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A story from the trenches — send me more!; DAVID STEINER ELECTED COMMISSIONER OF EDUC FOR NY; As Charter Schools Unionize; Must unions always block innovation in public schools?; NEA Discovers It Is a Labor Union; So You Want to Be a Teacher for America?
1) If you read anything I send out this year, let this be it. One of my friends responded to the survey I sent around a couple of weeks ago by emailing me this story of his experience as a TFA teacher in the South Bronx a decade ago (though he’s no longer there, he is still (thankfully) very much involved with educating disadvantaged kids). It is one of the most powerful, heart-breaking, enraging things I have ever read — and perfectly captures what this education reform struggle is all about. Stories like this about what REALLY goes on in our failing public schools need to be told and publicized, so please share yours with me:
Whitney,
Thanks so much for putting this survey together. It brought back some memories well beyond the few questions about what it was like to teach in the South Bronx with TFA back in the late nineties. I want to emphasize here that I no longer teach in the Bronx, so I have little idea how things have changed and have seen the current Administration take a number of important steps that may be making a great impact. I’m not close enough to the ground to know, but my guess is that there are still plenty of schools in the Bronx and in every other low-income community in the country that reflect some of the miserable stuff I saw in my school. You should really start collecting a book of stories like these. Among all the people I know who’ve done TFA, these stories are just a few among many sad ones.
As I filled out the survey, I was first reminded of the art teacher in our school. She was truly a caricature of bad teaching. Like something out of the movies. She spent almost every minute of every day screaming at the top of her lungs in the faces of 5-8 year olds who had done horrible things like coloring outside the lines. The ART teacher! Screaming so loud you could hear her 2-3 floors away in a decades old, solid brick building. When she heard I was looking for an apt, she sent me to an apt broker friend of hers. I told the friend I wanted to live in Washington Heights. “Your mother would be very upset with me if I let you go live with THOSE PEOPLE. We fought with bricks and bats and bottles to keep them out of our neighborhoods. Do you see what they have done to this place?” This same attitude could be heard in the art teacher’s screams, the administration’s ambivalence towards the kids we were supposed to be educating and the sometimes overt racism of the people in charge. The assistant principal (who could not, as far as I could tell, do 4th grade math, but offered me stop-in math professional development for a few minutes every few months with gems like “these numbers you see here to the left of the zero are negative numbers. Like when it is very cold outside.”) once told me “I call them God’s stupidest people” referring to a Puerto Rican woman who was blocking our way as we drove to another school. She also once told me I needed to put together a bulletin board in the hallway about Veteran’s Day. I told her we were in the middle of assembling an Encyclopedia on great Dominican, Puerto Rican and Black leaders (all of my students were Dominican, Black or Puerto Rican). “Mr. ____, we had Cin-co de May-o, and Black History Month, and all that other stuff. It is time for the AMERICAN Americans.”
Not everyone in the school was a racist. There were many hard working teachers of all ethnicities who did not reflect this attitude at all. But the fact that the leadership of the school and a number of the most senior teachers was either utterly disdainful of the students they taught, or has completely given up on the educability of the kids, had a terrible effect on overall staff motivation. And many of the well-meaning teachers were extremely poorly prepared to make a dent in the needs of the students even if they had been well led. The Principal told more than one teacher there that “as long as they are quiet and in their seats, I don’t care what else you do.” This was on the day this person was HIRED. This was their first and probably last instruction. He never gave me a single instruction. Ever. And I was a new teacher with nothing but TFA’s Summer Institute under my belt. The Principal proceeded to get a law degree while sitting in his office ignoring the school. When we went to the Assistant Superintendent to report that the school was systematically cheating on the 3rd grade test (i.e., the third grade team met with the principal and APs, planned the cheating carefully, locked their doors and covered their windows and gave answers) she told the principal to watch his back. A few months later, inspectors came from the state. After observing our mostly horrible classes for a full day, they told us how wonderful we were doing and that they had just come down to see what they could replicate in other schools to produce scores like ours. And the list goes on and on.
Like when I asked the principal to bring in one of the district’s special education specialists to assess two of my lowest readers, both of whom had fewer than 25 sight-words (words they could recognize on paper) in the 3rd grade, he did. She proceeded to hand one of the students a list of words that the child couldn’t read and tell her to write them over again. Then she went to gossip with the Principal. After explaining to him in gory detail, IN FRONT OF THE STUDENT, that she had just been “dealing with a case where a father had jumped off a roof nearby and committed double-suicide with his 8 year old daughter in his arms”, she collected the sheet with no words on it, patted the child on the head and left. No IEP was filed nor was I allowed to pursue further action through official channels (I lobbied the mother extensively on my own). I never asked for her to come back to assess the other student.
Our Union Rep was said to have tried to push another teacher down a flight of stairs. The same Union Rep, while I was tutoring a child, cursed out a fellow teacher in the room next door at the top of her lungs so the child I was tutoring could hear every word. When I went to address her about it, the other teacher had to restrain the Rep as she threatened to physically attack me. And when the cheating allegations were finally take up by city investigators, the same Union Rep was sent to a cushy desk job in the district offices. I hear that most of the people I’m referencing here are long gone now, and some of them actually got pushed out of the system, but how rare can this story really be given the pitiful results we see from so many of our nation’s poorest schools and how far the system goes to protect horrible teachers and administrators like the ones I worked with?
At the same time as all of this was happening, by the way, the few good teachers in the building often became beaten down and disillusioned. One of the best in my building was consistenly punished for trying to make her corner of the school a better place for learning. They put her in a basement corner with no ventilation, no windows and nothing but a 6-foot-high cubicle-style partition separating her from the other 5 classrooms in the basement. After fighting the good fight she went to teach in the suburbs. When I got a financial firm to donate 20 computers, the principal said he didn’t have the resources to get them setup for use and refused to allow them into the school. When I had my students stage a writing campaign to get the vacant lot behind the building turned into a playground, the principal wanted me silenced.
The saddest thing about the whole damn mess was that our K-3 kids still REALLY WANTED TO LEARN. Every day they came eager for knowledge. And every day this cabal of cynicism, racism and laziness did everything within their powers to drain it out of them. It was unreal. Don’t get me wrong. There were some good teachers there. And some well meaning, but poor teachers. But in many classrooms, the main lesson learned was that school became something to dread, many adults thought you were capable of very little, and some adults couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger.
I hope if any of the good, hard-working teachers who fought so hard to rid the school of this mess read this, they’ll know I’m not lumping them in with the rest. But the problem was, when I addressed the worst practices in the school at a staff meeting, the bad teachers laughed and the good teachers took it the hardest and thought I was criticizing them.
Thanks again for the survey. Let’s make these stories known.
Education Still the Pathway to Freedom
In recognition of Black History Month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has presented a flattering economic sketch of black people in the United States. In this drawing by the numbers, we are seen as a relatively young and hearty workforce — 17 million black people strong — poised to weather the difficult economic times ahead.
Nearly two-thirds of us are 45 and younger, according to the bureau. And more than one in four are employed in education and health service fields — where some of the fastest growing occupations are expected to be found through 2016.
The portrait, based on 2008 data, is relentlessly upbeat, without even a hint that 2.2 million black people were unemployed last year. It is as though they had been airbrushed from the picture altogether.
Yet, if you really want to cut black unemployment, who better to look at than those of us who have jobs? What you’ll see is a strong correlation between work and education. Hard to tell that when the numbers crunchers start whittling away at school programs in a recession.
Some schools are finding rehabilitation for playground bullies can save otherwise decent students from lives of despair
Ah Ho’s story is more common than many realise. Lee Tak-wai, an outreach worker with the Hong Kong Playground Association, says bullying has become a pervasive problem in schools.
“In the past, things were black and white: we had the bad youngsters and the good ones. But the line has become blurred and problematic behaviour is more common among teenagers,” Lee says. “Bullying has spread like an epidemic.”
A survey of 1,552 lower secondary students last year found that aggressive physical action – including shoving and kicking – had increased by 31 per cent compared with a similar study in 2001. Conducted jointly by the Playground Association and City University, the survey found that threatening behaviour such as taking others’ belongings and forcing victims to pay for snacks had risen by 42 per cent.
Educators and social workers view most bullies as products of circumstance. “School bullies are usually low achievers,” Lee says. “They often don’t receive sufficient attention from their parents and their relationships with teachers are strained. Since they can’t get a sense of achievement in school, they resort to improper behaviour to draw people’s attention and build their self-image. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Incompletes
Most from class of 2000 have failed to earn degrees
About two-thirds of the city’s high school graduates in 2000 who enrolled in college have failed to earn degrees, according to a first-of-its-kind study being released today.
The findings represent a major setback for a city school system that made significant strides in recent years with percentages of graduates enrolling in college consistently higher than national averages, according to the report by the Boston Private Industry Council and the School Department.
However, the study shows that the number who went on to graduate is lower than the national average.
The low number of students who were able to earn college degrees or post-secondary certificates in a city known as a center of American higher education points to the enormous barriers facing urban high school graduates – many of whom are the first in their families to attend college. While the study did not address reasons for the low graduation rates, these students often have financial problems, some are raising children, and others are held back by a need to retake high school courses in college because they lack basic skills.
The students’ failure to complete college could exacerbate the fiscal problems in the state’s economy, which requires a highly skilled workforce, say business leaders and educators. While tens of thousands of students around the globe flock to the region’s colleges each fall, many of them leave once receiving their degrees.
To Speak Out Against the City’s School System, One Man Turns to the Power of Parody
Nearly 50 New York City school principals were fired immediately in what Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein declared a “warning shot across the bow.” Blackwater USA was awarded a no-bid contract to take over school security. And a national education foundation offered a $100 million endowment to any university that established a degree in “high-stakes test-taking.”
Those satirical news items, which appear on an education blog, are always slightly off-kilter, but several have seemed believable enough to prompt inquiries to the Education Department’s headquarters from parents and journalism students asking to follow up on a story they saw elsewhere.
“The best part is when people can’t distinguish their reality from the reality that is made up,” said Gary Babad, the writer of dozens of mock news items dealing with the Education Department. “I think of it as a kind of therapy and my form of quiet dissent. And it’s a stress reliever.”
The Next Kind of Integration: Class, Race and Desegregating American Schools
In June of last year, a conservative majority of the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, declared the racial-integration efforts of two school districts unconstitutional. Seattle and Louisville, Ky., could no longer assign students to schools based on their race, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his lead opinion in Meredith v. Jefferson County School Board (and its companion case, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1). Justice Stephen Breyer sounded a sad and grim note of dissent. Pointing out that the court was rejecting student-assignment plans that the districts had designed to stave off de facto resegregation, Breyer wrote that “to invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown.” By invoking Brown v. Board of Education, the court’s landmark 1954 civil rights ruling, Breyer accused the majority of abandoning a touchstone in the country’s efforts to overcome racial division. “This is a decision that the court and the nation will come to regret,” he concluded.
Breyer’s warning, along with even more dire predictions from civil rights groups, helped place the court’s ruling at the center of the liberal indictment of the Roberts court. In Louisville, too, the court’s verdict met with resentment. Last fall, I asked Pat Todd, the assignment director for the school district of Jefferson County, which encompasses Louisville and its suburbs, whether any good could come of the ruling. She shook her head so hard that strands of blond hair loosened from her bun. “No,” she said with uncharacteristic exasperation, “we’re already doing what we should be.”
Todd was referring to Louisville’s success in distributing black and white students, which it does more evenly than any district in the country with a comparable black student population; almost every school is between 15 and 50 percent African-American. The district’s combination of school choice, busing and magnet programs has brought general, if not uniform, acceptance — rather than white flight and disaffection, the legacy of desegregation in cities like Boston and Kansas City, Mo. The student population, which now numbers nearly 100,000, has held steady at about 35 percent black and 55 percent white, along with a small and growing number of Hispanics and Asians.
Former Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater was a principal and assistant Superintendent in Kansas City.
156 Wisconsin Schools Fail to Meet No Child Left Behind Standards
The number of Wisconsin schools that didn’t meet standards set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act and could face sanctions increased from 95 to 156 this year, including the entire Madison Metropolitan School District.
Of the 156 schools on the list released Tuesday by the state Department of Public Instruction, 82 were in the Milwaukee Public School district. Seven of the schools on the list were charter schools.
Besides individual schools on the list, four entire districts made the list for not meeting the standards. That lists includes the school districts of Beloit, Madison, Milwaukee and Racine.
Bill Novak (Interestingly, this Capital Times article originally had many comments, which are now gone):
Superintendent Art Rainwater told The Capital Times the list is “ludicrous,” the district doesn’t pay attention to it, and the district will do what’s best for the students and not gear curriculum to meet the criteria set by the federal government.
“As we’ve said from the day this law was passed, it is only a matter of time before every school in America is on the list,” Rainwater said. “It’s a law that impossible to meet, because eventually if every single student in a school isn’t successful, you are on the list.”
No Child Left Behind allows states to set their own standards. The Fordham Institute has given Wisconsin’s academic standards a “D” in recent years. Neal McCluskey has more on states setting their own standards:
NCLB’s biggest problem is that it’s designed to help Washington politicians appear all things to all people. To look tough on bad schools, it requires states to establish standards and tests in reading, math and science, and it requires all schools to make annual progress toward 100% reading and math proficiency by 2014. To preserve local control, however, it allows states to set their own standards, “adequate yearly progress” goals, and definitions of proficiency. As a result, states have set low standards, enabling politicians to declare victory amid rising test scores without taking any truly substantive action.
NCLB’s perverse effects are illustrated by Michigan, which dropped its relatively demanding standards when it had over 1,500 schools on NCLB’s first “needs improvement” list. The July 2002 transformation of then-state superintendent Tom Watkins captures NCLB’s power. Early that month, when discussing the effects of state budget cuts on Michigan schools, Mr. Watkins declared that cuts or no cuts, “We don’t lower standards in this state!” A few weeks later, thanks to NCLB, Michigan cut drastically the percentage of students who needed to hit proficiency on state tests for a school to make adequate yearly progress. “Michigan stretches to do what’s right with our children,” Mr. Watkins said, “but we’re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Madison’s Leopold and Lincoln elementary schools were among the list of schools failing to attain the standards, marking the first time that a Madison elementary school made the list.
Three Madison middle schools — Sherman, Cherokee and Toki — also joined the list, which continued to include the district’s four major high schools: East, West, La Follette and Memorial. Madison’s Black Hawk Middle School, which was on the list last year, made enough academic progress to be removed from it.
Red ties and boys’ pride: Sowing the seeds of good schools in the Midwest
EVERY weekday, 300 boys gather in a gym on Chicago’s South Side. They are all black. More than 80% are poor. Over the past few weeks Chicago has seen a surge in gang violence. But here boys stand in straight lines. Each wears a blazer and a red tie. And in unison they begin to shout their creed: “We believe. We are the young men of Urban Prep. We are college-bound.”
Urban Prep Charter Academy opened in 2006, part of an effort to bring 100 new schools to Chicago’s bleakest areas by 2010. Richard Daley, the city’s mayor, announced Renaissance 2010 (“Ren 10”) in 2004; Chicago’s business leaders created the Renaissance Schools Fund (RSF) to help support it. Backers of this ambitious scheme hope it will spur competition across the school district. On May 6th RSF held a conference to discuss the “new market of public education”.
At the core of Ren 10 is the desire to welcome “education entrepreneurs”, as RSF calls them. Ren 10 lets them start schools and run them mostly as they choose (for example, with longer days and, in some cases, their own salary structure); it also sets the standards they must meet. Schools receive money on a per pupil basis, and may raise private funds as well.
Schools reclassify students, pass test under federal law
Laurel Rosenhall & Phillip Reese:
Will C. Wood Middle School faced a vexing situation when last year’s test results came out in August. Most students had met the mark set by No Child Left Behind. But African American students’ math scores fell far short of it, bringing the school into failing status in the eyes of the federal law.
One hundred students were categorized as black when they took the test last spring. But if the school had fewer than 100 students in that group, their low scores wouldn’t count. So Principal Jim Wong reviewed the files of all the students classified as African American on the test, he said, and found that four of them had indicated no race or mixed race on their enrollment paperwork. Wong sent his staff to talk to the four families to ask permission to put the kids in a different racial group.
“You get a kid that’s half black, half white. What are you going to put him down as?” Wong said. “If one kid makes the difference and I can go white, that gets me out of trouble.”
Over the past two years, 80 California schools got “out of trouble” with No Child Left Behind after changing the way they classify their students, a Bee analysis has found. The changes nudged their status from failing to passing under the federal law.
The state allows school officials to comb through test results every August, changing students’ demographic information to correct mistakes that can happen, for example, when clerks register new students or when districts swap student files.
How to Lay Off a Teacher of the Year
When the new grandiose Lincoln High opened to students this year, it attracted too many students. It also attracted a young teacher from Chula Vista, Guillermo Gomez.
I met Gomez at the teacher’s lounge during lunch at Lincoln High recently. Gomez and his colleagues were planning marches and various ways to get their students to express their displeasure with proposed school budget cuts around the state — cuts that, if fully implemented as proposed, would mean 913 school teachers would be laid off districtwide.
Gomez would be one of them. A year and a half ago, dressed in black formal wear and smiling, the young teacher accepted one of the four awards given each year to the “teachers of the year” in the county. He had been a teacher for 10 years at Vista Square Elementary School in Chula Vista.
Despite his success, the opportunity to teach at Lincoln High School’s new School of Social Justice intrigued him, and Gomez moved not only into a classroom with older kids but into a new school district — San Diego Unified. He says he took a $10,000 pay cut for the chance to teach at Lincoln.
Madison’s Military Problem: It isn’t Army recruiting, but our attitude towards serving
Monday, Nov. 5, wasn’t a good day for the U.S. military in Madison.
Over at the Doyle administration building, anti-war activists were lobbying the Madison school board to remove Army recruitment signs from high school sports stadiums.
Critics say the ads mislead impressionable young people and support unconscionable war-making. I have a problem with that.
I’m at a loss to understand how a sign asking, “Are you Army strong?” and giving a recruiter’s phone number represents a threat to young people. On a list of the top 2,000 baleful media images thrust before kids — have you seen the American Apparel ads pitched to teenage girls? — this ranks maybe 1,834th.
Over at East High, meanwhile, the military’s estrangement from the good people of Madison was in even starker relief.
Roughly 70 parents and students turned out for a “junior night” look at post-graduation prospects for college, technical school, and yes, the military. Not one participant stopped by the military recruitment table, Sgt. Frederick Hutchison of the Marines and Machinist Mate Michael Pflanzer of the Navy told me.
Per school district policy, recruiters will have two more cracks at East High kids, and Pflanzer guardedly thought some would eventually sign up.
Oh sure, East High kids will enlist, I thought as I walked out the door carrying college-bound material for my own junior daughter. But they’ll probably be black- and brown-skinned kids, or Hmong, and blue-collar kids who aren’t laser-focused on college the way that the children of the professional classes are taught to be.
Some related books that are well worth reading:
- Bury Us Upside Down. John McCain:
“This wonderful book will introduce you to the “Misty” warriors—157 of them flying two-seat F-100s seeking out targets for bomb-dropping fighters over North Vietnam. This book goes beyond the normal war story. It proves to be engaging and accessible to fighter pilot and civilian alike. Bury Us Upside Down serves to remind us of why war is such a serious endeavor. We would do well as a nation to heed the lessons and messages it contains.”
- About Face by David Hackworth
- The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam
The Legacy of Little Rock
ifty years ago today, riot-trained troops from the 101st Airborne Division escorted nine black students through the doors of Central High School in Little Rock. Just 48 hours earlier, President Eisenhower deployed–in a single day–1,000 troops to restore order and to reassert federal authority in Arkansas’s capital city.
For weeks the entire nation had watched on television as a mob of angry white adults gathered each morning to prevent the nine black students from integrating Central High. It would come to be remembered as one of the ugliest and meanest white mobs of the entire civil rights era. And because of television–then still a very new medium–the horrible images of people galvanized by ferocious racial hatred were seared into the national consciousness.
Finally, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus succumbed to a kind of madness, if not to a perverse politics of racial hatred, and withdrew the National Guard from Central High, effectively turning the school over to the raging mob. The nine courageous black students, who had suffered so much to integrate the school, were withdrawn for their own protection. So, for a time, the authority of the mob prevailed over all governmental authority–local, state and federal. And this was the provocation that pushed a reluctant President Eisenhower to deploy federal troops.
Rating Education Gains
Achievement Gaps, Advanced Placement Exams, Demographic Shifts and Charter Schools: What Do They Add Up To for Students?
We seem to be doing a bit better educating our most disadvantaged students. But many educators think that is not enough.
The numbers displayed in the graphic smorgasbord known as “The Condition of Education 2007,” from the U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, reveal the struggles of a generation to make schools work for all children.
Enrollment in publicly funded day care increased significantly from 1991 to 2005. The portion of black children using such services rose from 58 percent to 66 percent. For Hispanic children, the figure rose from 39 percent to 43 percent; for non-Hispanic whites, from 54 percent to 59 percent.
More public day care does not necessarily mean more learning is going on, although the quality of such centers appears to be improving as more states increase support for pre-kindergarten classes and in some cases make them available to all who want them. The relatively low number of Hispanic children in such programs might be a problem, as improving their grasp of English is crucial to the educational success of the largest minority group.
Cherokee principal to receive equal opportunity award
A press release from the Urban League:
Media Release
April 26, 2007
Contact: Scott Gray
(608) 251-8550
sgray@ulgm.org
Cherokee Middle School Principal to Receive the 2007 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Equal Opportunity Award
Madison, WI: The Urban League of Greater Madison recently announced that it will present Cherokee Heights Middle School Principal Karen Seno with the Whitney M. Young, Jr. Equal Opportunity Award.
The award is given annually by Boards of Directors of Urban League affiliates from across the country in memory of the great civil rights leader and former head of the National Urban League. Young was one of America’s most charismatic, courageous and influential civil rights pioneers. He worked tirelessly to gain access for blacks to good jobs, education, housing, health care and social services.
An LA School Finds a Singular Road to Success
“Schools rise to the level of expectation we place upon them,” said James S. Lanich, coauthor of the just-released “Failing Our Future: The Holes in California’s School Accountability System and How to Fix Them.” “If we don’t have a high level of expectation, schools won’t improve.”
Hundreds of California schools are “failing” under the federal standards, but one that’s shining bright — and adding its own wrinkle to the debate over school reform — is Ralph Bunche Elementary, named for the black American diplomat who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize.
At this school, the primary mover has been first-time Principal Mikara Solomon Davis, who arrived in mid-2000. Some would say she’s done the near impossible.
Bunche has blown past the target score of 800 on the state’s Academic Performance Index. Its 868 compares favorably to the scores at schools in Beverly Hills and San Marino. A school would score 875 if every student scored “proficient” on standardized tests.
And that means pushing parents, who adjusted to a principal who in her first year issued more than 100 suspensions in a school of 467 students.
“There was such an issue with discipline that you couldn’t teach. Disrespect for teachers and adults was the norm,” said Solomon Davis. When parents confront her over a suspension, “I begin by saying, ‘Our goal is college for your child. We’re not here to punish,’ ” Solomon Davis said.
Notes and Links on the Madison K-12 Climate and Superintendent Hires Since 1992
Madison Superintendent Art Rainwater’s recent public announcement that he plans to retire in 2008 presents an opportunity to look back at previous searches as well as the K-12 climate during those events. Fortunately, thanks to Tim Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web, we can quickly lookup information from the recent past.
The Madison School District’s two most recent Superintendent hires were Cheryl Wilhoyte [Clusty] and Art Rainwater [Clusty]. Art came to Madison from Kansas City, a district which, under court order, dramatically increased spending by “throwing money at their schools”, according to Paul Ciotti:
In 1985 a federal district judge took partial control over the troubled Kansas City, Missouri, School District (KCMSD) on the grounds that it was an unconstitutionally segregated district with dilapidated facilities and students who performed poorly. In an effort to bring the district into compliance with his liberal interpretation of federal law, the judge ordered the state and district to spend nearly $2 billion over the next 12 years to build new schools, integrate classrooms, and bring student test scores up to national norms.
It didn’t work. When the judge, in March 1997, finally agreed to let the state stop making desegregation payments to the district after 1999, there was little to show for all the money spent. Although the students enjoyed perhaps the best school facilities in the country, the percentage of black students in the largely black district had continued to increase, black students’ achievement hadn’t improved at all, and the black-white achievement gap was unchanged.(1)
The situation in Kansas City was both a major embarrassment and an ideological setback for supporters of increased funding for public schools. From the beginning, the designers of the district’s desegregation and education plan openly touted it as a controlled experiment that, once and for all, would test two radically different philosophies of education. For decades critics of public schools had been saying, “You can’t solve educational problems by throwing money at them.” Educators and advocates of public schools, on the other hand, had always responded by saying, “No one’s ever tried.”
Cheryl Wilhoyte was hired, with the support of the two local dailies (Wisconsin State Journal, 9/30/1992: Search No Further & Cap Times Editorial, 9/21/1992: Wilhoyte Fits Madison) by a school board 4-3 vote. The District’s budget in 1992-1993 was $180,400,000 with local property taxes generating $151,200,00 of that amount. 14 years later, despite the 1993 imposition of state imposed annual school spending increase limits (“Revenue Caps“), the 2006 budget is $331,000,000. Dehli’s article mentions that the 1992-1993 School Board approved a 12.9% school property tax increase for that budget. An August, 1996 Capital Times editorial expressed puzzlement over terms of Cheryl Wilhoyte’s contract extension.
Art, the only applicant, was promoted from Acting Superintendent to Superintendent in January, 1999. Chris Murphy’s January, 1999 article includes this:
Since Wilhoyte’s departure, Rainwater has emerged as a popular interim successor. Late last year, School Board members received a set of surveys revealing broad support for a local superintendent as opposed to one hired from outside the district. More than 100 of the 661 respondents recommended hiring Rainwater.
Art was hired on a 7-0 vote but his contract was not as popular – approved on a 5-2 vote (Carol Carstensen, Calvin Williams, Deb Lawson, Joanne Elder and Juan Jose Lopez voted for it while Ray Allen and Ruth Robarts voted no). The contract was and is controversial, as Ruth Robarts wrote in September, 2004.
A February, 2004 Doug Erickson summary of Madison School Board member views of Art Rainwater’s tenure to date.
Quickly reading through a few of these articles, I found that the more things change, the more they stay the same:
- Pamela Cotant, in a September, 1992 article:
Hanson said the shortfall is partly due to about $1 million in underestimated expenditures. The largest of these are health, dental and othertypes of insurance costs that came in $300,000 over estimates; extended employment and extra duty costs, $300,000; and teacher salaries, $250,000.
In addition, the district did not receive as much as expected in areas suchas disabled tuition, Chapter I aid, food service income and interest income. - Pam Cotant, writing in a May, 1991 article:
School board President Nan Brien also said the board and district are in a tough spot because so many programs have been cut to bring the budget proposal ($149M) under the cap.
“The cuts he made are going to give the board some real difficult times,”Brien said.
Brien said she was satisfied that Travis appeared to make his cuts across the board rather than in one area of the budget.
Travis cut $2.3 million in staff requests. Cuts include a phasing out of the birth to age 2 program for children with special needs and $86,000 in funding to the Bootstrap program for students at risk of not graduating.
Other cuts include 11 regular teachers and seven special education teachers, four positions in health services and about 10 custodial positions. Reductions also include $157,000 for a new child care program that would have helped students in the district’s School-Age Parenting Program, more than $35,000 for staff training and professional improvement, and $33,000 for an after-school program (AIMS) for minority students. - December, 1992: Citizen / School Board call-in to discuss the then $180M budget by Gail Perry.
- April, 1999: Budget Cuts Likely for Madison Schools: Declining Enrollment and Special Ed Costs Blamed by Doug Erickson.
- Capital Times & Wisconsin State Journal archive searches (many articles):
- April, 1999 Wisconsin State Journal Editorial: Rainwater will Face Tough Choices
- October, 1992; Joyce Dehli’s Wisconsin State Journal article: Travis, Matthews: Schools’ New Boss Must Create Unity
- October 1994 Wisconsin State Journal Editorial: Either Back Wilhoyte or Fire Her
- School safety and spending were the topics of this September, 1992 article
- SIS comments on Art’s public retirement announcement
Fascinating. Perhaps someone will conduct a much more detailed review of the record, which would be rather useful over the next year or two.
Montessori Goes Mainstream
The American Montessori Society, based in New York, reported 7 percent membership growth in just the past year, and many of the schools are getting ready to celebrate the centennial of the Montessori beachhead.
Once considered a maverick experiment that appealed only to middle-class white families in the States, Montessori schools have become popular with some black professionals and are getting results in low-income public schools with the kind of children on which Montessori first tested her ideas.
The stubborn Italian physician and her contemporary, U.S. philosopher and psychologist John Dewey — who believed that learning should be active — are considered perhaps the most influential progressive thinkers in the modern history of education.
Escaping “Average”
But Secondary Education Director James VanSciver and other Seaford educators became convinced that with extra help, many more students could be taking algebra in middle school and college-level courses in high school. Four years ago, they began offering special tutoring, summer classes and Saturday classes. The number of Advanced Placement classes at Seaford High swelled from four to 14.
The focus on helping average students also boosted minority enrollment in the most rigorous classes. The district has about 3,400 students, 40 percent black and slightly more than half white. Through the initiative, administrators found more black students doing well and going on to college.
Julius Mullen, who directs a Saturday program for young African American males in Seaford, said the students discovered they could advance if given more time and the assurance that they had their friends with them. “When expectations are raised, I think students will grab for them if they have the support programs in place,” Mullen said. “They have to see their friends achieving success.”
6 city students get perfect ACT score
They began by seeking balance, and wound up finding perfection.
An unprecedented six Madison School District students attained a perfect score on recent ACT college entrance exams, district officials said Friday.
Just 11 Wisconsin students received a score of 36, the top possible mark, out of 45,500 tested in April and June.
During that period, 178 of 837,000 students nationwide received a perfect composite score in the assessment of English, mathematics, reading and science skills.
“I want to start by saying, ‘Wow!’ ” Pam Nash, the assistant superintendent overseeing Madison’s middle and high schools, told the students, their parents and educators Friday at a celebration at West High School.
More on the ACT scores here and here.
The Badger Herald has more:
Though Nash argued the quality of Madison’s public high schools contributed to the scores, she added natural talent, intelligence and hard work from the six students was also crucial to their success.
“Reading is important, and Madison emphasizes that,” Nash said. “But the kids themselves … chose the academic route.”
But Poppe, a Madison West senior surprised with the outcome of the test, attributes his perfect score to a healthy breakfast and a little practice.
“I did one of the practice tests and made sure to get a good breakfast,” he said. “I think a lot of the classes I took earlier in high school helped, but I think some people are more comfortable in a testing environment.”
ACT scores are best in 20 years, with a catch, MMSD Curriculum & Upcoming Elections
The issue of curriculum quality and rigor continues to generate attention. P-I:
The good news is that the high school class of 2006 posted the biggest nationwide average score increase on the ACT college entrance exam in 20 years and recorded the highest scores of any class since 1991.
The bad news is that only 21 percent of the students got a passing grade in all four subject areas, including algebra and social science.
“The ACT findings clearly point to the need for high schools to require a rigorous, four-year core curriculum and to offer Advanced Placement classes so that our graduates are prepared to compete and succeed in both college and the work force,” Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said in Washington, D.C.
Alan Borsuk has more:
Wisconsin high school graduates are better prepared to succeed in college than students nationwide – but that means only that more than 70% of state students are at risk of having trouble in one or more freshman-level subjects while the national figure is almost 80%, according to ACT, the college testing company.
The message still isn’t getting across,” Ferguson said in a telephone news conference. If students want to go to college and do well, they have to take high school seriously and take challenging courses, he said.
ACT results showed that students who took at least four years of English and three years each of math, science and social studies in high school did substantially better on the tests (22.9 in Wisconsin, 22.0 nationwide) than those who took lighter loads in those core areas (21.0 and 19.7, respectively).
Elizabeth Burmaster, Wisconsin’s superintendent of public instruction, said she believes that if schools in Wisconsin stay focused on efforts such as early childhood education and small class sizes in the early grades, combined with strong academic programs in middle school and high school, achievement will go up and racial and ethnic gaps will close.
Individual state data is available here.
Burmaster’s statement, along with the ACT information will increase the attention paid to curriculum issues, such as the ongoing questions over the Madison School District’s math program (See UW Math professor Dick Askey’s statement on the MMSD’s interpration and reporting of math scores). Will we stick with the “same service” approach? This very important issue will be on voters minds in November (referendum) and again in April, 2007 when 3 board seats are up for election. See also the West High School Math Faculty letter and a recent open letter to the Madison School District Board and Administration from 35 of the 37 UW Math Department faculty members. Vaishali Honawar has more.
The Madison School District issued a press release on the recent ACT scores (68% of Wisconsin high school graduates took the ACT – I don’t know what the MMSD’s percentage is):
Madison students who took the 2006 ACT college entrance exam continued to outperform their state and national peers by a wide margin, and the scores of Madison’s African-American test takers increased significantly. Madison students’ composite score of 24.2 (scale of 1 to 36) was higher for the 12th straight year than the composite scores of Wisconsin students and those across the nation (see table below). District students outscored their state peers by 9% (24.2 vs. 22.2,) and their national peers by 15% (24.2 vs. 21.1).
Compared to the previous year, the average ACT composite score among the district’s African-American students increased 6% — 18.8 vs. 17.7 last year. The gap between district African-American and white student ACT scores decreased this year. The relative difference this year was 24% (18.8 vs. 24.8) compared to 30% last year.
Scores also increased this year for the district’s Asian students (22.1 to 23.0) and Hispanic students (21.5 to 21.8).
The Madison School District recently published this summary of student performance vs other similar sized and nearby districts (AP, ACT and WKCE) here. Madison’s individual high schools scored as follows: East 22.9, LaFollette 22.1, Memorial 25.1 and West 25.5. I don’t have the % of students who took the ACT.
I checked with Edgewood High School and they have the following information: “almost all students take the ACT” and their composite score is “24.4”. Lakeside in Lake Mills averaged 24.6. Middleton High School’s was 25 in 2005. Verona High School’s numbers:
222 students took the ACT in 2005-2006.
Our composite score was 23.6 compared to the state at 22.2
87% of test takers proved college ready in English Composition (vs. 77%)
66% of test takers proved college ready in College Algebra (vs. 52%)
77% of test takers proved college ready in Social Science (vs. 61%)
45% of test takers proved college ready in Biology (vs. 35%)
37% of test takers proved college ready in all four areas (vs. 28%)
(#) as compared to the state %
Waunakee High School:
Score HS Mean (Core/Non-Core)
Composite 23.3 (24.3/21.5)
English 22.5 (23.9/19.5)
Mathematics 23.2 (24.2/21.8)
Reading 23.3 (24.1/21.5)
Science 23.7 (24.4/22.7)
McFarland High School’s 2006 Composite average was 23.7. 110 students were tested.
UPDATE: A few emails regarding these results:
- On the Waunakee information:
In the Waunakee information I sent to Jim Z, our mean for the Class of 2006 comes first, followed by the core/non-core in parentheses. So, our mean composite score for our 157 seniors who sat for the ACT was 23.3, the mean composite for those completing the ACT suggested core was 24.3, the mean composite for those who did not complete the core was 21.5.
With ACT profile reports, the student information is self-reported. It’s reasonably accurate, but some students don’t fill in information about course patterns and demographics if it is not required.
Please let me know if there are any other questions.
- McFarland data:
It appears that Jim Z’s chart comparing scores uses Waunakee’s “Core score” as opposed to the average composite that the other schools (at
least McFaland) gave to Jim Z.. If Jim Z. wishes to report average “Core” for McFarland it is 24.5. Our non-core is 22.2 with our average composite 23.7. - More on the meaning of “Core”:
Probably everyone is familiar with the ACT definition of core, but it’s 4 years of English, and three years each of math, science, and social studies. ACT is refining their position on what course patterns best position a student for undergraduate success, however.
Additional comments, data and links here
More Discussion on Spending & Education Quality
From time to time I’ve mentioned the disastrous Kansas City experiment, which tends to be a rallying point for those who dare to contradict the Kozol doctrine that increased spending will cure all that ails American education. Looks like somebody didn’t get the memo, because we have a Kansas City for the new millennium:
Boots references George Stratigos, President of the Marin city School District – blog.
In the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the Black Power movement in the United States, there is no clearer indication of black power’s failure than in urban school systems like Baltimore’s that are run by Democrats. Washington, D. C. schools are some of the worst in the country. Democrats run D.C.
In the Manhattan Institute study, Baltimore’s graduation rate was 91st of the country’s 100 largest school systems. But Detroit’s — another city run by Democrats — was 98th. In both Baltimore and Detroit, most of those Democrats are black who are supposed to be exercising black power to improve conditions for black folks.
– via Rotherham.
MMSD administrators will propose cutting 92 positions
According to a document apparently floating around the Doyle Administration Building and MTI offices, the MMSD administration will recommend cutting 92 positions when the Board of Education meets on April 3.
Disappointment best describes my reaction. I’m not surprised, of course. I’m not even upset that the union has the information even before the board, since it might be wise to alert John Matrhews rather than surprise him on April 3.
I’m disappointed. Disappointed because the board and administration have not listened to a single plea about following a new budget process. This is the same-old same-old. The administration puts last year’s spending into a black box. And presto! Cuts come out.
For years, those of us on schoolinfosytem.org and others throughout the community have begged and pleaded for a more understandable budget process, for input on the budget from the community, for a budget that reflects some set of priorities, and this year a budget that reflects the $100 budget exercise.
We should have saved our breath.
The administration and board don’t hear.
They only want to talk AT us — to tell us that we don’t understand the state budget, don’t understand the district’s changing demographics, don’t understand the complexity of school issues – like we’re all dummies.
But we DO understand all of that!
What we don’t understand is the MMSD budget process, the MMSD budget document, and the MMSD budget priorities. And to tell you my frank opinion, neither does a single soul on the board because they too never get to see inside the black box and they have no priorities to reflect in the budget.
It’s time to throw the bums out and replace them with board members who will listen, respond, and create an open process and understandable budget.
Standards, Accountability, and School Reform
This is very long, and the link may require a password so I’ve posted the entire article on the continued page.
TJM
http://www.tcrecord.org/PrintContent.asp?ContentID=11566
Standards, Accountability, and School Reform
by Linda Darling-Hammond — 2004
The standards-based reform movement has led to increased emphasis on tests, coupled with rewards and sanctions, as the basis for “accountability” systems. These strategies have often had unintended consequences that undermine access to education for low-achieving students rather than enhancing it. This article argues that testing is information for an accountability system; it is not the system itself. More successful outcomes have been secured in states and districts, described here, that have focused on broader notions of accountability, including investments in teacher knowledge and skill, organization of schools to support teacher and student learning, and systems of assessment that drive curriculum reform and teaching improvements.
Noted Educator Donna Ford is Coming to Wisconsin
Dr. Donna Ford, Vanderbilt University Professor and nationally known speaker on gifted education and multi cultural and urban education issues, will be visiting Wisconsin this March.
In conjunction with the MMSD Parent Community Relations Department, Dr. Ford will be presenting a workshop for parents entitled “Promoting Achievement, Identity, and Pride in your Children” on March 8, 2006 from 6:00—8:00 p.m. at the Double Tree Hotel, 545 W. Johnson Street, Madison, WI. For more information and to register, contact Diane Crear at 663-1692 or dcrear@madison.k12.wi.us Space is limited. Please make your reservation no later than February 20, 2006
Then on March 10 and 11, the Wisconsin Association for Talented and Gifted (WATG) is proud to have Dr. Ford as the featured speaker for their spring event for educators and parents:
On Friday afternoon, March 10, Dr. Ford will speak on “In Search of the Dream: Designing Schools and Classrooms that Work for High Potential Students from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds” in Janesville.
Friday evening, March 10, Dr. Ford will address parents and educators on the topic of “Parenting for Achievement and Identity” in Milwaukee.
Saturday, March 11, Dr. Ford will present an all day workshop in Milwaukee on “In Search of the Dream: Designing Schools and Classrooms that Work for High Potential Students from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds.” This is a learning and application experience designed specifically for use in the urban/suburban classroom!
For more information and to register go to www.watg.org .
Speaking up about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. & King Events in Madison
The Madison Times (now owned by former school board member, Ray Allen) recently asked various members of the Madison community to comment on the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was honored to do so. These comments can be seen in this weeks issue. I’m also including dates and times of Dr. King events in the City. I hope you and your family are able to attend some of these events.
Tuesday Morning Links
- Urban Colleges Learn to be Good Neighbors:
As a case study, Penn’s urban renewal effort is probably the most comprehensive — targeting every service and institution that makes a community vibrant. The university restored shuttered houses and offered faculty incentives to move into the neighborhood; invested $7 million to build a public school; brought in a much-needed 35,000-square-foot grocery store and movie theater; and offered the community resources such as hundreds of used Penn computers.
“We said we teach our students about civic engagement. You can’t do that and not be role models for civic engagement,” said former Penn president Judith Rodin, who was a catalyst in the renewal efforts. - Referendum Tactic Calls on Old Friends
- Earlier is Better, Leaders Say
- No Child Left Behind: President Bush Visits School that Closed the Gap:
The president invoked North Glen’s success on the fourth anniversary of the law, at a time when support for his signature education initiative has eroded.
Despite large increases in federal aid to schools, many congressional Democrats say that overall, the law is underfunded. Some conservatives say the law undermines local authority and gives the federal government too much control over schools. Those concerns have stalled a Bush administration proposal to expand the law’s testing requirement to the nation’s high schools.
Educational researchers say it is too soon to say whether the law has prompted lasting improvement in student achievement. “Bush is claiming greater success for the act than he can justify,” said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington research organization that has closely studied the law’s impact. “It is still unclear that the law will be successful in solving the problems in public education.”
At North Glen, the percentage of black third-graders rated as proficient on the statewide test rose from 32 percent in 2003 to 94 percent in 2005, placing the campus among the top schools in Maryland for black student performance. Black students perform at least as well as whites on several academic measures at the school, whose student population is 42 percent black, 40 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic and 7 percent other ethnic groups. - Teens hangout at myspace
- DC Seeks to Redirect Sales Tax to Schools:
The chairman of the D.C. Council’s finance committee said yesterday that a proposal to modernize schools should be paid for by dedicating $100 million of city sales tax revenue every year for the next 15 years.
Community Invited to Suggest Budget Reductions
Residents of the Madison Metropolitan School District will be given the opportunity in 11 January sessions to make suggestions and set priorities for budget reductions necessary for the 2006-07 school year. The budget reduction exercise uses a $100 budget that reflects the proportionate share for 47 major program areas of the actual MMSD budget.
MMSD Press release, 12/22/05
Test Prep Help for Students Who Can’t Afford Kaplan
I’m not sure if this is still the case, but at one time, MMSD offered a college entrance test prep course in an 8-week summer session. But for many reasons, needing to work among them, not all students can take advantage of this opportunity.
What if high school seniors or adult volunteers tutored their younger classmates, especially those who can’t afford the time or the money to take the Kaplan courses? How about a service project where students or adult volunteers offer a weekly review after school or (if student-run,during the lunch hour)?
In a perfect world, everyone would be taking these tests “cold”, but the reality is that a tremendous amount of coaching takes place. Practicing the test format alone is helpful.
ACT test prep for low income students
MIDDLE- and upper-class teenagers get lots of extra help in the college application process. They get personal SAT tutors and SAT prep courses, they get assistance on their résumés and college essays from writing coaches and parents. They have guidance counselors and teachers with time to help.
The poor tend not to be so lucky. They can’t afford tutors or prep courses, and often don’t have parents who’ve been to college to guide them. Their high schools are more likely to be understaffed. North High School here, which is three-quarters black, has two guidance counselors for 1,100 students.
But a nonprofit program started here five years ago, Admission Possible, aims to give 600 poor teenagers a year (average family income of $25,000) the kind of edge that wealthy students routinely enjoy.
Thinking Different: Little Rock Principal and Teacher Incentives
She went to the Public Education Foundation of Little Rock. The Foundation had no money for her, and the Little Rock system’s budget was a non-starter. So the Foundation produced a private, anonymous donor, which made union approval unnecessary.
Together this small group worked out the program’s details. The Stanford test results would be the basis for the bonuses. For each student in a teacher’s charge whose Stanford score rose up to 4% over the year, the teacher got $100; 5% to 9% — $200; 10% to 14% — $300; and more than 15% — $400. This straight-line pay-for-performance formula awarded teachers objectively in a way that squares with popular notions of fairness and skirts fears of subjective judgment. In most merit-based lines of work, say baseball, it’s called getting paid for “putting numbers on the board.”
Still, it required a leap of faith. “I will tell you the truth,” said Karen Carter, “we thought one student would improve more than 15%.” The tests and financial incentives, however, turned out to be a powerful combination. The August test gave the teachers a detailed analysis of individual student strengths and weaknesses. From this, they tailored instruction for each student. It paid off on every level.
Kozol: Apartheid America
Reader Troy Dassler emails this article by Jonathan Kozol “It seems appropriate that we should all read it on the eve of a day where everyone in the district is in an in-service talking about race”:
“Segregation is not something that happens by chance, like weather conditions,” says Jonathan Kozol. “It is the work of men.” So it is not without irony that it has taken a hurricane — and the excruciating images of stranded black faces, beamed across cable airwaves — for Americans to confront the reality that vast numbers of their fellow citizens live in segregated ghettos and suffer from abject poverty. But for Kozol, who has built his career on exposing the race- and class-based injustices endemic to the United States’ educational system, the knowledge that we live in a deeply divided society has long been a foregone — if heartbreaking — conclusion.
Abigail Thernstrom says Kozol’s analysis is “worthy of a third grader“.
Rigor & College Readiness
Keeping on topic 🙂 Dave Newbart finds that 1/3 of Illinois’ high school grads are not ready for college. Thus, 2/3 apparently are (evidently not, according to the article).
If colleges are to retain and graduate more students, the state needs to do a better job of educating them long before they set foot on campus, lawmakers and educators said Thursday.
New research presented by the Illinois Education Research Council at a meeting of the Senate Committee on Higher Education showed many Illinois high school graduates are simply not prepared to go to college.
More than one-third of Illinois graduates are not ready for college, said Jennifer Presley, director of the council, which is tracking nearly the entire class of 2002. Another 28 percent are only partially ready, she said. Yet 43 percent of the least ready students go to college, and 58 percent of minimally ready students do.
Vouchers underwriting religious schools in Milwaukee
Well-reported story on the realities of school choice in Milwaukee. Vouchers are the lifeblood of religious schools in Milwaukee and religion permeates instruction.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333800.asp
Community Educates MMSD
Click to view a larger aerial image
Crestwood elementary school has sat on top of a hill (aerial photo) for over 100 years. It’s geography is cartoonish as it is on the top of a hill while the playground, or as the students call it, the “battlefield” lays far below a slopping grassy hill and the street in front of the school drops below quickly to Old Middleton Road. During our Wisconsin winters with ice and snow the students rarely enjoy the playground or the “battlefield” as it is too slippery to return to class and muddy when not slippery. Therefore, the students spend most of the year playing on a tar surface blacktop that doubles as a parking lot for large events. CAPT, Crestwood Ass. Parents And Teachers, has had an ongoing discussion with the district for 10 years to resurface the blacktop, which is cracked and falling apart, and add a playset for the winter months but have been discouraged by the $50,000 to $60,000 estimate quoted to solve this problem.
News and Update on Initiative to Form a PTO at East High School
Please share this information with others who may be interested in helping to
create a revitalized PTO at East.
March 30, 2005
UPDATE ON EFFORTS TO BUILD AN EAST HIGH SCHOOL PTO
______________________________________________________
Upcoming meetings:
Thursday, April 14
Thursday, May 12
All meetings are held at East High School and begin at 7 p.m., with time for
informal conversation from 6:30 to 7:00.
East Parents Lack Faith In Principal Hiring
Wisconsin State Journal
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
East Parents Lack Faith In Principal Hiring
by Sandy Cullen
Parents of East High School students say they lack confidence that the School District will hire a principal who can successfully lead what one described as a school “under siege.”
About 50 people attended a meeting at the high school Tuesday with Assistant Superintendent Valencia Douglas to discuss the process for hiring a successor to Catherine Tillman.
“We all know what a successful candidate is,” parent Lenny Alston told Douglas. “We want to make sure you guys know.”
Soon after the start of the school year, Tillman was abruptly reassigned to an administrative position. She recently reached a settlement with the district, and her resignation becomes effective March 31.
Alston was one of several parents who said they had no confidence in the selection process that resulted in Tillman’s hiring in September 2002. The district hasn’t disclosed the reason for reassigning Tillman, but some parents were concerned early on that she lacked experience to lead the school’s diverse population of 2,100 students, 40 percent minorities.
“I can’t get over the fact that this place is under siege. We’ve got problems over here galore,” said Alston, a parent of two East graduates and one freshman. “It isn’t just a black problem, and it isn’t just a race problem … You guys aren’t listening to us, that’s the problem.”
Other parents wanted to know what would be different from the last time. “It just has to be done right,” said parent Pam Cross-Leone. “We cannot afford to fail this time.”
Parents advocated for more input earlier in the selection process, before the search is narrowed to eight candidates who are interviewed by a 12-person committee of parents, students, teachers and other high school principals. That group selects three finalists to be interviewed by Douglas and other administrators.
Douglas said the process has resulted in the hiring of many successful principals. She agreed there are problems at the school and pledged that “there will be a very, very good pool of candidates.”
Two Nations
The Economist, in a pre-election series, takes a look at our education system:
Some schools are thriving; others have been left behind
AMERICA’S system of education ranges from the superb to the awful. Its universities, especially at the graduate level, are the best in the world, gaining some 60% of all Nobel prizes awarded since the second world war. Its public-school system, however, is often marked by poor teaching, dilapidated buildings and violence (although the rate of violent incidents is falling, more than 5% of schoolchildren played truant last year to avoid violence at school). Official figures say that 85% of students finish high school, but the Urban Institute and other groups estimate that nearly a third of them drop out.
The result is a popular assumption that American education from kindergarten to 12th-grade high-school graduation (K-12) is in crisis. President Bush’s main remedy, passed in 2001 with bipartisan support, is the No Child Left Behind Act, a programme promising lots of federal money ($13 billion next year) to school systems that test their students and improve their performance�and sanctions for those that do not. All in all, claims the Bush team, federal spending on K-12 education will have risen by the 2005 budget by 65%, the biggest increase since the Johnson presidency in the late 1960s.
The Democrats retort that �Every Child Left Behind� would be a better name. Echoing criticisms by the teachers’ unions and many states, John Kerry calculates that the programme has been underfunded by more than $26 billion over the past four years. He would establish a National Education Trust Fund �to ensure that schools always get the funding they need�; put a �great� (and better paid) teacher in every classroom; expand after-school activities for some 3.5m children; and offer college students a fully refundable tax credit for up to $4,000 a year of college tuition (Mr Kerry says that Mr Bush reneged on a promise to increase Pell grants, which help the poor to pay for college).
Incomplete
Paul Burka takes an interesting look at the way the Texas Education Agency manages and calculates the dropout rate:
WHEN MY DAUGHTER FINISHED HER FRESHMAN year at Johnston High School, in Austin, where she was a student in a liberal-arts magnet program, I paid a visit to the college adviser to find out her class ranking. “She’s thirty-seventh in a class of 750,” he told me. “That’s good,” I said. “Top five percent. Good enough to get into the University of Texas.”
“Not really,” the adviser said. “We know from experience that only 250 freshmen, at most, will graduate. So think of her as thirty-seventh out of 250. That’s not in the top ten percent.”
That was bad news�both for my daughter and for the state of education in Texas. I did some quick calculations. There were around 100 freshmen in the magnet program. Presumably, almost all of them would graduate. This meant that of the remaining 650 or so students in her class�those who lived within Johnston’s regular boundaries, almost all of them Hispanic or black�fewer than 150 would graduate with their peers. If his prediction was accurate, the dropout rate at Johnston would be 67 percent. In fact, the rate was even worse: Only 223 of the original 750 graduated.
Nancy and I lived in Dallas some years ago and very much enjoyed reading the excellent Texas Monthly Magazine, where Paul Burka is the senior executive editor.