I think the school board should adopt the following reforms (as an alternative to "staying the course") and look for a superintendent who is best qualified to carry out such a reform program.
ACCOUNTABILITY Monitor education-related outcomes, such as test scores, disciplinary actions, attendance, and high school graduation rates, with data broken down by income, race, gender, native language, and disability. Devise plans to reduce differences in outcomes with measurable goals and timetables. Some controls are needed in order to determine the effectiveness of particular interventions (as was done with "Arts for Academic Achievement" program). Boosting academic achievement for all students and closing the gap should be the yard stick against which we measure the effectiveness of all departments, programs, schools, and employees. Need and Reasonableness: Boosting academic achievement and closing the gap have been identified as the district's main strategic goals in the board's 1995 "closing the gap" resolution and in the preamble of the teachers contract. FOCUS ON EFFECTS OF WHAT HAPPENS IN SCHOOL Evidence that school policy matters and structural reforms make a difference: Considerable progress was made in reducing average differences in math and reading test scores between blacks and whites in US public schools in the 1970s and 80s (on National Assessment of Educational Progress exams), then "the test score gap" began to widen. The 1983 report entitled "A Nation at Risk" warned of a "rising tide of mediocrity," i.e., that the gap was being closed at the expense of the high achievers, but this claim was not supported by any evidence and was later proven wrong in a review of data by the Sandia National Laboratories commissioned by the first Bush administration (1989-1993). The idea that the gap was closed in the 1970s at the expense of the high achievers was supported by a 1966 report known as the Coleman Report, which found school characteristics to have very little influence on student achievement independent of student characteristics, such as race and income. In Minneapolis public schools the graduation rate has fallen pretty steadily for at least the past 10 years, and within the past 20 years the difference in graduation rates for black and white students in the Minneapolis Public Schools has increased from about 8% to more than 40%. The Education Trust has identified some high-performing public schools with high concentrations of "minority" and / or poor students. A study of teacher effectiveness in Texas public schools attributed about 40% of the variability in math and reading test scores to teacher expertise, including relevant education, training and classroom teaching experience and scores on licensing examinations. See "Evidence that school policy matters" http://educationright.tripod.com/id173.htm THREE NEEDED REFORMS (Not the only needed reforms) A) Grouping practices I recommend instruction for the general student population based on a college-bound curriculum and individualized educational planning. Phase out "low-ability" groups and classes. Students can work effectively in groups without being grouped by perceived academic ability. Examples: Barton Open School, Montessori Schools, and many public and private schools in Minnesota. The Arts for Academic Achievement program utilized a thematic integrative curriculum and collaboration between teachers covering different subject areas to boost student achievement. The Education Trust has identified the use of a thematic integrative curriculum and interdisciplinary collaboration as effective methods for phasing out "low-ability" curriculum tracks. "Skills grouping" to address specific skills deficits are fine as long as they are temporary in nature and EFFECTIVE in helping students acquire the academic skills they need to function at or above grade level. Current grouping practices promoted by the district are definitely not effective in closing the gap. B) Desegregation of inexperienced teachers Newly hired teachers without prior classroom teaching experience should be scattered throughout the district and not concentrated in schools where the teacher turnover is high. Student outcomes have been very poor in some of the district's elementary schools due to the overexposure of students to new teachers. Teachers can acquire / improve some skills at a fairly rapid rate during their first 5 years on the job, especially in the areas of classroom management, lesson planning, and individualized student assessment and planning. Good staff development programs can help, but the segregation of inexperienced teachers presents some significant obstacles to professional development even with the best staff development program. In schools with high teacher turnover and a high concentration of inexperienced teachers, the new teachers have been encouraged to have students engage in activities that facilitate behavior control but generally do not produce the best results in terms of student achievement. The principal, assistant principals and master teachers can supervise a few new teachers more effectively than many new teachers. Integrating new teachers into buildings with experienced teachers gives the new teachers more opportunities to collaborate with more experienced teachers. Schools with high teacher turnover are generally run like banana republics due to the vulnerabilities of untenured teachers (no right of appeal if fired at the end of a school year). DESEGREGATION OF STUDENTS As a parent I did not like the type of controlled choice desegregation plan used by the district in the 1980s and 1990s due to the logistical problems involved in getting students to school and back. This created some waking nightmares for me as a Minneapolis School parent in the 1980s. It is not a politically sustainable method of desegregating the schools. The Bush administration (No Child Left Behind) and the Democrats (with few exceptions) are insistent on "choice" programs. Why has the local NAACP branch jumped on the "choice" bandwagon? Could it be the $900,000 per year for operating parent information centers through the Minnesota Voluntary School Choice program, which is funded by a NCLB grant? That must be it. The district could have carried out its community school plan without going as far as it did to racially segregate the schools. Attendance boundaries for the community schools could have been drawn in such a way as to maintain a level of racial integration close to what it was with the controlled choice plan. Compared to the student assignment plan that was adopted, it would have been easy to establish attendance areas in south central Minneapolis for SW Minneapolis elementary schools that would have REDUCED transportation costs and SHORTENED bus rides for a majority of the students. Aububon elementary school, two blocks east of the Edina line, had the lions share of African American students from south central Minneapolis and for the most part filled its "low-ability" reading classes with blacks and the high ability reading classes with whites. My complaints about this situation all the way up the chain of command to superintendent Carol Johnson and the board did not result in any corrective action. -Doug Mann, King Field REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? 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