education reform

Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Policy & Reform June 15, 2023

Education reform in New Orleans may serve white interests and not African Americans

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

By Derek Black

Adrienne Dixson (University of Illinois), Kristen Buras (Georgia St.), and Elizabeth K. Jeffers (Georgia St.) have released the paper, The Color of Reform: Race, Education Reform, and Charter Schools in Post-Katrina New Orleans, 21 (3) Qualitative Inquiry (2015). They argue that

By most media accounts, education reform in post-Katrina New Orleans is a success. Test scores and graduation rates are up, and students once trapped in failing schools have their choice of charter schools throughout the city. But that’s only what education reform looks like from the perspective of New Orleans’ white minority — the policymakers, school administrators and venture philanthropists orchestrating and profiting from these changes. . .

From the perspectives of black students, parents and educators — who have had no voice in the decision-making, and who have lost beloved neighborhood schools and jobs — education reform in New Orleans has exacerbated economic and cultural inequities.

Get a summary of their research here and the full article here.

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Derek Black is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law. His areas of expertise include education law and policy, constitutional law, civil rights, evidence, and torts. The focus of his current scholarship is the intersection of constitutional law and public education, particularly as it pertains to educational equality and fairness for disadvantaged students. His earlier work focused more heavily on intentional discrimination standards. His articles have been published in the California Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Boston University Law Review, William & Mary Law Review, Boston College Law Review, and North Carolina Law Review, among various others. His work has also been cited in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and by several briefs before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Policy & Reform, Teachers October 24, 2017

When States Take Over School Districts, Disaster Usually Ensues

There is a disturbing trend taking place in school districts all over the United States. The pattern that I am referring to involves state departments of education wrestling control of low-performing school districts from local school entities. For a state to seize control of a school district, an emergency, either academic, environmental, or financial, etc., must exist and place students in harm’s way. Each state has its own definition of conditions that justify or trigger a takeover, as well as policies and procedures that must be followed during this process.

We will begin this piece with an overview of state takeovers in the United States and then look at a case study of the state of Mississippi’s botched takeover of its Jackson Public Schools district.

An overview of state takeovers

Before school districts are taken over, they usually know that they are in jeopardy of being taking over, and may have had several years to get their act together and show improvement. What makes this even more complicated and troublesome, is that struggling districts have no way of improving, as they usually do not have the expertise or capacity to facilitate change.

Many states have technical assistance teams that assist struggling districts in getting back on track. However, in many cases, these teams don’t have the capacity or expertise to foster school reform or change initiatives. The end result, many districts get taken over by the very entity that failed to offer them structural and strategic support, when they desperately needed it. As a colleague of mine put it, “it’s the blind leading the blind.”

States often announce state takeovers to great fanfare and make bold claims about the transformation that will occur under their watch. The results are usually less the underwhelming. School districts that are taken over find themselves in a comparable place academically in the next 3-5 years, and achievement either slightly improves, stays flat, slightly decreases or in the worst case scenario gets markedly worse. The problem is almost always that states make structural changes to these districts, but forget to, or don’t have the capacity to make strategic moves. The results are the results. And who ends up getting hurt? The students.

What makes this even more sickening is the fact that when states takeover school districts, they seem to strategically target districts with large populations of black and brown students. In some states, these school districts are either in sum or in part are turned into charter schools and exploited for financial gain. What makes this even more troublesome is that these charter schools end up failing miserably, and states usually do not have a mechanism for monitoring their progress or offering them support and technical assistance. They are left to their own devices, continuing to make millions of dollars and failing to educate black and brown students properly.

If you are keeping score, these poor and disenfranchised black and brown students have now been failed twice, once by their original school district and the state, and then by their new charter school and the state. While the scenario above may not be how things play out in your state, I am sure you will notice similarities.

An example of a state takeover disaster waiting to happen

Let me give you an example of a state takeover that is a disaster waiting to happen. The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) is currently in the process of taking over Jackson Public Schools (JPS), located in the city of Jackson, MS, after an 18-month investigation. Mississippi is my home state, and I once worked in Jackson Public Schools, so this one is near and dear to my heart. Jackson Public Schools is a large urban school district, comprised of 58 schools.

This story starts in April 2016 after a cursory audit by MDE that found that the Jackson Public Schools district was violating 22 of the state’s 32 accreditation standards. The standards that were violated ranged from safety concerns to ineffective leadership. In August 2016, this information was presented to the Mississippi Commission on School Accreditation, which accredits public schools in Mississippi, and they voted to downgrade JPS’s accreditation status to probation.

This essentially means that JPS did not uphold the state’s accreditation standards and was forced to create a corrective action plan (CAP) within a specified amount of time. The Mississippi Commission on School Accreditation also voted to approve a full audit of all JPS schools, to be conducted by MDE. What makes this problematic, is the fact that JPS was simultaneously asked to create and implement a corrective action plan to get back on track, while being provided with technical assistance from MDE.

In September of 2016, JPS’s then-superintendent Cedrick Gray told its constituents at a town hall meeting, that JPS had created a corrective action plan and submitted it to the State Board of Education, and was well on its way to correcting all of its deficiencies. Then a month later in October 2016, Gray resigned as superintendent in the wake of an “F” accountability rating by the state and the looming possibility of another downgrade in accreditation status. Essentially, the person whose ineffective leadership created this mess was suddenly out the door.

In November 2016, the JPS Board of Trustees picked Fredrick Murray as interim superintendent and unveiled its plans to find a permanent replacement. Later on that month, the State Board of Education rejected the district’s CAP because it was not specific enough in certain areas. You would think that the state would be sympathetic to the district’s situation, and the issues that can arise during a transition of leadership. Not the state of Mississippi. Finally, in December 2016, the State Board of Education decided to accept JPS’s revised CAP, but board members warned the district of the urgency of this matter and reminded them that they were still at risk of takeover and losing their accreditation.

From January 2017 to July 2017, minimal movement occurred. Four JPS school board members resigned during this period, which increased JPS’s leadership vacuum. In February 2017, the board voted to hold off on the superintendent search until the end of the 2017-2018 school year and to allow Dr. Frederick Murry to continue as interim superintendent. In May 2017, JPS hired the Bailey Education Group to help it navigate the audit process. They were forced to do this when the state failed to provide the technical assistance that it is legally required to provide. I would be remiss if I did not point out that during the state takeover process, the relationship between JPS and MDE soured tremendously. In my opinion, it reached the status of unprofessional. This further complicated JPS’s school improvement efforts and sealed its fate.

Fast forward to August 31, 2017. The full audit that was ordered by the Mississippi Commission on School Accreditation was released, but it was not a complete audit, and MDE cited safety concerns at several of the state’s high schools as the reason. In September 2017, MDE reported its findings to the Mississippi Commission on School Accreditation, and the committee voted to recommend that the State Board of Education declare a state of emergency in the school district.

Why? Because JPS was found to still be in violation of 24 of 32 of the standards, 2 more than the initial audit of 2016. In September 2017, MDE presented its findings to the State Board of Education and recommended that the body declare a state of emergency in JPS, which would, in essence, trigger a state takeover. The board approved the measure on September 14, 2017, and announced Dr. Margie Pulley as interim superintendent. Yes, you read that correctly. Within 24 hours of hearing MDE’s case, they made a decision and also announced an interim superintendent.

The next step in the process is for the edict to be sent the governor for his signature. For a state takeover to become a reality, he has to agree that an extreme emergency exists. Initially, he said that he would not make a rash decision, and to his credit, he did not. Part of his justification for stalling the decision was the unavailability of one critical piece of data, the 2016-2017 MDE Accountability Ratings, which is an annual assessment of the academic achievement and growth of all Mississippi school districts. During the fall of each year, the rating system issues each district a letter grade from A-F.

The ratings were announced on September 19, 2017, and as expected, JPS was rated an F. We knew this because, during JPS’s September hearing with the Mississippi State Board of Education, MDE’s attorney mentioned that the preliminary data indicated that JPS would be receiving a grade of F. She disclosed this information, even though it was supposed to be embargoed until September 19, 2017. To be honest, I always thought her unethical disclosure was a political ploy. After receiving this information, the governor decided that he needed more time to make his decision.

In Mississippi, after the governor declares a state of emergency in a district, MDE takes control of and leads the struggling district (through an interim superintendent or conservator), until that district demonstrates sustained improvement, and when that happens, local control is reestablished. The average duration in of a state takeover in Mississippi is three years. The state of Mississippi has a charter school law, so all school districts rated below a C are eligible for charter schools to apply for a charter and operate schools in that district. MDE has created the perfect environment for this to happen in JPS. Time will tell if this was their objective all along.

Let me be frank, I worked in JPS for three years, and I can personally attest to its serious issues. However, MDE’s behavior during the state takeover process was anything but professional and does not lead one to believe that a takeover is not the correct move. During their audit of JPS, MDE failed to follow their own policies and procedures, and when they were called out on it, they covered their tracks. Next, state law required that they provide technical assistance to JPS as the district worked to implement their corrective action plan. However, JPS never received the full technical support that they requested, as MDE could not do so.

How on earth can you be in charge of auditing a school district, while also providing support to it? On top of that, how can you take over a district that you were in charge of helping it to improve, and failed miserably? Also, Dr. Margie Pulley, whom MDE has charged with leading JPS if it is indeed taking over, was the interim superintendent of Tunica County Schools during the 2016-2017 school year. Why is this important? Because Tunica County Schools received an F rating for the 2016-2017 school term. It seems highly unlikely that a leader of a district that was just rated an F can help transform a struggling district like JPS, who also received an F rating. This debacle in Mississippi is a cautionary tale of how greed and power grabs can lead a state and its education system down a path of destruction.

A Hollywood ending?

But wait, there is actually a happy ending to this story. Instead of signing off on a state takeover of Jackson Public Schools, Governor Phil Bryant has formed an alliance to develop a cooperative, comprehensive plan to improve the state’s second-largest school district. What happens to the MDE request for a state takeover of JPS schools? It remains active. Each member of the JPS Board of Trustees has resigned, per the Governor’s wishes. The plan forms a collaborative that includes the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Education Commission of the States and the Mississippi Economic Council.

Also included is the creation of a Project Commission, which is made up of JPS stakeholders. The commissioners and local, state and national partners will host a series of focus group sessions for the community. With consultation from ECS, which will disseminate best practices developed from successes in other states, an RFP to perform an external evaluation of the JPS system will be distributed. The Kellogg Foundation will support the ECS’s efforts, including the external assessment and focus group sessions

The external review will be led by data collection and the focus groups. Its results will inform the creation of a plan that addresses all of JPS’s issues. The Project Commission will discuss the findings and work with stakeholders to identify current resources within JPS to apply toward the plan’s implementation. Episodic evaluations will then be conducted. Hopefully this collaborative will work, and become a model for the rest of the United States.

Conclusion

This disturbing trend has to stop. States must realize that local control is essential, and the idea of a state takeover should only be broached if a real emergency exists, not a manufactured one. A state takeover should always be the last resort and only attempted if the state has the capacity and expertise to help the seized district succeed. Otherwise, it’s a recipe for disaster.

You would think that this would be common sense in education circles, but as we all know, common sense is not all that common.

Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, OpEducation February 28, 2017

Disengaged Students, Part 14: Educational Technology – Intellectual or Anti?

In this 20-part series, I explore the root causes and effects of academic disengagement in K-12 learners and explore the factors driving American society ever closer to being a nation that lacks intellectualism, or the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

Technology penetrates every aspect of society – even our K-12 classrooms. The way knowledge is delivered today takes the shape of tablets, and computer screens, and even in-class projectors. Does all the flash and glamor of the fancy gear take away from the basic pursuit of knowledge, though?

It Starts in Infancy

Early childhood educational technology targets children from infancy and makes it easier for parents to feel good about using media in the early childhood years. Television programs and videos claim to offer the correct answer to the parent’s question “What should my baby be learning?” Since such programming is developed by experts who certainly know more than the average parent about child development, these marketing ploys are accepted. Programs for infants are promoted as safe in small doses, as long as parents watch them with their little ones and participate too. Instead of reading books aloud, parents put children on their laps and spend a half an hour clapping along to classical music and gazing at bright, swirling colors on a screen.

This contrived form of “bonding” replaces tangible activities like rolling around on the floor, naming objects in the home or letting a baby turn the pages of sturdy board book. The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that children under the age of 2 should be exposed to NO screen time, but parents adjust the recommendation to fit their own family unit and routine, telling themselves that the APA warnings are for “other families” who use television or other media as a babysitter, not families like their own that use it as a form of early education.

Once the two-year mark is passed, it seems that children face a no-holds-barred attitude when it comes to television watching. A University of Michigan study found that television viewing among young children is at an eight-year high. Children between the ages of 2 and 5 watch an average of 32 hours of television every week between regular programs, videos, and programming available through gaming consoles. It is not the actual television shows that are harmful; in fact, the Journal of American Medical Association found that some educational television between the ages of 3 and 5 improves reading skills. It is the overuse of television and technology, and the underuse of basic learning activities like reading a book or playing with a ball, that lends itself to academic disengagement in the school years.

How Technology Warps the Learning Process

Even more active technological engagement, like using a computer or tablet for toddler learning activities, can foster academic disengagement by making the learning process entirely too easy. If a two-year-old child learns that the answer is always the touch of a screen away, how can the same child be expected to search for answers or show his work in his K-12 career? What parents today view as learning improvements are actually modern conveniences that devalue the pursuit of knowledge.

Though the eagerness to let technology replace traditional early childhood learning methods presents large-scale problems, the intent of the parents using that technology is often benign. Why not give children a head start on learning ABCs, colors and numbers that are easily taught through repetitious technology applications? Parents are not deliberately leading their pre-K offspring down the road of academic disengagement or anti-intellectualism for life, but when they allow technology to define early childhood learning, they sow the seeds of both problems. Questions that cannot be answered within a simple application format become too difficult, or too bothersome, for children to try to sort out later on.

Educators have not yet come to grips with the issue of parental dependence on technology. The first children who have had access to mobile applications from infancy are just beginning their K-12 careers and will likely see some of that technology made available in their classrooms. How will these children react when they are given a book to read, or when they receive a returned, marked-up math worksheet that requires editing by hand? Will these children scoff at the idea of non-digital requests, or handle them graciously as part of the learning process?

As with any technological progress in classrooms, mobile technology certainly has its positive place but educators (and parents before them) should also be asking what is being replaced – and how much of K-12 learning should be delegated to technology. Dependency on technology, particularly in relation to educational goals, is planted by parents (often unknowingly), and contributes to academic disengagement by making digitally enhanced learning too convenient and traditional learning pursuits too “boring”.

Matthew Lynch published in Education News, International Education December 6, 2016

Expansion is no longer the answer to improving the Australian education system

This article was written by Dean Ashenden, University of Melbourne

For 50 years, Australia’s policymakers have been persuaded that growth at every level of the education system would be a good thing in itself – and would drive economic growth and social progress.

That faith is now under unprecedented pressure.

While massive expansion has brought the benefits of education to millions, it has also created new problems, and left old ones unresolved.

Human capital theory

Belief in the power of education to lift lives and societies is hardly new. But “human capital theory” gave it a new form.

Developed by a small group of US economists in the late 1950s, human capital theory arrived in Australia via the OECD in 1964, when L. H. Martin became the first in a long line of Australian policymakers to argue that education was not a necessary expense but an investment.

Investment in education would make individuals and economies more productive, triggering a virtuous circle of economic growth, more equal opportunity, higher levels of health and civic-mindedness, and cultural enrichment. The economic rain would follow the educational plough.

It followed (as one Australian human capital theorist argued) that,

“education spending should be expanded up to the point where the rate of return to additional spending is equal to the general rate of return on capital”.

Anything less will reduce the rate of economic growth and result in “a culturally impoverished and less cohesive society”.

In the meantime, education pays for itself (as another theorist put it) “many times over”.

Promise and performance

Governments have certainly done as advised.

In just two generations they have tripled the proportion of students completing 12 years of schooling, expanded numbers in vocational education and training (VET) from a few tens of thousands to around 1.5 million, and multiplied higher education numbers by thirteen.

But 50 years on it is clear the benefits of vastly expanded access to education are heavily offset in ways scarcely anticipated by the human capital argument:

Despite claims that education pays for itself, the chronic problem of funding it has recently become acute, pushing minister Pyne from his portfolio, and his government toward a near-death electoral experience.
Even the OECD, the leading apostle of human capital theory, concedes that “over-education” is relatively pronounced in Australia. Employment and salary returns to degree and diploma programs have fallen steadily, while at the lowest qualification levels returns are negligible or even negative. On the other side of the transaction, employers continue to complain about the employability and “job readiness” of graduates
Despite more years of schooling by many more people, a persistently large minority of students is “disengaged”, and an even larger proportion of adults lacks the skills “to meet the demands of everyday life and work”.
Research dominates the universities and they dominate the system as a whole. The universities have been allowed to pursue their own interests at the expense of teaching, and to undertake increasing amounts of educational work for which neither they nor their students are well equipped. Their dominance extends to the purposes and curriculum of schooling, and contributes to the perception of VET – under-funded and beset by scandal – as an educational last resort.
There have been few or no gains in the social distribution of opportunity in and through education. It seems likely that structural inequality – the distance between the best and worst educated, and the distribution of the population across that spectrum – has increased.
Growth has been in time served as well as numbers enrolled, causing costs for young people to rise as returns fall. They spend a steadily increasing proportion of their lives in a limbo between childhood and fully adult circumstances and responsibilities in pursuit of employment which may or may not materialise.

Growth still the solution?

There are those who argue or assume that growth should still be the first objective of policy.

The most recent substantial review of higher education, for example, relied on human capital theory to argue for a much-expanded, demand-driven system.

Deloitte Access Economics prosecutes the same case, claiming not just a long list of social, health and other benefits for expansion, but an 8.5% increase in GDP “because of the impact that a university education has had on the productivity”.

Australia’s most successful federal minister of education, John Dawkins, recently called for a comprehensive rethink, but with funding for further growth as the central question, a view apparently shared by the Grattan Institute.

The guns of policy are pointing in the wrong direction. We need a re-orientation for the next 50 years as substantial as that introduced by Martin 50 years ago.

A different orientation for public policy

The first question for policy should not be the size of the system or its funding but its disposition, character, and consequences:

Policy has concentrated on the supply of skills and knowledge; it should now concentrate on their use and development in the workplace.
The effort to load up individuals with economically useful skills and knowledge via front-end, formal education should give way to expanding career and training paths and work-based learning across the broadest possible range of industries and occupations, including most of the professions.
The focus on the social distribution of education should be widened to tackle structural inequality. Policy must be directed less toward opportunity to get the best, and more toward providing the highest possible proportion of the population with the best possible educational experience and attainment.
The priority currently given to the top half of the system and to those who do well at school and go on to higher education should be given to those for whom education is a bad experience with bad consequences.
Policy should above all stop equating human capital with the consumption of formal education. That conflation has allowed occupational groups, including particularly the professions and those aspiring to professional status, to combine with education providers to use credentials to drive up amounts of education consumed. Educational provision should be seen within the larger frame of learning and its recognition, irrespective of where, when or how undertaken, but particularly learning and its use in workplaces.

It is possible to detect the beginnings of such a re-orientation in some of the areas discussed; in others, it is not.

Learning the lessons of experience

Although human capital theory has gone largely unchallenged in policy debates, among economists it has been as much criticised and rejected as accepted.

Even those who work within the human capital framework often distance themselves from the growth argument appealed to by governments and others.

The rise of human capital theory from one among several accounts of the education-economy relationship to conventional wisdom owes as much to its political usefulness to governments and to the education industry as to its merits.

There is much more to the complex interaction of education and learning (on the one hand) and economic activity (on the other) than human capital theory comprehends, including particularly competition for economic advantage through education by occupational groups and by families and individuals.

There is also much more to education than its contribution to economic activity.

Martin depended upon a theory. Now we have experience. If the lessons of the past 50 years are to be learned, policymakers will need a much broader course of instruction than can be provided by human capital theory.

Dean Ashenden, Honorary Senior Fellow, Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform, Teachers November 19, 2016

Does wearing a school uniform improve student behavior?

Todd A DeMitchell, University of New Hampshire

In a growing number of school districts across the nation, students must wear a uniform.

This is not the stereotypical school uniform associated with Catholic schools – pleated plaid skirt with a blouse for girls; a button-down shirt, a necktie and dark pants for boys. Instead, these are mostly khaki and blue or khaki and red shirt/blouse and skirt/pants uniforms.

According to the US Department of Education, wearing a uniform can decrease the risk of violence and theft, instill discipline and help school officials recognize intruders who come to the school.

As a former teacher, principal and superintendent and now a policy and law scholar, I am skeptical about such claims.

Research on the effects of school uniforms is still nascent. And the findings on the impact of school uniforms on student behavior, discipline, connection to the school, attendance and academic gains is at best mixed.

Lawsuits, protests, individuality

About half of schools around the country have dress codes policies. A dress code identifies what clothes cannot be worn to school. A school uniform policy defines what clothes must be worn to school. Dress codes limit clothing options while school uniforms define clothing options.

Schools claim that when students come in uniforms, it improves discipline and leads to academic gains. The Bossier Parish School Board in Louisiana enacted a uniform policy in 2001 in order to increase test scores and reduce disciplinary problems.

However, such mandatory policies that decide what students can or cannot wear to schools, have led to free speech violations lawsuits. Students allege such policies are unconstitutional, as they restrict their freedom of expression.

There have been nine lawsuits up to 2014. School districts have won almost all the cases, except one, where an appeals court found the uniform policy of a Nevada school unconstitutional. The school required students to wear shirts emblazoned with the school motto, “Tomorrow’s Leaders,” which the court found to be a violation of students’ free speech rights.

In addition, students have protested in their schools as well.

An example of student and parental reaction to school uniforms is found in my home state of New Hampshire when Pinkerton Academy, a private secondary school, considered adopting a “uniform dress code” (a school uniform).

Students in an online protest wrote:

[A school uniform] takes away individuality. Also, [it] will not change study habits of students. [It means] too much money [needs to be spent] for each child. Parents do not have that type of money, especially in this economy. We have the right to freedom of expression and would like to keep it that way.“ [And] “its [sic] my right to wake up in the morning and have my own unique individuality.”

Mixed impact of school uniforms

A more important question is whether there is any evidence to show that mandatory uniform policies can lead to improved student outcomes.

Research shows mixed results: it’s true that some studies show a reduction in the incidence of misbehavior. But then, there are others that show an increase in student suspensions. A few others show no significant change in student misbehavior.

Research shows mixed results of the impact of school uniforms on student behavior.
Student image via www.shutterstock.com

For example, a 2010 study in a large urban school district in the Southwest found that asking students to wear uniforms did not result in any change in the number of suspensions for elementary school students.

In fact, middle and high school students experienced a significant increase in suspensions.

By contrast, a 2003 study that used a large national data set concluded that elementary and middle schools with school uniforms had fewer student behavior problems.

But, again, it found that high schools had a greater frequency of misbehavior.

Interestingly, even when evidence is available, educators’ perceptions could be at odds with it. For example, a study of educators in 38 North Carolina high schools found that 61% of the responding principals and assistant principals believed that there was a reduction in cases of misbehavior on campus when school uniforms were introduced. In reality, the data showed no change in incidents of crime, violence and suspensions.

Similarly, research on the efficacy of school uniforms on increasing student attendance and achievement is conflicted. For example, one study concluded that school uniforms resulted in increased student achievement and increased attendance.

However, another study found little impact on academics at all levels and little evidence of improvement in attendance for girls and drop in attendance for boys.

Implications for policy

So, what does lack of consistent research mean for policy?

In my view, it does not mean that schools should not implement such policies. It does mean, however, that educators must be clear about the goals that they hope to achieve with mandating school uniforms.

There is often a cost associated with mandatory school uniform policies. Lawsuits and community reactions can take up scarce resources of time and money.

Decreased discipline problems, increased attendance and increased academic achievement may not be achieved just by wearing khaki and blue. But there may be other benefits, such as, it could help a school promote its brand through a uniform look. School uniform may also serve as symbol of commitment to academic achievement.

The point is that clarity of purpose and outcome is necessary before students don their uniform in the morning.

I believe school uniforms may be part of a broad array of programs and approaches that a school may adopt to bring change. However, as a standalone measure, it implies that schools are simply trying to find an easy fix for difficult and complex problems.

School uniforms alone cannot bring about a sustained or large-scale change.

Todd A DeMitchell, Professor of Education, and Professor of Justice Studies, University of New Hampshire

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Equity, Matthew Lynch November 8, 2016

Ask An Expert: Disrupting the School-to-Prison Cycle

Question: Dr. Lynch, I am a youth counselor in Philadelphia, PA. Everyday I witness the public school system fail our children. The end result is that many of them drop out and end up in prison. What can activists like myself do to end the school to prison pipeline? Nate T.

Answer: Nate, thank you for sending this question my way. Though all people are genetically predisposed, it is ultimately the environment that encompasses the formative years that shapes lives. Some of that comes from home environments, and the rest from society. Our nation’s public schools play an integral role in fostering talents, but also in building our children’s internal worth.

When one student is causing a classroom disruption, the traditional way to address the issue has been removal – whether the removal is for five minutes, five days or permanently. Separating the “good” students and the “bad” ones has always seemed the fair, judicious approach. On an individual level this form of discipline may seem necessary to preserve the educational experience for others. If all children came from homes that implemented a cause-and-effect approach to discipline, this might be the right answer. Unfortunately, an increasing number of students come from broken homes, or ones where parents have not the desire or time to discipline. For these students, removal from education is simply another form of abandonment and leads to the phenomenon called the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Children are just as much a product of their environments as the expectations placed on them. Parents on a first-name basis with law enforcement officials certainly influence the behavior of their children, but school authorities with preconceived negative associations create an expectation of failure too. Increasingly, educators are learning how to recognize the signs of textbook learning disabilities like ADHD or dyslexia. But what about the indirect impact that factors like poverty, abuse, neglect or simply living in the wrong neighborhood have on a student’s ability to learn? Where are the intervention programs that keep these students on academic track without removing them from the school setting?

The term “zero tolerance” may sound like the best way to handle all offenses in public schools, but it really does a disservice to students. Not every infraction is a black and white issue and not every misstep by a student is a result of direct defiance. Often students with legitimate learning disabilities or social impairment are labeled as “disruptions” and removed from classroom settings under the guise of preserving the learning experience for other, “better” students. I suppose there is an argument to be made for protecting straight-and-narrow students from the sins of others, but at what cost? Schools are the first line of defense against this early form of pigeonholing, but the community needs to embrace the concept. Students with discipline problems are individuals that need customized learning experiences to succeed academically, in the years ahead.

Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform October 27, 2016

Why The US Education System is Failing: Part IV

In thinking about the future of education in this great nation, we are inspired by innovation and simultaneously dejected by the slow implementation in many K-12 educational settings. While colleges and universities seem to implement new practices, policies and technologies at a fast pace, K-12 institutions are relatively sluggish. This is not only a disservice to students, but also problematic for the economy at large. Better access to top-notch education starts before Kindergarten – not after a high school diploma has been earned. In the final part of my series, I continue to examine the problems hindering the US education system from being all that it can be.

Year-round schooling. does it work? The traditional school year, with roughly three months of vacation days every summer, was first implemented when America was an agricultural society. The time off was not implemented to accommodate contemporary concerns, like children needing “down time” to decompress and “be kids.” The system was literally born out of economic necessity. In fact, the first schools that went against the summers-off version of the academic calendar were in urban areas that did not revolve around the agricultural calendar, like Chicago and New York, as early as the mid-1800s. It was much later, however, that the idea as a whole gained momentum. Overall, year-round schooling seems to show a slight advantage academically to students enrolled, but the numbers of students are not high enough to really get a good read on it at this point. What does seem clear, however, is that at-risk students do far better without a long summer break, and other students are not harmed by the year-round schedule.

The Achievement Gap. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education released student performance data in its National Assessment for Educational Progress report. The data is compiled every two years and it assesses reading and math achievements for fourth and eighth graders. This particular report also outlines differences between students based on racial and socioeconomic demographics. The data points to the places in the U.S. that still struggle with inequality in student opportunity and performance, otherwise known as the achievement gap. The achievement gap will likely always exist in some capacity, in much the same way that the U.S. high school dropout rate will likely never make it down to zero. This doesn’t mean it is a lost cause, of course. Every student who succeeds, from any demographic, is another victory in K-12 education and it benefits society as a whole. Better recognition by every educator, parent and citizen of the true problem that exists is a start; actionable programs are the next step.

School security. In theory, parents and educators would do anything to keep students safe, whether those students are pre-Kindergartners or wrapping up a college career. Nothing is too outlandish or over-the-top when it comes to protecting our kids and young adults. Metal detectors, security cameras, more police presence in school hallways, gated campuses – they all work toward the end goal of sheltering students and their educators, protecting some of the most vulnerable of our citizens. Emotions aside, though, how much does school security really increase actual safety? Do school security efforts actually hinder the learning experience? It sounds good to taut the virtues of tighter policies on school campuses but is it all just empty rhetoric? Given the fact that state spending per student is lower than at the start of the recession, how much should schools shell out on security costs? Perhaps the best investment we can make to safeguard our students and educators is in personal vigilance. Perhaps less reliance on so-called safety measures would lead to higher alertness.

Assistive Technology. A key to improving the educational experience for students with disabilities is better accommodations in schools and continued improvements in assistive technology. Assistive technology in K-12 classrooms, by definition, is designed to “improve the functional capabilities of a child with a disability.” While the word “technology” automatically conjures up images of cutting-edge electronics, some assistive technology is possible with just simple accommodations. Whether high-tech or simple in design, assistive technology has the ability to transform the learning experiences for the children who benefit. Assistive technology is important for providing a sound education for K-12 students with disabilities but benefits the greater good of the country, too. Nearly one-fourth of a specific student population is not being properly served and with so many technological advances, that is a number I believe can drop. Assistive technology in simple and complex platforms has the ability to lift the entire educational experience and provide a better life foundation for K-12 students with disabilities.

As this series has argued, there is not one factor to blame for public education underachievement but rather a collection of influences that undercut the cultural importance of broad-based knowledge. To reach better outcomes, we must peal back the layers of policy and perception to their cores. Through careful analysis of the present state of K-12 public education in America and its problems and issues, this series has advocated for reform that will benefit future generations of students and citizens. Hopefully the right people were reading.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform October 5, 2016

Why The US Education System is Failing: Part III

Public education in America is a paradox in the global perspective, a system that congratulates itself from within while failing to measure up to the achievements of other developed nations. It is not what is being taught in the American K-12 public school system that is so detrimental, either. It is more about what is missing. Larger cultural influences that focus on materialism and bottom lines undermine the public education of American K-12 students. Our students are prepped more for tangible results and less for a lifetime of learning. Part III of my series will continue to chronicle the problems and issues that are negatively affecting the public education of the nation’s K-12 learners.

Closing the college gender gap. If you have been following education hot button issues for any length of time, you’ve likely read about the nationwide push to better encourage girls in areas like science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The thought is that by showing young women that these topics are just as appropriate for them as their male peers, more women will find lasting careers in these traditionally male-dominated fields. I’m all for more women in the STEM workplace but with all this focus in one area, are educators neglecting an even larger gender gap issue? I wonder how much of this trend is based on practicality and how much is based on a lingering social convention that women need to “prove” themselves when it comes to the workforce. Do women simply need a degree to land a job in any field? If so, the opposite is certainly not true for men – at least not yet. Will the young men in our classrooms today have a worse quality of life if they do not attend college – or will it be about the same?

High school dropouts. It seems that every time the issue of high school dropouts is discussed, it all centers on money. U.S. Census Statistics tell us that 38 percent of high school dropouts fall below the poverty line, compared with 18 percent of total households in every demographic. Dropouts are also 40 percent more likely to rent their residences and spend $450 less per month on housing costs than the overall population. Only around 60 percent of dropouts own vehicles and they spend over $300 less on entertainment annually than average Americans. It’s clear that a high school diploma is in fact the ticket to higher earnings, at least on a collective level. The negative financial ramifications of dropping out of high school cannot be denied but the way they are over-emphasized seems like a worn-out tactic to me. To really reach today’s students and encourage them to finish at least their high school education, we need to value them as learners and not simply as earners.

Education equity. Equity in education has long been an ideal. It’s an ideal celebrated in a variety of contexts, too. Even the Founding Fathers celebrated education as an ideal – something to which every citizen ought to be entitled. Unfortunately, though, the practice of equity in education has been less than effective. Equity, in the end, is a difficult ideal to maintain and many strategies attempting to maintain it have fallen far short in the implementation. To achieve equity, school systems need to have an approach for analyzing findings about recommended shifts in learning approaches and objectives. These approaches should also help teachers and administrators understand not what they have to avoid but what it is that they can do to achieve optimal equity moving forward.

Cheating and technology. Academic dishonesty is nothing new. As long as there have been homework assignments and tests, there have been cheaters. The way that cheating looks has changed over time though, particularly now that technology has made it easier than ever. Perhaps the most interesting caveat of modern-day cheating in U.S. classrooms is that students often do not think they have done anything wrong. Schools must develop anti-cheating policies that include technology and those policies must be updated consistently. Teachers must stay vigilant, too, when it comes to what their students are doing in classrooms and how technology could be playing a negative role in the learning process. Parents must also talk to their kids about the appropriate ways to find academic answers and alert them to unethical behaviors that may seem innocent in their own eyes.

Teacher tenure. One of the most contested points of teacher contracts is the issue of tenure. Hardline education reformers argue that tenure protects underperforming teachers, which ends up punishing the students. Teachers unions challenge (among other reasons) that with the ever-changing landscape of K-12 education, including evaluation systems, tenure is necessary to protect the jobs of excellent teachers who could otherwise be ousted unfairly. It can often be a sticking point – and one that can lead to costly time out of classrooms, as recently seen in large school systems like New York City and Chicago. Now, I’m not suggesting that teachers just “give up” but I would support adjusting the expectations for tenure. It seems an appropriate step in the right direction for teachers in all types of schools. That energy then can be redirected towards realistic and helpful stipulations in teachers’ contracts that benefit the entire industry.

And this is the end of part III of on my series. Stay tuned for the fourth and final part and remember to comment.

Click here to read all our posts concerning the Achievement Gap.

Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Policy & Reform September 22, 2016

Accountability versus Gaming the P-12 System

I’ve recently delved into The Death and Life of the Great American School by Diane Ravitch. It has been on my reading list for some time now and I finally decided it was time to really give it the attention it deserves. I consider myself an education reformer, and an advocate for reforming the current public school system, so Ravitch’s works speak to me, even if I’m not always completely in the same school of thought.

In educational discourse, Ravitch is an interesting figure. She served as the assistant secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush, though she has never been a Republican and is an Independent today. She was once a supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act and even the formation of charter schools, but in recent years has spoken out against these initiatives, saying that she is now disillusioned with them. In her eyes, and those of her supporters, the idea of standardized testing as a measure of a school’s worth and competition as a way to improve public education are not valid avenues to reform, and will indeed lead to an education system more flawed than the current one.

Ravitch discusses the many ways that school districts that include public, private and charter schools within their realms game the system to reach standardized testing and other accountability benchmarks. She talks in depth about the transformation of New York City public school district 2, an area that has undergone reform with support from deep pockets, like those belonging to billionaire Michael Bloomberg. In this particular instance, New York City schools are under mayoral control for all intents and purposes – and as such, have accountability standards that read more like a white paper on business efficiency than suggestions for actually teaching human beings.

The problem with these standards, of course, is that with stringent, subjective targets for learning, schools are able to game the system to make it work in their favor. In other words, these schools are looking for ways to meet a specific, narrow goal – think of it like a salesperson closing a deal – and then they are rewarded for that piece of shallow success. The flip side of this is that the schools that do not manage to meet these standards are then punished, in true NCLB style, even if the details of their teaching methods actually have some merit. Teachers and administrators at schools that are deemed “failures” or even just mediocre by the established system then must bow to the pressure in order to stay relevant and away from the target range when it comes to adding “competitive” school choices.

Places like New York City are not the first to bring in sweeping reform ideas intended to aid student success – they are simply re-debuting ideas that have already existed in other parts of the country. It is fair to note that by many accounts, areas with public charter and magnet school choice do not fare any better (and are sometimes worse) than the traditional neighborhood schools in the area. Yet, sometimes these schools DO work – at least on paper. I’ve mused before about how my home state of Mississippi would look if there were to be more choice in the state when it comes to P-12 education. As it stands now, student achievement gets a failing grade consistently in Mississippi and the public schools are not improving under the current system. Based on the success of choice programs in other areas, is it worth a try? Or will those schools be developed in ways that “game the system” and take away the true measure of learning: well-rounded, educated students?

On Friday, I’ll take a look at the idea of superstar teachers tackled in the book and if they really are the cure for all educational reform ailments – or if they even exist.
Have you read The Death and Life of the Great American School? What are your thoughts?

Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform April 15, 2016

Still a Stretch: Why Race to the Top Spending is Stunted

One of the education issues that President Obama has been the most vocal in reforming is America’s need to lead the world in number of college graduates. His administration’s Race to the Top initiative has already earmarked $4 billion for 19 states (serving 22 million K-12 students) to reform public education programs to improve technology, raise teacher accountability and heighten learning standards. Another 34 states have modified their laws to better reach these goals, and 48 states total have developed career and college-ready standards.

It all sounds good in a condensed summary, but upon closer review, Race to the Top has not had the intended impact. As the grant period comes to a close this summer, it is clear that reform has fallen short – particularly when it comes to student performance. A few areas that have not lived up to Race to the Top goals include:

College enrollment. While graduation rates are above target, the number of high school graduates enrolling in college or some other form of post-secondary learning has actually decreased. Proficiency on standardized testing nationwide has not risen as quickly as promised, either. There are exceptions, of course. North Carolina secured $400 million in 2010 to be used to advance public education through technology, teacher training and evaluation, changes in classroom standards and a focus on low-performing schools. The state still has about 25 million unspent dollars of the grant and is asking to extend the program by one more year. In 2013, the U.S. department of Education praised N.C’s progress.

Unused vouchers. In order to attract better teachers, Race to the Top grants are allowed to be used for vouchers created to lure high-performing teachers to low-performing schools. These vouchers have a relative amount of freedom-for-use attached, with vouchers being allowed to pay students loans, tuition, housing and other options. Unfortunately, many of these vouchers has gone unused by the districts. In 2012, only 35 of 106 schools eligible to receive bonuses for improved student performance received the extra $1,500 per teacher.

Poverty still too big a player. Many of the states receiving funding were targeted that way because of higher-than-average low-income students, or those living in poverty conditions that impacted their educations. The fact that Race to the Top does not address overemphasis on standardized testing and teacher accountability is a problem, according to people like Elaine Weiss of Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. Weiss’ group calls for better focus on poverty and the issues that accompany it, especially in urban classrooms, and believes that without that specialized attention in Race to the Top grants, the true problem of K-12 Americans becoming college graduates will never be addressed.

To be fair, the biggest grant-funded Race to the Top changes are largely unseen – at least so far. They are invisible to the general public. Some things are simply not cut-and-dry, or able to be seen in the short term. Some of the grant money that has been distributed has paid for summer institutes for teachers and principals where they were trained in the new Common Core standards.

Technology improvements like building Cloud infrastructures are still in infancy and have not truly been realized just yet. It is also too soon to see what positive changes recruiting high-quality personnel will have. In North Carolina, principals at underperforming schools have been replaced with better candidates to the tune of 87 percent. Race to the Top is not a failure; it has just not turned out to be the golden child of promise of its intention.

As the grant period comes to a close, it will be interesting to see if these issues are debugged and if more money is allocated.

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