Send Us Your Evaluations!

In last week’s blog, I wrote about reasons that many educational leaders are wary of the ESSA evidence standards, and the evidence-based reform movement more broadly. Chief among these concerns was a complaint that few educational leaders had the training in education research methods to evaluate the validity of educational evaluations. My response to this was to note that it should not be necessary for educational leaders to read and assess individual evaluations of educational programs, because free, easy-to-interpret review websites, such as the What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence for ESSA, already do such reviews. Our Evidence for ESSA website (www.evidenceforessa.org) lists reading and math programs available for use anywhere in the U.S., and we are constantly on the lookout for any we might have missed. If we have done our job well, you should be able to evaluate the evidence base for any program, in perhaps five minutes.

Other evidence-based fields rely on evidence reviews. Why not education? Your physician may or may not know about medical research, but most rely on websites that summarize the evidence. Farmers may be outstanding in their fields, but they rely on evidence summaries. When you want to know about the safety and reliability of cars you might buy, you consult Consumer Reports. Do you understand exactly how they get their ratings? Neither do I, but I trust their expertise. Why should this not be the same for educational programs?

At Evidence for ESSA, we are aiming to provide information on every program available to you, if you are a school or district leader. At the moment, we cover reading and mathematics, grades pre-k to 12. We want to be sure that if a sales rep or other disseminator offers you a program, you can look it up on Evidence for ESSA and it will be there. If there are no studies of the program that meet our standards, we will say so. If there are qualifying studies that either do or do not have evidence of positive outcomes that meet ESSA evidence standards, we will say so. On our website, there is a white box on the homepage. If you type in the name of any reading or math program, the website should show you what we have been able to find out.

What we do not want to happen is that you type in a program title and find nothing. In our website, “nothing” has no useful meaning. We have worked hard to find every program anyone has heard of, and we have found hundreds. But if you know of any reading or math program that does not appear when you type in its name, please tell us. If you have studies of that program that might meet our inclusion criteria, please send them to us, or citations to them. We know that there are always additional programs entering use, and additional research on existing programs.

Why is this so important to us? The answer is simple, Evidence for ESSA exists because we believe it is essential for the progress of evidence-based reform for educators and policy makers to be confident that they can easily find the evidence on any program, not just the most widely used. Our vision is that someday, it will be routine for educators thinking of adopting educational programs to quickly consult Evidence for ESSA (or other reviews) to find out what has been proven to work, and what has not. I heard about a superintendent who, before meeting with any sales rep, asked them to show her the evidence for the effectiveness of their program on Evidence for ESSA or the What Works Clearinghouse. If they had it, “Come on in,” she’d say. If not, “Maybe later.”

Only when most superintendents and other school officials do this will program publishers and other providers know that it is worth their while to have high-quality evaluations done of each of their programs. Further, they will find it worthwhile to invest in the development of programs likely to work in rigorous evaluations, to provide enough quality professional development to give their programs a chance to succeed, and to insist that schools that adopt their proven programs incorporate the methods, materials, and professional development that their own research has told them are needed for success. Insisting on high-quality PD, for example, adds cost to a program, and providers may worry that demanding sufficient PD will price them out of the market. But if all programs are judged on their proven outcomes, they all will require adequate PD, to be sure that the programs will work when evaluated. That is how evidence will transform educational practice and outcomes.

So our attempt to find and fairly evaluate every program in existence is not due to our being nerds or obsessive compulsive neurotics (though these may be true, too). But thorough, rigorous review of the whole body of evidence in every subject and grade level, and for attendance, social emotional learning, and other non-academic outcomes, is part of a plan.

You can help us on this part of our plan. Tell us about anything we have missed, or any mistakes we have made. You will be making an important contribution to the progress of our profession, and to the success of all children.

Send us your evaluations!

Photo credit: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress [Public domain]

This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.

Why Do Some Educators Push Back Against Evidence?

In December, 2015, the U.S. Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. Among many other provisions, ESSA defined levels of evidence supporting educational programs: Strong (at least one randomized experiment with positive outcomes), moderate (at least one quasi-experimental study with positive outcomes), and promising (at least one correlational study with positive outcomes). For various forms of federal funding, schools are required (in school improvement) or encouraged (in seven other funding streams) to use programs falling into one of these top three categories. There is also a fourth category, “demonstrates a rationale,” but this one has few practical consequences.

3 ½  years later, the ESSA evidence standards are increasing interest in evidence of effectiveness for educational programs, especially among schools applying for school improvement funding and in state departments of education, which are responsible for managing the school improvement grant process. All of this is to the good, in my view.

On the other hand, evidence is not yet transforming educational practice. Even in portions of ESSA that encourage or require use of proven programs among schools seeking federal funding, schools and districts often try to find ways around the evidence requirements rather than truly embracing them. Even when schools do say they used evidence in their proposals, they may have just accepted assurances from publishers or developers stating that their programs meet ESSA standards, even when this is clearly not so.

Why are these children in India pushing back on a car?  And why do many educators in our country push back on evidence?

Educators care a great deal about their children’s achievement, and they work hard to ensure their success. Implementing proven, effective programs does not guarantee success, but it greatly increases the chances. So why has evidence of effectiveness played such a limited role in program selection and implementation, even when ESSA, the national education law, defines evidence and requires use of proven programs under certain circumstances?

The Center on Education Policy Report

Not long ago, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) at George Washington University published a report of telephone interviews of state leaders in seven states. The interviews focused on problems states and districts were having with implementation of the ESSA evidence standards. Six themes emerged:

1. Educational leaders are not comfortable with educational research methods.
2. State leaders feel overwhelmed serving large numbers of schools qualifying for school improvement.
3. Districts have to seriously re-evaluate longstanding relationships with vendors of education products.
4. State and district staff are confused about the prohibition on using Title I school improvement funds on “Tier 4” programs (ones that demonstrate a rationale, but have not been successfully evaluated in a rigorous study).
5. Some state officials complained that the U.S. Department of Education had not been sufficiently helpful with implementation of ESSA evidence standards.
6. State leaders had suggestions to make education research more accessible to educators.

What is the Reality?

I’m sure that the concerns expressed by the state and district leaders in the CEP report are sincerely felt. But most of them raise issues that have already been solved at the federal, state, and/or district levels. If these concerns are as widespread as they appear to be, then we have serious problems of communication.

1. The first theme in the CEP report is one I hear all the time. I find it astonishing, in light of the reality.

No educator needs to be a research expert to find evidence of effectiveness for educational programs. The federal What Works Clearinghouse (https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/) and our Evidence for ESSA (www.evidenceforessa.org) provide free information on the outcomes of programs, at least in reading and mathematics, that is easy to understand and interpret. Evidence for ESSA provides information on programs that do meet ESSA standards as well as those that do not. We are constantly scouring the literature for studies of replicable programs, and when asked, we review entire state and district lists of adopted programs and textbooks, at no cost. The What Works Clearinghouse is not as up-to-date and has little information on programs lacking positive findings, but it also provides easily interpreted information on what works in education.

In fact, few educational leaders anywhere are evaluating the effectiveness of individual programs by reading research reports one at a time. The What Works Clearinghouse and Evidence for ESSA employ experts who know how to find and evaluate outcomes of valid research and to describe the findings clearly. Why would every state and district re-do this job for themselves? It would be like having every state do its own version of Consumer Reports, or its own reviews of medical treatments. It just makes no sense. In fact, at least in the case of Evidence for ESSA, we know that more than 80,000 unique readers have used Evidence for ESSA since it launched in 2017. I’m sure even larger numbers have used the What Works Clearinghouse and other reviews. The State of Ohio took our entire Evidence for ESSA website and put it on its own state servers with some other information. Several other states have strongly promoted the site. The bottom line is that educational leaders do not have to be research mavens to know what works, and tens of thousands of them know where to find fair and useful information.

2. State leaders are overwhelmed. I’m sure this is true, but most state departments of education have long been understaffed. This problem is not unique to ESSA.
3. Districts have to seriously re-evaluate longstanding relationships with vendors. I suspect that this concern is at the core of the problem on evidence. The fact is that most commercial programs do not have adequate evidence of effectiveness. Either they have no qualifying studies (by far the largest number), or they do have qualifying evidence that is not significantly positive. A vendor with programs that do not meet ESSA standards is not going to be a big fan of evidence, or ESSA. These are often powerful organizations with deep personal relationships with state and district leaders. When state officials adhere to a strict definition of evidence, defined in ESSA, local vendors push back hard. Understaffed state departments are poorly placed to fight with vendors and their friends in district offices, so they may be forced to accept weak or no evidence.
4. Confusions about Tier 4 evidence. ESSA is clear that to receive certain federal funds schools must use programs with evidence in Tiers 1, 2, or 3, but not 4. The reality is that definitions of Tier 4 are so weak that any program on Earth can meet this standard. What program anywhere does not have a rationale? The problem is that districts, states, and vendors have used confusion about Tier 4 to justify any program they wish. Some states are more sophisticated than others and do not allow this, but the very existence of Tier 4 in ESSA language creates a loophole that any clever sales rep or educator can use, or at least try to get away with.
5. The U. S. Department of Education is not helpful enough. In reality, USDoE is understaffed and overwhelmed on many fronts. In any case, ESSA puts a lot of emphasis on state autonomy, so the feds feel unwelcome in performing oversight.

The Future of Evidence in Education

Despite the serious problems in implementation of ESSA, I still think it is a giant step forward. Every successful field, such as medicine, agriculture, and technology, has started its own evidence revolution fighting entrenched interests and anxious stakeholders. As late as the 1920s, surgeons refused to wash their hands before operations, despite substantial evidence going back to the 1800s that handwashing was essential. Evidence eventually triumphs, though it often takes many years. Education is just at the beginning of its evidence revolution, and it will take many years to prevail. But I am unaware of any field that embraced evidence, only to retreat in the face of opposition. Evidence eventually prevails because it is focused on improving outcomes for people, and people vote. Sooner or later, evidence will transform the practice of education, as it has in so many other fields.

Photo credit: Roger Price from Hong Kong, Hong Kong [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.

Can Computers Teach?

Something’s coming

I don’t know

What it is

But it is

Gonna be great!

-Something’s Coming, West Side Story

For more than 40 years, educational technology has been on the verge of transforming educational outcomes for the better. The song “Something’s Coming,” from West Side Story, captures the feeling. We don’t know how technology is going to solve our problems, but it’s gonna be great!

Technology Counts is an occasional section of Education Week. Usually, it publishes enthusiastic predictions about the wonders around the corner, in line with its many advertisements for technology products of all kinds. So it was a bit of a shock to see the most recent edition, dated April 24. An article entitled, “U.S. Teachers Not Seeing Tech Impact,” by Benjamin Herold, reported a nationally representative survey of 700 teachers. They reported huge purchases of digital devices, software, learning apps, and other technology in the past three years. That’s not news, if you’ve been in schools lately. But if you think technology is doing “a lot” to support classroom innovation, you’re out of step with most of the profession. Only 29% of teachers would agree with you, but 41% say “some,” 26% “a little,” and 4% “none.” Equally modest proportions say that technology has “changed their work as a teacher.” The Technology Counts articles describe most teachers as using technology to help them do what they have always done, rather than to innovate.

There are lots of useful things technology is used for, such as teaching students to use computers, and technology may make some tasks easier for teachers and students. But from their earliest beginnings, everyone hoped that computers would help students learn traditional subjects, such as reading and math. Do they?

The answer is, not so much. The table below shows average effect sizes for technology programs in reading and math, using data from four recent rigorous reviews of research. Three of these have been posted at www.bestevidence.org. The fourth, on reading strategies for all students, will be posted in the next few weeks.

Mean Effect Sizes for Applications of Technology in Reading and Mathematics
	Number of Studies	Mean Effect Size
Elementary Reading	16	+0.09
Elementary Reading – Struggling Readers	6	+0.05
Secondary Reading	23	+0.08
Elementary Mathematics	14	+0.07
Study-Weighted Mean	59	+0.08

An effect size of +0.08, which is the average across the four reviews, is not zero. But it is not much. It is certainly not revolutionary. Also, the effects of technology are not improving over time.

As a point of comparison, average effect sizes for tutoring by teaching assistants have the following effect sizes:

	Number of Studies	Mean Effect Size
Elementary Reading – Struggling Readers	7	+0.34
Secondary Reading	2	+0.23
Elementary Mathematics	10	+0.27
Study-Weighted Mean	19	+0.29

Tutoring by teaching assistants is more than 3 ½ times as effective as technology. Yet the cost differences between tutoring and technology, especially for effective one-to-small group tutoring by teaching assistants, is not much.

Tutoring is not the only effective alternative to technology. Our reviews have identified many types of programs that are more effective than technology.

A valid argument for continuing with use of technology is that eventually, we are bound to come up with more effective technology strategies. It is certainly worthwhile to keep experimenting. But this argument has been made since the early 1970s, and technology is still not ready for prime time, as least as far as teaching reading and math are concerned. I still believe that technology’s day will come, when strategies to get the best from both teachers and technology will reliably be able to improve learning. Until then, let’s use programs and practices already proven to be effective, as we continue to work to improve the outcomes of technology.

 This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.

Twelfth Grade

One of the main purposes of public education is to help students gain the knowledge and skills that will make them successful in the job market and in life.  Everyone who works in grades pre-K to 12 values these goals, and they work very hard to help the kids they work with achieve their full potential.  Yet all too many students graduate from high school but do not achieve success in the world of work. They think their diploma is a ticket to the middle class, but for most, this is not true.

Instead, a high school diploma is a ticket to post-secondary education, and success in post-secondary education is the ticket to the middle class.  A high school diploma no longer gets you much in terms of vocational success. There are exceptions, but if you seek entry to the middle class, you need a four-year degree, a two-year degree, or even credits or certifications from a community college.

But here is the problem.  When you enter any post-secondary institution, you have to take a series of tests, mainly reading, writing, and math. If you do not pass these tests, you have to take remedial English or remedial math. Students get no credit for taking these courses, but they do have to pay for them. And most students who take remedial classes do not pass them. Many waste their time and their money for years trying to pass.  Needless to say, students from disadvantaged backgrounds suffer most and most often from this system.

Solving the Problem

Ideally, the solution to the problem of ensuring successful transitions from high school to college would be to greatly improve the education of all students throughout elementary and secondary school,  so that failing placement tests or freshman courses would be rare.  This could be done by providing proven programs to all students in all grades and subjects (see www.evidenceforessa.org).  A good place to begin, however, would be with twelfth grade.

What if high schools carefully studied the requirements of colleges and community colleges attended by most of their students, and devoted serious time and attention to preparing students to pass the placement tests and to pass the freshman courses?  A program in California called the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC; Fong et al., 2015) did exactly this. They built a 12th grade course intended to ensure the success of students entering the California State University system. A rigorous evaluation found significant positive effects on students’ performance on the placement tests taken by hundreds of thousands of California students in public universities. I heard that Prince George’s County (MD) Public Schools similarly studied the requirements of local universities and community colleges, and created twelfth grade courses that aligned with those requirements. I was told that this was very successful, but was dropped when the grant money supporting it ran out.

Not all students would take such courses. High achievers would not need them, and very low achievers might not benefit from them.  But the large number of students likely to attend college but who are at risk for failing their freshman year could greatly benefit from this bit of hurdle help.

The students in a pre-k to 12 school system do not cease to be our concern when they cross the stage at high school graduation. On average, we have spent more than $150,000 per student by the time they graduate.  Even on the most crass grounds of cost, can we really justify spending so much on a child, only to fail them at the last minute?  It makes no sense.

If it were important at the policy level to ensure the success of many more students as they enter post-secondary education, I have no doubt that researchers and educators could come up with and implement effective and replicable strategies. Students need success at every grade level, but it seems especially appropriate to help those who have met all the requirements of elementary and secondary school, but may fail with their goal in sight. We can, I’m sure, help many, many promising students succeed at this critical juncture.

References

Fong, A., Finkelstein, N., Jaeger, L., Diaz, R., & Broek, M. (2015). Evaluation of the Expository Reading and Writing Course: Findings from the Investing in Innovation development grant. San Francisco, CA: WestEd.

Photo credit: Tulane Public Relations [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

 This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.

On Progress

My grandfather (pictured below with my son Ben around 1985) was born in 1900, and grew up in Argentina. The world he lived in as a child had no cars, no airplanes, few cures for common diseases, and inefficient agriculture that bound the great majority of the world to farming. By the time he died, in 1996, think of all the astonishing progress he’d seen in technology, medicine, agriculture, and much else.

Pictured are Bob Slavin’s grandfather and son, both of whom became American citizens: one born before the invention of airplanes, the other born before the exploration of Mars.

I was born in 1950. The progress in technology, medicine, and agriculture, and many other fields, continues to be extraordinary.

In most of our society and economy, we confidently expect progress. When my father needed a heart valve, his doctor suggested that he wait as long as possible because new, much better heart valves were coming out soon. He could, and did, bet his life on progress, and it paid off.

But now consider education. My grandfather attended school in Argentina, where he was taught in rows by teachers who did most of the talking. My father went to school in New York City, where he was taught in rows by teachers who did most of the talking. I went to school in Washington, DC, where I was taught in rows by teachers who did most of the talking. My children went to school in Baltimore, where they mostly sat at tables, and did use some technology, but still, the teachers did most of the talking.

 

My grandchildren are now headed toward school (the oldest is four). They will use a lot of technology, and will sit at tables more than my own children did. But the basic structure of the classroom is not so different from Argentina, 1906. All who eagerly await the technology revolution are certainly seeing many devices in classroom use. But are these devices improving outcomes on, for example, reading and math? Our reviews of research on all types of approaches used in elementary and secondary schools are not finding strong benefits of technology. Across all subjects and grade levels, the average effect size is similar, ranging from +0.07 (elementary math) to +0.09 (elementary reading). If you like “additional months of learning,” these effects equate to one month in a year. Ok, better than zero, but not the revolution we’ve been waiting for.

There are other approaches much more effective than technology, such as tutoring, forms of cooperative learning, and classroom management strategies. At www.evidenceforessa.org, you can see descriptions and outcomes of more than 100 proven programs. But these are not widely used. Your children or grandchildren, or other children you care about, may go 13 years from kindergarten to 12^th grade without ever experiencing a proven program. In our field, progress is slow, and dissemination of proven programs is slower.

Education is the linchpin for our economy and society. Everything else depends on it. In all of the developed world, education is richly funded, yet very, very little of this largesse is invested in innovation, evaluations of innovative methods, or dissemination of proven programs. Other fields have shown how innovation, evaluation, and dissemination of proven strategies can become the engine of progress. There is absolutely nothing inevitable about the slow pace of progress in education. That slow pace is a choice we have made, and keep making, year after year, generation after generation. I hope we will make a different choice in time to benefit my grandchildren, and the children of every family in the world. It could happen, and there are many improvements in educational research and development to celebrate. But how long must it take before the best of educational innovation becomes standard practice?

 This blog was developed with support from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Foundation.