Harvard Scholar Makes a Turnaround on Choice; Ravitch isn't the only one...

ttp://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2010/04/diane_ravitch_isnt_the_only.html
Harvard Scholar Makes a Turnaround on Choice


By Debra Viadero on April 13, 2010 4:09 PM

Diane Ravitch isn't the only education scholar undergoing something of an ideological transformation these days. Harvard academic Paul E. Peterson comes to a similar conversion in his new book, Saving Our Schools, which is being published this month by the Harvard University Press.

Peterson is best known for his advocacy of school choice programs in the 1990s. Now, however, he says he has come to recognize that the school choice movement, which never produced the achievement gains its advocates had hoped for, may never be politically viable. He chalks it up, along with the accountability movement, progressivism, teacher unionization, desegregation, and court-ordered school finance reforms. as just another movement in education that failed to ensure that all children receive a challenging education, regardless of where they live.

"Both Diane and I have an unhappy view of where we are today," Peterson said in an interview here at Education Week yesterday. "But where her dissatisfaction goes back to the last 10 years, mine goes back much farther. ... The reforms of the last 50 to 60 years haven't been able to shake the education system out of its stagnant condition."

So, in his new book, which traces the history of American education from Horace Mann to Bill Bennett and beyond, Peterson is placing his next bet on virtual schooling, which he hopes will eventually customize learning for every child. To illustrate his faith in the medium's potential, he relates the story of the Florida Virtual School, which began in 1997 in Orlando and is now the country's largest state-run online school.

"Virtual schooling is still in its infancy," he said, "but it certainly has transformative capacities that none of these other things have."

As for charter schools, which Peterson has also championed, he expresses a more agnostic view. While the growth of this new breed of public schools has outstripped that of privately funded choice programs, he says, charters still have a long way to go to transform schooling nationwide. "Their promise may be in that they become a vehicle for virtual schools," he said.

You can hear Peterson discuss his new views today at a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution. Eduwonk also features a debate between Peterson and Ravitch, who favors a return to neighborhood schools and a faith in teacher professionalism as a means of improving schooling. The next print edition of Education Week (cover date: April 21) will also feature a back-page Commentary by Peterson.

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Genius! N.Y.C. School Built Around Unorthodox Use of Time

Okay, but what's really Genius is the THE SMALL CLASS SIZES! The mantra of teachers nationwide and right here in Delaware.  And this school has found a way of providing the small classes with more support for students and teachers while not exceeding the 180 day work year in teacher contracts nor raising the cost of educating the students who benefit from this program verses the "typical" high school model.

From Education Week:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/03/10/24brooklyn_ep.h29.html?tkn=NM[FDZj%2F%2FXlKQLqb1nWVcd6rdaG9PGXcgZSR&cmp=clp-edweek

Check out the whole article for an education strategy that is built on teacher planning time, student interest, and small class sizes:

Teachers here attribute the collegial atmosphere to the public school’s novel way of differentiating teachers’ roles and staggering their schedules. At Brooklyn Generation, teachers instruct only three classes a day, get two hours of common planning with colleagues each afternoon, and have a highly reduced student load—as few as 14 students per class. Yet the restructured scheduling costs no more to operate than a traditional schedule.

Opened in 2007, Brooklyn Generation now serves about 230 students in grades 9-11, most of whom are black and qualify for federal school-nutrition programs. The school will add a 12th grade next fall and expand to the middle grades over the course of the next few years.

The school’s schedule is both dynamic and flexible. Each morning, one group of educators teaches foundations courses in mathematics and the humanities. In the afternoons, those same teachers take on one studio course—science, the arts, and electives. They are also given daily breaks at the same time as their “instructional team” —colleagues in the same grade and content area—allowing them two hours of common planning time.

Twice a year, these dual-role teachers receive a monthlong reprieve consisting of three weeks of vacation followed by a week of professional development with their instructional teams. A second coterie of educators steps in to teach monthlong “intensives,” focused on aspects of college and career readiness, from internships through the college-entrance process and financial-aid applications.

Class sizes for the foundations and intensive courses are small—around 15 students—and expand to about 25 for studio classes. The staggered schedules mean that students receive 20 additional instructional days, but no teacher actually works longer than the 180 days set in the New York City teachers’ contract.

With the smaller class sizes and more support, the school’s leaders expect teachers to engage each student in the school’s college- and career-bound culture.

Such class sizes, 9th grade math-foundation teacher Dianne Crewe-Shaw says, help her better monitor her students, who tend to have the most challenges with algebra. “The small class size was like heaven,” she said. “With weaker students, I have to dig deeper for activities that will engage them.”

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Delaware Waits.

We do a lot of waiting here. 
For snow removal. 
For schools to reopen. 
For the Gov. to forgive snow days. 
For the State Sec. of Education  to announce the schools that will pilot the Mass Insight Turnaround Zone. 

The News Journal initially pegged last week for the big "announcement," but those who've been around a while know that DOE is more strategic than that, or rather their waters are too muddy for the transparency tax payers deserve.  If they had played the transparency card with Race to the Top, chances are some school boards would not have signed on.  And so, I can't help but hypothesize as to why our turnaround schools have yet to be named.  Perhaps, they are busy lining up their lead partners, partners, DOE employee Dan Cruce earlier speculated, that must be local due to Delawareans' deep trust issues.  (Any wonder why we have trust issues?)

Or perhaps, they are busy aligning to Mass Insight's latest Turnaround Strategy -- Internal Lead Partners.

Or waiting for M.I. to release any of the following reports:

Leveraging Title 1 School Improvement Grants (scheduled for release in February 2010)
Provides recommendations to states on the most effective process to allocate the Title 1 School Improvement grants under the new federal guidelines.
Best practice state policy (scheduled for release in March 2010)
Offers advice on how policy can be created to encourage optimal conditions for school turnaround, drawing on promising practices from existing and forthcoming state legislation.
Building a District Turnaround Office (scheduled for release in May 2010)
Provides guidance on creating a District Turnaround Office, an organizational structure designed specifically to manage turnaround efforts within the district.
Building a State Turnaround Office (scheduled for release in April 2010):
Describes the structure and functions of the State Turnaround Office, an office of the State Education Agency responsible for all turnaround efforts within the state.

It's all conjecture, but in lieu of transparency and hard facts, conjecture is all we have.

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Mass Insight on the Partnership Zone

In the earlier part of January, I blogged my suspicions of Delaware's plan to pilot Mass Insight's Turnaround Challenge Program in Delaware schools.  The release of Delaware's Race to the Top Application confirmed my concerns. 

Before we get started, here are my early questions:
1) Will School Board Members, as LEA leaders, be invited to participate in the Partnership Zone Institute?
2) Who has Mass Insight and DOE identified to Potential Operational Partners?
3) Will participants in the Partnership Zone Institute be invited to participate in the series of visits to schools nationwide that have been successfully reformed?  And at who's cost?

The following excerpts are from different sections of the application, arrange here to provide ease of reading.
Here we go --

According to Delaware's RttT Application:

The State’s Turnaround Office will provide a range of supports to LEAs as they turn around lowest-achieving schools, from the point of entry into the Partnership Zone, to the planning process, to recruitment of leaders and staff, and finally, to the launch and operations of the turnaround school ... The State has established a partnership with Mass Insight to support its turnaround efforts, making it one of a handful of states selected for partnership with this national leader in school reform...

Goals

As noted above, Delaware expects to turn around at least 10 lowest-achieving schools by 2014, with each school reaching AYP within two years of launch. The State will initiate three interventions in the 2011-12 school year, and will initiate seven more for the 2012-13 school year...

While the process to identify PLA schools is quantitative and objective, the process to select PLA schools to enter the Partnership Zone will include qualitative components Partnership Zone schools will be selected at the discretion of The Delaware Secretary of Education...

The State’s planned timeline for implementation is as follows: In March 2010 (using 2009 data), the State will identify an initial list of PLA schools. By September 2010, the State will select at least three schools from this list to enter into the Partnership Zone and begin preparations to implement one of the four intervention models in the 2011-2012 school year. By the end of July 2011, the State will again identify a list of PLA schools, and in August of that year, the State will select at least seven more schools to enter into the Partnership Zone. These schools will immediately begin preparations to implement one of the four intervention models in the 2012-13 school year. In this way, Delaware will launch interventions in 10 schools by the 2012-13 school year. These 10 schools will represent nearly 5% of all schools in the State, and more than 25% of all schools currently in school improvement, corrective action, or restructuring. The identification process will repeat annually in July based on accountability assessment results, with additional schools selected for the Partnership Zone as determined by The Delaware Secretary of Education...

Delaware recognizes the challenge faced by LEAs in turning around the State’s lowest performing schools. With a long history of failure, these schools require radical reform to achieve sufficient academic progress among students. To this end, Delaware has established strict requirements for the four intervention models required by State law (which are equivalent to the turnaround, closure, restart, and transformation options described in the Race to the Top guidelines). In addition, Delaware expects rapid progress – schools in the Partnership Zone will need to achieve AYP in just two years...

To meet this need, a newly-formed State Turnaround Office will provide a range of services to LEAs, beginning when a school is selected for the Partnership Zone. The Turnaround Office will bring the nation’s best thinking on, and experience with, school intervention to Delaware, by working with Mass Insight...

Below are the details of the State’s implementation plan for its first cohort of three Partnership Zone schools:
1. Run a “Partnership Zone Institute” to inform LEAs selection of an intervention model and provide access to a network of potential operational partners: By July 2010, the State will host a “Partnership Zone Institute,” for LEA leaders. The Institute will provide a short, intense education process to ensure that local leaders are knowledgeable about the full range of available school intervention models, best practices, and potential operational partners. The Institute will begin with a one-day conference, providing in-depth reviews of the turnaround, closure, restart, and transformation models, including presentations by school intervention experts and support organizations. For example, the State and Mass Insight might run a workshop to share early results and experience from other turnaround states within the Mass Insight network. Next, the Institute will host a series of visits to schools nationwide that have been successfully reformed.  Finally, as LEAs may choose to outsource management of Partnership Zone schools to a third party operating partner (10) the State will facilitate introductions to potential partners that have a proven track record and an interest in expanding to Delaware (this may require a second one-day conference). As planning and implementation continue, the Turnaround Office will provide additional assistance with recruiting partners, should LEAs be interested.

(10) One model for outsourcing management of schools in turnaround is known as the “lead partner” model. These partners are granted operating freedom (e.g., authority to recruit and manage personnel) in exchange for accepting accountability for performance. Lead partners provide all academic and non-academic services at the school, actively develop a new school culture, and establish a full-time presence on site in the school...

3. Assist with recruiting, selecting, and training school leaders, teachers, and other staff: As soon as a school is selected for the Partnership Zone, LEAs should begin their search for a school leader (or a partner that will then provide a school leader). Ideally, the leader will be involved in the design of the reform model and implementation plan, and in the negotiation of staffing and operating flexibility. However, it may also be difficult to secure a leader until the LEA can assure that leader that he or she will have sufficient flexibility to manage the school (i.e., after negotiations with the union are complete).
Regardless of the timing, the Turnaround Office will support LEAs in recruiting, selecting, and training school leaders (and eventually other staff), by acting on behalf of the State to build a pool of potential leaders for all turnaround schools. This will include working with high-quality alternative certification and training programs (as described in section (D)(1)), leveraging the networks of Mass Insight, and assisting LEAs with recruiting local operating partners that have their own leader pipelines...

School leaders for the first cohort of Partnership Zone schools should be in place no later than February 2011.

5. Provide supplemental funding: The Turnaround Office will ensure that Partnership Zone schools receive the maximum funds from School Improvement Grants under section 1003(g) of the ESEA (approximately $500,000 per school), and will provide additional funding of $200,000 to each Partnership Zone school for its first three years of operations.

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