Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

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  1. The civil rights statement is significant. And its message is bolstered by another group that is speaking out this week, a coalition of 24 national community-based organizations, Communities for Excellent Public Schools.

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    p>According to Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post, this group “criticizes the administration for taking ‘top-down school improvement efforts’ that are part of No Child Left Behind and thinking that they will somehow be successful by ‘adding teeth.’ It says that they ignore a growing body of research about what does work.”

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    p>I say Amen to both groups for speaking out at this critical moment.

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    p>Lisa Guisbond
    Citizens for Public Schools
    http://www.citizensforpublicsc…

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    • I couldn’t find a link to the document yesterday, but it’s up now here.

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      p>Here’s an excerpt:

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      The report, and our accompanying proposal for Sustainable School Transformation, critique the Administration’s school turnaround policies for focusing too much on who runs and works in schools and not enough on what needs to happen within classrooms and school buildings and for lacking an adequate research-base in formulating policy options. The top-down choices that school districts are given are too restrictive and the time frame for making decisions–a few months–is far too short for a comprehensive, thoughtful and inclusive process. These policies have their basis in top-down prescriptions sanctioned by No Child Left Behind. Sustainable and successful school reform requires a different approach, which is why CEPS has developed the Sustainable School Transformation proposal.

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      p>Lisa

  2. Excellent post Joel, I can say from first hand experience tutoring in a CPS school in Chicago that Duncan’s plan has left a lot of damage in its wake. Everyone should be on the same page and learning at the same level, forcing schools to compete against one another is really a race to the bottom, not the top. This funding mechanism is also inherently unfair and might violate several statues regarding education funding, particularly in the aftermath of the civil rights movement. Struggling urban schools need MORE MONEY, not less and punishing them for their existing lack of resources seems counter-intuitive.  

    • No reporter has asked Duncan why his reforms are not raising test scores (which is Duncan’s metric for success).

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      p>Duncan’s reforms in Chicago show a bump and then plateau on the NAEP metric:

      One other city bears mentioning, and that is Chicago. Chicago is important because it seems to be a model for Arne Duncan's national strategy of opening charter schools, closing public schools, and placing greater emphasis on testing. Duncan became superintendent in Chicago in 2001. Fourth-grade students made a significant gain on NAEP from 2002-2003, but have seen no improvement since then. Eighth grade scores have been completely flat since 2002. Scores for black, Hispanic and low-income students in 8th grade are unchanged since 2002. In 4th grade, there are fewer students “below basic” down from 66 percent in 2002 to 55 percent in 2009, but there has been no improvement whatever at 8th grade.

      If Duncan is interested in “whatever works” he should be able to explain why Chicago’s numbers stopped rising after his first year in charge.

    • No reporter has asked Duncan why his reforms are not raising test scores (which is Duncan’s metric for success).

      <

      p>Duncan’s reforms in Chicago show a bump and then plateau on the NAEP metric:

      One other city bears mentioning, and that is Chicago. Chicago is important because it seems to be a model for Arne Duncan's national strategy of opening charter schools, closing public schools, and placing greater emphasis on testing. Duncan became superintendent in Chicago in 2001. Fourth-grade students made a significant gain on NAEP from 2002-2003, but have seen no improvement since then. Eighth grade scores have been completely flat since 2002. Scores for black, Hispanic and low-income students in 8th grade are unchanged since 2002. In 4th grade, there are fewer students “below basic” down from 66 percent in 2002 to 55 percent in 2009, but there has been no improvement whatever at 8th grade.

      If Duncan is interested in “whatever works” he should be able to explain why Chicago’s numbers stopped rising after his first year in charge.

      • Duncan is part of a wider trend, within Chicago, but also across the country of finding good ‘managers’ and ‘consultants’ to improve standards as opposed to actual educators who have had experience either as teachers, principals, in some capacity. Even a member of the academy might make a good administrator. Yet instead we get stuck with MBAs who think they can retool a school like you would a business to become ‘results oriented’ and focused on ‘metrics’. The actual holistic learning experience of a child is nearly lost. Needless to say it is fitting his title when he was in Chicago was CEO-not educator.

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