Failing schools should use data, embrace change to serve students better

The Columbus Dispatch

5/15/2006

Four years after its inception, the No Child Left Behind law is forcing change in America’s worst schools. Nationwide, about 1,750 schools must be remade with new principals and mostly new teaching staffs because their students’ academic performance has lagged for too long.

As the number of these restructurings mount – one former U.S. Education Department official estimates there eventually will be 10,000 – so will a certain amount of turmoil. For one thing, most teachers from failed schools are likely to be reassigned to other schools in the same district. With the players simply being shuffled around the board, some might question how much real improvement can be expected.

Still, at schools with such dismal histories, change hardly could be for the worse, and it’s the only hope of turning them into places where students actually learn.

So school officials, including those in Columbus, where at least nine schools have been or are being restructured, should set about the task with maximum effort. They should be encouraged by a few factors:

• The rigorous testing, at nearly every grade level, brought about by the No Child law has produced a wealth of data that can help officials diagnose problems and prescribe solutions.

• Success stories illustrate that with the right approach, schools that have the poorest, most-troubled families and the most-abysmal performance records can improve remarkably.

Members and guests of the Columbus Metropolitan Club recently heard expert Kati Haycock of the Washington based Education Trust describe what enabled some of the nation’s worst schools to transform into some of the best: a demanding high-school curriculum; clear, consistent guidelines for teachers who must deliver it; and a policy of putting the best teachers in front of the neediest children.

Too many school systems haven’t worked this way. Low expectations for poor children have led to dumbed down lessons that leave students poorly educated. Teachers have been left on their own to figure out how to get lessons across to students. In most districts, teachers with the most seniority are allowed to gravitate to the “easiest” assignments – those in the already successful schools, where students least need their help.

Changing these bad habits won’t be easy. Many parents and teachers are afraid of higher expectations. Teachers unions cling fiercely to the idea that experienced teachers should be able to demand certain assignments, as opposed to empowering principals to put them where they’re needed most, and that seniority should trump achievement when handing out pay raises and other rewards.

Difficult or not, though, schools must change if they are to end the cycle of failure that has stunted the prospects of thousands of children. For that change to be worthwhile, decision-makers can’t operate on hunches or wishful thinking; they must base new policies and programs on data that show what has worked elsewhere and what hasn’t.

Fortunately, Ohio is in a good position to make such decisions. Along with the performance measures generated by federally required testing, two other programs are compiling data that could allow informed, effective decision making.

The Ohio Partnership for Accountability, a consortium of 50 college teacher-training programs, the Ohio Board of Regents and the Ohio Department of Education, is studying what personality characteristics are most common in successful teachers and which training methods lead to the greatest gains in student performance.

Columbus Public Schools benefit from the work of KidsOhio.org, an independent, privately funded education think tank that has studied the district in detail to provide information on what’s working and what’s not, as well as insights into why people leave the district for charter schools.

Experience shows that, with solid data, guidance from experts outside the educational establishment and, most important, an expectation of improvement, the worst schools can become good ones.

Copyright © 2006, The Columbus Dispatch