NOTE: I cross-posted this piece on Huffington Post. Be sure to leave comments there too.
Two years ago, Kevin Kosar, a former graduate student of mine, conducted an Internet search for the term “failing school.” What he discovered was fascinating. Until the 1990s, the term was virtually unknown. About the mid-1990s, the term began appearing with greater frequency. With the passage of No Child Left Behind, the use of the expression exploded and became a commonplace.
Kosar did not speculate on the reasons. But I venture to say that the rise of the accountability movement created the idea of “failing schools.”
“Accountability” was taken to mean that if students have low test scores, someone must be blamed. Since Bush’s NCLB, it became conventional to blame the school. With President Obama’s Race to the Top, blame shifted to teachers. The solution to “failing schools,” according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, is to fire the staff and close the school.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently took this idea to an extreme by saying that he wanted a “death penalty” for “failing schools.” His believes that when schools have persistently low test scores, they should lose democratic control.
They should be taken over by the state, given to private charter corporations, or put under mayoral control. In fact, none of these ideas has been successful.
Low-performing school districts in New Jersey have been under state control for more than 20 years without turning them into high-performing districts. Mayoral control in Cleveland and Chicago has been a flop. And private charters typically do no better than public schools, except when they exclude low-scoring students.
Undoubtedly there are some schools where the leadership is rotten and corrupt. In such cases, the responsibility lies with the district superintendent to review the staff and programs, and make significant changes as needed
But these days, any school with low test scores is called a “failing school,” without any inquiry into the circumstances of the school.
Instead of closing the school or privatizing it, the responsible officials should act to improve the school. they should ask:
What proportion of the students are new immigrants and need help learning English? What proportion entered the school far behind their grade level? What proportion have disabilities and need more time to learn? What resources are available to the school? An in-depth analysis is likely to reveal that most “failing schools” are not failing schools, but are schools that enroll high proportions of students who need extra help, extra tutoring, smaller classes, social workers, guidance counselors, psychologists, and a variety of other interventions.
Firing the staff does not turn around a low-performing school. Nor does handing it over to a charter chain. Nor does mayoral control. Most of the time, what we call a “failing school” is a school that lacks the personnel and resources to meet the needs of its students.
Closing schools does not make them better. Nor does closing schools help students. It’s way past time to stop blaming the people who work in troubled schools and start helping them by providing the tools they need and the support their students need.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not surprising, Mr. Kosar discovered that “failing school” is an invented term dating back to the moment when the predatory money men decided to lay siege to the public school coffers. If we were to use the term, we might apply it to a Jumoke Academy (CT) where incarceration crowd control techniques are allowed to pass for education.
The dreaded “F” word again!
We should never again let the term “failing schools” get printed without a firm rebuttal! here is my rebuttal to the “failing school” crowd. http://bit.ly/WhatIf5 Special thanks to Gerald Bracey for his chapter called “What if failing schools aren’t!” He got it, long before many of us understood!
yes! I agree. It was just accepted and then carte blanche was granted for “fixing” things by many folks who never stopped to consider what “failing schools” meant.
Glad you mentioned Dr. Bracey. He has been a hero of mine for many years because, as you pointed out, he was one of the first to “get it” regarding the education reform scam. His death was a real blow to our movement, IMHO.
Read some of his articles here:
http://www.america-tomorrow.com/bracey/EDDRA/
No such thing as Failing Schools. http://atthechalkface.com/2013/08/15/the-myth-of-failing-schools-and-the-unforgiven-sins-of-wealth-and-power/
FYI see Appendix 3 of Responding to the Attack on Public Education and Teacher Unions http://goo.gl/Uo4vq2
Traces “Failing schools” line as it makes it way from think tanks to the President.
A bit out of date (2004)
And keep up the good work!
Completely agree that there are very few “failing schools” and that, in virtually all of the schools with low test scores, the reason for the low test scores is the relative inadequacy of the students (non-English speaking, LD, ED, poor nutrition, unaddressed physical/mental handicaps, low-SES parents, chaotic home environment, etc.). In other words, the low test scores are the result of “bad” students, not “bad” schools. Conversely, there are very few “good” schools; the schools with the high test scores have high test scores because those schools have “good” students (English speaking, high-SES parents, good nutrition, supportive home environment, etc.).
The current school reforms that focus on high-stakes testing/teacher discharge completely ignore the bad-student/good-student differences that are controlling the test scores. The current school reforms that focus on charters/vouchers implicitly address the bad-student/good-student differences, but do so in a way that only slightly helps the low-SES “good” students while seriously harming the low-SES “bad” students — that is, charters/vouchers allow the parents who are low-SES but who are nonetheless concerned/functional to segregate their low-SES “good” children in charters/private schools with other low-SES “good” students. At the same time, the charters/vouchers, by removing these low-SES “good” students from the low-SES-area neighborhood public schools, increase the concentration in the neighborhood public schools of the low-SES “bad” students. The charters/private schools will therefore have better students and better test scores while the low-SES-area neighborhood public schools will have worse students and worse test scores. And, the charters/private schools will generally have less-qualified teachers, a narrower curriculum, and worse physical facilities than the neighborhood public schools; therefore, although the charters/private schools will have better students and hence better test scores, those students will still have weaker teachers, curriculum, and physical facilities than they would have enjoyed if they had stayed in the neighborhood schools.
The better approach to school reform is to implement reforms in the low-SES-area neighborhood public schools that focus specifically on the aspects of the low-SES-area students that make them students “bad” students rather than “good” students. Emphasize improving vocabulary in the low-SES-area pre-schools and early elementary grades (to reduce the endemic reading-far-below-grade-level obstacle to effective instruction), emphasize improving student behavior in all grades (to reduce the minor but endemic misbehavior that constantly disrupts instruction), and provide more nutrition and health services, provide more support for the non-English-speaking, LD, and mentally handicapped students.
However, simply arguing that there are “bad” students, not “bad” schools, will not win the public debate. We must simultaneously propose answers — that is, reforms that will improve those “bad” students.
“…reforms that will improve those “bad” students.”
– Feed them
– Make sure they have safe, secure housing
– Make sure they have adequate medical and dental care
– Provide living wage jobs
– Provide the family with child care so older children don’t have to stay home watching their siblings
– Provide any needed substance abuse and mental health treatment needed, whether to the child or his/her family
– Stop incarcerating black men at many times the rate of white men
– Provide honest and supportive law enforcement, rather than the alternatively negligent and over-controlling law enforcement that poor neighborhoods are generally subjected to
With all of the above (plus some measures I may be missing), plus equitable school funding relative to affluent schools, we should see a marked decline in “failing” schools
Agree, but not holding my breath.
After all, where would be the profit (and I do mean $) in any of this for the hedge fund managers?
We just need to face it, “failing schools” are necessary for the continuation of the shell game con.
😉
So the state of Utah got its first-ever school grades today. They suck, but that’s not the point of this post. When the reporter mentioned to a state senator that the low scores were from high-poverty schools, the senator stated, “So what?”
I kid you not. It’s disgusting.
Failing schools is also a (unwelcome) effect of school effectiveness research (SER), which was a hot topic among policymakers in the early 90s. Although SER started out trying to give proof that ‘schools matter’ in the late 60s, it ended up providing a recipe for disaster by feeding third-way ed policies (like Hargreaves and Shirley describe) that eventually led to the accountability madness that plagues many school systems around the world.
Every person who cares about education MUST read Diane Ravitch’s new book Reign of Error. — Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)
Let Cuomo first close all banks that failed in 2008 and are considered “too big to fail.” Cuomo, Obama and the rest poured over $7 trillion into failed banks to keep them alive and churning out bad paper again. These Wall St. friends would never do to banks what they are doing to children, teachers, and families…shame on them, stop them.
THE CULPRITS ARE THE POLITICIANS. and THEY HAVE THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, too from benefits to perks!
Students and teachers have not failed.
List of reform failures:
-NCLB and RTTT
-Obama and GWB
-Paige, Spellings and Duncan
-Rhee and Students First
-State Legislators
-Governors
-Broad trained superintendents
-Bush and his Chiefs for Change
-Merit pay tied to high-stakes testing
-A-F grading schemes
-Virtual charter schools
-Pearson
-Wireless Generation
-inBloom
-Gates Foundation
-Broad Foundation
Public school parents want what the reformers have for their own children including joyful learning in small classes with experienced teachers teaching rich curriculum where there are NO high-stakes standardized tests.
Parents: Contact Cuomo’s office and the legislators to register complaints.
I googled “global economy” and “education” once and all I found were quotes from Arne Duncan.
rather, “global economy and education”
And Amen to this post, btw!
Right on. Well said. Absolutely.
There have always been failing schools. Maybe the term was not used a lot and then they needed it for their ideological reasons now. What you forgot Diane is that there is in California failing schools, districts, County Offices of Education, State Boards of Education, Superintendents of Education, Governors and the legislatures and finally the public that votes against its best interests. That is why the Parent Trigger or Empowerment Law is needed. What is not needed is the illegal manner in which Parent Revolution is using it with their green beret illegal signature gatherer. Every Parent Trigger so far is illegal for the signatures being invalid according to the rules and regulations. Inner city schools can succeed. The new LAUSD board member Monica Ratliff and her collegues proved that along with many others. The fish rots from the head. Original fish is the principal and from there it goes all the way to the board and superintendent. After all at LAUSD Deasy has a phony PHD and work record and he is still there. Why is that acceptable? He and former board president Garcia cannot even testify with the districts correct revenue/student. They recently testified that LAUSD has only $4,800/student when it is 411,233/student. The committee was given spreadsheets by CORE-CA to show the truth on 20 districts including LAUSD.
So, sometime there is nowhere to go and that is why there is a parent trigger push. We need to make sure it is legally used.
Parents do not “need” a law that misleads them into handing control over their neighborhood school to a private enterprise which has the power to deny them democratic representation. If anything, parents need more participative democracy, not less.
The language change imposed by politicians didn’t just alter the terms. It had a profound impact on locus of control. I remember when this occurred in the 90s and recall being very surprised. Suddenly, the onus for failure and success had been taken off the student and placed on the school. Students who put forth little or no effort, i.e., didn’t study, hand in their work, pay attention, etc. were given permission to believe they didn’t fail but their school failed them.
The education language schism between politicians and educators goes back further. In my neck of the woods, from the beginning of this era, in the 80s, politicians used the term “school reform,” while educators typically used the term “school improvement.” Now, they have pretty much become interchangeable terms in the press, but I think that’s very misleading. All along, non-educator politicians have focused on change for the sake of change, to alter “the status quo,” while for educators, the purpose of change has long been to facilitate improvement.
It was never more evident than it is now that the true purpose of “school reform” today is disruptive change to enable profiteering. I think it’s a mistake for us to not take advantage of this now obvious distinction between politicians, corporations and their minions, who promote themselves as “school reformers” and prize raiding public funds, and the aims of educators. I believe we should be capitalizing on every opportunity to distinguish ourselves as “school improvers.”
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/gary/indiana-forgives-charter-school-loans/article_a9673510-3cdd-55d0-a1aa-756d458490d2.html
Charter schools in Indiana were giving special loan forgiveness where public schools had to pay back the loans.
If you’re in Indiana and a public school parent it’s time to step up and advocate for your kid. They’re defunding your schools, and using the legislature to transfer public funds to charters.
It’s 91 million dollars.
My public school has lost 1.6 million a year in funding under federal and state “reform”. Go to a school board meeting and ask how much you’ve lost under “reform”. They’ll be able to give you an exact number.
Actually, Jonathan Kozol and others wrote about failing schools long before think thanks, ALEC or others. Some might remember his book “Death at an Early Age,” which described the “destruction of hearts and minds in a Boston public school.”
36 Children by Herb Kohl described similar circumstances – but had more about what teachers can do to help youngsters who come from challenging circumstances.
The Ocean-Hill Brownsville struggle in New York City was an example of some African American families deciding that many public schools in their section of NYC were failing. The epic battle there helped bring Al Shanker to power. It was a very sad case of lose-lose, in my opinion.
Long before charter public schools, Sy Fliegel, Deborah Meier and others produced small, focused, schools within schools that help make significant progress in a low income section of NYC, East Harlem.
None of these authors believed (or believe) that schools could overcome all the problems of low income youngsters. But each of them believed that PART of improving the lives of these youngsters and their families was changing the way that schools operate.
What Is a Failing School?
Dr. Ravitch, I have a few concerns and using standardized tests is one. To reiterate what has been said many times: using a standardized test is not a valid criteria because we all know as Valerie Strasus stated in The Washington Post 8/21/12: Standardized tests can’t evaluate complex thought, can’t avoid cultural bias, can’t measure non-verbal learning, can’t predict anything of consequence (and waste boatloads of money).” “Standardized minds are about as far out of sync with deep-seated American values as it’s possible to get.”
Accountability is important but not via standardized testing; there are too many variables to contend with. Many aspects of testing can invalidate the results. The results are all too often used to bully students and teachers. They punish students by implying that they are failures, they are not as good as other classmates, they are not college material…worse yet they develop a defeatist attitude, poor self-image and in the end students give up and drop out. The opening paragraph of the ELA CC standards state that the all student must. Oh what a commanding threat!
The CC standardized test does not give an instructional reading level for the primary child. An assessment tool such as Running Record, an IRI, Benchmark Books or Marie Clay’s Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement will give the instructional level but of course the Common Core doesn’t believe in such a thing as instructional level and frustration level. Marie Clay’s evaluation is furthermore, standardized but is administered to evaluate a student’s needs and progress; it is administered without stress.
First positive action to take is to listen and act on Goodlad’s ideas.
Basic aspects for Goodlad were not the three R’s but that which promotes:
successful problem solving;
sensitive human relations;
self-understanding;
and the integration of one’s total life experience.
(I would like to add that a teacher needs to begin with the student: bridge the student to the curriculum by activating prior knowledge. The teacher needs to turn the information received from the text into knowledge by applying it to the student’s life and his environment – ending with the student. This is not allowed with CC.)
Goodlad refers not to a particular body of subject matter or information regarding commonalties but the development of
a compassionate understanding of humankind,
the ability to solve unfamiliar problems,
the ability to establish appropriate relationships,
and the ability to achieve personal goals.
Goodlad argues for teaching just a few basic concepts through every possible means. Not just by reading and writing, but by dancing, drawing, constructing, touching, thinking talking, shaping and planning.
Goodlad states that we need to go beyond quantitative appraisals to qualitative appraisals of what goes on in schools. For Goodlad how a student spends precious time in school and how he/she feels about what goes on there is of much greater significance than how he/she scores on a standardized achievement test.
As regards high grades, Goodlad states that we do not know what high grades mean. They do not predict compassion, good work habits, nor vocational success, not social success, nor happiness. He argues against a set of topics constituting the core but is for a common set of concepts, principles and ways of thinking.
There is another very important aspect of the child that we are ignoring- the home environment. Instead of looking to the top we should look to the bottom. Rich or poor, a child will thrive if the parents/caregivers respect education. As I stated on my web site:
Attitudes anchored in the home are at the root of the achievement gap -“failing schools.” If all parents/caregivers took an interest in the development of their children’s cognitive skills; realized how important it is to read to their children; provided creative play; engaged in conversation; and provided numerous cognitive experiences, there would not be today’s big “achievement gap” – or failing schools. Some parent/caregivers need to be shown how to care and work with their children through their various developmental stages before their children begin formal education. This is the goal of a program call PAT – Parent as Teacher Program. PAT is an internationally recognized early childhood parent education and family support program.
One teacher said, “So many of our children suffer not only from lack of necessities, but they suffer from parental neglect, too. Their parents never read to them.”
All too often the parents of children who are lagging behind, say they work; they have no time to read to their children; they can’t read English; they have no books to read to their children; they can’t get to the library; they have no money to buy books… Some can not read. None of those excuses are acceptable. Where there is a will there is a way. The busiest of parents can take 10 min. out of a day to read to their child/children. The last resort is to use the “surrogate a parent”- Read-Along sets. If parents can’t read English they should read in their native tongue or listen and follow along as their child listens and tracks the print with a “Read Along”. Non English parents/caregivers can take out picture books and tell their children stories via the pictures – pictures tell the story. Early in my teaching career I sent home “Read Alongs” for parents to supervise. I even sent home personal tape recorders on occasion. One mother in a Portuguese area, told me she was learning English by listening and following along with her fifth grader. That was enough encouragement for me to keep enlarging my personal library for my students.
Today’s public libraries are filled with CDs and DVDs plus computers to use. All parents need is proof of residence to get a library card to take the books home. Classic hard bound books found in libraries and book stores should be the first choice whenever possible in lieu of photo copied books.
Reading Is a Family Affair
Read at least 20 min. each nights
” “The single most important activity for building the
knowledge required for eventual success in reading
is reading aloud to children. ”
Commission on Reading in a Nation of Readers
I love the next one!
“You do not have to read every night – just on the nights you eat.”
Dr.Carmelita Williams former president of the NRA
“Children’s first grade reading achievement depends most of all on how much they know about reading before they get to school… The differences in reading potential are shown not to be strongly related to poverty, handedness, dialect, gender, IQ, mental age, or any other such difficult-to-alter circumstances. They are due instead to learning and experience – and specifically to learning and experience with print and print concepts.” Adams, Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print, 494pp
“Nation’s Report Card” improvement in scores released 6/27/13
“…regards readings for pleasure. At age 9, 53 percent of students say they read for fun at home almost every day. However, by age 13, only 27 percent did, and at the age of 17, only 19 percent still read for pleasure at home. Notably, while the number of 9-year-olds who report reading for fun has stayed the same since 1984 (when the question was first asked), it has decreased over time for 13- and 17-year-olds.
As the NAEP comments, “at all three ages, students who reported reading for fun almost daily or once or twice a week scored higher than did students who reported reading for fun a few times a year or less.” Even if it’s not to raise test scores, it certainly does help to read a book.”
(I won’t even get started with CC’s 50% informational text!)
Some children have been read to from day 1. Others have had little or no exposure to books prior to entering school. Can those 1,000 or more hours ever be made up or will the gap continue throughout their school years?
My grandchildren have been read to from birth. They are/were ahead before they entered school.
The following web page will illustrate that:
http://maryidefalco.com/reading%20site%20reconnected/reading__language_arts_primary_teachers_2/12._Family_Rdg._Back_Packs.html
My last concern is the food the children eat. GMO foods are harmful. They need organic food. Before GMO foods came into existence few children were diagnosed with learning disabilities. Today with the GMO foods the number of children with learning disabilities is ever increasing. Did we hear about failing schools before GMO foods came on the scene?
PS I like LLC1923 ‘s contribution!
Students and teachers have not failed.
List of reform failures:…
Of course Kevin is correct. There are many variables that affect our struggling students. I work in such a school. They loss important people in their lives, like parents , and they are young. They talk about the hood because they live in it and recognize the problems and concerns. they are hungry and sick.. As a nation, we need to remedy these issues so all children can learn and become able citizens in our communities with jobs and dignity. I don’t get what is holding us back ,except money goes to the other kids all the time. I don’t understand completely …Sad.
How about the gang culture in the centers of our 30 biggest cities? How do you handle that?
High School for Recording Arts enrolls a number of young people who have not succeeded in traditional schools (or with whom traditional schools have not succeeded). Some are in gangs. Many have been classified as behavior problems in previous schools.
The students produce you-tube videos and other music videos as part of their work in the school. They have their own program on a local radio station.
http://www.hsra.org/
HSRA has graduated hundreds of these students by using very different approaches than many traditional schools. The students won an award from Junior Achievement last year as the best small business run by high school students in the US. They have received contracts from a variety of non-profits to produce their videos.