Teachers Don’t Hate America! (and Then There’s the Bad News)

Here's my newest American.com blog post, which was published today in conjunction with the release of our new study, High Schools, Civics & Citizenship: What Social Studies Teachers Think and Do.

Good news rarely gets its fair play. But here’s a worthwhile gospel according to a new study released today by AEI: teachers don’t hate America!

Although public school teachers are often accused of being left-wing and anti-American, this new survey of over 1,000 high school social studies teachers says otherwise. An impressive 83 percent of teachers report seeing America as a “unique country that stands for something special in the world” (see graph below). This finding parallels a study of the general public which found that 84 percent of respondents see America in the same light.

So what does this mean for our high school students? Well, it likely means they aren’t being taught to view America as a fundamentally flawed country. Instead, 82 percent of their teachers find it important to teach students to “respect and appreciate their country but know its shortcomings.”

For those waiting for the bad news, it’s not clear that high schoolers are actually gleaning anything from these well-intentioned teachers.  Regarding key concepts of citizenship, no more than 24 percent of public school teachers express great confidence that most of the students from their high school have learned these concepts before they graduate.  So while our students aren’t learning to disavow America, they may not be learning how to participate, either.

America’s Best (and Worst) Cities for School Reform

This post was originally published on American.com.
  
Today AEI’s Rick Hess and the Fordham Institute’s Stafford Palmieri and Janie Scull are releasing a major study ranking the reform environments in America’s 25 largest cities and a handful of other noteworthy places. While many education studies focus on test scores, this report instead takes a look at numerous environment-related indicators, acknowledging that education reform is a bigger undertaking than just adopting the pedagogical fads of the moment.


Not surprisingly, New Orleans came in at the top, followed closely by Washington, D.C., and New York City. Rounding out the top five were Denver and Jacksonville. It’s interesting to note that all top five cities’ states are round-two finalists in the Department of Education grant competition Race to the Top. Those winners will be announced today at noon.

Cities were scored on the ability to attract talented individuals; access to reliable funding from both public and private entities; a robust charter school community; application of helpful quality-control metrics for entrepreneurial endeavors; district friendliness to nontraditional education providers and reform; and municipal support for entrepreneurs and district reforms. As witnessed in cities like New Orleans and D.C., noticeable reform requires political support, financial flexibility, gutsy and talented individuals, and useful checks and balances.

Despite its limitations and imperfections—the authors were subject to survey responses and public data—“America’s Best (and Worst) Cities for School Reform” is an interesting and useful way to consider school reform. While ranking the health of a city’s ecosystem is a common approach in many sectors, it’s a rarity in education. By considering the environment of a city, the report looks beyond the popularity of particular pedagogical or reform practices within the district and instead lays out a more comprehensive guide for sustainable and penetrating school reform. For further reading on such a holistic approach to ed reform, I recommend Hess’s newest book, Education Unbound.

Teaching Citizenship

Happy 4th of July! Here's a post I recently published on The Enterprise blog:

Recent education reforms such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the Common Core standards movement have kept the spotlight on mathematics and reading, overshadowing other vital subjects such as history and civics. A 2006 study by the Center for Education Policy found that 71 percent of the surveyed districts reported they have reduced instructional time in at least one other subject to make more time for reading and math due to NCLB. The Center for Civic Education, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and many others have launched impressive campaigns to attract attention back to civic education. However, the lack of useful data on both expectations for civic education and teachers’ attitudes towards civic education makes thoughtful policy discussion difficult.


Students’ civics knowledge has remained rudimentary and stagnant over the years. The most recent 2006 NAEP civics test reports that only 27 percent of twelfth graders scored at or above the proficient level. Students in grades 4, 8, and 12 who took the NAEP civics test in 1998 scored at the same level as students in 2006, with improvement only in grade 4.

However, there’s little clarity as to what is meant by “citizenship” in schooling today. In 1996, 86 percent of respondents to the annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup poll said “prepar[ing] students to become responsible citizens” was a “very important” goal for public education. However, the 2000 poll found that training “responsible citizens” wasn’t nearly as important as “enhance[ing] people’s happiness and enrich[ing] their lives” and “dispel[ing] inequities in education among certain schools and certain groups.” The PDK/Gallup poll has not asked questions regarding citizenship and schooling since 2000.

Most essential to assessing our civics education is a better understanding of teachers’ attitudes and actions in regards to citizenship and the classroom. Before suggesting reforms to current policies that may stunt civic education, we must understand what teachers are being expected teach, what teachers are teaching, and what civic ideals teachers esteem in their classrooms. It’s very possible that our idea of civic education has evolved over the years and that current policies, curricula, or even school structures are not supporting our goals.
AEI’s new Program on American Citizenship has partnered with AEI’s education policy department to take a closer look at precisely that. The forthcoming fall 2010 report, “Schools, Civics and Citizenship: What Teachers Think and Do,” asks teachers what civic values or facts they believe to be most important for their students to learn, what the current system expects to be taught and what is realistically happening in their classroom.

A preliminary read of the survey data suggests that almost half of the teachers surveyed have seen social studies de-emphasized as a result of NCLB and that teaching “facts” is considered amongst the least important objectives for social studies teachers. Stay tuned for the AEI report this fall. It promises to be a helpful addition to the discussion, and will offer guidance on what to do next to ensure our children are getting the best education.

A Penny Saved

Whew! I just finished my first research conference at AEI--an accumulation of six months of exhausting planning, researching, editing, & worrying.  And, CSPAN joined us all day for live coverage of "A Penny Saved: How Schools and Districts Can Tighten Their Belts While Serving Students Better." 

Given our education system's enormous financial dependability--we count on $600 billion in local, state & federal funding--and our economy's unpromising instability--half of the states are anticipating a cumulative shortfall of $144.8 billion for FY 2010--this is a timely topic. We must consider smart, sustainable ways to cut costs while also freeing up financial resources that can then drive promising reforms. My boss, Rick Hess, and Eric Osberg of the Fordham Institute did a wonderful job of bringing together key scholars, researchers, consultants, and district leaders to offer hopeful solutions to our education funding shortfall.  Be on the lookout for the research compiled in an edited volume, to be published by Harvard Ed Press this coming fall!

A few highlights: 

"Notice I don't have a PowerPoint presentation. We cut PowerPoints." --Jose Torres, Superintendent School District U-46

"The pressure for success from the outside world, state, federal, the community, has to become greater than the pressure for maintaing the status quo. My Superintendent friends always told me, 'Nate you gotta remember, no superintendent ever got fired cause the kids can't read.' You get fired because you shifted dollars around, you took away money from some favorite program that wasn't working."--Nathan Levenson, former superintendent of Arlington, MA

"The public is uninformed about school budgets. They often underestimate perpupil spnding in their dist by $5,00." --Martin West, Harvard University. 

"We must ask what the purpose of public education is. We don't all agree on that." --Lily Eskelsen, vice president of the  National Education Association

Education Unbound

Below is my first post for the American Enterprise Institute's blog, The Enterprise. 

In an interview with Washington Post education columnist Jay Matthews, New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein sensibly notes, “systems don’t change because you charm them. Systems change because you have levers that enable the system to move. And it’ll be noisy because the people who are there often like the status quo.”

Successful reforms and new practices have failed to change education on a grand scale because of the barriers that lie within our current system. 

In a similar spirit, AEI’s Rick Hess takes an in-depth look at such barriers in his upcoming book, Education Unbound: The Promise and Practice of Greenfield Schooling. Using examples of vibrant organizations and individuals who are finding promising ways to address our nation’s education needs, he offers, as Klein puts it, “a well-thought-through analysis of how to enable entrepreneurialism and innovation to flourish in a way that will drive truly dynamic school reform.”

Greenfield schooling eliminates obstacles to problem solving; outfits districts and providers to assess achievement on a multifaceted scale; creates policies that attract, retain, and respect teacher talent; and frees up capital for new ventures that are willing to shake the status quo. Enacting such levers will allow for sustainable, effective approaches to address our nation’s education needs.