Lessons from Ohio's frontlines

Chester E. Finn, Jr. , Terry Ryan / July 8, 2010

In Fordham’s customary role as a bumptious ed-reform think tank and advocacy shop, it’s unusual to engage in the real work of transforming schools and educating children. But our home state of Ohio has blessed us with many opportunities to get down and dirty in real-world education-reform struggles affecting real kids in a real place. Not the least of those opportunities has been our sobering, eye-opening work as an authorizer of charter schools in the Buckeye State.

Humbling might be a better term for this experience. One of our sponsored schools imploded in a fashion worthy of a Greek tragedy. Just a few years ago, the W.E.B. Dubois Academy in Cincinnati was visited by the (then) governor, lauded in the U.S. Senate (as a praiseworthy example of a school narrowing achievement gaps) and cited in a Seattle newspaper as a prime example of why Washington State voters should approve a charter school measure then on the ballot. But fast forward a few years and the school’s dynamic founder was pleading guilty to five counts of theft in connection with charges that he misused school funds and services to improve his home. The school he founded was closed—for weak academic performance—just last month.  

And that painful saga is just the tip of our experiential iceberg in Ohio, where we’ve learned the hard way that think-tankers don’t always fare well in the rough and tumble of politics, organizational interests, and human

» Continued

Lessons from Ohio's frontlines

Poor translation

July 8, 2010

Is Savannah’s Alfred Ely Beach High a “failing school”? After hiring a new principal in 2005, its graduation rate rose from 49 to 66 percent. Most students now meet state standards. Its school choir was even invited to sing at President Obama’s inauguration. But after seven years on the state’s academic watch list, it’s now primed for state takeover. So district officials identified Beach as a dropout factory under the Department’s School Improvement Grant criteria, and proceeded to fire the principal and require half the staff to reapply for their jobs to strengthen the school’s turnaround application. The school will resume in the fall with a new performance pay program and new restrictions on tenure and seniority. While these measures mesh with the administration’s education-reform priorities—and are, indeed, good ideas—this might be the wrong school to apply them to. Indeed, given Beach High’s impressive recent strides, the shakeup may just knock the wind out of the school’s reform sails. Of course, this is not what the administration intended with SIG—but how surprised can they be? As Arne Duncan occasionally notes, there’s a limit to what policymakers can do from Washington.

"The ABCs of Saving a Failing School," by Claudio Sanchez, NPR, July 6, 2010

» Continued

Poor translation

The cold union shoulder

July 8, 2010

After many rounds of election-time Kumbaya, both of the nation’s big teacher unions seem to have had it with Change We Can Believe In. Nobody from the Obama administration will speak at either the American Federation of Teachers or National Education Association conventions this summer. NEA prez Dennis Van Roekel, in a sermon to his flock, didn’t mince words: “Today our members face the most anti-educator, anti-union, anti-student environment I have ever experienced.” Still, some state and local labor leaders are singing a different tune. “We have to recognize that with Obama we have a voice in the decision making, they listen to us,” Tennessee Education Association president Earl Wiman told the New York Times. “The public is sick of hearing that an ineffective teacher has tenure,” chimed in New Haven Federation of Teachers head David Cicarella. “Those days are over.” As we said a few weeks ago, the unions are hardly monolithic and reformers can be found in their interstices. But it sure seems that the national union bosses have decided to call on their darker angels. And if their members stay home in November, that could spell trouble for Democrats.

“Teachers’ Union Shuns Obama Aides at Convention,” by Sam Dillon, New York Times, July 5, 2010

Note: This piece reflects a correction: No administration officials were scheduled to appear at either convention, but not for lack of being invited, at least by the AFT.

» Continued

The cold union shoulder

Second chance or fresh start?

July 8, 2010

How much does a track record matter? Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa says a lot. That’s why he’s encouraging the LA Unified School District to hand over more schools to charter operators in this year’s round of school takeover bids. We applauded LA for “snapping out of LA-LA land" when it invited teachers, community groups, and charters to apply to take over the district’s worst schools or start-up a handful of new ones. But when the first round takeover decisions were made, LAUSD supe Ramon Cortines recommended, and the school board ultimately chose, to turn most (twenty-two of thirty) schools over to teacher groups, who’d scrambled in the weeks before the deadline to draw up their turnaround or start-up plans. Charters got no turnaround schools and only four new ones, and the city’s three largest charter operators (ICEF, Alliance for College-Ready Public Schools, and Green Dot) got none. Villaraigosa thinks this was wrongheaded. “You can write a great plan,” he explains, “but if you don’t have a history…of proven results, that plan is just a piece of paper.” We’re with him so far. But if we're going for a "history of proven results," then history is pretty plain: The track record of turnarounds is spotty at best. 

“Charters, teachers vie to take over L.A. Unified schools,” by Howard Blume, The Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2010

“Villaraigosa backs charter school bids, rips Cortines,” by Howard Blume, The Los Angeles