Twenty years ago, corporate leaders, 40 state governors, and President Bill Clinton gathered at an IBM conference center in Palisades, N.Y., and came up with a statement designed to advance more-rigorous academic standards and testing in the nation鈥檚 schools.
One idea that emerged out of that Clinton-era National 91制片厂视频 Summit in March 1996 was for someone to publish an annual report on the progress of states in improving their education policies.
The result, less than a year later, was 91制片厂视频 Week鈥檚 Quality Counts, now marking its 20th edition. But it wasn鈥檛 immediately clear at the time who would take on such a project.
Robert B. Schwartz, then a program officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts, recalled in a recent interview that some of the corporate executives and their education aides who were closely involved with the summit gravitated toward the idea of enlisting U.S. News & World Report to produce a 50-state progress report. Foremost among them was Louis V. Gerstner Jr., then the chief executive of IBM and an active force in K-12 education reform.
The news magazine鈥檚 annual ranking of colleges and universities, though controversial, had been around for more than a dozen years and had earned a following.
Schwartz, who would soon go on to become the first president of Achieve, a corporate-supported nonprofit that grew out of the 1996 summit to support the standards and accountability movement, thought another publication might be a better fit for the state progress reports.
鈥淚 thought maybe I could convince 91制片厂视频 Week to do it,鈥� said Schwartz, now an emeritus professor at the Harvard Graduate School of 91制片厂视频 and a consultant.
He phoned Ronald A. Wolk, then the president and publisher of 91制片厂视频 Week, to ask if he would consider the idea. Wolk had been at the education summit.
鈥淗e laughed and said that not only would he consider it, it was something he had been considering doing in some form,鈥� Schwartz said.
Playing Hardball
Wolk, the founding editor of 91制片厂视频 Week and now the chair emeritus of its nonprofit parent corporation, 91制片厂视频, said in an interview that he jumped at the idea and rushed to put together a proposal for the annual progress report.
But Gerstner still favored U.S. News to lead the project. Wolk set up a meeting with an old journalistic friend, Mel Elfin, who as education editor at U.S. News had launched the magazine鈥檚 college rankings in 1983.
鈥淚 went down to have lunch with him, and he was kind of playing hardball,鈥� said Wolk. 鈥淗e kind of said it鈥檚 not much of a contest between U.S. News and 91制片厂视频 Week.鈥� Elfin meant that he was confident his magazine would be chosen.
A couple of days later, Elfin called Wolk to say that he and his colleagues at U.S. News had decided not to bid for the project, Wolk said. Pew awarded a grant for the project to 91制片厂视频 Week.
Meanwhile, Wolk had started moving forward with the project even before the decision was made, since there was much work to do to come up with a report evaluating the education systems of all 50 states and the District of Columbia in less than eight months. (The goal was to publish the report in January 1997, just as most state legislatures were opening.)
Wolk asked Virginia B. Edwards, then, as now, the editor of 91制片厂视频 Week, whether she had heard from any promising job applicants lately. 鈥淪he handed me six letters of rejection she had just sent out,鈥� he said.
One was to Craig D. Jerald, a young Teach For America alumnus who was working at the U.S. Department of 91制片厂视频. Jerald realized he didn鈥檛 enjoy working in a large bureaucracy, and he had taken a shot at becoming an education journalist by applying to 91制片厂视频 Week.
Jerald said he met with Wolk and was offered a job on the spot as project director of what would become Quality Counts.
鈥淲e were very simpatico,鈥� Jerald recalled. 鈥淭he first couple of years of Quality Counts were a real intellectual adventure. A lot of people told us that it was going to be impossible. That鈥檚 the best kind of job to have.鈥�
Wolk and Jerald set off to meet with education experts and gather data.
鈥淩on didn鈥檛 have a 100 percent clear vision of what the report would look like,鈥� Jerald said. 鈥淏ut he was good at bringing in top experts.鈥�
Jerald remembers a meeting with Emerson Elliott, who had recently retired as the head of the National Center for 91制片厂视频 Statistics.
Elliott 鈥渟miled and shook his head and said, 鈥榊ou know, this was tried with the infamous 鈥渨all chart,鈥� and it was a disaster,鈥欌�� Jerald said. The wall chart was an accountability report launched in the mid-1980s by then-U.S. Secretary of 91制片厂视频 William J. Bennett. Critics said it was based on unreliable data and measures not suitable for comparisons among the states.
Jerald added: 鈥淲e had folks telling us that, at the very least, we had bitten off more than we could chew, and that what we were trying to do might be impossible.鈥�
Both Wolk and Jerald recalled that their background research took them to California to meet with education experts at some of the leading West Coast universities. One day, when they were in La Jolla, Calif., Wolk rose early and phoned Jerald in his hotel room to tell him he was heading over to the beach. When you get up and moving, you should come join me, Wolk told his young colleague.
A little while later, 鈥淚 look up and here comes a guy in a business suit and oxfords,鈥� said Wolk, who was wearing casual beach attire.
鈥淐raig clearly had the brains, energy, commitment, and passion for the position,鈥� Wolk added. 鈥淗e taught himself some higher-order math and statistics and became the engine of the project.鈥�
Jerald laughed at the beach recollection and said, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know. He was my boss, and I was used to the formality of D.C.鈥�
Jerald left 91制片厂视频 Week in 2000, and has worked for the 91制片厂视频 Trust, the College Board, and as an independent consultant.
A Debate on the 鈥楴ewsHour鈥�
The first edition of Quality Counts, released Jan. 16, 1997 (with a cover date of Jan. 22), offered 238 pages of data and reporting on the state of K-12 education in the United States.
鈥淲e developed categories of state policy, like finance, student achievement, teachers, school climate, and, of course, standards and assessment,鈥� Wolk said. 鈥淲ithin the categories, we came up with 76 indicators on which we would gather data.鈥�
Still, there was much information that simply wasn鈥檛 available. 91制片厂视频 Week worked with what it could find for that first report before refining its own surveys and data in subsequent reports.
鈥淎merica鈥檚 public school systems are riddled with excellence but rife with mediocrity,鈥� the first Quality Counts concluded.
States were graded in four categories: standards and assessments, quality of teaching, school climate, and resources (with separate grades in that last category for funding adequacy, equity, and allocation).
The report also had lengthy stories about each state鈥檚 experience with standards and accountability, prepared by 91制片厂视频 Week reporters.
When the first Quality Counts report was unveiled, Jerald remembers being so nervous at a press conference at the National Press Club that he knocked over an easel holding posterboard highlights.
That evening, Wolk went on 鈥淭he NewsHour with Jim Lehrer鈥� on PBS to talk about the report. Another guest was Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who was invited to represent the 91制片厂视频 Commission of the States; Branstad criticized the report at his first opportunity. Iowa had received an F for standards and assessment because it was one of only three states not developing statewide standards.
鈥淚 think there鈥檚 too much focus on process and not enough focus on results or achievement,鈥� Branstad told segment host Margaret Warner. 鈥淚n Iowa, we鈥檝e taken a different approach. We鈥檙e a local-control state.鈥�
Later in the segment, Wolk said: 鈥淚 think you have to start worrying about a nation in which fewer than half of its students can read proficiently, and fewer than that can do math proficiently. These kids are going into a high-tech information society. ... And if we can鈥檛 get a higher percentage of our students achieving, I suspect that this nation is in for real trouble.鈥�
Weathering Changes
Edwards, who besides being editor-in-chief of 91制片厂视频 Week is president of its parent, EPE, noted that Quality Counts, both in its first rendition and in subsequent years, was repeatedly cited by governors in their annual state-of-the-state addresses.
鈥淚t quickly became a highly anticipated report,鈥� Edwards said.
Wolk, who now lives in Warwick, R.I., and remains a keen observer of education as a writer and nonprofit-board member, confesses to some misgivings about Quality Counts. Even when he was first presenting the idea to the 91制片厂视频 board, there was a concern about 鈥渨hether this was a project for a newspaper that claimed to be objective,鈥� he said, and whether 91制片厂视频 Week would be 鈥減roviding direct support for the dominant strategy to improve schools: standards-based assessment.鈥�
鈥淚t gave me real pause,鈥� Wolk said. In the following 10 years, meeting four times a year with the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, 鈥淚 became pretty much convinced that the strategy of standards-based accountability would fail and do more harm than good,鈥� he said.
鈥�Quality Counts focused a whole lot of attention on standards and testing,鈥� Wolk added. 鈥淚 suppose that鈥檚 both good and bad.鈥�
Anthony Cody, a popular education blogger and the co-founder of the Network for Public 91制片厂视频, a Tucson, Ariz.-based group advocating for the traditional public school system, said he agreed that Quality Counts lent momentum to the standards and testing movement.
鈥淭here has been this tremendous effort over the last two decades to drive educational outcomes by data,鈥� said Cody, a former opinion blogger for 91制片厂视频 Week Teacher. 鈥淭o the extent that Quality Counts does that, it reinforces that mindset. It is part of the groupthink that has led us to this obsession with testing.鈥�
Cody also said: 鈥淭he problem with something like Quality Counts is, you have all these supposedly objective indicators to justify your rankings of quality. But just as we are discovering with teacher evaluation, there are factors that go into school quality that aren鈥檛 measured by state accountability systems.鈥�
Schwartz said he is convinced that Pew made the right choice with its original grant. And with more education decisionmaking headed back to the states under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the new federal K-12 law, having good data to compare states will be more important than ever, he said.
鈥淢y own sense is that Quality Counts has done quite well,鈥� Schwartz said, 鈥渁nd it has weathered the changes over the years quite nicely.鈥�
