Valerie Strauss notes that Rocketship’s central feature–its Learning Labs, where children are plugged into computers for an hour a day–are not working as planned. Back to the drawing boards.
Nothing wrong with trying new ways to reach goals, nothing wrong with innovation and making mistakes. Nothing wrong with mid-course corrections.
What is wrong is the boasting.
Strauss writes:
The people behind the Rocketship public charter schools — all of them urban, college-preparatory K-5 campuses – have made some pretty big claims for a school network of eight schools (as listed here.) The organization’s website already says it is “the leading public school system for low-income elementary students,” and, that its mission is “toeliminate the achievement gap within our lifetimes.” Danner has said he wants to expand to have enough schools to at some point educate some 1 million students.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nothing wrong with a little innovation in a public school setting – but experimenting with unsuspecting parents in quick-fix schools is unjust and inhumane. Kindergartners plugged in for an hour a day? Please.
What happens when more and more investors realize what a sham all of this is?
What happens when the Teach For Awhile teachers realize they are being used (and abused) (this is not their grandparents Peace Corps)?
What happens when Charter enthusiasts get bored?
Why should statistics of percentage of small businesses that are out of business in five years be any different for charter school?
AND THEN – – where do all these kids go? Back to the understaffed, underfunded, and under-cared about by the quick fix politicians and corporate folks public schools.
Doesn’t anyone find it strange that Strauss describes the school as college preparatory for grades K-5? “Strauss writes:The people behind the Rocketship public charter schools — all of them urban, college-preparatory K-5 campuses.”
When was anything besides high school considered college prep? K-5 is K-5. There can be no college prep at this level. I believe this is intentionally disingenuous on their behalf. Marketing has become to education as it has to diet pills.
It would be a bit strange in ordinary times. But alas these are no ordinary times and children are thought of and referred to as “human capital” nowadays. So starting right from head-start (if they are poor) they are being primed for either college or for trades and are thought of in terms of their “widget-ness” to society-at-large.
Exactly right!!!
This is as much a commercial campaign with slick slogans and
deceptive language as it is anything. Humility? A human trait
which does not come with the hard world of commercialism.
Children as commodities with levels of usefulness.
“When was anything besides high school considered college prep?”
KIPP brought that to middle school and then expanded it when they added primary education. KIPP schools are decorated with college banners. See KG class at KIPP Baltimiore: http://www.kippbaltimore.org/elements/uploads/files/13.JPG Each class is also named for the year the students in it are expected to go to college and they have a banner for that, too.
Also since the Obama/Duncan push for the Common Core and college for all. Vocational education options have been decimated, for students wanting to learn trades –they’re supposed to do that in conjunction with post-secondary ed now.
Yep, Kindergartners are to seriously plan for their futures. That’s what happens when you put dilettantes in charge of their favorite past times instead of experts in the field.
Early Childhood Educators could have advised those folks that it’s not developmentally appropriate to expect children in their first year of formal schooling to start deciding on their adult careers and planning where they will go to school 13 years down the road. Kindergartners are just learning what a year is, as well as the kinds of jobs “Community Helpers” have.
It’s ridiculous. These kids have only been on the planet for five years. They should be allowed to be children and to learn through play!
It’s never too soon to have young people on track to becoming highly-indebted consumers.
In my daughter’s neighborhood, every noise middle class mothers make is aimed at college entrance 18 years later. And if a kid doesn’t enter Kindergarten ready, he is five years behind already. Thus, Pre-Kindergarten, and Pre-Pre-Kindergarten. Don’t imagine college educated couples are going to give up their hard won middle class advantages because some self-styled education “professional” advises them to let the kids play. They kids who play are the kids of the poor, and you know what happens to them when they hit third grade. They see their middle class school peers zooming ahead in reading, writing, and arithmetic and get sulky and defeated. You’re fighting the bourgeois, and they never, never, never, ever give up their advantages, even though socialist, Marxist, levelling school teachers tell them it’s in the best interests of “society.” The elite, of course, like President and Mrs. Obama, opt for full private schooling, while riding into privilege on the votes of the working class for whom they do not really care, no matter what they say, judging by their actions, anyway.
Also KIPP is not the first to introduce the concept of college readiness in the primary grades. Educators have been doing this for years, and it is never to early to have children thinking about college and beyond. Here in Detroit I know of a number of teachers that would have their 3rd – 5th graders doing reports and projects on colleges and universities.
All of this is done so that the children will begin to know that they are expected to go to college, but yet they are not being pressured. Its all about exposure. One of the problems with K-12 education, in this regard, is that most students don’t begin to prepare for college until their in the 11th or 12th grades, and many times they have not taken the peoper steps early enough, and are stressed out during their senior year. We as educators need to do a better job in helping our children to be College Ready and not solely on the academic side of things. I am viewing this coming from an Urban school district where many of our children don’t think of college as an option.
I forgot to include Buyer Beware!
Looks like the computer feedlot model for education didn’t work. That is good news.
The strange thing is that the computer labs were hyped as THE key to Rocketship Schools’ success. Then they suddenly announced that they were scrapping the computer labs and pretended they they had never made a big deal of them.
Maybe it was in response to the last few reports which indicated that not all young children were engaged when they were supposed to be on the computers. (I recall seeing that in videos.) Also, I thought those reports had said the kids were on the computers two hours each day, not one.
Marketing seems to sometime take on a life of its own. I saw this before the real estate bubble burst where websites indicated lovely dwelling communities where in fact some dirt had been pushed around and no vertical structure had even been started. In some cases, fraud charges are now catching up with the people who made such claims, took deposits and then never created the development. It seems we live in an era where the cart is put before the horse for the sake of marketing , and that accountability, wanted for teachers, is not being applied in marketing school choice.
It makes me very nervous when anyone is given power, position and/or respect under the auspices of “eliminating the achievement gap”-especially when their open practice is separate and unequal-cutting off the neediest from models of collaboration and success. Humility is definitely needed here, and public rebuke.
Why is public education an “easy in” for every snake oil salesperson on this planet?
This “lack of humility”, this exploitation of children, should be a crime.
“its mission is ‘to eliminate the achievement gap within our lifetimes’.”
From now on, I would like every reference made to “the achievement gap” to include the information that this gap exists between low income and higher income children in ALL countries (See: http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/ ).
I am so sick of wealthy politicians and wealthy “reformers” getting away with suggesting that this problem is specific to America, declaring education as the only route out of poverty, providing no other solutions and then blaming and shaming middle class US teachers for not eradicating poverty all by themselves.
What is reprehensible is that the percentage of child poverty in our nation is larger than in any other developed country. That is the result of our highly stratified society. That is the result of profitable US corporations that don’t pay their employees a livable wage. That is the result of the 6 Walton heirs who have more wealth than the bottom 40% of our country, yet pay their Wal-Mart employees salaries that are so low that they instruct them on how to obtain Food Stamps. There are “no excuses” for a wealthy nation that has so many Working Poor.
As long as politicians are living comfortably among the top 4%, the rest of us don’t have a chance, because they just kowtow to their corporate sponsors and represent themselves, not us.
Americans need to stop electing the very people to Congress who prevent measures that would be of benefit to middle and lower income families. They must stop sending people to their state capitols and Washington, DC who will not increase taxes on the wealthy, who don’t support labor unions, who won’t promote job programs (like Public Works to rebuild our infrastructure) and who refuse to mandate livable wages.
When are the 99% going to learn that THEY have the power to turn this around democratically with their votes? If you tell someone, and she tells someone, and he tells someone… we can change our world.
This is how we can “eliminate the achievement gap (which exists in all countries) within our lifetimes” –by electing politicians who truly represent us and are willing to address poverty and strengthen Workers Rights.
How can they be great and successful and educate a million if their programs are failing. This is the same as at Mayor Villaraigosa’s PLAS schools in LAUSD. Even the superintendent Deasy is admitting now in an article that their program failed and that no one knows what to do so what are they going to do? Well, first off PLAS is up for renewal in June so why not make the decision on March 9. Can’t give the community time to present their case which the district knows they have the documented proof that this charter should not be reapproved as it has broken almost every part of their legally required to follow MOU and Matrix. People who are failures almost always try to protect their failures especially the higher they go politically. Villaraigosa is a educational and transportation failure and we have the documented proof. This is what he has built his national reputation on. All smoke and mirrors.