redefinED

redefinED roundup: Charter school progress in New York, voucher fears in Michigan and more

By redefinED staff on July 23, 2012

New York: For the third year in a row, New York City charter schools outperform traditional public schools, drawing praise from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, pictured here (New York Times). More from the New York Daily News.

New Jersey: The state teachers union fights new charters even as it attempts to unionize charter school teachers (NJ Spotlight). State education officials approve nine new charters, but reject 10 and postpone 13 (NJSpotlight), including a full-time virtual charter. (NJ.com)

Florida: State education officials reject appeals from three virtual charter schools seeking to open in the Miami-Dade school district. (Miami Herald) Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson defends charter schools at a town hall meeting (South Florida Sun-Sentinel). In a key Democratic primary in South Florida, state senate candidates differ over support for vouchers and tax credit scholarships. (Palm Beach Post)

Louisiana: Students and schools in the state’s new voucher program are not likely to face the same regulatory accountability measures as public schools (Baton Rouge Advocate). A nonpartisan watchdog group recommends state education officials seek legislative guidance as they craft accountability rules (Associated Press). The state teachers union pans the academic results of the state’s first all-grades, on-line charter school, but the school fires back with accusations of cherry picking (Baton Rouge Advocate).

Michigan: Democrats fear vouchers will be part of Gov. Rick Snyder’s plans to overhaul school funding (MLive.com).

Washington: Gubernatorial candidates Rob McKenna and Jay Inslee agree on many aspects of education policy, but disagree on charter schools. (Seattle Times)

Elsewhere: Study finds students in K12 Inc. virtual charter schools are lagging behind their peers in traditional public schools. (Washington Post)

Choice nuggets: Ravitch on vouchers, Florida’s academic progress and how “bad” public schools are like Ol’ Man River

By Ron Matus on July 20, 2012

Editor’s note: Here’s another selection of “choice nuggets,” a feature we started last week to keep some smaller but still blogworthy items from going to the compost heap.

Are vouchers too popular, or not popular enough?

For years, school choice critics have posited that vouchers and tax-credit scholarships will open the floodgates for a mass exodus from public schools. So it was a bit of a monkey shock last week to read Diane Ravitch belittling Louisiana’s new voucher program because, in her view, too few students had applied.

“Not exactly a stampede for the exits,” Ravitch wrote. “No big rush to enroll in the little church schools that are supposedly better than the public schools … ”

According to published reports, about 9,000 students applied for vouchers, not counting those already enrolled in the voucher program in New Orleans. Sounds like a lot of people to me. But if it’s obvious that only a small percentage of parents will opt for private schools (because, truth be told, most parents are satisfied with their public schools) then why are critics so upset? Doesn’t that undermine the argument that school choice is a Trojan Horse for profiteers?

Ravitch ends her piece by suggesting Louisiana officials puffed up the application numbers. “As usual,” she concluded, “they were playing the media for headlines.”

Two days later, the Washington Post’s “Answer Sheet” blog ran Ravitch’s piece in full.

A tale of two reports

Two national reports released in the last week purported to offer some gauge of academic progress in Florida’s public schools. One relied on apparently undisclosed measures to determine that Florida’s educational ranking dropped from No. 35 to No. 42 in the past year. The other tracked nearly 20 years of scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress to conclude that Florida students have made more progress than their peers in every state but one.

Guess which report got more play? Continue Reading →

School choice gives single-gender education a chance to prove itself

By Kelly Garcia on July 19, 2012

My all-boys classroom didn’t look like a Norman Rockwell. There were boys tapping pencils. Boys squeezing stress balls. Boys pacing while reading independently. Even boys sitting on their desks.

But despite what some people may think from that description, it was also full of boys learning.

In the past few weeks, there has been a renewed flurry of articles and discussions (see here, here and here) about the value of single-gender education, which has grown to classrooms in more than 500 public schools since the Department of Education eased federal requirements in 2006. After completing my first year of teaching at the all-boys Franklin Middle Magnet School in Tampa, Fla., I can say this with confidence: Single-gender schools are not for every child. But in the age of expanding school choice, they are a valuable option.

Most boys benefit from frequent movement. I gave my students the option to move out of their desks during class time. In his articles, Leonard Sax, a leading proponent of single-sex education, often shares the scenes of organized chaos he sees when visiting some all-male classrooms. In my first few days of professional development, the thought of having boys tapping, drumming, walking and standing up during class time was enough to make me cringe. But, within a few weeks of working with my middle school boys, I realized that when the boys are comfortable, they are more engaged and less easily distracted.

Most boys are stimulated by action. One of the best tips I learned as a reading teacher for engaging boys in texts is to introduce a new book by reading the most action-packed scene first. I introduced Gordon Korman’s “No More Dead Dogs” by reading a scene where a male character leaps on top of a stuffed dog that is ready to blow up. I can’t say the novel was a huge hit with the boys, but starting with the action first certainly was.

Most boys are motivated by competition. I can remember the teachers at my all-girls high school passing tests back, as we quietly peeked at our grades and tucked them into our folders. I didn’t want to brag about a great grade and cause anyone to feel bad about her own grade. And I certainly didn’t want to feel deflated if I realized everyone did better than me. Many girls in high school felt similarly. I learned quickly that passing tests back to the boys was a time for them to leap for joy, shout that victory was theirs and throw themselves into overt celebratory moves. These boys regarded each test as a way to prove they were smarter than their peers.

I harnessed the spirit of competition when it came time to review for final exams. Continue Reading →

Report: U.S. spent (wasted?) $14.8 billion paying teachers for master’s degrees

By Ron Matus on July 18, 2012

School districts spent nearly $15 billion in the 2007-08 school year to pay teachers extra for earning master’s degrees, up 72 percent from four years prior, concludes a report released this week by a left-leaning think tank.

The Center for American Progress suggests money for the so-called “master’s bump” was not well spent because research shows there is little difference in effectiveness between teachers who have master’s degrees and those who don’t.

“This increase, which outstripped inflation many times over during the same time period, is music to the ears of those institutions of higher education that cater to teachers and their academic pursuits,” the report says. “But for the nation’s primary and secondary schools, this increase strikes a discordant note and underscores the need to uncouple teacher compensation from the earning of advanced degrees.”

Illinois paid out the most for the average bump, coming in at $11,910. The District of Columbia was second ($11,280), followed by Minnesota ($10,090), Ohio ($8,760) and North Dakota ($8,550). Utah paid the least, at $2,010.

Florida was among the lowest per bump, at $2,850. But in 2007-08, the report shows, that extra pay added up to $197 million.

That total is likely to fall in coming years as a result of Senate Bill 736, which was signed into law last year by Gov. Rick Scott. Among other changes, it mandates that extra compensation cease for teachers whose advanced degrees are not in their certification area.

The report describes the cost for the master’s bump as a “lost opportunity” because, in its view, the money could be better spent on teachers who mentor other teachers, work in high-poverty schools, teach hard-to-fill subject areas like math and science or demonstrate “extraordinary instructional impact.”

More time, money, customization can narrow the opportunity gap in education

By Doug Tuthill on July 18, 2012

I have spent more than 35 years working to help public education fulfill the promise of equal opportunity, but two recent New York Times articles illustrate how far we are from achieving that moral and societal imperative.

David Brooks, in a recent column entitled “The Opportunity Gap,” reviews the research on the gap between the haves and have-nots and concludes, “The children of the more affluent and less affluent are raised in starkly different ways and have different opportunities.” Brooks further reports this gap is growing: “Over the last 40 years upper-income parents have increased the amount they spend on their kids’ enrichment activities, like tutoring and extracurriculars, by $5,300 a year. The financially stressed lower classes have only been able to increase their investment by $480, adjusted for inflation.”

I see this opportunity gap daily in our racially and economically diverse neighborhood in south St. Petersburg. The affluent kids in my neighborhood are attending a variety of enrichment camps this summer. Meanwhile, the low-income kids are sleeping till noon and then wandering the streets in the afternoon trying to avoid boredom and arrest – and generally failing on both counts. Many of the low-income black teenagers I know are going to get picked up and questioned by the police this summer, and occasionally get arrested. Whether or not they’ve committed crime is irrelevant. They’ll all plead out, go into a diversion program that is a well-intentioned waste of time and money, and the whole cycle will start again.

In a second Times article, “Two Classes, Divided by ‘I Do,’” Jason DeParle chronicles how the differences between one- and two-parent families help explain this growing cultural dichotomy. DeParle writes that, “Changes in marriage patterns – as opposed to changes in individual earnings – may account for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of inequality … About 41 percent of births in the United States occur outside marriage, up sharply from 17 percent three decades ago … Less than 10 percent of the births to college-educated women occur outside marriage, while for women with high school degrees or less the figure is nearly 60 percent.” While many children raised by single parents do well as adults, DeParle concludes that overall, children raised by single parents are significantly disadvantaged: “They are more likely than similar children with married parents to experience childhood poverty, act up in class, become teenage parents and drop out of school.”

None of this is news in my neighborhood. The vast majority of low-income children wandering our streets this summer are being raised by a single mom or grandmother. They have no fathers in their lives.

The traditional neighborhood district school has little or no chance of overcoming these obstacles, which is why new models of publicly-funded education are emerging. Continue Reading →

It’s the school, not the curriculum, that fosters real citizenship

By Charles Glenn on July 17, 2012

Editor’s note: Critics often suggest that expanding school choice to include private, faith-based schools will erode democracy. But noted school choice expert Charles Glenn says the evidence shows the opposite – that students are more likely to become engaged citizens if they attend schools where they feel a sense of belonging.

Jan De Groof and I are just finishing up the new edition, in four volumes, of “Balancing Freedom, Autonomy, and Accountability in Education,” with chapters on 60 countries by experts from those countries. The first volume will consist of essays by a number of authors, each looking at one theme across the many nations. I just finished my contribution, on government-prescribed values in curriculum (it’s attached below), and thought I would share a somewhat surprising finding:

They seem to make very little difference.

It is very common, I found, for governments to prescribe in detail how schools should promote citizenship and human rights. It is also common (though not universal) for governments to make provision for religious education in public schools, usually with an opt-out provision and sometimes with a choice between different religious traditions. When I compared these requirements with the results of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study of 38 countries, however, I found little indication that they had an effect on the attitudes of the adolescents surveyed.

To get specific: In the Czech Republic, “at secondary school considerable attention may be given to topics such as citizenship, European citizenship, globalization, environmentalism and multiculturalism.” In Malta, there are unusually extensive curriculum requirements, insisting that “schools should serve as a testing ground for democracy in keeping with the declarations and treaties signed by Malta in the past, and with the constitutional obligations of the country. As key institutions within civil society, schools should foster among their students respect for others, and for the right of other people to enjoy freedom, peace, security and the benefits of a society governed by law and order. In a society that is increasingly becoming multi-cultural, the educational system should enable students to develop a sense of respect, co-operation, and solidarity among cultures.” In Latvia, schools are expected to foster “the development of a responsible, tolerant and democratic citizen of the state and Europe, as well as instilling the opinion that human life is the highest value.”

But countries that articulate such standards are not necessarily those in which human rights are most consistently respected. The ICCS survey found eighth graders in the Czech Republic, Latvia and Malta were considerably less likely than the average of other countries to express support for equal rights for ethnic and racial groups.

The same disconnect is evident when we look at countries like England that mandate religious education in public schools and yet have far lower rates of religious belief and practice than do the United States, which forbid it.

In short, the prescription, by government, of value-laden curriculum objectives does not seem effective, and indeed I argue in my essay that government control or intrusive oversight can work against its intended purpose, by cultivating a passivity on the part of teachers and students alike that is anything but a model of engaged citizenship.

Let me explain that a little. Continue Reading →

redefinED blog stars: On reform-minded school boards, the promise of virtual charters and the NAACP’s betrayal

By redefinED staff on July 17, 2012

Editor’s note: For those new to redefinED, “blog stars” is our occasional compilation of good stuff from other ed blogs (with a newspaper op-ed thrown in now and then, too).

Huffington Post: In search of the elusive, reform-minded school board member

What most people don’t understand is that managing failure is just as hard as managing success. And this is, I believe, part of the reason school boards don’t improve schools. Stability and coherence are watchwords in both the high-achieving and low-achieving systems. Administrators want to keep their staff happy and their board at arm’s length. In both successful and failing districts, “micromanaging” by the school board is considered a no-no. I recall a woman addressing our board not along ago. “We’re not supposed to rock the boat,” she said. “But the trouble is that the boat has tipped over and we’re lashed to our seats.” Rocking the boat is exactly what must be done to effect change — change, one hopes, that leads to better student outcomes.

I spent most of the last 10 years, on and off the board, pushing for a rigorous curriculum, stopping the disproportionate disciplining of African-American students, and complaining about the over-identification of special ed students (almost a quarter of our student body). But, for the most part, no matter what I proposed — a new bus route, a paint job for the flag pole, or a curriculum — I was mostly ignored. In order to get a pile of old lumber and rusty nails removed from the edge of a playground I had to threaten to dump it in the superintendent’s driveway! Full post here.

Dropout Nation: The NAACP should listen to Romney (and Obama) on school choice

By embracing an education traditionalist thinking and Zip Code Education, the NAACP is aiding and abetting the damage to black children that it is supposed to defend. By taking money from NEA and AFT affiliates (including the $16,200 picked up by its New York branch from the AFT’s Big Apple unit during the union’s 2010-2011 fiscal year), the association is also betraying its obligations as a civil rights group to oppose policies that promote the same denials of equal educational opportunities against which it supposedly fights. In the process, the NAACP refuses to be a much-needed public policy voice and activist on behalf of transforming a failed system, alienating the very school reformers and black families (especially in urban communities) who are looking to build schools that black children (and all kids) deserve. And by adhering to the thinking of aging members who have a vested interest in maintaining failed ideas about how schools should serve black children, the NAACP has also lost opportunities to gain support from a new generation of African-Americans who realize that education is the most-important key to achieving social and economic equality.

When both Romney and Obama share common cause on systemic reform and on expanding choice, it is clear that the NAACP is on the wrong side of history. Now it is time for it to do the right thing. Full post here. Continue Reading →

Florida charter schools earn A’s and F’s at higher rates than traditional public schools

By Ron Matus on July 16, 2012

Florida charter schools were more likely than traditional public schools to earn A and F grades under this year’s tougher new standards and tests, state data shows.

Some 48.7 percent of elementary, middle and “combination” charter schools earned A grades, compared to 42.7 percent of traditional public schools, according to Florida Department of Education data.

Meanwhile, 19 charters were stung with F’s (6.1 percent), compared to 28 traditional public schools (1.2 percent).

It appears traditional public schools were harder hit by the higher bar than charters.

Last year, 15 elementary, middle and combination charters were awarded F’s, compared to 17 traditional public schools – a comparison oft-noted by school boards and other critics. At the same time, according to last year’s data, traditional public schools earned A grades at a slightly higher rate than charters, 58 percent to 57 percent.

To see the most recent charter school grades data, check out this this spreadsheet.

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