Urban tragedy

Michael J. Petrilli / October 26, 2006

During the past few years, scores of impoverished inner-city schools have shut their doors. On the surface, that could be a blessing. After all, one of the major problems with American education is that bad schools seem to live forever.

But, alas, I'm not writing about those schools--the persistently failing public schools that, under No Child Left Behind, are supposed to be "restructured" out of existence, or at least subjected to an extreme makeover. No, the ones leaving children standing outside their locked doors are generally places of deep learning, community institutions that have effectively served the children of the poor for generations. They are Catholic parochial schools--and their closure is nothing but a tragedy.

The trend is unmistakable. The Archdiocese of Detroit closed 21 schools last year (and more are likely to shut next year). The New York and Brooklyn archdioceses shut down 36 schools over the past two years. In 2005, the Chicago archdiocese ended operations in 18 schools. And the tally in Boston? Twenty-one schools over four years. The longer-term trends are even bleaker: Several big cities, such as Chicago, serve less than a third of the students today than they did 40 years ago.

The closures have little to do with the quality of education that these schools provide. Two decades of studies have shown them to be effective, especially for poor and minority children. Rather, broader demographic trends are to blame.

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Urban tragedy

Judgment day

Quentin Suffren / October 26, 2006

This October, the Halloween treats came early for supporters of Ohio's 300 charter schools. In a 4-3 decision handed down Tuesday, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the state's charter school program, much maligned by critics, is indeed constitutional. The ruling is consistent with decisions by other state courts across the nation. And what had served as a five-year distraction is now a victory that paves the way for serious--and long overdue--reforms to the state's charter school program.

Charter school advocates are jubilant-most notably the families of the 70,000-plus students that attend the state's "community" schools, as state statute calls charters. The case of Ohio Congress of Parents and Teachers v. the State of Ohio Board of Education not only firmly ensconces the charter program as a lawful alternative to troubled district schools, but also guarantees parents' right to select the best education options for their children.

Meanwhile, state teacher unions, the Ohio School Boards Association and other opponents are fuming about the court's decision. Understandably so. The ruling nullifies all of the appellants' constitutional objections and leaves little room for future litigation--at least in Ohio.

Central to the opponents' case was the claim that charters were not part of the system of "common schools" largely because they do not have to meet the same standards as traditional district schools. In the majority opinion, Justice Judith Lanzinger wrote that the charter school program meets the constitutional definition

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Judgment day

Fewer cop outs on dropouts

October 26, 2006

Low high school graduation rates have headlined the education woes of many urban districts, worrying educators and Oprah alike. But the data on dropouts have always been inadequate and rather one-dimensional, denoting that X out of every 100 students fail to graduate. Now, urban districts are starting to take a closer look at who's leaving their schools early and why. Over the past week, Philadelphia and New York each reacted to findings from two independent reports detailing not just how many students fail to graduate high school, but also when and why they veer off the education path. In Philadelphia, for instance, eighth grade is the tipping point--eighth graders who regularly skip classes and fail either English or math have a 75 percent chance of dropping out of high school. New York City's study discovered that 93 percent of dropouts from the class of 2003 had at some point in time fallen behind in accumulating graduation credits. (This takes some pressure off the state's Regents exams, which is often blamed for the dropout deluge.) Knowing you have a problem is the first step in solving it; kudos to these two cities for finally acknowledging their harsh reality. Now let's hope they show the same seriousness in changing it.

"Study Takes a Sharp Look at the City's Failing Students," by Elissa Gootman, New York Times, October 22, 2006

"Dropout crisis in city emerges from research,"

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Fewer cop outs on dropouts

Comma combat

October 26, 2006

"Grammar Greiner" suddenly has a following at Westfield High School in Northern Virginia. Although he's known as the toughest English teacher in the school, students who want to do well on the SAT's new essay-writing section know they have to improve their grammar. So they sign up and endure his lessons on commas, apostrophes, spelling, and sentence structure. This is part of a discernible, if small, national trend to reintroduce grammar into the classroom. Even the group that once condemned grammar as "a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing," the National Council of Teachers of English, has changed it's tune. Its about time. And if you missed the apostrophe errors in the previous sentences, call Greiner. He'll set you straight. (Or just for fun, test your knowledge of punctuation here.)

"Clauses and Commas Make a Comeback," by Daniel de Vise, Washington Post, October 23, 2006

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Comma combat

For the kids?

October 26, 2006

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik, himself an Upper East Sider, believes "that a constant obsessive-compulsive anxiety about children--their health, their future, the holes in their socks, and the fraying of their psyches--is taken entirely for granted" in New York City. Such becomes plain when one surveys the landscape of Manhattan private schools, its preschools in particular, some of which charge close to $20,000 per year (for a few mornings a week, that is) and require entrance exams and résumés for three-year-olds. (And when it comes to Kindergarten, some parents are holding their children back to give them more time to burnish their counting and shoe-tying credentials.) But a recent article in the New York Times--revelatory for Manhattan's elite Moms; a big yawn for the rest of the world--puts forth that small kids may not actually benefit all that much from the ritziest private pre-K. According to the piece's author, the admissions directors at Harvard typically don't ask applicants where they preschooled (what, what?). And, anecdotes aside, the available data don't ascribe to private schools the type of educational advantages that their tuitions (and tuition-payers) often presuppose. "Child obsessiveness is a substitute for status obsessiveness," Gopnik writes. It's murky, however, what it does for the child in question. (Though, for the record, nothing is too good for Gadfly's granddaughter.)

"Relax, It's Just Preschool," by Hillary Chura, New York Times, October 23, 2006

Adam Gopnik,