Quality doubts

January 11, 2007

Some parents in Michigan were none too pleased by the conclusions reached in Education Week's Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career, especially by the report's "Chance-for-Success Index," which measures how likely are students to succeed in school by calculating the socioeconomic standing of adults. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, some parents said, "the study... seems too defeatist. They said success for students cannot be measured so easily by looking at the accomplishments of parents." Demography is not destiny (see here).

They're right, of course. One wonders how the publishers, editors, and researchers who contributed to From Cradle to Career could be so wrong.

It's a radical about face for Quality Counts, which Education Week launched in 1997 following a call from the nation's governors for an "external, independent, nongovernmental effort" to measure if individual states were actually improving their schools and their students' academic achievement.

For the past decade, Quality Counts has examined the nation's focus on standards-based reform. Among other things it graded states on their standards and assessments (whether standards were clear and grounded in content, whether tests were aligned to those standards, etc.); on accountability (whether the state provided report cards for its schools, whether it rewarded good schools and sanctioned bad ones, whether student promotion hinged on exit exams, etc.); and on teacher quality. It looked at achievement trends in reading and math, as well as trends

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Quality doubts

Fenty not feigning takeover

Martin A. Davis, Jr. / January 11, 2007

When Adrian Fenty paid a visit to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg late in 2006, he received some candid advice on taking control of K-12 city schools. Bloomberg urged the then want-to-be mayor to act quickly, and unilaterally. "You don't run things by committee," he told him. "You don't try to come to consensus when it's our children's future."

Gotham's top dog made an impression. Within hours of taking the oath of office as D.C.'s mayor, Fenty had a bill introduced to the District of Columbia Council to take control of the district's notoriously fractured school leadership and its underperforming schools. For the moment it appears that Fenty is going to get what he's asking for.

"We have a crisis on our hands," Fenty said in a news conference outlining his bid for control. "I am asking today for that responsibility to be placed squarely on my shoulders."

But just how much of that responsibility Fenty will be allowed to place on his fit shoulders remains to be seen. This much is sure--the more that lands there, the greater chance that he will be able to implement policies that generate improvements. (Of course, mayoral control doesn't guarantee success-just look at Detroit and Cleveland. But on the whole it appears to help galvanize reform.)

Fenty proposes organizing the District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) system under three leaders, each of whom answers to him directly: the chancellor (responsible for the day-to-day operation

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Fenty not feigning takeover

Top o' the pack

January 11, 2007

No Child Left Behind's reauthorization process has barely begun, yet the surfeit of coverage and commentary is enough to make Gadfly think about flying south for winter's remainder. Still, one article rose above the din: Greg Toppo's look at how the law has changed life on the ground in actual schools and communities. He finds that NCLB has given reform-minded superintendents cover to push for bold changes. Philadelphia's Paul Vallas, for example, commenting on his recent dismissal of 750 unqualified teachers, said, "we would have never been able to do that without the federal (Sword of) Damocles hanging over our head." Of course, one person's Sword of Damocles is another's "Hounds of Hell," as a recently retired Virginia teacher described the pressure the law placed on her school. Toppo's smartest observation is disquieting: "Here's a pretty safe rule of thumb: Start in the classroom and travel up the educational food chain. The further you travel, the more you'll find that people like the law...the assessment gets rosier as their suit gets more expensive." Did you hear that, Zegna-clad Congress? 

"How Bush education law has changed our schools," by Greg Toppo, USA Today, January 8, 2007

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Top o' the pack

Texas lead 'em

January 11, 2007

They say everything's bigger in Texas. And now, that adage is starting to apply to education expectations, too. Dallas's Superintendent Michael Hinojosa has redefined the role of the principal to involve less paper pushing, more academic oversight, and creative problem-solving. Principals will be required to spend at least two days a week observing classes in their schools, and to put in 10 extra working days to learn the district's curriculum and analyze school test scores. Importantly, the district is also revamping how it hires school leaders. Deputy Superintendent Steve Flores said, "A standard résumé really no longer gets your foot in the door." Candidates must "audition" to show they can attack complex challenges effectively and creatively--after being given a school's academic and budget data before job interviews, they must diagnose the problems and outline a plan for fixing them. And for principals whose schools meet academic targets, performance bonuses of up to $10,000 are in the cards. In an age when success seems to derive less from administration than innovation, Dallas is right to ask its school leaders to rise to the occasion.

"DISD principals ordered to change their ways," by Kent Fischer, Dallas Morning News, January 7, 2007

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Texas lead 'em

Close-minded

January 11, 2007

Detroit Public Schools has lost more than 50,000 students over the past eight years, almost a third of its population, to charter schools, private schools, and the suburbs. Still, it has closed only 35 of 267 schools, about 7 percent. With education funding in Michigan tied to attendance, something had to give. Last week, the district announced a plan to close 52 of its remaining 232 school buildings, a move that will save about $19 million per year. Opposition to the proposal has been fierce, of course. But Detroit is losing students by the bucketful--12,600 left after a 16-day teacher strike this fall--so shuttering schools is less a choice than an imperative. After all, when grown-up organizations lose customers, they cut back on capacity--or they quickly innovate and improve to regain their clientele. In the meantime, Michigan lawmakers should act fast to ensure that these empty buildings aren't just mothballed; Ohio's approach is exemplary. School districts in the state may now claim charter schools' test scores as their own if they offer to lease those charter schools their facilities (see here). A similar push in the Wolverine State could help Detroit Public Schools get back on its feet while adding some much-needed burnish to its academic performance.   

"Detroit may shut up to 52 schools," by Christine MacDonald and Darren Nichols, Detroit News, January 6, 2007

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Close-minded

Class divisions

January 11, 2007

There's been plenty written about the overloaded high school kid who maintains a 4.0 GPA in a full line of A.P. courses, has swim practice before school and cello practice after, and is president of the class Sudoku Society and the Young Francophiles Club. But now we learn that after such students are admitted to Ivy League schools, many experience a letdown--the work just isn't as challenging as it was in high school. Jeff Zhou, who attended Andover and is now a freshman at M.I.T., took only four pages of notes in his first two weeks of college. And he has lots more time: "I've started watching The Office and Family Guy," he said. Such stories are especially jarring when compared with reports showing that 40 percent of college students take remedial courses, and that only 27 percent of ACT test-takers met the college readiness benchmark in biology. Of course, that's the real problem we need to keep our eyes on. As for Jeff Zhou and his peers, top-flight colleges might want to find better ways to engage them, lest they follow Bill Gates' lead and head off for greener pastures before graduation day.  

"The Incredibles," by Laura Pappano, New York Times, January 7, 2007

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Class divisions

Freedom Writers

Coby Loup / January 11, 2007

Paramount Pictures
January 2007

Freedom Writers is based on the true story of teacher Erin Gruwell (played by Hillary Swank). And though it's more about racial conflict than education, the film still provides some choice fodder for the movie-loving Gadfly's rumination. The film follows a familiar narrative: a tough-minded, idealistic teacher/coach/mentor overcomes great obstacles to lift a class of "untouchables" out of violent, dead-end lives in the inner city (think Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, Coach Carter in Coach Carter, and Joe Clark in Lean on Me). The education angle dramatizes the challenges Gruwell faces in a bureaucratic, union-dominated urban public school. She makes $27,000 a year, teaches 150 students divided among only four classes, and every day confronts the dreadful fallout of forced integration in racially divided, gang-laden Long Beach, California. When she eyes new copies of Romeo and Juliet reserved for honors classes and asks to teach it to her students, her department coordinator laughs at her naïveté but gives her tattered copies of an abridged version. Gruwell, of course, finally wins the hearts of her sophomore English students, only to see their hopes for learning the following year shattered when union seniority rules forbid Gruwell from teaching juniors (she is deemed too "green" to teach upper-grade classes). Her cynical colleagues offer nothing but derision. What makes Gruwell's story movie-worthy, of course, is that her powers of perseverance far exceed those of the average teacher. She takes on

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Freedom Writers

The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know

Martin A. Davis, Jr. / January 11, 2007

Diane Ravitch and Michael Ravitch
Oxford University Press
2006

While the thought that students should bother with the poetry of the Romantics, the prose of Darwin, the philosophy of Mill, or the speeches of Churchill is anathema to many, even the greatest critics of Western culture must concede that the English language that still unites us (though not as strongly as it should) has never been used more effectively than by those in the land of its birth--England. "The language has been shaped by those who have used it best," write the Ravitches in their introduction to this exquisite anthology. "Everyone who writes in English inherits this legacy, from Chinua Achebe to Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie to Toni Morrison, Derek Wolcott to Seamus Heaney. These great contemporary writers transform the literary tradition in their own distinct ways, but their guideposts are the monumental achievements of English literature." We may choose to deny our students the history of Western civilization, and still survive. But deny our students English literature, and we excise the very font from which the versatility and beauty of the language we speak flows. Diane and Michael have given us the best argument for why English literature should never "go gentle into that good night"--the words of the language's masters themselves. This anthology is a worthy follow-up to Diane Ravitch's The American Reader. Check out The English Reader here.

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The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know