Michael W. Kirst

Inequitable opportunities: How current education systems and policies undermine the chances for student persistence and success in college

America’s high school students have higher educational aspirations than ever before, yet these aspirations are being undermined by disconnected educational systems and other barriers. These educational aspirations cut across racial and ethnic lines with scant differences. As this study demonstrates, access to college-preparation-related policy information, however, follows racial, ethnic, income, and curricular tracking lines. This article presents findings from Stanford University’s Bridge Project—a national study that examined (a) K-16 policies and practices and (b) student, parent, teacher, counselor, and administrator understandings of those policies and practices in regions in California, Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, Oregon, and Texas. In addition, it proposes recommendations for K-12 schools, postsecondary institutions, state agencies, and the federal government.

Bridging the Great Divide between Secondary Schools and Postsecondary Education

What forms should K-16 collaboration take in order to improve college-going and completing rates? Though they are still in the initial stages of data analysis, Mr. Kirst and Ms. Venezia share with readers some emerging themes.

The Utility of a Longitudinal Approach in Assessing Implementation: A Thirteen Year View of Title I, ESEA.

W h a t directions should public policy implementation research take in the 1980s? Certainly the embryonic and interdisciplinary field of implementation research will benefit from experimentation with and evaluation of numerous research approaches. Still largely unexplored are cross-program comparative case studies and statistical prediction models of implementation. There is also much to be learned from macrocase study analyses tracing implementation from policy formation through the measurement of a programs impact on intended recipients at a single point in time. We also are benefitting from an increased number of in-depth descriptions of individual subunits within the implementation scenario. One largely overlooked direction, however, appears to hold considerable promise in the 80s. We believe a longitudinal case study approach (10 years or more) merits serious consideration. An extended time line of 10 years or more

Class-Size Reduction in California: A Story of Hope, Promise, and Unintended Consequences

A Story of Hope, Promise, and Unintended Consequences The overall impact of class-size reduction in California will not be known for a few more years. Nevertheless, much has been learned in the first three years that can inform the national conversation on the topic,the authors point out. IN JULY 1996, the California legislature passed S.B. 1777, an education reform initiative that committed more than

Politics of Charter Schools: Competing National Advocacy Coalitions Meet Local Politics.

1 billion a year to a class-size reduction (CSR) program of unprecedented magnitude. The measure - though voluntary - provided a powerful financial incentive for school districts to reduce the number of students in K-3 classes. This financial incentive, coupled with strong public support, catalyzed school districts to implement CSR with astonishing speed. By the time students started school in the fall of 1996 - just six weeks after the measures passage - the vast majority of Californias school districts had already begun to shrink their first-grade classes from a statewide average of nearly 30 students to a new maximum of 20. By the end of the third year, 98.5% of eligible school districts and 92% of eligible K-3 students were participating in CSR. Shortly after S.B. 1777 was signed into law, representatives from a group of research and policy organizations in California met to discuss the importance of planning for an evaluation of the new laws impact. This group, called the CSR Research Consortium, was headed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and RAND; it also included Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), WestEd, and EdSource. The authors of this article are the leaders of the CSR Research Consortium, but many other researchers from the five institutions contributed directly to the project.1 The speed and enthusiasm with which California implemented CSR underscored a shared optimism on the part of legislators, educators, and parents that smaller classes would quickly improve the quality of education and lead the states K-3 students to achieve higher scores on standardized tests. To some extent, this optimism has been rewarded: evaluations after the second and third years of CSR in California confirm that students enrolled in smaller classes do perform slightly better on standardized tests than students in larger classes. Educators hope these gains will increase as the program matures and students have longer exposure to smaller classes. However, these small gains have had large costs. Indeed, class-size reform in California has had a profound unanticipated consequence: in its first three years, CSR exacerbated existing inequities within the states education system. The teacher work force increased by 38% in just two years, causing a drop in teacher qualifications that disproportionately affected school districts already struggling with overcrowding, poverty, and language barriers. The overall costs to implement CSR were also considerably higher for these school districts. To be sure, the program is young, and its full effects - positive and negative - may not be realized for several more years. However, as class-size reduction programs gain momentum across the nation, educators and legislators would be well advised to learn from Californias experience and keep equity foremost in their minds when planning their own programs. This article reviews the history and status of CSR in California, reports results from comprehensive evaluations of the programs first three years, and derives a short set of lessons from the states experience. These lessons are intended to help inform the debate about class size in other states and in the nation as a whole. Class-Size Reduction in the U.S. The strong political support for CSR in California was based on the belief that reducing class size would produce significant improvement in student achievement. This belief, in turn, was based on the positive results of a class-size reduction experiment in Tennessee, the Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio, or STAR, program. …

Turbulence in American Secondary Schools: What Reforms Last?

This article identifies supporters and opponents of charter schools at all levels of government and describes their motivations and behaviors. It is explained that state and local support for charter schools is most often determined by educational needs and material incentives. Different political contexts produce different charter school policies. For example, charter school legislation in Michigan was designed to increase competition among public schools. Legislation in Georgia served to deregulate public education after a period of increased state centralization. The article concludes that there is no cohesive state or local charter political pattern, given the variations in charter schools and their contexts. It remains unclear whether national charter school advocates have enough influence to expand the number of charter schools significantly. Local policymakers in areas with few educational pressures, such as some suburban communities, may resist change. Charter schools could end up as a marginal reform that impacts small numbers of students in urban centers, or continue their impressive growth, but it is state and local politics that will decide.

Accountability: Implications for State and Local Policymakers

The education system of the United States includes 16,000 local education agencies, each with considerable power to determine its own curriculum. But this pluralistic, decentralized system also exhibits remarkable uniformity and consistency. This uniformity is due, in part, to the irresistible national tides of trends and movements for reform. After reviewing the cyclical history and current reform trends in the turbulent history of secondary curriculum in American schools, we have concluded that some reforms carried on these national waves anchor securely in the nations high schools, but many others disappear like ships lost in a Bermuda Triangle of education. Our theory explains why some reforms last while others disappear and why still others vanish, but then reappear ephemerally in subsequent periods. Despite the recent intense criticism of the American secondary school and new efforts to reform it, we believe only marginal change rather than fundamental transformations will take place in the mid 1980s. While the research for this paper is primarily based in American experience, we have pointed out parallels between the findings of American research and the thrust of selected analyses of educational change in some European and other countries. Curriculum policy in American secondary education displays a striking mixture of stability and change. On the one hand, Cuban (1984) discovered that certain patterns of classroom instruction have endured for over fifty years. Among the lasting features are whole group instruction, the predominance of teacher talk, classroom dialogue in the questionand-answer textbook format, and the restriction of student movement * This article continues the series on Secondary Education under the special editorship of Mark Holmes.

State Educational Reform Since 1983: Appraisal and the Future

During the 1980s, 40 states put new testing provisions into effect; local school districts across the country began revamping their teacher evaluation procedures; and the federal government, in cooperation with the states, embarked on a process to formulate and assess national goals. These developments mean that most education policymakers will, sooner or later, be confronted with decisions about evaluating or implementing some type of accountability system. This paper is designed to help policymakers understand and select various options for holding schools accountable for their performance. It does not recommend one system over another, however, because a given accountability option must be compatible with, and adapted to, particular state and local contexts. The paper begins with a review of the lessons policymakers can learn from more than a century of experience with accountability. It examines failures and false starts, as well as promising practices. The key organizing device for the paper is six broad approaches to accountability, each entailing several specific alternatives. These six approaches are: accountability through performance reporting; accountability through monitoring and compliance with standards or regulations; accountability through incentive systems; accountability through reliance on the market; accountability through changing the locus of authority or control of schools; and accountability through changing professional roles.

The Politics of Nationalizing Curricular Content.

More state activity aimed at improving public education took place in the 1980s than ever before. State legislators introduced an unsurpassed number of education-related bills, increased state aid, and examined the findings of hundreds of state-level task forces and commissions. Education initiatives spread quickly from state to state. To shed light on the significance of the reform movement itself, in 1986 the Center for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) began a 5-year study of the implementation and effects of state education reforms in six states chosen for their diverse approaches to reform: Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania. This article pres- ents some of the findings from that research.

On the Trail of the Omnibeast: Evaluating Omnibus Education Reforms in the 1980s

The nationalization of policy for curricular content standards has evolved over a number of years and has widespread support. But, certifying national content standards involves fundamental political decisions about what knowledge is most worth knowing. This article stresses key areas of political conflict, and the difficult trade-offs that a national standards approval group must make. The difficulty of building a coalition is highlighted through analysis of left-wing support for explicit opportunity-to-learn standards and right-wing objection to educational outcomes. This article focuses on the initial approval stages of national curriculum content standards and not upon the obstacles to classroom implementation.