Whatever Happened to “No Excuses” Schools?
Nothing. They are still around in big cities. What has changed is the rhetoric of reform. Where once the phrase “No Excuses” was plastered on car bumpers. It was a popular label that one wing of urban school reformers used with pride, but now it has fallen out of favor. Although the sticker has been stripped from the bumper, “No Excuses” schools remain.
The substance of these mostly charter network schools–curriculum, instruction, organization, and governance– continues largely as they have been (e.g., Knowledge Is Power Program–KIPP–Uncommon Schools, YES Prep). As “policy talk” goes–the rhetoric of reform–charter school spokespeople avoid “no excuses” as much as they would in talking about their undergarments.
In two decades, the phrase has gone from a proud label charter school advocates used to fierce rejection by many of the same boosters. Listen to Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academies in New York City in a 2017 interview:
“We’re not a no-excuses school. We’re just not. I don’t really know how to respond to that nomenclature…. That doesn’t mean you don’t believe that high levels of learning can occur in chaos,and we do believe that students do need to say please and thank you to the lunch ladies. We do assign school uniforms to CONTINUE READING: Whatever Happened to “No Excuses” Schools? | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
