Today on Forbes.com, Checker explains why he finds reforms in LA, NY and Denver promising instances of thinking outside the box. It’s all about the numbers—of the test score and dollar variety. When the old ways aren’t working, shouldn’t we try something new? Absolutely.
A post from guest blogger and Fordham writer and researcher Emmy Partin.
Common sense prevailed today in the Buckeye State with a court ruling that dismisses the latest legal shenanigan of charter-school foes here. Last September, then-state Attorney General Marc Dann sued to close a handful of charter schools on the grounds that their poor academic performance and overall mismanagement put them out of compliance with the state’s charitable trust laws. Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Michael Tucker disagrees:
“This court concludes... that New Choices [charter school] is a political subdivision. Given this conclusion, there is simply no charitable trust role for the Attorney General either by statute or at common law.”
As we noted when the case was first announced, Dann’s lawsuits were never about rescuing kids from bad schools. They were political maneuvering, pure and simple. E-mails revealed that the legal strategy was offered to him by his cronies at the Ohio Education Association. And the OEA, in return for Dann’s filing the suits, agreed to drop its own lawsuit against the state for allegedly failing to monitor charter schools properly. With today’s ruling and the fact that Dann resigned from office amid scandal last spring, they are sure to be rethinking that decision.
We’re no apologists for lousy public schools (district or charter), of which Ohio has too many-especially in the urban centers. Last school year, 51 percent of students in Ohio’s eight biggest cities attended a school rated D or F by the state. Fordham laid out recommendations in 2006 for addressing underperforming charter schools, and again this month called on Ohio to be more aggressive in closing bad charter schools. We’ve even provided ideas for how to do this in a way that is fair, transparent, and legal.
Ohio’s scarce resources shouldn’t be spent on law firms and courtrooms but in classrooms. Instead of continuing to fight against the mere existence of charter schools, traditional districts and their allies in the General Assembly and statewide office should be seeking ways to work with and learn from the good ones like we see happening in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and just down the highway in Indianapolis.
It’s stories like these that just make you shake your head. Sorry Springfield, no new school options for you until your district schools completely tank.
Joanne Jacobs takes aim at the disparities between charter and traditional public school performance standards. She writes,
Ohio is closing two chronically low-performing charter schools. That’s good. But the perform-or-else rule applies only to charters. Fourteen district-run schools would be closed if the same standards were applied. All will remain in business.
It’s hard to find a better example of the positive change that can come from charter school competition than this statement by Washington Teachers Union president George Parker (part of an interview published by the National Council on Teacher Quality):
Have your views of the role of the union changed over time? How?
I think it has a lot to do with the landscape in the system right now. We have the second highest number of charter schools-56 or 57 charters. So we are in a competitive market here in D.C.
The union has now had to take on a dual role. Previously our main concern was bread and butter issues—to make sure teachers have good benefits and working conditions. We didn’t have to be that concerned about keeping children in [D.C. schools]. But now around 21,000 of our students are in charters and around 45,000 in public schools. We lost 6,000 students last year. The charter schools have created a competition where the very survival of the union and the job security of our teachers is not dependent on the language in our contract. It is dependent on our ability to recruit and maintain students because we are funded pretty much by the number of students we have enrolled in the public system.
It puts the union in a different light. It’s not just the contract that protects jobs but also student enrollment.
We are expanding our professional development because that impacts student achievement and if parents perceive we improve student achievement then we stand a better chance of getting students back who moved to charter schools. The more students we have, the more teachers we can employ, and the more security we can develop in terms of jobs.
A post from guest blogger and Fordham writer and researcher Emmy Partin.
It’s frustrating to be a charter-school supporter in the Buckeye State. Charter performance in Ohio is, overall, barely equal and too often inferior to that of the district schools with which they compete. According to the latest data from the state, some 64 percent of Ohio’s urban charter schools are rated “D” or “F” by the state, compared to about 50 percent of their district peers.
There are exceptions. In Fordham’s hometown of Dayton, 6 of the 10 highest achieving public schools are charters. There, charter school students not only outperform their district peers on traditional measures of student achievement (47 percent of district students attended a school rated “academic emergency” while 28 percent of charter students were in such a school), but also on the state’s new value-added growth measure (68 percent of Dayton charter students met or exceeded overall state growth expectations while only 37 percent of district students did). And there is more hope on the horizon. Ohio’s first KIPP school opened its doors this month, and a trio of high-performing charters in Cleveland recently announced a new cooperative relationship.
A law intended to close chronically underperforming charter schools kicks in next year, yet just two charters (out of more than 300 statewide) will fall victim to it.
With a union-friendly, anti-school-choice governor aiming to take over the state’s public education system and the state’s tax coffers shrinking, Ohio’s charter schools must prove their worth or risk being put out of business altogether. But if they aren’t able to do this, even the most ardent choice supporters among us should not become excuse-making apologists for them.
At least that’s how I imagine it. As displaced students return to the Big Easy, the 2008-2009 school year will prove to be mighty interesting. Since Katrina washed away the school system, New Orleans is in a unique situation: it gets to start from scratch. And while “scratch” also includes a host of hurricane-induced problems (post-traumatic stress, homelessness etc.) it also means that more than 50 percent of schools are either new or converted charters. This is good news. The Times-Picayune reports that schools are competing for students, encouraged by reform minded superintendent Paul Vallas. And while the bad will sprout up with the good, there is neither the infrastructure nor the extra cash to keep the failed schools open. Paul Tough takes to the pages of the New York Times Magazine to expound upon the attitudes of young reformer-principals, teachers, and administrators—all of whom know that this is a boom or bust year. A veritable army of 20- and 30-somethings have descended on New Orleans with their market values. To top it off, millions of recovery cash dollars are being spent on school building renovations and construction to support this growth.
While the fire may have killed the tottering ancient phoenix that was the NOLA school system, the baby that emerges from the ashes may prove to be an important step forward in the reform movement. What really happens when most of a city goes charter? No one was willing to take that risk when the system was still limping along—there, or anywhere else. New Orleans had no other choice and now we’ll get our answer.
The Washington Post believes that D.C. officials resent charter schools, and it tells them: “Get over it.”
On tonight’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, John Merrow interviews George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union. Here’s a teaser from the transcript:
GEORGE PARKER: Prior to charter schools, for the most part, I think that as a union we could relax a little bit, because for the most part we were the only kid on the block. And you pretty much had to come to us. Unless you could afford to send your child to a private school or et cetera, you had no other choices.
Charlie Rose interviewed D.C. Chancellor of Schools Michelle Rhee last night. Not only does she provide an in depth look at D.C. education politics (and what she thinks is the most important way to improve education: recruiting and maintaining high quality teachers) but she even lays into our old friend, Randi Weingarten. Teaser:
I believe that one of the things we have to be cognizant of is believing in charter schools doesn’t mean starting a charter school or two charter schools. If you truly believe in charter schools, then you believe in an open market system where charter schools can flourish. If [Randi Weingarten] really believed in charter schools, is she advocating for a lift of the cap of charter schools? I don’t think so.
Take that, Randi!
Warning: the interview is worth watching through to its 54-minute completion.
Some days our blog exhausts me. Not writing for it—I’m usually too busy—just reading it and thinking how I would have said something differently myself or would have bitten my tongue and said nothing at all. When we started it, I promised not to edit, just occasionally to point out what I take to be errors—and once in a while to pen items myself that can’t wait for next Thursday’s Gadfly or aren’t appropriate there.
In the past, these are the sorts of “corrections” I would have sought to make via quiet meetings in the office, but Mike insists that today’s fashion is to air our internal disagreements in public. So here are a few that cropped up today (which is just half over):
For reasons not clear to me, Liam wants to prove that the Democratic party is not anti-charter school or anti-merit pay. So he names a few worthy Democrats and Democrat-leaning organizations that themselves have advanced the charter and/or merit-pay cause. He’s right about the names. Indeed, there are more. But a few swallows do not prove that spring has come. Go to state capital after state capital around this broad land and anywhere that charter schools or some form of merit pay are on the table observe which legislators (with rare and honorable exception) are trying to make it happen and which (with rare and less honorable exception) are trying to kill it. Case closed. I’d love to see it reopened. But the ground is still mostly frozen.
Speaking of charter schools, I agree with our newest arrival, Stafford, that a two-hour-a-week high school is idiotic; but far from being a charter school, I read that Los Angeles Times article to suggest that the school system is very likely going to shut down a (somewhat idiotic) charter and then create this bizarre inside-the-system alternative for the displaced kids (and to recapture more state dollars for itself). With a little more digging I’m sure that Stafford, who is very able, can find out what’s actually happening in LaLa land rather than simply commenting on two short and less-than-clear grafs in a newspaper article.
And then there’s Coby. He’s very able, too (as is Liam, by the way), but I surely wouldn’t have issued his vigorous defense of the NYC education department’s new “truth squad.” He suggests therein that the poor mayor and chancellor don’t get nearly the media exposure that teacher union chief Weingarten gets (because she buys it) and that the poor, underappreciated bureaucracy thus doesn’t get its “sensible reforms” adequately noticed. Balderdash. Some of those reforms are sensible, some not, but I have rarely seen as overwhelming and relentless a governmental PR machine as the one that Joel Klein presides over—at least not in what we used to call the free world. Overexposure might be more accurate.
By the by, the Checker quote in the New York Sun that Coby tees off from, while accurately reprinted, originated in my own error. When Elizabeth Green called to ask what I thought of the “Department of Education’s new ‘truth squad’,” I, like any self-respecting Beltway dweller, assumed she was referring to the FEDERAL Department of Education. That’s what I was referring to when I said they might better use their money for NCLB repair work or vouchers than to add media watchdogs and blog eagles. It was Margaret in my imagination, not Joel.
And now I’m truly pooped.
We love charters. They’re a great idea. But even great ideas can go wrong, and when I read this great idea gone wrong, I thought it was a joke. But oh no, according to the Los Angeles Times, the LA School Board has really jumped off the deep end.
At Tuesday’s school board meeting, district officials outlined plans to open an alternative school this fall that would offer independent study to at-risk students...,
According to the plan, students would attend school for only two hours a week and be on their own to complete their course work the rest of the time. It was presented at the meeting largely as a way for the district to recoup money that is lost when students have poor attendance records, because schools receive state funding based on attendance.
This is probably every kid’s dream—school-less school. Since we clearly created compulsory education laws for fun (didn’t you know? Kids absolutely LOVE to go to school. In fact, we have to make them go home in the afternoon! It’s the hormones—makes them great decision makers), why don’t we just abolish school altogether and have kids learning on their own? And while we’re at it, why don’t we pull the wool over the state’s eyes and squeeze them for more cash... and who cares if the kids are on perpetual vacation? GREAT IDEA.
Update: It’s been pointed out to me that it’s not clear whether or not this futuristic school-that-is-not-a-school is really a charter school. As this “plan” (if you can call it that) was juxtaposed with another alternative education charter school in L.A., I assumed that this new no-school school was also going to be a charter school. It is unclear.
I still stand by the fact that it is an unbelievably stupid idea.
KIPP schools mostly serve the middle grades and thus spend much of their time plugging the gaps in knowledge and skills that students picked up early on in traditional public schools. But imagine if the youngsters entering KIPP middle schools came from KIPP elementary schools. The mind reels at the possibilities.
The conversion of seven Catholic schools in Washington, D.C., to charter schools is off to a rough start, as the Washington Post reports today that the city’s budget failed to provide funding for these schools, and they won’t get their first payments in July.
Robert Crane, of Friends of Choice in Urban Schools, is quoted saying “I told [D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C.] Gray’s people repeatedly that the kids were going to show up in the public schools one way or the other,” and Public Charter School Board chair Tom Nida gets right to the point, that “this couldn’t have been to anyone’s surprise.”
No, anyone reading the Post, or better yet, Flypaper and Who Will Save America’s Urban Catholic Schools? would have seen this conversion coming from a mile away. Fortunately, the schools plan to open using loans and philanthropy. I just hope the District catches up soon.
Charles C. Haynes of the First Amendment Center turns in a strong counter-argument explaining why religious charter schools are a “Faustian bargain” that aren’t “worth the spiritual costs”:
A faith-based school without the faith does religion no favors. Devout Christians, Jews, Muslims and others may be tempted to take the money and start the school. But substituting “culture” for “religion” is no way to advance the mission of faith.
Perhaps so. That’s why allowing truly religious charter schools would be even better, though Haynes calls that idea “a First Amendment oxymoron.” So we’re back to non-faith-based faith-based charter schools, such as the ones being born from Catholic schools in Washington, D.C. Yes, these schools must take their crosses off the walls, but they avoid being closed outright. As the Center for Education Reform’s Casey Carter says in this National Review Online article about the conversion,
After working with local authorities, the Church has created the legal and the financial mechanisms to serve the same children with twice the financial resources.
Maybe such a “bargain” is bad for the Catholic faith, but it’s a good deal for inner-city children, bless their little souls.
(That makes two devilish posts from me in one day.)
A group of charter school organizations including the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, issued a report this week that presents findings from a panel charged with developing a framework for judging the academic quality of charter schools. The report lays out four essential indicators of academic quality: student achievement, student progress over time, post-secondary readiness and success, and student engagement. Each indicator is accompanied by multiple measures, metrics, and benchmarks that define how each is to be operationalized. For example, student achievement measures include proficiency levels on state assessments, college entrance exam scores, and high school exit exams (as applicable). For the most part, the indicators and their corresponding data points are ones commonly used to measure quality (e.g., graduation rates, percentage of students passing high school exit exams). The report has, in a sense, packaged prior disparate indicators all together in one piece.
The report also appears to be a response to those who
believe that the vast diversity in charter school missions, educational models, and student populations—as well as differences in state accountability requirements and individual authorizer expectations—makes it impossible to establish common standards and measures of quality that are applicable and meaningful to all kinds of charter schools.
Advocates hold that a more comprehensive framework like this one will deter “reliance on snapshot data” that “lead to ill-informed judgments about charter schools.”
In short, the report issues a resounding charge for charter school operators and authorizers to up the ante in terms of policing themselves and using standard data to foster accountability. Kudos to them. The charge is needed and noble.
The list, however, is fairly meaty—then there’s the caveat that all of this is just a starting point. The main problem in my opinion, in fact, is the authors’ admonishment that the framework (comprising 13 measures and 30 metrics total) must be used in its entirety, that choosing several indicators would “not be appropriate.” No doubt if the charter community was to measure quality by reporting on all 13 measures (with their 30 metrics), we’d have plenty of very useful comparative data for these schools. I don’t agree, however, that charter schools must report on the whole list, lest the framework be rendered null and void. I understand the concern with cherry picking data, but requiring charters to report on all of these data points may be more burdensome than necessary (a couple of the post-secondary readiness measures appear particularly hard to gather). I worry, like others, about the balance between flexibility, burden, and accountability in charter schools. And let us not forget that defining quality is a problem for all schools, not just charters—so the conversation about accountability and reporting norms, assuming they are to be strengthened, needs to be occurring in our non-charter schools as well.
In a long and mostly thoughtful letter to the editor of the New York Times, American Federation of Teachers President Edward McElroy takes issue with David Brooks’s recent column about the dueling education policy statements (”Broader, Bolder” vs. “Sharpton Attacks“). He writes, reasonably, that
According to [Brooks], reformists “insist school reform alone can make a big difference.” This verges on a Talmudic debate over the word “alone” when the real issues are what actually goes into that reform. The question of how teachers should grapple with the enormous social problems brought into the school every morning comes immediately to mind.
Further, he talks of how the reformists want to put the children first. Well, so do those who signed the E.P.I. statement, and so do teachers. What matters is whether what you try actually works for the children.
OK, we can debate whether there’s any evidence that what the E.P.I. crowd wants actually “works,” but I’m happy to concede that teachers (if not always their unions) want what’s best for children. But he couldn’t stop there. He goes on:
Blaming “ineffective teachers” and union contracts may be ideologically satisfying, but at the end of the day it does little to solve the problems facing our schools. If our problems did lie here, states without collective bargaining should not lie at the bottom of the educational achievement scale, and charter schools should by now have produced some greater returns. Yet the lack of evidence does not stop the “reformists” from assailing unions, or any public servant who may agree with our solutions.
Mr. McElroy, it might be “ideologically satisfying” to defend union contracts and attack charter schools, but you’re on shaky ground. First, everybody knows that “states without collective bargaining” are mostly in the dirt-poor South. We also know that achievement is related to poverty. (Finding a way to end that relationship is what this debate is all about!) So it’s fairer to look at which states have made big gains over time. And guess what: the three states where collective bargaining is illegal—Texas, North Carolina, and Virginia—are among the nation’s leaders when it comes to strong growth on the Nation’s Report Card (especially for poor and minority students) since the early 1990s. Perhaps this isn’t a coincidence.
As for charter schools, a fair reading of the research shows that charter schools, by and large, do outperform traditional public schools over time, particularly once they’ve been up and running for a few years.
But the evidence does not stop the “status quo” crowd from assailing reformers who disagree with them.
Find the op-ed here.
Ten years ago, New York joined the charter school revolution by passing a law to allow these innovative public schools to open. Today there are nearly 100 charters in the state and dozens more in the pipeline.
But now, thanks to the state’s Department of Labor and a labor-friendly state judge, building a new charter school just got a lot harder and a lot more expensive.
The long-anticipated conversion of seven inner-city District of Columbia Catholic schools to charter schools is finally official. No, it’s not a perfect solution to the schools’ financial ills, but kinda like democracy, it’s the least worst option available. Kudos to the D.C. Charter School Board for granting its unanimous approval. Now let this fascinating social experiment begin.
It’s a good thing the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup, because otherwise the Motor City would have absolutely nothing to celebrate. With an economy battered by the ills of the automotive industry and its population shrinking rapidly, it’s no surprise that the city’s school system is now $400 million in the hole.
But here’s a wrinkle. Under Michigan law, if DPS’s enrollment dips below 100,000, it will no longer be a “Class A” district. What’s special about “Class A” districts (of which Detroit has to date been the only one in the state)? Under the state’s protectionist charter school law, new charters aren’t allowed to be started in those districts. So come fall, with enrollment expected to plunge further, Detroit will be open for new charter business. (Note to legislators: this is what you get for being cute and not just naming “Detroit” when writing legislation aimed at Detroit. The same thing happens in other states, too.)
With the public school system in disarray, the expansion of charter schools should be seen as a boon. But several local politicians don’t see it that way.
“I just think it’s a terrible time to introduce competition that does not have a track record,” school board President Carla Scott said Monday. “It would financially cripple the district.”
Hmm. If we were to make an analogy to the auto industry, by that reasoning we’d keep Toyota from importing more Priuses because they’re beating the pants off GM and Ford. Instead, we expect American companies to, you know, compete, as GM is trying to do by racing its electric car through the development process.
Here’s a suggestion, Michigan lawmakers: Rather than redefining a “Class A” district, or allowing just any charter school to crop up in Detroit, adopt a smart policy from your Ohio neighbors to the south. Allow charter expansion in the Motor City, but only charter chains with a proven track record. Actually, based on your experience with vague language, you might want to be specific. Just say, “KIPP, Achievement First, Uncommon Schools, and National Heritage Academies: Motown is open for business!”
Photo by Flickr user 91672498@N00.
Fordham has previously come out in favor of religious charter schools. Here’s Checker in 2003, here’s Mike in 2007. And here’s the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in 2008; the Wall Street Journal’s op-ed, which describes an Islamic school funded with taxpayer dollars, is disquieting. We’ve previously covered in Gadfly Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, but we’ve done so, in my mind, in an unsatisfactory manner. (See our first mention here and our next mention, the following week, from Checker, here.)
To allow religious charter schools would set into action a wholly unsavory series of events, and we’d be confronted with all sorts of questions that don’t have easy answers, such as, what is a religion? and what are acceptable religious beliefs? And after reducing our stock of questions, we’ll eventually be left with these bits: Either we allow any and all religions to set up schools to teach any and all of their proclaimed beliefs, or we allow none. The latter seems healthier, so why not save ourselves all the trouble and put the kibosh on talk about religious charter schools?
Update: Via Eduwonk: Looks like the question phase has begun.
Photo by Flickr user corydalus.
The California Charter Schools Association published an important study yesterday that’s making news today. Its findings from Los Angeles are consistent with previous charter research: L.A. charter schools tend to outperform similar, nearby public schools; “mature” charter schools outperform start-ups; and charters are particularly effective for African-American students.
What was refreshingly different was the local district’s reaction. Consider this from the Los Angeles Times:
Ramon C. Cortines, L.A. Unified’s newly appointed senior deputy superintendent, said the report pointed to how traditional schools could learn from charters—a strikingly different attitude from that typically expressed by district officials.
“I think that what it says is that they have some best practices, and those should be replicated in the district in all schools,” he said. “I would say the same about islands of excellence in the Unified district.... We need to each learn from each other.”
He said the district Monday held the first in a series of meetings that will bring together principals from charters and traditional schools to discuss how they can learn from one another.
I’m not going to presume that these meetings are going to lead to much, but they are a step in the right direction. Hooray, Ray!
Washington, D.C.’s Thurgood Marshall Academy charter school is featured in today’s Wall Street Journal.
Sounds like D.C.’s charter schools are taking fire, too. If you can’t beat ‘em, sabotage ‘em.
Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews was busy this weekend. In addition to engaging in a friendly scuffle with Checker over AP and IB, he whipped up a piece detailing the latest from New Orleans’s charter school sector.
Update: And this one on whether we’re shuttering enough low-performing charter schools.
Every May and June hordes of school groups descend on Washington, D.C. Each year, like clockwork, we wonks witness gaggles of tweens and teens take over our commutes. They’re marked by a tendency to stand on both sides of the Metro escalator, yell and scream in the Metro tunnels, and cram into the center of the Metro car. They can be a local’s worst nightmare. But during my past two commutes, riding the train home yesterday and to Fordham this morning, I witnessed a new kind of school group: the KIPP group.
They appear as a small army of pre-teens in matching t-shirts, standing single-file on the right side of the escalator. Several adults walk alongside various points in the line while one leader holds court at one entry/exit turnstile (leaving the other three or four clear for commuters). He hands out a farecard to each child, who then goes through the gate and returns the card to an adult waiting on the other side. The children continue to the next escalator, remaining in single file as they ride up to the street or down to the train platform. While waiting for everyone to assemble, they line up in rows of 10; once everyone arrives, each child pulls out a chapter book and begins to read. They stay this way until they’re instructed to move along. The choreography is impeccable every time.
I wish I’d been close enough to figure out which KIPP school I saw, but I suspect groups from just about any KIPP school would demonstrate the same order, poise, and maturity. We’ve witnessed the academic miracles happening in KIPP classrooms across the country, but this scene demonstrates everything the test scores can’t. KIPP stresses character development in everything these kids do; in return, passersby see students who are quiet, respectful of their surroundings and their leaders, and eager to appreciate new opportunities like riding a giant Metro escalator or heading off to a museum.
To the principal and staff of this KIPP school: kudos. It was a pleasure commuting alongside your students and I hope they enjoyed their trip. I look forward to seeing them back next spring.
Photo by Flickr user arvidbr.
This over-the-top, the sky-is-falling article from the Boston Globe is yet more evidence that the concept of “standards” has taken a beating in public discourse. At issue is the MATCH public charter school, one of the nation’s best, according to Newsweek. It pushes its students—most of them poor—to take challenging Advanced Placement courses and provides gobs of extra support in the form of intensive tutoring. Almost all of its graduates go on to succeed in college. So what’s the problem? Some students, not feeling up to the school’s rigor, are “bolting” for the Boston Public Schools.
Boston officials accuse MATCH of not offering enough support for students to graduate on time, leaving Boston with the awkward task of determining the students’ fate.
MATCH officials, on the other hand, say Boston presents an easy out - an automatic promotion - for their students struggling under rigorous graduation requirements. They deny encouraging students to leave, and ask that Boston make diploma determinations based on the charter school’s standards.
“It breaks my heart to see students leave this late in the senior year, but it would break my heart more to change or lower our standards,” said Jorge Miranda, the school’s principal. “There’s no compromising on the standards. They need that preparation to succeed in college, and when they get that college degree, that’s their ticket out of poverty.”
Read that again: “It would break my heart more to change or lower our standards.” Amen, Mr. Miranda. Unfortunately, Massachusetts board of education chairman Paul Reville, doesn’t seem to agree:
“We are all in favor of high standards and expectations and you have to applaud that, but at some point you have to examine reasonableness and whether the standards are working broadly for all students who walk through the door,” Reville said. “The standards are wonderful for those students who achieve them, but what’s the safety net for those who don’t? Right now, it appears Boston public schools are the safety net.”
Governor Deval Patrick is about to give Mr. Reville a promotion to be his education secretary; in that role he’ll oversee the Bay State’s higher education system too. So will Reville apply his argument to Harvard and say it should lower its standards because some of its students drop out and transfer to the University of Massachusetts?
There’s a term for “standards that everyone can meet.” It’s called “no standards.” Capiche?
This article out of New Orleans is about several selective charter schools that admit only those students that pass entrance tests or navigate complicated admissions processes. This is a big no-no with charter supporters. According to the piece:
Todd Ziebarth, the senior policy analyst at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said he worries that having even some charter schools with competitive admissions in New Orleans sends the message to the community that charter schools are elitist.
But what are the convincing educational arguments against allowing charter schools to establish admissions policies? It’s one thing to worry about politics and perception, but it’s another thing to worry about what educational structures work best for kids. Why not have a tiered system of charter schools that caters to students at different levels of academic ability? Lots of kids, for example, don’t need the paternalism of KIPP or SEED; lots of others do.
A teachers union negotiating with a public school district to eliminate seniority rules? That’s what’s happening now in Washington, D.C., according to today’s Washington Post. This comes on the heels of a recent Post article that highlighted the inner conflict roiling the Washington Teachers Union. That piece quoted union president George Parker citing charter schools’ encroaching market share in the district as a major culprit:
“We have lost 1,500 members in 10 years, all because of charter schools. Our very survival is dependent on having students remain in [traditional] public schools,” Parker said. “If we don’t get on the ball in terms of improving our schools, the charters will have the majority of our students.”
Mike said it yesterday: Washington, D.C., is the new “it” town for education reform.
Today’s conference—see the agenda below—brings together leaders of charter school networks, major funders, start-up curriculum companies (or “tool builders” in NewSchools-speak), policy types, and assorted “edu-preneurs.”
Here are three questions today’s gabfest should answer:
Read the original Education Gadfly, posted every Thursday, at edexcellence.net/gadfly.
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