Jacques of all Trades

Green Dot Schools: Revolutionary Reform

Steve Barr and Green Dot Schools bring a “revolutionary” approach to school reform, first as a charter school organization with political power, and now as an organization set about to taking over traditional district schools (and gaining some national notoriety and attention in the process).

This New Yorker article (available free through the Education Equality Project) puts it this way:

He has built Green Dot to be a political force unlike anything else in the world of education. For instance, Barr runs the only large charter organization in the country that has embraced unionized teachers and a collectively bargained contract-an unnecessary hassle, if his aim was to run a few schools, but a source of leverage for Green Dot’s main purpose, which is to push for citywide change. “I don’t see how you tip a system with a hundred per cent unionized labor without unionized labor,” he said.

The Instigator | Education Equality Project

Are Charter schools the means or the ends?

(Thanks to Chad Ratliff and the rest of the gang at The Edurati Review for inspiring this post).

Charter schools have been a hot topic in the news recently, with charter debates raging in several states, charter schools being praised by President Obama (who will sign the Edward Kennedy Serve America Act at a SEED Public Charter School this afternoon).

But if these schools have made an impact on the education landscape, what is the end goal, collectively, of the charter school movement?  Josh Cook writes in a recent Edurati post titled “What is a Charter School:

When states began passing laws allowing public schools to be chartered they did so with the understanding that these schools would be in more direct, local control of their day-to-day and year-to-year operations, but the trade off would be that these schools would have to show superior results when compared to the local public school they would be competing with. In this sense, a school charter is two things: 1) a granting of rights to the charter’s managing body and 2) a performance contract between this managing body and the sponsoring institution. To put it succinctly, a charter school must outperform the public school to remain in existence. To quote Spiderman’s Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Charter schools can serve a number of functions:

• Innovation - given the flexibility that charters are given, they have the ability to experiment with new content, pedagogy, or technology.
• Variety and focus - perhaps a focus on arts, or leadership, or kinetic learning, or serving adjudicated youth, some charter schools are created to serve the particular needs of a specific group of students.
• Different management structure - because most charters do not have to work with unions, they are able to build in different management and performance structures for teachers, as well as for students.
• Longer school days/years: many charter schools, particularly some of the nationally-known models like KIPP have longer school days, weeks, and years than the districts in their regions.
• Community focus: some of the earliest charter schools were those created by community leaders in a local neighborhood setting.  These are still a source of charters, though their performance results don’t necessarily match the results of KIPP, SEED and other national CMOs or charter networks.

Charter schools can incorporate one or more of the above functions, though rarely all of them.  And many charters have demonstrated compelling, inspiring results for students that often would have been written off.

But what is the lesson to be learned from charter schools?  Are they the means or the end for ensuring an excellent education for all children?  In other words, if we have learned new pedagogical and/or management insights:

• Should we be continuing to add new “firms” to the competitive landscapes (by raising charter caps)?
• Should we be trying to take advantage of innovation, and incorporate some of these lessons in our traditional public schools?

And what of the approach to new charter schools:

• Should we encourage new entrepreneurs to continue creating new schools and new schooling models?
• Or should we instead encourage expansion of the franchises (YES Prep, Imagine, etc.) that have shown good results?

As we see political showdowns around charter schools, and few if any states have reached a saturation point in terms of charter school supply, it is crucial to ask questions about the overall goal of “the charter movement” — or more accurately “the many charter movements” in order to begin answer some of the questions above.

Your thoughts?

Challenges for new RI Education Commissioner Deb Gist

The appointment of Deborah Gist as the next Commissioner of Education for the State of Rhode Island marks a turn for both my home state (R.I.) and my adopted “state” (the District of Columbia).

Gist’s hiring was met with high praise from many education leaders throughout the country (as noted in this news release from the RI Department of Ed) — and the praise earned from both AFT President Randi Weingarten and NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, is remarkable, as those two often represent opposing sides of various issues (though they have been known to work together to make several improvements in New York).  Gist’s achievements also receive high praise from Teach For America founder and CEO Wendy Kopp and from many of the District of Columbia’s political and educational leaders.  And over the last few years as D.C. has seen upheaval in the changes that Chancellor Michelle Rhee has set into motion, Gist’s leadership has been seen by many as more understated, but very effective.

Gist has overseen many changes in the oversight of education in DC: moving to improve short and long-term data tracking and accountability systems for student performance; improving management of special education; and tackling—though not yet solving—DC’s disastrous system of managing federal grant money from the US Department of Education.

So in terms of a track record, her achievements as an administrator and as a teacher (earning Teacher of the Year awards in both districts where she taught) seem solid.

Now, about the jobs…

Gist moves from the role in Rhode Island will be somewhat similar to the one she is leaving in DC in terms of responsibilities, and the size of the operations will double, with approximately 140K students in RI public schools, vs 70K in DC (~45K in DCPS and ~25K in charters, who she responds to key differences will mark her ability to be successful in driving—and continuing—improvements in Little Rhody.

Both areas have been hard hit by the economic collapse, with Rhode Island’s unemployment figures being among the highest in nation, and DC’s being higher than those in neighboring Maryland and Virginia.  But Rhode Island’s workforce is in general more educated than DC’s, and so job training and improving the CCRI system may be key areas for growth.

There are huge structural differences between the two systems:

• Districts: While RI is only twice the size of DC in terms of school-aged population, the District is has one major school district (DCPS ) and about 50 charter organizations, many operating only one school each.  Meanwhile, Rhode Island has an incredibly decentralized set-up, with almost 40 full school districts,  most of which operate their own K-12 systems and are under significant local control. (The legacy of the Independent Man runs strong in Rhode Island, and regionalization of schools is as politically difficult as closing churches or consolidating boy scout troops).
• Charters: DC has one of the highest concentrations of charter schools in the US, including two separate approval routes, Rhode Island has only 11 charter schools, due in part to the decentralized district system mentioned above.
• Unions: The only union presence in DC is the Washington Teacher’s Union, an AFT affiliate, while DC charter schools have no union presence.  In Rhode Island, teachers in local districts are represented by a conglomeration of NEARI locals and AFT affiliates, depending on the district.   And the needs and demandsof the unions differ as the schools span from urban (Providence, Central Falls, Pawtucket, etc.) to suburban and even semi-rural (Chariho).

Finally, education in DC is about making order out of chaos, as Gist’s previous role worked with several superintendents and chancellors during her time.  Rhode Island, on the other hand, had one of the longest serving state leaders in the country, in Commissioner Peter McWalters, and he is someone who miaintains deep respect from all quarters.  Gist’s role will be to evaluate the programs already in place in Rhode Island—which include some very progressive and promising programs, including portfolio-based graduation and subject-specific standards, as well as some leading arts education efforts—and to ensure that she is able to continue the good while strengthening the areas that can be improved, rather than looking at this as a place that needs to start from scratch.

As for the gaps to be filled in yet another leadership turnover in DC… that’s a different topic for another post.

Oak Hill Academy - School of Second Chances

This weekend’s Washington Post Magazine included a feature School of Second Chances on Oak Hill Academy, the school within the Oak Hill juvenile detention center.

The article presents a picture of the school through the eyes of the founders (James Forman, Jr. and David Domenici, who have previously opened three Maya Angelou Public Charter Schools in D.C., which work with court-involved youth and have experienced significant success in recent years) and through the eyes of Carleto, one of the students:

Carleto Bailey is trouble. He is also, as he rightly noted, smart. But he has arrived at Oak Hill Academy with a few disadvantages: He has been poorly educated in the D.C. public schools, was frequently truant and has had multiple run-ins with the law. The D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, which runs Oak Hill, won’t release information on the specific crime that landed Carleto here because he is still a juvenile, but we do know this is Carleto’s second time at the detention center. His academic knowledge is spotty at best…

And, once upon a time, he would have been written off. But today, staff at the fledgling Oak Hill Academy are determined to view the kids’ captive time here as a window of opportunity to fill in some of the gaping holes in their education

While the article portrays a sobering picture of both the obstacles and the current results of the program, it also raises the point that something must be done to address the status of these young men and women who have fallen through the cracks of the social safety net.

More than 2 million American adults are currently incarcerated, with another 5 million on parole or probation.

Education and rehabilitation in prison is a necessary topic, particularly for all those who will be released and set out to find employment (gainful or otherwise).  If we can find a way to address the minors in the system, like those at Oak Hill, we will begin to have a chance to break the cycle in these young people’s lives, and to give them a chance at a better future, before it is too late.

Thank you to the courageous and dedicated individuals behind schools like Maya Angelou and Oak Hill Academy.  We need more of you working in the communities of our nation, and we need your stories and your methods to be broadcasted and replicated to a larger audience.