Presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently released a white paper: “A Chance for Every Child[i]” which details his vision for restoring the promise of American education. In it he describes a plan of tying federal funds directly to dramatic reforms that expand parental choice. These policies are certainly nothing groundbreaking or new, but data[ii] has proven that increased federal spending[iii] and regulatory reforms have not significantly reduced the inequities in our education system across states and districts.

Now is the time for the federal government to reexamine its priorities in education policy. After a year of unprecedented action in state legislatures that provided greater options for parents, the evidence is clear; states are seeking policies that promote action at the local level.

Vouchers and Tax Credits[iv]

• In 2011 a record number of school choice bills were passed in a record number of legislative chambers that produced legislation in 41 states and in the U.S. Congress;
• Six states, the U.S. Congress, and a local school board passed legislation creating new school choice programs;
• In all, seven new school choice programs were enacted and 11 programs were strengthened, expanded, or restored from the brink of elimination;
• There are now 27 private school choice programs serving more than 210,000 children across the nation.

Charter Schools[v]

• In 2011, a groundswell of parental demand led to 10 states lifting their caps on charter school growth (either partially or entirely), seven states strengthening their authorizing environments for high-quality public charter schools, and 10 states improving their support for charter school funding and facilities;
• There are currently over 5,000 public charter schools open in 41 states and D.C., serving more than 1.6 million students; and
• Children have different ways of learning, and public charter schools simply offer families a wider variety of options to serve such differences.

Virtual, Online, and Hybrid Schools[vi]

• In 2011, 250,000 students enrolled in a full-time online school;
• 40 states have state virtual schools or state-led initiatives; 30 states, as well as Washington, DC, have statewide full-time online schools;
• 74 percent of school districts with distance education programs planned to expand online offerings over the next 3 years.
• Online access to high-quality education ensures that all students have learning opportunities that will prepare them to compete in a global economy.

A Closer Look at the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program

•Over 11,000 D.C. children have applied to the OSP since it started in SY 2004-05

•94 percent of OSP 12th graders graduate

•89 percent of OSP graduates enroll in a 2 or 4 year college or university

•91 percent of parents are happy with their child's current OSP school

•Over $7.4 million in scholarships distributed in 2010-11

More than a year after President Obama signed into law legislation renewing and expanding the highly successful D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP), the administration continues to block full implementation of the law, and deny new students access to the program.

The consequences if the Obama Administration continues to defy the law will affect hundreds of underprivileged students in the District of Columbia. These students are being denied access to a lasting, quality education through a program that has an excellent track record.[vii]

The Bottom Line: These ideas are not new. However, a commitment to supporting these policies – where  eligible students can choose which school to attend and bring funding with them – represents a new and much needed effort. If our students are to be successful in a globally competitive workforce then they cannot afford to be trapped in schools that fail to provide anything less than a high-quality education.

This month, in two very different subject matters, both at the national and state levels, educational assessments demonstrated how accountability does work and how its results affect how educators and policymakers respond when test results are transparent and available to the public.  While the news is not good on either assessment, it is information that will hopefully motivate teachers, principals, and policymakers to improve student performance and increase academic results, especially among disadvantaged students.  It should also empower parents and taxpayers to demand better academic results from our schools so that America’s students can compete on an equal footing with their international peers.

In Florida, earlier this month, student scores on the state writing exam fell dramatically in 2011 compared to 2010 after the state raised the writing standards and changed the scoring mechanisms in an effort to upgrade the test and make it more rigorous.  As a result, only 27 percent of Florida’s 4^th graders passed the writing exam compared with 81 percent in 2010.  In a swift and immediate response, the State Board of Education unanimously agreed to lower the passing grade so that more students would pass the writing test.  Opponents of educational accountability, particularly standardized tests, immediately pounced declaring Florida’s tough standards a failure and gleefully predicting the end of the No Child Left Behind accountability era.  However, these results and the reaction by Florida state policymakers show that transparency and public disclosure of student test results works. 

Florida’s Department of Education Commissioner Gerald Robinson immediately acknowledged that the state had neglected to fully prepare teachers for the changes in how the writing test would be graded stating, “There should have been follow-up on changes in rigor.  This should have been communicated much more strongly.”  The Foundation for Florida’s Future, Patricia Levesque, agreed stating, “The State Board of Education’s decision provides stability to Florida’s school grading and accountability system, while upholding the higher standards they adopted last summer.”  Further, she stated, that the Board’s decision “gave teachers and administrators more time to do what they do best --- equip students with the knowledge and skills to achieve their God-given potential.”

The changes in Florida’s 2011 writing exam included assessing the student’s knowledge of grammar, spelling and punctuation as well as requiring students to use detailed descriptions to support their writing statements.  These criteria were not graded in previous writing exams in Florida which is hard to believe.  How can students be judged on their writing skills if the basics of spelling, grammar and punctuation are not part of the equation?  Colleges and businesses assume that students know these basics in order to write an essay or simple business letter.  Without such skills, students should not expect to get in to a college or find a decent job.  Florida should not be condemned for making their tests more difficult.  On the contrary, Florida should be commended for raising the academic bar while recognizing that doing so calls for better teacher preparation over a period of time.   Hopefully, lowering the passing scores this year will only be a temporary measure to allow teachers to prepare their students for a more rigorous test while putting them on notice that the tougher standards will remain in place.  In the long run, such actions will be better for their students and for America’s economy. 

However, this experience should serve as a wake-up call to Florida and other states with much lower state standards that American students are not academically prepared.  This is clearly reflected in the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) which has found that two-thirds of 4^th and 8^th graders are not proficient in reading or math.  Additionally, this month, the NAEP reported that less than one-third of our nation’s 8^th graders are proficient in science.  While scores for black and Hispanic students rose somewhat, particularly for those students living in poverty, there is still a significant achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers.    Nevertheless, sixteen states saw their average science scores increase while no state saw its score decrease.  Furthermore, the 2011 NAEP reported that students who participated in hands-on scientific experiments outperformed those who did not.  Still, these results will not produce the scientists, engineers, and chemists that this country so desperately needs to face an ever changing technological world.

The Florida writing exam and the NAEP science test demonstrate where improvements must be made and clearly put educators and policymakers on notice that changes in how students are taught in these critical subject areas must change if we expect our children to be successful.  Without such accountability measures in place, how will educators, policymakers, parents and taxpayers know how our students are performing?  Without accountability and transparency, we will return to the days when billions of dollars were spent with no expectation for academic results.  Parents must demand that their children are held to high expectations with rigorous content in all academic subjects. 

Our national and state policymakers should listen to scholars such as Amber Winkler with the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation who made these remarks about Florida’s writing scores,

“Just because students struggle to meet a higher learning threshold does not mean that the threshold should be lowered.  Florida is highly regarded by many because it refuses to be complacent about student achievement; it continues to raise the cut scores on its tests to avoid stagnation.  Like it or not, there are real consequences to raising expectations, including that many kids won’t be able to meet those expectations initially, but it is best to ratchet them up than be content with the status quo or cave in to political pressure.”

Like it or not, educational accountability and demands for high expectations from parents, teachers and taxpayers is good public policy and must be strengthened if America wants to continue to be a global economic power.  State and national leaders, including the Obama administration and Congressional leaders, should pay attention to what educational accountability provisions tell them and use those results to improve education across the country, rather than rush to repeal them because they don’t like what they see.