Alan Gottlieb

The Shoe, the Gourd and School Integration

2012-03-20T14:46:53-04:00

I can think of no better preface to this piece than this wonderful clip from Monty Python's Life of Brian:

A lively comment stream last week on an Education News Colorado story about Denver's new SchoolChoice system prompted me to take a journey into the not-too-distant past. From 2001-2007, the second two-thirds of my decade at The Piton Foundation, I focused a lot of attention and a fair number of dollars on promoting socio-economic school integration.

I believed then, as I do today, that integrated schools serve society well in a number of ways. While I subscribe to the softer arguments about promoting diversity and tolerance, what I found most compelling were the data on how low-income students fare better in economically mixed schools.

I won't rehash the arguments here, but you can look back at some of the research I commissioned while at Piton. More here and here. Back in 2006 I wrote:

The more deeply one studies the topic, the more obvious the conclusion becomes: racially and socio-economically isolated schools are bad for low-income children...

...(A recent study makes) a compelling case that the current trend toward segregated schools works directly against efforts to close achievement gaps.

While I continue to believe in integration as a student achievement strategy just as strongly as I did a decade ago, new evidence has surfaced since then that has convinced me that integration is not the only strategy that can drive better results for low-income students.

I've seen a breed of schools develop that is succeeding with high-poverty high-minority populations. These schools didn't exist when the research I wrote about was conducted. I believe we need to support these schools and promote their growth and expansion. This is where I part company with some of my former allies.

At the same time, I believe we need to continue pushing hard for socio-economically mixed schools, ultimately a more scalable strategy than hoping the KIPPs and West Denver Preps of the world can spread far and wide without outgrowing their nimbleness and effectiveness. This is where I part company with some of those in the "ed reform" community.

So I haven't changed my mind, I have expanded it to see new possibilities without crowding out my old, strongly held beliefs. In so doing, I've experienced first-hand how dug in people are on various sides of the education reform debate, and how unwilling some are to take seriously the validity of other points of view.

On one side, people seem to view charters and school choice as segregating forces and therefore inherently inequitable. Last week, on the aforementioned comment stream, Mary Naninga, a teacher, wrote:

Children-all children-should attend their neighborhood public school (or enroll in private schools that they pay for themselves)... All this "choice" nonsense really does nothing but undermine the schools that need the most help-but I suspect, no I KNOW, that's really the entire point.

I replied that a slavish adherence to neighborhood schools in a segregated city leads to... you guessed it, segregated schools.

And retired Denver teacher Ed Augden has commented countless times (and not always accurately) on the Piton study I referred to at the top of this piece. Here's a representative example:

Exclusive charter schools are contributing to the growing inequity for poor and special needs students. Many qualified students are deprived of the opportunity to attend a school such as Denver School of Science & Technology (DSST). Equity must be achieved before any reform can succeed.

A shout-out here to DSST, which Augden unfairly maligns as exclusive. A commitment to diversity is baked into DSST's DNA, which is why the school holds a dual lottery to ensure that at least 40 percent of its students come from low-income households.

On the other side, there is a tendency to dismiss integration as a nice but naive strategy that will never be realized in most urban settings because not enough middle-class families send their kids to urban schools. Back in 2008, Alexander Ooms, a leading proponent of this line of argument, commented:

I wish I thought this was a viable idea, but I am afraid it only works in Districts that have low FRL numbers to begin with, and otherwise makes no difference. In urban systems -- for example DPS, which is about 2/3 FRL -- for every school that tries to "balance" socio-economic status (SES), some other school has to absorb it.

While Alex is right about the number, he's assuming the pie will always be the same size, when the most viable strategies for promoting integration focus on drawing new middle-class families into high-poverty urban districts and locating school options most attractive to them in lower-income neighborhoods.

Why is it so difficult for us to hold competing ideas in our heads? Why can't we push hard for integrated schools as a student achievement strategy and simultaneously support the "benign paternalism" model of charters that have demonstrated success with low-income kids? Why can't some proponents of integration stop themselves from trashing the charters, or finding reasons to dismiss their success? Why can't some advocates of these charters acknowledge that there may be a parallel path worth pursuing?

I hope no one out there is naive enough to presume that the answer lies in any one strategy; not shoe, not gourd, not neighborhood schools, not a portfolio of charters, not STEM, not fixing ed schools, not Teach for America, not revamping teacher evaluation. If only it were that simple.

If anything is clear, it's this: Unless and until people stop digging in and hardening their positions, the internecine war will continue and the hope for real change and improvement on a large scale will wither away.

On "Teacher-Bashing"

2011-10-04T10:58:52-04:00

I attended an education reform conference last week as part of a panel on the "new media landscape" before a group of advocates and funders. I had the chance to sit in on a few other sessions, and some of what I heard got me thinking about the phenomenon of so-called "teacher-bashing."

Like many phrases tossed about in the current education debate, "teacher-bashing" is overused to the point of abuse. Up to now, I've tended to side with education advocates who scorn the phrase because it's trotted out by teachers' union spokespeople and their allies whenever someone criticizes a contract provision, or tenure, or speaks in favor of using standardized test scores as part of a teacher's evaluation.

But the more I listen to the way some "reform" advocates talk about teachers, the more I hear an underlying disdain that helps me understand why some educators are quick to trot out the "teacher-bashing" canard.

Here's the crux of the problem as I see it. People who denigrate some teachers for not being good enough to meet society's current educational demands are aiming their disdain at the wrong target.

Rotate your perception about 90 degrees and you'll see it differently. Yes, there are ample studies and reports that find a large percentage of today's teachers come from the lower third of their college graduating class. There are also compelling new studies that show schools of education are guilty of rampant grade inflation. To top it all off, teacher licensing exams in most states are calibrated so low that few people fail them.

Add those factors together and what you get in the aggregate is a teaching force that consists of people who have not had to demonstrate a great deal of skill, knowledge or capability to land a teaching job. Within the teaching force are many people who, despite not having had to demonstrate it, are in fact skilled, knowledgeable and highly capable.

But there are others who aren't particularly skilled, knowledgeable or capable (or some combination of the three). And because there are 3.2 million teaching jobs in U.S. public schools and our quality-control systems are dysfunctional or non-existent, some of those people get teaching jobs and spend their careers teaching.

Are they to blame for this? Of course not. Yet this is where the "teacher-bashers" enter, and where those who criticize the bashers have a legitimate point. It's absurd to blame someone for landing a stable job with decent pay and great benefits for which they perhaps aren't qualified. We're blaming the wrong people. If we want in the aggregate to have a higher-quality teaching force then we need to do a couple of basic things.

First, we need to make schools of education less academic and more geared to realities of modern classrooms. Then we need to make those ed schools more selective.

Next, we must make teaching jobs more desirable by offering teaching candidates a relevant, high-quality training regimen (teacher residency programs, for example), before they enter the field and throughout their teaching careers. And then we need to trust teachers and give them the kind of autonomy and authority that creative people need to feel fulfilled in their jobs.

Finally, we need to pay teachers what they're worth. Among other things, this means doing away with the traditional salary schedule.

Look, I'm not saying anything original here about how to make teaching a more desirable field.

But in the rhetorical wars that have broken out in recent years, some well-intentioned people have started blaming teachers for not being good enough when they should be blaming the institutions that have made teaching jobs in public schools both too easy to get and too often exercises in bureaucratic frustration.

Thoughts on Education Reform

2011-08-23T17:45:49-04:00

Having stayed out of the fray for several months working on the business end of EdNews, I've gained some distance and perspective on the flashpoints that have been dominating the education reform debate. From a freshly detached point of view, a few things seem clear to me. In no particular order:

Granted, it makes no sense to evaluate educators solely on how students perform on standardized tests, imperfect instruments at best. It makes even less sense, though, to escalate this to a generalized anti-testing frenzy, as some have done. Measuring progress and achievement is essential to improvement. So by all means, find some other measures to augment testing, and throttle way back on the test-prep and test-score obsession. But keep testing.

Both "sides" in the reform debate like to use Finland as an example of a country that has solved the public education puzzle. On one side, advocates point out that Finnish teachers are unionized, effective and well prepared. They are a respected and admired pillar of Finnish society. Advocates on the other side point out that the teachers in Finland have had to clear some high bars to get into the profession. It takes more than a pulse and an inflated grade point average to get a Finnish teaching license. Until we can figure out how to make teaching a true profession in this country, and attract a larger number of highest caliber applicants, our education system will not match Finland's results. What can we do to make teachers feel efficacious? How do we make teaching a career as appealing as engineering, law or medicine? And then what do we do about current teachers who wouldn't be able to clear the Finnish bar?

Some people skeptical about charter schools want districts to focus instead (or in addition to) on strong neighborhood schools. It makes a great political slogan. Many of these folks are self-identified progressives, who decry what they see as the segregating nature of some charter schools. So how can they reconcile this with their push to focus on neighborhood schools? Cities like Denver, with racially and socio-economically segregated neighborhoods, are, logically, going to have segregated neighborhood schools. Remember the Mitchell Montessori magnet in Northeast Denver? As busing ended in the mid-1990s, a small but vocal group of advocates demanded their neighborhood school back. The school board acquiesced, dismantling one of the most successful models of integration in the city. And Mitchell spiraled downhill, eventually closing.

Decades of research, beginning with the Coleman Report, have demonstrated conclusively that "out-of-school effects" have a huge impact on low-income students' preparedness and achievement. Yet there's something irresponsible about the way some people who oppose current reforms are using this credible research to raise a white flag and say you can't fix schools without first fixing poverty. What society in human history has "fixed" poverty? Currently we're heading 180 degrees in the wrong direction when it comes to attacking poverty. Yet pockets of hope have emerged in education. Saying poverty is the problem may be partly true, but it's a cop-out.

Growth measures for standardized test scores are a great leap forward in making school data meaningful. But amid the myriad spins placed on the data by districts and advocacy groups, let's not lose sight of the fact that "status" (just plain, old-fashioned scores) matter as well. A high growth trajectory for a kid who started out several grade levels behind won't necessarily get him/her to promised land of proficiency. Growth should augment but not replace status scores.

Just because a school seeks innovation status doesn't mean it has the tools to succeed. I'm awaiting the day when Denver says no to some of its weaker applicants instead of approving them all. Weak innovation schools undermine a potentially groundbreaking policy. I understand the "let a thousand flowers bloom" philosophy, but you have to make sure you start with healthy seeds.

The Douglas County voucher debate is a fascinating legal puzzle. But I'm still stuck on why, aside from ideology, an affluent, high-performing school district would push vouchers. Call me a mush-headed liberal, but the only compelling argument I've ever heard for vouchers is as an escape hatch for low-income kids stuck in abysmal urban schools with no viable public options available. I respect the commitment and fervor of friends to my political right, but in the end I come back to this question: Douglas County? Really?

Speaking of vouchers, Denver school board candidate Emily Sirota (running against Anne Bye Rowe in Southeast Denver) sent out an email last week warning that vouchers could be coming to Denver. Using some convoluted reasoning, Sirota said that because Democrats for Education Reform endorses her opponent, and some in DFER have said they support vouchers (though the link she provides is unclear on this issue), a victory for her opponent could mean vouchers here. Please. Vouchers in Denver? When pigs fly.

'Juking the Stats' in Denver Public Schools

2011-06-05T14:42:17-04:00

"Juking the stats. Making robberies into larcenies. Making rapes disappear. You juke the stats and majors become colonels. I've been here before." -- a cop-turned-teacher in HBO's series "The Wire," when asked to boost test scores.

Last week's article in Westword about abuses in Denver North High School's "credit recovery" program touched a nerve, and for good reason. It's a textbook example of kids being used to make adults look better.

There's no reason to believe the problems detailed in Melanie Asmar's story are limited to North. In fact I've received emails from people at other Denver high schools alleging similarly questionable practices. And the New York Times wrote a national story about credit recovery abuses in April.

I'm sure most of the adults involved -- heck, probably all of them -- allowed and in some cases encouraged kids to cheat on credit recovery homework and exams thinking it was in the best interest of those kids. So many studies, after all, have shown that young people's prospects improve significantly with a high school diploma.

If the diploma has been watered down to the extent that the credential becomes meaningless, though, then every graduate of North High School is hurt by this extreme manifestation of the "pobrecito syndrome" (as in "oh, these poor babies' lives are so hard we can't expect too much of them.")

There's also an element here of gaming the system for less altruistic reasons. Juking the stats doesn't just happen in "The Wire." It's exactly what happened in North High's credit recovery program.

For those of you who haven't read it, here are the main points from Asmar's story.

North began using credit recovery in 2008, when its graduation rate was 46 percent. The program allows students who have failed core courses to retake them online with adult supervision.

By 2010, North's graduation rate had jumped to 64 percent.

Asmar uncovered information from sources and records showing that kids and adults gamed the system, thereby increasing pass rates. Kids used search engines to find answers or took tests repeatedly until they got the right answers and then passed those answers on to friends. Adult supervisors said North administrators "encouraged and even helped" kids find ways to pass online tests.

North students in credit recovery could get a semester's credit simply by taking the credit recovery final exam for a given course, which caused Asmar's sources to wonder "whether they really learned anything at all." Yet a senior DPS administrator, Antwan Wilson, was quoted by Asmar defending this practice.

There are many more depressing details in the story, but you get the drift.

It sure sounds like juking the stats to me. And, as in "The Wire," while it benefits some people, it hurts others. In this case, it's allowing students to graduate from high school without demonstrating in any meaningful way that they have learned enough to succeed in higher education or the job market.

The good news here is that plenty of caring teachers at North were outraged by the shenanigans and blew the whistle by calling Asmar. The bad news is that they resorted to this because they couldn't get any satisfaction inside their own building. Westword found emails showing that one mid-level administrator at 900 Grant Street knew students were using the Web to cheat, and urged the school to block those sites during tests. But apparently no one from the district followed up, and North kept the sites unblocked.

Once Asmar brought the issue to the district's attention, Wilson, DPS' assistant superintendent for post-secondary readiness, told her that the district would audit the transcripts of every North graduate over the past two years. But what will the district do with its findings? And what, exactly, can an audit prove?

It is incumbent upon the district to launch a major investigation into credit recovery practices in all its high schools. In the unlikely event that North proves to be an isolated case, the people found responsible should face harsh sanctions (Assistant Principal Nancy Werkmeister, identified in Westword as the administrator in charge of the program, recently retired, and the principal, Ed Salem, is leaving the district).

If, as seems more likely, the investigation uncovers similar problems in other schools, then the district needs to do a couple of things. First, it needs to tighten its implementation of the credit recovery program and write clear regulations about how credit recovery computer labs are monitored.

More important, though, the district leadership needs to do some soul-searching about whether the pressure exerted on high schools to improve graduation rates tacitly encourages school administrators to juke the stats to make themselves and the district look better.

Miraculously boosting graduation rates by giving would-be dropouts a meaningless diploma does no one any favors. And it sure doesn't make anyone look good -- quite the contrary.

Scandals of this sort call into question all the data the district releases trumpeting its improvement, and give fodder to the district's relentless critics. Does DPS release the numbers without vetting them? Does it cast a beady eye and investigate suspicious jumps in test scores and graduation rates at specific schools?

I hope so. If district officials believe in statistical near-miracles, then (to borrow a parable I once heard) they are like the man who gains 50 pounds, can't fit into his clothes, buys a much larger pair of pants, finds that they fit well and proclaims, "See, I'm in shape!"

Flickr photo by _naveen_

Are Researchers and Policymakers Oil and Water?

2011-03-23T17:46:21-04:00

Last month I wrote a blog post about my lack of confidence in educational research, some of which strikes me as politicized. My basic point was that in some cases you could read only an author or think tank's name and guess a study's conclusions with a high degree of accuracy.

As you might imagine, the post created a stir. I had some stimulating conversations with Kevin Welner, a University of Colorado education professor and director of the National Education Policy Center, which I mentioned in my post. Our discussions were (to use diplomats' language) frank and open and at their conclusion we decided this was an interesting enough topic to merit a broader conversation.

On Monday, we convened a group of nine people for a two-hour discussion about research, policy, politics and the media. We agreed that the conversation would be off the record, so I can't say who attended. Let's just say it was an interesting mix of academics and policy folks.

We did not solve the research and policy worlds' problems. In fact, if anything, I left the conversation feeling more downcast than encouraged. But I came away with a better understanding of researchers' perspectives, and why it is so difficult for advocates and policymakers to use research well.

Here are my undoubtedly over-simplified interpretations of some of the main points that emerged:

Research by its nature is reflective and not oriented toward action. As one participant put it, good research consists of paying attention to what happened in the past, with the aim of avoiding the mistakes of the past. "Research more often describes the problem than effectively prescribes the solution."

From a researcher perspective, policy is "often (recklessly) ahead of what we know."

From a policy perspective, research often isn't timely enough to have an impact on the policy debates of the day. "It takes decades for consensus to form around research findings, and for real knowledge to emerge."

While most researchers would not classify themselves as political advocates, "our values guide the questions we ask."

Some researchers, though, have crossed the line and have taken on more of an activist role. "Their research is pretty predictable," one participant said.

Most policymakers, though, "lead with their values, not with research findings."

From the perspective of some of the academic researchers in the room, the combination of policymakers, advocacy groups and media outlets, all uncomfortable with nuance and ambiguity, form a toxic brew. While the best research lives in the gray areas, subtlety and nuance are the enemies of soundbites and ideologically-driven debates and policy fights.

Policymakers and advocates want definitive conclusions. Researchers shy away from yes and no answers. On controversial legislation like Senate Bill 10-191, the teacher effectiveness law, researchers' innate "caution is seen as trying to undo the intent of the legislation," one participant said.

Good academic research is by its nature reflective and deliberate. Hence the "ivory tower." Is it possible to bring research into harmony with a political and media culture that runs on adrenaline, competition and ideology?

It's hard to see how. One researcher at the gathering suggested that at more tranquil times on the political calendar -- summer in a non-election year, perhaps -- someone convene a group of researchers and policymakers to discuss in depth and detail the issues likely to emerge as hot-button legislative issues in the coming year.

Ultimately, we will never have a system that approaches the ideal. Policymakers will see some researchers as timid wafflers. The researchers will view those policymakers as impulsive and shallow in their policymaking.

However, at least one solution was proposed in passing that everyone seemed to like: Have the state legislature meet only every second or third year. That would allow time for deliberation and keep laws lacking a research basis from being passed just to justify the legislators' existence.

Now there's an idea worth pursuing.

Why I Don't Trust Education Research

2011-02-08T11:22:26-05:00

Research is hailed as the Holy Grail in the world of education. Starting a sentence with the words "research shows" is aimed at sticking a dagger in the heart of an opponent's argument. Increasingly, though, I am finding reasons not to trust education research.

Over time I have noticed that many researchers on the left and right invariably produce studies that support their ideological beliefs. This causes me concern.

Yesterday's release of a study by the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado on the Los Angeles Times' 2010 analysis of value-added ratings of L.A. teachers provides the latest example of why I'm cynical about research. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the study Due Diligence and the Evaluation of Teachers. Others have pointed out flaws in the newspaper's methodology, though the Times continues to defend its work.

What bothers me is this: NEPC is undoubtedly a think tank with a progressive, left-of-center bent. Looking through a list of the center's studies, I'm hard-pressed to find one that does not reinforce the beliefs of people with that ideological inclination. Since December, I've received email alerts about NEPC studies casting doubt on charter schools quality, teacher evaluation methodologies, school report cards and international comparisons of U.S. student performance.

So when I hear NEPC has a new study, I know generally what its conclusions will be before I read it.

I know, like and respect Kevin Welner, the professor who heads NEPC. He used to write for this blog. I do not doubt his integrity. That's why I am puzzled by this phenomenon, which is by no means limited to NEPC.

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, I know Harvard's Paul E. Petersen will produce research favoring vouchers and charter schools. Ditto Jay P. Greene from the University of Arkansas.

What's wrong with this picture? I want to see one of these researchers or their think tanks produce a study that cuts against the grain; that calls into question the beliefs of the researchers and their funders. Until that happens, I will take everything they write with an enormous grain of salt.

I may disagree with some of researcher Diane Ravitch's conversion experience conclusions, but I credit her with having the enormous courage to rethink her positions and then go very, very public with her mea culpa and her change of heart.

Courting Disaster

2011-02-01T08:57:05-05:00

As a nation we have become adept at going to extremes to prevent the last disaster or near-disaster from occurring again. Isn't that why we must take off our shoes in airport security lines and can't carry more than a single one-quart baggie holding 3.4-ounce containers of liquid onto a plane?

It's easier to be reactive than proactive, I guess. It takes imagination and foresight to anticipate what might happen next.

Sometimes, though, a disaster in waiting stares us in the face and we continue to ignore it. That's the case with the alarming and growing shortage of nurses in schools. The decrease in school nurses occurs at a time when more kids with serious medical issues like asthma and diabetes are requiring regular assistance during school hours.

In many schools unqualified secretaries, teachers and administrators are helping kids with insulin monitoring and injections, blood draws and even feeding tubes.

"People used to chuckle at school nursing and say 'oh, that's just Band-aids and Tylenol,'" Kathy Patrick, the Colorado Department of Education's principal consultant for school health services said during an Education News Colorado podcast interview last week. "Not anymore."

It's only a matter of time before some awful and preventable tragedy occurs. Then the finger-pointing and hand-wringing will begin and we will all ask ourselves how did we ever let this happen?

"We think about this all the time as school nurses," Patrick said. "The potential is there for someone to act incorrectly or not act at all and have a child end up severely injured or dead."

Patrick said some states require districts to have nurses in all schools. Short of that, she said, districts could offer training programs for people who would like to become health aides in schools. Those people would need to be trained and supervised by a registered nurse, "but at least there would be someone in the building who has a little more expertise than the average staff person."

This way, someone with minimal training would be helping kids with what can be tricky and delicate procedures. As Patrick told me, you wouldn't want to be in the hospital and have the person who changes your bed performing medical procedures on you. Yet we seem comfortable, or at least blissfully unaware, that the equivalent is taking place in schools across the country every day.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2020 initiative recommends one school nurse for every 750 "relatively healthy" students, Patrick said. Given nursing shortages and school budget realities, that's probably not a realistic figure, she acknowledged. What the state would like to see is somewhere in the neighborhood of one nurse for every 1,200 students.

But look at these ratios, reported in last week's EdNews story by Rebecca Jones:

Adams 12 - 1 nurse per 4,936 students

Aurora - 1 nurse per 1,754 students

Boulder - 1 nurse per 3,500 students

Cherry Creek - 1 nurse per 735 students

Greeley - 1 nurse per 3,271 students

The high ratios slap you in the face. But what about Cherry Creek? How has that suburban district, strapped by budget realities and shifting student demographics like other districts, managed to keep a ratio even lower than what the federal government recommends? What can Cherry Creek teach other districts about prioritizing?

District Spokeswoman Tustin Amole credits a successful $18 million mill levy election in 2008 for keeping cuts from being as deep in Cherry Creek as in some Denver area districts. For the most parting, staffing at schools, other than secretaries, have been protected, though some jobs are lost to attrition.

But even before the mill levy, Cherry Creek placed a high value on nursing services in schools. "I've been here a dozen years and this is the way it was even before I got here," she said.

The district averages one 911 call per day because of seizures, asthma, allergic reactions or playground accidents, Amole said. When you factor in all adults and children, "there are about 60,000 people coming in and out of our buildings every day." About the size of Grand Junction, in other words. So nurses in schools "is something we have wanted to protect."

What happens next is unclear. Additional budget cuts are certain, in Cherry Creek as well as all other school districts as the state ties to weather an ongoing fiscal crisis. There is no guarantee nursing services will be spared the axe in the next round of reductions, in Cherry Creek or in districts that have already pared nursing to the bone.

And so it goes until something awful happens. Then somehow the money will materialize.

Practice, Practice, Practice

2011-01-19T13:28:25-05:00

Which of these two approaches do you believe generates better results, whatever the endeavor?

Constantly shifting gears; placing a high value on trying new programs an strategies without necessarily waiting to evaluate the results of what you have initiated before moving on to the next new thing.

Deciding on a course of action and then sticking to it faithfully for an extended period of time, even when evidence surfaces suggesting that there may be better strategies and newer, more innovative techniques that could yield better results.

In the real world, of course, one needn't choose one or the other. But I would argue that public education systems in this country have most often and by default chosen something resembling the first approach over the second. The frenetic pace of new mandates and initiatives have made it almost impossible for educators to settle in and get good at implementing any particular series of changes.

As state Sen. Mike Johnston wrote on this blog last week, Colorado finds itself in a place today where slowing down and implementing the state's abundance of new initiatives would be the wisest course of action:

With Colorado in the middle of rolling out new standards, developing new state assessments that will replace CSAP, and overhauling our principal and teacher evaluation system, a number of the most critical components of our statewide system are in flux.

This summer I had the opportunity to talk with more than 1,000 teachers and more than 70 superintendents and their consistent message was that they are committed to getting standards, assessments and evaluations done right, but they need the time to do that before embarking on another big initiative.

In the following paragraphs, or course, Johnston said yes, but we must also address "student accountability" and the method by which we count enrollment in districts. So don't expect stagnation at the State House.

I keep thinking back to a trip I took to Mexico in March 2004, when I worked at the Piton Foundation. Educator Rob Stein, community advocate and Mexican national Jaime Di Paulo and I spent a week in the state of Zacatecas visiting schools. (We also spent an enjoyable evening following around a burro that dispensed shots of mescal, but that's a story for another venue).

We wanted to see what we could learn about Mexican education at the classroom level, and whether any of those lessons might be useful to educators in Colorado, who were working with growing numbers of Mexican immigrant students.

You can read a full account of the trip here, the highlight of which is Stein's insightful analysis of Mexican classrooms.

Mexico is not known for its stellar public education system. In the latest (2009) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, Mexico ranked in the bottom 20 percent of countries in reading, mathematics and science, behind the underperforming U.S. in all areas.

And yet the Mexican teachers with whom we spoke almost to a person observed that students who came to them after being schooled for a time in the U.S. consistently lagged behind their counterparts who had been educated solely in Mexico. This was especially true in math, the teachers said.

And in the hamlet of El Tepetate, where cars with Colorado plates are a common site, we talked to a couple of students from Denver (sent home to live with grandparents after misbehaving in the U.S.) who said they had to struggle to catch up academically to their Mexican-educated peers.

As Stein observes in his piece, Mexican education is old school. We visited about a dozen schools and everywhere the methodology was identical. It probably hasn't changed since 2004. The teacher stands in front of a class of uniformed students in an unadorned, cinderblock and cement classroom and delivers lessons.

Stein wrote:

In urban and rural schools alike, the curriculum follows an almost lock-step adherence to the prescribed series of subjects, materials and textbooks issued from Mexico City. Each state teaches its own history, which is the only curricular area in which one might find differences in material taught.

In classrooms around the state of Zacatecas, on any given day, students of the same age and grade can be seen studying the same chapter, from the same textbook, sometimes at the same time of day. The full course of studies includes mathematics; science; history and social studies; reading and writing, which give way to literature in the older grades; physical education; and English.

It doesn't sound exciting or stimulating, does it? It's not exactly Expeditionary Learning. Yet I came away with the impression - and I think Stein and Di Paulo shared it -- that the Mexican education system in many ways does a better job fulfilling its mission - educating students through ninth grade - than some U.S. schools do fulfilling theirs - preparing all students for post-secondary training or education.

As Stein wrote, it's as if "the floor is raised but the ceiling is lowered at the same time."

So despite the glaring deficiencies, I left Mexico respectful of its education system. Let me be clear: I know Mexican schools are not what we want to emulate in this country in most ways. Many Mexican kids arrive in the U.S. with weak language skills - in Spanish as well as English, making it hard for them to catch up. But it's not clear to what extent we can blame Mexican schools for this deficiency. What I've been told is that may of those lagging students come from rural areas and may have attended school only sporadically if at all.

Stein wrote:

Students seem highly engaged in Mexican classrooms, probably more so than in the United States. Learning seems more purposeful on average, with fewer interruptions and clearer agreements about the process of schooling. The level of learning, especially in basic literacy and numeracy, rivals that in the United States.

There is general agreement among teachers, administrators and parents that schools, in spite of their lack of books and technology, are working pretty well. Parents do not question the role of the teacher and school in giving their children a fundamental education. When asked, educators will respond that Mexican schools rival those in the United States.

Mexico is a clear case of a country that employs the second of the two strategies I described at the outset. Do we want to emulate Mexico? Probably not. Does the doggedness of Mexico's approach to education offer us some valuable lessons? Probably so.

It's essential that we have charters and other autonomous schools that are innovating and trying new strategies and methods. In the end, those schools will probably help us get to the next level. Meanwhile, though, it might make sense for the bulk of our public schools to slow down and get good at what they're doing rather than endlessly questing after the next great idea.

Crashing Into a Low Bar

2010-12-22T14:37:43-05:00

Let me be clear from the outset: I do not believe many, if any, education advocates look at our public education systems and see the status quo as acceptable. It so clearly isn't that people who toss around that accusation are just throwing bombs.

There, are, however, plenty of people who attempt to explain away reported deficiencies in student achievement and post-secondary readiness by questioning the validity of assessments, saying that there is more excellent teaching and high-level learning going on in the nation's schools than the most strident reformers want us to believe. And, of course, there are people who point to very real societal inequities as the main culprit in sub-par student achievement. Some also say disengaged parents hurt the achievement of some kids.

All that may well be true. But no matter what explanations one might care to devise, there is no explaining away this new report by the Education Trust. The Trust examined results of the Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery, a series baseline aptitude tests to qualify people for admission to the military, and found that shockingly high percentages of high school graduates, especially students of color, couldn't clear this low bar.

The Trust examined the scores of 350,000 high school graduates between the ages of 17 and 20 who took the tests between 2004 and 2009. Here is what researchers found:

About 23 percent of the test-takers in our sample failed to achieve a 31-- the qualifying score -- on the (tests). Among white test-takers, 16 percent scored below the minimum score required by the Army. For Hispanic candidates, the rate of ineligibility was 29 percent. And for African-American youth, it was 39 percent. These dismally high ineligible rates for minority youth in our subsample of data are similar to the ineligible rates of all minority Army applicants as recorded over the last ten years.

As Trust President Kati Haycock wrote in her preface to the report, these results should serve as a wake-up call to high school educators.

... because this shatters the comfortable myth that academically underprepared students will find in the military a second-chance pathway to success. For too long, we educators have dismissed worries about the low academic achievement of "those students" with the thought that "if they're not prepared for college or career, a stint in the service will do 'em some good."

Actually, "those students" will not have the military as a choice. Just as they have not been prepared to enter college or find a good job in the civilian world, they have not been prepared to qualify for the military.

Young people of color who pass the tests generally do so with lower scores than white test-takers achieve. And this has serious real-world consequences:

Since these scores determine eligibility for training opportunities, financial rewards, and scholarships, this means that young people of color have more limited opportunities in the Army once they get in than do their white peers.

If there's any good news here, it's that Colorado as a whole does better than the national average on the military aptitude tests. Some 17.6 percent of Colorado test-takers scored too low to be eligible for military service. But the number rose to 33 percent ineligibility for African Americans (compared to 39 percent nationally) and 28 percent for Latinos (29 percent nationally). Still, those are not numbers that should cause jubilation.

Not to stuff coal in anyone's stocking, but this report provides some food for thought over the holidays. How have we gotten to this point, and how the heck do we extricate ourselves from the mess? If you believe in the validity of the recently released 2009 international PISA exams, our top students are getting their clocks cleaned by top students in other countries. Meanwhile, this new report shows that students further down the ladder lack the skills to do, well, much of anything beyond manual labor.

And with that, I wish you happy holidays.

Hurricane Rhee Blows Through Town

2010-12-14T11:50:29-05:00

Michelle Rhee speaks her mind bluntly and forcefully, not pausing to worry about whether she might be offending anyone in her audience. That's part of what endears her to people who agree with her positions on school reform. Conversely, it's what makes her a villain among people opposed to the present-day wave of reform, for which Rhee is the poster child.

Rhee came to Denver Monday at the invitation of the Donnell-Kay Foundation (a funder of Education News Colorado), drumming up support for her new advocacy group, Students First. She launched the group a week ago on the Oprah Winfrey Show, promising to raise $1 billion (yes, that's billion with a B) and enlist one million people in the organization's inaugural year.

Thanks in part to Oprah's legion of followers ("She looked in the camera and said 'this is great! Everyone should join!' And they crashed our website," Rhee said), Students First in its first 48 hours netted 100,000 members and raised $500,000. And the big donors have yet to step up. This money came from the Oprah viewers, the average contribution $63.

For the uninitiated, Rhee spent three-and-a-half years as chancellor of the Washington D.C. Public Schools. She was a polarizing figure with her undiplomatic talk and her aggressive reforms. When her mentor and boss, Mayor Adrian Fenty lost the Democratic primary earlier this fall, the die was cast and Rhee resigned.

She spoke at a lunch Monday at the Hotel Monaco, attended by about 20 political, educational and philanthropic heavyweights, and later to a much larger audience at the Denver Athletic Club. See this story, with embedded video, for highlights of the DAC talk.

In the more intimate setting of the luncheon, Rhee touched on a few notable themes about Students First and education reform in general. Here were her major points:

1. A national education reform organization can act as an effective counterweight to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, which "over the last three decades have very effectively been driving the educational agenda in this country." Unions have been so effective, Rhee said, because they have marshaled "millions of dollars and millions of people and they use those dollars and those people to get the politicians they want elected, the laws that they want passed, and the laws that they don't want blocked."

Rather than demonizing the unions, Rhee said, it makes sense to view them as organizations that know how to accomplish their mission. "Their purpose is to protect their members, to maximize their pay and privileges, and they are doing a wonderful job of that," she said.

"So if we want to change this we've got to come with the money, we've got to come with the people and that's what Students First is all about. Realizing that we have to get engaged in the political game, that we have to provide some not only cover for courageous politicians...but we have to provide them with the same kind of financing for their campaigns and boots on the ground that the union does for the candidates they are backing."

2. Students First will organize the many teachers who don't buy into the dominant union narrative.

"I talk to teachers all the time who think that tenure and seniority are terrible, who see people in their building who are not doing the right thing by kids, and it impacts them, because they get those kids the next year," Rhee said. "They don't want those teachers in the building any more than anyone else does. They are tired of the union protecting them and they want to do something about it."

Rhee predicted that what she called "this insurgency amongst the ranks" will be a powerful force, because it will show the public that teachers do not speak with the unions' "monolithic voice" alone.

"Every American knows a teacher who is hard-working, who spends their own money on the kids, and so it's hard when something gets framed as attacking teachers, because they think about those people that they know and it's hard for them to swallow," she said.

"When we actually have people from within the teaching ranks saying this is not good for our profession, then you change the dynamic and it's not teachers versus other people who want the reform. Now of course you've got some teachers who want to keep these (protections) but you've got other teachers who are more reform-minded. And getting that activated is one of the best things we will be able to do."

Rhee said the time is right to organize reform-minded teachers. "I have been in this game for about 20 years now and I have never seen as much momentum among the teacher ranks as I do right now in being willing to speak out on these issues," she said. If they don't feel isolated in their buildings, they will quickly become a force to be reckoned with, she predicted.

3. In cities with strong political leadership and troubled school districts, mayoral control is the way to go. (She said this in the presence of three Denver mayoral candidates: Michael Hancock, James Mejia and Chris Romer.)

Rhee worked under the protection of Fenty, who essentially sacrificed his political career by endorsing her bold reforms. When a mayor understands education reform, she said, then mayoral control streamlines the reform effort.

"When you've got seven, nine, 11 different (board members) with different agendas and they may have to kowtow to various interest groups, it's just an impossible dynamic. A lot of my (superintendent) colleagues who work within school board structures tell me they spend 60, 70 percent of their time managing their school boards. Doing the work is hard enough without that."

Sound familiar, Denver?

4. Ending the "government-run monopoly" over public education is essential to fixing the system. Yes, she means vouchers, at least in dysfunctional urban districts. Here is how the self-professed Democrat explains her view:

"A lot of people will say that the argument against vouchers is 'well, you're sucking money away from the system that actually needs those resources to improve.' But that's when you're looking at things from a system perspective. When you're looking at things from a student perspective, it's different."

More than once, she said, she was "faced with a parent who lives in Anacostia whose zoned neighborhood school is a place where I would never send my child, and then they do all the research and apply to the lottery for an out-of-boundary position in one of the few great schools and they don't get a position there. And they come to me and they say 'now what?'

"I don't have a space for them at a school where I'd feel comfortable sending my own kid. Who am I to deny that parent a $7,500 voucher to get a decent education at a Catholic school? I can't look someone in the face and make that decision because I need that $7,500 to make my system better. That's not an argument that's gonna fly with that particular parent."

Rhee described herself as unusually thick-skinned. She will tell you what she thinks, like it or not. Some people find her an inspiration. Others find her a callous bully lacking in the social graces.

Love her or loathe her, you'd better get used to her. She's not going away any time soon.

Fight the Pressure

2010-12-10T12:32:16-05:00

I just finished watching a new film called Race to Nowhere. On one level it is yet another documentary about an education system that has run off the rails. But this one differs from Waiting for "Superman", The Lottery and The Cartel -- the reform triumvirate -- in some important ways.

Although Race to Nowhere has been framed by some as the anti-"Superman", it is in fact such a thematically distinct movie that such comparisons are meaningless. Sure, the 90-minute film takes brief swipes at No Child Left Behind and a testing-obsessed culture that sucks joy out of learning and renders schooling all but meaningless. It advocates for pumping more money into public education, barely mentions charter schools and leaves teachers' unions completely out of the discussion.

But unlike the other three films, Race to Nowhere isn't about how the education system is failing low-income kids. It's about how as a society we have put so much pressure on our children -- especially middle- and upper-income high achievers -- that we are driving them to despair and even suicide in pursuit of our dreams for them, which are little more than shallow fantasies.

In other words, to the extent that we view our children as extensions of our own egos, we are doing them tremendous harm.

The film is co-directed by Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon and produced by Abeles. Though not in wide release, it is being screened in conjunction with "community conversations" at various sites around the country. You can find a list of screenings here.

One needn't choose sides here. I saw a lot to admire -- and criticize -- in Waiting for "Superman". I loved The Lottery, I found The Cartel to be shallow and annoying.

Race to Nowhere hit me in a different place and on a different level. The first thing I did after watching the film -- which a publicist sent me on DVD -- was walk into my daughter Marian's room and give her a hug.

She's 21 and left her private, East Coast liberal arts college last year, half-way through her junior year. In some ways she is a lot like the kids depicted in the film.

This film will be tough for a lot of my peers to watch because it hits so close to home. None of us wants to be like the parents in the film. Many of them struck me as suburban automatons, who, driven by internal and external forces they couldn't control, pressured and over-scheduled their kids with lessons and teams and tutoring sessions, mostly because that's what everyone else was doing. The ultimate in keeping up with the Joneses. Heaven forbid a child should have unstructured, worry-free time.

Because she is indirectly a subject of the film, I asked Marian to watch Race to Nowhere and give me a review. She made it through about half of it before she decided she got the gist. Here is some of what she had to say about the movie and its message.

"What struck me was how parents are overly anxious and the degree to which they are overly involved in their children's lives. The pressure within the school system was actually created by parents and now it has spread.

"The movie seemed very accurate in showing the pressure. But the kids also seemed like fairly weak individuals because they weren't doing jack to stand up to it. It's ironic. These kids probably won't succeed in the end if they're letting their parents and teachers boss them around that much.

"Working really hard and doing everything right only gets you to middle management. If you say screw everyone and do things your own way you're going to be happier and in a lot of cases you are going to be successful, if you're smart. The whole cookie-cutter thing just fills in the gaps around the people who really matter in society." (Interestingly, the movie in its final minutes, which Marian didn't watch, makes almost this exact point. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and other legendary entrepreneurs never finished college, and most CEOs were C students, the movie says).

What advice would she give to a 14- or 15-year-old feeling squeezed in the pressure vice?

"Drink a lot of caffeine, get at least six hours of sleep a night, tell your parents to back off when they're being jerks, and if your homework seems really stupid don't do it and read a book instead."

My sense is that the creators of Race to Nowhere would agree with every word of that advice, minus the caffeine. I'm not sure I agree to the same extent. But what do I know?

Hubris v. Parochialism

2010-12-01T15:03:38-05:00

I'm at best a casual observer of the New York City public school system. The complexities of the politics surrounding any big issue in the Big Apple are daunting. But I've watched with detached interest over the years as the team of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools Chancellor Joel Klein have made controversial and Herculean attempts to yank that behemoth out of a deep ditch.

Matters have gotten more interesting over the past couple of weeks, with Klein's announcement that he is moving into a senior position at News Corp. Bloomberg immediately settled on a successor to the high-energy, abrasive Klein.

And whom did he choose? Publishing executive Cathie Black, she of purportedly amazing managerial skills and zero public education experience.

Reaction to Black's appointment from the usual suspects was predictable. Schools aren't businesses and kids aren't widgets. How dare the mayor have the temerity to appoint a business person to a position that requires a different set of skills than running a business!

I find these arguments tiresome. After all, how many career educators have done a bang-up job turning around an urban school system? The answer would be none. Education is not some mysterious priesthood where only initiates know the deep secrets to unlocking success. In fact no one does; or if once we knew, we have collectively forgotten.

Still, I have to side with the naysayers this time, albeit not for their reasons.

The always iconoclastic Rick Hess said it better than I could in his Rick Hess Straight Up blog on Education Week's website. So let me quote Hess and then give my own spin on some of his points.

"I think schools and districts pose a diverse array of leadership challenges, and that leaders facing different challenges will require various skills. Sometimes, familiarity with K-12 is a huge asset. Other times, the experiences, worldview, and skills that come with that background may actually be a hindrance. I see experience in a school district, in school leadership, or in dealing with the public sector as important assets, which ought to be weighed alongside know-how in transforming and redesigning organizations, boosting cost-effectiveness, recruiting talented personnel, managing vendor relationships, and so forth. I think Joel Klein's skills and experience -- as a CEO, top-shelf lawyer, high-ranking Clinton administration official, and NYC product - -made him a phenomenal fit for the job.

"But, just as it's naive and simple-minded to insist "you need to be an educator to lead schools," it's equally misguided to imagine that executives are interchangeable."

The problem with Black, Hess and others argue, isn't her lack of education background. It is her apparently complete lack of interest in public education, and total lack of track record even volunteering in a public school.

Has Bloomberg become so infatuated with his mostly adulatory press clippings that he believes he can pluck any successful corporate executive, stick them in one of the globe's most challenging jobs and expect them to succeed, just because he was the one to anoint them?

That's called hubris. And those of us who have even skimmed the Greek myths know where that leads.

Hess concludes:

"To make things worse, our intrepid friends at the Gotham Schools blog have noted: "In her memoir-cum-business advice guide, Basic Black, the chancellor appointee describes her skills as far more attuned to sales and marketing than financial analysis. While she likes the operational side of business, she writes, 'Too much data and too many spreadsheets make my eyes glaze over.' " Again, not exactly the ideal testimonial from someone coming in to wrestle with budget cuts and execution.

"Black might be terrific. I've never met her and know nothing about her. But nothing that's been said on her behalf thus far reassures me that she's right for the job or demonstrates that Bloomberg thought carefully about why she was the right choice for this crucial post. Fortunately, there's much time until she takes the helm and both Black and Bloomberg would be well-advised to use the next six weeks to make the case that she's a promising pick -- and not just a CEO looking for a new challenge."

New York State Education Commissioner David M. Steiner may have pulled Bloomberg's fat from the fire by insisting that the mayor appoint a career educator to serve as Black's chief deputy. But that alone does not guarantee success.

And please, don't let Bloomberg's concession (and he's not known to make many) to Steiner embolden his edu-critics. The argument that only educators can run education institutions is narrow-minded and parochial, and isn't germane to the Bloomberg-Black issue.

But it is emblematic of an ongoing annoyance on the education debate, locally and nationally.

Perhaps I am overly sensitive because I have worked in education policy for 15 years but have never taught or worked in a K-12 public school. But there is a wrongheaded mindset among certain educators and teachers' associations that only people who have walked in their shoes have a legitimate point of view about education issues.

So please, let's dispense with the following bromides:

You have to be an educator to be a legitimate candidate for superintendent or education commissioner.
You have to have been a teacher or principal to speak knowledgeably on education issues. I honor teachers for their deep knowledge and classroom experience, which is invaluable. It does not, however, give them a monopoly on wisdom and virtue.
You are "anti-teacher" if you view any of the positions staked out by unions as retrograde and counter to the best interests of public education in this country. (If this were true, then I would be able to name a lot of teachers who are anti-teacher).

In exchange, I pledge to stop reverting to the three most annoying bromides readers identify as endemic to this space and to the world of education reform. Please let me know your top three. Top vote-getters will be banished from this blog.

Let's All Grow Up

2010-11-16T10:49:01-05:00

It's no secret that if forced to choose sides my sympathies in the Denver education reform battle would lie with Superintendent Tom Boasberg and the four school board members who usually support his initiatives.

But I'm not an unqualified supporter. I wonder about Denver Public Schools' ability to implement its grand plans, including the overhaul of schools in Far Northeast Denver to be voted on Thursday night. I am critical of the district's unwillingness to fully uphold its end of the bargain with innovation schools. DPS loosens the purse-strings and the regulatory stranglehold reluctantly if at all, even as the Denver Classroom Teachers Association has been forced to make contract concessions for those schools.

Still, I believe the district's intentions and strategies are sound. Not everyone agrees, though. Three members of the school board vigorously oppose many of the districts sweeping plans. Opposition and debate are healthy. Board members need to be skeptical and ask tough questions.

Over the years I have watch some board members get co-opted by successive administrations and become little more than appendages of the superintendent. This is unhealthy behavior.

There's a pressing question, though, about the current dissenters on the school board. Are they loyal opposition, which we sorely need, or are they something less healthy?

Some of their recent actions make this a legitimate question. Earlier this month, the three board members, Andrea Merida, Jeanne Kaplan and Arturo Jimenez met with a subcommittee of the Colorado Lawyers Committee about district turnaround plans, which they vigorously oppose.

Depending on whose lawyer you choose to believe, this either was or wasn't a violation of the state's open meeting law. Despite the three members' protestations that they did not know who else would be at the meeting, it seems clear they could and should have known better.

It has led to an ill-conceived bid by board President Nate Easley to censure the three board members, a bid that now seems certain to fail.

Meanwhile, board member Merida has played a key role in creating DeFENSE (Democrats for Excellent Neighborhood School Education), an organization that to date has expended most of its effort opposing Boasberg's initiatives (oh, and bashing Waiting for "Superman") Merida has been somewhat coy about her leading role, deflecting questions and going on the counteroffensive against people who question her (as in this video, posted by the Denver Post's Jeremy Meyer).

But in DeFENSE's early days, Merida's cell phone number was listed at the bottom of the page as a point of contact. Emails to the site at one point appeared to funnel through the andreamerida.com domain.

Some might not agree but I think it's acceptable for a school board member to belong to such an organization. It shows questionable judgment, but I see no major ethical issues. Being one of its leaders, however - acting as midwife if not mother - is another matter.

In any event, why not be transparent?

Rather than reflexively heaping all the criticism on the three board members in question, though, it makes sense to try to understand their point of view. They have some legitimate gripes, they have reasons to feel frustrated and devalued, and they aren't the only ones who deserve criticism for the disintegration of the Denver school board.

Put yourselves in their shoes for a few minutes, even if you disagree with all their positions. If you can't bring yourself to do this, then you may be part of the problem.

So imagine: You're on the losing side of 4-3 votes on a lot of key policy issues. You feel shut out of decision-making. It seems that whenever you ask the district for information what you get back is incomplete, misleading or both. You suspect that other board members and the district leadership are cutting deals to which you are not privy.

You believe to the core of your being that the district is heading down the wrong path. From where you sit, DPS is planning to open a slew of new schools and overhaul existing schools without thinking through how all the dislocation could hurt kids and damage families and communities you were elected to represent. As far as you're concerned, the district looks in the mirror and instead of facing its own failures decides to scapegoat teachers.

So what do you do? How do you use leverage to make the 3-4 vote dynamic work to your advantage?

You stage a guerrilla campaign. You hope to wear the other side down with multiple assaults from different angles. That's what has been happening in DPS over the past year or so. If you were in their position, wouldn't you employ some of the same tactics?

Unfortunately as in all guerrilla campaigns there has been collateral damage, primarily to the board's once sterling reputation.

What's most troubling about the devolution of the Denver school board is that while on the surface disagreements center on policy issues affecting schoolchildren and their families, underlying much of it are deepening personal animosities among some board members, and between the dissident faction and Boasberg and his top deputies.

Everyone deserves a share of the blame for this. Hiring a marriage counselor didn't work, but some disinterested grown-up needs to step in and persuade these people to get serious about working together.

So, let me offer some unsolicited advice to both sides.

Censuring board members Merida, Kaplan and Jimenez might provide a few minutes of delectable schadenfreude, but what else does it accomplish? Let it go.

Launching premature recall campaigns (against Merida) and threatening to recall other board members (notably Easley) consumes people's attention and energy and ratchets up the animosity. Save it for when there is an issue that merits the nuclear option. Just drop it.

It has gotten personal on both sides of the divide. The dissident faction has not forgiven rookie board member Easley for pulling a slick move and acing out Kaplan to become board president. Well, as Finley Peter Dunne said, politics ain't beanbag. This isn't a high school election, folks, and we shouldn't be forming cliques and nursing grudges. Get over it.

Everyone in education prattles on about it being "all about the kids." The side you're on is always all about the kids, while the other side fixates on "adult issues." Unfortunately, at the moment the only kids this is about are the adults on both sides who persist in acting like children.

So, note to board members, administrators, teachers, advocates and community members on both sides of the issue: Grow up!

Feed the Rich!

2010-11-09T15:51:23-05:00

Establishing a school voucher program in Douglas County would be akin to sending famine-relief supplies to the Upper East Side of Manhattan while people starve in Darfur. Whether you're a supporter or foe of vouchers, this should strike you as a strange idea.

It's not entirely clear that what's floating around in early draft form in Dougco is a full-blown voucher proposal. In some ways it may not be that much different than contract arrangements Denver Public Schools has with three schools. But it's close enough for the sake of argument. More on that later.

I'm a voucher skeptic at best, though I have been swayed in recent years by arguments for means-tested vouchers, with ample conditions attached. I've quoted Howard Fuller on this before: The Harriet Tubman school of education reform believes in helping as many kids as possible escape bad schools, by whatever means necessary, rather than waiting for that far-off day when all schools are good.

But I'm not there yet; not quite. I see too many booby traps along the way, and the stench of ideology hangs over the whole debate.

So I strongly disagree with those who would provide tax credits or vouchers for everyone, or at least anyone who chooses to opt out of the public system but wants to take their tax dollars with them to whatever private or religious school suits their fancy.

For some other viewpoints, see a couple of blog posts below, and the comments they prompted.

It seems to me that forward thinking voucher proponents would oppose Douglas County's nascent proposal as well, but obviously I'm naïve to think so (see Vince Carroll's recent column in the Denver Post, for example). If you want to win support for a controversial concept like vouchers, start with the low-hanging fruit. There are plenty of moderates out there who would support some kind of means-tested program.

Such was the case with the Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which sent 2,000 low-income school kids to private (including religious) schools with $7,500 vouchers. It was snuffed out last year by the Obama administration and Congress. One would hope a centrist coalition might resurrect it.

But you will find precious few allies from the moderate camp if you start asking permission to let wealthy people take their tax dollars out of the public education system to support, say, a fundamentalist Christian school that belittles the theory of evolution and teaches that anyone not born again in Christ will end up in hell. I'm not saying any Douglas County private schools espouse those beliefs, but the potential for such schools to receive public money is there, under the current draft proposal.

Where I part company with voucher advocates, and even some charter advocates, is that I see choice as a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is a quality education for every child. For the foreseeable future, the traditional public system alone cannot make that happen. Some charter schools are blazing new trails that district schools would be wise to follow.

I believe there is inherent value in public education, in the concept of the common school. It is not just another marketplace in which individuals can take their sliver of tax revenue and go wherever they please.

I willingly pay property taxes to fund public education even though my daughter is several years past high school. I want schools to be places where people of varying backgrounds come together to learn. I'm not interested in having my tax dollars, or anyone else's, support schools that promote religious ideas I consider extreme.

People who so choose of course have the right to educate their children privately, in whatever kind of school they choose. And this, perhaps, is where voucher proponents have their strongest argument when it comes to low-income communities.

Why shouldn't families in poverty have the same range of educational choices as more affluent families? Even under most voucher plans, of course, the range of choices is narrower for the poor. The reality is that the highest-end private schools - the Kent Denvers, Gralands and Colorado Academies of the world - charge tuitions that are far beyond the reach of most voucher programs, and in any case usually to decline to participate.

But Douglas County? Seriously? We're talking about one of the most affluent, highest performing districts in Colorado. Just 8 percent of it students qualify for subsidized lunches -- second lowest in the state behind Aspen.

And if you look at state data, Dougco schools (with the exception of Hope Online charters, which serve many low-income kids from across the state) are clustered in the high-performance, high-growth quadrant of the state's SchoolView data system.

So where is the need for vouchers? Yes, need should be a primary criterion.

Some argue, with justification, that districts with high numbers of low-income students also tend to be politically liberal urban corridors, where vouchers are anathema. This makes a conservative area like Douglas a good place to test how a voucher program can exist within the strictures of local control.

But why? Really, now, how many Douglas County children are being badly served by public schools? How many of those families cannot afford a private option? How many low-income Douglas County families are trapped in failing schools? Bring me that number and then we can talk.

Finally, is the draft proposal for Dougco even a voucher program? Superintendent Liz Fagen sent a letter home to parents last Thursday in advance of a Denver Post story, saying that what was being proposed was creating a series of private contract schools. Denver has had contract schools since the days of Jerry Wartgow (Escuela Tlatelolco, Florence Crittendon and the Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning). Would Dougco's be so different?

Read the draft proposal and decide for yourself. Religious schools would be one major difference, and there appears to be only one private non-religious school in Dougco. Saying, as Fagen did in her letter to parents, that the proposal would create contact schools and not a voucher system may be more politically palatable within the school district. But I'm not convinced it's an accurate description.

So let the debate proceed. Douglas County seems a silly place to be having it. But when politics and ideology mix, common sense is often the first victim.

Of Civil Wars and Forgotten Words

2010-10-28T01:22:37-04:00

I met a couple of friends for a drink last week. Let's call them Thing One and Thing Two.

They had been feuding online and I thought our own little beer summit might calm the waters.

Thing One arrived first. She had several emails to answer on her BlackBerry and then her phone rang, so I sat there sipping my Dale's Pale Ale and staring into space as she conducted some business that apparently could not wait. Thing Two traipsed in 15 minutes late. He doesn't believe in smartphones because they keep people from being present in the moment. We hadn't seen each other in a while so we caught up while Thing One finished her call and then fired off more two quick emails.

"See that's the thing with you," Thing Two said as soon as Thing One holstered her brand-new BlackBerry Torch. "I mean, how rude to act like the people in front of you matter less than some people out there in the virtual world."

"I'm not the one who showed up 16 and a half minutes late," Thing One replied. "But who's counting?"

Not a good start, so I decided to play referee. "Look, we've all known each other for a long time. We've worked and played hard together, so it pains me to see the two of you at odds. Lets' review how this feud began and see if we can't work our way around to a mutual understanding and maybe even a mutual apology."

Thing One reached into her leather computer bag and pulled our three stapled packets. "Here is the entire comment thread going back three months," she said. "If you start at the beginning, I think you'll see that Thing Two fired the first salvo. He said my defense of national charter school chains amounted to a capitulation to corporatist interests and the not-so-subtle machinations of the billionaire boys club."

Thing Two snorted and took a swig of his happy hour Pabst Blue Ribbon (two for one at less than half the price of Thing One's Oban single malt). "That's a provable fact. What started the spat was when you replied that I and my 'fellow-travelers' would rather explain away success and blame the victims than admit that some of the 'corporatist' schools actually work. You called me a mush-brain, if I recall correctly."

"No, what I said was that you were engaging in mushy thinking," Thing One said, pointing to a passage marked with yellow highlighter. "And it is mushy to denigrate certain schools and at the same time invent lame excuses to explain away their success. It's more than mushy; it's cynical."

Thing Two started on his second PBR. "No, let me tell you what's cynical, friend. What's cynical is to devise a series of assessments that don't assess anything meaningful; assessments that lead to a perfectly predictable bell-curve distribution of performance, and then build an entire system of accountability, even of pedagogy, based on those fatally flawed assessments. And then to call the whole package 'reform'. Give me a break."

"That's a gross oversimplification and you know it," Thing One said, signaling for another scotch. You want cynical? How's this? You and your ilk critique high-performing charter schools with high-poverty populations for promoting segregation. Then you take an aggressive stand in favor of neighborhood schools, which by their nature in a segregated city are segregated as well. So what gives?"

"Your great-white-father-knows-best brand of school reform reeks of the kind of arrogant paternalism that has landed us in the soup time and again," Thing Two said. "Maybe some of your venture capitalist overlords should devote their vast wealth to helping dismantle the system that made them obscenely rich while more of their fellow citizens fell into abject poverty."

"Maybe you should stop using poverty as an excuse for lousy schools and look at the schools that are working," Thing One said. "Systems are broken, too many teachers are sub-par, everyone's hands are tied."

"Stop bashing teachers. That's all you guys ever do; blame everything on teachers."

"No, but some teachers are subpar, and their unions are a drag on progress."

"Talk about blaming the victim," Thing Two said.

"You're an apologist for the status quo," Thing One said with real anger in her voice.

"You're an apologist for an inherently unjust and inequitable society," Thing Two spat back.

"Union lackey."

"Corporate toady."

I had heard enough. "Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said. "Just out of curiosity, let me ask each of you some questions. First, who did you vote for in 2008?"

"Obama," they both said.

"Who are you voting for governor?"

"Hickenlooper."

"Senate?"

"Bennet."

"On 60, 61 and 101?"

"No, of course."

OK, so there is a lot of common ground here. Why are you engaging in a civil war?"

They looked a little sheepish, and shrugged.

"Oh, and one more question: What three words were completely absent from your dialogue just now?"

They were stumped.

"Kids. Students. Children."

I bought them another round. We drank in silence.