The Education Consumers Foundation

What's New at the Foundation

Needed in Tennessee: An Early Reading Revolution

In a November 2011 position paper, the Education Consumers Foundation highlights the lack of progress in boosting literacy rates in Tennessee schools and introduces Direct Instruction as a proven solution. Click here to access this paper along with a host of support materials, including charts highlighting reading proficiency rates in each Tennessee district; directories of resources, trainers, and contacts experienced with DI in Tennessee; and more.

Can Tennessee 3rd Graders Read?

Using data from the annual Tennessee report card, ECF has published the first in a series of district and region-specific graphics showing the reading performance of 3rd grade students. In some schools, nearly all students are prepared to read for content starting in the 4th grade; in others, the vast majority are ill-equipped for the challenges facing them.

Charts for Knox County and the surrounding region are available now; to see a custom chart for your district, please contact us.

Test, Testing, and Genuine School Reform

In this 2011 book, one of America's foremost scholars on what works in education discusses the proper role of testing in educational improvement, covering well-established principles of testing, current problems, and promising evidence-based solutions.Click here for more on the book or to order a copy.

Is Teaching to the Test a Problem? It Depends...

Richard Phelps, author of the classic Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing, has written an article featured in the Autumn 2011 issue of the Wilson Quarterly. Among other things, he notes that "most of the problems with testing have one surprising source: cheating by school administrators and teachers." Click here for more.

Number of High Performing New Teachers Entering Tennessee's School

Tennessee's Race to the Top Strategy calls for improving the effectiveness of new and veteran teachers. The data from Tennessee's latest Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs shows that some highly effective new teachers are being trained by the state's programs but the vast majority of teachers trained in Tennessee are average and an alarmingly large number of them perform no better than the lowest performing veteran teachers now in the schools. Click here to see which programs are training the most and least effective teachers and where they are being hired.

ACT Publishes State-by-State Reports on Academic Performance and College Readiness

ACT's Condition of College & Career Readiness 2011 highlights the college/career readiness of the ACT-tested high school class of 2011. Tennessee seniors performed below the national average; however, comparisons are complicated by the fact that, unlike most states, Tennessee tests 100% of its seniors. (North Carolina, which scored above the national average, tests just 18% for example.) For a complete review of Tennessee's results, see here.

TN Department of Education Releases 2011 TCAP Data

ECF is pleased to note that the Tennessee Department of Education has released annual end-of-year TCAP data earlier, and in more detail, than ever before. This is a positive development for all interested in consumer access to data, and according to remarks made by Commissioner Kevin Huffman, it is the way they will operate going forward.

To see interactive charts showing district performance compared to poverty rates, see the following links:

ECF releases newest interactive map of school performance in Tennessee

The Education Consumers Foundation has produced an interactive map of Tennessee showing the location of Tennessee schools with information on achievement, growth, and poverty on a county-by-county basis. All data comes from the most recent Tennessee Report Card. Go here to explore this map.

ECF charts district-level spending versus achievement gains

Does more spending equate to more learning among students? The Education Consumers Foundation has charted district-level spending against district-level value-added achievement gains, and found virtually no relationship between the two. To see where your district falls on these issues, click here to visit this interactive tool.

2010 School Performance Charts Published

Each year, ECF takes the value-added performance data provided by the state of Tennessee and presents it in the form of charts for elementary and middle schools in the state. This format allows parents and others to easily compare the performance of schools in their district or region; just follow the links below to explore ECF's interactive and intuitive charts.

New Op-Ed by Lisa Keegan and J. E. Stone Asks: "Are Newly Trained Teachers Really Prepared for the Classroom?"

The head of the Education Breakthrough Network and that of the Education Consumers Foundation ask whether children are adequately protected from poorly trained new teachers. A study of Tennessee data shows that up to 1/3 of new teachers are among the least effective in the state and linked to inadequate academic growth in their students. Read it here on The Daily Caller.

ECF Recommended Reading: Standing and Delivering - What the Movie Didn't Tell

In this book, Dr. Henry Gradillas, Jaime Escalante's principal at Garfield High School, shares both his upbeat philosophy of education and the practical school management techniques that helped translate that philosophy into success for thousands of students over three decades. The book focuses on three areas that are key to the operation of an effective school: School climate, instruction, and curriculum. It includes many references to the Garfield experience, as well as to other schools where Gradillas was at the helm. See more, and buy the book, here.

"I read it on the plane coming back from Thanksgiving in California. I disturbed my wife and son with my frantic underlining and frequent exclamations of wonder and surprise." - Jay Matthews, reviewing the book here

Tennessee's 2010-11 Report Card Released; ECF to Post Interactive Charts Soon

The Tennessee Department of Education released its annual Report Card on Friday, December 2; ECF will soon post its annual update to its interactive charts, which help consumers get a clearer picture of school performance in the state. Initial reviews indicated that reading/language arts remains a major problem as addressed by the foundation's just-released report.

Clear Teaching: With Direct Instruction, Siegfried Engelmann Discovered a Better Way of Teaching

Written by veteran journalist Shepard Barbash over a period of 10 years, Clear Teaching is a well-researched, highly readable introduction to Direct Instruction (DI). Click here to download this book in PDF format along with a host of support materials, including directories of resources, a list of trainers, and much more; those wanting print copies can order them from Amazon or can contact ECF for bulk orders.

Number of High and Low Performing
New Teachers from Tennessee's
Public Universities and Teach for America

According to the 2011 Report Card on the Effectiveness of Teacher Training Programs published by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, teachers trained by Teach for America are significantly more effective than are the graduates of Tennessee's publicly funded universities. The good news is that all programs are turning out some exceptionally effective teachers but the bad news is that far too many beginning teachers are among the most ineffective in the state. Some programs are turning out 30 very ineffective teachers for every 10 that would qualify as very effective. The annual achievement test scores (i.e., TCAPs) of students taught by very effective teachers go up roughly 8 percentile ranks per year relative to other students. The scores of students taught by very ineffective teachers do the opposite. Go here to see how the program graduates compare in teaching reading, math, and overall (composite).

ECF Releases 2009-10 Growth vs. Achievement Interactive Charts for Tennessee Schools

Tennessee schools are measured on two things: achievement, seen in standardized assessment and ACT results; and growth, reported through the state's value-added assessment system. Tennessee parents and others can now plot the performance of their child's school and others across the district or state through the ECF's interactive Growth vs. Achievement Charts. Note that all data comes from the most recent Tennessee Report Card.

Winners of the 2011 Value-Added Achievement Awards announced

In a May 9 ceremony held at the Tennessee state capitol, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the House, and Chairs of the Senate and House Education Committees joined with the Education Consumers Foundation to recognize principals of 18 of the most effective elementary and middle schools in the state. Click here to see the list of winners and learn about their successful approaches to education or read the press release here. Pictures from the ceremony can be found here.

Check back soon for additional details and photos from the event.

A Teachable Moment: A New U.S. News Project Promises to Hold Colleges of Education Accountable, and the Colleges Don’t Like It

In this new commentary fron the Pope Center, Duke Cheston highlights a new project from US News and World Report and the National Center on Teacher Quality to rate teacher preparation programs, and the efforts of education schools to criticize or boycott such an effort. Includes comments from Dr. Stone of ECF.

Confessions of a Misspent Youth

New York's New American Academy is thought to be the cutting edge of experiments in educational improvement. The New York Times says it was founded with the strong backing of former NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. In fact, it is one more variant of type of schooling that has been tried repeatedly and with disastrous results. England's Summerhill School is a residential version that was founded in the nineteen twenties. Click here to read a Newsweek essay by Mara Wolynkski, a writer and television personality who attended such a school as a child.

The Cartel Now Available for Home Purchase

The Cartel, acclaimed for its work in exposing the corruption in American public education, is now available for purchase, either for home use or for screenings in public settings. Go here to learn more about the film or to order, or visit the main project website here.

If standardized testing is such a valuable tool for school improvement, why do so many educators oppose it?

The key difference is one of perspective. Parents, policymakers, and the consuming public view public education as a human development resource. Their top priority is literacy, numeracy, and the other educational outcomes that prepare youth to be productive members of adult society. Educators want these same outcomes but consider a broad range of other objectives to be of equal or greater importance.

This conflict mostly stays below the public's radar, but it occasionally bubbles up as a political battle between educators and elected officials about accountability. Tennessee and other states now implementing their Race to the Top Reforms are now experiencing the full blown problem.

Author Richard Phelps' classic Kill the Messenger: The War on Standardized Testing describes the issue and analyzes the arguments that non-educators must understand in order to defend and advance the public's educational goals.

J. E. Stone's preface to the 2005 edition frames the issue and outlines the chapters.

Crazy U Highlights the Travails of the College Admissions Process

Author Andrew Ferguson chronicles his attempts to get his son into a top-flight college, all while questioning the value of the question he'll ultimately receive. This is an insightful and thorough look at the frustrations of parents and the shortcomings of the admissions process. Order it here.

"Waiting for Superman" Documentary Engages the Public in Improving K-12 Public Education

"Waiting for Superman," a new documentary film from Davis Guggenheim (an Oscar Winner for "An Inconvenient Truth"), is proving to be an excellent tool for education and engaging the public in school improvement. View the film's website here; read a review of the film in the Kansas Star here.

Brookings Institution Releases New Report on Using Value-Added Data to Evaluate Teachers

Evaluating Teachers: The Important Role of Value-Added, a new report from the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, addresses key issues in the use of value-added data and concludes that it has an important role to play in teacher evaluation. Go here for the complete report.