Rebuilding New Orleans on the cheap

12.10.07

Where did all the money go?

First they fired every union teacher in New Orleans and turned the city into a mecca for privately-managed charter schools doing education on the cheap with many low-paid and unqualified teachers and rookie principals. Now come the reports that the city is being rebuilt by exploiting low-wage, immigrant, non-union labor brought in from Mexico and Central America. These undocumented workers have no rights and are paying the ultimate price. They are suffering from a range of respiratory diseases and other potentially deadly ailments from Katrina's toxic residue with no access to medical care or treatment. The main problem?—fear of being deported if they seek care or drugs.

"The majority (of us) have had breathing problems," says one worker, nodding toward the men milling around behind him. They don't give their names because they are all undocumented immigrants from Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala. "We work in demolition, construction," he says. "But many times, the bosses don't give us masks or gloves or glasses or filters."

Philly a black majority city with little equity

In response to the official release yesterday of the Urban League's 2007 "State of Black Philadelphia" report, a couple of hundred Philadelphians packed a meeting room at the Loews Hotel to listen to a panel discuss the report and its bleak findings. The report found that the quality of life for black Philadelphians, configured as a "Philadelphia Equality Index," measures up to only 72 percent of that of whites.

Wharton School economics professor Bernard Anderson says he believes African-Americans actually represent nearly 50 percent of the population. "You can't have half of the population groveling in poverty and still be a vibrant, growing city," he said.

‘Motown may soon be notown’

In Chicago, journalist extraordinaire, Danny Schecter writes over at Pacific Free Press about his visit to Jesse Jackson’s Operation Push. Danny is here to show his 2006 film, In Debt We Trust.

(Nearby Detroit is harder hit. Yesterday, residents of the Detroit area who opened their paper were greeted with 122 pages of the 2008 Tax Foreclosure list for Wayne County. The current figure for Wayne county reports that a staggering 1/4 homeowners are in default on their mortgage.) This is worse than Katrina, a disaster in the making. Motown may soon be notown.

Danny, sitting in Rev. Jackson's church, makes the right connection:

I flashed back to the churches I visited during the civil rights movement back in the South in the 60's where politics and religion became one in a blend of inspiration and resistance. It seemed like that movement may be on the verge of being reignited, This will be a movement for economic justice, not just civil rights.

The Business Model

September 13, 2007

How to 'make a killing' in charter schools

"Trying to make a killing in the charter school business"?! Yeah, that's right, the charter school business is so profitable that I'm telling all my friends in the hedge fund business that they're in the wrong business. My message: "If you really want to make a lot of money, start a charter school!" LOL! - Whitney Tilson

LOL, indeed.

Edweek reports that C. Steven Cox, the founder of the now-defunct California Charter Academy, was indicted Sept. 4 on 56 counts of misappropriation of public funds and 56 counts of grand theft. Mr. Cox was also accused of failing to file a state tax return.

But while Cox was caught, a closer look at the way CCA operated may shed some light on how many for-profit EMOs use vertical integration (see below) to “make a killing” in the charter school business (despite denials by DFER's charter investor types like Whitney Tilson).

CCA was formerly the largest charter school operator in California, with multiple campuses scattered throughout the state. Cox founded Educational Administrative Services Corporation (EASC) in March of 2000. This for-profit company was to manage the day-to-day operations of the charter schools.

But while EASC was providing contracted administrative services to CCA, the company also began to diversify. EASC formed the following subsidiaries while continuing to manage the CCA charters: Everything for schools .com (EFS), Maniaque Management Group, Xtreme Motor Sports, and Hautlab Music Group. Auditors suggest that remuneration received by EASC from the charter schools for administrative services was somehow inappropriately funneled to fund these business ventures.

___________________

From Klonsky's business guide to for-profit charter school operators:

Full vertical integration occurs when a firm incorporates the value-chain of a supplier and/or that of a distribution channel into its own value chain. This generally happens either by a firm’s acquiring a supplier and/or a distributor or by a firm’s expanding its operations. Expanding operations means to perform activities traditionally undertaken by suppliers or distributors.

_________________

In December of 2001, the CCA charters formed the American Public Agency Authority, a joint powers authority under Cox’s guidance. The agency was to "pool" resources of the charters to develop a self-insurance plan. The APAA offered a liability package, workers' compensation, and health care. Ironically similar to companies affiliated to CCA, board members consisted of individuals involved in CCA charter schools. In addition to the CCA charters, 12 other charter schools applied for either workers compensation or liability insurance.

The CCA audit found that APAA charged highly inflated rates for their insurance coverage. Adding to the sum of money APAA made through charging excessive rates, it was also alleged that APAA financed the same insurance policies twice. This supposedly contributed to a surplus of cash which APAA did not require to pay their $517,000 premiums to insurance carriers. Similar to earlier payments received by EASC, EASC again transferred funds paid by the CCA charters for services rendered to APAA bank accounts.

Got it, Mr. Tilson? But then, who am I to tell you?

'Making a killing" in school reform

I don't think so.

August 31st

Response to Whitney Tilson

Thanks, Whitney Tilson, for responding to my blog. It boosts my confidence to know that bigwigs like you read it regularly and that it gives them shpilkes. Seriously, I really didn't mean to get you so upset.

But when a leader of Democrats for Educational Reform comes out in support of vouchers in Florida, I figure, they know someone's going to be critical. So, why shouldn't it be me?

Anyway, why act so offended? When I poked at you Wednesday for your pro-voucher, anti-union views, you responded in ill temper (I think that's what they call it at the Harvard Business School), calling my post "a pack of lies" and going so far as to correct a typo in my blog (my daughter already caught it, Whitney, so there).

This was your puny defense:

"Trying to make a killing in the charter school business"?! Yeah, that's right, the charter school business is so profitable that I'm telling all my friends in the hedge fund business that they're in the wrong business. My message: "If you really want to make a lot of money, start a charter school!" LOL! And I guess anyone who criticizes the behavior of the teachers unions is ipso facto a union hater. HA! I amnot a union hater -- though I hate many things that certain unions do.

I love his final line

"With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?" I want Democrats to be so strong in leading the charge on school reform that Republican support isn't necessary -- that's the goal!!!

First let me say that I really like the LOL stuff. It shows that you're really into all this bloggerese.

Secondly, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "leading the charge on school reform." Did you mean that you want Democrats to outdo the conservatives in their attack on real reform? Be even more aggressive on union bashing and vouchers? What exactly do you mean, Whitney? How do you want to out-reform or supplant the neocons?'"

And what exactly do you tell your friends in the hedge fund business? C'mon, you can tell me. I promise not to share. And while you're at it, please tell me why a guy with friends in the hedge fund business should have so much say over what goes on in public education anyway?

I only made that "making a killing" crack after reading about you and your fellow money managers in Elizabeth Green's New York Sun article. Remember Whitney, I don't make this stuff up.

A money manager recently sent an e-mail to some partners, congratulating them on an investment of $1 million that yielded an estimated $400 million. The reasoning was that $1 million spent on trying to lift a cap on the number of charter schools in New York State yielded a change in the law that will bring $400 million a year in funding to new charter schools.

You see, that came straight from you and your friend and co-investor, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV (remember, I covered his wedding). While I'm certainly no money manager myself (not that I wouldn't like to be, but for educators, managing money takes on a completely different meaning) this article made me realize that there are different ways to "skin the cat," as you guys so nicely put it.

Here's your own quote, Whitney. After reading it, I think you will owe me an apology:

As investors, the group's leaders spend their days searching for hidden diamonds in the rough: businesses the market has left for dead, but a savvy investor could turn for a profit. A big inner-city school system, Mr. Tilson explained, is kind of like that — the General Motors of the education world. "I see very, very similar dynamics: very large bureaucratic organizations that have become increasingly disconnected from their customers; that are producing an inferior product and losing customers; that are heavily unionized," he said. A successful charter school, on the other hand, is like "Toyota 20 years ago."

OMG, you guys are trying to make a killing in the charter school business. I think our differences are semantic ones, over the words "make a killing." It's really all about what you are trying to kill, i.e., public education and what you are ("ipso facto") trying to save, i.e., vouchers.

BTW, how do you reconcile being a Democrat with your support for vouchers? LMAO. As I said, "with Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?"

_____________________

PREAPrez knowledgably points out:

"There’s a start of a conversation you never hear in the teachers’ lounge: 'As I was telling my friends in the hedge fund business…'"

With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?

August 29th

He likes Obama and vouchers

A while back, Alexander Russo asked the question, "Who the hell is Whitney Tilson?" Turns out he's part of a group of four Ownership Society entrepreneurs trying to make a killing in the charter school business. See my post on this here and Elizabeth Green's story in the New York Sun. He's also a player in KIPP, a union hater, and a Democratic (yes, I said Democratic) Party honcho who claims to support Barack Obama.

Not surprisingly, he is a favorite of Andy Rotherham, who runs Tilson's pro-voucher commentary on his Eduwonk bog.

With Democrats like this, who needs Republicans?

_________________


How the hate campaign worked

Samuel Freedman has a piece in today's NYT ("Critics ignored record of a Muslim principal") about the hate campaign against the Kahlil Gibran International Academy and how it succeeded in driving Principal Debbie Almontaser out of her job.

For anyone who bothered to look for it, Ms. Almontaser left a clear, public record of interfaith activism and outreach across the boundaries of race, ethnicity and religion. Her efforts, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks, earned her honors, grants and fellowships. She has collaborated so often with Jewish organizations that an Arab-American newspaper, Aramica, castigated her earlier this summer for being too close to a “Zionist organization,” meaning the Anti-Defamation League.

Getting a return on their "investment" in public education [Archived]

We see a school...they see a Toyota

If you want greater insight into how ownership society entrepreneurs use their money to drive public school policy, look no further that the May 31st New York Sun where where reporter Elizabeth Green takes us into the world of big-time ed investing.

A money manager recently sent an e-mail to some partners, congratulating them on an investment of $1 million that yielded an estimated $400 million. The reasoning was that $1 million spent on trying to lift a cap on the number of charter schools in New York State yielded a change in the law that will bring $400 million a year in funding to new charter schools.

Wow! How would you like to get a return of 400% annually on your investments? You could, if you had a name like Ravenel Boykin Curry IV.

The money managers who were among the main investors in this law — three Harvard MBAs and a Wharton graduate named Whitney Tilson, Ravenel Boykin Curry IV, Charles Ledley, and John Petry — are moving education-oriented volunteerism beyond championing a single school. They want to shift the political debate by getting the Democratic Party to back "innovations" such as merit pay for teachers, a longer school day, and privately-run charter schools.

I just like saying, "Ravenel Boykin Curry IV."

Friends call him "Boykin." Here a story about his wedding, if you're interested. My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.



However, I couldn't find anything in his background that would make him a legitimate educator or policy expert. But Boykin's wife, Celerie Kemble (left), seems knowledgeable about lots of stuff.

From SFGate:

Palm Beach bred and Harvard educated, Kemble can declaim with Clintonian stamina on topics like charter schools, the foibles of her class and decorating theory. "Decorating styles right now are like politics," she said, noting that they both cleave to the middle.

More metaphors...

Why do money-manager types get to bring their own metaphors and similes to the education table? I mean decorating styles? Cleavage? And what are the foibles of her class anyway?

Wait! How about this one--Toyotas?

From Sun story:

As investors, the group's leaders spend their days searching for hidden diamonds in the rough: businesses the market has left for dead, but a savvy investor could turn for a profit. A big inner-city school system, Mr. Tilson explained, is kind of like that — the General Motors of the education world. "I see very, very similar dynamics: very large bureaucratic organizations that have become increasingly disconnected from their customers; that are producing an inferior product and losing customers; that are heavily unionized," he said. A successful charter school, on the other hand, is like "Toyota 20 years ago."

Hear that kids and teachers? Your charter school is like a 20-year-old Toyota. If I were you, I'd find out where that beater is headed and who's driving?

Whatever happened to Chicago's "small-schools movement"?

Archived post from Yahoo 360 |08/25/2006 12:49 pm

 

"At some point you have to say no to what this system is doing to kids" --Principal McGreal

August 25, 2006

Latest from inside the "renaissance"...

Renaissance 2010 started as a small-schools initiative. The original plan called for the creation of 100 new SMALL schools by end of the decade. We're past the halfway point now and one thing has become clear. Ren10 is no longer about small schools or high school restructuring. Rather, it's about closing schools, privatizing school management and making high schools larger and larger.

Case in point.

Gage Park parents have been petitioning the board unsuccessfully for years, for a new high school. Gage Park High School, with 1800, mainly-black and Latino students, is bursting at the seams. Only about 30% of Gage Park students make it to their senior year before dropping out. The perfect place for some new small schools and for restructuring the big high school, right? Wrong. Instead, the central office keeps pushing the school to take more and more kids.

Finally, a brave interim princial, Martin McGreal, stood up and said, enough is enough. He refused to enroll any more new students this year, and was immediately fired.

According to the  Chicago Tribune ("Principal stands up to system, gets fired"):

The interim principal of Chicago's Gage Park High School has been fired for refusing an order to enroll more students at his overcrowded school on the Southwest Side.

"At some point you have to say no to what this system is doing to kids," said Martin McGreal, 37, who joined Chicago Public Schools nine years ago as an elementary school teacher. "It's why the system is where it's at. You compromise all the time."

Adds Tribune writer Lori Olszewski:

The dispute brings into focus one of the hottest issues in the school system--the stark difference in conditions between the neighborhood schools and the system's boutique schools, including new charter schools offering smaller classes.

You've got to believe in the magic of the tests

Archived Post from Yahoo 360

August 3, 2006

Small schools researchers should have waited a year 

Thanks to Chicago ed gadfly Alexander Russo for reminding us of the magic in Chicago's test scores. His District 299 blog "Mel Gibson And Small Schools" carries the latest "Renaissance 2010 Report" on Chicago's 100 new small schools which includes this upbeat announcement:

New Schools Reach New Heights on 2006 ISAT Test
The Office of New Schools is proud to announce that Chicago’s new schools had a 19.1 percentage point increase in the percent meeting/exceeding ISAT composite scores. This increase is higher than the citywide score increase of 15.2. Congratulations to all of the new school administrators, educators, and students for a job well done and reaffirming our mission! 

Previous Post: Latest from Chicago's School "Renaissance"

Thursday August 3, 2006 - 01:34pm (CDT)

But wait a minute. Didn't we just finish reading the Consortium's report about the new small CHSRI high schools that are also part of Ren10? Didn't we just see the media headlines in the Sun-Times, "Small schools gain, but test scores don't show it," or on Chicago Public Radio, "Small Schools Have No Big Advantage"? 

Haven't we been told over and over again during the past two days that small schools were making kids lives better but that lagging test scores meant failure? Didn't the Consortium study report that the small schools weren't r-r-r-rigorous enough and that their low scores were attributable to weak principals and poor professional development? Wasn't it Russo himself who wrote in Catalyst that, "Improving teaching is a low priority at small high schools?"

More importantly wasn't it me in my last blog, listing possible reasons for those weak test scores in the study and even downplaying their importance? Well all I can say now is, what the hell was I thinking?

Of course, the Consortium study was looking at high schools and the high school scores for 2006 haven't been released yet, for some unknown reason.

But it turns out that the Consortium study may have been looking at the wrong scores, the PSAE tests from 2005. If they would have just waited a year instead of putting all their research eggs in one test basket, they may have also seen a 19.1 jump in the scores at the new small schools, weak principals, poor PD and all. 

Of course we don't know what this year's high school scores will reveal. But could it be that the new elementary schools have suddenly become amazingly more rigorous in just one year and that the new high schools did not? I don't think so. 

And silly me once again for not realizing how important a single standardized test score could be in evaluating the new small schools. Here I've been looking at silly things like dropout and attendance rates, year-to-year growth of the kids, safe, trusting school environments and skilled, qualified teachers. 

Now that I've read the Ren10 report instead of that negative Consortium report, I'm once again a believer in the magic of the tests.

 

When the going gets tough, create your own study

News from Chicago's School 'Renaissance'

May 12, 2006 Have the schools changed? Or just the studies? Just last month, the U. of C.'s Consortium on Chicago School Research found only 6.5 percent of CPS freshmen went on to earn four-year college degrees by their mid-20s, and among African-American and Latino males, only 3 percent. That study looked at the high school graduating classes of 1998, 1999, 2002 and 2003. Remember, Mayor Daley took over the school system in 1994.

When Congressman Luis Gutierrez used the Constorium's miserable numbers to build a case for himself as the city's next mayor, CPS leaders came to their boss' rescue the only way they could. They quickly produced another study showing that lots CPS kids were going to college. The Chicago Sun-Times ("CPS study paints rosier picture on grads") reports:

Despite a recent study exposing dismal college graduation rates for Chicago Public Schools students, a new CPS analysis has found that more of its college-bound grads went to four-year schools last year than the year before. Sixty-four percent of those graduates went to four-year colleges and universities in 2005 -- compared with 60.2 percent in 2004. That's significant, officials say, because studies have long found students who attend four-year institutions are more likely to complete their degrees. CPS' analysis also showed an increase in overall college enrollment -- 46 percent of graduates were college-bound last year, compared with 43.5 percent in 2004.

Schools CEO Arne Duncan is ecstatic about the new study. The Consortium study was old hat, he said. It ended three years ago. The CPS self-study goes up through 2005.

"I'm very encouraged," said schools CEO Arne Duncan. "The number of graduates going on to college is up, the number going to four-year colleges is up, and that's true for every ethnic group.

What an amazing turn around in just two years of Renaissance 2010! Well maybe not. The two studies were hardly comparing apples and apples. The Consortium study looked at how many entering freshman ended up with a college degree. The CPS self-study looked only at how many graduating seniors entered college. That way they didn't have to count hundreds of thousands of kids who droped out before the senior year. Also, by averaging in the high schools with selective enrollments, like Whitney Young and Northside College Prep, the CPS spin doctors were able to cover up the great gap that exists between these schools and neighborhood high schools. Northside Prep for example, sends about 90 percent of its kids to college while neighborhood schools send about 20 percent. Average them together and you can say that about 60 percent of CPS kids are going to college. Even with this convoluted research by the CPS bureaucracy's own Commisar of Postsecondary Education, it was almost impossible to put a smiley face on the results. Bordering on the darkly humorous were the stats from Kelvyn Park High School. The CPS study found Kelvyn Park had the worst rate of grads going to college in the whole city. The bad news was that only 21.2 percent of KP's grads went to college in 2005. But the good news was, that this was an increase over 2004 when only 20.9 went. There was also a jump in the percentage of the 21. 2 percent kids enrolling in four-year schools, from 52.1 percent to 67.1 percent. Are you dizzy with success yet?

Kelvyn Park High School Principal Sandra Fontanez-Phelan credited a higher priority placed on college enrollment with helping to boost the percentage of graduates going to four-year colleges. She also credited college prep programs in neighborhood schools like hers.

To put those numbers in perspective however, Kelvyn Park, a large (1900 students) school with a mainly Hispanic population, had 400 seniors last year compared with 600 entering freshman. Not bad for a Chicago neighborhood high school. They only lost about 200 kids between the sophomore and senior year. Of the 400 who didn't drop out by the 11th grade, about 300 graduated. The 0.3 percent increase in college-bound kids from 2004 to 2005 meant one more kid enrolled in college than in 2004. Seven more of the 21% of college-bound kids enrolled in a four-year, rather than a two-year school than did in 2004. We can't put all this on the school. How are kids supposed to afford four-year universities when even state institutions like UIC are costing $20,000/year? There are so many other factors both inside the school and outside, that influence post-secondary choices that it makes no sense to think that the differences between Whitney Young's and KP's numbers are just about curriculum or teaching methods. All this political spinning isn't really about the kids or about sending them successfully to college with the resources and academic tools needed to graduate. High schools lik KP and even Whitney Young are organized specifically not to send every kid to college. They are heavily tracked schools with AP and honors courses for the elite kids and non-college track courses for those who are deemed "not college material." In other words, the schools are doing exactly what they are organized to do, track and sort kids. We know what has to be done at schools like Kelvyn Park, to truly leave no child behind. The question is, do we as a community have the will to do it? It starts with leadership. Then we have to do away completely with 2,000-kid high schools, especially when 1,900 of those kids are from low-income, and minority families. Smaller learning environments with the same resources they have in suburban schools, a challenging, focused curriculum and highly-qualified teachers and guess what? You've got a real renaissance. _______________________________________ Kelvyn Park Principal Fires Back at the Tribune From the Chicago Reader:

The story across the front page of the April 21 Tribune reported on a gloomy new University of Chicago study on the city’s public high schools. “Of 100 Chicago Public School Freshmen, Six Will Get a College Degree,” said the headline. Back on page eight reporter Tracy Dell’Angela looked inside some Chicago schools to see what was going on there. Her sidebar noted in passing that the city’s top five schools sent at least 80 percent of their graduates to college. By contrast, “for the bottom five high schools—Kelvyn Park High School, Tilden Achievement Academy, Wells Community Academy, Orr Community Academy and Farragut Career Academy—a third or fewer of graduates enrolled in college, most of them going to two-year colleges.”

Those were the extremes. Dell’Angela sensibly focused on two schools in the middle range, George Washington and Bogan. But her story infuriated one principal, who gave me an earful, and I asked Dell’Angela this Monday if she and the principal had talked. Dell’Angela had been out of town, so the complaint was news to her. “Washington or Bogan?” she asked.

Kelvyn Park.

“It was so hurtful,” Sandra Fontanez-Phelan had told me, “and I’m really mirroring the hurt of my staff, the hurt of my kids, the hurt of my family.” She was preparing a packet of letters from teachers and students to send the Tribune, and she’d talked to her alderman, Ray Suarez, about holding a news conference to set the record straight. Fontanez-Phelan, who’s finishing her fourth year at Kelvyn Park, told me that after reading Dell’Angela’s story people from the West Logan Square community called to ask if she’s been lying to them when she says how far the school has come. “It’s irresponsible to put out information and not clearly indicate that it’s information from the past,” she told me. “It’s irresponsible not to say what’s going on today.”

____________________________________________

Thursday May 11, 2006 - 06:24pm (CDT)

(Mis)educator Bennett Couldn't Help Himself (Archive)

Diarrhea of the Mouth

"If you wanted to reduce crime, you could - if that were your sole purpose - you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."--William Bennett

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress. --Mark Twain

Former Secretary of Education William Bennett likes to tell everyone how to live and preach from his Book of Virtues. But his gambling addiction and overt racism belie his righteous preachings. Why am I beating this dead horse? Because many small schools, charters and home schoolers are using Bennett's K12 Inc. curriculum and have made him a rich man many times over since he left the Dept. of Ed.

Bennett's remarks echo those from a decade or two ago by William Shockley, who suggested offering cash bonuses to welfare mothers and other social undesirables (i.e. blacks) who agreed to be sterilized and Charles Murray's Bell Curve. They also follow in a long trail of right-wing eugenicists, including President Bush's own grandfather, who pushed the ideas of white racial superiority. And now, even after his offensive remarks about aborting black babies to reduce crime are out on the table, some like Rush Limbaugh are defending him. It seems there is nothing too racist or outright criminal (as is the case of Tom DeLay) for them to stomach. As for Bennett himself, always a defender of the voucher system and an opponent of affirmative action, it seems that he is so filled with racist crap, that like the man who ate at the greasy spoon down the block from our office the other day, he can't control himself. He must let it out to relieve himself--even on the radio.

This time though, diahrrea of the mouth may prove to be costly. The Philadelphia Daily News reported exclusively Saturday that Philadelphia parents and education activists entered the fray to demand that the School District of Philadelphia end the approximately $3 million in contracts it awarded in April to Bennett's K12 Inc. By Monday morning Bennett,was out as K12's chairman of the board of directors, board member and part-time employee, said Ron Packard, who co-founded the multi-million-dollar company with Bennett in 1999. Packard would not disclose what Bennett was being paid but did say he would not be paid in any other capacity, such as that of a consultant.

Then Philadelphia Schools CEO Paul Vallas called the comments Bennett made on his nationally syndicated radio show "outrageous and offensive" and said "any extension of the contract could be jeopardized by his continued presence on the board." Not real strong words but old ties are hard to break.

Now the question is...what kind of contracts will the current DOE hand to Sec. Bennett? Maybe he can be put in charge of new schools for New Orleans or Bagdad.

New York's Small Schools--A critical look at implementation

Archived post from Yahoo360 |09/29/2005 10:27 am

Is Bloomberg's Implementation of Small Schools Hurting the Rest of the District??

A report from the Politics of Education Association, a "special interest group" of the American Educational Research Association, raises questions about Mayor Bloomberg's Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) strategy in New York.

According to the report by Florida State University's Patrice Iatarola, small schools or SLCs, "seem to have potential for improving student chievement or improving factors related to student achievement, such as attendance rates, but the body of evidence is not yet strong enough to know for sure whether or not small schools work.

Moreover, notably absent from the research on small schools is the impact that such changes have not only for those who are participating in the reforms but also on schools and students throughout the system. ... the findings do suggest that educators and policymakers should no longer ignore the implications that small school reform may have on schools and students system-wide."

The suggestion is that Bloomberg's plan for implementation of small schools in NY could be creating or further exacerbating racial segregation and the two-tiered system of education.

This is an issue that I, and other small-schools people, have been raising for years. Small schools, especially charters, can become another part of the horrible sorting and tracking process that replicates what Jonathan Kozol called, the "savage inequalities" in our schools and in our society as a whole. 

The small schools movement in New York began in the late 60s as a movement for equity and social justice. The latest wave, with millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, seems to be more about "scaling up" and replication. I'm glad someone is looking at the implications district wide, especially for the 75% of students who are still forced to attend large (among the largest in the nation) high schools.

Is Bloomberg's Implementation of Small Schools Hurting the Rest of the District??

New York's Small Schools--A critical look at implementation

A report from the Politics of Education Association, a "special interest group" of the American Educational Research Association, raises questions about Mayor Bloomberg's Smaller Learning Communities (SLC) strategy in New York.

According to the report by Florida State University's Patrice Iatarola, small schools or SLCs, "seem to have potential for improving student chievement or improving factors related to student achievement, such as attendance rates, but the body of evidence is not yet strong enough to know for sure whether or not small schools work.

Moreover, notably absent from the research on small schools is the impact that such changes have not only for those who are participating in the reforms but also on schools and students throughout the system. ... the findings do suggest that educators and policymakers should no longer ignore the implications that small school reform may have on schools and students system-wide."

The suggestion is that Bloomberg's plan for implementation of small schools in NY could be creating or further exacerbating racial segregation and the two-tiered system of education.

This is an issue that I, and other small-schools people, have been raising for years. Small schools, especially charters, can become another part of the horrible sorting and tracking process that replicates what Jonathan Kozol called, the "savage inequalities" in our schools and in our society as a whole
.
The small schools movement in New York began in the late 60s as a movement for equity and social justice. The latest wave, with millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation, seems to be more about "scaling up" and replication. I'm glad someone is looking at the implications district wide, especially for the 75% of students who are still forced to attend large (among the largest in the nation) high schools.