An economics and business writer at the New York Times named Peter Coy wrote an article titled “This Company Knows How to Increase Test Scores.” The article celebrates a study of a for-profit company called Bridge International Academies (renamed NewGlobe) that operates a large number of schools in Africa. Coy says the study by various American economists finds that the NewGlobe schools produce remarkable test score gains. What he doesn’t say is even more important. Civil society groups from across Africa and elsewhere urged the World Bank to stop investing in for-profit schools. The World Bank announced three months ago that it would no longer invest in the company praised in this article.
Coy begins:
Some of the world’s most successful educational techniques are being applied today in Kenya, Uganda, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda and India, in schools serving poor children that are run or advised by NewGlobe Schools, a company founded by Americans with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. These techniques deserve to be applied more widely, including in wealthy nations such as the United States.
A new study led by a Nobel laureate economist, Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago, found that in Kenya, enrolling in schools run by NewGlobe for two years increased test scores by an amount equal to being in school for an additional 0.89 year for primary school pupils, and to being in school an extra 1.48 years for pre-primary pupils. The poorest children improved the most.
The secret of NewGlobe’s success? Standardization. Every lesson is completely scripted and standardized. The teachers are told what to say and they say it. Most of the teachers are not high school graduates; they are not certified. They are paid less than union teachers. Yet the students get higher test scores! A reformer’s dream!
Coy compares these privately-run schools to the large KIPP chain (which, as I understand it, having visited KIPP schools, is not standardized, and whose results are not always as good as regular public schools) and to New York City’s Success Academy, a chain that has very high test scores but also very high student attrition and very high teacher turnover.
Coy writes:
“The test score effects in this study are among the largest observed in the international education literature, particularly for a program that was already operating at scale, exceeding the 99th percentile of treatment effects of large-scale education interventions,” Kremer and his colleagues found.
NewGlobe clearly has built a better mousetrap, but it has taken a while for the world to beat a path to its door. It has encountered multiple obstacles, including from the U.S. Congress, although it is gradually winning followers.
One reason for the slow uptake in the early going was resistance from teacher unions, including the Kenyan National Union of Teachers. During the period studied, NewGlobe paid teachers only one-third to one-fifth of what Kenyan public school teachers were earning. Many of its initial recruits didn’t have teaching certificates. (NewGlobe says it adapted to the government requirements as they changed over time.)
Here is the study. The title: “Can Education Be Standardized?” The authors believe it can and should be.
Here is the abstract:
We examine the impact of enrolling in schools that employ a highly-standardized approach to education, using random variation from a large nationwide scholarship program. Bridge International Academies not only delivers highly detailed lesson guides to teachers using tablet computers, it also standardizes systems for daily teacher monitoring and feedback, school construction, and financial management. At the time of the study, Bridge operated over 400 private schools serving more than 100,000 pupils. It hired teachers with less formal education and ex- perience than public school teachers, paid them less, and had more working hours per week. Enrolling at Bridge for two years increased test scores by 0.89 additional equivalent years of schooling (EYS) for primary school pupils and by 1.48 EYS for pre-primary pupils. These effects are in the 99th percentile of effects found for at-scale programs studied in a recent survey. Enrolling at Bridge reduced both dispersion in test scores and grade repetition. Test score results do not seem to be driven by rote memorization or by income effects of the scholarship.
Here are a few quotes from the Kremer et al study:
Three-quarters of teachers in public and private schools had acquired more than a secondary school education compared to just under one-quarter of teachers in Bridge schools. Relative to public school teachers, Bridge teachers were younger, less experienced, and more likely to be novice (first-year) teachers. On average, their total compensation amounted to between one fifth and one third of the average public school teachers total compensation and approximately the same as teachers in other private schools serving this population. They worked longer hours, including Saturdays...
Subsequent to the period analyzed in our study, Bridge’s parent company NewGlobe reduced the number of private schools operated by Bridge from 405 to 112, and launched a new model in which it primarily acts as a service provider to governments. Under this model, which now accounts for the bulk of students reached by NewGlobe, teacher qualification, compensation, and working conditions follow standard public sector guidelines; governments similarly set curricular, school infrastructure, and child safety standards, and costs of standardization are covered by the state rather than through fees to parents.
Note that Bridge has changed its main model, the one lauded by the Kremer study and Peter Coy. Why is Coy waxing enthusiastic about a model that has been downsized? Bridge dramatically reduced the number of for-profit private schools (where families had trouble paying $5 or more a month, and students were suspended for non-payment of fees). Instead it now has inserted its standardized model into the public sector, where its costs are paid by the government, not families, and it has to meet standards set by the government. But its costs are far beyond what these governments can afford to pay. Coy missed that detail.
Another study of Bridge schools in Liberia was discouraging for Bridge. The condition of the free public schools in Liberia was dismal, which paved the way for outsourcing of schools to private management. About 25% of students in fifth grade could not read a single word in the public schools. It should not be hard to beat that low bar. The study found:
Outsourcing the management of 23 randomly-selected government primary schools in Liberia to Bridge International Academies led to learning gains of 0.35σ after three years, equivalent to reading roughly 2.2 additional words per minute. Beyond learning gains, Bridge increased dropout by more than half and reduced transition to secondary school (overall, Bridge had a -6.53 percentage point effect on the probability of being enrolled in any school after three years). Bridge had no statistically significant impact on corporal punishment and failed to reduced sexual abuse. Overall, any assessment of outsourcing public schools to Bridge must weigh its modest learning gains against its high operating costs and negative effects on access to education via increased dropout.
Bridge raised test scores, but the dropout rate was high, which probably increased test scores. Bridge was too expensive for the Liberian government: in its first year, it cost $640 per year. By year three, the Bridge cost was down to $161 per pupil. The Liberian government’s goal is $50 per pupil per year. This model does not look like the money-maker that its sponsors envisioned.
I first learned about Bridge International Academies when I read an article in the New York Times Magazine called “Can a Tech Start-Up Successfully Educate Children in the Developing World?” An American couple, Shannon May and her husband Jay Kimmelman, along with a third partner, had the audacious idea that a company that provided $5 a month private schools could dramatically disrupt education in Africa while creating a billion-dollar corporation. What was not to like?
Just as titans in Silicon Valley were remaking communication and commerce, Bridge founders promised to revolutionize primary-school education. ‘‘It’s the Tesla of education companies,’’ says Whitney Tilson, a Bridge investor and hedge-fund manager in New York who helped found Teach for America and is a vocal supporter of charter schools.
The Bridge concept — low-cost private schools for the world’s poorest children — has galvanized many of the Western investors and Silicon Valley moguls who learn about the project. Bill Gates, the Omidyar Network, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and the World Bank have all invested in the company; Pearson, the multinational textbook-and-assessment company, has done so through a venture-capital fund.…
The company’s pitch was tailor-made for the new generation of tech-industry philanthropists, who are impatient to solve the world’s problems and who see unleashing the free market as the best way to create enduring social change.
The basic idea of the Bridge Schools was standardization. The lessons were written by charter school teachers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, then read out loud by Bridge teachers on an e-reader in their classroom. Every teacher taught the same lesson at the same time in the same way, as instructed.
The new study says the concept works. However, it has run into political obstacles. The Bridge idea is opposed not only by teachers’ unions but by every civil society organization in Africa, which opposed the concept of privatizing African public schools. No matter how poorly resourced they are now, they will be destroyed by privatization. If the private companies can”t make money, how long will they stay?
I shared the new Kremer paper with an eminent economist, who responded, in part:
This approach seems crazy to me. Read section 9 of the paper which describes and explains the dramatic downsizing of the endeavor. That section confirms my initial response that the Bridge approach is ultimately likely to do far more harm than good. Shouldn’t young children have an opportunity to learn through play and personal engagement? Moreover, how does the approach deal with the fact that children develop at different rates and have different talents? And why would anyone who cares about children want to teach in such an environment? This is all very scary and disturbing.
Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg can’t be pleased to see that the model they funded has been reduced from 405 schools to 112 schools. The pupils it is supposed to serve can’t afford the fees. Nor can the governments in the nations where they are located.
Peter Coy should read more carefully before he touts an experiment that has already failed.
We are told again and again by libertarians that the free market solves all problems.
In Africa, it failed to provide better education at a price that families or governments can afford. Africa desperately needs more money for education, not for profits.
Bridge (NewGlobe) is not a model for American schools or the schools of any other nation.
Standardization is for electrical outlets and machines, not for children, teachers and education.
Can economic analysis be standardized? The answer is “Yes!” Simply replace Michael Kremer and his ilk with Magic 8 Balls. Then, pose a question, turn the ball over, and read off the answer!
● It is decidedly so.
● As I see it, yes.
● Reply hazy, try again.
● Ask again later.
● Very doubtful.
Magic 8 Balls are every bit as reliable as economists and a LOT less annoying! And conclusions and predictions made using a Magic 8 Ball should be JUST AS EFFECTIVE as standardizing teaching is!
The Magic 8-Ball has been chosen to receive this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics. It will give the shortest acceptance speech ever:
“You may rely on it.”
Haaaa!!!
TARGO!!!
Haaaa!!!! That would be a relief, Mr. Smith!
As soon as these grifting corporate deformers start bragging about implementing their educational cure-alls “at scale” I immediately sprint in the opposite direction.
Good call!!!
Do Zuck and Gates remain as profiteers backing Bridge? Is the business model still expected to return 20% ROI to the rich investors?
YOUNG PERSON: Hey, OLDER PERSON, where are you headed to so enthusiastically this morning?
OLDER PERSON: Great you should ask, YOUNG PERSON! I’m off to the best job in the world! I’m a teacher!
YOUNG PERSON: Wow! Tell me all about it!
OLDER PERSON: It’s so exciting! I stand in front of a class for 7 hours and read from a script! I never have to plan anything or think at all!
YOUNG PERSON: Wow, OLDER PERSON! That IS exciting! So motivating! Maybe I could become a teacher, too!
This has been a public service announcement of the Chicago School of Moronomics.
Come to think of it, the scripted teaching doesn’t need a human at all. A robot would do a better job at no pay!
Huge fan but I’m confused. From the paper:
“A concern with the use of teacher scripts in education and the use of standardized procedures in general is that it may prevent teachers from adapting instruction to the individual needs of pupils (Dresser, 2012; Valencia et al., 2006). However, both pupil and parents reports suggest that Bridge is more likely to provide pupils with instruction or materials related to their individual needs at the primary and pre-primary level (see Table 11). Bridge also promotes teacher and parent engagement in children’s education. The estimate of teacher-classroom engagement index is positive but statistically significant at the five percent level only at the primary level (Table 11).60 Enrolling at Bridge also increases the parental engagement index in both the samples.”
How do you reconcile that “both pupils and parents reports suggest that Bridge is more likely to provide pupils with instruction or materials related to their individual needs” with the idea that “a robot would do a better job with no pay!”
Isn’t the data suggesting the exact opposite of your hypothesis — that teachers are in fact more responsive to kids?
Ron,
I did not put forward a hypothesis about teacher-student interaction or teacher-parent engagement.
I criticized the study and the Times’ story about it for several reasons:
Both claim that scripted curriculum and standardized teaching by uncertified, uneducated, underpaid, and inexperienced teachers is more effective than non-standardized, non-scripted teaching by educated and experienced teachers. If the only thing that mattered in Educatuon was test scores, then robots might produce higher test scores than fallible human teachers.
Because Bridge is a for-profit corporation, the cost of managing its schools is higher than African governments or families can afford. Bridge schools are too expensive for those it claims to serve, which is why the for-profit private model praised by the economists has almost collapsed. Even when Bridge moved its model to state schools, the cost was far more than the state could afford by a multiple of six. Even in the state sector, the schools are supposed to turn a profit for their investors.
I seriously doubt that American parents want their children in for-profit schools where the teachers are uneducated, inexperienced, and underpaid.
As the Liberian study showed, the Bridge schools had higher scores but higher dropout rates and fewer children who remained in school, compared to the desperately underfunded and ineffective free public schools.
What do teacher interaction and engagement have to do with these awful outcomes?
Ron,
It comes down to what is meant by the term “individualized instruction/education”. The proponents of the standards and testing malpractice regime have one definition, those of us who understand the very human nature of the teaching and learning process have a completely different one.
Thanks Duane. It looks like they used two surveys to measure it, both with interviews of parents and pupils:
“The pupil survey asked “Last year, if you were falling behind in class, did your teachers or school give you extra help for example extra classes, or different classes or readings or exercises?” and “Last year, if you were ahead of your classmates, did your teachers or school give you extra help for example extra classes, or different classes or readings or exercises?” Caregivers were asked the same questions about the pupil’s school.”
And
“Combines six items from the pupil survey: 1) “if you didn’t understand something, your teachers explained it another way”, 2) “your teacher asked questions to be sure you were following along”, 3) “how often did teachers ask questions to students”, 4) “how often did students ask questions to teachers”, 5) “teachers only asked certain students questions”, and 6) “when my teachers were grading my work, they wrote on my papers to help me understand”
Both seem pretty aligned to the “very human nature of the teaching and learning process,” and Bridge performed better on both. I guess I’m just puzzled by that given Diane’s critique.
Ron,
Please see my response. Teacher interaction is irrelevant to my critique of the Bridge for-profit model. I’m not sure why you jumped in to focus on a point that was not part of my critique.
The bottom line is that the for-profit model is a failure. Most families can’t afford the low tuition, nor can African nations.
That is why the fee-paying schools for-profit schools shrank from 405 to 112. If it were a successful model, it would be growing, not contracting.
scary that that one appears to be more true every day
Thanks so much Diane; I misread your critique, as you pointed out.
Ron– I think we are being distracted by the claims about both standardization and use of technology in this article and study. Examine the standardized lesson plan (p.12 Figure 1). Anyone familiar with KIPP, Success Academy, and various other ‘no-excuses’ charter programs will recognize the methodology here, right down to the acronyms and cheers. The “technology” is simply replacing scripted teacher curriculum & blow-by-blow instructions with same content uploaded to tablet. Over the years on this blog we have read many examinations of this sort of scripted “pedagogy,” and it indeed is robot-like, on the part of both teachers and students.
Here’s the real “secret sauce” for Bridge schools vs Kenyan public schools at the time this study was done: reference Table 1 (Tables start just after p.73).
1.Bridge school class size was 20 [vs public schools 34].
2.Bridge’s school day was 42mins longer
75% of Bridge schools met Saturdays as well as Mon-Fri [only 23% of pubschs were doing that].
That would explain why “after being enrolled at Bridge for two years, students gained an additional 0.89 years compared to pupils enrolled at other schools over same period.”
The NYT failed to mention that when parents fall behind in payments, they refuse to admit their children. It also does not mention that many parents go into debt when they can no longer pay the tuition.
The test score gains are going to show more growth than a typical middle class student. I have taught many non-English students from developing countries around the world. I have had students jump from the 3% to the 12th% by the end of the first year. By the second year it is not uncommon for students to jump from the 12% to to the 30th% or sometimes even higher. Most middle class parents would not be impressed with the 30th percentile on a standardized test, but when students start out at the bottom, the growth scores appear phenomenal and are a far greater increase than the scores of middle class students.
The Bridge story reminds us what we already know. Beware of billionaires with big ideas and compromised ethics. The Bridge schools provide tech moguls with a ready market for their products including all the data that can be collected and spun into gold. The NYT is providing a glowing review so the tech giants can attempt to justify pushing these products on America’s poor students. Bridge’s slogan should be, “Anything is better than nothing.” By the way what qualifies an economics and business journalist to write about education?
retired teacher– so interesting to get the straight dope from your years in the trenches, thank you! I had no idea such jumps in test scores could be seen in ESL kids from low-SES/ low-ed backgrounds. I’ve seen references to this in broad terms, but it’s so much better to have actual data. And it totally makes sense.
BTW, see the reply I made to Ron after a closer look at the study. In the period studied, the Bridge students had nearly half the class sizes of the public schools, and most of them were getting considerably more hours of instruction during the week. No wonder they were getting higher test scores /s/
be three-
On 6-10 at 9:14 p.m. you provided your perception about the difference between Nixon and Trump’s times in a comment after a Ravitch post, “The Jan. 6 Committee: Facts vs. Lies”. I added comment to your view on June 12 at 8:48 a.m.
“A new study led by a Nobel laureate economist, Michael Kremer of the University of Chicago, found that in Kenya, enrolling in schools run by NewGlobe for two years increased test scores by an amount equal to being in school for an additional 0.89 year for primary school pupils, and to being in school an extra 1.48 years for pre-primary pupils.”
Just more of the absurd, invalid and insane reliance on standardized test scores as a means of evaluating students and schools. Crap in, crap out of a shitsandwich.
OMG I read this yesterday and I was appalled at the lazy reporting! In fact, I even googled the writer because I always wonder what background these folks have to do such lousy reporting and which educational institution is to blame for Peter Coy’s most embarrassing piece of writing.
As I was reading what was basically a re-written press release fleshed out by interviews with folks who seemed to have been recommended by the press release, I kept thinking of one big question that apparently doesn’t occur to the privileged, white Ivy League graduate Peter Coy.
If this education is so good, why aren’t the private schools that charge tens of thousands of dollars in tuition each year using it?
Are Peter Coy’s privileged friends so concerned that their own kids’ test scores won’t be as high as they could be that they force their own children to have this education? Of course not.
It’s all part of the NYT pushing the hypocrisy that privileged children who get seats in colleges with 1500 SATs over students with SATs from 1510 to 1600 deserve so because a privileged student is so much more than his test score.
But of course if any underrepresented minority student is admitted with a test score of 1490 or 1480 over a privileged kid with a 1500 test score, that is “affirmative action”.
Peter Coy is the Leona Helmsley of journalism. Peter Coy, like many privileged white folks, believes that test scores only matter for the little people. That’s why they don’t expect privileged parents to pay tens of thousands of dollars for these standardized lessons that would, according to Peter Coy’s own article, result in high standardized test scores for their own privileged kids. Those privileged parents are apparently satisfied with their own kids having inferior test scores that Peter Coy’s article clearly states could be much better if only their students had their Bridges International Academy schooling.
So tired of no journalist challenging what is right in front of their eyes. The fraud of these mischaracterized studies with their handpicked participants.
When the NYT reported on a 100% remission rate for a small group of cancer patients with a drug called dostarlimab, they were careful to point out that it was a very specific group of patients with a very specific type of cancer.
But if Peter Coy or the NYT education reporters were writing the story, most likely there would be 100 puff pieces about how new medical centers funded by taxpayers would be created to give all cancer patients this new miracle cure of dostarloimab to cure cancers. While those same reporters made sure their own family was treated only at highly regarded medical centers that did not force all their cancer patients to take the same miracle drug that NYT reporters were hyping in their articles.
Glad I missed this one. Coy is such an appropriate name.
““The test score effects in this study are among the largest observed in the international education literature, particularly for a program that was already operating at scale, exceeding the 99th percentile of treatment effects of large-scale education interventions,” Kremer and his colleagues found.”
Baffle em with statistical BS, eh!!
p.s. Duane, see my recent reply to Ron added above. During the period studied, 75% of the Bridge school students were getting at least 70% of a school year added (via more instruction hours) over those 2 yrs– and that’s being generous, i.e. assuming “Saturday school” was only a half-day [could have been a full day]. The other 25% got about 20% of a schyr more in instruction hrs over 2 yrs. And all of the Bridge students had class sizes just under half the normal pubsch class size. Those two factors alone account for at least the average “2.89 school years in 2 school years.” It was all right there in Table 1 of the study. Which Coy obviously didn’t read, & study authors glossed over.
Bridge students probably should have done better than that, given the 20-kid class size– but then they had super-low-pd low-qualified teachers reading from a script.
It is easier to demonstrate enormous “growth” when students start at the absolute bottom as beginner ELLs do.
Unleashing the free market failed on all fronts. It’s time for the Mickey Mouse Free Marketeers to remove their heads from — the sand, let’s say the sand.
LOL. Thanks for the laugh, LCT!
Why can’t there be, in every country, a red light district to corral economists?
Linda, thanks for the laugh!
Very, very simple answer. Women who work in red light districts at least earn an honest living.
Agree. The economists’ red light district is dirtied by political corruption.