From the editor

East High is Denver's flagship high school. This past year, its Constitutional Scholars team won the national championship. Each year, scores of its students gain admission to elite colleges and universities across the country. Some middle class families, who leave Denver Public Schools in droves for middle school, return for high school, and many send their children to East.

But like other supposedly top-shelf urban high schools, East has another, less pretty side, widely acknowledged, but rarely discussed. This superficially integrated school (45 percent white, 38 percent African American, 13 percent Latino) is heavily segregated inside classrooms. Until recently, freshman minority students at East were 15 times more likely to be placed in regular or remedial English classes than white students with similar test scores. One ninth grade English teacher is striving to change that, but this is the reality throughout the school.

The achievement gap at East is a gaping chasm. Last year, (2005-06) just 6 percent of the school's African American 10^th graders scored proficient on the math CSAP test. Not one scored in the advanced category. Fifty-nine percent of white students score proficient or advanced. At the other end of the spectrum, 68 percent of African American 10^th graders scored unsatisfactory on the math test, while just 5 percent of white students scored in that bottom tier.

African American 10^th-grade students fared better in reading -- 43 percent proficient or advanced (four students were advanced). But the gap was huge, because 91 percent of white 10^th graders scored in the top two categories.

For years, district officials and principals have acknowledged this reality and vowed to confront it. But nothing much has changed. Now, East has a new principal, John Youngquist, and he is pledging to confront the achievement gap head-on.

I've known John for a decade and respect him as a first-class, passionate educator, with a demonstrated commitment to improving the educational prospects of low-income students. Over the years, I've watched John's idealism fade a bit. But it has been replaced by something more substantial. So when he tells me, in a tone of calm optimism, that's he's going hard after the achievement gap at East, I take the pronouncement seriously.

He's facing a huge challenge. It's impossible to find a comprehensive high school with 2,000 students anywhere in the country that has succeeded in eliminating achievement gaps and educating virtually all kids to a college-ready level. John knows this. But he says he's up to the challenge.

In some ways, East is a complacent place. Affluent parents with a great deal of political and economic clout send their kids there. They'd be happy to see the other half of East succeed, and some work hard to make this happen. But it's doubtful whether many of these parents would stand silently on the sidelines if, say, Youngquist decided to reassign the best teachers to classrooms filled with the most challenged students.

It's going to take bold action to make things better for low-income kids of color at East. Even so, the odds are stacked heavily against success. John Youngquist knows this.

A lot of eyes are going to be focused this coming year on the Phoenix-like Manual High School, reopening after a year in limbo. But East may be where the battle is truly joined.

--Alan Gottlieb

Blog highlights

We've added a couple of strong new bloggers. One of them, the mysterious Quique, has immediately posed some tough questions to his readers and fellow bloggers. And Old School, our other new blogger, casts a skeptical eye on the seemingly endless parade of school reform panels of various stripes. Happy reading.

Challenging preconceived notions

Written by: Quique

The proprietor of this establishment has asked me to contribute as a blogger. Until now, I've been reading the blog, enjoying the information and opinion, and occasionally adding comments.

One troubling thought I have kept returning to, however, concerns the nature of how we tend to accept or reject ideas. After reading a few posts from Uncle Charley, Pol Econ Ed, or Blogfather, I had easily placed each into a category. Each could, and probably will, do the same to me (if they haven't already). I guess such categorization is fine, so long as it doesn't lead to either of two troubling next steps:

1. Simplistic caricatures (e.g., Uncle Charley wants to completely abandon the societal mission of schooling. He doesn't care about helping the least advantaged among us.”)
2. Easy dismissal (e.g., I don't need to read what Quique has to say about this issue. Those progressives are just saying what the teachers unions want them to say.”)

The truth is that Uncle Charley will have insights, ideas, and information of value to those of us on the left. And I hope my own contributions will be honestly considered notwithstanding the fact that some readers will be approaching issues from a substantially different perspective than am I.

To add a bit of substance to this first post, let me toss out a challenge to other readers and bloggers about what appears to be the most unchallenged opinion here. Why do you support public school choice (open enrollment and charters)? And what, if anything, would it take in terms of evidence to make you end that support?

A bit of disclosure. I started out as a supporter of charter policies but am now very skeptical for three main reasons: (1) I don't see evidence that these schools are overall more innovative in terms of curriculum and instruction than are other schools (although I recognize that this is hard to measure, beyond anecdotes); (2) I don't see evidence that these schools are, on average, increasing student achievement; and (3) I do see evidence that school choice is resulting in stratification of students (that is, children of different economic and racial backgrounds are " even more than before " going to different schools). So my answer to the inverse of my own question would be that I would like to see evidence that these three outcomes are being reversed.

10 Responses to Challenging preconceived notions”

1. Uncle Charley Says:
   July 12th, 2007 at 1:35 pm e

Thanks for the insightful post. Please know that I don't dismiss what you have to say just because you are on the Left.

Re the last section, I would suggest you take a look at the evidence:
1) I'm not sure what your standards for innovative are, but how many different kinds of charter schools have you visited or observed? I find this comment a bit shocking, and in need of some more elaboration.
2) Download the Annual Survey of America's Charter Schools from here: http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=document&documentID=2338&sectionID=74&NEWSYEAR=2007
3) Read the only real apples to apples report I've seen comparing academic achievement in charter schools with traditional schools:
http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/EWPA/Research/School_Choice/1777.html

I will say, however, that charter schools are modest reforms, and therefore what you see are modest results. More radical changes will be needed to show more radical results.

2. Uncle Charley Says:
   July 12th, 2007 at 1:38 pm e

One more thing:

Uncle Charley wants to completely abandon the societal mission of schooling. He doesn't care about helping the least advantaged among us.”

Now that you've exposed my secret agenda, what am I going to do?

Seriously, I wouldn't be advocating for radical changes in public education if I had no concern for the disadvantaged. None of us will be well served by judging each other's motivations. Judge not, that you be not judged.”

3. Blogfather Says:
   July 12th, 2007 at 3:12 pm e

I will limit my response to your point #3, Quique. I am a staunch advocate of choice (short of vouchers, at least unless and until certain conditions are met). But I'm even more staunch in my belief that stratification of students by SES does more to damage the educational prospects of low-income students than just about anything else. And you're right: such stratification can be an unfortunate by-product of choice. However: a creative array of choices, creatively located (in the geographic sense) can break down stratification. See Raleigh, North Carolina for the best example of this. Further, in a perfect world we could create a world school system and then engineer it so that every classroom was perfectly balanced in every imaginable way. Unfortunately, this isn't a perfect world, systems created by humans are inherently flawed, bigger systems seem more flawed than smaller ones, and school districts as presently configured are designed to get exactly the results they get. So, choice, in the form of charters, open enrollment, etc., is a necessary release valve for those families savvy enough not to submit meekly to the school assignment handed down by their home district. Choice may bring with it some unfortunate side-effects, but it beats a monolithic district in which everyone is trapped without recourse.

4. vinroc31 Says:
   July 12th, 2007 at 3:50 pm e

Here's another two cents:

I identify solidly with the left and don't believe that public education is broken or needs to be fixed; but it does need to be improved. I therefore support choice and charters (minus vouchers for reasons I won't get into here) as one of several mechanism for making these improvements. School choice increases options and allows education to be better tailored to meet individual needs, which is critical to ensure that we are providing the new three R's (rigor, relevance, and relationships) for all students - especially the non-typical student. While it is hard to measure innovation, you could take a look at the NYC public school system for some of those anecdotal (gasp, not quantitative information!) examples of how innovation is beginning to operate fairly effectively.
The more glaring problem (from my perspective) with educational choice and charter schools is not choice itself, but the lack of good choices. Until we are able to provide more and better quality educational opinions - as well as methods to improve equitable student school assignments- you aren't going to find much difference in student achievement between traditional and charter schools and there will be stratification. But, I don't think that is a reason to stop trying, especially if this helps lead to an improved education system.

5. pol econ ed Says:
   July 12th, 2007 at 4:23 pm e

Welcome, quique, and thanks for your smart comments.

I support public choice because: 1) while I'm disappointed with overall innovation, a handful of charter schools have done very impressive things and provide models that probably couldn't have happened in the regular system; 2) parents really like choice, that is the clearest evidence out there, and even though that isn't enough”, it is something; 3) choice does put the traditional district on notice to change and improve, and ultimately that is its most important value; 4) while findings on students achievement in charters and schools of choice is mixed, I see it trending towards choice making some positive strides, not overwhelming, but not trivial; 5) stratification could hardly be worse than it already was/is in most urban areas - putting more motivated low-income minority kids into a choice school doesn't strike me as the same thing as separating whites/blacks/hispanics in the way that decades of suburbanization already accomplished.
.

6. Quique Says:
   July 12th, 2007 at 6:10 pm e

Thanks, everyone for the thoughtful comments. Lots to think about. I'll try to respond tomorrow.

7. Quique Says:
   July 13th, 2007 at 6:55 am e

Response to Uncle Charley

In my post, I asked a couple questions: (1) Why do you support public school choice (open enrollment and charters)? and (2) what, if anything, would it take in terms of evidence to make you end that support? I also mentioned the three evidence issues that most troubled me about charters and choice: innovation and achievement on par with other schools, and stratification of students by race and family wealth.

Uncle Charley offered the first set of responses. He asks about my standards for innovation, and he then points to a couple websites from charter school advocacy groups (the Center for Education Reform and the Manhattan Institute). He also says something that I very much understand and which I think is very important, I wouldn't be advocating for radical changes in public education if I had no concern for the disadvantaged. Amen. I have no doubt that this is the case, and my responses should be understood in that light.

#1: My standards for innovation. I am thinking just of innovation in curriculum and instruction. I think it goes without saying that charter schools are innovative regarding things like governance. And I also think it is true that school choice in general and charter schools in particular have performed a service by bringing a wider variety of approaches (curriculum and instruction) to neighborhoods. (So, for example, if a neighborhood didn't have a Montessori or Core Knowledge school available, a new charter with such a focus might open up.) That's the good news. But the reform, I thought, was also supposed to drive genuinely new approaches, not just bring a wider distribution of older approaches. Here in Colorado, I believe that the most common charter school model is ‘back to basics' " which (almost by definition) is not innovative.

As I noted in my initial post, I admit that it is very hard to quantify and accurately determine the level of innovation in these choice schools. We're left, for the most part, with anecdotes about innovative (or non-innovative) schools. And any attempt to judge the effectiveness of choice reforms in this regard would also have to somehow quantify the level of innovation in non-choice schools (for comparison purposes). I'm sure that would be very difficult. In any case, these innovation concerns are not paramount for me " so I'll move on to the other two points.

#2: I honestly don't see anything in the Center for Education Reform survey of charter schools (http://www.edreform.com/index.cfm?fuseAction=document&documentID=2338&sectionID=74&NEWSYEAR=2007) that helps me to feel better about them. There is no new evidence here about any of the three issues I mention: innovation, achievement or stratification. Yes, charter schools do on average enroll low-income students than public schools as a whole. But that is because they are generally located in urban areas (not so true here in CO, where they tend to exist more in the suburbs, I think). Wouldn't any meaningful analysis of stratification have to look at a much more local level? The question for me whether, in any given neighborhood, the existence of school choice increases or decreases the level of integration in nearby schools? And the evidence there is overwhelmingly showing increased stratification (by race and family wealth).

#3: I also looked at the apples to apples report from Jay Greene and others for the Manhattan Institute (http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/EWPA/Research/School_Choice/1777.html). I tried to find out more about it and found it discussed by a website from Paul Hill, who is a Hoover Institution Fellow. The website is part of the Center for Reinventing Public Education and the National Charter School Research Project. There's a nice feature there called Research Library, which let's visitors sort through studies on different topics. Part of what they do is to (for many of the studies, at least) rank the rigor of the methods used by the researchers/study.

The study the Uncle Charley mentions (findings from the study suggest a modest positive impact nationally from charters, with some variation between states”) is rated as fair. (http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/49).

I decided to sort out all the achievement studies on the site and see what the overall picture looks like. I included all studies ranged Fair or above, beginning in 2005. Here goes:

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/35: Quality: Very good. Results: students made considerably smaller achievement gains on state assessments in charter schools than they would have in traditional public schools.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/205: Quality: Very good. Results: charter school students are performing as well as, and sometimes better than, their counterparts in regular public schools.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/206: Quality: Fair. Results: After adjusting for student characteristics, charter school mean scores in reading and mathematics remained lower, on average, than those for public noncharter schools.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/207: Quality: Very good. Results: Elementary charter school students are shown to have made greater gains than if they had remained in traditional schools.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/18: Quality: Fair. Results: the test scores of charter school students do not improve, and may actually decline, relative to those of neighboring public school students.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/21: Quality: Fair. Results: after controlling for racial composition, only California among the major charter states retains a significant charter school advantage in reading proficiency. For math, charter schools do not have any statistically significant edge over their matched traditional public schools.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/34: Quality: Very good. Results: after an initially difficult startup period, charters on average perform on par with traditional public schools in math and reading.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/36: Quality: Very good. Results: students entering North Carolina charter schools in grades 4-8 made smaller achievement gains than they would have had they remained in traditional public schools. The study also finds that this negative impact is attributable primarily to the first year. Students who remained in charters for more than one year kept pace with students in traditional schools. The negative effects of attending a charter school are considerably greater for students in newly opened charter schools than for students in charter schools that are more established.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/45: Quality: Very good/good. Results: Students who attended charter schools starting in the elementary grades scored higher in both math and reading. For students applying to the 6th, 7th, or 8h grade, charter attendance did not have a statistically significant effect.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/60: Quality: Excellent/Very good. Results: The authors examine the performance of different types of charter schools in California: classroom based, non-classroom based, startup, and conversion. They find significant differences in performance between the school types, with non-classroom based schools pulling down the average test scores for both conversion and startup schools. Their analysis suggests that startup classroom-based charter schools provide the greatest promise of improving performance while non-classroom based charter schools are performing poorly.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/62: Quality: Very good. Results: charter schools with the highest degree of perceived accountability produce the strongest score growth and charters with high degrees of teacher mission commitment and leadership stability produce the strongest growth rates in reading and math.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/66: Quality: Fair. Results: non-high-school charter students are doing as well or better than if they remained at traditional public schools. In addition, traditional public school students in districts experiencing charter competition are doing better than students in districts without charter schools.”

http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/view/csr_res/69: Quality: Fair. Results: Charter schools were found to have made greater year-to-year gains on several topics, including 4th grade math, reading and writing and 6th grade writing.”

Of course, part of the differences among these studies is due to the fact that they studied schools in different states/districts and at different times. But one cannot read through this list and conclude that charter schools are meaningfully doing anything, on average, to increase student achievement.

I again thank Uncle Charley for his response. But I do what to re-ask my second question: what, if anything, would it take in terms of evidence to make you end that support?”

8. Quique Says:
   July 13th, 2007 at 6:56 am e

Response to Blogfather

This post responds to Blogfather, who writes that choice, in the form of charters, open enrollment, etc., is a necessary release valve for those families savvy enough not to submit meekly to the school assignment handed down by their home district. Choice may bring with it some unfortunate side-effects, but it beats a monolithic district in which everyone is trapped without recourse.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. :o)

That's actually how I felt about choice, maybe four or five years ago. I saw some great charter schools and I also saw lots of neighborhood schools, particularly in inner cities, that were awful. Even though I saw those charter schools as ‘saving' only a small number of kids, it seemed better than nothing.

But then I saw some of what is reflected in the series of studies from Paul Hill's website. I saw awful charter schools. And I saw great non-charter schools. The truth is that neither has a monopoly on excellence (or crap). Further, as noted, I saw those unfortunate side effects.”

I keep reading back over your description of a neighborhood school model as a monolithic district in which everyone is trapped without recourse. I understand where you're coming from, although I think the feeling of trapped probably is more common or justified in neighborhoods with poorly performing schools. I just think it's probably time we started looking for solutions other than school choice as we now have it. Aren't there more than two alternatives?

I again thank Blogfather for his response. But I do what to re-ask my second question: what, if anything, would it take in terms of evidence to make you end that support?”

9. Quique Says:
   July 13th, 2007 at 6:56 am e

Response to vinroc31

The comment from vinroc31 adds, School choice increases options and allows education to be better tailored to meet individual needs, which is critical to ensure that we are providing the new three R's (rigor, relevance, and relationships) for all students - especially the non-typical student. I very much agree with the first part (that's some of the good stuff about school choice), but I'm not sure about the which is critical part. Haven't we all seen non-choice schools with those three r's? Haven't we all also seen non-choice schools that provide opportunities, etc. to non-typical students? Of course, many non-choice schools fall short in both regards, but so do many choice schools. That's why I look back to the studies mentioned earlier " as a way to move beyond the anecdotes.

Vinroc31 also mentions the idea of improving equitable student school assignments, which is what Seattle and Louisville (KY) tried to do, until the Supreme Court told them to stop. Blogfather mentioned Wake County (NC) as another option. I am certainly not opposed to pursuing those policies (DSST does something like that to try to serve a more diverse population). And maybe if choice systems commonly used these enrollment approaches, my third concern (stratification) would be addressed. But do any of you see that happening, or is it just a pipe dream?

I again thank vinroc31 for his/her response. But I do what to re-ask my second question: what, if anything, would it take in terms of evidence to make you end that support?”

10. Quique Says:
    July 13th, 2007 at 6:57 am e

Response to pol econ ed

Finally, pol econ ed mentions very additional reasons for supporting choice: (1) some examples of innovation that probably couldn't have happened in the regular system”, (2) parent's who exercise choice are happy with it, (3) competitive pressures (which are, in PEE's view, its most important value”), (4) achievement results are tending upwards, (5) stratification could hardly be worse than it already was/is in most urban areas - putting more motivated low-income minority kids into a choice school doesn't strike me as the same thing as separating whites/blacks/hispanics in the way that decades of suburbanization already accomplished. I'll quickly give my responses to each.

#1: Perhaps, and I agree this would be (is?) a good thing. To make it particularly important, I would very much like to see any such innovation being exported so it helps other students beyond the few attending those schools.

#2: I have seen those results, also. I don't want to discount this or its importance to the parents involved, but I do want to raise two cautionary notes. First, I have also seen that the satisfaction tends to tail off with the passage of time, so part of what we are seeing is probably just the psychological results of making a choice to try something new (cognitive dissonance and all that). More importantly, I think parental satisfaction should be measured as an overall effect of a policy. So would school choice be an overall good thing if the choosing parents/students are happier but the students whose families are not active choosers find their schooling experience to be worse (because of disinvestment issues)?

#3: I have also seen (anecdotally) this happen. That is, I have seen schools and districts feel competitive pressures and respond. And I agree that this, too, can be a positive thing. Here are two cautionary notes about that.
First, competition for whom? Would the competitive results of school choice be an overall good thing if most or many schools engaged in changes and marketing to seek out only inexpensive (e.g., no special education students) or higher-scoring students? Given the state's financing system and its system of ranking schools (school report cards), wouldn't that be a sensible response to competition?
Second, what sort of competition? If schools market themselves as do laundry detergents, with advertising but little substantive difference, what is gained? Perhaps an ideal world of competition would have perfectly informed parents all actively making decisions that most benefit their children's academic futures. That sort of marketplace might drive real school improvement. But can we point to an example of that happening?

#4: I don't see it. What are you referring to?

$5: Sadly, as much as housing segregation has driven school segregation, I do think that stratification can get worse and has, in fact, gotten worse as a result of school choice. If you go to the special populations section of the Research Library page I mentioned earlier (http://www.ncsrp.org/cs/csr/print/csr_docs/reslib.htm), you'll find some studies dealing with special education students. I think that's one area where we've seen greater stratification (for better or worse, since there's actually a good argument, I think, in favor of offering unique choices to these families, even if it does result in more separate schooling). The problem there is that choice schools (because they're public) should never discourage any students from enrolling.

But I know we're talking here more about segregation by race and family wealth, which is how neighborhoods are segregated. I think you'll find that in places like Boulder and some parts of Denver and Jeffco, where the school system serves a fairly diverse group of families, the choice system has in fact resulted in greater racial segregation. And I think you'll find that even in inner-city areas with very few White families, choice can and does result in segregation linked to family wealth and parental education.

I hope it's clear that I'm not dismissing any of these ideas (except possible #4). I think there's truth and value in each one. But I also think there are good reasons to think that the hoped-for mechanisms and benefits have, for the most part, not happened and are unlikely to do so.

I again thank pol econ ed for his/her response. But I do what to re-ask my second question: what, if anything, would it take in terms of evidence to make you end that support?”

Shut up, already, and lead

Written by: Old School

A Sunday Denver Post column, Changing the Future” by Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley, calls attention to the abysmal state of education in DPS and across the nation.  Rightly, he calls for a dramatic overhaul of the system.  While I and many others agree that this type of dramatic reform to improve the education system cannot come too soon, the question is, who will lead it?     

Haley goes on to reference former Gov. Romer's appearance at the Aspen Institute think fest this weekend, and his involvement leading the ED '08 initiative to highlight the problems in the American education system and to get the presidential candidates talking about education (frankly, they shouldn't be running for president if they aren't going to talk about education…).  So far, I've been completely bored and frustrated by this initiative, as well as the numerous other councils, conferences, committees, etc…established to do something to improve education.   We've got:

• ED ‘08 -- Total snoozer so far, hard to believe $60 million is being invested in a campaign to bring attention to education issues.”  Unless you've been living in a cave, you know that the education system in this country is (in most cases) mediocre-to-bad and instead of droning on and on about the same problems, that money should be used toward education solutions. 
• The Governor's P-20 Council -- CO has finally invested in a P-20 council (good first step, but hardly a new idea).  Bets are that this group won't be recommending any major education reforms in the near future -- this group will likely be tinkering on the edges for sometime.    
• A+ Denver Citizens Committee -- While good in theory, it is past time to move beyond the closures/redesign conversations to the point where we are talking about what will be put in place (e.g. replicate success: KIPP, DSST, DSA, DCIS, West Denver Prep (hopefully), Manual (hopefully), other successful national models).  Let's rip that band-aid off.     
• 21^st Century Learning Navigator Conference -- Again, lame (see other blog entries on this for a recount of the day where well meaning people were talking instead of doing).   

Where are these so called leaders of reform?  When will the governor (and former governor), legislators, superintendents, school board members, principals, teachers and others stand up for kids? 

Hey wannabe leaders: Communities will largely be there to support you (if presented with sound ideas that create high quality, safe schools for their own kids and kids in their communities).  Denver and Colorado are ready for some serious change and some leaders who can actually put vision into motion. 

We know that many current leaders claim they operate in straightjackets.  But the actual constraints on their ability to take bold action too often stems from their unwillingness to buck the existing system and tackle the politics of school reform.  People like to say it's about the kids, and their future, and our country's future, -- but just saying it doesn't make it so.  It is time for real leadership, action, and bold change.   

One Response to Shut up, already, and lead”

1. edmove Says:
   July 9th, 2007 at 11:09 am e

It will be interesting to see what happens if Bloomberg enters the race. I suspect the conversation could change. He's one of the only national leaders that seems to have gotten his hands dirty leading real educational change with some results.

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