Monthly Archives: November 2014

Sentences to Ponder

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ponder

1. Beware edu-tourism

“Edutourists routinely select on the dependent variable.  They go to countries at the top of international assessments, such as Finland and Japan.  They never go to countries in the middle or at the bottom of the distribution.  If they did and found Teaching Strategy X used frequently among low performers, the positive correlation would evaporate—and they would have to seriously question whether Teaching Strategy X has any relationship with achievement.”

2. Peter Thiel repackages conventional wisdom as bold contrarianism

“But the argument for competition has never been that it’s good for companies facing competition — obviously it’s more lucrative to have a monopoly. Rather, the case for competition is that it’s good for consumers. For much of his book, Thiel conflates these two claims, treating the fact that monopolies are good for monopolists as evidence that monopolies are good for society generally.”

3.

“Many of Page’s current investments can be seen as smart wagers to secure his company’s future and hedge against a slowdown in search advertising. ‘He’s making the right bets on long-term technology trends,’ says Mark Mahaney, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. ‘Google would be less valuable if it didn’t have credible bets off the home, the car, and wearable devices.’

4. Good governance and well being

“The new results show not just that people are more satisfied with their lives in countries having better governance quality, but also that actual changes in governance quality since 2005 have led to large changes in the quality of life.”

Waiting for an Entrepreneur

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super

The title of the movie Waiting for Superman came from Geoffrey Canada narrating that, upon entering adulthood, he realized that no one is powerful enough to save us all. We can’t wait for Superman to rescue us.

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I spent this Thanksgiving in New Orleans. This included going to the racetrack, which is a New Orleans tradition. I enjoyed the company and the atmosphere, but I find the sport a little disturbing. I don’t enjoy watching short men hit horses with sticks as the horses run in circles. I haven’t researched the horse industry, but I will do so before I go again.

More pertinent to this blog, over the holiday weekend, at one social gathering or another, three different people mentioned to me that they wished there were more socioeconomically diverse schools in the city.

One person said: “Why don’t they just start more?”

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Like Geoffrey Canada, I don’t believe we should wait for Superman.

But I do believe we need to wait for entrepreneurs.

School districts across this country jump from one best practice to the next. They adopt data-driven instruction; restorative justice; high expectations; Singapore math; close reading; blended learning; extended school days; mutual consent hiring; career tech schools – and so forth.

Many mediocre charter operators do the same.

In some cases, this practice adoption works. It many cases, it doesn’t.

Change management, especially in areas core to an organization’s work, is very difficult to accomplish. This is why start-ups are often drivers of new ideas.

In certain cases, as with socio-economic diverse schooling, the change is so radical that existing organizations that currently don’t use the model may find it near impossible to adopt the new strategy.

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When I was leading New Schools for New Orleans, I often was frustrated by the fact that more people didn’t tightly align their school models to the best of the No Excuses practices. The research behind the model is strong, and many of the best urban schools in the country use the model.

Over the past few years, I’ve also become very interested in socioeconomically diverse schools. And while 3-4 socioeconomically diverse schools have launched in New Orleans, I think the city could use more. The demand is clearly there.

But one of the features of the New Orleans educational system is that no one can force educators to adopt a specific school model, even if everyone at a cocktail party wants them to.

Rather, change only happens when an educator, or a group of educators, is willing to commit their professional lives to the development of a school.

At any given time (especially if the New Yorker or Atlantic highlights a education model), this may frustrate some people.

But I would much rather live in a world of entrepreneurship and accountability than one of school boards, superintendents, and best practice adoption.

Reform should be about building sustainable institutions that can thrive in competitive environments.

This means that we have to wait for entrepreneurs, as discomforting as this might sometimes be.

The Consequences of Mistakes

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Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old child, was recently shot and killed by Cleveland police. Tamir was in possession of a toy gun. You can read about his tragic, unjust death here.

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In Sarah Carr’s piece on the discipline codes of No Excuses schools, she writes:

“If you mess up once at Harrah’s [a New Orleans casino], you are going to be fired!” a parent called out during the KIPP Renaissance meeting. A sense of entitlement, she knew, wouldn’t take these workers far; a willingness to learn and follow the rules was essential.

It can be debated whether strict discipline policies prepare students living in poverty for the world that awaits them; or whether these discipline policies reenforce negative aspects of our current society; or whether these policies are simply a means to an end: through order, more learning takes place.

There is probably some truth to all of these statements. Many people I admire fall on different sides of the issue.

What is often not discussed, however, is that for too many urban schools, there is no choice to be had between discipline philosophies: chaos reigns supreme.

I tutored in a middle school in New Orleans before Katrina, and it was one of the unsafest places I’ve ever walked into. The year after I worked there, two teenagers shot each other. You can read about it here.

In this sense, I welcome the debate regarding discipline philosophies. It shows how far we’ve come. It also hints at how far we have to go, both in terms of schooling and as a society as a whole.

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Tamir’s death is a horrifying reminder of how violence, in this case government authorized violence, shapes poor children’s lives and deaths. I don’t know the details of the case, but I find it astounding that the police felt that they had to shoot and kill a twelve year old child; that there was no other solution.

I’ve made many mistakes in my life. I’ve broken the law, in some fashion or another, countless times. The consequences of these mistakes have been minimal.

For many of the students we serve, the consequences of mistakes – of simply being children – can be death.

In a more just world, this would not be the case.

Some Truths About Charter Schools

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scales

There’s a minor storm brewing in NYC about Chancellor Farina’s remarks on charter school enrollment. Michael Mulgrew, the head of the local teacher’s union, has also weighed in.

I’m not familiar enough with the data to have an opinion.

But this brought to mind a conversation I recently had with a sitting superintendent. I asked the superintendent to tell me everything that he / she found objectionable to charter growth. Then I kept my mouth shut and listened.

I agreed with many of the objections, but not all. I’m working from memory, but see below for the list of objections and my responses.

1. Charter Schools Don’t Serve an Equal Proportion of Students with Severe Special Needs 

Unfortunately, much of the data on special education enrollment rates for charter schools groups lumps all special education students into a single category. This is unfortunate, as classification issues generally play a much bigger role in high incidence disabilities than they do in low incidence disabilities (i.e, with the right therapy, a student with speech difficulties may be exited from special education services; a student with cerebral-palsy will likely require special education services throughout her schooling). So punishing schools for low overall rates (rather than small low incidence disability rates) gets the incentives wrong.

But, in terms of my own personal experience, this critique rings true. In many charter schools I visit across the country, I don’t see a lot of students with severe disabilities.

In New Orleans, this trend wasn’t reversed until (a) charter schools reached a high market share and (b) we introduced a unified enrollment system.

2. Charter Schools Expel Students at Higher Rates than Traditional Schools

Nationally, there is no evidence that this is true. However, in certain cities, charter expulsion rates exceed district expulsion rates.

Additionally, most alternative schools are run by districts, so the district ends up serving a generally harder to reach student body.

In New Orleans, we developed a universal expulsion policy and a centralized expulsion office to manage this issue.

Charter schools in New Orleans also operate alternative settings for overage and adjudicated youth.

3. Charter Schools Don’t Backfill After Attrition

Given high urban mobility rates, I’ve generally been less concerned (save for at the extremes) about how many children leave charter schools, as the number is high in both district and charters.

However, most district schools replace students after they leave (to the extent that there is demand) . Many charter schools do not.

I view this as a major unfair advantage. District schools should not have to solely bear the burden of taking students in the upper grades.

In New Orleans, charter schools with openings in upper grades are generally required to backfill, including taking in mid-year arrivals.

4. Charter Schools Hurt Neighborhoods by Having Citywide Enrollment Policies

Personally, I think neighborhood schools are more bad than good. Many people do not agree with me, and many people dislike the fact that charter schools (in part because of federal mandates), generally do not have geographic boundaries.

In New Orleans, elementary and middle school charters have the option to give zoned preference for 50% of their seats. Many do.

5. Charter Schools Hurt Neighborhoods by Growing One Grade at a Time

Many of the nation’s best charter schools start with a single grade and then grow one additional grade each year.

This can cause disruption to communities, especially when a school like this opens after a fully enrolled school has been closed.

Ultimately, I think this disruption is worth the negative consequences, as the negative consequences are temporary, while the negative effects of opening up a less than excellent school are long-lasting.

That being said, I’m all for incentivizing charters to undertake full school turnarounds. Overtime, I hope that many operators make this a core competency. But until they do, I would not force them into turnarounds, despite the disruption caused by one grade at a time openings.

In Sum

I think it’s a major issue that charter schools probably serve less students with severe special needs; serve less adjudicated and expelled youth; and often do not backfill.

I’m less concerned about neighborhood enrollment, but feel like communities can design whatever rules they desire.

I don’t agree that one grade at a time openings should be restricted, but I understand the disruption they cause.

Ultimately, what I perceive to be the primary issues of inequity: severe special needs, very at-risk youth, and backfilling – can only be solved with sound regulation.

In New Orleans, the Recovery School District, with the charter community, developed a set of rules that resulted in increased equity.

Other cities would be wise to do the same. Of course, all of this is much easier to do if government is acting solely as a regulator and is not conflicted in its oversight duties.

But, as it stands, many charter sectors are regulated in ways that perpetuate inequities.

I hope this changes, as I think well regulated charter districts will serve students much better than the efforts of most current district regimes.

One last thought: I’m fairly sure most charter operators would gladly accept the rules that we developed in New Orleans, especially if it resulted in them getting equal access to funding and facilitates, which they most often do not have.

Sentences to Ponder

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ponder

1. Di Carlo on DC charter ratings

“The PCSB system, in my opinion, is better than many others out there, since growth measures play a fairly prominent role in the ratings, and, as a result, the final scores are only moderately correlated with key student characteristics such as subsidized lunch eligibility.”

“The 12,000 figure also includes enrollment in schools that did not receive ratings at all, but were simply affiliated with networks whose other schools did receive Tier 1 ratings. This is not defensible. If schools or campuses don’t receive tier ratings, they should not be included in tabulations of the students attending schools that received a given rating.”

2. Book review of E.O. Wilson’s The Meaning of Human Existence

“‘Confidence in free will is biologically adaptive,’ Wilson argues. It protects us from fatalism. Reassured by imagining that we exert conscious control over our lives, we keep on reproducing our kind. But in a material universe governed entirely by physical laws, he concedes, free will does not exist ‘in ultimate reality.’ Then what is the point of exhorting readers to embrace the theory of evolution, to preserve the Earth’s wealth of living things, to overcome bigotry and put an end to war? How could we, by conscious effort, change our actions or beliefs?”

Wilson is not the first to fall into this trap.

3. Sachs on China 

“Even worse, as China flexes its geopolitical muscles, the only foreign policy that the US systematically pursues is unceasing and fruitless war in the Middle East. The US endlessly drains its resources and energy in Syria and Iraq in the same way that it once did in Vietnam. China, meanwhile, has avoided becoming enmeshed in overseas military debacles, emphasizing win-win economic initiatives instead.”

The article is very one-sided, but good points are made.

4. Authors note their favorite books of the year

“The new translation of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (Penguin Classics, £8.99) will give a jolt to the nervous system to anyone interested in the enigmatic Russian author. This vivid, stylish and rich rendition by Oliver Ready compels the attention of the reader in a way that none of the others I’ve read comes close to matching. Using a clear and forceful mid-20th-century English idiom, Ready gives us an entirely new kind of access to Dostoevsky’s singular, self-reflexive and at times unnervingly comic text. This is the Russian writer’s story of moral revolt, guilt and possible regeneration turned into a new work of art.”

A perfect opportunity to read one of the best works of modern literature.

Why I’m Skeptical of Autonomous District Schools

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gnomes

In most cities I visit, the issue of autonomous district schools eventually comes up. Advocates propose that giving more autonomy to district principals will lead to increases in student achievement.

I generally express deep skepticism. But, if I’m reading the rooms I’m in correctly, I’m not sure that I’m influencing many people. This strategy is as popular as ever amongst the reform crowd.

With this post, at the very least, I’ll get all my thoughts down in one place. See below for why I’m skeptical of autonomous district schools.

1. District School Autonomy is a Management Reform 

At the heart of my skepticism is the difference between governance and management reforms.

Charter schools are a governance reform. Generally, in the move to chartering, non-profit boards of directors replace elected school boards as the school site governing entity.

Autonomous district schools are a management reform. The governance structure of public education remains in place; it is just managed differently. That means all of the problems of our current governance structure (lack of accountability, monopolistic conditions, poor regulation, etc.) remain in place.

I actually have very few opinions on management: I’ve seen excellent school operators give their school leaders a lot of autonomy, and I’ve seen excellent school operators give their schools leaders little autonomy.

2. District School Autonomy is Not Politically Sustainable 

Governance reforms (chartering) allows for strategic and operational consistency. A non-profit board is self-perpetuating; it’s members select new replacements. To the extent that the founder’s vision continues to serve students well, the drivers of the school model can remain in place.

Autonomous district schools are subject to the continual whims of election cycles and superintendent turnover. Even the most embedded autonomous reform efforts, such as those put in place by Joel Klein in NYC, risk being overturned as electoral politics change.

3. District School Autonomy is Often Void of Entrepreneurship 

Charter school formation is predicated on entrepreneurship: an education leader must come up with an idea, build a team, and launch a school. In many sectors, entrepreneurship is the main driver of innovation and continual improvement.

District school autonomy, as often practiced, skips over entrepreneurship. The reform effort simply grants more autonomy to existing school leaders. This bypasses perhaps the most important part of charter schooling.

Also, entrepreneurship is not just important at the movement of founding. It’s important for scaling. An autonomous district leader will never be able to create an organization such as KIPP. The district structure makes it impossible.

4. District Autonomy is Usually Not that Autonomous 

In most cases, district school leaders, in practice, receive relatively little autonomy. Generally, they are still bound by the union contract. How autonomous can you be if your union contract prevents you from entering a teacher’s classroom unannounced to provide feedback?

Moreover, the central office is still the central office. Budgeting, procurement, and human resources still go through the bureaucracy. I’ve talked to many principals of autonomous district schools, and few describe real autonomy.

There are exceptions, I’m sure. But real autonomy doesn’t appear to be the norm.

5. There is No Evidence that District Autonomy Works Better Than Charter School (and Little Evidence that it Works at All)

Three cities are perhaps most recognized for giving some principals more autonomy: Boston, Denver, and New York City.

In each city, the charter sector outperforms the traditional sector.

In two of the three cities, from what I gather, the autonomous schools perform the same or worse as traditional schools.

In Boston, researchers from MIT found that Boston’s autonomous district schools (pilot schools) performed worse than regular traditional schools.

This study on Denver’s autonomous district schools (innovation schools) found very little differences in achievement between these and traditional schools.

The closet thing I could find to positive evidence was the recent study of NYC’s small high schools. However, this model combined entrepreneurship and positive constraints on the school model.

At best, it’s possible that autonomous district schools may outperform regular traditional schools. But in both Boston and Denver this hasn’t been the case.

But in all these cities the evidence is clear: charter schools are serving students better.

In Sum

As a reform strategy, autonomous district schools: attempt management reform when it is governance reform that is needed; are subject to political whims; are often void of entrepreneurship; are actually not that autonomous; and continue to deliver poor results for students.

And yet it remains the foundational strategy for so many district reform efforts.

A Federal Presidential System and a State Parliamentary System?

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parliament

In parliamentary systems the legislature selects the executive, thereby creating some general alignment between the two branches.

Presidential systems allow for one party to control the legislature and another to control the presidency.

Many political scientists favor parliamentary systems. This short Matthew Yglesias piece serves as a good primer.

Temperamentally, I’ve always been drawn to presidential systems, as I would rather have gridlock than a lot of terrible legislation. But I defer to the political scholars on this one.

Either way, this Libby Nelson piece details the rise in “single party states” – where one party controls the legislature and the governorship. Through some mix of strategy, geography, and demographics, there are more Republican single party states than Democratic single party states (I’d be curious to see this by population).

My initial thought was that this the rise in single party states could be a good thing.

In our country, states have immense policy power, but, of course, this power is defined to their state’s jurisdiction. As such, the effects of their actions are limited.

So, if like me, you: (1) worry that parliamentary systems could lead to a lot terrible legislation that could be difficult to unwind, but (2) understand that parliamentary systems may be better suited for policy innovation – then having states be de facto parliamentary systems could come with advantages.

Democratic one party states can enact their dream legislative regimes, as can Republican one party states.

Then we can see what works and what does not.

And (hopefully) the federal government can, when appropriate, adopt what is best working in the states.

Lastly, it’s surely possible that the best legislation comes from cross-party compromise, so we can also learn from the divided party states,which will surely still exist.

Anyways, it’s rather unclear to me that the rise of one party states is a bad thing.