Arne Duncan's Faith-Based Certitudes

by Clay Burell

categories: Charter Schools, Education and Business, Education Politics

Published May 12, 2009 @ 08:48AM PT

EdSec Arne Duncan's Fiscal 2010 Education Budget's "fourth pillar" of reform calls for "promoting innovation and excellence in America's schools by expanding charter schools, extending learning time, and turning around low-performing schools."

Enough has been said on these pages about the ambiguity of charters as a solution already, so I'll pass on saying more (though a new study of Michigan charter schools adds yet one more study to the "charters are not outperforming traditional schools" pile).

What the charter push has in common with the other two initiatives in the pillar is this: no proven track record.

Regarding longer school days, weeks, and years, I found myself surprised to agree with Frederick Hess in U.S. News and World Report last month:

Simply locking students in mediocre schools for additional hours presumes that the proper response to chaos or tedium is more of the same. And ham-handedly extending the day can disrupt fruitful activities for millions of youths who have rewarding lives after 3 o'clock.

A longer day could make sense for many students and offer a respite for stretched families. Where schools know how to use the hours, where talented teachers have the ideas and energy, and where families think the student would benefit, OK. But before proposing expensive new policies, wedging kids into lousy schools for hundreds of extra hours, and imposing substantial new demands on teachers, let's ensure schools are making good use of the time they have. (source)

As for closing failing schools and reopening them with "new adults, and the same kids"?  Duncan's on fire about that one, wanting to "turn around" 5,000 schools over the next five years, saying it "could really lift the needle, lift the bottom and change the lives of tens of millions of underserved children."* But it seems another solution based on faith, not proof. The Chicago Catalyst blog knew Duncan well when he was closing ("turning around") schools in Chicago, and reports "serious questions" about whether turnarounds are "lifting Chicago's needle" at all:

CPS notes that test scores are up at Sherman and Harvard elementary schools, where an ambitious “turnaround” program (replace teachers, keep the students) has paved the way for similar efforts at four additional schools this year.

It’s true, test scores are up at Sherman and Harvard—and at a faster clip compared to district-wide gains. Sherman’s composite scores jumped from 34.9 percent to 40.2 percent; Harvard’s scores climbed from 31.8 percent to 40.1 percent.

But data from the district’s newest “value-added” measure raises serious questions. That measure compares how well individual students at each school perform on tests relative to students with similar backgrounds across the district.

A quick explanation: Schools where students make more progress compared to their peers elsewhere in the city get green lights. Red lights are stamped on schools where children are making less progress than average. A yellow light means it’s unclear whether students’ gains outpace or fall short of their peers.

Sherman got yellow lights in both reading and math. Harvard posted split results: a red in reading and a green in math.

Experts say it could take five years to determine the effectiveness of the turnaround approach, yet CPS plans to dramatically increase the number of turnarounds in 2009.

--And Arne Duncan plans to dramatically increase them across America. Never mind that we need a few more years of the data so cherished by Duncan's education management crowd before we can know if this is a "proven strategy." Faith's enough for now.

So, for the millionth time, Duncan seems a genuine and well-meaning Joe, but he's a "CEO," not an educator. I wish I could have more confidence in him when reading his remarks or watching his speeches, but usually don't, due to the simple fact that I've read research and/or had classroom experience at odds with his authoritative-yet-dubious certitudes.

And it's déja vu all over again with this "fourth pillar." It brings to mind a quote I read recently on Sharon Higgins' blog by a business professor about one benefit of a business education: It "equip[s] students with a vocabulary that enable[s] them to talk with authority about subjects they do not understand."

---

*By my count, for a single ten million students to be affected by closures at 5,000 schools means each school would have an average of 2,000 students. Unless schools significanlty larger than 2,000 students are common, it seems that plural tens of millions is either hyperbole or fuzzy math. Maybe I'm wrong. [Update: I definitely am wrong, if we view the consequences (assuming they're good ones) over subsequent years. Mea culpa.]