Mayor Takes On School Critics

More kudos to ConnCAN for stirring up a hornet's nest -- and then not backing down from this unwarranted attack by the pathetic mayor (DeStephano) and school super (Reggie Mayo) of New Haven (where I was born, by the way).  Mayo is the worst kind of super (unfortunately, his type is all too common) -- a don't-rock-the-boat enemy of reform, yet politically savvy and barely competent enough to avoid getting fired.  He's also a thug, as I've highlighted in three previous emails: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2006/05/reggies-world.html, http://edreform.blogspot.com/2006/07/schools-showdown.html and http://edreform.blogspot.com/2006/07/education-discussion-turns-chaotic.html.

The exchange is the latest chapter in ongoing tensions growing out of criticism of the city's school system by a New Haven-based advocacy group called Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN). Mayor DeStefano accuses the group of being basically a front for charter schools. The group calls itself a constructive independent voice for closing the achievement gap through better-performing schools of all kinds.

For more on Mayo and New Haven, see this article in the Yale Daily News: http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/21566


Mayor Takes On School Critics
by Paul Bass | September 24, 2007 2:22 PM
New Haven Register

www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/09/mayor_takes_on.php <http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/09/mayor_takes_on.php>

Who should meet with whom? That's one unresolved question in a testy exchange of letters between local education reformers and the mayor and schools superintendent.
The exchange is the latest chapter in ongoing tensions growing out of criticism of the city's school system by a New Haven-based advocacy group called Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now.  Mayor DeStefano accuses the group of being basically a front for charter schools. The group calls itself a constructive independent voice for closing the achievement gap through better-performing schools of all kinds.

Money for Nothing

A great WSJ editorial yesterday about the disgrace in Connecticut, which is spending money like crazy yet has the widest achievement gap in the nation.  Its solution -- SURPRISE! -- is to spend even more money, rather than fixing how it's spending the money.  Kudos to ConnCAN for its work on this:

Some Connecticut lawmakers, egged on by the teachers unions,  will doubtless use these results to argue for throwing still more tax dollars at education. Earlier this year, Republican Governor Jodi Rell pushed  (unsuccessfully) for a 10% personal income tax rate hike, which she said was necessary to fund additional school spending. But here's a better idea: Try  focusing on how money is spent instead of merely how much.
 
Public charter schools in Connecticut regularly outperform traditional public schools, and do so on significantly smaller budgets.  Hartford's lone charter school, Jumoke Academy, receives $8,000 per student  from the state, while surrounding public schools receive $13,600 per kid. On  the most recent state assessment test, 60% of Jumoke's students scored proficient in math, 70% scored proficient in reading and 95% scored proficient in writing. The corresponding results for the surrounding public schools were  22%, 30% and 27%.
 
Connecticut has only 16 charter schools operating today, thanks to political limits imposed in Hartford. Governor Rell's high job-approval ratings put her in a position to push for creating more, but she's been  unwilling to take on the unions that oppose school choice for the underprivileged.
 
"The politicians are much freer with financial capital than with political capital," says Marc Porter Magee of ConnCan, an education  reform group based in New Haven that has called for more charter schools.  "They'll spend as much money as they can get through, but they won't take on the tough reforms when push comes to shove." The biggest losers from Ms. Rell's lack of political courage are the poorest kids in the state.

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Money for Nothing
September 27, 2007; Page A16
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119085526233340818.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

If any state has taken to heart the claim that more money is the key to improving public education for low-income students, it's Connecticut. The Nutmeg State, which ranks first in per capita income ($47,800), also leads the way in average teacher salary ($58,700) and is third in per-pupil spending ($11,000). Yet according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress released this week, Connecticut has the nation's largest achievement gap between poor and non-poor students.

A Law Best Left Behind

This Op Ed in today's WSJ is largely spot-on in identifying NCLB's weaknesses, how the US DOE has failed to enforce some of its key provisions, and the flaws/loopholes in Miller's proposed renewal, but then reaches the bizarre and nonsensical conclusion that the entire law should be scrapped.  It should be fixed and enforced!

With its focus on testing, achievement, accountability and transparency,  the No Child Left Behind Act has undoubtedly altered the terms of the education debate in the U.S. But the law, which is set to expire this year, remains seriously flawed, and the Bush administration's weak enforcement of its best provisions argues against renewal.

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A Law Best Left Behind
By JASON L. RILEY
September 28, 2007; Page A14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119094445748442219.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

With its focus on testing, achievement, accountability and transparency, the No Child Left Behind Act has undoubtedly altered the terms of the education debate in the U.S. But the law, which is set to expire this year, remains seriously flawed, and the Bush administration's weak enforcement of its best provisions argues against renewal.
 

Reading, writing, and rebellion

Another article about Kozol's (hopefully lonely) crusade against NCLB.  It's so pathetic and ironic to see such passion and caring for low-income, minority kids be spent trying to kill the most important legislation that helps these kids!

No Child Left Behind, Kozol believes, has plunged urban education back to  the dark ages before desegregation. Under the law, schools whose test scores don't improve each year could eventually be shut down, a specter hanging over a disproportionate number of city schools that educate mostly poor, minority children.
 
"We have apartheid schools, and MCAS has unwittingly introduced an  apartheid curriculum," said Kozol during an interview, likening inner-city classrooms to test prep factories. "I'm determined to mobilize teachers and  parents to fight this bill aggressively and bombard Senator Kennedy with a very clear message: If he fails to introduce dramatic revisions to No Child Left Behind, it will be devastating to the enormous faith we've had in him all these years."
 
Kennedy, chairman of the Education Committee, said in a statement yesterday that he hopes to introduce the reauthorization bill to his panel later this month or in early October after he reviews the ideas and recommendations of  parents, students, and educators, including Kozol.
 
"No Child Left Behind advanced the commitment first made during the Great Society, the promise that every child counts, regardless of race, background, or disability," Kennedy said. "We must renew our commitment to its noble purposes, but also make the common-sense changes needed to ensure that it works better for our students and our schools."
 
Kozol said he has considered Kennedy a friend for more than 40 years. As a young senator, Kennedy defended Kozol after he was fired from the Boston Public Schools in 1965 for "curriculum deviation" for teaching a Langston Hughes poem to his fourth-grade class. Kozol chronicled his harrowing year teaching under deplorable conditions in a mostly black Dorchester elementary school in his first book, "Death At An Early Age."
 
But, according to Kozol, the senator has thrown up a "cold, stone wall" to his repeated attempts to meet with him this summer about No Child Left Behind.  Before the Senate recessed in July, Kozol said, Kennedy's staff offered to squeeze him in for a few minutes.
 
"At that point, I just threw up my hands, because there's no way of presenting a thoughtful argument in five to seven minutes," Kozol said.
 
During his lecture at Harvard this week, Kozol likened No Child Left Behind to a "shaming ritual" in which the federal government holds up "impossible  demands without money to pay for it." Against this backdrop, it's no wonder that half of urban teachers quit within their first three years, he said.
 
"Wonderful teachers should never let themselves be drill sergeants for the state," he said, peering at the crowd through gold wire-rimmed glasses. "I don't want them to quit. I want them to stay. But I want them to stay and not  lose their souls."

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Reading, writing, and rebellion

Activist Jonathan Kozol spoke out against the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act
By Tracy Jan, Globe Staff  |  September 21, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/09/21/reading_writing_and_rebellion/?page=full

CAMBRIDGE - Jonathan Kozol appeared shrunken in his chair at Harvard's Memorial Church, his blazer tossed aside, the sleeves of his pinstriped shirt rolled up to the elbows to expose bony arms. His thin ankles, swathed in black socks, disappeared into his signature navy blue Keds.

A Tamer of Schools Has Plan in New Orleans

Speaking of huge challenges -- and a great person to tackle them -- here's an article about Paul Vallas and New Orleans:

Mr. Vallas, a newcomer with an unblinkered eye, has a plan. It  is not exactly like the plans he had for Chicago and Philadelphia, cities where as superintendent he was credited with making sizable dents in the troubles of dysfunctional school systems. He raised test scores, for instance, with the help of after-school programs, and he improved math proficiency and  opened new schools.
 
In New Orleans, the strategy cannot be the same, for a simple  reason: “There’s much deeper poverty here,” Mr. Vallas said. “So you take deep poverty and then you compound that by the aftermath of the hurricane, by the physical, psychological, emotional damage inflicted by the hurricane. It’s  ike the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
 
His plan is to have the schools be more than schools. They have to be substitute families, an idea that has been tried elsewhere, though rarely to this extent, and which remains a new concept in New Orleans.
 
Children are arriving at the schools here hungry, Mr. Vallas said, and they are going to bed hungry. In the summer, children broke into one school to raid a vending machine, they were so hungry. More than 90 percent of his 12,000-odd students in the Recovery School District, now run by the state,  are in poverty, and the vast majority are being raised by single parents. Many are not being brought up by their biological parents, Mr. Vallas said, and some are not even living with guardians.
 
Under these circumstances, he said, focusing on the classroom is not enough. “You begin to provide the type of services you would normally expect to be provided at home,” Mr. Vallas said. That means giving the students three meals a day, including hot lunch and dinner. It means providing dental care and eye care.
 
He intends to tighten up in class as well: a smaller  student-teacher ratio, more uniform instruction, new textbooks and technology,  partnerships with universities and industry. He has replaced all but one of last year’s high school principals.

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A Tamer of Schools Has Plan in New Orleans
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: September 24, 2007
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/education/24orleans.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/education/24orleans.html>

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 23 — The schools here have fresh paint, the bathroom stalls have doors, the library at the largest high school has books again and the angry demonstrations that met last school year’s chaotic opening have not been repeated.

 

Carl Icahn Charter School honored

-
 
Kudos to NY's Carl Icahn Charter School for being one of seven charter schools nationwide recognized in this US DOE report, K–8 Charter Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap. (FYI, Sy Fiegel is on the board of this school.)  
To read about and download the report, see:
http://www.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/charterk-8/index.html.  
The specific report on the Carl Icahn Charter School is at: http://www.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/charterk-8/report_pg11.html#icahn, which begins:

Mission and Founding

Known as a "turnaround" principal, Jeffrey Litt has been working in the same five-mile radius of the South Bronx for most of his 38  ears in education. "I won’t take an easy assignment," he says. "I always work  with the population that most people run from." Given the opportunity to build a charter school from scratch, Litt jumped at the chance and has created a new elementary school based on E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum, which focuses on key concepts of western civilization in mathematics, language, science, history, music, art, and more. With the financial backing of billionaire Carl C. Icahn, the eponymous school received its charter in March  2001 and opened in September 2001 with grades K–2.

Constructed in three months out of modular portables on an empty lot, the Carl C. Icahn Charter School has outgrown its original space.  As of 2006–07, the child care and K–1 classrooms were located across the  street in the Icahn Homeless Shelter* while the school was completing building  an $11 million, five-story facility that will accommodate eight classrooms, a  library, and multipurpose rooms. Once this building is finished, the school will be able to expand from a K–7 to a K–8 school.

* This shelter also is funded by Carl C. Icahn but as a separate entity from the school.

The school’s portable buildings are protected by a locked metal fence with curled barbed wire at the top. A television monitor in Litt’s office enables him to view the entire campus at any time. Understanding that, as he puts it, "A reputation is everything in the inner city," Litt has worked tirelessly to ensure that the school has a good reputation and commands  respect. Prior to opening the school, Litt walked floor to floor in neighboring high-rise housing projects to introduce himself, spread the word  about Icahn Charter School, and encourage parents to send their children to  the new school.

Litt sets high expectations for school and students alike. The  school’s mission is to prepare its 278 students to be productive citizens through rigorous academics. As Icahn Charter School board member Seymour  Fliegel, president of the Center for Educational Innovation, underscores, the school is dedicated to giving kids from the South Bronx the chance to succeed at high levels: "Carl C. Icahn has a big thing for poor kids," Fliegel  explains. "He cares about the leadership of the school."

Based on Litt’s previous positive experience with the Core Knowledge program at another school, he selected it as the path to implementing the school’s mission. Visiting a model Core Knowledge program in Florida, Litt was told the curriculum would not work in the Bronx because "the  kids are too poor." Undaunted, Litt listened and learned, ultimately choosing to use the curriculum, but to make some adaptations that would render it more  accessible to his particular inner-city students. For example, Litt made sure to emphasize minority history and culture and connect those areas to mathematics and science. In addition, Litt decided to extend both the school day and the school year (September through July) to increase teachers’ opportunity to teach necessary skills and instill a love of learning in students.

As the school looks forward to initiating an eighth grade, it intends to prepare students for the New York City high school admissions tests  for selective public schools, as well as for applications to prestigious boarding schools, such as Connecticut’s Choate Rosemary Hall. Students accepted to Choate may apply to become an Icahn Scholar, thus receiving full  scholarship.

Rhee airs frustration with school system in YouTube video

 

           I posted excerpts from Michelle Rhee's remarks at the Dems for Ed Reform launch event last Monday on YouTube at:
         <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w-ta17X8DM>  (part 1) and :  <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0etdSVHIM>  (part 2).  The video has been getting a lot of traffic and the
         Washington Examiner wrote an article about it (below), which begins:

        A YouTube video circulating on the Internet provides some of the most candid confessions to date from D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee about the frustrations she’s
       faced in trying to weed out poor-performing school staff and in getting communities to understand just how troubled the schools are.
 
       Rhee, speaking to the Democrats for Education Reform a week ago, asks the group and other like-minded agencies to support her in the likely uphill battle to pass legislation          
       allowing for the firings of hundreds of weak central office members.

           Kudos to her for speaking frankly about the enormous challenges she faces and her plan for addressing them.  Watching the video, one can't help but think two things: a) What an     
         unbelievable cesspool she's trying to clean up; and b) If anyone can do it, she can!

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Rhee airs frustration with school system in YouTube video
Washington Examiner, 9/24/07
 <http://www.examiner.com/ArticleEmail.cfm?articleID=951755&amp;cid=tool-email-top>  
 
WASHINGTON -- A YouTube video circulating on the Internet provides some of the most candid confessions to date from D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee about the frustrations she’s faced in trying to weed out poor-performing school staff and in getting communities to understand just how troubled the schools are.

DFER launch

USA Today education writer Richard Whitmire covered DFER's launch on his blog (see below).  Here's an excerpt:

With the Democratic front  runners courting the liberal-liberals who are the big players in the  primaries, it's easy to overlook the basics of educating kids from low-income  schools, says former reporter and author Joe Williams ("Cheating our Kids: How  Politics and Greed Ruin Education"), who now runs the organization.
It's  time, said Williams last night, "to stand up for the little guy again" (as in, stand up to the National Education Association). In primary season, that's a tall order for Democrats. Who's going to spurn the most reliable liberal foot  soldiers to be found?
The message last night, from Rhee and Chicago Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., was in-your-face civil rights rhetoric: "Children are deserving of a more perfect education," said Jackson. To him, charters are the  bright option: "We need more competition in the system."

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Monday, September 17, 2007
Democrats for Education Reform
http://edelection.blogspot.com/2007/09/democrats-for-education-reform.html

The surprise star at last night's launch of the Democrats For Education Reform was Michelle Rhee, the new DC schools chancellor. With her humor and spunk very much intact in spite of smacking repeatedly against what may be the worst-run school central office in the entire country, Rhee regaled a crowd of about 100 national education reformers at the Hotel Washington across from the U.S. Treasury Department with fresh stories from close quarters bureaucratic combat.

Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative

Alternative certification's Pyrrhic victory

At first glance, the explosive growth of  ''alternative'' teacher certification--which is supposed to allow able  individuals to teach in public schools without first lingering in a college of  education -- appears to be one of the great success stories of modern education reform. From negligible numbers twenty years ago, alternatively-prepared candidates now account for almost one in five new teachers nationwide.
 
As longtime supporters of alternative certification, we should be popping  champagne, declaring victory, and plotting our next big win, right? Not so  fast. As the cliché says, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
 
Alternative Certification Isn't Alternative <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616353> , a  new report authored by Kate Walsh and Sandi Jacobs of the National Council on  Teacher Quality and published jointly with Fordham, finds that most  alternative certification programs, contrary to their original mission, do  not, in fact, provide a true substitute for traditional education schools. In  many ways, they represent a setback for education reform and its boosters.
 
We've suspected as much for years. Just as we came to understand that few  charter schools are as estimable as KIPP, so too did we come to wonder whether  ''typical'' alternative certification programs are as strong as the best of  their number--''teaching fellows'' programs run by The New Teacher Project,  for example.
 
This study confirms our fears and suspicions. Two-thirds of the programs  that the analysts surveyed accept half or more of their applicants.  One-quarter accept virtually everyone who applies. Only four in ten  programs require a college GPA of 2.75 or above--no lofty standard in this age  of grade inflation. So much for recruiting the best and brightest.
 
Meanwhile, about a third of the programs for elementary teachers require at  least 30 hours of education school courses--the same amount needed  for a master's degree. So much for streamlining the pathway into teaching. As  for intensive mentoring by an experienced teacher or administrator--long  considered the hallmark of great alternate routes--only one-third of surveyed  programs report providing it at least once a week during a rookie teacher's  first semester.
 
In other words, typical alternative certification programs have come to  mimic standard-issue pre-service ed-school programs. This shouldn't be a  surprise, however: fully 69 percent of the programs in the report's sample are  run by education schools, roughly the same proportion as for  alternate route programs as a whole.
 
This is an old story in the world of monopoly power, told and retold in  many industries. Consider the organic foods movement. For decades, a small  cadre of smallish companies provided organic products for a niche market. But  in recent years, Whole Foods and a few other chains demonstrated (and created)  growing demand for these goods, at scale, among affluent shoppers. The annual  growth rate of organic food and drink is now in the double digits, while the  grocery business as a whole stagnates. Mainstream stores, such as Safeway and  Wal-Mart, see a threat to their bottom line, but also an opportunity. So do  food suppliers like Kraft and General Mills. So they are starting to offer  organic products of their own.
 
That's the way competition is supposed to work, you may say, prodding  entities to offer consumers what they want. But there's a downside, too:  industry insiders and food experts accuse these big companies of quietly  watering down the meaning of ''organic.'' Consider the Aurora Organic Dairy,  described in a 2005 New York Times article <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616354>  as ''an offshoot of what was once the  country's largest conventional dairy company.'' It resisted a move by the  National Organic Standards Board to define ''organic'' milk as coming from  dairy cows that have access to pasture. For good reason. ''On a recent visit  to Aurora's farm,'' the Times reported, ''thousands of Holsteins were  seen confined to grassless, dirt-lined pens.'' Aurora's ''organic'' milk,  however, sells for twice the price of regular.
 
On balance, cooptation is easier--and less risky, less expensive, more  profitable--than true competition. As in the food industry, so, too, in  teacher preparation. It's infinitely simpler, cheaper, and safer for education  schools to repackage their regular programs into something called  ''alternative'' than to embrace--much less succumb to--wholesale change. So  they offer candidates a choice: either take their regular, cumbersome programs  before teaching, or take their ''alternative,'' cumbersome programs  while teaching.
 
There's nothing inherently wrong with this. Just as ''sorta'' organic milk  at Wal-Mart is finding a market, so too is the ''sorta'' alternative  certification offered by ed schools (and similar programs offered by some  districts and non-profits). The thousands of teachers coming through these  programs must be finding something they prefer, certainly including the chance  to earn a salary while paying tuition instead of paying first and earning  later. But here's the difference: Shoppers who want ''true'' organic foods can  still find them at Whole Foods, crunchy co-ops, and other stores. Aspiring  teachers who want ''true'' alternative certification are mostly out of  luck--because the ed school cartel is working overtime to regulate them out of business.
 
Consider the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence  (ABCTE). Candidates who pass its exacting test of subject matter and  professional knowledge gain entry into the public-school classroom, where they  receive ongoing mentoring. It's unadulterated alternative certification and,  to date, seven states have adopted some version of it.
 
The ed school cartel, however, has struck back with blistering attacks on  ABCTE, keeping it out of most states by lobbing all the usual arguments  against the program. (It ''trivializes the profession'' is the National  Education Association's standard line.) To this they've added another talking  point: we don't really need ABCTE, because we already have alternative  certification.

No, ABCTE isn't the only answer. Plenty of other promising models exist.  But policymakers, reform advocates, and philanthropists who think they have  ''won'' the battle in favor of alternative certification should think again.  Twenty-five years later, concerns about the quality of education schools  remain--as does the need for bona fide alternatives: swifter, better, surer,  cheaper ways to address teaching aspirations on the one hand and workforce  quality and quantity problems on the other. So put away the champagne and roll  up your sleeves. Much heavy lifting lies ahead.

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Alternative  Certification Isn't AlternativA new report from the  Thomas B. Fordham Institute  * *  *

Click here <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163121237&amp;u=1609682>   
to read the "In A Nutshell" summary of "Alternative Certification  Isn't Alternative." Click here <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163121237&amp;u=1609683>   to view the full report. * *  *   

At  first glance, the explosive growth of "alternative" teacher  certification--which is supposed to allow able individuals to teach  in public schools without first passing through a college of  education--appears to be one of the great success stories of modern  education reform. From negligible numbers twenty years ago,  alternatively prepared candidates now account for almost one in five  new teachers nationwide. That's a "market share" of nearly 20  percent. As longtime supporters of alternative certification, we  should be popping champagne, declaring victory, and plotting our  next big win, right? Not so fast. As the old cliché says, if it  looks too good to be true, it probably is. "Alternative Certification Isn't  Alternative" reveals that alternative certification programs,  contrary to their original mission, have not provided a real  alternative to traditional education schools. In fact, they  represent a significant setback for education reform  advocates. Here are the report's main  points:
  

More Gadfly highlights

More good stuff from the Gadfly (to subscribe, which I highly recommend: either email thegadfly:  <mailto:thegadfly@edexcellence.net>  with "subscribe gadfly" in the text of the message or sign up at <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616398> ):

Achievement Trap: How America is Failing Millions of  High-Achieving Students from Lower-Income Families
Joshua S.  Wyner, John M. Bridgeland, and John J. Dilulio, Jr.
Jack Kent Cooke  Foundation and Civic Enterprises
September 2007
 
It isn't only struggling students who have been left behind: 3.4 million high-ability but low-income  pupils aren't receiving the educations they deserve, either. Case in point:  almost half of low-income youngsters who scored in the top quartile on reading  tests as first graders were no longer scoring in the top quartile as fifth  graders. Of low-income eighth graders who scored in the top quartile on math  tests, only 25 percent were still hitting that mark in twelfth grade.  Academically talented poor students are, it seems, still lumped in with their lower-achieving classmates and not given challenging material or held to high  expectations. This report makes clear that low-performing schools -- often in rural and urban areas -- are bringing down their high-achievers rather than pushing them up. While schools focus on bringing low-achieving pupils to a  ''proficient'' level, talented kids with the potential to be ''advanced'' slide to mediocrity (or worse). Find the report here <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616387> .

And:

Just say no

When it comes to merit pay, Florida's teachers are about as ill-tempered as a gator buzzed by an Everglades airboat.  The state legislature launched the STAR (Special Teachers are Rewarded)  program in 2006, which gave 25 percent of public-school teachers five-percent bonuses, based primarily on student scores on the Sunshine State's standardized assessment. Educators growled, claiming that STAR encouraged an  unhealthy competition for limited funds. The legislature responded, in March  replacing STAR with MAP (Merit Awards Program). The initial response from  teachers? NOPE (No merit-pay Options will Placate our Educators). But of late  the tide is turning (see here <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616364>  and here <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616365> ) and those who still flat-out reject teacher-pay  reform are starting to look like a surly lot who simply refuse to compromise.  As we see it, the performance-pay train is leaving the station, and the ''just  say no'' crowd can either jump on or eventually get left in the  dust.
 
''Teachers Slap 'F' on Bonus Pay Plan <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616366> ,'' by Bill  Kaczor, Associated Press, September 16, 2007

And (I'd heard good things about Bennet, which makes it especially bizarre that the union is on the right side of this issue and he's not...):

When progression is  regression

The Denver teachers union has proposed to end social promotion in Mile High City schools and instead to tie students' progress to their scores on standardized tests in third, fifth, and eighth  grades. Opponents of the plan worry that it will harm the self-esteem of students who are held back and could encourage those youngsters to drop out.  ''Unless you've got a very serious set of interventions in place, all retaining kids does is drive the dropout rate up,'' says Denver Superintendent Michael Bennet. The union agrees, which is why its plan calls for extra services for students with low test grades and reading scores. And what's the  alternative? Allowing students to progress through the grades without, say, being able to do basic math? If you want to talk about a blow to self-esteem, talk about the seventh grader who reads at a third-grade level. There may be  more to this story: the union and district are embroiled in contentious contract negotiations. But on this issue, regardless of the politics that may be involved, we're taking union's side.
 
''Teachers want more red lights <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616374> ,'' by Jeremy P. Meyer,  Denver Post, September 16, 2007

7         

    

Tuscaloosa spin

The Fordham Foundation's Education Gadfly with a more nuanced view of the Tuscaloosa rezoning covered by the NYT (accompanied by breathless outrage in a previous email by yours truly ;-)...

 It's no small thing to ascribe racist motivations to public officials.  New York Times reporter Sam Dillon, generally a model of careful education journalism, came close to doing just that in a
front-page story <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616359>  on the rezoning of students in  Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
 
Dillon's first sentence: "After white parents in this racially mixed city complained about school overcrowding, school authorities set out to draw up a sweeping rezoning plan." He continues in this vein, focusing on race, even noting (in case you forgot) that George Wallace once stood in Tuscaloosa, in a University of Alabama doorway, to stop the college from integrating.
 
Controversial, sexy leads and images of a racist South are proven ways to transform news into front-page material. But they're lousy ways to tell a complicated story such as this one.

------------------

Tuscaloosa spin

It's no small thing to ascribe racist motivations to public officials. New York Times reporter Sam Dillon, generally a model of careful education journalism, came close to doing just that in a front-page story <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=163632089&amp;u=1616359>  on the rezoning of students in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Will conservative black voters remain cemented to Democratic Party?

I suspect this poll of African-Americans in South Carolina is quite respresentative of the national picture.  If there's one issue Republicans should be able to make headway on, it's school reform (though I hope they don't -- instead, I hope DFER is successful in moving the Democratic Party).  Most African-Americans know that their children are, in general, being screwed by the crappiest schools our nation has to offer and that the Democratic Party, taking their votes for granted, is too often defending the educational indefensible status quo.

To be fair, Republicans have made attempts, both nationally and at the state level, to recruit black voters. In 2002, the S.C. Republican Party appointed an Outreach Committee to spread the party’s philosophy and try to  combat the feeling among blacks that the party is just for wealthy whites. I  doubted that it could be effective. But the poll suggests it at least made an  impression on black people. Still, few joined the Republican ranks.
 
We mustn’t overlook the fact that well over half of those who responded to  the Winthrop-ETV poll said they feel the Democratic Party takes black voters for granted. By and large, Democrats consider the black vote a lock. As a  result, they don’t always give black voters their just due. Their ears are most open to black people — and their visits are most frequent — at election  time.
 
Black voters have good reason to question their relationship with the Democrats. I’m seeing more do just that. While some have migrated to the  Republican Party, most have dubbed themselves independents. That’s especially  rue among the younger generation, which is more independent-thinking.
 
I’ve always felt African-Americans should be represented in both parties to  raise their political effectiveness. Without the diversity, it’s easy for one  party to dismiss certain sectors of voters.
 
Don’t expect large numbers of African-Americans to join the Republican  ranks any time soon.
 
But with one in five in the poll considering themselves independent, expect  that list to grow.
 
Who knows? That could prompt Democrats to consider their ways and  Republicans to ponder the opportunities.

------------------
Will conservative black voters remain cemented to Democratic Party?
By WARREN BOLTON - Associate Editor
http://www.thestate.com/editorial-columns/story/179652.html <http://www.thestate.com/editorial-columns/story/179652.html>

A STRONG strand of conservatism runs through African-American culture and politics in South Carolina.

No Guile Left Behind in Reauthorization Debate

Mike Antonucci on the NCLB dust-up and unusual splits and alliances:

No Guile Left Behind  in Reauthorization Debate. I applaud the fortitude of those commentators who waded into the midst of the Congressional hearings on  reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act while they were going on.  Instant analysis in such situations is dangerous waters, and I opted to stay  on dry land.
 
As I write this, I have in  front of me some three dozen different news stories, op-eds, blog posts, and  other documents from last week. These are just the ones I printed out of the hundred or so I read. I've divided them into three categories, none of which  really have anything to do with the substance of the law, but which highlight  NCLB's unique status in today's American national political debate.
 
Liberal Democrats vs. Liberal  Democrats – Splits in the Democratic Party tend to be along the  moderate/liberal fault line, even on Iraq. But on NCLB, you have liberals on  both sides, moderates on both sides, and conservatives on both sides. In a  political atmosphere where you can easily predict which group will support what position, I find this refreshing, if a bit weird.
 
Miller vs. NEA – The newswires and the  blogosphere lit up when Rep. George Miller and NEA President Reg Weaver had a  testy exchange <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5go2oZU5y9gKBUOnNKIDJmMgdo_-g>  over the inclusion of a performance  pay proposal in the reauthorization discussion draft, with Miller saying, "You  can dance around all you want. You approved the language."
 
This was followed by an  exchange of letters, first from Weaver to  Miller <http://www.eduwonk.com/WeavertoMiller.doc> , then Miller to  Weaver <http://www.eduwonk.com/91207MillertoWeaver.pdf> . Then we had op-eds and press releases galore.
 
It's easy to make too much of  this. Few remember that NEA and Sen. Ted Kennedy went at it hammer and tongs  (in private) during the run-up to the original NCLB. But Miller, Kennedy and the mobs of Democrats who voted for NCLB have constituencies other than NEA to please, which makes this one rare education law.
 
On the other hand, Rep. Miller  (like Sen. Obama in July <http://www.eiaonline.com/2007/07/nea-convention-concludes.html> ) failed to recognize NEA's  internal imperatives. I don't know what conversations NEA and Miller had about performance pay when discussing the TEACH Act of 2005, but Miller should have  known that putting the same provision in an NCLB reauthorization bill was a different kettle of fish.
 
NEA has red meat issues.  Vouchers, seniority, tenure and merit pay are just a few. The union holds the  positions it does on these issues not only because it is in its interest to do so, but because it also serves a greater organizational purpose. Many people  have commented on the NEA presence at the hearings and its series of action alerts before the bill has even been introduced. Could the union generate that  kind of participation, enthusiasm and activism if the purpose was to cut a  deal on performance pay?
 
A union officer would much rather tell the members, "We oppose this bill because it contains merit pay"  than tell them, "We support this bill because it contains many good things for  us, despite the merit pay."
 
In short, you can't give a  rousing battlefield speech and then join the other side without angering your  troops.
 
NEA vs. CTA – This was the oddest  angle of the entire week. For the better part of a day, some commentators thought there had been a split between NEA and the California Teachers Association over the Miller-McKeon discussion draft.  As it turned out, it was a misunderstanding because CTA announced its opposition to the draft at a press conference <http://www.cta.org/media/newsroom/releases/20070910_1.htm>  on September 10, which made news a  lot more quickly and prominently than NEA's  own press release <http://www.nea.org/newsreleases/2007/nr070910.html>  announcing its opposition to the draft  language.
 
What made it more confusing is  that CTA is more militant about  NCLB than NEA is (yes, really!). There is a significant faction in the  California union that wants the law entirely scrapped. However, the hypothesis that CTA could publicly oppose such a high-profile bill that NEA supported demonstrates a poor knowledge of NEA governance. If for no other reason, a  state or local affiliate's annual UniServ grants from NEA require active support of "national program priorities."
 
Don't expect to see much NEA  movement on any provision of NCLB. They've invested in a zero-sum game and  they'll be the last to fold.

DFER launch

Democrats for Education Reform had a great launch event in DC on Monday, highlighted by amazing remarks by Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (I've posted the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9BC5ciKMyE ) and new DC schools chancellor Michelle Rhee (DFER Chairman Kevin Chavous also spoke -- see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_iipcjbg7M
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Michelle Rhee ROCKS!  Don't let the fact that she's charming and friendly fool you: she has an iron will and is taking no prisoners when it comes to cleaning up the disgraceful cesspool that the Washington DC public school system has become.  Kudos to Mayor Adrian Fenty for giving her total 100% support!  It's remarkable what can happen when you combine mayoral control with a strong mayor and chancellor team who get it and have guts -- another good example is NYC (and, I hope, in the near future, Newark).

-----------------------

Monday, September 17, 2007
Democrats for Education Reform
http://edelection.blogspot.com/2007/09/democrats-for-education-reform.html
<http://bp0.blogger.com/_sBqZ4ptnVvQ/Ru8u3HRXygI/AAAAAAAAAAk/g6zco6pFI5E/s1600-h/rhee>

The surprise star at last night's launch of the Democrats For Education Reform was Michelle Rhee, the new DC schools chancellor. With her humor and spunk very much intact in spite of smacking repeatedly against what may be the worst-run school central office in the entire country, Rhee regaled a crowd of about 100 national education reformers at the Hotel Washington across from the U.S. Treasury Department with fresh stories from close quarters bureaucratic combat.

Thousands Protest Arrests of 6 Blacks in Jena, La.

If Jesse Jackson and President Bush agree on this, you know there's been a serious miscarriage of justice.  It's great to see that the Internet, text messaging and black talk radio have drawn so much attention to this.

“That’s not prosecution, that’s persecution,” the Rev.  Jesse Jackson, founder of the Operation PUSH/Rainbow Coalition and one of the organizers of the demonstration, told a  crowd in front of the LaSalle Parish Courthouse here. “We will not stop  marching until justice runs down like waters.”
 
The teenagers, who have come to be known as the Jena Six, are part of a court case that began in December 2006 when they were accused of beating a white classmate, and a local prosecutor charged them with attempted murder. The beating was preceded by of a series of racially charged incidents  at the school, including the hanging of nooses from the branch of a tree which some students felt was for white students only.
 
One of the accused students, Mychal Bell, 17, was convicted in  June of aggravated battery and conspiracy. Those charges were tossed out by two different appeals courts, most recently last Friday, but Mr. Bell has not been released from jail. Even as demonstrators were continuing to march through Jena, which is about 85 percent white, a state appellate court ordered an emergency hearing to determine why Mr. Bell has not yet been released.
 
So far, Mr. Bell is the only one of the Jena Six to be tried,  but amid pressure from critics, prosecutors have gradually scaled back many of the charges against the five other defendants.
 
Although the incident that brought about the case occurred about a year ago, the story of the Jena teenagers has been slow to become part of the national conversation. After Mr. Bell’s conviction, though, the story spread quickly and carried beyond Jena on the currents of the Internet, text messaging and black talk radio until it became part of a nationwide civil  rights campaign.
 
The matter has even drawn the attention of President Bush, who told reporters in Washington today: “Events in Louisiana have saddened  me.”

-----------------

September 21, 2007
Thousands Protest Arrests of 6 Blacks in Jena, La.
By RICHARD G. JONES
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/21cnd-jena.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/21cnd-jena.html>

JENA, La., Sept. 20 — In a slow-moving march that filled streets, spilled onto sidewalks and stretched for miles, more than 10,000 demonstrators rallied in this small central Louisiana town today to protest the treatment of six black teenagers who were arrested in the beating of a white schoolmate last year.

NYT buries the Broad Prize story

Typical of the NY Times: it buried news of NYC winning the premier education prize in the country on page B6 and was sure to include plenty of snarky comments, without a single positive comment from anyone in NYC.  Shame, shame!

Although the prize will give the city a boost of attention, it is not quieting critics of the mayor and Mr. Klein. Before the award was announced, dozens of parents signed a letter to the foundation asking it not to give the  prize to New York. The letter said that the administration was “scornful” about parents’ concerns...
 
But back in New York City, David M. Quintana, a Queens parent who was consulted by officials judging the system,  said he was “disappointed” that the city had received the award.
 
“They were asking how our voices were heard,” Mr. Quintana said, “and across the board we told them that the city didn’t listen to our views.”
 
And Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s public advocate, who has been a vocal critic of Mr. Klein, said the award ignored many problems. “If we are No. 1 in terms of  achievement, it’s pretty sad news for the rest of the nation,” Ms. Gotbaum said in a statement.

-----------------

September 19, 2007
New York Schools Win Award for Improvement
By JENNIFER MEDINA
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19prize.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/19/education/19prize.html>

New York City’s public school system, the largest in the country, yesterday won the Broad Prize, given each year to an urban school district that has made great improvements in student achievement, particularly in closing gaps between white and minority students.

hilarious student analogies

Gotta love our students!

Essays

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their
collections of actual similes and metaphors found in high school
essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement  of
teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling  Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a
guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one  of
those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the  country
speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar  eclipse
without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew  on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes
just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated
because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge
at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
eerie, surreal quality, like when  you're on vacation in another city
and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across
the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having
left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka
at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had  never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was
the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap,
only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted  shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are won't to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,
this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck,
either, but a real duck that was actually lame,  maybe from stepping on a
land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender
leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around
with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love.  When she spoke, he thought he heard bells,
as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

More comments on Randi's oncologist-teacher analogy

Here's a comment from another friend:

Randi  gave a speech to incoming TFA corps members this summer during which she also used the cancer doctor analogy.  Arguments by analogy are dubious by definition, but this one really takes the cake.  I sat in on a small group debrief of Randi's speech to the corps members and everyone there was  extremely confused.  Of course strange analogies, confusing logic, and stonewalling are all key components of the union's arsenal.  It  would be interesting if someone wrote an article comparing the union's use of logic, critical thinking, and transparency to the basic lessons on logic, critical thinking, and rhetoric that are taught in middle school and high school English and Social Studies classes.

And a final comment from a retired NYC principal:

Everything you stated  today is right on the money. The UFT and its leader have non-harmonious objectives. As teachers they want to be treated and respected as professionals. As unionists they are concerned with workplace issues of more pay and less work. There can never be congruity between these goals.  Unfortunately, as an elected leadership with the need to respond to membership to stay in their jobs, the tendency is to focus more on the union needs.  However, to the union’s credit, the UFT has a first-rate professional development program headed by Aminda Gentile.
  
Rather than take the stand that "Teachers know what children need," it would help all to make their conflicting dichotomy more visible and public.

Comments on oncologist-teacher analogy, UFT

Mike Goldstein, founder of MATCH charter school in Boston, shares some spot-on thoughts on Randi Weingarten's oncologist-teacher analogy:

Whitney, there's another strand of the medical analogy. My  wife is an oncologist. She likes her job a lot.
 
Each day, she's put in a position to succeed. If she does what she's been trained to do on nuts-and-bolts medical issues, she gets to do the  "art" -- which for her is helping families deal with the intersection of health and emotion.
 
At No Excuses charter schools, teachers are put in a position to succeed, too. If a No Excuses teacher does what she's been trained to do --  phone parents to build relationships; start the class with a written do-now;  handle disruptions in a prescribed manner; etc etc -- he/she gets to do the "art"  of teaching, which is to make science or math or English "come  alive."
 
At many traditional urban schools, teachers are put in a position to fail. That's in part because teachers are taught in Ed School,  then again by the union, to FIGHT any school-wide methodology on how to handle nuts-and-bolts classroom culture issues.
 
While a doctor accepts that she will learn EXACTLY what to do on many matters (the science), before dealing with the nuance (the art),  teachers are taught that this means "their professional judgment, and  autonomy, is being questioned."
 
Funny, my wife pores over journals which tell her EXACTLY what  to do in a million different situations, and never feels her professional judgment under siege. (She only feels that way when insurers block her  preventive medicine efforts, particularly Medicaid/Medicare).
 
This dynamic gets exacerbated because traditional school leaders, when they do assert control, do it over the wrong thing -- curriculum. That's precisely BACKWARDS, the worst of both worlds.
 
Now teachers who are frustrated by behavior issues (since nobody is telling them to sacrifice their autonomy to follow a schoolwide approach) are getting curriculum that, no matter how "good" in theory, will necessarily be ineffective b/c the class will still be chaotic.
 
Many No Excuses schools go the other direction. They prescribe in great detail how teachers must develop and maintain classroom culture, then decentralize some/many curriculum decisions to individual teachers or small  groups of them.

Central Kings students wear pink to send bullies a message

I love this story!

Two students at Central  Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a sea of pink after a new student was harassed and threatened when he showed up  wearing a pink shirt.
 
The Grade 9 student arrived for the first day of school last  Wednesday and was set upon by a group of six to 10 older students who mocked him, called him a homosexual for  wearing pink and threatened to beat him  up.

The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying.
 
"It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to  do something," said David.
 
They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had  one.

-------------------------

Central Kings students wear pink to send bullies a message
By IAN FAIRCLOUGH Valley Bureau | 6:06 PM
www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/858884.html <http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/858884.html>

CAMBRIDGE — Two students at Central Kings Rural High School fought back against bullying recently, unleashing a sea of pink after a new student was harassed and threatened when he showed up wearing a pink shirt.

Alabama Plan Brings Out Cry of Resegregation

What a total disgrace!  You'd think blatant, transparent plans to kick black kids out of higher-performing, somewhat-integrated schools into failing, virtually completely segregated schools wouldn't happen in America today -- but you'd be wrong...

Months later, the school board commissioned a demographic study to draft the rezoning plan. J. Russell Gibson III, the board’s lawyer, said the plan drawn up used school buildings more efficiently, freeing classroom space equivalent to an entire elementary school and saving potential construction costs of $10 million to $14 million. “That’s a significant  savings,” Mr. Gibson said, “and we relieved overcrowding and placed most students in a school near their home. That’s been lost in all the  rhetoric.”
 
Others see the matter differently. Gerald Rosiek, an education professor at the University of Alabama, studied the Tuscaloosa school district’s recent evolution. “This is a case study in resegregation,” said Dr.  Rosiek, now at the University of Oregon.
 
In his research, he said, he found disappointment among some white parents that Northridge, the high school created in the northern enclave, was a majority-black school, and he said he believed the rezoning was in part an attempt to reduce its black enrollment.
 
The district projected last spring that the plan would move some 880 students citywide, and Dr. Levey said that remained the best estimate available. The plan redrew school boundaries in ways that, among other changes, required students from black neighborhoods and from a low-income housing project who had been attending the more-integrated schools in the northern zone to leave them for nearly all-black schools in the west  end.

---------------

Alabama Plan Brings Out Cry of Resegregation
 
Dave Martin for The New York Times
By SAM DILLON
September 17, 2007
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/education/17schools.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/education/17schools.html>

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — After white parents in this racially mixed city complained about school overcrowding, school authorities set out to draw up a sweeping rezoning plan. The results: all but a handful of the hundreds of students required to move this fall were black — and many were sent to virtually all-black, low-performing schools.




  
 

Kudos to MATCH (and a tale of the MATCH lottery)

Kudos to the MATCH charter school in Boston! From the Center for Education Reform Newswire:

MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN. The MATCH Charter Public High School is reaching new heights, which says something, considering the school has already been recognized by Newswire's parent organization as a charter school of the year and its founder Michael Goldstein has been named one of "13 leaders who perform." The school's students are number 1 out of 35 open-admission schools in Boston in which 100 percent of the students passed both reading and math standardized tests. On top of that, 83 percent of the students were advanced or proficient in English and, for the first time, 100 percent were advanced or proficient in math.

I visited MATCH (and Roxbury Prep) in Boston earlier this year -- for my comments, see: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/visits-to-two-charter-schools-in-boston.html. And here's a heart-breaking story from a friend at MATCH about the school's lottery, in which 500 or so students are turned away, forced back into utterly failing schools -- http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/story-from-match-charter-school-lottery.html. Here's an excerpt:

I am not over-stating this when I say that 65 students' lives were changed tonight. 65 students are going to come to the MATCH School and be pushed harder than they ever have in their life to do work that they never thought they could do. If they stick with us, they will be accepted to college, and they will graduate prepared to go to college.

They very well may be the first in their family to graduate from college, and they may be the person to break a cycle of nter-generational poverty, drug use, alcohol addiction, or other such problem that has plagued their relatives.

As far as the 500+ students who do not have this option, I don't know what will happen to them. Some will be accepted to other charter schools (some of these students enter multiple lotteries, although the Match ottery far exceeds other charter schools for number of applicants), some may get into exam schools, but most will probably end up at their local Boston public high school. The parents know this. That is why they cry when their child's name is called. That is why some parents stayed long after any hope of their child being accepted to Match had ended; they were just hoping that another alternative to this situation would present itself.

This is a crime. Flat-out. Our educational system is pitiful. In this city, parents are screaming for other options for their children.

Nonsense in Ohio

 
 This story from Ohio perfectly captures the dilemma of Democrats.  I cheered when Dems took over the governor's office and other key positions in this critical swing state, yet look at what these status-quo-lackeys are doing to charter schools.  To be clear, Ohio's charter school law is weak and there are a lot of bad operators and schools that need to be shut down, but that's not what Strickland and Dann are doing...  Here's the Center for Education Reform Newswire on the story:

A PERSONAL WAR. Ohio's current leadership, in office less than a year, continue their assault on school choice. First it was Governor Ted Strickland's promise to rid the state of charters, an action stopped thanks to  the grassroots efforts of families and legislators who support school choice.  Now, Attorney General Marc Dann is suing to close two charter schools. Dann, who has had a rough start of his own  thanks to multiple hiring and procedural gaffes (including hiring and subsequently firing his deputy security director when it was revealed the man was a convicted killer), is suing to close the two schools under the state's charitable trust laws, as he has no other authority to close down schools.  Dann, who aspires to be governor and might potentially be running against current Speaker of the House Jon Husted, a school choice champion, apparently didn't read the new charter school accountability laws the state adopted under Husted's leadership, which would have forced the schools to close next year anyway. But rather than let that happen lawfully, and allow the parents to address where to send their children next, Dann wants to force those students back into conventional public schools which are also in academic emergency --  as are 72 other low performing district schools in the state that Dann apparently didn't find reason to go after. Interesting that the schools he did target are in Husted's district. We're waiting for the day he files suit  against all failing public schools.

And here's what the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools says:

Mr. Dann's Star Chamber

14 Sep 2007

Running roughshod over charter authorizers, the state  superintendent of education, and the state legislature, Ohio's attorney  general Marc Dann is suing to shut two (soon three) charter schools by revoking their 501c3 status, saying they've strayed from their charitable  mission.
 
Look, this is not about whether lousy charters should be  closed. They should, and we called for that, loud and clear, a year ago. In  December the Ohio legislature responded by deciding to shut any charter on "academic emergency" three years running. Dann wants to jump the gun, ignoring clear legislative intent that gave the AG's office no role in the process.  (It's a helluva precedent when an AG tries to overrule legislated due process.)

The Ohio Gadfly nails it: "Right Struggle, Wrong Tactics".  And the Ohio  Alliance for Public Charter Schools comes out  swinging with a timely demand for disclosure of links  between the AG and the Ohio teachers' union.

Oh, by the way, there's no  evidence that Mr. Dann has any plans to shut any traditional schools. Fordham  says there are about 183,000 Ohio kids in district-run "academic emergency"  schools. But apparently they're not failing in their "charitable purpose,"  just screwing up kids' lives.

Videos from the Broad Prize event

I've posted my videos from the Broad Prize event yesterday:
 
a) Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings announces NYC as the winner, followed by Joel Klein's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPKnmXxcGGs
 
b) Mayor Bloomberg: part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnHwEHAWSBs;    part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO9xzNjn6Ss
 
c) Randi Weingarten: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGLf9X1qihU
 
d) Ted Kennedy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJ7CRC2hkBk
 
e) George Miller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHTQgIftzig
 
f) Colin Powell's remarks over lunch: part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8gvMQCv8lA    
 part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWe3bsQJmp4

My thoughts on Randi and teachers unions

I met Randi for the first time last month and saw her again yesterday at the Broad event in DC. As I've said before, I think she's one of the most forward-thinking teacher union leaders in the country (not to damn her with faint praise), as evidenced by embracing Green Dot among other things. She's smart, very effective at her job, and I think she really cares about what's best for children -- but the interests of her union and the interests of children often do not intersect, which puts her in terribly difficult positions.

For more on my views of Randi and teacher unions, see:

a) http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-thoughts-on-randi-and-teachers.html Excerpt:

When she advocates something that I don’t think is in the best interests of children, I blast her for it, but it’s not personal -- she’s just doing her job!

Many school reformers become outraged when this happens, but this is an unreasonable expectation. Just like any other union, they exist to fight for the interests of their members – things like higher pay, better benefits, shorter work hours and greater job protection – and they have been extraordinarily effective at achieving these aims. Does anyone get angry when the head of the longshoreman’s union fights for work rules that create more jobs, hours, benefits, job protection and privileges for his members, at the expense of the efficient and cost-effective operation of the port? Of course not – he’s just doing his job!

There is, however, one HUGE difference: no-one thinks that the longshoreman’s union cares one iota about the efficient and cost-effective operation of the port, yet the general public, media and politicians tend to suffer from the delusion that the teachers unions represent the interests of children!

b) http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/02/my-thoughts-on-randi-and-teachers.html Excerpt:

I'm a Democrat and I believe in the importance of unions in protecting workers, helping level the playing field with management and ensuring that workers receive fair pay and benefits and have job protections against unreasonable dismissals, retaliation, etc.

But where the teacher unions have developed a great deal of power -- especially large cities -- they have gone far beyond this role and frequently start behaving like the longshoreman's union, trying to intimidate or blacklist perceived enemies (just ask Eva Moskowitz), etc. Worst of all, when it comes to what's best for children, they -- like many unions -- seem to think it's part of their duty to protect the very worst teachers.

c) http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-thoughts-on-randi-weingarten-and.html Excerpt:

... to the extent that teachers have a negative image, it's due primarily to two things: a) the behavior of the union, which much more closely resembles that of, say, the longshoreman's union rather than a professional association like the American Bar Association (if Randi wants teachers to be treated and paid like professionals, a good start would be for the teachers union to start ACTING like a professional organization!); and b) every sensible person knows that there are WAY too many lousy teachers, which reflects badly on ALL teachers -- and especially the union that fights fiercely to protect even the very worst teachers. If Randi really wants to improve the negative image of teachers, then she should EMBRACE the new reforms (which will happen on the day pigs fly and hell freezes over)...

A Unique Partnership for a New School Year

Speaking of Randi, here's her monthly paid column in the NY Times, in which she celebrates her union's partnership with Green Dot to bring a Green Dot charter school to the South Bronx.  I'm a fan of Steve Barr and Green Dot and am delighted that they're coming to NYC, so kudos to Randi for helping make this happen -- it's in marked contrast to the teacher union in LA, which has done everything possible to undermine Green Dot.

    Anyone who has ever had a job knows that being actively engaged in what happens in your workplace — being valued and empowered — makes you feel invested and willing to go the extra mile to get  results. Teaching is
    no different. It is why professionalism and respect are  so critical to those in the classroom. And it is precisely why Green Dot  Public Schools — a unique charter school operator based in Los Angeles — caught the eye of
    our union, the United  Federation of Teachers, and why we decided to partner with them to bring a  Green Dot school to the South Bronx.

That being said, there are a number of assertions Randi makes in this column that I take issue with, most notably this: "before the charter school movement became so politicized and anti-teacher."  HA!  It's the unions that are massively politicized, with armies of lobbyists, picketers and phone bank volunteers, giving millions of dollars to politicians at all levels, etc.  Charter schools are getting crushed by this political machine, which is one of my pet peeves (and one of the reasons we created DFER, so that in the general school reform debate in the Democratic Party it's David vs. Goliath rather than an ant vs. Goliath).  
 
As for charter schools being anti-teacher, nothing could be further from the truth, as every charter school I'm aware of recognizes that talented, motivated teachers are the key to a successful school and therefore does everything possible to recruit and retain them.  Randi is failing to distinguish between teachers and teacher unions -- this is 100% deliberate, of course, as the unions are extremely clever in twisting anything they don't like into an attack on teachers themselves (or, is possible, children).  Teachers should rightly be celebrated (most of them anyway), whereas their unions often behave reprehensibly.  

It is indeed true that most charter school operators choose not to be unionized, but that's simply because most teacher unions and their contracts (in big cities anyway) are a total nightmare, standing in the way of obvious, common-sense things that are necessary to run a good school and educate children properly, like being able to reward great teachers, pay more for math and science teachers, fire ineffective teachers, etc.



--------------------

A Unique Partnership for a New School Year
Randi Weingarten, NYT, 9/16/07
http://www.uft.org/news/randi/ny_times/uft_wmm_Sept07_v3.pdf

One of the reasons that the beginning of the school year is such a hopeful time is that it represents a fresh start. The classes are new and there is energy and a sense of purpose in the air. And the spirit of co-operation is at its most evident. Unfortunately, for students and teachers alike, as the year wears on, much of the hopefulness we feel at the beginning of school wanes. Typically, we get pushed into the familiar bureaucratic routines, usually by someone in an office who has forgotten what it’s like to be a student and has never had to hold the attention of a classroom full of kids.
 

Randi Weingarten, M.D.

In an interview last weekend, Randi used the flawed analogy that holding teachers accountable for student performance would be as unfair as holding oncologists accountable for the mortality rate of their cancer patients.  She is correct that teachers are not solely (or even primarily) responsible for where children end up in life -- that's principally the job of parents -- but they absolutely should be held accountable for the gain in student learning while in their classrooms.  The NY Sun editorialized about this on Monday:

No one would suggest the doctors be fired for each death, but certainly  they should be, and are, held accountable for performance. This is the role of  hospital internships, strict board examinations, and discriminating patients.  Would that teachers were held to such standards as exist in the oncology ward.

I also wrote something about it in response to a letter to the editor in March (http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/letters-to-editor-on-brooks-column.html): [The] analogy of "blaming doctors for the cancer  rate" is SO wrong! The proper analogy would be if a patient showed up  at a hospital with symptoms of early-stage cancer and then the doctors: a)  failed to do the proper tests to determine what was wrong; and b) once  determining it was cancer, failed to treat it quickly and properly, allowing it to metastasize into something fatal. If this type of criminal negligence  were being practiced in our hospitals, resulting in uncared-for patients dying left and right, there would be a justifiable hue and cry, yet this is precisely what is happening to millions of children in our school RIGHT  NOW!

-----------------------
Randi Weingarten, M.D.
New York Sun Staff Editorial
September 17, 2007
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/62735

Randi Weingarten certainly set tongues wagging around the education department when she fell into a discussion with Jay DeDapper on News Forum, a Sunday morning talk show, and compared the membership of the teachers union to medical doctors. "A lot of people don't know about schools but a lot of people do know about doctors and disease," she said. Mr. DeDapper had asked Ms. Weingarten where teachers fit into Mayor Bloomberg's new school accountability model. Ms. Weingarten was explaining why teachers find shouldering accountability for their students' academic performance unfair. "When people say to me, you know, well, why shouldn't teachers be, you know, judged on the test scores of their kids? I say to them…would you want your oncologist, or your mom or dad's oncologist to be graded on the survival rates of his or her patients?"

The UFT's snarky response to NY Winning of Broad Prize

The UFT's Edwize blog can't let Bloomberg and Klein have even one day to enjoy a great honor for years of hard work, posting a snarky piece entitled "Magic With Numbers" (see below), as if NYC's vast improvements are all smoke and mirrors, within minutes of the announcement of NYC winning the Broad Prize.  Here's Andy Rotherham's take at Eduwonk (www.eduwonk.com/2007/09/odds-and-ends.html <http://www.eduwonk.com/2007/09/odds-and-ends.html> ):

Now With Bonus Criteria Quibbling!
 
Off Message: New  York wins the $1 million Broad Prize for education <http://www.broadprize.org/> *, UFT <http://www.uft.org/>  head Randi Weingarten says, "It's a great  day for New York" and joins city officials to accept the award but over at Edwize they're all  grumbling and sourpuss <http://edwize.org/magic-with-numbers> . *I'm on the review board.
 
Update: Now they protest that they're quite down with  all this. We "quibbled with the evaluation criteria but not with the award"  says an update to the first post. Huh? Here's what they said, "At the least,  we should not mistake this as clear evidence of a serious, long-term  turnaround in education in this city." That, in a post entitled "Magic with  numbers" that also rips Chancellor Klein? If that's on board with this, then what would they say if they were critical? Memo to Randi Weingarten:  Don't leave the kids with the keys when you're out of town accepting awards!

-------------------

September 18, 2007

 
Magic with numbers [Updated]

http://edwize.org/magic-with-numbers#more-899

New York City’s parent blog <http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/>  predicted the city would win the the prestigious Broad Prize, though they weren’t happy about it. This is a $1 million award to the most-improved urban district, in the estimation of financier Eli Broad. New York under Joel Klein has twice been nominated but never won.

NYC wins Broad Prize for Urban Education

HUGE kudos to NYC for winning the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Education!!!  It's a great and well-deserved honor.  I was in DC earlier today to see it in person.  There was an incredible turnout: a ton of Senators and Congresspeople, including Kennedy, Carper, Lautenberg, Pelosi, Miller, Shays, etc.  And everyone from NYC was there: Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein, Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, Randi Weingarten, Ernest Logan, Chris Cerf, Meryl Tisch, etc.  Colin Powell was the lunch speaker -- he's awesome!  Below is the announcement.  I took lots of video, which I'll post and send links to shortly.

"If it can be done in New York City, it  can be done anywhere," said Eli Broad, founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. "The strong leadership by the mayor, the chancellor and a  progressive teachers union has allowed a school system the size of New York  City to dramatically improve student achievement in a relatively short period  of time. Other cities can look to New York as a model of successful urban  school district reform."

-----------------------
The $1 Million Broad Prize for Urban Education Awarded to
New York City Department of Education, Four Finalist Districts

www.broadprize.org <http://www.broadprize.org>

WASHINGTON - The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) won the 2007 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the largest education prize in the country, The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation announced Sept. 18. New York City has been a finalist for The Broad Prize for the past two years.

Support Grows for Teacher Bonuses

.

Kudos to Miller for pushing differential pay for teachers (from a front-page story in today's Washington Post):

A movement gaining momentum in Congress and some school  systems in the Washington region and beyond would boost pay for exceptional  teachers in high-poverty schools, a departure from salary schedules based on  seniority and professional degrees that have kept pay in lockstep for  decades.

Lawmakers are debating this month whether to authorize federal  grants through a revision of the No Child Left Behind law for bonuses of as  much as $12,500 a year for outstanding teachers in schools that serve  low-income areas.

National teachers unions denounce the proposal for  "performance pay," saying it would undermine their ability to negotiate  contracts and would be based in part on what they consider an unfair and  unreliable measure: student test scores.

Debate over the proposal has exposed unusual fissures between  the influential unions and longtime Democratic allies. Some education experts  say the unions are out of step with parents and voters who support the  business-oriented idea of providing financial incentives for excellent  work.

Rep. George Miller <http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+Miller?tid=informline> (D-Calif.),  chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said that the teaching  workforce is leaking talent and that his proposal would help rejuvenate it.  Young teachers watch their friends "go off and get paid for their time and  ingenuity" in other fields, Miller said. "In teaching, you go as fast as the  slowest person."

Miller's proposal, building on recent federal steps to  encourage incentive pay, would provide grants to school systems that choose to  pay bonuses to teachers who excel in high-poverty schools, worth up to $10,000  in most cases and $12,500 for specialists in math, science and other  hard-to-staff subjects. Decisions on who gets extra pay would be based on  student test gains and professional evaluations.

-------------------

Support Grows for Teacher Bonuses
More Schools Offer Performance Pay as House Debates Issue

By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2007; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/17/AR2007091701936.html?hpid=artslot

A movement gaining momentum in Congress and some school systems in the Washington region and beyond would boost pay for exceptional teachers in high-poverty schools, a departure from salary schedules based on seniority and professional degrees that have kept pay in lockstep for decades.

A Sum Greater Than the Parts

Here's a summary of the Education Sector report (the entire 19-page report can be downloaded at http://www.educationsector.org/research/research_show.htm?doc_id=521913):

As independently operated public schools, charter schools offer educators  increased freedom to design their own educational programs in return for  heightened accountability for student performance. Unlike traditional public  schools, charters that persistently fail to educate students can, and should,  be shut down. As such, they provide a "third way" approach to public  education—positioned between the status quo of limited choice and barriers to  entry for new educational providers and free-market-oriented reforms, like  vouchers, that increase competition but at the expense of public oversight or  accountability.

--------------------
Education Sector Reports: Charter School Series
A Sum Greater Than the Parts: What States Can Teach Each Other About Charter Schooling
uthors:  Sara  Mead  and   Andrew  J. Rotherham , September 11, 2007  

Fifteen years after the first public charter school opened in St. Paul, Minn., charter schools remain a powerful educational innovation. Charter schooling expands choices for students within the public system and provides more customized teaching and learning opportunities for teachers and students by allowing for greater variation in the kinds of schools that are available. At the same time, charter schools maintain core public education ideals, such as providing universal access for students and public oversight and accountability.

Five Ways to Boost Charter Schools

Jay Mathews with a summary and some comments on an excellent report on charter schools by Andy Rotherham and Sara Mead:

In theory, charter schools are a great idea. There are now more than 4,000 of them with more than 1 million students in 40 states and the District. These independent public schools give smart educators with fresh ideas a chance to show what they can do without the deadening hand of the local school system  bureaucracy around their necks. They also give public school parents more choice. The problem is, as one former state charter school official told me,  there are a lot of loons out there starting charter schools. We don't seem to be able to get rid of their loony schools as easily as the original advocates of charter schools promised. That is one reason why charter schools, despite  including some of the best public schools I have ever seen, do no better on  average than regular public schools in raising student achievement.
 
Here are my suggestions for fixing that situation, based largely on what I learned from Mead and Rotherham:

----------------------

Five Ways to Boost Charter Schools

By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 18, 2007; 8:58 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR2007091800577.html?hpid=news-col-blog

Sara Mead and Andrew J. Rotherham, two of my favorite educational researchers, have inspired me to save the charter school movement with five brilliant if perhaps too far-sighted suggestions for reform.
The Washington-based think tank Education Sector www.educationsector.org <http://www.educationsector.org/>  has just published their paper, "A Sum Greater Than the Parts: What States Can Teach Each Other About Charter Schooling." They may be horrified by what I have done with their facts and insights, but I think my ideas will push charters in the right direction -- more good ones and fewer bad ones.

The Greatest Education Lab

A great article in Time magazine by Teach for America chairman Walter Isaacson about the remarkable things happening in New Orleans -- and the education reform rock stars driving it: Sarah Usdin, Matt Candler, Jon Schnur, Paul Vallas, Kim Smith, TFA, KIPP, the Gates, Broad and Fisher foundations, etc.

   There are those who argue that some  parents will not have the ability or inclination to find the right school for  their kids. But I'm convinced that all parents--rich and poor--benefit when  they get to make their own choices         
    rather than be subjected to a monopoly  provider. So I am optimistic. If the experiment succeeds, even in part, it has  the chance to transform urban education nationwide. That's why I'm excited  that so many smart and
    spirited activists--innovative and imaginative and  dedicated to the cause of ensuring that every kid in America gets a decent  shot--are surging to New Orleans

-----------------------
The Greatest Education Lab
Thursday, Sep. 06, 2007 By WALTER ISAACSON
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1659767,00.html

Paul Vallas, the man who took over the troubled school systems of Chicago and then Philadelphia and upended them, stood before a crowd of New Orleans parents in a French Quarter courtyard earlier this summer and offered a promise. "This will be the greatest opportunity for educational entrepreneurs, charter schools, competition and parental choice in America," he said. Call it the silver lining: Hurricane Katrina washed away what was one of the nation's worst school systems and opened the path for energetic reformers who want to make New Orleans a laboratory of new ideas for urban schools.

Education -- Schoolyard Quarrel

DFER got some great press in this National Journal article:

On Monday evening, a group of Democratic  self-styled education reformers will host more than 100 congressional aides,  elected officials, like-minded policy wonks, campaign contributors, and  journalists in the Hotel Washington's rooftop lounge. They will nibble on  breaded Parmesan artichoke hearts and network among themselves, toasting the  Washington launch of an organization that seeks, its manifesto says, to  "return the Democratic Party to its rightful place as a champion of children,  first and foremost, in America's public education systems."

The effort  isn't aimed at countering attempts by President Bush and Republicans to claim  ownership of the education issue through the No Child Left Behind law.  Democrats for Education Reform is defending the law -- and challenging the  teachers unions and other heavyweights for control of their party's education  agenda.

The organization believes that the Democratic Party has  abdicated its responsibility to fight for disadvantaged students because it is  too beholden to politically powerful interest groups representing teachers,  school boards, and school administrators, said Executive Director Joe  Williams. The group, established two years ago by charter-school supporters  and financiers in New York City and Washington, wants "to make [sure] those  vested interests aren't the only ones that have a voice," Williams said.  

It's a "struggle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party," said  Dianne Piche, a member of the group's board and the executive director of the  Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. The tug-of-war pits education activists  who support the No Child Left Behind law against venerable, battle-tested  education and labor groups. It also divides the party's base of minority and  civil-rights advocacy groups. The split over educational policy is playing out  on the 2008 campaign trail and in Congress.

Democrats for Education  Reform and other activists accuse the teachers unions of putting teachers'  needs ahead of their students'. Board member Andrew Rotherham, co-director of  the Washington think tank Education Sector, says that the National Education  Association and the American Federation of Teachers are no different than any  other lobby in Washington. "Teachers unions are there to represent the  interests of teachers. Do I like the NEA better than the NRA? Sure," Rotherham  said. "But in terms of the way they operate and what they do, they're the same  -- and you should be equally skeptical of their claims. There are times when  the interests of the adults and the interests of the kids are not the same,  and it's naive to deny that."

 
  

--------------------------
09-15-2007
Education - Schoolyard Quarrel
Lisa Caruso (lcaruso@nationaljournal.com>  )
© National Journal Group, Inc.

On Monday evening, a group of Democratic self-styled education reformers will host more than 100 congressional aides, elected officials, like-minded policy wonks, campaign contributors, and journalists in the Hotel Washington's rooftop lounge. They will nibble on breaded Parmesan artichoke hearts and network among themselves, toasting the Washington launch of an organization that seeks, its manifesto says, to "return the Democratic Party to its rightful place as a champion of children, first and foremost, in America's public education systems."

Education -- Schoolyard Quarrel

 
DFER got some great press in this National Journal article:

On Monday evening, a group of Democratic self-styled education reformers will host more than 100 congressional aides,  elected officials, like-minded policy wonks, campaign contributors, and journalists in the Hotel Washington's rooftop lounge. They will nibble on breaded Parmesan artichoke hearts and network among themselves, toasting the Washington launch of an organization that seeks, its manifesto says, to  "return the Democratic Party to its rightful place as a champion of children, first and foremost, in America's public education systems."

The effort isn't aimed at countering attempts by President Bush and Republicans to claim ownership of the education issue through the No Child Left Behind law.  Democrats for Education Reform is defending the law -- and challenging the  teachers unions and other heavyweights for control of their party's education  agenda.

The organization believes that the Democratic Party has  abdicated its responsibility to fight for disadvantaged students because it is  too beholden to politically powerful interest groups representing teachers, school boards, and school administrators, said Executive Director Joe Williams. The group, established two years ago by charter-school supporters and financiers in New York City and Washington, wants "to make [sure] those vested interests aren't the only ones that have a voice," Williams said.  

It's a "struggle for the heart and soul of the Democratic Party," said Dianne Piche, a member of the group's board and the executive director of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights. The tug-of-war pits education activists  who support the No Child Left Behind law against venerable, battle-tested education and labor groups. It also divides the party's base of minority and civil-rights advocacy groups. The split over educational policy is playing out on the 2008 campaign trail and in Congress.

Democrats for Education  Reform and other activists accuse the teachers unions of putting teachers'  needs ahead of their students'. Board member Andrew Rotherham, co-director of the Washington think tank Education Sector, says that the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers are no different than any other lobby in Washington. "Teachers unions are there to represent the interests of teachers. Do I like the NEA better than the NRA? Sure," Rotherham  said. "But in terms of the way they operate and what they do, they're the same  -- and you should be equally skeptical of their claims. There are times when  the interests of the adults and the interests of the kids are not the same,  and it's naive to deny that."

 

--------------------------
09-15-2007
Education - Schoolyard Quarrel
Lisa Caruso (Email this author <blocked::mailto:lcaruso@nationaljournal.com>  )
© National Journal Group, Inc.

On Monday evening, a group of Democratic self-styled education reformers will host more than 100 congressional aides, elected officials, like-minded policy wonks, campaign contributors, and journalists in the Hotel Washington's rooftop lounge. They will nibble on breaded Parmesan artichoke hearts and network among themselves, toasting the Washington launch of an organization that seeks, its manifesto says, to "return the Democratic Party to its rightful place as a champion of children, first and foremost, in America's public education systems."

DFER ad

Democrats for Education Reform is running an ad in various publications on Capitol Hill, encouraging Congress not to water down NCLB...

“Does this country want to make schools better or just make schools look better?  If Congress is true to the noble idea that all children, no matter their races, family incomes or circumstances,
can learn to read and do math, it must reject suggestions that make a charade of standards and accountability. ... Our children deserve better.  Keep NCLB strong for them.”  

Film With Same-Sex Parents Splits School District

A good question (though letting parents opt out and/or moving the age to 4th or 5th grade might be a reasonable compromise):

 As Mary Ellis, a parent of a 10-year-old son at Rice, put it:
 
“People who don’t want the school to show the video say, ‘We can teach our  own kids.’ Sure you can. But who’s going to teach you?”

---------------------

September 14, 2007
Film With Same-Sex Parents Splits School District
By RICHARD G. JONES
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/nyregion/14sex.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/nyregion/14sex.html>

EVESHAM TOWNSHIP, N.J., Sept. 7 — The children talked among themselves about their parents — children of interracial families, children of divorce, children who had been adopted — and that did not seem to cause a ripple.

“It’s not your fault,” says Montana, a first grader whose parents are divorced.

Obama Demands Fairness in Jena 6 Case

Good for Obama!  (He mentions Genarlow Wilson at the end.)

Obama Demands Fairness in Jena 6 Case
September 13, 2007
 
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/09/13/obama_demands_fairness_in_jena.php

Chicago, IL -- Senator Barack Obama made the following statement today in  response to the Jena 6 case.
 
"When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it's a tragedy. It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions. This isn't just Jena's problem; it's America's  problem."
 
"There are a number of signs that the system is not working in this case.  It's a problem when criminal charges are brought against some students for  fighting, but not others. It's a problem when a public defender doesn't call any witnesses. And it's a problem when a prosecutor decides to try teenagers as adults for a school fight, a charge that could leave them in jail for the majority of their lives. That is why I join my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus in calling on the judge to consider all the relevant factors and  calling on the District Attorney to drop the excessive charges brought in this  case. And I, along with other members of the CBC, will continue to monitor  this case closely."
 
"Going forward, we have to fix our criminal justice system. Whether it's Jena 6 or Genarlow Wilson, it's long past time for us to admit that we have  more work to do to ensure that our criminal justice system is fair. We must  ensure that both victims and defendants can receive equal justice under the law, regardless of race, wealth, or other circumstances."

Poor George

 
Some wise words on NCLB from Tom Toch at the Education Sector:

September 13, 2007
 
Poor George

http://www.quickanded.com/2007/09/poor-george.html <http://www.quickanded.com/2007/09/poor-george.html>

Poor George Miller. The chairman on the House education and  labor committee seems to need a new friends and family plan in the wake of his proposed revisions to NCLB. First
one of his closest confederates during the drafing of NCLB in 2001, the Education Trust, attacks Miller's plan as  "flawed, flimsy, and phony." And now the California Teachers Association, the mega-powerful union in Miller's home state and a natural ally of the liberal  Democrat, is launching a media campaign savaging NCLB, Miller's proposed revisions, and Miller himself.

The Trust is bent out of shape about Miller's proposal to base NCLB's school-rating system on more than statewide reading and math skills tests, and the CTA has gone nuclear because Miller wants to experiment with performance-based pay for teachers.

Miller  deserves better. He has acknowledged NCLB's many flaws and is making a  determined effort to fix them.

It would be nice if the good folks at the Trust -- and they are a great group of people -- did the same thing. Their man George could use the support.

The CTA, on the other hand, may be a lost cause. Trashing Miller is a truly self-destructive exercise. There's no one in the Congress who cares more about teaching and teachers. And it's not his fault that he gets the fact that only if we find ways to make teaching more attractive work are we going to draw the sorts of people into the nation's classrooms who can make traditional public schools worth attending, preserving  teachers' jobs and teacher unions in the process. The CTA's honchos should  read Rick Kahlenberg's new biography of Al Shanker <http://www.educationsector.org/analysis/analysis_show.htm?doc_id=516413> .  Shanker figured out the basic union reform calculus two decades  ago.

Lost in the fray is a smallish provision in the new Miller NCLB  blueprint that may have the biggest impact on the direction of public education. It's one that gives states incentives to craft new, tougher standards and tests pegged to national and international benchmarks. If it  survives the NCLB firefight in the coming months, it would move the nation's badly fragmented public education system one step closer to the sort of coherent national system that has produced so many well-educated citizenries in Europe and Asia. For reasons that are explained here, Miller's NCLB plan is exhibit A for why we need national standards and  tests.

What's Good for Children

Holy cow!  Another powerful NYT editorial on NCLB -- that's two in one week!


----------------------------
September 12, 2007
NYT Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/opinion/12wed3.html
What’s Good for Children
America’s business community was an early advocate of reform and a prime mover in the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, which required the states to improve public schooling for all students. With Congress gearing up to reauthorize the act, business leaders are rightly raising their voices in an attempt to prevent the teachers’ unions and their political allies from weakening this important law.

Urgent NCLB Action - Democrats for Education Reform

Dear fellow school reformers,

As you know, Congress is in the process of renewing NCLB and there's a lot
at stake -- I don't think it would be hyperbole to say that what happens
here could have more impact on closing the achievement gap (or not) over the
next 5-10 years than anything else.

We at Democrats for Education Reform are up to our eyeballs in this fight
and, despite being vastly outnumbered and outspent, are having an impact.
All of us will be in DC early next week for various meetings and events and
we need your support. Below is an appeal from Joe Williams, our Executive
Director, that I hope you will read and act on.
Thank you!

<http://www.dfer.org/link_tracker.php?id=22&amp;t=5453>

(PLEASE FORWARD FAR AND WIDE TO ANYONE WHO CARES US MUCH AS WE DO ABOUT
MEANINGFUL EDUCATION REFORM!)

Dear friend:

I¹m very worried. In 2001, Congress (with help from Rep. George Miller and
Sen. Ted Kennedy ­ both Democrats) took unprecedented steps toward infusing
long-missing accountability into federal education policy. After pumping
billions of Title I dollars from Washington to local districts each year,
Congress for the first time required schools to show that students were
actually benefiting (i.e., learning) from the federal funding. Even more,
the No Child Left Behind Act went out of its way to make sure that schools
and districts would not be able to hide poor performance by minority or
disabled students by touting schoolwide or system-wide student performance
in the aggregate.
It is not an overstatement to suggest that the bi-partisan passage of NCLB
was one of the most significant and sweeping federal education policy shifts
in a generation. Even back when Congress was reauthorizing the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (which eventually became NCLB in its
modern form), a frustrated New York Senator Robert Kennedy bemoaned the
fact that we were setting up the federal program as a costly failure. ³What
happened to the children,² Kennedy asked during one of the hearings at the
time. ³Do you mean you spent a billion dollars and you don¹t know whether
they can read or not?²
The dollar amounts increased dramatically over the years, but the
structural problems in the law didn¹t go away ­ nor did the shameful
achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white
counterparts. The longer the federal programs were in place, the harder it
became to get the education establishment to support making any changes at
all that would jeopardize funding.
When Miller and Kennedy teamed up with the Bush administration to pass
NCLB in 2001, it marked a historic victory for those who championed the
academic needs of kids who had routinely slipped through the cracks. As
NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told his principals a few years ago:
³Whatever else you may say about No Child Left Behind, it is forcing us to
come to grips with a moral imperative that many of us might prefer to
ignore: that we have a collective responsibility for the education of over 1
million children.²
You may have seen the news stories in the last few days about what
is happening to NCLB. A process which began as a way to address
widely-acknowledged shortcomings in the law (and to add long-overdue
incentives to reward our nation¹s most successful teachers and make sure
that every child has an equal chance to be taught by an effective teacher)
has morphed into an attempt by the powerful National Education Association
to turn back the clock to the days when meaningful accountability was
virtually nonexistent. The Washington Post and New York Times editorial
boards, among many others, have called out the NEA on its attempts to gut
the law. But the political heat that is building to weaken the most
important aspects of NCLB is very real. Democrats like George Miller and
Speaker Nancy Pelosi are under tremendous pressure to come through with a
victory for the adults who work in schools - in this case, at the expense
of the children who deserve our full attention.
At this week¹s committee hearings on NCLB, the NEA was out in full force
with union leaders who were flown in from all over the country to lobby
elected officials from their districts. They aren¹t afraid to issue threats
to Democrats when they feel it suits their needs. They are organized and
they are effective. But they are also on the wrong side of this one.
Democrats in Congress have already proven that they are willing to take hits
on NCLB when it means standing up for the millions of students whose
academic performance will no longer be swept under the rug. But it is far
from certain they will continue to hold the line, considering the fact that
Miller and Pelosi are now being personally targeted by the NEA for their
work on NCLB to date.
Our organization, Democrats for Education Reform, exists to provide
political cover for elected officials who want to make progress and do the
right thing for kids. We have big plans about working with Democrats who
³get it² from coast to coast. But the current NCLB reauthorization demands
our collective attention NOW. We have been working with civil rights
groups and non-partisan education reform groups to support meaningful
changes to NCLB that preserve the hard-fought accountability mechanisms.
We are fighting to ensure that no child is denied an opportunity to make
something of his or her life because they are unlucky enough to be assigned
to a substandard school. But we very much need your help with this one,
because the other side is mighty, committed, and angry.
How can you help?
There are a number of ways:
1. Support our efforts to fight this battle in the coming weeks by
contributing to our federal political action committee. For better or for
worse, it costs money to fight these kinds of fights, especially when we¹re
up against an entire industry with millions at their disposal. You can
contribute with a credit card at http://www.dfer.org/contribute/
<http://www.dfer.org/link_tracker.php?id=25&amp;t=5456> , or you can mail it
to the address on our website. Your contributions will allow us to support
a combined earned/paid media campaign, and to support politicians in
Washington who will fight the good fight in the coming weeks.
2. Sign on to our Democrats for Education Reform ³Statement of
Principles² so that we can show our Democratic friends there is support for
holding the line on accountability. You can use our online petition at
http://www.dfer.org/petition/

After you sign on, continue to check for
NCLB developments on the blog we have on our website.
3. Volunteer to help support the campaigns of politicians who will do
the right thing. (Call me at 646-354-9625.)
4. Forward this request to anyone you know who feels as strongly
about this as we do. Hell, forward it to people who feel HALF as strongly
as we do. This is a fight that CAN be won, but we need to move quickly. I
hope you will join us in this crucial effort.

Sincerely,
Joe Williams
Executive Director, Democrats for Education Reform

Comments on for-profit special ed schools

My friend John Torrens, President of InterActive Therapy Group, with some follow-up comments from the recent article about ESA.

I met the guys at ESA about a year ago.  We met to talk about our respective companies and to learn a little bit about each  other.  Mark Claypool and his team are stand-up guys and are definitely in this for the right reasons.  After a few hours with them it is  clear that they are educators first and business people second (except of  course for the CFO).  My guess is that if they are making money it's because they are focusing on quality  education and doing right by the kids.  If they weren't, they would be a slightly more profitable  flash-in-the-pan, and once everyone figured out that the  public school could do it better they would be out of business. I know a lot of the executive teams for similar companies and its clear that you don't  get into this business because there are gobs of money to be made.  You get into it because you have the passion and feel that you can build a better  mousetrap, and maybe through tight fiscal controls and rigor you can turn it  into something that generates a reasonable  return.

Since I am also in a related business (privatized  special education services), I wanted to chime in on the idea of private  companies making money in this line of work.  I would hate for  anyone to think negatively about companies like ESA, or my own, because we  operate for-profit companies (in a good year) in a public education  world.  It's really no  different than any other private company that does business with the  government (think nursing homes, home health agencies or even defense  contractors).  The biggest difference is that we have the privilege of  dealing with some of the most needy children in the system. To do that we  employ the most expensive personnel in the education industry and we do better  by these kids and their families than most urban public schools can.   It's not that they don't want to, but when a speech therapist in a public school has a caseload of 90 kids, it's hard to imagine anything good coming out of  it.

The same arguments we use for school reform hold true for privatized  special education. Companies like ESA or ITG are not bound by unions, we can  pay for performance, we can fire a bad teacher or therapist, and we can pay  special ed teachers more to work in schools that really need them.  It is  much easier to do a better job for these kiddos in a privatized  environment.  In most cases it costs the charter school less to use outsource to a private company for  these services because most charters don't need full time special ed and  therapy staff.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this, but I just wanted to provide  my input that private companies in public education are a great way to add  value to the system and I would hate for anyone to think there is  something wrong with it.  This industry is pretty unforgiving to  underperforming or poorly managed private companies (as it should be),  so I think parents can rest comfortably knowing that their children are  in the hands of exceptionally capable, dedicated professionals who have  the best interests of the child at  heart.

NCLB Quote of the Week Issue

Some great quotes on the NCLB debate from the latest issue of Mike Antonucci's Education Intelligence Agency Communique (www.eiaonline.com <http://www.eiaonline.com> ).  Quote #1 captures perfectly why I think Jonathan Kozol is a crackpot and a menace to the very children he wants desperately to help.  And sad to see that Bill Richardson has joined the anti-NCLB bandwagon.  Kudos to DFER board member Dianne Piché!

NCLB Quote of the Week  Issue

With the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor holding hearings on the "Miller/McKeon Discussion Draft of ESEA Reauthorization," and with everyone and his brother being called in to testify, and with opinions flying faster than an SR-71, it only seems proper to devote this week's communiqué to the most quotable NCLB quotes of the  week.
 
In no particular order:

* "This morning, I am entering the 67th day of a partial fast that I began early in the summer as my personal act of protest at the vicious damage being done to inner-city children by the federal education  law No Child Left Behind, a racially punitive piece of legislation that Congress will either renew, abolish, or, as thousands of teachers pray, radically revise in the weeks immediately ahead."  Author Jonathan Kozol.  (September 10 The  Huffington Post    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kozol/why-i-am-fasting-an-expl_b_63622.html> )
 
* "Money." - Maria  Meza de la Vega, superintendent of the Ravenswood City Elementary School  District in California, when asked "How would you fix No Child Left Behind?"  
(September 9 San Francisco  Chronicle  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/09/MNVPS0GDN.DTL> )
 
* "I have a one-point plan for No Child Left Behind: Scrap it." New Mexico Gov. Bill  Richardson.
 (September 7 USA Today   http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070907/cm_usatoday/opposingviewnclbfailsourschools> )

* "The country's largest teachers' union, the  politically powerful National Education Association, would like to see the law gutted. Fortunately, the chairman of the House education committee, George  Miller, Democrat of California, has resisted those pressures."  New York Times editorial board.  
(September 7 New  York Times   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/opinion/07fri1.html?hp> )
 
* "The  Constitution gives the federal government no authority whatsoever in education. The results of NCLB prove how wise the Founding Fathers were to keep the federal government out of schools."  Neal McCluskey, education policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
(September 6 Cybercast News Service   http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200709/POL20070906a.html> )
 
* "NCLB's remedy provisions bear all the marks of concessions to various ideologies, advocates,  and interest groups, with scant attention paid to how they fit together, the  resources or authority they require, or whether they could be sensibly deployed through the available machinery."  Frederick M. Hess of the American  Enterprise Institute.
(September 4 FrontPage Magazine    http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=14E3B112-04EA-4322-B888-B99CEE51AB39> )
 
* "Suggesting that NCLB 1.0 is flawed because it did not explicitly provide, back in 2001, for 'growth models' is like saying my 2001 desktop was a bad buy because in 2007 it can't run Windows Vista or streaming video. Virtually none of the states had the technology and other capacity to design and implement  growth-measurement systems in the early years of this authorization."  Dianne Piché, executive director of the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights.
(Fall 2007 Education Next   http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223561.html> )
 
* "But letting schools off the hook is not the answer. Nor is letting them go their own way.  Instead of multiple measures, the discussion should be about national  measures."  Washington Post  editorial board. (September 10 Washington Post   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901404.html> )
 
* "Finally, we must do everything possible to place a highly qualified teacher in every classroom by providing financial incentives to teachers in the most difficult schools and expanding professional development opportunities."  Reg Weaver,  president of the National Education Association.
(September 10 Washington Post   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901247_2.html> )
 
* "I cannot claim to be a good teacher simply because I have a master's in education, two licenses and eight years of experience. I can claim to be a good teacher only if the data demonstrate that my students have learned." Jason Kamras, 2005 National Teacher of the Year.
(September 10 Washington Post   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901247_5.html> )
 
Finally, not even  death can silence opinions on NCLB:
 
* "No one can say for sure, but having spent the past several years researching and writing a  biography of Shanker, I believe he would have backed the basic thrust of No  Child Left Behind  -- greater resources in return for greater accountability -- but would have fought to change several of the federal law's deviations from his original vision for standards-based reform."  Richard D. Kahlenberg,  author of Tough Liberal, a  biography of the late American Federation of Teachers President Al Shanker.  
(September 5 Education Week   http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/09/05/02kahlenberg.h27.html> )

Save School Standards

Kudos to the Washington Post for this forceful, spot-on editorial:

THE DEBATE on No Child Left Behind  begins in earnest this week, and the outcome will be determined by one fundamental question: Does this country want to make schools better -- or just make schools look better? If Congress is true to the noble idea that all children, no matter their races, family incomes or circumstances, can learn to  read and do math, it must reject suggestions that make a charade of standards  and accountability.

---------------------
Save School Standards
Congress should resist attempts to water down the No Child Left Behind law.
Washington Post editorial, Monday, September 10, 2007; A14

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/09/AR2007090901404.html

THE DEBATE on No Child Left Behind begins in earnest this week, and the outcome will be determined by one fundamental question: Does this country want to make schools better -- or just make schools look better? If Congress is true to the noble idea that all children, no matter their races, family incomes or circumstances, can learn to read and do math, it must reject suggestions that make a charade of standards and accountability.

Comments on Al Shanker

A friend with some comments on Al Shanker's book:

I don't know if you have read Tough Liberal yet, but I wanted to highlight
two things that I find in common with Al Shanker's thinking as outlined in
the book.

Maybe you  will find these interesting to include in posts to your list.

1.   National Standards

Shanker declared national standards to be a critical  part of assessing
student and teacher performance.  He compared the current system to the
Soviet economy, and demanded national standards in order to introduce choice
and accountability.  He was disappointed when the first Bush backed down due
to opposition from conservatives worried about political correctness, and unions
worried about  accountability.  If he were still alive, he presumably would be  
disappointed that the second
Bush's NCLB watered down standards to be state-based.

2.  Student accountability

He was in favor of  teacher accountability so long as it was accompanied by
student  accountability.  No social promotions for Shanker, and penalties for
parents who did not support their kids' learning.  He objected to the idea
of blaming teachers for all problems, as he felt that this let parents and
students off the hook.

Amazingly, putting #1 and #2  together made Shanker probably the most
forceful proponent of high stakes testing out there.

I think some of his ideas were crazy (like peer  review), and his love of
power drove him to do bad things, but he is an interesting precedent to
think about.

-------------------------

Boston schools ring in resolve

.

The new super in Boston sounds great!  In favor of charter schools and shutting down failing schools.  "The monopoly is over.  We have to earn the right to serve the kids next door." -- WOW!  (And kudos to the (very liberal) Boston Globe for throwing its full weight behind her.)

AS THEIR CHILDREN return to school today, Boston parents  should feel reasonably assured that new School Superintendent Carol Johnson is  in the right chair. Despite the complexities found in a large urban school  district, there isn't much that is likely to rattle the 59-year-old former  head of the Minneapolis and Memphis school systems.
 
Bostonians should warm quickly to Johnson's easy smile and  non-defensive posture. But it would be foolish to underestimate her resolve.  She closed eight schools in Memphis, a strategy that could be necessary here  if enrollment continues to fall. Her attitude toward independent charter  schools is instructive. Unions and school boards resent the competition. She  doesn't. "The monopoly is over," says Johnson. "We have to earn the right to  serve the kids next door."

----------------------------

Boston schools ring in resolve
Boston Globe editorial, September 6, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/09/06/boston_schools_ring_in_resolve?mode=PF

AS THEIR CHILDREN return to school today, Boston parents should feel reasonably assured that new School Superintendent Carol Johnson is in the right chair. Despite the complexities found in a large urban school district, there isn't much that is likely to rattle the 59-year-old former head of the Minneapolis and Memphis school systems.

Congress Approves Student Loan Bill

This is great news!

“It’s an industry where we’ve seen exceptional and enormous  profits at the expense of taxpayers,” said Luke Swarthout, a specialist in  higher education at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “I don’t know how  e can treat banks as credible arbiters of what appropriate subsidies should  be.”
 
With the law, Congress is reducing federal subsidies to  lenders by roughly $20 billion and gradually halving the interest rate on need-based student loans over the next four years. Some $11.4 billion of that money will go toward stepping up Pell grants.
 
For the first time, the government will now auction off the  right to make federally-backed educational loans to parents in each state,  instead of setting the rate from Washington. The two lowest bidders will win the right to make subsidized college loans to  parents.

---------------------

September 7, 2007
Congress Approves Student Loan Bill
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/diana_jean_schemo/index.html?inline=nyt-per>

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 — Congress gave final approval to a broad overhaul of federal student loan programs today, sharply cutting subsidies to lenders and increasing grants to needy students.

Really Leaving No Child Behind

I hope you're sitting down, but believe it or not, the NYT editorial page wrote a great editorial on NCLB yesterday:

If all of the nation’s children are to get  the education they deserve, Congress needs to strengthen the No Child Left  Behind law. Mr. Miller’s draft contains some important reforms that deserve to  become law, but much of that good will be undermined if states, schools and  teachers are not held accountable for the quality of education they  provide.

-------------------------
September 7, 2007
NY Times Editorial
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/opinion/07fri1.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/07/opinion/07fri1.html>

Really Leaving No Child Behind
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 set ambitious new goals when it required the states to improve public schooling for all students — and to educate poor children up to the same standards as their affluent counterparts — in exchange for federal aid. The country still has a long way to go to reach those goals. And they will never be met if Congress, which must now reauthorize the law, backs away from provisions that hold schools accountable for how well and how much children learn.

The Battle of the Schools

I just ordered this book about Shanker and look forward to reading it:

 Teachers' unions may now be at the height of their unpopularity.
 
This spring, not only did President Bush's first education secretary, Rod  Paige, march out a book warning of their "death grip" on American schools, but  the New York  City Schools Chancellor, Joel  Klein , privately told Mr. Paige that his critique was too kind. By fighting for what is best for teachers rather than what is best for students,  the unions have become a "worm in the apple" of American schools.
 
So it might come as a surprise that "Tough Liberal: Albert  Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy" (  Columbia University Press, 552 pages, $29.95) -- a biography of the man who  made teachers' unions the political powerhouses they are today -- is an  unapologetic appreciation of Shanker. Richard  Kahlenberg proclaims Shanker, who led the New York City teachers' union  between 1964 and 1974 and then the national American Federation of Teachers until his death in 1997, the best and most important educator since John  Dewey...
 
Going against the immediate  interests of his members, Shanker would also fight for educational innovations such as higher pay for teachers who performed better, charter schools that would be free from district bureaucracies, and strict national standards in  schools.

This history is an important revision to critiques of teachers' unions that are now at risk of solidifying into dogma: The presumption that what is best for teachers is never the same as what is best for children. As Shanker's life bears proof, the presumption is untrue. A coalition behind the "tough-liberal" principles Shanker supported -- causes such as high educational standards, better pay for more accomplished teachers, more innovation through charter schools, and tough requirements to stay in the profession -- could include teachers as well as business-minded reformers such as Messrs. Paige and Klein.  Giving up on teachers' partnership would be a foolish shot in the foot.

------------------------


The Battle of the Schools
By ELIZABETH GREEN
September 4, 2007

http://www.nysun.com/article/61808

Teachers' unions may now be at the height of their unpopularity.

School District Has Dress Code, and Is Buying the Uniforms, Too

Interesting that there's no debate at all over whether there should be uniforms -- just over who should pay for them:

“If we expect high-quality academic achievement in the Elizabeth  schools, not only do we need the staff and the materials, the kids need their  uniforms.”

But some critics have questioned whether the district should  be getting into the clothing business while schools are facing budget cuts and  state lawmakers are under pressure to reduce property taxes. Jerry Cantrell,  president of the New Jersey. Taxpayers Association and a former school board president in Randolph, said that while he did not oppose school  uniforms, he considered it “overkill” to provide them free to every  student.

“Spending taxpayer money across the board for even those who  can afford it is going above and beyond,” Mr. Cantrell said. “If we’re ever  going to get a handle on the out-of-control tax situation in New Jersey and elsewhere, you have to focus on where the spending is and prioritize  it.”

As schools across the country have moved toward stricter dress  codes, some parents have objected to the cost of buying the prescribed outfits, typically solid-color shirts and khaki pants or skirts.

-------------------

School District Has Dress Code, and Is Buying the Uniforms, Too


By WINNIE HU
September 4, 2007
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/nyregion/04uniforms.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/nyregion/04uniforms.html>

ELIZABETH, N.J., Aug. 30 — Many public schools are supplying their students with an ever-growing list of essentials that go far beyond textbooks to include scientific calculators, personal laptops and free breakfast.

As New Orleans restarts its schools, most are now charter schools

An article about charter schools in New Orleans.  No surprise that the old guard is trying to excuse their chronic, catastrophic failures -- and playing the race card:

Jackie Cockerham, a 32-year veteran of New Orleans schools, is one of  thousands "still hurting" from the mass pink-slipping of teachers after the  storm. They argue that their schools were, in fact, not the worst in the  state, and were held to different and often arbitrary standards. After the  storm, says Ms. Cockerham, New Orleans' black teachers were the victims of an  ideological drive by elitist – and mostly white – pro-charter advocates who  now control the central office.

--------------------------------

As New Orleans restarts its schools, most are now charter schools
Since hurricane Katrina, the city has been determined to reform one of the nation's worst school districts.
By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
September 4, 2007

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0904/p01s08-ussc.html

NEW ORLEANS - In three New Orleans neighborhoods, young teachers and administrators at charter schools are preparing with haste for the doors to swing open Tuesday.
In the diverse community of Algiers, rookie principal Meredith Summerville relishes a daunting directive: In one week, open a school.

The NAACP at a Crossroads

As I read this Op Ed from yesterday's WSJ, I was thinking to myself, "Who's this right-winger saying these politically incorrect things about the NAACP?" -- and then saw that it was written by the executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former assistant national director of the NAACP!  This is 100% spot on:

Third, the  NAACP must make public education the civil-rights issue of our times.  Everything else will fall into place if young blacks overcome illiteracy, stay  in school, and are inculcated with a love for learning and for the pursuit of  excellence instead of trained to accept mediocrity and quotas as a means of  social advancement.
 
Holding school authorities accountable --  including black teachers and black-dominated school boards such as in Newark,  N.J., and Washington, D.C. -- must be the priority. That means tutoring pupils  and coaching teachers so that they pass standardized competency tests, and eschewing notions that such examinations are "culturally biased."
 
A revamped NAACP should not accept any alibis for  blacks' academic underachievement. It would take the lead in answering those black educators and their paternalistic allies who develop ghetto industries for grants and careers explaining blacks' deficits. It would confront  separatist schemes such as "black paradigms" of learning and Ebonics as the  language of Africans in America.

--------------------------
The NAACP at a Crossroads
By MICHAEL MEYERS
September 4, 2007; Page A17
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118887208717816561.html

The highlight of the NAACP convention in Detroit this summer was a symbolic burial ceremony for the n-word. In other words, the nation's oldest, largest and once-fierce champion of civil rights has been reduced to staging publicity stunts.

Maureen Dowd appears to skewer Sen. Obama in her Op Ed in today's NYT, but I actually think she's trying to help him.  She is basically telling him that his strategy against Sen. Clinton is flawed and that he will lose to her by a large margin unless it changes.  I think she's right.

This pundit, for one, needs hope as much as any American these days. But the only time I roll my eyes is when my hope is dashed that Obama will boldly take on Hillary, making his campaign more than cameras and mirrors and magazine covers.

How about boldly tackling the education issue?  It's not too late to recover from the pandering at the NEA convention.  For starters, stop bashing NCLB, which has done more for low-income, minority kids than any piece of legislation in decades, and come up with a plan to improve and strengthen it rather than letting it be watered down. 

 

For ideas on what a truly bold speech would look like, see this one Mayor Bloomberg gave to the Urban League in late July: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/07/must-read-mayor-bloomberg-addresses.html.  Here was my commentary on it:

This speech by Mayor Bloomberg is absolutely brilliant and spot on.  The fact that he's a Democrat (regardless of what he officially calls himself) serves to further underscore how utterly lame the Democratic presidential contenders' speeches were to the NEA a couple of weeks ago.  Oh, how I long for the day when one of them has the guts -- and wisdom -- to give a speech on education like this one!

 

You're probably scratching your head, saying: "What do you mean by wisdom?  Wouldn't it be political suicide for any Democrat to say even 10% of this to the NEA?"

 

This is indeed true for Hillary -- she's the prohibitive favorite and doesn't need to take any risks, at least given today's polls.  Unless something significant changes, she can put it on cruise control, coast to the nomination and then run to the center.  Thus, if I were her political advisor, I'd have told her to give the exact speech to the NEA that she did -- pander like crazy and only stick a toe in the water on reform (kudos for briefly mentioning her support of charter schools) and then quickly pull it out (caveats on no financial harm to the school district).

 

But I don't know what the other candidates are thinking.  The only strategy I think will beat Hillary is to use jujitsu to take advantage of her greatest strength -- but also greatest weakness: that she (and her husband) own the machinery of the Democratic Party and are unlikely to rock the boat.  (In fairness, I think Hillary is more of a centrist and reformer than people give her credit for, but it will be very hard for her to shake the perception that she's owned by special interests in the party.)

 

So the other candidates, facing the strong likelihood that Hillary's gonna steamroll them, need to take some risks and show that they're different and have courage by tackling some entrenched interests in their own party.  What better issue to do this than education?  More and more people understand that the system needs reform and who could argue with the ideas Mayor Bloomberg highlights below?  Who's going to criticize raising teacher salaries 43% if it's accompanied by accountability and reform?  Who (other than hard-core unionistas) thinks teachers shouldn't be evaluated, like everyone else in the country?  And who would oppose using these evaluations when making tenure, promotion or pay decisions?  And who thinks it should be nearly impossible to fire an ineffective teacher?

 

There's even a model in place for the candidates seeking to beat Hillary: her husband!  He was an obscure former governor of Arkansas running 5th in the polls, but was able to position himself as a New Democrat in part by embracing welfare reform and rode it all the way to the White House.

 

The parallels between welfare reform then and education reform now are striking: in both cases, they are emormous governmental systems that low-income minorities are especially dependent on -- but are increasingly screwed by.  In both cases, the systems initially worked reasonably well, but over time morphed into ever larger, unwieldy, unaccountable, bureaucratic and politicized monstrosities, with powerful, well-organized, well-funded, deeply entrenched interest groups defending the status quo.

 

Both issues are owned by the Democratic Party, but as the systems' failures became more widespread and well known, Republicans became more and more vocal in calling for reform -- and began to gain real political mileage from it.  Meanwhile, the entrenched interests wove themselves deeply into the Democratic Party and turned the party into the primary defender of the increasing indefensible status quo, even as the systems did increasing harm to the most loyal -- and vulnerable -- constituents of the party.

 

Republicans calling for reform were dismissed as having bad ideas (sometimes true), caring about the issue only for political gain rather than really caring about poor people/kids (also sometimes true) and/or attacking poor people or teachers, while Democrats who embraced reform were villified and called pawns of Republicans.

 

But one day, a very smart Democratic politician came along and said that embracing welfare reform -- in some ways, stealing the Republicans' best ideas -- was both the right thing to do and the politically smart thing to do -- both for himself and the party.  Think about it -- who gets credit for welfare reform: Bill Clinton or the Republicans who were pounding on this issue long before he was?  And note that the Democratic Party is no longer losing voters by being typecast as the party defender welfare queens.

 

So when will one of the Democratic contenders wake up and smell the coffee?  I'm not holding my breath based on what I heard from the NEA convention -- maybe we'll have to wait another four or eight years -- but the optimist in me says it's still very early so stay tuned...

-------------------------

 

September 5, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

The 46-Year-Old Virgin

By MAUREEN DOWD

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/opinion/05dowd.html

WASHINGTON

Barack Hussein Obama squinted into the New Hampshire sun to read a new speech on his teleprompter Monday and turned into William Jennings Bryan.

It isn’t a good fit. Obama is many things, but the Great Commoner ain’t one of them. Bryan gave a Cross-of-Gold speech, and Obama gave a Cross-of-Media speech.

Reeling In the College-Bound

I've become convinced that the rise of the private student loan industry, while helping some students, has totally screwed many, many others such that there needs to be major reforms in regulations.  For example, I'd favor legislation that prohibits private lenders from lending to students until they have verified if a student qualifies for a cheaper federal loan and, if so, if students have maxed out and, if not, informing the students of this and require them to sign a waiver if they still want to take out private loans.  Sounds onerous (and why not require this of people who foolishly carry high-interest-rate credit card loans when they have other assets they could use to pay it off?), but this is different for two reasons: a) students are young and inexperienced and
b) private lenders benefit from all sorts of favorable government policies that guarantee student debt and (insanely) don't allow the cancellation of student loans in a bankruptcy filing.

The student loan industry could be in for more jolts. Policy makers and  regulators say that there are dangerous parallels between the private student  loan and subprime mortgage markets. In both, there have been phenomenal  profits, aggressive marketing and, until the recent credit market turmoil, a  healthy appetite from Wall Street investors.
 
And, as was seen in the subprime market, many student loans that were made  in the last couple of years are resetting at much higher rates.
 
Benjamin M. Lawsky, who is leading the state attorney general’s  investigation of student loans, says that certain practices in the business  give rise to many questions. “Are lenders making responsible loans?” he asks.  “Or are they just saddling people with debt they will not be able to  repay?”
 
In the last few weeks, Mr. Cuomo’s office has started a broader inquiry  into the industry’s marketing tactics, according to people close to the matter  who did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to speak  about a continuing investigation...
 
Industry analysts say that students  who seek private funding from a mail or Internet offer — the very business  that Mr. Meyers helped start through First Marblehead — can wind up paying  unnecessarily high rates and fees. While decades of deregulation have allowed  lenders to offer students and homeowners more loans through a broadening array  of financial products, those same forces have also curtailed government  supervision of possibly abusive practices in the lending business, critics  say.

-----------------------------
Reeling In the College-Bound

By ERIC DASH  <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/eric_dash/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
 September 2, 2007

ON a sunny June morning, Daniel M. Meyers stands at the helm of the gleaming, 60-foot racing yacht he bought several years ago with part of the fortune he had earned as a pioneer in the private student loan <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/student_loans/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  industry.

But I can sing!

The Education Gadfly with a well-deserved smack at this nonsense: ''a backlash [against the idea] that one test can be the sole indicator of a person's knowledge or qualification.''

But I can  sing!

All California asks of its twelfth-graders is to pass an exit exam (you get six tries!) that tests  ninth-grade standards in reading and seventh-grade standards in math.  Ninety-three percent of the class of 2007 passed it. Results from that class also showed rising success rates for African-American, Latino, and poor  youngsters. White and Asian students continue to pass at higher rates, though, and state supe Jack O'Connell acknowledges as much : ''We see some closing of  the achievement gap, but we still need to do much more.'' But despite the  mostly positive results, a few folks still insist that the exam requires too  much of students. Liz Guillen, who works at a civil rights law firm, detects  ''a backlash [against the idea] that one test can be the sole indicator of a  person's knowledge or qualification.'' The truth is this: If you can't read or  do math at middle-school levels -- and you have six chances to show that you  can -- that will be the sole indicator of your knowledge and  qualification. Sorry, but that's how the world works. Some in California need  to get with the program, stop denying reality, and chip in to get all kids up  to the exit exam's most minimum of minimum academic levels.
 
''California high schoolers improve on exit exam ,'' by Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, August 24,  2007
<http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=159702440&amp;u=1568132>
 
“Legislature revisits exit test ,'' by Jim  Sanders, Sacramento Bee, August 26, 2007
<http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=159702440&amp;u=1568133>

The manufactured crisis

The Education Gadfly with a response to the NYT article last week on the teacher-turnover crisis:

The manufactured crisis

It's  back-to-school season, which means it must be time for a prominent news outlet  to decry the teacher-turnover ''crisis.'' Enter the New York Times, whose front-page story quotes all the usual suspects saying all the usual  things. ''The problem is not mainly with retirement,'' explains the president  of the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. ''The problem is  that our schools are like a bucket with holes in the bottom, and we keep  pouring in teachers.'' Perhaps that's true, but with a national attrition rate of eight percent, is teaching really any worse than other professions that  attract lots of 20-somethings (see here <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=159702440&amp;u=1568126> )?   Some contend that fewer  teachers might even be a good thing. Nor is this challenge insurmountable.  Some districts are taking common sense steps like offering bonuses for  teachers in high-need fields or high-poverty schools. But others keep tripping  over their own impenetrable hiring bureaucracies and minimal support for new  teachers (who need more mentors like this.  Tim Daly, the new president of The New Teacher Project, explains, ''There isn't any maliciousness in this, it's just a conspiracy of dysfunction.''  Indeed.
 
For the Times piece (Sam Dillon, Aug. 27, 2007), ''With  Turnover High, Schools Fight for Teachers, go to:
<http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=159702440&amp;u=1568129> ,''

Australian comedy

The Miss Teen South Carolina brouhaha led an Australian comedy show to come to the U.S. and ask people on the street really tough questions like: "What religion is practiced in Israel?" (answers included Israelite, Islam and Catholic), "How many sides does a triangle have?" (0, 2 and 4), "Star Wars was based on a real story, true or false?", "How many world wars have their been?" (3), "What religion is a Buddhist monk?" and "Name a country that starts with U" (Yugoslavia, Utopia and Utah).  After watching this (and Jay Leno's equally hilarious running series called "Jay Walking"), it's even more clear than ever that our education system is failing more than just low-income minority kids...  Watch it and laugh (and weep):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp6_oFSh_ss <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp6_oFSh_ss>

Saying something nice about the teacher unions

It's Labor Day, so I'm going to say something nice about the teacher unions.  While I think they are, in general, obstacles to genuine reform, they are unfairly blamed by many for everything that is wrong with our schools.  They are certainly easy targets for reformers to rail against, but I've never heard a good answer to my response: "Look at schools in Houston, for example, where the teachers union is very weak -- not much more than a professional association.  The schools there are every bit as awful as those in other big cities with strong unions, so what makes you think that if the union went away tomorrow that things would get any better?"  My point (to paraphrase Bill Clinton): It's the system stupid!  There's a bit of chicken-or-egg, but I think, in general, the unions are not the cause of the dreadful system but rather the result of it.  Go back and look at the history of teachers unions and you'll see that they rose in response to a system that treated teachers horribly, discriminated against women and minorities, etc.  To a large extent, sadly, we got the unions we deserve.  And once this vicious cycle begins, it's really hard to break.

Democrats Try to Soften Bush's Education Law

As much as I oppose President Bush for his bungling of the Iraq War, I support him on keeping NCLB strong rather than watering it down and selling out kids our schools are failing.  These critiques are exactly right:

But in a sign of the difficult political calculus in extending a measure that has opponents on both the right and the left, for every supporter of the proposed changes there has emerged an opponent.

Amy Wilkins, vice president of the Education Trust, a rights  group, said the authors were succumbing to pressure from “well-financed and  ill-informed defenders of the status quo.”

“The heart of the law has been hollowed out,” said Ms. Wilkins, who helped draft the original in 2001.

Michael J. Petrilli, a former Department of Education official who is a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, has nicknamed the education committee’s draft “The Suburban Schools Relief Act of 2007” because  he says it is intended to appease the middle class.

Samara Yudof, a spokeswoman for the education secretary,  Margaret Spellings, said, “We have serious concerns that the draft creates  loopholes in accountability measures, provides fewer options for parents, increases complexity and provides less transparency.”

“We will not support measures that water down the  accountability provisions,” Ms. Yudof added.

-----------------------------
Democrats Try to Soften Bush’s Education Law
By SAM DILLON
Published: September 1, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/washington/01child.html

As Congress returns next week, leading Democrats are struggling for the formula that can attract bipartisan support to extend the life of President Bush’s education law, No Child Left Behind. In doing so, they are proposing to ease the pressure on suburban schools.

Va. school tries longer academic year to boost pupil achievement

It's good to see that more and more schools, districts and even states are moving to a longer academic year.  I think it should be mandatory for schools in which, say, more than 33% of kids are reading or doing math below grade level.  I think I heard this from KIPP: "We have a school system in which time is the constant and achievement is the variable.  It should be the reverse."  Hear, hear!

While it's the start of the school year  for most American students, children at Barcroft Elementary have been at their  desks for nearly a month - and they're fine with that.
 
The suburban Washington school is among 3,000 across the nation that have  tossed aside the traditional calendar for one with a shorter summer break and  more time off during the rest of the year. The goal: preventing children from  forgetting what they have learned.
 
Barcroft's principal, Miriam Hughey-Guy, pushed for the new calendar in  hopes of boosting student achievement. She had read studies showing the toll a  long summer break takes on what students remember, and she figured that  shorter breaks also would help the school's many immigrants keep up their  English skills.
 
Tests administered in the spring and fall show that children generally  slide in math and reading during the traditional summer break lasting 10 to 12  weeks, says Harris Cooper, director of the education program at Duke  University. Both poor students and their wealthier counterparts lose math  skills, and pupils from low-income families also decline in reading. More than  half of Barcroft's students are poor.
 
There hasn't been rigorous research into whether students at schools where  summer breaks are short do better than children attending other schools. But  existing comparisons suggest that the modified calendars have a small positive  effect on student achievement. The impact appears to be somewhat bigger for  low-income children.

------------------------

Va. school tries longer academic year to boost pupil achievement
1-month summer break suits pupils, parents, teachers
Associated Press  |  September 2, 2007

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/02/va_school_tries_longer_academic_year_to_boost_pupil_achievement/

ARLINGTON, Va. - While it's the start of the school year for most American students, children at Barcroft Elementary have been at their desks for nearly a month - and they're fine with that.

Mistaking Attendance

 An excellent article about the chronic truancy problem in the U.S.:

HERE’S a math problem only truant officers  will get right: How is it possible for many school districts in America to  report both that average daily attendance is better than 90 percent and that  almost 30 percent of students miss a month of school annually?

---------------------

September 2, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors
Mistaking Attendance
By HAROLD O. LEVY and KIMBERLY HENRY
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/opinion/02levy-1.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/opinion/02levy-1.html>

HERE’S a math problem only truant officers will get right: How is it possible for many school districts in America to report both that average daily attendance is better than 90 percent and that almost 30 percent of students miss a month of school annually?

Schools Wait, Teeth Gritted: Their Grades Are Coming

This is a powerful and important accountability step that will no doubt be roundly (and wrongly) criticized.  Here's how it will happen: in the first year, there will no doubt be a few hiccups in which a handful of schools are wrongly given bad grades -- inevitable when 1,400+ schools are being graded.  Those who oppose school ratings will then go nuts about these few isolated incidents, screaming and crying about how awful, unfair and unreliable the entire evaluation system is, all of which will be covered extensively by the gullible media.  Sigh...  Every public school in America should be be graded like this!

Judith Menken, the outspoken principal of the small Muscota  New School in Inwood, Manhattan, is bracing for  the moment when she will receive a stark appraisal of her school’s  performance, a letter grade of A through F. She is still debating whether or not she will read the report.

“I guess I’ll probably look at it,” said Ms. Menken. She expects a B, at best, she added. “I’m sure I’ll feel bad. People are going to  be very hurt and demoralized. It’s like a public embarrassment.”

Making good on a promise to hold educators more accountable for student performance, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will oversee the  distribution of report cards for each of the city’s schools next month. Each  school (and by extension its principal) will receive a letter grade in the  mail, and the grade and the data that led to it will be posted on the Web,  where parents can see and possibly stew over them.  

But this principal is wrong -- Bloomberg and Klein will not back down:

Back at the Muscota school, Ms. Menken, who has seen countless changes and reorganizations over the years, is holding  out hope that Mr. Klein will eventually abandon the grading system. “It’ll be  like everything else,” said Ms. Menken, who has worked in the New York City public schools for 36 years. “It won’t work, and they’ll chuck it.”  

-------------------

September 1, 2007
Schools Wait, Teeth Gritted: Their Grades Are Coming
By JULIE BOSMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/nyregion/01grades.html

Judith Menken, the outspoken principal of the small Muscota New School in Inwood, Manhattan, is bracing for the moment when she will receive a stark appraisal of her school’s performance, a letter grade of A through F. She is still debating whether or not she will read the report.

Crash Course; A Lens That Distorts; Testing the Limits of NCLB; Basically a Good Model

Here's a summary of four articles at:
<http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/8768237.html>

FORUM:
Will NCLB Hit the  Wall?

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223346.html
 
Congress hopes to finish work on the reauthorization of the No Child  Left Behind Act (NCLB) before the presidential primary season begins in  January 2008, though it is unclear whether that deadline will be met. The  six-year-old law was originally passed by Congress with strong bipartisan  support, but now faces opposition from both the right and the left. Can the  law be saved? The editors of Education Next join in the debate on NCLB’s  future, assessing the law’s shortcomings and prescribing what Congress should  do to avert a disaster.
 
Crash Course <http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223491.html>
Frederick Hess and Chester Finn argue that NCLB was bound to  crash and burn, since the machinery of the law is not powered by a coherent  model of educational change or a sound view of the federal role in education.  
 
A Lens That Distorts <http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223496.html>
Paul Peterson defends NCLB-style accountability but  challenges Congress to fix the measuring stick used to evaluate schools.
 
Testing  the Limits of NCLB <http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223531.html>
The real problem with NCLB, says Michael Petrilli,  is that it wrongly assumes the federal government can force recalcitrant  states and school districts to do their job well.
 
Basically  a Good Model <http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223561.html>
NCLB is a groundbreaking civil rights law that has already  improved the nation’s schools, counters Dianne Piché, who offers a vigorous  defense of the statute.

I think all four make good points, but agree most with Dianne Piche's take (she's on the board of Dems for Ed Reform):

No Child Left  Behind (NCLB) may be the most vilified act of Congress in modern  times. Just about anybody can find something in the law to get worked up  over: the testing rules, “highly qualified teachers,” funding shortfalls and  so on. It’s great fodder for presidential candidates, too, one of whom  recently went so far as to blame the childhood obesity problem on NCLB and to equate companies providing tutoring to low-income students to Halliburton.  Funny thing is NCLB is actually doing some good things for real people, many  of them students who historically have been shortchanged in our public  schools.
 
I was an early, proud supporter of the law, and I still am. My  civil rights colleagues and I fought for some of its tougher provisions, like  accountability for subgroups of students, the 2014 proficiency deadline,  requiring states to submit plans for the equitable assignment of teachers, and  providing a way out for kids trapped in failing schools. By now, most of the  criticism of NCLB — some legitimate but some ginned up by special interests opposed to real accountability — seems pretty old and tiresome.

-----------------------

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223491.html
Crash Course
By Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn Jr. <http://www.hoover.org/bios/finn.html>  

NCLB is driven by education politics

Enacted in 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) began with the resounding promise that every U.S. schoolchild will attain “proficiency” in reading and math by 2014. Noble, yes, but also naive, misleading, and in some respects dysfunctional. While nobody doubts that the number of “proficient” students in America can and should increase dramatically from today’s woeful level, no educator believes that universal proficiency in 2014 is attainable. Only politicians promise such things. The inevitable result is weary cynicism among school practitioners and a “compliance” mentality among state and local officials.

-----------------------------

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223496.html
A Lens That Distorts

By Paul E. Peterson <http://www.hoover.org/bios/ppeterson.html>  

NCLB’s faulty way of measuring school quality

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) put schools under the microscope by requiring that they report, annually, the test-score performance of students in grades 3 through 8, and, again, for grade 10. As President Bush said shortly before he signed the bill into law, “We need to know whether a curriculum is working. We need to know whether the teachers, the methodology that teachers use is working. We need to know whether or not people are learning. And if they are, there will be hallelujahs all over the place. But if not, we intend to do something about it.”


--------------------

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223531.html
Testing the Limits of NCLB

By Michael J. Petrilli

Implementation is not the problem

It’s popular in Washington to declare No Child Left Behind (NCLB) an excellent statute (even “99.9% pure,” as Secretary Margaret Spellings once claimed), but complain about its “implementation.” Many individuals on Capitol Hill and in advocacy groups appear sincerely to believe that with the right people calling the shots in the U.S. Department of Education, making good decisions, and acting wisely, the law could work as intended.

-------------------------------

http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223561.html
Basically a Good Model
By Dianne Piché

NCLB can be fixed

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) may be the most vilified act of Congress in modern times. Just about anybody can find something in the law to get worked up over: the testing rules, “highly qualified teachers,” funding shortfalls and so on. It’s great fodder for presidential candidates, too, one of whom recently went so far as to blame the childhood obesity problem on NCLB and to equate companies providing tutoring to low-income students to Halliburton. Funny thing is NCLB is actually doing some good things for real people, many of them students who historically have been shortchanged in our public schools.

NCLB is working, but it's 'a journey'

An interview with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings:

Q: You mentioned the 2,300 chronically underperforming  schools that have gone five years without meeting the NCLB  standards. Yet it seems that all they're doing is swapping an  assistant principal in and out or shifting the curriculum a bit. Meanwhile,  the states are throwing up their hands and saying, "We don't  have the money to fix this," and daring the feds to come in and do something.  So in the end, nothing happens, right?

A: That's one of the big issues in NCLB reauthorization. For  those schools, right now the menu and the statute of what constitutes  restructuring — real restructuring — is hugely anemic. It says charter,  re-establish, anything else you feel like. So the accountability trajectory in  NCLB actually gets less robust than more robust. The things that happen in the  early years are more vigorous than the anemic options later, which is why we  need to change it.

Q: So what should  change?

A: We need more intensity around these chronic underachievers.  The president believes that ought to be real school choice, tutoring, charter  schools. ... I mean, serious, serious intervention. So more intensive  resources, not only for those schools, but also for those schools at risk of  drifting that way.

---------------------

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/08/nclb-is-working.html
NCLB is working, but it's 'a journey'
Interview with Margaret Spellings

Question: NCLB has elicited frequent criticism from school administrators around the country. What are you hearing, and what is the best way to ease these concerns?

Answer: We're shining a bright spotlight on under-achievement in this country, and it makes a lot of grownups uncomfortable. No doubt about it. But that's the point. And, you know, the law is really very simple on its face. Test every kid every year. Disaggregate the data. Get them on grade level by 2014.

The Suburban Schools Relief Act of 2007

Here's something for you NCLB junkies: a nice summary of the latest from Congress from Mike Petrilli in The Education Gadfly:

One the main reasons NCLB is so controversial is because its  impact can be felt in every school system in the country, including those full  of middle-class voters. Previous versions of the Elementary and Secondary  Education Act (NCLB's official moniker) focused tough-love on failing inner  city schools alone. That's why most of the public never heard of it--and most  of the education establishment never went to war over it. (Remember that the  NEA is weakest in the cities, where the AFT represents most teachers.  Remember, too, that many suburban voters are represented in Congress by  Republicans remorseful that they voted for NCLB the first time around.)  

To be sure, appealing to the suburbs can also lead to worthy  policy revisions. Middle-class voters are probably most irked by the pressure  that NCLB puts on schools to narrow their curricula. (We're irked too.) The latest PDK/Gallup poll found that over half of  respondents believe that ''NCLB's emphasis on English and math reduced the  amount of instructional time spent in the local public schools for science,  health, social studies, and the arts.''

-----------------------
The Suburban Schools Relief Act of 2007

by Michael J. Petrilli <http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&amp;cmd=track&amp;j=159702440&amp;u=1568121>

The political strategy of George Miller and Buck McKeon, respectively the chairman and top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, has now come into focus: to get an NCLB reauthorization bill through Congress, appease the suburbs and those who represent them. This approach is smart and savvy and sometimes leads to good policies -- but may also leave lots of kids behind.

At issue is a just-released ''discussion draft of their proposal to update Title I, the massive federal program that currently provides $13 billion to the nation's schools in return for tough accountability measures. While leaving much of the current program intact, Miller and McKeon would make several important tweaks that would be felt most directly in the country's leafy suburbs. Surely, this is no accident.