Education News

Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Are charter schools working in New Orleans?

Doesn’t seem like its been 10 years, but Hurricane Katrina changed the landscape and lives of so many when it made landfall in New Orleans a short decade ago.

When talking about Katrina, it’s nearly impossible to do so without nuance. To be singular when mentioning a storm that caused over 7,000 teachers to lose their jobs and the creation of an all charter school system in New Orleans is almost dangerous.

But focusing on one issue may not be.

Education in New Orleans isn’t what it used to be pre-Katrina. Thousands of teachers who helped lead the former school system were let go after the storm. They were, as described by Salon.com, the backbone of the city’s middle class.

Now that the school choice movement has completely enveloped New Orleans, the leaders of it are attempting to tout how successful its been. They celebrate higher test scores and stricter disciplinary measures.

It is a model that many are attempting to sell across the country.

Yet we’re still left to wonder how well it’s actually working.

Salon.com has a piece that delves into the waters of the new New Orleans educational system. While slanted, it still gives great depth into what students, parents, and leaders are going through in an effort to create more change or at least sustain what’s been created.

From the looks of it, the Recovery School District that is laced with charter schools are ostensibly autonomous. Each school is led by the theory of singular creation but ultimately falls under the dressing of formality.

A strong emphasis on test scores is made for each school, and if one or a few schools start to lag behind, they face being consolidated under the wing of another, more successful school.

It’s also worth noting that most of the city’s educational leaders are white. Prior to the storm, the leadership closely represented the make-up of the community and students.

New Orleans is 65% black.

Whether it is a production of the storm due to displacement or a planned theory, the city has certainly taken on a different hue and form since Katrina.

Nuance deserves a place when speaking about New Orleans pre and post Katrina. And the city’s educational system most definitely should be talked about in layers.

Still–recognizing how damaging, or may successful, school choice has been for one area doesn’t mean the carbon copy of it may work for the next region.

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Study: Smoking less dangerous than no education

Studies are a dime a dozen these days, but there are still plenty that force you to pay attention.

Take a Washington Post story that talks about a new study published in PLOS ONE, a journal from the Public Library of Science.

According to the Post’s review of the study, “more than 145,000 deaths could have been prevented in 2010 if adults who did not finish high school had earned a GED or high school diploma – comparable to the mortality rates of smoking.”

That’s staggering considering smoking and education aren’t necessarily congruent.

For decades Americans have been warned about the horrors of smoking because of the adverse effects that it has on one’s health. While having an education has always been synonymous with success, not sure if anyone, or any study for that matter, has ever gone this far to connect poor health, or death related to poor health, to lacking a proper education.

The study, according to the Post, doesn’t directly correlate poor education with death. Rather it counts death as “an estimate of education’s impact on mortality, and do not indicate direct causality.”

While this study doesn’t directly state that failure to attain an education will result in death, it does portend that death is a consequence of one’s failure to gain an education. Make sense?

This type of information is multi-faceted because of how far it stretches. Personal responsibility plays a role; the government has an act in this play; the private sector and many other areas are also complicit.

How we move along with the information posted from this story will be interesting as well. Because, maybe more than anything, this shows just how stark the consequences are for our society if we fail to properly educate our children.

The results may be death.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

Study: High college tuition may not correlate with high earnings

Saving a year’s worth of salary for one year of higher education at Harvard may yield great career results for some but that may not be true for all.

According to U.S. News and World Report, a recent Brookings Study shows that “other schools may either not cost as much and yield a similar salary and success of loan repayment, or they may cost about the same but generate higher earnings potential.”

Harvard is a small sample size and represents a limited portion of the zenith of college costs. But, in essence, the study shows that one may earn just as much for the duration of their career by attending a college with cheaper tuition.

That’s not a knock against Harvard as students, and their parents, are free to choose any school that matches with their educational goals.

This is an alternative that students have always taken. Take Ronald Nelson, a student who was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools.

Instead of choosing a prestigious Ivy League school, and the tuition that came along with it, Nelson went with the University of Alabama.

He said that Alabama “offered him a full scholarship and admittance into their selective honors program.” Nelson also wants to save for medical school and states that going to an Ivy League higher education institution would not allow him that luxury.

Still–students and parents have to make the decision that’s best for them. Rising costs of higher education will likely force more students to choose cheaper schools over ones with higher tuition rates.

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Matthew Lynch published in International Education

Are Scandinavian schools really better than American ones?

There is a fascinating interview by eSchoolnews.com with Hans Renman, the CEO of Scandinavian Education, a think tank that has the aim of using pointed strategy to properly manage development “to help the school take the next step.”

In the talk, Renman speaks of trouble with the testing culture in the United States, problems with technology and teaching, and how equality has aided the growth of education in Noridic countries.

“In every single class you can find students from any social background. How people live in Finland is not as extreme as in other countries, like England or the United States. You can see research on the effectiveness of school systems that says that if the education system is equal and democratic, it’s a good thing for every student, not just the top five percent, like say in Singapore or China.”

An interesting distinction to the argument for equality are the living conditions of some Americans. In Finland, schools are publicly funded, so there is no discrepancy on which schools receive more money. There are also “no rankings, no comparisons or competition between students, schools or regions.”

That leads to equality as every student may be measured on the same level, sort of, and each individual will receive the same quality education.

Obviously America’s approach is a little different. We thrive on competition, think that comparisons are healthy, and use rankings as a way to show what’s good and bad. Doing away with these footnotes would likely remove a level of stress from educators and students here but there is no way to tell if it would make a significant difference in how students learn. Our economy isn’t necessarily based on equality either, so to insert fairness into how we educate students would mean that America has changed its capitalistic philosophy.

Outside of equality, we can probably learn from the Finnish on why testing may hinder a student’s ability succeed. Students in Finland are given just one exam prior to graduating high school. According to Renman, it is a key difference in how students are education in America versus say Finland or Sweden.

“In Scandinavia, the results of the national tests are more the business of the school officials. For a single student, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t affect your grade.”

The research surrounding the success of schools in Scandinavia and Finland is worth continued exploration. America may surely cherry pick certain policies from the education model in Northern Europe to improve the education system here. But there are also certain practices that wouldn’t fit and would fail if implemented.

Still–copying the steps success will usually yield good results.

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