“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:” Why Are Small High School Graduations Rates Rising in NYC and Falling Elsewhere?

 

 

At the recent Gates Foundation confab in Seattle Bill bemoaned the stagnant graduation rates in the small high schools, with the exception of New York City  that showed significant gains. The Gates Foundation is now moving in a different direction: standardizing high school graduation requirements.

 

One of the core issues is gaining agreement on the definition of a “cohort.” In New York State students that enter your school in the 9th grade “belong” to you unless they transfer to another school.  If 100 students enter in September, 2004: ten transfer to other schools, ten leave your school and enroll in a Young Adult Boro Center (YABC … formerly known as Night School), ten transfer into your school, twenty have failed courses and Regents exams and are sophomores and juniors by credit count, and twenty have stopped coming to school and have been discharged from your school. Your cohort is 100 students, and, if only fifty graduate in June 2008 your four year graduation rate is fifty percent.

 

The New York State system is the “gold standard” because of the way it defines cohort.

 

Back to the increase in small high school graduation rates in NYC:

 

Why are graduation rates in NYC small high schools higher than rates in large high schools and small high schools elsewhere?

 

Technology: The Easy Accessibility of Data

 

With a few mouse clicks a principal or counselor can access the school cohort on the Automate the School (ATS) database, and, soon, maybe, on ARIS.

 

The ATS Cohort Report will list all students, whether you have discharged the student, or the student is attending a GED program at another site, or is incarcerated, or discharged. If a student has “dropped out” of your school, but, is attending school in South Carolina, or, the Dominican Republic, and, the current school sends you appropriate documentation, you can remove the student from your cohort. The cohort is managed at the Integrated Service Center (ISC), not the school.

 

Guidance Counselors

 

Small high schools usually have a smaller counselor to student ratio. Typically a small high school will have at least two counselors for a student body of 400, a 200:1 ratio. In large schools counselors frequently have 400:1 or greater counselor/student ratios … the counselor monitors paper, rather than students. In small high schools counselors have close relationships with students, and their families. They actually function as counselors.

 

Credit Recovery

 

For decades prior to Children First (aka Klein Times) every high school was mandated to form a Course Accreditation Committee: the principal or designee, the UFT Chapter Leader and other relevant staff.

All “new” courses went before the committee for approval and on to the office of the superintendent. A number of schools developed independent study courses, the Dewey DISC (Dewey Independent Study Curriculum), the Morrow MILE, ways for students to earn credits without attending regular classes. Today some credit recovery programs are legitimate methods is earning credits, i.e., Hallway Project. Unfortunately in too many cases credit recovery is abused.

 

“If credit recovery is not conducted properly, just as with any other required course, we will take appropriate action,” Klein added. “We do students no favors by giving them credit they haven’t earned.”

But city officials acknowledged that credit recovery programs are neither centrally monitored nor tracked.

The State Education Department, after seeing a copy of “independent study” guidelines in use at Wadleigh and a number of other schools, said it was examining whether the practice met its standards. State law requires students to earn credits by completing set hours of “seat time” — essentially, showing up for class — and demonstrating subject mastery. To graduate, they must also pass Regents exams.

“We are looking into this situation very carefully,” said Johanna Duncan-Poitier, the senior deputy state education commissioner. “We want to make sure that the student is getting what they deserve.”

In spite of the Chancellor’s concern, and that of the State Education Department there are no guidelines at the City or State level … simply “business as usual.”

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

It may be hard to believe but no one supervises schools, not the Support Organizations, not the superintendents, not Tweed, no one. If you get an “A” or “B” on your School Report Card, stay off the Impact List, and avoid investigation by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), everything is just fine … the “laissez-faire” school of school management. You may even be a failing school according to the NYS Accountability System, as long as you receive an ”A or a “B” grade, according to the DOE, everything is just fine.

The bottom line: the higher graduation rates in small high schools are a trompe d’oeil, to use the phrase of the day, a credit default swap.

Flirting with Bill: Can Randi Weingarten and Bill Gates Agree on How to Use Data to Establish Teacher Compensation/Evaluation Plans That Are Good For Unions, Schools, Teachers and Students?

The shadow Department of Education is the Bill and  Melinda Gates Foundation, the primary mover of national education policy. The entire small high school creation movement, creating, I believe 1200 small highs nationwide, is a Gates initiative. Last week the leading lights on the education scene gathered in Seattle to listen to the new Gates plan.

 

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today unveiled plans to revamp its high school grantmaking strategy to focus squarely on three pillars: identifying and promoting higher standards for college readiness, improving teacher quality, and fostering innovations to aid struggling students.

 

There is clearly a huge gap between high school graduation standards and college readiness as mirrored by staggering college dropout rates. With fifty states setting their own high school graduation requirements it will be a challenge for Gates: will he be able to convince the fifty states, and, the feds to set national standards?

 

Everyone agrees that the classroom teacher, the adult who is in the classroom is the key factor and improving teacher quality is unquestionably the core of improving instruction, and results.

 

On the teacher front, for instance, the foundation is looking to target grants to help define effective teaching, devise tools to measure it, and work with school districts to develop systems to retain and reward teachers based on their classroom performance, according to a document outlining Gates’ revamped strategy to promote college readiness.

 

Gates is taking on a contentious task … how do we measure teacher effectiveness? how do we compensate effectve teaching? should we retain, and dismiss teachers based on data?

 

On the issue of teacher quality, among the core work Gates will support is designing “measures, observational and evaluation tools, and data systems that can fairly and accurately identify effective teaching,” the strategy document says.

It also will work with districts to develop systems that retain and compensate teachers based on their effectiveness in educating students, and help ensure that high-quality teachers are placed in the schools that need them the most.

The strategy document points to research suggesting that teachers matter most to student learning. It argues that most new teachers are granted tenure after several years with little evaluation of how successful they are at improving student achievement.

“We make no special efforts to reward or retain teachers who have proven themselves particularly effective in the classroom or to put them on a positive career path,” the foundation says.

Policy initiatives affecting teacher evaluation and pay often generate controversy, especially from teachers’ unions, which have raised concerns about the design of many such efforts.

“We believe in incentive systems, but we understand the concerns that without the right design, they could behave arbitrarily or incent the wrong things,” Mr. Gates said at the meeting. “An incentive system needs to be transparent, it needs to make sense … and teachers themselves need to see the benefit of the system and embrace it.”

 Across the nation, in Washington DC, the newly elected president of American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten gave her first major speech. Video clips here and full text here.

 Education Week opines

 Randi Weingarten positioned herself as an education reformer during her first speech in the nation’s capital since taking over as president of the American Federation of Teachers. She signaled her union was wide open to discussing once-taboo issues ranging from merit pay to charter schools to tenure changes. 

 The world of data of getting more and more sophisticated. As Ian Ayres tells us in Super Crunchers: Why Thinking By Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart tools are now available to shift through enormous data sets and draw accurate predictions. We can, or shortly will be able, to tell  which teachers are more effective in raising ELA and Math test scores. Now, teachers rightfully complain that testing is not the “be all” and “end all” of education; however, in too many schools, poor children of color, are not achieving.

If we can identify teachers who can raise standardized test scores should we adequately compensate (i.e., merit or bonus pay) them to work with children in schools that have not been successful? Conversely, if we can identify teachers who have not been unsuccessful should this data be used as part of a dismissal process?

These are weighty issues: teacher unions have been in the forefront of the fight against  the use student testing data to compensate and/or evaluate teachers. Weingarten appears to signal that she is open to exploring these issues.

She may be gagging on Joel,  will she be flirting with Bill?

The End of General Motors and Ford: Lessons for Teachers from the Auto Workers Debacle

 

 

Did you ever in your wildest dreams think that there would be serious discussion about allowing Ford and General Motors to fail … to go bankrupt? Apparently General Motors (GM) stock is virtually worthless (at the 1943 value), GM is ”bleeding” two billion dollars a month, and, will run out of money by mid 2009.

 

For decades the powerful United Auto Workers union negotiated tough contracts with the “Big Three,” Ford, General Motors and Chrysler. Excellent salaries, fringe packages and superb retiree benefits. In spite of environmentalist pleas the auto makers continued to manufacture gas guzzlers, SUVs and trucks, Humvees and larger and larger vehicles, with lower and lower gas mileage.

 

The foreign competition began to build factories, with non-union labor in the South, and produced cars at significantly lower per unit costs, and, cater to the high gas mileage  crowd.

 

The feds have already funneled billions into the “Big Three” to fund the construction of factories to build high mileage, environmentally sound vehicles. Is it too late?

 

Will infusions of federal funds into Ford and GM save them?  How many jobs would be lost if they fail? What will be the impact on retirees? Will the failure drive the recession into a depression? or, is a bailout the economically responsible path?

 

Teachers have lessons to learn.

 

The UAW assembly line worker simply did his job, he didn’t design cars or set company policy. His union both negotiated excellent contracts and supported management policies. Teachers toil in their classrooms, as school boards and superintendents roll from “magic bullet to “magic bullet.” Who is  the guru? The management principal as CEO approach espoused by Bill Ouchi or the Broader, Bolder Agenda folk, which think tank or foundation has an “answer?”

 

Teacher say: why don’t they leave me alone, I just want to teach?

 

They won’t leave you alone because too many children, in poor communities of color are not succeeding. Civil rights advocates, electeds, what was once the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s has splintered fifty plus years later as schools fail to produce expected results. And, education just might be in fifth place on the Obama agenda. Nicolas Kristof points to a recent study at the Brookings Institute.

 

There’s still a vigorous debate about how to improve education, but recent empirical research is giving us a much better sense of what works. A study by the Hamilton Project, a public policy group at the Brookings Institution, outlines several steps to boost weak schools: end rigid requirements for teacher certification that impede hiring, make tenure more difficult to get so that ineffective teachers can be weeded out after three years on the job and award hefty bonuses to good teachers willing to teach in low-income areas. If we want outstanding, inspiring teachers in difficult classrooms, we’re going to have to pay much more — and it would be a bargain.

 

The Obama education team has a wide variety of views: from John Schnur to Linda Darling-Hammond. Will his education team coalesce, or, will there be “winners and “losers”?

 

Will the Community Schools Agenda point of view take center stage?

 

This action plan promotes “results-focused” partnerships between public schools and families, community groups and agencies. The goal of the effort is to see that all children acquire the skills, knowledge and opportunities they need to be active citizens and productive adults, and to support that goal through critical services such as school-based health centers, high-quality preschool programs, and learning opportunities that bring students into the communities and community resources into the classroom.

 

 We are at a crossroads, sorry, they’re not going to “leave you alone.” With an economic crisis staring us in the face some aver that the “answer” is not bailouts, the answer is education, says NY Times Op Eder Kristof

 

So let’s break for a quiz: Quick, what’s the source of America’s greatness?

Is it a tradition of market-friendly capitalism? The diligence of its people? The cornucopia of natural resources? Great presidents?

No, a fair amount of evidence suggests that the crucial factor is our school system — which, for most of our history, was the best in the world but has foundered over the last few decades. The message for Mr. Obama is that improving schools must be on the front burner.

A “winning” fight to maintain the status quo will doom teachers to the fate of auto workers. Schools, and teacher unions, and teachers must be agile and nimble, they must understand that schools, especially schools serving children of color, must graduate students able to compete.

I don’t know whether the Klein/Ouchi management approach, or, the Broader, Bolder guys or the merit pay, or whomever will emerge. I do know that simply complaining will be a disaster. Teachers must “seize the day” with an agenda that will bring about change, change that will advantage the disadvantaged.

“Secty” Klein:Who Is He? Don Quixote (tilting at windmills), or Batman (battling the evils forces in Gotham)?

In the days since the Obama win the Klein communications operation has been going 24/7 – the “Joel for Ed Secty” campaign. The speculation over who Obama will name have been in one media source after another and Joel’s name is at the top of the lists, see here  and here.

 

Although other candidates are in the running.

 

This is a “win-win” for Klein, if selected he can move his Education Equality Project agenda to a national stage, and, if not, he can add “candidate” for Secty of Ed to his resume.

 

The Obama team will have to weigh Klein’s pros and cons.

 

He has a clearly enunciated agenda that has attracted the “right of center” ed folks: charter schools, rigid accountability, merit pay, willingness to both confront and negotiate with teacher unions, friends in the Kennedy/Clinton camps and a deep resume of involvement in the civil rights movement versus the “others,” as he sees as Officer Krumpe types.

 

His strengths are his weaknesses: how will his confrontational “New York City” style play on a national stage? How will the fifty State Governors react to his “accountability/consequences” agenda? Will Obama want a controversial Ed Secty embattled with governors, unions and a range of public education advocates?

 

Educational policy was a minor topic in the roiling campaigns, democrat and republican. Clearly the “first hundred” days of the Obama administration will deal with the sliding economy, after all, we are in a recession and inching toward a depression. The staggering  budget cuts anticipated in New York State will be duplicated across the nation.

 

As Diane Ravitch in a Forbes article opines No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a failure and a “ticking” bomb – no States will meet the 2014 proficiency deadline, and, it has turned schools into testing factories. Is it the role of the federal government to “turn around” the nation’s schools, or, is it the role of the fifty states? Shouldn’t the role of the federal government be to construct a transparent nationwide data system and allow states, and voters to make decisions impacting their children?

 

Perhaps an Ed Secty who is a conciliator rather than an “in your face” New Yorker would be a better choice.

Will the Obamas Select a Public School for Their Children? and, What Does Private School Selection Say About Klein and His Leadership Team?

For the last month or so Bravo has been carrying reruns of West Wing, the episodes leading up to the election of Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) as the first Hispanic president, with the election night episode tracking exactly with the “real” world election. Brilliant! Today was the “day after the election” episode, president-elect Santos and his wife decide on a public school for their children.

 

Jimmy Carter, thirty years ago, sent daughter Amy to a public school in DC. The Clintons chose Sidwell Friends, a very classy Quaker private school for Chelsea (currently $28,000 per year). Michelle Rhee, Washington schools head has her kids at a public school.

 

Klein’s kids went to private schools, his chief of staff has her kids at Dalton. Eric Nadelstern’s daughter went to public schools in the Bronx and is now a teacher, and union activist, in a small high school.

 

Obama’s choice of school for his daughters will be a major statement. In Chicago his kids go to the school closest to his home, the University of Chicago Lab School, an extremely highly regarded school.

 

Washington DC has among the most challenged public schools in the nation, and, a rich array of public charter schools, over fifty public charter elementary schools. 

 

The nation awaits the Obama family choice of schools, the choice of a public school, even a public charter school, will be reassuring for those of us committed to public education.

 

How many upper echelon DOE leaders have their kids in public schools in the city?

 

I’ve heard Randi Weingarten ask teachers, “Would you send your kids to the school in which you teach?” It leads to a deep, sometimes awkward meaningful dialogue.

 

It is fair to ask the same of Tweed … why don’t you send your kids to a public school? How can you play a leadership role in guiding the largest school system in the nation if you can’t find a public school for your child?

 

Leadership is measured by deeds, not words. For the parents of the million plus students a school system  leader who flees public schools is not a leader. Joel Klein may babble about education as a civil right, but if he and his immediate staff decide to chose fancy, expensive schools, geared for the offspring of the “talented one percent,” the rest of us are the poorer.

 

We await Barack and Michelle’s decision.

Musings on the Obama Victory: Will the Days, Weeks, Months Ahead Change the Landscape of Education?

Break on through to the other side
the Doors

7:30 am:

My plan was to get to the poll at the opening, 6 am, and cast my ballot quickly. At 6:05 am the line was incredibly long … took me an hour and a half. A friendly line, we chatted, talked about the historic nature of the election, no one argued, the polling people were well-organized and I pulled down my mechanical handles and swung the lever to the left, a solid “clunk,” as the decades old machine registered my vote.

10:30 am

The line is longer!!  The line usually abates as folks move on to work, not today …

1 pm

The line is still long … I wander into the polling place to talk with the election supervisor, a neighbor and retired Middle School principal.

“Real busy today … must really be hectic.”

“I ran lunch rooms for seventh graders for twenty years, this is a piece of cake.”

3 pm

The crowds have slowed. Many neighbors standing around outside the polling place … all hoping for an Obama victory … and nervous. Seniors, a few voted for FDR, many parents bringing their kids, first time voters, all on the “same side,” maybe we really can turn around the nation. All ages, all colors, genders, all on the same page … and looking carefully you can see all with their fingers crossed.

10:30 pm

By my calculation the only chance McCain has if he wins Alberta, Manitoba and British Columbia. With 207 EVs and California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii coming at 11 pm … and Florida, North Carolina, Virginia still in play … I put the champagne in the fride to cool.

 I pop the cork as MSNBC calls the election … champagne and roast pork egg foo young … a perfect victory meal!!

 

As the days move into weeks and the weeks to months the euphoria will fade as the governing begins. The first major sign will be the nomination of Secretary of Education. Will it come from the “technocratic elite,” someone like New Leaders for New Schools head John Schnur? or, from the Bolder, Broader Coalition, perhaps Linda Darling-Hammond, or, Arne Duncun, the current Chicago Schools Superintendent, who has signed both the educational agenda, and, let’s not omit Barbara Bryd Bennett, former Superintendent of Cleveland, with roots in New York City and a well respected national educator.

No Child Left Behind  (NCLB) will be reauthorized this spring, in spite the opposition primarily from the National Education Association, who would like to see it die. It will be fascinating to see how Randi Weingarten, the new AFT President steers through the swirling waters of Congress. In New York City Weingarten managed to fend off assaults on the teacher contract, negotiated 43% in salary increases over the last two contracts and a schoolwide bonus plan; she is a deft negotiator and agile politician. Can she work with Obama, Representative Miller and Senator Kennedy to create a federal role that is inclusive of teachers, parents and the wider community?

 

The Broader, Bolder Agenda, including Community Schools was close to the Obama education position, will the economy, Iraq and Afghanistan overwhelm an educational agenda?

 

Hopefully Jim Morrison is right and we are breaking on through to the other side.