![]() YOU KNOW THE DRILL (PART 4)! How did Highland get those high scores? Hedrick Smith doesnt quite ask: // link // print // previous // next //
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2005 SCHLESINGER GETS IT RIGHT: We strongly recommend this Huffington post by Robert Schlesinger. And we recommend that you read the comments, in which highly tribalist readers complain about Schlesingers nit-picking work. No, General Shinseki wasnt fired by the Bush Admin, although it feels very good to say so. When Nancy Pelosi inaccurately says this, we think Schlesinger is right to complain. Weve said it many times before. At this point, if you have to stretch the facts to make a case against Bush, you ought to get out of the case-making business. Misstatements like this betray lack of discipline—a problem that plagues the work of major Dem leaders. Indeed: Earlier this year, Pelosi was actually making public jokes about the way Al Gore said he invented the Internet, and she floundered horribly on Sunday shows when questioned about Bushs SS plan. Dems and libs should stop accepting this level of incompetence from party leaders. The Democratic message machine is a mess. Pelosi may have misspoken about Shinseki. But the pattern should not be excused.
READ KRUGMAN: Paul Krugmans column today is familiar but important. Well offer a related story next week. PART 4—HIGH SCORES AT HIGHLAND: Should all fifth-graders be taught fifth grade math? More broadly, should all fifth-graders be taught a single fifth grade curriculum? Its an enduring notion, driven by an appealing image of order. Indeed, its how we recall our own grade school days, at Mystic Elementary School in Winchester, Mass. How were we taught at Mystic School? We recall thirty kids at thirty desks, holding thirty copies of the same textbook, all open to the same page—page thirty. Its a dreary way to run a classroom, but at least it seems to make a type of good sense. And it would make a type of sense—if kids would be more alike than they actually are! Indeed, we think this image is driving the discourse when Hedrick Smith asks Jovetta Dennis how her school—Charlottes Highland Elementary—uses those data from the Drill-Down to plan the schools instruction (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 12/1/05): HEDRICK SMITH: When you look at these results and it says the group is not mastering whatever it is—multiplication, fractions, decimals—whats that saying that youve got to do?If someone doesnt master some skill, you pull him aside and give extra help. This image is presented, in more detail, in a supplementary essay on the Making Schools Work web site, written by someone named Corey Ford. Ford is never identified further: FORD: Even more critical is the [Drill-Downs] Group Mastery Report, which lists every child in the class and describes all students' level of mastery on each objective. In a glance, the teacher sees the weak spots in her class.Later, Ford provides more detail. Students who need intense intervention receive one-on-one attention from the teacher who teaches the concept best...A separate time period is dedicated to this re-teaching, allowing the regular class to stay on pace. In short, lagging children get extra help with a skill, while the class as a whole stays on pace. The class keeps moving through the fifth-grade curriculum. Kids who need some extra help on some skill are brought up to speed in separate sessions. This orderly image would make perfect sense—if the kids were all pretty much alike. If all the kids were roughly on grade level, this system would make perfect sense. But what if a bunch of kids in your class are several years behind in their math? What if the image from that latest new study obtains inside your classroom? STUDY BY THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: Young low-income and minority children are more likely to start school without having gained important school readiness skills, such as recognizing letters and counting. By the fourth grade, low-income students read about three grade levels behind non-poor students.What if youre teaching some fifth-grade kids who started school without having gained important school readiness skills? And what if these kids are now working about three grade levels behind non-poor students in both reading and math? All of a sudden, that sensible image from our own distant past doesnt make all that much sense any more. Sorry, but no: If kids are several years behind grade level, you cant expect them to handle a fifth-grade curriculum just because you give them a little extra help; if kids are years behind in their math, they will be swamped by a grade-level course of study, and all the extra help in the world wont change that essential fact. But then, in our experience, this is the hard reality of teaching in high-poverty schools. For this reason, we were surprised by the statements of Charlotte administrators as we sat and watched Making Schools Work. In Charlotte, are all fifth-grade kids really taught a uniform fifth-grade math curriculum, as former superintendent Eric Smith seems to suggest in the PBS program? We cant imagine how that would work—although the system would be quite orderly. But alas; perhaps you know the familiar old drill. These explanations made sense to Hedrick Smith, so he never asked the questions which might have explained how Charlottes schools really work. For forty years, this is how it has tended to go when relatively inexperienced journalists go looking for urban schools that work. Every explanation seems to make sense, even those that are actually rather puzzling. Whats happening in Charlottes high-poverty schools? Because Hedrick Smith doesnt ask the right questions, we dont feel all that sure. But for the record, Smith does visit one Charlotte school where the test scores do seem to be promising. That school is Highland Renaissance Academy, whose snooty name shouldnt obscure some key facts. Highland is in an inner-city neighborhood; its students are about 85 percent black or Hispanic; and it was once among the lowest-achieving schools in all of North Carolina. How bad was Highland as of the mid-90s? In Making Schools Work, Hedrick Smith asks former principal Jenell Bovis to describe the way she found the school when she began there in 1998: HEDRICK SMITH: Talk to me a little bit about the school when you came here. What was Highland like and what was the state of academics here?Yikes! But Highlands test scores soon took off. In six years, Highland went from a failing school to a North Carolina school of distinction, Smith says, seeming to relate Highlands score gains to Superintendent Eric Smiths reforms. And make no mistake—those test scores did rise. For example, Highlands black students now out-perform black kids statewide in all tested grades, in both reading and math. Indeed, here are the percentages who scored proficient on the North Carolina end-of-grade tests in reading this past spring: Passing rates, North Carolina end-of-grade reading tests, black students, spring 2005Clearly, Highlands black kids are outperforming their peers state-wide. (In math, they exceed the state at every grade level, but by much narrower margins.) And needless to say, Smith and Smith are quick to chalk this up to Charlottes brilliant reforms. In some detail, heres Superintendent Eric Smiths explanation in his extended interview: HEDRICK SMITH: Talk about Highland Elementary school when you first arrived.Its good leadership, Eric Smith said, patting himself on the back, as always. The schools new principal did the things that we have prescribed. And the superintendent went out of his way to say that the schools population hadnt changed as its test scores rose so notably. It didn't change population, he said. It served the same kids as it always served. If this is true, then researchers and academics should be crawling all over Highland, trying to figure out whats being done at this relatively high-scoring school. But uh-oh! Eric Smiths statement doesnt seem to be true. We have no doubt that Highland is an excellent school, or that Bovis was an excellent principal. Indeed, the Highland web site testifies to an energetic mix of activities—programs offered to deserving kids by a dedicated staff and teams of volunteers. (Highland offers literacy and enrichment activities supported by volunteers from Covenant Church, The Urban League, Children's Theatre, The Junior League, Christ Church, Charlotte's Web, and local businesses and organizations, its web site says. It also offers a strong emphasis on reading and math with enrichment activities using the Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math Programs.) But uh-oh! Amid all this evidence of teacher devotion, we learn something else from the site; we learn that Highlands population almost surely has changed in the past five or six years, in ways that would likely affect its test scores. Highland Renaissance Academy, which opened in 2001, serves approximately 600 students in the Green Choice Zone, the web site says. This is a reference to the schools impressive new plant—and to its current status as a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Theme School, a school which attracts kids from outside its neighborhood by virtue of its special programs. Indeed, a few weeks ago, we asked the Charlotte public information office: How many kids come to Highland from outside its neighborhood, drawn by the schools ambitious academic curriculum? We never got an answer back (then again, we never called back ourselves), but when a schools population becomes self-selected—when kids are drawn to a school by an ambitious academic program—its no longer possible to make simple comparisons with the average neighborhood school. This doesnt detract from Highlands apparent high quality. But it does detract, once again, from Making Schools Work, and from the apparent quality of Superintendent Eric Smiths presentations. Alas! When PBS viewers go to Spaugh Middle School, theyre told that the students there are thriving—although test score suggest that theyre clearly not. And when PBS viewers go to Highland, theyre told that the schools population hasnt changed—although that doesnt seem accurate either. If we really care about what is true—if we really care about low-income kids—well try to avoid such feel-good misstatements. But this kind of thing has gone on for decades. By now, you may know this old drill. Who knows? At Highland Renaissance Academy, you may not find large numbers of kids who are several years below grade level. By the fourth grade, low-income students read about three grade levels behind non-poor students, that new study warns. For ourselves, we had such kids every year we taught—deserving kids who deserved good instruction. In our view (and, we would have thought, in the view of most experts), you cant ask a fifth-grader who is three years behind to tough it out with a fifth-grade curriculum—and wed be surprised to learn that urban systems are returning to such a model. But easy images of orderly conduct always seem to drive efforts like Making Schools Work. These programs always seem to make it sound easy. But then, by now you may feel that you know this familiar, unhelpful old drill. STILL COMING: Final thoughts about Making Schools Work—and we look to a new daily web site. NOTE: It may be that Highland has found great ways to work with below-grade-level kids. If we actually cared about these matters, schools like Highland would be crawling with researchers—with experienced observers trying to see if some small revolution is under way there. (Or might this school have a self-selected, above-average student body? At THE HOWLER, we simply cant tell you.) Instead, we get handed Making Schools Work, a program filled with pleasing images—and with apparent misleading statements. No, the kids at Spaugh dont seem to be thriving. And whats happening at Highland? Who knows? Final note: For the record, Highlands black kids score roughly as well as North Carolinas white kids do statewide. Here are the proficiency rates for white kids, statewide: Passing rates, North Carolina end-of-grade reading tests, white students, statewide, spring 2005Highlands black kids did slightly better at grade 3, slightly less well at grades 4 and 5 (see data above). If Highland is achieving these scores with an average, un-selective group of black kids, why arent researchers all over that school, trying to see how its happening?
To check test data, click here. |