This is a case of cognitive dissonance. Or, when presented with two sharply contrasting narratives, whom do you believe?
Tom Toch started a think tank in D.C., FutureEd, which is funded by foundations such as Walton, Bezos, and Raikes (Jeff Raikes previously led the Gates Foundation).
In its latest bulletin, the lead article by Tom Toch says that the policies put in place by Michelle Rhee and her successor Kaya Henderson are “revolutionizing teaching” and are “a model for the nation.”
But at the same, an article in the Washington Post says that certain D.C. schools are experiencing a spike in teacher resignations in mid-year.
Ballou High School has lost 28% of its teachers since the school year began.
“In most DCPS schools, the faculty is stable. Of 115 schools in the system, 59 had two or fewer resignations after teachers reported to work, the data showed.
“But a handful were hit hard.
“Raymond Education Campus in Northwest lost 13 teachers, which accounts for a quarter of its faculty. Columbia Heights Education Campus in Northwest lost 11 teachers, or 10 percent. H.D. Woodson High in Northeast lost 10 of its 50 teachers, or 20 percent.
“No school has suffered more turnover than Ballou High. It lost 21 teachers from August through February — 28 percent of its faculty. Many of the resignations occurred in the math department, current and former teachers say.
“Several former Ballou teachers told The Post they did not want to leave mid-year and felt bad about the consequences for students. But they said a number of problems drove them to leave, from student behavior and attendance issues to their own perception of a lack of support from the administration. They also raised questions about evaluations. Some veterans said that in previous years they had received high marks from administrators, but this year they were given what they believe are arbitrarily low evaluation scores…
“Ballou has about 930 students, and all qualify for free or reduced-price lunch because they live in poverty. Many come from homes where their parents didn’t go to college. The school ranks among the city’s lowest-performing high schools on core measures. Its graduation rate in the last school year, 57 percent, was second-lowest among regular high schools in the DCPS system.
“In 2016, 3 percent of Ballou students tested met reading standards on citywide exams. Almost none met math standards.
“The school was reconstituted in the 2015-2016 school year, its second shakeup in five years. Reconstitution means the teachers and staff all had to reapply for their jobs…
“Monica Brokenborough, a music teacher and the school’s union representative, sent a letter this month to the D.C. Council, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson raising concerns about the staff vacancies.
“Students simply roam the halls because they know that there is no one present in their assigned classroom to provide them with an education,” Brokenborough said. “Many of them have simply lost hope…
“In her message to city officials, Brokenborough included handwritten letters from students who described feeling unprepared for their Advanced Placement exams and fearful that their prospects for college will be hampered by not having a teacher in key classes.
“Iyonna Jones, an 18-year-old senior, said in one of the letters that security guards tell the students lingering in hallways to go to class, but she has a substitute teacher in her math class and doesn’t feel she is getting the instruction she needs.
“We should just stay home, because what is the point of coming to school if we are not learning and have no teachers,” she wrote.”
A national model? Not yet.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There more schools are commercialized the more public funds will be spent on commercials.
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WELL SAID. Advertising is a huge part of why we have a population blind to the reality of losing teachers, losing schools, losing kids’ education….
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The only real miracle is that anyone still actually believes Deformer’s “miracle” claims.
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“Miraculous belief in Miracles”
The miracle is real!
Belief in bunk remains
And still has some appeal
Despite the lack of gains
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I’d like to say that they are starving, then rating and ranking so that Ballou can be charterized, but the mere fact that the entire student body is FARMS leads me to believe otherwise. It’s too big of a school with too many poverty issues for a Charter to want to take over…no competition. Maybe Ballou is the “the last straw” and if the school collapses, everyone will be forced to look at all the problems that ed reform has done over the past 20 years? I don’t know what the motivation is to have a school sit on the brink of destruction for so many children? It’s a sad situation all around.
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Georgetown University has a lot of interest in selling their “success” stories. They run a social justice and education program that hosts a number of services including tutoring, parent education and field trips for families. They work directly with a few schools, and their claims may reflect the results in these schools. In any case, it is in Georgetown’s best interest to present a positive spin to the world. https://csj.georgetown.edu/dcsp
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De-stabilizing re-constitutions of schools in high poverty areas for “failure” is criminal. People need to go to jail for this charade.
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Toch asserted impressive progress not achievement of ideal results, e.g.: “After decades of dismal academic results, Turner has begun to change the educational equation in its classrooms.”
Perhaps some of your cognitive dissonance will be resolved, Diane, via this reminder of the circumstances in DCPS prior to attempts at reform:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/dc/control/part2.htm
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Stephen,
When you describe D.C. As a model for the nation and claim on the headline that D.C. Is “revolutionizing teaching,” that implies a miracle, not incremental change. On NAEP, the D.C. Schools have the largest achievement gaps in the nation–between white and black students, and between white and Hispanic students.
I don’t believe in miracles, I don’t believe in setting unrealistic goals, and I don’t believe in bragging.
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The so-called reformers don’t just brag; they lie, about everything.
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Michael: True.
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Diane: “When you describe D.C. As a model for the nation and claim on the headline that D.C. Is “revolutionizing teaching,” that implies a miracle, not incremental change.
I suspect that you would agree with me that the headline was likely authored by the clickbait promotion department rather than by Toch, who neither referred to revolution nor alluded to a “model for the nation”.
Toch’s own modest claim: “And student achievement has begun a long climb toward respectability. ”
Diane: “On NAEP, the D.C. Schools have the largest achievement gaps in the nation–between white and black students, and between white and Hispanic students.”
With test-taking ability improved among all demographic sectors.
“But the actual score increases have generally far outpaced the gains predicted by demographic change alone.”
http://www.urban.org/urban-wire/does-gentrification-explain-rising-student-scores-washington-dc
“Demographic change among students taking NAEP in D.C. explains only part of the increase in NAEP scores the city has seen since 2005. When we control for changes in race, test scores still rise, just not as much.”
https://districtmeasured.com/2015/11/05/the-role-of-demographics-in-naep-and-parcc-scores/
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Writers usually have no control over headlines. Toch is the leader of the organization. The editors report to him. They would not impose a headline that was misleading.
Furthermore, Toch writes that D.C. is “a model for the nation.” Those were his words. Hyperbole at best.
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“Toch is the leader of the organization. The editors report to him. They would not impose a headline that was misleading.”
Good point.
“Furthermore, Toch writes that D.C. is ‘a model for the nation.’ Those were his words. Hyperbole at best.”
I only see that phrase in a paragraph where Toch is referred to in the third person: “The story he found, which appears in the Washington Monthly magazine, confounds the traditional battle lines in public education and points to the D.C. reforms as a model for the nation.”
But it is plausible that he reviewed and approved that language.
And in any event, I have no quarrel with the view that many of the reforms he describes, if accurately portrayed, could indeed serve as a useful model that might prove helpful in many locales throughout the U.S..
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It is an amazing story big D.C. Schools are a model for the nation
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The United States is a Nation At Risk, with too many Children Left Behind in test prep factories with unqualified temps for teachers and misused computer applications substituted for genuine teaching. We need to break the privately controlled monopoly of education held in places like D.C and New Orleans. Families deserve the right to Choose a democratically managed, local community school. Strong, community-based, union protected teachers must lead the charge with parents on their flanks to return education to the People, as it has been robbed by the Pearson and the pseudoscience of VAM. Anything short of a miracle in which Every Student Succeeds does not justify test obsession or privatization. Our national security depends on us to restore genuine, democratic, collectively bargained, locally controlled, public schools.
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I just don’t GET being #1 or the BEST in the charter school INDUSTRY. The mentality of BEING #1 and ONE OF THE BEST has wrecked this coutnry. What is used as the criterion for being #1 is messed up.
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I have looked high and low for any evidence that Toch knows anything about education from the perspective of an experienced teacher in public schools. He is advised as “an education policy expert at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.” He has a lot of “former” careers…as a participant in deep-pocket think tanks. He is a writer and editor. He ihas no obvious interest in evidence that will challenge his views.
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You’ve just described the perfectly qualified candidate.
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Laura, years ago he was the education editor at Newsweek. I don’t think he was ever a teacher or a scholar. He is a journalist.
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You have aptly described a well-trained eduproducts salesperson that knows how to sell snake oil panaceas “for all that ails you.”
Who needs evidence when snappy one-liners will do?
😎
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In stories like this there’s often a quote from a student who professes to want to learn. Could be true. But could be sanctimonious and false. I rarely see quotes from students who will admit that they and their peers labor daily to make teaching and learning impossible. But I know this happens. And few here will face this big truth. Even if Ballou had a permanent teacher in every classroom, kids’ behavior would probably make learning nearly impossible in many of them. What’s the solution for this problem?
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Do you have any idea how condescending it is to say that some kids don’t want to learn? All human beings want to learn; we’re hard-wired that way.
Some kids have difficulty learning because they face life challenges such as homelessness, hunger, abuse, trauma, family relationship issues, etc. You could try being sympathetic to those issues.
Other kids simply don’t want to learn BS. Basically when you say they “don’t want to learn”, what you’re saying is that they don’t want to learn what you want to teach. You might ask yourself why that is. Nearly everyone (barring issues as mentioned above) will learn something if they see the relevance/interest in doing so. Apparently that’s what you’re failing to teach.
For best results, you could try to combine those approaches. Most kids, even if they don’t directly see the point, will try to learn from someone they believe cares about them/has their back. I think your students must pick up the contempt you ooze. It certainly shows up clearly when you post here.
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Dienne, what I’m saying is universal, not restricted to my classroom. I know because I talk to other teachers on a regular basis (do you?). I agree that kids are always learning about each other and You Tube and other things. But school is about learning academic content, and sadly many kids –for myriad reasons –have little inclination to acquire this, even though it would be good for them.
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Thank you Dienne 77 for your post.
You are correct to point out two important aspects in learning and two important aspects in teaching. I love your directness.
[start quote]
1) Most kids, even if they don’t directly see the point, will try to learn from someone they believe cares about them/has their back.
2) Nearly everyone (barring issues as mentioned above) will learn something if they see the relevance/interest in doing so.
3) Basically when you say they “don’t want to learn”, what you’re saying is that they don’t want to learn what you want to teach.
4) Apparently that’s what (educators) you’re failing to teach, (because) students must pick up the contempt (educators) you ooze.
[end quote]
In short, all subjects are relevant to daily survival skills whenever educators truly live through “experiences and stresses” that students go though physically, mentally and emotionally. May
Post note: I do not agree with most of your argument about Hillary versus Trump. However, in this post, I agree with your logical expression. Therefore, I hope that you can see why we can agree and disagree with the idea, BUT NOT with a person. I always admire your directness and sincerity. May
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“students that don’t want to learn” Don’t go in with this attitude ! It won’t work ! Teaching is hard work, professionalism (act professional despite not being treated as such ) and most important – compassion – don’t lose it. Sorry for the short lecture but I hate to hear ‘students that don’t want to learn’.
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” Even if Ballou had a permanent teacher in every classroom, kids’ behavior would probably make learning nearly impossible in many of them. What’s the solution for this problem?”
I would think that having additional adult(s) in the classroom, with complementary sets of skills could be enormously helpful.
I see this on a blog posting at the Boston Teachers Union web site:
“After my year in the classroom (with three other adults) I also began to realize that it wasn’t completely my fault that I was having trouble with classroom management. In a school where all classrooms have at least two adults at all times (sometimes 5!) students were then expected to go to specials with 1 (that’s right, ONE) teacher. Did I mention that we’re full inclusion? The model didn’t make sense. As a team, the specialists expressed this concern repeatedly after numerous incidents, and eventually the squeaky wheel got the oil. This year for the first time, maybe in all of BPS history 🙂 every specialist at the Haley has a full time para. Score 1 for the specialists! The impact has been undeniable. Not only are the students more successful, but the importance of what we are doing in the specials’ classrooms has been validated on some level. I am proud of my specials team at the Haley and of the support that our principals continue to provide. I can only encourage other specialists in the district to reach out to your colleagues and administration to advocate for what you need as a team. Again, over time, it does get easier, and the efforts do pay off.”
https://btu.org/whats-working/professional-learning-conference/2014-professional-learning-grants/amy-tatreau-wedge/
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And this from a Rutgers professor:
“The second reform involves finding creative ways to introduce adults into high-school classrooms to bolster the authority of classroom teachers
[…]
“Teachers who have a serious adult student or two in their classes are not alone with a horde of teenagers. The additional adults in the classroom provide moral support to teachers who need all the moral support they can get.
http://rci.rutgers.edu/~jtoby/GettingSeriousAboutSchoolDiscipline.doc
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And this from the NY Times (2009):
“For years, top Manhattan public schools have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from parents to independently hire assistants to help teachers with reading, writing, tying shoelaces or supervising recess. But after a complaint by the city’s powerful teachers union, the Bloomberg administration has ordered an end to the makeshift practice.”
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Here’s one such quote, from a teacher recounting what his summer school students told him:
http://www.laweekly.com/content/printView/2150123
DOUG LASKEN:
“My ninth-grade students were almost unanimous that Senate Bill 219 would not lower the dropout rate.
“ ‘It’s not the teachers’ or principal’s fault if students don’t graduate. If we’re lazy and don’t do the work, it’s our fault,’ said Samantha, and her sentiment was repeated dozens of times.”
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I’m sure that it’s just a coincidence that former D.C. Mayor, Anthony A, Williams, heavily involved in the Alliance for School Choice and D.C. Children First, found himself on the Board of Urban Institute, where the Arnold Foundation is paying for the organization’s Pension Project.
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