Educational Policies vs. Educational Programs: Evidence from France

Ask any parent what their kids say when they ask them what they did in school today. Invariably, they respond, “Nuffin,” or some equivalent. My four-year-old granddaughter always says, “I played with my fwends.” All well and good.

However, in educational policy, policy makers often give the very same answer when asked, “What did the schools not using the (insert latest policy darling) do?”

“Nuffin’”. Or they say, “Whatever they usually do.” There’s nothing wrong with the latter answer if it’s true. But given the many programs now known to improve student achievement (see www.evidenceforessa.org), why don’t evaluators compare outcomes of new policy initiatives to those of proven educational programs known to improve the same outcomes the policy innovation is supposed to improve, perhaps at far lower cost per student? The evaluations should also compare to “business as usual,” but adding proven programs to evaluations of large policy innovations would help avoid declaring policy innovations to be successful when they are in fact just slightly more effective than “business as usual,” and much less effective or less cost-effective than alternative proven approaches? For example, when evaluating charter schools, why not routinely compare them to whole-school reform models that have similar objectives? When evaluating extending the school day or school year to help high-poverty schools, why not compare these innovations to using the same amount of additional money to hiring tutors to use proven tutoring models to help struggling students? In evaluating policies in which students are held back if they do not read at grade level by third grade, why not compare these approaches to intensive phonics instruction and tutoring in grades K-3, which are known to greatly improve student reading achievement?

There is nuffin like a good fwend.

As one example of research comparing a policy intervention to a promising educational intervention, I recently saw a very interesting pair of studies from France. Ecalle, Gomes, Auphan, Cros, & Magnan (2019) compared two interventions applied in special priority areas with high poverty levels. Both interventions focused on reading in first grade.

One of the interventions involved halving class size, from approximately 24 students to 12. The other provided intensive reading instruction in small groups (4-6 children) to students who were struggling in reading, as well as less intensive interventions to larger groups (10-12 students). Low achievers got two 30-minute interventions each day for a year, while the higher-performing readers got one 30-minute intervention each day. In both cases, the focus of instruction was on phonics. In all cases, the additional interventions were provided by the students’ usual teachers.

The students in small classes were compared to students in ordinary-sized classes, while the students in the educational intervention were compared to students in same-sized classes who did not get the group interventions. Similar measures and analyses were used in both comparisons.

The results were nearly identical for the class size policy and the educational intervention. Halving class size had effect sizes of +0.14 for word reading and +0.22 for spelling. Results for the educational intervention were +0.13 for word reading, +0.12 for spelling, +0.14 for a group test of reading comprehension, +0.32 for an individual test of comprehension, and +0.19 for fluency.

These studies are less than perfect in experimental design, but they are nevertheless interesting. Most importantly, the class size policy required an additional teacher for each class of 24. Using Maryland annual teacher salaries and benefits ($84,000), that means the cost in our state would be about $3500 per student. The educational intervention required one day of training and some materials. There was virtually no difference in outcomes, but the differences in cost were staggering.

The class size policy was mandated by the Ministry of Education. The educational intervention was offered to schools and provided by a university and a non-profit. As is so often the case, the policy intervention was simplistic, easy to describe in the newspaper, and minimally effective. The class size policy reminds me of a Florida program that extended the school schedule by an hour every day in high-poverty schools, mainly to provide more time for reading instruction. The cost per child was about $800 per year. The outcomes were minimal (ES=+0.05).

After many years of watching what schools do and reviewing research on outcomes of innovations, I find it depressing that policies mandated on a substantial scale are so often found to be ineffective. They are usually far more expensive than much more effective, rigorously evaluated programs that are, however, a bit more difficult to describe, and rarely arouse great debate in the political arena. It’s not that anyone is opposed to the educational intervention, but it is a lot easier to carry a placard saying “Reduce Class Size Now!” than to carry one saying “Provide Intensive Phonics in Small Groups with More Supplemental Teaching for the Lowest Achievers Now!” The latter just does not fit on a placard, and though easy to understand if explained, it does not lend itself to easy communication. Actually, there are much more effective first grade interventions than the one evaluated in France (see www.evidenceforessa.org). At a cost much less than $3500 per student, several one-to-one tutoring programs using well-trained teaching assistants as tutors would have been able to produce an effect size of more than +0.50 for all first graders on average. This would even fit on a placard: “Tutoring Now!”

I am all in favor of trying out policy innovations. But when parents of kids in a proven-program comparison group are asked what they did in school today, they shouldn’t say “nuffin’”. They should say, “My tooter taught me to read. And I played with my fwends.”

References

Ecalle, J., Gomes, C., Auphan, P., Cros, L., & Magnan, A. (2019). Effects of policy and educational interventions intended to reduce difficulties in literacy skills in grade 1. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 61, 12-20.

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.

How Evidence-Based Reform Saved Patrick

Several years ago, I heard a touching story. There was a fourth grader in a school in Southern Maryland who had not learned to read. I’ll call him Patrick. A proven reading program came to the school and replaced the school’s haphazard reading approach with a systematic, phonetic model, with extensive teacher training and coaching. By the end of the school year, Patrick was reading near grade level.

Toward the end of the year, Patrick’s mother came to the school to thank his teacher for what she’d done for him. She showed Patrick’s teacher a box in which Patrick had saved every one of his phonetic readers. “Patrick calls this his treasure box,” she said. “He says he is going to keep these books forever, so that if he ever has a child of his own, he can teach him how to read.”

If you follow my blogs, or other writings on evidence-based practice, they often sound a little dry, full of effect sizes and wonkiness. Yet all of those effect sizes and policy proposals mean nothing unless they are changing the lives of children.

Traditional educational practices are perhaps fine for most kids, but there are millions of kids like Patrick who are not succeeding in school but could be, if they experienced proven programs and practices. In particular, there is no problem in education we know more about than early reading failure. A recent review we just released on programs for struggling readers identified 61 very high-quality studies of 48 programs. 22 of these programs meet the “strong” or “moderate” effectiveness standards for ESSA. Eleven programs had effect sizes from +0.30 to +0.86. There are proven one-to-one and small-group tutoring programs, classroom interventions, and whole-school approaches. They differ in costs, impacts, and practicability in various settings, but it is clear that reading failure can be prevented or remediated before third grade for nearly all children. Yet most struggling young readers do not receive any of these programs.

Patrick, at age 10, had the foresight to prepare to someday help his own child avoid the pain and humiliation he had experienced. Why is it so hard for caring grownups in positions of authority to come to the same understanding?

Patrick must be about 30 by now. Perhaps he has a child of his own. Wherever he is, I’m certain he remembers how close he came to a life of illiteracy and failure. I wonder if he still has his treasure box with the books inside it.

Patrick probably does not know where those books came from, the research supporting their use, or the effect sizes from the many evaluations. He doesn’t need to be a researcher to understand what happened to him. What he does know is that someone cared enough to give him an opportunity to learn to read.

Why does what happened to Patrick have to be such a rare occurrence? If you understand what the evidence means and you see educators and policy makers continuing to ignore it, shouldn’t you be furious?

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.

Is ES=+0.50 Achievable?: Schoolwide Approaches That Might Meet This Standard

In a recent blog, “Make No Small Plans,” I proposed a system innovators could use to create very effective schoolwide programs.  I defined these as programs capable of making a difference in student achievement large enough to bring entire schools serving disadvantaged students to the levels typical of middle class schools.  On average, that would mean creating school models that could routinely add an effect size of +0.50 for entire disadvantaged schools.  +0.50, or half a standard deviation, is roughly the average difference between students who qualify for free lunch and those who do not, between African American and White students, and between Hispanic and non-Hispanic White students.

Today, I wanted to give some examples of approaches intended to meet the +0.50 goal. From prior work, my colleagues and I already have created a successful schoolwide reform model, Success for All, which, with adequate numbers of tutors (as many as six per school) achieved reading effect sizes in high-poverty Baltimore elementary schools of over +0.50 for all students and +0.75 for the lowest-achieving quarter of students (Madden et al, 1993).   These outcomes maintained through eighth grade, and showed substantial reductions in grade retentions and special education placements (Borman & Hewes, 2003).  Steubenville, in Ohio’s Rust Belt, uses Success for All in all of its Title I elementary schools, providing several tutors in each.  Each year, Steubenville schools score among the highest in Ohio on state tests, exceeding most wealthy suburban schools.  Other SFA schools with sufficient tutors are also exemplary in achievement gains.  Yet these schools face a dilemma.  Most cannot afford significant numbers of tutors.  They still get excellent results, but less than those typical of SFA schools that do have sufficient tutors.

We are now planning another approach, also intended to produce schoolwide effect sizes of at least +0.50 in schools serving disadvantaged students.   However, in this case our emphasis is on tutoring, the most effective strategy known for improving the achievement of struggling readers (Inns et al., 2019).  We are calling this approach the Reading Safety Net.  Main components of this plan are as follows:

Tutoring

Like the most successful forms of Success for All, the Reading Safety Net places a substantial emphasis on tutoring.  Tutors will be well-qualified teaching assistants with BAs but not teaching certificates, extensively trained to provide one-to-four tutoring.   Tutors will use a proven computer-assisted model in which students do a lot of pair teaching.  This is what we now call our Tutoring With the Lightning Squad model, which achieved outcomes of +0.40 and +0.46 in two studies in the Baltimore City Public Schools (Madden & Slavin, 2017).  A high-poverty school of 500 students might engage about five tutors, providing extensive tutoring to the majority of students, for as many years as necessary.  One additional tutor or teacher will supervise the tutors and personally work with students having the most serious problems.   We will provide significant training and follow-up coaching to ensure that all tutors are effective.

Attendance and Health

Many students fail in reading or other outcomes because they have attendance problems or certain common health problems. We propose to provide a health aide to help solve these problems.

Attendance

Many students, especially those in high-poverty schools, fail because they do not attend school regularly. Yet there are several proven approaches for increasing attendance, and reducing chronic truancy (Shi, Inns, Lake, and Slavin, 2019).  Health aides will help teachers and other staff organize and manage effective attendance improvement approaches.

Vision Services

My colleagues and I have designed strategies to help ensure that all students who need eyeglasses receive them. A key problem in this work is ensuring that students who receive glasses use them, keep them safe, and replace them if they are lost or broken. Health aides will coordinate use of proven strategies to increase regular use of needed eyeglasses.

Asthma and other health problems

Many students in high-poverty schools suffer from chronic illnesses.  Cures or prevention are known for these, but the cures may not work if medications are not taken daily.   For example, asthma is common in high-poverty schools, where it is the top cause of hospital referrals and a leading cause of death for school-age children.  Inexpensive inhalers can substantially improve children’s health, yet many children do not regularly take their medicine. Studies suggest that having trained staff ensure that students take their medicine, and watch them doing so, can make a meaningful difference.  The same may be true of other chronic, easily treated diseases common among children but often not consistently treated in inner-city schools.  Health aides with special supplemental training may be able to play a key on-the-ground role in helping ensure effective treatment for asthma and other diseases.

Potential Impact

The Reading Safety Net is only a concept at present.  We are seeking funding to support its further development and evaluation.  As we work with front line educators, colleagues, and others to further develop this model, we are sure to find ways to make the approach more effective and cost-effective, and perhaps extend it to solve other key problems.

We cannot yet claim that the Reading Safety Net has been proven effective, although many of its components have been.  But we intend to do a series of pilots and component evaluations to progressively increase the impact, until that impact attains or surpasses the goal of ES=+0.50.  We hope that many other research teams will mobilize and obtain resources to find their own ways to +0.50.  A wide variety of approaches, each of which would be proven to meet this ambitious goal, would provide a range of effective choices for educational leaders and policy makers.  Each would be a powerful, replicable tool, capable of solving the core problems of education.

We know that with sufficient investment and encouragement from funders, this goal is attainable.  If it is in fact attainable, how could we accept anything less?

References

Borman, G., & Hewes, G. (2003).  Long-term effects and cost effectiveness of Success for All.  Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24 (2), 243-266.

Inns, A., Lake, C., Pellegrini, M., & Slavin, R. (2019). A synthesis of quantitative research on programs for struggling readers in elementary schools. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Madden, N. A., & Slavin, R. E. (2017). Evaluations of Technology-Assisted Small-Group Tutoring for Struggling Readers. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 1-8.

Madden, N. A., Slavin, R. E., Karweit, N. L., Dolan, L., & Wasik, B. (1993). Success for All:  Longitudinal effects of a schoolwide elementary restructuring program. American Educational Reseach Journal, 30, 123-148.

Shi, C., Inns, A., Lake, C., & Slavin, R. E. (2019). Effective school-based programs for K-12 students’ attendance: A best-evidence synthesis. Baltimore, MD: Center for Research and Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University.

 

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.