Franklin Schargel’s Blog

In the state in which I live, New Mexico, we have 6 four-year colleges .  Next store in  Arizona, which has 4 times our population, there are 3 universities.  Colleges and universities across the United States continue to proliferate and expand and build additional buildings and seats seemingly without regard to the impact on students and their parents.

In the negative sense, this means that there is duplication of majors and a spreading of the best talents to many institutions as opposed to consolidating them in fewer schools.  It also means that students (and their parents) bear the additional costs of maintaining the universities.

On the other side, we live in a society which insists that everyone should attend colleges and graduate from them.  [Read more…] about Do We Have Too Many Colleges?

One of my favorite educators is Diane Ravitch.  Her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System is superb.  Here is an article she wrote for her regular column in the Washington Post.

My guest is Diane Ravitch, New York University education historian and author of the best-selling “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” Ravitch, once a supporter of No Child Left Behind and now a fierce critic of its impact, is traveling the country and meeting thousands of teachers as she blasts the Obama administration’s education policies.

By Diane Ravitch
For the past five years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have claimed that, due to their programs, New York City was a national model. They proclaimed that the city had made “historic gains” on state tests, all because of the mayor’s complete control of the policymaking apparatus. The mayor testified in congressional hearings that New York City had cut the achievement gap in half. Klein traveled to Australia to boast of the city’s gains, and the Australian minister of education intends to align that nation’s education system with the New York City model.

It was an exciting and wonderful ride while it lasted. But last week, with the release of the state test results for 2010, New York City’s claims came crashing to the ground. The national model went up in smoke. The miracle was no more. The belief that mayoral control was a panacea for urban ills was no longer sustainable.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has gone around the nation for the past 18 months singing the praises of mayoral control. But in light of the New York City fiasco, he will have to find a new example when he lectures urban audiences, because the New York model just lost its wheels.

What is that model? All decision-making power vested in the office of the mayor, who chooses the school leadership; testing and accountability; report cards for schools with a single letter grade; bonuses for principals whose schools have rising scores; closing schools whose scores do not rise; opening charter schools and small schools; devolving authority to principals to make decisions about spending and instructional programs.

When Mayor Bloomberg first ran for office, he said that the legislature should give him control of the school system with minimal checks or balances. He promised accountability. If anything went wrong, the public would know whom to hold accountable; not some faceless board, but he, the mayor, would be accountable.

The New York City version of mayoral control means that parents and the public have no voice. The shell of the central board is dominated by a majority of mayoral appointees, who approve whatever the mayor wants. On the one occasion when two of his appointees threatened to vote independently, they were fired on the spot.

Every year, the State Education Department reported that scores were going up across the state and in New York City. In 2007, based entirely on steadily rising state scores, the Broad Foundation awarded New York City its annual prize as the nation’s most improved urban school district. Mayor Bloomberg used the state scores to win re-election in 2005 and to bypass term limits and get re-elected for a third term in 2009.

When the mayoral control law expired a year ago, the mayor referred to the state scores as evidence that his reforms were working and the progress should not be interrupted.

The narrative ended on a sour note last week. The State Education Department accepted that the state tests had gotten so easy in recent years that the standards had become meaningless.

Students could advance from level 1 (where remediation was required in New York City) to level 2 by random guessing. Reaching level 3 (“proficiency”) did not mean that students were likely to graduate high school. Under new leadership, the state raised standards, and the proportion of New York City students who reached proficiency dramatically declined.

The pass rate on the reading test fell from 69 percent to only 42 percent, and on the math test, it dropped from 82% to 54%. In addition, the achievement gap among students of different racial and ethnic groups grew larger, as large as it was when the mayor took office.

The mayor and the chancellor responded to the new situation not by accepting responsibility and accountability, but by denying the facts. In news conferences, press briefings, and opinion articles, they and their surrogates insisted that the “historic gains” of the past five years were still intact.

They pointed to scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress to defend their claims, but this was a weak reed. New York City’s gains on NAEP were garden-variety. Atlanta, Boston and the District of Columbia made larger gains in fourth grade reading and math; Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Diego made larger gains in eighth grade math; and New York City made zero gains in eighth grade reading from 2003-2009, while Atlanta, Houston, and Los Angeles did see significant improvement in that grade and subject.

So the larger story is this: Mayoral control did not turn New York City into a national model. Before promoting mayoral control as the answer to urban education, Secretary Duncan would do well to consider Cleveland, which has had mayoral control since 1995.

Like New York City, Cleveand has participated in national testing from the inception of urban district assessment. Cleveland has made no gains in fourth grade reading or eighth grade reading or fourth grade mathematics or eighth grade mathematics.

Mayoral control is not a panacea. Not in Cleveland or in New York City. Nor in Chicago, which has seen some gains, but is still one of the nation’s lowest performing urban districts after many years of mayoral control.

In case you missed it, Alma & Colin Powell discussed the growing problem of school dropouts on Morning Joe (https://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=555C184E-CB08-11DF-8853000C296BA163&aka=0).

The good news is that I am gratified that the dropout crisis is getting as much publicity as it is and horrified that the problem is as large as it is.

Hawaii in an attempt to save money in this downturned economy and dramatic falloff of tourism, closed schools on 17 Fridays.  This was done without a regard to working  parents. Parents had to use vacation or sick days.  Some enlisted the help of grandparents. Many paid $25 to $50 per child each week for the new child care programs that had sprung up.

Children, meanwhile, had to adjust to a new meaning  of T.G.I.F. Getting them up for school on Mondays grew harder. Fridays were filled with trips to pools and beaches, hours of television and Wii, long stretches alone for older children.

Four-day weeks have been used by a small number of rural school districts in the United States, especially since the oil shortage of the 1970s. During the current downturn, their ranks have swelled to more than 120 districts.  But Hawaii is an extreme case. It shut schools not only in rural areas but also in high-rise neighborhoods in Honolulu. The state owes billions of dollars to a pension system that has only 68.8 percent of the money it needs to cover its promises to state workers, Hawaii instituted the furloughs even after getting $110 million in stimulus money for schools.

Unlike most districts with four-day weeks, Hawaii did not lengthen the hours of its remaining school days: its 163-day school year was the shortest in the nation.

The furloughs were originally supposed to last two years, but the outcry was so great “” that a deal was hammered out to restore the days next year.

America is sacrificing its future by sacrificing its children.

GENERAL AND MRS. COLIN POWELL TO PRESENT AT NBC NEWS’ “EDUCATION NATION” – TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

Presentation Will Address the Nation’s High School Dropout Crisis and the Need to Prepare Our Future Workforce

In an effort to bring awareness to the critical issue of the nation’s high school dropout rates in the U.S., General Colin Powell, Founding Chairman of America’s Promise Alliance, and Alma Powell, Chair of America’s Promise Alliance, will jointly appear for a special presentation at NBC News’ “Education Nation” Summit on Tuesday, September 28th.  America’s Promise Alliance is the nation’s largest multi-sector partnership organization dedicated to improving the lives of young people. The presentation will address the systemic impact of low graduation rates, and the steps needed to drive policy change, support communities and transform the lives of the country’s most vulnerable students. Following the presentation, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of “Morning Joe” will have a discussion with the Powells and take questions from the audience.

“When it comes to education and the future of our children, the time for change is now,” said General Colin Powell, USA (Ret.), Founding Chairman, America’s Promise Alliance. “The risks of inaction to our economy and the integrity of this country are too great if we do not address the dropout crisis.”

“Having access to an education that challenges and inspires our young people to reach higher and give back is one of the most important things we can do as Americans,” said Alma Powell, Chair of America’s Promise Alliance. “This job is too big and too important for the schools to tackle alone, so we must all do our part in ensuring the success of our youth. “˜Education Nation’ is a great example of the collaborative effort needed to act on the lessons we’ve learned and to start making a difference today.”

The Powells’ appearance is an integral part of NBC News’ first annual “Education Nation””” fostering an urgently needed national conversation about the state of education in America, giving voice to committed teachers, parents, students and policymakers.  Through the “Education Nation” Summit and multi-media programming, NBC News  (plans to explore) explores the greatest challenges,  (will highlight) highlights solutions and examines innovative ideas in education today. Shining a spotlight on the state of education in America, NBC News will hold decision-makers accountable for improving education for America’s future.

Founded in 1997, America’s Promise Alliance (the Alliance) is comprised of more than 400 partners across various industry sectors working to help improve the lives of children and youth. In an effort to raise awareness of America’s high school dropout crisis, the Alliance launched its Dropout Prevention Campaign in April 2008. Through this work, the Alliance has sponsored more than 100 Dropout Prevention summits nationwide ““ bringing together more than 35,000 mayors and governors, business and civic leaders, child advocates, school administrators, students, and parents to develop workable solutions and action plans to raise graduation rates in their communities.

For the next phase of this work, in its most significant campaign to date, the Alliance launched “Grad Nation” in March 2010 with the support of President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “Grad Nation” is a ten-year effort to mobilize Americans to end the dropout crisis and prepare young people for success in higher education and the 21st century workforce.

The Powell’s presentation will be covered on MSNBC and streamed on msnbc.com live and for delayed viewing. For more information, visit www.educationnation.com.

About Education Nation

“Education Nation” is a nationally broadcast in-depth conversation about improving education in America. Through an interactive summit on Rockefeller Plaza parents, teachers and students meet with leaders in politics, education and technology to explore the challenges and opportunities in education today.  NBC News will turn Rockefeller Plaza into a “Learning Plaza,” a series of galleries open to the public to explore the latest technologies and techniques used in award-winning classrooms nationwide. The entire week of September 26, all NBC News platforms will highlight education stories, while broadcasting live from the Plaza.

There isn’t any argument that education in America needs to be improved.  Politicians on all sides of the spectrum agree.  The discussion is not about whether it should happen but how it should happen.  Is the Race for the Top the way to go?  I do not think so.  It DEMANDS that states raise the cap on how many charter schools they have.  There are excellent charter schools and there are terrible charter schools.  Just as there are terrible public schools and excellent public schools.  Charter schools were supposed to be educational learning laboratories which were benchmarked for best practices.  To envision them as the sole universal answer to the ills of American education is as foolish as believing that high stakes testing would, by itself, raise America’s achievement level.  All that the testing achieved was to confirm what we already knew ““ that children of low income families do worse on examinations that children of high income families.  It then rewarded high achieving schools and punished low achieving schools.  What stupidity.

If we wish to improve America’s schools, we need to systemically improve all aspects of America’s schooling.  We need to improve early childhood education and make it available to every student.  We need to level the playing field of school spending so that schools in affluent areas get as much funding as those in the inner cities.  If children do not learn the way teachers teach, then teachers need to teach the way students learn.  We need to have colleges validate high school degrees by not accepting students who are not prepared to enter college and stop accepting and remediating those who are below college admission standards.  We need to have schools of education train teachers with the skills they need and not what the schools of education want to teach.  And politicians need to stop coming up with sound bite solutions to highly complex educational problems.

On July 29, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an appropriations bill that would provide the U.S. Department of Education with $48.8 billion in discretionary funding for Fiscal Year 2011. That amount represents an increase of about $2.7 billion over last year, but is $800 million less than the amount President Obama requested in his budget.

Included in the Senate Appropriation Committee’s version of the Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education appropriations bill was $625 million for the School Improvement Grants program, which targets the nation’s lowest-performing schools. The committee included a provision directing 40 percent of these funds be used to turn around the five thousand lowest-performing secondary schools, including the nation’s “dropout factories,” where 60 percent or fewer high school freshmen progress to senior year on time.  The major funding stream for assisting the lowest-performing K”“12 schools is the School Improvement Grants program or SIG.

The bill would provide $14.94 billion for the Title I program, an increase of $500 million over last year. The Striving Readers program would receive $250 million, an increase of $50 million, while Statewide Data Systems would receive $65 million, an increase of about $7 million.

The bill will next go to the Senate floor, although a timetable for its consideration has not been set. On the House side, the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee passed its version of the bill on July 15, but it has yet to be taken up by the full House Appropriations Committee.

When is enough, not enough?  The funding, while welcomed, is not enough to reach half of the nation’s dropout factories.

What do high scoring foreign nations have in common?  High scoring nations like Finland and Singapore, which score very well on the TIMMS and PISA, have national curricula and high national standards.  While this is not the only factor it beats the patchwork of state standards that the United States has.

Twenty-seven states have adopted the newly issued national education standards and more are expected to do so in the next few weeks.  This is a radical change as states have traditionally accepted state control over the development and deployment of curriculum.

The common core standards took two years to develop and were first released in draft form in March, are an effort to replace the current jumble of state policies.  They lay out detailed expectations of skills that students should have at each grade level.  Adoption of the standards does not bring immediate change in the classroom. Implementation will be a long-term process, as states rethink their teacher training, textbooks and testing. The common standards spell out what students should learn in English and math each year from kindergarten through high school. States that adopt the standards by Aug. 2 win points in the National Race for the Top competition for a share of the $3.4 billion to be awarded in September.  Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and a number of other states have adopted the standards.  The question is whether states will have the necessary funds to put the standards in effect.

Texas and Alaska said they did not want to participate in developing the standards. And Virginia has made it known that it does not plan to adopt the standards.

Increasingly, national standards are seen as a way to ensure that children in all states will have access to a similar education “” and that financially strapped state governments do not have to spend limited resources on developing their own standards and tests.

The new common core standards are stronger than the English standards in 37 states and the math standards in 39 states.

“Vocabulary-building in the common core is slower,” he said, citing one example. “And on the math side, they don’t prepare eighth-grade students for algebra one, which is the gateway to higher math.”