It may be quiet around here for a bit as we're spending the next week or so with family. So if you're looking for Race to the Top news or a musical recommendation, you're on your own for a while.
A failing Savannah high school is firing its entire staff in an effort to avoid further sanctions from the state and to make the school eligible for up to $6 million in federal money, officials said Thursday.The 200 employees at Beach High School — including the principal — will work there through the end of the year but will not be rehired for that school, said Karla Redditte, spokeswoman for the Savannah-Chatham County school district.
I am deeply troubled to read columns like this ("Improve education, fire bad teachers") -- both the title and the content -- from a reputable source like the Center for American Progress (CAP). Much as the likes of FOX News are in desperate need of balance and breadth of perspective, so is this column.
It's hard to believe that the Wall Street Journal fancies itself a national newspaper while publishing this largely baseless, political clap-trap on its editorial page:But national standards are no substitute for school choice and accountability, which are proving to be the most effective drivers of academic improvement.First of all, to frame education reform as pitting national standards against choice/accountability is ridiculous on its face. It is a false choice. Plus, the Obama Administration's reform blueprint is so much more broad than that. About the only thing that the WSJ editorial gets right is in saying that national standards "won't magically boost learning" by themselves.
As a child growing up inside the Washington Beltway, I learned early never to have much faith in politicians. Every few years new folks came to the city, promising "change" and leaving without having done much at all. The candidates and officials I did like never got the attention and promotions they deserved. And worst of all, those who claimed to be on my side were everlasting disappointments (read: Bill Clinton). Somehow that cynical base inside me melted a little with the election of Barack Obama, and became a tiny puddle when he announced the American Graduation Initiative. Finally, a president who "got" it! As educators we were all working to prepare children for a full life, and that had to include a real shot at higher education. That meant finally giving sufficient resources to the colleges where the majority of those looking longingly at the American Dream were going to end up: community colleges.
My heart went pitter-patter when I heard Obama call community colleges an "undervalued asset" to the nation, one often treated like a "stepchild" and an "afterthought." I felt real hope for the world my kids would grow up in when he summoned the "can-do American spirit" of community colleges everywhere to help transform the American economy.
I thought things had really changed.
Well, it looks like I was completely and utterly wrong. Today the American Graduation Initiative sits on the chopping block, thanks not only to the money-grubbing hands of banks but also to the Democrats' fears of their powerful colleagues who throw their primary support to the nation's Historically Black colleges and universities. Community colleges will soon learn that their place in this society hasn't changed a bit-- they are expected to accomodate our national desires for widespread college-going while getting next to no support in return. The students they serve-- those without BA-educated parents or beaucoup bucks-- will get a worse fate-- locked out of the courses they need, crammed into overcrowded classrooms, expected to learn without any of the technological advancements of their counterparts.
This country has no heart for these kids. We claim to care enough to prepare them, to try and reform the k-12 system to get them ready for college-- but we won't take the necessary action to make sure college is ready for them. We're rethinking NCLB to set them up for what, exactly?
So here I am, back where I started. Deeply suspicious and cynical, wondering what all the work was for. And hoping, really hoping, that I'm wrong. Maybe the Senate will come to its senses. Maybe.
Ah, the joys of being a state employee -- our salary info is readily available to the public! Despite the UW System's efforts to keep that information quiet (salaries are very low, making it easy for other universities to lure us away), the Wisconsin State Journal put it online to ensure transparency. Here are some interesting tidbits: I'm sure you can find more-- have at it!
It's all about the bankers-- again. As I've said in this blog numerous times, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act is poised to dispense critical aid to low-income college students and the colleges they attend-- if the lending industry doesn't kill it first. The savings that would result from a move to direct lending are substantial. Money would go directly to the neediest college students and to community colleges, a sector that is swamped and struggling in this recession. This investment in human capital is in so many ways a no-brainer-- it'll generate a large return, benefit folks in nearly every community in the country, and support the American dream.
Of course, the bankers will have none of it. In the current system they draw profits on the backs of students, lending them money and selling those loans to the government. They are so eager to hold onto those profits that they argue that the status quo is actually good for students. Disgusting, but not surprising. This is how the power elite maintains its position.
What's terribly sad is that some Democrats from states with pathetically low college attainment rates are actually buying into this hooey, giving credence to the banks' arguments that there are ways to save money while preserving their profits.
Senators Thomas R. Carper of Delaware, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Mark Warner of Virginia and Jim Webb of Virginia ought to be ashamed of themselves. Just look at the state of their higher education systems:
The children in these states deserve the support for an affordable higher education that SAFRA will provide. Their leaders should (quickly) stop stalling, develop backbones, and stand up to the banking industry.
A lot of us in education policy get lost within our own locus of control. In my case, it's all about teachers. After all, teacher quality is the strongest school-based indicator impacting student outcomes.The dominant assumption of American educational policy is that schools, by themselves, can fully overcome the impact of social and economic disadvantage on children’s development into thriving citizens.Read Deb Viadero's blog post at Inside School Research on the study as well.
The ... No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) ... perpetuated and gave further credence to the assumption that schools could fully mitigate the impact of low socioeconomic status on students’ achievement and that schools were also the chief cause of poor performance.
First, since at least 2000, there has been a broad scientific consensus that “virtually every aspect of early human development, from the brain’s evolving circuitry to the child’s capacity for empathy, is affected by the environments and experiences that are encountered in a cumulative fashion, beginning in the prenatal period and extending throughout the early childhood years.” As James Heckman, a Nobel Prize economist, wrote, “Life cycle skill formation is a dynamic process in which early
inputs strongly affect the productivity of later inputs [especially schools]. Put another way, “education” does not begin or end at the schoolhouse door, and the “education” that children receive before they enter school significantly affects their success after they go through that door.
Second, the evidence does not support the view that the substantial gap closing that had occurred by the mid-1980s was entirely the result of schools, though schools did indeed contribute.
Third, despite the ongoing debate about whether or not schools alone can level the education playing field, the federal government has long been engaged in a schools-plus approach.
As a follow up to my post last September ("Teacher Residency Requirements"), there appears to be legislative movement in both Illinois and Wisconsin to eliminate such requirements in Chicago and Milwaukee, respectively. Both cities require teachers to be residents in order to be employed in the public schools.It's an age-old question for Chicago, which is one of few big cities to require teachers to live inside the city limits. Teachers complain about it. Once in a while they get caught living outside the city and have to move or leave their jobs. The recession in making jobs scarcer and the city more expensive. And now State Sen. Steans has introduced language [Residency Bill SB 3522 (Amendment 1)] that, with the support of the CTU, would remove that requirement.From Wisconsin State Journal editorial, 3/10/2010:
My belief is that, while this might be good politics or even economic policy, it is bad education policy. In urban school districts that struggle to attract and retain talented and effective teachers, such a residency policy needlessly reduces the number of qualified candidates for teaching vacancies and lowers the quality of the overall selection pool.Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature and the state's big teachers union are on the same side pushing for a smart school reform in Milwaukee.
They're backing Assembly Bill 89, which would prohibit Milwaukee Public Schools from requiring their teachers to live in the state's largest city.
Today the U.S. Department of Education announced [video] that 16 states have been selected as semifinalists in Phase One of the Race to the Top (RttT) competition. Forty-one states (including DC) applied in Phase One.
The Central Falls (Rhode Island) Teachers' Union, an AFT affiliate, has approached district superintendent Frances Gallo and signaled a willingness to compromise over several reform issues that last month led Gallo and the school board to recommend the firing of the entire staff at Central Falls High School. It appears that this story is still being written. Sometimes dramatic steps are what is needed to achieve compromise."I am pleased to reassure the union their place in the planning process," Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo said in a statement. She said she welcomes union input in developing "a dynamic plan to dramatically improve student achievement" at Central Falls High School.Gallo's statement followed an overture Tuesday from the Central Falls Teachers' Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. The instructors have offered support for a longer school day, as well as more rigorous evaluations and training, among other steps.
and Providence Journal stories...
Late Tuesday, Central Falls Teachers Union president Jane Sessums made the first move in a news release that said the teachers were willing to embrace a set of reforms that were very similar to changes Gallo initially proposed.“My heart skipped a beat,” Gallo said after reading Sessums’ proposal. “I thought, ‘They are basically saying they want what we want for the first time, with the kind of assurances I need.’ … This brings the union back with us, in the conversation about meaningful reform. It’s where they should be.”
Less than 24 hours later, Gallo opened the door with a news release of her own, saying she was excited by the prospect of reaching agreement with the teachers.
Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, whose order to improve the struggling school sparked the mass firings, said she was encouraged by the rapprochement between the two sides.
“Our focus in everything … is how to ensure the children in Central Falls receive an excellent education,” Gist said, “and that is always going to be improved when all the adults are working cooperatively together.
Related blog posts:
After a lengthy "sabbatical" focusing on the birth of our daughter, I am back at the turntable, offering up a Musical Elective Of The Month. I was reminded of not offering up a recent musical suggestion this past Friday evening, when Sara and I went to see Justin Townes Earle -- the subject of the last Musical Elective back in November -- at the High Noon Saloon in Madison.
