The 3 Education Studies of 2020 That Florida’s Legislators Should Read.

Earlier this month, Edutopia published their list of  “The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2020.” We found three of the studies particularly interesting and believe they should be required reading for Florida’s education policy makers.

1. Should SAT/ACT scores be included in the calculation of school grades, as called for in the transition to the B.E.S.T. standards?

The unveiling of Florida’s new B.E.S.T. standards included a plan to “streamline testing” by phasing out a few mandated assessments (9th grade ELA and Geometry EOC) both currently used to calculate School Grades, and replacing those assessments with either the SAT or ACT. The results of the SAT or ACT are to become included in the state’s school accountability system (i.e. School Grade calculation) no earlier than the 2022-23 school year.

As we have written before, we have significant concerns regarding the proposed (mis)use of nationally normed, standardized college admissions exam scores in the State’s School Grade/Accountability system, including the fact that research supports the notion that these tests specifically disadvantage children of color, children from low-income families and children with disabilities making them a poor choice for an accountability measure.

While Florida considers using the SAT or ACT as an accountability measure and graduation requirement, claiming these assessments measure “college readiness,” this 2020 University of Chicago study found that ACT test scores showed a weak—or even negative—relationship when it came to predicting how successful students would be in college. The researchers explained ““There is little evidence that students will have more college success if they work to improve their ACT score.”

Edutopia noted:

“Just last year, the SAT—cousin to the ACT—had a similarly dubious public showing. In a major 2019 study of nearly 50,000 students led by researcher Brian Galla, and including Angela Duckworth, researchers found that high school grades were stronger predictors of four-year-college graduation than SAT scores.

The reason? Four-year high school grades, the researchers asserted, are a better indicator of crucial skills like perseverance, time management, and the ability to avoid distractions. It’s most likely those skills, in the end, that keep kids in college.”

Also concerning is the likelihood that, when scores are included in the High School School Grade calculation, curriculum will narrow to focus on ACT/SAT test preparation rather than the knowledge level and skills necessary to be successful in college and career. The University of Chicago researchers noted:

“This research strongly supports the use of students’ grades in a formative way to guide school improvement efforts and assess the effectiveness of programs designed to improve college readiness and rely less heavily on test scores. The teachers and schools that improve test scores are not always the same as those that improve students’ grades (Jackson, 2016), and programs that have positive effects on test scores do not always have positive effects on grades (Nomi & Allensworth, 2009).”

The Legislation requested by the Department of Education and needed to begin using SAT/ACT scores in the School Grade calculation (HB7079) died in the Senate Eduction committee during the 2020 Legislative session. No doubt, similar legislation is planned for the 2021 session. This University of Chicago study should make legislators question if SAT/ACT scores have any value as state-wide accountability measures and whether such a system won’t do more harm than good.

2. Do Environmental Factors Impact Achievement Gaps in Florida’s Children? Do School Choice Policies Encourage Lawmakers to Ignore the Root Causes of Education Inequity?

For years, we have heard of children trapped in failing schools as a reason to expand school choice, labeling the environmental factors known to impact children’s lives as “excuses.” This 2020 study from Duke and Penn State demonstrated the correlation of reduction of air pollution (due to the closure of coal-fired plants) with rising Math achievement in neighboring schools. The greatest student gains were seen in the schools with the higher baseline pollution exposure. How do these overlooked environmental factors affect Florida’s most at-risk students and how do School Choice policies help to mitigate these factors? (Spoiler: they don’t.)

For the record, while coal-fired plants still operate in Florida, coal consumption in Florida’s electric power sector has fallen significantly following an anti-coal push from Governor Charlie Crist in 2007, resulting in natural gas-fired power plants replacing older coal-fired units. Did Florida’s students see similar academic gains with the conversion of their neighborhood coal-fired plants?

Per Edutopia:

When three coal-fired plants closed in the Chicago area, student absences in nearby schools dropped by 7 percent, a change largely driven by fewer emergency room visits for asthma-related problems. The stunning finding, published in a 2020 study from Duke and Penn State, underscores the role that often-overlooked environmental factors—like air quality, neighborhood crime, and noise pollution—have in keeping our children healthy and ready to learn.

At scale, the opportunity cost is staggering: About 2.3 million children in the United States still attend a public elementary or middle school located within 10 kilometers of a coal-fired plant.

The study builds on a growing body of research that reminds us that questions of educational equity do not begin and end at the schoolhouse door. What we call an achievement gap is often an equity gap, one that “takes root in the earliest years of children’s lives,” according to a 2017 study. We won’t have equal opportunity in our schools, the researchers admonish, until we are diligent about confronting inequality in our cities, our neighborhoods—and ultimately our own backyards.

Such data should make legislators question whether school choice schemes, like vouchers to attend private schools, are adequate, by themselves, to address the existing inequities in our neighborhoods and their schools. Should such inequities be dismissed as “excuses” or should serious attention be given to addressing them?

In a 12/10/2019 School Choice presentation to the House Education Committee, Eric Hall, FLDOE’s Chancellor of Innovation, claimed “Choice ensures every child, no matter their demographic, has the same access and opportunity to receive a world-class education as the most privileged student.” This Duke and Penn State study questions whether that is true, suggesting that children won’t have equal opportunity to education until we tackle the inequities in their neighborhoods.

This year the pandemic has made that glaringly obvious, hitting low income neighborhoods and black and brown communities particularly hard. Does anyone really believe more vouchers will help these families? We need policies that begin to address these inequities so that all children can thrive.

3. Increased Instructional Time in Social Studies—But Not in ELA—is Associated with Improved Reading Ability.

In Florida’s elementary schools, students’ reading skills are progress monitored from the moment they enter Kindergarten. Since 2001, when then Governor Jeb Bush launched the “Just Read, Florida!” initiative, with the “unequivocal goal of every child being able to read at or above grade,”     reading instruction has been prioritized in Florida’s public schools. Nowhere has the impact been felt more than in elementary schools. School grades and teacher evaluations are dependent on reading scores. Eight year olds who do not pass their state-mandated Reading assessment must repeat third grade. Schools who find themselves on the Lowest-Performing Schools List, determined only by scores on state mandated assessments, must offer an additional hour of reading instruction each day.  In many (most?) cases, the intense focus on reading and preparation for reading assessments has resulted in a narrowed curriculum focusing on little besides the state tested subjects of Reading and Math: limiting or eliminating arts and music programs, eliminating recess (until parents in 2017 had to fight for a mandated 20 minutes per day), and reducing science and social studies instructional time. Indeed, social studies instruction was seen as the perfect opportunity to focus on reading skills and curriculum was specifically designed to allow practice for reading exams.

This 2020 Fordham Institute study found that “content is comprehension” and that focus should be on content knowledge rather than teaching intrinsic reading skills. It turns out the best way to do that is through  vibrant Social Studies Instruction. Per the study:

“The dominant view is that the way to improve America’s abysmal elementary reading outcomes is for schools to spend more time on literacy instruction. Many schools provide a “literacy block” that can stretch to more than two hours per day, much of it allocated to efforts to develop reading skills such as “finding the main idea,” and “determining the author’s perspective.” But it doesn’t seem to be working.”

In particular, it doesn’t seem to be working in Florida. Florida’s performance on the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), considered the “Nation’s Report Card,” was abysmal, seeing “significant declines” in reading scores posted by its fourth and eighth graders. Florida’s 2019 scores represented little progress from a decade ago, and its lowest-performing students posted some of the biggest declines in reading. 

So what works? The researchers looked at data from more than 18,000 K–5 students, examining how much classroom time was spent on different subjects, whether students who spend more time on certain subjects make greater progress in reading, and how these effects differ by student characteristics. The results:

Their analysis reveals five key findings. Among them:

• Elementary school students in the US spend much more time on ELA than on any other subject.
• Increased instructional time in social studies—but not in ELA—is associated with improved reading ability.
• The students who benefit the most from additional social studies time are girls and those from lower-income and/or non-English-speaking homes.

Though surely well intended, at the margin, spending extra time on teaching ELA may not yield much in the way of reading improvement. Instead, elementary schools should consider making more room for high-quality instruction in history, civics, geography, and the other knowledge-rich—and engaging—subjects that comprise social studies. Our youngest generation of readers will be all the stronger for it.

To be clear, we blame Florida’s obsession with standardized test scores for encouraging such a singular focus on literacy, to the exclusion of a robust, well rounded education.  Elementary schools who spent more and more time teaching reading skills, either because they felt the pressure to improve reading scores and school grades or were mandated to do so because of their “Lowest-Performing” status, might have served their students better by expanding, not diminishing, other knowledge-rich and engaging subjects.

Perhaps it is time to rethink Florida’s overwhelming focus on reading skills and test scores and allow children time to learn to love to read. Perhaps, it’s time to take a seriously look at the negative consequences of our current accountability system.

Many thanks to the staff at Edutopia for highlighting these important studies from 2020. Will Florida’s policy makers read them and consider their implications? They should.