The Harvard Business School reports a study from Britain that claims to explain how to turnaround a failing school.
https://hbr.org/2016/08/how-to-turn-around-a-failing-school
Americans, especially experienced educators, are likely to find their recommendations controversial.
The researchers say that reducing class size is not necessary. They say a class of 30 will do as well as a class of 15.
They say not to worry about teacher quality until you have the right leader and governance structure.
They say that the key to success is to exclude students with behavior problems. Pay another school to take them. Now there is a clever idea.
Their study was conducted using academies as their models. Academies are similar to our charter schools.
Imagine: as schools follow their advice, there will be a market for students who are behavior problems. Who will buy them?
Take it another step, and the school could sell students who don’t speak English and students with disabilities.
Now, that’s corporate reform using business thinking!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think that your post leaves an awful lot out. A careful reading of the report says a lot about the order in which things are done, and gives a more balanced presentation. “Set up a new school” was a humorous aside!
There is a link to the article. The reader can read it in full. I point to the claim that interests me most. It may not be the same one that interests you most. That’s why you should read the links.
Howard, the article identifies some actual challenges but offers no real solutions, or any original thinking on the subject.
To simply say: ” Do create an all through school that keeps students from K-12″ merits the response: “no-duh” The problem isn’t that people in the field don’t know the benefits of this, the reality is that many families can’t or won’t support this.
To simply say: “Don’t expect inner city schools to be more difficult.” begs the question: more difficult than what? Middle class children of college educated families? This is pretending that poverty doesn’t present challenges different from those of the middle class.
To simply say: “Do improve student behavior and motivation” is painfully obvious and the solutions offered are facile
Sure you can teach a class of thirty kids, with the caveat that you take all the bad ones out. This is in effect what many charters accomplish through self selection and high attrition. But the alternatives offered, like paying other schools to teach them, or segregating the bad students into some parallel program, presents a whole set of problems just as difficult to solve as an oversized class with behavior challenges. And what about students who are well behaved, but have academic challenges? How will they be supported in a class of thirty? Many students who would behave in a smaller class act out in a larger class setting where the relationship between teacher and student is diminished. So in some cases larger class size actually facilitates behavior problems.
It would be nice if the resources to support the emotional and social needs that many students bring with them to school were actually made available, but there is no social/ political will to do this.
I read your book! I am still thinking about it. And children are eating off the floor now. (Jack,Aug 11 at 12.56pm)
howard :comment from ciede aech
When I told a school board member that we had no choice but to leave public school because it was unable to educate my child that best suited the way she learns. I was told that “Public School isn’t for everyone”. So yes, students should have a choice of public schools to go to based on what’s best for the child.
Monica: So based on the offhand comment of some school board member somewhere and based on your individual situation, we should have school choice? At least you had a chance to face a duly elected school board, voice your concerns and have the option to vote out the quoted school board member at some point. Charter school boards are not elected and can’t be voted out. You don’t mind paying for a dual, parallel school system that duplicates administrative positions and has dual superintendents. Charter schools are like separate school districts unto themselves unanswerable to the duly elected school boards and the district superintendent.
Monica, That school board member should have said: “…[There is] virtually no evidence to support the idea that ideal learning requires students to receive instruction in their preferred learning style. In fact, they argue “there is
no adequate evidence base to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice” (p. 105). Alternatively, they found several studies that contradict commonly held beliefs about “learning styles”.
see
Click to access learning-styles-research-brief.pdf
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4678182/
or just Google “learning styles critical review”
Monica: Don’t give up, keep badgering the school board and demand a meeting with the superintendent and threaten them with a civil rights law suit. That will wake them up.
KnowYourCharter.com shows the abysmal academic failure of charter schools in Ohio. It shows the amount of money siphoned from communities. Those that receive that money (e.g. charter school debt returns 10-18% to Wall Street) spend it, in their wealthy enclaves, denying communities the economic multiplier effect of local dollars, spent locally. The hollowed out communities that surround Walmart’s, exemplify adverse multiplier effect.
The idealized small personalized charter school, is a guise that enables expansion of charter chains, like those partnered with Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings. Hastings can be seen in a YouTube video, calling for an end to democratically elected school boards. One of the largest national charter chains, was founded by a convicted financier.
It is false to call a charter school, public. The assets of public entities belong to the taxpayers and the expense records are available to the public.
Monica, I agree. There need to be options when a program is not working. I’ve posted my difficulties with our school’s local math program. I tried to compensate at home and there were bright spots with some excellent teachers, but the negative impact was great. We were forced to scramble and find a decent online course. In many ways, my kids are still trying to overcome the experience. Our school board seems focused only on a small segment of achieving students, endorsing a heavily tracked system.
Britain has been going through its own deform turmoil.
The unspoken loud note in the ‘study’: success, failure, ‘turnaround’ etc is defined solely by test scores. High test scores: that’s the ‘product’ which can be ‘efficiently produced’ using xyz management techniques (such as sidelining defective products for re-work in the pit). Ed-reform, a return to the assembly-line of yore. Henry Ford might have wondered, practically, what is it good for? What is the market for such a product?
A great point. It’s always about the test scores.
On the subject of test scores as a valid measure of school quality or teacher quality (or of anything ed-related), check out the New York Daily News article about Mayor DiBlasio daring to challenge that assumption, and the vociferous attack it drew from the school privatization industry:
DiBlasio was talking about those high test scores from Eva’s (and others’) charter schools::
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/de-blasio-chalks-charter-students-high-scores-test-prep-article-1.2746456
———————
N.Y. DAILY NEWS:
” ‘It’s not a state secret that some substantial piece of that is based on charters that focus on test prep,’ de Blasio said Wednesday when asked about charters’ higher scores.
” ‘And if that’s where they put a lot of their time and energy, of course it could yield better test scores. But we don’t think that’s good educational policy. So we’re going to do it the way that we believe is right for our children.’
” … ”
“Hizzoner said he wants city schools to emphasize ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem-solving skills’ which he believes are more important than cramming for tests.”
” ‘That’s where we need to put our energy, not on test prep, not on effectively teaching kids how to do well on a test at the expense of broader learning. So that’s the direction we’re going to take,’ he said.”
———————
Predictably, the charter folks went thermonuclear at DiBlasio, as these scores are their main argument in favor of unregulated, privately-managed charter schools’ superiority and expansion. If they’re denied this “better test-scores” weapon with which to fight, they’re in big trouble
Thus, a full retaliatory strike against Hizzoner was called in by NYC’s charter bigwigs.
Indeed, they’re so threatened and incensed by this that DiBlasio’s comments alone prompted them to organize yet another massive rally outside City Hall. If that pattern holds, this will cost a half-million dollars (or more) — remember “over $70,000 for beanies to be worn by kids” from internal documents that were leaked?
This rally will be held next week, where they will yet again, fabricate the victimhood of poor little children — “kicking little kids in the shins” … sheesh! — at the hands of this evil, child-hating mayor:
———————
N.Y. DAILY NEWS:
” ‘We get now that the mayor doesn’t like charter schools and that he seems constitutionally incapable of hiding it. But it is ungraceful and mean-spirited to show his contempt by belittling the record number of students of color who worked so hard to master the common ore standards as this year’s state test results reflect,’ said James Merriman, CEO of the New York City Charter School Center.
“The pro-charter group ‘Families for Excellent Schools’ plans to hold a rally at City Hall Thursday to criticize the mayor on the issue.
” ‘He’s practically kicking kids who did well in the shins to try and please the teachers union. What a disgrace,’ said the group’s CEO Jeremiah Kittredge. ‘Mayor de Blasio should apologize to NYC’s charter school students immediately and congratulate them on their success.’
———————
Once again, you have a common canard that the corporate ed. reform and school privatization forces use against opponents:
The minute that anyone criticizes charter schools or school privatization — i.e. on the validity of test scores as a measure of anything, or just in general — corporate ed. reformers then pivot, and disingenously claim that their critics are beating up on children, or belittling the kids, or whatever.
Dr. Ravitch and so many others have been on the receiving end of that canard. Stephen Colbert or someone called this cheap tactic … pulling out the “You-don’t-care-about-kids” card. (I think that this was in Colbert’s Campbell Brown interview segment.)
Which explains why Gates-funded Bellwether uses the term, “human capital pipeline”. The schools that enroll the reformers’ kids, reject the model.
“. . . High test scores: . . . ” The cumination, oops I mean culmination of mental masturbation.
The absurdity of using a completely bankrupt and invalid process-standards and testing regime-for anything whatsoever is mind-boggling.
“Hey, let’s “measure” the nonobservable and make a lot of jack off it.”
Test scores this, test scores alas
test scores that, test scores out the ass
The joke is on everyone–even the kids that suffer from the inherent errors and falsehoods perpetrated by the standards and testing regime.
Understand why standards and testing is one of the biggest scams ever produced. Read and comprehend Noel Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
This is insane. If this continues, the United States will quickly become a third world country and the next step a dictatorship.
Hi Mr. Lofthouse:
The United States will quickly become Japanese old Tribal Warrior in the 17th century.
Every State has its own legal system and free to carry weapon in school.
Money, corrupted politicians and academe officials are working together to hold tight their absolute power in order to become a future SLAVE for their unique enemy who set-up trap for the past 50 years. It takes half century to corrupt leaders’ morality.
It is now the time for all conscientious educators, law makers, and retired citizens to MOVE FAST on OPT OUT MOVEMENT with peace and long term strategy. Yes, it will take a minimum 25 years or one generation to counter the past 50 years in mistakes.
This is the only solution to REBUILD all grassroots government officials from city Councillors, Mayor, Congressmen and women, Governors, and to Senators. May
It sounds like the 19th century “workhouse ” for our poor students in a rigid class system. This type of thinking does not reflect democratic principles.
That “19 century workhouse” comparison calls to mind an article I just read out of Aurora, Colorado, detailing a Dickensian practice being inflicted on children at Aurora’s “Jewell Elementary.”
Kids are forced to eat off a dirty school hallway floor:
http://bustedpencils.com/2016/08/children-eat-breakfast-hallway-floor-school/
After reading this, I wanted to make sure that this didn’t occur at a truly public school, though — public, private, charter or whatever kind of school — such a practice demands instant condemnation.
It turned out my suspicions were right. Aurora, CO’s “Jewell Elementary” was recently treated to a corporate ed. reform “turnaround,” where — without informing parents — the school’s management and teaching positions were recently given over to folks from the “Relay School of Management” and staffed with unlicensed teachers out of “Relay”, and now employs the practices from Doug Lemov’s TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION book.
Being free of any regulation or oversight from a school board, or any government entity, allows the gang from “Relay” to get away with this Dickensian practice.
Here’s the article with an interview with a Jewell parent comparing Jewell Elementary BEFORE & AFTER the unannounced “Relay” turnaround takeover.
(in English and Spanish, btw):
http://www.pegwithpen.com/2016/01/a-parent-speaks-up-at-turnaround-school.html
@ Jack
The links you provided contain the most insightful views on the philosophy of education reformers that I’ve read. Thank you for posting that!
Interestingly, my working class and highly diverse suburban Detroit district does a lot of this. We actually provide school choice within the district! We have traditional high schools that have about 1200 students each. We have a small district alternative high school that provides small classes and social services. It serves the population that doesn’t care for school. Parents like it a lot and we get good feedback. We also have access to a large county-wide CTE center that has an excellent principal and gets sterling reviews.
Yet, for all of that, we lose kids to charters. Why? Marketing. The charters promise all sorts of things and parents buy it. (The charters are also very careful to market in neighborhoods that have higher achieving tendencies. They go nowhere near our most impoverished communities.)
For all of that, we still undergo lots of criticism from everyone from the community to the governor. (Good old Rick Snyder singled us out for not outsourcing non-instructional services in a speech a few years back.) Even though parents serve on every committee, we have chronic complainers.
The key, apparently, is to promise everything, deliver nothing comparatively and keep repeating your promises until they’re believed. Endless repetition is convincing.
So I say to Monica, there is plenty of choice in many districts. The question is, are parents willing to admit what their kids really are? To the kids, there is almost no stigma in attending our alternative school. Many of my students have at least one good friend at the alternative program. But parents fight it tooth and nail.
And, to Howard, I say that the most critical proposal in the whole piece is simply removing the lesser achieving students. Basically, make academic team cuts like a team tryout. To which I say, duh. If I could shift out 15% of my students every year, my classes would be golden. This is the heart of the privatization counter-argument. Where do the low performers and the problem kids go?
I read the report differently with more pros and cons described. While they mentioned removing disruptive students from the classroom as an immediate solution, they also countered it is not a desirable solution long term. I agree disruptive students should not be allowed to threaten, intimidate, and interfere with the families who want an education. Removing them from the classroom does benefit those families. If and when the disruptive students can be counseled and behave properly in a social setting, then they return to the classroom. And I am not talking about kids with special needs who enrich the classroom. I am talking about the students who threaten other students, are bullies, are abusive towards the teacher, who constantly require 99% of the teacher’s time at the expense of other students. Public school supporters like myself believe the best way to preserve the public schools it to listen to people leaving them.
Harvard Business School? Reads just like the Harvard Graduate School of Education deform. Have the two merged?