Refocus on reform . . .

The Seahawks won - started this post, but didn’t finish last night after the game.  The articles share the need for reform to focus not just on schools and teachers, but for societal changes as well.  We need HELP to support success for ALL young people.


I decided today to share an opinion piece in Monday’s Seattle Times by David Sirota, What real education reform looks like. Later in the morning Amy e-mailed this Washington Post article by John Kuhn, a superintendent from Texas. Both articles talk about what the authors believe to be at the root of problems in public education; economics. They label what many of the reformers choose to ignore, the problems associated with poverty that students bring with them to school. They instead choose to focus on the negative influence of teacher unions on change and the need for value-added evaluation models while promoting charters and choice.

Sirota shares the recent Stanford University study that demonstrates the importance of a family’s economic situation on future academic performance. We have been aware over time of the importance of the parent’s education on performance of their children and we are now learning more about the gap in student achievement being influenced by poverty.

Finally, the growing income achievement gap does not appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap between children with highly and less-educated parents. Indeed, the relationship between parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively stable during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship between income and achievement has grown sharply. Family income is now nearly as strong as parental education in predicting children’s achievement.

In his piece Sirota argues for implementing new funding models that drive money to schools in high poverty areas and away from models based on property taxes that tend to drive more revenue to wealthy areas. He also shares what he believes to be the potential for achieving his goal in the following words.

Policy-wise, it’s a straightforward proposition. The only thing complex is making it happen. Doing that asks us to change resource-hoarding attitudes that encourage us to care only about our 0wn schools, everyone else’s be damned.


In America’s greed-is-good culture, achieving such a shift in mass psychology is about the toughest task imaginable, but it’s the real education reform that’s most needed.

In his article, Kuhn takes on the reformers and proposes a model to hold states accountable just as NCLB is designed to hold schools and school districts accountable.

They repeatedly call on get teachers and administrators to quit making excuses and hold themselves accountable for the educational outcomes of poor and minority students. Who could be against that?


Well, I’m calling their bluff. Let’s see if it really is all about the children.


NCLB has done one important thing: By disaggregating data, it has forced teachers and administrators like me to agonize over the outcomes of our neediest students.


But after 10 years, it is clear that NCLB’s reforms haven’t spurred miracles, and it is time that the profound problem of inequality is addressed. The deck is stacked against kids who live in poverty not just because their schools are on average worse than others, but also because of the circumstances of their lives when they leave campus.


It’s time that we admit that it isn’t just teachers holding back poor and minority students back. The problems are societal.


So I’m calling on reformers — Kress and Rhee included — to lend support for a new kind of reform, one that steps outside the schoolhouse and shares the onus for achievement with more than just teachers.


I’m calling for data-driven equality, modeled on Kress’s work, expanding it to force greater societal changes that will help teachers bridge the achievement gap.


Let the 50 states disaggregate equality-related data by ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status, and let us rank the states and reward them for closing all the societal inequalities that are truly at the heart of our achievement gap. There should be an incentive for voters to elect lawmakers who will craft policies that minimize inequalities.

Both of these articles shed light on a problem in our society that results in a significant influence on the capacity of ALL young people to experience social and academic success in school and later as adults. How is it that as a country, we allow over 20% of our youth to live in poverty while spending billions to support others in need and in conflicts across the globe? I’m struggling as I reflect on my own giving and the priorities that I infer from news media and calls to action. Though neither of the proposals in these pieces is likely to occur, I applaud the authors and the focus they have created on this important issue in our society, not just in our schools.

If this topic interests you these are two good articles.