Nate – Educ 300: Education Reform, Past and Present

Re-Centralizing the Teacher

May 2, 2014May 2, 2014Nate

Albert Einstein once said: “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” This observation speaks to me on two profound levels: First, I was never able to discern the dispute between traditional and charter schools, despite working with charters for the past six summers. Secondly, as I searched for an entry-level position in education this year, the most visible job applications were an assortment of fast-track two-year teaching charter school initiatives. Through this paper, I intend to explore the fundamental role of the teacher, and how the dispute between traditional and charter schools has impacted the profession of teaching in America over time.

With a constantly oscillating pendulum from autonomy through accountability, continuity to competition, centralization, and decentralization then recentralization: America has spun a sticky web of education legislation that catches politicians, educators and families alike in a stalemate. How have charter schools effected America’s education today since they were first established in 1992? My research will address the particular effects of charter schools on the role of contemporary educators. Overall, this paper will examine the degeneration of the role of a teacher: specifically through teacher salaries, the charter school business-model, the further elevated status of school administrators and principals over teachers, and the perpetual prescription of teacher turnover-rates by attracting young teachers with energy and intellect, but also with a lack of incentives and experiential expertise to overcome the adversities of teaching in low-performing schools and low-income communities. Are we fixing old problems, or simply creating new ones?

The charter school movement was a rationale reaction to our evolving world, knowledge and education. My thesis is that, the charter school movement has been beneficial to the gaps in America’s education system since it was embraced in the 1990s, but is ultimately harmful to the fundamental occupation of today’s teacher. Charter schools are not the “silver bullet” for education, but they are the foundry alloy that’s clipping the issues within the system, while also polarizing pugnacious traditional and charter school advocates and leaders.¹ Charter schools can’t fix America’s education inequalities without reconciling their model with traditional schools.

In 1960, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) was founded and formed in response to the perceived unfairness and mistreatment of teachers in America’s education system. In 1983, A Nation at Risk released what “was an impassioned plea to make our schools function in their core mission as academic institutions and to make our educational system live up to its ideals,” by upgrading teacher preparation and textbooks, raising education standards, improving curriculums and forcing educators to shift their styles of teaching.² In 1992, Minnesota approved the first charter-school law,³ and in 1994, the Clinton Administration strongly supported and further encouraged states to pass charter laws. By 1998, Albert Shanker, the President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) embraced the concept of charter schools, which mobilized their establishment across the country.

In 2002, President Bush’s distinctive domestic initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) created high-stakes standardized testing, which incentivized educators to spend less time teaching their curriculum and more time teaching to the test, leaving little time for genuine learning and ultimately, changed the nature of how traditional schools approached their standards and education.⁴ Then, from 2003 to 2007, Ray Budde’s vision in 1974 for a charter school model of education and the reorganization of school districts spread across the United States,⁵ which emphasized redefining education through innovative pedagogical practices, longer teaching hours, and overarching accountability, enforced by the principals and administrators of charter schools.

Through the charter school model, principals sign performance agreements and receive significant gains in their budget, along with discretionary spending. Reversing nearly a hundred years of hierarchical management, the principals of charter schools are given authority to retain, dismiss and even provide cash bonuses to their network support team members. Support team members are urged to: “follow up relentlessly when the system doesn’t respond or performs unsatisfactory, and ‘filter’ or ‘block’ other requests that may burden principals.”⁶ In turn, the charter school business-model is subtly degenerating the fundamental role of the teacher. “Teachers who leave charter schools are more dissatisfied with their terms of employment and the nature of the job than teachers who leave traditional public schools,”⁷ and when education is run like a business, it becomes a turnover factory for dissatisfied teachers, because “charters are free to set their own pay scales,”⁸ so while the income of a new charter school teacher is very low, about $14 per hour, and the income of a principal could be high or low, but either way, the stresses of both jobs are accelerated, along with teacher turnover-rates. Moreover, the National Education Association (NEA) reflects how changes in teachers’ salaries since 2003 and NCLB has been anything but stable. Since 2007, the annual salary of a teacher as progressively plummeted, and only recently raised:⁹

Rankings of the States 2013 and Estimates of School Statistics 2014, p. 15: Annual Percentage Change in Teacher Salary, 2003-13 (Current $)

After decades of charter school experimentation, accountability has proven to be beneficial to achievement, opportunity and learning gaps in America’s education, but at what cost? As 2014 unfolds, traditional schoolteachers are experiencing further shifts in their curriculum from the Common Core and additional pressures from reformed pedagogy. But shouldn’t innovative thinking be collaborative and not competitive? Education cannot be run like a business because its goal isn’t to attain a profit; its goal is to educate. Teaching is an extraordinarily challenging occupation that’s constantly in flux. Charter schools are a result of shifts in legislation and make the role of a teacher progressively less appealing. Traditional schools do not advertise or promote, so young educators become cogs that turn the wheels of charter school agendas. The mission of charter schools is to “cultivate learners who use determination and innovative thinking to build a strong academic foundation in the 21^st century learning environment.”¹⁰ But deceptively do not allow individual teachers to create any of their classrooms’ innovative thinking or practices; instead administrators and principals implement whatever “best practices” their organization embraces.

Charter schools have a very highly-defined set of criteria for what needs to be included in a lesson plan – making teaching into a strenuous series of systematic processes that artificially do not arise, but occur. Meanwhile, young aspiring teachers flock to the noble calls of charter schools, while experienced teachers avoid working in low-income, low-performing districts because the pay, responsibilities, treatment and management are notably unappealing. The position of a charter school teacher should be filled with highly experienced and tenured teachers who genuinely know what it means to invest themselves in a special group of students every year. But instead, education reform combats these kinds of teachers, and politicians are too scared to fully centralize or decentralize risks and invest in ideas that may not succeed.

“Unfortunate as it may be, schools have never been just about educating children. They are also about constructing social and political power. Real school reform must be about challenging it. Until we find the political will and vision to put social justice at the heart of the debate about public education, school reform will continue to be an exasperating tug of war with limited impact on the status quo.”¹¹

Thus, it’s up to non-profit charter schools to try and equip this rope with excellent teachers every year, only their workforce brings the wrong mix of force. The core of education is centered on the teacher, and teaching should be similar to other social work like healthcare. Both occupations demand not only a commitment to their professions and undefined hours, but a commitment to others as well.

A brain surgeon is trained for at least eight years before they can touch a human brain, but an educator simply requires a background check before they can train a child’s mind. America’s best educators are attracted to postsecondary education, which also draws talent away from primary schools. The founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ), Geoffrey Canada, expresses the need for early childhood education through “Baby College,”¹² but according to an Occupational Employment and Wages from the U.S. Department of Labor: primary school teachers annually earn “$54,740,” while healthcare practitioners earned about “$93,320” annually, with an hourly medium of “$35.76.”¹³ In turn, America spends far more money on its healthcare than its education, meanwhile charter schools prescribe even less pay to their teachers.

Compensation differentials between schoolteachers and law enforcement officials are slightly alarming. Currently, police officers earn “$58,720” annually, in comparison to the “$54,740” of an average schoolteacher. There are two issues largely at play here: prison rates were increasing due to nonviolent crimes: “the federal prison population has reached record levels, that a high proportion of prisoners are non-violent drug offenders, and that racial disparities in sentencing and the proportion of lower-level drug offenders are increasing.”¹⁴ Although President Obama has largely addressed America’s clemency applications, it’s important to point out that our country currently pays its citizens more money to incarcerate people, than it does to teach them how to avoid incarceration. John Roman, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, said: “the biggest predictor of committing a criminal act is being young, male, and relatively low-skilled,”¹⁵ so could education be the cure for our country’s high crime and incarceration rates?

In regard to the educational implications of collegiate teacher salaries, the outstanding annual incomes of “postsecondary law ($122,280), health specialties ($105,880) and engineer ($102,880) teachers”¹⁶ should indicate that law, health and engineering are not being taught in primary schools when our youth clearly reflects a desire and demand to learn about these subjects later on. Why isn’t there a class on Law in middle school? America’s primary school education does not inform its students about how to follow the law. Instead, students receive an experiential trial and error education from police officers that sometimes inadvertently initiate self-perpetuating criminal records that progressively narrow career paths and futures.

The task of uprooting the ideology behind education reform is complex and nuanced, and charter schools may merely be a transitory route to turning around low-performing schools. But the problems of America’s education do not wholly rest within the minorities and cultural controversies that reform spurs and stirs: “The main reason Teach For America [TFA] teachers leave the classroom, Kopp said, is because they want to have a bigger impact,”¹⁷ a bigger impact than changing the trajectory of young minorities in struggling communities? Many TFA teachers find themselves as small parts of a bigger goal: and many of the most successful TFA graduates defer to becoming principals and administrators, not only because it’s a more impactful position with much better compensation, but also because the program ultimately renders the role of a teacher as undesirable: “nearly two-thirds (60.5%) of TFA teachers continue as public school teachers beyond their two-year commitment.”¹⁸ Some charter programs are proving they are better than TFA and Achievement First’s two-year-turnover conveyor belts, but only by about another two years: “Other charter networks have similar career arcs for teachers. At Success Academy Charter Schools, a chain run by Eva S. Moskowitz, a former New York City councilwoman, the average is about four years in the classroom. KIPP, one of the country’s best known and largest charter operators, with 141 schools in 20 states, also keeps teachers in classrooms for an average of about four years.”¹⁹ Daniel Lindley makes an insightful point about this:

“Teachers go through three stages in learning the craft. The first stage, the first full year of teaching, is just learning to be comfortable in a roomful of adolescents. The second stage, typically the second year, is teaching, with some success, the given curriculum. The third stage, which can begin in the third year and shouldn’t end, is teaching shaped by the creativity and originality of the teacher herself. Most of the ‘short-timers’ will never reach the third stage. No wonder so many leave after too short a time.”²⁰

The result, teachers who truly love teaching become or try to become administrators and principals, potentially excellent educators traditionally flee and maybe a few of them get fired in public schools.

Charter schools are improving the quality of education in low-income communities and bridging gaps in our education, but they are also harming the overall occupation of the teacher. The charter school-model embodies teaching as a physical and financial sacrificial occupation, and reform is against the odds of limited resources in communities with economic disparities.

“Over the past several decades, the most elite sector of higher education has become more selective—and expensive—than ever. David L. Kirp writes that ‘even as higher education has become more stratified at the top, it has also become more widely available … on the lower rungs of the academic ladder, where what matters are money and enrollment figures, not prestige.’”²¹

However, the prestige and experiential credentials of a teacher should be paramount, it’s what makes education successful. What would it be like to employ new, but more thoroughly trained teachers at high-performing schools with intellectually curious students who encourage education; then employ highly-experienced teachers in low-performing schools with less motivated students who are struggling under the pressures of poverty, but maintained both of their current salaries?

Innovative ideas like charter schools promote callings that attract generations thinking about how rapidly the world is changing, and how we must respond and adapt to these changes and rise above adversity. Failing schools should have the funds to attract the most high-performing teachers. However, the charter school movement targets less experienced, and more aspiring educators to transform communities and contribute to charter mission statements and statistical success, at the cost of uninspiring teachers through meager wages, extended hours, and most importantly, a culture of teachers who tour their time. Today’s education system attracts “16%”²² of males at a declining rate:

Percentage of Male Teachers in America (American Teacher, 00:13:48)

Traditional schooling initially made teaching appealing to women, while charters, to youth: and instead of protecting our country’s women and children, we’re sending them into schools with low-wages, long hours and little experience, and then pressuring them to outperform previous fiscal measurements for their job’s sake. If a teacher gets a bad recommendation, why stay in the occupation?

For those who consider education as a lifelong career – it’s about leading young minds to discover the world’s problems and guiding them to become productive and passionate citizens. America’s education system is failing students beyond its minorities. Traditionally speaking, young and inexperienced teachers have always been placed in failing schools, because that’s how they’re molded. Education reform is doing the same thing, but it’s not “doing the same thing over and over,”²³ it’s doing the same thing with different historical perspectives, tools, measurements, policies and instruction. There shouldn’t be a divide between traditional and charter school ideologies, best practices should simply be taken from each, and organizations such as “America Forward” that embrace the both worlds of charter and traditional schools are looking beyond all the controversy: because new schooling implementations such as the Extended Learning Time (ELT) and teacher autonomy are extremely effective, when utilized correctly.

The impact of charter schools in New Orleans has been highly scrutinized, and also successful:

“The typical student in a Louisiana charter school gains more learning in a year than his TPS [Tradtional Public School] counterpart, resulting in about two months of additional gains in reading and three months in math. These positive patterns are pronounced in New Orleans and other urban settings where historically student academic performance has been poor. The difference in learning in a New Orleans Charter School equates to four months of additional learning in reading and five more months of learning in math”²⁴

Charter schools are beneficial to America’s educational gaps and inequalities, and traditional schools should collaboratively embrace some of their ideas. The charter school movement will continue to close educational gaps, but also continue to create controversy among policies, communities and districts alike: only to create more gaps that we may not be able to recognize yet. Teachers need to invest far more than two years in teaching to truly make an impact. Canada further expresses the ephemeral uplift of a charter school education, like HCZ:

“In communities like Harlem, people tend to think that a single decent program for poor children is enough to provide escape velocity, to give the children the momentum to orbit around their communities and not be damaged. But they’re wrong. The programs are just not powerful enough. The gravity of the community always pulls the child back down. They might stay in the air for a year, but then lousy schools, lousy communities, the stresses of being poor all begin to weigh on that child and that family, and they begin to fall closer back down to the values and the performance levels of the community.”²⁵

The gravity of these communities not only causes its students to stay in the air for a year, but teachers as well. I believe the power Canada is probing at may rest within federal hands received by educational professionals who know America’s education system best: because as curriculum and knowledge evolves in America, so do the demands of a teacher.

The bottom line is that, America needs to put more value on the occupation of the teacher, and charter schools are harming the appeal of becoming an educator by providing our country’s teachers with little pay and longer hours. Charter schools are bridging gaps in America’s education, but is it possible they’re creating gaps between teachers and their ability or desire to teach? Based the: “World Top 20 Education Poll,”²⁶ in comparison to the leading countries in education such as, “Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom: the United States ranks 18,” even though, American teachers spend more time teaching than any other country. In 2007, when America’s teaching salaries peaked, teachers spent “on average 1,080 hours teaching each year. Across the O.E.C.D. [The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development], the average is 794 hours on primary education, 709 hours on lower secondary education, and 653 hours on upper secondary education general programs:

2007 Teaching Hours — Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Number of Teaching Hours per Year, by Level of Education (2007)

American teachers’ pay is more middling. The average public primary-school teacher who has worked 15 years and has received the minimum amount of training, for example, earns $43,633”:²⁷

2007 Teachers Salary — Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: Primary Education Teachers: Salary After 15 years of Experience / Minimum Training (2007, Public Institutions)

Until the United States starts to appreciate their teachers as much as they’re valued in countries with exceptional education systems, controversies will continue over accountability or autonomy. I believe Holly Welham points out some of the key international differences among the treatment of teachers in her article: “How Teachers are Rated in 21 Countries Around the World.”²⁸ If charter schools continue to degenerate the value of teachers, there could turnout to be a shortage of teachers in America’s future. Classroom efficiency and technology will evolve, curriculum will evolve with history, but the student only evolves through their teacher. “The new standards won’t revolutionize education. It’s not enough to set goals; you have to figure out how to meet them.”²⁹ Failing education could benefit from the expertise and experience of educators that only higher education attracts in order to truly affect change in America’s education; because if education inequalities began with untrained or inexperienced educators teaching in low-performing schools with low-wages, I believe Einstein when he said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Works Cited

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Donaldson, Morgaen L., and Susan M. Johnson. “TFA Teachers: How Long Do They Teach? Why Do They Leave?” Edweek.org. Education Week., 4 Oct. 2011. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edweek.org%2Few%2Farticles%2F2011%2F10%2F04%2Fkappan_donaldson.html>.

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Sackler, Madeleine. The Lottery. Video Documentary, 2010. ↩
Ravitch, Diane. The Great School Wars: New York City, 1805-1973; a History of the Public Schools as Battlefield of Social Change. New York: Basic, 25. 1974. Print. ↩
Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. (2011, May 25). Issues A-Z: Charter Schools. Education Week.org. May 25, 2011. Web. ↩
Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York: Basic, 2010. Print. ↩
Kolderie, Ted. “Ray Budde and the Origins of the ‘Charter Concept'”Education Evolving. Center for Policy Studies and Hamline University, 1. June 2005. Web. ↩
NYCSED. “Charter School Office.” Nysed.gov. About Charter Schools: Laws and Regulations: Article 56. NYSED: PSC, 9. 2006. Web. ↩
Center on Reinventing Public Education. “Teacher Attrition in Charter vs. District Schools.” Crpe.org. Center on Reinventing Public Education, Aug. 2010. Web. ↩
Charter School Jobs. “About Charter Schools.” Charterschooljobs.com. K12connect, Inc., 2014. Web. ↩
NEA. “Rankings of the States 2013 and Estimates of School Statistics 2014.” National Education Association. Mar. 2014. Web. ↩
Charter School Jobs. “About Charter Schools.” Charterschooljobs.com. K12connect, Inc., 2014. Web. ↩
Christensen, Linda, and Stan Karp. “Why Is School Reform So Hard? The Dual Character of Schooling Invariably Generates Contradictory Impulses When It Come to Reform.” Edweek.org. Education Week, 8 Oct. 2003. Web. ↩
Tough, Paul. Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Boston: Mariner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 53. 2009. Print. ↩
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Donaldson, Morgaen L., and Susan M. Johnson. “TFA Teachers: How Long Do They Teach? Why Do They Leave?” Edweek.org. Education Week., 4 Oct. 2011. Web. ↩
Rich, Motoko. “At Charter Schools, Short Careers by Choice.” Nytimes.com. The New York Times, 26 Aug. 2013. Web. ↩
Ionata, Catherine M., Rick Bergdahl, Henry Seton, and Daniel Lindley. “The High Turnover at Charter Schools.” Nytimes.com. The New York Times, 29 Aug. 2013. Web. ↩
Walsh, Taylor. “Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses. Princeton University Press, 2010. ↩
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Research Proposal: Centralization or Decentralization: Competition or Continuity

April 7, 2014April 7, 2014Nate

Research Questions:

What underlining factors cause the educational pendulum to oscillate between centralized and decentralized schooling models: specifically in New York City over time? Are we fixing old problems, or simply creating new ones?

Is centralization or decentralization ultimately a ‘bottom-up’ or ‘top-down’ decision? In other words, do politicians need to reconcile the differences between centralized and decentralized education? Or do grassroots and communal movements need to discover/create concrete solutions for political support and action?

Justification:

Among all the public, private, magnet, charter, homeschool and many other forms of education in New York, are centralized or decentralized schooling models causing, creating or closing achievement, opportunity and learning gaps to emerge, remerge or dissolve? Is early childhood education and universal educational access the answer? Or will re-centralizing public schools eventually be the remedy we’re searching for? Somehow – teachers, administrators, reformers, families and politicians will need to reach a consensus – or America’s education will continue to fall through the cracks.

Research Process:

Ever since the New York City School Decentralization Law of 1969, there has been a heated debate about the advantages and disadvantages of centralized and decentralized schooling models, primarily between local/community School Boards and City Boards. As a result, my research will be more focused on what has been done, accomplished or implemented, and less focused on what has been said. Decentralization was a rational shift for New York school districts because of its extensive urban schooling layout. Although New York’s decentralization has produced meager results, smaller and additional community control districts could compensate for centralized schooling in New York. I will also examine different measurements among districts and between public and charter school performance in New York.

Bibliography:

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Cortines, Ramon. “Asking Too Much of Decentralization.” Edweek.org. Editorial Projects in Education, 27 Sept. 1995. Web. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edweek.org%2Few%2Farticles%2F1995%2F09%2F27%2F04cort.h15.html>.

Greenblatt, Jonathan. “Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation.” Whitehouse.gov. The White House, 25 Feb. 2014. Web. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/sicp>.

Herszenhorn, David. “New York Rethinks Its Remaking Of the Schools.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 08 Apr. 2006. Web. 07 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/nyregion/09Klein.html?pagewanted=all>.

Hess, Alfred. “Community Participation or Control? From New York to Chicago.” Eds.b.ebscohost.com. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Theory Into Practice. Vol. 38, Issue 4, 1999. Web. <http://eds.b.ebscohost.com>

McGrail, Kenneth R. “New York City School Decentralization: The Respective Powers of the City Board of Education and the Community School Boards.” Ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj. Fordham Urban Law Journal. The Berkeley Electronic Press, 1976. Web.

McGriff, Deborah. “Decentralization: Why, How, and Toward What Ends?” Decentralization: Why, How, and Toward What Ends? North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 26 July 1995. Web. <http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/go/go0dcent.htm>.

Smolover, Deborah. “America Forward.” Americaforward.org. New Profit Inc. and America Forward, 2014. Web. <http://www.americaforward.org>.

Stevenson, Harold W., and James W. Stigler. “What Can We Learn from the Learning Gap?” JSTOR. Ed. Hirotoshi Yano. American Educational Research Association. Vol. 22, No. 1, Jan. 1993. Web.

Tough, Paul. Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008. Print.

An Achievement Gap Presentation on the Past & Present

March 5, 2014March 5, 2014Nate

The Achievement Gap Taskforce (AGT) meeting on Tuesday, March 4, 2014 was a glimpse into Connecticut’s educational goals that have been established in both the past and present. The meeting began with introductions to Elaine Zimmerman, the Director of Commission on Children, Paul Freeman, the Superintendent of Guilford Public Schools, David Kennedy, the C.O.O. of United Way of Coastal Fairfield County, and Stephen Tracy, the Superintendent for the Department of Children & Families (DCF). The meeting’s goal and criteria was to address achievement gap disparities in Connecticut.

Then there was a snap-change in the meeting’s agenda. The “Presentation” by Stephen Tracy was pushed to the beginning, and the “update” on the AGT report was moved towards the end. However, it turned out to be a dual-presentation, one of which was on what’s to come (DCF), and what’s going to be done (AGT), blending aims for the present with goals created in the past to bridge Connecticut’s achievement gap.

Steven Tracy launch his presentation with DCF’s mission statement: “To promote learning, school success and personal fulfillment for children and young people whose life experiences have included trauma, family disruption or involvement with the juvenile justice system.” Tracy then followed this statement up with the challenges of their mission by addressing how many of the students they engage are at the bottom half of Connecticut’s achievement gap. Tracy outlined his presentation through four components, which consisted of: Pilot Programs, Academic Tracking, Case Planning, and DCF Facility planning.

Tracy delved into how their Pilot Programs are geared towards increasing the academic achievement of students who are in state custody. Tracy explained how they have hired coordinators in the three cities of Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven where legislation has provided funding, conducted listening session to hear about positive and negative academic experiences in school, and established liaisons with school leadership teams in these three cities where the program has been implemented. Tracy furthered that the next steps are: to get these newly hired coordinators into the field so that they can identify students who are in need of improvement, work with school leaders, and craft interventions that will provide more opportunities for these students. Tracy ended this segment by saying that he hopes to have more to show by the end of the program on, June 30, 2015.

In regard to tracking the academic progress of all children who are in state custody, Tracy announced that they have creating a data sharing agreement with the DOE, and are beginning to gather data for all children enrolled in DCF. However, he mentioned that they are going to need to extend that arrangement, so that it also includes attendance, academic achievement and discipline data as well.

Turning our attention to Case Planning, Tracy notes that this aspect has taken up most of their time and attention. He furthers that any child in state custody requires a preliminary case plan that’s used to specify educational goals and performance for each individual student. Tracy moves on to say that they “have also implemented, or are implementing a new process for getting records,” through a new protocol that’s specific in terms of students’ attendance, achievement, behavior and stability.

Lastly, Tracy mentions how they will inspect their own DCF facilities and develop a report of the educational needs for all of the students who attend their schools, and proposes to return at the end of the school year with a completed update and preview of their results. Tracy concluded his presentation with how their program is focused on the “issue of engagement and motivation [because it] is generally overlooked in our school reform efforts in Connecticut.” Tracy’s presentation provided an insightful vision for things to come, and its adagio progress and process seemed to stir a little skepticism due to the overwhelming challenges of its goals.

The meeting then shifted its lead to the voice of David Kennedy, who introduced AGT’s newly published strategy to eliminate the achievement gap in a Drafted Master Plan. This plan outlines, explains and identifies 17 key ingredients that are divided into two major categories of: conditions inside and outside of school, which will, in theory, bridge educational gaps. Kennedy explains that this Master Plan develops a “recipe, a kind of very poor analogy, but I do enjoy cooking … of all the components that are going to be needed to close and end the achievement gap in Connecticut.” The Master Plan includes teacher and administrative preparation guides and practices, grids on results and measurements, plan and policy recommendations, among many more strategies aimed at bridging the achievement gap.

Throughout the rollout of AGT’s Master Plan, I couldn’t help but relate it to Whatever It Takes, because the ideas and structures seemed to bounce back and forth among specialized education plans and central schooling models, practices and approaches, along the similar veins of Geoffrey Canada‘s thinking. Kennedy stressed how their plan’s “focus is not education reform, [it’s] about ending the achievement gap.” The plan is to intervene with families and provide early care and education, much like HCZ. However, Kennedy furthers that the “achievement and opportunity gap exists because of economic disparities,” which Connecticut has yet to report on. The plan describes the conditions that need to change inside of school, such as training teachers to address the achievement gap and how to engage English language learners, a curriculum that is designed to close educational gaps, and an investigation into the role of time over the course of both school days and summer vacations. These notions are coupled with the conditions that will need to change outside of school, which include early care and education, family engagement, affordable housing and addressing the issues and challenges of poverty.

As the presentation-update came to a closure, it’s emphasized that the plan isn’t about education reform or failures in schoolhouses, it’s about recognizing that the achievement gap is a statewide and communitywide concern, and addresses and acknowledges the academic challenges in different communities through a broader lens. The AGT was very proud to announce the publication of their newly scripted plan because it was a product of hundreds of meetings over the past couple of years that includes four years of data input. Their ideas were very refreshing and uplifting, but will be interesting to see if this paper-based plan develops into Connecticut’s systemwide educational praxis.

AGT — Education Committee: Achievement Gap Taskforce, Tuesday, March 4, 2014.

An Education Reform Infomercial

February 23, 2014March 1, 2014Nate

Madeleine Sackler’s The Lottery wholeheartedly expresses the urgent need to support local charter schools. Specifically, the film illustrates this urgency through the failed attempt to establish Harlem Success Academy 2, in New York City (0:56:56). The documentary highlights how Harlem Success, and the broader charter school movement are determined to end cycles of poverty by turning around America’s failing education system. Moreover, the film emphasizes how charter schools only have a limited capacity to admit a small portion of students who apply to enroll in schools like Harlem Success via lottery, which is a public event that gives everyone in a designated school district an equal opportunity to benefit from a high-impact tuition-free charter school education. The need for charter school reform is realistic and evident throughout the vivid imagery of rundown communities and large prisons. The film explains how there are up to four year “achievement gaps” (0:02:53) in education among different schools, races and minorities, and that people expect and plan for a percentage of these underserved students to go to prison. Despite the film’s effective display of the need for education reform, my thesis is that, the documentary is harmful to the broader education reform movement, because it creates enemies and further divides partisan interests and beliefs.

The need for charter schools is at the forefront of every edited clip, and the counterarguments displayed by public school advocates are weak to none. The Teachers Union and local government officials are demonized and pinned as the enemies of education reform, while charter school advocates and parents shed tears, share heartfelt anecdotes and pray to God that they will receive a spot at Harlem Success. The documentary opens by explaining the proven success of charter schools across America, then asks: “why don’t we have more of them [charter schools]?” (0:03:38) The question is raised in many different forms throughout the film, and is indirectly answered by pointing fingers at those who prevent the growth of charter schools. Among every modified scene and statement, the entire film is designed to meet its ending message: (Sackler, 1:16:54).

The last scene of Madeleine Sackler's The Lottery, asking viewers to Mentor, Teach, Donate and Vote to support the charter school movement. — *The Lottery,* 1:16:54. The last scene of Madeleine Sackler’s documentary, asking viewers to Mentor, Teach, Donate and Vote to support the charter school movement.

As a result, the targeted audience seems to be uninformed community members or participants in America’s education system, because public schools advocates and those who are actively engaged in educational policy will probably not be persuaded by the subjective nature of the film.

In summary, the focal points of the film: schools, parents, students and low-income communities, implicitly align with the charter school movement’s theory of change: If schools have excellent high-performing teachers, proactive parents, and the larger community provides support, space and funding, then any student from any neighborhood can achieve at the same or higher academic levels when compared to their wealthier counterparts, and will move on to earn a college degree. However, the United Federation of Teachers, local government and protests by local organizations such as Acorn, are restricting the opportunity for an equal education and alternative schooling options in low-income districts. Meanwhile, 365,000 struggling students who deserve a better education hopefully wait for a chance to reserve their seat at a charter school.

Throughout the film, the Teachers Union and local government are shown to be the antagonists of education reform and equality. President Obama addresses the need to fix America’s achievement gap, and his comments imply that local governments are to blame for widening the opportunity gap. The film supports its argument with evidence from a recording in 2008, when the President of the Teachers Union, Randi Weingarten, says there should be a “due process procedure” (0:19:50) for firing underperforming teachers, and then seemingly lies about the amount of tenured teachers fired that year. At a City Council hearing on charter school expansion, Eva Moskowitz, the founder of Harlem Success, silences a council member after he attributes her schools’ success to its class sizes (0:52:53), and makes another council member appear untrustworthy after she doesn’t believe that Ms. Moskowitz lives in Harlem (0:53:40). One of the most shocking attacks on the Teachers Union occurs when Ms. Moskowitz mentions the “thuggish,” and “Godfather-like tactics” (0:49:04) that the Teachers Union has used to threaten her. Thus, the film depicts those who are opposed to education reform as nothing more than selfish, aggressive and irrational liars.

In the midst all of the educational and political controversy, viewers are introduced to Eric, and his supportive parents; Gregory, who has a mother that works fulltime and a father in prison; Christian, who lives with his father who recently recovered from a stroke, and are separated from the rest of their family in Africa; and Ameenah, who has a single and deaf mother. Each family anxiously waits for their opportunity to be chosen via lottery, and admitted into Harlem Success. Despite their desperation, only Ameenah ends up attending a charter school. The one-sided argument for the charter school movement is also depicted at a Public Space Hearing, where parents protest the implementation Harlem Success at PS 194. Their comments about how charter schools “divide our neighborhoods,” and “disrespect our [public] schools” (0:30:30) are ephemeral and marginalized. One mother even yells that Harlem Success will only get space over her “dead body” as her child holds her hand and appears to be clueless about what’s going on: (Sackler, 0:32:50).

A son cluelessly watches his mother protest Harlem Success Academy's presence in their neighborhood, at a Public Space Hearing. — *The Lottery,* 0:32:50. A son cluelessly watches his mother protest Harlem Success Academy’s presence in their neighborhood, at a Public Space Hearing.

In turn, Harlem Success advocates remind parents to think about their children, and the parents who protest Harlem Success are portrayed as angry, self-centered individuals who don’t understand the needs of their children. In an interview with Madeleine Sackler, she says the main reason she made the movie is because: “There are so many parents that are eager for something better” (Adams, 2010), but also shows how some parents are harshly opposed to the charter school movement. Additionally, parents who want better for their children is an innate constituent of responsible parenting, and reflects nothing new.

I believe that the film effectively demonstrates the need for charter schools, but it creates too much conflict by pointing fingers at specific individuals, committees and organizations that impede on the growth of charter schools. If charter schools are realistically going to make a greater impact on America’s education system, they must work together with the Teachers Union and local governments, instead of vilifying these influential denominators. When asked about the most disheartening aspect of the charter school movement, Madeleine Sackler responds: “That the obstacles are so entrenched and systemic, which means that it will require a tremendous amount of political will to overcome it” (Adams, 2010), but her film seems to further entrench those obstacles, and does not speak this broadly about them. Moreover, the film could prompt more political controversy than will. There is a spirit alive in the education reform movement that in an odd way resembles that spirit of other populous movements including the union organizing movement. Common good and finding common ground underpin our democracy in the United States.

While the deeper message beyond the film is that students and parents get left behind because of politics, I believe it spends too much time creating and focusing on enemies. By provoking emotion and anger, the film causes people to take action. But reactions to the film may not be the ones that Madeleine Sackler intended people to take. Jeannette Catsoulis’ article “Education by Chance” in The New York Times calls the film a “one-sided charter-school commercial,” (Catsoulis, 2010) and I completely agree. The Lottery should have hashed out the need for education reform in a more balanced way by interviewing dropouts, then Success Academy graduates; by taking a broader view of a student’s life, and not just showing how badly they want to win the lottery; and by comparing the environment of a Success Academy classroom to a failing classroom. This kind of data is available; and I’m not sure why common ground can’t be examined as part of the urgent quest to improve America’s education system. A more balanced and intellectually honest approach would further strengthen this film’s overall message and impact.

Works Cited

“The Lottery (2010).” N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2014.

Adams, Thelma. “Charter School Controversy: A Q&A With “The Lottery” Director Madeleine Sackler.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 June 2010. Web. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thelma-adams/charter-school-controvers_b_610420.html>.

Catsoulis, Jeannette. “Education by Chance.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 10 June 2010. Web. 23 Feb. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/movies/11lottery.html?_r=0>.

Sackler, Madeleine. The Lottery. Video Documentary, 2010. <http://thelotteryfilm.com/>.

Singer, Matt. “Review: “The Lottery,” Where Winning Really Is Everything.” IFC.com. Independent Film Channel, 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, 30 Apr. 2010. Web. <http://www.ifc.com/fix/2010/04/the-lottery>.

Avoiding Plagiarism

February 14, 2014Nate

Avoiding Plagiarism Exercise

Step 1: Plagiarize: any portion of the original text by copying portions of it word-for-word.

No measure is perfect, but the estimates of value-added and other “growth models,” which attempt to isolate the “true effect” of an individual teacher through his or her students’ test scores, are alarmingly error-prone in any given year. Sean Corcoran, an economist at New York University, studied the teacher evaluation systems in New York City and Houston. He found that the average “margin of error” of a New York City teacher was plus or minus 28 points.

Step 2: Plagiarize: any portion of the original text by paraphrasing its structure too closely, without copying it word-for-word.

Sean Corcoran, an economist from N.Y.U., discovered that teacher evaluation systems had a “margin of error” of more or less 28 points on average after examining teachers in New York City. Therefore, no measure is entirely accurate because estimates of value-added and other “growth models,” that try to segregate the actual effect of an individual teacher through their students’ test scores are startlingly prone to error every year.

Step 3: Plagiarize: any portion of the original text by paraphrasing its structure too closely, with a citation of the original source (using any academic citation style). Remember, even if you include a citation, paraphrasing too closely is still plagiarism.

Teaching measures are not perfect, but the approximations of value-added and alternative “growth models,” in attempt to isolate the “true effect” of a particular teacher through their students’ test performance are shockingly prone to error, regardless of the year. According to Sean Corcoran, the average “margin of error” of a teacher in New York City was about 28 points (Ravitch, 270).

Step 4: Properly paraphrase: any portion of the original text by restating the author’s ideas in your own diction and style, and include a citation to the original source.

Diane Ravitch emphasizes the imperfections in teaching measurements through inaccurate correlations between the verifiable effects of a teacher and their students’ standardized test performance. Ravitch supports her claim with evidence from Sean Corcoran, who identified these significant discrepancies among teachers in New York City (Ravitch, 270).

Step 5: Properly paraphrase: any portion of the original text by restating the author’s ideas in your own diction and style, supplemented with a direct quotation of a key phrase, and include a citation to the original source.

Diane Ravitch draws evidence from Sean Corcoran to explain how teaching measurements are consistently inaccurate; and do not verifiably evaluate a teacher through their students’ standardized test performance because: “The average ‘margin of error’ of a New York City teacher was plus or minus 28 points” (Ravitch, 270).

Work Cited

Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education. New York: Basic Books, 2011. 270.