The Echo

Stunning New Report: Sometimes Hard Decisions are Unpopular


August 31, 2010 by Justin Cohen

My staff tells me I should be less glib when I title my blog posts, but this one was unavoidable. EdWeek reports on a new CEP survey that found limited knowledge – among both school officials and the public – of the federal school improvement program. The supposedly shocking top-line numbers are that only 12% of districts had implemented the program, and that 1/3 of districts didn’t even know about it.

Maybe I’m dense, but I don’t understand why this is a story. This is a program aimed at the bottom 5% of schools. We shouldn’t expect every district to be dealing with this issue. Just as effective teachers aren’t equitably distributed across schools and systems, neither are chronically under-performing schools distributed in a geographically egalitarian manner. So, not only is the 12% not troubling, it’s encouraging! This money is not for everyone that wants it. It’s for the schools and systems with the most challenging problems. I’d be pissed if the money was going to Greenwich. Similarly, it would be a shame to distribute the money based on a formula alone, rather than demanding real change in exchange for the funds. The relatively small number of recipients shouldn’t be cast as a purely negative data point. (Although, I admittedly wish there weren’t so many districts that claim to know nothing about a giant national initiative.)

But back to the title. The other big number here is this:
“… 54 percent of those surveyed in a recent public opinion poll said they preferred principals and teachers stay in place and are given outside help to boost a lagging school.”

Two things on this. First, see the title of the post. Leadership means sometimes making unpopular decisions. Those involving personnel – particularly in education – are usually unpopular, but that doesn’t mean they’re always wrong. (It also doesn’t mean those decisions are always right, by the way.) Second, I’ll be the first person to admit that we as a country have a lot more to learn about turning around schools at scale. It’s a practice in its infancy, with some great proof-points for what’s possible. But we don’t have all the answers. What we do know, however, is that bringing in professional development – while leaving everything else about a school the same – doesn’t work. Period. We’ve spent millions of dollars over the last decade trying to make meaningful progress without really changing the fundamentals, and it hasn’t moved the needle in these particular schools. More of the same is not a solution.

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More of the same?  Unproven "reform" is the name of the game.  It's the status quo.  And it usually fails.  School Turnaround is MORE OF THE SAME.  As for the bottom five percent - try this perspective:  When you move the bottom five percent into turnaround you naturally create a new bottom five percent.  That's why Delaware has a tiered system of reform.  As schools are plucked, tarred, feathered, and assigned to the Partnership Zone in Delaware, their slightly better achievers will slide in the ripe for pickin' slots. 

So, over the years, we've brought in more professional development (gee, not too long ago, Gov. Markell furloughed our PD days) and that didn't work.  Could it be because we failed to add enough teachers to the mix to bring down class sizes and create opportunities to put that PD to real use?  Don't worry folks, if the transformation model is really the name of the game in the new Partnership Zone, our teachers will receive plenty more PD.  From the News Journal:  transformation, which has four components -- replacing the principal and increasing school leader effectiveness, instructional reforms, increasing learning time and creating community-oriented schools with operational flexibility"   Nothing there about human capital... How disappointing. 

Translating Class-Size Research to Practice


Many class-size studies collectively told educators much about schooling and identified that there were right ways to use small classes. On tests given in grades 3 and higher, studies showed that one year (grade 3) in a small class, and even two years (grades 2 and 3) yielded negligible test-score gains. For short-term and long-term results, students had to start small classes when they entered school (kindergarten or grade one). The treatment had to be intense (all day, every day) and for sufficient duration (at least three and preferably four years). Small classes are more preventive than remedial, as they help teach young students what is expected in schooling. By 2001 researchers had identified some two dozen research-and theory-based reasons why small classes provide superior student opportunities and outcomes (see Table 1).

The longer a student has small classes the better the outcomes, not just while in small classes, but through high school and beyond. Small-class K - 3 students gained about a year's growth in all subjects tested over randomly assigned peers in larger classes. Small-class students had significantly higher graduation rates, lower retention in grade, and higher percentage of honors diplomas. Early small-class attendance reduced the college admissions test-taking gap between white and minority students significantly. In contrast classes with teacher aides (which reduced PTR but not class size) were particularly ineffective for minority male students, a finding that helps explain the mixed outcomes in Prime Time after aides were allowed as a small-class alternative.  http://www.answers.com/topic/class-size-and-student-learning

Common Sense.