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Equity
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan has announced an ambitious goal: To turn around the nation’s lowest-performing schools. The Learning First Alliance (LFA), which sponsors Public School Insights, applauds that goal. Today, the Alliance released a set of principles for tracking the progress of the nation’s school turnaround efforts. Principles for Measuring the Performance of Turnaround Schools outlines how education agencies and communities can determine whether those efforts are leading to both swift improvement and sustained change in persistently struggling schools.
This statement offers a framework for aligning turnaround efforts with a vision for giving every child access to an excellent public school. The proposed principles can help policymakers, educators and communities identify schools in need of intervention, reliably gauge the progress and ...
Gather round, boys and girls. Reporter Alan Borsuk will give a lesson on the difference between change and the status quo.
"What does it mean to be a Democrat when it comes to education?" he asks. "Does it mean you stand for sticking pretty much to the way things are now, except for adding more money? Or does it mean calling for some big changes in the way things are done?" I think you know whose side he's on.
Borsuk is writing about Milwaukee, but he's giving a lesson many national journalists have given before him. Here's how it goes:
- Change: Mayoral control, performance pay, charters, vouchers.
- Status Quo: Everything else.
Got it?
Borsuk and many like him are blissfully untroubled by a few facts:
- Districts under mayoral control are not necessarily any more effective than districts run by school boards.
- Performance pay systems rest on awfully shaky science.
- On balance, charter schools tend to do worse than traditional public schools
- In Milwaukee, voucher schools don't do any better than traditional public schools.
But why dwell on such trifles when change is at stake?
Needless to say, Borsuk's article irked me. Let's get this straight: No one is satisfied with the status quo. No one thinks current achievement gaps or ...
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 ...
Granger High School in Washington State has garnered national attention for its remarkable journey from bad to great. Most Granger students come from low-income families working on farms in the surrounding Yakima Valley. Many are children of migrant workers. In 2001, Granger was plagued by gang violence, low morale and an astronomical dropout rate. Now more than 95% of Granger students graduate, and almost 90% go on to college or technical school. (See our story about Granger here.)
Granger principal Paul Chartrand recently spoke with me about the critical work of sustaining the trend. The overriding message I took away from our conversation: Forge strong personal connections with students and their families.
Sustaining the Turnaround Trend
Public School Insights: Granger High School has been described by quite a few people as a real turnaround story. Do you think that is a fair description?
Chartrand: I do think it’s a fair description. My predecessor, Richard Esparza, really started the turnaround. I took over last year, and we are trying to continue the trend. We have been successful in a couple of areas, and we are still working on it in ...
First published August 19, 2008.
Harvard professor and cultural critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr. captured some 25 million viewers with his riveting PBS documentary series, African American Lives (WNET). Using genealogical research and DNA science, Gates traces the family history of 19 famous African Americans. What results is a rich and moving account of the African American experience.
Gates recently spoke with Public School Insights about the documentary and a remarkable idea it inspired in him: To use genealogy and DNA research to revolutionize the way we teach history and science to African American Students. Now, Gates is working with other educators to create an "ancestry-based curriculum" in K-12 schools. Many African American students know little about their ancestors. Given the chance to examine their own DNA and family histories, Gates argues, they are likely to become more engaged in their history and science classes. As they rescue their forebears from the anonymity imposed by slavery, students begin to understand their own place in the American story.
If the stories in African American Lives are any guide, they're in for an experience.
The Significance of African American Lives
PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Tell me about "African-American Lives" and its significance, in your view.
GATES: Wow, that's a big question. [Laughing] I got the idea in the middle of the night to do a series for public television that would combine genealogy and ancestry tracing through genetics. I've been fascinated with my own family tree since I was 10 years old - that's the year that my grandfather died. ...
A decade ago, Interlake High School was the lowest-performing school in the Bellevue, Washington school district. Now, students thrive on a rich diet of demanding core courses. Student achievement rose steadily as more and more students opted for challenging AP and International Baccalaureate coursework. (See our story about Interlake here)
Principal Sharon Collins chalks her school’s success up to the ambitious de-tracking effort she launched when she became principal. The school eliminated the lowest-rung courses and urged students into the more challenging AP and IB routes. Key to this strategy was early and sustained support for struggling students. We recently chatted with Collins by phone:
Public School Insights: I understand that about ten years ago, Interlake was the lowest-performing school in the district. What changed?
Collins: Well, there were quite a few components that came into it. One of them [is that] the school went through huge remodel.
We got an opportunity to reinvent ourselves when we moved into the new building.
When I first came there, I met with every staff member for a 20-minute interview. We talked a lot about curriculum and climate. Those two things were the focus for the school. I instituted a whole committee to work on the ...
Poverty does not keep "gifted and motivated" young people from college, writes Jay Mathews. They get scholarships. Instead, he argues, it is poor schooling that prevents low-income students from realizing their gifts or preparing for college.
I think Mathews gets it wrong.
For the moment, let's leave aside the multiple causes, both within and beyond schools, of low-income students' poor academic performance. Mathews seems a bit blasé about the impact of financial impediments to college.
Consider, for example, the lot of strong, if not stellar, students from low- and medium-income families. No, they're not the stand-out stars Mathews is writing about. But that's the point. There is troubling evidence that low- and medium-income students of average accomplishments are not nearly as likely to attend college as their wealthier peers are. Their success is a critical measure of opportunity.
High-income students who perform poorly on eighth-grade mathematics tests are about as likely to complete college as low-income students who perform in the highest quartile. Sure, the low-income students may lose ground in high ...
Many educators speak at a frequency inaudible to pundits' ears. Perhaps that's why pundits almost always prefer broad, simple solutions to the nitty-gritty processes of improving schools.
The venerable education pundit Jay Mathews recently exhibited this tendency in his review of a book about the success of Montgomery County Maryland. Leading for Equity, he opines, is all about process, and process is too often ponderous, impenetrable and uninspiring. For Mathews, exhibit A is the cryptic set of lessons the book outlines in its first chapter. For example: "Implementing a strategy of common, rigorous standards with differentiated resources and instruction can create excellence and equity for all students." Poetry it's not.
Still, I have to agree with Elena Silva's judgment that Matthews' "critique of the book as too process-oriented is wrong. Process has tripped up many a reform, and understanding what sequence of events and efforts leads to change is key to ...
A recent piece in The Economist reminds us, yet again, that lay journalists are not necessarily contributing to the national discussion of school reform.
The piece describes “a movement that is improving education across America: the rise of ‘charter’ schools”:
These are paid for by state governments and free for the students, open to anyone and, crucially, independent of often badly-run school boards. [Principals] have wide discretion in the hiring and firing of teachers and are free to pay by results as they think fit. Charter schools are a mixed bag, but the best of them are achieving results most board-run schools can only dream of and are heavily oversubscribed.
Ok, several problems here. First, it’s not clear that the charter movement is “improving education across America”—at least not yet. The recent Stanford review of charter school performance nation-wide certainly disappointed charter supporters. The Economist faintly acknowledges this point by calling charters a “mixed bag” but neglects to note that there are still more bad charters than ...
"Hunger can be a positive motivator."
-- Missouri State Representative Cynthia Smith, who opposes free school lunches for children during summer months. ...
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