A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Equity
Blog Entries
Dr. Jerry Weast has presided over a decade of strong and steady gains in Montgomery County, Maryland. How did his district do it? Not by using any of the cure-all strategies that have captivated the national media.
Weast recently told us the story of his school district's success. Several big themes stand out:
- Stop the blame game and start collaborating. Big fights between administrators and teachers are catnip to reporters, but they don't do much for children.
- Set common goals and figure out how to reach them. In Montgomery County, everyone could agree that students should leave high school ready for college.
- Create a system that helps everyone be successful. It's not enough to let 1000 flowers bloom.
- There's more to equity than equality. Weast describes a "red zone" where most of the county's low-income children live. It's not enough to treat those children and their wealthier "green zone" peers equally. The children in the "red zone" need much more systemic support.
There's much more to Dr. Weast's vision than I can sum up here. Here's the story as he told it to us in a phone conversation last week:
There are some structural issues in the way that we are thinking about American education. You see little Kindergartners come to school, and they believe that they can learn anything. Their parents do too. And so does everybody else who meets them. But a few years later, because of the sorting process and the type of structure that they are in, a lot of that belief is taken away and there are huge achievement gaps.
Then you see beginning teachers. They come in and they feel like they can take on the world and do anything. But within five years about half of them have left the profession.
There is something structurally wrong with a system where about a third of the children in America ...
Hear this posting (~6:55)
If you're looking for a Cinderella story, get to know the people at Viers Mill Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland:
One of the [paraeducators] who had been here a long time said, "you know, they used to call this place 'slumville.'" Now, she says "the President's visiting here...." He came to our school for the work we did. He didn't just happen to show up.... It was the apotheosis of my entire career.... The President of the United States--the President of the United states!--is in our cafeteria...because of the work that went on in this building....
That's Susan Freiman, Viers Mill's staff development teacher, describing President Obama's surprise visit to the school last month. She worked hard with her colleagues to turn the once struggling elementary school into a national exemplar where almost every student is proficient on state tests. That is no mean feat for a school where most students are from low-income families and almost half are still learning English.
It doesn't take long for visitors to see just how remarkable Viers Mill is. Last week, Freiman took me through a school buzzing with excitement and academic purpose. She showed me some first grade classrooms where ...
Just when you thought New York City charter schools were the Best Things Ever, a new report calls their quality into question.
According to the city's education department, students in charters made less academic progress than students in traditional public schools did. What's more, the city's charters enroll fewer special education students and students who are not proficient in English. Just over four percent of charter school students aren't proficient in English. Compare that to almost 15 percent for the district as a whole.
This report doesn't come from some hothouse for anti-charter research. It comes from the city's own education department, which has been nothing if not supportive of charters. Charter schools are falling behind according to the city's own measures.
What does this mean just a short month after Carolyn Hoxby's study praising the city's charter schools? For one, it should prompt a review of Hoxby's findings. Did Hoxby forever silence arguments that charters cream the best students, as the ...
What is it about charter schools and food? The Hassels say charters are like spaghetti. You try out a bunch of different recipes, decide which ones taste best, and discard the ones you don’t like. Corey Bower says charters are more like pizza. It tastes great, but you can’t eat it all the time. And then there are all the people who argue over whether charters “cream” the best students.
Much of this boils down to two questions: Is there enough of the good stuff to go around? Is the good stuff always good, no matter where and when you serve it? Despite what fire-breathing charter boosters or detractors might tell you, we don’t have very good answers to either question.
Let’s start with Emily and Bryan Hassel and the spaghetti metaphor:
You try ten different variations. Despite your best efforts, three are worse than the original. Five are no better, but two are markedly superior…. [Y]ou avoid the eight bad and OK recipes, make more of the two good ones, and try more new recipes that build on the ones that pleased your palate. Your average experiment in round 1 was a “failure,” but your average meal going forward is going to be pretty tasty.
So charters are as easy to replicate as a good batch of spaghetti? I’m not so sure. We might live in a world where the market offers different tomatoes in different weeks, fresh basil sells out by Tuesday morning, and the stove’s temperature is devilishly difficult to regulate. Can we find enough teachers willing to put in ...
Ricardo LeBlanc-Esparza rose to national fame for turning around a classic hard-luck school. A key ingredient of his success? Parent engagement. Yesterday, he told us about his work to bring the parent engagement gospel to schools around the country.
The Current State of Parent Engagement in Public Schools
Public School Insights: As people who've read our website before know, you've gained national prominence by helping turn around Granger High School in Washington State. What lessons did you learn from that experience that you really carry around with you now?
Esparza: There are so many lessons. It's hard to say. Public education is so big when you talk about instruction, curriculum, discipline and motivation. The piece that I really want to talk about is the whole family involvement/engagement piece.
I have traveled across the country, from Pennsylvania to Florida to Iowa to Arizona to Texas. Our public schools truly are lacking true public or parent involvement, engagement—whatever you want to call it when parents are active participants in the whole educational process.
Public School Insights: Exactly problems are you seeing in the schools that lack this engagement?
Esparza: I guess I need to frame that question…Because when I look at public schools, I see they typically meet the needs of the middle class and above population.
My wife is a principal of a K-8 magnet school for gifted and talented students. She told me a story that ...
Secretary Duncan gave a stirring speech on Thursday. He read from Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to justify swift adoption of innovative school reforms. "Justice delayed is justice denied."
Dr. King's letter reminds us of just how high the stakes of school reform are, but it doesn't teach school reformers to throw caution to the wind. It conveys the high moral purpose of guaranteeing every child access to an excellent school. It reminds us that the work of school improvement is urgent. But it does not light the way to any specific vision of school reform. And it certainly does not give us license to rush into reform before we're ready to do it well.
Dr. King was not calling for "innovation." In the 1960s, there was nothing especially innovative about universal suffrage or equality before the law. In fact, Dr. King was speaking out against the nation's betrayal of traditional American values. We had failed to honor our founding ideals, and the way forward was clear.
Duncan is right. Education is a civil rights issue, but that doesn't justify haste to innovate at all costs. Dr. King's experience has taught us that we cannot tolerate unequal access to great teachers or great schools. But he unfortunately cannot ...
“Although U.S. students in grade four score among the best in the world [on international literacy comparisons], those in grade eight score much lower. By grade ten, U.S. students score among the lowest in the world.” (emphasis in original)
A bit concerning, to say the least…
In response, the Carnegie Council for Advancing Adolescent Literacy has issued a call to action. Driven by the vision of comprehensive literacy for all, their new report Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Success argues that we need to re-engineer schools for adolescent learners. To prepare our students for success in the global economy, we must focus on their literacy.
This report paints a detailed picture of what literacy instruction in an ideal secondary school should look like. It goes in-depth on two vital, but often ignored, keys to making that image a reality: teacher preparation, support and professional development, and the collection and careful use of data. The report also ...
Larry Cuban takes on the issue of social promotion in his most recent blog posting. One big lesson I draw from his piece: Moral clarity often gives way to moral quandaries as you get closer to the classroom.
Cuban tells the story of Jorge, a (fictional?) fourth grader who struggles in school despite his best efforts. He is eager to please, but he has fallen far behind his peers and is not prepared for the academic challenges of fifth grade.
Should the teacher fail him? Should the school make him repeat fourth grade? The answer seems like a no-brainer. Of course! It would be a farce to send him to the next grade before he's ready. Do five minutes of internet research on social promotion, and you'll discover that it's "a scam," "heinous," "unethical"--exhibit A in the case against do-nothing teachers and administrators.
But what happens to Jorge if he repeats fourth grade? Jorge's teacher ...
The PTA is about far more than suburban bake sales and school carnivals. The national organization has been moving aggressively in recent years to bring more urban families into the fold. It has been getting more fathers involved. And it has embraced a robust policy agenda to ensure all children equal opportunities to succeed.
National PTA’s first-ever male president recently spoke with us about these efforts. He also told us about his journey from volunteer hot dog duty at his son’s elementary school to the helm of one of the largest volunteer organizations in the country.
Download the full interview here, or use the audioplayer (~14:22 min).
You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialise correctly.
You can also read the interview transcript:
A Place for Fathers
Public School Insights: It’s been widely noted that you are the first male president in the National PTA’s history of 113 years. What do you think is the significance of that?
Saylors: For an association that started as the National Congress of Mothers, I’m very proud of the fact that we are moving in the direction that we are. I follow in the footsteps of a number of ...
An article in yesterday's Houston Chronicle poses a very important question: "Can Teachers' Talent Be Transferred Elsewhere?" This question has profound implications for school staffing and equity. Are good teachers good no matter where they go? Or do a school's working conditions have a big impact on teachers' performance?
According to the Chronicle, a new national study is looking for answers to these questions:
[Cheryl] Contreras and 18 other HISD teachers are part of a national study that seeks to answer some of the most crucial questions in the public school reform movement: Can standout teachers get the same results from students at troubled campuses? If so, what incentives will draw them there, and will they stay?
Research is clear that schools in the roughest, poorest neighborhoods generally attract the weakest teachers. “Student achievement is at stake,” said Ann Best, HISD's director of human resources.
The Houston school district is one of seven nationwide taking part in this federally funded project, dubbed the Talent Transfer Initiative.
Accomplished teachers who agree to transfer to struggling schools receive $20,000 over two years. Math and reading teachers with a strong track record of raising students' test scores are eligible for the program. The study will track those teachers' success in troubled schools.
With luck, the study will help us improve policies to give low income students access to the most effective teachers. These days, most policy makers recognize that you can't just identify "the best" teachers and deploy them like troops to the schools that need them most.
Still, some policy wonks see teacher quality as an absolute value that never varies from year to year or place to place. More than one journalist has been taken in by this kind of thinking. What results is a kind of "widget effect"* where all good ...
SIGN UP
Sign up for our e-newsletter on public school success.
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!
