly flawed, focused on the schools that did 'better' while not including any of the caveats about even these schools. Charters COULD be used to offer alternative ways of teaching/learning to specific groups of students. Diane's next two paragraphs are very important:

The National Assessment of Educational Progress, on whose board I served for seven years, has tested charter schools since 2003. In 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009, charter schools were compared to regular public schools and have never shown an advantage over regular public schools. Charter schools, contrary to Bill Gates, are not more innovative than regular public schools. The business model and methods of charter schools is this — longer school days, longer hours, longer weeks, and about 95 percent of charter schools are non-union.

Teachers are hired and fired at will. Teachers work 50, 60, 70 hours a week. They are expected to burn out after two or three years when they can be replaced. No pension worries, no high salaries. This is not a template for American education.

NAEP is the national report card on education. It is considered the gold standard of educational evaluation. It does not show that charters do better. One reason why some "reformers" like charters is that in many states they are a way around unions, and their teachers can be fired at will.


Let me skip down a bit:

And perhaps we should begin demanding that school districts be held accountable for providing the resources that schools need. Just like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top requires and pressures districts to close low-performing schools. The overwhelming majority of low-performing schools enroll students in poverty and students who don’t speak English and students who are homeless and transient. Very often, these schools have heroic staffs who are working with society’s neediest children. These teachers deserve praise, not pink slips. Closing schools weakens communities. It’s not a good idea to weaken communities. No school was ever improved by closing it.

Reread that please. Yes, you will read stories that supposedly focus on "high-performing" schools dealing with such students. In some cases the claims for high performance are based on selective use of data. In most cases the schools on which such focus is made get more resources (as do many charters), have longer days, etc. The "success" is claimed on the basis of test scores. What is not yet offered is any evidence that there are long-term gains in learning: that the students are developing skills and knowledge that they can apply outside of the test environment. Meanwhile we reconstitute schools. We use one of the four models approved by this administration, even though NONE has any research to demonstrate that they improve education.

There are passages about the right to unionize, which Diane supports, but which "reformers" oppose. Read this paragraph, and perhaps you will understand two things, (1) why teachers are reacting so positively towards Diane; and (2) why we feel unfairly besieged, that the playing field is tilted:

I have spoken out repeatedly to defend the right of teachers to join unions for their protection and the protection of the teaching profession. Teachers have a right to a collective voice in the political process. It’s the American way. I don’t see the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post or the pundits complaining about the charter school lobby. I don’t see them complaining about the investment bankers lobby, or any other group that speaks on behalf of its members. Only teachers’ unions are demonized these days.

Teachers, and those who support them, ARE being demonized. By constrast, Hedge Fund managers (who are making major investments in things like charter schools for tax benefits) and Wall Street Firms (who came close to destroying the economy of this nation and the international community) get bailed out with our tax dollars, continue to pay bonuses, and spend millions to prevent appropriate oversight and regulation. Then they want to have a voice telling us how we should teach, how our schools should be run.

There is so much of value in the speech. By now I hope I have at least convinced you to take the time to read the entire thing.

Let me offer only a few more snippets, skipping over some very important material:

Around the world, those nations that are successful recognize that the best way to improve school is to improve the education profession. We need expert teachers, not a steady influx of novices.

One argument against Teach for America, for example. Now if those in that program actually stayed in teaching, people like Ravitch and me would have far fewer objections. The constant turnover in the schools in which they serve is unfair to those kids. The program benefits many in the TFA corps, and it certainly benefits TFA. It is not clear that the students are getting all that much benefit, and the model is not something that can really address the needs of the millions of students in inner city and rural schools.

The current so-called reform movement is pushing bad ideas. No high-performing nation in the world is privatizing its schools, closing its schools, and inflicting high-stakes testing on every subject on its children. The current reform movement wants to end tenure and seniority, to weaken the teaching profession, to silence teachers’ unions, to privatize large sectors of public education. Don’t let it happen.

The consequences of letting these "reforms" go forward unchallenged will be great damages far beyond the arena of public education. It will be further destruction of what is left of the union movement in this country. It will be increased privatization of what is left of the commons in this country/ It will be a narrowing of opportunity for too many of our young people. It will diminish us as a people as our young people receive narrower and narrower educations.

Diane urges those listening to her to be politically active, to remind people that there are millions of teachers, we vote, and so do our families, to not support anyone who is an opponent of public education.

Stand up to the attacks on public education. Don’t give them half a loaf, because they will be back the next day for another slice, and the day after that for another slice.

Don’t compromise. Stand up for teachers. Stand up public education, and say “No mas, no mas." Thank you.

Diane Ravitch received a rousing ovation for this speech. As a teacher, as a UNIONIZED teacher in a public school, I understand why.

I thought it important that as many people as possible encounter HER words, not just cursory news accounts. I think it important that voices that speak for teachers and for public schools be given as much of an audience as those who have described themselves as 'reformers' and seek to suppress or denigrate any opposing point of view.

That is why I asked Diane, a friend, if I could quote extensively. That is why Diane told me "You are free to cite or quote whatever you wish."

Thanks for reading.

Please pass on the link for her speech.

Peace.