Group items tagged

In recent weeks the debate over the future of public education in America has flared up again, this time with the publication of the new book "Class Warfare," by Steven Brill, the founder of American Lawyer magazine. Brill's advocacy of "reform" has sparked different strands of criticism from the New York Times, New York University's Diane Ravitch and the Nation's Dana Goldstein. But behind the high-profile back and forth over specific policies and prescriptions lies a story that has less to do with ideas than with money, less to do with facts than with an ideological subtext that has been quietly baked into the very terms of the national education discussion.

It's customary for superintendents to address principals before teachers return to classes for the start of the fall semester. Determining how much of the content is merely rhetoric is hard to tell. After all, superintendents want to be seen as inspirational leaders.

A young charter school administrator named Jessica Reid (pictured) played a small but important role in Steve Brill's book, Class Warfare, both in illustrating how some of the higher-performing charter schools do things and in highlighting the wear and tear that such efforts can create. What's it been like for her to be part of the book - her second stint as a character in a nonfiction account of school reform - and what does she think about key issues such as sustainability, ending LIFO, and unionization? Read the interview below.  You might be surprised.

Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools by Steven Brill Simon and Schuster, 478 pp., $28.00                                                   As Bad as They Say? Three Decades of Teaching in the Bronx by Janet Grossbach Mayer Empire State Editions, 166 pp., $16.95 (paper)                                                  

If you watch the documentary "Waiting for Superman" or read Steven Brill's "Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools," you will learn that many advocates of school reform think they know how to increase teacher productivity: Rate teachers according to their students' performance on standardized tests and fire those who don't make the grade. But economic theory suggests several reasons why this approach will probably backfire.

An open message from a Kansas City teacher to the parents and  teachers of Michigan about John Covington's reign of terror when he was superintendent of  her district's schools. Covington drastically increased the class sizes of certain KC teachers following a model suggested by Bill Gates; this experiment ended, thankfully, when he left the district. Covington was recently appointed the head of Michigan's new Education Achievement Authority to run that state's struggling schools, with the power to cancel union contracts and override duly elected school board members.

Today we will try to answer these questions by first looking at Charter schools and their role in the American Education system, then at the pros and cons of the charter system and finally at the outlook and impact of this public private hybrid on US education. - Leonie Haimson, the Executive Director of "Class Size Matters". - Mona Davids, President of the New York Charter Parents Association.

Big names from all corners of Washington's education reform world turned out Thursday evening to toast journalist and media entrepreneur Steven Brill, whose new book, "Class Warfare," celebrates the rise of the movement they've helped underwrite and sustain--one that supports charter schools, tougher teacher evaluations and policies to weaken the hold of teachers' unions.

Seventeen-year-old Kevin Fish has won international mountain bike races, has ridden alongside Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and hopes to become a professional cyclist when he turns 19. To do that, he trains 20 hours a week: four-hour bicycle rides, long runs and practice on a stationary bike. Spending seven hours a day in traditional private or public schools would leave Kevin riding in the evenings - or not at all, depending on homework. Then his family read about Star Charter School on the Web. The campus, which received the highest academic rating under the state accountability system, offers small classes and four-hour days. And as an open-enrollment charter school, it is public and tuition-free.

Yesterday morning, parent groups, including Class Size Matters, the NYC Parents Union, and individual parent plaintiffs, took the city to court over charter co-locations, and the way in which DOE provides free space and service to charters for free, which we believe violates state law.

Late last month, Miami-Dade school district officials scolded the Academy of Arts & Minds charter school for charging fees to students to attend basic classes - in violation of state law. But when the school's governing board met the next day, the fee issue was not mentioned. And when a parent began reading from the district's warning letter to the school, two board members walked out.

Fresh from a bruising battle to open a charter school in the Upper West Side, Eva Moskowitz, the former city councilwoman who runs a network of charters in New York City, is gearing up to expand into middle-class enclaves by opening a school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, next fall.

"Test scores are an inadequate proxy for quality because too many factors outside of the teachers' control can influence student performance from year to year - or even from classroom to classroom during the same year. Often, more than half of those teachers identified as the poorest performers one year will be judged average or above average the next, and the results are almost as bad for teachers with multiple classes during the same year. Fortunately, there's a far more direct approach: measuring the amount of time a teacher spends delivering relevant instruction - in other words, how much teaching a teacher actually gets done in a school day. "

We do not need high stakes testing to tell us that we have inequalities in education. All we need to do is drive from a city school to a suburban school to see there are inequalities. Class size, student preparedness, parental involvement, and proper facilities are just a few of those inequalities that many of our students and colleagues have to face every day.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education have embarked on a well-funded campaign to spread selected Florida education reforms to other states. These reforms include assigning letter grades to schools, high-stakes testing, promotion and graduation requirements, bonus pay, a wide variety of alternative teacher credentialing policies, and various types of school choice mechanisms. This policy potpourri was recently presented by Gov. Bush in Michigan, and the documents used allow for a concrete consideration and review. Regrettably, Bush's Michigan speech relies on a selective misrepresentation of test score data. Further, he offers no evidence that the purported test score gains were caused by the recommended reforms. Other viable explanations, such as a major investment in class-size reduction and a statewide reading program, receive no or little attention. Moreover, the presentation ignores less favorable findings, while evidence showing limited or negative effects of the proposed strategies is omitted. Considering the overwhelming evidence that retention is ineffective (if not harmful), it is troubling to see Mr. Bush endorse such an approach. Finally, Florida's real problems of inequitable and inadequate education remain unaddressed.

Until Teach for America becomes committed to training lifetime educators and raises the length of service to five years rather than two, I will not allow TFA to recruit in my classes.  The idea of sending talented students into schools in impoverished areas, and then after two years encouraging them to pursue careers in finance, law, and business in the hope that they will then advocate for educational equity really rubs me the wrong way.

If you follow education at all you don't need a database to tell you that there are huge gaps in access to AP classes and resources between students attending schools in rich neighborhoods and those in poor neighborhoods.

"...This thinking relies on a set of fallacies that show a stunning ignorance of why people teach and how people learn. These fallacies are perpetuated by people who have never taught, but because they happen to have tons of money behind their opinions, have accumulated an inordinate amount of power over how schools are run."