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Blog Entries
Kevin Jennings is the right person to lead the Education Department's Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools. He is a passionate advocate for the welfare of all children in our schools. As the former head of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, he demonstrated his devotion to the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
He will stand up for any child who faces harassment for any reason: race, religion, sexual orientation or political beliefs. You would be-hard pressed to find anyone who has done more to promote values such as trust and mutual respect in our schools.
Normally an endorsement like this would be unnecessary. Jennings's actions and history speak for themselves. But fringe groups have started leveling outrageous charges at him: He is promoting a "radical homosexual agenda." He cares about only gay and lesbian students. He is hostile to religion.
These attacks are preposterous. They are beyond the pale. Jennings worked with the Christian Educators Association to create ground rules for respectful dialogue on sexual orientation in schools. He has always been an outspoken advocate for all students' right to a safe and civil school environment. And he sits on the board of the Union Theological Seminary.
A public school is safe only when everyone can expect to be treated with civility and respect. If anything, the hostility leveled at Jennings proves that we have much work to do. ...
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 ...
Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, an expert on pandemics, has advised the U.S. government on the possible trajectory of the H1N1 influenza virus. He recently spoke with us about what we might expect from the virus this year.
Public School Insights: Do you have any predictions for the kind of flu experience we can expect in the coming months?
Lipsitch: I think that the first thing to say about any predictions about flu is that they are probably wrong. The goal is to be as close to right as possible, but everybody who spends time working on flu becomes very quickly humbled, not making predictions even about the near-term future.
Having said that, I think that the current situation clearly shows that this virus can spread very effectively even when it’s not the usual flu season of December, January and February. I think that given the precedent of prior pandemics and the evidence we have about ...
OECD reports always leave me wanting more. The most recent report on child well being in industrialized countries is no exception. I want more information, better context, greater clarity. The report just seems to gloss over too many factors that affect children’s welfare.
One finding does seem abundantly clear: The United States fares poorly on many measures of child well-being. Our child poverty rate is over 20 percent, almost double the OECD average. We’re in the basement on children’s health and safety: twenty-fourth out of 30 OECD countries. And we do just as poorly in educational well-being. Our achievement gaps are much larger than in most other OECD countries. American students are also more likely than their OECD peers to lack important resources like textbooks, computers, or even a quiet place to study.
The report also finds that U.S. spending on children is higher than the OECD average. (Cue outrage over big spending on social programs....) But the OECD analysis leaves so much out of account that this conclusion is hard to support.
Take, for example, health care spending. The OECD admits leaving it out of the analysis: “Although the analysis does not include public spending on health, many of the indicators of child well-being are related to health.” Oh.... That's kind of a big deal.
In the U.S., poor children receive much worse health care than other ...
"Say Yes to Education" may finally get its due. Joe Biden, Arne Duncan and Tim Geithner converged on Syracuse yesterday to learn about the innovative program.
We've honored Say Yes time and again on this website. The initiative has nearly closed high school and college graduation gaps separating urban youth from their suburban peers. How? By providing low-income youth comprehensive supports ranging from health care to academic help and college scholarships.
So will this event catapult Say Yes into the national consciousness? Early signs aren't good. The event has been covered, well, almost nowhere. Not in the education press. Not in the blogosphere.
It did get a few hits in the local Syracuse papers, but those focused mostly on college affordability: an important, but small, facet of the Say Yes program. I suppose I can understand why. The White House Task Force on Middle ...
Long before "responsibility" and "hard work" became dreaded codewords for "socialism," they were values Americans wanted to see in their schools. Let me give you a glimpse of the good old days before the dust-up over the president's speech to school children.
In 2005, 93 percent of Americans said "teaching hard work and responsibility" was a very important goal for public schools. Forty-four percent said it was the most important goal. No other goal achieved a higher rating. These numbers come from a Learning First Alliance poll of likely voters. (The Alliance sponsors this website.)
These poll results should come as no surprise. Support for (and criticism of) public education reflect ingrained American values. We ignore that fact at our own risk.
The most enduring reforms rest on shared values. These days, we should cherish common ground when we find it. The recent tempest in a teacup does us no favors.
Update (7:23 pm): Teacher Larry Ferlazzo has his hands on the president's speech, and he has very specific ideas for using it in his own classes. ...
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 ...
“Making Geeks Cool Could Reform Education.” That’s the title of the latest national article to oversimplify school reform. Author Daniel Roth of Wired magazine offers the seeds of a good idea, but like so many other national commentators he doesn't add much to the conversation.
Roth’s general argument does appeal to me. I was a high school nerd long before Bill Gates and Sergei Brin made nerds cool. Perhaps nerds can help unravel the anti-intellectual marketing culture that makes academic achievement seem positively un-cool.
Roth also wins points for his healthy skepticism about the power of “disruptive” technological innovation. He describes a meeting of education entrepreneurs:
The businesspeople in the room represented a world in which innovation requires disruption. But [former teacher Alex] Grodd knew their ideas would test poorly with real disrupters: kids in a classroom. "The driving force in the life of a child, starting much earlier than ...
Public health officials are bracing for the H1N1 flu virus to hit schools in the fall. A vaccine may come after the flu's onset, and it might be in "limited supply." (For resources on the H1N1 flu, see our H1N1 flu page.)
According to an email I received from someone at WestEd, the Centers for Disease Control are putting together "Web Dialogues" to gather public input into vaccination policy. Here's the CDC's media advisory:
MEDIA ADVISORY - INVITATION FOR COVERAGE
WebDialogue: H1N1 Public Engagement Dialogue
* Make Your Voice Heard on the H1N1 Pandemic Flu Vaccine *
In July, the Secretary of Health and Human Services announced that the federal government expects to initiate a voluntary fall vaccination program against the 2009 H1N1 flu virus. The CDC will help state and local health organizations develop the vaccination program and are working to decide the scope of the program for vaccinating Americans against the novel H1N1 pandemic influenza virus.
The CDC is asking for public discussion, deliberation, and input as the agency considers whether to simply make vaccines available to those seeking immunization, to promote vaccination to those most at risk, or to implement a widespread immunization program. ...
Former teacher Sarah Fine is no Hollywood heroine, and some people won’t forgive her for it. By leaving her job as a teacher at Washington, DC’s Cesar Chavez charter school, she failed the superhero test. She couldn’t Stand and Deliver.
Fine explains her decision to leave in a recent Washington Post article describing the tough working conditions many Cesar Chavez teachers face every day. Many of her readers left sympathetic comments, but quite a few expressed moral outrage. She was a “quitter,” a “whiner,” someone who cares more about herself than about her students. She was not the teacher you would hope to get from Central Casting.
Unfortunately, this sort of talk often drowns out important discussions of teacher working conditions. Barnett Berry hits the nail on the head:
Investing in research and pilot projects so that we can do a better job of identifying effective teachers makes sense — using rigorous measures and tools that keep a tight focus on the critical dimensions of student learning.
But judging teacher performance without paying attention to the conditions under which qualified teachers can teach effectively will ...
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