The Independence Institute’s Ben DeGrow says Colorado school reformers should pay attention to last week’s Election Day loss for Indiana Schools Superintendent Tony Bennett.
Indiana’s election results sent shockwaves Tuesday throughout the education reform world. Widely known for his bold and assertive stances on school choice and accountability, state Superintendent Tony Bennett was narrowly upended by a weakly-funded challenger.
Tony Bennett
While Mitt Romney easily secured the Hoosier State’s 11 electoral votes and conservative Mike Pence triumphed to succeed Republican reformer Mitch Daniels as governor, newly-minted Democrat Glenda Ritz gathered political support from the left and the right to upend Bennett.
Leading reform voices have been left to ponder what the result means.
In diagnosing the right’s lukewarm support of Bennett’s re-election, a growing consensus has emerged. Leading lights from RiShawn Biddle to Michael Petrilli fret over what they are inclined to see as a conservative backlash against Indiana leaders’ embrace of the Common Core standards. One key data point suggests this factor played a role, but to go beyond would be largely speculative.
In August 2010 the Colorado State Board of Education narrowly agreed to adopt the Common Core, with Republican Randy DeHoff joining three Democrats in support. While the hoped-for federal Race to the Top funds never materialized, the process to implement the regional standards and assessments moves forward. Still, the Indiana results may bring the debate back to life in Colorado as it has in a few other states.
The State Board has begun to look closely at the impacts of increasing federal and regional influence and power within our K-12 system. Common Core supporters may have to confront concerns about weakening local school board and parental (even more local) control in education. Daunting arguments cannot be easily swept away by the promise of more federal money.
Will “Obama Core” become a political rallying cry for the Right in any way like Obamacare has done? Will a possible 10th Amendment-style showdown looming in Colorado over marijuana legalization spill over to a kind of independent sentiment in schooling, as well?
But these considerations just beg the question of whether Common Core is really the culprit that took down Indiana’s superintendent and whether it really threatens to fracture the school reform coalition.
Ever the contrarian, AEI’s Rick Hess hits on a theme he has addressed before, arguing that Bennett’s defeat undercuts the assumption “that Republicans can be counted on to support all types of popular reforms.” He suggests some suburban, middle-class voters may have been distressed by “disruptive” changes Bennett helped to champion, including the statewide Choice Scholarship Program. (In fairness, Hess also sees the growing unpopularity of Common Core as an important factor.)
The conclusion of the diagnosis could have real impacts in Colorado. To the extent Hess’ analysis might be correct, Douglas County reformers should take heed. Supporters of expansive parental choice and performance-based innovation have won two rounds of school board elections, but all eyes are on 2013. Messaging and outreach will be important.
Status quo interest groups, which made up the core of Ritz’s upset victory in Indiana, are eager to regain power and undo Douglas County’s advances. Since school board races are nominally nonpartisan, any Republicans they recruit to run against the reform majority will not have to follow Ritz’s lead and change registration.
Interestingly enough, at the same time Ritz’s teacher-backed insurgency prevailed, a Democrats for Education Reform-backed reform slate took strong control of the Indianapolis Public Schools board. But that result offers less consolation to Dougco than to Denver reformers, whose urban education transformation project does not depend directly on political sway from the right.
For reformers, the consolation in Ritz’s victory is that she will be greatly constrained in what she can do to undermine existing choice and accountability programs. And no doubt Bennett, if he so desires, soon will find himself in a similar position in some other state, probably Florida. But the implications clearly extend beyond Indiana and the election’s central players.
Which presents a greater challenge in Colorado: a Common Core controversy causing partisan cracks in a state-level reform consensus, or potential conservative fuel for a union-orchestrated backlash against Dougco’s transformative suburban school innovation? Of these developments, does either or both reflect serious jeopardy?
It all depends how you read the results of last week’s Indiana election and how much you believe its lessons may apply 1,000 miles away. But it is now clear enough to see that, in K-12 education politics as in many other spheres, the reliability of governing majorities and coalitions cannot be taken for granted.
About the author
Ben DeGrow is senior education policy analyst for the Independence Institute, a free market think tank. Since joining the organization in 2003, DeGrow has focused on collective bargaining, teacher employment and school finance. He oversees the Education Policy Center’s informational website for teachers and coordinates the institute’s outreach to teachers.
Ben, I agree with much of your analysis and would add that one other lesson is that reform and reformers that demonize teachers by design or do so inadvertently in addition to not clearly linking reforms to overall improvement are likely be turned back. It matters very much who is carrying the reform call and why. You didn’t mention Idaho but it is another reminder that the case for reform needs to be broad and clear otherwise it is very likely to be turned back by voters even in a red state. Douglas County might want to take notice.
I am from Indiana and I am telling you very clearly that the right has thrown up the “Common Core” bogeyman to push their agenda. Voters in Indiana absolutely did not vote Tony Bennett out of office because of Common Core. They voted Bennett out because his school “reforms” meant closing public schools and selling them to his and Governor Daniels’s cronies. We in Indiana are vehemently opposed to private corporations taking over public education so they can get their hands on taxpayer money. As Rupert Murdoch says, the education business is worth $500 billion in the U.S. alone. Follow the money and you’ll see the motivation.
First I’m a Hoosier who voted for Ritz. The issue of Core vs Standards wasn’t an issue. Bennett was selling our public schools to charter school companies that are not being held to the same level of performance as public schools. These charter school companies can incur debt, close their schools and pass that debt to the local school systems. Dr. Bennett gave about 3.8 million dollars to organizations that employed his wife, during the first three months of his term. Initially, Dr. Bennett was in favor of taking over individual schools that were failing, As campaign contributions came in from the east coast he stated that if one school fails, then the whole school district failed, thus the whole local school district should be taken over.
Rosemary is right. Voters in Indiana who are not teachers don’t know much about the Common Core. This was not the issue in this campaign. If I would ask my family members about their opinions on Commom Core, they would have no idea what I was talking about.
I am with Van, in that I think Idaho is a more interesting story than what happened to Bennett. Actually policies were rolled back, not just a figure head. However, I’d challenge Van to name any reformer or reform group that isn’t actively being painted by the unions as anti-teacher? I don’t know that it is possible, unless you water it down and start supporting reforms in name only.
It isn’t that any one is demonizing teachers, by design or inadvertently, as much as it is a primary tactic of those defending the status quo to paint reformers this way. I’ve even seen current teachers labeled as anti-teacher (I know, kind of bizaare) for not toeing the union line.
What’s sad is that too many reformers will see these losses as a call to be less bold and more open to compromising. When I think it is a call to be bolder than ever, draw clear lines in the sand, and distinguish what you stand for in opposition to other groups. Reformers are getting owned in the PR department, Rosemary’s comment is a great example.
I’ve said it before, but I am with Howard Fuller in thinking that reformers won’t win, and schools won’t improve, until they stop looking at reform as a scholarly disagreement amongst academics and start to treat it the way that status quo defenders do, as a street fight for the future of America’s education system.
I am also an Indiana voter and educator. Common Core was not the issue, although our standards were slightly superior to the Common Core at most levels. The issues most prevalent to me were the A-F grading system (poorly planned and poorly implemented), Bennett’s preference of school takeover over school improvement, policies that take money away from struggling schools instead of helping them, push for merit-based pay without proven policies, a new evaluation system that puts more time into paperwork than things that will help the students, and a general lack of respect for teachers.
My former school was “failing” and then, with significant overhaul, brought test scores up immensely- but because our methods used extensive costs, Bennett lauded the school and continued his own reform plans without even seeming to consider those already proven to work at a low-income Indiana school. In addition, Bennett’s reforms included vouchers, which are a good idea, but poorly timed when his good friend the governor cut millions from our schools and changed the school funding formula with little warning, leading to hundreds of teacher job cuts throughout the state. The timing led to some teachers like me sitting at home without a job and the students sitting in kindergarten classes of 31 students while my old corporation spends money on billboards because they have to fight for any bit of funding they have left. School choice is a great idea, but not in the midst of drastic financial cuts, and only for the students whose parents have the language skills/ have the time off/ and CARE enough to apply for vouchers, and the schools that need the most resources are having funding cut in yet another way.
I have seen reform work, but reform that happens suddenly and without giving school systems enough time and resources to properly implement the new policies leaves schools, teachers, and students in the lurch. Reform that is unorganized, such as the A-F grading system (whose grades came out in the end of October this year) doesn’t help students. Teachers in Indiana understand that reform is happening; but we are adamant that it needs to be done RIGHT and in a way that will benefit our students.
Bennett never allowed teachers a voice during his tenure, so we let our voices be heard in the election process, and it had nothing to do with the Common Core (which I actually think is great so that more resources can be shared amongst teachers around the country). It had to do with the fact that I think Tony Bennett is making education worse by pushing unproven reform and not working with teachers to make it work.
I realize that unions have not always made these conversations productive, and that’s part of why I’m not a member of our union anymore. But union or not, Tony Bennett continually disrespected teachers and never welcomed us in to be a part of the solution. There are bad teachers, but he treated us as though we were ALL bad, lazy teachers who could only be enticed by monetary bribes.
I am not a circus bear. I’m an educated, talented professional and all I ask is to be treated as such by the person in charge of my industry.
Please let it be known that Ritz’s victory is not a strike against the Common Core, but rather a strike against reformers who forget to respect teachers and include them in the reform process.
Just as the Democratic party leans too heavily toward the status quo, fighting against change, and more money for more of the same, the Republican party currently leans away from common sense (and common core) instead favoring free market ideology over quality, no oversight or regulations, and not driving the system toward quality.
Just as DFER creates a needed course correction for the Democrats, hope some one can step up to support and coordinate reasonable Republicans for Education Reform. Those brave R’s willing to support Common Core, ASSET and other measures are a crucial part of the recipe moving forward.
Tim,
I think it’s possible to be a strong “reformer” and not be anti-teacher. SB 191 is a great example of how this can be done. Every group you can think of connected to education (including the AFT) except the CEA supported this important reform. Mike Johnston and others spent a fair amount of time listening and working with a variety of folks to make sure they had the right policy while they also made sure they had the right coalition. Even CEA is now claiming support for 191. I don’t think 191 was watered down because of this thoughtful work.
I do agree that these fights will only get more intense and that anyone affiliated with any substantive reform will painted as anti-teacher. I’ve been called all sorts of ridiculous names because I support the development of high quality charter schools, believe low-income students should have the same level of access to good public schools as the well-off and believe schools and adults should be accountable for student outcomes. I know crazy ideas!
I think that some of us reformers need to be more thoughtful about bringing others along. Sometimes this means helping to define the problem better, sometimes it means being more honest about what what is working (and not) and sometimes it means being more sensitive about different stakeholders perspectives. Our public education system is far and away the most entrenched unchanging aspect of our society. it will take much more than a few legislative wins to dramatically improve achievement. I’m very optimistic given some of the schools now working but I believe the hard work to change the system has just begun. We have some effective schools but we still do not have any large districts with large percentages of low-income kids that are working. It’s going to be a long slog.
“I do agree that these fights will only get more intense and that anyone affiliated with any substantive reform will painted as anti-teacher. I’ve been called all sorts of ridiculous names because I support the development of high quality charter schools, believe low-income students should have the same level of access to good public schools as the well-off and believe schools and adults should be accountable for student outcomes. I know crazy ideas! ”
The problems are in the beliefs here. Charter schools siphon money from public schools and don’t do any better, overall. I was in a thread a week or two ago where I looked at data for my low income school and compared us to all four Strive campuses. We outperform all but one in sixth grade reading, for example, although our demographics are the same. (Highland beat us by 2%). Denver charters perform better, I think, than charters do nationwide, but overall, charters are no panacea and actually usually have poorer outcomes. And given the outrageous advantages given to charter schools (exemption from SB 191, large private donations of cash, blind lotteries consisting of only the best families, non negotiable contracts for families), they really should be kicking some serious booty. But they don’t. 44% proficient is not exactly kicking booty.
“Access to schools” is code for choice, which I’ve said many times in these threads is purely ridiculous. Until we’re funding ALL SCHOOLS equitably, making all schools ones that are worthy to be chosen, this is just more of the charter nonsense from above, with some vouchers thrown in.
“Schools and adults should be accountable for outcomes.” Am I and my school responsible for the children who have already missed seven or more weeks this year? Am I responsible for kids not being read to as children? How about STUDENTS being held accountable for these things? Now THERE’S a crazy idea!
CEA may be more or less on board with this now, but really, what choice do they have? (And I promise you, when they meet with our association about this bill, which they do on a fairly regular basis, they are not happy with it and consider it a very, very bad bill). I assure you that the rank and file is NOT on board with this, and there is going to be a lot of fallout from this in the form of wrongful termination lawsuits, for example.
Yes Van, those are some crazy ideas you have. Maybe it’s time to start paying attention to crazy ideas like ousting education chiefs, overturning laws (Idaho) that any sane person knows are wrongheaded, and the loud chorus of community voices in Denver and around the country who increasingly see what’s going on and want the reform movement OUT of their schools and districts.
I had some points I was going to try to make…and then Mary stepped up and proved my point for me lol. Never thought I’d say that.
But in response to Myles, I do agree that this is becoming less and less of a Dem v. Rep fight. It is creating strange bed fellows across the country already. It is a bold reformers v. status quo/slow reform/incremental changers fight.
Mary,
When you write:
“I was in a thread a week or two ago where I looked at data for my low income school and compared us to all four Strive campuses. We outperform all but one in sixth grade reading, for example, although our demographics are the same. (Highland beat us by 2%)”
What metric are you using? For here are the 6th grade reading growth percentiles for the schools for 2012 from CDE:
Shaw Middle School: 39
STRIVE: Highland: 72
STRIVE: Lake: 63
STRIVE: Federal: 80
STRIVE: Westwood/Harvey Park: 71
Are you at a different school? Or are you using a different metric which you think is more accurate than growth percentiles?
Based on feedback from Indiana readers as well as insightful comments from Van and Tim, it seems like at least as strong an argument can be made that Bennett’s defeat was a repudiation of his style and personality as it was a rebuke of the overall reform agenda. How else do you explain that leaders with strong school choice agendas (Pence and legislative majorities) succeeded at the same turn? Ultimately, this is more about HOW to advance school reform than WHAT reforms are proposed.
Appreciate everyone who has contributed to the conversation.
Agreed Ben, I think it is very much a “how” question. WA state is a great case study. Compare the last two efforts to pass charters with last Tuesday’s, very different coalitions and messengers.
Mary, I am often amazed at the alternative universe that you seem to live in when it comes to data. It’s difficult to have a conversation if we can’t agree on the facts and data. It seems by almost every data that I can find Strive is doing very well compared to other middle schools. We can argue about all sorts of things on Strive but hard to do so on the results.
I’m also curious about your thoughts on student choice. Do you think that families should have the right to choose the best public school for their kid? Should families be able to cross boundaries to attend the school of their choice? should families be able to buy a house wherever they choose? Do you think schools should be integrated? and if so how should we do it?
And here are the proficient and advanced numbers–same schools, same year (sixth grade reading)
School P & A
Shaw Heights 53%
Strive Highland 55%
Strive Lake 46%
Strive Federal 50%
Strive Harvey Park 52%
Maybe you haven’t heard, but measuring growth is increasingly seen as not as important as the bottom line–proficient and advanced numbers. Growth was fashionable a few years ago, not so much now. (And actually, if you want to talk about growth, my personal numbers for growth, for the vast majority of the kids I had last year, was up in the 70th and 80th percentiles. Yes, really). It does seem to me that given the advantages charters have, they really should be doing better than this. And around the country, they’re doing a lot worse.
Van, I think that if schools were funded equitably, we would have no need for choice. But when we have charters siphoning off public funds, and siphoning off the most committed families, we create a situation where we have schools that have lots of money and extras and schools that have nothing. We have Cherry Creek and we have Adams 14, two districts whose fortunes could not be more disparate. We have Adams 50 and Boulder Valley. Then we say to parents, “Choose! Choose among schools that are wildly different in the funding they get. Choose between a poor school that’s getting more impoverished and features blackboards and overheads and a nice shiny school that has smartboards and iPads.”
This is not fair choice. This is a shell game.
Families should not be allowed to cross boundaries unless they have special permission to do so. If everyone went to their neighborhood school, and all schools were funded fairly, they wouldn’t need to leave. Reform manufactures the problem, then incredibly, comes up with the answer.
Should families be able to buy a house wherever they want? Um, yes. Except that we all know that not everyone can afford to live in Boulder. Why should only the best financed schools be in the most affluent areas?
I think school integration is great. I think the way school choice is run actually INCREASES segregation, because the kids who don’t have support at home, don’t have transportation, don’t have parents who understand what’s going on, don’t get to choose. And I believe school integration is something the government should figure out, not the schools. It’s not our job to figure out how to integrate society. It’s our job to teach children, and the children who come to us should all get the same chance, and the same funding, whether they’re a mix or all one race.
And I believe that STRIVE is very segregated, is it not? I haven’t heard of lots and lots of white kids going there.
It sounds noble to say that if you’re for choice, then you’re this super democratic type who fights for integration, but really, you’re fighting to destroy the schools that are the center of many of these communities. Don’t worry about integration (which again, is not your responsibility) as much as you worry about EQUITY.
“Ultimately, this is more about HOW to advance school reform than WHAT reforms are proposed.”
Disagree. The people of Chicago were largely behind the teachers’ strike (I have family there), and the people of Idaho voted down the REFORMS. The REFORMS were what was on the ballot. But go ahead and live in your OWN alternate universe. Continue to ignore the communities that protest the school closings and co-locations in Denver. Just continue to ignore and continue to tell yourselves what it really means.
I thnk this election echoes much of what happened in 2012 and that is to say that you can’t buy elections. Bennett spent more money but couldn’t push his agenda because it was highly unpopular. Tim Farmer is right to say that this is a street fight. It is a street fight for us because much of what passes for reform is an attack on working people and working class communities. I think I am prepared for a street fight because you don’t lose street fights where you outnumber your opponents 9 to 1. The “reform” side is better off just pushing their views through money because they will lose a public opinion contest.
I came in late to this conversation, and it has gone far beyond what I intended to comment on, so let me address that first and then respond to a few of the other comments.
As the “swing” vote on the decision to adopt the Common Core standards, I stand by that decision. As I said then, we would have adopted them anyway in a few months if the feds hadn’t interfered by tying adoption to Race to the Top. Colorado was a major influential voice in the drafting of the Common Core standards, so it would have been hypocritical/silly/stupid to then turn our back on that effort and reject them. The real lesson from the Common Core debate is for the feds to keep out of state and local education decisions, because when they stick their nose into the mix, they only mess things up. Common Core is one example; tying teacher evaluation to student performance is another.
I cringe at the way some states are approaching the latter issue. Writing the details of the evaluations into law, mandating a one-size-fits-all evaluation framework, imposing it across the state without any pilot period – those are all ingredients for disaster. Colorado probably hasn’t gotten it completely correct, but at least we included a pilot and allowed some variation in the evaluations from district to district. Personal opinion, we still are relying too much on the state assessments as the measure of student performance, when the majority of teachers have only indirect influence on those scores,but it’s a start, and hopefully we will learn from the pilot and the first couple of years of implementation and revise the evaluations accordingly.
To Mary’s comment, particularly: “Families should not be allowed to cross boundaries unless they have special permission to do so. If everyone went to their neighborhood school, and all schools were funded fairly, they wouldn’t need to leave.”
The evidence is overwhelming that funding has almost no correlation to performance. Many urban, low income, high-minority schools are achieving phenomenal results (google 90 90 90 schools or go to the EdTrust website for examples – and most of these are not charter schools). Unlike some states and most of the defenders of the status quo, I believe it is criminal to force a parent to send his or her child to an unsafe, abysmally performing school, but those defenders prefer to charge the parents for trying to enroll their child across boundaries instead of offering high performing choices to those parents.
I’ve been making this argument for over 20 years, since I helped start one of the first charter schools in Jeffco, and keep running into people who are wedded to a system designed in the 1800′s that has no reason to continue to exist today except that enough adults are invested in it to frustrate reformers efforts to change it. Follow the money. It’s not about what’s best for the kids. It’s always about protecting the interests of the adults in the system.
Reformers (and I usually consider myself one) might be more discriminating in the changes they support. If being a reformer requires accepting the state giving a portion of my tax money to Douglas County, who then skims some from the top, passes the remainder to parents, who then give it to schools that teach that the earth is 6,000 years old, I’ll take the “status quo” label any day.
Just because someone labels an idea a “reform” doesn’t mean we should accept it. Coloradans aren’t fond of extreme solutions to non-existent problems (Douglas County’s poor schools??). That’s why Colorado voted down vouchers three times AND our judges find them unconstitutional. Let’s show some reason here.
Mary,
Well, you deserve some serious points for chutzpah!
I’ve written some of the criticism on growth compared to proficiency (http://bit.ly/ZG6V07), and while I think the latter is a far better number for districts, it’s not nearly as useful when comparing schools, since one is not measuring change in a cohort.
But let’s go ahead and do it your way. We’ll look at proficiency (all data from CDE).
Let’s start with 6th grade. You gave reading scores accurately. Here are all proficiency scores (math, reading, writing):
Shaw Heights: 34, 53, 29, ave of 39
STRIVE: Highland: 58, 55, 47, ave of 54
STRIVE: Lake: 51, 46, 36, ave of 44
STRIVE: Federal: 75, 50, 58, ave of 61
STRIVE: Westwood/Harvey Park: 70, 52, 48, ave of 57
Now it’s one thing to claim growth is insufficient, but if measuring proficiency, would it not be better to measure a school in their last grade (instead of their first) to gauge impact?
Only two STRIVE schools had a 8th grade last year, here are the proficiency numbers (math, reading, writing):
Shaw Heights: 25, 46, 30, ave of 33
STRIVE: Federal: 53, 51, 53, ave of 53
STRIVE: Westwood/Harvey Park: 84, 68, 60, ave of 70
There is a 20 to 40 point difference. That is a lot of kids.
I also checked if the student bodies have the same “demographics.” Not true for low-income (FARM, or FRL), Shaw is at 75%, while the STRIVE schools are 91%, 93%, 92%, and 88% (again, CDE data).
I don’t pretend to believe I will convince you here. Lots of people on all sides will believe what they want to believe, and I don’t think there is any way in the world you will ever agree that there are some really good charter schools operating on the same playing fields, or the pretty simple idea kids learn in different ways so that they might be best served by going to different schools regardless of where they live. That’s a shame. Good luck at Shaw.
Mr. Galvin (November 13, 9:33 PM) is correct when he points out that reform for reform’s sake should not always be accepted. As an Indiana teacher, we saw first-hand what self-proclaimed reformers wanted:
(1) vouchers to take money from public schools and put them in private schools;
(2) an unfair grading system for teachers and school corporations using letter grades A-F (the teacher system was known as the RISE model);
(3) collective bargaining stripped down to only wages and wage-related issues (all old contracts were GONE in 2011–no class size cap, etc.);
(4) no step-raises in salary–a teacher will be stuck at the same salary forever with a $500 bonus for being deemed “effective”. Next year, you get to try again for the same bonus, but your base pay stays the same. A rookie teacher might make $35,000, but never leave that level.
One of the talking points of the so-called reformers is that teachers are “status-quo” or “anti-reform.” If those were the reforms that we were given, of course we would be status quo until somebody comes along some REAL reforms that we can buy into.
By the way, if you want to know a list of what Dr. Bennett did wrong in Indiana, you can see an important list here (http://ahuntingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2012/10/tony-bennett-indiana-fiasco.html). I am glad he is gone, but getting rid of one wrong-headed reformer isn’t enough. Now we have to convince our legislators to look a little more critically at Dr. Bennett’s reforms which had little credible research to back them up.
Question: Most Republicans tend to prefer smaller government. Why would they want to create a whole new bureaucracy to manage charter schools and non-public options? I don’t know how that is going to come out in Colorado, but that was a key question that should’ve been asked in Indiana before the charter and voucher movement gained traction.
Mr. DeGrow writes, that “reformers” should carefully approach the 2013 elections, since “Status quo interest groups, which made up the core of Ritz’s upset victory in Indiana, are eager to regain power and undo Douglas County’s advances.” Apparently, he fears, a “union-orchestrated backlash against Dougco’s transformative suburban school innovation.” The Indiana candidate who won (53% to 47%) was outspent by the “reform” candidate 4:1. What she had was the support of the majority of the people. How are her supporters status quo? They chose change. Douglas County has 100,216 registered Republicans and 43,277 registered Democrats. Even with an overwhelming majority of Republicans, do the majority of people really want to continue along the divisive path its school district has been following? I’d be surprised if “transformative” is the word most Douglas County citizens would choose to describe what’s going on in their school district right now. Will people organize to change the direction of the Douglas County School board in 2013? If they’re unhappy enough, you bet. Again, isn’t that how democracy is supposed to work?
“I don’t pretend to believe I will convince you here. Lots of people on all sides will believe what they want to believe, and I don’t think there is any way in the world you will ever agree that there are some really good charter schools operating on the same playing fields, or the pretty simple idea kids learn in different ways so that they might be best served by going to different schools regardless of where they live. That’s a shame. Good luck at Shaw.”
Let’s unpack this, Alex. STRIVE Westwood proudly proclaims in its website, “#1 public school in Denver overall out of 132 schools evaluated on 2010 DPS School Performance Framework.” I believe this is propaganda. “I also checked if the student bodies have the same “demographics.” Not true for low-income (FARM, or FRL), Shaw is at 75%, while the STRIVE schools are 91%, 93%, 92%, and 88% (again, CDE data).” So, the logical conclusion for the average parent deciding on where to send their child is that Shaw teachers and admin suck but STIVE folks have it all going on. Is that about right?
Can we just finally all agree that demographic data miss a lot of relevant qualitative data concerning child and parental aspirations, beliefs, affiliations, racial prejudices, familial bonding, and other aspects of LIFE as it is lived by real people, not large data groups?
“the pretty simple idea kids learn in different ways so that they might be best served by going to different schools regardless of where they live.” Yes, it’s a pretty simple idea. But to be fair, your terminology is vague. If you are thinking of Howard Gardner-esque hypotheses, you may be sadly mistaken http://www.danielwillingham.com/articles.html And even if you were right, how exactly would a parent run down the various and sundry schools of choice in a district and at the same time, have their child evaluated by a professional at $ or by themselves as to their child’s own learning style? How many years does a kid have to spend in a school that doesn’t meet their ‘way of learning’ to know that school doesn’t meet their style of learning, eh?
Hey, maybe it’s the CHILD who’s failing, not the school. Or the parents. Or how about something truly incredulous–maybe the kid’s life situation is impoverished and there is only so much any one teacher or school or district can do given mandate and funding to turn a blue collar assembly-line candidate into a white collar corporate leader? Maybe, that kid decides that once she turns 30 that she should go back to school after all and get that community college or Harvard degree. And just maybe, that 30-something realizes that his high school counselor was right after all and now is time to get on with life. Does the high school get credit for the time-delayed reaction? Why not?