Class and the Classroom

For an incredibly concise, powerful prescription for what ails US public education, see Richard Rothstein's essay "Class and the Classroom." This piece is based on Rothstein's extraordinary book from 2004, Class and Schools. In both this essay and the book, Rothstein addresses the real causes of the achievement gap between the haves and the have nots. Of particular relevance is Rothstein's insistence on looking at the material conditions of suffering and deprivation that low-income people are confronted with on a daily basis:

Overall, lower-income children are in poorer health. They have poorer vision, partly because of prenatal conditions and partly because, even as toddlers, they watch too much television, so their eyes are poorly trained. Trying to read, their eyes may wander or have difficulty tracking print or focusing. A good part of the over-identification of learning disabilities for lower-class children may well be attributable to undiagnosed vision problems that could be easily treated by optometrists and for which special education placement then should be unnecessary.

Lower-class children have poorer oral hygiene, more lead poisoning, more asthma, poorer nutrition, less-adequate pediatric care, more exposure to smoke, and a host of other health problems. Because of less-adequate dental care, for example, they are more likely to have toothaches and resulting discomfort that affects concentration.

Because low-income children live in communities where landlords use high-sulfur home heating oil and where diesel trucks frequently pass en route to industrial and commercial sites, they are more likely to suffer from asthma, leading to more absences from school and, when they do attend, drowsiness from lying awake at night, wheezing. Recent surveys in Chicago and in New York City's Harlem community found one of every four children suffering from asthma, a rate six times as great as that for all children.

In addition, there are fewer primary-care physicians in low-income communities, where the physician-to-population ratio is less than a third the rate in middle-class communities. For that reason, disadvantaged children—even those with health insurance—are more likely to miss school for relatively minor problems, such as common ear infections, for which middle-class children are treated promptly.

Each of these well-documented social class differences in health is likely to have a palpable effect on academic achievement; combined, their influence is probably huge.

Why Multiple Choice Tests (Even "Good" Ones) Tell Us Nothing

Recently, on the Assessment Reform Network list, Richard Hake cited evidence for the use/value of multiple choice tests (MCT's). The evidence came from studies of high school and college students.

I would be rather surprised if there were any studies that have been done that show any value for younger kids, especially when you consider the kinds of MCT's that young kids are exposed to. For example, here's a real question from Tennessee's 2005 state test in Governance and Civics given to students in Grade 3:

"Which of these is an example of someone being a good citizen?"

a) A girl steals candy from a store.
b) A boy puts his litter in a trash can.
c) A man lets his dog run loose on the street.
d) A woman drives faster than the speed limit.

I think this is what most people (including me) have in mind when we criticize MCT's. If there are lots of really good MCT's that are out there right now in grades 3-8, for example, I'd love to know about them.

Here's the thing: students that are not pigeon-holed, tracked, labeled "LD," counseled out, or otherwise have their love of learning obliterated by such asinine tests and their associated test prep regimes are lucky.

Sorry. I don't like MCT's, even the so-called "good ones." Here's why: I am a terrible test-taker. When I took MCT's in the past, I got extremely anxious. I thought to myself, "One of these answers might not be the RIGHT response, but one of them is supposed to be the BEST response." So I tended to over-think and over-analyze each question. Of course, none of the analysis I performed counted towards anything, especially if I chose the "incorrect" response. Not one shred of the process I underwent to arrive at my choice was recorded. I took too long. I didn't answer enough of the questions. As I was taking the test, I was aware that I was taking too long. So this increased my anxiety. I kept hearing my teacher's advice: "Remember - don't take too long on each question; if you don't know the answer, just eliminate the most obviously bad choice and then guess among those that remain." Good advice, certainly, prior to taking the test. But not very effective while in the heat of MCT battle.

Hake argues in response to the question, "Why MCT's?", "So that the tests can be given to thousands of students in hundreds of courses under varying conditions in such a manner that meta-analyses can be performed, thus establishing general causal relationships in a convincing manner." I'm not convinced by anything other than the fact that the students who did well were good at taking MCT's.

What makes the example I gave above from Tennessee's 2005 state test in Governance and Civics both tragic and comic is that it's intended -- with no irony or humor involved -- to measure the extent to which 3rd graders have met the following standard:

"3.4.spi.2 Determine the representative acts of a good citizen (i.e., obeying speed limit, not littering, walking within the crosswalk)."

So, presumably those third graders in Tennessee who chose Answer B - " A boy puts his litter in a trash can." - are now able to determine the representative acts of a good citizen. The most offensive aspect of this is that measuring citizenship is reduced to a multiple choice question that students either get right or wrong. In addition, the students could have easily ruled out the other choices as being obviously wrong and were left with only one answer - B. So what this means is that students may not know what "the representative acts of a good citizen" ARE - they simply know what they are NOT. Of course, because these tests are standards-based, Tennessee officials can sleep at night (and get re-elected), knowing they have definitive, psychometrically-backed proof that their state's 3rd graders are good citizens.

The assumption/assertion about the MCT's that assess higher-order thinking is that the results show "general causal relationships in a convincing manner" is misleading because it overlooks the experience of taking these tests, i.e., that students either stress out, over-think, etc., while taking them or they don't. This means that the results must first be analyzed through this lens. In other words, you would have to be able to measure the students' affective response to test-taking first and then, for those students who have a negative affective response, be able to account for that in some way. Personally, the way I would account for that is to throw out the results and look at other measures. For those students who had a positive or neutral affective response to test-taking, you would then have to determine the extent to which this affective disposition to test-taking skewed the results and, ultimately, make these students seem "smarter" than they might actually be -- and certainly much, much "smarter" than the students who have a negative affective disposition.

Have any studies ever been done that controlled for this affective disposition to test-taking?

The only thing that I know of that comes close is the studies that Claude Steele did RE: "stereotype threat." (Here's a quick overview here.)

What's interesting in light of Steele's research is that minority kids might actually deal with a double-dose of affective dispositions to test taking that negatively affect their results, i.e, they might -- independent of their race -- feel apprehensive and anxious about taking tests and not test well AND also experience this "stereotype threat."

A Vision Statement

OK, it's time for the vision thing. I'm prompted to write this because I was just chastised by La Maestra in my post on Why Schools Should Not Be Run Like Businesses. She said I complained a lot and that she didn't know where I was coming from. I think that's a fair criticism.

Part of the challenge of being a public school advocate and activist is to do two things simultaneously: (1) critique the status quo and (2) uphold a vision of something worth working towards. I absolutely agree with her that I have not done enough of the latter. So, here we go . . .

I live in the suburbs, so there’s not a lot of common space here. There’s no city center. There are very few sidewalks. People don’t walk much. In truth, you rarely see people at all, just the outlines of their heads as they whiz by in their cars.

The vast majority of Americans are like me, i.e., they live in rural or suburban areas. Like me, they also have little experience of common space.

We don’t see each other much, we Americans.

Oh sure. There are exceptions to this. We see Bill and Steve and the rest of the crew at the office. We sometimes bump into neighbors as we shop at the grocery store. And we see lots of people as we parade through the mall.

But each of these examples has one thing in common: people gathered together in shared space for commercial purposes. In fact, if you think about it, almost everywhere you go, someone wants us to buy something or produce something for them that will make money. Even on 5th Avenue in New York City, perhaps one of the most diverse streets on the planet, people are there not to be with each other but to gawk at the goods displayed in those famous windows. And those that are not window-shopping are on their way to or from work.

So without working and buying things, I wonder if we’d ever see anybody. Our chance interactions are almost always sponsored by someone or something: “This brief encounter with your cousin Steve brought to you by Macy’s” or “This experience of seeing people of a different race brought to you by The Mall of America.”

You could say, “Well, thank goodness that we do have these opportunities. Without them, we’d never see anybody.” And while this is hard to argue, I’m not terribly happy with this conclusion. I don’t want to have to my experience of democracy brought to me by a commercial sponsor. I don’t want to have to buy a pair of shoes to see other people. And, somehow, I want that experience of other people to be more than just staring at them as they pass by in frozen foods or looking at the backs of their heads as we stand in line to buy gum.

Of course, we see each other on television – in movies and in sit-coms and on the news. And, based on my experience of others on television, I know that most Asians are very quiet and work in laundries, that women on crime shows have large breasts and wear short skirts and tend to over-react when under pressure, that young black men are very angry and sing a lot about bitches and hos, that Muslims wear scarves over their heads and carry Kalashnikov machine guns, and that white men are smart and usually in charge.

Yes, those of us who go to churches spend time with each other in a non-commercial space. But people in most churches aren’t exactly open to a diversity of views and opinions, much less a diversity of race, ethnicity, and social class. Most of the time, when we go to church, we hear what we’ve already heard and see who we’ve already seen.

In fact, the only place where people can go and share common space inside non-commercial venues is a public school. (Channel 1 tried to change that, but – fortunately – it recently reported financial problems and looks like it’s going to be gone forever. Good riddance.) In our society today, public schools are the only place where we have a chance to see and talk to people who are not exactly like us, maybe even get to know them a bit. For those of us who have already graduated from public high schools, it’s too late. There is really no other place to go.

Look, I know. It’s not like there was a time when this did happen, back in the good old days when people of different racial, ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds got together and held hands and inter-related. Rich people have always stayed around rich people, whites have pretty much always stuck to whites, blacks to blacks, etc., etc. And, of course, this is the case today. And it was certainly not the case with public schools either, certainly not before Brown v. Board, and certainly not today. A large number of suburban and rural schools are virtually devoid of any kind of diversity, whether economic, racial, ethnic, or religious.

In acknowledging this, we should not conclude that since most public schools are devoid of diversity, we should give up on the vision that diversity entails. Rather, it’s a reminder that we have to fight for what little diversity there is, where people of different backgrounds can share common space. It’s also a reminder that we have our work cut out for us to extend the democratic commons, to find new ways for diversity to be nurtured or, at the very least, to be experienced on a more substantive basis beyond merely passing each other at the food court.

You see, there was recognition in Brown, albeit a tacit one, that getting young people together who were not like each other was a good thing. If you think about it, it was an extraordinarily visionary thing to say: students segregated on the basis of race were inherently disadvantaged EVEN IF the facilities and material conditions of their schools were the same as their all-white counterparts. To the Warren court, race mattered. It made a huge difference. The Court argued that segregation in public schools deprived black children of the equal protection of the laws. In writing the majority decision, Chief Justice Warren asked, “Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does.” Most powerfully, Warren wrote, “To separate (black children) from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”

Segregation affects their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. So Brown gave us an extraordinary opportunity. It laid the foundation for a free, open, non-commercial democratic commons.

Yet segregation in public schools persists to this day. In Chicago, by the academic year 2002-2003, 87 percent of public-school enrollment was black or Hispanic; less than 10 percent of children in the schools were white. In Washington, D.C., 94 percent of children were black or Hispanic; less than 5 percent were white. In St. Louis, 82 percent of the student population were black or Hispanic; in Philadelphia and Cleveland, 79 percent; in Los Angeles, 84 percent, in Detroit, 96 percent; in Baltimore, 89 percent. In New York City, nearly three quarters of the students were black or Hispanic.

I’m reminded of an analogy that a black conservative commentator made. He said that you can walk by fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, but that exposure is not going to make you healthy. By the same token, you can fill schools with a whole variety of different kinds of kids from different backgrounds, but that exposure is not going to stop you from being a racist.

I certainly do not see integration as our ultimate goal. After all, a school that appears "integrated" on the surface invariably conceals the vast disparities that exist between its students, largely drawn along racial lines. There's the automatic assumption that throwing kids from different economic and racial backgrounds together somehow leads to racial and class harmony. There is rarely any mechanism in the school to talk about race or class or difference of any kind. There is no means by which race and racial integration could be discussed or promoted, even questioned. It is simply taken as a given that kids of different races and classes, in close physical proximity to one another, are coexisting openly and peacefully. Unfortunately, whatever racist or classist ideas the kids had formed at an earlier age are too often reinforced in an institution that -- ironically -- is committed to undoing these kind of beliefs.

So what do you DO about that? I think you do what people have always done when faced with something they find intolerable: work to change it by upholding a vision of something worth fighting for.

For me, one vision worth fighting for is one where public schools foreground the democratic commons, i.e., bring children and parents of different races, classes, and beliefs together to facilitate dialogue and inquiry among them. In the simplest terms, it's better that we know about each other, that we interact with each other, if only to increase the likelihood that we can undermine (or at least weaken) the crippling stereotypes that cause us to hold each other in suspicion or contempt. If we make no such attempt, we increase the likelihood that these stereotypes and misunderstandings will continue, will worsen with time, and will eventually destroy us.

We have to do more than this. I'm encouraged by the efforts of programs like Anytown USA and the Dismantling Racism Institute for Educators, both sponsored by The National Conference for Community and Justice.

This might actually be the most important work our public schools do. This might be enough. If they do this well enough, perhaps the rest is gravy.

So when you hear supporters of public education decry high-stakes standardized tests, NCLB, prepping kids for work in the 21st century, etc., we do so because we’re concerned that the things that we most care about and think that public schools should focus on have not even been tried yet. We were just getting started with Brown. It took schools all over the south decades to conform. But now, look at the state of segregation in our schools. The project has been lost. We’ve given up, it seems.

Hey, I’m with Lincoln. In the Gettysburg Address, delivered in November 1863 when our country was mired in the worst war it has ever known, Lincoln said that America was “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Putting aside the historically specific language, recognize that Lincoln -- the same man that issued The Emancipation Proclamation -- was saying that our country is dedicated to a PROPOSITION – not a fact – that all people are created equal. A proposition. What does that mean? It means that we are a work in progress. Our foundation is not a fact, it’s a proposition. We as a social entity have proposed to organize our society around a belief – a proposition – that everyone is equal. Lincoln proposed this vision of equality just as the country was literally falling apart. We’re still working on it.

In fact, we’ve been working on a similarly vast and unreasonable vision since the very beginning of this country. Just listen to the foundational document of this country, the Constitution:

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, . . ."

The Founders were not about creating a perfect union; they were about creating a more perfect union, one that was better than the one they started with. Each day, more perfect, but not perfect - not completely. Each day - progress. Each day - closer to perfect, but not perfect. A never-ending work in progress. A proposition worth working towards. It goes without saying, then, that the Founders were progressives.

At the heart of what progressives stand for is the word "progress." But is progress possible? Is history the story of progress? And how can progress be possible in light of the results of recent elections, where states defined marriage in their constitutions as between a man and a woman? How can we say that we believe in progress in light of Auschwitz, the killing fields of Cambodia, the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib, pandemic poverty, AIDS, racism, global warming, and a litany of seemingly endless and seemingly insurmountable problems and atrocities?

Because progressives believe that it's the project of human beings to create a more perfect civilization – a more perfect union – and that it takes a long time to accomplish this. We believe that human beings have the ability to rise above their animal instincts. We believe that it is the destiny of human societies to be open to diverse ways of living and being in the world, that diversity is as beautiful and magical as the diversity of a coral reef, and that diversity is to be nurtured and celebrated.

We also recognize that these beliefs run counter to what our animal natures tell us, that we should be afraid of things that are not like us, that we should horde our resources in case the winter is longer and harsher than anticipated, that it makes more sense to kill someone to get his bone and to give the scraps only to those in our den, that we should attack the weak to improve our species' chances of survival, and that we should growl and show our teeth when we are most afraid.

But we also recognize that our beliefs are bigger and more powerful than these instincts, and that they call to what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.”

MO State Board of Ed Poised to Recommend Takeover of City Schools

The situation in St. Louis is absolutely horrendous. The State Board of Education is poised to recommend (they're meeting on February 15th and 16th and could make a final decision at this meeting) that the St. Louis school board be disbanded and replaced by a three-member commission. Of the three members, one will be appointed by Republican Gov. Matt "I Never Met a Voucher I Didn't Like" Blunt (son of U.S. House Republican Roy Blunt) and another by Republican Mayor Francis "Privatize The Whole Village" Slay. Gee, I wonder what direction this new triumvirate would take RE: the St. Louis public schools.

The State Board will be acting on a recommendation from the Danforth Commission, put together at the request of State Dept. of Ed Commissioner Kent King.

Current SLPS Board member Peter Downs wrote an eloquent history of the current situation and a powerful defense of the current democratically-elected board. Find it here.

If the State Board recommends a take-over, it will radically undermine the free and fair elections that took place in April 2006, when Mayor Slay's incumbent candidates were soundly defeated by Downs and Donna Jones. It would also mean that Slay would regain de facto control over the schools despite the fact that voters overwhelmingly rejected the puppets he had on the board doing his bidding.

The Few, The Proud, The KIPP'sters

My brother-in-law is a student at West Point. It's hard to get in to West Point. But it's also hard to stay in once you get there. According to this report, of the 1,197 cadets who entered West Point in the summer of 2002, 904 remained by the end of August. The loss rate of 25 percent is greater than the previous five classes, which averaged a 20 percent loss rate.

West Point makes it clear that it's a very rigorous program, and that not everyone will make it because not everyone is cut out for it.

That's OK with me. They let it be known ahead of time that not everyone can be trained to be a US Army officer. Not everyone is cut out for it.

KIPP, on the other hand, says they can take every kid and make him or her a college-bound high-school graduate. No matter who they are or what their background, KIPP says their program can work for everyone. The truth is that KIPP works for those for whom it works. As it turns out, KIPP does not work for a very large number of its students.

If KIPP could just admit that it was more like West Point and less like a community transformation center, I would be somewhat assuaged. But then KIPP would have to drop such hyperbolic statements as this from its web site:

"While fewer than one in five low-income students typically attend college nationally, KIPP’s college matriculation rate stands at nearly 80 percent for students who complete the eighth grade at KIPP. In addition, KIPP alumni have earned over $12 million in college scholarships."

Reading the statement again, you notice this phrase standing out: "KIPP’s college matriculation rate stands at nearly 80 percent for students who complete the eighth grade at KIPP." In other words, 80% of those that make it through KIPP go on to college. But how many make it through KIPP?

How To Improve Your School Without Improving Your School

There were nine KIPP schools in California as of the 2005-2006 school year. Six of the nine schools saw decreases in enrollment as their 5th grade kids moved up from the 5th grade to the 7th grade (the 8th grade at one school).

• KIPP Academy Fresno went from 60 to 48 kids from 5th to 6th grade, a 20% decrease in enrollment.
• KIPP San Francisco Bay Academy in San Francisco went from 73 to 56 kids from 5th to 7th grade, a 23% decrease in enrollment.
• KIPP Academy of Opportunity in LA went from 88 to 66 kids from 5th to 7th grade, a 25% decrease in enrollment.
• KIPP Bayview Academy in San Francisco went from 81 to 55 kids from 5th to 7th grade, a 32% decrease in enrollment.
• KIPP Los Angeles College Preparatory in LA went from 88 to 57 kids from 5th to 7th grade, a 35% decrease in enrollment.
• KIPP Bridge College Preparatory in Oakland went from 87 to 36 kids from 5th to 8th grade, a whopping 59% decrease in enrollment.

These decreases in enrollment were especially noticeable for African-American boys at four of these schools. Enrollment of African-American boys went from 35 to 23 at KIPP Academy of Opportunity in LA, a 34% decrease in enrollment; 19 to 10 at KIPP Academy Fresno, a 47% decrease in enrollment; 24 to 12 at KIPP Bayview Academy in San Francisco, a 50% decrease in enrollment; and 35 to 8 at KIPP Bridge College Preparatory in Oakland, an extraordinary 77% decrease in enrollment.

Drop-outs, or at least transients, are a common phenomenon in low-income schools, even good ones. So these numbers would not be surprising if they were associated with your average public school. But KIPP is not your average public school. Many supporters of KIPP see it as the answer to the problems that vex inner-city schools. But it seems, at least from what we can tell from the California enrollment data, that even KIPP cannot solve the drop-out/transient problem.

But then you start to wonder: is KIPP causing this high drop-out rate? If it's not causing kids to drop out, then there might certainly be a correlation between KIPP's "unique approach to educating low-income kids" and the fact that so many of them, at least in California, don't make it out of KIPP.

Consider what we know about KIPP:

• KIPP students are required to go to school Monday to Friday from 7:30 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.
• They go to school on Saturday from 9 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon.
• They are required to complete two hours of homework every night.
• They are required to attend an extra month of school in the summer.
• They are required to wear a uniform.

All told, KIPP students spend about 70% more time in school than their regular public school peers. KIPP students are subject to a strict code of discipline that punishes offenders by forcing them to wear a sign around their neck that says "bench" or, according to one source, "miscreant." So it seems reasonable to ask this question: is KIPP contributing to this drop-out/transient problem? I doubt rather seriously that anyone at KIPP wants any of their students to drop out. But declining enrollments actually benefit KIPP by making their achievement data look better than it might actually be.

Now it gets even more complicated. According to a recent SRI report, Bay Area KIPP schools in California are attracting already high-performing students from local schools. Some KIPP principals expressed concern about “creaming” these already high-performing students from other schools when there remains a large number who are low-performing and underserved. One principal expressed dismay with the school’s struggle to enroll Title I students, whom she considered to be her target population. (see p. 18 of the report)

So it seems reasonable to ask this other question: how much is KIPP actually contributing to the achievement of these already high-performing students? As class numbers decrease, the performance of these high-achievers shines brighter and brighter. Supporters claim this is due to KIPP's unique approach. They might be right, but not for the reasons they suspect. It might be possible that KIPP's unique approach forces enough of the low-achievers out to make the achievement of those that remain seem better than it really is.

In part 1 of a Hedrick Smith piece on KIPP, a Latino boy named Ray, a 16-year-old 8th grader enrolled in KIPP 3D Academy in Houston, talks about his first experience at KIPP.

At 3 minutes, 14 seconds into this video segment, there is a glimpse into how KIPP achieves its results.

Here's the transcript:

Hedrick Smith (voiceover) - At the start of school, Ray had his first confrontation with 3D Academy's principal, Dan Caesar.

Ray: We were going over our chants, and -- just being myself, still trying to figure out how this school works and everything . . .

Dan Caesar - We say, "Is 3D in the house?!?!" and all the kids raise up their hands and say, "YES!" and Reynaldo raised up his hands and said "NO!"

Ray: I waved my hand. I said, "No." And then he looked at me and he said it a second time. And I said "No" again.

Dan Caesar - I knew right then, "Here's the first test, the first person testing our culture." So I let him know in front of everybody in the room that that's not going to be tolerated. We all want to be here. We chose to be here. If you don't want to be here, find the door.

So much for KIPP's motto, "No excuses."

Not to beat a dead horse, but . . .

Couple more thoughts on KIPP and decreasing enrollments.

1) The most sure-fire strategy to improve scores at your school is to decrease enrollments. All the push-outs in Florida and New York City can tell you that. NOTE - these students do not drop out. They are "counseled out," according to some, pushed out according to others. What's at stake are high-stakes test scores. So a few kids' lives get ruined. Collateral damage on the road to closing the achievement gap.

2) If the SRI reports about KIPP and creaming are to be believed, then one very bizarre and incredibly twisted conclusion about KIPP is revealed: KIPP, with its 10-hour days, class on Saturdays, and extra month in the summer might be designed simply to push kids out, to break them, to leave only "the strong and the deserving." And who are the strong and the deserving kids? As the creaming stories and data emerge, we see a correlation between the already high-achieving students who are recruited or attracted to KIPP and KIPP graduates. Put simply, KIPP may not actually do anything to improve the academic achievement of its already-successful students. Rather, it makes way for them by clearing out all those who are less deserving, the detritus who get in the way of those impressive-looking test scores. It may very well be that KIPP, with its chanting and clapping and extraordinary success story, is simply a kind of academic obstacle course, an amusing yet ineffective gimmick.

Clarification on KIPP Achievement Data

In November 2006, I wrote to Steve Mancini, Director of Public Affairs at the KIPP Foundation, and asked him to address the questions/concerns I have about KIPP. He wrote back and turned me over to one of his colleagues. Despite assurances they would answer my questions/concerns, they have yet to do so. As you might recall, I am interested primarily in tracking data and score analysis. One of my colleagues uncovered enrollment data at KIPP schools in California which corroborated much of the anecdotal information that is said about KIPP and "creaming." According to 2005-2006 school data, KIPP Bridge College Preparatory in Oakland had 35 African-American boys in 5th grade, but only 8 of these kids remained in 8th grade. Despite whatever the intentions of the parents, 27 out of these 35 kids -- about 77% -- did not make it.

I asked Mancini for a statistical analysis of KIPP achievement data in order to determine the standard deviation of the scores. The obvious problem with averaging anything is that the average often does not depict the typical outcome. If there is one outcome that is very far from the rest of the data, then the average will be strongly affected by this outcome. In short, some really high achievers will make the others look pretty good, even if these others are not doing so well.

For example, let's say there were 5 students taking a test. The scores (out of 100 possible points) were as follows: 45, 47, 52, 98, 99. The average of these five scores is 68.2 So you could truthfully and accurately say, "Student scores were near the 70th percentile." But how many students scored a 70? None. If you look at the scores, 3 out of the 5 did really badly. But 2 of the 5 did really, really well. The result? It looks like great things are happening when, in fact, they are not.

This is especially relevant to the issue I mention above, i.e., the ever-shrinking number of kids at KIPP as they move from 5th to 8th grade. For example, let's say there are 20 kids at KIPP in the 5th grade. Two of the kids score really high - 98 and 99 out of 100. But the other 18 score either 47, 45, or 52. This results in an average of 51.5. The next year, in the 6th grade, there are only 15 kids left -- 5 dropped out, were "counseled out," or simply are no longer there. Same scenario: two of the kids score really high - 98 and 99 out of 100. But the other 13 score either 47, 45, or 52. But this results in a slightly higher average of 53.4. In the 7th grade, only 8 kids are left. Same scenario: two of the kids score really high - 98 and 99 out of 100. But the other 6 score either 47, 45, or 52. But this results in yet another higher average: 59.75. And by the time they reach 8th grade, there are 5 kids left. Now the 2 high scorers really skew the average, all the way up to 68.2. But the other 3 are still scoring 47,45, and 52.

What's going on here? KIPP is getting statistically better because more kids are dropping out. So should we blame KIPP for pushing them out or praise them for raising the scores of the two that remain?

KIPP needs to come clean and reveal what actually happens to its enrollments and whether or not the scores are skewed by a small number of high achievers.

Check this blog out

Just discovered this blog called The EdWahoo. Looks like it's now defunct, but there is some great stuff there. Well worth reading.

Here are some of my favorite posts:

On standardized tests - gives examples of MC questions that rely primarily on recall skills

"Assessing Rigorously" - shares information about a study that revealed that kids can answer the equivalent of 2+3 = 5, but not be able to answer 3+2 = 5.

Lauren Resnick on "Higher Order" Thinking Skills

I came across this excerpt from some piece by Lauren Resnick of the University of Pittsburgh. Not sure where it's from. But it really speaks powerfully to the notion that children, esp. low-income children, have to start with and focus on "the basics."

--begin excerpt--

The most important single message of modern research on the nature of thinking is that the kinds of activities traditionally associated with thinking are not limited to advanced levels of development. Instead, these activities are an intimate part of even elementary levls of reading, mathematics, and other branches of learning -- when learning is proceeding well. In fact, the term "higher order" skills is probably itself fundamentally misleading, for it suggests that another set of skills, presumably called "lower order," needs to come first. This assumption -- that there is a sequence from lower level activities that do not require much independent thinking or judgment to higher level ones that do -- colors much educational theory and practice. Implicitly at least, it justifies long years of drill on the "basics" before thinking and problem solving are demanded. Cognitive research on the nature of basic skills such as reading and mathematics provides a fundamental challenge to this assumption.

Indeed, research suggests that failure to cultivate aspects of thinking such as those listed in our working definition of high order skills [nonalgorithmic, complex, yielding multiple solutions, involving nuanced judgment, uncertainty, imposing meaning, etc.] may be a source of major learning difficulties even in elementary school.

Cognitive theory... suggests that processes traditionally reserved for advanced students -- that is, for a minority who have developed skill and taste for interpretive mental work -- might be taught to all readers, including young children and, perhaps especially, those who learn with difficulty. Cognitive research suggests that these processes are what we mean by reading comprehension. Not to teach them is to ignore the most important aspects of reading.

KIPP School in Buffalo Fails to Make AYP for 2nd Year In a Row

Low test scores still plague city schools
Buffalo schools among those cited

By PETER SIMON and MARY PASCIAK
News Staff Reporters
1/11/2007

More than half of Buffalo's public schools were cited by the state Wednesday for poor student test scores, and district officials urged the public to have patience and faith in Superintendent James A. Williams' academic improvement plan. The state Education Department's annual report which is prompted by federal law - named 35 Buffalo schools as subpar, leaving just 24 in good standing.

Locally, the list of low-performing schools is dominated by Buffalo, where nine schools have been cited as "in need of improvement" for at least six years and therefore are in various phases of restructuring.

But nine suburban and rural districts also were cited for different levels of poor performance, along with two Buffalo charter schools.......

Enterprise Charter School and KIPP Sankofa Charter School, both in Buffalo, were listed for the second year and - theoretically at least - have to offer students the opportunity to transfer to higher performing schools in the district.

Story here.

Great documentary on public education

To counter the kind of pablum that comes out of Hollywood about inner-city public schools, check out the 1993 Oscar-winning documentary I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School.

Here's a description from Docurama:

Directed by the innovative, award-winning team of Alan and Susan Raymond ("An American Family"), I AM A PROMISE paints an unflinching verité portrait of the children of Stanton Elementary School in North Philadelphia, an inner-city neighborhood where 90% of the students live below the poverty line. As seen through the viewpoint of devoted principal Deanna Burney, the film shows Stanton as underfunded, understaffed, and filled with children struggling to overcome their difficulties. For these at-risk kids, the only hope for their future survives only in the success of their education.

Astoundingly relevant today, I AM A PROMISE imparts a poignantly captivating series of vignettes concerning children growing up outside the American dream, echoing current urban-education issues in our country's ongoing political discussion.

Public Education Does Not Need Heroes

NY Times
January 19, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor

Classroom Distinctions
By TOM MOORE

Tom Moore, a 10th-grade history teacher at a public school in the Bronx, is writing a book about his teaching experiences.


IN the past year or so I have seen Matthew Perry drink 30 cartons of milk, Ted Danson explain the difference between a rook and a pawn, and Hilary Swank remind us that white teachers still can’t dance or jive talk. In other words, I have been confronted by distorted images of my own profession — teaching. Teaching the post-desegregation urban poor, to be precise.

Although my friends and family (who should all know better) continue to ask me whether my job is similar to these movies, I find it hard to recognize myself or my students in them.

So what are these films really about? And what do they teach us about teachers? Are we heroes, villains, bullies, fools? The time has come to set the class record straight.

At the beginning of Ms. Swank’s new movie, “Freedom Writers,” her character, a teacher named Erin Gruwell, walks into her Long Beach, Calif., classroom, and the camera pans across the room to show us what we are supposed to believe is a terribly shabby learning environment. Any experienced educator will have already noted that not only does she have the right key to get into the room but, unlike the seventh-grade science teacher in my current school, she has a door to put the key into. The worst thing about Ms. Gruwell’s classroom seems to be graffiti on the desks, and crooked blinds.

I felt like shouting, Hey, at least you have blinds! My first classroom didn’t, but it did have a family of pigeons living next to the window, whose pane was a cracked piece of plastic. During the winter, snowflakes blew in. The pigeons competed with the mice and cockroaches for the students’ attention.

This is not to say that all schools in poor neighborhoods are a shambles, or that teaching in a real school is impossible. In fact, thousands of teachers in New York City somehow manage to teach every day, many of them in schools more underfinanced and chaotic than anything you’ve seen in movies or on television (except perhaps the most recent season of “The Wire”).

Ms. Gruwell’s students might backtalk, but first they listen to what she says. And when she raises her inflection just slightly, the class falls silent. Many of the students I’ve known won’t sit down unless they’re repeatedly asked to (maybe not even then), and they don’t listen just because the teacher is speaking; even “good teachers” are occasionally drowned out by the din of 30 students simultaneously using language that would easily earn a movie an NC-17 rating.

When a fight breaks out during an English lesson, Ms. Gruwell steps into the hallway and a security guard immediately materializes to break it up. Forget the teacher — this guy was the hero of the movie for me.

If I were to step out into the hallway during a fight, the only people I’d see would be some students who’d heard there was a fight in my room. I’d be wasting my time waiting for a security guard. The handful of guards where I work are responsible for the safety of five floors, six exits, two yards and four schools jammed into my building.

Although personal safety is at the top of both teachers’ and students’ lists of grievances, the people in charge of real schools don’t take it as seriously as the people in charge of movie schools seem to.

The great misconception of these films is not that actual schools are more chaotic and decrepit — many schools in poor neighborhoods are clean and orderly yet still don’t have enough teachers or money for supplies. No, the most dangerous message such films promote is that what schools really need are heroes. This is the Myth of the Great Teacher.

Films like “Freedom Writers” portray teachers more as missionaries than professionals, eager to give up their lives and comfort for the benefit of others, without need of compensation. Ms. Gruwell sacrifices money, time and even her marriage for her job.

Her behavior is not represented as obsessive or self-destructive, but driven — necessary, even. She is forced into making these sacrifices by the aggressive neglect of the school’s administrators, who won’t even let her take books from the bookroom. The film applauds Ms. Gruwell’s dedication, but also implies that she has no other choice. In order to be a good teacher, she has to be a hero.

“Freedom Writers,” like all teacher movies this side of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” is presented as a celebration of teaching, but its message is that poor students need only love, idealism and martyrdom.

I won’t argue the need for more of the first two, but I’m always surprised at how, once a Ms. Gruwell wins over a class with clowning, tears, rewards and motivational speeches, there is nothing those kids can’t do. It is as if all the previously insurmountable obstacles students face could be erased by a 10-minute pep talk or a fancy dinner. This trivializes not only the difficulties many real students must overcome, but also the hard-earned skill and tireless effort real teachers must use to help those students succeed.

Every year young people enter the teaching profession hoping to emulate the teachers they’ve seen in films. (Maybe in the back of my mind I felt that I could be an inspiring teacher like Howard Hesseman or Gabe Kaplan.) But when you’re confronted with the reality of teaching not just one class of misunderstood teenagers (the common television and movie conceit) but four or five every day, and dealing with parents, administrators, mentors, grades, attendance records, standardized tests and individual education plans for children with learning disabilities, not to mention multiple daily lesson plans — all without being able to count on the support of your superiors — it becomes harder to measure up to the heroic movie teachers you thought you might be.

It’s no surprise that half the teachers in poor urban schools, like Erin Gruwell herself, quit within five years. (Ms. Gruwell now heads a foundation.)

I don’t expect to be thought of as a hero for doing my job. I do expect to be respected, supported, trusted and paid. And while I don’t anticipate that Hollywood will stop producing movies about gold-hearted mavericks who play by their own rules and show the suits how to get the job done, I do hope that these movies will be kept in perspective.

While no one believes that hospitals are really like “ER” or that doctors are anything like “House,” no one blames doctors for the failure of the health care system. From No Child Left Behind to City Hall, teachers are accused of being incompetent and underqualified, while their appeals for better and safer workplaces are systematically ignored.

Every day teachers are blamed for what the system they’re just a part of doesn’t provide: safe, adequately staffed schools with the highest expectations for all students. But that’s not something one maverick teacher, no matter how idealistic, perky or self-sacrificing, can accomplish.

Bloomberg's New Vision for NYC Schools

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled his new plan for the city's public schools. Below, just for fun, I replaced all references to teachers and schools with references to police officers and crime. Imagine holding a police precinct captain's feet to the fire for not reducing crime in the precinct. Imagine firing a veteran police officer because he had fewer drug arrests. Imagine rewarding "police officer excellence" and eliminating "police officer mediocrity." Imagine police precincts issuing "user-friendly report cards" to community members on the status of crime in area neighborhoods.

Seen though this lens, it becomes comically and tragically clear that such an approach is sheer idiocy writ large.

--begin parody of Bloomberg plan as reported in the 1/17/07 NY Times (changes in bold italics)--

The 32 community police precincts will report directly to the chief of police, he said, and “each precinct will be able to pick the path that’s best for its citizens and community members. The money we save by downsizing our bureaucracy will go directly back to the precincts.”

He also said that police precincts would be required to issue annual “user friendly reports” that will be sent to members of the community, grading each precinct with a grade of A to F “to hold the precinct captains’ feet to the fire.”

With the help of the powerful police union, the United Federation of Police Officers, Mr. Bloomberg said he would put into place a new system of police officer evaluations that would allow officials to “reward police officer excellence and begin to eliminate mediocrity."

The current tenure system, he said, rewards longevity over police officer performance.

“We must do a better job of keeping police officers who are effective crime preventers but at same time we must make sure that ineffective police officers are not awarded the privilege of tenure and the near-lifetime job security that comes with it.”

---original text from the NY Times--

The 32 community superintendents will report directly to the chancellor, he said, and “each school will be able to pick the path that’s best for its students, parents and teachers. The money we save by downsizing our bureaucracy will go directly back to the schools.”

He also said that schools would be required to issue annual “user friendly reports” that will be sent to parents, grading each school with a grade of A to F “to hold the principals’ feet to the fire.”

With the help of the powerful teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers, Mr. Bloomberg said he would put into place a new system of teacher evaluations that would allow officials to “reward teacher excellence and begin to eliminate mediocrity."

The current tenure system, he said, rewards longevity over teacher performance.

“We must do a better job of keeping teachers who are effective instructors but at same time we must make sure that ineffective teachers are not awarded the privilege of tenure and the near-lifetime job security that comes with it.”

Racial Tensions in L.A. Escalate

Today, The NY Times reports the following:

This month, the authorities reported that crimes in [Los Angeles] motivated by racial, religious or sexual orientation discrimination had increased 34 percent in 2005 over the previous year. Statistics for 2006 have not yet been compiled.

Rabbi Allen Freehling, executive director of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, a group created after the 1965 riots, said the recent growth in hate crimes reflected a failure by government and community leaders to prepare residents for socioeconomic changes in many neighborhoods, “and therefore people have a tendency to lash out, out of desperation.”

What can public schools do to quell this kind of tension? And what can racially segregated public schools be expected to accomplish, where low-income minorities are jammed together in appalling conditions, left to act out their frustation and desperation?

The "School Choice" Myth

Boy, it doesn't sound any better: low-income parents are given the option to choose whatever school they want to send their kids to. Unfettered by the single monopolistic government school they've been handed, parents are given vouchers or a menu of charter schools, private schools, or parochial schools to choose from. Wow. With so many choices, some parents might think they were at McDondald's.

But imagine if every parent in an inner-city neighborhoood exercised their choice to transfer to a “good” school. Private and parochial schools get to choose who attends their schools, so it's not really much of a choice at all. They choose you. The remaining public charter schools would quickly fill up, so they would have to turn students away. Just look at the waiting lists at KIPP and Edison schools. Because money and other resources are diverted from the “bad” schools in "school choice" systems, the inequities in the distribution of resources become greater. Ultimately, these “bad” schools won't be able to recover.

This process gets worse as “bad” schools get even worse, driving more and more parents away from these schools to the few "good" schools. But because these schools will be fillled to capacity, they will be forced to turn these desperate parents away. This will be the case in any and every "school choice" scenario. While this would be fine if you and your children attend the “good” school, it would not appear to be such a great solution if you were stuck with one of the losers.

The solution? Make every school a "choice" school, i.e., one where parents would want to send their kids.

How do you do that? Well, it would take a lot of money. Lots of funds from local, state, and federal government. And the schools would have to be free so low-income children could attend. And they would have to acccept all kids who applied, not just the "desirable" students.

Gee, that sounds an awful lot like public education to me.

KIPP, Segregation, and Sinking Ships

Over at Edspresso, there's a commentary on my piece, "What if KIPP worked?" You can find the commentary here.

The blogger who wrote the piece complains,

So because school choice might harm others in some nebulous way, it should be withdrawn? . . . Is this writer suggesting that said students are faking it, or that their academic achievements are somehow counterfeit?

I've made it clear in my recent posts -- here and here -- that KIPP's "success" is, at best, open to some skepticism. I wish only to foreground the possibility that KIPP is not successful in ways that we might assume they are. It all depends on what we mean by "success."

And over at another blog, there is this gem:

It's very hard to shake the feeling that there are some who truly wish for equality... equality of failure. I have used the argument in the past, but I will use it again. These are the sort of people who would let everyone drown on a sinking ship, because they couldn't save everybody. To them it's not about excellence, it's about equivalence. They have already given up on success, and now they just want to drag everyone down to the lowest level.

The sinking ship analogy is a good one. It would seem that this is precicsely what I am supporting, i.e., it's best that everyone on the ship drown rather than saving a few.

But this is, of course, absurd. And argument by analogy is the lowest form of logic.

But I'll offer my own argument by analogy.

Imagine we are in early 20th century America. There are no child labor laws. It is a common sight to see 10-year-olds working in factories for next to nothing. Along comes a reform movement that provides comfortable shoes for the children. They can now stand at their assembly line positions for 8 hours at a stretch and feel considerably less pain. Many people are relieved by this intervention. At last, they say, we have done something to help these poor children.

Providing comfortable shoes doesn't undo the injustice of children working in these conditions. Providing questionable schooling for an infinitesimally small population of poor black and Hispanic children doesn't undo the injustice of segregation.

Why not? Because these schools are not, as some would have us believe, segregated "naturally." Do you think the people want to live together under these conditions? That this is a choice? If segregation just meant that children had different skin color, it might be different. But the segregation of these children creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for most of them. It is a cycle of desperation that gets repeated with astonishing regularity.

We can't make "improving segregated schools" our goal. If we do this, we accept as a fait accompli that segregation is an immutable reality. The Brown decision said it is NOT an immutable reality. We must work to honor the legacy of that decision.

Does this mean that all schools have to be integrated? No. It may very well be that urban schools that are TRULY on the level of their suburban counterparts (as far as educational quality goes) can accept their segregated status. But, as I said in the "What if KIPP Worked?" post, I fear the consequences of this level of acceptance, of this kind of abdication of a vision. We will accept our separation from each other. We will very seldom encounter each other.

Of course, we see each other on television – in movies and in sit-coms and on the news. And, based on my experience of others on television, I know that most Asians are very quiet and work in laundries, that women on crime shows have large breasts and wear short skirts and tend to over-react when under pressure, that young black men are very angry and sing a lot about bitches and hos, that Muslims wear scarves over their heads and carry Kalashnikov machine guns, and that white men are smart and usually in charge.

The only place where people can go and share common space inside non-commercial venues is a public school. (Channel 1 tried to change that, but – fortunately – it recently reported financial problems and looks like it’s going to be gone forever. Good riddance.) In our society today, public schools are the only place where we have a chance to see and talk to people who are not exactly like us, maybe even get to know them a bit. For those of us who have already graduated from public high schools, it’s too late. There is really no other place to go.

Look, I know. It’s not like there was a time when this did happen, back in the good old days when people of different racial, ethnic, religious, and social backgrounds got together and held hands and inter-related. Rich people have always stayed around rich people, whites have pretty much always stuck to whites, blacks to blacks, etc., etc. And, of course, this is the case today. And it was certainly not the case with public schools either, certainly not before Brown v. Board, and certainly not today. A large number of suburban and rural schools are virtually devoid of any kind of diversity, whether economic, racial, ethnic, or religious.

In acknowledging this, we should not conclude that since most public schools are devoid of diversity, we should give up on the vision that diversity entails. Rather, it’s a reminder that we have to fight for what little diversity there is, where people of different backgrounds can share common space. It’s also a reminder that we have our work cut out for us to extend the democratic commons, to find new ways for diversity to be nurtured or, at the very least, to be experienced on a more substantive basis beyond merely passing each other at the food court.

One more problem with the sinking ship analogy. Nothing can be done to save a sinking ship. The only thing that can be done is to try and save as many people as possible from drowning.

Social justice is not a sinking ship. There is a lot we can do to bring it about. To call it a sinking ship is more than just inaccurate. It is immoral. It means we are abdicating. It means we are giving up.

Saving a handful of kids is to accept this inaccurate and immoral analogy. Saving a handful is to give up.

NCLB and the Dumbing Down of America's Schools

A study released in March 2006 by the Center on Education Policy found that since the passage of NCLB in 2002, 71 percent of the school districts surveyed reported that they have "reduced elementary school instructional time in at least one other subject to make more time for reading and mathematics—the subjects tested for NCLB. In some case study districts, struggling students receive double periods of reading or math or both—sometimes missing certain subjects altogether." The study was conducted as part of a four-year study of NCLB and appears to be the most systematic effort to track the law's footprints through the classroom. The findings were based on (1) a survey of all 50 states, (2) a nationally representative survey of 299 school districts, (3) case studies of 38 geographically diverse districts and 42 schools, (4) six special analyses of critical issues in implementing NCLB, and (5) three national forums.

The full report can be found here.

In the report, “Academic Atrophy: The Condition of Liberal Arts in America’s Public Schools” (Von Zastrow & Janc, 2004), the authors describe how the arts, foreign language, and elementary social studies are being squeezed out by a focus on the two subjects tested under NCLB. The Council of Basic Education’s report discussed results from a survey of 956 principals in four states - Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, and New York. The researchers found evidence that the narrowing was most severe in schools with higher numbers of minority and low-income students. “We saw ample evidence of waning commitment to the arts, foreign language, and elementary social studies. What’s more, we found that the greatest erosion of the curriculum is occurring in schools with high minority populations – the very populations whose access to such a curriculum has been historically most limited.” According to the study, 47% of high-minority elementary school principals reported decreases in social studies instruction.

The full report can be found here.

Public Education and The Commons

My colleague Jerry Bracey pointed out that Brown v. Board was not supposed to "end segregated schools in America." It negated only de jure segregation, not de facto. He's right actually. The Court acknowledged that its decision applied in cases where there are "state laws permitting or requiring such segregation."

Jerry went on to say this:

But that is not my major problem with your cri de coeur. My major problem is that I can't get anywhere beyond it. OK, so what next? In The Shame of the Nation Kozol describes schools that haven't seen a white kid in years. What would you do about that? If anything. On NPR not too long ago, kids in an all-Hispanic high school in LA thought that was fine. They didn't think it would be good if black or white kids came. Clarence Thomas has argued that all-black schools can be models of achievement (while reaffirming Brown in terms of legal segregation). Did the kids in KIPP schools attend more racially integrated schools in the earlier grades? If not, why do you make the segregation in KIPP an important issue in and of itself?

But the Warren court made it clear that segregation of children in public schools on the basis of race "denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other 'tangible' factors of white and Negro schools may be equal." The Court also clearly stated, "Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."

The examples Jerry cites -- kids in an all-Hispanic high school in LA who thought that segregation was fine, KIPP kids attending segregated schools prior to enrolling at KIPP -- are symptomatic of the problems we face regarding race and class and the larger issues of social and economic injustice. But they are certainly not justifications for these problems and these injustices. Rather, they strike me as signs of just how we resigned we have become and how much we have lost the vision that the Warren court provided for us.

What is that vision? I certainly do not see integration as our ultimate goal. After all, a school that appears "integrated" on the surface invariably conceals the vast disparities that exist between its students, largely drawn along racial lines. There's the automatic assumption that throwing kids from different economic and racial backgrounds together somehow leads to racial and class harmony. There is rarely any mechanism in the school to talk about race or class or difference of any kind. There is no means by which race and racial integration could be discussed or promoted, even questioned. It is simply taken as a given that kids of different races and classes, in close physical proximity to one another, are coexisting openly and peacefully. Unfortunately, whatever racist or classist ideas the kids had formed at an earlier age are too often reinforced in an institution that -- ironically -- is committed to undoing these kind of beliefs.

So what do you DO about that? I think you do what people have always done when faced with something they find intolerable: work to change it by upholding a vision of something worth fighting for.

For me, one vision worth fighting for is one where public schools foreground the democratic commons, i.e., bring children and parents of different races, classes, and beliefs together to facilitate dialogue and inquiry among them. In the simplest terms, it's better that we know about each other, that we interact with each other, if only to increase the likelihood that we can undermine (or at least weaken) the crippling stereotypes that cause us to hold each other in suspicion or contempt. If we make no such attempt, we increase the likelihood that these stereotypes and misunderstandings will continue, will worsen with time, and will eventually destroy us.

I'm clear that the above vision is grossly impractical, slightly misty-eyed, and kumbaiyah'ish. But it's a vision, not a policy plan. Policies need to follow a vision. The bigger -- i.e., more impractical -- the vision, the better the policy. The vision is meant to inspire us to do great things.

If KIPP is the vision, then God help us all.

The common good.
The common man.
Common space.
Common goals.
"We all have this in common."

There is nothing common about the commons. It is an extraordinarily idealistic vision. It is worth fighting for, as starry-eyed as it may be.

What if KIPP "worked"?

What are the implications of KIPP "working," i.e., the consequences of KIPP being successful at what it claims to do?

KIPP schools are made up almost entirely of black or Hispanic students. KIPP's success undergirds the recent law passed by the Nebraska legislature, allowing for segregated schools in Omaha. In other words, looking at KIPP as an example, the argument could be made that while segregated schools might seem bad, they actually "work." Of course, what they work at doing is the question.

Why should this matter to us? After all, proponents of KIPP argue, "these children" need the basics in fifth grade because NO ONE TAUGHT THEM WELL ENOUGH BEFORE! If the school system they were in beforehand hadn't been so screwed up and awful, they could start where they're supposed to, with fifth grade material. And maybe they wouldn't all have to spend 70% more time in school just to catch up.

But let's not forget Brown v. Board, the Supreme Court decision that was supposed to end segregated schools in America:

"Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal."

Think of it. The Court said that segregation denies to low-income minority children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment EVEN THOUGH the facilities of these segregated schools may be equal. So if we look at KIPP from the perspective of the Brown decision, we can see that KIPP denies to low-income minority children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment EVEN IF these segregated schools raise their achievement. So EVEN IF KIPP lived up to all its praise -- which I have shown it does not -- it would still be unconstitutional. As the Court argued in the decision,

"Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children. The impact is greater when it has the sanction of the law, for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as denoting the inferiority of the negro group. A sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn. Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has a tendency to [retard] the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racial[ly] integrated school system."

The decision, delivered by Chief Justice Warren, took this view on the importance of public education:

"Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. Compulsory school attendance laws and the great expenditures for education both demonstrate our recognition of the importance of education to our democratic society. It is required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities, even service in the armed forces. It is the very foundation of good citizenship. Today it is a principal instrument in awakening the child to cultural values, in preparing him for later professional training, and in helping him to adjust normally to his environment. In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms."

Maybe KIPP is all we can hope for. Maybe we have to throw up our hands and say, "We can't beat racism, so let's join it." Maybe we have to face the facts and say, "Poverty will always be with us, so we just to have to make the best of it." Maybe we have to admit that KIPP is not as great as it claims to be, but -- because it works for some kids -- then that is enough.

Imagine if we said the same thing about world hunger. Maybe we we have to throw up our hands and say, "We can't beat world hunger." Maybe we have to face the facts and say, "Hunger will always be with us, so we just to have to make the best of it." Maybe we have to admit that current solutions are not as great as they claim to be, but -- because not all children end up starving to death -- then that is enough.

Gee. Come to think of it, that IS what we say about world hunger. In fact, it's also what we say about AIDS. It's what we say about homelessness. It's what we say about drug addiction. It's what we say about global poverty. In fact, it's what we say about other people's suffering as a whole. We accept, in full self-fulfilling prophecy mode, that these problems can never be solved. We accept that the best we can do is make something intolerable a little more tolerable. The question is, tolerable for whom?

For all the kids that are not "lucky" enough to get a place at KIPP, it is not tolerable. For all the kids that do make it into KIPP but are not able to endure the 10-hour days and two hours of homework every night and who eventually drop out or are "counseled out," it is not tolerable. And even for those kids who do make it into KIPP and make it out of KIPP, their "success" is not tolerable because it comes at a price, a price that is too high to pay.