CLOSINGS: Living Rooms & Church Appearances

How to close failing schools and turn them around is back in the news again with the Obama selection of Arne Duncan, who has closed schools nearly every year in Chicago. 

But not everyone agrees about how best to do it -- even among those who agree it's necessary. Do you close schools quickly based on evidence of persistent failure, or do you work with local leaders and have a slower, more fluid process, risking disagreement and delay? 

This debate was highlighted earlier this fall in Seattle, where DC's Michelle Rhee, Atlanta's Beverly Hall, and Green Dot's Steve Barr debated the issue during the Gatesfest, with a word or two from Carnegie's Michele Cahill as well.

Claudia Wallis, a longtime TIME magazine writer/editor, was at the event and provided the nugget below.

NCLB: In Praise Of NCLB's "Other" Option

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Sattler:

There’s been a lot of criticism of the fact that most schools choose the “other” option for restructuring under No Child Left Behind. The Center on Education Policy calls this “the path of least resistance,” while Hoover asks if this is “taking the easy way out.”

The implication is that schools are dodging “real” reform. Based on these analyses, some advocates have begun pushing Congress to eliminate the “other” option entirely.

But if the current named options were the only ones on the table, it is likely that even less change would occur.  Charter schools require a group outside the district to be sufficiently invested in a school (and capable of not only educational change, but finance, food service, transportation, etc.) to take a school over.  They can’t be imposed by a district.    Replacing all or most of the school staff isn’t just a union nightmare. It’s a timing and capacity nightmare as well. Districts hire in early spring but don’t find out if they’ll have to restructure until the late summer.  Capable people aren't necessarily ready and willing to jump on board. State takeovers aren't even allowed in most states, and how realistic is it to expect a bunch of bureaucrats, miles away, to run schools?

Only the fourth option, use of education management organizations, deserves more of a shot than it's been given.  Districts don’t want to give up control, and states don’t want it, either.  But states could certainly make an effort to move control from a school district to a management organization of some kind. -- Cheryl Sattler

Morning Commentary

Our Schools Must Do Better NYT (Bob Herbert)
The U.S. has not yet faced up to the fact that it needs a school system capable of fulfilling the educational needs of children growing up in an era that will be at least as different from the 20th century as the 20th was from the 19th.

The cost of killing education reform Long Beach Press-Telegram
This could be the end of the line for No Child Left Behind. And some educators couldn't be happier...Public schools have, for generations, crafted an environment that caters to the needs and wants of the adults who work in the schools rather than those of the children who attend them.

Guest Commentary: Kevin Kosar On Muddled AYP Fixes

In the Sunday New York Times Magazine, Ann Hulbert wrote (Standardizing the Standards) that “With “high stakes” testing, N.C.L.B. introduces an incentive not to cheat, necessarily, but to manipulate. Signs are that states define proficiency down while schools ramp up narrow test prep.”

What’s the solution to this problem? “The National Assessment of Educational Progress could serve as a model for a test that judges students’ ability to apply their knowledge and thus discourages [sic] rote coaching. But recent experience … argues against making test results the sole trigger of federal sanctions.”

This is a bit of a muddle. The feds should create a new test for reasons unclear but the test results are not to be the “sole trigger” for accountability.