Can't we all get along?

Want to hear a speech where the great revolutionary thinker, W.E.B. DuBois and the neocon southern strategist Newt Gingrich each draw praise? Check out Obama's speech to the NAACP convention.

From the beginning, Du Bois understood how change would come – just as King and all the civil rights giants did later. They understood that unjust laws needed to be overturned; that legislation needed to be passed; and that Presidents needed to be pressured into action. They knew that the stain of slavery and the sin of segregation had to be lifted in the courtroom and in the legislature.

The state of our schools is not an African-American problem; it’s an American problem. And if Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich can agree that we need to solve it, then all of us can agree on that.

And what finer group could one find to be representative of America? I ask you. I wonder if Newt feels comfortable in such high-minded company? After all, he just led the attack on Obama's Supreme Court pick, Sonia Sotomayor, calling her a "racist."

Scientist shortage?

Scan Bureau of Labor Statistics projections and you won't find words like "crisis" or even "shortfall."

Hey, remember all those reports about scientist shortages? Remember how Bill Gates and others were blaming the schools for not turning out enough scientists and engineers and for hurting us in our competition with China and India?

Well, maybe not:

Numbers from the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics issued Tuesday showed the unemployment rate for electrical engineers hit a record high, 8.6%, in the second quarter, more than doubling from 4.1% in the first quarter... Meanwhile, emerging nations such as India and China produced nearly 700,000 engineers alone. But the slow growth of U.S.-born STEM workers, analysts say, may have less to do with funding commitments than with cloudy career paths and low wages relative to other specialized careers such as medicine, law and finance. (USA Today)

Unemployment, especially among older Silicon Valley engineers, has been a constant reality for the past 20 years. "But it's certainly gone into 'hyper mode' in the last six," says Alan Weissberger, a 61-year-old telecommunications engineer in Santa Clara, Calif., who admits to being "stumped" when people say there's a shortage of engineers..

No "quick turnarounds", Sec. Duncan

So warns Chicago parent organizer Julie Woestehoff (PURE) in response to Duncan's pushing the "Chicago model" on other school districts. Duncan had claimed that, “Chicago’s success proves that we as a nation can expect dramatic and quick turnarounds in our lowest-performing schools.” In a letter to EdWeek, Julie proves that Duncan's claims don't add up.

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Even the far-right libertarians (no-govt. anarchists?) at the CATO Institute are calling the Chicago Miracle "a myth." And remember, these were the guys who actually made up the name, the Ownership Society.

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Think Tank West looks at Chicago's NAEP scores and finds that CPS's 1% increase is "pretty darn close to zero." Certainly nothing to write home about.

Two good reads

Garrett Delavan's book, The Teacher's Attention (Temple U.) makes the case for smaller schools and smaller classes, or as he calls it "relationship load reduction." Delavan is a high school teacher in Salt Lake City.

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Blue-Chip Black (University of California) by Karyn Lacy, is a study of middle-class African-Americans in Prince George's County, Maryland, one of the largest such communities in the nation. It's a community set apart from both poor blacks and whites -- avoiding traditional classrooms in favor of selective enrollment magnet schools or elite private schools. It is also a community being devastated by the current economic disaster, making Lacy's work that much more significant. She writes:

Cross-racial alliances are most prevalent in Prince Goerge's County, where the county's dismal fiscal conditions united black and white residents on key issues, namely development and schools.

Ownership Society News

They're still hoping

Here's the title of the Fordham Institute's next panel discussion: "With charter schools ascendant, is there still a future for vouchers?"

Another neocon wingnut think tank, AEI, likes the general direction Arne Duncan is heading, but doesn't think he is going far enough or has enough "sticks" to get him there. AEI's Andy Smarick is also turned on by DFER, the pro-voucher, pro-privatization Democrat "reformers" who have lots of clout at Duncan's DOE. Smarick finds DFER "exciting," but he worries that these hedgefund reformers may be too gah-gah over Duncan and claiming victory "too early." He is right.

Bill Gates' card game

"Gates Foundation: Teachers trump class size" reads the E-School News headline. Makes me wonder whether Bill Gates' kids have to choose between a good teacher and small class size.

Duncan at the AFT Conference

As he sat on a stool yesterday next to federation President Randi Weingarten, Duncan, in a gesture of solidarity, wore a button the union had distributed to the audience: "With us, not to us."--Washington Post

Boos and comity

It sounds like Arne Duncan turned a typically boring meeting into a hazardous-duty adventure.

Members of the Chicago local laughed, almost theatrically, when Duncan claimed to have supported broad, community-based anti-poverty efforts while working as that city's superintendent. A series of questioners pressed Duncan to reevaluate his positions. One teacher from West Virginia told him that after merit pay was instituted at her school, "The result of this has been a crash in morale. ... We are looking upon it as a very elaborate process of favoritism." Duncan was conciliatory. "That system...has a lot of work to do," he said to the West Virginia woman, "I appreciate your frustration." To a questioner concerned about charter schools weeding out special-education students, he replied, "To be clear, I'm not a fan of charters. I'm a fan of good charters." For that, he was gifted with disbelieving boos.

That's not to say there were no genuine points of comity at the event. Duncan's take on No Child Left Behind won him plaudits. He praised NCLB's success at dis-aggregating achievement numbers by race and class, while criticizing the legislation for being underfunded and stigmatizing "failing" schools. Most significantly, he used NCLB's existing state-by-state standards system to make a plug for common national standards, a concept that seemed popular with the crowd. Under the Bush administration, NCLB was "very, very loose on the goals...and they were very, very tight on how you get there. I want to fundamentally flip that," Duncan said. "I think it's backwards." (Dana Goldstein, American Prospect)

Day one of the AFT/Quest Conference

AFT President Randi Weingarten lays out the union's line on charters

Weingarten said charter schools should be held to the same standards as other public schools and they "should not be pitted against each other."

"Successful charter schools should be applauded and should share their lessons; troubled charter schools that fail their students should be held accountable and closed; and charter school teachers should be supported and given the right to union membership and voice," she said.

Weingarten cautioned elected leaders not to walk away from their responsibility to help all public schools succeed "by turning entire public school systems into charter schools." (AFT-Quest 2009)

The Duncan rationale

According to Sec. Duncan,

"2,000 high schools produce half of the dropouts in the country...They are perpetuating poverty and social failure... But if we agree that the adults in these schools are failing these children then we have to find the right people and we can't let our rules and regulations get in the way."

By rules and regulations, Duncan means collective bargaining agreements. Forget the rules negotiated between teachers and districts. Fire 'em all. Let God sort 'em out, says Arne.

Okay, now fast forward to a report cited by the Hechinger Institute at Columbia Teachers College, which says: "17 states produce some 70 percent of the students who don’t graduate." Never mind, as Sherman Dorn is quick to point out, that 17 states also enroll 70 percent of the nation's students. The question is, using Duncan's logic, aren't these states guilty of perpetuating poverty and social failure? Shouldn't we fire all the teachers in those 17 states and replace them with teachers from the remaining 33?

Actually, the Hechinger folks are asking the right questions, including:

• What investments can states make to turnaround lagging schools in a time of economic crisis?
• How will funds from the stimulus package help transform underperforming high schools and how can government and school officials be held accountable?
  
• Are changes needed in federal education law?
  
• What can and should state policymakers do to make sure that increasing graduation rates will become a top priority?
  
• What interventions and are most effective in improving high school graduation rates?
  

The AFT/Quest Conference

The American Federation of Teachers' Quality Educational Standards in Teaching (QuEST) conference starts today at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Among the conference highlights will be U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan taking questions from the audience, a speech by U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a keynote address by AFT President Randi Weingarten, a session on teacher quality with Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University, events with unionized charter school teachers and a panel on community schools.

The taking of P.S. 123

In N.Y, charter profiteers like Eva Moskowitz don't even wait for board approval before sending movers into a Harlem school, to haul away teachers' materials, desks and computers without their knowledge. Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News pointed out back in February, that "Moskowitz, who makes no secret of her desire to create 40 charter schools across the city and run for mayor some day, raked in $371,000 in salaries in the 2006-2007 school year from organizations connected to her four schools,"

Previous posts on charter hustler Moskowitz here & here.

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Of the 10 N.Y. schools with the worst student performance in math tests this year, half were opened in the past four years as part of Mayor Bloomberg's new schools initiative. (Daily News)

Report: 'Schools are safer without metal detectors'

The NYCLU, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, and Make the Road New York have released a report arguing that schools can create a safer environment without metal detectors and harsh discipline. (Gothamist)

Included in the report, this factoid:

The police force in New York City schools is now the fifth largest police force in the country—there are more police in New York City schools than there are on the streets of cities such as Baltimore, Las Vegas, Boston and Washington D.C.

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PURE does some good reporting on the "turnarounds" in Chicago including this on turnaround "model" AUSL. It also turns out that Julie at PURE had beaten me to the punch on the suppression of the SRI report. She noted back in May that the critical report on Renaissance 2010 had been "purposely delayed."

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Minneapolis charter advocate Joe Nathan doesn't like the "false choice" between charters and district schools. He says research shows both district and charter schools vary enormously in their effectiveness. So lumping them together makes little sense, and doesn't help improve any classrooms.

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This week's stupid headline award goes to Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ). Since when is firing every teacher in a school, a "radical school reform?" What's next, firing all the surgeons in a hospital for some radical health care reform?

The way they think

Deb Meier's latest (and last for the summer) post on Bridging Differences, quotes IBM's Louis Gerstner wanting to replace the country's 16,000 school districts with just one. It made me think back to the wish expressed by L.A. Supt. Ramon Cortines for a "dictatorship" over his district. Deb also offers some good summer reads.

The Duncan Era

I don't know why it took me so long. But I finally got around to reading Matthew Blake's comprehensive assessment of the Duncan era in Chicago, "The educators new clothes: Everybody loves Arne Duncan. But do his reforms work?" It was well worth the read. Check it out.

More on mayoral control

The Tribune carries the latest chapter on the Daley machine's job/patronage dealings. That Arne Duncan still touts mayoral control of the schools as the "model" for every city is almost laughable. The only question is when the federal prosecutor's noose will tighten around the Fifth Floor of City Hall.

• Inspector general wants Daley to fire HR chief (Chicago Breaking News)
• Daley defends resigned personnel aide (Chicago Breaking News)
• Mayor Daley's personnel chief quits (Chicago Tribune)
• Former Daley aide upset IG made report public (Chicago Breaking News)
• Accused of lying, Daley's personnel chief quits (Chicago Breaking News)

Briefs

Mayoral out of control

In response to the Civic Committee's charge that Chicago test score increases were the product of changes in the test:

"Why don't you mention where you go to school? Or your grandchildren? Why haven't they mentioned them? Ah hah. Why? That's the question.''

Stop the presses!

Talk about your duh! headlines. From Edweek: NEA, Obama Administration May Not Be in Sync

Congratulations...

...to Small Schools Workshop alum Gabrielle Lyon and Paul Sereno. Project Exploration just won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Mentoring.

Data-driven reform?

"Suppress it!"

I have received more confirmation on Tuesday's post , re. attempts by the Civic Committee and the Renaissance Schools Fund (RSF) to suppress or delay the release of a study of Chicago Renaissance 2010 schools. The study, released in April, showed mixed results for the Daley/Duncan reform initiative.

The Ren10 schools, mostly charters run by outside management companies, did no better than the "failing" neighborhood schools they were supposed to replace. This despite having lower rates of bilingual and special education students.

Obviously, the mediocre results were not to the the liking of the study's sponsors, nor to those who have been touting Chicago as "the model" for districts nationwide to follow. Yesterday I received further confirmations of suppression efforts by Civic Committee and RSF leaders, including threatened lawsuits, to prevent the study from being shown to the public.

One correction: In my earlier post, I attributed the study solely to the Consortium on Chicago School Research. But, I was informed, the study was actually done by SRI International with the Consortium serving as a sub-contractor. Since it was published on the Consortium's website, I had assumed that the study was theirs. But it was the SRI that became the target of the suppression and intimidation attempts. Kudos to them for not being cowed and releasing the study in good time.

Take that, Civic Committee

On the heels of the Civic Committee's report, calling Chicago school reform an "abysmal" failure, Mayor Daley called a press conference of his own to announce (hold on to your hats) that reading scores went up 1.1 % over last year. That's not all. Math scores increased by 3% and science by 1.7%.

Take that R. Eden Martin.

Daley:"We are...convinced that our progress is truly being made in every school," said Daley.

The Tribune: "Of the 519 elementary schools in the city, 320 showed improvement over last year's test scores. That leaves roughly 200 performing at the same or worse, though the district did not provide data for those schools."

Russo: "The City Hall press release here (PDF) reveals quite a bit of hedging and uncertainty -- taking credit for increases at the same time as it acknowledges the sorry state of affairs. It's a delicate line to walk. "

Catalyst: "Catalyst didn’t receive word about the press conference and therefore didn’t attend. Let’s just call it a technical glitch that we are working on remedying."

Don't feel bad, Catalyst. Neither did SmallTalk. Our invitations probably got lost in the e-mail.

NEA follow-up

Duncan vs. Darling-Hammond

Looking back and looking ahead, a lot of us can't help wondering how different things might be had Obama chosen Linda Darling-Hammond rather than Arne Duncan, as his ed secretary. At last weekend's NEA Conference, the two speakers offered two different takes on school reform and on the source of the problem:

Arne Duncan:

2,000 high schools produce half of the dropouts in the country. Their kids are years behind grade. They are perpetuating poverty and social failure...But if we agree that the adults in these schools are failing these children then we have to find the right people and we can't let our rules and regulations get in the way... And we can't continue to blame each other or blame the system. We are the system... (Ed.gov)

Linda Darling-Hammond:

It’s not the people who are at fault, it’s the system that needs an overhaul. We need federal policies that support educators in doing the challenging work that they have committed to do...We need a new form of accountability. Tests and punishments will not create accountability."(Teacher Beat)

Merit pay -- Who wants it?

We know that most teachers don't want it. The AFT and NEA can live with it so long as they can help shape it.

Business doesn't use it

It is conventional to say that holding educators accountable and paying for higher test scores will improve performance. Eli Broad, whose foundation promotes incentive pay for teachers, states, "Virtually every other industry compensates employees based on how well they perform. … We know from experience across other industries and sectors that linking performance and pay is a powerful incentive."

Yet in reality, private sector pay is almost never based primarily on quantitative performance measures. (Richard Rothstein, Forum for Education and Democracy)

It doesn't excite school administrators either

In the June survey, conducted by the American Association of School Administrators and completed online by 536 administrators from 45 states, 44 percent of the respondents said they had a “moderate to strong” interest in exploring the use of a pay-for-performance program for individual teachers, 46 percent said they would be interested in using it to reward groups of teachers, and 44 percent reported being interested in a pay-for-performance initiative that would reward all teachers. (Edweek)

The South Pasadena Unified Grade "A" Jug Band

Failed attempts to suppress Chicago study

Whispers over at the Consortium on Chicago School Research are all about attempts by members of the Civic Committee and the Renaissance School Fund to suppress a Consortium report before it hit the street this past April.

The report, "Renaissance Schools Fund-Supported Schools: Early Outcomes, Challenges, and Opportunities" offered evidence that the new, privately-managed charter schools created under the Mayor's Renaissance 2010 initiative, were producing no better results than their traditional, neighborhood school counterparts.

At least two sources tell me that Civic Committee President R. Eden Martin along with unnamed members of the RSF, "tried to suppress or slow the release of the data" to avoid embarrassment to the Mayor and Arne Duncan. Duncan has been touting the Chicago model and pressuring other states and school districts to follow it or risk losing stimulus dollars.

When Consortium researchers went ahead, despite pressure and published the report, the usual panic, butt-covering and scapegoating set in, leading to the publication last week of the Civic Committee's own report which painted Chicago reform as an "abysmal" failure. The report made no mention of the Renaissance 2010 plan, authored by that very same Civic Committee under mayoral control. Ren10 became the blueprint for the failed reform. Duncan, who had faithfully carried out the plan before going to Washington, now becomes the fall guy.

The Consortium followed up on the report with another devastating study in June, "The Schools Teachers Leave: Teacher Mobility in Chicago Public Schools," revealing CPS's chronically high rates of teacher turnover, especially in schools serving low-income, African-American children.

Kudos to the Consortium.

The answer

In the new National Journal Online, Arne Duncan continues spreading the Chicago miracle manure around. He's still insisting that, in Chicago and other cities, "mayoral control is the answer for turning around schools." I guess he's ignoring the report from his old bosses at the Civic Committee who are calling the past decade of Chicago reform "abysmal."

I'm no hoo hoo

BTW, I tried to respond to Duncan's silly claims at NJO, but the new Gates-sponsored site, which Edweek's Dakarai Aarons calls, "a veritable who's who among education policymakers" only allows comments from "invited participants." No practitioners allowed. They're not hoo-hoos.

Sun-Times Editorial on Civic Committee Report

Mostly, it's an overly simplistic analysis of test data, assembled largely to bash traditional public schools and promote the business group's preferred solution -- expanding the number of charter and other privately managed schools.

I agree