Let's start with the most egregious misuse of the report, the top line finding that small schools have negatively impacted large ones. As Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein have opened hundreds of new small high schools, schools with high attendance and gradution rates, the remaining large ones have seen their enrollments balloon and their rates drop. One goes up, one goes down, so it must be a wash, right?
Wrong. Citywide attendance and graduation rates are up.
But the media never digested this. They focused on the negative, that large high schools are slightly worse than they used to be, and made that the emphasis of their coverage. The report was great not for its startling new findings but for its balanced look at New York's schools. It found, among other things:
- Klein has closed 21 large high schools that had some of the city's worst performance records and the lowest levels of student and parent demand. At the same time he's opened 200 new small high schools that enroll about one-fifth of the city's high schoolers.
- Small schools are not creaming. Following up on a US Department of Education finding that small schools are not discriminating, Hemphill and Nauer found that small schools enroll roughly the same proportion of at-risk students (overage, ELL, special ed, low-income) as other city high schools.
- Small schools are better, on average, than medium and large high schools. Small schools have higher four- and six-year graduation rates, attendance, and percentage of students earning more than ten credits, even after controlling for poverty.
- A new system for placing students in schools has decreased the number of students rejected by all of their schools from 31,000 in 2002 to 7,445 in 2009.
Goldstein and Ezra Klein seized on a graphic from the Hemphill and Nauer report showing the steps New York City students and parents must take to learn about and apply to high schools. And while it's true that the city's high school admissions process is complex--all eighth graders must list their top 12 choices from a list of almost 700 unique programs--Goldstein's reminder that "school reform means reforming all schools for all kids" and Ezra Klein's statement that, "school choice isn't supposed to simply amplify the benefits that kids from good homes already have," miss the progress being made. In almost no other city does a kid have such options, options that allow all students to select from all city schools. Evidence from the Hemphill and Nauer report actually shows that students and parents have gotten better at navigating this process over time. And, even though the city still graduates just over half its students in four years, the reforms undertaken by Bloomberg and Joel Klein have had a positive net impact for all the city's children.
1 comment:
Chad,
The thoughtful pieces of Klein and Goldstein, and the impressive study by Hemphill and Nauer, deserve equally thoughtful responses.
I don’t want to dwell on your cheap shots so I’ll just take one example. Not being found guilty of violating federal law is not the same as not creaming. After all, small schools had been allowed two year’s freedom in their selection process in order to get off to a good start. That policy may be a good idea. But it is still creaming.
Hemphill and Nauer write that small schools, on the average, NOW serve a population comparable to the overall system. (Emphasis mine) They also conclude that small schools, now that their original cohort of students is being replaced, NOW face declines in attendance and graduation. (Emphasis mine)
If you want to include a paragraph in every post, regardless of the issue and evidence, that defends Klein, Rhee and/or other accountability hawks as misunderstood, that’s fine. But then move onto a substantive discussion.
Perhaps we need a new term to replace “creaming.” The term predates NCLB. I’ve always thought of it as descriptive, not an attack on NCLB-type accountability. Can’t we agree that choice inherently results in creaming? Can’t we agree that KIPP, Klein, and others would like to minimize creaming? And can’t we agree that the greater complexity of the NYC system created additional hardships for kids and families who don’t understand how to navigate complex systems?
The issue is not the sizes of the crosses that we adults have to bear. The issue is whether the policies that achieve success in charters, small schools, and magnets can be replicated. Can’t we agree that the challenges faced by “the default schools” are tougher, and require additional resources, and aren’t necessarily amenable to the methods of the charters/small school/magnets that face relatively easier challenges?
Can’t we agree that the problems in neighborhood schools have been made worse, and more complex, by “the Big Sort,” which leaves a greater critical mass of more troubled children? Can’t we agree that educational choice is a part of that self-segregation? Even if the Big Sort has made it more difficult to converse with people from different backgrounds, can’t we agree that that segregation makes conversation even more important. Can’t we borrow from academics and offer a fair summary of our opponents’ position and not just descend into non-stop “spin?”
Post a Comment