Tag Archive for 'Jay Mathews'

The Making of Americans

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 1, 2009 in Core Knowledge and Education Theory. 4 Comments

The official publication date is still two weeks away (Sept. 15), but copies of E.D. Hirsch’s new book, The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, have started to hit the bookstores.  Jay Mathews gets a jump with his review in the Washington Post.  “If the inventive 81-year-old had been a business leader or politician or even a school superintendent, his fight to give U.S. children rich lessons in their shared history and culture would have made him a hero among his peers,” Mathews shrewedly observes. ”Instead, he chose to be an English professor, at the unlucky moment when academic fashion declared the American common heritage to be bunk and made people like Hirsch into pariahs.” 

Mathews notes (correctly, I think) that Hirsch’s new book makes the case for a common curriculum “in the clearest form since his ground-breaking 1987 book, Cultural Literacy.”

“The Making of Americans” puts the most troublesome elementary school subject, reading, at the center of its argument. Reading achievement and language proficiency generally have been disappointing for decades, particularly in schools full of the children of immigrant or impoverished parents. Progressives have called for engaging students with lessons that celebrate their real lives and their cultural heritages. Old books about dead white guys don’t hack it, they say. Hirsch’s research convinced him that this approach cut children off from the shared background they all must have to understand the words in front of them.

Richard Kahlenberg, reviews the book in the Autumn issue of The American Scholar, not yet available online:

In The Making of Americans, Hirsch…widens the lens to connect his ideas on education reform to the fundamental rationales for our system of public schools in the United States. Citing the writings of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Horace Mann, Hirsch identifies two central reasons for the American “common school”: to create social mobility, allowing bright, hard-working students of all origins to enjoy the American dream; and to create social cohesion, binding children of diverse economic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds into citizens of a single nation. Hirsch makes a highly cogent case to support the concept that a common curriculum is necessary in elementary schools to further both goals. The American focus on skills, rather than on content, has left low-income students bereft of “unspoken background knowledge” that is explicitly taught in countries like France and Finland, where levels of academic inequality are much lower. “It does not seem to occur to the intellectual descendants of Rousseau,” Hirsch writes, “that the four-year-old children of rich, highly educated parents might be gaining academic knowledge at home that is unfairly being withheld (albeit with noble intentions) from the children of the poor.”

“American education would be far better off if leaders heeded Hirsch’s sound advice to restore a common-core curriculum, Kahlenberg concludes.  “Our system would do even better still if leaders went one step further and reinvented Horace Mann’s economically integrated common school for the 21st century.”

One, Two, Three All Eyes on Rhee

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 15, 2009 in Education News. 2 Comments

Fame can backfire.  Money doesn’t always talk.  Politics matter.  Beware of unintended consequences.  The Washington Post’s Bill Turque sums up the lessons learned by Washington, DC’s lightning rod Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.   “Two years into the job, Rhee has lost none of her zeal,” Turque reports.  “But those who know her well say she’s found that converting conviction into sustainable change requires more patience, indulgence and attentiveness to politics than may come naturally to her.”

Turque’s piece opens with Rhee being called on the carpet by D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray over her decision to pose for the cover of TIME Magazine holding a broom.  “What does it get you, to constantly bash those you’re trying to get to help you? he asked her (a question also asked by this blog).  Turque’s piece describes how Rhee’s “rising celebrity alienated key constituencies at home” including teachers and parents.   He also reports that Rhee “expected to be hailed as a hero last summer by the Washington Teachers’ Union” for her proposal to raise pay into the stratosphere for those willing to forego tenure.  And although he notes Rhee has earned points for more tactful recent management of her relationship with the City Council and other constituencies, she still sounds unrepentant:

If I go down at the end of the day because I didn’t play the political game right, that’s okay with me,” she tells the Post. “At least when you’re making decisions that you believe are in the best interests of kids, you may not win in the end, but at least you can operate with a good conscience.”

“By major measures of progress, the jury on Rhee remains out,” Turque concludes.  “It will take at least three sets of annual standardized test scores to assess whether her changes are making a difference in classrooms, experts say. The second set is due this summer.”

At Teacher Beat, guest blogger Liana Heitin focuses on Rhee’s status as an outsider to DC and education politics, concluding “it’s possible she will continue to remain ‘outside’ as long as she stays pinned to a self-imposed agenda, resists collaborating with stakeholders, refuses to sugarcoat the dismal realities of the system, and aims recruitment efforts at a ‘new breed’ of idealists who are willing to sacrifice their personal lives to make a splash themselves.”  Finally, the Post’s Jay Mathews says Turque nails the list of Rhee’s “lessons learned” and invites readers to add on their own.  The comments predictably fall into two categories:  “You go, girl!”  or simply ”You, go.”

Update:  Eduflack, engaging in expectation management, predicts a downturn in DC test scores this summer.

PreK: Access for All? Or For All At-Risk Children?

Published by Alice Wiggins on April 24, 2009 in No category. 3 Comments

A Washington Post reader last October asked education columnist Jay Mathews to “start a discussion on the advantages (real and imagined) of pre-kindergarten.”  The writer cited evidence that the effects of pre-k wear off and expressed concerns attempting to serve middle-class and at-risk kids with the same program might be “a sure recipe for a new middle-class benefit that shortchanges the poor.”

In response, Sara Mead of the New America Foundation laid out a case for universal pre-k (UPK) largely based on research demonstrating that all children, not just low-SES kids, would benefit.  “It’s true,” she wrote, “that the high-quality, randomized controlled trials that demonstrated long-term benefits to participation in high-quality pre-k programs focused on low-income students.”

But data from more recent evaluations of pre-k programs suggests that these programs also have benefits for middle-class children. For example, a Georgetown University study that looked at children in Oklahoma’s universal pre-k program found that all groups of students participating in the program, including middle class kids, made learning gains as a result, compared to students who didn’t. But the greatest gains were for low-income and otherwise at-risk students. Other studies looking at state pre-k programs have found similar results.

Mathews’ correspondent observed that the middle class has to be included to build the political momentum to get a program passed.  Mead cited research that shows a lot of working- and middle-class families can’t afford pre-k either.  And she’s especially persuasive when she notes “the simple fact that we don’t restrict children’s access to K-12 education based on their parents’ incomes.”

In the end, the question of universal pre-k vs low-income pre-k is a political question.  But the benefit of preschool for low-SES children can no longer be seriously disputed.  There is no doubt that access to high-quality preschool programs helps. But the key phrase in that sentence is not access, but high-quality.  Universal access to low-quality preschool would be a high-cost, low-value proposition.  Data from the National Association for the Education of Young Children shows most programs in the United States are rated mediocre, and fewer than 10% meet national accreditation standards:

Across the nation child care fees average $4,000 to $10,000 per year, exceeding the cost of public universities in most states. Yet, nationally only 1 in 7 children who are financially eligible for child care subsidies is being served, and only 41% of 3 and 4 year old children living in poverty are enrolled in preschool, compared to 58% of those whose families have higher incomes.

Cracking the nut of ensuring high-quality is a work in progress.  What we do know is that it is dependent on what teachers do in the classroom, not just what they have in the classroom.            

In the end, I’m agnostic on universal PreK.  It certainly would do no harm, and much good.  But we must find a way to guarantee every low-income child a place in a high-quality preschool. If we’re serious about closing the achievement gap, it’s not going to happen without a robust program that captures all of our most vulnerable, at-risk children.

Another 21st Century Skills Skeptic

Published by Robert Pondiscio on January 5, 2009 in No category. 1 Comment

Add the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews to the growing number of observers skeptical of ”21st century skills,” which he pronounces the latest doomed pedagogical fad.

It calls for students to learn to think and work creatively and collaboratively. There is nothing wrong with that. Young Plato and his classmates did the same thing in ancient Greece. But I see little guidance for classroom teachers in 21st-century skills materials. How are millions of students still struggling to acquire 19th-century skills in reading, writing and math supposed to learn this stuff?  

Mathews is especially tough on the rhetoric of 21st century skills enthusiasts who insist, as one advocacy group does, that every aspect of our education system must be aligned to prepare citizens with the 21st century skills they need to compete.  “This is the all-at-once syndrome,” Mathews observes, “a common failing of reform movements.” 

Like many fads, 21st century skills has legs because it sounds so reasonable, especially to non-educators.  Children should be able to solve problems, and think critically.  For teachers, the fad has the potential to send the message that such skills are content-neutral, or can be taught in the abstract, which is demonstrably false.  As has been discussed on this blog and elsewhere, you can’t uncouple higher order thinking from the deep subject-specific knowledge that makes it possible. 

“It takes hard work to teach this stuff, and even harder work, by poorly motivated adolescents, to learn it,” Mathews concludes.  “In our poorest neighborhoods, we still have some of our weakest teachers, either too inexperienced to handle methods like modeling instruction or too cynical to consider 21st-century skills anything more than another doomed fad. There might be a way to turn them around, but if there isn’t, instead of engaged and inspired students, we will have just one more big waste of time.”

Michelle Rhee Is Scaring Me

Published by Robert Pondiscio on December 1, 2008 in Education News, No category and Opinion. 59 Comments

I have never met Michelle Rhee.  Like many people in education, I’ve seen her speak on panels and at conferences, and I’ve read about her extensively.  And let me say clearly, immediately and unambiguously that I support most of what she stands for.  Furthermore, I am in absolute agreement that a profound lack of patience is the only reasonable response to a failed and sclerotic urban school system.  I get it. 

Michelle Rhee is starting to make me nervous.  I don’t mean giddy-excited nervous, but wincing, “uh-oh” nervous.  With her appearance on the cover of Time Magazine this week, she’s now officially the face of education reform in the U.S.

That face is wearing a scowl.  America, say goodbye to Wendy “One Day, All Children” Kopp.  Meet Michelle “I don’t give a crap” Rhee.  Education reformers, say hello to your new cover girl:

In many private encounters with officials, bureaucrats and even fundraisers–who have committed millions of dollars to help her reform the schools–she doesn’t smile or nod or do any of the things most people do to put others at ease. She reads her BlackBerry when people talk to her. I have seen her walk out of small meetings held for her benefit without a word of explanation. She says things most superintendents would not. “The thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely,” she tells me one afternoon in her office. Then she raises her chin and does what I come to recognize as her standard imitation of people she doesn’t respect. Sometimes she uses this voice to imitate teachers; other times, politicians or parents. Never students. “People say, ‘Well, you know, test scores don’t take into account creativity and the love of learning,’” she says with a drippy, grating voice, lowering her eyelids halfway. Then she snaps back to herself. “I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t give a crap.’ Don’t get me wrong. Creativity is good and whatever. But if the children don’t know how to read, I don’t care how creative you are. You’re not doing your job.”

Saying ”the thing that kills me about education is that it’s so touchy-feely” is kind of like saying, ”The thing that kills me about accountancy is that it’s so detail-oriented.”  I’m as data-driven as the next guy, but education is now and always will be — must be — a people-driven enterprise.  People are the product.  The desire to successfully develop the capabilities of others is what gets teachers out of bed in the morning.   

Even people who work for her seem to agree.  By coincidence, the Washington Post’s Jay Mathews has a piece in today’s paper about Brian Betts, Rhee’s hand-picked principal of Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson.  And Jay has him sounding downright touchy-feely. 

Students and parents told Betts that many teachers they knew at Shaw and Garnet-Patterson didn’t care about them. “Nothing that I have ever seen trumps personal relationships at this level,” Betts said. “The kids in this building who can be absolutely horrible in one person’s class can be angelic in another because they have formed a relationship with that teacher.”

Full disclosure:  I worked at Time Magazine long enough to know that a taste for “thesis journalism” is practically stamped on newsmagazines’ genetic code.  Maybe that’s what’s happening here.  The reporter decides the direction she’s taking the story, and piles on the quotes and anecdotes to paint the picture of Michelle Rhee, hard-charging, no excuses type.  See Rhee scowling at a teacher; see Rhee walking out of a meeting punching text into her Blackberry without so much as a “good day.”  She’s on a mission, dammit, and niceties aren’t on the agenda!  Even the cover — especially the cover — See Michelle Rhee with a broom!  She’s the new broom!

Here’s what worries me: accurate or inaccurate, fair or unfair, the increasingly confrontational, impatient, blunt, even rude public persona that’s affixing itself to the Washington, DC schools chancellor runs the risk of getting in the way of what Michelle Rhee wants to accomplish.   I’ll put it bluntly: piss off enough people whose help is essential to your success, and your failure becomes inevitable, a consummation devoutly to be wished.  Then for years to come, the answer to the reforms anyone proposes becomes, “Oh yes, we tried that in Washington under Michelle Rhee and you remember how that worked out.” If she fails, Michelle Rhee’s failure will not be hers alone.  At worst, she runs the risk of damaging the ed reform “brand” for a generation. 

The bottom line:  Most people want to see Michelle Rhee succeed.  But some would like nothing more than to see her go down in flames.  It’s important not to upset that balance and add boxcar numbers of people (you know, people and whatever) to the those who are already sharpening long knives.  That’s not being touchy-feely.  It’s being pragmatic.  A lot of other people’s dreams, plans and hard work are riding with Michelle Rhee on that broom.  And it’s a long way down.

Public or Private?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on November 10, 2008 in Education Leadership. 2 Comments

Everyone and their brother is weighing in on where the future First Daughters should go to school once their dad moves to Washington to start his new job.  Jay Mathews of the Washington Post wisely avoids grandstanding, noting that school choice is very personal.  He assumes the Obama girls will find their way to Georgetown Day School, “because of its similarity to their current school, its historic role as the city’s first racially integrated school and the presence of Obama senior legal adviser Eric H. Holder Jr. on its board of trustees.”  However he notes there is a viable public school, Strong John Thomson, a stone’s throw from the White House.

Meet the principal, Gladys Camp, and you understand why Thomson parents think the Obamas ought to check it out. Dr. Camp, as everyone calls her, is a legend. In the past two years, she has won awards from the National Association of Elementary School Principals and this newspaper as the best school leader in the city….Sixty-nine percent of Thomson’s 355 students are from low-income families. Forty percent are Hispanic, 34 percent black, 22 percent Asian American and 5 percent white. That demographic mix often means remedial instruction and little enrichment, but parents say the school offers a feast of music, art and foreign languages as good as what they would find in a private school. 

The last President to send his kids to public school?  Jimmy Carter.  “Thomson is close to capacity,” writes Uncle Jay, “but Camp said she would have room after the holidays for a fifth-grader and a second-grader transferring from the Midwest.”

The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

Published by Robert Pondiscio on October 6, 2008 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Influential Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews is no fan of merit pay, warning that Michelle Rhee’s plan to pay Washington, DC high-fliers up to $20,000 extra a year has the potential divide teachers, instead of getting them to work together for struggling kids

The idea troubles me, because it is at odds with what I have learned from charter leaders who have made great achievement gains in their independent public schools. Their staffs thrive on teamwork. Everyone shares lesson plans, swaps ideas and reinforces discipline to help each child. Won’t big checks to just a few members of the team ruin that?

“Teams with all players pulling hard are also more likely to attract more committed people,” Mathews correctly observes, “happy to escape schools where co-workers make fun of strivers.” He quotes several leaders of successful, high profile urban charter schools, each of whom takes issue with the idea off rewarding individual teachers for gains made by their students

Dave Levin, co-founder of the KIPP school network, said, “Given the interconnectivity of teaching kids, the best incentives are school incentives which the school itself can then decide how to allocate.” His fellow KIPP co-founder, Mike Feinberg, quoted Rudyard Kipling: “The strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

Hiring and Firing

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 30, 2008 in Education Practice. 0 Comments

Jay Mathews, the dean of education reporters, takes a strong stand on teacher retention, arguing that giving principals the unfettered power to hire and fire teachers is “crucial” to closing the achievement gap.

This is a difficult choice and a hard time for D.C. teachers. They are fine people who have chosen a tough profession and put their hearts into their work. Many fear being judged by principals who were not skillful teachers themselves and have little clue as to what helps kids learn and what doesn’t. But I don’t see any way the city’s children are going to get the instruction they deserve — the imaginative, fun-loving, firm teaching found at schools like KEY — unless principals are given the power to hire and fire teachers based on demonstrated skill and improved learning in class.

Mathews cites the example of the KIPP DC:KEY Academy, where principal Sarah Hayes dismissed two teachers who were not cutting it, despite efforts to improve.  “If KEY were a traditional school, Hayes’s only reasonable option would have been to mentor the teachers, note her dissatisfaction on their evaluations and recommend that they not be kept after a two-year probation,” he writes.  “That is the way it goes in most school systems. Staffing rules, tenure agreements and low expectations tend to favor weak teachers unless they do something awful.”

Speaking of New Paternalism…

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 12, 2008 in Education Practice. 0 Comments

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has decided that “No Excuses Schools” is a better moniker than “New Paternalism.”  You may recall, Mathews had issues with the title of David Whitman’s new book, Sweating the Small Stuff, about KIPP, et al., praising the author’s work and the schools profiled in his book.  But he found the subtitle, “Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism,” off-putting and a PR disaster.  So he invited his legion of readers to come up with a better name. 

Uncle Jay was kind enough to cite my objection in his column, but my point remains: if we want to move the agenda forward for kids, we need to focus on the practices that make those schools successful. If that means acting in loco parentis–or as a loco parent–so be it.  Whatever it takes. Also as Corey Bower points out, “No Excuses Schools” implies the reason most schools are struggling “is because they’re making excuses, or allowing kids to make excuses.”  It ain’t necessarily so. 

Hmmm.  How about “ILP Schools?”

It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Published by Robert Pondiscio on September 2, 2008 in Education News. 2 Comments

Great teaching, not great buildings, make for a first-rate education, says Jay Mathews in the Washington Post. 

Ten years ago, I wrote a book about high schools with golden reputations in some of the country’s most expensive suburbs. They were full of Advanced Placement classes and fine teachers, but I was astonished at how bad some of the buildings were. Mamaroneck High School, in one of the most affluent parts of Westchester County, N.Y., had three 66-year-old boilers that repeatedly broke down and many clocks that didn’t work. La Jolla High School, north of San Diego, full of science fair winners, was a collection of stained stucco classrooms and courtyards of dead grass.

Mathews is right, of course, but while some in education use poor facilities as an excuse for underachievement, let’s not make excuses for miserable facilities either.  I taught for years in a poorly maintined 110-year-old building in the South Bronx, whose construction predated indoor plumbing and electricity and seemed to reject both like badly matched donor organs.  Pigeons roosted in the lighting fixtures if you forgot to close the windows at night.  There wasn’t so much as a slide on the playground.   There wasn’t a playground.  On its best days it was an physically uncomfortable place to go to school.  A few blocks away, the local library remained shuttered for years while it operated out of a trailer.  It’s hard to imagine upper crust Manhattanites abiding these kinds of conditions for long for their children.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be. 

“It might be better if we spent our money on principals and teachers who inspire, who don’t take lethargy or resentment for an answer,” says Mathews. “Put educators like that in the rickety buildings we have, and stand back.”

Stand back indeed.  It smarts to be struck by falling plaster.