The National Math and Science Initiative (NMSI) is a four-year-old program (younger than me!) that has demonstrated successful results in increasing the number of students who pass Advanced Placement (AP) exams in math and science, particularly among underprivileged students. The Colorado Legacy Foundation has reported similar positive results here in our state for the seven schools who participated in a less-than-fully-vamped version of the program in 2010-11.

The news? The effective math and science program is expanding dramatically in Colorado:

But it’s still unclear how well the National Math and Science Initiative’s AP program could work in Colorado because some incentives — such as payments to students who get high scores — were dropped when Colorado didn’t get federal Race to the Top funds to fully implement the program in 2010-2011. Educators are waiting to hear whether grant money will be available to expand it in coming years.

The program, which originated in Dallas, aims to expand access to tough AP classes to lower-income students, Hispanics and African Americans, and to help them pass AP tests administered by the College Board. It uses a mix of teacher training, open enrollment in AP classes, and $100 for teachers and students for each passing score.

Sources assure me that $1.5 million has been raised from a number of generous private sources, ensuring a $15 million federal matching grant for the full-fledged program in 30 Colorado high schools representing 14 different districts–including Denver Public Schools, Mesa Valley 51 (Grand Junction), Cherry Creek, Littleton and Eagle County. Given the track records out there, this news is potentially a big thing.

Working very closely with NMSI is the nonprofit organization Laying the Foundation, which focuses on preparing middle and high school teachers to provide rigorous and engaging instruction that promotes student success in the AP program. This video from Ruston High School in Louisiana gives an example of the organization’s effective work. Also noteworthy: LTF’s chief executive officer is the same Dave Saba who once appeared in a former role on an iVoices podcast about alternative teacher licensure.

Small world, isn’t it? Just in case you’re concerned, I am resisting any and all urges to start singing the song that has made Disneyland famous. No need to cause a stir, when the news I’m sharing today should cause a much better kind of stir. Best wishes for success on the Advanced Placement Teacher Incentive Program to the Legacy Foundation, NMSI, LTF, and the Colorado teachers and students they reach.

I’m talking about yesterday’s release of the latest results for math and reading from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), better known as the Nation’s Report Card, the gold-standard test to measure what 4th grade and 8th grade students in different states are learning about important subjects. Without further ado, here are some good reads:

• Linking to a Colorado Department of Education news release, Ed News Colorado reports that our state’s 8th graders showed improvements in both math and reading, but 4th graders made “no significant change”
• Fordham’s Mike Petrilli speculates that the now-defunct national Reading First initiative may account for the better national showing in reading by 8th graders than 4th graders
• Kevin Carey of Education Sector notes continuing national progress in math scores, observes the stubbornness of the achievement gap, and raises the specter of how the results filter into national debates over reauthorizing ESEA and adopting Common Core standards
• Speaking of the achievement gap, Matt Ladner lays out how poor students and (more specifically) poor, African-American students did state-by-state on 4th grade reading; interestingly, Colorado — which continues to remain above the national average on overall NAEP scores — was below the mark in the former category
• Education Week blogger Michele McNeil takes a look at the results through the lens of states that won Race to the Top, and finds unexpected positive gains from Hawaii and Maryland, while also observing remarkable math gains among Washington, D.C., students — which would be a credit to the bold reform program of now-former Chancellor Michelle Rhee

That’s certainly a lot easier than diving into the data and coming up with original observations myself, at least for now. More time to ruminate later. But I thought you might find these initial insights interesting, at least as much as you can while reveling in last night’s election results.

Affluent suburban districts may be outperforming their large urban neighbors, but they fail to achieve near the top of international comparisons…. White Plains, New York, in suburban Westchester County, is only at the 39th percentile in math relative to our global comparison group. Grosse Point, Michigan, outside of Detroit, is at the 56th percentile. Evanston, Illinois, the home of Northwestern University outside of Chicago, is at the 48th percentile in math. The average student in Montgomery County, Maryland, where many of the national government leaders send their children to school, is at the 50th percentile in math relative to students in other developed countries….

It goes on, but you get the flavor. If you’re wondering about your own school district, you can check out the handy new web tool Greene and company created called The Global Report Card. All in all, it’s an interesting tool that may be worth further exploring. The findings reported by Greene and McGee do raise some cause for concern:

In four states, there is not a single traditional district with average student achievement above the 50th percentile in math. In 17 states, there is not a single traditional district with average achievement in the upper third relative to our global comparison group. And apart from charter school districts, in over half of the states, there are no more than three traditional districts in which the average achievement would be in the upper third.

One of my Education Policy Center friends decided to check out the 10 largest school districts in Colorado, to see at which percentile average students rank among their international peers. Here’s what he found:

1. Jefferson County (48%)
2. Denver (unclear, data presented separately for “Denver” and “District 1″)
3. Douglas County (60%)
4. Cherry Creek (52%)
5. Adams 12 [listed as "Adams"] (38%)
6. Aurora [listed as "Aurora County"] (22%)
7. Boulder Valley (58%)
8. Colorado Springs 11 [listed as "Colorado Springs"] (44%)
9. St. Vrain Valley (48%)
10. Poudre (55%)

Looks like Colorado might be one of the 17 states identified as not having “a single traditional district with average achievement in the upper third relative to our global comparison group.” If somebody can find a Colorado district at or above the 67th percentile, please let me know. Looked at this way, the state’s K-12 performance still doesn’t show terrible results, but we can certainly do better.

While we certainly shouldn’t abandon less privileged students in the quest to raise their academic performance, it is important to recognize that we need to raise the bar for middle class, suburban students, too — a point more ably made by Greg Forster on Jay Greene’s blog, of all places.

Yesterday Harvard professor Paul Peterson wrote yesterday on Education Next about a new U.S. Department of Education report rating state math and reading standards for 4th and 8th grade. Though USDOE’s report didn’t acknowledge it, Dr. Peterson and his team had published very similar research — comparing state standards to the “gold standard” National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) — just a year ago:

Every state, for both reading and math (with the exception of Massachusetts for math), deems more students “proficient” on its own assessments than NAEP does. The average difference is a startling 37 percentage points.

Interestingly, the new USDOE report concludes:

All NAEP scale equivalents of states’ reading standards were below NAEP’s Proficient range; in mathematics, only one state’s NAEP scale equivalent was in the NAEP Proficient range (Massachusetts in grades 4 and 8).

A case of deja vu? Though the Education Next and USDOE studies used somewhat different methods to compare the data, they came up with almost the exact same answers. Peterson noted yesterday that the correlations between the findings for all states — not just Massachusetts — were statistically very high, with one notable exception:

Colorado is the one state where we provide substantially different rankings. Ednext ranked it 4th; the Department says it is 45th. I suspect the difference is due to a change in standards in Colorado, but I invite readers to throw light on the discrepancy.

Why did last year’s survey find our state among those with the highest math and reading standards, while the new government study places us among the lowest? I’m not sure how to explain that away. Colorado’s State Board of Education adopted new academic standards in 2009, but assessments have yet to make the transition. Is there something significantly flawed in either the state-reported data (Ed Next) or school sample data (USDOE), but only for Colorado? Could the feds be relying on old data? Frankly, I’m baffled.

And I don’t like to be in the oddball state. But I would be glad if someone got to the bottom of it so we could know the truth. As for whether it was worthwhile for the USDOE to reproduce very similar work already done by private researchers just to find a major discrepancy for Colorado… well, that’s the million-dollar question.

“Education specific funding being used to push a political agenda — that’s not appropriate,” said concerned parent Stacy Petty.

Agreed. And credit goes to the hard-working folks at Complete Colorado for breaking this story first. They have posted a copy of the flyer sent home to Brighton parents.

As a one-time incident, this story might have repercussions only for the school district — which alleges it was a mistake. The 7 News story says that state officials are investigating for a possible violation of Colorado’s Fair Campaign Practices Act.

But taken together with an incident two months ago brings an additional dimension to the story. Remember when supporters of the statewide tax hike ballot initiative decided to use a class of 4th graders on a field trip as a backdrop for their press conference (and kinda sorta forgot to check and see if that might be OK with their parents first)? Yes, the flyer was for the same ballot initiative. Looks like a trend.

Whoops.

The sharp-tongued political observers at Colorado Peak Politics call it “the scandal before the end” of the tax increase proposal. They well may be right about that. Using kids as political props without parental permission, and then using taxpayer resources to send school parents flyers (next to voter registration forms!)….

Well, I don’t know a lot about math, but that appears to add up to a big public relations mess. Time for some people to re-examine priorities.

“This,” says Matthew Carpenter, “is my favorite exercise.” I peer over his shoulder at his laptop screen to see the math problem the fifth grader is pondering. It’s an inverse trigonometric function: cos-1(1) = ?

Carpenter, a serious-faced 10-year-old wearing a gray T-shirt and an impressive black digital watch, pauses for a second, fidgets, then clicks on “0 degrees.” Presto: The computer tells him that he’s correct. The software then generates another problem, followed by another, and yet another, until he’s nailed 10 in a row in just a few minutes. All told, he’s done an insane 642 inverse trig problems. “It took a while for me to get it,” he admits sheepishly.

Carpenter, who attends Santa Rita Elementary, a public school in Los Altos, California, shouldn’t be doing work anywhere near this advanced….

Funny, that’s what some people say about this 5-year-old’s edublogging prowess. But I digress. The article by Clive Thompson is a long and substantial one, but also engaging. If it doesn’t make you think about the current education paradigm — and whether and how we can go about it more effectively — then you’re not trying too hard. I’ve told you about Khan Academy before, but have yet to point you to anything this in-depth.

While Khan definitely has his critics, this article sure makes it look like his video-based program is having tremendous results for some students in the areas of math and science. Happy digging!

In 2007, after four years of operation, Life Skills was in danger of having its charter revoked and being shut down. The State Board intervened to save the school after the DPS board’s vote based on legitimate concerns with poor results that showed up on testing measures. As Denise at Colorado Charters noted back then, new principal Santiago Lopez had already taken steps to improve the school. And Alan at Ed News Colorado came around to seeing Life Skills as a “special case” that deserved to stay open:

If DPS had a viable alternative for these kids, one that was being drained by the existence of Life Skills, I’d favor shutting down the school. But these are kids DPS has given up on, and vice-versa. What possible harm is there in giving them another chance, even if it’s less than ideal?

This week’s visit to Life Skills demonstrated that the Denver charter remains on course with Lopez at the helm. State and district performance measures raise concerns. Yet students come in way behind, and most show average or better academic growth results. The attendance rate is only 53 percent, which represents a significant improvement from before the current principal’s tenure.

It goes to show a large part of the battle is getting these at-risk students — about three-fourths of whom come from all over the city, and the rest from surrounding districts — to show up and take responsibility for their success. And while some still slip through the cracks, the hard work and incentives used by Lopez and his staff are having an impact. Those who attend consistently are making up serious ground on their academic deficits, and many are graduating and taking a significantly improved change of course in life.

In particular, the success stories presented by recent and soon-to-be Life Skills graduates at the Wednesday event show that the school is making an unmistakeably profound impact on some of their students’ lives. All the best in the future to Chantelle and Regis and others who shared their compelling testimonials. What about the students who don’t cut it, in spite of all efforts, you say? Each case is sad, yet as Alan pointed out a few years ago, the system already had set them aside.

As a charter school, Life Skills has the freedom to restructure and redesign the learning experience in a way that gives otherwise discarded teens and young adults a better chance to succeed. That in itself is no magic formula. But a supportive and visionary board, strong school leadership, a capable and committed staff, and the tools to deliver an engaging curriculum thankfully means more success stories. As long as students continue to choose this alternative option and the school stays on its current trajectory, Life Skills will continue proving its worthy role in the metro Denver community.

Anyway, the reason I bring up the topic is a brand-new Education Sector report titled Growth Models and Accountability: A Recipe for Remaking ESEA. The report’s hook and chief case study is Denver’s Bruce Randolph School, and a significant chunk of the report is focused entirely on (you guessed it) the Colorado Growth Model. That’s why my Education Policy Center friends gave it such close attention. Co-author Kevin Carey was kind enough to spend a few minutes on the phone with Ben DeGrow to explain a few things and answer some questions.

It’s safe to say the authors of the Education Sector reports are high on the Colorado Growth Model as exemplary for other states to follow. As the report notes, a consortium of 14 states has inexpensively done just that, thanks to Colorado’s use of open-source software to display the data for public consumption. Carey and co-author Robert Manwaring gave our state’s growth model lofty praise for user-friendliness and accessibility:

Colorado stands out for the ease with which policymakers, principals, school board members, parents, and other stakeholders can access the information.

Interestingly, while more accessible than in its first iteration, SchoolView.org (on which Colorado Growth Model data is hosted) still has some progress to make in this area. My Education Policy Center friends haven’t been as keen on the site’s user-friendliness, but it was a good opportunity for some conversation.

Carey observed the “dilemma” of wanting to keep the academic performance information simple, but noted that seeking to make it too easy can lead to a “simplistic” model that may be lacking in fairness and accuracy. He also acknowledged that, largely because of different concerns and questions, the “best way to present data for parents is not necessarily the same as for policy makers.” That may be a big part of the rub.

I’m still hoping for a way to identify school performance that presents the information in a manner that a broad swath of parents can understand while maintaining the Growth Model’s integrity. You know. Something that sort of combines the wonderful School Choice for Kids website’s yin with SchoolView.org’s yang. I’m young. I can dream big.

In the course of the conversation, Carey made a salient point: “None of this information is good unless you use it to make schools better.” Getting good, valid information about school performance is crucial, but how do we go about making them better? Keep reading the blog, as we go on striving to figure that out together.

A couple weeks ago the co-chairs of the State Council on Educator Effectiveness presented their recommendations to the Colorado State Board of Education. One of the presenters expressed a hopeful confidence that the 50 percent of teacher and principal evaluations based on observed performance would match up with the 50 percent based on student growth.

The good news, as reported by Education Next, is that new research by Thomas Kane and colleagues shows creating such an effective evaluation system can be done — because in a sense, the Cincinnati Public Schools’ Teacher Evaluation System (TES) already has done it:

We find that teachers’ classroom practices, as measured by TES scores, do predict differences in student achievement growth….

…[C]onsider a student who begins the year at the 50th percentile and is assigned to a top-quartile teacher as measured by the Overall Classroom Practices score; by the end of the school year, that student, on average, will score about three percentile points higher in reading and about two points higher in math than a peer who began the year at the same achievement level but was assigned to a bottom-quartile teacher….

The results presented here constitute the strongest evidence to date on the relationship between teachers’ observed classroom practices and the achievement gains made by their students. The nature of the relationship between practices and achievement supports teacher evaluation and development systems that make use of multiple measures. Even if one is solely interested in raising student achievement, effectiveness measures based on classroom practice provide critical information to teachers and administrators on what actions they can take to achieve this goal.

In other words, Colorado’s SB 191 has all the potential to make a positive difference in identifying and keeping effective classroom teachers. A close and careful look at Dr. Kane’s research on Cincinnati’s TES certainly is in order. It can be done. And there’s no reason why Colorado can’t allow for the creation of an even better aligned system.

By the way, you know I’m not the only one who is pushing for this new system to succeed. Have you heard of the group Step Up Colorado? It looks like they are launching a media campaign to help ensure public support for effective implementation of SB 191:

Good for them.

Now, naturally, I don’t write much about schools of education. At my age it’s really quite a bit trying to follow teachers and schools, without keeping frequent tabs on who’s teaching the teachers that teach in our schools. Still, it’s an important issue — a HUGE issue, really. Just as a major example, why is there such a large-scale problem with equipping elementary instructors in teaching literacy and math? It’s truly exciting to see NCTQ take on this large task.

Unsurprisingly, there has been some pushback. NCTQ explains that many education schools “do not intend to cooperate” with a national review process that — to its credit — is being conducted very transparently. Education Week Teacher Beat blogger Stephen Sawchuk has been covering the story of four states (Georgia, Kentucky, New York and Wisconsin) that have refused to “participate voluntarily” in the evaluation. The Eduwonk wisely notes that such obstruction represents “a remarkably counterproductive strategy.”

Further into the Education Week post, Sawchuk points out something else a little troubling:

The situation is murkier in Maryland, Colorado, and California, where public university officials have sent letters to NCTQ and U.S. News requesting changes to the review process, but haven’t yet declined to take part willingly.

NCTQ shows that only one of 15 Colorado education schools has complied with their research request and that they have followed up with 11 open records request to get what they are looking for. I hope Colorado comes along and that a productive agreement can be reached. We don’t have nearly as much information as we should about how different ed schools are doing. Nor is the overall track record of these schools what they should be for them to pursue the stonewalling strategy to any effective end.

To find out more about the evaluation and what NCTQ is looking for, not only go to their website but also listen to last week’s presentation she made at the Donnell-Kay Hot Lunch — Ed News Colorado has posted the 40-minute podcast.