Archive for the 'Education Leadership' Category

What It Takes: Mentors, Motivation, Moxie and Moms

Published by Leanna Landsmann on June 24, 2008 in Education Leadership, Parents and Students. 0 Comments

Every June we’re treated to cap and gowned seniors en route to their high-school graduations, proud families in tow. We smile and give them a ‘thumbs up.’ But we must also pause to see the drop outs as clearly as the graduates.

How did these students persevere when so many with so much more fail? What’s in their secret sauce? Can it be bottled for others?

One million students drop out of high school each year. The literature is packed with reasons: poverty, lack of college-bound culture at home, poor performing schools, low expectations and high pressure to reject academic success, too few great teachers and counselors. What more can the “village” it takes to raise a child do to prevent this?

As board chair of Greatschools.net, an organization that helps parents put their kids on a path to college, I stew about this more than your average Jane. After umpteen decades of ‘school reform,’ I’m angry we’re still slogging in place.

So I look forward each March to a call asking, “Do you want to review scholarship applications again this year?” I drop everything to pour over submissions from high-achieving, low-income New York City seniors who, if chosen, will get a generous four-year free ride to college from a family foundation with a bold-face name. From several hundred applicants, three-dozen are chosen to be interviewed. From that group, the foundation selects 25.

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DC Reform: Improvements Shown

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 27, 2008 in Education Leadership. 0 Comments

Washington PostOne year into Washington, DC’s mayoral takeover of the schools, the Washington Post editorializes that while there are no instant results when it comes to school reform, “this first year has been spent laying the foundation: restructuring the central office, closing an unprecedented number of schools, reorganizing ones that are failing, getting rid of principals who don’t make the grade. Time is needed before these conditions can produce results such as better student achievement or increased enrollment. Already, there is reason for cautious optimism.”

The Post notes that changes in the culture are evident: “There is a greater sense of urgency, and people know that more is expected of them.”

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A Memo to Wendy Kopp

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 22, 2008 in Education Leadership and Teaching. 16 Comments

To : Wendy Kopp, CEO and Founder, Teach For America
From: Robert Pondiscio, The Core Knowledge Blog
Re: Taking TFA to the Next Level

Dear Wendy:

First of all, congratulations on the huge surge in applications this year, and that New York Times editorial praising the impact of Teach For America’s teachers. TFA is hot, hot, hot! You’re well on the way to establishing the premier brand in education reform. Heck, you’re already there. That’s why you made this year’s TIME 100 list of the most world’s most influential people. It’s a good time to be Wendy Kopp and Teach For America. You’ve earned every accolade.

Because of all this success, you have built up a boatload of political capital. You’ve earned the right to innovate and really move the needle for our most disadvantaged kids. Now it’s time to break the mold and deploy your corps members in a way that could take TFA’s impact—already significant—to new heights.

You and I both know that the big knock on TFA is always going to be that its teachers are “two years and out.” Sure, you’ve got data to show that your smart, well-trained new teachers improve student outcomes. That’s great stuff. We also know that a third of corps members stay past their two-year commitment, and that’s even better. Even those who teach for just two years often go on to leadership positions, both in and out of education, deeply affected and energized by their experience. Bonus! But the more cache TFA gets, the more it’ll be used by some as a blue-chip resume item to catch the eye of recruiters on Wall Street, in the best law firms and corporations, and in top grad schools. Face it, that’s already an issue. These kids are no dummies, after all.

So here’s how we solve the “two and out” problem and kick TFA’s impact into the stratosphere: Instead of throwing TFAers into the worst teaching situations in the cities you serve, place them in some of the best, highest-performing schools. (Stick with me, Wendy, here’s the beauty part.) Place them in that high-functioning school for two years as pinch-hitters for some of our best, most experienced teachers, and send those master teachers to the same schools to which you’re sending TFA corps members now. We can call it the Teach For America Fellowship, and throw in a nice extra chunk of change to incentivize those master teachers without worrying about whether it’s merit pay.

Here’s why it makes sense:

Continue reading ‘A Memo to Wendy Kopp’

Randi Says, “I Want My CK!”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 20, 2008 in Curriculum and Education Leadership. 0 Comments

I’m not at the New Schools Venture Fund’s summit in DC this morning.  (I’m sure my invitation was lost in the mail), but Fordham’s Mike Petrilli is.  Alexander Russo, too, and both are blogging it.  According to Petrilli, Randi Weingarten is showing Core Knowledge some love. 

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Amicus Brief in Petrilli v. Millot

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 19, 2008 in Education Leadership. 1 Comment

I was planning to post this afternoon in support of Mike Petrilli, whose post questioning AERA’s embrace of Bill “Guilty as Hell, Free As a Bird” Ayers was unaccountably described as “McCarthyism” by the usually smart and sensible Dean Millot. But I see Diane Ravitch, as is her wont, has settled matters nicely. It’s a bit surprising that otherwise reasonable people seem eager to overlook Ayer’s past. We’re not talking about “youthful indescretions” here. We’re taking about clear, unambiguous criminal behavior which claimed lives–behavior for which Ayers claimed credit and refuses to renounce. “I don’t regret setting bombs, said Ayers. “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

McCarthyism? Please.

The Last Word: It belongs to Matthew K. Tabor, who posts a lengthy backgrounder on Ayers and the Weathermen, and draws Millot into his lair for a few rounds of responses. Well played, sir.

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Unforgiven

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 14, 2008 in Education Leadership and Research and Reports. 0 Comments

Nothing like a little blog-on-blog violence to liven things up.  Over at Flypaper the other day, Mike Petrilli advised the Association Council of the American Educational Research Association to dump Bill Ayers, who was elected as AERA’s Vice President-Elect of Curriculum Studies in March. 

“The Council might consider whether it’s prudent to allow a former terrorist to join its ranks—particularly a man who said as late as 2001 that ‘I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough,’ wrote Petrilli, who noted the Council has the authority to strip anyone’s association membership, and suggested AERA do so to Ayers. 

Eduwonkette, while not defending Ayers per se, isn’t exactly throwing him under a bus.  “Bill Ayers was democratically elected, and the right of professional associations to self-govern should be respected,” she writes.  “Mike believes that Ayers’ presence reflects badly on the whole association, but guilt by association is a shaky principle.” 

I’d gladly take a bullet for the talented Ms. Kette, but I’m with Petrilli on this one.  It’s not a question of guilt by association but poor judgment.  A vote for Ayers may not be a vote for terrorism, but apparently it’s not a disqualifying factor, which reflects badly on the profession, to say the least.  A commenter in Eduwonkette’s thread offers that Ayers was never convicted of terrorism, which is true.  But having pronounced himself “guilty as hell and free as a bird,” the issue of his guilt or innocence is not in dispute.  Ayers, having acted in his Weathermen days as judge, jury and (at the very least attempted) executioner also makes his legal standing a curious standard by which to judge him. 

The mildest thing one can say is that the AERA, in overlooking the unrepentant Mr. Ayers past, is not exactly crowning itself in glory.  Like Petrilli, I’m not an AERA member either.  But I am an educator, and have a hard time rationalizing my profession’s warm association with Mr. Ayers. 

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New and Improved! School!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 14, 2008 in Education Leadership and Teaching. 0 Comments

Most of us in education probably think of marketing, brand building and customer relations as beneath our dignity.  We’re educators, after all.  We’re not selling soap or soft drinks.  Food for thought then, courtesy of Scott McLeod at the Techlearning blog, who notes that every interaction is at heart a marketing transaction representing “an opportunity for us to build or erode our brand, a chance to increase or decrease the trust and goodwill of the people with whom we are interacting.”

“What’s this mean for schools? Well, it means that every time a parent walks away unhappy from an encounter at school, that’s a marketing interaction. Every time a teacher has yet another boring lesson, that’s a marketing interaction. Every time a school board member puts her personal agenda ahead of what’s best for students, that’s a marketing interaction. Every time a member of the community walks through an uninviting building, that’s a marketing interaction. And every time an administrator squanders an opportunity to be a leader rather than a manager, that’s a marketing interaction.”

Schools do a host of wonderful things,” McLeod concludes.  “But they also engage in a number of individual and organizational behaviors that chip away at the trust and goodwill of their internal and external communities.”

Smart stuff.  And worth reflecting on, as McLeod notes, next time someone complains about problems with student engagement, parental support and community involvement.

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A Meteoric Rise

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 5, 2008 in Education Leadership. 0 Comments

A long time ago, I sat with Wendy Kopp at the White House Correspondents dinner in Washington, when she was named one of TIME Magazine’s 40 most promising leaders under the age of 40.  Today she’s one of the TIME 100, as in 100 most influential people in the world.  Looks like this Teach For America thing is working out OK.

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It’s Nice To Be Important

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 2, 2008 in Education Leadership. 0 Comments

It’s nice to be important.  But it’s important to be nice.  This oft-repeated elementary school homily is apparently lost upon the superachievers at the pinnacle of academic accomplishment.  Writing in the Washington Post, Yale law student Amelia Rawls observes:

“During four years at Princeton University and nearly a year at Yale Law School, I have been surrounded by students who dazzle,” Rawls writes.  “They include published novelists, acclaimed musicians and Olympic medalists….They can be inspirational, and I am lucky to be able to learn from them. But they are not always nice people.

“Some of these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless. They will debate environmental policy but never offer to take out the trash. They will believe vehemently in many causes but roll their eyes when reminded to be humble, to be generous and to ‘do what is right.’”

Youthful whining?  Perhaps.  Rawls paints with a broad brush, still she does grasp an interesting issue when she wonders “if our society is crippling itself by subjecting its youths to an almost-Darwinian college selection process.”

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Coming Attractions?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on April 10, 2008 in Education Leadership. 0 Comments

The Weekly StandardIf you want a preview of an Obama presidency look to his friend, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, says the Weekly Standard. The magazine is a conservative organ, so it’s no surprise that authors Charles Chieppo and Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank, have the long knives out for Obama. Still their take on Patrick’s education moves are noteworthy.

In 2005 the Bay State was the first to place at the top of all four categories of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, attributable to the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act and its hallmark standards, accountability and school choice provisions—and $40 billion dollars of incremental spending on education.

“But the teachers’ unions maintain a deep antipathy to the reforms and to anything that encourages charter schools,” write Chieppo and Stergios. “The unions pumped $3 million into Patrick’s campaign, and the governor called education his ’singular pursuit.’ What he is pursuing is the systematic dismantling of the successful 1993 reforms.” Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform said much the same in an op-ed in the Boston Globe in January; he rates an “I told you so” for the piece.

“His first budget eliminated the state’s independent education accountability office,” note the Standard. “Then he used his first two picks for the Board of Education to demolish standards and choice: choosing anti-testing zealot Ruth Kaplan and charter school opponent Paul Reville–whom he also made chairman of the nine-member board.”

The article is downright weak on connecting Obama to Patrick on education, noting merely that similiarities between the two “leave some to wonder” if Patrick is a preview of Obama. But its indictment of Patrick is plenty bad enough.

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