Implications for the Globalized Economy

Pauline Lipman's comments from 2000 are prescient and relevant today. As I read this, I thought about the function of Edison, KIPP, Open Court, Success for All, and all other forms of "skills-based" curricula and approaches that seek to raise test scores through a rigid system of discipline and punishment and prepare poor and minority children for subservient positions in white-dominated society.

Excerpt from Pauline Lipman's essay "Bush's Education Plan, Globalization, and the Politics of Race"

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Globalization creates a highly segmented work force and polarized social structure and the reorganization of urban space on the basis of class, race, national origin, and gender. In the new,"dual America," economic growth is enriching the wealthy while further driving down the wages and working condition of the poor as well as pushing down a section of the middle class. The ratio of total CEO pay to total worker pay grew from 44.8 times in 1973 to 172.5 times in 1995 while real average weekly earnings for production and non-supervisory workers went from $479.44 to $395.37 (Castells, 1998, p.130). By 1995, almost 30% of U.S. workers earned poverty-level wages (Castells, 1998), and poverty is increasingly reflected in homelessness and social exclusion. Although a majority of the growing occupations are projected to require education or training beyond high school, there is expected to be only a modest change in educational levels for all new jobs created in 1992-2005. The bulk of jobs being created do not require sophisticated new knowledge but basic literacies, ability to follow directions, and certain (accommodating) dispositions toward work. Sassen (1994) projects that by 2000 over half of all jobs will require only a high school diploma. A national system of standardized tests with strict penalties for failure helps to ensure a workforce that has the literacies and dispositions needed for the low-wage labor market. In addition to basic literacy, employers are particularly concerned with future workers' attitudes and "work ethic" (Ray & Mickelson, 1993). Carlson (1996) points out,

The "basic skills" restructuring of urban schools around standardized testing and a skill-based curriculum has been a response to the changing character of work in post-industrial America, and it has participated in the construction of a new post-industrial working class . . . of clerical, data processing, janitorial, and service industry jobs. The new entry-level jobs increasingly require more in the way of basic reading (word and sentence decoding), comprehension and direction-following skills (pp.282-283).

Thus, focusing testing on competency in reading and math assures business that workers will have the skills basic to most new low-wage jobs. For example, the majority of 51 urban and suburban Chicago employers interviewed in 1997 said they needed employees with "eighth grade math skills and better than eighth grade reading and writing skills" (Rosenbaum & Binder, 1997). In the era of Fordist, industrial production, workers needed to know very specific, job-related skills (such as welding), but because of rapid technological advances, specific tasks are increasingly accomplished through informational technology (computers, robotics), and jobs are constantly being redefined. What is most important for the new low-wage service and production workforce is that workers can be flexible. In a post-Fordist work context, they need to be able to adapt to changing job demands and changing jobs. Good reading skills (and sometimes math skills) are necessary for most jobs and essential for learning new jobs and adapting to the constantly changing nature of work.

High-stakes tests, then, frame schooling in a language business understands -- regulation, control, accountability, and quality assurance. Discursively, the policies define education as a commodity whose production can be quantified, regulated, and prescribed much like any other product. Symbolically, as well as practically, national testing would constitute a system of quality control, confirming that those who survive the gauntlet of tests and graduate have passed industry standards and have the specific literacies and dispositions business demands.

Tying teaching and learning ever more tightly to standardized tests has particularly negative consequences for low-income students and students of color. The pressure to focus on preparing students to pass these tests -- as opposed to concentrating on enriching and deepening the curriculum -- is most acute in the schools with the lowest scores, generally schools serving low-income students of color. Although high- stakes testing potentially degrades education for all students, it is likely to have the most drastic consequences in low-achieving schools that are compelled to use test preparation materials as texts, narrowly focus on tasks on the tests, concentrate much class time on test-taking skills, and reduce learning to passing the tests (see McNeil, 2000). Meanwhile high-scoring schools are relatively freer to maintain their on-going curriculum. There is evidence of this disparity in my own qualitative data from four elementary schools in Chicago (Lipman, 2000b). Thus, as the tests further institutionalize a two-tiered education system, they may widen racial and social class differences in the quality of curriculum students have access to. The consequences of a dual education system are more severe than ever. In the informational economy, one's intellectual resources are a key determinant of whether one will be a high-paid knowledge worker or part of the downgraded sector of labor, and education is central to who has which job.

What Do We Mean by "Privatization"?

Craig Gordon has taught in the Oakland Public Schools for 15 years. He is currently a history teacher and union rep at Mandela High School. The essay below is one of the most powerful, prophetic, and well-argued pieces on privatization that I've ever read. I asked Craig if I could post it here in my blog, and he agreed.

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We need to define more clearly what we mean by "privatization." When many of us talk about a privatization agenda, I don't think we necessarily mean that all public schools will disappear from the landscape in the near or even long range. At least, I don't. Instead, we could see the public school system shrink and transform into something very different. It will be still be nominally public, but the inequality will grow even greater, or at least, will become easier to justify in the name of "choice" and "competition."

One aspect of what I mean is that schools like Edison are technically public, yet they transfer public dollars into the hands of private investors. But the privatization effect of charters goes much further: for-profit and not-for-profit charters alike conform schools to principles of privately run enterprises, especially competition and exclusion. Charters must compete for markets (students). Charters pick and choose who attends them (and who doesn't). Competition is touted as the high virtue that makes charters "superior" (despite much evidence to the contrary), and exclusivity is a major attraction for individual parents and students. The ability to exclude is an important factor in the success of those charters that are, in fact, successful.

Oakland now leads all urban districts in California in the number of charter schools per capita. With about 6000 students, charters have about 1/7 the number of students remaining in the city's regular public schools (41,000), but nearly all of that shift has occurred in the past six years, and it's accelerating.

An even more pervasive privatizing force is the funding system called Results Based Budgeting, imposed by the state-appointed administrator running Oakland schools since 2003. Randy Ward, sent here by the Broad Foundation, has championed RBB as the solution to the district's inefficiency, because it makes every school operate as a small business. Each school's budget depends upon its average daily attendance (not enrollment), so a big school in a poor neighborhood with low attendance rates might actually get fewer dollars than a smaller school in a wealthier neighborhood. Ward proudly sold this Broad vision of "educational entrepreneurship" that makes each principal a CEO who must maximize revenues (attending students) and minimize costs (especially salaries) to survive. "CEOs" compete with each other to attract more students, get them into the building and hire the newest, lowest-paid teachers they can find, demand more waivers to the union contract (if the union survives) to get more done with fewer resources and reduced staff. Teacher burnout and high turnover equals a perpetually young, cheap staff. Yes, these are "public" schools, but operating on a private sector model.

We've challenged the district about the inequities of Results Based Budgeting, punishing schools in poor neighborhoods because of structurally and historically lower attendance rates and favoring schools in richer neighborhoods able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from parents. But administration has the answer: Grants. District administrators promise to give extra support to poorer schools in finding the grants to apply for. (That's what they told us at a district workshop on RBB, 7/7/2004.) And how do they respond when asked about one small high school with ample resources from multiple private grants that sits literally next to another small school without enough funding to maintain a copy machine? Here's how the leader of small school reform in Oakland responded: "Now it is a serious problem, the inequities that sometimes get formed, because some people are very entrepreneurial and get those things and some people are not. Our position has always been it’s better to get and then try to backfill and get from somewhere else, than to say, well, if everybody can’t have it, then nobody can have it.

Who can argue with that? If you're going to depend on private sources of funding, how can you expect it to be equitable? By the way, the quote is from Steve Jubb, Executive Director of the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES). (Workshop at Coalition for Essential Schools Fall Forum, San Francisco, 11/13/2004)

Meanwhile BayCES plays a leading role in the district's "redesign" project, jump-started with a $24 million grant from Gates, Broad, Dell, and major corporations based in Oakland. None of it is for classrooms; all of it goes into technology and training administrators to transform the entire district into a decentralized network of individual businesses. The corporate executives and administrators leading this transformation describe the project as “revisioning the district from a centrally focused institution to a school-based business service” that “delivers school services through an innovative model in which individual schools act as customers with the flexibility to invest in the services they believe will make the biggest difference to their students.” (Stated at a press conference in Oakland to announce the grant for district redesign, 11/15/2005.) Meanwhile, the corporations "investing" (their word) the millions have made it clear that they intend to hold the district accountable to "get results."So, private money is used to drive the district reform according to a business model, and corporate executives will hold the district accountable to fulfill the plan and to attain goals set by these private funders. Can we call that privatization, even though it leaves a network of "public" schools standing?

Meanwhile, charters will continue to eat away at the regular public system, leaving fewer resources (reducing economies of scale) and increasing demoralization. The inequality may worsen, but the most-engaged parents, normally most likely to protest educational injustice, are also those with the greatest ability to seek charters or the best schools in the public system for their own children; many of them will be pacified as inequity grows. Students and parents stuck in the worst schools will be blamed more than ever for their own predicament. ("What's wrong with you? There are choices out there!") There will be enough successful schools to pacify enough people, charters and non-charters; the differences between them will fade as Results Based Budgeting prevails and union contracts and work rules are watered down. Pockets of success will perpetuate themselves and breed relative stability -- especially as few teachers or families want to leave these islands -- and failure will breed more failure. No problem, because those failing schools will be dissolved and replaced with new schools with new promises. Just like the business world: each year a large percentage of existing businesses fail, but they're replaced by promising new ones. What's the big deal? That's our new "public" school system.

It's not only about profiteering through charters and contracting out services, though that's part of it. It's not about eradicating every vestige of public schooling, though it may reduce the public system to a shell of what it's been. (We have public hospitals, don't we?) But I think it has a lot to do with eliminating the expectation of quality public education as a civil right. True, that expectation has never been fulfilled, but the process we're witnessing right now is eroding the ground beneath movements fighting to make it a reality. It destabilizes and disorients communities, it continues to reshuffle the deck, and makes the prospect of educational equality appear impractical, just as equality seems an impossible dream in every other sphere that's thoroughly privatized (e.g., health care, housing, food), just as capitalism itself makes economic equality appear unattainable.

And it's not about anything so simple as a conspiracy, either. Yes, those well-endowed foundations and their elite strategy retreats ain't for nothing; their participants effectively plan their moves within a system already tilted in their favor. So their job is easier than ours, but their success isn't guaranteed. We, too, can recognize what's going on; we, too, can plan, strategize, organize and push back. Sometimes we can even win.

Craig Gordon

Intellectual Deprivation

Theresa Perry, an African-American scholar and Professor of Africana Studies and Education at Simmons College, writes about the costs of intellectual deprivation in Young, Gifted, and Black: Promoting High Achievement Among African-American Students:

"Even if education leads to a good job, even if African-American parents communicate clearly to their children that education pays off, these experiences can be neutralized if children experience school and the larger society as unfair and discriminatory. In other words, a child's belief in the power and importance of schooling and intellectual work can be interrupted by teachers and others who explicitly or subtly convey a disbelief in the child's ability for high academic achievement, and the child having a rightful place in the larger society -- unless a counternarrative about the child's identity as an intellectual being is intentionally passed on to him or her." (p. 79)

Curricula that consistently emphasize the most superficial kinds of teaching and learning may produce higher test scores. But they may do so at a tremendous price. As more and more states race to the bottom to escape the punitive aspects of NCLB, as more schools adopt dumbed-down, "teacher-proof" programs like Open Court, as urban schools become more and more segregated, and as each new KIPP and Edison school opens -- promising to close the academic achievement gap in these urban settings --, one thing is stunningly clear: America's neediest children are being left behind.

Let's Teach to the Test

In Jay Mathews' article from 2/20/06 on teaching to the test, the Washington Post reporter concludes, "Teacher and students work together to beat an exam that requires thought and analysis, not just memorization. If that is teaching to the test, let's have more of it."

I couldn't agree more. Teaching to the test would be wonderful if the tests were worth teaching to. If tests did, in fact, require thought and analysis -- not just memorization -- then I'd say "Let's have more of it," too.

But the simple facts belie his optimism. Consider the following:

1) the vast majority of state standardized tests are multiple-choice format

2) answering multiple-choice questions correctly requires students to determine which of the four or five choices is the one correct or best answer to the question. This task should not be confused with thought or analysis, especially in a world where thought and analysis necessitate careful consideration of a multiplicity of variables and seldom produce a single correct response to a single question.

3) even the highly-vaunted AP courses rely heavily on multiple choice questions. For example, the AP US History exam is 3 hours and 5 minutes in length and consists of two sections: a 55-minute multiple-choice section and a 130-minute free-response section. (click here for source)

4) the free-response section expects students to perform careful analysis, to think deeply, and write cogently . . . for 130 minutes. For 3 completely different essays. The exam guide suggests that students spend 15 minutes planning and 45 minutes writing a response to the first essay, and then 5 minutes planning and 30 minutes writing each of the other two essays.

I can think of no substantive piece of writing that I have ever produced -- including this one! -- that took me less than 30 minutes to write. Never mind that the AP students are writing under incredibly pressured conditions. Never mind that they are writing in response to prompts that they may or may not have any interest in. Never mind that they may not know enough information about the questions being asked.

The simple fact is, in holding this kind of test up as a model, we are encouraging the shallowest possible kind of thinking, writing, and analysis.

So what kind of test is worth teaching to? Consider Grant Wiggins' essay "Teaching to the (Authentic) Test" from the April 1989 edition of Educational Leadership. In this essay, Wiggins describes exhibitions of student mastery, portfolios, and other forms of authentic assessment. By "authentic," Wiggins means tests that really show what students know and can do, not how well they do on a standardized test (even one that contains "essays.") At best, standardized tests, even the AP, only give you a very narrow sense of what students know and can do.

If teaching to the test means that students take tests that demonstrate not only how well they take tests, but how well they can analyze complex problems, how much they have grown over their academic careers, how well they can think on their feet, and how well they work with others to communicate and solve problems, then let's definitely have more of it.

Is KIPP the Answer?

"KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) began in 1994 when teachers Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg completed their Teach For America commitment and launched a program for fifth graders in a public school in inner-city Houston, Texas. While only half of the students passed their fourth grade tests before enrolling in KIPP, more than 90% passed the Texas fifth grade exams in English and mathematics after one year at KIPP. In 1995, Feinberg's KIPP Academy Houston became a charter school, and Levin established KIPP Academy New York in the South Bronx. The original KIPP Academies have a sustained record of high student achievement. The Texas Education Agency has recognized KIPP Academy Houston as an "Exemplary School" for every year of its existence. According to the New York City Department of Education, KIPP Academy New York is the highest performing public middle school in the Bronx. KIPP alumni have earned over $21 million in scholarships for college-preparatory high schools and are continuing to excel in four-year colleges and universities." (from the KIPP web site)

Today, 45 KIPP schools with 400 teachers are serving over 9,000 students in 15 states and the District of Columbia. So is this what we've been waiting for?

The skinny:

1) results look impressive - most of the schools report meteoric rises in test scores, e.g., 100% of eighth-graders at KIPP Academy Houston passed the Texas state tests in 2003. KIPP Academy New York ranks in the top 10 percent of all New York city schools. However, issues arose recently in Chicago and Atlanta. "Two schools, the KIPP Chicago Youth Village Academy and Atlanta's KIPP Achieve Preparatory Academy, have had the right to use the KIPP name revoked effective at the end of this school year. The Chicago school "struggled with low enrollment and low reading scores relative to the district average" and the Atlanta school "struggled with financial reporting and viability and did not properly administer voluntary tests that would demonstrate growth over time." (source - Jay Mathews, Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011700445.html)

2) no clear indication of what "the secret to success" is - key factors include:

a) exponentially longer school day and school year - KIPP students ("KIPPsters" as they refer to themselves) are in school longer than other public school students: from 7:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. during the week, four hours on Saturdays, and for a month during the summer. "They put in roughly 70% more time in class than typical public school students. To their credit, students and parents who commit to such a program are making a massive commitment to school. Without careful study, it would be hard to say whether results achieved with this group of kids could be achieved with other kids who are less committed." (source - http://www.dailyhowler.com/h092499_1.shtml) Because parents choose to send their kids to KIPP and sign a contract stating that they agree to the rigorous hours, the students are more likely to come from families with at least a vague commitment to education.

b) broad-based curriculum - other organizations that claim to produce higher test scores (e.g., Edison) are doing so at the expense of a broad-based curriculum. Not so KIPP, or so it would seem. However, this would be expected in a school where students spend 70% more time than their peers. In addition, many of the opportunities for inclusion in extra-curricular activities is based not on student interest but on student behavior. "(KIPP co-founders) Feinberg and Levin say they want discipline, attention and steady, measurable progress that supplants the distractions of their students' homes and neighborhoods. Their secret is what they call 'the joy factor': excursions in Central Park, games, songs, trips to Disney World or Los Angeles, and music. The 180-piece orchestra at KIPP New York gives bewildered and frustrated preteens an incentive to go to school each morning. They must earn the right to play by being nice and working hard. . . At the end of each week, students receive up to $40 in virtual cash that can be redeemed for snacks and other favors at the student store, and also count toward day excursions like the trip to Central Park or what KIPP calls year-end 'field lessons' to Washington, D.C., California, New England, Utah, Florida or Tennessee. " (source - Washington Post, August 24, 2004 - http://www.kipp.org/press/anmviewer.asp?a=116&z=1)

c) discipline and rewards - "Students must walk in quiet, single-file lines at all times. There is a contract for each student – a document signed by parent, principal and child attesting to their commitment to education. All KIPP kids learn chants and hand signals that teachers use for everything from teaching multiplication tables to getting them to recite their college ambitions....school hallways are decorated with posters bearing KIPP slogans such as 'There are No Shortcuts'....KIPPsters everywhere earn or lose weekly ‘paychecks' that can be spent in the student store. Miscreants are placed on the bench, must wear signs around their neck that say ‘BENCH,' eat at a quiet table and write letters of apology to each student before explaining to the class how they will change their behavior." (source - San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 29, 2003)

more on "the Bench" - "(S)ending (students) to the principal's office or sending them on suspensions is what we don't want to do. So in its place, we've come up with the idea of the bench in terms of not being on the team. And on the bench what we've taken away is the social aspect which the kids at the middle school level so crave. So they're still in the classroom, they’re still learning but they have to sit apart from their teammates and the only one they can talk to in that classroom is the teacher. They can't talk to their friends and their friends can't talk to them. So it applies not just to the classroom but the entire school day so when they go eat lunch, they have to sit at a separate table. Once again, they can't eat with their friends, they have to eat either in silence or they can work on their homework and reading when they're at the table. Then over the weekend, if they're on the bench, they have to do some deep reflection on the bad choices they made to go to the bench because that means they either weren’t doing their work, or they weren't being nice and respectful to their teammates, they have to write letters of apology to their teammates explaining what they did wrong and what they're going to do the next week to get off the bench and contribute to the team again." - Mike Feinberg, co-founder of KIPP (source - http://www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/sbs/kipp/feinberg.html)

d) dress code - At every KIPP school, students wear uniforms.

Issues:

1) Do higher test scores mean better learning?

2) Are KIPP schools serving as surrogate parents for their students, given the amount of time they spend at school?

3) Is the KIPP model reproducible, given the extraordinary demands that it puts on teachers, parents, and students? In an interview, Feinberg said, "(I)t's getting harder to find the teachers that are already at the master level." ( source - http://www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/sbs/kipp/feinberg.html ) KIPP seems to thrive on the energy of its young, ambitious, mostly white teachers who are genuinely committed to helping poor kids of color. I take nothing away from what the founders of KIPP are committed to and what they want. I admire them, like I admire many people who actually want to do something about social justice and closing the achievement gap. But, like so many of these same folks, they take an incredibly naive approach to "fixing" the problem. While Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg might be willing to work 10 hour days for 5 days, 5 hours more on Saturdays, and 1 extra month in the summer, I doubt that many others will. It's no coincidence that the majority of "KIPP'sters" are in their 20's, are single, and have no kids. Doing the right thing is noble work . . . until you hit 30. Or get married. Or have kids.

4) To what extent does the apparent success of each KIPP school serve to mask the underlying problems of the neighborhoods where KIPP schools are found? In other words, is KIPP a way to treat the symptoms of the achievement gap, with its insistence on personal triumph over adverse conditions, and turn attention away from the more pernicious causal factors at the root of the achievement gap?

Observations:

Foucault's chapter on discipline in Discipline and Punish keeps coming to mind, "the body as object and target of power" and the notion of "docile bodies" that are "subjected, used, transformed, and improved."

These docile bodies in KIPP schools are uniformly brown and black. No white body is subjected to this same kind of disciplined transformation. Indeed, the school motto is "Be nice, work hard." What white, suburban, middle-class parents would want this to be the goal of their child's education? It may be worthwhile to some to "tame the savages" and turn them into productive members of white-dominated society. But I worry about the costs of such "improvements."

This is all the more troubling given the way the KIPP origin story is told: two bright, highly-educated, white male crusaders who went out of their ways to save poor minority children from the ravages of the failed system of public education. The story too closely resembles tales of white missionaries, explorers, and anthropologists not to be noticeable. In darkest Africa at the turn of the twentieth century, white men descended into the jungles to convert, trade with, and study the savages they encountered. Implicit within all their encounters was the unquestioned axiom that defined these exchanges: the white people were civilized, the black people were uncivilized; the white people were advanced, the black people were behind. To this day, “Third World Debtor Nations” are looked down upon as drains upon the world economy, as incompetent at managing their own affairs, and in need of a good lesson or two.

The KIPP origin story is told with a great deal of pride, that the two young crusaders (both from Ivy League schools) displayed enormous courage and commitment to turn things around to produce “schools that work.” I'm reminded of Kenneth Saltman’s point from The Edison Schools:

"The two questions most asked about Edison by liberals and conservatives are whether it works to raise test scores and whether it works financially to decrease costs. Asking whether or not something “works” brackets out of consideration the broader goals, purposes, and underlying assumptions about what something works to do. The focus on test performance and finances has thoroughly eclipsed discussion of whether Edison facilitates democratic education and a democratic society. If one assumes that the democratic potential of public schools should be at the forefront of debate, then the question of whether or not Edison “works” may be the wrong way to approach the company and public schooling more generally." (p. 68)

So what do KIPP schools work at doing? What do they accomplish? What do they produce? Or, more precisely, who do they produce and by what means? And at what cost?

Do they really want to destroy public schools?

A large organization like the Bush administation can't be said to have a single agenda that is controlled by a single person (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove) that is consistent over time. It's not like there a bunch of Bush minions in a back room, smoking cigars, rubbing their hands together, and saying, "Heh-heh-heh! We'll be rich by destroying public schools!"

It's more complicated than this.

With Bush using the bully-pulpit of the Presidency to advocate for the policies of NCLB, supporters can line up behind him and advocate solutions that are similar to his. These proponents all have slightly different intentions. But one thing that most of them, at least the educational corporations, have in common is this: if Bush's policies are successfully implemented, all of them will be incredibly rich. Peter Jovanovich, chief executive of Pearson Education, a multi-billion dollar corporate publisher of tests and education materials, described NCLB by saying, "This almost reads like our business plan.” So, funneling tax dollars into private institutions can certainly be seen as a way of holding public schools accountable. And funneling tax dollars into private institutions can certainly be seen as a way of eventually improving them. But funneling tax dollars into private institutions can also be seen as a way to make educational corporations more profitable and investors in these corporations more excited about these companies. For example, in its 2004 Annual Report, McGraw-Hill reported its revenue increased 7.4% to a record $5.3 billion, that net income increased 9.9% to $755.8 million, and that operating margins rose 3 percentage points to 25%.

Does this mean that McGraw-Hill is out to destroy public schools? Not at all. Does this mean that Peter Jovanovich of Pearson Education is secretly colluding with Bush to privatize public schools? No way. Does this mean that private, for-profit educational companies like to see poor kids get crappy educations? No. The stunning, heart-breaking thing is that as they all work to support reform through NCLB, the following happens: (1) the companies make more money, (2) public schools are destroyed, (3) more and more schools are privatized, and (4) more and more poor kids get crappy educations. None of these companies explicitly WANT these things to happen, but as their business practices seek to fulfill on the revenue-generating opportunities that NCLB affords them, we move inexorably towards the end of public education as we know it.

Learning to Read

Much of the criticism of Open Court, etc., dwells on the fact that these approaches do not teach comprehension. As a child, I got comprehension. But reading was still a drudgery. Although I understood what I read, I hardly ever remembered any of it. Why? Because I was told to read certain things, to produce certain acceptable answers based on what I had read, to produce responses that fit specified formats (the much-dreaded book report), and had little to no personal connection to what I had read. This characterized the vast majority of my reading experience from K to grad school.

What was missing for me was the opportunity to connect reading to my own interests and to the world. This would have made the act of reading not simply decoding and not simply regurgitating what I had read. It would have made reading more explicitly about meaning-making. In my life after my formal education, reading has become an essential and critical part of my identity. Reading literally causes me to invent and re-invent myself on a regular basis. As I read, I engage my sense of self and my sense of purpose as I encounter what I already know and don't know, what I believe and don't believe, and what I aspire to.

Had this latter experience been part of my earlier experience as a student, who knows where I would be or who I would be now. Maybe I would have remembered more of what I had read in school. Maybe the hundreds and hundreds of dollars I invested in books I skimmed in college would have paid off. Hard to say. But what I can say for sure is that my experience was one of privilege and opportunity. I at least had the money to buy the books and was offered the opportunity to engage them, albeit in a superficial manner. For inner-city children who are "taught how to read" using a scripted program that aspires to nothing more than being able to sound out words, I can only begin to imagine how reading must occur to them. If reading was dull and meaningless to me, what is it like for them?

If There Was Any Doubt About NCLB's Intentions

"President Bush’s blueprint for federal education spending in the next fiscal year includes . . . new money for private school vouchers . . . and the most drastic cut in Department of Education funding in more than a decade. . . If approved by Congress, his plan would mean the largest percentage cut for the department since fiscal 1996."

Education Week, 2/15/06

What are we to make of this? According to the NEA, NCLB is already underfunded by $27 billion. So how can the Bush administration hold schools accountable by further reducing funding?

Look closer at what Bush is proposing and it becomes clear:

"The fiscal 2007 package proposes a $100 million voucher program, America’s Opportunity Scholarships for Kids, for students in schools slated for restructuring under the No Child Left Behind Act. It would provide their parents with $4,000 scholarships to transfer the children to private schools, or $3,000 for intensive tutoring." (source - Education Week, 2/15/06)

Here is the logic:

1) raise impossibly high expectations for student achievement in public schools
2) underfund the effort to do so, thereby increasing the likelihood that more and more public schools will be labeled "failures"
3) provide increased funding to private, for-profit organizations that service (i.e., prey upon) this ever-growing population of students from "failing" schools
4) provide parents with funds to send their children to private schools

The evidence is incontrovertible: the Bush administration is committed to ending public schools and funneling an ever-increasing amount of taxpayer dollars to private schools and companies.

Note that unlike public schools, private schools and private tutoring companies are not accountable for who they hire or how well they perform with the federal funds. Stunningly, despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever, the Bush administration simply believes that sending children to private schools and private tutors will solve all our problems. Of course, without any form of accountability to US taxpayers, there's no way we'll ever know.

But what happens to the children who go to a private school and are subsequently kicked out for poor academic performance, behavior problems, etc.? Where do they go if the public schools have been decimated? And what do families do if they can't afford to send their children to private schools, even with a $4,000 scholarship? I know of no private school -- not one -- that charges $4,000 per year for full-time tuition. Most private schools charge 3 or 4 times as much.

Here's the good news: in a strongly-worded statement, Sen. Arlen Specter, (Republican from Pennsylvania), the chairman of the Senate appropriations subcommittee that allocates money for education and health, said the president’s budget proposal was going to “require substantial modification by the Congress.”

“It is scandalous to provide insufficient funding for our nation’s two greatest capital investments: health and education,” Mr. Specter said. (source - Education Week, 2/15/06)

What Makes Them "Out of Control"?

The staunchly-committed, well-intentioned folks who support St. Louis's Edison-run school (Confluence Academy) base their support on this observation: the public schools are out of control. Children, they say, cannot learn in classrooms that are chaotic, poorly managed, and undisciplined. Their solution: make classrooms orderly, well-managed, and disciplined.

This solution begs the question, "What makes them out of control?" It is a classic case of confusing the symptoms with the disease and treating the symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself.

Imagine the following: you have a terrible headache. So you take aspirin. But that doesn't make the headache go away. So you take ibuprofen. But the headache still doesn't go away. So now you go to your doctor and get a prescription pain killer. This makes the pain go away. Temporarily. But you wake up the next day with the same pounding headache, so you keep taking the pain pill. What you don't realize is that you have a brain tumor that is causing the pain. But you keep treating the symptoms of the brain tumor -- the pain -- and fail to take action to identify the source of the pain -- the tumor.

Now imagine this: you have classrooms that are wildly out of control. So you implement strict discipline, but the behavior problems persist. Then you implement dress codes, but still you can't gain control. So you institute corporal punishment. This doesn't work. Then you bring in Edison. What you don't realize is that you have a persistent socioeconomic disparity that is causing the chaos. But you keep treating the symptoms of the chaos -- the disruptive behavior -- and fail to take action to identify the source of the chaos -- the socioeconomic disparity.

Whether taking pain pills or bringing in Edison "works" depends on what you mean by "works." Sure, the headache is gone. And yes, the kids are quiet. But in each case, the underlying source of the problem gets untreated. And, because it goes untreated, it gets worse over time. In the case of the headaches, you are required to take more pills to manage increasingly worse pain. In the case of our schools, you are required to institute more severe modes of discipline to manage increasingly worse behavior problems.

Edison Crows, But Report Makes Them Eat Crow

Edison Schools, Inc., recently commissioned an audit by the RAND Corporation to review the inner-workings of Whittle's company.

Not surprisingly, Edison spins the findings of the report very favorably, saying, "The 290-page study . . . offers the most comprehensive independent analysis to date of the achievement gains generated by school districts and charter schools that partner with Edison Schools." The press release continues, "RAND is one of the premier independent research organizations in the world," said (Edison Schools Chief Academic Officer John) Chubb. "We commissioned RAND's study of our schools for several reasons. (W)e were confident it would affirm the general proposition that most Edison schools bring significant achievement gains to our public-education partners. The study shows that, over time, this is exactly the case, and reconfirms results previously reported in Edison's annual reports on achievement."

But in reading the report, I discovered a number of findings that contradicted this glowing praise.

Data-driven assessments
In regard to Edison's benchmark assessment system and data-driven decision making, the authors write, "Occasionally, even the quality of information provided by the benchmarks is in doubt. A few teachers have viewed the benchmarks as high-stakes tests in themselves rather than diagnostic tools (although interviews in our case study schools suggested that this is not common). Although Edison’s explicit accountability system attaches no consequences to benchmark results (unlike state test results, which constitute a major part of each school’s Edison star rating), it is not surprising that some teachers would wonder whether benchmark tests might have implicit consequences for their own evaluation. Teachers who view the benchmarks as high-stakes tests may prepare their students in ways that are effective in promoting performance on the benchmarks but ineffective in promoting general academic skills. If this happens, the diagnostic value of the benchmarks is degraded. Recognizing the potential problem, Edison assessment staff are well aware that misuse of the benchmarks will undermine their utility for diagnosis (for teachers, for schools, and for the central office), and they consistently send the message that the benchmarks should not be viewed as high-stakes tests." (p. 69)

Narrowing the curriculum
In regard to narrowing the curriculum in order to concentrate on test preparation, the authors write, "In fact, we observed an intense focus on achievement in many of the Edison case study schools. This clearly had a payoff, as the case study schools had generally positive achievement trajectories in both reading and math. In some instances, however, a focus on test scores created a tension with Edison’s broader goal of promoting “worldclass” education. In a few of the schools we visited, some teachers admitted that the broader Edison curriculum is sometimes pushed aside by narrowly focused test preparation activities. Non-tested subjects such as art, music, foreign language, and (in many states) science and social studies are in some instances downplayed in favor of additional practice in basic skills in reading and math. And the ambitious, problem- and concept-focused mathematics curriculum used by Edison is sometimes displaced by worksheets used for test preparation in basic math skills. The most egregious instance we encountered (and the only such instance of which we are aware in the case study schools) involved one Edison principal who was dismissed after the district discovered evidence of cheating on a high-stakes assessment. . . (I)t must be acknowledged that to the extent that Edison’s accountability systems reward test results, they will reinforce both the productive and unproductive incentives associated with NCLB." (pp. 71-72)

Teaching to "the bubble kids"
Finally, in regard to teaching to "the bubble kids," i.e., adjusting instruction to raise the test scores of children near the proficiency level as indicated by the benchmark tests, the authors write, "The standards movement in K–12 schooling has encouraged schools to move away from achievement measures defined by reference to a larger population (e.g., percentile rankings) and toward achievement measures defined by external standards of proficiency in a particular content or skill area. NCLB cemented this trend by requiring all states to establish school accountability systems based on the proportion of students achieving proficiency. Many public schools around the country have rationally responded to the policy by seeking to identify and direct interventions toward those students who are closest to the cut-point for proficiency—the bubble kids (Pedulla et al., 2003). Edison has responded similarly: Its monthly benchmark assessments give its schools unusually good information for identifying bubble kids, and Edison actively encourages schools to identify such students and develop interventions to prepare them for state exams. The Edison schools we visited had some variation in attention to bubble kids. Some Edison principals and teachers embrace the concept as a logical and appropriate way to have data drive instructional decisionmaking. Others, however, are disturbed by the possible implication that students on both ends of the achievement spectrum— high achievers and low achievers—might be neglected in favor of those in the middle." (p. 72)

Blowing the Achievement Gap Wide Open

- in my suburban downtown area, the local Kumon center is packed with white kids . . . on a Saturday morning
- in my old stomping grounds in Montclair, NJ, the downtown area featured a SCORE! center packed with white kids . . . on a Saturday morning
- in New York City, The NY Times reported in 2003 that affluent parents paid up to $300 an hour for consultants to help their kids get into "the right pre-school"; the top of the so-called "Baby Ivies" -- Columbia Grammar -- apparently has a list of 500 waiting to get into 34 open slots
- the National Institute for Early Education Research reported that children in high-quality programs make roughly $143,000 more over their lifetime than the control group, i.e., those not enrolled in high-quality pre-K programs

Private Tutoring and NCLB

from The NY Times
2/12/06

--snip--
"To some extent, when you offer something new to low-income parents or to any parent group, initially you're not going to have a surge signing up because they don't know what it is and the procedure to sign kids up is somewhat complicated," said Nina Rees, an assistant deputy secretary at the Department of Education. . . Despite the efforts to draw students to tutoring, some students and parents say they are not even aware that they may qualify and express confusion about the free program. "I need help in a couple of subjects, and I'm interested in anything that would help me," said Ninoska Valverde, a student at Junior High School 291 in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. "It would be a great idea, but I didn't even know about it."
--snip--

SES offerings are mired in chaos, as this report shows. That's good news and bad news. Good news for those of us who oppose privatizing education and outsourcing it to for-profit ventures. The bad news, of course, is that poor children are still not getting the education they need and deserve.

NCLB operates under the assumption that children can be placed on a conveyor belt that moves inexorably from the public realm to the private sphere and that, magically, all problems will be solved once all public schools are charter schools operated by EMOs like Edison and/or all children in public schools are given private tutoring by for-profit companies. Of course, there is precisely zero accountability for these private, for-profit ventures. They do not have to meet any federal regulations regarding who they hire, how they are trained, and whether or not they are qualified to teach. Moreover, unlike the accountability provisions that public schools must adhere to, there is no federal requirement that tracks the success or failure of these private supplemental educational service providers. And yet millions of dollars have already poured into these private companies and, without significant changes in the law, will continue to do so.

Now, here's where it gets really interesting. The report below shows that these private SES ventures are not being taken advantage of. It also cites the fact that year 3 AYP sanctions have largely (if not exclusively) been an urban, inner-city phenomenon given the way that NCLB has been rolled out. But now that all children will be taking their state tests this year, AYP sub-groups that had been overlooked in suburban districts due to small numbers will now count -- for the first time. This means that large numbers of suburban districts, starting this year, will be placed on the federal watch list for the first time. If these suburban districts fail to make AYP for three years in a row, they will be eligible for SES.

This means that we won't hear the cacophonous sucking sound of SES until 2009, when parents in suburban districts, better-informed and more involved in the affairs of their districts than their inner-city peers, may take advantage of SES in large numbers. As the Times piece indicates, "Eduventures, a market research firm for the education industry, estimated that the amount of money spent on supplemental educational services last year was $879 million and that the figure would grow to $1.3 billion by 2009."

Sylvan, et al, already regularly publish advertisements in my media market. Imagine the demand for their services when they become "free."

Remember: NCLB is up for reauthorization in 2007, well before Ye Olde Shitte hits Ye Olde Fanne in 2009. Admittedly, NCLB will likely not be reauthorized until 2008, but still significantly before Year 3 of AYP kicks in for the suburban schools.

Full text of the NY Times piece below.

Tutor Program Offered by Law Is Going Unused
By SUSAN SAULNY


Four years after President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind education law, vast numbers of students are not getting the tutoring that the law offers as one of its hallmarks.

In the nation's largest school district, New York City, fewer than half of the 215,000 eligible students sought the free tutoring, according to figures from the city's Department of Education for the school year that ended in June 2005.

In one area of the city, District 19 in eastern Brooklyn, about 3,700 students completed a tutoring program last year, even though more than 13,000 students qualified.

Yet New York's participation rate is better than the national average: across the country, roughly two million public school students were eligible for free tutoring in the school year that ended in 2004, according to the most recent data from the Department of Education, yet only 226,000 — or nearly 12 percent — received help.

In California in the last school year, 95,500 of 800,000 eligible students were tutored. In Maryland, just over a quarter of those who were eligible — 5,580 of 19,520 students — actually enrolled in the last school year. And in Louisiana, despite aggressive marketing by the state, only about 5,000 of 50,000 eligible students took part in the program last year.

The No Child Left Behind law requires consistently failing schools that serve mostly poor children to offer their students a choice if they want it: a new school or tutoring from private companies or other groups, paid for with federal money — typically more than $1,800 a child in big cities. In the past the schools would have been under no obligation to use that Title I federal poverty grant to pay for outside tutoring.

City and state education officials and tutoring company executives disagree on the reasons for the low participation and cast blame on each other. But they agree that the numbers show that states and school districts have not smoothed out the difficulties that have plagued the tutoring — known as the supplemental educational services program — from its start as a novel experiment in educational entrepreneurship: largely private tutoring paid for with federal money.

Officials give multiple reasons for the problems: that the program is allotted too little federal money, is poorly advertised to parents, has too much complicated paperwork for signing up, and that it has not fully penetrated the most difficult neighborhoods, where there are high concentrations of poor, failing students.

"I think there's a real learning curve on this because it's so different from what has come before," said Jane Hannaway, the director of the Education Policy Center at the Urban Institute, which is in the early stage of conducting studies on the tutoring program for the United States Department of Education.

"At this point, policy analysts are trying to figure out what's working well and what may not be working well and what needs to be changed," Ms. Hannaway added.

Because the initiative is but a few years old, and many districts are only now starting tutoring programs, experts say their effort to pinpoint the hurdles to the initiative's success is also suffering from a lack of data.

Even for those students who are getting tutored, there has yet to be a scientific national study judging whether students in failing schools are receiving any academic benefit. And there is no consensus on how that progress should be judged.

In addition, it is not entirely clear why so many students do not complete tutoring programs once they have enrolled. In New York City, 34,055 schoolchildren did not successfully complete the terms of their tutoring contracts last year after signing up. Most seemed to attend a few sessions and then never returned.

Federal education officials point to the fact that the initiative is still relatively new in explaining the low enrollment numbers, and say that participation is growing every year.

"To some extent, when you offer something new to low-income parents or to any parent group, initially you're not going to have a surge signing up because they don't know what it is and the procedure to sign kids up is somewhat complicated," said Nina Rees, an assistant deputy secretary at the Department of Education.

To that end, the department has been advising states and school districts to use everything they can to reach parents, including letters, fliers and the Internet, and to make the description of programs as simple as possible. Still, Ms. Rees noted that "this can be time consuming, and a lot of districts don't have the capacity to administer a program like this while administering all of the other grants they are charged with administering."

While tutoring is only one of the choices given to students under the law, switching to new schools is more difficult, so school districts have put the emphasis on tutoring. In failing districts, the law required the tutoring to come from outside groups on the theory that they could do a better job than the schools that were failing in the first place.

But to address the tens of thousands of students who are not getting tutors, federal education officials are now allowing some failing districts to tutor their own students.

New York was the third city to receive such a waiver in November, after Chicago and Boston. City education officials say they hope running their own program will open access to more students because districts tend to tutor students at a much lower cost per child, and the tutoring groups tend to be larger.

The federal government calls the three city efforts pilot programs and says that based on their success they could be replicated in other cities.

Students are not required to sign up for tutoring. The option is offered, but students' ability to participate depends on how well the services are advertised, how cooperative districts are in letting tutors into schools, whether the tutors can serve all those in need and whether districts have enough money to cover services for those who want them.

The money comes from a percentage of federal Title I money that the districts must set aside for tutoring or the school transfers. But some districts say the money has been insufficient to keep up with demand.

After No Child Left Behind became law, companies and other tutoring groups rushed to be part of the new industry. Eduventures, a market research firm for the education industry, estimated that the amount of money spent on supplemental educational services last year was $879 million and that the figure would grow to $1.3 billion by 2009.

The providers range from large companies like Catapult Learning, Kaplan Inc. and the Princeton Review to smaller community and religions groups and nonprofit organizations. To participate and be reimbursed per child tutored, providers must first win the state's approval. Some tutoring companies blame the school districts and the federal government for the bulk of the problems.

"If this was Year 1 or 2, I'd cut the districts more slack in somehow explaining the lack of aggressive outreach," said Steven Pines, executive director of the Education Industry Association, a trade group that represents businesses like textbook, testing and tutoring companies.

Jeffrey Cohen, the president of Catapult Learning, one of the largest tutoring companies, said participation rates were low because many districts were just now embracing the program, and some still had complicated sign-up procedures.

"From a macro level, there needs to be more enforcement," Mr. Cohen said. "If I can identify for you a school district that has 40,000 eligible children and 245 approved, I draw the conclusion that there is something wrong with the implementation there. In states and districts that have opened their arms to the value of tutoring, you see strong programs and strong participation."

Many state and district officials complain that federal financing is insufficient to meet demand and say that federal officials were also slow in offering advice, contributing to the bumpy start. In Washington, D.C., for instance, about 24,563 students are eligible this year for tutoring. But only 3,025 students are being tutored, because that is all the district says it can afford.

There is only one official to handle everything related to the tutoring for the entire district. "We don't have enough money to accommodate the desire," said Tamika N. Maultsby, a program coordinator for Washington schools. "We are working tirelessly. But we definitely need staff. The kids are signing up. The desire is there. We just don't have the money."

Some educational groups believe that some tutoring companies shun students with learning and language difficulties because the companies are judged based in part on the progress their students make.

Some of the latest available data gives a clear picture that some of the country's vulnerable students are among those not being served: in New York City, for instance, about 9,000 of approximately 22,000 children with disabilities who were eligible for tutoring enrolled for help last year. Among students with limited English, about half the 40,000 eligible were being tutored.

Beth Swanson, the director of after-school and community school programs for the Chicago public schools, said of tutoring companies, "Typically, we do see that providers opt not to serve those populations, and likely because they don't have the materials, expertise or resources to do so."

Many in the tutoring industry deny such charges and say that schools do not notify them in advance about which students might require special services, citing privacy concerns.

In May, in another relaxation of the law that recognized that some disabled children might be contributing to a district's failure rate, the Education Department announced that states could apply for flexibility to allow greater numbers of students to take alternate tests to assess whether they were comprehending material at their own grade level.

Despite the efforts to draw students to tutoring, some students and parents say they are not even aware that they may qualify and express confusion about the free program.

"I need help in a couple of subjects, and I'm interested in anything that would help me," said Ninoska Valverde, a student at Junior High School 291 in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. "It would be a great idea, but I didn't even know about it."

Edison, et al, wait in the wings (again)

I've spent the last week or so talking to school officials about the possibility of schools not meeting AYP this year. I've asked if they have any contingency plans. They don't. Why? Because they don't believe their schools will fail to make AYP this year or, if they do fail, they don't believe the federal sanctions will amount to anything.

Maybe not. Or maybe so.

Consider what has taken place in the city of brotherly love:

"Edison’s involvement in Philadelphia began in the fall of 2001, when Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge awarded Edison a $2.7 million no-bid emergency contract to evaluate the district and to make recommendations for improvement. In October 2001, Edison released its report on Philadelphia, finding the district to be facing “grave academic and fiscal crises." Edison recommended, as one of several options, that the district hire a private firm to take over its central management and operations of numerous low-performing schools. The following day, the new governor, Mark Schweiker (who had taken over for Ridge when he accepted the post of U.S. Director of Homeland Security), proposed the state take over the district and turn over its central management to Edison. In response to Edison’s anticipated involvement in Philadelphia, various interest groups, school personnel, taxpayers, concerned citizens, parents, and students waged public protests throughout the city. In the most dramatic show of protest, the city council filed a lawsuit to stop the state takeover and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) and others filed a lawsuit to stop Edison from benefiting from any such state takeover. Both lawsuits, while politically damaging, proved unsuccessful in the courts. In December 2001, the state took over the district. By February 2002, a seven-member School Reform Commission (SRC) had been appointed and was poised to hire a new district leader. In June 2002, the SRC hired Paul Vallas, the well-respected former Chicago public schools chief executive officer (CEO) (1995–2001). Vallas denied Edison the central management role and, instead, approved contracts for Edison to run just 20 of 45 low-performing schools turned over to private firms. The remaining 25 schools were split between four other EMOs and two local universities."

--source: "Inspiration, Perspiration, and Time: Operations and Achievement in Edison Schools," from the 2005 RAND Corporation report, p.11
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG351.pdf

Edison, Inc., spins it this way:

"Philadelphia's education reform is turning heads nationally. Its multi-pronged approach with a focus on managed instruction includes adoption of a "diverse provider model," partnering at unprecedented levels with private companies, universities and strong community groups, in an effort to increase student achievement in low-performing schools. Philadelphia's implementation of the diverse provider model encouraged positive, non-adversarial competition under strong management by District CEO, Paul Vallas, and School Reform Commission Chair, James Nevels. And it has generated a dramatic turnaround for partnership schools. When Philadelphia launched the partnerships in 2002-2003, turning over 45 schools to outside groups to operate in partnership with the District, its proposal was highly controversial, and its decision to make Edison Schools the largest of its partners was met with protests in the streets and widespread predictions that the partnership would fail. The results, however, have been impressive. The protests have stopped, replaced by goodwill and cooperation. And student achievement is up dramatically across the board. Edison Schools contributed substantially to those gains, producing average gains of 10 points last year in both reading and math. On the whole, district-wide gains were among the largest of the nation's 50 largest school systems, according to the Council of Great City Schools."

source - http://www.edisonschools.com/news/news.cfm?ID=176

The Republican governors Ridge and Schweiker simply by-passed the school board, the city council, and the teachers union and installed Edison. Yes, there were protests. Yes, there were even lawsuits. The upshot? Edison now runs 22 schools in Philadelphia.

Keep in mind, too, that No Child Left Behind mandates that if schools fail to make AYP for 5 years in a row, they can be taken over by the state and/or turned over to private management companies. This is what the law says.

I'm often asked by incredulous school officials, "What are they gonna do, huh? Are they gonna just TAKE US OVER??" This is usually followed by a jolly-old guffaw.

I simply respond: maybe. It's not like they can't. And it's not like they haven't before.

Revelations from LeapPad

While playing with my 3-year-old daughter and her "My First LeapPad Alphabet Bus," I came face to face with the education war.

The toy has two basic modes: (1) open discovery, where children use a pen-like device to touch the interface and receive audial feedback (usually cute sound effects or songs) and (2) structured games. The structured games ask children to do specific task-oriented things like, "With your pen, touch the scarecrow with 3 red triangles." Each successfully accomplished task is followed by raucous celebration on the part of the toy, usually a cartoon character saying something like "Good job!" or "Way to go!" As I was playing along with my daughter, I began to notice that she was taking less and less interest in these structured games. Despite the toy's hyperbolic celebrations of her mastery, she quickly grew bored. I encouraged her to keep playing, but she looked at me and said, "Do you want to hold the pen, Daddy?" So I kept playing. But the more I played, the more I realized that the toy was celebrating the accomplishment of extremely easy, mindless tasks that all had exactly one correct way of doing them. Ironically, this "toy" was utterly joyless. Yet it is marketed under the guise of an "interactive" toy that teaches "the pre-reading, pre-writing and other preschool skills to prepare children for the first day of school."

To learn more about the toy, click here.

Of course, I shouldn't have been so surprised. I knew better. I had seen the same joyless approach at Confluence Academy, the Edison-run school that I visited in St. Louis. I saw the same boredom in these children that I saw in my daughter. I saw the teachers celebrate the same mindless mastery of task-specific skills. I saw the same approach to preparing children for what lies ahead of them.

In this particular instance, the difference between my daughter and the children at Confluence Academy was that my daughter had the freedom to get up and do something else. But at Confluence, the children sat in silence and did as they were told.

Who Cares?

Last year, at a critical reading conference at Washington University in St. Louis, Margaret Finders from Washington University presented research on the reason why students do not drop out of school, i.e., why they stay in. The number one reason students stay in school: they have the sense that teachers care about them.

So the questions I asked myself were:

• How do you show students that you care?


• How do you care for students that are most likely to drop out and may not care about themselves or about school?


• How do certain curricula prevent demonstration of care?


• What is the relationship between the draconian nature of NCLB with its emphasis on punishment and the establishment of a caring environment in the classroom?

If we take all these questions together, you might show students you care by responding to their specific needs and interests, tailoring certain aspects of the curriculum to what motivates them, and providing support and encouragement in areas that might not be related directly to academic performance, e.g., their interest in art, music, sports, etc. This is especially relevant for students who are on the edge of staying in or dropping out of school. Yet with each new Edison school, with each new implementation of Open Court, with each new implementation of data-driven assessment systems, and with each successive school added to the list of AYP failures, we see the rise of a curriculum designed to do one thing: improve test scores. If a student is already struggling to find a way to care about school, emphasis on test preparation and test performance will do nothing to help. Obviously, it will do just the opposite. Students who find no interest in traditional academic subjects and who find self-esteem and purpose in art or music will have nowhere to go for solace. And so will likely drop out.

Teachers, especially middle school teachers who have 100 to 150 students, already struggled before NCLB with the task of finding the time to reach each child on a personal, caring level. NCLB and the rise of the test prep curriculum make it less and less possible to care about students. In fact, NCLB and these test prep curricula do just the opposite: instead of seeing students as people in need of care, students are seen as statistics. Each student, especially the students on the edge of passing the state test ("the bubble kids"), can potentially make or break the school's progress towards AYP. And if the student does drop out? Well, that's one less to worry about affecting your test scores.