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I read this New York Times Magazine article by Paul Tough about character education at KIPP middle schools in New York City and at Riverdale Country School, an elite private school also in New York City, expecting to be aggravated by it, but I wasn't at all. It was a solid piece of journalism--nuanced, thought provoking, and objective. That being said, I see some real problems in the approach being described.

Last week I read Paul Tough's New York Times Magazine article, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?," about the approach being taken by the KIPP schools and others, inspired by the work of Martin Seligman. Two big issues came up for me. The first were some practical concerns, regarding what happens when public schools attempt to implement a "no excuses" model. The second were some larger philosophical questions about the moral lessons being taught, and the roles our

Last week I read Paul Tough's New York Times Magazine article, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?," about the approach being taken by the KIPP schools and others, inspired by the work of Martin Seligman. Two big issues came up for me. The first were some practical concerns, regarding what happens when public schools attempt to implement a "no excuses" model. The second were some larger philosophical questions about the moral lessons being taught, and the roles our schools play in this arena. This post addresses the first set of issues. Tomorrow, part two will address the second set.

Gretchen Herrera expected it would just be her and her son, who has Asperger syndrome and Type 1 diabetes, on the steps of the capitol building in Columbia, S.C., this Saturday, protesting standardized testing. The reasons for her protest began building last May. She had tried several times to have Anthony, 12, exempted from South Carolina's annual tests in reading, math, and other subjects when he was in 6th grade last school year. But no reason would do-not even a doctor's note that explained Anthony's blood sugar could spike because of his Asperger-related anxiety.

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.

The racial achievement gap in education is an important social problem to which decades of research have yielded no scalable solutions. Recent evidence from "No Excuses" charter schools - which demonstrates that some combination of school inputs can educate the poorest minority children - offers a guiding light. In the 2010-2011 school year, we implemented five strategies gleaned from best practices in "No Excuses" charter schools - increased instructional time, a more rigorous approach to building human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations - in nine of the lowest performing middle and high schools in Houston, Texas. We show that the average impact of these changes on student achievement is 0.276 standard deviations in math and 0.059 standard deviations in reading, which is strikingly similar to reported impacts of attending the Harlem Children's Zone and Knowledge is Power Program schools - two strict "No Excuses" adherents. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of the scalability of the experiment.

One of the most important guiding principles in education is in loco parentis - we are morally and legally obliged to act "in place of the parent" when children are in our care.  That principle is the main reason for the sharply negative and visceral reaction I had when I read about John F. Kennedy High School using color-coded identification cards based on student test scores, and then a later article describing a similar program at Cypress High School (both in Orange County, California).  According to the Orange County Register, the different cards also led to different privileges around school, discounts on various purchases, and even led an administrator to insult a group of students in an assembly.  The policy has sparked  debate and quite a bit of criticism online (and in rather short order, the district announced that most of the discriminatory practices would be ended).  Anthony Cody wrote about it in his blog and I left some comments there and on Twitter, and the topic has been actively discussed on Huffington Post as well.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act compelled states to design school accountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but centrally important question. This study presents evidence on whether NCLB has influenced student achievement based on an analysis of state-level panel data on student test scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The impact of NCLB is identified using a comparative interrupted time series analysis that relies on comparisons of the test-score changes across states that already had school accountability policies in place prior to NCLB and those that did not. Our results indicate that NCLB generated statistically significant increases in the average math performance of fourth graders (effect size 5 0.23 by 2007) as well as improvements at the lower and top percentiles. There is also evidence of improvements in eighth-grade math achievement, particularly among traditionally low-achieving groups and at the lower percentiles. However, we find no evidence that NCLB increased fourth-grade reading achievement.

The College Board, which oversees undergraduate and graduate school entrance exams, released results for the 2011 SATs, revealing mixed news: More students took the test than ever before, posting scores that are some of the lowest in history. On reading comprehension, the 1.65 million students who filled out answer sheets earned a mean score of 497 out of a possible 800 - a three-point drop off from 2010. Comparatively, the results in 2005 showed a mean score of 507.

"This morning, I read Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Open Letter to America's Teachers. There's a part of me that would like to take his words at face value, and another part that is quite excited over the fact that us teacher-agitators have forced a shift in the conversation about education reform, such that he has at least acknowledged (if not acted upon) many of our concerns. But the gap between his words and his actions is too large to ignore. I've written him a letter in response."

"...The black-white gap was closing because, thanks in part to Johnson's War on Poverty, segregation was decreasing in the United States. The progress stopped because neo-liberal approaches to policy focused on school and market variables and not any longer on social and civil variables. Segregation increased. Today, many policy makers and educators do not see pooling or unpooling poverty as "reading variables" like phonemic awareness or comprehension strategies. But the truth of the matter -- and it is an expensive truth to ignore -- is that school is not separate from society, and that ceasing to pool poverty is the key variable to undoing the black-white gap, as well as the gap between rich and poor children more generally. "

The McCarthy era of the 1950's destroyed the careers of those who had associated in one way or another with Communist party members. I thought of this shameful period when I read an article in the Los Angeles Times about some 1,000 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District who are unable to find positions in the district because they previously taught at low-performing schools that are undergoing restructuring

As a proud parent of three children who have found success in Atlanta Public Schools, I am horrified after reading through all 413 pages of the CRCT investigative report. It's clear that adults behaved badly and cheated the very children we pay them to serve. When that happens, our future has been cheated as well.

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.

Larry Cuban wrote a wonderful blog post recently, one that I've been planning to discuss in more detail, though now I'm going to bring it up in a way I hadn't originally intended.  In "Jazz, Basketball, and Teacher Decision Making" Cuban offers interesting analogies and scientific studies to illuminate just how complex teaching really is.  Teachers make several dozen instructional decisions every hour, hundreds per day.  For those decisions to be effective in promoting student learning, teachers need to know the difference between the meaningful information and the meaningless "noise" that we take in every second as we observe a classroom.  We need a clear sense of priorities for each student and for each moment - and though this idea will shock some people who barely understand teaching - the top priority is not always to stick to the lesson plan.  (More on that idea in a blog post coming soon).  In order for each decision to be the best it can be, we need to have a variety of options and approaches, and both the theoretical and practical background to weigh those options and make the right selection in a moment's time, and then constantly adjust.

State Secretary of Education Melody Schopp announced via conference call to superintendents today that South Dakota will hold its goals for proficiency in reading and math at 2009-10 levels, rather than bumping up those targets as previously anticipated. In addition, the state will reduce its graduation rate goal to 80 percent from the current target of 85 percent.

It's one thing to say there was widespread cheating on standardized tests in Atlanta public schools, as the newly released results of a state investigation showed. It's another thing to actually read the volunimous report. The details are shocking.

This paper contributes importantly to the growing literature on the training of special education teachers and how it translates into classroom practice and student achievement. The authors examine the impact of pre-service preparation and in-service formal and informal training on the ability of teachers to promote academic achievement among students with disabilities. Using student-level longitudinal data from Florida over a five-year span the authors estimate value-added models of student achievement. There is little support for the efficacy of in-service professional development courses focusing on special education. However, teachers with advanced degrees are more effective in boosting the math achievement of students with disabilities than are those with only a baccalaureate degree. Also pre-service preparation in special education has statistically significant and quantitatively substantial effects on the ability of teachers of special education courses to promote gains in achievement for students with disabilities, especially in reading. Certification in special education, an undergraduate major in special education, and the amount of special education coursework in college are all positively correlated with the performance of teachers in special education reading courses.

"While growing numbers of Hispanic students have changed the face of American education over the past two decades, the gap between them and their white classmates in math and reading remains as wide as it was in the 1990s, according to a new federal study."