Sara Mead's Policy Notebook
Sara Mead was a senior associate with Bellwether Education Partners who wrote about education policy, with particular attention to early childhood education, school reform, and improving educational outcomes for low-income students. This blog is no longer being updated.
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Water, Water Everywhere, but Not a Drop to Drink
Speaking of the need to expand the supply of high-performing school options: Mark Schneider and Naomi Rubin DeVeaux have produced a sobering report on the lack of real quality school choices for kids in the District of Columbia. Families in D.C. have choice aplenty--about 70% of DC kids attend a school other than their neighborhood assigned school. But only a minority of those choices are actually good choices. And the highest performing schools, both charters and in DCPS, tend to be oversubscribed, meaning that many families that don't get into those schools wind up choosing instead schools whose performance in poor or unknown.
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Admissions Lotteries: Not Just About Fairness
Cato's Andrew Coulson takes issue with a recent Brookings report's recommendations that data on charter school lotteries be included in state and local student longitudinal data systems. Never mind that Coulson doesn't actually seem to understand what the report is recommending (which is interesting). I'm more interested in his general opposition to requiring any schools to admit students by lottery.
Education
Opinion
Turnaround, Bright Eyes
Per previous on the rarity of successful school turnarounds: The difficulty of school turnaround is underscored by the news that D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson has revoked the contract of Friends of Bedford, a New York-based nonprofit organization hired to manage and turn around D.C.'s Dunbar High School.
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Every Now and Then I Fall Apart
A sobering report released yesterday by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute finds that most of 2,000 schools identified as low-performing in 2002-03 were still low-performing schools 6 years later. Just 1.4% of district-run schools and less than 1% of charter schools identified as low-performing in 2002-03 "turned around" to the extent that they out-performed state averages by 2008-09; another 8% of district schools and 9% of charter schools made "moderate" improvements to the extent that their performance became merely mediocre rather than disastrous. And 11% of low-performing district schools and 19% of low-performing charter schools were closed. That leaves 80% of low-performing district schools and 72% of low-performing charters still open and low-performing six years later.
Early Childhood
Opinion
Pre-K Is Not An Alternative to Education Reform
Kevin Carey has a great post on the problems with pre-k panacea-ism that you should read in its entirety, but the short version is that we should be highly skeptical of arguments that posit pre-k as an alternative to K-12 reform, because delivering high-quality pre-k at scale requires grappling with an overcoming the same challenges of building effective systems of public education delivery that are at the heart of K-12 reform debates.
Education
Opinion
The Grass(roots) is Always Greener(?)
So everyone today wants to talk about Students First, the new venture that former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee launched today (on Oprah!) to organize parents and others as voices for children and a counter the the established adult interests that dominate education policy and politics.
Education Funding
Opinion
Stimulating Analysis
A new report out today from Bellwether Education Partners looks at the impact of stimulus funds on education reform. The report, by myself, Anand Vaishnav, Bill Porter, and Andrew Rotherham, finds that a combination of mixed messages and unclear guidance from state and national leaders, state and local funding cuts, and inertia and existing processes meant that many districts used stimulus funds simply to maintain the status quo rather than drive significant reforms. We also find, though, that some districts were able to use ARRA funds to make significant reforms, thanks to a combination of strong local leadership and access to outside capacity and technical assistance. And in contrast the the bulk of ARRA funds distributed by funding formulas, the relatively small percentage of funding allocated to competitive Race to the Top program did in fact drive significant reform activity at the state level.
Early Childhood
Opinion
Is the Pre-K Movement Doomed to Replicate the Flaws of the K-12 System?
Last night I had the pleasure of attending a forum on Rick Hess's new book, The Same Thing Over and Over, which argues that current iterations of school reform are doomed to fall short because they fail to challenge fundamental premises of our current educational system that are ill-suited for contemporary realities and what we need our educational system to do. Rick, as always, makes a provocative argument, and the rock star panel of Tony Bennett, Paul Pastorek, and Stefanie Sanford was also in top form. (You can watch the whole thing here).
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Revised D.C. Comprehensive Plan Gives Charter Schools First Dibs on Excess School Facilities
Lydia DePilis reports that the revised D.C. Comprehensive Plan, to which the D.C. Council passed numerous announcements last week, includes new language specifying that charter schools should have a "right of first refusal" for use of surplus public school facilities. Like charter schools in many cities with excess public school facilities, charter schools in D.C. have struggled to gain access to former public school buildings--even though making these facilities available to charters seems like common sense.
Education
Opinion
Dropouts and the Economy
Lots of ink for this new America's Promise report finding increased high school graduation rates from 2002 to 2008, as well as a decrease in the number of high schools with very high drop-out rates. Good news, ok, but still no cause for celebration: As my colleague Andy Rotherham notes, our nation's high school graduation rates are still disgracefully poor--particularly for black and Hispanic men--and the political and policy dynamics frustratingly resistant to changes to improve them. Moreover, it's important to keep in mind that high school and college enrollment rates tend to be counter-cyclical: Drop-outs decline and enrollment goes up when the economy is bad simply because there's nothing better for youth to do. If drop-out rates keep improving once the economy eventually does (knock wood), then we'll have something to celebrate.
Early Childhood
Opinion
Early Ed Roundup
A new MDRC study finds that classroom management training and classroom-based consultations can improve preschool teachers' ability to deal with children's problem behaviors and improve emotional support climate in their classrooms.
Education
Opinion
NAEP 12th Grade Reading Scores
I didn't get a chance last week to comment on NAEP 12th grade reading and math scores, which are up since 2005 but still down since 1992. A couple of points worth noting, though:
School Choice & Charters
Opinion
Want to Start a Charter School in D.C.?
Then come to an information session for prospective applicants tonight (Wednesday, November 10) at the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board's offices. And check out the 2011 Application Guidelines here.
Teaching Profession
Opinion
Teacher Quality and Humility in K-12 and Pre-K
My colleague the Eduwonk has taken to referring to Fordham's Mike Petrilli as "Chicken Little," and I think that there's more than a bit of that in Petrilli's recent post worrying that reform-y types are transforming themselves into the compliance police.