People often wonder if there is any district or state that is working to support children and to strengthen public education. In the age of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, it is difficult to find districts that manage to keep their focus on students instead of carrots and sticks.
But there are success stories.
One is Cincinnati. When I visited there a couple of years ago, I met with the community leaders working together in a collaboration called Strive. They used data to mark needs and progress on key indicators, not to fire educators and close schools. I saw impressive collaboration between the teachers’ union and other community agencies.
In this article, Greg Anrig explains why Cincinnati has taken a different course from the rest of the nation.
He explains:
“What can other urban school districts do to replicate these results, and move away from the highly confrontational reliance on market-based incentives that have dominated educational policymaking in recent years? First, it is vital to build trust between school administrators and teachers unions. It is no accident that Cincinnati Superintendent Ronan and the city’s teachers share mutual respect. Ronan, 59, spent her entire career in Cincinnati, beginning as a middle school math and science teacher in 1976. Later she became an elementary school principal and climbed the administrative ladder while forming strong relationships along the way. Julie Sellers, the president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, told Education Week: “[Ronan] probably knows more teachers than any superintendent. I think it has been beneficial for her to get buy-in. Teachers feel comfortable talking to her. There’s nothing we don’t do in Cincinnati. These are the best urban, high-poverty schools in the country.”
Yes, there is hope.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Awesome. Exactly what I have been wanting to see, knowing it must exist somewhere.
“They used data to mark needs and progress on key indicators, not to fire educators and close schools.”
This is such an important point. It is true that some ed “reformers” are overly obsessed with data and too often try to measure the immeasurable. Nonetheless “data” by itself is not the enemy. As a classroom teacher I collect and use data all the time: how many students are absent way too often, who is turning in homework, which students could use extra help as evidenced by lack of participation, etc. Data is like any other tool: it’s what you make (or destroy) with it that matters.
“Nonetheless “data” by itself is not the enemy.” I agree and your examples of “data” are those which are truly valid-those that are generated in the classroom and school by those intimately involved in the teaching and learning process, however, most of the time that the word “data” is used it means standardized test scores and “data” such as the USN&W report that is used invalidly to sort and separate and/or rank students and schools.
You are right. The term has been hijacked and now comes loaded with a particular agenda. Another example is, of course, the word “reform”.
Yes, and Fort Wayne, too.
I think that one big advantage that large urban districts have is precisely that they ARE big; and that amidst the hundreds of people that they employ, there will be some that are as well equipped as anyone in the country to run their district.
And parents and citizens (like me) can rally behind our home-grown leadership as they work for the betterment of our students and our school districts
“there will be some that are as well equipped as anyone in the country to run their district”
But don’t the Broadie’s know so much more about a local district? Aren’t they the true reformers? Can’t they disrupt and destroy (oops I meant creatively disrupt and provide profits for those seeking to make a killing off of public education dollars) a lot more effectively than some local yokel?
A tad concerned about the focus on the Superintendent. Yes, she plays a bog role, but she plays “a” role. What’s important is that there was a process at the front end to engage ALL the stakeholders in a conversation about what needs to be fixed and who owns which part.
Often we get caught up in the details of what they do educationally (whether we’re talking about STRIVE, Union City, NJ, Chattanooga, TN) but not enough attention to paid to the mechanics of the relationships, the dynamics of the partnerships. That’s where most of the work happens. One of the main reasons that Rhee failed in DC wasn’t because she had the wrong prescription (although there’s an argument to be made there) it’s because she ignored the dynamics of the community. Adrian Fenty was elected because he had a track record of listening and responding to his community. But when he became mayor, it was “his way or the highway” and regardless of how well intentioned (or reasoned) his policy interventions were (e.g., the appointment of Rhee) he did them in spite of community resistance.
I also think it’s important for folks to understand the amount of time these efforts take to build. We’re talking years. And STRIVE benefited from the experience of one of it’s co-founders, Nancy Zimpher, who tested much of this work in Milwaukee (with the Milwaukee Partnership Academy). And now she’s trying to do it statewide in from her position at SUNY. I don’t think she gets enough credit for her role in creating STRIVE. At the same time, I realize that was by design. While at U Cincinnati, she used her position there to convene the right people. But she didn’t want it to be a U Cincinnati thing.
Now she’s gone and the partnership lives on. Pretty good stuff, no?
That certainly sounds encouraging. However, I still question why we need so much data/testing. My school district requires three “pre-test” in addition to the end of grade test. I am worried about teaching to the test that seems to happen around grade 3.
“They used data to mark needs and progress on key indicators, not to fire educators and close schools.”
Data is supposed to help us, not to make us slaves. Wish more school districts would do the same.
I understand Cincinnati has an excellent community school program.
This sounds like what seems to be starting in San Diego with their new superintendent. It is refreshing and the opposite of LAUSD which is really a criminal organization. After all the superintendent, John Deasy, has a phony PHD and work record. The fish rots from the head. Or in these cases the head of the fish can lead the way to a good life. It all depends on the path they choose which is do I pump the contractors and such or do I do my job for the students?
In 1983 I did my student teaching at Oyler Elementary School, one of the 16 lowest performing schools in Cincinnati that is currently improving. It was an anxiety-filled 10 weeks for me (yes, just 10 weeks) and I doubt if I did the students much good either. Oyler had a lot of complicated and long-standing problems. I am thrilled to tears that the community, the union, and the district are cooperating to pour appropriate support into Oyler and other schools that desperately need it.
Further to the point about GREAT home-grown administrators, Fort Wayne Community Schools has another bit of good news today: Two genuinely abysmal local charter schools lost their certification and their appeal today!
http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/education/two-fort-wayne-schools-lose-charter-contracts
(These are the folks who won’t scoop up one of our empty school buildings for $1/year, an available option that our ever-so-friendly state legislature mandates. Instead, these folks BUY real estate and buildings, and then LEASE…from themselves!! That way, about $3 of every $4 they get in public funding….goes right past the school books and into THEIR real estate books!!
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110417/EDIT/304179965/1147/EDIT07
but we digress!
Today’s news would be really TREMENDOUS news, except that with Indiana’s ridiculously nihilistic Republican legislature, even Fort Wayne’s excellent locally controlled and locally administered public school system is NEVER more than the stroke of a pen away from some cataclysmic new “education initiative” (read “voucher expansion”). Just the other day we learned that Carpe Diem – who wants to open a new cubicle farm “school” within a block of one of our best high schools, failed to get enough applicants to go into business…errr…operation next year. So, Carpet Bombing…errrr…Carpe Diem announced that they’d skip opening next year and go for a 2014 opening!
But, you say, their application – which got a rubber-stamp approval from Indiana’s charter approval board – was for a 2013 opening, even despite that their public hearing was a full house of public education supporters who ALL spoke against approval for Carpet Bombing our public schools. But alas – the board skipped the “hearing” part of their public hearing, and approved the application anyway, and NOW – the Carpe Diem people have taken upon themselves to unilaterally revise and extend their “approval” beyond what they plainly are limited to. Some people (mainly, our tremendously passionate FWCS school board president, Mark GiaQuinta, and all the informed citizens, parents, and stakeholders in FWCS) think that it is plainly OUTRAGEOUS that these Carpet Baggers can just swoop in, rewrite the rules and the laws to suit themselves, and scoop as much money as they possibly can out of the public education system before the lights come on or clock runs out (or even beyond that point, with their friends in the state capital)
The methods used are common sense. Of course everyone will want to work harder when they are treated like professionals. The reform movement thought it could use teachers as scapegoats and beat them down in the process. Who would work their hardest in an environment of constant negativity? I’ve worked in one of the most negative environments during this reform movement (a charter school) . Teacher morale is so low that we had six different teachers in one classroom and six or seven in another. Meanwhile, a shyster who has never taught before loads his pockets full of money and employs family members. Do you think Duncan will visit Cincinnati and find out how to treat teachers? Oh no, I’m sure Gates and Broad wouldn’t approve.
Here’s another take on what happened in Cincinnati which gives much more credit to the people working day to day in schools, with the students.
http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2011/06/what-did-cincinnati-public-schools-do-close-high-school-graduation-gap
Between 2000 and 2007, I worked with the Cincy district, Cincy Fed of Teachers and various business & community groups. Over those 7 years, the district was able to eliminate the grad gap between white and African Am students and make considerable progress. The column describes what I think were several key parts of the strategy
Focusing staff development on a few key areas.
• Increasing youth/community service so students learned they are capable of more than they thought
• Positive ongoing leadership from the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers
• Holding principals accountable and replacing some in schools where there was not much progress
• Strong, strategic, ongoing partnerships between schools, businesses and community groups focused on project goals.
• Monitoring and financially rewarding progress at the school level.
• Creating small schools or small learning communities in large buildings.
* Using competition from local charter public schools to encourage improvements in district public schools.
• Obtaining support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Yes, this project was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And because much of the money was invested in working with existing faculty, and building new partnerships between schools, families and community groups, the progress has continued.
People working day to day in the high schools tell a different story than does Strive. Again, I think much more credit should be given in CIncy to the teachers and principals working day to day with the students.
Cincinnati Children’s hospital also helps with the quality efforts to help with improvement through partnership. Neat community tie.