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"Welcome to my world," said the traditional public school to the charter.
Reformers who get mugged by reality can sound an awful lot like the dreaded "establishment." Take, for example, the story of the Opportunity Charter School in Harlem. Started by ardent reformers, the school now faces closure if it can't raise students' scores by next year. The reformers are crying foul.
Their arguments sound familiar and reasonable. The school takes the city's lowest achievers, half of them with learning disabilities, so it has a tougher road to travel. The state's tests can't measure the kinds of progress the school has made with those students. And the one-year deadline is unreasonable.
The reformers are on shakier ground when they seek to distance themselves from traditional public schools. The charter's assistant principal claims that the state can't "expect the school to be accountable for a system that has failed ...
Oh no! The dreaded "establishment" is once again erecting barriers to school reform!
No, not the education establishment. The research establishment. The National Research council's Board on Testing and Assessment (BOTA), to be exact. BOTA just released their comments of Race to the Top, and the Department's proposal for performance evaluation comes in for a bit of a drubbing:
BOTA has significant concerns that the Department’s proposal places too much emphasis on measures of growth in student achievement (1) that have not yet been adequately studied for the purposes of evaluating teachers and principals and (2) that face substantial practical barriers to being successfully deployed in an operational personnel system that is fair, reliable, and valid.
To be fair to the Department, Race to the Top does offer states and districts some wiggle room. It requires that student growth data be a "significant factor" in evaluating teachers' and principals' effectiveness. "Significance" may be in the eye of the beholder, so districts don't have to go whole hog on performance pay.
Still, is it too much to hope that the biggest boosters of performance pay might learn a little humility? Barnett Berry rightly criticizes pundits who "do not ...
Who knew Michelle Rhee was such a lilly-livered apologist for failing schools? Who knew that Jay Mathews would join her in finding excuses to squirm out from under real accountability?
Mathews tells the story of DC's Shaw Middle School, whose test scores actually dropped after Rhee installed a new and well-regarded principal. He praises Rhee for her continued confidence in the principal. Rhee is willing to wait, because "the Shaw people are doing nearly everything that the most successful school turnaround artists have done." There was even a mitigating factor: "Only 17 percent of Shaw's 2009 students had attended the school in 2008, distorting the official test score comparisons." Excuses, excuses.
Even Mathews's title is just the kind of thing that earns groans from accountability hawks: "Measuring Progress At Shaw With More Than Numbers."
Of course, Rhee and Mathews are right. It would be foolish to expect dramatic gains a scant year after the turnaround process begins. Shaw needs time. Shaw needs understanding and support.
And I'll admit that I've indulged in caricature here. Rhee and Mathews aren't accountability ogres. Rhee is doing what any reasonable person would do under the circumstances.
What concerns me most about Mathews's article is the gulf between the rhetoric and the reality of reform. Liam Goldrick puts it best:
I would argue that, in addition to doing the right thing (as happened in this instance), reform advocates and school leaders like Rhee also have a responsibility to say and advocate for the right thing. They have a responsibility to be honest about the complexity of student learning and the inability of student assessments to accurately capture all of the nuance going on within schools and classrooms
As Goldrick notes, Rhee's enthusiasm for "year-to-year" gains in test scores defies logic. Scores fluctuate from one year to the next, and unexpected winds can ...
There is a school turnaround strategy for every taste. At least, that's the impression I get from the National Journal's most recent panel of experts. Asked to name the best strategies for turning around schools, different experts list different ideas. Pair struggling schools with the best teacher training institutions, writes Steve Peha. Create a year-round calendar, writes Phil Quon. Shutter struggling schools and start from scratch, writes Tom Vander Ark.
Each of these ideas has merit in some cases--I myself love the first idea, like the second, and am not fully sold on the third. But none is a necessary ingredient for all or even most schools.
So what do we know about turnarounds? Two big themes stand out in much of the school turnaround literature:
- There is no detailed prescription for what works in all cases.
- There is, however, abundant evidence that a school will not turn itself around unless it gives teachers the support they need to succeed.
These themes are also clear in the many turnaround stories we profile on this website. Policy makers should take note.
The Reconstitution Myth
It's high time to slay the reconstitution dragon. Despite what you may hear these days, you do not have to kill a school to save it.
Here's what Emily and Bryan Hassel write in Education Next, which is hardly a pro-union rag: “Successful turnaround leaders typically do not replace all or most of the staff at the start, but they often replace some key leaders who help ...
Principal John O'Neill has earned his chops as a turnaround expert. In the past ten years, he has helped turn around two schools in two different states--no mean feat for a man who once struggled in school.
As principal of Forest Grove High School in Oregon, he has presided over a dramatic surge in test scores and graduation rates. In addition, many more low-income students have been signing up for challenging AP courses since O'Neill arrived in 2002. (Read our story about Forest Grove here.)
O'Neill recently told us about his school's journey from mediocrity to distinction. Some big lessons emerge from his story of school turnaround:
- Create a climate of personal attention to student needs.
- Do not remediate. Accelerate.
- Build broad commitment to change.
- Go for early, visible successes.
- Create reforms for the long haul.
Public School Insights: There has been a lot of talk recently about school turnarounds. I understand you have actually turned around two different schools. Is there some kind of a broad prescription, do you think, for a successful turnaround strategy?
O’Neill: I think you need to have a clear plan of action and clear targets that you want to impact. For myself, in ...
The history of education reform is strewn with the wreckage of dazzling new education technologies no one ever taught teachers to use. Hayes Mizell of the National Staff Development Council (NSDC) sees history repeating itself in the Race to the Top.
Mizell suggests in a recent blog posting that RTTT's investment in powerful new data systems will founder on lack of teacher professional development:
The Department seems to have made two faulty assumptions: (a) improved data systems, in and of themselves, will result in improved instruction, and (b) educators currently have the knowledge and skills they need to use data to improve instruction. Unfortunately, the proposed requirements do not mention professional development. States applying for Race To The Top funds do not have to ...
Frankford Elementary School in Frankford, Delaware has garnered national attention for bringing almost all of its overwhelmingly low-income student body to grade-level proficiency in reading, mathematics, science and social studies. In fact, Frankford far exceeds state averages for students reaching proficiency. (See our story about the school here).
We recently caught up with Frankford principal Duncan Smith, who described what’s been working in his remarkable school.
Public School Insights: I understand that Frankford Elementary continues to exceed state standards by a long shot, but that wasn’t really always the case and that in the mid-1990s, there was a very different picture. What happened?
Smith: The change came along with my predecessor, Sharon Brittingham. She came to Frankford and really set things in motion, bringing higher expectations for kids and higher expectations for teachers.
In the past, the school had a reputation of having a high percentage of minority students and a high percentage of low-income students. The expectation was that those kids couldn’t know things at the same levels as the students at other ...
A roundup of success stories recently published by Public School Insights is far overdue. Here's a list of eleven inspiring new stories we've posted in the past few months:
- Working together, parents and teachers help students thrive at a Delaware middle school. 8/13/2009
- An Idaho middle school gives students a second chance at success. 8/6/2009
- The relentless pursuit of excellence pays off at a Texas middle school. 7/30/3009
- A personalized approach helps turn around a Washington high school. 7/24/2009
- An Alabama middle school is beating the demographic odds. 7/16/2009
- A Texas high school turns nonreaders to readers. 7/7/2009
- Small academics help students make the grade at a New Jersey high school. 6/9/2009
- Access to college becomes a reality for every student in a Texas school district. 5/19/2009
- A commitment to character education supports school improvement in a Missouri school district. 5/7/2009
- A Washington school district brings college to the high school. 4/30/2009
- Teacher collaboration leads to student success at a Pennsylvania middle school. 4/17/2009 ...
Today, the Washington Post praised Secretary Duncan for his promise to "eschew politics, ideology and the preferences of interest groups for 'what works.'" Unfortunately, opinions about "what works" are hard to liberate from politics, ideology and the preferences of interest groups.
As Mike Petrilli notes, few of the reforms advanced by the Race to the Top guidance rest on ironclad evidence. If only we knew for sure "what works" to turn around struggling schools or ensure widespread success among charter schools!
We do have an idea of what is working in schools and districts around the country. This website profiles public schools and districts that succeed by improving their curricula, assessment strategies, staff development, and attention to individual students' needs, among other things. Our challenge is to turn "what is working" in these schools and districts right now into prescriptions for "what works" in many more cases.
One way to mute the influence of politics and ideology is to demand some humility from all sides. While we're at it, we should demand more education R&D. After ...
In Defense of Field Trips: A Conversation with Educators from an Extraordinary Alabama Public School
People looking for a public school Cinderella story need look no further than George Hall Elementary in Mobile, Alabama. The once struggling school, which serves mostly low-income children, now boasts state math and reading test scores most wealthy suburban schools would be proud of. (See our story about George Hall's Success).
George Hall did not have to sacrifice all but the basics to get there. Instead, the school's staff courageously focused on what some would consider frills in an era of high-stakes accountability: innovative technologies; rich vocabulary and content knowledge; even field trips.
We recently spoke with George Hall principal Terri Tomlinson and teachers Elizabeth Reints and Melissa Mitchell.
Hear highlights from our interview (5 minutes)
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A VISION FOR GREAT SCHOOLS
On this website, educators, parents and policymakers from coast to coast are sharing what's already working in public schools--and sparking a national conversation about how to make it work for children in every school. Join the conversation!
