Bill Gates on charter schools
Microsoft founder Bill Gates told a huge crowd of charter school advocates, researchers, principals and operators that the non-traditional public schools have “the potential to revolutionize the way students are educated. But to deliver on this promise, it’s important that the movement do even more to hold itself accountable for low-performing charters.”
“The deal that allowed for the autonomy has to be a real deal,” Gates continued. “The freedom to perform in new ways means that if you don’t perform, things are shut down after you are given a chance.” (Full disclosure: The Hechinger Report, under which this blog is published, receives support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.)
Education Week also has an interview with Gates here.
You can follow all of the action at the National Charter Schools Conference on Twitter at #ncsc or #charters.
Recess round-up: June 29, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Budget cuts: Residents in at least 16 districts in California have approved an increase to property taxes in order to help school budgets. But these measures are mostly taking place in more affluent communities, and experts worry they will only increase educational inequality in the state. (Education Week)
Taxes aren’t the only way to increase the budget, though; schools in Michigan are turning to advertisements in schools to raise some extra money. (Detroit Free Press)
Community colleges: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised community colleges as “an unrecognized gem of education” at graduation ceremonies in California. (San Jose Mercury News)
Technology: The Colorado Convention Center hosted the annual meeting of the International Society for Technology in Education, featuring iPod touches, Flip cams and the latest in whiteboard technology. (Denver Post)
Meanwhile, Wilmington University in Delaware is busy preparing for its first class of video game design and development majors. (Delaware Online)
Class size: Administrators in Central Florida this summer will have to tackle the last part of Florida’s class size law, which was approved in 2002. Beginning in August, there can be no more than 18 students in elementary school core classes, 22 in middle school classes and 25 in high school. That’s going to mean hiring hundreds of new teachers. (Orlando Sentinel)
School choice: A new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that Philadelphia parents want more school choice. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Meanwhile, a school choice bill in New Jersey has been sent to the governor; it would expand the number of school districts that can take students from other districts. (NJ.com)
Charter schools hurt the rich but help the poor, says a new report
A new national study on charter schools will likely have the charter skeptics cheering: Mathematica researchers have found that charter schools make no significant impact on student test scores. That’s the big takeaway, but digging more deeply, the data reveal a complicated picture of whom charter schools help, and whom they hurt.
Students who are already doing well in school would do better to stay away from charters, the study found. So would more affluent students. After two years at a charter, math and reading scores for higher-income and higher-performing students tend to drop.
For low-income students, however, charter schools can help. Poor students saw improved math scores. The study also found that charter schools in large cities are more effective at raising student math scores than their traditional public school counterparts.
(photo courtesy of Martin Lenders)
The report was directed by the Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education and conducted by Mathematica, a research group that just released another major charter study last week. Although many studies have tackled the charter school issue in the past — to see their conflicting findings, check out this study as well as this one — the IES says this report is the “first large scale randomized trial of the effectiveness of charter schools in multiple states and types of communities.”
However, the study doesn’t capture the complete picture of charter schools, something charter advocates are likely to point out to counter the skeptics’ cheers. The study compared only schools where there was a lottery to get in, which made it scientifically rigorous but not comprehensive. Interestingly, the charter schools in the sample had higher percentages of white and affluent students than charter schools do on average. They also served smaller percentages of low-performing students.
These characteristics may challenge how we’ve pictured the most in-demand charters, and also raises a question I asked a few weeks ago about charters that serve advantaged students.
The report’s conclusion that “not all charter schools are the same” won’t surprise many who follow the debate. What’s interesting is what the report tells us about which charter schools work better. As for why some work better than others, we’ll have to wait for the next study.
I’ll be posting an update later today with a round-up of coverage, so stay tuned..
Update
Some coverage from around the web:
Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post looks at the IES study alongside another study on charter school spending.
Education Week notes an interesting finding: regardless of the often lackluster achievement at charters, parents were more pleased with them.
And the Indianapolis Star takes an in-depth look at local charters, pointing out that the KIPP branch in Indianapolis actually performs worse than its traditional counterparts.
Recess round-up: June 28, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Common standards: Illinois “education officials set new expectations for what every public school student should know in math and reading, joining a national push to create one set of standards.” (Chicago Tribune)
Technology and education: Connecticut students can stay home and take summer school classes online. “That means rather than waking up early and climbing on a bus, summer school students can stay home and work on their laptops on their own schedule.” Of course, that assumes students are motivated and have laptops. (Hartford Courant)
Teachers and budgets: Teachers’ jobs will not be cut in El Paso, Texas, at this time, despite an $18 million shortfall over the next two years. Budget cuts will take aim at “the central office,” according to El Paso Independent School District Superintendent Lorenzo García. (El Paso Times)
Transforming troubled schools: New York City has announced that 11 schools the state considers persistently low-achieving will experience intensive interventions this fall. They’re talking about schools with graduation rates below 60 percent… (WNYC Radio)
Tackling turnaround: “To understand what’s at stake and how quickly these educators must move, Education Week is following the turnaround experience” of Shawnee High School, in Louisville, Ky. Today, they published the first story in what will be an ongoing series. (Education Week)
Closing alternative schools: Alternative schools face closure because of budget cuts in Los Angeles County. “‘I don’t think I have a place to go,’ one student says.” (Los Angeles Times)
From boys to men: Of the 150 students who started boys-only Urban Prep Charter High School in Chicago’s South Side in 2006, 95 lasted four years. The good news is that one hundred percent of the school’s first class is college-bound. “It’s just a milestone,” saidTim King, Urban Prep President and CEO. “It’s not an endgame. This is not the fulfillment of our mission. (That) comes when we are able to see our students succeed in college and that may not be apparent for four or five years.” (Washington Post)
Policy: Sen. Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia — as well as a defender and prolific sponsor of academic earmarks — died early this morning. He was the longest-serving senator in history, holding his seat for more than 50 years. (Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Chronicle of Higher Education)
What works for boys
George Jackson Academy students (Photo by Susan Siegel)
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Paul Glader writes about efforts in New York City to keep boys, and especially minority boys, engaged in school. The city’s plan for the future will likely include more all-boys schools.
The story highlights the fact that in New York City there are more than twice as many boys as girls in special education. But I was surprised to see no mention of a recent report on single-sex schools serving primarily Black and Latino boys. The idea of single-sex schools is not new. Yet, the idea of a public school for boys of color is something of an anomaly.
New York University professor Pedro Noguera, c0-author of “Theories of Change among Single-Sex Schools for Black and Latino Boys,” was the featured speaker at a panel of education experts who spoke on the topic in late April. Hosted by the George Jackson Academy, a private upper-elementary and middle school in Queens for boys in grades four through eight, the morning meeting at NYU examined different components of a rigorous education — instruction, leadership, curriculum, after-school activities and their effects on students.
Pedro Noguera, the Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at New York University (Photo by Susan Sawyers)
The report found that all-boys schools create safe environments in which boys can learn. An emphasis on building strong relationships among the boys, teachers, and staff proved important to engaging the boys in the learning process. “Relational engagement was the strongest predictor of achievement,” said Noguera.
The study looked at seven schools that vary in structure (public, private and charter); five are located in New York, one is in Atlanta, Ga., and one is in Portland, Ore. The authors found that all-boys schools nurtured their students’ social and emotional development; challenged stereotypes about African-American and Latino male identity; infused strong academic expectations and college preparation as part of the boys’ social identity; and made strong efforts to strengthen basic academic skills before moving on to more challenging offerings.
However, Noguera, who co-wrote the report with Edward Fergus, also said that the push toward single-sex schools for low-income boys is “an intervention in search of a theory” — and he gave the report a subtitle to that effect. Unlike all-girls schools, which are based on the theory of expanding gender role options for girls, all-boys schools are not based on a “shared understanding” of what boys actually need.
“The problems we see with our boys,” said Noguera, “only get worse when we see what’s happening with our men. The boys become men who are more likely to be unemployed or underemployed. They are trapped in low-wage jobs, incarcerated or murdered.”
I hadn’t seen high school graduation rates disaggregated by gender until today. As Glader’s story in the Wall Street Journal points out, there’s a great disparity in New York City. “According to state data,” he wrote, “only 52.6 percent of boys graduated and 65.5 percent of girls graduated from high school in New York City last year.” Clearly, there’s room for improvement and single-sex schools for Black and Latino boys, like Eagle Academy or George Jackson Academy, may help ratchet up the numbers.
Recess round-up: June 25, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Funding: Race to the Top money available in round two: $3.4 billion. State applications are now online, with scores and comments to follow. (U.S. Department of Education)
Promise Neighborhoods: Read or listen to stories about the idea of “Promise Neighborhoods,” which will seek to replicate the work of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone. (Las Vegas Sun and NPR)
College: A short radio piece on yesterday’s Senate hearing about for-profit colleges. (NPR)
All-boys schools: “New York City education officials—searching for ways to keep boys, especially minorities, engaged in school—are expected to roll out plans in coming weeks that will likely involve more single-sex schools, as well as mentoring, tutoring and other after-school programs.” (The Wall Street Journal)
Reform: Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has a star turn in the education film Waiting for Superman at Silverdocs. She smiles for the camera but cries in the movie. (The Washington Post)
Linda Perlstein, public editor of the Education Writers Association, reviews the film here.
Los Angeles Unified: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa backs charter schools as a remedy for low-performing campuses, while sharply criticizing Ramon C. Cortines, the L.A. schools superintendent. Earlier this week, the LAUSD Board of Education voted in John Deasy, former Gates Foundation staffer, as deputy superintendent. (Los Angeles Times)
Teaching: Failing to succeed — “if you never allow your children to exceed what they can do, how are they going to learn to manage adult life … ?” — echoes of Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee. (Harvard Business Review)
Diversity: what’s the point?
I recently participated in a conversation on BAM! Radio entitled “All The Children Are White. So What?”
The main guest was Louise Derman-Sparks, a professor emertius at Pacific Oaks College in California who is a nationally recognized expert on multicultural education. Derman-Sparks has authored or co-authored countless books, including Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children, Teaching/Learning Anti-Racism: A Developmental Approach and — most relevant to our discussion — “What If All the Kids are White?” Anti-bias/ Multicultural Education with Young Children and Families. Our host was Holly Elissa Bruno.
Among the topics we tried to tackle were:
-Homogenous schools in America: do they really exist? Where and why?
-Segregation in America: a 21st-century reality?
-Can and should homogenous schools still think about diversity issues? How and why?
-What to say to skeptical teachers, administrators or parents who ask, “Who needs diversity?”
-Why the “tourist” approach to diversity — short-lived, superficial — is problematic
In short, Derman-Sparks and I both argued that diversity enriches rather than diminishes us.
Far from a liability, diversity — in thought, belief and outward appearance, but also in dreams, desires and diversions — is in fact one of our country’s greatest assets.
Recess round-up: June 24, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Funding: Half of the $500 million in Race to the Top money awarded to Tennessee will go to local school districts; the other half will be spent at the state level. (The Tennessean)
Policy: An emerging risk? Growth and spending in for profit higher-ed. News on a senate hearing today about federal investment in financial aid at for-profit colleges and universities. (Barrons and San Francisco Examiner)
Reform: A shift might be coming to schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Va. in how they ensure all students have fair shots at a good education. (Charlotte Observer)
Research: In the latest look at New York City’s small school strategy, which some argue is the special ingredient in the city’s efforts to improve its graduation rate over the past eight years, MDRC confirms past findings that kids in small schools do better than their counterparts in the rest of the school system. (HechingerEd blog)
Reform: Iowa education leaders want to adopt the recently released common core standards for English and math in lieu of creating a statewide blueprint in those subjects. (Des Moines Register)
Small schools mean big progress, says MDRC report
In the latest look at New York City’s small school strategy, which some argue is the special ingredient in the city’s efforts to improve its graduation rate over the past eight years, MDRC confirms past findings that kids in small schools do better than their counterparts in the rest of the school system.
The small schools had an effect on student achievement as early as ninth grade, and significantly higher graduation rates four years later. The report argues that the small schools are “more than just small.” They were able to find ways to help the neediest students, the researchers say. It also helped that the schools were a product of a “bottom-up, not a top-down process.”
New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein (courtesy of Rubenstein)
Some New Yorkers will vehemently disagree with this last assertion. Other research has raised concerns about disadvantaged students left high and dry when larger schools closed. And not all small schools have worked out.
This latest report, one in a series by MDRC on New York’s high school reforms, is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has provided millions of dollars to New York City to carry out these reforms. (Disclosure: the Gates Foundation also provides financial support to The Hechinger Report.) The study’s researchers say they avoided the pitfall of comparing kids who were motivated enough to apply for a small school to kids who weren’t as motivated (which could bias the results). They compared students who applied for and got in to small schools, which are often oversubscribed, to students who applied but didn’t get in.
To learn more about how New York City improved its graduation rate, look for the July/August issue of Washington Monthly, which will include a package of stories about high school dropouts in three cities written in collaboration with The Hechinger Report.
Read other coverage of the report at Gotham Schools, the Wall Street Journal, and Education Week.
Recess round-up: June 23, 2010
A daily dose of education news around the nation – just in time for a little mid-day break!
Research: Digital literacy
“A new white paper addressing recent calls for technology literacy education argues any such education should involve project-based learning, while a separate new report indicates the need for such education may soon increase.” (EdWeek)
Teaching: A school leader without a high school diploma
Karen Lewis, president-elect of the Chicago Teachers Union, blames Mayor Daley for the disastrous state of Chicago schools. (Chicago Sun-Times)
Funding: $27m lift for city’s schools
Boston charities bolster efforts to accelerate student achievement across the city, from “cradle to career.’’ (Boston Globe)
Stimulus: In Kentucky, there’s funding for summer jobs
About $46 million in federal stimulus money has come to Kentucky — including $6 million to Louisville — to create a summer jobs program for disadvantaged young people and adults with children. (Courier Journal)
Research: New evidence of racial bias on SAT?
“A new study may revive arguments that the average test scores of black students trail those of white students not just because of economic disadvantages, but because some parts of the test result in differential scores by race for students of equal academic prowess.” (Inside Higher Ed)
Policy: Desegregation of public schools
Gerald W. Heaney, a Midwestern federal appeals court judge who played a central role in major school desegregation cases and championed the rights of the accused, died Tuesday in Duluth, Minn. He was 92. (The New York Times)
High schools: NYC, Chicago and Boston take a look at online “credit recovery” options
For cities and states looking to increase their high school graduation rates, “credit recovery” is a strategy gaining steam; this article, published on Monday, looks at different ways students can make up missing credits and failed classes. (EdWeek)
