Whenever I talk about charter schools, I invariably refer to the theory that is typically used as its intellectual foundation: "relieving charter schools from some bureaucratic requirements allows them to explore educational innovation that could be replicated elsewhere."
Or, as I've heard recently, charter schools were supposed to be "laboratories for reform".
As of today, I cease and desist. While intuitively appealing in theory, charter schools have existed in Pennsylvania for 14 years, and to my knowledge - and as was pointed out in the CDT series - rarely has an innovation from a charter school been used to inform the practice of a traditional public school.
For starters, our charter school law has no mechanism for implementing these "lessons learned." Rather, by design it creates an adversarial relationship between charters and the 'authorizing' school, as was also pointed out by the CDT.
Second, while charter schools are required, as a condition of the charter, to describe their 'innovative approach', it is only superficially enforced by PDE - woe to the district who challenges - and there is no follow-up.
Then there's that bit about 'freedom from mandates'. For examples, public schools are required to have 100% of their teachers certified ("highly qualified" in NCLB lingo).
But in charter schools, only 75% of their teachers must meet this requirement. Well, is "certification" important, or isn't it? Same issue for special ed students: charter schools are not required to file the detailed reports that regular public schools must file. Well, why not? If it's not important, why do public schools have to do it? (Ask any administrator: this is not an insignificant burden.)
Although I'm sure many charter school supporters are well-intentioned, it has become hard not to conclude that the driving forces behind the charter school movement are 1) money, and 2) an ideological or emotional disposition against public schools.
In Pennsylvania, one of the leading advocates for charter school legislation (which was recently defeated, at least temporarily) has been state senator Anthony Williams. Listening to him, it is hard not to believe he is sincere about wanting to help kids - but it's also hard to ignore that his biggest campaign contributors were people who stood to gain financially. Schools as a profit center!
As Twain(?) once observed, "it is hard to convince a man of something when he is paid to believe otherwise."
That's not to say that some charter schools aren't innovating, with some success (statistically, about 15-20%). In State College, we have four charter schools, at least a couple of which are doing some fairly interesting stuff.
But there's no mechanism for closing the "laboratories" that appear to have "failed" - a fact that does not appear to concern most charter school supporters.
If we are to take the concept of charter schools seriously, two things need to happen: 1) the state should produce detailed reports describing the success, or lack thereof, of each charter school "innovation" and 2) charter schools should be funded in a way that makes them "revenue neutral" to local districts.
The most recent state budget eliminated the entire state reimbursement for charter schools. What does that tell us?
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Monday, July 25, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
LEED highlights
Ed Poprick's update on the elementary building projects, and in particular, the work that's being done to achieve LEED certification, are often a highlight of a board meeting.
It's become clear how much can be accomplished in the realm of environmental responsibility, with minimal additional cost, when all the key players - architects, contractors and school personnel - are part of the planning from the earliest stages of the project.
It also highlights the value of our Citizen Advisory Committees, and the expertise contained within.
Some of what we saw this month: a butterfly garden (educational opportunity), a terraced rain garden (to help absorb storm run-off), a "Mt. Nittany Viewing Station" with seats and a donated information placard, and preferred parking spaces for fuel-efficient cars and car-poolers.
Other educational opportunities have been created by deliberately exposing and color-coding some of the usually 'behind the wall' aspects of building construction, such as water pipes. Each day, students will pass the hallway 'dashboard' that monitors all building functions.
Horizontal, reflective 'light shelves' are a clever way to bounce natural daylight further into the classroom, resulting in better lighting while conserving electricity.
From an earlier "spotlight": the duct work has been kept sealed throughout construction in order to keep out the dust and debris that would otherwise circulate through the building for years to come.
I was intrigued by the height indicators that have been built into the brickwork of the exterior. (How tall is the building? 30 feet, 100 feet? Young kids have no idea.) I still recall an argument with my little sister after an early visit to the Empire State Building. How large was the base - as big as our house? Smaller? Most of us are too old to remember that spatial perspective takes time to develop.
It's become clear how much can be accomplished in the realm of environmental responsibility, with minimal additional cost, when all the key players - architects, contractors and school personnel - are part of the planning from the earliest stages of the project.
It also highlights the value of our Citizen Advisory Committees, and the expertise contained within.
Some of what we saw this month: a butterfly garden (educational opportunity), a terraced rain garden (to help absorb storm run-off), a "Mt. Nittany Viewing Station" with seats and a donated information placard, and preferred parking spaces for fuel-efficient cars and car-poolers.
Other educational opportunities have been created by deliberately exposing and color-coding some of the usually 'behind the wall' aspects of building construction, such as water pipes. Each day, students will pass the hallway 'dashboard' that monitors all building functions.
Horizontal, reflective 'light shelves' are a clever way to bounce natural daylight further into the classroom, resulting in better lighting while conserving electricity.
From an earlier "spotlight": the duct work has been kept sealed throughout construction in order to keep out the dust and debris that would otherwise circulate through the building for years to come.
I was intrigued by the height indicators that have been built into the brickwork of the exterior. (How tall is the building? 30 feet, 100 feet? Young kids have no idea.) I still recall an argument with my little sister after an early visit to the Empire State Building. How large was the base - as big as our house? Smaller? Most of us are too old to remember that spatial perspective takes time to develop.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
It's time to get in the game
For some time I've been saying that teachers have not had enough input into education reform policy, and that some of this is their own fault: too much reactive, not enough proactive. It's time to get in the game!
And so they have. The PA state association's web site now features "Solutions that Work", a list of thoughtful and practical recommendations for how education could be improved. It strikes me as a good start.
The document can be downloaded here:
Teachers might be surprised to know that there are policy-makers who are genuinely interested in what they have to say.
And so they have. The PA state association's web site now features "Solutions that Work", a list of thoughtful and practical recommendations for how education could be improved. It strikes me as a good start.
The document can be downloaded here:
Teachers might be surprised to know that there are policy-makers who are genuinely interested in what they have to say.
Friday, July 8, 2011
What the feds could do
1) As I mentioned in my last post, ‘big government’ can provide a measure of economic equity that doesn’t exist at the local level. It doesn’t much matter whether this responsibility is assumed at the federal or state level; either way, some leveling of the playing field has become a practical necessity as well as a moral imperative.
(Part of the ‘equity’ issue is that we haven’t always seen this as a problem. So what if the poor didn’t get a quality education? Not everyone needed one. There were plenty of factory jobs available that didn’t require a high school education; and even those kids had a chance to live better lives than their parents.)
2) State and federal governments have the capacity to provide educational resources. For example, many districts lack the ability to develop their own curriculum. Pennsylvania is actually doing a rather good job at this, with its Standards Aligned System. Need a good lesson plan for addressing a particular curricular standard? There are several from which to choose; no need to reinvent the wheel.
3) One could argue that the federal government could be in the business of setting minimum standards, such as “Common Core” that 42 states have adopted (under some duress). I’m not opposed to this in theory, but here’s my concern.
We are at a point in our economic history that screams for a re-thinking of what we want students to know and be able to do when they graduate high school. It strikes me as a little premature to be setting national standards for geometry, for example, when we haven’t had a conversation on its relative importance – greater than probability and statistics? - since high school graduates were in the minority. Policy makers throw around terms such as “college and career ready” when there’s no consensus on what that means!
Does every student need to be mathematically literate? Yes. (We’ve never tried this before, either.) Does every student need four years of high school math? Not necessarily – and what’s the opportunity cost?
What the federal government should be doing is facilitating a national conversation - and not just among policy wonks at the national level. There should be thousands of conversations in communities across the country in which parents, teachers, community leaders and even students talk about what they want from their schools. What do business leaders have to say about this? Has DOE talked to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills?
4) Research is the fourth area in which the feds could do a lot of good, and for which they have capacity. This gets to the heart of my issue with two of DOE’s ‘reform’ strategies – charter schools and incentive pay for teachers. Charter schools remain a key part of Obama's plan, based on the reasonable theory that they provide opportunities for educational experimentation. As the President recently said, “what we have got to do is to look at the success of these schools (and) find out how we duplicate them.”
But where’s the research? We know that only about 17% of charter schools do any better than regular public schools, and incentive pay results are all over the map. (Unsurprisingly, a lot depends on how you do it – NYC recently abandoned their experiment.) Before we mandate a “solution” that may do more harm than good, shouldn’t we have a better idea of what works, and under what circumstances?
One problem is that we’ve been running the exact opposite of a controlled experiment - every charter school does its own thing, with predictable consequences. Longer days, more homework, more structure or less, teacher incentives, teacher collaboration, smaller schools, more opportunities for students - or a focus on the ‘basics’, incentives for teachers (and/or students), an emphasis on science (or arts or language), etc., etc.. Which of these factors really matter, and which are secondary or completely unimportant?
How do we plan to find out? Unless we know what we’re looking for, continuing to throw tax dollars at unfocused charter school experiments won’t tell us anything we don’t know already.
Finally, I think there could be a federal role in developing models that would help struggling schools create the ‘climate’ necessary for good education. A key example: if you want to attract the best teachers, you need schools that have stable and effective educational leadership and cultures in which learning is valued – where teachers can see the results of their efforts. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem that’s well beyond the capacity of the schools that need it most. Another example: I would like to see more research on effective models for teacher training and mentoring.
While the work has to be done locally, the feds could develop usable models, and perhaps provide some seed money. This would be a lot less expensive than the current proposals.
(Part of the ‘equity’ issue is that we haven’t always seen this as a problem. So what if the poor didn’t get a quality education? Not everyone needed one. There were plenty of factory jobs available that didn’t require a high school education; and even those kids had a chance to live better lives than their parents.)
2) State and federal governments have the capacity to provide educational resources. For example, many districts lack the ability to develop their own curriculum. Pennsylvania is actually doing a rather good job at this, with its Standards Aligned System. Need a good lesson plan for addressing a particular curricular standard? There are several from which to choose; no need to reinvent the wheel.
3) One could argue that the federal government could be in the business of setting minimum standards, such as “Common Core” that 42 states have adopted (under some duress). I’m not opposed to this in theory, but here’s my concern.
We are at a point in our economic history that screams for a re-thinking of what we want students to know and be able to do when they graduate high school. It strikes me as a little premature to be setting national standards for geometry, for example, when we haven’t had a conversation on its relative importance – greater than probability and statistics? - since high school graduates were in the minority. Policy makers throw around terms such as “college and career ready” when there’s no consensus on what that means!
Does every student need to be mathematically literate? Yes. (We’ve never tried this before, either.) Does every student need four years of high school math? Not necessarily – and what’s the opportunity cost?
What the federal government should be doing is facilitating a national conversation - and not just among policy wonks at the national level. There should be thousands of conversations in communities across the country in which parents, teachers, community leaders and even students talk about what they want from their schools. What do business leaders have to say about this? Has DOE talked to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills?
4) Research is the fourth area in which the feds could do a lot of good, and for which they have capacity. This gets to the heart of my issue with two of DOE’s ‘reform’ strategies – charter schools and incentive pay for teachers. Charter schools remain a key part of Obama's plan, based on the reasonable theory that they provide opportunities for educational experimentation. As the President recently said, “what we have got to do is to look at the success of these schools (and) find out how we duplicate them.”
But where’s the research? We know that only about 17% of charter schools do any better than regular public schools, and incentive pay results are all over the map. (Unsurprisingly, a lot depends on how you do it – NYC recently abandoned their experiment.) Before we mandate a “solution” that may do more harm than good, shouldn’t we have a better idea of what works, and under what circumstances?
One problem is that we’ve been running the exact opposite of a controlled experiment - every charter school does its own thing, with predictable consequences. Longer days, more homework, more structure or less, teacher incentives, teacher collaboration, smaller schools, more opportunities for students - or a focus on the ‘basics’, incentives for teachers (and/or students), an emphasis on science (or arts or language), etc., etc.. Which of these factors really matter, and which are secondary or completely unimportant?
How do we plan to find out? Unless we know what we’re looking for, continuing to throw tax dollars at unfocused charter school experiments won’t tell us anything we don’t know already.
Finally, I think there could be a federal role in developing models that would help struggling schools create the ‘climate’ necessary for good education. A key example: if you want to attract the best teachers, you need schools that have stable and effective educational leadership and cultures in which learning is valued – where teachers can see the results of their efforts. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem that’s well beyond the capacity of the schools that need it most. Another example: I would like to see more research on effective models for teacher training and mentoring.
While the work has to be done locally, the feds could develop usable models, and perhaps provide some seed money. This would be a lot less expensive than the current proposals.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Can the feds fix education?
For two years I’ve struggled to understand the Obama administration’s thinking on education reform. The President and Ed Secretary Duncan appear to be smart guys with good intentions, but I continue to feel – like Madeline - that something’s not right.
Obama has said that his greatest concern is for the highly dysfunctional schools that tend to be found in large urban areas. As he put it: “the lowest income schools with the kids who are two, three grade levels behind”.
Good. I’m completely with him on this. If the immediate goal is to transform those schools, then let’s say so, and focus school reform efforts there.
But I have several concerns. First, there has been little conversation on what can be reasonably accomplished at the federal level. Well-intentioned or not, is what they’re attempting possible? Traditionally, education has been a responsibility of state and local governments. Only recently has Washington had significant influence, and judging by the nearly universal criticism of NCLB, not particularly successfully.
Prior to NCLB, the federal responsibility was primarily financial: for special education (IDEA), and for “low SES” (Title I), the theory being that a child’s zip code shouldn’t be a predictor of educational opportunity. Should there be a greater federal role, either through direct funding, or by insisting that states do a better job of ensuring educational equity? Perhaps.
But those who say that you can’t solve this problem by throwing money at it are correct. Here’s the reason: for many schools, the lack of resources are not just financial. Effective schools are almost always the result of a collaboration between teachers, administrators, school board members(!), involved parents, local civic and business leaders, and community volunteers. Many of our ‘underperforming’ schools lack the human capital needed to create an environment in which quality education can flourish.
Plus, the issues that cause community dysfunction are precisely those that must be addressed in order to create quality schools. (This is why KIPP is successful – but not cheap!) Good schools are locally produced.
But it’s hard for single parents, or parents working multiple jobs to be involved parents. And while there was a time when teachers were required to live in the communities in which they taught, few teachers are willing to live and raise families in the these ‘communities’ now..
Further, most city schools are governed, and resources allocated by, a bureaucracy that is far removed from the local school. The members of a city school board don’t know you, your kids, or your teachers. They don’t live in your community, and their kids don’t go to your school.
Back when Governor Rendell had the nutty idea of consolidating Pennsylvania’s five hundred districts, I commented that perhaps he should consider breaking up the large city districts, on the premise that districts with hundreds of schools and hundreds of thousands of students are far too large to manage effectively. I now think I was more right about that than I realized.
A lot of what is required to produce quality schools is beyond the ability of the federal government to deliver. If this is true – and I believe it is – then there is no quick fix. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can get on with creating an educational system that works for everyone. (Note: for all the rhetoric, we’ve never tried to create a national education system before!)
Obama has said that his greatest concern is for the highly dysfunctional schools that tend to be found in large urban areas. As he put it: “the lowest income schools with the kids who are two, three grade levels behind”.
Good. I’m completely with him on this. If the immediate goal is to transform those schools, then let’s say so, and focus school reform efforts there.
But I have several concerns. First, there has been little conversation on what can be reasonably accomplished at the federal level. Well-intentioned or not, is what they’re attempting possible? Traditionally, education has been a responsibility of state and local governments. Only recently has Washington had significant influence, and judging by the nearly universal criticism of NCLB, not particularly successfully.
Prior to NCLB, the federal responsibility was primarily financial: for special education (IDEA), and for “low SES” (Title I), the theory being that a child’s zip code shouldn’t be a predictor of educational opportunity. Should there be a greater federal role, either through direct funding, or by insisting that states do a better job of ensuring educational equity? Perhaps.
But those who say that you can’t solve this problem by throwing money at it are correct. Here’s the reason: for many schools, the lack of resources are not just financial. Effective schools are almost always the result of a collaboration between teachers, administrators, school board members(!), involved parents, local civic and business leaders, and community volunteers. Many of our ‘underperforming’ schools lack the human capital needed to create an environment in which quality education can flourish.
Plus, the issues that cause community dysfunction are precisely those that must be addressed in order to create quality schools. (This is why KIPP is successful – but not cheap!) Good schools are locally produced.
But it’s hard for single parents, or parents working multiple jobs to be involved parents. And while there was a time when teachers were required to live in the communities in which they taught, few teachers are willing to live and raise families in the these ‘communities’ now..
Further, most city schools are governed, and resources allocated by, a bureaucracy that is far removed from the local school. The members of a city school board don’t know you, your kids, or your teachers. They don’t live in your community, and their kids don’t go to your school.
Back when Governor Rendell had the nutty idea of consolidating Pennsylvania’s five hundred districts, I commented that perhaps he should consider breaking up the large city districts, on the premise that districts with hundreds of schools and hundreds of thousands of students are far too large to manage effectively. I now think I was more right about that than I realized.
A lot of what is required to produce quality schools is beyond the ability of the federal government to deliver. If this is true – and I believe it is – then there is no quick fix. The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can get on with creating an educational system that works for everyone. (Note: for all the rhetoric, we’ve never tried to create a national education system before!)
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