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Articles: Educational Issues

Art for our sake: School arts classes matter more than ever - but not for the reasons you think, by Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, in the Ideas section of the Boston Sunday Globe, September 2, 2007.
Having shown that art classes do not raise scores on MCAS or SAT tests, the authors explain how their research discovered that vital skills are developed more in art classes than in verbal and mathematical styles of classes. “Such skills include visual-spatial abilities, reflection, self-criticism, and the willingness to experiment and learn from mistakes. All are important to numerous careers, but are widely ignored by today’s standardized tests.”

Plumbing, then political science: Mass. vocational schools steering students to college, by Maria Sacchetti, in the Boston Globe, January 21, 2007.
“More vocational schools across Massachusetts are preparing their students for colleges, some as elite as MIT, shedding a long-held reputation for steering students only toward blue-collar professions.”

Reining in Charter Schools, Editorial in the New York Times, May 10, 2006.
“A multistate study by the Evaluation Center, a well-known research group at Western Michigan University, describes charter schools in Michigan, Ohio and some other states as actually having a negative impact on student achievement.” Editorial questions direction of Charter movement.

‘Asian Success Formula’ Ignores Vast Cultural Diversity, letter of commentary by Rosann Tung, in Education Week, April 19, 2006.
The CCE Director of Research responds to an Ed Week article, pointing to the problems of “sweeping assumptions about Asians” and calling for “more in-depth research.”

Habits of Spiritually Grounded Leaders, by Scott Thompson, in The School Administrator, November 2005.
You can know the theory and the facts. “We tend to be heavily reliant on physical sense perceptions and rationality.” However, “the human self is rich with other capacities--intuition, empathy, emotion and faith, to name but a few.” The article focuses on inward spiritualities that may or may not come from religion, while it explicitly does not consider organized religion or proselytizing activity.

Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Educational Apartheid, by Jonathan Kozol, in Harper's Magazine, September 1, 2005.
Kozol documents a blistering attack on the education divide between white and non-white schools. He shows we’ve come full circle to where we now rationalize in favor of the once rejected “separate but equal” doctrine. Then he shows how dismal and unequal the education is in these schools.

Study Finds Shortcoming in New Law on Education, by Greg Winter, in the New York Times, April 13, 2005.
“The academic growth that students experience in a given school year has apparently slowed since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the education law that was intended to achieve just the opposite, a new study has found.” The study also showed an increase in the course of a year in the achievement gap between white and non-white students in a given grade. While the study covered 320,000 students, it did not include big cities, leaving some to question its validity.

The Development of Critical Minds: Reclaiming the Vision for Urban Schools, by Linda Nathan, in Perspectives, newsletter of the Massachusetts Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, September 2004.
BAA headmaster Nathan shows that “testing mania” has become “an avalanche bordering on the absurd,” and contrasts the rich work of a validly functioning school with the encroaching test-prep that threatens urban education.

Myatt: More tests won’t help our high schools, by Larry Myatt, Guest Columnist, in the MetroWest Daily News, September 7, 2004.
Former Fenway principal and current director of CCE’s Principals Residency Network, Larry Myatt argues, “Current federal policy demonstrates a lack of imagination and commitment to the extensive restructuring our high schools need. This is not for a lack of models -- all over the country small, personalized, engaging high schools are making a difference in the lives of our children. It is instead a failure of leadership.”

The Harlem Project, by Paul Tough, cover article in the New York Times Magazine, June 20, 2004
After nearly a decade of welfare reform and small-bore antipoverty programs, Geoffrey Canada has a radical new thesis: If you really want to change the lives of inner-city kids, change everything—their schools, their families, their neighborhood—all at once.

Hub of hypersegregation, op-ed column by Derrick Jackson, in the Boston Globe, April 23, 2004.
“This week the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, which studies patterns of segregation and the benefits of integration, released a study that found that public education in the Boston metropolitan area remains so segregated that project director Gary Orfield said, ‘The stratification here is just extraordinary.’”

Regionwide segregation, lead editorial in the Boston Globe, April 21, 2004.
“Boston is losing the school desegregation battle. Even as city schools make academic strides to help students pass the MCAS, many do so in educational ghettoes defined by race, language, and income....The city needs more innovative schools that would pull families into the city. The Boston Arts Academy high school does this.”

Gaping achievement, by Jennifer Elise Chase, in the South End News, April 15 , 2004.
Boston parents, teachers, school personnel, students, and legislators are getting together at the Dudley Branch Library, analyzing the cause and proposing solutions for the Achievement Gap in BPS.

Turtleback educator wins DisneyHand Teacher Award, by Erika Ayn Finch, in the North County Times (San Diego, CA), April 10, 2004.
This story features the only California teacher in 2004 to win a “DisneyHand Teacher Award, a prestigious honor that recognizes teachers for their creativity and the positive influence they have on children.” In addition to a $10,000 grant for the teacher and a $5,000 grant for her elementary school, the award includes “a week in Orlando, Fla., in October where she will take workshops coordinated by the Center for Collaborative Education out of Boston.”

Role of the coach: Dream keeper, supporter, friend, by Susan Herll with Brooke O'Drobinak, in the National Staff Development Councils’ JSD, Spring 2004 (Vol. 25, No. 2).
“I have played the part of dream keeper, instructional leader, supporter, teacher, facilitator, friend, and reformer. As an on-site coach, I have had to adjust to the needs of those with whom I work and the dynamic nature of my school. Over these two years, I have come to realize that there are three important aspects to surviving and thriving as a coach: disposition, process, and prioritization.”

Seeking Alternatives to Standardized Testing, by Jay Matthews, interviewing Deborah Meier, in washingtonpost.com, February 17, 2004.
In his “Class Struggle” column, Matthews challenges Deborah Meier, in an email interview, to justify her antipathy to standardized testing as one valid practice for city schools. Meier is eloquent in response.

Public schools deserve a chance, by Janice Fine, op-ed. column in the Boston Globe, February 9, 2004.
“What I am suggesting is that parents consider the public schools, that they explore them, that they try them. And that when they visit them, they do so with an open mind. I am suggesting that they do not dismiss the Boston Public Schools out of hand based upon some stereotyped notion of what they think they will find there.”

Senate Considers School Vouchers for DC, audio report from National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, reporter Claudio Sanchez, September 25, 2003.
In this NPR report on a Senate debate over approving school vouchers for private schools in Washington DC, the alternative cited (briefly) is the Pilot school system in Boston, with a comment from Mayor Menino. (Audio link only. You must be able to play sound on your computer, e.g., with QuickTime, RealAudio or Windows Media Player.)

Aiming for A’s in Boston, Editorial in the Boston Globe, September 3, 2003.
“Sociologists say the negative effects of poverty rise along with the percentage of poor people in a neighborhood or a school system. But innovations are taking place in community development and education that counter such views. Concentrated effort can be stronger than concentrated poverty. Such efforts are seen in Boston, where educators are breaking down large, ineffective high schools into smaller autonomous schools with the help of a Gates Foundation grant and are also earmarking $1 million for math coaches to help students move from passing to proficiency on the high-stakes Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests.”

The “Zero Dropout” Miracle: Alas! Alack! A Texas Tall Tale, by Michael Winerip, in the New York Times, August 13, 2003.
Texas school principals and others are pressured to report drop-out rates approaching zero, at the risk of otherwise losing their jobs. Actual drop-out rates in Texas are closer to 40-50%.

How Real Is Race?, by Carol Mukhopadhyay and Rosemary C. Henze, in Phi Delta Kappan, May, 2003.
Race is not a scientifically valid biological category, and yet it remains important as a socially constructed category. Once educators grasp this concept, they can use the suggestions and resources the authors offer here to help their students make sense of race.

Nation’s Students Still at Risk, by James Harvey, in the Seattle Times , May 4, 2003.
James Harvey thinks we’ve badly missed the boat on school reform, misjudging everything from what’s required to what it will cost. He views the No Child Left Behind Act as unmistakably hostile to teachers and school administrators. In his view, “Tests have become the nation’s latest weapons of mass instruction.”

Peter Senge on Organizational Learning, by Amelia Newcomb, in the School Administrator, May 2003.
If Peter Senge is eager to make one point, it's this: Kids learn in schools that learn. In a Q&A, he applies his concepts to school systems and their leaders. Senge most recently edited Schools That Learn: A Fifth Discipline Fieldbook for Educators, Parents and Everyone Who Cares About Education.

High Time to End High Stakes Test, by Meg Robbins (CCE),and Linda Sarage, op-ed column in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, February 12, 2003.
Column argues that the Northampton MA school committee should grant high school diplomas irrespective of MCAS and points to the educational flaws in high stakes testing.

Making Progress, by Kathleen Durand, in the Fall River MA Herald News, February 4, 2003.
This feature story chronicles the progress of Fall River’s Matthew J. Kuss Middle School, rated “underperforming” in November 2000 based on poor student results on the MCAS. It describes how Kuss has been working with Turning Points “to engage us in a conversation about what needs to be done...to become an excellent middle school.”

The Dilemmas of Professional Development, by Virginia Richardson, in Phi Delta Kappan, January 2003.
Why do so few staff development programs incorporate features that research has shown to be effective? Ms. Richardson suggests that the recommended practices may be at odds with America’s culture of individualism. She identifies some approaches to staff development that respect the individualism of the teachers.

More Schools Rely on Tests, but Study Raises Doubts, by Greg Winter, in the New York Times, December 28, 2002.
High stakes testing does little to improve achievement and may actually worsen academic performance and dropout rates, according to the largest study (see journal article below) ever on the issue.

High Stakes Testing, Uncertainty, and Student Learning, by Audrey L. Amrein and David C. Berliner, in Educational Analysis Policy Archives, vol. 10, no. 18, March 28, 2002.
Four separate standardized and commonly used tests that overlap the same domain as state tests were examined: the ACT, SAT, NAEP and AP tests.… Analyses of these data reveal that if the intended goal of high-stakes testing policy is to increase student learning, then that policy is not working. (This is the study referred to in the above NY Times article.)

African American Students in School: Research and Effective Instructional Practices, the full Spring Issue of Educational Horizons, Spring 2002.
Read current research and analysis of effective instructional practices for improving the schooling experiences of African-American students. This brave issue of Educational Horizons features useful information about educating a group of students that many educators (a) are unsuccessful with; (b) feel inadequate to teach; (c) do not want to teach because of fear, cultural differences, or stereotypes.

The Human Face of the High-Stakes Testing Story, by Linda Nathan, in Phi Delta Kappan, April 2002.
Schools like the Boston Arts Academy are desperately trying to keep the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System from destroying their very fabric, Ms. Nathan says. She intends to make it through the MCAS mania by continuing to fight for a rich and rigorous arts and academic curriculum, taught by highly qualified and committed teachers in an atmosphere of respect and high expectations.

Testing the Limits of MCAS, by Joan Vennochi, in the Boston Globe, April 2, 2002.
After reporting the crushing effects of statewide MCAS preparation, columnist Vennochi writes, “A recent visit to the Mission Hill School, a Boston public Pilot school in Roxbury, reminded me of the value of zestful learning and the fact that it does not always have to come with a $20,000-a-year tuition bill.”

The Weird Science of the Education Law, by Richard Rothstein, in the New York Times, January 16, 2002.
Liberal Democrats have got increased federal involvement in education, but at the cost of mandates in standardized testing, “traditional” American history, creationism in the science class, and more. “Conservatives, too, may rue the day they so significantly expanded the federal government’s place in the classroom.”

No Child Left Untested To Death, by Thomas J. Herlihy, a Republican state senator in Connecticut, in the Hartford Current , January 13, 2002.
“It is hard to question the president’s judgment. The patriot and Republican in me lean heavily to his side. Unfortunately, the federal education bill he signed last week has serious negative consequences for Connecticut.”

Why Fly That Way: Linking Community and Academic Achievement, by Kathy Greeley, with a foreword by Deborah Meier. Teachers College Press, November 2000.
Cambridge middle school teacher Greeley chronicles a year in the life of a creative middle school classroom, providing an alternative model of education and showing how a strong and supportive community is essential in helping students reach their highest potential. Included are specific classroom projects and discussions, excerpts from student journals, and frustrations as well as successes.