I posted a couple of times about John Merrow’s PBS profile of the Rocketship charter chain, but I think there is more to be said on the subject.
The chain now has seven charters in San Jose, California, and it will soon expand into many more urban “markets.” When it enters a new territory, it expects a commitment for at least five charters. It aims to enroll one million children eventually. It is presently planning new schools in Nashville, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and other cities.
Merrow’s show was well done and nicely framed. He begins with old documentary footage of Henry Ford’s assembly line and asks why we as a nation have not even able to “mass produce” high quality schools. He then shifts to Rocketship, where we see children, teachers, and parents chanting in what appears to be a daily ritual. I think they were chanting some sort of self-esteem boosting words or slogans, like “I am a Rocketship,” but I’m not certain of that.
Then we learn the following:
About 75% of the teachers are Teach for America, so we don’t expect to see many experienced teachers.
Students spend two hours a day in front of a computer, which assesses their skill levels and offers them problems adjusted to their ability.
The school has fewer teachers because of its computer time, which saves about $500,000 a year.
The founder of Rocketship is unalterably opposed to unions, because he says they would limit his flexibility.
The teachers are paid more than public school teachers, and some are paid a good deal more, though it was not explained what determined compensation.
The schools have high test scores, even though their students are low-income.
The schools offer neither art or music. They seem to be focused solely on tested subjects.
There was some talk of changing the computer labs next year, though it was not clear how.
Some of the students, especially the younger ones, appeared to be bored at the computer.
The takeaway?
These are schools for poor children. Not many advantaged parents would want their children in this bare-bones Model-T school. It appears that these children are being trained to work on an assembly line. There is no suggestion that they are challenged to think or question or wonder or create.
Bit their test scores are high.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You don’t know enough about these schools, especially to make such a barbed judgement as they are preparing these “poor children” to work an assembly line. Go visit. Then, evaluate.
I am perpetually fascinated by this response: “You need to visit the school to really know what’s happening there.”
In my opinion, “visits” have led to many politicians and pundits having a false impression of what actually happens in a school. “Visits” are often artificially constructed tours that have as much to do with the life of a school as a carriage ride around Central Park has to do with life in Harlem.
You don’t always need to set foot in a school to know what’s going on. Sometimes, it only gets in the way.
All props, Jersey Jazzman. Keep on testifyin’.
🙂
As someone who worked at an elementary and high school, visitations by “important people” [e.g., city dignitaries, media folks, school board members] gave the visitors about as much relevant and reliable information as people got during the tours of “Potemkin” villages in Russian during the Soviet era.
As a few of the kids I worked with would have said: “let’s keep it real.” So in the interests of a reality-based approach, how about “You need to work in a school to really know what’s happening there.” And yes, that means both staff and students.
Any school that achieves gains by weeding out large portions of it’s population is not a public school and should not be given public money period. Any school that does not offer a vast array of classes, and only offers test prep should be closed.
Yes, we do know enough. There’s no art or music, and kids spend 2 hours a day in front of a computer. Is this the kind of education you would want for your children? ‘Nuff said.
I am a teacher. I know about child development and I know what young children need. Art and music classes should be mandatory. Two hours sitting in front of a computer is not developmentally appropriate. If it looks like manure and smells like manure, I do not need to taste it to know that it is, in fact, manure.
The above post was in response to Wallace, but ended up in the wrong section. Sorry.
You must have your bureaucrats. After all, it is for money.
Interesting contrasts with Muskegon Heights, MI and Mosiaca. Perhaps bare bones is better than nothing.
Are those the only two choices? Why?
John Danner has taught for 3 years, 1 more year that TFA CMs. With those qualifications who couldn’t open mass Rocketship schools? The only thing is that he is mass producing the children’s education in their assembly line of computer drudgery.
We watch with nervous anticipation as they invade the Milwaukee market. The City already approved three and they expect 8 in Milwaukee. It is our understanding that the one’s in San Diego lost about a quarter of their students over the period that they were showing academic growth. It appears that shed themselves of more difficult students. Moreover, after two years, they are supposed to send $500,000 per year per school back to the parent company
And look at who is investing in Rocketship and why:
Silicon Valley leaders invest over $3M in Rocketship Education
“What do Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Skype CFO Jonathan Chadwick, Benchmark Capital general partner Bill Gurley and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings have in common, besides the filthy rich tech rockstar thing?
They’re among a dozen or so Silicon Valley personalities who’ve put money into Rocketship Education this year. Rocketship is a network of “hybrid” charter schools that put kids in front of computers for a large amount of the school day. Many in the education industry hope Rocketship’s model will prove Silicon Valley can disrupt (and make money in) the k-12 school system.”
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/12/silicon-valley-leaders-invest-over-3m-in-rocketship-education/#XVCSVTRXwxJp04mL.99
For an interesting, and very detailed and insightful, analysis of the role that these tech entrepreneurs are playing in New Jersey, see Jersey Jazzman’s article The Selling Out of Newark’s Schools: Part II:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-selling-out-of-newarks-schools-part_31.html?m=1
Appreciate the shout out.
Didn’t I read that many high tech parents in Silicon Valley choose to send their kids to the Waldorf School where computers do not exist on the elementary level?
Yes, you did (http://nytimes.com/2011/1023/technology/at-waldorf-school-technology-can-wait), but Rocketship and similar digital workhouses are for Other People’s Children, not the kids of those who are More Equal Than Others.
I hate to keep harping on language, but I think it’s really important not to tap dance around issues. “Urban” is simply code for poor and minority. Using the phrase “poor and minority” rather than “urban” makes it much harder to hide the elephant in the room which is racism.
I agree. Visit these schools. I did and write about it in my forthcoming book “Assessing the Educational Data Movement” being published by Teachers College Press this year. I was not alarmed and found Rocketship to be an ordinary place of learning. I have kids in elementary school and the kids I saw at Rocketship were their age and the age of their friends. They seemed engaged and happy. The arts/music question is fair. To call it an assembly line is not fair and it diminishes the field to take the discussion in that direction.
So you’d enroll your own kids at Rocketship?
Did you interview the 25% of students who were forced out or dropped out of the school? Did you interview the teachers who were replaced by untrained, low-paid tutors? Would not the standards of “fair and balanced” journalism require that you included the “winners and the losers” in this process?
Two points: High test scores can be a measure of exclusion and failure as well as academic success. Many studies show that high-performing charters force-out or counsel out up to 40% of their low performing students between 9th and 12th grade to obtain high test score averages. In New Orleans, the charter schools with the highest test scores also have four-year attrition rates well over 30%.
Second, I will never understand what is to be achieved by “visiting” one of these schools as if a personal visit allows us to understand all the factors of test score success hidden by schools—like defacto selective admission and retention and external foundation subsidies that can’t be replicated on a national scale.
In New Orleans after Katrina the housing reformers decided that home-ownership was the best solution for rebuilding, although 40% of the displaced black community had traditionally rented. As a consequence, in the first rebuild plans not a penny was allocated to restore rentals.
If you do a site visit to a Habitat for Humanity home today in New Orleans, you will find happy and comfortable people and you might conclude that the home-owner policy has worked. But Habitat turns down 90% of those who apply because of for lack of credit or income. How can one assess this home-ownership strategy without tracking down the 90% of people excluded from the program? One consequence of the home-ownership strategy has been that New Orleans was has ranked among the top in the nation in homelessness; black poverty rates (37%) are now higher today than before Katrina; and we remain the murder capital of the nation.
Let’s stop perpetuating the myth that one can analyze an education reform policy by simply observing the intervention at one site and not analyzing the impact the reform has on all students.
Bravo.
If a child standardized test scores show him/her to be at or above grade level, will they then get music and art?
Sir Ken Robinson is on youtube with a piece called Education of the Heart and Mind. He speaks of the educational importance of art, music, dance, and theater. If you have never heard him speak, he is well worth checking out.
In the brave, new world of public charter education, three years of teaching makes you a rocketman (apologies to Elton John) and an entrepreneurial wizard. How low can we go?
Rocketship schools are charters; they enroll via application. Therefore, by definition, all the Rocketship students have parents who were sufficiently aware/functional to learn about the school, successfully complete the application process, and (usually) provide daily transportation to the school. In low-SES areas, many parents are not this aware/functional. In these low-SES areas, some of the neighborhood public school students will have aware/functional parents, but many will have unaware/dysfunctional parents. Because Rocketship enjoys this large selection-screening advantage, Rocketship student bodies are not comparable to neighborhood public school student bodies.
Therefore, the fact that Rocketship test scores are higher than neighorhood public school test scores does not demonstrate that Rocketship is a better school — the test score differential merely reflects that Rocketship’s students have more aware/functional parents.
How about asking Rocketship to take over a public neighborhood school and operate the school with exactly the same student body as existed pre-takeover? One rarely, if ever, sees the allegedly magic-bullet charters attempting such an experiment — that is, where they would have to operate a school without the selection-screening advantage.
Scary.
As a former Rocketship teacher, I can tell you that you are off base on several points. Students do not spend a full two hours a day on a computer. Not all teachers are inexperienced. Schools are not focused solely on ‘tested’ subjects. Assembly line is so far from the truth. Rather, this is a school network that differentiates and adapts to students’ unique needs.
You are right that many teachers are TFA, or, increasingly, TFA teachers who have opted to remain in the classroom after their commitment is up. They are counseled and coached on a daily basis- and I truly mean, coaches and mentors in the classroom all the
time. Rocketship has a great system for analyzing teacher strengths and weaknesses, and much time is spent ensuring that teachers perform at the level they need to. I also think the system of analyzing student data (fully separate from standardized tests) is right where it needs to be.
My personal SES would not prevent me from sending a child to Rocketship. I’ve worked in various school systems- public, charter, private. Rocketship is far and away the best idea in education I’ve experienced. Should I get the opportunity, I’d be so proud to send my kids to Rocketship, for both the education and the emphasis on strong character. If you get the chance, read up on Rocketship’s “Core Values”. The morning launch that you criticized is the lynchpin of the Rocketship experience- it is not just about the students but about their families as well.
Rocketship cannot self-select any more or less than any other school network. Does it deal with a somewhat transient low-income population? Of course. Do students leave? Yes, sometimes. But the assertion that Rocketship somehow gets stronger kids? No. Rocketship is faced with just as many students with behavioral, learning disabilities, etc. Or how about that these parents are somehow better off? No. Many of the kids come to Rocketship because it is a longer day than their zone neighborhood schools and their parents need to work second jobs etc. Rocketship’s parent support is phenomenal but it’s because of the community that the leaders have built.
You seem to think that students at Rocketship are not taught to think for themselves or question. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Rocketship stresses strong critical thinking/reasoning skills from Kindergarten on up.
I take the greatest offense to you saying that these are schools for “poor children”. You can call them anything you want, but “poor” wouldn’t be the first word to come to mind for me. Smart, motivated, funny, inquisitive, capable? That would be more like it. Rocketship is changing the tide of education- and having been on the ‘inside’ of this system, I feel wholly confident in saying that.
Frankly, there is no question of a better option. No school is perfect, and Rocketship is constantly modifying their approach as they learn what works best. Again, that’s what we want in education- schools that are willing to change to benefit students. Rocketship is giving these kids a great beginning. How can you criticize that? Strong, measurable results in math, science, social studies, reading and writing for students desperately in need of catching up if we expect them to attain higher education? I’ll take that any day over music and art.
I don’t have a lot of personal experience with Rocketship, so there are some things you’re saying that I doubt are accurate, but I can’t say with certainty that I know differently. However, you claim that a charter chain with 100% kids whose parents have navigated the application process has the same sort of students that are found in public schools, with no application process. That’s obviously ridiculous, and a big factor in making me suspect that you’re being less than truthful with your other claims.
This is quality copy. Looks like Rocketship is hiring professionals to generate a positive image online. A Ravitch blog entry with a high Google ranking would certainly warrant a rejoinder.
Shame on you Ms. Ravitch…is this what you have been reduced to? Taking pot-shots at a small charter network based on a ten minute video clip? This style smacks far more of a media-head-idealogue then someone who wants to have an honest discussion about improving education in this country. You yourself stated that you had never stepped foot in a Rocketship school….your integrity in this instance is certainly lacking.
So my question is…what is your solution? Raise taxes immensely to pay for better public school teachers? You would much rather have millions of students attending a failing school rather than see a network of 6 (SIX!!!) schools have actual expectations for their students and families? You are clinging to a dying ideology Ms. Ravitch, and lucky for you (and many of your readers) , you have been blessed with the comfort in life to be able to sit around and debate these issues while our most at-risk students continue to under-achieve in the schools that you refuse to acknowledge are failing!
At the end of the day Ms. Ravitch, to put it simply….your generation had their chance at school reform. And you failed. FAILED. So instead of standing at the sideline and shouting ideas, why don’t you just let a new set of reformers try their ideas? And what’s even worse, people like you have made a career profiting on the backs of those children who are still doomed to attend the very schools you FAILED to turn around. Books, speaking engagements, etc….many “reformers” who have moved on (looking at you Ms. Rhee) are now a peripheral voice, not really a part of a solution at all, but still refusing to step aside.
You will enjoy reading my new book, which will be out in the fall.
Or maybe you won’t.
We are the greatest nation in the world.
People like you should stop slandering our teachers and schools.
It is alarming that Rocketship can be allowed to grow as it is – they just received city approval for a contested area of public land in San Jose for another campus while they already have 7 running. Rocketship’s strag
Rocketship says parents have a quota for volunteer hours – 30 per year to be exact. The most recent “volunteer” opportunity afforded to me was that I would get 5 hours for EVERY adult I brought with me to this event – that’s why there is always a sea of purple where ever Rocketship tries to “make a stand” at the expense of the public. If public school teachers all had this kind of parent engagement in the children’s actual learning and not the school’s political demonstrations, the children would be much better served. I believe the elected/appointed officials that are placed on the city council and board of education in San Jose are simply being politicians – say or do anything that will get them “cheers.”
Scheduled visits the media make mean nothing. Be a teacher or a student or a parent. I had my son at two of the campuses before I finally pulled him out midyear and placed him in a regular public school. No attention is being made to the numbers of teachers or families who defect from the school. They claim they need 20 more campuses when their current seven aren’t even full! Further they pander to parents as often as they can to “recruit” because they don’t have enough applicants. Their biggest “group” of applicants are kindergartners whom I’m sure are picked up from visiting Head Start Centers throughout Santa Clara County.
The “model” needs to be scrutinized. Rocketship has no model – in the few years they have been in operation they have constantly changed things up because they really aren’t producing the results they expect, they call it “innovation” all while parents have no input or informed of these “changes” until the day before the “changes” go into affect.
With a stripped-down teach-for-the-test curriculum that requires longer days for students and insame amounts of uselss, busy “homework,” you can’t expect to encourage the students to be innovative when art and music fall to the wayside as well as allowing time for constructive chores or freetime during weekends or vacations. My son was one of the top-performing kids in his grade level, and was most diligent with completing the really unnecessary amounts of homework and even he had trouble finishing many times – at 3rd grade! I haven’t been able to have him fold his own clothes or help with dinner preparation which I believe are just as important in character development as any “words” written on cheap paper posted on any of the Rocketship walls.
Even 15 minutes of “tangible Lego time” would help the kids get some enjoyment and encourage creativity. STEM subjects are the pieces that will be needed in most jobs today and in the future. STEAM (A for Art) is the more accurate idea – as art is necessary for innovation and what will prepare children today for in-demand jobs today and in the next decade. We don’t even have to say college. College is absolutely necessary.
Irony: the same companies and executives who support Rocketship operate/live in the affluent counties that have rejected Rocketship from entering their own neighborhoods. If Rocketship’s ideas are really valuable, you would think they would send their own children to those campuses.
Rocketship is just a business reaping public funds at the expense of property tax payers, at the same eradicating public education, and preying on the most vulnerable – the young children of the non-English speaking poor and being detrimental for their futures.
This is a joke.
As a parent living in an area served by rocketship schools, I will say the public schools in the neighborhood don’t have art and music programs either. (These kinds of programs are funded by parent groups throughout the school district) The school days at rocketship are TWO hours longer, so I can see how they might fit in more screen time. Our neighborhood school has K students at the computer for 30 minutes a day. I mean, honestly, most kids would be watching tv after school — 1.5 hrs on the computer instead could be seen as an improvement.
It just seems like your mad because Rocketship teachers have less experience than you, yet provide more expanded opportunities for they students, and get paid more than you! Computers are the way of the future, get used to it, that is the way the economy is headed. I am no capitalist, but I know we need competition and incentive. All teachers should be well paid, and I am sure that Rocketship will integrate math and arts into the curriculum. In many ways they already do. Get used to change, and understand you are being the conservative, not the liberal bringing change.
What a bold statement…You obviously need to visit one of these schools, sit down with a staff member.
Get your facts straight and when you do this you may find the need to review your blog.