"It's not fair to put complaints about the non-school-related elements of NYC’s multi-pronged anti-poverty program, OpportunityNYC, on Roland Fryer. The New York Mag story you link to is mostly about parts of the plan Roland has zero to do with. He is connected only with cash incentives around tests.Also, for the record, the ban on cell phones in NYC dates to 1988 (focused on pagers then)."
Neither of these reward-based ideas is necessarily bad, in my view at least, but someone get this guy a (better) handler and a brush-up on selection bias. When you're at the center of the storm, you just can't mess up like this. Or maybe there's more behind this that I don't know.
Meanwhile, the controversy of the city's effort to discredit Diane Ravitch continues with her response (here).
Sick of being told that scores are going up when you think they're really not? Well the cat is soon out of the bag, for 11 big urban districts at least (Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Cleveland; Houston; Los Angeles; New York; San Diego; and Washington, D.C.). A couple weeks from now the latest reading and math scores are coming out for some of the country's biggest districts. Called the urban NAEP, or TUDA, the new data will include trend lines going back to 2003, linked to NAEP. Based on NAEP data, not all of the nation's biggest cities are doing as well as their superintendents and mayors claim.
Chicago has a newish "grow your own" teachers initiative, as well as the nation's largest set of military-themed schools:
Grow Your Own Teachers US News & World Report
Tired of seeing first-year teachers flee to suburban schools, Illinois is spending $7.5 million to help people become teachers in underperforming schools in neighborhoods like their own.
Reading, writing, recruiting? Tribune
Chicago Public Schools, which already has the largest junior military reserve program in the nation, on Monday will commission the country's first public high school run by the U.S. Marines, much to the chagrin of activists who have fought to keep the armed services out of city
schools.
There's a big article in this week's EdWeek about universities' increasing efforts at school reform, focusing on the University of Chicago which currently runs several charter schools on Chicago's South Side. I know, I know. They're evil academic geniuses out to ruin a shining example of urban education and gut teacher job protections. I get it. Still, there are some tidbits you might want to check out. In addition to Chicago, Stanford University, the
University of California, San Diego, and the University of New Orleans are also running schools. And many other universities in other places are authorizing but not running charters. Hands-On Learning.
I didn't want to like the HBO documentary on the Little Rock Nine that's been playing over and over, and had been avoiding it (and most of the rest of the 50th anniversary coverage) thinking that I'd seen the footage before, knew that things hadn't changed that much, etc.
But the documentary (see segment above) spends most of its time following current students, and there's power in seeing the nearly complete (though not particularly hostile) segregation and disparate academic experiences that are still there. Here's a NYT review of the show. Check it out.
My favorite part of this PBS NewsHour segment on DC schools superintendent Michelle Rhee is where she talks about how seeing all the unused books and supplies in the central warehouse made her want to throw up.
Thanks to Whitney Tilson for uploading this. See part 2 here.
Erik Robelen's piece in EdWeek on small schools research recaps and deepens what most of us realized a few years ago: converting big high schools into small ones without making them truly autonomous doesn't necessarily get you very much, and there are tremendous pressures against autonomy in that kind of setting. That's what the Gates folks learned the hard way. Etc. None of it worth noting except then it occurred to me that the highly-anticipated (though not quite done) breakup of Locke HS in LA into Green Dot schools is in many ways just the same thing, except that the small schools are going to be charters. Is that enough of a difference? The researcher I talked to yesterday said probably not. Have other places experimented with charter conversions? Not that I know of.
Following up on Amy Waldman's excellent look at New Orleans schools (School Reform Hurricane), here are two contrasting views of how things are shaping up this fall:
History and Ideology Gang Up in New Orleans Dissent
New Orleans now has three “systems”: NOPS, with a handful of previously pretty good schools still functioning reasonably well; RSD, with approximately twenty schools, mostly in distress, educating about a third of the city’s public school students (and planning to open another six to ten campuses next year using modular buildings supplied by the private sector); and thirty-one charter schools.
New Orleans Activists Seek Educational Growth NPR
Some
A Successful Plan for Racial Balance Now Finds Its Future Uncertain
A Supreme Court decision from June could impact a racially balanced schools plan that has been maintained for 18 years by
Seeking Solutions for the Nation's Broken Schools NPR
Our public schools are in serious trouble, says Rudy Crew, superintendent of one of the largest school districts in the country.
Continue reading "The War Within The Charter Movement: Quality Vs. Choice" »
According to this article at EdWeek ( New Orleans Charters Fare Well in Testing), the first wave of tests results look good for some schools. Charter school students did relatively better than students in the state-run Recovery School District that Paul Vallas recently took over. In response, Vallas says he's implementing longer class days and better PD for teachers. There could be as many as 40 charters in New Orleans within the very near future, according to the article.
The main observation missing from today's NY Sun article on mayoral control (By 2009, Mayor's Control Of Schools Could End) is that going back is so tremendously difficult and unlikely. Mayors and their rivals are unlikely to support it, legislators who voted for mayoral control are unlikely to want to reverse themselves. Take Chicago, where not everything has gone well in the last 12 years but no serious effort to reverse the law has been mounted.
UPDATE FROM NYC DOE: "Our communications office has a staff of 14 (soon to be 13), which includes two secretaries. Not 29...I gave Sol the correct number during his research for the piece, but he choose to use the larger and incorrect figure. I don’t believe our communications staff is disproportionately large for an organization with 140,000 employees. You may feel differently, but Sol’s count is wrong in any case."
*Free Daily E-Mail Updates Now Available -- See The Yellow Box To The Right.*
Following up on the Boston Globe's story that Boston's famed pilot schools were screening students rather than taking all comers like everyone else (is supposed to). former Boston superintendent Tom Payzant (under whose leadership the pilots were started) said that he didn't know about the practice, either.
Writes Payzant: "Frankly, I was surprised that schools other than Quincy Upper and the Arts Academy had special requirements. Sometimes the Supt. is the last to know." Payzant said he'd tell the schools to cut it out, though perhaps allowing schools to require a parent visit upon acceptance so that they know what they're getting into. Payzant also says that he's criticized charters for not taking enough SPED and ELL, and that the pilots have done better with ELLs and were being "pushed" on SPED kids for several years. "I pushed them to address the special ed issue 4-5 years ago and insisted that they welcome students with disabilities. There has been a lot of progress on that front."
Adds current interim superintendent Mike Contompasis: "I do not believe that the pilots with the exception of Fenway continue to screen prior to the lottery process. I am informing the pilots again that these practices will cease effective in the coming year."
Dallas Morning News education columnist Josh Benton isn't the first to raise questions about Newsweek's High School Challenge Index (aka "Uncle Jay's List'), but the fact that two local Dallas high schools -- both in the same building -- got ranked #1 and #2 this year does give him an interesting perspective. In his column (here), Benton points out that at least some of the Dallas success is due to a local incentive program that pays kids and teachers for AP participation. In fact, Texas was the home of these AP incentive programs, which spread nationally and are now funded federally thanks in large part to my old boss, Jeff Bingaman, and Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Though I usually find articles in The Nation tiresome and predictable even when I agree with them, I knew I was going to like LynNell Hancock's recent article on school reform in New York City when she started out making fun of the word "granular," which is currently being over-used in certain circles when it comes to describing detailed data.
But it's not just that...
Continue reading "Capturing The Current School Reform Moment ... Down To The Granular Level" »
The first Cristo Rey schoolin the DC area is opening up this fall , according to Jay Mathews (UPDATE: Before School, A Cram Session on Work) -- a low-tuition private school model first tried out in Chicago 11 years ago and since spread to 19 other locations. Besides the fact that the kids work one day a week to help pay for their education, what makes Cristo Rey schools interesting is that they are one of the only private school models funded by a mainstream education philanthropy (in this case Gates). Here's a commentary I wrote about this for The Gadfly, and an article about the struggle to open a Cristo Rey in New York City a few years ago.
We're all already familiar with the idea of networks of charter schools (like KIPP) and small groups of private schools (Cristo Rey), but what about franchising magnet schools as well? That's the idea that Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan is apparently floating, according to this Catalyst Magazine article (here), which would "franchise" some of the city's most popular selective enrollment schools in order to create more seats for high-achieving kids. With varying degrees of success, Chicago already clones charter schools as a way to get around the charter cap.
All teachers in LA and Chicago want is to get paid on time -- and in the right amounts -- and not to have to write end-of year grades and report cards by hand. As Andrew Trotter describes in this EdWeek story (Glitches in Los Angeles Payroll System Spark Furor), problems switching to a new payroll system have been enormous, and so far at least neither the consultants (Deloitte) or the software maker (SAP) are accepting blame. In Chicago, the largely unreported problems include paychecks and student grades -- leaving teachers and parents in the lurch when it comes to finishing out the year, figuring out who has to go to summer school, and long lines in the summer heat.
Inspired by DC Mayor Fenty's surprise appointment of school reformer Michelle Rhee to head the District school system on Tuesday, elected officials across the nation have scrambled to announce their own hires from outside of traditional education circles: In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg on Tuesday evening fired Joel Klein and hired Teach For America Founder Wendy Kopp, despite the absence of any previous district experience. "She's been running the system for the past 10 years anyway," said Bloomberg in announcing the change. "We might as well make it official." New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin announced his plan to fire incoming chief Paul Vallas before he even starts, to be replaced by New Leaders For New Schools co-founder Jonathon Schnur. "I met him at a party and he seemed really smart," said Nagin. "Vallas is a nice guy, too, but I figure we should give this new generation of reformers a chance to show their stuff at running something."
So much for good news, I guess. According to this LA Times story, 17 teachers took back their signatures in support of Green Dot charters at Locke HS in LA, blocking the proposed conversion for now at least (District blocks Locke High's departure)."In hurried, closed-door faculty meetings, district officials tried to assuage frustrated teachers with sudden offers of increased authority and reforms. Officials also emphasized that, if the takeover went through, teachers would have to reapply to Green Dot for a job at the newly reconfigured Locke or transfer to another district school, and that Green Dot does not offer lifetime benefits provided by the district." LAUSD officials also reportedly told teachers that supporting Green Dot was essentially resigning from the district. Sounds like a strong-arm tactic to me, but what do I know.
There's a lot of talk about "human capital" these days, and that talk can get awfully dry. Out there in the real world, perhaps no one else besides Tomas Hanna epitomizes this trend.
A former career principal in Philadelphia, Hanna was brought into the central office to revamp teacher recruitment and retention, with the help of community groups and others that had focused on the teacher retention crisis. Now in Providence, Hanna is trying to do the same thing as [deputy] superintendent.
I met him recently, and he seems to have that elusive combination of school-level credibility and central office savvy, and knows how to switch back and forth to get things done.
OK, here's the deal: I find the articles, you read them. This time, it's a long look at Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's repeated failed efforts to win control over the district schools in a recent New Yorker (Fault Lines). Looks like a fascinating story of politics, ambition, and -- now -- onward and upward to gang violence as the new issue of the day.
In even the most troubled big-city school systems, I like to think that there are at least a few folks who have a combination of institutional knowledge, big-picture savvy, and organizational and interpersonal skills to get useful things done.
Sometimes these gems are old hands who have been in the system forever and somehow managed not to get crushed or narrowed or made mean. All they need is to have their energies and inner entrepreneur unshackled. Sometime they are newcomers, fresh out of biz school or somewhere else who manage to pick up what they need to know about how things really work (and a little humility for those who have come before them) while still pushing for changes that would otherwise not get done. They are generally marked by their ability to work up and down the system -- with the office next door, outside folks, school and classroom staff, and community groups.
However, they are few and far between -- and I know about precious few of them. I know a couple of folks at Chicago Public Schools who seem to fit the model. There's that new Denver superintendent and his deputy, who some think are a good mix. I hear about some folks inside the NYC Department of Education who might fit that bill. And I remember that there was someone in Philadelphia who got brought in from a school leadership position to do teacher recruitment. But that's about it. Anyone got any ideas?
For a while now, especially in Texas, reformers and advocates like Peyton Wolcott (here)have been calling on school districts to publish their check registers online so that everyone can see what they're spending their money on. However, as this Dallas Morning News article points out, not every district that is participating does it for the right reasons -- and not every check register is easy to find or to understand (here). Does your district post its checkbook online, and if so what does it tell you about how they're spending their money?
"District administrators had hoped the recommended logo — three student figures in red, white and blue beneath five stars in the frame of a big blue "D" — would bolster their efforts to improve the Dallas Independent School District's image. What came out, though, was "dull, busy and marred by student figures reminiscent of Pillsbury Doughboys," according to some trustees at DISD's board briefing." (Brand New: Dallas gets a "D" in Design)
As predicted, Paul Vallas is headed to New Orleans to help turn around the schools there. The contract details aren't out, but apparently he's going to start in July, make less than he did in Philadelphia, and, according to someone close to the negotiations, spend "as much time [in New Orleans] as it takes to make it a success." That last element -- the part-time superintendency -- could be problematic, not only because Vallas doesn't fly. I'm also not entirely clear about what Vallas' role will be with charter schools outside of the RSD system, which have (I think) been monitored in the past by the state. Will Vallas be running all, or just part of the NOLA schools?
When elected officials talk about "local control," they usually mean states and districts. But in some places, local control means really local -- like at the school level. It's a messy business, however, and in Illinois the Board and the mayor are now pushing changes so that elected school councils have to have approval before not renewing a principal's four-year contract (Chicago school leaders seek to limit LSC power Tribune). In New York City, the once-powerful parent councils that used to run the city's community school districts can barely scare up enough folks to fill the vacant seats (A Lack of Interest in New Systems School Parent Councils NYT).
Interesting to note that, at the same time, some reformers are talking about a new form of local control -- autonomy zones and such that would give school buildings more control over how they spend their money. But without, it seems, the community and parent oversight of the old school models.
Language Gap Mars Parent-Teacher Chats NPR
Federal law requires school districts to provide interpreters for parent-teacher conferences. But demand far outstrips the state and federal funds provided. How are schools adapting?
Mayor Revises Some Points of School Budget Proposal NYT
It will be harder for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to redistribute senior teachers more evenly across the school system.
Trouble Even in Choice Paradise Urban Institute
We explore the reasoning behind these low take up rates and utilize school transfer data provided by the district to suggest that, in the case of the school transfer option, the low participation is due to a restrictive timeline for choice and the inadequate signaling power of the AYP designations.
L.A. charter school sues radio station LA Times
A year-long feud between a talk radio personality and an L.A. charter school is ending up in an unusual court case.
It's hiring time again in a lot of big cities around the nation, and as contributor Regina Matthews finds out, no one's quite sure about what they're looking for:
What does a big city school system need in a schools chief? They're pondering the problem in Philly (What Sort of Leader for Schools? Philadelphia Inquirer) and in Boston (Replacing School Boss Tough Task Boston Globe), as Seattle picks a schools CEO (A Little Tutorial for New Schools Chief Seattle Times) and Detroit wonders what to pay a schools chief (Detroit Schools CEO… Detroit Free Press).
His name's Pedro Garcia (not "Gonzalez,: as he was once introduced by Senator Jim Sasser), and he is, according to this Nashville Scene article ( Best Foes Forever), the second longest-serving urban superintendent in the nation.
Who knew? Not I. Who's the longest-serving urban supe these days? No idea.
"Who do you think you are -- KIPP?" muttered one of the LA unified board members who voted down the Green Dot proposal to start eight new charters. No, not really, but they did vote down the proposal after lengthy negotiations, which has gotta hurt anyway (L.A. Unified rejects charter expansion LAT). The editorial board says the board did wrong.
To me, the most interesting point made in this impressive USA Today roundup of mayoral control from last week (More mayors move to take over schools) is the reminder that mayoral control has risen during a time of unusual mayoral longevity. What happens in places like Chicago and Boston and New York when City Hall isn't occupied by the same person for a long period of time? It's a good, though not immediate, question.
Read about L. A. Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa’s most recent power politics versus Los Angeles Unified School District (L.A. Board Race Hinges on Runoff EdWeek)…New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, having dismantled local school boards, may get less than stellar grades from some curiously nostalgic voters (New York City Public Gives Klein A Failing Grade Edwize)...In Philadelphia, officials try desperately to control school violence (As violence flares in schools, Street is a man of few words The Philadelphia Inquirer)... Chicago schools may be leading English language learners to improved test results (Latinos lift scores, shrink learning gap Chicago Tribune). Thanks to Regina Matthews
