The Education Gadfly Weekly

Paramount Pictures
January 2007

Freedom Writers is based on the true story of teacher Erin Gruwell (played by Hillary Swank). And though it's more about racial conflict than education, the film still provides some choice fodder for the movie-loving Gadfly's rumination. The film follows a familiar narrative: a tough-minded, idealistic teacher/coach/mentor overcomes great obstacles to lift a class of "untouchables" out of violent, dead-end lives in the inner city (think Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, Coach Carter in Coach Carter, and Joe Clark in Lean on Me). The education angle dramatizes the challenges Gruwell faces in a bureaucratic, union-dominated urban public school. She makes $27,000 a year, teaches 150 students divided among only four classes, and every day confronts the dreadful fallout of forced integration in racially divided, gang-laden Long Beach, California. When she eyes new copies of Romeo and Juliet reserved for honors classes and asks to teach it to her students, her department coordinator laughs at her naïveté but gives her tattered copies of an abridged version. Gruwell, of course, finally wins the hearts of her sophomore English students, only to see their hopes for learning the following year shattered when union seniority rules forbid Gruwell from teaching juniors (she is deemed too "green" to teach upper-grade classes). Her cynical colleagues offer nothing but derision. What makes Gruwell's story movie-worthy, of course, is that her powers of perseverance far exceed those of the average teacher. She takes on extra jobs, sacrifices her marriage, stands up to the administration, and, most important, refuses to give up. She also has an exceptional capacity for empathy, which proves crucial to earning her students' trust. As such, the movie offers few practical lessons for fixing inner-city schools. Every teacher is not like Gruwell, who, in real life, started the Freedom Writers Foundation to promote her brand of instruction. (Though programs like Teach for America certainly help to bring more Gruwells into the classroom.) But tackling the inertia, cynicism, and institutional constraints of inner city bureaucracies is a long term (and decidedly un-Hollywood) project. All that said, most ed wonks and policymakers could benefit from the exposure to urban schools that this credible, not-too-cheesy film provides. Three out of four apples.

Diane Ravitch and Michael Ravitch
Oxford University Press
2006

While the thought that students should bother with the poetry of the Romantics, the prose of Darwin, the philosophy of Mill, or the speeches of Churchill is anathema to many, even the greatest critics of Western culture must concede that the English language that still unites us (though not as strongly as it should) has never been used more effectively than by those in the land of its birth--England. "The language has been shaped by those who have used it best," write the Ravitches in their introduction to this exquisite anthology. "Everyone who writes in English inherits this legacy, from Chinua Achebe to Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie to Toni Morrison, Derek Wolcott to Seamus Heaney. These great contemporary writers transform the literary tradition in their own distinct ways, but their guideposts are the monumental achievements of English literature." We may choose to deny our students the history of Western civilization, and still survive. But deny our students English literature, and we excise the very font from which the versatility and beauty of the language we speak flows. Diane and Michael have given us the best argument for why English literature should never "go gentle into that good night"--the words of the language's masters themselves. This anthology is a worthy follow-up to Diane Ravitch's The American Reader. Check out The English Reader here.

No Child Left Behind's reauthorization process has barely begun, yet the surfeit of coverage and commentary is enough to make Gadfly think about flying south for winter's remainder. Still, one article rose above the din: Greg Toppo's look at how the law has changed life on the ground in actual schools and communities. He finds that NCLB has given reform-minded superintendents cover to push for bold changes. Philadelphia's Paul Vallas, for example, commenting on his recent dismissal of 750 unqualified teachers, said, "we would have never been able to do that without the federal (Sword of) Damocles hanging over our head." Of course, one person's Sword of Damocles is another's "Hounds of Hell," as a recently retired Virginia teacher described the pressure the law placed on her school. Toppo's smartest observation is disquieting: "Here's a pretty safe rule of thumb: Start in the classroom and travel up the educational food chain. The further you travel, the more you'll find that people like the law...the assessment gets rosier as their suit gets more expensive." Did you hear that, Zegna-clad Congress? 

"How Bush education law has changed our schools," by Greg Toppo, USA Today, January 8, 2007

Some parents in Michigan were none too pleased by the conclusions reached in Education Week's Quality Counts 2007: From Cradle to Career, especially by the report's "Chance-for-Success Index," which measures how likely are students to succeed in school by calculating the socioeconomic standing of adults. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press, some parents said, "the study... seems too defeatist. They said success for students cannot be measured so easily by looking at the accomplishments of parents." Demography is not destiny (see here).

They're right, of course. One wonders how the publishers, editors, and researchers who contributed to From Cradle to Career could be so wrong.

It's a radical about face for Quality Counts, which Education Week launched in 1997 following a call from the nation's governors for an "external, independent, nongovernmental effort" to measure if individual states were actually improving their schools and their students' academic achievement.

For the past decade, Quality Counts has examined the nation's focus on standards-based reform. Among other things it graded states on their standards and assessments (whether standards were clear and grounded in content, whether tests were aligned to those standards, etc.); on accountability (whether the state provided report cards for its schools, whether it rewarded good schools and sanctioned bad ones, whether student promotion hinged on exit exams, etc.); and on teacher quality. It looked at achievement trends in reading and math, as well as trends in state graduation rates, and then assigned grades based on an average of those indicators.

To be sure, Quality Counts hasn't been perfect (as our own Checker Finn made clear following the initial report). Still, it covered a lot of ground. Recent editions looked at more than 100 policy indicators and produced detailed, individual, and useful state reports. A legislator, for example, could use it to identify those policy areas in which her state was deficient, and then push to have those areas strengthened. And for those not enamored with the "conventional wisdom" as captured by Quality Counts, the report spawned imitators (including our own) that measured policies and indicators they felt important.

But with Quality Counts 2007, Education Week has abandoned standards-based reform and upended the series focus in the worst way. The editors have concluded, suddenly, that "children's chances for success don't just rest on what happens from kindergarten through high school," but that success is determined by who they are, where they live, what languages their parents do or don't speak, and how much money their parents make. Thus, readers are presented the "Chance-for-Success Index," by far the report's most publicized portion.

Here's how the editors describe it: "The Chance-for-Success Index...provides a state-focused perspective on the importance of education throughout a person's lifetime." They write that, "Since all states start at zero, the index can capture the cumulative effect of education experienced by residents of a state from birth to adulthood and pinpoint the chances of success at each stage."

Here's how I would describe it: "The Chance-for-Success Index divides states into those that are wealthy and white and those that are poor and minority. Students from wealthy, white states are determined to have a good chance to succeed; students from poor and minority states are not."

Let's start with the index's childhood indicators, which rightly acknowledge that education begins before students enter kindergarten classrooms. But most of the indicators for childhood success (such as "percent of children whose parents are fluent English-speakers") focus not on the quality of pre-K programs but on the economic and educational attainment of 3-year-olds' parents.

Children of richer or better-educated parents will probably arrive in kindergarten with more skills than their less-fortunate peers. But we already know that--the important question is how well a state's policies encourage the spread of early childhood advantages to more youngsters.  

Defeatism permeates the Chance-for-Success Index because it evaluates demographic indicators that are beyond the purview of schools or policymakers. It should be named the Chance-for-Failure Index. According to their formulas, Quality Counts editors implicitly tell us that students born into poor or non-English speaking households are more likely to fail.

And maybe they are. But that has nothing to do with individual states or their educational policies. Shouldn't the Index have at least tried to evaluate states on things they can control?

At the other end of the spectrum, the adulthood indicators are unfortunate not only for their defeatism but also for their ridiculousness. They, too, are based on economic data--percent of adults with an income above the national median, percent of adults with a 2- or 4-year postsecondary degree, etc. The Quality Counts editors apparently hoped these economic statistics would yield information about education's "effects" within the states.

But they ignored the obvious: that many adults were not educated in the state where they now live; well over 30 percent of college-educated Americans received their K-12 educations in more than one state (see here). A 47-year-old New Jersey parent with a Ph.D. may have gone to high school in Georgia, received a B.A. in California, and done graduate work in Wisconsin. Her educational attainment reflects absolutely nothing about the Garden State--she may not even work there!

In the end, the results are typical. Virginia, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maryland, and Massachusetts are at the top; Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Louisiana, and New Mexico are at the bottom.

So what are state policymakers whose citizens are determined to have low chances of success supposed to learn? Is an Arizona legislator to conclude that his state's thriving charter schools are a waste, and that he should throw in the towel because children of non-English speakers and poor immigrants are largely doomed by birth?

The Chance-for-Success Index is defeatist, flawed, and largely ridiculous. It tells us nothing about the states it purportedly evaluates (Florida and California are ranked below Alaska--are we really supposed to buy that?). And states aren't the right unit of measure for this demographic information anyway; are we supposed to believe that folks who live in inner-city Baltimore or Newark are likelier to succeed than those in the Nashville or Houston suburbs?

The Chance-for Success Index is a mess. Evaluating states not by the education policies they implement or the student learning gains they achieve, but by coarse, demographic data only gives comfort to an education establishment desperate to blame "poverty" for its failings. It's the antithesis of standards-based reform. Let's hope the focus of Quality Counts 2007 is merely part of an off-year, not the start of a repudiation of today's most promising reform strategy.

There's been plenty written about the overloaded high school kid who maintains a 4.0 GPA in a full line of A.P. courses, has swim practice before school and cello practice after, and is president of the class Sudoku Society and the Young Francophiles Club. But now we learn that after such students are admitted to Ivy League schools, many experience a letdown--the work just isn't as challenging as it was in high school. Jeff Zhou, who attended Andover and is now a freshman at M.I.T., took only four pages of notes in his first two weeks of college. And he has lots more time: "I've started watching The Office and Family Guy," he said. Such stories are especially jarring when compared with reports showing that 40 percent of college students take remedial courses, and that only 27 percent of ACT test-takers met the college readiness benchmark in biology. Of course, that's the real problem we need to keep our eyes on. As for Jeff Zhou and his peers, top-flight colleges might want to find better ways to engage them, lest they follow Bill Gates' lead and head off for greener pastures before graduation day.  

"The Incredibles," by Laura Pappano, New York Times, January 7, 2007

Detroit Public Schools has lost more than 50,000 students over the past eight years, almost a third of its population, to charter schools, private schools, and the suburbs. Still, it has closed only 35 of 267 schools, about 7 percent. With education funding in Michigan tied to attendance, something had to give. Last week, the district announced a plan to close 52 of its remaining 232 school buildings, a move that will save about $19 million per year. Opposition to the proposal has been fierce, of course. But Detroit is losing students by the bucketful--12,600 left after a 16-day teacher strike this fall--so shuttering schools is less a choice than an imperative. After all, when grown-up organizations lose customers, they cut back on capacity--or they quickly innovate and improve to regain their clientele. In the meantime, Michigan lawmakers should act fast to ensure that these empty buildings aren't just mothballed; Ohio's approach is exemplary. School districts in the state may now claim charter schools' test scores as their own if they offer to lease those charter schools their facilities (see here). A similar push in the Wolverine State could help Detroit Public Schools get back on its feet while adding some much-needed burnish to its academic performance.   

"Detroit may shut up to 52 schools," by Christine MacDonald and Darren Nichols, Detroit News, January 6, 2007

When Adrian Fenty paid a visit to New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg late in 2006, he received some candid advice on taking control of K-12 city schools. Bloomberg urged the then want-to-be mayor to act quickly, and unilaterally. "You don't run things by committee," he told him. "You don't try to come to consensus when it's our children's future."

Gotham's top dog made an impression. Within hours of taking the oath of office as D.C.'s mayor, Fenty had a bill introduced to the District of Columbia Council to take control of the district's notoriously fractured school leadership and its underperforming schools. For the moment it appears that Fenty is going to get what he's asking for.

"We have a crisis on our hands," Fenty said in a news conference outlining his bid for control. "I am asking today for that responsibility to be placed squarely on my shoulders."

But just how much of that responsibility Fenty will be allowed to place on his fit shoulders remains to be seen. This much is sure--the more that lands there, the greater chance that he will be able to implement policies that generate improvements. (Of course, mayoral control doesn't guarantee success-just look at Detroit and Cleveland. But on the whole it appears to help galvanize reform.)

Fenty proposes organizing the District of Columbia Public School (DCPS) system under three leaders, each of whom answers to him directly: the chancellor (responsible for the day-to-day operation of schools), the head of facilities (responsible for all buildings and their use), and the deputy mayor (responsible for the newly created department of education, which will serve as a "state board of education," and all charter schools).

So far, so good. But there are a couple of kinks in the line of authority.

The most obvious is that the city council--on which sit the budget hardball-playing Linda Cropp (whom Fenty soundly defeated in the Democratic mayoral primary) and the notorious Marion Barry--will have line-item-veto authority over DCPS budgets. Said David Nakamura of the Washington Post in a recent online Q&A with readers, "the council will deal itself a significant hand in the new school governance structure," which could "slow Fenty down significantly." This could create precisely the "decision-by-committee" problem that Bloomberg warned against.

Another aspect of the bill that could prove troublesome to Fenty's plans is the district's dysfunctional special education department, whose budget (about 25 percent of the DCPS's total outlay) will create major drag on reform efforts unless significant changes are made. The mayor has given us lots of details on how to fix the rest of the education system, but has been too quiet to this point about how he will rein in the department that currently is bankrupting DCPS. The costs are due to the district's large percentage of special ed students receiving services (17.9 percent), but also to the significant number of those students placed in private educational settings at DCPS expense (roughly one-fifth of all special ed students).

The Parthenon Group, which Fenty hired last year to analyze the district's schools, named special ed as one of six "pain points" that would have to be addressed if mayoral control is to succeed in D.C. And yet, the bill requires only that "within 60 days of enactment ... the Department of Education shall report to the mayor and the Council on the status of ... the Special Education Reform Plan."

That Fenty has offered no specific explanations to date for how to grab the special ed tiger by the tail and handle it without being eaten alive doesn't bode well for bringing this department under control.

Difficult though these challenges are, they're hardly insurmountable. Fenty's bill, if passed, will deliver a "substantial jolt" to DCPS, Stanford University professor Michael Kirst told Gadfly in an interview. This, he argues, is necessary if the district's schools are to ever change. "Incremental change" simply will not root out all the systemic dysfunctions.

Moreover, he adds, the plan's design is "thoughtful," and is clear in "locating authority in the mayor's office." As for the problem of both the potential role city council may play, and the problem with special ed, Kirst concedes that the latter will prove especially difficult. But of the former, he says the council's "veto authority is already being rethought."

If that's so, then we're seeing signs that Fenty isn't just going to stop at gaining control--he's going to tweak, and hopefully muscle, everything to his advantage.

As Bloomberg counseled from the outset--to be successful, Fenty would have to be ruthless and aggressive. So far, he's been both. Let's hope the mayor/triathlete has the stamina for the long haul, however. Otherwise, he may well lose yet another battle for D.C.'s children's futures. And many of them don't have a lot of fight left.

Diane Ravitch and Michael Ravitch
Oxford University Press
2006

While the thought that students should bother with the poetry of the Romantics, the prose of Darwin, the philosophy of Mill, or the speeches of Churchill is anathema to many, even the greatest critics of Western culture must concede that the English language that still unites us (though not as strongly as it should) has never been used more effectively than by those in the land of its birth--England. "The language has been shaped by those who have used it best," write the Ravitches in their introduction to this exquisite anthology. "Everyone who writes in English inherits this legacy, from Chinua Achebe to Saul Bellow, Salman Rushdie to Toni Morrison, Derek Wolcott to Seamus Heaney. These great contemporary writers transform the literary tradition in their own distinct ways, but their guideposts are the monumental achievements of English literature." We may choose to deny our students the history of Western civilization, and still survive. But deny our students English literature, and we excise the very font from which the versatility and beauty of the language we speak flows. Diane and Michael have given us the best argument for why English literature should never "go gentle into that good night"--the words of the language's masters themselves. This anthology is a worthy follow-up to Diane Ravitch's The American Reader. Check out The English Reader here.

Paramount Pictures
January 2007

Freedom Writers is based on the true story of teacher Erin Gruwell (played by Hillary Swank). And though it's more about racial conflict than education, the film still provides some choice fodder for the movie-loving Gadfly's rumination. The film follows a familiar narrative: a tough-minded, idealistic teacher/coach/mentor overcomes great obstacles to lift a class of "untouchables" out of violent, dead-end lives in the inner city (think Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver, Coach Carter in Coach Carter, and Joe Clark in Lean on Me). The education angle dramatizes the challenges Gruwell faces in a bureaucratic, union-dominated urban public school. She makes $27,000 a year, teaches 150 students divided among only four classes, and every day confronts the dreadful fallout of forced integration in racially divided, gang-laden Long Beach, California. When she eyes new copies of Romeo and Juliet reserved for honors classes and asks to teach it to her students, her department coordinator laughs at her naïveté but gives her tattered copies of an abridged version. Gruwell, of course, finally wins the hearts of her sophomore English students, only to see their hopes for learning the following year shattered when union seniority rules forbid Gruwell from teaching juniors (she is deemed too "green" to teach upper-grade classes). Her cynical colleagues offer nothing but derision. What makes Gruwell's story movie-worthy, of course, is that her powers of perseverance far exceed those of the average teacher. She takes on extra jobs, sacrifices her marriage, stands up to the administration, and, most important, refuses to give up. She also has an exceptional capacity for empathy, which proves crucial to earning her students' trust. As such, the movie offers few practical lessons for fixing inner-city schools. Every teacher is not like Gruwell, who, in real life, started the Freedom Writers Foundation to promote her brand of instruction. (Though programs like Teach for America certainly help to bring more Gruwells into the classroom.) But tackling the inertia, cynicism, and institutional constraints of inner city bureaucracies is a long term (and decidedly un-Hollywood) project. All that said, most ed wonks and policymakers could benefit from the exposure to urban schools that this credible, not-too-cheesy film provides. Three out of four apples.