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K-8 charters show reading, math gains

October 29, 2011 By

Charter elementary schools outperform traditional public schools in reading and math and charter middle schools do better in math, according to The Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement, an analysis of 40 high-quality studies by economists Julian Betts and Emily Tan of the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE).  Overall, the gains are “modest but positive.”

Middle-school reading scores and high school math and reading were about the same.

Charter school effects vary dramatically, the meta-analysis found. Urban charter schools perform better than suburban or rural charters, especially at the middle and high school levels. In particular, Boston charter schools performed significantly better than traditional public schools; New York City charters also showed strong gains.

KIPP  middle-school students showed “significant and large improvements in both math and reading.”  A student who started at the 50th percentile could expect to move to the 59th percentile in math and the 54th percentile in reading in a single year.

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B students struggle in college

September 8, 2011 By

Illinois’ B students average a C+ at state universities and community colleges. Some graduates with similar GPAs do much better than others in their first year.

Massachusetts colleges and universities are trying to stem the high college dropout rate for graduates of Boston Public Schools.

Also on Community College Spotlight:  Fired for criticizing his college’s sexual harassment policy, an adjunct instructor has won a $50,000 settlement.

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Teacher teams lead turnarounds

April 26, 2011 By

One great teacher can’t save a school. But teams of good teachers are turning around troubled schools in Boston, reports Education Week. Specially recruited Teacher Turnaround Teams (T3) make up a quarter of the staff at the pilot schools, where they serve as education leaders.

T3 participants must have at least three years of classroom experience, and they must complete a rigorous interview process and provide evidence of past success in improving learning. The current crop of recruits averages nine years in the classroom.

Brian Denitzio, a 6th grade English teacher at Orchard Gardens, said he was drawn to the program by the appeal of working alongside other high-performing colleagues. “I really enjoy the feeling of being surrounded by other strong teachers,” he said. “I feel like I’m going to get so much better.”

T3 teachers say they applied for leadership opportunities and the chance to be part of a strong team. They also receive a $6,000 bonus.

The T3 teachers run weekly grade-level or subject-level meetings where teachers discuss how to improve teaching.

Each of the three turnaround schools also has a special T3 coach who attends all the teams’ meetings and helps them work through roadblocks, such as when a number of students struggle on a concept or skill.

Because all the T3 teachers have had past success, “they have a vision of what it looks like when students and classes are operating at a high level,” said Lisa R. Lineweaver, who serves as the T3 coach at Blackstone. “When we haven’t seen the gains we want, how do we respond?”

The three T3 schools have made significant academic progress this year.

There are few turnaround success stories, notes Education Gadfly Weekly.

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Teaching ‘sensitivity’ to teachers

August 26, 2010 By

Boston teachers need training in cultural sensitivity, says Sociedad Latina, a local advocacy group. Insensitive teachers create an unwelcoming climate for students, “potentially contributing to their loss of classroom focus, poor test performance, or a higher dropout rate,” advocates tell the Boston Globe.

“The kids are right in demanding more training for teachers,’’ said Carroll Blake, executive director for the School Department’s Office of the Achievement Gap.  “It’s not just valuing an individual student’s culture, but acknowledging it and integrating it into classroom lessons.’’

On Flypaper, Liam Julian scoffs.

Fifteen-year-old Shantal Solomon told the newspaper that she can “vividly recall the day two years ago . . . when she observed her teacher scolding her friends for speaking Spanish.” “I felt offended,” she said. “I don’t even speak Spanish. But it’s a free country. We should be able to speak the language we want.”

Bien sûr, reply school leaders, who reportedly think that “more comprehensive cultural training” for educators is right and good, and that such instruction “could provide a critical link in closing an alarming achievement gap between students of different races and ethnicities.”

. . . It is not a free country, especially not for fifteen-year-olds, and public-school pupils do not have the right to take tests in Tagalog.

Also on Flypaper, Jamie Davies O’Leary disagrees. Cultural sensitivity won’t lift test scores but students and teachers should treat each other with respect. As a kindergarten teacher, she witnessed five-year-olds trading ethnic slurs and spit.

The children may need training in behavior and manners, but do teachers really need a course in cultural sensitivity?  Common sense and common courtesy should be enough, I’d think.

On Fox, Amber Winkler of Fordham and Melissa Luna of Sociedad Latina discuss sensitivity training. Note the fair and unbiased intro.

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Union kills bonuses for Boston teachers

December 17, 2009 By

Boston’s teachers’ union has killed  a plan to pay bonuses to teachers whose students do well on the AP exam, reports the Boston Globe. An arbitrator has ruled the extra pay violates the union contract.

The district wanted to give math teachers at a Roxbury school $100 for each student with a his score on the AP test, funded by a grant.  The union complained bonuses undercut faculty teamwork.

The Boston union, for instance, says that many teachers contribute to a child’s success, and all of them should be eligible for any potential bonuses, not just the ones who teach AP courses.

So, they support merit pay for all teachers? Well, no.

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Boston mayor backs non-union charters

June 29, 2009 By

Frustrated by the teachers’ union, worried about losing federal funds and enticed by a study showing charter school performance gains, Boston Mayor Tom Menino wants to convert 51 failing schools to charter schools.  That’s a turnaround for the Democratic mayor, Jon Keller writes in Wall Street Journal.

“I believe that the increased flexibility that charters provide can . . . help us close the achievement gap,” (Menino) declared.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has threaten to withhold federal education funds from cities and states that refuse to reform, including allowing charter schools.

“That’s $5 billion, b-i-l-l-i-o-n, up for grabs,” moaned Mr. Menino in an interview with me. “I’ve gotta sit here sucking my thumb because I can’t get reforms?”

Boston has “pilot” schools with “limited managerial flexibility in making personnel and budget decisions,” Keller writes. The mayor wants to create in-district charter schools that would differ from pilots in one critical respect: No union contract.

“The straw that broke the camel’s back,” Mr. Menino told me, came when a principal of one of the struggling school accepted a grant from ExxonMobil to give teachers small bonuses when their students excelled. The unions “took us to arbitration,” Mr. Menino said, essentially killing the bonuses. So for good measure the mayor included a call for merit pay in his blockbuster school-reform speech. “Every time we try to do a reform they stop it.”

If the unions block his plan for district-run charter schools Menino “vows to lobby for lifting the state’s restrictive cap on the number of “pure” charter schools.”

A recent Boston Foundation study found charter students outperforming similar students in regular public schools and  pilot schools.

Menino’s children are considering Boston charter schools for two of his grandchildren next fall.

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Boston union vs. Teach for America

April 4, 2009 By

Despite layoffs, Boston is hiring 20 Teach for America newbies this year. The union is furious.

“We don’t need educational mercenaries,” said Keith Johnson, the union’s president. “We don’t feel people can ride in on their white horses and for two years share the virtue of their knowledge as a pit stop on their way to becoming corporate executives. Some don’t last their first year.”

The superintendent says the Teach for America recruits will fill jobs for which no laid-off teachers are certified, such as math, science, special education and English as a Second Language.  The union says a few are assigned to classes that laid-off teachers could handle, such as English, history and elementary school.

In an Urban Institute study that examined North Carolina high schools between 2000 and 2007, Teach for America recruits were found to be more effective than teachers from traditional teacher training schools in boosting student achievement. The report, released this month, attributed some success to the strong academic credentials of the recruits, but acknowledged that many of the recruits teach for only a few years.

Boston has a program to attract non-education majors, the Boston Teacher Residency program, but it’s not producing enough recruits in high-need areas.

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Charter schools excel in Boston

January 6, 2009 By

Boston’s charter schools outperform district-run public schools, according to a four-year Boston Foundation study.  However, the city’s experimental “pilot schools” produced “ambiguous” results, reports the Boston Globe.

In the most stark example, charters – independent public schools dedicated to innovative teaching – excelled significantly in middle school math. However, pilots, which have similar goals but are run by the School Department, performed at slightly lower rates than traditional schools, according to the study.

Researchers looked at the performance of students who applied to a charter or pilot school and were admitted via lottery versus those who applied but lost the lottery and attended a traditional public school.  Boston Foundation states:

The report directly addresses two of the most frequent criticisms leveled at earlier studied of Pilot and Charter schools: that their students are not representative of traditional Boston schools but rather are more likely to succeed; and that charters and pilots tend to shed students who do not perform up to their standards, again creating an elite student body that will inevitably outperform their BPS peers.

Winning the charter lottery made a significant difference for students. In middle-school math, half the black-white achievement gap was erased in one year.

Update: Eduwonkette notes that the study necessarily included only charter schools with so many applicants that they need to hold lotteries. Presumably, less successful schools aren’t in high demand. True enough, though apparently pilot schools that need to hold lotteries aren’t raising achievement.

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In and out of college

December 28, 2008 By

Seventy percent of Boston’s public high school graduates go to a four- or two-year college, but few earn a degree or certificate, concludes a study funded by the Boston Foundation. They’re not prepared: At one community college, 80 percent of Boston public graduates required remedial math, reports the Boston Globe.

The study followed Boston students who transferred from one institution to another over a six-year period.  Only 12 percent of Boston students who started at a community college earned a degree or certificate of any kind;  one-third of four-year state college students and 56 percent of four-year, private college students earned a degree within six years.

The most successful local community college offers intensive five-week and 10-week courses to create a sense of urgency for students, emulating University of Phoenix courses for working adults.

Via The College Puzzle.

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