Ball State setting a standard?

Combating the common opinion that charter schools run loose with no accountability, Ball State has been holding its charter schools to a high standard. In what may be a model for other charter school authorizers, Ball State has not ignored its charter school operators.

"BSU has placed 23 percent on probation and required 10 percent to take corrective action. Another 10 percent either withdrew their charter or had it revoked by the university."

This could mean that charters schools are bad or that they need help. It surely means that BSU is working to ensure the charter school maintain a high quality program and administer their funds well.

Authorizers and school leaders could use BSU's model to work with their own school and create better charter schools as well as blaze a path for future schools to reduce the number of problems that they have when designing and implementing new programs.

Democrats split over education reform

The Sacramento Bee reports that democrats are beginning to split on how to fix education. Many democrats are beginning to separate themselves from teachers unions and other proponents of traditional education.

The Bee quotes Gloria Romero, the head of the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform as saying, "It's a donkey in the room. It's Democrats who have been tightly aligned with education's special interests year after year, decade after decade, and we haven't progressed. So we have to examine our conscience, our party, and really forge a new path forward."

Other democrats don't seem worried, but the good news for education reformers is that this process has begun in California. Let's hope this is an evolution that continues.

California Conference coming in March

I just found out that I'll be presenting a poster session at the California Charter School Association Conference in March of 2011. I'll be presenting on financial strategies and charter school organizational lifecycles. Many of the ideas of the presentation can be found on slideshare or some of my other blogs.

I still need to get everything in the right form for the poster session. It's a unique setting in which there is no formal presentation, but I'll be available to answer questions for those who come by and check out the materials that I have on display to discuss the topic.

I've presented this topic formally in Colorado, Texas, and Florida. I've had great feedback from all of those presentations. I'm looking forward to warm San Diego.

Fire teachers as part of school turnaround?

Education Week posted two interesting articles that may be related.

One article gave the results of a poll in which 78% of Americans stated that it should be easier to fire teachers.

The other article stated that poor performing schools rarely are closed or turned around.

Many of the comments on the web site on the poor performing schools focused on poverty and the apparently insurmountable obstacle it creates. However, that is not what the information in the article suggests. It simply says that bad schools are disproportionately located in poorer areas. The article doesn't say that poverty is the cause of bad schools. Poverty certainly plays a part in th educational process, but many good schools have shown that poverty may negatively affect education, but it doesn't prevent it.

The connection between these two articles is that if it were easier to fire bad teachers, leaders could more easily turn around schools. It isn't the only factor, but it is the case that we need to find ways to make sure that good teachers are in the schools that are performing poorly. One way to do that is to fire bad leaders and hire good ones. Another way is to fire bad teachers and hire good ones.

I'm not suggesting that turning around a school is easy. I am suggesting that school leaders should have ever option available to them, including firing teachers that are not effective.

While I'm not sure that I agree, the survey about teachers was mixed in the answer to whether or not teachers make enough money. Slightly more than half of the respondents said they didn't, but another large proportion of Americans think that teachers are adequately paid. However, the overall message that teachers should be easier to fire sends the message that if teachers expect more pay, then they'll have to give up some job safety, at least in the eyes of most Americans.

It is interesting that many argue against incentive pay, saying that teachers are not in it for the money and that more money won't make teachers better. On the other hand, they'll argue that teachers should make more money. I agree with the first part. Teachers are, by and large, not in it for the money. I also agree the more money does not make a teacher teach better. This is exactly why I also agree that until teachers are held to high expectations or lose their jobs, it is not appropriate to argue for higher pay across the board. Instead of calling it incentive pay, let's call it appropriate pay for a job well done. I don't think we want to put a carrot in front of teachers. They aren't horses. We want to pay them what they are worth. A bad teacher is worth less than a good teacher. The bad teacher is provided an incentive to leave the profession voluntarily. If teachers are in it because they passionately want to educate children, but can't do it, then they ought to passionately pursue another career and leave education to those who can teach.

Turnaround will take effort and changed ideas, there can be no disagreement about that. Until we see teachers less as interchangeable cogs and more as more or less capable professionals, we can't really turn around schools. Teachers are an incredible piece of the solution to our educational dilemma, but only if leaders can and will ensure that bad teachers either are made into good teachers or made to leave the profession.

What does it take to make a great classroom?

Here is an article on Slate comparing high performing countries against the American emphasis on technology and testing. It seems as if we could learn something.

The essence of the article is that it doesn't take a high tech classroom or loads of homework or constant assessment to educate students. Read it for yourself and see what you think.

Parents pull the trigger

Parents in Compton are using a new law to "fire" their local elementary school and demand a charter school. The new "parent trigger" law allows parents to vote for a radical change at their local school if over 51% of parents vote for the change.

This is a brave experiment, and only time will tell if it works. Parent engagement is key to education, and we'll see if these parents are engaged in more than revolution.

The good news about this law is that schools can no longer simply exist on the status quo. They can't just assume that their funding will continue in perpetuity no matter what their results.

We'll keep an eye on this one as another step in attempts to reform American education and broken schools.

Districts cooperate with charter schools

In a move that may end up assisting both district schools and charter schools, several cities around the country have signed up to cooperate with charter schools in ways that allow sharing of resources--including facilities. Facilities are a large portion of the charter school budget and have been a sore spot with charter school supporters for a long time. The latest to sign on is Rochester, New York.

Other cities working with charter schools are Baltimore, Denver, Hartford, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, New Orleans and New York City.

Both charters and traditional schools could gain from sharing ideas, facilities, group purchasing and other factors that would allow both cost savings and increased creativity and success in the classroom.

Some may fear that this blurs the lines between traditional public schools and charters, but if education is really about the kids, then that shouldn't matter much. If school leaders use this as an opportunity for real collaboration in raising both student and teacher expectations, then this could be a real break through in education.

Fining districts for having too many students in a classroom? Seriously?

I'm not in favor of breaking the law. I'm also a supporter of smaller class sizes. However, It seems to me that Florida is focusing on the wrong thing. In yesterday's report, 35 school districts were said to be in violation of Florida's class size limits.

The law, which was backed primarily by the union and Democrats, has some merits. However, doesn't it seem a bit strange to penalize districts purely based on class size and not on outcomes? This, again, is a situation in which inputs and not outputs are measured as a litmus test of a good school or school district. One wonders (or at least I do) whether the unions backed this proposal more for the benefit of teachers rather than students. (OK, I admit it. I'm a bit cynical on this one.)

I haven't looked into this deeper, but the Miami Herald article focuses on how many class rooms violated the statute, and not on by how much or what the results of the violating school districts are.

For example, one of the limits is that in kindergarten through third grade. Let's suppose that a district had 19 kids in all of the kindergarten through third grade classes, but had incredible academic results. Let's then imagine a school that is strictly adhering to the law. It has 18 kids in classrooms, but it's results are dismal. Which school is better?

The state, if it follows the letter of the law, will impose millions of dollars of fines on these school districts. Now, does that make sense? Take money away from schools simply because they have too many kids in a class room?

Then the school districts will appeal. That will take both time and financial resources.

The result of this law is to disrupt, not improve education. It distracts people from doing their jobs and puts the fight about education completely outside the discussion of excellent instruction or appropriate standards or graduation rates.

It seems pretty obvious that this attempt to regulate inputs can have a serious detrimental effect on outputs. Florida voters and legislators need to repeal this law soon and focus their legislation on options that actually influence the output of their educational system.

Should funding follow the child?

I think it should. What other way will we find out what parents really want, which may ultimately drive us to what works?

I realize that's a really controversial statement, but no more controversial than the statement made by Connecticut Education Commissioner Mark McQuillan.

"There needs to be dependability and stability of school funding," he said. "We cannot continue with this uncertainty."

There are many of us who think that uncertainty would be a lot better than stable funding of a failing system. This seems to be a real gap between the thinking of traditional educators who want to focus on tweaking the current system and others who believe that we need a new solution or at least major changes. Stability at the expense of real change just doesn't make sense.

I suppose if you think things aren't that bad, then the focus on dependable funding makes sense. On the other hand, if things are broken, then giving existing schools stable funding whether or not they deserve it makes no sense. It's a method of self-protection and a form of harmful welfare. It's like paying people to do jobs they aren't really qualified for because they've always had them.

Unless charter schools, magnet schools and other innovative programs and schools are funded appropriately, real change will not happen.

Douglas County in Colorado has proposed a program in which most of the funding would follow students and even that is being opposed. The truth is that innovation is driven by passionate people and people expressing their will. Unless the money follows those students who will another option, education reform will not happen and we'll continue to provide stable and dependable funding for a system that continues to perform at international averages.

Not to say I told you so, but...

I just saw the following quote from Bill Henk. I said this in a blog a while back and just about got my head taken off by some people commenting on the blog.

Bill Henk, dean of Marquette's College of Education, says standards should be raised for admission to teacher preparation programs. Academics as well as personal and communication skills should be key factors, he said.

"My recommendation to teacher education is spend a lot of time on who gets let in the door to become a teacher," he said.

Rising to...average?

I'm sure that it wasn't intended to sound as surprising and wonderful as I read it, but Ed Week reported the results of the PISA as if the U.S. did something remarkable. (Like I said, that's the way I read it.)

There was some good news. The U.S. is no longer dropping in the world education rankings, but to be average isn't exactly something to brag about.

It seems to me that while this is positive information, it still indicates that schools, parents, students, leaders, and all people with ideas about how to make education better need to keep their thinking caps on and participate in ensuring that U.S. kids are on pace with the best in the world.

What do China's results tell us?

Well, China is now an international powerhouse in education as well as manufacturing. Chinese students scored extremely well on the PISA, an international academic test. The U.S. students who took this test scored well below almost two dozen other countries.

I could use this as another blog to bash traditional schools. I won't.

It seems to me that if we look at some of the top scoring countries, there is a factor beyond teacher training or American school dysfunction. It seems absolutely true that Americans value many other aspects of life more than education. Entertainment and sports seem to dominate life, not just for students, but for parents as well. We talk a lot about life balance, not pushing kids too hard, allowing kids to be kids. While I agree with these sentiments at a certain level, it seems that the pendulum in America may have swung too far.

Whatever the results of Chinese education really are and will be in the next decade, it's clear that the U.S. has to wake up to the reality that we can't prop up our economy forever with debt and bail outs. Whatever we want our standard of living to be, we must build it by being competitive in the global economy.

Camping out for school choice

In Longmont, Colorado, one charter school has become so popular that people camped out to get in. Unlike the schools pictures in recent films about charter schools, Flagstaff Academy has no lottery. They admit students on a first come, first served basis.

In order to get into the school, some parents got in line at 6:40 the day prior to enrollment. The school boasts growing numbers as well as achievement.

Anti-charter school people cite averages about charter schools that they would have use believe prove that charter schools shouldn't exist. A school like Flagstaff should be emulated, not closed. This is just one more example of the potential of charter schools. The answer to the dilemma of averages is not to eliminate charter schools, but for both low performing charter schools and traditional public schools to follow the lead of high performing charter schools like Flagstaff.

Districts claim that charter schools are stealing students and revenue. It seems that in this case, the charter school has done nothing more than offer seats to students. When there is such a demand that parents will take an entire day sitting in a line to enroll their students for school, perhaps districts ought to rethink their approach to education. What would district schools have to do to get people to line up a day ahead in order to get students to enroll? Perhaps the answer isn't to eliminate school choice but to expand it?

The financial manager and charter school community

Just posted my new presentation that I gave at the Texas Charter School Conference in San Antonio last week. I blogged on this recently, but I can add more info if people want it. For now, check out the presentation and let me know what you think.