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Critiques find happy students, subpar education
Ohanian Comment: The claim here is that "critiques find happy students, subpar education." At first glance, this struck me as arrogant--seeming to claim parents don't know if the school their children attend is any good. I wondered if this is really a case of it depending on "what the meaning of is is.
Truth be known, we have too much misery in this world. I rate kid happiness highly.
That said, many of the evaluators' observations, as quoted in this article, seem well worth paying attention to. I admit that I like the fact that evaluators paid attention to student work posted on the walls. And an observation like this is very disturbing: They also found compliant children sitting through boring lessons.
I worry about the national thrust of teaching compliance.
By Ann Doss Helms
Just because kids, parents and teachers are happy with a school doesn't mean students are learning much.
That's the sobering message from the latest batch of in-depth reviews of academic quality in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools.
Eight of the 23 schools studied this spring got the lowest rating. Reports by consultants and district administrators often described safe, orderly schools where kids and teachers seem to care about one another. But lessons are subpar and students are falling behind.
“Sometimes when things are easy, it can make you happy,” says Jerry Winkeljohn, a former principal who oversees the reviews for CMS.
School Quality Reviews, which CMS created, delve beyond test scores to provide a close-up look at how well educators in each school help all their students learn. The district spends about $6,600 per school to send inspectors into classrooms; interview faculty, students and parent; pore through data and produce an eight-page report detailing strengths and weaknesses.
The spring reports, which CMS recently released at the Observer's request, brought more bad news than the 24 done last fall.
Only one, Ardrey Kell High, got the highest of four ratings, “high quality school.” The school in Mecklenburg's southern tip won praise for challenging classes, strong academic performance, a college-focused culture and good communication with parents.
Two of the five that got the second-highest rating have been open less than a year; their students have yet to take any exams. Winkeljohn says in the future, CMS will wait longer before rating schools.
Trouble at Garinger?
Ratings tended to track poverty levels, with high-poverty neighborhood schools clustered in the low range. One exception: Garinger's New Technology High earned the second-highest label, with about 70 percent of its students coming from low-income homes.
But the reports indicate the east side campus continues to fail most of its students despite years of reforms. The latest change split Garinger into five small schools. New Tech, which has logged strong test scores since it opened in 2006, won praise on the latest report.
“It has high expectations of student achievement and students respond very positively. Teachers are dedicated and well-qualified, and classrooms are a hive of industry, where students are fully engaged in learning, sharing information and helping each other.”
That's a stark contrast with reports on three other small Garinger schools, which got the lowest rating. The fifth was not reviewed because it had an interim principal when consultants were visiting.
At the math/science, leadership and international studies schools, inspectors described low-level lessons that leave students bored and let low accomplishment slide.
“The pace of many lessons is very slow and students are not engaged,” the report says about Garinger's math/science school. Later it notes: “The poor quality of the work displayed on walls or in the hallways demonstrates that teacher expectations of the students' potential for achievement are not high.”
Garinger's leadership school has been plagued by staff turnover and a failure to get students to buy into its mission, and even top students don't write grammatically, according to that school's report.
At international studies, “the basic content is being taught, but without the rigor that will extend students' learning and understanding.”
Seeking solutions
“We know that we have some work to do,” says Scott Muri, the area superintendent in charge of Garinger. “A lot of it's just the challenge of putting the right leaders in place.”
Barry Blair, who was an assistant principal at the old Garinger, has been with New Tech for three years and recently won CMS recognition for strong results as a principal. But the other schools have seen principals come and go in the two to three years they've been open.
Superintendent Peter Gorman said Thursday he hasn't read the reports, but “my commitment is we act on this.”
When Garinger's business/finance school lost its principal and pulled out of the reviews, Thomasboro Elementary Principal Cathy Hammond asked for her school to take its place.
As a central-office administrator, Hammond helped create the evaluations. Before that, as a principal, she'd led turnaround efforts at two struggling schools. In February Gorman tapped her to lead Thomasboro, giving her authority to bump ineffective teachers and use bonus money to recruit proven performers.
Although she'd had less than a month to make her mark, Hammond wanted the reviewers to come so she could see “if outsiders were seeing what I was seeing.”
Prod for change
They found a welcoming school with small classes and lots of extra services, loved by the community.
They also found compliant children sitting through boring lessons that wouldn't get them to grade level. Efforts to help them were often counterproductive, the report says: “For example, students are taken from math classes for reading support and so miss much of their math teaching and fall behind in math.”
Thomasboro got the lowest rating; Hammond sees that as a prod to improve: “Teachers tend to overestimate the quality of teaching and learning.”
Among her plans: A summer school will let Thomasboro students and its newer teachers learn from master teachers.
Hammond says the reviews drive home the key point about school reform: Nothing you do – small classes, long days, special programs – will make a difference unless teachers can reach their kids.
— Ann Doss Helms
Charlotte Observer
2009-05-26
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/597/story/745503.html
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