On the twentieth anniversary of Teach for America, founder Wendy Kopp (with some help from Teaching As Leadership author Steven Farr) reflects on lessons from TFA teachers and alums about what it takes to lift achievement for low-income kids.
On the twentieth anniversary of Teach for America, founder Wendy Kopp (with some help from Teaching As Leadership author Steven Farr) reflects on lessons from TFA teachers and alums about what it takes to lift achievement for low-income kids. Despite an over-abundance of TFA lingo and countless anecdotes that—while inspiring—are redundant, formulaic, and idealized, the book makes several compelling arguments. Most notably, TFA teachers and alums have shown that it’s possible to significantly lift performance of low-income students. Kopp goes on to offer candid perspectives on funding, school choice, class-size reduction, technology, and even “heroic teaching”—noting that not one of these education-reform bullets is silver. Unfortunately, she also leaves some important questions unanswered. Though the book articulates the need for more effective teachers, it doesn’t address the supply-side of the talent equation (i.e., how to attract better teachers to the profession other than through alternative certification). Sure, the book hails success stories from high-performing charter management groups (KIPP, YES Prep), whole cities (New Orleans, NYC, D.C.), and other innovative models (School of One, Rocketship Education), but for those not living in dynamic hubs of educational innovation and able to cultivate such talent-dependent reforms, the book’s lack of tangible policy recommendations is discouraging. Kopp calls for ways to increase the pace of change—including fostering political leadership and advocacy infrastructure—but skims over political and policy barriers affecting these initiatives. While there’s much to like about the book’s inspiring, can-do attitude, it doesn’t go far enough in providing the real-world advice that policymakers need.
A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t
in Providing an Excellent Education for All
Wendy
Kopp with Steven Farr
New
York, NY: Public Affairs Books, 2011
This report by Bellwether Education Partners investigated the financial feasibility of a highly successful charter management company, Aspire Public Schools (California), if it were to operate in 22 different states and the District of Columbia.
The 23 places, including Ohio, were selected because they already had operating charter schools and “were recently included in a comprehensive analysis of charter school finances.” Previous research found that California charter schools fared worse than district counterparts, receiving 9.2 percent less funding per student. Building on this research, this brief assumes that Aspire would receive the average level of charter funding per student in each state. It also adjusted for state-specific labor, facility, and operating costs, which vary by location. They found that Aspire’s native California’s school-funding model, along with projected educational and building expenses in the state, created some of the harshest financial conditions for charter school operation nationwide. In 18 of the 23 states studied, Aspire would have had a greater operating margin.
How would Aspire have fared in Ohio? Not very well. The state’s poor relative ranking in this cost-analysis, only $38 per student operating margin, reveals tough conditions here that limit incentives for high-performing charter school networks to operate or migrate here. Add this report to the pile of evidence showing that the Buckeye State needs to address charter-district school funding inequities. Per pupil funding for Ohio charter schools is about two-thirds of per pupil funding for traditional public schools. The state has also eliminated a $50,000 grant that was designed to help charter schools with start-up costs.
Location,
Location, Location: How Would a
High-Performing Charter School Network Fare in Different States?
Chris Lozier and Andrew J. Rotherham
Bellwether Education Partners
February 2011
In this practical guide, The New Teacher Project outlines critical components for an effective teacher evaluation system. It comes at a crucial time when states, including Ohio, are in the middle of rethinking their teacher personnel and evaluation policies. Drawing on its publication, Teacher Evaluation 2.0, TNTP names six characteristics for rigorous evaluations:
Rating a Teacher Observation also points out that objective data such as student learning measurements are important to a successful observation, but subjective judgments by administrators must also play a role. They suggest what a sample observation might look like: 50 percent based on objective student learning measures, 30 percent drawn from classroom observations, and 20 percent based on other measures of student learning.
The New Teacher Project goes on to outline specific examples of metrics that might factor into a rigorous evaluation (e.g., ways to measure the quality of lesson delivery, instructional content, or the physical learning environment) and therefore offers a practical tool for districts seeking to revamp teacher evaluations. States around the country and particularly Ohio would do well to tap into TNTP’s vast knowledge base when it comes to teacher evaluation systems.
Rating
a Teacher Observation Tool: Five ways to ensure classroom observations are
focused and rigorous
The New Teacher Project
February 2011
How can America effectively educate the “forgotten half” of her children (non-college-bound students)? In Pathways to Prosperity, a team of researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education view current drop-out trends as evidence of the failure – not of the quality of education – but of the “college-for-all” standard currently embraced in the US. Rather than calling for higher standards, higher graduation rates, and overall increased performance, the report labels the high bar (college-for-all) flawed, simply because students are currently not meeting it (i.e. obtaining a bachelor’s or associate’s degree). They admit that students need some sort of post-secondary certification to obtain a job with a middle-class salary, but assert that vocational education would be much more practical and appealing than a traditional college for many students. The researchers subsequently call for a massive vocational education initiative guided by the following principles:
Interestingly, the researchers consistently lift up northern and central European nations’ education systems as ideals in career and technical training, but they allot very little ink to Japan and Korea, which have adopted college-for-all models and lead the world in high school graduation rates.
Speaking of college for all, the researchers need to look no further than Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone to see that holding high expectations works (to the tune of a 90% college admission rate),even in the most economically challenged communities in the US. Certainly, vocational education is important, as the authors of Pathways to Prosperity indicate, but the college-for-all model is more practical than they admit.
Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the
Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century
Harvard Graduate School of Education
February 2011
If your child thinks Presidents’ Day is little more than an excuse for a long weekend during blizzard-and-sledding season, you just might want to tell the new members of the Ohio State Board of Education to do something about the state’s history standards. Those who approved the current standards last June bungled the job.
According to a new study by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the Buckeye State has failed to delineate clear expectations for what its students in primary and secondary schools should learn about their country’s history, its founders, and its most influential leaders. In fact, this review by two top-flight U.S. historians finds that Ohio’s current standards cover enormous swaths of history in a few brief strokes, only rarely mentioning specific events or people.
It’s as if they think children can learn history from thirty thousand feet, because these standards rarely touch the ground. In fifth grade, for example, the standards declare that “European exploration and colonization had lasting effects which can be used to understand the Western Hemisphere today,” but provide no clarification or detail. What exactly is that 5th grade teacher—mostly likely not a history specialist herself—supposed to teach her students? What exactly are they supposed to learn?
 |
It's as if they think children can learn history from thirty thousand feet, because these standards rarely touch the ground. |
|
 |
It’s no better in eighth grade, where just two skimpy standards address the Civil War and Reconstruction, and one of them is the absurdly cosmic statement that “the Reconstruction period resulted in changes to the U.S. Constitution, an affirmation of federal authority and lingering social and political differences.” Again, where is the useful guidance here for teachers? Textbook authors? Parents? Curriculum directors?
As for high school, those standards are equally devoid of content. In fact, just four standards cover all “domestic developments” from 1919 to 1941, the most specific of which declares only that “the Great Depression was caused, in part, by the federal government’s monetary policies, stock market speculation, and increasing consumer debt. The role of the federal government expanded as a result of the Great Depression.” The other three standards are preposterously vague and, like most other U.S. history standards in the Buckeye State, fail to name even a single key individual from our nation’s past.
Such neglect of actual history content earns Ohio’s standards a D from the Fordham reviewers.
To its credit, Ohio does assess student knowledge of social studies at both the elementary and high school level—giving some indication that state leaders value this critical subject. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to imagine how an assessment aligned to the broad and vapid standards that the state has set for U.S. history will help ensure that young residents of the Buckeye State learn the essential content they need to become literate American citizens.
Of course, Ohio isn’t alone. Our evaluation found that 28 states’ standards for U.S. history deserve D or F grades. The average mark across all 50 states is a shameful D. As a nation, we are simply not demanding that our students learn what they must know about our nation’s past.
Still, there are a few bright spots. The fact that seven states earned grades in the A range—South Carolina now boasts the best standards in the nation and received a straight A—proves that this can be done well.
If Ohio’s new education leaders are serious about ensuring that their state’s children become literate American citizens, they must get serious about setting clear, rigorous standards for U.S. history. To that end, they would be well advised to consign the current version to the social-studies dustbin and instead consider adapting (and perhaps modifying) the content from states with top-notch standards in this field.
Their nation’s history is every young American’s birthright. Don’t you think it’s time we stop keeping it from them?
Read the full report, The State of State U.S. History Standards 2011, here.
On the twentieth anniversary of Teach for America, founder Wendy Kopp (with some help from Teaching As Leadership author Steven Farr) reflects on lessons from TFA teachers and alums about what it takes to lift achievement for low-income kids. Despite an over-abundance of TFA lingo and countless anecdotes that—while inspiring—are redundant, formulaic, and idealized, the book makes several compelling arguments. Most notably, TFA teachers and alums have shown that it’s possible to significantly lift performance of low-income students. Kopp goes on to offer candid perspectives on funding, school choice, class-size reduction, technology, and even “heroic teaching”—noting that not one of these education-reform bullets is silver. Unfortunately, she also leaves some important questions unanswered. Though the book articulates the need for more effective teachers, it doesn’t address the supply-side of the talent equation (i.e., how to attract better teachers to the profession other than through alternative certification). Sure, the book hails success stories from high-performing charter management groups (KIPP, YES Prep), whole cities (New Orleans, NYC, D.C.), and other innovative models (School of One, Rocketship Education), but for those not living in dynamic hubs of educational innovation and able to cultivate such talent-dependent reforms, the book’s lack of tangible policy recommendations is discouraging. Kopp calls for ways to increase the pace of change—including fostering political leadership and advocacy infrastructure—but skims over political and policy barriers affecting these initiatives. While there’s much to like about the book’s inspiring, can-do attitude, it doesn’t go far enough in providing the real-world advice that policymakers need.
A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t
in Providing an Excellent Education for All
Wendy
Kopp with Steven Farr
New
York, NY: Public Affairs Books, 2011
This report by Bellwether Education Partners investigated the financial feasibility of a highly successful charter management company, Aspire Public Schools (California), if it were to operate in 22 different states and the District of Columbia.
The 23 places, including Ohio, were selected because they already had operating charter schools and “were recently included in a comprehensive analysis of charter school finances.” Previous research found that California charter schools fared worse than district counterparts, receiving 9.2 percent less funding per student. Building on this research, this brief assumes that Aspire would receive the average level of charter funding per student in each state. It also adjusted for state-specific labor, facility, and operating costs, which vary by location. They found that Aspire’s native California’s school-funding model, along with projected educational and building expenses in the state, created some of the harshest financial conditions for charter school operation nationwide. In 18 of the 23 states studied, Aspire would have had a greater operating margin.
How would Aspire have fared in Ohio? Not very well. The state’s poor relative ranking in this cost-analysis, only $38 per student operating margin, reveals tough conditions here that limit incentives for high-performing charter school networks to operate or migrate here. Add this report to the pile of evidence showing that the Buckeye State needs to address charter-district school funding inequities. Per pupil funding for Ohio charter schools is about two-thirds of per pupil funding for traditional public schools. The state has also eliminated a $50,000 grant that was designed to help charter schools with start-up costs.
Location,
Location, Location: How Would a
High-Performing Charter School Network Fare in Different States?
Chris Lozier and Andrew J. Rotherham
Bellwether Education Partners
February 2011
In this practical guide, The New Teacher Project outlines critical components for an effective teacher evaluation system. It comes at a crucial time when states, including Ohio, are in the middle of rethinking their teacher personnel and evaluation policies. Drawing on its publication, Teacher Evaluation 2.0, TNTP names six characteristics for rigorous evaluations:
Rating a Teacher Observation also points out that objective data such as student learning measurements are important to a successful observation, but subjective judgments by administrators must also play a role. They suggest what a sample observation might look like: 50 percent based on objective student learning measures, 30 percent drawn from classroom observations, and 20 percent based on other measures of student learning.
The New Teacher Project goes on to outline specific examples of metrics that might factor into a rigorous evaluation (e.g., ways to measure the quality of lesson delivery, instructional content, or the physical learning environment) and therefore offers a practical tool for districts seeking to revamp teacher evaluations. States around the country and particularly Ohio would do well to tap into TNTP’s vast knowledge base when it comes to teacher evaluation systems.
Rating
a Teacher Observation Tool: Five ways to ensure classroom observations are
focused and rigorous
The New Teacher Project
February 2011
How can America effectively educate the “forgotten half” of her children (non-college-bound students)? In Pathways to Prosperity, a team of researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education view current drop-out trends as evidence of the failure – not of the quality of education – but of the “college-for-all” standard currently embraced in the US. Rather than calling for higher standards, higher graduation rates, and overall increased performance, the report labels the high bar (college-for-all) flawed, simply because students are currently not meeting it (i.e. obtaining a bachelor’s or associate’s degree). They admit that students need some sort of post-secondary certification to obtain a job with a middle-class salary, but assert that vocational education would be much more practical and appealing than a traditional college for many students. The researchers subsequently call for a massive vocational education initiative guided by the following principles:
Interestingly, the researchers consistently lift up northern and central European nations’ education systems as ideals in career and technical training, but they allot very little ink to Japan and Korea, which have adopted college-for-all models and lead the world in high school graduation rates.
Speaking of college for all, the researchers need to look no further than Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone to see that holding high expectations works (to the tune of a 90% college admission rate),even in the most economically challenged communities in the US. Certainly, vocational education is important, as the authors of Pathways to Prosperity indicate, but the college-for-all model is more practical than they admit.
Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the
Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century
Harvard Graduate School of Education
February 2011
