Head Start works – and keeps working

Head Start has been around since the 1960s, and debating its effectiveness has become a sort of litmus test on how people feel about the role of government. Democrats tend to support the preschool program. Republicans are bound by conservative orthodoxy to claim it doesn’t work.

But new research finds that, not only does Head Start work, it produces benefits that compound for generations. The analysis, by Lauren Bauer and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach of the Hamilton Project, was published this month. Findings include:

• Head Start increases the likelihood that children will go on to graduate from high school, attend college and earn postsecondary degrees or certificates.
• The program improves social, emotional and behavioral development, resulting in better self-control and improved self-esteem when the children grow up.
• Head Start kids are more likely as adults to engage in positive parenting practices like reading to their children, teaching them letters and numbers, and showing them affection.

Some of the gains were especially pronounced for African-American and Latino children who attended Head Start, the Hamilton Project researchers found.

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School choice adds to growth in economic segregation

Segregation of public schools by family income has increased significantly in the past two decades, according to a new study by three leading education researchers. And school-choice policies have likely contributed to economic segregation, they say.

The study draws on multiple data sources to measure segregation of students between school districts and segregation between schools within the same districts. Interestingly, it finds some of the largest increases were in intra-district segregation.

The study is in this month’s issue of the American Educational Research Journal. Authors are Ann Owens of the University of Southern California, Sean Reardon of Stanford and Christopher Jenks of Harvard.

Findings include:

• Segregation by income between school districts increased by 15 percent between 1990 and 2010.
• In the nation’s 100 largest school districts, economic segregation within districts increased by 40 percent during the same period.
• Economic segregation of schools is about two-thirds as extensive as white-black segregation and about the same as white-Hispanic segregation.

The study concludes that rising income inequality in the U.S. is a primary cause of the growing economic segregation of schools. As the gap grows between rich and poor, affluent families are more likely to segregate themselves into enclaves where there are few poor children in the public schools.

Will voucher support hurt superintendent candidate?

Jennifer McCormick, the Republican candidate for superintendent of public instruction, says she rejects politics and wants to provide effective management for the Indiana Department of Education. But the message isn’t convincing when her campaign supporters include some very political people.

Or when McCormick joins them in embracing Indiana’s controversial school voucher program.

And let’s face it: Making and administering state education policy is a political process. It’s probably always been that way, but it became much more so when Republican Tony Bennett was elected to the office in 2008 and began using politics as a club to reshape education.

McCormick, the school superintendent in Yorktown, Ind., since 2010, is challenging Glenda Ritz, the Democrat who upset Bennett in the 2012 election. She hasn’t yet provided a lot of specifics about policy, but she supports Indiana’s voucher program, which provides state funding to send children to private schools, nearly all of which are religious schools.

“I’ve been a huge proponent of parents being allowed that choice,” she told Chalkbeat Indiana.

That should be a deal-breaker for many people who support public education. Leaving aside the matter of taxpayer funding of faith-based schools, vouchers cost the state up to $53.2 million last year, according to the Indiana Department of Education. That’s money that could have gone to public schools.

Testing expert: ‘Be careful what you wish for’ in replacing ISTEP

It’s one thing for Indiana officials to say they’re getting rid of the hated ISTEP exam. It’s quite another to figure out what to do next. That’s the dilemma that’s playing out as a 23-member state panel tries to craft recommendations on the future of standardized testing.

“The task is a significant one,” said Ed Roeber, a Michigan testing expert and a member of the technical advisory committee that the State Board of Education appointed to advise the ISTEP replacement panel.

Ed Roeber

But the plain truth is, Indiana is likely to have an end-of-year state test for accountability well beyond July 2017, when the law says ISTEP is supposed to expire. The test may have a new name and it may be created by a new vendor. But annual testing isn’t going away.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, Roeber said in a telephone interview – as long as the test is properly designed and implemented, and it is part of a balanced system of assessment.

“I personally didn’t think ISTEP needed to be dropped,” he said. “I thought it could be done a whole lot better.”

The task before the ISTEP replacement panel, meanwhile, is complicated by politics. Lawmakers took credit this year for repealing ISTEP, and Republican Gov. Mike Pence signed the measure to great fanfare. Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction Glenda Ritz has long called for moving away from high-stakes standardized tests.