The Education Gadfly Weekly

Gerald Grant
Harvard University Press
2009

Amidst waning support for the decades-old effort to desegregate America’s schools, this book hails the achievements of Raleigh’s Wake County school system and its commitment to equalizing opportunity among its students. According to author Gerald Grant, the pivotal moment occurred in 1976, when city and county merged, an event which not only broke down barriers between white suburban students and inner-city minority students but also raised expectations of academic excellence for all children. Grant traces the development of an “invisible wall” between city and suburbia, contrasting Wake County’s solution to Syracuse, New York’s continued geographic segregation. In the former, twenty-seven magnet schools were established to attract suburban students to the inner-city; in the latter, rising poverty and failed attempts to desegregate resulted in what was effectively a racialized tracking system. As scores rose in Raleigh, so too did the belief that it was the system’s responsibility to ensure all children succeeded. That the combined inner-city-suburban model is a successful one makes sense but it’s hard to imagine suburban voters elsewhere agreeing to similar mergers anytime soon. You can purchase a copy here.

Andy Smarick
Seton Education Partners
September 2009

Faced with an unsustainable financial model, falling enrollment, and grim prospects for further philanthropic support, in 2007, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. chose to convert seven of its inner-city schools to charter schools. This case study tells the story of that charter conversion process, not as an argument that this is the solution for all Catholic schools facing closure, but to glean key lessons for other Archdiocese that might want to travel the same route. Author Andy Smarick found ten such lessons from the Washington experience. Many are operational, such as that working with the charter authorizing body, in this case the DC Public Charter School Board, “early and often” is central to success. Others are more results oriented, like the fact that conversion will likely increase enrollment and bring in more students who are behind academically, straining the new schools. And still others are environmental, like having an already existing network--in D.C., it’s the Center City Consortium--helps pave the way for a smoother transition. One of the biggest hurdles, of course, is how to replace--but not remove--religion; in other words, the structure, discipline, and character building that are provided by religious instruction should be maintained in a secular way. There’s much more to be found in this narrative. Read it here.

That is the question. So far three tactics have dominated: closing failing schools completely and relocating their students; reconstituting schools with new faculties and staff; or handing the reins of schools over to independent charter operators. Denver tried the first two years ago. Now Denver Public Schools reports that students from the closed failing schools, who were typically making less progress per year than their peers (e.g., half a year of learning in a full year of school), are now making more (e.g., more than a year of learning in that same time frame). That’s not to say that that progress has brought these students to proficiency, or anywhere near it (DPS did not release proficiency data for these students; we can only guess why), but this could be good news for Arne Duncan, one of whose suggested turnaround strategies is this very tactic. But he might want to look to the Bayou for another turnaround strategy: chartering grade-by-grade. In New Orleans, a few schools have taken up this approach, in which a charter operator slowly takes over a traditional failing school, grade-by-grade. The two co-exist in the same building but employ completely separate administrations, teachers, and organizational structures. Some say this plan will ease the transition from district to charter; others worry that older students are unfairly overlooked, since the schools expand by adding students from the lowest grade. We can surely predict a number of potential logistical nightmares, but as the call to turnaround failing schools increases, we’re glad to see more strategies being employed. Now we can only hope they’re successful.

“School within a school is new strategy to transform education,” by Sarah Carr, The Times-Picayune, September 27, 2009 

“‘07 school closings boost student achievement, DPS analysis finds,” by Jeremy P. Meyer, The Denver Post, September 24, 2009

The media just can’t get enough of Michelle Rhee. Not only must we know middle-of-the-night Blackberry habits, but we also want to know about her love life and how she likes her manicures. (She prefers to get straight to the polishing than dally with the massage portion of the hand-care routine, so says a close aide. No word on her favorite nail polish color.) Channeling O.K. Magazine, Marc Fisher dishes the scoop, even interviewing Mama and Papa Rhee, who live in Colorado, about their progeny. Next, her biceps will get named by a New York Times’ columnist (or her calves--Michelle loves heels) and her date nights recorded by the paparazzi.

“In Search of the Real Michelle Rhee,” by Marc Fisher, The Washington Post, September 27, 2009

Has he, mortal enemy of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, seen the error of his ways? Or as the Wall Street Journal puts it, “Do you believe in political miracles?” Earlier this year, Senator Dick Durbin, of which we speak, inserted language into the fiscal year 2009-2010 Congressional budget that cuts the program from next year’s expenditures. Now he’s changed his tune. “I have to work with my colleagues if this is going to be reauthorized, which it might be.” It’s not clear why Durbin has changed his mind, though he recently visited one of the private schools participating in the program and acknowledged that “many students are getting a good education from the program.” Newsflash: Third-year results released last June from a Department of Education evaluation of the program found that OPS students had made, on average, 3.1 more months progress in reading than their peers who were not offered a voucher. But Durban remains worried about accountability, specifically how scholarship recipients are being academically evaluated while in the program. May we offer you some committee reading? We happen to have a thing or two to say about that very topic.

“Dick Durbin and D.C. School Vouchers,” Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2009

Plenty of philanthropists like to think they make a palpable difference in the real world, but often that turns out to be wishful thinking. It’s even rarer that they make an important positive difference during their own lifetimes.

Donald George Fisher, who died on Sunday at age 81, was one of those exceptions. A staggeringly successful businessman--he and his partner/wife/helpmate/alter ego Doris built Gap Inc. over forty years from a single San Francisco store to 3000+ outlets in 25 countries--he was not content just to make money or add to his holdings. Starting a decade ago, he asked Scott Hamilton to help him locate worthy education projects that, like Gap itself, might be replicated and scaled rather than left, like so many education innovations, as one-offs or (like many other innovations) grown into a hodge-podge of good and not-so-good copies. He told Scott that he didn’t want to be another Walter Annenberg; he and Doris didn’t want to give away money just to be seen doing so and being thanked.

Scott hunted far and wide and came back to Don and Doris with several candidates. All had merit but not until they looked closely at KIPP--the “Knowledge Is Power Program”--did this opportunity really come into focus. Here were a couple of terrific fledgling schools that had assembled all the essential elements to help disadvantaged middle-schoolers undergo an educational renaissance and get themselves on track for college. Moreover, KIPP had a pair of remarkable young education reformer/entrepreneurs keen to leverage their work into something bigger. Their education know-how, combined with Scott’s theory of how to grow it--via systematic, hard-nosed leadership development--made sense to the Fishers, perhaps because it resembled their own business strategy.

The rest, as they say, is history. Over the past decade, Don and Doris donated more than $60 million to KIPP. Future school heads--the number of KIPP schools now exceeds 80--are known as “Fisher Fellows.” And KIPP is now a grown-up organization with a carefully designed strategy, an effective central operation and the wisdom to treat its schools more like licensees or franchisees than as “branches.” Though the central office, headed by Richard Barth, provides all sorts of standards, help and, when necessary, trouble-shooting, running successful schools is the responsibility of the local teams--leaders and boards alike--and, if they mess up badly, they know that KIPP may withdraw its coveted label from them.

Because KIPP is as close as American urban education generally, and charter schools in particular, get to a gold standard in 2009, being remembered as the guy who put KIPP on the map is not just a sure visa through the pearly gates but also an undisputed sidebar-with-photo in the history of modern education reform.

But Don Fisher did a lot more than write checks. Intellectually keen and lastingly curious, he lectured in the summer business-school-based programs (first at Berkeley, then Stanford) for new Fisher Fellows. He chaired the national KIPP board--and recruited Barth as CEO. He visited more than fifty of the schools, not so much to harvest applause as to engage in his own form of quality control. He had weekly consultations with Rich, whose own reflection I excerpt here:

After my first two months of these weekly calls, I began to relax a bit and came to realize that Don wasn’t looking for me to show him I had everything under control. Don was actually interested in listening to me discuss my challenges. He wanted to explore opportunities alongside me. He cared so deeply about KIPP, and he listened attentively. And, during these calls, he would share thoughts when he had them….Sometimes he only left me with a single thought. What I discovered over time, however, was that his instincts were simply exceptional. And perhaps most importantly, that his obsession was quality. In whatever we were doing, he wanted to make sure we were doing it well. Really well….Don never missed these calls. Ever. Even over the holidays in Hawaii. And even when he was under the weather. He always, always showed.

Among other traits that few philanthropists share, Don and Doris Fisher did not put out press releases when they made big gifts. They shunned media and limelight and wanted attention focused instead on the schools, teachers, and kids they were supporting. Scott reports that he had to talk them into calling the KIPP leaders-in-training “Fisher” Fellows.

Don and Doris did more than KIPP. They are responsible for the extraordinary growth of Teach For America and they created the Charter School Growth Fund. Don helped to found--and fund--California’s EdVoice, one of the most effective state-level education-reform advocacy/lobbying operations in the land. In California, he also spearheaded the re-creation of one of the nation’s best state charter school associations. Their small but sophisticated foundation--the Fisher Fund is its current name--invests strategically in a small number of worthy projects and ventures led by other organizations. (That list occasionally includes the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Needless to say, we’re very grateful.) Don also served nobly for years in one of American education’s more exasperating roles, as a member of the California State Board of Education.

He and Doris did more than education, too. They helped keep the San Francisco Giants in the Bay area. Don was a major booster of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. They assembled a spectacular world-class collection of contemporary art--some 1,100 works, to be housed and displayed by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

But let me circle back to KIPP. It is probably the most recognizable “brand name” in contemporary American schooling. (Forget generic labels like “Catholic” and “magnet.”) It connotes quality, energy, dedication, effectiveness, and high standards. Though the schools aren’t identical--KIPP has avoided imposing a standard curriculum and they must conform to diverse state standards--they have far more in common than their famed “five pillars.” They have shared values and aspirations, shared norms and culture. Whether you walk into a KIPP school in Houston, Nashville, Philadelphia, or Oakland, the essence of the place will be much the same. The quality will be high. The aura will be serious and disciplined, yet energized and friendly. This, I think, is what Don and Doris Fisher hoped to accomplish. That they used a non-trivial portion of their fortune to accomplish it for poor, mostly minority youngsters across this broad nation attests to their keen eye, their compassion, their standards, their talent for scaling good ideas, and their hands-on commitment, as well as their generosity.

How many philanthropists leave such a legacy?

Last fall’s infamous rift in the Democratic Party is back. No, not that rift and those electoral politics; we’re talking about education, of course (this not being the Health Care Gadfly), and specifically, the upcoming local voting cycle. The election of President Obama revealed a growing disagreement between the old-school Democratic Party establishment, a.k.a. the teachers’ unions, and the new-school reformers, who support charters and merit pay, amongst other things. Obama straddled this divide by picking conciliatory candidate Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education and using stimulus cash to, once again, clothe the bitter reform pill with a sugary green glaze. But a year later, we come face-to-face with November 2009. Take the upcoming school board election in Cincinnati, Ohio, for example, where four seats (one open, three incumbents) of a completely Democratic seven-member board are up for a heated contest. Of the three incumbents, the Dems have endorsed only one, opting instead to back three fresh faces for the other three open seats. Since they control the board already, the Party is instead looking for more loyal members to sit upon it--specifically candidates who support labor. (The other two incumbents have voted more independently--of teachers’ union interests in particular--in recent years. This surely isn’t a highest stakes story--or election--but it is a microcosmic example of a greater schism the Donkeys will have to deal with someday--probably sooner rather than later.

"School board race highlights rift," by Ben Fischer, The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 27, 2009

Andy Smarick
Seton Education Partners
September 2009

Faced with an unsustainable financial model, falling enrollment, and grim prospects for further philanthropic support, in 2007, the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. chose to convert seven of its inner-city schools to charter schools. This case study tells the story of that charter conversion process, not as an argument that this is the solution for all Catholic schools facing closure, but to glean key lessons for other Archdiocese that might want to travel the same route. Author Andy Smarick found ten such lessons from the Washington experience. Many are operational, such as that working with the charter authorizing body, in this case the DC Public Charter School Board, “early and often” is central to success. Others are more results oriented, like the fact that conversion will likely increase enrollment and bring in more students who are behind academically, straining the new schools. And still others are environmental, like having an already existing network--in D.C., it’s the Center City Consortium--helps pave the way for a smoother transition. One of the biggest hurdles, of course, is how to replace--but not remove--religion; in other words, the structure, discipline, and character building that are provided by religious instruction should be maintained in a secular way. There’s much more to be found in this narrative. Read it here.

Gerald Grant
Harvard University Press
2009

Amidst waning support for the decades-old effort to desegregate America’s schools, this book hails the achievements of Raleigh’s Wake County school system and its commitment to equalizing opportunity among its students. According to author Gerald Grant, the pivotal moment occurred in 1976, when city and county merged, an event which not only broke down barriers between white suburban students and inner-city minority students but also raised expectations of academic excellence for all children. Grant traces the development of an “invisible wall” between city and suburbia, contrasting Wake County’s solution to Syracuse, New York’s continued geographic segregation. In the former, twenty-seven magnet schools were established to attract suburban students to the inner-city; in the latter, rising poverty and failed attempts to desegregate resulted in what was effectively a racialized tracking system. As scores rose in Raleigh, so too did the belief that it was the system’s responsibility to ensure all children succeeded. That the combined inner-city-suburban model is a successful one makes sense but it’s hard to imagine suburban voters elsewhere agreeing to similar mergers anytime soon. You can purchase a copy here.