The North Carolina legislature, which has garnered wide attention for its devotion to Tea Party principles, is rushing to create a statewide district for low-performing schools, modeled on Tennessee’s Achievement School District. The district would gather together the schools in the state’s bottom 5% by test scores and remove them from their local school district, despite any objections from the local school boards. The basic idea is that local control can be ignored because the state wants to take these schools and give them to for-profit charter operators. This is likely to be a bonanza for the for-profit charter operators, who are very good at squeezing a profit out of schools for low-income children. Most assuredly, all the schools in this new statewide district will enroll very poor children.
Now, you might think that a careful legislator might think twice or maybe three times about this latest reform. After all, the legislators heard testimony from Gary Henry of Vanderbilt, whose team studied the Tennessee Achievement School District and could discern no statistically significant improvement.
Republican supporters of the bill were joined by two Democratic legislators in pushing through the legislation. There’s no time to wait, they said, because they care about the kids and won’t tolerate the status quo any more.
Meanwhile, Rep. Rena Turner, R-Iredell, said she’s “excited” about the bill. “We have to take every opportunity to respond to our kids who are underserved,” said Turner.
An administrator in Tennessee’s district told committee members last month that the reform was beginning to gain its footing after a rocky first two years. However, that presentation came shortly before Vanderbilt University education researcher Gary Henry presented data that, despite promises of school turnarounds in Tennessee, seem to show the district had created no statistically significant changes in student performance in its early years.
As a result, public school leaders in North Carolina have been openly critical of achievement school districts since the proposal was floated last year.
This week, N.C. Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson reaffirmed her opposition in an interview with Policy Watch’s Chris Fitzsimon.
“Why would we spend extra dollars that could be spent in the classroom directly helping students in order for out of state or other companies to hire a superintendent to run a school or schools across North Carolina?” said Atkinson. “I think it’s an idea that has not proven to be very effective in other states using that idea.”
Shortly after the vote Wednesday, Yevonne Brannon, chair of the advocacy group Public Schools First NC, said the bill does nothing to address the root cause of some chronically struggling schools: high concentrations of children from impoverished families.
“We’re not doing anything to improve per-pupil expenditures,” said Brannon. “We’re not doing anything to address teacher turnover. We’re not providing more wraparound services. We’re looking for more harsh, punitive measures to deal with low performing schools rather than being more thoughtful and more purposeful.”
On Wednesday, though, Horn seemed to dismiss critics who noted the district’s mixed results in other states.
“Fear of failure is not a deterrent,” said Horn.
What a brilliant statement! “Fear of failure is not a deterrent.” Why be afraid to copy an experiment that has not succeeded anywhere else: not in Tennessee, not in Michigan, and not in New Orleans. Why let “fear of failure” stop you when you have no evidence that your plan will help the kids? How bad can it be? After all, ALEC says it is a good idea. Promising to help the kids should be enough of a reason to move forward on a plan that has never succeeded anywhere. Just remember: It’s for the kids. Not the for-profit entrepreneurs.
