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May 14, 2010 Charters at (nearly) 20: quality must trump quantity In an essay in Kappan magazine, Thomas Toch, executive director of the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington and former guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, looks at the decades-long charter movement in which he has participated, and comes to a mixed assessment. On one level, the movement has drawn a generation of social entrepreneurs to the cause of public school improvement through its advocacy of school autonomy. On another level, one of its central tenets -- that "market forces," or parents "voting with their feet," will weed out poor performers (or unscrupulous operators) -- has been disproved. Perhaps the greatest damper on early hopes has been the ambitious but often failed attempt to replicate some of the best individual charters. The high cost of these typically small schools (average: 300 students), their intensive support for schools and students, and other success-yielding features have left their managing organizations financially strapped. Toch still believes in the fundamental promise of the movement, writing, "We can't build the high-performing education system our economy demands on the bureaucratic foundations of traditional public schooling." But in his view, fewer, but stronger, charters will go the farthest toward introducing the same freeing autonomies into traditional school systems. Read more: http://www.aisgw.org/data/files/News/HomepageNews/Toch_Kappan__May_10.pdf Key ingredient: 387 more hours Students at Boston's charters boast an academic edge over peers at the city's traditional public schools, and a new report identifies the critical factor, according The Boston Globe. The study from the Boston Foundation determined that charters enjoy roughly 378 extra hours annually, which allow for significantly more instruction in English and math, and tutoring, if needed. The longer day also helps teachers by furnishing more time for instructional training, discussion of students, analysis of testing data, and planning. Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, called the additional hours at Boston's charters "staggering'' and a key reason why the schools routinely outperform other public schools in the city. They "are not just adding more time, they are creating more opportunities,'' Grogan said. The report is the latest in a body of research that has suggested benefits to a longer school day. Research has documented that adding hours can revitalize a school culture, ensuring time for arts, music, and physical education -- areas hit hardest by budget cuts or sidelined in favor of focus on standardized testing. Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2010/05/12/charter_schools_gain_edge_from_hours_says_study/ See the report: http://www.tbf.org/utilitynavigation/multimedialibrary/newsdetail.aspx?id=14260 Teaching for whom? What is Teach for America's (TFA) role in the current education wars? muses Barbara Miner on the website Rethinking Schools. Who directs the organization, and to what end? And what is TFA's role in improving urban education? In search of answers, Miner undertook extensive interviews with TFA teachers and staff, non-TFA educators, and policymakers, but found herself still "groping towards an understanding" of the organization. "I have come to distinguish between the generally hard-working, smart, and idealistic TFA classroom teachers, and a national organization that is as sophisticated, slippery, and media savvy as any group I have ever written about," Miner says. She voices a number of concerns about TFA: that it is part of a global network promoting ideologies of privatization, individualism, and elitism; that it rests on the premise that graduates of elite colleges are better teachers than those from local or regional schools and who come from the communities where they teach; and that the media and foundation attention given to TFA drains energy and money from other important education reforms. At the end of her inquiry, Miner concludes that on balance, if a revolving door of unqualified teachers is a key factor in the poor performance of many low-income schools, TFA is likely aggravating a problem it claims to be solving. Read more: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/24_03/24_03_TFA.shtml Seek and ye shall find Last year, the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which manages four historically low-performing campuses on behalf of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, began testing all second-graders to see who qualified as gifted, The Los Angeles Times reports. In the process, the number of black second-graders who earned the "gifted" designation leapt by nine percent, in one school from zero to 21 students. The goal of the testing is to recognize and nurture students of exceptional ability, but there's also a broader message: Poor urban children have just as much potential as students elsewhere. Habitually overlooking their talents can hold them back, The Times writes, making them less likely to apply for or get into college-track honors and Advanced Placement classes. Part of the reason, explained L.A. schools Supt. Ramon Cortines, is "insidious racism." But he said another crucial factor in Los Angeles is that programs for gifted students have long been associated with integration efforts. Getting the "gifted" label made middle-class whites and Asians eligible for special programs designed as incentives for them to remain in public school. Last month, Cortines and Chief Academic Officer Judy Elliott ordered that all second-graders system-wide be tested next year. The superintendent wants to identify as gifted at least six percent of students at every school. Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/education/la-me-0509-gifted-20100509,0,5579641.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Feducation+%28L.A.+Times+-+Education%29 Rewriting the script for black and Latino males A new brief based on a longitudinal study from the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education looks at seven single-sex schools that serve primarily black and Latino boys ages 9 to 18, analyzing their components and their effect on a population more likely to obtain low test scores and grades, less likely to enroll in college, and more likely to drop out. The problems affecting this group "are clear and undeniable," the brief states, but their causes are "murky and complex." Key findings on the schools are that they encourage students to confront negative images in the media and their day-to-day lives, creating narratives that counter negative beliefs, such as "school is something girls do." The single-sex schools also establish "brotherhood" among students, instilling the necessary resilience to develop and sustain their emerging academic identities. The schools also deliver what is defined as "relevant" instruction, which connects to students' cultures or current lives and has been conceptualized as a remedy to deficits in students' education. "A key component of how the schools frame all their strategies is their understanding of the social and emotional needs of black and Latino boys," said Pedro Noguera, executive director of Metro Center. "The schools focus on changing boy's ideas of masculinity, incorporating an academic identity, and developing community leaders." See the report: http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/metrocenter/announcements/april_2010_study We need an about-face on turnarounds A middle school in Watts in Los Angeles exemplifies the country's failure to turn around its lowest-performing schools, according to its profile in a new report from Education Sector. Markham Middle School's student body is predominantly low-income Latino and African American, and in 1997, its average student scored in the 16th percentile in math and the 12th percentile in reading on California state tests. The situation has since deteriorated. In lieu of more drastic measures mandated by NCLB, such as closing or replacing personnel, Markham -- as happens in most states and districts -- has pursued the less aggressive tactics of hiring consultants, redesigning the curriculum, and creating smaller learning communities. It has also received over $3 million in state and federal remediation funds. Yet the result is an academic "wreck," according to the report's author Robert Manwaring. The Obama administration has made turnarounds a major policy priority, but funding is only the first step. States must follow through and ensure that districts meet the commitments required by these funds, and the report lays out a series of specific policy changes that can be made at the local, state, and federal levels to bring this about. See the report: http://www.educationsector.org/research/research_show.htm?doc_id=1208019 Summer school as a time for innovation and risk In a commentary in Education Week, Ron Fairchild and Jeff Smink write that instead of the norm, re-envisioning summer school could become an enriching way to extend learning and provide intervention, particularly for those students who have few other options during those months out of school. Instead of punishment for poor performance and a less-than-ideal way to spend the summer for both students and their teachers, summer school could function as a "disruptive innovation" for school-year reform. Extensive research has confirmed the "summer slide" in learning among all students, and a recent study has shown two-thirds of the racial achievement gap in reading is directly related to unequal summer learning opportunities. Despite this, the summer months have been largely ignored by policymakers and reformers. A new notion of summer school would challenge the value of a remedial model and instead embrace a seamless blend of core academic learning and hands-on enrichment activities. The literature is clear and compelling, write Fairchild and Smink, that summer is a season largely wasted at present, filled with of huge risks and setbacks for low-income youths. Read more: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/05/12/31fairchild.h29.html?tkn=TUCC8YqeDNANEB5K81nSuMkXnxs7HFY3yt4f&cmp=clp-sb-ascd Case you hadn't noticed Hedge fund executives are emerging as a "significant political counterweight" to powerful teacher union opposition to charter schools, according to The New York Times. While Wall Street has always funded its interests and ideologies, an unusual number of financial heavyweights have adopted charters as a social cause, working assiduously to advance their stature in the political realm. Financiers have given generously to state lawmakers in hopes of a friendlier climate for charters in New York State, raising a multimillion-dollar war chest to lobby this month for a bill to raise the maximum number of charter schools statewide to 460 from 200. The United Federation of Teachers, New York City's teacher union, has countered with a media campaign fingering wealthy individuals who are "spending over a million on false attacks against teachers and public schools." Last week, a bill to raise the cap on charter schools passed the state's senate by a ratio of three to one, with a number of Democrats in support. The bill is now in the hands of the New York Assembly, where charter proponents have typically been in the minority but a shift seems underway. Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/nyregion/10charter.html?pagewanted=2&hp Bracing for the blow A snapshot survey of school superintendents by the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) finds that administrators across the nation are facing the reality of eliminating an unprecedented number of teaching jobs for the 2010-11 school year. The projected cuts stem from the twin factors of a tight economic environment at the state and local levels and the end of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) dollars, which had been instrumental in saving jobs in 2009. The new survey, which documents prospective personnel cuts state by state, is based on responses from 1,479 school administrators in 49 states, and finds that 82 percent of districts will eliminate 27,516 education jobs in 2010-11, and 53 percent will freeze hiring. Based on survey results, AASA estimates that the national total for education layoffs will be 275,000 in 2010-11, representing 92 percent of the 300,000 jobs saved by ARRA. "With both houses of Congress already considering a second round of stimulus funding targeted to education jobs, the results of this survey make a startling case to bolster support for additional federal funding," said AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech. Experts calculate that 275,000 education job cuts will translate into an additional 82,000 job losses in other sectors, bringing the total job losses to 357,000. See the report: http://www.aasa.org/PressReleases.aspx?id=13246 BRIEFLY NOTED 'Johnston's' bill clears major hurdle Colorado Senate Bill 191, which seeks to tie educator evaluations to student academic growth and change the way teachers get and keep tenure, has passed the Colorado House education committee, and is now open to consideration by the full House of Representatives. http://www.denverpost.com/education/ci_15036012 A compromise brokered The New York State Education Department and New York's teachers' unions have reached a deal to overhaul teacher evaluations and tie them to student test scores, an issue the unions had bitterly opposed for years. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/11/nyregion/11teacher.html?src=mv Michigan's affiliates back state application The Michigan Education Association and American Federation of Teachers-Michigan have issued letters of support for Michigan's application to the second round of the federal Race to the Top competition. http://www.detnews.com/article/20100510/SCHOOLS/5100427/1361/Teachers-throw-support-to-fed-school-funding-contest#ixzz0nngCALbO More grist Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill that aims to ban ethnic studies in Arizona schools, cheering those who called such classes divisive and alarming others who said it's yet another law that targets Latinos in the state. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512,0,5313151.story Not just for the NCAA-bound The Bryan Street charter school in Dallas celebrated its first class of graduating seniors with a college-signing day, in which seniors crossed the stage and received a T-shirt and baseball cap with their new school logo, and signed a certificate showing where they'll attend college. http://eastdallasblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/05/a-different-kind-of-signing-da.html GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION Mitsubishi: Grants for Youth with Disabilities Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation Grants Program is dedicated to helping young Americans with disabilities maximize their potential and fully participate in society. The foundation supports organizations and projects within its mission that have broad scope and impact and demonstrate potential for replication at other sites. A major program emphasis is inclusion: enabling young people with disabilities to have full access to educational, vocational, and recreational opportunities, and to participate alongside their non-disabled peers. Maximum award: varies. Eligibility: 501(c)3 organizations. Deadline: June 1, 2010. http://www.meaf.org/how-to-apply.php Lindbergh Foundation Grants Lindbergh Foundation Grants honor Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's legacy by funding projects that improve the quality of all life by seeking a balance between technological advancements and environmental preservation. Maximum award: $10,580 (a symbolic amount representing the cost of the Spirit of St. Louis). Eligibility: Citizens from all countries may apply. Deadline: June 10, 2010. http://www.lindberghfoundation.org/docs/index.php/our-grants America's Promise Alliance/AT&T: My Idea Grant Program The My Idea grant program will empower young people to help more of their peers to graduate on time, improving outcomes for themselves and their community. Maximum award: $20,000. Eligibility: high school youth concerned about the dropout crisis, and youth service providers that work with them. Deadline: June 11, 2010. http://www.americaspromise.org/How-to-Help/Young-Leaders/My-Idea-Grants.aspx American Legion Child Welfare Foundation: Grants to Help Children American Legion Child Welfare Foundation Grants to Help Children fund proposals that aim to contribute to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual welfare of children through innovative organizations and/or their programs designed to benefit youth. Maximum award: varies. Eligibility: 501(c)3 organizations. Deadline: July 15, 2010. http://www.cwf-inc.org/grantseekers/overview Verizon Foundation Grants The Verizon Foundation makes grants that help people to increase their literacy and educational achievement; avoid being an abuser or a victim of domestic violence; or achieve and sustain their health and safety. Maximum award: $10,000. Eligibility: 501(c)3 organizations. Deadline: October 31, 2010. http://foundation.verizon.com/grant/guidelines.shtml QUOTE OF THE WEEK "'Hard working' is what gets the job done. You just see that year after year. The students who thrive are not necessarily the ones who come in with the perfect scores. It's the ones who love what they're doing and go at it vigorously." – Carol Dweck in The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 9, 2010 http://chronicle.com/article/Carol-Dwecks-Attitude/65405/ The PEN Weekly NewsBlast, published by Public Education Network, is a free electronic newsletter featuring resources and information about public school reform, school finance, and related issues. The NewsBlast is the property of Public Education Network, a national association of 79 local education funds working to improve public school quality in low-income communities throughout the nation. Please forward this e-mail to anyone who enjoys free updates on education news and grant alerts. Some links in the PEN Weekly NewsBlast may change or expire after their initial publication here, and some links may require local website registration. People wishing to add a NewsBlast subscription can go to PEN's website (http://www.publiceducation.org) and follow the instructions in the lower left-hand section of the homepage. Current subscribers can unsubscribe by clicking the appropriate link near the bottom of the NewsBlast mailing. If you use spam filters to protect your inbox, you may wish to take a moment right now to add PEN@publiceducation.org to your e-mail address book, spam-software whitelist, or mail-system whitelist. Adding the address will help ensure that you receive the NewsBlast and that your e-mail software displays HTML and images properly. |
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