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By Kyle, November 20, 2010 2:04 pm

The New Pornographers – We End Up Together

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If you’ve not yet read my previous post (What Charter Schools Need to Hear), read it first, or else what follows is likely to make you angry (i.e. it only gives you half the picture).

Davis Guggenheim, the director of Waiting For Superman, which has drawn both widespread acclaim and widespread criticism, did get at least one thing right, however, in a recent interview with NPR. He states that “charters are not the silver bullet. Charters are an experiment, in a lot of ways. And it’s a very new experiment.”

And this is exactly what district schools need to realize, namely, that no matter what feelings or emotions are associated with charter schools, they do provide a place for experimental educational techniques, systems, or policies to be piloted.

Any district teacher (at least in LA Unified) will tell you that one of the most frustrating aspects of working in the district is the monstrous level of bureaucracy that exists and the seeming lack of connection between those making decisions and the teachers that have to live with implementing those decisions (i.e. periodic assessments, curriculum guides, calendars, interventions, etc…). The fact of the matter is that since charters exist largely outside of the bureaucratic control of the larger district, they could potentially be the ones to show the district the ways in which its policies could be improved to help students succeed.

District schools need to look at charter experiments, specifically asking (1) What is worth replicating? and (2) Just how scalable is it (trying it at a classroom-level, at a school-level, or at a district-level)?

Case in point: Many students come to the 6th grade in a public school several grade levels behind where they should be. Now in order to catch a kid up to grade level, he needs to do at least one of the following things: (1) Learn Faster (not just “normal speed”, but actually at an accelerated speed), or (2) Learn for Longer. Most schools have come to the realization that learning faster is very difficult, since it has been the exact lack of this element that got the kid behind in the first place. What some charter schools, such as KIPP, are doing is honestly asking the question “Could kids catch up if we had them learning longer?”. In the KIPP experiment, they have decided to actually extend the school day (in fact, “More Time” is the third of their Five Pillars, which seem to be the KIPP educational philosophy) where kids and teachers start earlier, or end later each day, and include weekends and summertime. Because KIPP exists free from systemic control by the district, they can experiment like this.

Within the context of this example, it’s important to understand that what I am not saying is that LAUSD must adopt an extended day program. What I am saying is that LAUSD (and schools, and teachers) need to be willing to look at the specific ways in which charter schools are addressing this issue of how we are helping struggling students learn faster or learn longer, and be open to attempting an appropriately scaled roll-out if such ideas have demonstrated success and can be implemented with the district’s different student population. If an extended day works (and would work for the district population), let’s do it. If not, then let’s not. But until we’re willing to actually have this conversation, the charter vs. district conversation debate argument will continue to rage on without any children benefitting from what we can learn from each other.

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By Kyle, November 14, 2010 1:14 pm

Sinnead O’Conner – Nothing Compares 2 U

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Let me be clear: I am not against the idea of charter schools. Contrary to some, I actually believe that charters and district schools can mutually co-exist. Unfortunately, this is simply not the way that the debate is being framed today. Some say that they believe that we should “charterize” all district schools because charters have demonstrated they are better. Some believe that no charters should exist because they are no better than district schools. And while these two extremes are certainly unfair generalizations of existing perspectives, the problem lies not so much within their proposed actions, but in their rationale. Namely, stating that charters are “better” or “no better” than district schools is the wrong comparative adjective.

The simple reality is that charters are different than district schools, namely in the population of students they teach. Before L.A. charter advocates jump down my throat with the argument that their schools serve the same low-income, underserved, often-minority communities that district schools do, let me say that the difference in student population at these schools is due to the way one winds up at a charter school, namely (and here’s the key) an application.

What makes the student population at charters and district schools significantly different (enough to justify throwing out the category of “better/no better”) is that kids default to district schools, but must apply to a charter school. To this statement, charter advocates will often respond that there are not actually any academic criteria and application is open to all. I would respond that is missing the point. The reality is the mere act of choice vs. defaulting is a vast distinguisher between populations.

To use an analogy, imagine a fellow teacher, Mr. Henry, and I are going to each recruit and coach a student soccer team and then play in a head-to-head match. Here’s how we each recruit our 20 players:

• Mr. Henry must use all 20 students in his 1st period class as his team. Everybody. If you’re in his period 1 class, you’re automatically on his team.
• I, on the other hand, tell all 120 of my students that I’ll be coaching a soccer team. I then send around a sign-up sheet for interested students. After any and all students have been given an opportunity (but not a requirement) to sign up, I hold a random lottery (not tryouts) to whittle down my team’s size to the requisite 20.

My question: Who’s team is more likely to win?

Now, will Mr. Henry perhaps wind up with some great players who just happened to be in his first period class? Definitely. Will I get unlucky in that my random lottery elicits some kids who have quite an inflated sense of their soccer abilities? Certainly. But what’s the main difference? The main difference lies in that my recruitment process guarantees the non-inclusion of disinterested students.

And that right there, is the main thing that charters need to hear. Part of the reason that district schools, and teachers unions have been so reactionary (albeit far too often, merely contrarian) is that district teachers become defensive when charters ignore this reality of the results of requiring an application (even if the application is non-meritorious).

In my next post, I’ll be writing form the other perspective, namely, about what district schools need to hear in regards to this debate, but before that will ever happen, charters absolutely need to abandon this notion of “better” and simply state that they are different.

And lest we forget our history, an analogous debate raged on nearly 100 years ago in the 1920s, as the competing notions of public schools vs. private schools played out across the nation. Where are we a century later? You don’t see private schools advocating for themselves merely because they are “better” than their district neighbors. A majority that private school students are more likely (thought certainly not exclusively) to perform at higher levels than their neighboring district school students. Yet, because they’ve largely abandoned the “us vs. them” mentality (everyone knows their incoming populations are vastly different. Why? $$$$), private schools can advocate for themselves on their own merits rather than a mere alternative to something they see as undesirable.

If (and this must happen first) charters will acknowledge that their incoming student population is different than their district counterparts, I do believe that district advocates will be less hostile and more likely to be willing to have a mutually beneficial conversation (something I’ll throw on the table in the next post).

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By Kyle, November 11, 2010 6:52 pm

James Horner – Give Me Your Tired Your Poor

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You can actually buy this shirt, which reminds us of perhaps one of the most important Constitutional Amendments, good ol’ Number 10.

And because our founding fathers did not specifically include a system of federal public education in the Constitution, the story of how public education began in this country isn’t so cut-and-dry, with parochial, private, and public schools starting across the states with various purposes and goals all at different times.

Yet one of the things that makes this country great is that we do value education, culturally and socially acknowledging it to be the key to not only upward mobility, but the “American Dream.”

As a nation, we do believe that our future is literally in the hands of our youth, and as such, have set up a system of public education (varying, thanks to good ol’ Number 10 up there, state to state), that allows students to receive a free education.

Free of charge.

Free of corporate influence.

Free of religious influence. [Yes, I’m a huge fan of schools being free of religious influence in spite of (and ironically, because of) the fact that I am Christian].

And best yet, they’ll educate anybody. Let me say that again: ANYBODY. One of the main things that quickly comes up with colleagues and friend in the whole charter vs. district schools debate is that every child is literally defaulted to a public school in his or her neighborhood.

Don’t speak English? You can go to public school.

Can’t count? You can go to public school.

Severe learning disabilities? You can go to public school.

Are public schools perfect? Of course not. Do they always live up to their ideals? Definitely not. Have public district schools got a long way to go in figuring out exactly how to best educate the children to default to our school each year? Absolutely. But nonetheless, one of the main things that district schools advocate for is the reality that the American dream can be achieved by literally anybody.

Keep posted to this series…Upcoming posts include:

• My students’ experience with charter schools
• What Charter Schools need to hear
• What District Public Schools need to hear

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By Kyle, November 8, 2010 10:15 pm

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So in this second installment of the multi-part blog series about the differences between charter schools and district schools, I take on exactly what it is that charters use to self-advocate.

Just today, a colleague of mine was looking at our enrollment at Cochran and found that each year, the number of students in our community who are not attending Cochran (to charter, magnet, other district, and private schools) does, in fact, increase. Many of our potential students do go to charter schools. My question for this post is simply this: “Why?”

Obviously, the answer to this question depends entirely upon who you talk to, but in the interest of an open conversation, I’d like to at least hear the arguments that charter schools typically give regarding themselves.

[Note: I had originally wanted to title this post “Why Charters Think They’re the Awesomest”, but I couldn’t justify it, grammatically speaking].

The main argument that one typically hears about charters is in relation to their academic performance as measured by standardized test scores, a set of data that is often juxtaposed with similar data from neighborhood district schools. Featured prominently on the Green Dot website is a screen-shot (nice, guys) graphic of Excel charts showing the disparity between charter school performance and the other district run schools. The message? Your child will score better if they attend a Green Dot (or charter school in general) than if they attend a regular district school. Breaking down the why of this statement is decidedly more difficult (and I’ll attempt to do so in a later post), but one of the main things you might hear from the charter operators is that this is due to the nature of charter schools themselves, namely that they, being free from district regulations, can make better decisions regarding curriculum and pacing (i.e. not having to follow a district pacing guide), finances (i.e. deciding what are the most essential services to provide students, including longer school days), and leadership (i.e. personnel policies, such as hiring/firing teachers and other school leaders). While district schools are bound to LAUSD’s one-size-fits-all policies, charters are free to adapt, adopt, and generally work in ways that are autonomous from the authority of a governing body (or at least the charter organization’s board of directors).

Through all of this, an undercurrent of comparison reigns free. If you were to sit down over coffee Red Bull with a charter school advocate, one of the ways in which they’d emphasize their distinctiveness is how it will outperform the neighborhood public school. Do they? Sure. Would any sane parent want to send their kid to a school whose students seem to perform well. You bet. Even if you have to fill out an application, and take part in a lottery? Yup.

Any behavioral economist will tell you that a system in which there are options, choices, and competition is a system in which better outcomes will result for all, and this is a common line of reasoning for charter school advocates (even more on this in a later post). This is what charter advocates will often cite as they mention that their schools not only help their students, but improve district schools as well. Davis Guggenheim, the director of Waiting for Superman, in a recent interview with NPR states, quite accurately, that charters see themselves “like incubators; we can take those ideas, and pull them into mainstream schools.”

We’ll see.

Next post: what District Schools say they have to offer.

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By Kyle, November 5, 2010 5:23 pm

The Flaming Lips – Fight Test

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I’ve not yet seen Waiting For Superman — I thought the first six Superman movies were plenty (…yes, you can groan, just like my students do, at my terrible jokes).

Suffice it to say that the Charter vs. District debate has heated up once again here in Los Angeles, particularly as we at Cochran have been recently notified that our school in now on the “watch-list” for potential charter take-over in 2012 should certain benchmarks not be met. [A note for my non-LAUSD blog readers: Two years ago, our District, LAUSD, approved a plan (ironically called “Public School Choice”, or “PSC”) that allows charter operators and others (including teachers groups) to bid on schools that are not improving at what the district considers an acceptable rate].

I have no doubts in my mind that the Cochran staff will be able to unite and focus on improving the academic performance of our students enough to extricate ourselves from the watch list, yet this context has once again fostered a less-than-productive dialogue fight between Charter School operators and District counterparts.

Personally speaking, I find myself often in the midst of what seems to be two warring factions. I am both a card-carrying UTLA member, and Teach For America alumnus, two organizations which are openly against- and for- charter schools, respectively.

For those who might remember, this summer, I devoted a blog series to the L.A. Times publishing of teacher rankings. From these posts I received numerous comments. So, in the same spirit, over the next two weeks, I’ll be devoting a series of blog posts to the Charter debate, particularly as it is occurring here in LAUSD. I invite your comments, thoughts, opinions, hate mail, and questions.

In this series, my only goal will be to tease out a constructive direction that I hope the education community can turn in, with the ultimate goal of ensuring our children our getting an excellent education in Los Angeles.

Some initial topics I plan on covering include, but are not limited to:

• Why Charter Schools Think They’re the Most Awesomest!
• Why District Schools Think They’re the Most Awesomest!
• Why Being a Math Teacher Allows Me To Get Away With Grammatical Murder
• My own students’ experience with charters
• My hope for Charter Schools
• My hope for District Schools

In a first for this blog, I also invite any of my readers to suggest topics for this series that they feel are large enough to warrant a blog posting, but not covered by the aforementioned list.

Let the fun begin again.