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Roadmap to Improving Education Outcomes in the United States

J. Bradon Rothschild TPOLS 496

Research Paper

The results are in and the United States did not fare well on the PISA 2012, dropping 6

places to a dismal ranking of 31 out of 65 participating nationsi. The new ranking highlights the

ongoing debate in the United States over how to “fix” our K-12 education system. Some wish to

vastly increase teacher pay while breaking unions by doing away with many long held teachers

“rights” such as tenure in order that principals may fire “bad teachers” or “lemons”ii. Others,

including the unions, wish to increase teacher pay and reduce testing. Many politicians have

pushed forward charter schools and private school voucher systems as a means to increase school

choice, arguing that, like any good, education needs competition for the best resultsiii

. Some

states and communities, including Washington State, have begun to move from the traditional

school system we have in the United States towards “charter schools”iv

.

By viewing simply the rankings on PISA scores, one gets the clear impression that the

American public school system is, in fact, failing. Yet a deeper look at the scores, not ranking,

suggests another scenario altogether. Over the course of PISA testing it is true that the United

State has dropped in ranking. However the scores themselves have not dropped and in fact, in

some fields, have risenv,vi

,vii

,viii

. The 31st ranking the United States receives may be below

average, but it is tied with many other nationsix

. One primary reason for the drop in PISA rank is

a significant rise in scores of other participating nations. This does not paint a failing picture of

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the United States education system at all, it simply points to the incredible success of the other

nations such as South Korea, Japan, and Finland who top the charts and have improved greatly

since the inception of PISA. Indeed, over the past several iterations of the PISA, scores for the

United States have barely budged from a few points above or below average, which in 2009 was

493, a year in which we scored 500x. The lag in standings, therefore, has more to do with

successes abroad than failures ashore.

Taken alone, the nearly stagnant scores and dropping rankings have often been cited as

indicative of a failing public education system. When put in conjunction with NAEP – National

Assessment of Education Progress, a nation-wide, participant blind assessment – proficiency

rankings, high dropout rates, and a persistent demographic achievement gap, one can easily paint

a fairly negative picture of the American education system. As is often pointed out by many in

the reform movement, proficiency ratings – which grade students based on expected rates of

proficiency for students in relation to their grade level – tend to be average or low; however

some claim that there is a mischaracterization on this note as high NAEP proficiency scores are

intended to show students who perform well above grade level, not simply at grade level xi

, xii

.

In other words, according to NAEP scores, nearly 1/3 of all students in fact perform well above

expected grade level, while another 1/3 score at grade level. This is hardly damning evidence.

As for drop-out rates, Diane Ravitch rightly points out in her book Reign of Error: The

Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools that, though

the number of dropouts remains high, they have in fact been dropping for the past 70 years. In

1940 the high school completion rate for the first time rose to 50 percent, and by the early 90’s it

had risen to 74 percent; as of 2012 that number had continued to increase and now sits around

78.2 percent xiii

. Ravitch also points out that this number does not include individuals who take

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more than four years to complete a high school diploma – students who are held back a grade or

more but continue with their education are not included as having “completed” and are

calculated as having “dropped out” – or students who complete a GED instead, numbers which

she contends would bring high school graduation rates up to 90 percentxiv

. Though this

information may change one’s opinion and alleviate some desperation and fear of the failing

system, it certainly does not mean that there is no room for improvement.

How does one make sense of all of this conflicting information? It is fairly clear that the

education system in the United States is not functioning optimally and that children are falling

through the cracks. Moreover, falling ranking worldwide may not mean that the overall quality

of education attained in our schools has depreciated, but it does mean at the very least that our

system is not improving at the same rate as others. At the same time, high school completion has

continued to rise amongst most demographic groups.

In this paper I will argue that in order to improve academic and scholastic success, rather

than focusing all of our efforts on completely reforming our education system, most of our

efforts need to be focused on poverty alleviation and helping children in the most dire of

socioeconomic situations. A second priority would be to level the financial playing field for

schools by centralizing school budgets away from district and state control, and towards federal

control in order to ensure all children have healthy, safe, well-funded schools to attend. We also

need to cultivate stronger role models through organizations which pair up at-risk children with

respected members of their community in order to stabilize and enrich children’s lives.

Standards, especially for educators themselves, need to be raised to ensure that they are experts

in their fields and experts in education. Finally we should experiment with how we teach – to be

4

distinguished from how we administer education – to find the best practices for classroom

organization.

Though most of the numbers on the subject show a varying degree of either success or

failure, the overall trends show that our schools are in fact stuck in the sense that they are not

improving at the rate of those in other nations. The largest lag here is in the achievement gap –

the education attainment level difference between various demographic groups, primarily

between wealthy and poor, Caucasian and racial minority – which is still relatively wide in the

United States and only shrinking very slowly according to NAEP scores and college completion

rates. In an effort to improve our PISA standing, our primary focus must on shrinking the ever

present achievement gap.

One may define the achievement gap as the education status difference between racial

groups, though a more accurate description places the gap achievement – and social mobility –

between income groups. Generally speaking, children from economically disadvantaged

families tend to have lower education attainment rates – be it finishing high school, or going to

college – than middle and upper income earning familiesxv

.

The truth is that many of the most underperforming schools and school districts can be

singled out demographically from the rest in large part due to poverty, socio-economic status,

and race xvi

, xvii

. School districts with higher proportions of African, Latino, and Native

American families – and thus students – tend to have lower scores via NAEP, SAT, ACT, and

PISA tests xviii

. A foregone conclusion of poor scores and poorer overall education in these

5

districts is higher unemployment, lower college enrollment, and lower social mobility. This is

the essence of the “achievement gap” which continues to plague the American education system.

Poverty is therefore one of the first things which must be addressed in fixing public

education. Support low income families with poverty prevention programs aimed at providing

stable housing, health care, healthy food, and the basic amenities in order to stem the cycle of

some of the worst problems associated with povertyxix

. Such a system could certainly be very

complex; enough so that to go into any great detail would require several books. Suffice it to

say, in many of the developed European nations, the very nations which out-perform the United

States’ education system, strong welfare systems have long played a prominent role in reducing

povertyxx

.

To be sure, this leads to a “chicken and the egg” paradox: many problems associated with

low education quality; problems such as inability to sustain work, and domestic instability; stem

from poor socioeconomic standing and poverty, one of the best and most lasting methods to fight

poverty is better education. However generally speaking, one of the best ways for an individual

or family to escape such socioeconomic stagnation is attaining a better education. Individuals

with better educations tend to have higher incomes and levels of lifetime productivityxxi

. Though

there are some ways by which we as a society may stop the vicious cycle, wherein poor families

beget poor families, with some welfare reform and social supports.

Many of the reform mind-set claim that poverty is simply an excuse for schools with poor

achievement and poor test scoresxxii

. They claim that it is largely an excuse employed by

principals, teachers, and superintendents “who fail to substantially raise the performance of low-

income minority students”xxiii

. To be sure, there are some schools in poor neighborhoods which

accomplish seemingly impossible turn-arounds with little added money, using a wide variety of

6

tactics to engage students in the learning process. However, these schools remain the exception

to the rule. The truth is that most of the “failing” schools; or the schools with the highest drop-

out rates, lowest test scores, and lowest college admission rates; tend to be those in the poorest

neighborhoods.

Some of the most basic environmental factors stem from home life, stress at home, and

stimulation of early childhood developmentxxiv

,xxv

. Highly stressful home environments; home

environments wherein there is frequent abuse or neglect, be it willful or through absent parents

due to long working hours or other stress-inducing factors, often stunt both the emotional and

psychological/intellectual growth of a child as well as potentially altering neurological systems

to always keep the child in a state of high anxietyxxvi

. These children tend to have more health

problems, which can stunt any academic progress, and shorter attention spans and innate

psychological abilities needed for long-term concentrationxxvii

.

The claims of Ravitch and Tough are in fact borne out in many studies of the sociological

and medical backgrounds of low socio-economic families and children. Ravitch makes the point

that many women of low socioeconomic status have little or no access to pre-natal care, and once

born their children have limited access to health care as wellxxviii

. Lack of prenatal care can lead

to a wide range of physical and mental disabilitiesxxix

. Having a high number of children born to

poor parents concentrated in often urban school districts sidles those school districts with a

higher proportion of developmentally disabled children, thereby burdening the school with the

extra task of caring for their needs.

Beyond the concerns caused by a lack of prenatal and neonatal care, many of the most

impoverished neighborhoods are often the most heavily polluted. New research has linked

toxins in the environment to a wide variety of acquired mental and psychological disabilitiesxxx

.

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In the January and February 2013 cover article, Mother Jones revealed the surprising link

between a variety of chemicals and elements and mental and psychological including mental

retardation and violent crime, even murder and rapexxxi

. According to the article, IQ rates in

areas with high concentrations of lead pollution tend to be far lower than areas without such high

concentrations. The trend can be traced even over time as an increase in use of leaded gas

correlated nearly exactly with an increase in violent crime. Presently, areas with high levels of

lead and arsenic in the groundwater or soil have elevated levels of violent crime and higher

numbers of people suffering from ADHD and mental retardation. Unfortunately many of these

areas are heavily populated by socioeconomically disadvantaged.

As if these two problems weren’t enough, poorer neighborhoods tend to be concentrated

in poorer school districts. For some states, such as Washington, the district provides a large

portion of the local school’s fundingxxxii

. Throughout the country, the largest source of funding

for schools comes directly from the state budget. What this means is that poorer districts, and

poorer states, have a higher burden placed on them via poverty induced disabilities, and often

smaller school budgets due to lower tax revenues. Mississippi, for instance, has a median

income of nearly $15,000 below the national medianxxxiii

, their state education budget is far lower

(per student) than other, wealthier states such as Connecticutxxxiv

. This further burdens the

schools in those states and districts by underfunding instruction and capital.

This leads us to the most mechanical of the solutions is to level the budget playing field

by federalizing funding for schools and significantly decreasing the role school districts play

with regards to funding. As discussed earlier, many states rely heavily on state and local level

funding for education, putting poorer states and districts at sometimes severe disadvantages.

Schools in poorer districts and neighborhoods are quite literally falling apart and are often

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understaffedxxxv

,xxxvi

. Unlike their counterparts in suburban districts, many urban schools lack

the facilities for many extracurricular activities associated with high quality schools such as

computer and science labs, gymnasiums and pools, theaters, and audio-video departments or

radio stations. These departments help to engage students in learning different disciplines and

subjects, offering opportunities to explore technical and professional fields otherwise not

explored in most urban high school settings. Moreover, there is plenty research to indicate

mathematic education value in learning music – one has to understand rhythm and how to

calculate beats and measures to read musicxxxvii

,xxxviii

.

Consider this scenario: Two school districts both with 100,000 people, one with a

median income of 100,000, the other with a median income of 20,000. The first district

represents a wealthy one, for instance Bellevue Washington. While the latter represents a poorer

one, for instance, Wenatchee Washington. If both districts instituted a levee based system to pay

for their schools and leveed a 1% property tax on homes to pay for it, the tax in the Bellevue

school district would generate far more revenue than the one in Wenatchee. This would in

essence double the negative effect seen in the poorer district of the previously mentioned

disadvantages poorer students arrive at school already having.

Now consider both school districts again, but this time, rather than presupposing every-

body within the district lived at or around the district’s median income, add variety, maybe bring

the medians closer. Say 80,000 and 40,000. We already see that one district still has an

advantage, though maybe not as serious. However over time, as the schools in one district out-

perform the other, the residents more financially fit for mobility will likely move from one

district into the other; why pay the same tax rate when getting a far worse result? Perhaps the

second school district may raise its levee in order to level the playing field by adding new

9

revenue to the district. Rather than paying a 1% tax, the residents now pay a 2% tax. The

schools may improve, and managed properly likely would. However, many residents may find

this new tax-rate unbearable and leave to another with lower taxes. These most likely would be

those who are financially fit for relocation (i.e.: wealthier, and certainly not poor; people who

can afford to purchase or start rent at a new location and cover moving costs). They would likely

move to districts with lower tax-rates while maintaining decent schools; districts where the

median income is likely far higher than their original.

In this way, districts become demographic mono-cultures. Wealthier districts attract and

retain wealthy residents, while poorer people are immobilized and relegated to poor districts

often with high tax-rates in an attempt to compensate for the abject poverty. This has many

negative side effects, notwithstanding the simple financial aspects. Firstly, it prevents children

for diverse demographic groups from mingling and socializing on a regular basis. As is readily

apparent throughout the United States, unfortunately socio-economic demographic groups still

maintain themselves along racial lines; wealthier people tend to be Caucasian or Asian, while

poorer people tend to be African, Native American, or Latino. Or, more accurately, Caucasian

and Asian people tend to be wealthy, while African, Native American, and Latino people tend to

remain poor.

This scenario also cuts off growth of social capital for poorer children and their families.

Social capital describes connections an individual makes with others. These connections can be

family based; brothers, sisters, parents, etc.; or friendships of multiple types; close teachers or

bosses, or friends (think Fraternity or Sorority). Often these connections are more valuable than

we realize. In many sub-Saharan nations, impoverished individuals with HIV/AIDS have a

significantly longer life expectancy when they have family or close friends for support than those

10

who lack such support systemsxxxix

. Similarly, individuals in impoverished communities who

have a greater number of personal connections – i.e.: social capital – are less likely to languish

long or suffer homelessness; if your family and friends are not alienated, you likely always have

a home somewhere.

To that end, for the sake of many poorer areas we should more heavily finance

organizations which grow social capital such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and YAP (the Young

Advocate Program) and offer them permanent positions in our public schools. As mentioned

above, social capital is one of the most important facets of personal success and stability. Pairing

children, especially at-risk children, up with responsible role models not only encourages

positive behaviors, but grants those children to invaluable social capital which they may use to

better their lives in the futurexl

. Paul Tough tells two stories of children who got involved with

the YAP program in Chicago’s south side. Both were at-risk and failing out of high school, and

likely getting involved with gang activities which would have landed them in jail, and certainly

not in stable careers. Through these interventions, though, both children stabilized their lives

and have found moderate success, one in the salon industry, the other in auto-work. In the local

schools, some principals have invited YAP to participate actively with the students in order to

help stabilize their lives. The result has been a decrease in drop-out rate, and, for YAP students,

higher academic successxli

.

Likewise we need to increase access of afterschool and extra-curricular activities to

engage students in building social capital as well as creativity. At many of the more successful,

and privileged schools, afterschool activities, such as baseball or Science Olympiads, are

routinely offered and plentifulxlii

. Many studies have shown that children engaging if afterschool

activities under teacher supervision have higher test scores, grades, and college admittance

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ratesxliii

. Paul Tough writes very extensively at afterschool activities, such as the chess club,

helping underprivileged and underserved children achieve astounding academic and professional

results. Again, it is unfortunately the poorest schools which need this help the most, but also are

most likely to lack the programsxliv

.

Though much of what has been suggested in this paper to better our nation’s PISA scores

and overall improve our education system has focused on support of at-risk students in order to

close the achievement gap, this does not mean we have no room to improve the system for

everyone including those who are already achieving academic excellence. To this end we do

indeed need to look to the schools and system itself.

We need to raise the standards for teachers and educators. Far too many teachers are ill-

prepared to teach their own subjects and a growing body of evidence suggests that lack of subject

knowledge by teachers can undermine other education efforts. To that end people wishing to be

educators should be required to hold degrees in the subjects they wish to teach along with the

master’s degree in education and certification. Moreover rather than requiring only the one-year

certification degree, all teachers should be required to complete the two year Master’s Degree

course in education appropriate for the expected grade level and subject they will be teaching,

which should include a basic education in child development and psychology in order to better

ready them for the classroom. Many other nations, most notably Finland, in recent years have

dramatically raised the academic and professional requirements for educators and have found a

high level of success with such programs both via PISA scores and economic growth and

stabilityxlv

,xlvi

. In other words, educators should truly be experts both in their field – math,

science, chemistry, literature, etc. – and in the practice of education.

12

We should more fully utilize well regulated and educator driven charter schools. In the

past decade, charter schools have been given a fairly bad name by large for-profit entities which

have had a history of cherry-picking students and dataxlvii

,xlviii

. At the very least, claims of wild

success within the modern charter school format are dubious. This certainly does not mean that

charters have no place in education reform. The original purpose of the charter schools as

envisioned by their theoretical founder, Ray Budde, was a school format free of local and federal

government regulations where teachers could control curriculum and in-class activities in order

to try new methods of teaching; charter schools were to be a laboratory of education practices to

be used by school districts to find best practicesxlix

,l. Though some modern charter schools, often

privatized and entirely separate from all levels of government, have shown significant

improvements with regards to student achievement and success later in lifeli, many have failed to

show such results and may in fact be detrimental to their students futures, who unfortunately

often stall in their professional lives, if not drop out of college earlylii

.

However, with highly trained education professionals working within a self-regulated and

guided environment, new solutions to old problems may more readily be found using a scientific

approach. It could be viewed in this respect: All of education is a social science experiment.

Using different methods and comparing results, we may find better ways of teaching and

administering education. In this regard, charter schools would be the test subjects and traditional

schools would be the control group. Ideally a wide array of students from varying demographic

backgrounds and abilities/disabilities would enter a charter school at a young age and be tracked

through the system, routinely measuring progress with non-judgmental tests, in other words, tests

which do not dictate success or failure by the student or teacher, simply assess progress. The

information gleaned from such practices could be used to find effective and ineffective teaching

13

styles which could then be applied to larger groups of students through the traditional public

schools, similar to how psychological studies find effective and ineffective treatments for a wide

array of maladies.

A secondary use of charter schools would be a training ground for teachers, both new and

veteran. In Washington State, like many other states, part of the course of earning a teaching

certificate is completing a practicum as a teacher in a public schoolliii

(OSPI, Washington State

Teacher Certification Requirements, n.d.); this approach should be fully integrated by requiring

first a term at a charter “teaching” school followed by a term at a traditional public schools in

order to stream-line new teaching techniques.

In order to better our education system, we need to take a multi-pronged approach and

address issues which may seem to have little if anything to do with education. One of the first

priorities must be to keep children in schools, even if the schools are not themselves perfect.

Building stable home-lives and communities which can more readily foster children is a key

component to improving our education system. It is a component which is sorely lacking in the

United States; one which, in many ways, sets us apart from the rest of the OECD worldliv

. Many

of the countries with the highest PISA scores laud their poverty alleviation programs for part of

their successes, and it seems they may be right to do solv

.

Though higher standards in our schools could lead to better results, those cannot be

attained without more highly qualified teachers and more evenly funded schools. Again, other

nations attribute much of their success to standards; not just for students, but for teachers and

course contentlvi

,lvii

. By universalizing what we teach and, to a degree, how we teach it is

possible to at the very least attain more unified results. Likewise, universalizing funding for

14

schools so that no school is crippled by lack of funding will raise the achievement rates in the

most at-risk districts, and help lower the achievement gaps.

When considering the education of our children, we must always remember that every

child in unique and has different needs. Though trends appear and as a system we can assume

that most children will have many needs in common, they are hardly universal. At the very least,

each child arrives at school at different levels of preparedness. It is our job as a society to ensure

that even the children who have not had all the advantages of life are afforded every opportunity

to succeed and all the support needed for them to accomplish such a task. Many may argue that

it is the responsibility of the parents to ensure the welfare of their children; though this is true, it

may not always be possible, especially for those parents who struggle with their own roadblocks

in life. In short, education should be viewed as a system not simply of schools, but of

institutions including schools, community projects, non-profit organizations, and families. But

most of all education is not about buildings and teaching, it is about growing healthy, successful,

productive, and informed children who will then become valued citizens. In short: it takes a

village to raise a child.

i Wojcicki, Esther. “How Will U.S. Policy Makers Respond to Our Failing PISA Test Scores?” The Huffington

Post. Dec. 19, 2013. Accessed Dec. 20, 2013 via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/esther-wojcicki/how-will-us-policymakers_b_4475397.html

ii Haynes, V. Dion. “Rhee Seeks Tenure-Pay Swap for Teachers” The Washington Post, Jul. 3. 2008. Accessed Jan. 16, 2014 via http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070203498.html

iii Paley, Amit R. “Bush Proposes Adding Private School Vouchers to ‘No Child’ Law” The Washington Post, Jan. 25, 2007. Accessed Jan. 16, 2014 via http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/24/AR2007012401982.html

iv Shaw, Linda. “Charter Schools Narrowly Win Approval in Washington” Seattle Times, Nov. 12, 2012. Accessed Jan. 16, 2014 via http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019670471_charter13m.html

v OECD. (2001). PISA 2000 Results: Executive Summary. vi OECD. (2002). Learning for Tomorrow’s World: First Results from PISA 2003. vii OECD. (2010). PISA 2009 Results: Executive Summary

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viii United States Department of Education. (2012). Performance of U.S. 15-Year-Old Students in Mathematics,

Science, and Reading Literacy in an International Context: First Look at PISA 2012. ix Ibid. x OECD. (2010). PISA 2009 Results: Executive Summary xi Ravitch, D. (2013). Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s

Public Schools. Knopf. xii NCSE. (2012). NAEP Achievement Levels. xiii Ravitch, 2013. xiv Ibid. xv White, Margaret. (2010). “Poverty and Education: A Teacher’s Perspective”. BCTF Research Report. xvi McLaughlin, Kate A., Jennifer Grief Green, Margarita Alegria, E. Jane Costello, Michael J. Gruber, Nancy A.

Sampson, and Ronald C. Kessler. (2012) “Food Insecurity and Mental Disorders in a National Sample of U.S. Adolescents.” Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. November, 2012.

xvii Raver, C. Cybele (2012). “Low Income Children’s Self-Regulation in the Classroom: Scientific Inquiry for Social Change.” American Psychologist. November, 2012. xviii Ibid. xix Wang, C., Caminada, K., & Goudswaard, K. (2012). The redistributive effect of social transfer programmes

and taxes: A decomposition across countries. International Social Security Review, 65(3), 27–48. xx Ibid. xxi Ravitch, 2013. xxii Ibid. xxiii Joel Klein, qtd. in Ravitch, 2013 xxiv Ravitch, 2013. xxv Tough, P. (2012). How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (Reprint

edition.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. xxvi Ibid. xxvii Ibid. xxviii Ravitch, 2013. xxix Ibid. xxx Bell, Michelle L. and Keita Ebisu. (2012). “Environmental Inequality in Exposures to Airborne Particulate

Matter Contaminates in the United States”. Environmental Health Perspectives. 1699-1794. xxxi Drum, Kevin (2013). “Criminal Element”. Mother Jones. 28-35. xxxii Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee. (2012) “Citizen’s Guide to Washington State K-12

Finance 2012” xxxiii United States Census Bureau. (2010) “Mississippi Quick Facts”

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/28000.html xxxiv Dixon, Mark. (2011). “Public Education Finances: 2011” Government Division Reports. United States

Department of Commerce: US Census Bureau. xxxv Ravitch. (2013) xxxvi Tough. (2012) xxxvii Southwest Education Laboratory. (1998). “Teaching With Math”. Classroom Compass. 1998. V. 4. No. 2. xxxviii Rogers, G. L. (2004). Interdisciplinary Lessons in Musical Acoustics: The Science-Math-Music

Connection. Music Educators Journal, 91(1), 25–30.

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xxxix Masanjala, Winford. (2007). “The Poverty-HIV/AIDS Nexus in Africa: A Livelihood Approach,” Social

Science & Medicine, 1032-1041. xl Tough. (2012) xli Ibid. xlii Durlak, J.A. and R.P. Weissberg. “The Impact of After School Programs that Promot Personal and Social

Slills”. Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. 2007. xliii Ibid. xliv Ibid. xlv Sahlberg, Pasi. (2010). “The Secret to Finland’s Success: Educating Teachers.” Stanford Center for

Opportunity Policy in Education. xlvi Hancock, LynNell. (2011). “Why are Finland’s Schools Successful?” Smithsonian Magazine. Accessed Mar.

17, 2014 via http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/?all

xlvii Ravitch. (2013) xlviii Bifulco, Robert and Helen F. Ladd. (2004) “The Impacts of Charter Schools on Student Achievement:

Evidence from North Carolina”. xlix Klonderine, Ted. (2005) “Ray Budde and the Origins of the ‘Charter Concept’”. Education Evolving. l Ravitch. (2013) li Booker, Kevin, Tim R. Sass, Brian Gill, and Ron Zimmer. (2008) “Going Beyond Test Scores: Evaluating

Charter School Impact on Educational Attainment in Chicago and Florida”. Rand Education. lii Tough. (2012) liii O.S.P.I. (n.d.). Washington State Teacher Certification Requirements. Accessed Feb 12, 2014, From

http://www.k12.wa.us/certification/certapp/4031.pdf liv OECD. (2010). Factbook 2010: Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics: Quality of Life: Income

Inequality and Poverty: Poverty Rates and Gaps. lv Ravitch. (2013) lvi Baird, Ktherine. (2012). Trapped in mediocrity: why our schools aren’t world-class and what we can do

about it. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. lvii Sahlberg. (2010)