School news: Fluff and substance

The fluff piece, courtesy of the Oregonian (where else?), is the announcement that the top rated public high school in Oregon is Beaverton's School of Science and Technology, a magnet school that attracts some of the best and the brightest students in the Beaverton area. 

The rating comes courtesy of GreatSchools, a San Francisco outfit that bases it ratings on "the most recent test scores available for reading, math and science."  Using the same criteria, GreatSchools named Jesuit the top private high school in Oregon.

What have I always said?  Good students equal good test scores equal good schools.  End of story.

In news of substance, both good and not so good, Education Week writes that Secretary of Education-designate, Arne Duncan, was an innovator as CEO of Chicago Public Schools.  During his tenure, Duncan improved the quality of teachers and principals in the district.

How?

"One of the biggest legacies of Mr. Duncan’s tenure will be the Renaissance 2010 initiative that Mr. Daley announced in 2004. The project calls for closing underperforming schools, mostly in high-poverty areas, and replacing them with new schools run by outside groups and organizations. The goal is to open 100 such schools by 2010; so far, 75 of those charter and charter-like schools have been opened."

Good news if you're a fan of charter schools.

In other charter school news, the American Federation of Teachers has succeeded --finally!-- in unionizing one the vaunted KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter schools in Brooklyn, New York.  That's good news, since the charter school-promoting Albert Shanker* has been succeeded as AFT President by Randi Weingarten.

Here's what Weingarten said about the union's success:

"We know that teacher turnover is a major concern across the charter school movement. The unionization of KIPP’s New York City schools provides a unique opportunity to create a model of sustainable teacher recruitment, development and retention."

KIPP schools are infamous for their official six, ten-hour day, workweeks.  (Well, maybe teachers aren't required to work a full ten hours on Saturday.)   No wonder that teacher burnout is a problem. 

And finally, Michael J. Petrilli, a self-described No Child Left Behind "true believer", has had a change of heart.  The right wing think-tanker --Hoover Institution, Fordham Foundation-- has concluded

"Speaking personally, I’ve gradually and reluctantly come to the conclusion that NCLB as enacted is fundamentally flawed and probably beyond repair."

Good news for sure.  

*(To be fair, Shanker was always a staunch advocate of teacher collective bargaining, even in charter schools.)

Comments

[Harry Kershner]

Here's something even more disturbing about both Duncan and Obama (The Military-Corporate Legacy of the New Secretary of Education):

Disturbing as well is the prominence of Duncan's belief in offering a key role in public education to the military. Chicago's school system is currently the most militarized in the country, boasting five military academies, nearly three dozen smaller Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs within existing high schools, and numerous middle school Junior ROTC programs. More troubling yet, the military academies he's started are nearly all located in low-income, minority neighborhoods. This merging of military training and education naturally raises concerns about whether such academies will be not just education centers, but recruitment centers as well.

So let's sum it all up: Duncan's style of management is top-down, corporate, and privatizing. It views teachers as expendable, unions as unnecessary, and students as customers. And it is militarized as well.

[howard]

In December, U.S. News & World Report named Corbett HS the nation’s 96th best high school, calling it one of the nation’s “Gold Medal” schools because it ranked in the top 100. Corbett was also Oregon’s highest ranked school in USNWR's study and the state’s only gold medal winner.

Apparently, smaller districts such as Corbett are not large enough to be rated by GREAT Schools.