In one version of events, DC’s Ballou High School has been a morass of cheating and subterfuge, where the principal pressured teachers to ensure that many students who had missed weeks of school and were otherwise unqualified to graduate nevertheless received diplomas. Some 12th-graders, one teacher claimed, were unable to read and write. In another version, that same principal instilled students with a sense of pride and provided a cocoon of safety and support within a harsh environment, … [Read more...]
The DCPS scandal that (almost) no one is talking about
While the scandal at Ballou High School has focused on attendance and other unmet graduation requirements, one DC Public School parent’s emotional testimony before members of the DC Council last month got to the heart of the problem: many kids aren’t being taught anything of substance in the crucial elementary years. And officials seem unable or unwilling to do much about it. In November, NPR and local affiliate WAMU revealed that most of the students who graduated from Ballou last year … [Read more...]
When is predictability a virtue? On standardized reading tests
For the past several decades, American education reformers have focused on reading and math test scores as the primary means of holding schools and teachers accountable for improving student performance. A recent book by a Harvard education professor argues convincingly that this regime has led to dire and unintended negative consequences while failing to achieve its aims: namely, raising student achievement and narrowing the gap between the highest- and lowest-achieving groups of students. But … [Read more...]
The Mystery of Success Academy’s Success
There’s a charter school network in New York City that has been making headlines lately--along with its controversial founder, Eva Moskowitz. Everyone wants to know how it’s managed to achieve phenomenally high test scores with its mostly low-income students. None of the explanations makes sense to me. In August, the Success Academy network, which serves a predominantly low-income and minority population, boasted that its test scores were higher than any traditional public school district in … [Read more...]
Don’t believe everything you hear about rising graduation rates
Six months after a story celebrating the fact that all graduating seniors at one of D.C.’s lowest-performing high schools were admitted to college, NPR has reported a major qualification. Most of those students missed more than six weeks of school, and teachers and students confirm that many who graduated didn’t meet minimum graduation requirements. This is a story not just about one low-performing high school in D.C. but rather a cautionary tale about what can happen anywhere when … [Read more...]
The Importance of Being Knowledgeable
What does it take to close—or at least significantly narrow—the achievement gap? Billions of dollars and untold amounts of time and energy have been devoted to this problem—without much to show for it. But it’s possible that the answer is actually pretty simple. Or at least that’s how it appears after a visit to a remarkable school in London called Michaela. Michaela Community School is what’s known in the U.K. as a “free school,” which is a status that is roughly equivalent to a charter school … [Read more...]
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