Author: Dropout Nation Editorial Board

NAEP’s Call to Do Better by Kids

October 28, 2015 12:21 pm October 28, 2015

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31 The percentage of all fourth-graders reading Below Basic on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal test of student achievement. This is a mere one point decrease…

31

The percentage of all fourth-graders reading Below Basic on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress, the federal test of student achievement. This is a mere one point decrease from 2013, but a five point decrease from 2002.

36

The percentage of fourth graders reading at Proficient and Advanced levels on NAEP 2015. This is just a one point increase over 2013, but a five percent increase over 2002.

24

The percentage of all eighth-graders reading Below Basic on NAEP 2015. This is a two point increase over 2013, but still a one point decline over 2002.

35

The percentage of all eighth-graders reading at Proficient and Advanced levels in 2015. This is a one point decline over 2013, but still a two point increase over 2002.

34

The percentage of all young men in fourth grade reading Below Basic on NAEP 2015. This is a one point decline over 2013 — and a five point decline since 2002. This is still six points higher than the 28 percent of young women in fourth grade reading Below Basic in 2015, which, by the way, is unchanged from two years ago, and five points lower than in 2002.

34

The percentage of young men in fourth grade reading at Proficient and Advanced levels. This is a two point increase over 2013 and a six point increase over 2002. Still, young men still trail behind young women peers in fourth grade. Thirty-nine percent of them read at the highest academic levels on NAEP, unchanged from two years ago, yet five points higher than in 2002.

28

The percentage of young men in eighth grade reading Below Basic in 2015. That’s two points higher than in 2013, but one point lower than in 2002. Meanwhile 20 percent of young women in eighth-grade read Below Basic, a two point increase over 2013 and unchanged from 2002.

29

Percentage of young men in eighth-grade reading at Proficient and Advanced levels in 2015, two points lower than in 2013, but one point higher than in 2002. Meanwhile 40 percent of young women in eighth-grade read at the highest levels on NAEP, unchanged from 2013 and two points higher than levels 13 years ago.

48

The percentage of black fourth-graders reading Below Basic on NAEP in 2015. This is two points lower than in 2013, and a 12 point decline from 2002. Forty-five percent of Latino fourth-graders read Below Basic (a two point decline over 2013 and an 11 point decrease over 2002); 48 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native fourth-graders read Below Basic (unchanged from 2013, and a mere one point decline over 2002); 21 percent of white fourth-graders read Below Basic (unchanged from 2013, but a four point decline over 2002); and 18 percent of Asian fourth-graders read Below Basic (a two point decline over 2013, and a 12 point decline over levels 13 years ago).

18

The percentage of black fourth-graders reading at Proficient and Advanced levels on NAEP in 2015. This is a one point increase over 2013, and a five point increase over levels in 2002. Twenty-one percent of Latino students read at the highest levels on NAEP in 2015 (a one point increase over 2013 and a six point gain over 2002); 21 percent of Native students read at Proficient and Advanced levels (unchanged from two years ago, and a one point decline over 2002); 36 percent of white students read at Proficient and Advanced (unchanged from 2013, but five points higher than in 2002); and 54 percent of Asian students read at the highest levels on NAEP (two points higher than two years ago, and 17 points higher than in 2002).

42

The percentage of black eighth-graders reading Below Basic on NAEP in 2015. This is a three point increase over levels in 2013 and one point higher than in 2002. Thirty-four percent of Latino eighth-graders read Below Basic (a two point increase over 2013, but a nine point decrease over 2002); 15 percent of white eighth-graders read Below Basic (a one point increase over levels two years ago, but one point lower than in 2002); 37 percent of Native eighth-graders read Below Basic in 2015 (one point lower than two years ago, and two points lower than in 2002); and 14 percent of Asian eighth-graders read Below Basic (unchanged from 2013, but 10 points lower than levels 13 years ago).

16

The percentage of black eighth-graders reading at Proficient and Advanced levels in 2015. This is a one point decline over 2013, but two points higher than in 2002. Twenty-one percent of Latino eighth-graders read at the highest levels on NAEP in 2015 (unchanged from 2013, but five points higher than in 2002); 44 percent of white eighth-graders read at Proficient and Advanced (two points lower than in 2013, but three points higher than levels 13 years ago); 22 percent of Native eighth-grade students read at the highest levels (three points higher than in 2013, and four points higher than in 2002); and 52 percent of Asian eighth-graders read at Proficient and Advanced levels (unchanged from 2013, but 16 points higher than levels 13 years ago).

44

The percentage of fourth-graders on free- and reduced-priced lunch reading Below Basic on NAEP in 2015. This is a three point decline over 2013, and a 10 point decrease over levels in 2002. Meanwhile 17 percent of middle-class and wealthier students not eligible for school lunch read Below Basic in 2015, unchanged from 2013, but a six point decline over levels 13 years ago.

21

The percentage of fourth-graders on free- and reduced-priced lunch reading at Proficient and Advanced in 2015. This is a one point increase over 2013, and a four-point increase over levels in 2002. Meanwhile 52 percent of middle-class families read at the highest levels in 2015, a one point increase over two years ago, and a 10 point increase over levels in 2002.

36

The percentage of eighth-graders on school lunch reading Below Basic in 2015. This is a two point increase over 2013, but a four point decline over levels in 2002. Meanwhile 13 percent of eighth-graders not eligible for school lunch read Below Basic in 2015. This is unchanged from 2013, but still three points lower than in 2002.

20

The percentage of eighth-graders on school lunch reading at Proficient and Advanced levels in 2015. This is unchanged from 2013, but three points higher than in 2002. Meanwhile 47 percent of eighth-graders from middle class and wealthier households read at the highest levels in 2015. This is one point lower than in 2013, yet seven points higher than 13 years ago.

Plenty of reformers and traditionalists will be worried about the overall lack of academic progress shown on this year’s edition of NAEP — and this alarm isn’t to be dismissed at all. Some will claim that demographic changes — most-notably the growth in the percentage of poor, Latino, and immigrant children — is the culprit. Others, ironically using data from the oldest and most-comprehensive of standardized tests, will argue that testing is to blame. And even a few will blame efforts to implement Common Core reading and math standards for throwing some kids off track.

But as the data suggests, none of these arguments hold water. If anything, what this year’s NAEP data provides is both good news and a call to action for advancing a second round of systemic reforms of American public education.

The good news? That we are continuing to improve literacy in the early grades. There are now 172,078 fewer functionally-illiterate fourth-graders than in 2002, the year the No Child Left Behind Act was passed. One must be cautious in ascribing these improvements to the reforms spurred by the passage of No Child and the accountability measures that led to its creation; after all, NAEP isn’t fine-tuned to measure specific policies. But the continuing improvements in fourth-grade achievement shows that there have been benefits from the law, which brought accountability to American public education, forced revelations of inflated graduation rates.

These reforms have been especially beneficial to children from poor and minority backgrounds, who have long been subjected to academic neglect and malpractice. Not only are fewer of them struggling with literacy by the time they reach fourth grade, more of them are reading at Proficient and Advanced levels. This is clear from the fact that 12 percent fewer black children read Below Basic this last school year than in 2002 — and that five percent more Latino children are reading at or above grade level in 2015 than 13 years ago. That there are more Latino children in public schools now than at the time George W. Bush signed No Child into law, and yet, are improving academically proves the too-many-immigrant-and-minority children argument to be pure sophistry.

As a result, more children are being kept out of special education ghettos long-used by American public education to warehouse the children that adults in schools don’t want to educate. This includes children helped by approaches that use test data to improve instruction and provide remediation. Contrary to the arguments of some traditionalists and erstwhile reformers, testing provides the data needed for improving student achievement. More importantly, NAEP data does suggest that stemming achievement gaps is a smart strategy in providing all children with high-quality education they deserve.

Meanwhile this year’s NAEP data offers evidence that reforms spurred in part by No Child are working. The percentage of fourth-graders reading Below Basic served by public charter schools — the schools of choice for poor and minority children in places where they can access them — declined by 10 percentage points (from 44 percent to 34 percent) between 2009 and 2015, versus a mere two percentage point decline (from 33 percent to 31 percent) for peers in traditional district schools. In that same period, the percentage of fourth-graders in charters reading at Proficient and Advanced levels increased by eight percentage points (from 23 percent to 31 percent) in that same period, versus a three percentage point increase (from 33 percent to 36 percent) for traditional district peers.

This year’s NAEP data also offers some insight, limited as it can be, on the importance of states advancing reform. Take Florida. There, the percentage of Florida fourth-graders struggling with literacy declined by 15 points (from 40 percent to 25 percent) between 2002 and 2015, while the numbers reading at and above grade level increased by 11 percentage points (from 27 percent to 38 percent). The percentage of black fourth-graders reading Below Basic declined by 19 percentage points (from 61 percent to 42 percent) in that period, while the percentage of Latino fourth-grade peers struggling with literacy declined by 18 percentage points (from 47 percent to 29 percent). The Urban Institute made this point earlier this week with its own analysis of earlier NAEP data.

Another example of the benefits of strong reform efforts at the state level: The District of Columbia. There, fourth-graders reading Below Basic declined by 25 percentage points (from 69 percent to 44 percent) between 2002 and 2015, while the number of kids reading at Proficient and Advanced levels increased by 17 percentage points (from 10 percent to 27 percent). This isn’t due to an influx of white middle-class children. The percentage of black children in D.C. reading at Proficient and Advanced levels more than doubled in the past 13 years (from seven percent in 2002 to 18 percent in 2015), while the percentage of black kids struggling with literacy declined by 20 percentage points (from 72 percent to 52 percent) over the past 13 years.

But the lower levels of eighth-grade achievement serves as evidence of a point Dropout Nation has made over the past few years: That the generation of reforms that culminated with the passage of No Child aren’t enough to help children master the knowledge they need — from algebra and statistics, to mastering the lessons from the Wealth of Nations and other great texts — for success in higher education and in life outside of school.

This means continuing the revamp of curricula and standards, overhauling how we recruit, train, evaluate, and compensate teachers, and using new approaches to building cultures of genius in which all children can thrive and succeed. This also means expanding opportunities for high-quality education — from greater access to Advanced Placement courses to the expansion of high-quality charter schools — so that children from poor and minority households, especially young black men and women who did the worst on NAEP this year (and have less access to college-preparatory courses in traditional districts) can succeed in school and in life.

Yet as seen with the battles over implementing Common Core reading and math standards, as well as the fights over implementing test score growth-based teacher evaluations, these reforms will be even more difficult to implement than the first round. The moves by states such as Massachusetts to stop using Common Core-aligned tests such as those developed by PARC and Smarter Balanced all but ensure that full implementation of the standards (as well as full utilization of data for teacher evaluations) will be incomplete, limiting the positive benefits of the reforms for our children.

Meanwhile the Obama Administration, along with Congressional Republican leaders, are undermining the first generation of reforms that have improved achievement for the past two decades. As Dropout Nation has documented over the past three years, the administration’s No Child waiver gambit is already damaging systemic reform efforts on the ground; the administration’s declaration last Saturday that there is supposedly too much testing, has also given ammunition to traditionalists and movement conservatives otherwise unconcerned with education policy. The plans for eviscerating No Child offered up by Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander and House counterpart John Kline, if passed, would go further and eliminate any form of accountability. None of that is good for our children.

At the end of the day, it is clear that this year’s NAEP results are neither as good nor as bad as many will think. It is also clear that we have far more to do to help every child succeed in school and in life. And if we don’t fight furiously on their behalf, the progress made over the past two decades — and ultimately, the futures of another generation of children — will be lost.

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This is Dropout Nation

A Time to Pray: Charleston

Dropout Nation Editorial Board

June 18, 2015 10:50 am June 18, 2015

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The editors and contributors of Dropout Nation offer our condolences and prayers to the families of Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the other eight victims of last night’s senseless shooting at…

The editors and contributors of Dropout Nation offer our condolences and prayers to the families of Rev. Clementa Pinckney and the other eight victims of last night’s senseless shooting at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. We also offer our prayers and sympathies to the parishioners and their families. Let us all pray for God to give them and the people of Charleston peace beyond understanding.

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Dropout Nation on the Airwaves

On the Airwaves: RiShawn Biddle Chats with Roland Martin About School Choice

Dropout Nation Editorial Board

March 26, 2015 10:50 am March 26, 2015

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Listen in as Dropout Nation Editor RiShawn Biddle and media icon Roland Martin talk about the need to expand school choice and advance systemic reform on the Roland Martin Show….

Listen in as Dropout Nation Editor RiShawn Biddle and media icon Roland Martin talk about the need to expand school choice and advance systemic reform on the Roland Martin Show. You can also download and enjoy.

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Voices of the Dropout Nation

MLK on Why We Can’t Wait

Dropout Nation Editorial Board

January 19, 2015 3:52 pm January 19, 2015

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I want to talk with you mainly about our struggle in the United States and, before taking my seat, talk about some of the larger struggles in the whole world…

I want to talk with you mainly about our struggle in the United States and, before taking my seat, talk about some of the larger struggles in the whole world and some of the more difficult struggles in places like South Africa. But there is a desperate, poignant question on the lips of people all over our country and all over the world. I get it almost everywhere I go and almost every press conference. It is a question of whether we are making any real progress in the struggle to make racial justice a reality in the United States of America. And whenever I seek to answer that question, on the one hand, I seek to avoid an undue pessimism; on the other hand, I seek to avoid a superficial optimism. And I try to incorporate or develop what I consider a realistic position, by admitting on the one hand that we have made many significant strides over the last few years in the struggle for racial justice, but by admitting that before the problem is solved we still have numerous things to do and many challenges to meet…

…when we look at the question of economic justice, there’s much to do, but we can at least say that some strides have been made. The average Negro wage earner who is employed today in the United States earns 10 times more than the average Negro wage earner of 12 years ago. And the national income of the Negro is now at a little better than $28 billion a year, which is all—more than all of the exports of the United States and more than the national budget of Canada. This reveals that we have made some strides in this area…

But then I must go on and give you the other side, if I am to be honest about the picture. That is a fact that 42 percent of the Negro families of the United States still earn less than $2,000 a year, while just 16 percent of the white families earn less than $2,000 a year; 21 percent of the Negro families of America earn less than $1,000 a year, while just 5 percent of the white families earn less than $1,000 a year. And then we face the fact that 88 percent of the Negro families of America earn less than $5,000 a year, while just 58 percent of the white families earn less than $5,000 a year. So we can see that there is still a great gulf between the haves, so to speak, and the have-nots. And if America is to continue to grow and progress and develop and move on toward its greatness, this problem must be solved.

Now, this economic problem is getting more serious because of many forces alive in our world and in our nation. For many years, Negroes were denied adequate educational opportunities. For many years, Negroes were even denied apprenticeship training. And so, the forces of labor and industry so often discriminated against Negroes. And this meant that the Negro ended up being limited, by and large, to unskilled and semi-skilled labor. Now, because of the forces of automation and cybernation, these are the jobs that are now passing away. And so, the Negro wakes up in a city like Detroit, Michigan, and discovers that he is 28 percent of the population and about 72 percent of the unemployed…

Then the other thing when we think of this economic problem, we must think of the fact that there is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a segment in that society which feels that it has no stake in the society, and nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a number of people who see life as little more than a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. They end up with despair because they have no jobs, because they can’t educate their children, because they can’t live in a nice home, because they can’t have adequate health facilities…

I mentioned that racial segregation is about dead in the United States, but it’s still with us. We are about past the day of legal segregation. We have about ended de jure segregation, where the laws of the nation or of a particular state can uphold it, because of the civil rights bill and the Supreme Court’s decision and other things. We have passed the day when the Negro can’t eat at a lunch counter, with the exception of a few isolated situations, or where the Negro can’t check in a motel or hotel. We are fastly passing that day. But there is another form of segregation coming up. It is coming up through housing discrimination, joblessness and the de facto segregation in the public schools. And so the ghettoized conditions that exist make for many problems, and it makes for a hardcore, de facto segregation that we must grapple with on a day-to-day basis…

But certainly, we all know that if democracy is to live in any nation, segregation must die. And as I’ve tried to say all over America, we’ve got to get rid of segregation not merely because it will help our image—it certainly will help our image in the world… racial discrimination must be uprooted from American society and from every society, because it is morally wrong…

Now I would like to mention one or two ideas that circulate in our society—and they probably circulate in your society and all over the world—that keep us from developing the kind of action programs necessary to get rid of discrimination and segregation. One is what I refer to as the myth of time. There are those individuals who argue that only time can solve the problem of racial injustice… The only answer that I can give to that myth is that time is neutral. It can be used either constructively or destructively. And I must honestly say to you that I’m convinced that the forces of ill will have often used time much more effectively than the forces of goodwill. And we may have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people who sit around saying, “Wait on time.”

And somewhere along the way it is necessary to see that human progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals who are willing to be co-workers with God. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must help time, and we must realize that the time is always ripe to do right. This is so vital, and this is so necessary.

Now, the other myth that gets around a great deal in our nation and, I’m sure, in other nations of the world is the idea that you can’t solve the problems in the realm of human relations through legislation; you can’t solve the housing problem and the job problem and all of these other problems through legislation; you’ve got to change the heart… It may be true that you can’t legislate integration, but you can legislate desegregation. It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law can’t change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me. And I think that’s pretty important also.

– Martin Luther King, explaining to an audience in London in 1964 what it will take to address the legacies of racialism — including the condemnation of black children to low-quality education — that result from America’s Original Sin. Fifty years later, on the commemoration of his birthday, the issues he points out remain as troublesome as ever — and so do the need for strident activism for advancing the systemic reform of American public education and criminal justice systems that are key to addressing them. Which is why we must fight back against all efforts, even among our supposed allies, to roll back the reforms that are key to helping all of our children.

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Best of Dropout Nation

Best: Look Out for Our Most-Vulnerable

Dropout Nation Editorial Board

December 29, 2014 12:01 am December 29, 2014

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Dropout Nation‘s editors will be spending much of this last week of the year either relaxing with family or catching up on other work. So enjoy the pieces written this…

Dropout Nation‘s editors will be spending much of this last week of the year either relaxing with family or catching up on other work. So enjoy the pieces written this month, along with the Best of Dropout Nation pieces being republished this week. One such piece, from November 2011, focuses on the lessons reformers must learn from scandals such as that involving Jimmy Savile, a British talk show host whose alleged criminal abuse of youth (along with the coverup of those activities by top officials in the United Kingdom) went unchecked for decades. Read, consider, and take action.

Chances are that unless you spend much time reading the Guardian or watching the ITV channel show Exposure, you haven’t heard much about the pedophilia scandal enveloping the British Broadcasting Corporation. Since December of 2011, producers, longtime executives, and even two former chief executives at the once-beloved British government-controlled broadcaster have been accused of covering up the spate of alleged criminal abuse of young women by the now-deceased Jimmy Savile, a disc jockey and host of the famed Top of the Pops music show who was the United Kingdom’s equivalent of the late Dick Clark.

As reported by news outlets throughout Britain, the BBC allegedly kept mum about Savile’s alleged rape of young women — including those at the British government’s juvenile asylums, inside schools, and even in dressing rooms in the BBC’s own studios — and may have even went so far as to put the kibosh on an expose of Savile’s misdeeds by staffers for the network’s now-disgraced flagship newscast, Newsnight. As more victims come forth, and additional revelations come to light, current and former BBC officials, including former Director-General Mark Thompson (now chief executive of the parent company of the New York Times) has found themselves under scrutiny for allegedly letting Savile (and other alleged pedophiles on its payroll) get away with so much for so long.

The Beeb has gotten in even more trouble after reporters and producers, in what most observers conclude was a cynical attempt to shake off the embarrassment of not revealing Savile’s alleged crimes, ran an expose on Newsnight falsely accusing a prominent member of the ruling Conservative Party of alleged abuse that had long-ago been investigated by authorities. This latest aspect of the Savile scandal led to the resignation of George Entwhistle, Thompson’s recently-appointed replacement as BBC Director-General, and has cast more harsh light on how the broadcaster the news coverage that has made it the lead competitor to Time Warner’s Cable News Network in the global journalism game.

It isn’t shocking that Savile-BBC scandal sounds eerily like the child abuse scandal that continues to envelope Penn State. After all, like the higher ed institution — whose former president Graham Spanier now faces a possible prison sentence for his alleged work with now-infamous coach Joe Paterno to cover up the former football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky‘s three decades-long abuse of young men — the BBC scandal involves an institution aiding and abetting the abuse of the most-vulnerable of our children.

After all, the young women that Savile preyed upon for his abusive acts — both in his visits with teenage girls as part of hosting the Jimmy’ll Fix It children’s show, and in frequent visits to psychiatric hospitals such as Broadmoor — were no different from the young men in foster care and juvenile jails Sandusky had raped. The apparent craven unwillingness of producers, staffers, and executives at the BBC to remove Savile in spite of suspicions and confirmations of Savile’s abuse of young girls since at least the early 1960s is no different than that of Spanier, Paterno, former athletic director Tim Curley, and ousted vice president Gary Schultz, who allegedly actively sat on at least a decade of evidence of Sandusky’s crimes. Even the role of National Health Service in giving Savile free reign of institutions serving vulnerable young girls is also comparable to similar actions allowed by the Second Mile, the now-defunct nonprofit the now-imprisoned criminal cofounded to apparently give himself unlimited access to the kids he wanted to abuse.

The Savile-BBC scandal, in short, is a reminder of the consequences of failed leadership and policies that allow for evil to prey upon the most-vulnerable of our children. And the scandal once again reminds reformers of why we must do so much to rid institutions of leaders who allow others to do harm to our kids — and overhaul policies and practices that make it difficult for even the best leaders to do right by them.

As we know all too well, we treat our poorest, most-vulnerable children as if they are unworthy of our love and compassion. From juvenile justice systems such as those in Indianapolis and Luzerne County, Pa., that subject far too many kids to abuse and denial of due process, to child welfare systems such as those in South Dakota, in which American Indian children made up 53 percent of all foster care wards (and often placed into the care of non-Natives in violation of federal law), even though they make up just 13 percent of the state’s children, we see young men and women being moved from neglectful and abusive homes into even worse settings.

In many cases, the men and women allowing this to happen benefit greatly, both in their ability to gain access to children they consider their prey, and even from the dollars that come with them. In Luzerne County, former judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan would eventually be convicted of judicial misconduct (including wrongful convictions of juveniles) which helped put $1.3 million a year in taxpayer dollars into the hands of their cronies. Meanwhile in South Dakota, Children’s Home Society collected more than $50 million in mostly no-bid contracts over seven years from South Dakota’s child welfare system in exchange for removing Native kids from the homes of their families; it also apparently benefited its former boss, Dennis Daugaard, who is now the state’s governor. And in Indiana, James Payne, who was the judge who oversaw the scandal at the Circle City’s juvenile court, managed to get a promotion from now-outgoing Gov. Mitch Daniels to head up the state’s Department of Child Services; he only lost his job this past September after the Indianapolis Star revealed how he intervened in a child custody case involving his own grandchildren.

The consequences of these misdeeds extend into American public education, with laggard school leaders allowing criminally abusive and neglectful teachers to work in classrooms, as well as perpetuating practices that feed into the juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

Earlier this month, Lyn Vijayendran, a former principal at a school in the Evergreen Elementary system in California, was convicted of failing to inform law enforcement about alleged abuse of an eight-year-old student by one of the teachers under her watch. There’s also the scandal that continues to envelope the Los Angeles Unified School District over over the long career of former Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt, who now faces 23 charges of what the law politely calls lewd acts upon a child. The discovery and prosecution of Berndt’s misdeeds, the revelations that Berndt may have been engaging in such misdeeds for more than two decades, and the arrest of another Miramonte teacher, Martin Springer, shed a harsh light on how L.A. Unified’s school leaders — including previous superintendents and the school board — have failed the children in their care.

But the abuse of our kids isn’t just sexual. The fact that L.A. Unified’s school leaders has done a shoddy job of evaluating its teachers — with 60 percent of tenured veterans and 30 percent of new hires going without performance assessments in the 2009-2010 school year, according to the National Council on Teacher Quality — is evidence of how poorly the district has done in living up to its obligation of providing all children attending its schools with high-quality education. Children stuck in child welfare systems — along with kids sent by districts to juvenile justice systems — get the worst of it. Just nine percent of the foster care middle-schoolers attending schools in L.A. Unified were proficient or higher on the state’s achievement test in 2006-2007, nearly two times lower than the atrocious 22 percent rate for students in the district overall. Meanwhile districts continue to use juvenile courts to solve issues with students that used to be handled by principals and deans. Schools accounted for a fifth of all status case (or offenses that would otherwise be legal if a child was 18 or 21) referrals to juvenile courts in 2009, according to the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; this included 59 percent of all truancy cases, which account for 37 percent of all juvenile status cases handled that year. Given the dire consequences that happens to kids when they land in juvenile justice systems, schools are often as much a part of the problem as families who often use courts to resolve issues judges are just unfit to handle.

Certainly there will always be those men and women who will physically and mentally abuse our children. Chances are that some will find their ways into our schools and other institutions. Yet as seen in New York City, where school leaders have aggressively worked to toss out teachers engaged in criminal (as well as educational) abuse, institutional leaders and staff can do plenty to identify and quickly remove them. The fact that Savile, Sandusky, Berndt, and others were allowed to continue to harm kids for decades shows the unwillingness of leaders to do right by children (and their willingness to perpetuate cultures of abuse and neglect). Even worse, it shows how little the leaders and staffers cared little about the kids subjected to abuse — and did everything to protect the perpetrators (and in fact, rewarded them with promotions, book contracts, accolades, and other deals). This isn’t to say that they don’t care about children at all. It is just that when it came down to choosing their allegiances, the institutions and their supposedly pristine reputations mattered more than the damage being done to grubby men and women from the proverbial other side of the tracks.

There is plenty that can be done to rid our districts, schools, and other institutions of leaders who aid and abet abuse and neglect, criminal and otherwise. From the perspective of the school reform movement, it starts by constantly shining light and calling out laggard school leaders who don’t deserve their jobs. In Indianapolis, a possible step in the right direction may come with three newly-elected board members of the Indianapolis Public Schools district, who may end up tossing out the system’s woeful superintendent, Eugene White, after nearly eight years of embarrassment. Tossing out politicians who allow for the abuse to continue, especially through their support of policies and practices that keep abusers in their jobs is also important. Voters in California’s Assembly District 50 have made such a stand this month when it voted out incumbent Betsy Butler, who refused to support an effort spawning from the Berndt scandal to make it easier to remove those teachers accused of criminal abuse and misconduct.

Using student performance data in evaluating principals, superintendents and even school boards, as well as implementing student surveys such as the Tripod system developed by Harvard’s Ronald Ferguson and Cambridge Education in principal and other school leader evaluations, are more-systematic steps. Meanwhile we must also continue to overhaul how we train school leaders and expand the talent pool from which they come. Given the reality that school leaders at the building level will have to have real management expertise — which is often different from being a successful classroom teacher — this also means pulling from the private and nonprofit sectors as the Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation has done as part of its reform efforts.

At the same time, we must also make it easier for good and great leaders to sack teachers who are failing on the job, either in their instructional work or through criminal abuse. Ending near-lifetime employment rules that make it difficult for school leaders to toss out the criminally- and educationally-abusive alike would make it harder for laggard school leaders to sit on their thumbs and do nothing. Overhauling how we recruit and train teachers will also reduce the likelihood of those who shouldn’t be around children getting into classrooms.

For reformers, and for all of us, the Savile case is just one more reminder of why we must do so much to improve the quality of leadership in American public education, and in all institutions that are engaged with our children. Especially those young men and women who are already subjected to too much abuse from others, and deserve better than even more neglect.

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Building A Culture of Genius The Top Eight

The Top Eight Books 2014

Dropout Nation Editorial Board

December 12, 2014 2:25 pm December 12, 2014

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School reformers need to read more than just op-eds and magazine pieces on education policy. After all, as it has been discussed over the past two weeks alone, the nation’s…

School reformers need to read more than just op-eds and magazine pieces on education policy. After all, as it has been discussed over the past two weeks alone, the nation’s education crisis feeds into the social, economic, and political issues facing our nation and world; this means we must break out of specialization and become interdisciplinary in our thinking. There’s also the fact that as parents and caregivers, we must continually practice what we preach to children every day: Read books and be lifelong learners.

This is why Dropout Nation offers its help with the 2014 edition of The Top Eight Books That School Reformers Should Read. Culled from more than 100 books, the selections include a look at how the legendary James Meredith’s march through Mississippi helped splinter the Civil Rights Movement of the last century; political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s treatise on modern government; and an analysis of how the Salvation Army and other religious groups transform civic society. There are also chronicles on reform from school choice pioneer Howard Fuller and former New York City Chancellor Joel Klein.

As with every edition of the Top Eight, the selections met five important criteria: Does it have a strong narrative or polemical power (also known as “is it well-written”)? Are the lessons relevant to the reform of American public education? Is the book thought-provoking (or does it offer new arguments or new thinking on familiar issues)? When research is involved in the narrative, does it stand up to scrutiny? And would you pay at least $14 to put it on your tablet (or, for those of you still reading traditional books, pay at least $20 for the paperback or hardcover)?

Below are this year’s selections. Offer your own suggestions in the comments. And just read, read, read.

Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear: There are plenty of reasons why reformers should pick Aram Goudsouzian’s book on the 1966 March Against Fear, the last great protest of the 20th century Civil Rights Era. For one, it offers fascinating profiles in activist leadership. This includes Martin Luther King’s calm resolve in spite of sniping from Thurgood Marshall and other rivals; Stokely Carmichael’s penchant for fiery rhetoric and shoddy strategizing, the clever machine politicking of Charles Evers; the organizing genius of Ella Baker; and the near-messianic spirit of James Meredith, who originally organized the march before being shot on the first day of it. More importantly, in detailing how the Civil Rights Movement fell apart just a year after achieving such policy successes (including Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), Down the Crossroads offers important lessons on how movements can fall apart in the face of diverging priorities, clashes of egos, struggles in collaboration, and sparse financial and manpower resources. At a time in which the school reform movement is in transition, reformers of all stripes should read this book in order to learn how to keep history from repeating.

Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy: Francis Fukuyama is probably the greatest political scientist of his generation in part because he combines crisp writing with strong, prescient analysis on how politics can shape society. All of his talents are on full display in his latest polemic what makes for good government (and why it rarely becomes reality in much of the world). As Fukuyama details the evolution of American government and those in Africa and Asia, he shows how accountable is key to ensuring that citizens are protected from fiscal and social harm, he offers lessons to those reformers who doubt the importance of the No Child Left Behind Act and its strong accountability provisions. At the same time, by noting how the United States’ own system of checks and balances often leads to a “vetocracy” in which political interests can impede good ideas along with the bad (as well as how “intellectual rigidity” can lead to crises such as the global financial meltdown) Fukuyama also reminds reformers that we must also balance strong accountability with enough room for the kind of innovation and policies needed to ensure the common good in American public education. Your editor doesn’t agree with all of Fukuyama’s conclusions, especially on whether American-style democracy is workable in all nations. But Political Order and Political Decay deserves to be on your bookshelf.

No Struggle No Progress: A Warrior s Life from Black Power to Education Reform: From teaming up with the late Polly Williams and former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist to launch the nation’s first school choice initiative, to his willingness to speak truth to traditionalists and reformers alike, the aforementioned Fuller deserves his place as one of the nation’s foremost school reformers. In discussing his evolution from civil rights activism in the 1960s to his role guiding the leadership of Black Alliance for Educational Options, Fuller shows how reformers can advance systemic reform for our children through strong grassroots activism, cannily navigating the corridors of policymaking, and agitating within institutions. At the same time, Fuller’s story shows reformers that they must recognize the interconnections between what happens inside our schools and what happens outside of them. Any reformer who hasn’t read this book yet should do so. Now.

Claiming Society for God: Religious Movements and Social Welfare: There are plenty of reasons why reformers should pick up Nancy J. Davis’ and Robert V. Robinson’s sociological study of how religious groups such as the Salvation Army and the Muslim Brotherhood succeed in becoming influential players in the societies in which they reside. The most important: Because it offers reformers a blueprint for how to sustain systemic reform. Davis and Robinson show how these groups gain credibility and support for their visions of what society and government should be by addressing the needs of the communities — especially those of poor and minority backgrounds — in which they work. This includes becoming the substitutes for the welfare state role played by governments in their respective countries, and engaging in the kind of grassroots activism that wins them critical support on the ground. For a school reform movement that needs to have a stronger grassroots presence in order to advance its efforts, Claiming Society for God is book that will help it get there.

Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools: Along with former Boston Superintendent Tom Payzant, the aforementioned Klein is the most-successful reform-minded traditional district leader of this generation. Thanks to his book, reformers can now learn what it took for him and his onetime boss, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, to improve student achievement for Big Apple children, as well as understand the obstacles to implementing systemic reform that remain. From vivid accounts of his battles with the American Federation of Teachers’ Big Apple local over simply conversing with teachers on the district’s staff, to conceding how his inattention to curricula may have limited the successes the Big Apple could have had in improving student achievement, to his battles to increase the array of school choices for kids and their families, Klein offers important examples of how institutional-oriented players can achieve the kind of changes that help more children attain the high-quality education they deserve.

The Reckoning: Financial Accountability and the Making and Breaking of Nations: Amid all the efforts over the past few years to weaken No Child’s Adequate Yearly Progress accountability provisions, reformers should take time to read Jacob Soll’s exhaustive historical survey of what happens when nations weaken checks and balances in financial affairs. As he details how double-entry bookkeeping and other accounting innovations led to the rise of nation-states, as well as how retreats on checks and balances (as well as transparency) have led to crises such as the global financial meltdown of the last decade, Soll offers reformers new reasons why they must resist efforts to weaken accountability by traditional districts and even institutional players within their own ranks (including charter school operators and private schools that benefit financially from the expansion of choice). Soll also shows how inattention to the details of accountability (which can easily be seen in the education policy arena through the Obama Administration’s No Child waiver gambit) can lead to disaster. Advocates for reforming traditional teacher compensation (including busted defined-benefit pensions) can also learn plenty from Soll’s book.

A Light Shines in Harlem: New York’s First Charter School and the Movement It Led: Mary C. Bounds story about the Sisulu-Walker charter school offers an eye-opening chronicle of how difficult it can be to take one aspect of systemic reform: Launching and sustaining schools that can provide our children with cultures of genius. There is plenty to learn from the steps (and missteps) financier-turned-educator Steve Klinsky and his teammates (including civil rights activist Wyatt Tee Walker) made when they took the arduous step of launching the Big Apple’s first charter school. This includes the importance of being passionate about building schools fit for the futures of children, as well as the willingness to change direction (in the form of moving away from Sisulu-Walker’s initial use of the low-quality Direct Instruction approach to teaching) when it is clear it won’t work. Particularly for Parent Power activists looking to launch their own schools and take over failing operations, this is a book they should read.

Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach it to Everyone): Folks such as Brookings Institution’s Tom Loveless have criticized Elizabeth Green’s book as an exercise in edu-tourism. DN Editor RiShawn Biddle offers a far more-substantial critique: That Green’s general disdain for the teacher training efforts of Doug Lemov (whose follow-up to Teach Like a Champion was a Top Eight selection in 2012), especially in dismissing its focus on matters such as classroom management, ignore the reality that it has proven empirically to be superior in effectiveness in improving student achievement than the approach developed by University of Michigan’s Deborah Ball (which Green champions). [Update: Green disagrees with DN’s comments, noting that she doesn’t disdain his approach and arguing that the review didn’t mention aspects of Lemov’s training that he is looking to improve. The editors stand by the assessment.] Yet Green’s book deserves to be on your bookshelf because it is an important chronicle of the struggles reformers and others have had in overhauling how America recruits and trains its teachers. Just as importantly, Green’s book is also a clarion call for bringing greater attention to developing alternative teacher training programs as well as reforming the nation’s low-quality ed schools.

As always, there are a number of books that are deserve praise, but didn’t make the cut. This Next Eight includes On the Rocketship, Richard Whitmire’s profile of the blended-learning charter school operator; The Bill of the Century, New York Times editorialist Clay Risen’s narrative on the politicking that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Slavery by Another Name, Douglas A. Blackmon’s account of how Jim Crow segregationists and companies teamed up to use criminal codes to put blacks into virtual slavery; Jonathan Darman’s LBJ and Ronald Reagan at the Dawn of a New America, which details how the 1964 election season sowed the seeds of destruction and success for two legendary politicians; British politico Boris Johnson’s The Churchill Factor, which profiles the legendary statesman’s leadership long-ranging impact on world affairs; Unreasonable Men, Michael Wolraich’s chronicle of how tensions between Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette led to the rise — and fall — of early 20th-century progressive politics; Teachers Versus the Public by Paul Peterson, Michael Henderson, and Martin West, which focuses on the divergent views of teachers and the people who pay their salaries; and Putting Education to Work, Mega Sweas’ profile of the Cristo Rey collection of Catholic schools.

While Dropout Nation doesn’t place books written by contributors on this list, it would be remiss to not mention The Black Poverty Cycle and How to End It, Contributing Editor Michael Holzman’s treatise on how the black children are harmed by the intersection of the nation’s education crisis and the drug war.

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