This blog is about 3 stories.
1. The start-up year for a very different sort of Graduate School of Education. It's a tiny subset of...
2. ...The much larger, national effort to transform teaching and teachers. That is a big subset of...
3. ...A multi-kajillion-dollar effort to improve the ludicrous odds (7% or so) of a poor kid ever getting a college diploma.
Posted: January 27th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | No Comments »
Robert Pondiscio blogs:
President Obama used his State of the Union address last night to propose requiring students to stay in high school until they either graduate or turn 18. “We know that when students aren’t allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma,” he said.
Perhaps so, but let’s be honest: what’s the value of a diploma that is conferred by coercion? And where’s the win in forcing kids to stay in “dropout factory” schools against their will and where they get seat time and nothing of use or relevance?
Listening to the President, I was reminded of an idea floated by Michael Goldstein, founder of Boston’s MATCH Charter school a few years back.
That’s funny. I thought the same thing. Didn’t I float an idea a few years back?
Robert summarizes it better than me. Go read it on his blog.
Posted: January 25th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 7 Comments »
That’s our middle school boys bball team, pictured above (thanks Julia).
They entered the game undefeated. So did Smith Leadership Academy.
a. It was a friggin’ Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 20th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 7 Comments »
Michelle Rhee dropped by MATCH yesterday. Here she is pictured with future great science teacher Veronica Gentile.
When Michelle launched Students First, her goal was 1 million members. To be honest, I thought that was crazy. Her membership now, if I heard correctly: 1,004,000.
SF just launched a fun contest.
Describe what it means to be a great teacher in just 6 words.
Hmm.
Charlie Sposato used to adapt this quote (origin may be Teddy Roosevelt or John Maxwell): “Kids don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
But that’s 14 words. Can you do 6?
Somehow I don’t think my “Great teaching: 2 SDs above average” is gonna catch fire. Any wonky love out there?
However — and I’m talking to you Kenny Wang at DC Prep, nee MATCH — I can easily think how the Pats should beat the Ravens in 6 words.
“No huddle offense from the jump.”
Posted: January 19th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 4 Comments »
Andy Rotherham says yes. He wrote:
So while “school choice” is hotly debated (next week is National School Choice Week, complete with Bill Cosby’s blessing and events galore,) there are few rallies being held for giving parents the right to choose a particular teacher. That’s because the whole system is stacked against empowering families in this way.
Is this a good idea?
Our middle and high schools are too small for this to happen. A single teacher instructs all the kids in a particular grade. If Ms. X teaches English to 3 sections of 25 kids in Grade 6, there’s nobody else teaching that class.
But we just opened an elementary school. There, at least, it would be theoretically possible to have parents choose a teacher.
From a teacher’s or administrator’s point of view, I can think of at least 3 reasons why schools “frown” on parents requesting individual teachers.
On the other hand, as a parent, I can imagine walking into our local elementary school and doing precisely that.
What do you think?
You can read Andy’s whole column here.
Posted: January 9th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 7 Comments »
In his essay examining 8 barriers to kids getting a much better education, Checker describes parenting concerns as “plenty real, but largely beyond the reach of public policy.”
I wonder.
(Note: Checker enthusiastically supports parents choosing schools, as do I. This is about somehow changing the day-to-day behaviors of parents).
Fascinating $10 million experiment that’s underway:
John List, a University of Chicago economics professor, strides through the Griffin Early Childhood Center chatting with teachers, complimenting girls on their braids and hollering out the window.
He acts like it’s his school, and in many ways, it is. The preschool in the low-income suburb of Chicago Heights is the centerpiece of one of the largest field experiments ever conducted in economics, and it’s List’s brainchild.
With $10 million from hedge-fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin, List will track the results of more than 600 students– including 150 at this school. His goal is to find out whether investing in teachers or, alternatively, in parents, leads to more gains in kids’ educational performance…
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 8th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 1 Comment »
In October 2010, I blogged:
By embracing and welcoming the notion of teachers exiting during training (including helping them think about “what’s next” — other professions they might want to pursue), you reduce the number who quit later (at more perilous times).
Here’s a nice healthy exit story: Max. Tall dude, Harvard alum. I asked him to share his tale….
Back in 2010, Max was working for Sierra Club in San Fran.
He wrote then:
My decision to leave MTR was in some small way a result of some lingering doubts I had since that rocky fall. But mostly it came from a desire to explore other interests and passions of mine before committing wholeheartedly to a career. I think that in order to be a good teacher, you need to be ready to unflinchingly put your all into it. I wasn’t there.
If I ever go back to pursuing teaching, I’ll make that decision from the empowered standpoint of knowing that I want my life to center on my work. I decided to leave MTR right before April break, before the job search process. I finished MATCH Corps in June and felt immensely proud and satisfied with the work I had done all year.
Well, he did decide to go back to teaching. At a prep school. Like I said Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 6th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 20 Comments »
In response to my Pondering Checker blog, Bryant, Mike P, and Lynette all asked: What would it take beyond solving “Checker’s 8 Barriers?”
I don’t know. I’ve been pondering that for 15 years now. If I don’t change professions soon, I may be stuck pondering this all my life.
I’d say this.
I believe there are two problems hidden in plain sight. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 5th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 4 Comments »
Let us ponder the wisdom of Checker Finn. He is arguably the most thoughtful longtime advocate of something broadly called “Education Reform.”
He writes:
It’s possible, of course, that we’re pursuing the wrong core strategies. Maybe standards-based reform has exhausted its potential (as Mark Schneider suggests in The Accountability Plateau). Perhaps choice and competition really cannot lift all boats. Possibly technology is overrated, alternate certification can never amount to much, teacher quality is doomed to mediocrity, principals don’t truly want authority, etc.
Could be. But from where I sit, the basic strategies aren’t ill-conceived. Rather, they’ve been stumped, stymied, and constrained by formidable barriers that are more or less built into the K-12 system as we know it.
Those barriers aren’t accidents. They’ve been erected by adult interests, bureaucratic routine, structural rigidity, and political stalemate. And they function to keep anything in education from changing very much. Eight such barriers are especially troublesome.
You can read his fully essay — and the 8 barriers — here.
My view: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 4th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 7 Comments »
From Jay Mathews at WaPo
Maybe Bruce Friedrich raised the lesson plan issue because he was so out of sync with the recent college graduates who were the other Teach for America instructors at his Baltimore high school. He was 40. He had switched to education after first running a homeless shelter and then working for animal rights.
He thought it was odd that despite the forward-looking reputation of the Baltimore district and Teach for America, beginning teachers still had to construct their lessons from scratch, as teachers have done for centuries. They were shown samples of the state tests their students would have to take. They were told where they might find good material. But as rookies, they had little idea which of a million possible options would work. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: January 3rd, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 7 Comments »
Ben is leader of KIPP Philadelphia Elementary Academy. He writes:
People often asked this question (do KIPP middle school methods work with Grade K kids) with an understandable amount of skepticism. As I told them, it wouldn’t. We were going to build strong student culture in a way that made sense for our age students, while also reflecting the big ideas that have been the foundation of KIPP’s success for almost 20 years.
He describes various methods, including: Read the rest of this entry »
