DGQs (Damn good questions)

Diane asks Deb a DGQ from the past:

But, here and now, I have a question for you about the past. Friends have contacted me and said, "Ask Debbie what happened to the Annenberg Challenge." What they really want to know is how the small school movement turned into one of the favorite strategies of the corporate elites who are so interested in education. They also want to know how you feel about this idea that "headquarters" can decide to open 10, 20, 50 small schools, recruit principals, and will them into existence.

Diane, please tell them to read our book, Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society. It may answer their questions.

Organizing the charters

Even Russo asks a Chicago DGQ…

“What if anything ever happened to the idea of union-run, or organized, charters in Chicago?”

Answer—First you need a union that is not in self-destruct mode and is about real organizing. Charter school teachers I know are still looking.

Remember we raised the idea in Chicago last August, when we had CTU President Marilyn Stewart, IEA Director Jo Anderson and Green Dot Charter starter Steve Barr come together around the idea at a public meeting. While some small meetings with teachers from a few campuses have been held, CTU faction fighting has pretty much paralyzed organizing efforts here.

Maybe new AFT leadership will help turn things around in Chi-Town. Barack Obama made a point of it in his speech to the AFT convention, applauding the leadership for “representing charter school teachers and support staff. ... We know well-designed public charter schools have a lot to offer.”

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Authentic assessment

Jackie Bennett at Edwize is on to something I alluded to the other day, when I asked whether both Chris “The Minister of Truth” Cerf and Sol Stern, of the far-right Manhattan Institute, could both be full of it?

Cerf tells lies using standardized test scores to claim credit for reform gains that aren’t really there. Stern on the other hand, is wise to the Ministry’s game, but plays one of his own. He portrays all reform as a failure leading us to think that public school reform is impossible. The only alternative left—privatization, which is what the MA is all about.

But Bennett responds:

To me, however, there do seem to be gains, though I don’t know if we see them in the scores. This year, I felt a difference in the schools I know best, and I heard a difference when I talked to teachers and principals.

It still remains for Bennett then, to tell us how the school community can see those gains. How are students demonstrating what they’ve learned and what they can do with what they’ve learned?