Tag Archives | education reform

In Florida, school choice verges on mainstream

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On May 2, 2012 in Charter Schools, Customization, General, Parental Choice, School Choice, Virtual Education

Some of us at redefinED will be at the American Federation for Children summit tomorrow and Friday, where there will be lots of discussion about school choice and education reform. As good a time as any, we thought, to offer a snapshot of where Florida stands. Check out these numbers, which Doug Tuthill, the president of Step Up for Students and a redefinED host, shared last week with business leaders at a Leadership Florida event:

The numbers (carefully compiled by Jon East, vice president for policy & public affairs at Step Up) are from 2010-11 and we know in many cases the current figures are even higher. Charter school enrollment, for example, topped 175,000 this year, and the tax credit scholarship program serves more than 39,000 students. Altogether, the numbers underscore two things we emphasize at redefinED: School choice – the kind that allows parents to go beyond their neighborhood school - is becoming mainstream in Florida. And the lines between “public” and “private” are more blurred here than in any other state.

The AFC conference agenda includes Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and an all-star line up of choice experts and advocates. We’re hoping to have a little time to update you on what’s going on with blog posts and tweets. For the latter, follow us at @redefinEDonline.

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Former teacher: Progressives need to better convince progressives about need for education reform

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On April 9, 2012 in Progressives and ed reform, Teacher empowerment, Unionism

Editor’s note: The set-in-stone narrative about education reform is progressives vs. conservatives, Republicans vs. Democrats, teachers unions vs. the “corporate agenda.” The truth is more complex – and more colorful. One of the more dynamic angles is the degree to which progressives are divided. In this guest post, former teacher Catherine Durkin Robinson makes a case that progressives have become too resistant to needed change - and that fellow progressives need to do a better job persuading them.

When I began working in education reform, some of my Democratic friends and fellow activists weren’t happy. Some had long railed against any attempt to change education, empower parents or hold teachers responsible for their own performance. While plenty of Democrats support reform, including President Obama, some of my friends looked at other supporters of the movement – supporters like Jeb Bush – and freaked out.

I was one of them, once.

Years ago, as a new high school social studies teacher, I wondered how testing fit into the curriculum. I looked at too many students, with hungry bellies and less than ideal home lives, and wondered how to help them learn. I looked at my special education students, too often seen as afterthoughts, and wondered how to provide the unique help they needed. They already came to me so far behind their peers. How would I reverse years of a failed system in just under 45 minutes each day?

Then I got to work.

By my eighth year of teaching, I was helping even my most challenging students learn and grow. I prepared them for important assessments without teaching to the test. I showed them history and economics could be entertaining. The recipe? An unwavering belief in my students’ ability to learn, setting high expectations for them, and working hard to follow through and do justice to those principles.

But then I looked around me.

Too many other adults in the lives of these students relied on excuses for why they couldn’t do an effective job. While passionate educators devised creative and unique lesson plans, ineffective teachers blamed parents or faulted an unfair society. Principals faulted a lack of resources and elected officials blamed others. Continue Reading →

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‘Our teachers are soldiers in the fight for social justice in America’

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On March 30, 2012 in Education reporting, General

That quote just had to be a headline. It’s from Louisiana’s state superintendent of education, John White, responding this week in the Baton Rouge Advocate to letters from teachers complaining about ed reform. Sometimes an op-ed is worth printing word for word:

The Advocate has recently published several letters to the editor on public education. I have to say as an educator, I’m disappointed with the prevailing tone and content of those letters opposing change.
Here are some passages that illustrate a common thread:

“We, the public school teachers of East Baton Rouge schools, can’t educate children who don’t want to be educated. We can’t educate children whose parents don’t care and are not involved.”

“ … the state is going to require that very poor students take the ACT … . The weaker of these students are not college-bound students who have no intention to attend college, yet he has to be compared and compete.”

And one writer simply stated, “Poverty is a significant factor affecting academic scores,” leaving it at that — as if that absolves us of any responsibility to educate the child.

I’m so disappointed in these comments for two reasons. First, they betray a mindset that forsakes the American dream. They show a sad belief among some that poverty is destiny in America, defying our core value that any child, no matter race, class or creed, can be the adult he or she dreams of being. Yes, poverty matters. Yes, it impacts learning. And that fact should only embolden us to do everything we can to break the cycle of poverty so another generation of children does not face the same challenges.

Second, and perhaps more disappointing, is that these letters were written by professional educators. Continue Reading →

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Expanded school choice means education reporters must adapt

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On March 28, 2012 in Charter Schools, Customization, Education and Public Policy, Education reporting, General, Parent empowerment, Parental Choice

I’m not an education reporter anymore, but from my new gig I’m getting even more dizzy watching education evolve. So many states are adding or expanding school choice options – charters, vouchers, virtual schools, tax-credit scholarships – that it’s hard for reporters to keep up. To make it worse, newsrooms are shrinking and there’s more pressure than ever to produce daily stories. It’s really hard to master the wonky details of say, vouchers for special needs students, at the same time you’re covering a middle school brawl and school board sniping.

But reporters are going to have to adapt. They’ll have to cover more ground with more depth.

Readers won’t be well served if education coverage continues to be reflexively focused on traditional public schools. And newspapers’ bottom lines won’t be well served when growing numbers of parents see that their schools are either 1) not being covered or 2) being snared in simplistic story lines that don’t mesh with their realities.

I see plenty of stories that relate to school choice that make me cringe. But I also see some that suggest newsrooms are adjusting: Continue Reading →

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A suburban school district that isn’t afraid of reform, choice

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On March 14, 2012 in General, Parental Choice, School Boards

Over at the Education Next blog, Rick Hess has an interview with Liz Fagen, the superintendent of Douglas County schools in Colorado. We’ve written about Douglas County before because it’s the district where, amazingly enough, the school board voted in a voucher program last year (though it’s now tied up in court). The Hess interview is worth a read not only because it points out other ways Douglas County is pushing the envelope, but because of the contrast Fagen offers to other suburban superintendents.

Douglas isn’t too different from, say, Seminole County in Florida. Douglas is a well-to-do district on the outskirts of Denver. Seminole is an affluent district outside Orlando. Both have about 60,000 students. Both have good reputations. Both have plenty of satisfied parents.

But when it comes to attitudes about school choice, the districts are night and day. Continue Reading →

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Teachers can fix a broken profession

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On March 14, 2012 in Achievement Gap, Teacher quality

Don’t like what an education reformer has to say? Just call them a teacher basher.

Increasingly, that’s what teachers and others are doing, with this recent blog post on CNN – “When did teacher bashing become the new national pastime?” – being the latest in a long list of examples.

Most of these articles set out straw men. There’s the frequent assertion that we only want to judge teacher performance by one standardized test score (few do). And another that teachers simply face an impossible job with students who are too damaged or too unmotivated to learn (a myth Education Trust dispelled long ago.) Most reformers assert quite properly that a teacher is the heart of the education system and the key to improving it. They should be treated better. They should be valued more highly. But the conundrum seems to be that teachers just don’t seem to believe that anyone can fairly measure what they do, so they collectively have resisted all efforts to implement meaningful performance standards. I find that odd, however, because I have never met a teacher who couldn’t tell me in a couple of minutes who the best and worst teachers in the school are

If we assume a good teacher enables a student to advance quickly and a poor teacher does the opposite, then it becomes difficult to dispute that the teaching profession is horribly broken. Continue Reading →

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The progressive choice: embrace school choice

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On March 6, 2012 in Customization, Education and Public Policy, General, School Choice

Editor’s note: Vouchers, charters, tax-credit scholarships – all part of the right-wing conspiracy to privatize education, right? Doug Tuthill argues that it’s the political left that should champion choice – because it’s the only path to equal opportunity in education.

For progressives who believe in equal educational opportunity, the current state of school choice is problematic.  As the movie “Waiting for Superman” illustrated, limited access to school choice is exacerbating inequalities. Parents who win lotteries, have the right political connections or have the money to buy homes where they want have schooling options less fortunate or less wealthy parents don’t have.

To resolve these inequities, progressives can advocate eliminating all parental choice – and force every child to attend their assigned neighborhood district school - or they can support making school choice ubiquitous.

Leveling the playing field by eliminating all parental choice is not a viable option. This solution would mean closing down all within-district choice programs such as magnet schools, alternative schools, open enrollment programs and career academies, and choice programs that occur outside school districts, including charter schools, online learning programs, homeschooling and private schools. This approach would also require eliminating the most common form of school choice: parents buying homes in their preferred school zone. To stop this practice the government would need to assign families to school zones and then require them to purchase homes in their zones. Of course, this is never going to happen. Continue Reading →

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Florida, superstar athletes and school choice – Deion Sanders joins the lineup

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On March 5, 2012 in Achievement Gap, Charter Schools, Customization, General, School Choice

Coincidence or not, an impressive roster of superstar professional athletes with strong Florida ties have become major league champions for school choice. Tim Tebow was homeschooled outside Jacksonville. Derrick Brooks of Pensacola co-founded a charter school in Tampa. Andre Agassi, who trained in Bradenton, did the same in Las Vegas. And Jorge Posada, who lives in Tampa (or did until recently), put his name behind the Lake Worth-based Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options.

The latest to step up: Deion “Prime Time” Sanders, a Fort Myers native who starred at Florida State before going on to electrify pro football and baseball.

Sanders is starting two charter schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The Prime Prep Academy schools, set to open this fall, will feature a technology-heavy curriculum aimed at inner-city kids.

“It’s been a 3-year process,” Sanders told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram Feb. 20. “Nothing I have ever done compares to this. We are going to have the best teachers and coaches. These schools will have no color and no boundaries. We plan to educate and influence kids to go and make a true difference in their community.” Continue Reading →

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Obama’s inconsistency on school choice

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On March 5, 2012 in Charter Schools, Customization, Education Research, General, Parent empowerment, Parental Choice, School Choice

The Obama administration’s refusal to embrace parental choice in education is difficult to understand given its health care stance and the overall public policy direction that Democrats have advocated and embraced for decades. The most recent example is the controversy over the access to contraception under Obamacare.

Initially, the administration asserted that a woman’s and family’s right to choose to use contraception trumped whatever objections religious affiliated employers had to its use. Churches themselves were exempt, but not hospitals they operate. These religious employers would have had to honor the family’s right to choose contraceptives and at zero cost for all their employees. The White House backed off somewhat from the directive in the face of an uproar, but instead ordered that insurance companies have to offer and pay for such coverage separately when the religiously affiliated organization opts not to offer it.

This recognition of the family’s rights on such a personal and potentially life changing decision as contraception oddly does not carry over to education, which in the 21st century is more life changing than ever. Education once was third behind a good work ethic and a strong back for many middle class jobs. Today, education is a must for a middle-class standard of living. Continue Reading →

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Hello from the new guy

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On February 27, 2012 in Parental Choice, Private Schools, Religious education, School Choice

Hi everybody. My name is Ron Matus. I’m the new assistant director of policy and public affairs at Step Up for Students, a nonprofit in Tampa, Florida that oversees a tax credit scholarship for 38,000 low-income students. Among other responsibilities, I’ll be editing redefinED, which means I have the unenviable task of replacing the irreplaceable Adam Emerson, who put this forum on the map and is now the school choice czar at the Fordham Institute. I have mountains of homework to do before I can approach the depth and breadth of knowledge that Adam brought to redefinED. But I am pumped about keeping the blog’s spirit alive and finding ways to bring more people into the conversation. I think redefinED stands out for its tone and view. I appreciate its humility. And I know it is absolutely on point in 1) trying to reshape what is meant by “public education” and 2) accentuating the common ground between so many of us who have somehow been segregated into warring camps.

I’m sure I’ll be sharing more about myself in future posts, but for now I think two things are worth noting.

I was a newspaper reporter for 25 years. Continue Reading →

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