Bush Ed Plan Rates an “A”
An interview with Jay Greene.

By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate editor
February 22, 2001 1:05 p.m.

ay P. Greene is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a research associate at the Program on

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Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University. He recently completed an evaluation of the Florida A-Plus Accountability and School-Choice Program, which is available on the Manhattan Institute’s website.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: How has Florida’s A-Plus education plan been successful?

Jay Greene: The A-Plus plan has been successful by providing incentives to schools to improve the academic performance of their students. Simply by measuring student performance with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) and publicizing the results, the A-Plus program has placed pressure on all schools to improve. Failing schools faced particularly strong incentives to improve or they would have vouchers offered to their students.

The evidence from Florida shows that schools respond to these incentives in the ways one would expect. Florida schools generally made gains between 1999 and 2000 and those gains were larger for schools that performed worse the year before. That is, the pressure to improve grew stronger for those schools that had previously received lower scores. Failing schools responded to the prospect of having to compete to retain their students with vouchers by making especially large gains. The improvements at failing schools were twice as large as the gains shown by other schools in the state.

Lopez: Was there anything that especially surprised you in evaluating the Florida plan?

Greene: I think the thing that surprised me the most was the evidence supporting the reliability of the FCAT as a measure of student performance. As I am sure your readers know, many people have voiced concerns about whether state tests accurately reflect student performance, especially when those state tests carry with them “high stakes.” The fear is that the high stakes of the tests will induce educators to teach to the test, cheat, or otherwise distort the results of the testing system so that they misrepresents student achievement. Since I am inclined to believe that people respond to incentives, whether in positive or negative ways, these concerns about the reliability of the tests seemed plausible.

But the evidence from Florida does not at all support the claim that the FCAT is an unreliable measure of student achievement. I was able to determine this by comparing the results of the FCAT to the results of a nationally respected standardized test, the Stanford 9, that was administered around the same time. The Stanford 9 was a low-stakes test, it did not carry with it significant consequences for schools, teachers, or students. If the results of the low-stakes test correspond with the results of the high-stakes test, we should have confidence that the high-stakes test results have not been distorted in any significant way. As it turns out, the Stanford 9 and FCAT results were very highly correlated (at around .9), which is much higher than I would have expected. Officials in Florida have clearly devised a system for implementing the state test that safeguards against the types of distortions that critics feared. It is important for others currently administering state tests or considering doing so to similarly ensure the integrity of their test.

Lopez: The New York Times, making clear that your study was done under the auspices of the Manhattan Institute, " a pro-voucher research group" quoted a policy analyst from the NEA complaining that your study "excludes any other potential explanations for the results except for vouchers, cheating and chance." He also said, "Our view is that the school improvements, the efforts that were made in those schools, made the difference, not the vouchers." How do you respond?

Greene: I would no sooner go to teacher unions for advice on how to conduct research properly than I would on how to reform our system of education. Their strong and self-evident desire to protect the financial interests of their members distort their thinking on these matters. But since the New York Times sees fit to consult teacher unions on education research and since you ask . . . While reasonable people may disagree about how to interpret the causal processes here, I would suggest that the teacher union’s causal argument is faulty. To the extent that failing schools in Florida improved because they received additional attention and resources, one would have to ask why those additional resources and attention were not lavished on schools before they faced the prospect of vouchers. Part of the effect of threatening chronically failing schools with offering vouchers to their students may be to inspire school districts to reallocate their funds in the hope of improving those schools.

It is clear that we need to ensure that schools have adequate resources to improve. But the evidence from the A-Plus program suggests that we also need to ensure that schools are provided with the appropriate incentives to obtain and use those resources effectively. While the teacher unions reflexively focus on the resources side of the equation, any strategy for school reform that focuses on resources while neglecting the incentives to use those resources well is a strategy unlikely to succeed.

In addition, the claim that the Manhattan Institute is a “pro-voucher” research group is neither accurate nor relevant. On the board of the Manhattan Institute are some people, including the head of the Anti-Defamation League, who are very much opposed to vouchers. And even if this were not the case, the views of the Manhattan Institute would not change the facts from Florida one bit. FCAT scores are publicly available and anyone is free to replicate my study to determine if the facts reported in it are true or not.

Lopez: How much of the president’s plan is based on the Florida model?

Greene: The president’s education proposals are modeled very closely after the A-Plus program in Florida. Both involve systematic testing of students, the results of which determine grades that are assigned to schools. And President Bush has insisted that students at chronically failing schools need to be offered alternatives, as the A-Plus program currently does.

Lopez: Bush is, of course, encountering vociferous opposition from the usual suspects for the voucher component of his accountability plan. How did his brother overcome the opposition in Florida? Are there lessons for the president?

Greene: The secret to success in Florida was probably quite similar to the path that led to passage of school-choice legislation in Wisconsin and Ohio. In all three places a chief executive who believed strongly in the program worked hard to assemble bi-partisan and cross-racial coalitions to support the programs. The Florida A-Plus plan was passed with support from the Urban League of Greater Miami and key African American legislators, such as Democratic Representative Beryl Roberts.

Whether President Bush is similarly devoted to his proposal, whether key minority interest groups and legislators are amenable to persuasion, and whether the Republican base can remain committed to supporting passage all remain to be seen. Even if federal legislation does not pass during this Congress, it is clear that school choice is not an idea that is going away. It will likely continue to be proposed in state legislatures, where most education decisions are really made, and can be re-introduced in future Congresses.