Special Nite Cap: Catch Up on Today's Post 10/4/16
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Tuesday, October 4, 2016
John Thompson: The Three Faces of a New Era of School Improvement | Huffington Post - Linkis.com
The Three Faces of a New Era of School Improvement | Huffington Post - Linkis.com:
The Three Faces of a New Era of School Improvement
The Three Faces of a New Era of School Improvement
NPR Ed reached out to education leaders from across the country and found that “some education leaders are rushing to embrace the newly frank conversation about the racial impact of education reforms. Others are caught awkwardly in the middle. And some — especially conservative — reformers feel alienated.” NPR’sAnya Kamenetz cited one of those conservative reformers, Rick Hess, who observes, “‘We’re watching the old NCLB/Race to the Top coalition come apart, and we’ll see what will come out the other side.’”
But it isn’t just racial divisions that are tearing apart the contemporary school improvement efforts of the last generation. Educators of all races, from various ideologies, and committed to very different school policies are also split over fundamental differences as to how we in a democracy work with each other. The unraveling of the corporate reform coalition is due, in large part, because of the ways they treat people who disagree with them.
A National Press Club panel discussion clarified the positions of today’s three dominant schools of education policy. Shavar Jeffries of the Democrats for Education Reform embodies the neoliberal wing of the corporate reform movement. Andrew Smarick, from Bellwhether Education Partners, displays the new face of their former partners, conservative reformers. The panel also included an open and welcoming face of teacher-led school improvement, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, the president of the National Education Association.
The Education Writers Association’s Caroline Hendrie started the discussion with a mention of the breakup of the reform coalition. As Smarick explains, liberal reformers pushed top-down technocratic approaches that are now being rejected, while conservatives pledge fidelity to “the Market.” Of course, liberals wouldn’t trust this sort of unfettered competition in any other public sector and, I would think, even neoliberals would reject the granting of such unchecked power to corporate interests. It certainly isn’t a viable path to racial justice.
Corporate reformers, however, have enthusiastically supported unfair competition where test-driven micromanaging is imposed on traditional public schools as they empowered charters to “cream” the easier-to-teach students and to promote segregation, behaviorist pedagogies and discipline, in order to defeat neighborhood schools. (The pedagogies also help charters to push out students who make it more difficult to raise test scores.) Their goal was defeating teachers unions and others who disagreed with their agenda. To do so, corporate reformers dismissed a generation of the poorest children of color as collateral damage in the fight against their adult opponents.
The NEA’s Eskelsen Garcia best explains how the test-driven, competition-driven reform alliance held together for nearly a generation. In the 1980s, conservatives would demand “Results!” Liberals fought for “Equality.” The contemporary reform movement took the shortcut of demanding “Equal Results!”
In other words, reformers chose to pretend that equal results could be produced on the cheap, without tackling the inequality which defeats so many of the highest-poverty schools. The stress of high stakes testing would somehow overcome the The Three Faces of a New Era of School Improvement | Huffington Post - Linkis.com:
Nevada Education Savings Account Vouchers Ruled Unconstitutional by Nevada’s Supreme Court | janresseger
Nevada Education Savings Account Vouchers Ruled Unconstitutional by Nevada’s Supreme Court | janresseger:
Nevada Education Savings Account Vouchers Ruled Unconstitutional by Nevada’s Supreme Court
Nevada Education Savings Account Vouchers Ruled Unconstitutional by Nevada’s Supreme Court
In a short brief, the National Education Association concisely defines Education Savings Accounts—the kind of school voucher program that was found unconstitutional by the Nevada Supreme Court last week:
“Education Savings Accounts (ESA) are the latest trend in publicly subsidized private school education… (T)he common factor is that these programs pay parents all or a large portion of the money the state would otherwise have spent to educate their children in exchange for an agreement to forego their right to a public education. Funds deposited into such accounts may be used for any number of expenses, including private school tuition, fees, textbooks; tutoring and test prep; homeschooling curriculum and supplemental materials; special instruction and therapeutic services; transportation; and management fees. These programs also permit parents to roll over unused funds for use in subsequent years and to invest a portion of the funds into college savings plans.”
Education Savings Accounts are advocated by the American Federation for Children (Betsy DeVos’s organization) and the Friedman Foundation. The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has a model Education Savings Account bill ready to be introduced in any state legislature. (If you are unfamiliar with ALEC, check out this post.) As of 2015, NEA reported that five states—Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Mississippi and Tennessee—had passed legislation to establish Education Savings Accounts.
Nevada’s program was said to be the most radical. In June of 2015, after Nevada’s law was passed, Lyndsey Layton and Emma Brown reported for the Washington Post: “Starting next school year, any parent in Nevada can pull a child from the state’s public schools and take tax dollars with them, giving families the option to use public money to pay for private or parochial school or even for home schooling… Nevada’s law is singular because all of the state’s 450,000 K-12 public school children—regardless of income—are eligible to take the money to whatever school they choose.” While most voucher programs are designed for poor and special needs students, every student in Nevada was going to be able to take $5,100 (or Nevada Education Savings Account Vouchers Ruled Unconstitutional by Nevada’s Supreme Court | janresseger:
Relay Grad School of Ed Operation Rejected in Pennsylvania | deutsch29
Relay Grad School of Ed Operation Rejected in Pennsylvania | deutsch29:
Relay Grad School of Ed Operation Rejected in Pennsylvania
Relay Grad School of Ed Operation Rejected in Pennsylvania
Since February 2014, corporate reform entity, Relay Graduate School of Education, has been trying to gain approval to operate as a masters-degree-granting entity in Pennsylvania.
Relay is not seeking for authorization in Pennsylvania; Relay wanted to establish a physical presence in Pennsylvania to offer its New York-approved Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT).
On July 26, 2016, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) denied Relay’s application.
In sum, PDE details its reasons for Relay-PA rejection as follows:
- Relay was unable “to differentiate between the requirements for approval to offer courses… that would lead to a MAT degree and the requirements… to offer a post-baccalaureate teacher preparation program” (page 8). In other words, Relay apparently saw earning a masters degree as equal to attaining a BA/BS, tag-on teacher certification.
- Relay proposed that 13 individuals would serve as administrative personnel– but only 2 would be physically stationed in PA. The other 11 would remain in NY and be available “off site” on a part time basis. Moreover, regarding the 2 located in PA, Relay “failed to provide sufficient evidence” that these 2 would be “appropriately qualified to operate the education enterprise” and that only 2 individuals would be an adequate number to run the PA site (page 8).
- Relay proposed a 3-member advisory committee without “a background in higher education administration or in the assessment of higher education program quality” (page 9). In addition, 2 of the 3 proposed advisors are “employed at Mastery Charter school, which is the proposed site for the operation of the Relay education enterprise” (page 9). Whereas the advisors could be appointed to the Relay advisory board since they are not employed by Relay, the fact that these 2 advisors work at the proposed Relay site “does create concerns about their independent advisory capacity especially because, as noted above, they lack a background in higher education administration and in assessing the quality of a higher education program” (page 9). In other words, these two proposed advisors appear to be advisors chosen for convenience and not for professional qualification.
- Relay’s MAT has no masters-level research component. Relay tried to pass classroom assessment techniques as the masters-level research component. PDE didn’t buy it: “Student assessment is a skill required for classroom teachers, but it is not form of academic research, which requires the review and citation of academic literature and the application of quantitative and qualitative analysis” (page 9). Relay also contradicted itself regarding a “masters defense seminar” as a “cornerstone” research component when Relay’s own literature described the seminar as an elective. PDE concludes, “Relay not only provided Relay Grad School of Ed Operation Rejected in Pennsylvania | deutsch29:
School choice not the right choice for our kids
School choice not the right choice for our kids:
School choice not the right choice for our kids
School choice not the right choice for our kids
Five years ago, the state Legislature considered forcing all schools to play by the same rules when it comes to allowing students from outside their districts to enroll.
It didn't get very far, due, in part, to stringent opposition from districts like Grosse Pointe Schools, where the Grosse Pointe city councils passed resolutions opposing the proposal.
The council, which has no control over the schools, voiced concerns that its district-specific millage not be spent on nonresident students. But the panel also worried that becoming a schools of choice district — accepting kids who don't live in the Grosse Pointes — would require the schools to adopt lower curriculum standards to maintain the district's graduation rate. Becoming a schools of choice district, said Grosse Pointe Woods Mayor Robert Novitke, would negatively impact both the city's property values and quality of life.
►Related: Michigan’s grade on charter school reform is incomplete
►Related: Reforming schools, again and again
►Related: Schools of choice creating white flight in metro Detroit
►Related: Reforming schools, again and again
►Related: Schools of choice creating white flight in metro Detroit
It's a blatant vocalization of the objections of a lot of high-performing suburban schools, when asked to open their doors to kids from outside the district — particularly when it comes to kids from Detroit, where the schools have struggled for decades, and about 14,000 students go to schools of choice outside the city.
And it's one reason why schools of choice don't work.
In theory, schools of choice are an escape route for students trapped in failing districts, a way to offer those kids higher-quality education. That's the premise on which nearly all free-market education reforms are based: If you just offer parents more options — charters, vouchers, schools of choice — competition will sort everything out. Enrollment at good schools will swell, and the bad schools will improve or close, as parents and students vote with their feet.
It's a great theory.
But in practice, districts have opened their borders when declining enrollment has left them with few other options to boost revenue — because school funding in Michigan is tied, almost exclusively, to the state's per-pupil allotment, schools lose funds when they lose students. So the districts most likely to open their doors to outside pupils are those that have already experienced significant declines in enrollment and funding — in other words, the districts in which parents have already voted with their feet.
So Detroit kids go to Rouge River, Rouge River kids go to Wyandotte and Wyandotte kids go to Riverview, taking their per-pupil funding with them — about 13% of students statewide, in 496 participating districts. Kids may get a marginally better, or at least safer, education. But in the main, a policy that's supposed to improve education becomes a budget fix for struggling districts.
It's a tantalizing prospect for parents looking for better schools — and for parents who live in failing districts, schools that offer even marginal improvement are, well, an improvement.
Michigan is wrapping up its 22nd year of nearly unfettered school choice, and there is absolutely no indication that the state is preparing to modify, much less reverse course on, the policies that have landed us near the bottom on every reasonable measure of educational achievement.
All of which raises serious questions about what exactly we're doing, and why we're doing it. At minimum, free-market reforms offer a naive approach to a complex problem, premised on the idea that ideology is more important than outcomes. At worst, the way such policies are constructed raise a serious question: Why has an ideologically driven movement invested billions of dollars in the name of improving education, but with the net effect of weakening traditional public schools?
Many of the state's top-performing districts — districts like Grosse Pointe, Birmingham, Northville or Novi — don't participate in schools of choice. The state doesn't compel their participation, or offer an incentive for them to do so. For a few years, Gov. Rick Snyder's administration included schools of choice participation as a "best practice" that could earn districts a small increase — one year, about $52 per pupil — in the state's per-pupil funding. But even that financial incentive is no longer in place.
There's something else that makes schools of choice a counterproductive policy, says Joshua Cowen, a Michigan State University professor who studies the policy: Kids who switch districts through the program tend to keep moving.
"The majority of kids who begin in schools of choice in our data don’t stay in for all of elementary school," he says. "It's something like 45% of these kids overall stay, whereas 55% exit sometime between kindergarten and fifth grade."
►Related: Racial divide sharp in Michigan schools
►Related: If state cared about fixing schools, it would fund them
►Related: If state cared about fixing schools, it would fund them
For African-American kids, and kids who are eligible for free and reduced lunch — a metric that often stands in for poverty rates — the numbers are worse, Cowen says: "Revolving door is an apt metaphor. That, in and of itself, is a problem. ... There’s a lot of debate among positive and negative attributes of school choice. But it's unambiguous that school mobility is a bad thing. And it's not only detrimental to those who go, but those who stay."
But, he says, there's something to the concept of choice the policy is premised on.
"Parents who can afford to leave districts they don’t like, do. They move homes," he said. "The parents that don’t, stay, but use schools of choice to transfer. The bigger structural problem is related to race and income, as are all of our problems. Schools of choice are not a panacea, but it’s also not the root of all evil."
Flawed policy, skewed benefits
But even requiring districts like Grosse Pointe and others to open their doors to outside students is unlikely to elicit the promised results.
"There would never be enough seats in the good districts to accept all of the districts potentially that parents would want to leave," says Novi Community Schools District Superintendent Steve Matthews. "While it sounds good in theory, I don’t believe it’s an accurate gauge of where schools really are at. If we opened our borders would we have people who wanted to come? Surely, but we wouldn’t have room for 2,000 kids to come to Novi. We’d have room for 50 or 60."
Districts can become schools of choice by allowing students from within the same intermediate school district to enroll, or from the same ISD and ISDs that are contiguous. And districts can decide in which grades they'll accept outside students.
Novi doesn't participate in schools of choice, Matthews says, in part because the district has no financial incentive to do so — its enrollment is stable.
Then there's transportation: Families living in poverty often lack vehicles, and metro Detroit's public transit is notoriously dysfunctional. For a family without a car, getting to schools outside the city is a significant challenge.
Further, Matthews says, the premise that competition is all it takes to boost school performance is wrong.
"To presume that schools have to be forced to be concerned about quality, I believe is a false assumption," he said. "The people I've worked with over my career believe that we are in this field because we want to do the best thing we can for kids. In my experience, people who go into education want to do best thing for kids but (sometimes) are fighting a losing battle because of high poverty, lack of parental support for kids — it’s not because we don’t care, to assume we have to have outside pressure to do the best we can for kids diminishes the heart and soul of education."
Novi's schools benefit from the affluence of the community, Matthews says — educating kids who come to school showered with necessities and advantages makes education an easier prospect.
"My job is easier than other superintendents because they're struggling with things I don’t have to struggle with," he said. "I have to worry about a new fitness center, not that kids are coming to school without the right clothes for winter, or coming to school hungry or not having been read to the night before. There's no simple answer to how to make schools better but I'm not convinced schools of choice is one of those answers, because it doesn’t address problems that make schools struggle."
Kids in Novi, he says, have parents willing and able to pay higher taxes to support the community's schools; folks in that affluent community have leisure time and disposable income.
"Our parents take our kids to museums and libraries and plays and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and that kind of thing," he said. "We benefit from our community."
I point out to him that of the four cultural amenities he's just named, three are in Detroit. So kids in Novi benefit from Detroit amenities, but Detroit kids can't benefit from Novi's schools.
"That's kind of ironic," he says. "Isn't it?"
Contact Nancy Kaffer: nkaffer@freepress.com.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misidentified Robert Novitke. He is the current mayor of Grosse Pointe Woods. School choice not the right choice for our kids:
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