Posts filed under 'Education Reform'
“The iPod came from two people, Steve and Jonathan. The Zune came from 250. Which product would you rather own?” – Seth Godin
I participated in NBC’s Education Nation this week, and was again reminded and impressed by the passion and creativity of educators, and the desire to do right by our kids. The need for more learning time was a consistent theme, and there are dozens of excellent examples of innovative, comprehensive summer programs that already deliver more learning time while offering kids options and fun outside the traditional school setting. Yet there is a dearth of large-scale implementation.
Am I alone in my impression that the public sector is behind the curve on innovation and speed to market? The public agency culture often ties our hands on innovation because of a pre-disposition for universal consensus, buy-in, and validation. There’s a tension inherent in the structure that we need to get past. Does the apparent need to be democratic and politically appropriate preclude the innovation and the autocracy it often requires? Are we missing the opportunity to innovate while we wait for consensus?
How can we recognize the compromise necessary in serving the public good, but still rapidly deliver desperately needed innovation in education?
September 30th, 2010
I attended a terrific meeting at the White House yesterday about the role of community-based organizations in school turnaround efforts. There are literally billions of dollars available right now to the 5,000 lowest-performing schools in this country to support transforming, turning around, restarting, or closing those schools. There’s a huge potential role for summers and for nonprofits to play in this work. One strategy that’s explicitly embraced by the U.S. Dept of Education is for schools to launch summer transition programs for kids moving from 8th to 9th grade. Quality summer learning programs can help improve outcomes on student attendance, behavior, and course completion – the so-called ABCs that are critical for high school graduation. Summer is truly a time to solidify and build on school-year gains. Real school reform and transformation is a difficult enterprise – one that should involve a range of people including community and faith based organizations. We should also get serious about using all 12 months of the year to support this work. If we work hard for 180 days during the regular school year, why should we leave the other days to chance? Who’s involved in this work during the summer and what are you learning from your efforts?
September 21st, 2010
A Washington Post article Monday reported on the summer school cuts being made around the country as districts struggle to deal with budget deficits. It is a predictable but shortsighted step, given the research showing how summer learning contributes to the achievement gap.
Our own CEO Ron Fairchild and Policy Director Jeff Smink took to the back page of Education Week this month to make the case for more, not less, summer learning. In the commentary piece (may require free registration) they outline the role that high-quality summer programs can play in education reform.
Ron and Jeff argue that by re-envisioning summer school, districts could make it an investment in improved student achievement later on—a way to extend learning, provide effective intervention, and offer enrichment opportunities, particularly for those students who have few other good options during those months out of school.
We think the piece, which includes several policy recommendations, makes a great case for positioning summer learning as a vehicle for improving student achievement and getting more kids on the path to school success. Do you agree?
May 27th, 2010
There was a very interesting article in yesterday’s New York Times about alternative pathways into the teaching profession. The article highlights some of the creative, practical new approaches for preparing teachers for the classroom. We’ve seen that summer learning programs can provide a powerful training opportunity for new teachers. We typically describe this as the two-for-one benefit of investing in summer learning programs – they benefit kids directly and help attract and prepare future teachers. How have you used your program for this purpose? What are your ideas for moving this agenda forward in the context of the work that you do during the summer?
April 20th, 2010
Over the past several months, the Association has been working closely with stakeholders across the country to develop recommendations for how summers can be used more strategically to help students successfully transition from middle school to high school. Last month, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, we brought together more than 40 experts in the field in Tampa, FL, to examine the research on summers and the transition to high school, to pinpoint early warning indicators, to identify critical program components, and to discuss appropriate measures of success. The meeting was energizing and enlightening, and I look forward to updating you on what we heard after we finalize the meeting proceedings.
Since then, however, I have read two articles about another key transitional period that also coincides with summer. These articles have my wheels turning about what a unique opportunity we have to improve our summer supports.
In the first article, Rob Ivry of MDRC proposes scaling up summer bridge programs at community colleges to help college-bound but not college-ready youth take the prep courses they need to begin college on level. The summer between their junior and senior years, students who do not score high enough on college placement exams could simultaneously enroll in and complete remedial courses in areas of need – likely writing and math – and benefit from employment on the college campus – giving them a feel for what it will be like to be on campus as a student. Ivry suggests that stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act could be used to pay for the jobs in the bridge programs. He says,
Taking this idea to scale and evaluating its effectiveness will take political will and leadership; collaboration among school districts, community colleges, and the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) system (which controls the summer jobs program funding); and leveraged funding. But the effort will be worth it if we can reduce the number of students who need to take remedial courses when they go to college. Doing so will…put more young people on the path for further education, fulfilling careers, and economic security.
A second article called The Summer Flood talks about how the education pipeline springs a leak for low-income youth during the summer between high school and college. Most high schools stop serving youth at the point of graduation, and very few colleges provide formal summer bridge programs to help students matriculate from one setting to the other. Yet, even if they have already made it through the entire admission and financial aid process, a substantial portion of low-income high school graduates are still considering whether, how and where they will be able to attend college during that transitional summer. The authors say that despite national calls to conceptualize education as a seamless P-16 system, “students continue to decide about…higher education after existing theory and policy presume that the access process is complete.”
It seems to me that these articles – along with what we already know about how many students are lost during the middle to high school transition and the ninth grade in particular – provide a clear call to action. Summer providers have an obvious and powerful role to play in helping youth navigate across settings and systems. And transition year educators on both sides of the transition need to assume more ownership for ensuring youth move on successfully.
What other summer transition gaps need to gain more national attention? What programs are doing great work in helping youth bridge key summer transitions?
April 7th, 2010
There’s an interesting and somewhat alarming article in today’s New York Times about the fact that many nations are passing the United States in Education. “Among OECD countries, only New Zealand, Spain, Turkey and Mexico now have lower high school completion rates than the U.S.”
In my opinion, Senator Harkin is absolutely correct is assessing that part of the problem is that our kids are too “overentertained and distracted.” Summer is a season when far too many kids fall into this category. I’m increasingly concerned as a parent that we’re raising a generation of kids who are far more interested in Britney and Miley than geometry and geography. Many kids understand how to use their Wiis better than they know anything about the causes or implications of WWI or WWII. We’re in serious danger of replacing textbooks with texting, and raising kids who listen to bands like “Creed” or “One Republic,” but don’t actually have a rich knowledge of what those names even mean, or why they are important to all of us as citizens.
Anyway, the article reminded and convicted me that we should seek to remove distractions and the impulse to overentertain in our family life. We need to spend more time thinking, reading, writing, and talking about things that really matter and have lasting importance.
March 10th, 2010
I read a fascinating article in the New York Times Magazine yesterday titled “Building a Better Teacher” by Elizabeth Green. I was struck immediately by how many of elements in Doug Lemov’s taxonomy of effective teaching can be strengthened during the summer months. This is a classic example of how we talk about quality summer learning programs being a 2 for 1 proposition. They benefit kids directly and allow teachers to hone their craft.
March 8th, 2010
Bob Herbert’s column in today’s New York Times offers an incredibly powerful vision of what a difference quality teaching can make. The effectiveness of classroom teachers must remain the central focus of all education reform efforts. It sounds almost silly having to say that, but it’s tempting to get caught up in structural reforms rather than substantive changes in schools and classrooms.
Even as it relates to our own work with summer learning programs, we need to be vigilant about avoiding making summers the “silver bullet”. Rather, summer learning can be an essential part of efforts to strengthen quality teaching and create opportunities for students to develop the type of intellect and values Ms. Kenny describes. We cannot allow success during the summer or any other time of year to be measured solely by performance on a standardized test. We can do better than that. As the article so clearly states, “merely passing a standardized test is hardly something to aspire to.”
February 23rd, 2010
One of the major debates raging in education policy circles today deals with responsibility for increasing student academic achievement. One side believes that schools should be the primary driver through a focus on strong accountability, teacher quality, and assessments to measure progress. Others argue for a more holistic approach that integrates community supports to educate the whole child. In my view, this is a false choice—we need all of the resources that both schools AND communities can bring to the table to make sure students are successful, both academically and developmentally. Such a collaborative approach does not mean we shouldn’t hold schools accountable until poverty is eliminated, as some fear. Rather, it simply says that schools and communities need to work together now to address all of the issues that affect student success.
While it may be an unlikely source, we believe summer school can provide the type of comprehensive programming necessary to address the needs of students. The Association recently launched an initiative called New Vision for Summer School that seeks to transform summer school into a space that blends academics, enrichment, and community partnerships to engage students and teachers alike. This new vision of summer school is a place that students AND teachers want to be and not simply punishment for poor performance. And it’s not a pie in the sky idea–several districts such as Pittsburgh Public Schools will be implementing this vision this summer.
What is unique about the New Vision is that it can meet the needs of the wide variety of education stakeholders described above. During a six-week, full-day summer program, the following issues can be addressed:
- Acceleration of learning for students that need more time and/or extra help. However, instead of the traditional, remedial model of instruction, summer provides an opportunity for more hands-on lessons that can better engage students and teachers.
- Strong community partnerships that take advantage of local expertise in content and youth development to make learning fun
- Innovative professional development opportunities for teachers and administrators to test new instructional strategies and/or get leadership experience by running a summer program
- An opportunity to test and evaluate innovative strategies to gauge impact and inform policy
We admit there is still work to be done to successfully implement this vision across the nation. However, when we do, perhaps the new vision for summer school can serve as a blueprint for education reform. After all, why should education programs be comprehensive and engaging only during the summer?
What are your thoughts? How can we take the best of summer programs and integrate them into the school year? And how can we take the best of school year programs and integrate into the summer?
February 16th, 2010
There’s a very interesting story in today’s New York Times about the Obama administration’s planned changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We’re planning to play a key role in ongoing discussions about how summer learning programs can be a stronger part of the administration’s reform priorities and changes they are hoping to make to categorical funding streams. We want to get “summer learning” mentioned in the law everywhere it talks about expanding time for learning and turning around low performing schools. What other priorities do you think we should have as these discussions move forward?
February 1st, 2010
