On this Memorial Day weekend edition of the Dropout Nation Podcast, RiShawn Biddle offers five key questions families should ask in order to help their kids stay on the path to success in school and in life. From asking a teacher for specifics on what their child should work on during the summer, to asking principals if they know the areas of learning Common Core reading and math standards specify for each grade, you can take power for your children as well as for all of our kids.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle Radio or download directly to your mobile or desktop device. Also, subscribe to the podcast series, and embed this podcast on your site. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Zune Marketplace, Stitcher, and PodBean.

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What Chicago’s children need now is the expansion of high-quality school choices.

As you would expect, the American Federation of Teachers’ Chicago local and other traditionalists are none too pleased by Chicago Public Schools’ decision to formally shut down 49 of its underutilized schools. Karen Lewis, the notoriously bellicose head of the AFT local, the Chicago Teachers Union, declared in a press released earlier this afternoon that the decision has led to a “ day of mourning for the children of Chicago” and promises to follow up on her threat to recruit someone to run against Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he comes up for re-election two years from now. Others such as national AFT President Randi Weingarten and MSNBC commentator Jeff Johnson have embraced the Chicago AFT’s talking point that the Second City district’s school shutdowns will lead to more children being murdered and endangered because some will have to go through more-dangerous neighborhoods in the city just to attend new schools. Meanwhile traditionalists in the Second City continue to grasp upon an analysis by public radio outlet WBEZ-FM that shows that black children account for 88 percent of the schools that were targeted back in March for closure (despite making up two-fifths of enrollment) to declare that the district is essentially engaged in racial bigotry. The Chicago AFT, in particular, attempted to argue this in two federal lawsuits it is financing aimed at stopping the district from closing the schools. [For some inexplicable reason, a hearing on both suits will be held in July.]

Of course, Lewis, Weingarten and others fail to mention a few things. The first? That keeping schools open in itself won’t do anything immediately to address crime and violence outside its doors. The two decade long overhaul of the district undertaken by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and predecessor Richard M. Daley is slowly working to address the dropout crisis that is a long-term culprit in spurring crime in the city; schools can also play a role in economic renewal. But it cannot immediately address problems that are largely due to the Second City’s failures to embrace the Broken Windows approach to fighting crime that has made even New York City a much-safer place to live — a failing for which Emanuel should be held accountable (and one his predecessor never did as much as he could have to address) – and the gang activity fueled by the nation’s longstanding (and failed) prohibition on narcotics and marijuana. [Let's also keep in mind that even with Emanuel and Daley fils not embracing more-aggressive crime-fighting tactics, the Second City is far less violent than it was two decades ago; the number of reported homicides declined by 53 percent between 1999 and 2010, according to Dropout Nation's analysis of U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data.]

Meanwhile the argument that children attending soon-to-be closed may end up attending schools in more-violent areas fails to consider this fact: Some of the schools being closed are in some of Chicago’s most-violent neighborhoods, which means that children who attend school there are already endangered before and after they leave school buildings.  Seventy-nine incidents — including battery, assault, and burglary — were reported between May 2012 and May 2013 in the neighborhood home to the soon-to-be shuttered Yale Elementary School on Princeton Avenue and West 70th Street, according to Dropout Nation‘s analysis of crime data provided by the city. Around Attucks Elementary on East 51st and South State Street, there were 37 incidents within the past year — including nine incidents around the school building itself. One would take the arguments of Lewis and others seriously if they were calling upon Emanuel to revamp how the city addresses crime and other quality of life issues — including hiring more police officers to patrol neighborhoods on the South Side of town. But then, such demands from the Chicago AFT would mean that the city would not provide raises to its rank-and-file, which then means less money and influence for the union and its national parent.

As for the matter of race? The inconvenient fact is that black students are the ones most-affected by the shutdowns because they live in neighborhoods that have been contracting for some time. The fact that the district mostly serves black and Latino children, with white children making up just 9 percent of enrollment, doesn’t factor into traditionalist thinking. More importantly, black families — especially those in the middle class — are walking away from Chicago schools. Just 173,173 black children attended Chicago’s schools in 2010-2011, a 26 percent decline over enrollment for black students in 1991-1992, and according to data from the U.S. Department of Education; in fact, that decline — along with a 56 percent increase in the number of Latino kids attending Chicago schools in that same period — means that black children no longer make up the majority of enrollment.

Chicago can’t keep open 50 school buildings if there aren’t enough kids attending them — and it definitely can’t keep 280 additional underutilized buildings open for long. It definitely can’t do so when it also faces a budget deficit of at least $600 million for the current fiscal year, which, along with a looming deficit of $1 billion, is forcing the district to finally take action to shut down half-empty schools. There’s also its defined-benefit pension deficit, which is officially reported as being $8 billion for 2012, but more-likely to be $11 billion, according to Dropout Nation‘s analysis of financial data using a formula developed by Moody’s Investors Service. The Chicago AFT, along with its allies, shares in the blame for these woes. After all, the union continues to embrace an old-school industrial union model that ignores both its consequences to children, younger teachers, and taxpayers alike; since the union also controls seats on the pension, it is also responsible for its fiscal mess.

Meanwhile all the carping over the school closings ignore the fact that Chicago, like its counterparts in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.,  is struggling with the same problems of overemphasis on scale over quality and choice that is inextricably linked with the traditional district model. Certainly Chicago is a better-performing district academically than it was two decades ago; the percentage of functionally illiterate fourth-graders declined from 60 percent to 52 percent between 2003 and 2011, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, while the percentage of students reading at Proficient and Advanced levels increased from 14 percent to 18 percent during that time. But middle class families of all backgrounds are no longer willing to wait for the district to improve further and are willing to leave for suburbia in the hopes of sending their kids to district schools that turn out to be merely mediocre. It is why two out of every five kids born in the city in 2005 did not attend kindergarten in traditional district schools five years later.

For poor and lower middle class families — including those from Latino backgrounds who are increasingly becoming the face of the Second City — the district’s struggles with underutilized buildings and battles with the bellicose Chicago AFT — also makes it difficult for them to access any options, much less those of high quality. The school closings, necessary as they may be, force these families to send their kids to schools outside of their neighborhoods. The district’s Zip Code Education policies — which lead to 37,000 seats in the district’s best-performing schools to go unfilled — are especially galling. Meanwhile last year’s strike by the Chicago AFT was a particularly nasty reminder to them that they are beholden to the union’s antics unless they are one of the few who send their kids to the 119 charter schools in the city (or can access enough money to send their kids to private or parochial schools).The fact that the Chicago AFT has engaged in rank demagoguery against charter school operators meeting the needs of families even as its rank-and-file enthusiastically embraces choice (39 percent of Chicago teachers sent their kids to private schools, according to the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in a 2004 report, a number that has likely increased since then), is especially blood boiling.

What all of Chicago’s families need now is a wide array of high-quality school options both within and outside their neighborhoods. This is where Emanuel must step up on their behalf. He should immediately move to eliminate the district’s school zones, which would open up those 37,000 seats. Emanuel should also build upon predecessor Daley’s Renaissance 2010 initiative to launch new charter schools in the city. This includes teaming with major charter school operators such as KIPP, as well as teaming up with outfits such as the Black Star Project (which already provides tutoring to kids in the city) to launch new charters in the neighborhoods affected by the school closings; the current plan to authorize 17 new charters is not even close to enough, but either for the affected neighborhoods or for those in the city’s North Side, where overcrowded schools (and the district’s inability to meet demand) is the norm.

Chicago should also lease space in the soon-to-be-shuttered district schools, embracing the space sharing approach pioneered by New York City in bringing charters to Harlem and other communities. Enacting a Parent Trigger rule that would allow families to take control of — and overhaul — failing schools that remain open is also an important step to expanding choice within neighborhoods.

Emanuel can go even further by fostering the development of blended learning by outfits such as Rocketship Education, and DIY education efforts by families, churches, and community groups in the city. The latter, in particular, would help Emanuel build bridges with those who legitimately feel that the city hasn’t fully considered the impact of the shutdowns on their neighborhoods. It would also put the Chicago AFT on the defensive; after all, it will be harder for Lewis to claim that her union is engaged in social change when the union opposed the expansion of school operations by the very people she claims she cares about.

The time is now for Chicago to move beyond school shutdowns — and away from the traditional district model. It is the only way all of our kids in the Second City will have the good and great schools they deserve.

Unlike AEI, George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy largely got it right with No Child.

One wouldn’t expect that the American Enterprise Institute’s report on the effectiveness of the No Child Left Behind Act and its accountability provisions would be anything but unfavorable. After all, AEI’s education czar, Rick Hess, has never had much fondness for No Child; in particular, he has blamed the law (as well as his allies among centrist Democrat and civil rights-oriented reformers) of fostering what he calls an “achievement gap mania” which has led to “education policy that has shortchanged many children”. [Your editor  forcefully shredded Hess' assertions two years ago, and, as you can imagine, he didn't take too kindly to it.] Duke Professor Jacob Vigdor, who, along with University of Kentucky’s Thomas Ahn, a co-wrote the report, shares similar views, arguing most-recently in a piece in RealClearMarkets on efforts to help all students take algebra and other college preparatory math that school reformers have a mistaken “focus on [stemming educational] inequality.”

Given these facts, the report’s point of view on No Child was never in doubt, and the report’s overall conclusion about it, to some extent, was already predetermined. This isn’t to say that the AEI report doesn’t at least try to give No Child honest consideration. If anything, when one focuses squarely on the data and other evidence provided, it is clear that No Child has actually been successful in spurring a decade of systemic reforms that have helped more children stay on the path to lifelong success.

The problem is that Ahn and Vigdor ignore their own data to offer recommendations that would do little more than roll back the very tools that have helped so many kids. This common flaw of think tank research — conclusions that don’t match with the data provided — makes the AEI report one than is less than useful to reformers and policymakers alike.

The good news is that Ahn and Vigdor concede that No Child’s Adequate Yearly Progress provisions, which led to the development of state-level accountability systems for holding districts and schools accountable for providing high-quality education for all children, “have beneficial systemic effects”. By shining harsh light on the low performance of schools as well as prescribing consequences for continued failure, No Child’s accountability provisions forced districts to focus on improving student achievement, especially for poor and minority children who had long been ignored. In the case of North Carolina, for example, the mere threat of No Child’s sanctions alone led to many schools that were identified as failing for the first time to take on the kind of reforms needed to improve student achievement; on average, a Tar Heel State school improved its math performance by five percent of a standard deviation, while the performance of an “average-performing student” increased from the 50th percentile to the 52nd percentile in a single year. No Child’s requirement of forcing schools to restructure after six years of persistent failure also works; a school in North Carolina forced to restructure after six consecutive years of laggard performance did improve student achievement by five percent of a standard deviation in both reading and math.

Through use of the research done on North Carolina, Ahn and Vigdor also correctly shot down the argument made by some (most-notably Hess, along with Mike Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute) that No Child’s focus on stemming achievement gaps led o high-performing students being shortchanged. This corresponds with Dropout Nation‘s analysis of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which shows that average reading and math scores for top-performing students improved between 2002 and 2011 (versus almost no change between 1998 and 2002, before No Child was implemented), while the percentage of students reaching proficient and advanced levels in reading and mathematics has actually increased since the passage of No Child (including a four percentage point increase in the number of students reaching such levels in reading between 2002 and 2011, versus a three percentage point increase between 1998 and 2002, before No Child’s implementation). While Ahn and Vigor note that North Carolina’s implementation of AYP — including merit bonuses to teachers who increased student test score growth — may have ameliorated any possible “adverse impacts” on either top-performing or struggling students, they conclude that “leaving high performers behind… is not an inherent feature of an accountability system.” If anything, No Child’s focus on stemming achievement gaps — and helping poor and minority kids receive high-quality teaching and curricula — yields benefits for all children.

Ahn’s and Vigdor’s conclusions about the success of No Child’s accountability provisions is especially interesting because it is based on data they culled from North Carolina, a state that didn’t embrace systemic reform as wholeheartedly as others such as Florida. Given that their data and conclusions derive largely from experiences in one state, one could argue that the underlying data isn’t representative of No Child’s impact on a national level. But based on data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, this argument doesn’t necessarily hold. The percentage of Tar Heel State fourth-graders reading Below Basic declined by a mere two percentage points between 2003 and 2011, versus the four percentage point decline experienced nationwide and Florida’s eight percentage point decline in the number of students struggling with literacy. The nine percent decline in the percentage of low-income Tar Heel fourth-grade young black men reading Below Basic merely kept pace with the national average decline, and trailed the Sunshine State’s 16 percent decline, while the five percent decline in the percentage of poor young white men in fourth grade struggling with literacy was lower than both the six percent national average decline, and Florida’s 16 percent decline. If No Child helped states such as North Carolina make changes that led to important steps in helping all students succeed — and spurred aggressive reform states such as Florida make even greater improvements — then it is hard for anyone to conclude that No Child was anything other than a success.

Meanwhile the AEI report makes some important points about some of No Child’s shortcomings. Ahn and Vigdor rightfully note that No Child’s school choice provision, which allows families with kids in failing schools to move them into better-performing operations within a district, didn’t achieve much; this is because districts often failed to inform families about their options — often letting them know at the end of the school year instead of mid-year (when families could do the work needed to make better-informed decisions) — along with the reality that most failing districts have few high-performing schools to offer in the first place; as a result, few families ever had opportunity to use the option. Reformers should learn from the problems with No Child’s school choice provision and push for the expansion of school choice beyond the district — including inter-district choice programs such as those in place in Michigan and Indiana, as well as the expansion of voucher programs and charter schools.

The report also correctly notes that No Child’s Supplemental Educational Services provision, under which children would be provided tutoring services, didn’t yield much in the way of good results. Ahn and Vigdor get plenty wrong in their quick analysis of why SES didn’t lead to any improvements in student achievement; their assertion that the SES provision was “unfunded” (and thus, required districts to hand over a share of their Title 1 dollars) is incorrect because it was a penalty that districts had to accept in exchange for federal dollars, while they fail to look at the implementation issues that came with SES (including the fact that state education departments, which are charged with selecting and monitoring tutoring providers, often lacked the capacity to either hold vendors or districts accountable). At the same time, reformers do need to apply the correct lessons from the poor implementation of the SES provision; this includes building up the capacity of state education departments to better monitor tutoring providers, a lesson that can be applied to the oversight of all school providers.

Based on the data, one would think that Ahn and Vigdor would call for Congress and the Obama Administration should build upon No Child’s accountability provisions — and even expand them by focusing on sectors of American public education not touched directly by the law, including the university schools of education whose failures in training teachers is an underlying culprit of the nation’s education crisis. One would even expect the report to argue strongly against the evisceration of No Child’s accountability provisions being undertaken by the administration as part of its less-than-thoughtful waiver gambit. Instead, Ahn and Vigdor offer a conclusion that isn’t based on the research presented in the report.

Ahn and Vigdor are right that student test score growth data (in the form of Value-Added) should be a critical part of any (unlikely) future revamp of No Child’s accountability measures; in fact, most states have already done this thanks in part to the move by former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings several years ago to allow growth models. But their most-important recommendation– that No Child’s provisions forcing states and districts to overhaul and even close failing schools should be ditched in favor of allowing districts “to design their own sanction regimes” — goes against the evidence that the toughest penalties actually work. More importantly, the recommendation also fails to consider the reality that districts have no incentive to overhaul their own operations. Why? The influence of National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers affiliates, which are the biggest players in school board races and are the most-opposed to any measure that leads to loss of clout (and the comfortable work conditions rank-and-file members enjoy), all but ensures that districts will do as little as possible to undertake reform measures without the threat of state or federal intervention. The cultures of dysfunction within traditional district bureaucracies — especially those of failing systems — also make it unlikely for districts to improve their operations.

In fact, it is the very unwillingness of districts (often driven by the influence exerted by traditionalist forces such as affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers) to address their systemic issues that led to the passage of No Child more than a decade ago, as well as the efforts of reformers, governors and chambers of commerce in southern states to develop the accountability measures embraced in the law. The unwillingness of districts to do well by all kids, along with the realization that higher levels of education spending weren’t leading to better results, is also the reason why reform-minded governors and legislators, have also pushed hard on other reforms such as expanding school choice. The federal government has played a strong role in aiding those efforts through steps such as the passage of No Child, along with moves such as the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top, all of which reaffirm the constitutionally granted role of states to control education policy.

[There are problems with Ahn’s and Vigdor’s other conclusions, including arguing against ditching laggard teachers. But because the study doesn’t even cover those issues, the recommendations aren’t even worth discussing.]

Ahn and Vigdor should know this by now, as should AEI’s education policy shop. That they chose to ignore these facts (along with data they cite in their own research) isn’t shocking. As I mentioned earlier, AEI doesn’t have a favorable view of No Child (or federal education policy) in the first place, and doesn’t think that stemming achievement gaps is a good idea. The fact that AEI has long ago bought into the mistaken notion that education decisions should be driven almost solely by districts — a corruption of the “laboratories of democracy” notion originally coined by famed jurist Louis Brandeis in describing dual federalism (and states driving policy within their own boundaries) – also factors in the thinking. As a result, it becomes difficult for AEI to admit that the role of the federal government in supporting systemic reform at the state level — a role embraced in some form or another by nearly every president since Dwight David Eisenhower (and aggressively supported by the last two White House occupants) — actually makes sense. It also makes it difficult for AEI to acknowledge that simply leaving districts to their own devices, which is what states and the federal government has done for most of the past 150 years, hasn’t led to the development of policies and practices — from ability-tracking and the comprehensive high school model, to near-lifetime employment in the form of tenure — that has led to the problems besetting American public education (and ultimate, children).

The Ahn and Vigdor report could have been a rather insightful piece on why accountability is important in driving systemic reform. In some ways, it is. But by arguing conclusions that don’t match the evidence, the report is nowhere as useful as it could have been.

When it comes to poor kids, suburban districts do no better in providing them high-quality education than their big-city counterparts.

If you want to understand how poorly suburban districts do in providing their growing enrollments of poor and minority children with high-quality education — and why reformers cannot simply ignore those woes — take a glimpse at the school districts in tony Hamilton County, Ind., outside of Indianapolis, whose suburbs are home to some of the Hoosier State’s most-prosperous families.

For most of the past three decades, districts such as Carmel-Clay, Hamilton Southeastern, and Westfield-Washington have only had to provide teaching and curricula to the children of executives and middle managers of such Fortune 500 outfits such as drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., and healthcare giant WellPoint, who fled from the Circle City for traditional district schools perceived to be better than the failure mills of woeful Indianapolis Public Schools and even the relative mediocrity of its 10 sister districts. But thanks in part to the failures of IPS, along with the Hamilton County’s strong population growth, children from low-income backgrounds are making up large percentages of enrollment. Between 1999-2000 and 2010-2011, the percentage of children in Hamilton County’s traditional districts and charters receiving free- and reduced-priced lunch increased by 329 percent, according to a Dropout Nation analysis of data reported to the U.S. Department of Education. Poor children made up 12 percent of all students attending Hamilton County’s traditional districts in 2010-2011, versus 4.4 percent of enrollment 12 years ago. This includes Carmel-Clay, whose percentage of poor students increased by 467 percent within that period (they made up 9.5 percent of all students in 2010-2011), Hamilton Southeastern, which has seen an 11-fold increase in poor children attending its schools (who now make up 14.3 percent of enrollment), and Westfield-Washington, which has seen its enrollment of low-income children increase by nearly a two-fold (children from poor households made up 18 percent of enrollment).

Yet Hamilton County’s districts aren’t providing their poorest children the high-quality education they deserve. In Carmel-Clay, the percentage of low-income fourth-graders passing the reading and math portions of the Hoosier State’s ISTEP+ exams increased by only 6.3 percent between 2009 and 2011, according to a Dropout Nation analysis of data provided by the Indiana Department of Education, while the percentage of low-income fourth graders in Westfield-Washington passing ISTEP+ increased by just 6.5 percent. The percentage of low-income fourth-grade peers in Hamilton Southeastern passing ISTEP+ actually declined by 4.7 percent over that same period. All three districts trailed the 23.4 percent increase in percentage of low-income fourth-graders statewide passing the exams. The districts are also struggling to stem the wide achievement gaps between poor and middle class kids. The percentage of low-income fourth-graders in all three districts passing ISTEP was, on average, 20 percentage points lower than for middle-class peers, just a few points lower than the 24.7 percent gap statewide. But don’t think that just the poor and minority kids are being poorly served. The percentage of Carmel-Clay middle-class fourth-graders passing both parts of ISTEP+ increased by a mere 2.4 percent, while Hamilton Southeastern experienced a 4.4 percent increase; the percentage of Westfield-Washington fourth-graders from the middle class passing ISTEP+ increased by 5.3 percent. Both districts trailed the 9 percent increase in the percentage of middle class fourth-graders statewide passing the exams.

The suburban districts are also doing poorly in helping its poorest students gain the college-preparatory education they need to ultimately move into the middle class. Just 32 percent of Carmel’s high school graduates in 2011 on free lunch programs (and 20 percent of those on reduced-lunch programs) took an Advanced Placement exam, versus 55.3 percent of middle class peers did so; a mere 26.5 percent of Hamilton Southeastern’s high school graduates on free lunch (and 32 percent of reduced-lunch graduates) took AP exams, versus 73.5 percent of middle-class peers. Just 15.6 percent of Westfield-Washington’s graduates on free lunch (along with half of reduced-lunch peers) took an AP exam, versus 61.7 percent of middle class peers. The AP test taking levels for low-income students were were lower than the 38 percent national average for all graduates.

This isn’t to say that Hamilton County’s suburban districts are as woeful as IPS — which, despite improving the passing rates for its poorest fourth-graders on ISTEP+ by 12 percent between 2009 and 2011, remains the worst-performing district in the Midwest outside of Detroit. But Carmel-Clay, Hamilton Southeastern, and Westfield-Washington haven’t learned from the troubles of IPS or the struggles of formerly suburban (and now, completely urban peers) such as Washington Township, As a result,  poor children – as well as those from the middle class – are paying the price. Thanks to the Hoosier State’s efforts to expand school choice — including the nation’s most-expansive voucher program — the poorest families in Hamilton County do have opportunities to choose better options for their kids. But this isn’t true for many children from poor households (as well as those from black and Latino backgrounds) living in suburbia. And this is a big issue because there are more poor children attending suburban district schools than ever.

As the Brookings Institution has pointed out in a book it is releasing tomorrow, the percentage of poor families flocking to suburbia increased by 67 percent; on average, 12 percent of residents in suburbia are struggling economically and socially, versus 22 percent of residents in big cities. This, in turn, means that more low-income families are sending their kids to the suburban districts long considered to be cordons solitaire from the nation’s education crisis. As with black and Latino families from the middle class, poor families of all backgrounds move into suburbia thinking that traditional district schools in those communities will do better in providing their kids with high-quality teaching and curricula than the big city districts they fled. The strong job growth in the ‘burbs compared to big cities, along with the lower costs of rent and other housing and lower levels of violent crime, have also brought more low-income families to suburban communities and their schools.

But as it turns out, far too many suburban districts provide all children with mediocre education — and serve children from poor backgrounds worst of all. This starts with the Zip Code Education policies such as school zones that keep poor families from sending their kids to better-performing schools within districts. Thirty-four percent of suburban kids — and three out of every five black and Latino kids in suburbia — attend schools where more than half their peers are on free and reduced lunch, according to the U.S. Department of Education; this essentially means that there is at least a one-in-two chance that they are poor themselves. The restrictions are especially galling considering that the growth of charter schools and other forms of choice in big cities has given poor families who live in those locales wider arrays of options.

These intra-district restrictions are matched by the longstanding opposition to the expansion of charter schools and other forms of choice that would avail poor families (as well as middle-class counterparts) of other options. States have aided and abetted their efforts by giving traditional districts approval over the opening of charter schools. Given that charters are competition with their schools, suburban districts have little incentive to either approve charters, authorize high-quality operators, or, as in the case of the fracas two years ago between the Fulton County district in Georgia and the Fulton Science Academy (now a private school), keep them around if they show up the competition.

The consequences of these restrictions, along with the unwillingness of suburban district bureaucracies to embrace the array of systemic reforms taken on by big-city districts such as New York City, can be seen in the performance of children from low-income households on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. One out of every two young men in suburban fourth-grade classrooms on free- and reduced lunch (along with two out of five young women peers) read Below Basic in 2011, a mere four and two points decline, respectively, from the levels of functional illiteracy four years earlier. Given that the percentage of low-income suburban fourth-grade young men struggling with literacy is only seven percentage points lower than that for big-city counterparts (and only six points lower for suburban fourth-grade young women peers than for big-city counterparts), suburban districts are doing as poorly as big-city counterparts in providing the poorest kids with high-quality education needed for success in an increasingly knowledge-based economy.

Meanwhile poor families are learning the hard way that many teachers and school leaders working in suburbia can be just as condescending to them — and think as lowly of the potential of their kids — as the instructors and school leaders in the big-city districts these families left behind. This isn’t surprising because black and Latino families from middle-class backgrounds, often having emerged from poverty themselves, have also been treated with the same disdain. As University of Michigan Associate Professor Karyn Lacey noted in Blue-Chip Black, her sociological study of middle-class black families in the suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital, black families living in Fairfax County found themselves battling teachers and guidance counselors who wanted to relegate children to academic tracks that keep them from getting high-paying white- and blue-collar jobs. This is not unusual. When one looks at the low level this country, these families are often not informed about their options for preparing their kids for success in school and in life, including opportunities to take Advanced Placement courses or participate in the growing number of dual-credit programs that allow them to take community college courses that they can use for getting ready for the rigors of higher education.

But the consequences of suburban district mediocrity aren’t just visited on the brown and the penniless. One out of every five suburban fourth grade young men from middle-class backgrounds were reading Below Basic in 2011, according to Dropout Nation‘s analysis of NAEP data, just three points better than levels of illiteracy four years earlier; big-city districts brought down the levels of illiteracy for their middle class students by four percentage points in that same period, with nearly as many students from those backgrounds struggling with reading. Twenty-eight percent of suburban fourth-graders overall were functionally illiterate in 2011, no better than the levels four years earlier; this compares poorly to the one- and two-point declines, respectively, among big-city and rural districts in the same period. Meanwhile one out of every eight white suburban fourth-graders not on free-or-reduced lunch are struggling with reading  equal to the levels of illiteracy in big-city districts. Suburban districts can no longer pretend that low-quality teaching and curricula is just a problem for families in urban communities. And this aspect of the nation’s education crisis — one that the No Child Left Behind Act and its accountability provisions have helped expose — is one that reformers must address as part of transforming American public education.

This won’t be easy. After all, the complaints from suburbia about how No Child has led to revelations of traditional district mediocrity is one reason why the Obama Administration has undertaken its thoughtless waiver gambit. The fact that middle class families, who moved to the burbs for what they thought were high-quality schools, don’t necessarily want to admit how poorly their districts are doing with poor kids (as well as their own) is also a problem. But the very growth in the number of poor and minority families in suburbia offers reformers opportunities to rally support. Strong grassroots advocacy, especially with poor and minority families and the churches that are the hubs of their social and political lives, is a start. But simply focusing on the academic failures of suburban districts isn’t enough. Reformers would also do well to learn from the NEA and AFT, and provide financial support to new and emerging organizations — as well as old-school groups — to which a younger generation of black professionals now raising families belong.

Advancing the expansion ofschool choice and Parent Power (including blended learning options) is also key. Making the case that choice allows for all families, poor or middle class, to meet the particular needs of their children can win support, especially from  white middle class families who realize that how they are hurt by school zones and other Zip Code Education policies (and are also condescended by teachers and school leaders when they want more for their kids), but don’t see any other way to avoid those problems beyond paying for private schools out their own pockets. Working at the state level to place charter school authorization solely in the hands of state governments would also make it easier to expand choice in suburbia. States such as Georgia and Tennessee have already made such moves; reformers should make this a reality in every state.

Advancing the implementation of Common Core reading and math standards is also keep, use especially in states where choice remains restricted; it is clear that neither poor nor middle class children are receiving comprehensive college preparatory curricula. Because this means making clear to middle class households (including those who are movement conservatives, and thus, often opposed to the standards) that the status quo is not good enough for their own kids or anyone else’s. [Oddly enough, Indiana's legislature has done a disservice to all children in suburbia last month when it moved to halt implementation of Common Core.] And recruiting newly-graduated teens — especially those who have managed to graduate from high school and attend college in spite of the odds — to run for state school board races would also help; this can help parents understand how mediocre education for other people’s children regardless of background may hurt their own kin.

With more poor children moving into suburbia, the struggles the traditional districts in those communities have in providing high-quality education to those kids (as well as peers from the middle class) can no longer be ignored. It’s time for reformers to tackle the problems of suburban districts are fiercely as they have done in big cities.

Unsurprisingly, the adoption of common educational standards is opposed by some hard-liners on the educational left. The Common Core’s call for coherent, content-based math and literacy standards threatens to undo the watered-down version of progressive education thinking that has dominated the public schools over the past half-century… Much more puzzling has been the fervid opposition to the Common Core by some conservatives, including tea party activists, several free-market think tanks and, most recently, the Republican National Committee. The most frequently repeated complaint from the right is that states were pressured (or bribed) by the Obama administration to sign on to the Common Core through the billions of dollars handed out by the administration’s Race to The Top competition. (Common Core was one of the education reforms that helped states qualify for Race to the Top grants.) Conservative critics say this was an unlawful federal intrusion into a policy area reserved to the states by the Constitution.

These claims do not stand up to close scrutiny. The Common Core Standards were not written by the federal government, but by a committee selected by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. The committee’s efforts were backed financially by several private foundations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This is constitutional federalism at its best. The five states that declined to adopt the standards were not punished or sanctioned by the federal government. Conservative Gov. Mitch Daniels in Indiana, for example, refused to apply for Race to the Top funds, but he supported the Common Core because he understood they were the right thing to do for school children.

For most states—which have lacked demanding standards for years—the Common Core represents a remarkable advance in rigor and academic content. Since the standards call for a coherent, grade-by-grade curriculum, those states that have signed on to the Common Core are now having a serious discussion about the specific subject matter that must be taught in the classroom. This is a discussion that’s been neglected for almost half a century. Some conservatives want to continue trying to bring down the whole edifice of the Common Core, thereby returning public education to the curricular wasteland that has prevailed up to now. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to participate in the conversation about how to make the standards and the academic content taught in American classrooms even better?

Sol Stern and former New York City Chancellor Joel Klein, in the Wall Street Journal, calling out movement conservatives who complain about low-quality education, yet oppose the implementation of Common Core standards. Not that many of them are offering compelling (or honest) reasons against doing so.

When your primary contribution to urban education is the explanation as to why our kids can’t be educated it’s time for you to retire… When all is said and done, we will be judged by what we’ve done for kids not what we said kids can’t do.

Dr. Steve Perry, on Twitter, reminding all of us to be fire walkers for our children, the subject of this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast.

A lot of students thought if they don’t pass [graduate from ROADS Charter School 2 in New York City] that’s OK, I’ll just get my GED. I said guys, a GED is four years of high school crammed into a two-day test. If you’re at a fourth-grade reading level, you’re not going to pass. They’re not going to get angry if someone says you need support that isn’t high school work. They’re tired of people lying to them and giving them work that just keeps them busy in class.

Seth Litt, Principal of ROADS Charter School 2 in the South Bronx section of the Big Apple (which is profiled on GothamSchools), pointing out the need for teachers and school leaders to do more than damn children with low expectations.

Districts only improve if their own leaders are determined to make that happen, and that’s far too rare a situation in American education. They only respond to competition—that is, respond constructively to competition—if they’re well led, not brain-dead, and not completely entangled in their own bureaucratics, contracts, and governance malfunctions. Let’s assume that most bad districts are going to stay bad. Then the job of serious reformers… is to give kids every possible exit from them into something better. Helping an entire school to extricate itself from the dysfunctional system is surely one such strategy. Instead of pooh-poohing it, how about we put it on the list of possibilities, wish it well, and do our damnedest to help it succeed as often as possible?

Thomas B. Fordham Institute President Checker Finn, imploring fellow Beltway school reformers to ditch their myopia and embrace Parent Trigger laws that allow families to transform failing schools (and expand school choice) within their own neighborhoods.

On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, RiShawn Biddle calls out talk of “reform fatigue”, declaring that we must embrace the fire of the challenges to systemic reform, and stay energized to help all of our children get the high-quality education they need and deserve. Reformers must walk through the fire of opposition to systemic reform in order to help our children and their families avoid the economic and social abyss.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle Radio or download directly to your mobile or desktop device. Also, subscribe to the podcast series, and embed this podcast on your site. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Zune Marketplace, Stitcher, and PodBean.

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