Education miracles that aren't
In seeking reform models, L.A. Unified should be cautious about untested solutions.
Protesters demonstrate outside an L.A. school board meeting over a proposal to require high school students to pass rigorous college-prep courses. (Los Angeles Times / May 5, 2005)
Beware of education miracles. Too often, there's less there than meets the eye. Remember the extraordinary gains in test scores and lowered dropout rates in Houston schools more than a decade ago? They became the model for the federal No Child Left Behind Act and catapulted the schools' superintendent, Rod Paige, to his position as U.S. secretary of Education at the beginning of the George W. Bushadministration. Only years later was it discovered that schools were recording students as having "transferred" when they had in fact dropped out, and that students who were expected to do badly on standardized tests were often kept from taking them.
Then there was Atlanta's schools superintendent, who won a national award for the gains made by her students. That was before investigators determined in 2011 that there had been rampant cheating by teachers and principals throughout the school district.
Another much-touted miracle: charter schools, which were supposed to lead the way to success for all students. Now, however, it seems that they have a decidedly mixed record.
A less-publicized addition to this list was the San Jose school district, widely admired for its high school graduation standard that requires all students to pass the full series of 15 courses, known as the A-G sequence, that qualifies them for admission to California's four-year public universities. Supporters cited San Jose's reported success when they persuaded the Los Angeles Unified School District to adopt a similar requirement in 2005, phased in so that this year's freshmen will be the first who must pass the courses.
As it turns out, according to a report last week in The Times,San Jose fudged its success rates by counting students who had nearly completed the requirements. In addition, many students either passed the courses with a D grade, which is not accepted by the state universities, or took an escape route into the district's alternative schools, which have lesser requirements. All in all, the proportion of students who qualify for the universities has barely budged over the decade the policy has been in place. The one bit of good
