Author Archives: Peter Levine

“internal accountability” in education

When we think of “accountability” in education, we usually envision standards (written by school systems, states, or the federal government), combined with measures to see if schools are meeting those standards–e.g., exam results, graduation rates, per/pupil spending, and teachers’ qualifications. This is “external” accountability: it comes from outside of each school. Most people think such pressure is necessary and appropriate. Schools are public institutions, so they should be accountable to the public through its elected representatives. Besides, there must be some device for keeping educators honest and up-to-speed. The main alternative to external accountability is market discipline (i.e., letting parents decide which schools are working best). There may be a place for some market discipline in education, but it has severe limitations. Thus legally-mandated standards and tests seem necessary.

However, “external” standards demonstrate a lack of trust for teachers. I know from the experience and testimony of friends and close relatives who are classroom teachers that this lack of trust is hard to accept, especially when a person is a good educator and the standards and exams are at least partly foolish (as they tend to be). Moreover, “external” accountability measures are always blunt or crude, whether they are used in business, medicine, education, or any field. Any such measures will apply unjustly or inappropriately in certain particular circumstances. And if people want to resist them, they can–by shifting blame, “working to rule,” or even cheating.

Therefore, we shouldn’t forget about “internal” accountability. For example, a good teacher feels that she doesn’t want to let her kids down or disappoint their parents, her peers, or her principal. “Internal” accountability is also what drives really successful students. It’s not the grade they care about, ultimately, but what their teacher and parents think about their work.

So the question becomes: How can we increase “internal” accountability in schools? Some promising ideas: —

  • Dramatically shorten the list of “external” standards and yardsticks, but make the ones that remain really count. For example, school systems should be held strictly accountable for their graduation rates and the basic literacy and numeracy of their kids at specific grades. However, state assessments should not measure students’ mastery of long and heterogeneous lists of facts. For the most part, teachers and schools should decide how to assess their students’ knowledge of “content” areas, with some non-binding guidance from the state about what is important.
  • Make schools smaller, so that faculty can’t as easily hide their performance from their colleagues. I know there’s a lack of hard data that correlates school size to academic performance. Nevertheless, I think that small schools represent a promising development.
  • Use juries to assess some student work, and put several teachers as well as community members on each of these juries. That way, colleagues will be able to assess the work that’s going on in other classrooms.
  • Pay for time during the day when faculty can meet to discuss students. Not only will such planning time allow them to develop appropriate responses to kids’ problems; it will also help each teacher to see what the others are doing–or failing to do.
  • Without necessarily reducing class size at the high school level, reduce the number of kids who are in contact with each teacher during their four-year school careers. The goal is to strengthen relationships and prevent students and adults from hiding from one another.

    • “small schools” meeting

    Today is CIRCLE‘s event at the National Press Club on the civic potential of the “small schools” movement. In all, thousands of new high schools are being created in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other big cities. In addition to being small, they tend to have a strong sense of internal community, connections to outside organizations, and coherent curricular “themes,” so that a whole school may be devoted to science and technology, or community service, or Asian studies. (This means that students have more choice among schools but less choice once they enroll in a particular building). We’re going to hear from former Gov. Bob Wise, various experts, educators, and students about the potential civic advantages of these schools. C-SPAN is planning to cover the whole day, but I don’t know when their tape will air (and they have a tendency to change plans if breaking news develops elsewhere). Click below for more details about the day.

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    the new missionaries

    I didn’t watch any of the Live 8 concerts, but I was intrigued enough by the newspaper coverage that I checked out the official website and some prominent links, including DATA (“debt, AIDS, trade, Africa”), which is supposed to be the source of information for the Live 8 movement. I am struck by the overwhelming image of Africa as pathetic and needy, exemplified by the videos of orphans and “street toddlers.” With the exception of Nelson Mandela, there are no prominent African adults on these websites, saying what they think about the continent. There is very little about the assets and capacities of Africans. The few positive remarks tend to emphasize the crucial role of outside assistance. For example, “Mozambique’s economy grew at an astonishing 12 per cent in the 1990s when aid constituted 50 per cent of its income.” (Could Mozambique’s growth rate have had anything to do with its own people and government?)

    We’re told, “LIVE 8 is about justice not charity.” But saying that doesn’t make it true. Justice would require collaboration and respect, which I don’t see on the websites. Justice is a political concept, and the Live 8 movement has no politics (other than the demand that Western elites provide more cash).

    All this matters because the developing world is littered with the refuse of good intentions. From missionaries to the Western-trained mandarins who ran countries like Tanzania and India under Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi, people with good hearts and lots of cash have been damaging economies and undermining self-respect for generations. I think justice would mean considerably more aid, and better trade policies, for Africa. But it’s not worth raising a few billions if Africans obtain no power, and all the decisions are made by Western celebrities.

    “how to define progressives in ways that would excite young adults”

    This is a topic that Greg Anrig Jr. and then Matthew Yglesias have been discussing over at TPM Cafe. Most of the discussion has concerned issues–whether young people could be motivated by a particular approach to college loans, Social Security, or healthcare. Some participants believe that it is a mistake to develop special proposals for the young; it’s more important just to propose good policies. Yglesias also notes a dilemma for the left. Young people are strongly libertarian on gay rights and other questions connected to sex and/or religion–the very questions that motivated many older Americans to vote for Bush. “The issues that tend to drive young people into the Democrats’ arms are, unfortunately, precisely the sort of cultural issues that conventional wisdom says the party needs to de-emphasize.”

    I’d like to suggest a few openings that are quite unlike the issue-appeals discussed over at TPM:

    1. The Democratic Party should give young people more substantive roles in campaigns. According to a study that CIRCLE commissioned from the political scientist Dan Shea (pdf), two thirds of the 403 local Democratic leaders who were polled said that a lack of youth involvement was a “serious problem.” Democratic leaders were much more likely than their GOP counterparts to see the lack of youth participation as a serious issue, perhaps because young people are more engaged in the GOP, which has invested heavily in conservative campus newspapers and clubs and Washington internship programs. Nevertheless, most local leaders in both parties reported doing relatively little to groom the next generation by giving youth significant jobs. Most of their ideas for reaching youth were superficial–they thought they should become more “hip” or throw more parties. They often blamed the media for alienating young people, but seemed unwilling to invest their own resources. Local leaders (both GOP and Democratic) were asked to name the “most important demographic group for the long-term success of their party.” Only 8 percent volunteered “young people.” If they chose another group (most commonly, “seniors”) they were asked to name a second group. Even after three opportunities, a total of only 38% named youth as an important group for the future of their party.

    2. The Democratic Party should give the impression that it is open-minded and committed to solving problems by any means that work. Today’s young people appear to be even more pragmatic than their elders: unattached to existing ideologies but concerned about social problems. Marc Porter Magee has been arguing that idealistic young people shun bureaucratic organizations and the civil service, looking instead for opportunities to experiment and be creative in the non-profit sector. They also like such temporary (but paid) volunteer opportunities as Americorps. The country could invest much more heavily in service and what Magee calls “civic enterprise.”

    3. We should start thinking about “sleeper” issues. These are issues that arise out of everyday experience and that take a long time to be named–even longer to be addressed. A political party or leader can score points by simply identifying such an issue early. For example, thanks to my colleague Lew Friedland, I’m convinced that high school students face excessive stress today because they feel that their long-term economic security is dependent on their performance in school and extracurricular activities. If anything, they overestimate the economic significance of their choice of courses and the grades they win; and they often perform community service in the belief that it’s necessary for college admission. I think it’s unjust to force young people to shoulder so much risk with so little support; and there may be ways to mitigate the problem. Smaller high schools, with more sense of community and less individual choice, might help. Making college admissions and financing more transparent and simpler would also be good.

    (Thanks to Nick Beaudrot for telling me about the exchange on TPM–I haven’t been reading blogs much lately.)

    don’t call it “freedom”

    One of the buildings planned for the World Trade Center site is a museum, the International Freedom Center. As planned, the Center would offer space to several art galleries, some of which have previously shown controversial art. It would also provide a permanent exhibition called “Freedom’s Walk,” that would include displays about great tyrannies from the past. There would an educational and cultural center and a “civic engagement network” where people could find opportunities to volunteer in their communities. The plan recently attracted criticism from families of 9/11 victims, who want it to be a memorial to the tragedy of that day, and from conservative commentators, some of whom see the proposed museum as a “Marxist-left, anti-American media center.” Special criticism has been reserved for one of the nonprofits offered space in the arts complex, the Drawing Museum, because it has previously shown art works based on the Abu Ghraib scandal, and other anti-Bush pictures.

    I happen to think that government funding for culture raises complex issues. Freedom is not the only value at stake; it’s also important for government money to support art that’s excellent, representative, inspiring, appropriate, consistent with democratic values, and so on. Moreover, I don’t believe that it’s possible to give out government money simply on the basis of “freedom.” Someone must make decisions about who shall get the cash. If the government subcontracts its decisions to boards of artists or to museum directors, then it is simply annointing particular groups as its agents.

    Nevertheless, freedom is a great good–and we can maximize it. A cultural center devoted to freedom would indeed make room for controversial discussions, for art that challenges conventional views from various perspectives. It would indeed contain rooms like the “civic engagement network,” whose content is contributed over time by multiple independent groups. There might even be a speaker’s corner and facilities (such as video studios) that visitors could use to create ephemeral works of their own. Designed that way, the museum really would promote freedom, albeit at some cost to other values–national solidarity/patriotism, focus on the 9/11 victims, and popularity.

    Under the circumstances, I can understand the choice not to maximize freedom, but rather to create a more conventional memorial to the dead of 9/11. However, I am increasingly angry at the use of “freedom” when it doesn’t apply. The President says that “freedom is on the march,” thanks to his policies at home and abroad. But even a friendly reading of his motives would suggest that the United States is balancing freedom against national security, stability, majoritarian democracy, traditional values, prosperity, and other goods. If anything, freedom is waning in the United States thanks to the Patriot Act and other restrictions on individual civil rights. Maybe that’s necessary–but don’t call it “freedom.”

    Somehow, the replacement design for “Freedom Tower” at the World Trade Center site–with its 200-foot, impregnable concrete-and-steel plinth–makes the point most clearly. Even as we restrict liberty, we are eager to use the rhetoric of “freedom.”