How to build parent demand for academic quality

Today, some thoughts about the answer to last week's question of the week: how can we build parent demand for academically stronger schools?

One answer, I believe, is to make standards more tangible and tie them more clearly to the "basic" and "proficient" labels used in state and district testing systems.

Some districts and states are taking initial steps to make standards more accessible to parents. The Oregon Department of Education, for example, provides sample or "anchor" papers that show varying levels of performance in fourth grade writing. These samples help students, teachers, administrators, and parents learn what the expectations are for writers at grade 4.

But the typical parent never sees this stuff and is unlikely to have much insight into what "proficient" work would look like in their child's classroom.

To be fair, parents have limited time. They cannot be expected to be curriculum experts.

But...what if we started with just one subject, writing, and worked really hard to educate parents about what "proficient" and "basic" writing looks like at each grade level?

Let's take a look at one of the Oregon fourth grade writing samples. (This is the one labeled "medium-high" among the "narrative" samples.) Let's say that this sample represents "proficient:"



And let's say that this next sample represents "basic:"


What if fourth grade parents across the nation were exposed over and over again to samples of student work like this - to help them understand what fourth grade writing proficiency really means? They'd be much better prepared to encourage and support their child to bring home work like this.

They'd also be much more likely to pay attention to what is going on in writing in their child's fourth grade classroom. Does the student work look more like "proficient" or more like "basic"? They might well question teachers who give an "A" grade to students who bring home papers that look more like "basic."

And with ongoing exposure to student work that represents "basic" and "proficient" at their child's grade level, they'd be more likely to consider various school improvement ideas through the lens of "will this help more kids in our school become proficient?"

Then we'd be on the right track: building parent demand for writing excellence one homework assignment, one test, one classroom at a time.

America's biggest import: self-motivation?

On Wednesday of this week, another powerful statement about the influence of parental and community expectations on education outcomes. This one comes from Patrick Welsh, an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

Welsh teaches both American-born and immigrant kids in a large public high school and observes that the American kids typically lack the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.

"Politicians and education bureaucrats can talk all they want about reform, but until the work ethic of U.S. students changes, until they are willing to put in the time and effort to master their subjects, little will change," he writes.

He cites a study released in December by University of Pennsylvania researchers Angela Duckworth (former COO of GreatSchools.net) and Martin Seligman suggesting that "the reason so many U.S. students are 'falling short of their intellectual potential' is not 'inadequate teachers, boring textbooks and large class sizes' and the rest of the usual litany cited by the so-called reformers - but 'their failure to exercise self-discipline.'"

A high-schooler's self-discipline, of course, comes from his or her family and community.

I'm back to grasping for that lever I wrote about on Wednesday: how do we change the culture of expectations around education in this country?

After all, we can't outsource self-discipline, and we can only import so much of it from China, India, Africa and other places where people are hungry for a better life. We'd better find a way to manufacture some of it right here at home.

The longest lever of them all

Let's pursue a mind game of another sort today. It'll be fun!

Let's say your objective is to improve America's schools academically. We want 75% plus of our eighth graders to be proficient in reading and math according to NAEP (see previous post), up from 25% plus today.

We all know that life is a multiple choice question, so here we go:

Question 1: Given the goal of improving student achievement in America's schools, which of the following changes do you think will make the greatest impact?

a) strengthening principal leadership
b) improving teacher quality
c) strengthening parent/ public demand for quality
d) spending more money
e) improving school board governance

OK, so it's an unreasonable question. We're going to need to work at most or all of these levels (and some others) in order to reach the goal. (The money question varies by state - it's clearly pretty important here in California.)

But what if you could pick just one? In that case, I'd pick c: strengthening parent/public demand for quality.

Why? The quality of the whole system is a function of parent/public demand. In America, the education system exists primarily to serve the interests of individuals, not the interests of society as a whole or the state. We love local control. Even though we have a lot more state and federal involvement in education than we used to, school quality (teacher quality, principal quality, program quality) still depends greatly on local decision making.

As Darvin Winnick, Chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, said at a conference I attended, "Ultimately, schools are only going to be as good as the community wants them to be."

Another way to put it is this: if you could strengthen parent/public demand for higher student achievement, it would be "the gift that keeps on giving." It is the longest lever of them all. It all starts with local school board elections. If parents and the public demanded that school boards improve student achievement, then those school boards would quickly discover that their district needs to improve teacher and principal quality. And, where necessary, they'd be making the case for more money to support their mission.

The tougher question, it seems to me, is how do you get a hold of this long lever? A topic for another time.

What American eighth graders can do

Today, the first in a series of explorations of the state of standards in American education.

The best national perspective on what American students can and can't do these days comes from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test administered by the National Assessment Governing Board. Sometimes called "the nation's report card," NAEP offers a treasure trove of insight into the academic performance of American students.

I spent the better part of an hour exploring sample eight grade mathematics questions released by the NAEP folks available at NAEP Questions Search Tool. The three questions I share with you below were used on either the 2003 or 2005 administration of the test, and were given to both public and private school students.

Let's start with a question that two thirds of American eighth graders got right:

What is 4 hundredths written in decimal notation?

A) 0.004
B) 0.04
C) 0.400
D) 4.00
E) 400.0

(67% correct, 32% incorrect, 1% omitted)


Now, let's take a look at a question that about half of American eighth graders answered correctly:

Fifteen boxes each containing 8 radios can be repacked in 10 larger boxes containing how many radios?

A) 8
B) 10
C) 12
D) 80
E) 120

(47% correct, 52% incorrect, 1% omitted)


And finally, the most difficult question of our batch, one that only a quarter of American eighth graders answered successfully:

One store, Price Pleasers, reduces the price each week of a $100 stereo by 10 percent of the original price. Another store, Bargains Plus, reduces the price each week of the same $100 stereo by 10 percent of the previous week's price.
After 2 weeks, how will the prices at the two stores compare?

A) The price will be cheaper at Price Pleasers.
B) The price will be the same at both stores.
C) The price will be cheaper at Bargains Plus.

Explain your reasoning.

(25% correct, 72% incorrect and 4% omitted)

So there you have it: a decidedly non-scientific glimpse into what American eighth graders can and can't do. For more perspective, spend some time with the NAEP Questions Search Tool and check back here in a few days for more thoughts.