CTU Strike is Not The World’s End

Posted on September 12, 2012 by axooms

The primary media narrative concerning the CTU strike seems to be that it is a MegaBattle which could decide the future of unions, the structure of schools, the influence of ed reform policy wonks, and the very soul of K-12 public education. It is the Super Bowl of School Reform, or a potential Union Waterloo.  Except that it’s not.

Yes, the CTU strike is a big deal – especially for the 350,000 kids not in classrooms.  But the differences — while more substantial than the slanderous claim of musical preference for Nickelback — are not differences of kind.  They are differences of degree.

The core debate is over teacher evaluation and job protection, and on each the argument is not about whether or not a policy will undergo substantial change, it is about how quickly and deeply these changes are implemented.  The debate on these principles is incremental, not binary.  It is about the pace of change, not the change itself.

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Posted in Politics, Teacher Unions | Tagged | Leave a comment

Student drinking and debting

Posted on September 9, 2012 by axooms

Among the many paradoxes that face seniors finishing high school is this: you can sign student loan papers for tens of thousands of dollars in debt for you and your family — debt that is virtually impossible to discharge — but you can’t have a glass of wine at your graduation dinner.

Now this may be commentary on the absurdity of our alcohol laws. But at least with booze we are upfront that while moderation is tolerated, drinking to excess is bad for you and can put many of the people around you at risk.  With student debt, there is not much disclosure and very little analysis, as many students go into fields of study (such as teaching) where they are unlikely to make enough money to repay large debt loads.  We have a measurement of blood-alcohol content for responsible drinking; shouldn’t we have an expected debt-income ratio for student loans?  For as I’ve covered previously, student debt can have devastating effects both on students and on their families (particularly loan co-signers).

Today’s NYT chimes in on both the mounting debt and the collection efforts

As the number of people taking out government-backed student loans has exploded, so has the number who have fallen at least 12 months behind in making payments — about 5.9 million people nationwide, up about a third in the last five years.

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Posted in Fiscal & Economic, Higher Education | Tagged | Leave a comment

Charters, Unions, and the Chicago Teachers Strike

Posted on September 7, 2012 by axooms

9/10 Update: CPS strike is now on, however there are 116 public schools still in session, and 10 of them have independent unions. Read more below.

Original Post: Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is facing a rancorous and divisive teacher’s strike, with a walkout scheduled for Monday.  Roughly 400,000 students are likely to be affected, as will their families. No one wins.

There are a variety of issues between CPS and the teacher’s union — the school district is in terrible financial shape and pushing a variety of reforms, while union recently filed an unfair labor practices complaint related to longer hours and wages. The two sides have been negotiating for over 10 months.

I’m not close enough to this issue to understand the fundamental differences. However, a small flower seems to have emerged from the deep spread of manure which now covers almost everyone involved.  Andrew Broy points out:

Among the 116 charter schools in Chicago that are in our network, 10 have independent unions representing teachers in negotiations with school management. These schools have been able to reach agreements […]

This sort of solutions-based teamwork should be a model of partnership for the city. Once again, charter schools in Chicago are on the leading edge of innovation, this time in the field of labor relations.

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Posted in Charter Schools, Innovation, Teacher Unions | 1 Comment

I Have Met Finland and It Is Not U.S.

Posted on September 6, 2012 by axooms

I’ve always been amused by the comparisons of the US Educational system with that of Finland. For starters, Finland has about 5.5 million people, about the same as Cook County IL — and a glance at Wikipedia notes that Finland is the most sparsely populated country in the EU, so it likely has less density than most US suburbs (never mind cities). And even Cook County is probably less homogenous and has far greater economic diversity as Finland has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world.

But I confess: I don’t have first-hand knowledge of Finland. Luckily there is Rick Hess: has flip-flops, will travel. He chronicles a recent trip to Finland thus:

I came away from Finland mostly reminded why I have so little faith in the whole breathless industry of international comparisons. The difficulty with reifying international test score comparisons is that they suffer from the same banal problems that bedevil simple NCLB-style comparisons. PISA and TIMSS results say nothing about the value schools are adding; they merely provide simple cross-sectional snapshots of achievement. […]

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Posted in Fiscal & Economic, Poverty, School Performance, Whimsy | Leave a comment

DougCo Teacher Exodus

Posted on September 5, 2012 by axooms

DougCo, exhibit 1 on how a district can posture to alienate the local union and have little to show for it, is seeing a teacher exodus with the Onion-esque delicious detail of teachers named Hire who decide to quit:

Brian Hire and his wife, Jill, said they have left the Douglas County School District to teach English in Jordan because they felt they were working in a climate where teachers were not valued and their careers were uncertain. […]

The Hires are among 304 teachers who have left in the past year — a 42 percent increase from the previous year, according to the district.

Jill Hire, who taught English at Douglas County High School for seven years, said what helped make the decision was the ongoing bickering between the school board and the community.

It is often said by reform advocates that an inherent problem with the current system is that adults put their needs above kids.  But I think the DougCo board has broken new ground here, for they are putting their ideology before the needs of kids. It’s not clear who is really served by their high-stakes gambit. It’s an odd play when pretty much everyone loses.

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Posted in District Performance, Innovation, Teacher Unions | 7 Comments

Segregation & DPS

Posted on June 25, 2012 by axooms

One of the early criticisms leveled against charter schools was that they were “skimming kids” – that the lottery enrollment policy used by charters resulted in the admission of primarily the brightest, most motivated students.  This argument has faded (at least in Denver) since charters here serve the same demographics as traditional schools, as well as the undisputed fact that many charters with lottery enrollment have done poorly (it would be an odd and circular argument indeed that the lottery process results in skimming only by successful charters).

However, the pendulum has now swung to the other side. A new accusation making the rounds is that charter schools – many of whom are focused on low-income neighborhoods – are in fact increasing the economic segregation of our public school system.

It’s an odd argument on its face – the forced segregation of students – whether by class or race – is clearly not the same as a parent’s affirmative choice to attend a charter school.  But still, the claim has now entered the conventional wisdom and is often repeated as fact.  Which is a shame because when one looks at the data, at least in Denver, it’s also clearly not true.

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Posted in Charter Schools, Poverty | 6 Comments

Our obsession with growth

Posted on May 23, 2012 by axooms

The move towards increased accountability coupled with the creation and collection of new data mean K-12 education is constantly sorting through a variety of metrics to better understand what is working and what is not.  But the layers of additional data have an unfortunate and unintended effect: We are swinging our attention from one direction to another, and then another.  There are so many signals, and so much noise, that we’re in danger of losing our directional compass altogether.

Confronted with this problem, the Donnell-Kay Foundation just released a paper (to which I contributed) titled “True North: Goals for Denver Public Schools.”  This paper filters through the increasing swarm of data and metrics hovering about K-12 education, and reorients the primary goals of DPS (and other school districts). To quote the opening lines:

The fundamental purpose of any public school system is to graduate students at a level of proficiency that enables them to meet the professional and personal challenges of the modern world.  The purpose is not to have proficient 3rd, 5th, or 8th graders, nor to have academic growth that still leaves students unable to read, write, and perform math at the level necessary to fully participate in and contribute to our democratic society.

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Posted in District Performance, Student Achievement | Tagged | 2 Comments