Archive for the ‘successful schools’ Category

Newer Entries »

Charter Schools vs. Public Schools

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Until Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desperate attempt to get Race To The Top money in order to turn around schools with dismal scores on the latest 2009 once-a-year exam, charter schools were floating under most teachers’ radar.

Known as places where parents, upset with the curriculum in their child’s school, and public school reformers got together and set up their own school.  Sometimes it was back to basics that charged them up, sometimes free-wheeling ideas about children choosing their own curriculum.  Many mission statements have been drafted, some authorized.

After much wrangling between the proponents and, often, teacher’s unions, legislation for charter schools was established (see US Charter Schools website), and now in 2009 about 750 California schools with about 276,000 students are chartered.  Not many, considering there are well over 6 million students in California.

For reformed-minded educators like those in New Schools Venture Fund and the Broad Foundation, the biggest draw to charter schools is the freedom from excessive regulation and the opportunity to set up innovative curriculum, instruction, and internal accountability for student success.

In the U. S. Department of Education’s Innovation in Education series, one finds that the effective charter schools do everything effective public schools do.  None of it is extraordinary, except those campuses are governed by a local board, not a far off school district board.  So those board members can move quickly to make changes without waiting for bureaucratic district approval, a big plus for reformers.

The California Teacher’s Association (CTA) agrees that the effective charter school has strong community support, small classroom size, good oversight of its financial management, health and safety plans with substantial attendance improvement, and instructional quality.  Everything all public schools want.

So why is there antagonism?

Mostly, it’s that charter schools came into existence to get around heavy-duty collective bargaining contracts that give teachers endless time to dispute termination decisions, as described in Steve Brill’s article “The Rubber Room,” The New Yorker, August 31, 2009.   Especially in the takeover of a regular public school, the charter hires its own teachers and administrators, some of whom don’t have credentials and who displace tenured staff.

However, the latest rendition of charter high schools in Los Angeles, Green Dot Public Schools, incorporates unionized staff under agreement with the public school district that those who don’t want to stay in the charter school can be placed in other schools.  From Florida to Oregon, as at Chicago International Charter School, “dissatisfied with long hours, churning turnover and, in some cases, lower pay,” teachers are organizing.  See “As More Charter Schools Unionize, Educators Debate the Effect” by Sam Dillon, New York Times, July 27, 2009.

Why else is CTA discontented?

The U.S. Department of Education’s Race To The Top (RTTT) guidelines suggest the best bet is charter schools, even though studies show very mixed results on exams used to hold schools accountable, and other non-charter public schools have turned themselves around.

CTA finds itself one of the few education organizations to be concerned about how teacher compensation and evaluation in all schools, including charter schools, will be designed.  The current emphasis on one test to judge the whole school as in No Child Left Behind is a huge problem.

It’s difficult to turn a school around, assembling the curriculum and instruction plan, committed teaching staff, consistent assessment and analysis, good facilities, and extra resources to address the needs of students and families in low-performing public schools or charter schools.

Finally, amassing enough money to run the charter school is as big a conundrum as it is for any campus in a public school district.  How many silent auctions can a parent attend?

What is difficult to understand is why CTA isn’t pushing for legislation in California to reform school finance, well-known as the first step to turn every low-performing school around, the entire purpose for RTTT funds?

(By the way,  the TakeCare project is a tool to facilitate talk about ‘turn-around’ in the school community.)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in NCLB, No Child Left Behind Act, Race to Top, low-performing schools, public schools, school accountability, school community, school finance reform, successful schools |
Be the first to leave a comment »

Don’t Buy New Texts, Save Money

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Textbook purchases are being put on hold!  It’s amazing to find out, not from my school district, but when someone says, “I saw in the paper….”

studying the latest math TG

studying the latest math TG

My dad passed on the article “Budget Cuts Put New Textbook Purchases on Hold,” by Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2009, just after I’d commented in this blog (post 8/12) about the impressive math textbook purchases in my school district for 2009-2010.  I didn’t see an article in the bay area newspapers.

The article puts in print what I’d been thinking.  Turns out the state legislators, closing that $24 billion budget breach last month, did it partly by waiving the textbook purchase regulations in the California Education Code.

This waiver came about in spite of the California State Department of Education’s longtime insistence on keeping up with “modern, state-of-the-art textbooks, not outdated, antiquated textbooks,” as stated by Jack O’Connell, state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The article included lots of back and forth about pragmatics in the current California school budget crisis versus actual need for new texts as often as set in the Education Code.

In my view, I understand how high school history and government classes may want materials every 6-8 years to reflect the latest changes in the world.  I remember, though, when I was in high school not very long ago, we read many supplemental books, newspapers, and other paper articles to get another point of view.

Now, I teach elementary school in which the literature texts, math texts, and even social studies texts are current for much longer than the regulations say.

I agree with the commentators in the article about state money designated for textbooks only: in this crisis, use the money to keep teachers in schools, to keep the custodial staff in schools.  A clean, safe elementary school with highly-qualified teachers is the first requirement to make sure students succeed.

At the same time, if school finance was fixed, if California finance in general was fixed, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we?

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in California budget crisis, highly qualified teachers, public schools, school finance reform, successful schools |
Be the first to leave a comment »

Turn Around School Finance

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Now that California finally has a budget, school districts are faced with brutal cuts to base funding, affecting school year 2009-2010 and long after.

Optimists note that for the next few years, the school population will decrease which suggests the remaining money can be spread further.  On the other hand, the recession means that the state receives fewer tax dollars, and those dollars, plus a few lottery dollars, are the entire school funding source from the state, not including categorical monies.

In spite of this awful news, back in April 2008 an Issue Brief “Getting Beyond the Facts” (see K-12 Research of The Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity) proposed a school finance reform “more rational, more equitable, and …politically feasible.”

Authors Alan Bersin, Michael Kirst, and Goodwin Liu feel that California’s “budget woes” provide “a window of opportunity to create a new framework for school finance.”

The proposal suggests four principles for reform.

First, revenue allocations should account for student needs (see post 7/31).  While school governance, accountability, teacher training, consistency in delivering curriculum are important, “a rational funding mechanism provides an essential backdrop” to close the large achievement gap.  For the latest student scores, see “Gaps in Test Scores Remain Wide,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 2009.

Second, revenue allocations should take into account the tremendous diversity in cost of living and labor market conditions from region to region in the state.  Funding must ensure the ability to attract highly-qualified teachers and purchase the materials and resources for successful schools.

Third, the finance system must be transparent and easily understood to ensure support from the entire school community.  As shared in the post 5/16, public surveys show willingness to support schools, but unwillingness to increase funding (taxes, bonds) when the public doesn’t see how the money will be used.

Finally, financial reform must apply to new monies, not take away a district’s current allocation.  The term for this condition is called “hold harmless.”  The delays in budget plans, instability of education revenue, and overall inadequacy of school funding make school district officials wary of any change and must be considered when introducing financial reform.

In summary, the proposal suggests three money components: base funding (the amount per pupil for textbooks, safe facilities, and teacher salaries); special education funds for students with special needs; and targeted funding, such as Title 1 monies for low-income students and state monies for English Learners.  Models, based on the principles outlined above, describe the varied revenue possibilities for school districts.

Not only does the Issue Brief by The Warren Institute offer a school finance proposal, two other group proposals are available-Getting Down to Facts Project and the Governor’s Committee on Education Excellence (Priority 2: Ensure Fair Funding).

As of July 23, 2009, the California legislature has made its 4th amendment to Assembly Bill 8 (Julia Brownley), a proposal to convene a working group to make findings and recommendations by December 1, 2010, to restructure school finance, based on similar principles as in the Issue Brief outlined above.

Here’s the question.

Why is this legislation allowing another year and a half to go by, only to come up with a 4th proposal, not a bill, when the current school financial crisis is dire and students from the most high-achieving to the most low-income are not being served?

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in California budget crisis, highly qualified teachers, public schools, school accountability, school finance reform, successful schools |
Be the first to leave a comment »

We Are Going and We Will Get There

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

Woyaya, a gentle, melodic song from South Africa encourages the singer to keep walking, even when the road is hard and muddy and rough, or when she can’t see how far she still has to go.

Of course, the song was composed to keep up the spirits of those pressing for freedom from apartheid, but even now for low-performing schools in today’s education world, the road is long and rough.  And those who embark on a turn around effort need every good word and good tune.

Fortunately, a few studies (see post 6/24) have researched the traits of the schools that are moving in spite of the travails on the road.

In 2008 I heard a presentation from the Mass Insight Education & Research Institute, Inc. that outlined the bold steps a school,  school district, and state must take to see students perform as well as students in the most high-performing schools in the country.

Geoffrey Canada, Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone, 2004, was quoted, “Instead of helping some kids beat the odds…why don’t we just change the odds?”

A brief summary of the findings to change the odds shows that instead of a model that merely tries to keep up with the curriculum, the school or district or state must pursue a model that will help each member of the entire school succeed.  Change occurs when the students, teaching staff, administration, and parents are ready to act.

Unfortunately, as we’ve posted on this blog, (5/16 and 5/20), there is little leverage, i.e. funding, from No Child Left Behind legislation; there are few exemplars that are easily available to school districts; there is a lack of public will to sustain support for any school.

Finally, there is a lack of highly visible collaboration among schools, districts, and the state to pull together-as the song urges, no matter how hard the road or far away the end of the trail.

Now, to overcome the odds (some say 5000 low-performing schools will need to be restructured by 2010) the report from the Mass Insight group offers three components, sending the undaunted toward coherent, comprehensive change.

First, revise the conditions for work, time, money, staff, and programs used.  Teachers and administrators will all have to agree on the incentives for work (often a teacher’s union issue), accept the negative impact of the status quo, and be willing to pursue aggressive performance targets.

Second, the capacity to turn around a school requires a school staff that understands and prepares to sustain a revised curriculum, invites other community partners to support the turn around (from nearby universities, for example), and includes students and parents in the effort.  See the article at the end of the Program tab for takecareschools.com.

Third, clustering bolsters successful collaboration for change, the desire to be part of a successful team.  For instance, several schools can band together to access resources, share success, and offer support.

While the components for program improvement seem obvious in a report, be assured beating the odds requires relentless, consistent effort.

That’s why I remember the words “It will be hard we know, and the road will be muddy and rough, but we’ll get there.”

Tags: , ,
Posted in Education, Elementary, Mass Insight Education & Research Institute, NCLB, No Child Left Behind Act, low-performing schools, public schools, school reform, successful schools |
Be the first to leave a comment »

Dodge the Bar or Leap the Hurdle?

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Teachers know that school programs come and go.  No wonder they roll their eyes and say just wait it out.  I can verify this claim.  I was a long time teacher and have seen plenty of “new” programs, solutions for any difficulty possible to name.

However, the one worthy mandate of the original No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation is that schools across the nation are required to be accountable for student success.  First implemented in 2001, that’s a long, long time ago in the K-12 education world.

Of course, little federal money was authorized to assure the mandate’s success.  States chose from a myriad of assessment tools.  Each state decided at which point students were considered proficient in reading and math.  School districts were left to come up with teacher training and the models of curriculum and instruction to help students succeed.

All those hurdles were enshrined in the NCLB Act during eight years when legislatures were in a constant budget struggle to find funds to support public education.

Until now, many states did the minimum, as has been reported in numerous news articles, so few comparisons have been made to see how children across the nation are doing.  For example, proficiency was set at a ridiculously low level.  The selected assessment tools were poorly designed and offered little information.  Teachers were not provided training to analyze assessment results and plan lessons to improve student achievement.

In spite of the urge to dodge the bar, a number of states and schools and school districts managed to set high standards and show success, especially important in low-performing schools found in neighborhoods with many students “at risk.”  Homelessness, second language issues, and low income levels all set obstacles for student success.

Slowly, with conscientious support at the district level and competent, relentless school personnel, student levels of achievement improved and will continue to improve as long as all components that support the outcomes are kept in place.

We should be relieved that some schools took on the challenge and leaped the hurdles.  Now that models of success have come to the fore, the education community must not let go.

I looked at studies of three models in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Cincinnati Public Schools, and Hamilton, Tennessee, all of which are good, if not perfect, examples of schools making progress.  Such schools, found in neighborhoods across the country, do not use the exact same curriculum, or have the same daily schedule, or rely on the same organization of staff.

They do all have certain components of attitude, teacher collaboration, professional development, and parent and community support.  They can demonstrate how students have achieved.  That’s being accountable.

If interested, the website for the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (five universities pooling resources) is filled with articles that address studies and research about successful schools.  Search for articles on ‘accountability.’

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Education, NCLB, No Child Left Behind Act, low-performing schools, school accountability, successful schools |
Be the first to leave a comment »

Newer Entries »