Is there an Act II for David Brennan the Revolutionary?

Chester E. Finn, Jr. , Terry Ryan / December 14, 2011

Recent news that White Hat, the big, Ohio-based, profit-seeking charter school operator, faces financial problems was surely received as an early Christmas present by many long-time charter opponents, particularly within the Buckeye State. The company’s founder and leader, Akron industrialist David Brennan, has been a larger-than-life-target for school choice foes since Governor George Voinovich appointed him in 1992 to head a commission intended to advance choice in Ohio k-12 education.

That commission’s work led to the Cleveland Scholarship Program – the nation’s first publicly- funded voucher program. Its constitutionality would be debated and litigated until being upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2002, a decision that has reverberated across the country.

David Brennan’s vision, doggedness and political connectedness in the education-policy sector have not been limited to vouchers. Without him, Ohio’s charter-school program might have been still-born, or strangled in its crib, by the outraged forces of the public-school establishment. From day one, the teacher unions teamed up with the League of Women Voters, the PTA, the Ohio School Boards Association, the Ohio AFL-CIO and others to savage charters at the statehouse, to challenge them in the courthouse—all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court—and to denounce them in every sort of public forum.

The vitriol of these attacks was illustrated in 2003 by then Cleveland Teachers Union president Richard DeColibus, who announced his union’s $70,000 “truth” campaign by declaring that “these bad [charter] schools are like 700-pound hogs at the dinner table eating everything in sight, and the longer they’re there, the harder it’s going to be

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Is there an Act II for David Brennan the Revolutionary?

Unsolved problems and signs of hopeas 2012 dawns

Chester E. Finn, Jr. / December 14, 2011

The central problem besetting K-12 education in the United States today is still—as for almost thirty years now—that far too few of our kids are learning nearly enough for their own or the nation’s good. And the gains we’ve made, though well worth making, have been meager (and largely confined to math), are trumped by gains in other countries, and evaporate by the end of high school.

This much everybody knows. But unless we want to live out the classic definition of insanity (“doing the same thing over again with the expectation that it will produce a different result”), we need to focus laser-like on the barriers that keep us from making major-league gains. If we don’t break through (or circumnavigate) these barriers, academic achievement will remain stagnant.

The barriers-to-gains that I’m talking about here are not cultural issues, parenting issues, demographic issues, or other macro-influences on educational achievement. Those are all plenty real, but largely beyond the reach of public policy. No, here I refer to obstacles that competent leaders and bold policymakers could reduce or eradicate if they were serious.

How much difference would that really make? It’s possible, of course, that we’re pursuing the wrong core strategies. Maybe standards-based reform has exhausted its potential (more on this next week from Fordham). Perhaps choice and competition really cannot lift all boats. Possibly technology is overrated, alternate certification can never amount to much, teacher quality is doomed to mediocrity, principals don’t truly want authority, etc.

Could be. But from where I sit, the basic strategies aren’t ill-conceived. Rather, they’ve been stumped, stymied, and constrained by

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Unsolved problems and signs of hopeas 2012 dawns

Incubate to promulgate

Terry Ryan / December 14, 2011

Since 2005, Fordham has been working in Ohio to recruit high quality charter schools to neighborhoods badly in need of better schools. During our six-plus years of effort as a charter authorizer we have managed to recruit just two high-performing models to Columbus (KIPP and a BES school). Tougher still, we have been unable to recruit any to our home town of Dayton. We know first-hand the challenge of helping to recruit and launch great schools. It is for this reason that we are excited about the work of organization across the country to accelerate the growth of great new schools through a strategic process called “charter incubation.” 

Charter incubators are entities that intentionally build the supply of high-quality schools and charter-management organizations (CMOs) in cities or regions by recruiting, selecting, and training promising leaders, and supporting those leaders as they launch new schools. Groups leading this innovative effort include New Schools for New Orleans, the Tennessee Charter School Incubator, Get Smart Schools in Colorado, Charter School Partners in Minnesota, The Mind Trust’s Charter School Incubator in Indianapolis, and 4.0 Schools in several southeastern states.

These organizations are united in their belief that the development of great charter schools can be accelerated through the recruitment, selection, and development of talented school leaders and the support of those leaders as they open and operate charter schools. Incubators provide an up-front quality screen for new leaders and intensive support on the ground, they boost the odds that new schools will succeed. Incubators are building on the success of charter school management organizations (CMOs).

The best

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Incubate to promulgate

From talking the talk to walking the walk of urban school choice

Emmy L. Partin / December 14, 2011

Fordham has been involved in the arena of school choice in Ohio at virtually every level for the past decade. We authorize charter schools, we have created charter school support organizations and helped birth other choice-support entities, we’ve fought for choice policies in the legislature, and Terry and Checker literally wrote the book on what we think are the lessons from all this work in Ohio. Issues of school choice and the quality (or not) of urban schools have been a big part of my professional life the last five years. Now, they are front and center in my personal life as a parent of a 4-year old son, too. My husband and I have to decide in the next year where our child will go to school and it is a daunting decision.

I live in the Columbus City School district (CCS). My husband and I bought our home years before we had decided whether we wanted to have children, let alone where we’d want to raise them and send them to school. Fast forward about a decade: our son will be a kindergartner next year and we find ourselves navigating urban school choice firsthand.

We look forward to continuing to live in the city of Columbus and sending our son to a district school next year. We love the diversity and energy of our neighborhood, and we greatly value the close proximity of our home to downtown and the excellent community programming at nearby Ohio State University, among the many other reasons we live where we do. And,

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From talking the talk to walking the walk of urban school choice

NAEP results from Cleveland show that achievement needle is stuck in place

December 14, 2011

The NAEP Trial Urban District Assessment (TUDA) results for mathematics and reading were released last week. The TUDA results look specifically at 21 large urban school districts that volunteered to have their NAEP scores reported separately (three of which participated for the first time; see the complete rundown of cities here).

The TUDA results for both reading and math in the fourth and eighth grade followed the same trend as the national results that were released last month: scores show little to no significant change since the last results were issued in 2009. At the fourth-grade level average reading scores did not significantly improve in any of the 18 participating districts. In eighth grade, the results are almost the same, with only one district, Charlotte, showing a significant improvement in its scores from 2009. The results in mathematics are somewhat more encouraging. Four districts -- Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore City, and Boston -- demonstrated higher scores than in 2009, and ever more encouraging is the fact that, at the eighth-grade level, six districts performed better than they did in 2009.

Cleveland, Ohio’s second-largest district, is a TUDA participant. Kudos to the district’s leadership for their participation in this important program as it would be easy to hide from tough data. Like most of the other TUDA cities, Cleveland’s scores remained flat in both reading and math at the fourth and eighth grade levels. Cleveland has been participating in the NAEP TUDA since 2003 and results in both reading and math have not budged in that time.

Cleveland’s results are discouraging when

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NAEP results from Cleveland show that achievement needle is stuck in place

Columbus Collegiate Academy teacher is teacher of the year

Jamie Davies O'Leary / December 14, 2011

We’d like to extend our congratulations to Jennifer Felbaum, a teacher at Fordham-sponsored Columbus Collegiate Academy in Columbus. Jennifer was the recipient of the Ohio Alliance for Public Charter School’s annual teacher of the year award, a distinction given to just one teacher in Ohio for significant contributions when it comes to advancing student achievement. Columbus Collegiate Executive Director Andy Boy said this of Jennifer:

As a founding member of our team, [she] worked tirelessly to develop curriculum, systems, and procedures that have contributed to the academic success of our students.  Our students will excel beyond CCA because of Mrs. Felbaum's efforts. I am honored to work with her and amazed by her ability to reach the students we serve."

Jennifer Felbaum is a founding teacher at Columbus Collegiate Academy, an EPIC gold-gain school.  She is in her fourth year of teaching sixth grade reading and writing.  During this time, her students have made outstanding progress. Last year her students grew from 52 percent proficient in fifth grade to 86 percent proficient in sixth grade. They also achieved three times the normal growth for a sixth grade class as measured by the NWEA.  She has also been awarded the Spotlight Teacher award from EPIC for student growth and achievement.

Congratulations, Jennifer!

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Columbus Collegiate Academy teacher is teacher of the year

Grading on a Curve: The Illusion of Excellence in Ohio's Schools

December 14, 2011

The number of districts rated excellent in Ohio has risen dramatically over the past several years, from 85 in the 2002-2003 school year to 352 in the 2010-11 school year (almost 60 percent of all districts in the state). Are students performing at higher levels than ever before, or are there other factors contributing to the large increase in excellent ratings? The authors of Grading on Curve: The Illusion of Excellence in Ohio’s Schools would argue the latter.

The report by the Ohio Association for Gifted Children points to the complexity of Ohio’s accountability system as well as low cut scores on Ohio’s assessment tests for the rise in the number of excellent districts. For example, achievement standards only require that 75 percent of students assessed at various grade levels be proficient in order for that indicator to be met. Therefore, if 75 percent of third graders score at a proficient level in math, the district meets the third grade indicator even though 25 percent of students are not proficient. Districts can also get a “bump” up to excellent for making above expected gains in value-added, thus leading to further inflation.

The report also points to NAEP results as further evidence that Ohio’s performance standards are too low. Forty-two percent of Ohio’s fourth graders scored at the accelerated level in reading, compared to the NAEP results that indicate only 9 percent of students scored at the same level. Several other measures such as Advanced Placement examinations and ACT scores are good indicators of whether a district is performing at an

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Grading on a Curve: The Illusion of Excellence in Ohio's Schools

Striving for Student Success: A Model of Shared Accountability

December 14, 2011

Like any large city, Cincinnati faces challenges in educating youth living in poverty. When it was reported that the number of Ohio and Kentucky students attending college lagged far behind that in other states, organizers at the KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the University of Cincinnati decided to increase Ohio and Kentucky’s post-secondary enrollment numbers. This brief by Education Sector describes that effort – namely the process of establishing and sustaining the Strive Partnership of Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky.

The group’s “cradle-to-career” approach coordinates every service and form of support that children and adolescents need, at every stage of their education and development.  The five-year-old organization partners with over 300 civic groups, colleges, public agencies, nonprofits and businesses, and holds each partner accountable for its piece of the puzzle.  Strive is frequently cited as a model of how shared accountability can work.

The “Student Roadmap to Success” was developed after community discussions favored focusing on a student’s entire academic career rather than a single point of intervention:

            1. Increase kindergarten readiness

            2. Support students inside and outside of school

            3. Provide academic help

            4. Encourage students to graduate and enroll in college

            5. Complete college well prepared to enter the workforce and succeed

The five goals are then broken into benchmark indicators which are then divided among the partners.  Each provider is accountable for agreed upon indicators that are used in the annual “Striving Together” report card.  That report is used to tailor interventions and program changes based upon new data gathered.

Strive has also partnered with Microsoft Corporation to develop software that would create a student profile from the data gathered, and

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Striving for Student Success: A Model of Shared Accountability