Tag Archive for 'school reform'

The Great Schism

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 24, 2008 in Educational Policy. 15 Comments

Good reading today on Fordham’s Gadfly. Fordham and Core Knowledge board member Diane Ravitch take longtime friend and ally Checker Finn to task—nicely, politely, but firmly—over Finn’s dismissal of Randi Weingarten’s inaugural speech as AFT President, in which she called for schools to become community centers that offer a range of services.

Checker warns that this means that Weingarten and people like me are “abandoning hope for schools that significantly boost student achievement” just at the time that more states are reporting “stronger test scores” in reading and math. He labels ours a call for “schools that do everything but teach.”

I couldn’t disagree more. I care as much about academic achievement as Checker or anyone else in the world, but I don’t see any contradiction between caring about academic achievement and caring about children’s health and well-being….Checker argues that the “‘broader, bolder’ crowd” (me, Weingarten, Tom Payzant, Richard Rothstein, Marshall Smith, etc.) are making an awful mistake because schools can do only one thing at a time–and they must focus on academics first. To the extent that they worry about character, social development, and physical health, he says, they lose that focus and abandon their pursuit of academic achievement. Hmm. Checker, wasn’t it Secretary of Education Bill Bennett who said that “character, content, and choice” should be the three C’s of American education? Was he wrong then? Should he have stuck with the three R’s instead?

There’s more, lots more. And Finn replies that he’s convinced that many—Ravitch excepted—among the “broader, bolder” crowd that “really are trying to change the subject, diverting attention away from U.S. schools’ mostly-woeful academic performance while letting schools and educators off the hook for academic results by adopting the well-worn Rothstein story line about how we mustn’t really expect kids to learn more until this or that other social problem is solved.”

Another Non-Magic Bullet

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 20, 2008 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

Six years ago, Philadelphia made national news when it turned over dozens of its schools to private companies.  At one point, turning over the entire district to private managers was even considered.  The city’s School Reform Commission voted this week to take back six of the schools.  Twenty more are on warning and could return to district control. 

Less is More

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 30, 2008 in Educational Policy. 0 Comments

NewsweekNewsweek has a familiar-feeling piece on breaking up big behemoth high schools into smaller, more personal schools.  To describe the approach, as Newsweek does as “the biggest wave of school reform to hit that classic American institution, the comprehensive high school, in 30 years” seems a bit breathless in its hyperbole. 

Critics say that creating small high schools out of large ones merely masks the real problem: coming up with a national consensus on what children should be learning in high school and making sure they learn it. “The size of the school matters less than the quality of the curriculum,” argues Brookings Institution scholar Diane Ravitch, an educational historian. Although small high schools may be moderately beneficial for the most impoverished kids, who do better in a more personal environment, real improvement in high school won’t begin “until we come up with a universal curriculum.”

After that speedbump, it’s acres of the usual anecdotes about the personal touch, teachers and administrators getting to know students and “education on a human scale” before getting around to noting that “at small high schools across the city and across the nation measures of student achievement have flatlined, and some schools have even seen dips in math scores.”

(Amusing sidenote: Newsweek describes NYC Schools Chancellor Joe Klein as “a small, bespectacled former Justice Department lawyer.”)

I’m all for shuttering lousy schools and tend to favor small small schools reflexively, but let’s talk about which ones work and why. 

DC Reform: Improvements Shown

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 27, 2008 in Education Leadership. 0 Comments

Washington PostOne year into Washington, DC’s mayoral takeover of the schools, the Washington Post editorializes that while there are no instant results when it comes to school reform, “this first year has been spent laying the foundation: restructuring the central office, closing an unprecedented number of schools, reorganizing ones that are failing, getting rid of principals who don’t make the grade. Time is needed before these conditions can produce results such as better student achievement or increased enrollment. Already, there is reason for cautious optimism.”

The Post notes that changes in the culture are evident: “There is a greater sense of urgency, and people know that more is expected of them.”