Dear Members and Supporters,
We are writing to share great news. We're seeing high traffic to our website - the highest so far this year - nearly 2,000 visitors today alone. We attribute this to the ongoing interest in Public Health Liberation theory - specifically, the conceptualization of the public health economy. We think that you will find this recent post informative (below).
You're encouraged to write about public health economic analysis. We have an online publication platform - The Hub. This email contains, also available online, discussion of public health liberation theory and connecting theory to practice in education and legislative engagement.. You can access articles on the "Mississippi Miracle" online. The “Mississippi Miracle” was a state-led initiative that resulted in the highest state increase in literacy among 4th graders. [Download Articles]
Opening Discovery of the Public Health Economy
Response to national public health discussion forum - Christopher Williams, PhD
It's still more than that, meaning transcendent of our current frameworks. That is why we posit that the study and effectuation of the public health economy is innovative and emerging - seeking to open a new field of discovery. Take my recent email to DC Council. Even if we DO get funding for public health and the determinants of health, will interventions be appropriately planned and implemented (fidelity) to drive outcomes? Will there be quality data analysis and a program impact evaluation? We are having this issue in Washington, DC for taxpayer-funded programs across the board - from a free book program for children under 6 to violence interruption programs. Few programs are ever evaluated. Waste in the public health economy is a major concern. The aforementioned book program has never had a program evaluation in its nearly 10 years. Based on persistent educational disparities, it's probably not working as intended. Self-selection bias is also likely present - meaning families that opt in.
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August 30, 2024
I have some immediate concerns about the Early Literacy Task Force, for which the Council budgeted funds. This discussion raises issues about appropriateness and ethics of the program.
Several major concerns:
Benefits - Only kindergarten teachers are targeted. Between summer knowledge loss (without required summer school for struggling students) and lack of training for other grades, benefits are likely to be minimal. There is no educational handoff or continuity to 1st grade, which is a major concern in terms of likely implementation success. Parental involvement was also a key program component in the Mississippi Miracle (below).
Grade Level - Kindergarten is not the appropriate grade level for intervention (at least 2nd or 3rd). The foundations for strong early literacy are not yet formed. See Mississippi example below that intervened at 3rd grade. Literacy assessments are much more reliable at 2nd and 3rd grade.
Ethical Issues - Pilot is only up to 20 schools. This raises major ethical issues for students not receiving the intervention (e.g., trained teachers). There is no universal screening, which is arguably also unethical. Mississippi had universal literacy screening and individualized plans for each struggling student. It is unethical for students in pilot schools to only receive the intervention. Even if the intervention for the task force was designed for a control and placebo group, research ensures that the placebo group would receive something. In this instance, the program is only targeted for the lowest performing schools. Lowest performing students DIstrict-wide would be more ethical. It does not appear that there can be rigorous data analysis due to this issue and the issues below.
Dose - 10 hours per instructor is arbitrary and likely not the proper intervention “dose”. When designing any intervention whether for children or adults, there has to be an appropriate "dose" to achieve the expected effect size. It is not at all clear how 10 hours was arrived at. Baseline knowledge and skills are also foundational to quality data analysis.
Training - The District will provide a list of approved training to pick from. This is a concern for several reasons. 1) The training is not all likely to be equal in quality. Any study results from each intervention may require training, staffing, and resources that are not built into the program. The training is also not likely to produce the same short- and long-term benefits. 2) Use of different training methods also introduces confounding when it comes to data analysis and makes it difficult to determine overall intervention effect. It can be analyzed but requires lots of data points and adjustments on the back-end analytically 3) Public charter schools enjoy a wide latitude of independence. This complicates intervention fidelity by school/LEA. For quality data analysis, it would require measures of implementation effectiveness at the level of the school and instructor. Further, I am concerned that the DC Public Charter School Board does not have the mechanisms and powers of enforcement. Another concern is that legislative oversight is lax.
Retention - The Mississippi Miracle (below) had a summer school and redo component. Rather than pass struggling readers on to the next grade, it required all third graders to pass minimum literacy standards. That was a key to its success. The retention rate was high in the first year, then decreased.
Data Analysis - Student changes in schools are frequent, which will create issues with analysis. Absenteeism is also an issue for data analysis and "exposure".
Email to DC Council - August 2024
Dear Council,
I am writing to share information on the Mississippi Miracle (attached). Here is a major educational innovation with three major components - require all teacher training on applying the science of reading instruction and intervention, identify struggling students early, required screening, and retain 3rd graders for summer or repeat grade. I am greatly concerned that the crisis and urgency of educational inequity in the District is not well-articulated or conveyed in the 2023 SBOE annual report and board FY23 actions.
"In 2013, Mississippi ranked 49th in fourth grade reading achievement on a national assessment. By 2019, they ranked 29th. I study whether the state’s 2013 Literacy-Based Promotion Act (LBPA), a multi-faceted strategy for improving K-3 literacy, played a part in this ascension. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences approach, I estimate that the LBPA meaningfully improved grade 4 reading and math test scores on the national assessment. I also find suggestive evidence of longer-term effects on state standardized tests" (Noah Spencer, Comprehensive early literacy policy and the “Mississippi Miracle” (2024)).
Sincerely,
Christopher Williams, PhD