Category Archives: Urban Schools

Earlier this week there were some elections. A bunch of big people in Colorado voted, though not nearly as many as voted last year for President. One of the issues many of them had to decide was who would serve on the local school board. That part sure interests my friends in the Education Policy Center. Click the play button below to listen to a new iVoices podcast as Pam Benigno and Ben DeGrow discuss the fallout from the school board elections in Colorado’s three largest school districts: Jefferson County, Denver, and Douglas County. Based on candidates’ support of school choice and other key education reforms, the results for the three districts were very different: It will be interesting to see how things unfold in the near future — especially in Denver and Douglas County.

Chalk up another gold star for public charter schools as an education reform success. What am I talking about? The second half of a one-two research combination punch, released in late October but just reported by the smart people writing opinion for the Wall Street Journal: Mr. [Marcus] Winters focuses on New York City public school students in grades 3 through 8. “For every one percent of a public school’s students who leave for a charter,” concludes Mr. Winters, “reading proficiency among those who remain increases by about 0.02 standard deviations, a small but not insignificant number, in view of the widely held suspicion that the impact on local public schools . . . would be negative.” It tuns out that traditional public schools respond to competition in a way that benefits their students. Writing on Jay Greene’s blog, the venerable Greg Forster additionally notes: …Marcus also finds that the lowest-performing students in NYC’s regular public schools benefit from charter competition; in fact, while the benefits for the overall population are statistically certain only in reading, they’re certain in both reading and math for low performers.

As reported in yesterday’s Denver Post, more and more Denver families are becoming smart education shoppers and taking advantage of the choices available to them — even sometimes opting for different schools within the same household: The chaos begins in the Black household on weekday mornings around 6 a.m., when the family’s three children prepare to head off to three different Denver high schools. Keenan, a senior, attends George Washington High School. Griffin the sophomore, goes to nearby Thomas Jefferson. And Addie, a freshman, is enrolled at South. The oldest likes George Washington’s International Baccalaureate program, the sophomore likes the computer center at TJ and Addie is excited about the diversity at South. Interested? Excited? Confused? …

An investment in efforts to turn around failing schools is a cornerstone of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s reform agenda, and constitutes one of the key elements of plans state must devise to receive Race to the Top grant funds. But is the turnaround strategy really a promising approach? Writing in Education Next magazine, Andy Smarick of the American Enterprise Institute stands up and shouts, “Wait just a minute!”: …Quite simply, turnarounds are not a scalable strategy for fixing America’s troubled urban school systems. Fortunately, findings from two generations of school improvement efforts, lessons from similar work in other industries, and a budding practice among reform-minded superintendents are pointing to a promising alternative. When conscientiously applied strategies fail to drastically improve America’s lowest-performing schools, we need to close them. Now look, I haven’t come to any conclusions whether Duncan is right or Smarick is right. As someone so young, my optimistic inclination is to give these bad schools a chance to turn things around. But I’ve also started to learn that older and wiser people like Mr. Smarick can make some valid points, too, by looking at the past and looking at other sectors to make sound policy decisions. In […]

In what probably will be the final stop on the “A Glimpse at New Schools” tour for 2009-10, I quickly wanted to bring your attention to KIPP Denver Collegiate High School, near West Alameda and Pecos. This August the public charter school opened with a group of 9th graders who are set to be its first graduating class in 2013 before moving on to their goal of college. KIPP Denver Collegiate, conveniently located next door to the successful KIPP Sunshine Peak Academy middle school, is sharing space with Rishel Middle School (building pictured behind the famous “Knowledge Is Power” slogan from which the KIPP name derives). I was going to give you more of a detailed lowdown on KIPP Denver Collegiate, but Denver Examiner charter school columnist Donnell Rosenberg already wrote an excellent piece. All the best to KIPP’s first Denver high school as the leaders and teachers work to help students reach college ready to succeed at the next level, and throughout their lives. Other new schools featured:

For those who may not have paid close attention to the world of public education, the teaching career model has evolved before our eyes. While there are still those who take the traditional approach of entering the profession right out of education school and then spend 30 years in the classroom, their numbers are growing vastly smaller all the time. In that light, the New York Times has an interesting feature today on middle-aged adults switching careers to become a teacher. My first thought was: Switching careers? When I grow up and get to be a super-blogging astronaut, why would I ever change that? But apparently many people find that bringing their academic expertise, along with their life and career experience, into the classroom to be a fulfilling experience. High-quality teachers are especially needed in high-poverty neighborhoods and in subject areas with shortages (e.g., math, science, special education). Several groups are providing routes to certification (or licensure) that appeal to these career-changers. The New York Times story highlights well-known operators like the New Teacher Project and lesser-known players like the Virginia-based Career Switchers program. None, however, is closer to the hearts of my Education Policy Center friends than a fast-growing […]

If we’re going to improve learning opportunities, especially for the poorest and neediest kids in our state, one of the most important things we can do is have strong and effective leadership at the school level. Principals need to be trained not only to be great instructional leaders but also to be more like entrepreneurial managers than compliant bureaucrats. Enter the partnership between Get Smart Schools and the University of Denver: Beginning in Spring, 2010, the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business will incorporate its cutting edge MBA core curriculum with a specially-designed concentration in education, developed in cooperation with the Morgridge College of Education and GetSmartSchools, a non-profit organization designed to dramatically increase the number of high quality schools serving low-income students in Colorado’s Front Range. All elective courses will be specially designed to train future leaders of autonomous schools. Unlike traditional Principal preparation, this will give participants both the business and instructional expertise to manage and lead schools closing the academic achievement gap. Just as we need more high-quality alternative routes into the teaching profession, so we need more high-quality alternative routs into school leadership. Kudos to Get Smart Schools and the University of Denver. Maybe this […]

I don’t know a lot about India, except that a whole lot of people live there and my parents love the food (Me? I’ll stick with hot dogs and mac & cheese). But then yesterday I found this story about a study of India’s education system (PDF): We find that the teacher performance pay program was highly effective in improving student learning. At the end of two years of the program, students in incentive schools performed significantly better than those in comparison schools by 0.28 and 0.16 standard deviations (SD) in math and language tests respectively….

Some day I might grow up to be cynical about education politics, but for now I see a big glimmer of hope. What do I mean? Look at yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: Low-income families in the District of Columbia got some encouraging words yesterday from an unlikely source. Illinois Senator Richard Durbin signaled that he may be open to reauthorizing the Opportunity Scholarship Program, a school voucher program that allows 1,700 disadvantaged kids to opt out of lousy D.C. public schools and attend a private school. “I have to work with my colleagues if this is going to be reauthorized, which it might be,” said Mr. Durbin at an appropriations hearing Tuesday morning. He also said that he had visited one of the participating private schools and understood that “many students are getting a good education from the program.” This could be the sign of a big turnaround for the influential Democratic senator, whom I have rightly critiqued in the past. At the Flypaper blog, Andy Smarick says Durbin’s statement “was a major step in the right direction”, and wonders if the D.C. 6’s dramatic sit-in a few weeks ago had an impact.

Update 5, 9/8: The speech that went off today, and the lesson plans that accompanied it, were a lot less creepy and controversial than the original release. Who knows how much the uproar had an effect on that? Anyway, I commend to you two thoughtful perspectives on the whole episode: by Jay Greene at Education Next and by coolreformchick at Edspresso. The good news about the President addressing schoolchildren across the nation? At least this time Congress won’t start an inquiry into it. Update 4, 9/4: I have gathered and posted numerous responses from Colorado teachers and schools to Obama’s address to schoolchildren. Also, my Education Policy Center friend Ben DeGrow explains what he told Denver Post reporter Jeremy Meyer that didn’t end up being quoted in today’s story. Update 3, 9/3: Westword blogger Michael Roberts noticed me!! I’m glad he likes my sense of humor. I have a 5-year-old kid crush on him now …. Hope he also reads my latest on this topic. Update 2: Jim Geraghty notes that the Department of Education has reworded the teacher’s guide to make it less offensive. A good idea … you think? Meanwhile, Douglas County School District south of Denver, the […]