School Reform in the News

5 Myths About Education Reform

By Kalman R. Hettleman
Friday, February 20, 2009;

To borrow from the old quip on giving up smoking: Fixing public schools is easy -- we've done it hundreds of times. Even with the billions of dollars in economic stimulus aid, public schools stand no chance of getting better until we dispel some empty theories about how to help them.

1. We know how to fix public schools; we just lack the political will to finish the job.

Wrong. For the past 25 years, K-12 education has been at or near the top of most politicians' domestic agendas. Candidates vie to become the "education" president, governor or mayor. The public cries out for better schools and is even willing to pay higher taxes to get them.

There is no shortage of strategies for education reform, either. The most famous (or infamous) is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, with its federal mandates for rigorous student testing. School districts across the country have been flooded with other initiatives, too. Conservatives generally advocate breaking up teacher unions and privatization, while liberals call for more money, less testing and greater teacher autonomy.

 But nothing has succeeded. In 2006, experts at the Harvard-based Public Education Leadership Project concluded that all these efforts, including NCLB, "have failed to produce a single high-performing urban school system."

2. Teachers know best how to teach kids; policymakers should leave them alone.

Not necessarily. Sure, teaching can be an art. But educators should also approach their profession as a science when empirical evidence proves certain methods to be more effective than others.

Many teachers "subscribe to an extremely peculiar view of professionalism," as school management expert Richard Elmore has written. When the Council of Urban Boards of Education surveyed American teachers in 2007, more than two-thirds said that they didn't need more professional training. An education professor in Maryland criticized the state board of education's expectation that local school districts should use more state funding on teacher training: "I am sorry," she wrote in the Baltimore Sun, "that the board doesn't seem to recognize that our teachers are educated professionals, not 'trained' laborers."

This resistance to research is drummed into educators at teacher colleges, which devalue scientific findings. Coursework often encourages teachers to do their own thing in their own way -- and even presents the decision about how to teach reading "as a personal [one] to be decided by the aspiring teacher," according to the National Council on Teacher Quality.

But if we set boundaries on what and how teachers teach, won't we slide down a slippery slope to the nationalization of research-backed practices?

 Yes, we might. But that isn't a bad thing -- see Myth No. 3.

3. The federal government meddles too much in the affairs of local schools.

Actually, the feds don't go far enough. Even NCLB, attacked as an effort to wrest power from local government, allowed all 50 states to set their own standards. But really, why should a passing math score vary from one school district to another? Because of NCLB's loopholes, many states have dumbed down tests to make their schools look better than they are.

The United States is one of only a few developed nations clinging to the idea of local control of education. Most European countries, as well as Japan, have national standards and curriculums. Their schools also rely mainly on national funding, while ours receive less than 10 percent of their revenue from the federal government. With the stimulus package, that share will probably top 15 percent by 2011 -- a sizable increase, but it won't eradicate the "savage inequalities," as author Jonathan Kozol called them, between the opportunities available to impoverished children in large cities and those offered to kids from richer communities. U.S. education officials need to use federal funding to reward districts that raise standards and help put American schools on a par with their international competitors.

4. Teacher unions are the enemy.

Okay, they're not without fault. But neither are they the villains in the tale of school failure.

Many politicians and educators would have you believe that unions are politically powerful obstructionists who protect incompetent teachers. Former U.S. education secretary Rod Paige went so far as to call the National Education Association, the largest teachers union, a "terrorist organization." Political conservatives are attracted to charters, vouchers and privatization in part because they would break the unions' power, and even some liberals have grown critical of the groups' influence; Barack Obama mildly rebuked the unions during his presidential campaign for their opposition to merit pay for teachers and limits on tenure.

But the evidence doesn't support the harshest allegation: that union contracts make it nearly impossible to fire unsatisfactory teachers. School administrators have plenty of disciplinary authority, but surveys of principals show that they often don't exercise it -- not because of union rules, but out of a sense of collegiality and because of bureaucratic inertia. Last year, the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute analyzed the contracts in the nation's 50 largest school districts. For most of them, the institute concluded, "the depiction of [collective-bargaining agreements] as an all-powerful, insurmountable barrier to reform may be overstated." What's needed is less scapegoating unions and more gumption on the part of education policymakers and administrators.

5. There's no place in education for politics.

In fact, politicians are exactly the people who should take charge of struggling public schools. Historically, mayors have hidden behind elected or appointed school boards, afraid of being blamed for the dreadful condition of their cities' classrooms. But the school boards' "non-political," insular governance has been a disaster. The system must be changed, with mayors put in charge and school boards abolished.

That is what has happened under mayors Michael R. Bloomberg in New York City and Adrian M. Fenty in Washington. They were behind legislation eliminating or weakening the local boards and assumed hands-on leadership, bringing in non-traditional superintendents and challenging teacher unions. It's too soon to say whether their school systems will be transformed. But things are changing fast, and the mayors are getting good marks for overturning the status quo. That's the first step toward replacing myths about school reform with real success stories.

khettleman@comcast.net

Kalman R. Hettleman is a former commissioner on the Baltimore City school board.

The Washington Post

 ASSESSING THE REGION VIA INDICATORS:
EDUCATION AND YOUTH PREPAREDNESS (SECOND EDITION)

What stimulus bill can, and can’t, do

The $789 billion plan cuts taxes and shores up safety net. But how long will its benefits last?

By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer / February 12, 2009 edition

Washington

Congress is on track to approve a $789 billion economic stimulus package that eclipses all the war spending since US forces set foot in Iraq.

With bank credit still mostly frozen and consumer confidence in a trough, President Obama persuaded enough lawmakers that the only thing left to revive the economy is a massive infusion of government spending – and fast.

The plan set to clear Congress by week’s end includes $282 billion in tax cuts and the remaining $507 billion in spending on issues ranging from education and road repair to a bigger social safety net.

When not loaded with “pork-barrel” spending, a stimulus plan is supposed to be “timely, targeted, and temporary” – a formula both Democrats and Republicans adopted as they worked on this legislation. But the bill’s supporters and critics alike note that Congress is navigating uncharted waters, given the severity of the recession and the mammoth intervention by government.

The gap in gross domestic product between where the economy would be without a credit crisis and where it is today is about $1 trillion, many economists say. There’s no established template for how to pull out of a gap of that magnitude.

The $789 billion is “certainly enough to make a difference,” says Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington.

With the exception of a $69 billion provision to fix the alternative minimum tax for 2010 – a move that he says will not stimulate the economy – “there’s over $700 billion of good stimulus. It won’t turn the economy around on a dime … but it will certainly soften the downturn.”

Others, still looking over the details of the final plan, say the bill is not the right scale and scope to turn the economy around.

“It’s too much of the wrong thing. All these tax cuts won’t do a lot of good,” says Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland. “We really need more of infrastructure spending – those [projects are what] put people back to work.

“At best,” he adds, “the impact will only be temporary. We have to fix what got us into this mess, and that means fixing dysfunctional banks and our huge trade deficits with China and foreign oil producers.”

But for families, businesses, students, and unemployed workers, the plan poised to clear Congress sets up resources barely unimaginable in the recent years of diminishing discretionary spending.

A boon for education

New education spending alone is close to $100 billion. It includes $40.6 billion to local school districts to avoid budget cuts and layoffs and to upgrade schools, plus $5 billion in bonus grants to states that meet performance measures under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

For college students, the higher education tax credit is increased to $2,500 and made partially refundable – a move targeted at some 4 million low-income students. In addition, the maximum Pell Grant, also targeted to low-income students, is raised by $500 to a maximum of $5,350 in 2009 and $5,550 in 2010.

With 43 states already projecting shortfalls of nearly $94 billion for fiscal year 2010, that new funding could help save school budgets and jobs for teachers across the nation.

The new funding “sends a message of confidence to school districts,” says Rep. George Miller (D) of California, who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee.

The final package for education is down from $140 billion in the House version of the bill, which passed 244 to 188 last month with no Republican votes. In the closing hours of negotiations over a final version of the bill, House Democrats fought hard to preserve those new dollars, especially $14 billion in funding for new K-12 school construction.

But as the dust cleared, supporters of the House version of the bill said that, even at the lower funding level, the infusion of dollars for education will make a big difference for US public schools.

Even though the final bill zeroed out funding for school construction as a specific line item, “there’s so much latitude connected with modernizing, renovating, and repairing schools – and so many projects in every school district in the country – that this will help tremendously,” says Robert Canavans, chairman of Rebuild America’s Schools.

As many as 4 million jobs

The economic recovery plans aims to create or save 3.5 million to 4 million jobs. It’s a figure in range of the 3.6 million jobs lost in the US since the downturn began in December 2007.

The stimulus legislation also extends the social safety net for those who are already unemployed by extending and improving unemployment benefits.

Under the terms of the deal, laid-off workers are eligible for as much as 33 weeks of extended unemployment benefits, including a $25 increase in weekly benefits.

There’s also a 13 percent increase in money for food stamp programs, $4 billion for more job training, $2 billion to help communities buy and restore foreclosed properties, and $1.5 billion in short-term rental assistance for families who’ve lost their homes.

The plan includes some $137 billion in new healthcare spending and $85.7 billion to rebuild and repair infrastructure.

Some $30 billion for clean, renewable energy projects aims to be a down payment for a new national strategy on energy. This includes funding for an upgraded power grid, advanced battery technology, and energy-efficiency measures. New tax incentives include $20 billion for renewable energy and energy efficiency, including a tax credit of as much as $7,500 for families who buy plug-in hybrid cars. There’s $5 billion to weatherize some 1 million homes, targeted to low-income families.

Smaller tax cut for workers

To attain a compromise that would get enough support in the Senate, Mr. Obama agreed to scale back his signature tax cut, called Making Work Pay, from $500 to $400 per worker ($800 for couples filing jointly). The new tax cut, fulfilling an Obama campaign pledge, cuts taxes for 95 percent of American workers. It phases out at $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for couples filing jointly.

The Christian Science Monitor

Chicago School Reform Could Be a U.S. Model

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 30, 2008; A01

CHICAGO -- At Cameron Elementary School west of downtown, most kids don't know the alphabet when they start kindergarten, nearly all are poor, and one was jumped by a gang recently, just off campus. But the school this year posted its highest reading and math scores ever -- a feat that earned cash bonuses for teachers, administrators, even janitors.

City schools chief executive Arne Duncan, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for education secretary, pushed that performance-pay plan and a host of other innovations to transform a school system once regarded as one of the country's worst. As Duncan heads to Washington, the lessons of Chicago could provide a model for fixing America's schools.

"Obama chose Arne Duncan for a reason, and part of that reason is the experimentation that Duncan has done in Chicago and his real attention to data and outcomes," said Elliot Weinbaum, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. "Duncan's willing to try new things and see if they work, hopefully keep the ones that do and drop the ones that don't. I expect that experimentation to continue on a national scale."

With a 408,000-student system, smaller than only New York's and Los Angeles's public schools, Chicago has become a laboratory for reform in Duncan's seven-year tenure. Officials here court new charter schools, teacher training is being reinvented, and some low-performing schools have been shuttered and reopened with new staff.  Officials are also offering some students cash for good grades and seeking proposals for boarding schools. In addition, Duncan backed a plan to start a gay-friendly high school. For the most part, the changes came with little organized opposition, except for some skirmishes with the teachers union.

Duncan, a longtime Obama friend and basketball buddy, helped shape the incoming administration's education platform. As education secretary, he will be Obama's point man for carrying out the No Child Left Behind law and negotiating revisions with Congress. Through regulatory power, federal funding and a pulpit he can bring to classrooms nationwide, Duncan will be able to push for changes in schools.

Duncan, appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2001, has shown unusual longevity for a big-city school leader, cultivating ties with unions, nonprofit groups and other stakeholders. The wide-ranging reforms he has pushed appeal to struggling school systems and highly regarded suburban districts looking to boost performance. Many educators in Chicago say Duncan's efforts have upended school culture, building a record of progress, although the high-poverty system has far to go.

"This is no utopia. It's no Candy Land," Cameron Principal David B. Kovach said one day this month. "But teachers enjoy their job more, because they are learning and getting better at it, and the kids are able to do things that they weren't able to do before."

Across the city, educators point to improvements. At Noble Street College Prep charter school, every senior graduated last school year, and the class logged nearly $2 million in college scholarships. The flexibility given to independently operated charter schools means a longer school day, with a class dedicated to helping seniors complete college applications, navigate financial aid and write résumés.

At the National Teachers Academy, another Chicago school, Erin Koehler Smith did a better job teaching fourth-graders to estimate centimeters and meters with help from a mentor teacher. Next year, the former theater major and other trainees will take on classes of their own in struggling schools.

Little more than half of Chicago students graduate on time. But since 2001, fewer students are dropping out and more are heading to college. The number taking Advanced Placement classes has tripled. Chicago students lag behind the statewide average on Illinois tests, but the gap has narrowed.

Cameron's Kovach said the 1,040 students at the red-brick schoolhouse come from a high-crime, high-poverty area in West Humboldt Park. Teachers, worried about the safety of neighborhood parks, agreed to work an extra 20 minutes each day to ensure that kids can have recess and to maximize class time.

"Our kids come in two steps behind," Kovach said. "We can't control what happens to them on the outside -- drugs, gangs, an incarcerated parent."

Cameron Elementary is using powerful tools to jolt teaching and boost achievement: money, coaching and collaboration. With the overwhelming approval of teachers, the school last year began a performance-pay pilot program now in place at numerous city schools. Much of the money for the program has come from a federal grant and private foundations.

Teachers earn extra cash for taking on additional responsibilities and are judged in a series of evaluations. Entire staffs get bonuses when state test scores rise. Slightly more than 50 percent of students passed the latest state reading exam, but the trend is up. The gains meant about a $1,000 bonus for most teachers, about $250 for janitors and $625 for the principal.

Teacher Erin Montana, 33, fresh out of education school and a three-month student teaching gig, took over a class in chaos two years ago. Students cursed, fought, even threw desks. "Every day I came in thinking I was doing the worst job ever," she said.

One afternoon last week, Montana's fifth-graders huddled quietly, reading a story about a boy who destroys a neighbor's garden in a vegetable-throwing fight. The students then built "story mountains," identifying characters, plot and theme.

"They trash Mr. Bellavista's garden," said Shanygne, 11, a slight girl with a ponytail. She scrawled the sentence on a Post-it note and added it to her "mountain."

Montana, crouching to check the group's progress, pointed to a picture of the glum boy. "What do you think is happening here?" she asked. "Do you think it's important?"

Eleven-year-old Shawnell, nodding at her teacher, began writing that the boy "felt sorry because he looked at the garden and the mess he made."

Montana said the isolation of her first year has disappeared. Her class is well-behaved, thanks partly to her growing experience and partly to advice from colleagues, including the "doing the right things raffle" she started at the suggestion of a mentor teacher.

Teachers meet weekly to discuss the best way to reach kids. Master teachers pinpoint where students fall short, study research and script lessons to target weak spots. They try lessons on a handful of kids, and when they find an approach that works, the school takes it to all kids.

"It's not like pulling something out of a book," Montana said. "We know that it's really thought through specifically for our kids."

Washington area schools have launched experiments similar to Chicago's. Charter schools are multiplying in the District, and D.C. schools are trying cash incentives for students. A Fairfax County initiative bumps salaries for some teachers who work a longer year and take on extra tasks, such as coaching colleagues. Pay for performance is underway in Prince George's County, tying some teacher bonuses to test scores.

What sets Duncan apart, education experts said, is his willingness to embrace a range of reforms and his ability to work with people who hold diverging, often conflicting views on how to fix schools. He has straddled the reform divide: On one side are advocates of dramatic shake-ups and tough accountability, and on the other are teachers unions and some educators who want more flexibility, support and money.

Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart said that the union clashed with Duncan when he closed failing schools and replaced staff but that school and union leaders teamed up on performance pay. "He had my home phone number," Stewart said. "He always returned my calls, and I returned his. You can't not talk when you need something done."

Consensus-building will prove critical as Congress considers an overhaul of the 2002 education law, which spotlighted the failings of schools as well as deep rifts among unions, civil rights groups and education advocates. From his on-the-ground perspective, Duncan has praised the law's "high expectations and accountability" but pushed to give credit to schools that make gains even if they fall short of state academic standards. He also has called on Congress to double federal funding over five years.

The next challenge is reaching agreement on a new blueprint for school reform. Obama has said he wants to add $18 billion in annual federal education funding (equal to nearly a third of the Education Department's $59 billion discretionary budget), reduce high school dropout rates and improve math and science education. He also has vowed to double federal funding for successful charter schools to $400 million a year and promote alternative teacher training.

"There will be disagreements, but Duncan's personality is going to minimize the negativity," said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive of the Center on Education Policy in the District. "You get a feeling of somebody who is willing to listen and be open to ideas."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/29/AR2008122902672.html?wprss=rss_education

analysis

Education savvy sent Bennet to head of class

By Allison Sherry and Michael Riley

The Denver Post

Posted: 01/04/2009 12:30:00 AM MST

Although many Colorado Democrats see Michael Bennet as a risky Senate pick — untested electorally and unknown to many voters — education officials in the new Obama administration are casting him as a golden choice.

That may go a long way toward explaining how Bennet rose to the top of a field of strong candidates who could boast a record of successful elections, pockets full of newspaper endorsements or support in the state's key electoral hot spots.

Despite expectations that political calculation would weigh most heavily on the governor's choice,the president-elect's sweeping national agenda just may have trumped the powerful pull of local politics.

"I'm so appreciative that the governor had the vision and the foresight," said Arne Duncan, Chicago's public schools chief and Obama's pick for secretary of education, one of several national officials who praised Bennet's choice Friday.

"Yes he may be nontraditional but he is an extraordinary public servant, and he'll do the state very proud," Duncan said.

Skeptics point out that no one knows what kind of campaigner Bennet will make. They worry that he's little-known outside Denver or outside an elite group of national education reformers.

"This is a more Denver-centric pick than Diana DeGette even," said one Democratic insider who asked not to be named in order to speak more frankly. "It's a stunning choice, just totally stunning. I mean that in a negative way."

Another key Democrat characterized it as potentially a major political blunder: "I don't think Ritter has any idea what he's just done," said the insider, who also asked for anonymity.

Sources close to the selection process say that the force of Bennet's personality and his wide experience — he served in Clinton's Justice Department and made millions in business before giving it up to work for Mayor John Hickenlooper and then to redesign Denver's failing urban schools — impressed Gov. Bill Ritter and key players who had input in the choice.

But Bennet's close relationship with the incoming Obama transition team — a relationship forged as a top candidate to be secretary of education — also helped build a powerful constituency, one that sees Bennet as a critical ally for education reform in the Senate.

If this was a choice that was Ritter's alone, insiders say it can't be isolated from the context of a sweeping national education-reform agenda.

The Obama administration plans to reform but keep No Child Left Behind, the landmark Bush administration legislation that requires all 50 states to test students for progress in reading, writing and math.

More controversial, Obama's team is interested in encouraging school districts to consider pay-for-performance plans for teachers and increasing federal money to non-union charter schools.

Bennet has helped cement a pay-for-performance system in Denver and has come down hard on low-performing schools, closing or repurposing a handful of those with disastrous test scores over the past two years.

"The most amazing thing about today is that Colorado is the proud home of the most thoughtful education advocate . . . who is also going to be a senator," said Michael Johnston, principal of Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton and a top education adviser to the president-elect. "He'll be the most knowledgeable in the Senate on education from Day 1."

That was less comfort to some Colorado Democrats, who had expected the choice to be largely governed by who could best win what is now expected to be one of the most hard-fought Senate races in the country in 2010.

"Michael is going to have to walk the fine line of championing a national cause, bringing home federal dollars and running for re-election," said Tony Lewis, executive director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation, which has funded several Denver education projects.

National education reformers are worried that a host of new Democratic lawmakers want to throw out the No Child Left Behind act.

Instead, the Obama administration wants to salvage some of the law's key tenets of school accountability and testing students.

Bennet has supported testing and managed to get what he wanted from the Denver teachers union in recent contract negotiations, including flexibility to reward them for student achievement.

Despite a sometimes stormy relationship, the union recently endorsed him for secretary of education.

Duncan, who still needs to be confirmed by the Senate, said he expects Bennet to play an important role.

"There is no question we're going to need every ally we can get," he said. "And having an ally who has lived it and understands it and wants to see us get dramatically better . . . is a big part of the answer."

Denver Post

Opinion

Cortines at the helm

L.A. Unified's new superintendent, a longtime educator, discusses the challenges the huge school district faces and his goals for its future.

By Howard Blume

December 21, 2008

Retirement doesn't seem to agree with Ramon C. Cortines, the 76-year-old educator who was named superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District last week.

He first tried to step out of the saddle in 1992, when he was schools chief in San Francisco. But he quickly returned to full-time employment, serving in the Clinton administration before going on to head the nation's largest school system in New York City. After another attempt at retirement, Cortines stepped in for six months in 2000 to serve as interim superintendent in Los Angeles. After trying retirement once again, he was drafted in 2006 to be a deputy mayor and chief education advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

In April of this year, Cortines became top lieutenant to Los Angeles schools Supt. David L. Brewer, and in January, he will replace his former boss at the helm of the nation's second-largest school district.

Cortines, who still wears the same-sized clothes he donned as a military draftee in 1953, rises at 4 a.m. daily to exercise, works six days a week and takes his first appointment at 6 a.m.

But does he really need the hassle of leading an academically beleaguered school system amid a crippling budget crisis?

Times staff writer Howard Blume interviewed Cortines last week. What follows is an edited transcript of their discussion.

BLUME: The budget numbers are daunting, $200 million to $400 million in immediate cuts and similar cuts in each of the next two years. How will the district cope?

CORTINES: Unless there is some miracle from Sacramento -- and that means a tax increase or a gift of money from out of the sky -- I think this means employee layoffs. Administrative services will be among the first to go. I think that school principals are going to have to take more responsibility, and local districts are going to have to take more responsibility. It's very difficult, and it is very demoralizing.  

Could that mean having to move students to different classes midyear so that all classes are fuller? 

I hope not. Remember, that was on the table recently. I listened to the principals. And I took it off the table, and it's still off the table.  

Last year's budget, which you didn't handle, included unpaid furlough days for employees. The unions have challenged that plan, and early on, you sided with the unions.

I had taken the furlough days off the table, but now they are back on.  

How do you improve schools in this financial environment?

I look at this as an opportunity to do things differently, to deliver services differently, to manage differently.  

Fifteen years ago, you retired as superintendent in San Francisco, a much smaller school district -- where you were quite popular -- partly because of stress that left you with an ulcer. And you want this job?

I think my work ethic is better now. I know how to manage my time better. I work one day every weekend, and I take one complete day off. That's my day. I never used to do that. I think I know how to smell the flowers better. I don't let my work consume me.  

Does that make you more effective?

Yes.

What have you learned in your other jobs that you can apply here?

For too long, we have focused on the needs of adults and not the needs of students. I've been to more than 40 schools in seven months, and I find a wonderful teaching force. I find leadership. But I also find some mediocrity, and when I see it, I call it out. I'm going to continue to put people on notice when I see they're not living up to what I believe students deserve.

When I look at the test scores, yes, we've made gains. Many children are at the proficient level, but many are not. Proficiency has got to be the goal. Not moving from below-basic to basic.  

You served as interim superintendent in Los Angeles for six months in 2000. During that time, you developed a decentralization plan that never really went into effect. What happened?

Where I was naive, and where the board was naive, is that when you decentralize -- and the board has approved it and all the unions have bought into it -- you think it will happen. And it didn't happen. 

Did you make a mistake leaving after only six months.

Yes. I should have at least stayed a couple of years to implement what everybody said they wanted, and to iron out the bugs and make modifications where necessary. I thought I was doing the right thing because I said I'd come in and do four or five things: cut the budget, balance the budget, cut the bureaucracy, decentralize and help the board find a superintendent.

Generally, I do everything I'm asked to do and more, but I've learned that it's not enough just to design and bring a plan to fruition. It's important to effect that plan.  

What if the school board doesn't really know what it's doing? Or if its members can neither reach consensus nor offer a consistent, driving philosophy?

When I came to L.A. in 2000, I think the board was just as you have described. And when I left L.A., there was a consensus and there was a focus. A lot of people like to rag on boards, but I think the superintendent has a responsibility to help a board and provide leadership as it relates to working together.  

Your contract has no buyout provision, just 30 days' notice.

I serve at the day-to-day pleasure of the board and my own pleasure. I have told them I will be here for three years.  

Years ago, you were quoted in an article as saying that you were not necessarily opposed to vouchers (public funds that parents could use to pay for private schools). 

I don't believe students should be held captive. If we're not doing the job, we have a responsibility to make sure that better opportunities are available. Children are the future.

Supt. Brewer and the school board never agreed on how he should be evaluated, which eventually made his dismissal more controversial. What would be reasonable, specific goals for you?

I've already agreed with the board that there will be an evaluation process of the superintendent, and it's my hope that it will be public.

I want to continue the trajectory of academic achievement that has begun. I want to see parent involvement increase. I want to see out-of-school suspensions decrease. I want to see [good] behavior increasing. I want to see teachers valued. I want to see leadership valued. But I want people to take responsibility.

I'll give you an example of what I see. When I look at the 34 high-priority schools, all but a very few have made great progress in almost every area. But I think we have a problem, and Supt. Brewer put his finger on it. Many of our African American students, especially boys, and some of our Latino students, especially boys, have not made the progress that they should. They have just as much potential, but I believe we have to address some of the social issues.  

In earlier interviews, you mentioned focusing on dropouts. Is that still high on the agenda?

Hell yes. I don't care if it takes five years or six years for kids to finish high school. I understand that students are different now. They have family responsibilities. They have their own families. They're emancipated minors. I just want students to finish school. One of the best schools I visited in South Central was the pregnant-minor program. It's unbelievable the care that these young ladies were getting, the education they were getting from the dedicated teachers at that school. I don't believe you have to be in a regular classroom. I do believe that instruction has to happen, and we all need to be held accountable.  

Is this the last greatest challenge of your professional life?

I would think so. I would never have been here if Supt. Brewer hadn't asked me. He sincerely felt that I could help him. Because questions weren't getting answered. Schools were not getting responded to. Some of the people, not all of the people, were just spinning their wheels for each other and had no connection to schools. I remember saying to some instructional people: "You should be in schools and visiting." And they said, "We don't visit schools." Well, they are today, I'll tell you that.

I certainly never intended to be a superintendent ever in my life again. I've had a wonderful career. But at this moment, this needs to be done. As long as I'm here, I'll give it my full and best dedication. And I will make mistakes. And I will stub my toe. And I won't cover those up. I'll get up, dust myself off, apologize, and we'll move on.

Howard Blume is a Times staff writer

From the Los Angeles Times

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SMOKESTACKS & GERANIUMS    ROGER M. SHOWLEY

What a strong mayor means for development

By Roger M. Showley

December 11, 2005

Where should a new airport be built? Should the Chargers be given free land from the city in Mission Valley to build a new stadium? Will property owners get to convert more apartments into condos?

Despite the city's intractable pension and budget problems, these and many other land-use matters will continue to fill next year's plate at City Hall.

But San Diego's shift to a strong-mayor system Jan. 1 could have a radical impact on how things are done, according to City Hall insiders and outside observers.

The biggest change involves decision making. Proposition F, the November 2004 ballot measure that amended the city charter for a five-year experimental period, imposed a federal-like separation of powers between the city's legislative branch – the council – and the executive – the mayor.

Mayor Jerry Sanders, who took office last week, will no longer sit on the council and has no vote on its deliberations. From now on, the council president – Councilman Scott Peters got the nod just before Thanksgiving – will oversee the agenda and debates among his seven colleagues.

Sanders, a former San Diego police chief, can veto zoning ordinances, but it will take only five council members to override him. And he will have no role in quasi-judicial decisions, such as appeals of Planning Commission decisions.

But in the bargain, Sanders may be getting something better – direct control for the first time in nearly 75 years over the planning and building-permit bureaucracy.

That's because he will inherit the city manager's powers to hire and fire department heads, prioritize programs and mold staff recommendations.

What all this means for the internal politics and dynamics of land-use planning remains to be seen.

If history is a guide, great things can happen with a strong mayor in charge. Before 1931, when the city manager system was adopted (in response to widespread police department corruption), the city developed San Diego Bay and Balboa Park; adopted a system of planning and zoning; welcomed the arrival of the Navy; facilitated the development of rail lines, paved roads and airport runways; and regulated water, sewer, telephone and public transit systems.

But good-government advocates argued that the smooth running of local government was too important to leave to ambitious, petty politicians who hang around for a short time.

Beginning with Staunton, Va., in 1908, reformers in the Progressive movement led the drive to take power away from elected officials and gave it to what was to be a professional class of city managers. These municipal CEOs were to be the ones trusted to recruit competent department heads, manage revenues and expenditures and give mayors and councils even-handed advice. If they flubbed up, the result would be their termination.

In San Diego, the era of city managers saw development of Mission Bay; construction and expansion of major universities; growth of high-tech industries; and an orderly progression of suburban neighborhoods – sprawl, yes, but that's what the market wanted.

Still, city managers do not generally keep their jobs very long; the national average is 4½ years. And they do not often have the political clout to achieve great things on their own. They are not natural visionaries who lead cities into the future.

"In a large city where the interests are very diverse, you want someone thinking about the city as a whole," said Kevin F. McCarthy, a Rand Corp. social scientist who co-authored a study on San Diego's changeover earlier this year.

So what will happen on Jan. 9, when the council meets for the first time without the mayor and begins taking up its usual docket of zoning and planning issues?

Peters said Sanders may not appear before the council except on rare occasions, but he will need to work with its members if he expects to get his programs passed.

"He still needs votes from the council, so there's no reason for us to be adversarial," Peters said, "and we have every reason to believe we'll have cooperation like we have today (with the city staff)."

Sanders said in a written response to questions about the changeover that his office and city departments will handle council meetings just as former City Manager Lamont Ewell did before leaving for a new post in Santa Monica last month.

"Representatives from these departments will attend council and Planning Commission meetings as necessary to provide information and address questions from council and Planning Commission members," he said.

But the mayor will have control over the information flow from the bureaucrats to the policy-makers. He can marshal facts and figures to support his thinking and suppress or discredit contrary views bubbling up from civil servants.

"You'll see a big difference in the way information is handled," said James H. Svara, head of political science and public administration at North Carolina State University.

Strong mayors use information "strategically and selectively," he said, to make the strongest case for their land-use proposals. City managers theoretically present a range of options "to show advantages and disadvantages" in each course of action.

"The mayor wants to present the case that will increase the likelihood that the things he and his staff allies have been working on will be accepted by the council," Svara said.

Norma Damashek, co-chair of the transition committee that guided the strong-mayor changeover, said the council will have to look beyond the mayor's office and city departments for answers on controversial land-use issues.

"That's information coming from a very clear perspective," she said of the new mayor-dominated setup. "It's not going to be neutral, it shouldn't have to be neutral, but it can't be the only source of information anymore."

William H. Hudnut III, senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C., said when he was mayor of Indianapolis from 1976 to 1991, he exercised his executive powers behind the scenes to change votes when necessary. He also took the political heat on unpopular proposals, such as the site of a trash incinerator.

"The mayor is the orchestra leader in a strong system of government," Hudnut said. "A lot of people are playing different roles and he's got to get them playing in harmony."

Chester A. Newland, a University of Southern California professor of public administration, said the city manager system still has much going for it.

"I think a mayor who's really interested in the city, or the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, can frankly provide strong political leadership if they can leave day-to-day implementation up to the professional expert, who's the nonpartisan city manager," he said.

"Once you get a strong mayor who is indebted to those that elect him to office – that usually means the big developers – it tends to drive out 90 percent of the developers who try to be honest and try to play the game properly."

But he said Sanders' experience as police chief should serve him well in ferreting out the truth.

"There's no better position where you can learn better than as police chief or fire chief, because they have ears all over town," Newland said.

From the standpoint of planning and building officials, the shift in power provides many opportunities and not a few potential pitfalls.

Planning Director Gail Goldberg said she worked with Sanders on former Mayor Dick Murphy's City of Villages plan for revitalizing existing neighborhoods. But her counterparts in other strong-mayor cities tell her that they must be politically astute and in sync with the mayor if they want to keep their jobs.

"I hear a lot of 'My mayor wants this, my mayor likes this,' " Goldberg said. "I would never have thought to say, 'my city manager.' I have no idea what my city manager wants."

Goldberg said next year's land-use agenda will include big development proposals, such as the Chargers' proposed $450 million Qualcomm Stadium replacement and a new main library, whose budget has soared to $185 million from a previous estimate of $150 million.

The airport's future is technically in the hands of an independent board but Sanders could wield considerable clout as the issue heads toward voter consideration next fall.

Aside from development and public works projects, Sanders said he remains committed to the City of Villages and completion of the city's General Plan and Progress Guide, being rewritten for the first time since 1979.

"I will set deadlines and direct staff to expeditiously complete the update," he said.

Gary Halbert, director of the Development Services Department which issues building permits, figures Sanders will be able to wield clout never available to city managers when going after federal and state public works grants.

He is less certain how to respond to Sanders' call for outsourcing permit-processing to private companies, as many other cities do elsewhere in the region.

"San Diego needs to become more efficient at processing housing projects that are sorely needed to address the city's housing crisis," Sanders said. "The process simply takes way too long now. The delays result in increased costs, which are being passed on to consumers."

The strong-mayor shift will most affect property owners, their architects and contractors, the development industry and neighborhood planning groups. But it may take several months to see how things work.

Sanders said he will reorganize land-use functions and appoint a land-use adviser who "will be part of the core decision-making team in the mayor's office."

Steve Laub, chairman of the Community Planners Committee that includes representatives from the 40-plus community planning groups that advise the City Council and Planning Commission on local land-use issues, said having a strong mayor means that someone will be directly accountable to the voters.

"That was the frustration with the city manager," Laub said. "He wasn't accountable directly to our council persons, and the communities didn't quite have input to his decisions."

Sanders said the community groups will continue reviewing development projects. But in a swipe at the present city manager approach, he commented, "City administration must do a better job of listening to individual communities so we can better address development needs."

Paul Tryon, chief executive of the San Diego County Building Industry Association, said his members have no illusions that they can push project approvals through the mayor's back door.

"Mr. Sanders has a history of integrity, and you can expect that to continue," he said. "We expect him to be open-minded and accessible, something San Diego mayors have not had a history of."

The implications of a strong-mayor system for land use went largely unnoticed during the 2004 campaign for Proposition F and Sanders' campaign to succeed Murphy, who resigned in July. Even the proponents for a strong mayor said they did not delve deeply into the subject when preparing their recommendations.

Former Assistant City Attorney John Kaheny, who helped draft the strong-mayor proposal, offered a colorful analogy for how things used to be – and what might go wrong in the new system:

"In the old system we had one weak Irish king overseeing a bunch of feudal dukes with ultimate power in their districts . . . If the council revolts against the strong mayor, the civil war continues," he said.

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Smokestacks and Geraniums is an occasional look at the growth and development issues as they relate to historic trends in San Diego. The name is derived from a 1917 San Diego mayoral campaign pitting quick-fix forces against advocates of long-term planning.

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Roger M. Showley: (619) 293-1286; roger.showley@uniontrib.com

Find this article at:

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Three strategy Duncan and bee swallowing Rhee

December 18, 11:35 AM

by Ed Gibson, Denver Education Reform Examiner

AP photo - Arne Duncan

Much has been occurring over the last few days regarding education. Arne Duncan and his three strategy education program picked as Education Secretary and bee swallowing Michelle Rhee’s “Two-Tier Teacher Contract” proposal for D. C. school teachers.

A local Chicago news source, The Catalyst, posted a mixed bag of information and sentiments regarding Arne Duncan’s seven year tenure as CEO of Chicago’s Public Schools. Overall, the general sentiment revealed is that Duncan realized some progress in certain areas of his three strategy approach education program. Dissenting views include that very little or no progress was realized and some ground was lost in his high school “turn around“ program, one of his three strategy approaches to education. It appears that as this and other sources weigh-in (listen to NPR interview with Charles Finn, Jr.), Duncan is being viewed as having the characteristics of being a good middle of the road Secretary. He will neither be proposing radical reform measures nor will he totally be aligning with the established education sector that is happy with the status quo. I would like to see and hear transformative discussions regarding the education system as a whole by Secretary Duncan.

Chancellor Rhee is seen as more radical. Her “Two-Tier” teacher contract proposal for our nation’s capital schools flies in the face of American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. The two women have been in conflict in the past. On a side note, Rhee’s former classroom behavior demonstrates that she is willing to stop at nothing to focus attention on education. Her bee swallowing act had her students immobilized with disbelief. It got their attention though. She also demands the attention of all D. C. staff members, but especially the established members, in the school district in that all should be uncomfortable if their focus is not totally upon raising students’ test scores.

What I find connecting these two high profile education individuals is that all the ideas put into play have been done so within the present view of education and in my opinion could not be considered as transformative. If the view of education is to only focus on raising high-stakes test scores to be competitive with other nations then, as far as innovative ideas are concerned, they will be lost and consumed by the current outdated and narrow system. This is not reform, but attempts to find ways to make this system viable. A lot of effort and energy has been spent to maintain our current education system. Would it have been effective to spend this energy creating a new system with a new focus? I think so.

  Denver Education Reform Examiner

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COMMENTARY:

Obama's New Appointments

by Stephen Lendman

Friday, 19 December 2008

Obama's team assures business as usual, a near-seamless transition from George Bush, and not "change to believe in." His latest choices raise more cause for concern and with good reason.The beat goes on. As with his economic and security appointments, Obama again disappointed but didn't surprise. Without exception, his team assures business as usual, a near-seamless transition from George Bush, and not "change to believe in." His latest choices raise more cause for concern and with good reason.

Media Reaction to His Energy, Environmental and Education Team

Arne Duncan

Since June 2001, he's been CEO of the Chicago Public Schools and will be Obama's new Education Secretary. Children of the nation watch out. Duncan jeopardizes your educational prospects if he'll do for the nation what's he done to Chicago. Sadly, that's why Obama chose him.

Last April, this writer did a major article on Destroying Public Education in America and explained how privatization schemes threaten to end a 373 year tradition. Duncan has been a lead player in Chicago. He'll now take his agenda national. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Duncan led Chicago's Renaissance 2010 Turnaround strategy for 100 new "high-performing" elementary and high schools in the city by that date. Under five year contracts, they'll "be held accountable....to create innovative learning environments" under one of three "governance structures:"

charter schools under the 1996 Illinois Charter Schools Law; they're called "public schools of choice, selected by students and parents....to take responsible risks and create new, innovative and more flexible ways of educating children within the public school system;" in 1997, the Illinois General Assembly approved 60 state charter schools; Chicago was authorized 30, the suburbs 15 more, and 15 others downstate. The city bent the rules, initially operated about 53 charter "campuses," and now has nearly 100.

Charter schools aren't magnet ones that require students in some cases to have special skills or pass admissions tests. However, they have specific organizing themes and educational philosophies and may target certain learning problems, development needs, or educational possibilities. In all states, they're legislatively authorized; near-autonomous in their operations; free to choose their students and exclude unwanted ones; and up to now are quasi-public with no religious affiliation. Administration and corporate schemes assure they won't stay that way because that's the sinister plan. Duncan is a key part of it.

George Bush praised these schools last April when he declared April 29 through May 5 National Charter Schools Week. He said they provide more "choice," are a "valuable educational alternative," and he thanked "educational entrepreneurs for supporting" these schools around the country.

Here's what the president praised. Lisa Delpit is executive director of the Center for Urban Education & Innovation. In her capacity, she studies charter school performance and cited evidence from a 2005 Department of Education report. Her conclusion: "charter schools....are less likely than public schools to meet state education goals." Case study examples in five states showed they underperform, and are "less likely than traditional public (ones) to employ teachers meeting state certification standards."

Other underperformance evidence came from an unexpected source - an October 1994 Money magazine report on 70 public and private schools. It concluded that "students who attend the best public schools outperform most private school students, that the best public schools offer a more challenging curriculum than most private schools, and that the private school advantage in test scores is due to their selective admission policies."

Clearly a failing grade on what's spreading across the country en route to total privatization and the triumph of the market over educating the nation's youths.

In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter school law. California followed in 1992, and it's been off to the races since. By 1995, 19 states had them, and in 2007 there were over 4000 charter schools in 40 states and the District of Columbia with more than one million students in them and growing.

Chicago's two other "governance structures" are:

contract (privatized) schools run by "independent nonprofit organizations;" they operate under a Performance Agreement between the "organization" and the Board of Education; and

performance schools under Chicago Public Schools (CPS) management "with freedom and flexibility on many district initiatives and policies;" unmentioned is the Democrat mayor's close ties to the Bush administration and their mutual preference for marketplace education; the idea isn't new, but it accelerated rapidly in recent years.

Another part of the scheme is also in play, in Chicago and throughout the country. Inner city schools are being closed, remaining ones are neglected and decrepit, classroom sizes are increasing, and children and parents are being sacrificed on the alter of marketplace triumphalism.

Consider recent events under Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago. On February 27, the city's Board of Education unanimously and without discussion voted to close, relocate or otherwise target 19 public schools, fire teachers, and leave students out in the cold. Thousands of parents protested, were ignored and denied access to the Board of Ed meeting where the decision came down pro forma and quick. It wasn't the first time and won't be the last. For years under the current mayor, Chicago has closed or privatized more schools than anywhere else in the country, and the trend is accelerating. Since July 2001, the city closed 59 elementary and secondary schools and replaced many of them with charter or contract ones.

The trend continues in Chicago and across the country to "reform" education nationally, hand it to business profiteers, destroy teacher unions, end public education, commodify it, educate the well-off, cheat underprivileged kids, consign them to low-wage, no benefit service jobs, and end the American dream for millions.

Arne Duncan will head to Washington to do it with schemes like the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) that became law on January 8, 2002. It succeeded the 1994 Goals 2000: Educate America Act that set eight outcomes-based goals for the year 2000 but failed on all counts to meet them. Goals 2000, in turn, goes back to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and specifically its Title I provisions for funding schools and districts with a high percentage of low-income family students.

NCLB is outrageous, and Duncan administered the worst of it in Chicago. It's long on testing, school choice, and market-based "reforms" but short on real achievement. It's built around rote learning, standardized tests, requiring teachers to "teach to the test," assessing results by Average Yearly Progress (AYP) scores, and punishing failure harshly - firing teachers and principals, closing schools and transforming them from public to charter or for-profit ones.

Critics denounce the plan as "an endless regimen of test-preparation drills" for poor children. Others call it underfunded and a thinly veiled scheme to privatize education and transfer its costs and responsibilities from the federal government to individuals and impoverished school districts. Mostly, it reflects current era thinking that anything government does business does better, so let it. And Democrats (like Duncan and Obama) are as supportive as Republicans.

So far, NCLB renewal bills remain stalled in both Houses, election year politics have intervened, and final resolution will be for the new administration and 111th Congress to decide. For critics, that's positive because the law failed to deliver as promised. Its sponsors claimed it would close the achievement gap between inner city and rural schools and more affluent suburban ones. It's real aim, however, is to commodify education, end government responsibility for it, and make it another business profit center.

Obama promised to fix "the broken promises of" NCLB. Whatever's done will affect millions of students already harmed with little chance that the worst of this act will be changed. Nonetheless, National Education Association (NEA) president, Dennis Van Roekel, is hopeful that the new administration will be "the beginning of a promising new period for public education in this country."

Arne Duncan won't let it. He told Congress that NCLB funding "should be doubled within five years, and that the law must be amended to give schools the maximum amount of flexibility possible...." Repealing the law, ending the funding and privatization schemes, and fostering policies to educate all kids equally regardless of socioeconomic status is what's needed. Obama and Arne Duncan won't let it. They've consigned poor kids to the trash bin.

Below are some of Duncan's policy initiatives in Chicago:

using the Chicago Board of Education's $5.5 billion budget to hand out no-bid contracts to cronies for all sorts of goods and services; Duncan recommends them to the seven-member board, and nearly always they're approved unanimously with no discussion or debate;

militarizing the city's high schools (to the greatest extent ever in the city and perhaps the country) on the pretext of offering students "choice;" he not only institutionalized JROTC programs, but he established high schools devoted entirely to military studies; the overwhelming majority of their students are poor minorities;

he litigated to be freed from an early 1980s federal desegregation consent decree; he claims he's done all he can to comply even though Chicago school students are predominantly black and over 90% black and Latino; the city has over 300 segregated schools and an additional 40 or more all-Latino ones;

he opposes and litigated against federal oversight of special education programs; he violates the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), ignores parents' wishes, the needs of the children, and teachers are forced to go along; and

under Duncan, Chicago has nearly 100 quasi-private charter schools, many of them run by for-profit companies; less than 10% of them are integrated; the city is notorious for violating the education needs of minority students; its schools for them are sub-standard and abysmal.

Duncan's agenda for the nation will be to:

destroy public education nationally;

privatize the nation's schools;

militarize them;

destroy teacher unions;

educate the well-off, not the poor;

standardize testing under NCLB; and

wreck the American dream for millions of disadvantaged kids who'll be sacrificed on the alter of marketplace education.

http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com/

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from 11AM to 1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening.

Mr. Lendman's stories are republished in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.

Baltimore Chronicle

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School Beat: Obama’s Education Secretary Pick is a Disappointment

by Lisa Schiff, 2008-12-18

President-elect Barak Obama dealt public education supporters what is potentially the first of many blows by choosing Chicago Public Schools (CPS) head Arne Duncan as his Secretary of Education. Duncan, a lawyer by background and an educator only by virtue of assuming the tellingly named “Chief Executive Officer” position of CPS is a tremendous disappointment to all who were hoping for a dramatic change from the drastically failed policies of the Bush Administration with its destructive No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

Instead we’ve been given a high-powered, high-profile staffer who has reduced education to standardized test performance and who is accountable not to the parents and students of Chicago – but to his boss, Mayor Richard Daley, as Chicago’s school district has been run by the Mayor since 1995 when he was granted the authority to appoint the CEO and the membership of the school board. This is not what we hoped for, but given public education’s low-level of importance on Obama’s platform is not surprising. Once again, education is being used as political chit.


Some of us, caught up in post-election enthusiasm, were naively hopeful that Obama’s education transition team leader, Linda Darling-Hammond (whose tremendous merits have been outrageously attacked), would be recognized by the President-elect as the clear choice for making the much needed transition from a corporate, formula driven approach to education to one that is grounded in a deep understanding of child development, human variability, rigorous assessment and teaching methods, and the knowledge of how to apply theory to practice.

But perhaps we should have read Darling-Hammond’s appointing to the transition team as a sign that she was not really under consideration. It remains to be seen what the work of the transition team itself will actually mean to Obama’s future education policies, but it is not outside the realm of possibility that this was an effort to quiet those of us who have been so critical of the formulaic, one-size fits all, literally mind-numbing approach to education we’ve been resisting for these last eight years. Remember, NCLB has always been and continues to be a bi-partisan piece of legislation. That “across the aisle” support is apparently going to drag us down for some time to come.

Given penchant for the NCLB style of education, the prognosis for our schools under the leadership of Duncan is not rosy. Praised by the very questionable persons of Margaret Spelling, the current Education Secretary, as well as Rod Paige, Bush’s former Secretary of Education responsible for NCLB as well as the “Texas Miracle,” which involved kicking low-performing kids out of schools so that they wouldn’t bring down test scores.

Duncan’s record indicates someone whose eye is on the standardized test score prize. He has infamously fired all teachers at schools with low-test scores, for instance, at schools where student populations were predominantly compromised of students struggling with tremendous economic hardships.

Duncan’s claim to fame in Chicago include raising test scores, reducing the drop-out rate and the continued implementation of Mayor Richard Daly’s Renaissance 2010 program – think San Francisco’s Dream Schools on steroids. Even a quick read of the CPS education plan reveals the extreme focus on standardized testing as the only assessment tool and the organizing structure for education. While there are actually some interesting and laudable components of the plan (professional development for teachers, coordination within and across grade levels), the entire educational effort is driven by the results of standardized test scores and measures of “time on task.” The tone of the plan has an industrial assembly-line feel with eerie echoes of time-motion studies.

The much touted Renaissance 2010 program is a major effort to establish schools outside of the general operating procedures of the school district (i.e. privatize them). Right now the approach is to encourage the development of several flavors of charter schools, which at the same time limits general oversight over operations of these schools and weakens the power of the teachers’ union in the district. Tremendous resources are made available to these independently operating schools through the Renaissance 2010 program. Duncan uses reconstitution at some schools, in which the entire school staff is wiped out and replaced, a strategy San Franciscans are still smarting from as it was a favorite tool of our corrupt former Superintendent Rojas.

Such simplistic approaches are based on the assumption that if scores are extremely low, then replacing en masse the teaching staff will somehow magically solve the problem. Lack of resources, the life-issues and circumstances are carrying with them as into school, and the often bad fit of the standard curriculum and associated tests are ignored in this draconian type of calculation.

Still, Duncan can claim to have many strong supporters, and some who seem him as more than acceptable considering the other extremely worrisome candidates such as New York’s Joel Klein and Washington D.C.’s Michelle Rhee. Those applauding this selection include the national organization Coalition for Community Schools on the grounds that he shares the perspective that schools are central pieces of communities and has supported them as such by providing community services for families at reportedly 150 schools in Chicago.

Those of us dismayed by the choice of Duncan have also been reminded that he is a signer to the “Bold Approach Statement,” a very effective critique and counter-proposal to NCLB that includes such thoughtful educators as Pedro Noguera and again, Linda Darling-Hammond. This indeed is a positive sign, and one that gives pause since it is so much in conflict with the programs that Duncan is implementing and championing in his own backyard.

Others continuing to hope for the best say that Duncan has a reputation for being an advocate for parent involvement, a position he articulates well in this clip of some public testimony on his part:



However, not all Chicago public school supporters appear to believe that parent participation is prioritized by Duncan. Some parents in Chicago have been organizing for quite some time against Renaissance 2010 and don’t seem to have much positive to say about Duncan and what he has brought to Chicago’s schools. Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) is a Chicago based group organizing stronger parent voices in the Chicago public school system. They have been focusing on ramped up training for parents to be effective participants in Local School Councils (LSCs), a school-site based governing body parallel to our school site councils. LSCs are not part of the Renaissance 2010 schools, however, and despite the marketing rhetoric that speaks to community choice and community control, according to a November 2008 study by PURE, parents do not have a meaningful voice in these private/public schools. PURE has also published a critical analysis of Chicago’s reform efforts, a report which describes a school system very closely aligned with the NCLB model.

Education was never the strong point in any major candidate’s campaign platform during the election –including Obama’s. Given that, and given this latest appointment, it is difficult to know what direction we are heading. There are many scenarios that can unfold with Duncan as leader. The most optimistic is that he unfolds as an education leader in new ways and brings in people like Darling-Hammond to create an entirely revamped, meaningful set of education policies for our country that are supported politically and financially. This seems unlikely, especially with so many crises facing the nation.

Other scenarios are variations of the NCLB theme, meaning tinkering with the legislation but not changing much at its core. Full or even more complete funding is perhaps the scariest possibility, since we don’t want a bigger, more effective set of policies around standardized testing. The least damaging scenario is that we continue with NCLB more or less as is, with the slight modifications that have been discussed regarding looking at testing results over time, but with no real change in funding or program focus.

Possibly the biggest change Obama, via Duncan, is likely to bring – and it would be substantial – would be to eliminate the corruption and cronyism with which NCLB has been rife. With the ethics standard Obama is putting in place for his administration, NCLB might become less of a sales channel for education corporations. It’s certainly not much to hope for.

Lisa Schiff is the parent of two children who attend McKinley Elementary School in the San Francisco Unified School District and is a member of Parents for Public Schools of San Francisco and the PTA and is a board member at the national level of Parents for Public Schools.

Beyond Chron.org

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Another  View:

Duncan's school "reform" sham

Jesse Sharkey, a public high school teacher in Chicago, looks at the real record of the city's school CEO Arne Duncan, who has been tapped to become Barack Obama's education secretary.

December 17, 2008

TEACHERS IN Chicago are sorry to see that the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Arne Duncan, is getting a promotion. Barack Obama has selected Duncan to be his Education Secretary.