Tag: Achievement School District

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Editorial Opinion

The Invisible Hand

A once little-noticed phenomenon in public and governmental affairs is getting more and more attention these days, by no means all of it favorable. Call it “political out-sourcing,” an equivalent to the long-accustomed practice whereby governments — as in the case of prison management, say — turn over the operation of a traditional public enterprise to a private entity. The purpose of traditional out-sourcing is two-fold and reciprocal: The governmental body, which usually maintains at least some nominal amount of oversight, divests itself of an expensive obligation, while the private entity, which commonly acquires the formerly public operation via an accepted bidding process, has a potential profit opportunity.

Defenders of traditional out-sourcing, on both the giving and taking sides of the line, extol the process as a means of letting what economist David Ricardo called the “invisible hand” of the marketplace achieve efficiencies that are not possible for the clumsy and presumably visible hand of bureaucracy.

The newer practice of political out-sourcing is something superficially similar — but fundamentally different. One current instance of it is on display in the Achievement School District (ASD) now being operated by Tennessee state government on behalf of “failing” public schools via state takeovers of those instutitions. Another is the joint city/county Economic Development Growth Engine (EDGE), which is charged with charting the course of economic growth locally and customarily does so through the proffering of incentives to this or that industry that is eyeing a site for expansion and which EDGE has decided is worthy of being courted.

The out-sourcing here is different from the traditional kind, in that the administering institution is not private and its operating currency is not profit for itself but control over public policy (a short name for which is “power”). And its procedures are not the marketplace ones of Ricardo’s invisible hand, though they are, as critics are increasingly charging, “invisible” in a different sense (i.e., outside the purview of any significant public oversight). This is despite the fact that the enterprises themselves never cease being fully public in their scope and after-effect.

State ASD Director Chris Barbic’s powers are virtually dictatorial. He has been heard to boast that he has no elected school board to answer to. One result has been the perhaps predictable one of parental outrage at what, understandably, seems to them to be ASD’s arbitary co-optation of community property.

Similar reactions are now evident with respect to actions of the EDGE board, whose 11 members, mainly drawn from the business community, are almost entirely chosen by the mayors of Memphis and Shelby County, with minimal input from the city council and county commission, whose one-member reach is essentially cast in the role of observers.

Recent payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) arrangements and other incentives extended to target industries — as well as the selection of the targets — have drawn fire from the public as well as from the two local legislative bodies, where discontent has begun to simmer and calls for the overhauling or even the abolition of the EDGE board are beginning to be heard.

It might behoove the folks in positions of authority vis-a-vis these matters to pay more attention to the vox populi and less to that which is invisible.

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Opinion

Achievement School District Getting Bigger, Maybe Better

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The Achievement School District for low-performing schools in Shelby County will have eight or nine new members next year, including one high school that was targeted for closing.

The Innovation Zone, another new wrinkle in public education, will have five new schools.

The I-Zone schools are run by the school district. The ASD is a statewide, special school distrct. The I-Zone is a special group of schools, still under the auspices of the Shelby County school district, and run by its innovation department.

The new ASD schools include four elementary schools (Coleman, Denver, Springhill and Westwood), two middle schools (Southside and Wooddale), and two of these three high schools (Carver, Fairley, and Frayser). The two high schools were not identified. Carver has been targeted for closing due to low enrollment.

The Innovation Zone schools are Vance Middle, Grandview Heights Middle, Melrose High School, Hamilton High School, and Trezevant High School.

The announcement was made with some delicacy. Reporters were alerted Tuesday morning but asked to hold the story for release until Wednesday so that parents and faculty and staff at the targeted schools could be told first. The charter operators have not been chosen.

Both groups take schools in the bottom five percent in Tennessee for academic achievement. The goal is to move them into the top 25 percent within five years. Faculty and administration have to reapply for their jobs and may or may not be rehired. Families can opt out and attend another local public school instead. If they do nothing, they are assured of a spot in the ASD or Innovation Zone school in their attendance zone.

The schools have longer school days by an hour or more and some Saturday sessions. The pay scale for teachers is not based on tenure or experience but on student performance on tests. The pupil-teacher ratio is generally 25-1 or lower.

The inclusion of Carver is likely to raise issues about closing low-enrollment schools. The ASD could become a lifeline for such schools. Before it went out of existence, the Transition Planning Commission recommended closing 20 low-enrollment schools and identified several other candidates. The school board closed four of them.

(THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CORRECTED: An earlier version incorrectly stated that I-Zone schools will become charter schools.)

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Opinion

What to Make of Latest TCAP Scores

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The schools story has become so complicated that it’s unclear what’s to be made of the latest batch of TCAP standardized test scores released this week.

The scores got generally positive notices from officials of the state Department of Education and the unified Shelby County School System. Scores increased for the majority of school districts in Tennessee in nearly every subject. In its last year of independence, Memphis City Schools showed increased proficiency in math, science, and social studies. The legacy Shelby County School system did the same, and also improved in reading.

But “improved” or “increased” compared to what? The scoring system — the curve for those of you in the education game — changed a couple of years ago, making long-term comparisons impossible. There are new subgroups of schools, such as the Achievement School District and the Innovation Zone (I confess to not knowing there was such a thing). Apples to apples has become apples to oranges to bananas to mangoes to papayas. And scores for individual schools, including public charter schools, have not been released yet.

More on that in a minute, but first the official statements.

“Sustained improvements across the state show that our efforts to raise student outcomes are working,” said Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman. “Our students, teachers, and administrators worked incredibly hard. The results prove that if we continue to maintain high expectations and quality support for our teachers, our students will continue to grow.”

David Stephens, deputy superintendent for the Shelby County Schools, was more restrained. Legacy MCS and legacy SCS districts both earned an overall Level 5 rating for student growth – the highest level of growth possible. In grades 3-8 Reading/Language Arts, legacy MCS showed a slight decrease (-0.4), while legacy SCS showed a slight increase (+1.1). The details are here.

“We realize that we still have work to do, but are very pleased with these accomplishments, especially in the midst of a school year involving the merging of two systems. The results are proof that our teachers and leaders continued to effectively advance student achievement in the classrooms, while adjusting to changes at the district level and preparing for a unified district.”

Statewide, 30 districts saw double-digit gains in Algebra I, some gaining more than 25 percentage points. More than 50 districts saw double-digit gains in Algebra II, some reporting growth over 40 percentage points.

Such gains are cause for inspection as well as celebration because they are probably due to a major change in the test-taking population or a small sample, which magnifies the change. If such a thing were replicable on a large scale, then the wizards who did it would be running every public and private education outfit in the country.

In Memphis, the seven Innovation Zone schools, which are hard cases like the ASD schools, showed an increase in proficiency from the previous year (Math +10, Reading +2.4, Science +13.4, Social Studies +11.9) that was at a higher rate than the state and the ASD.

Credit where credit is due, but the focus on small groups of schools at a time when the biggest school system merger in American history is nigh seems, well, curious.

Congratulations to all those who did better. But determining “better” these days is a little bit like making up a football schedule. If you can’t find someone somewhere you can beat somehow then you’re not trying very hard.

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Opinion

Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Maybe Not on TCAP Test

Chris Barbic, ASD superintendent

  • Chris Barbic, ASD superintendent

What I would love to see is the TCAP test for elementary school kids given to a random sample of adults in Tennessee. I bet a lot of them would fail it, or make a score far below what the state considers “proficient” in science, reading, and math.

Not because the adults are dumb but because school knowledge and test-taking skill are not the same as being a successful functioning member of society. Are you smarter than a fifth-grader? The answer is probably yes and no.

As you probably know by now if you are reading this, the TCAP scores for the six schools in the Achievement School District came out Wednesday. Five of the schools are in Memphis. Students improved in science and math, but the number of students deemed proficient in reading dropped by 4.5 percent to just 13.6 percent overall.

“It’s the first year the kids have been held to a higher standard, and I think we need to continue to give the ASD our support,” said school board member Dr. Jeff Warren.

Said board member Kenneth Whalum Jr., “The fact that some TCAP testing areas show improvement among ASD students proves that student achievement isn’t rocket science. Focused attention, additional resources, smaller class sizes, and parental involvement usually enhance a poor student’s ability to perform well in school. It also shows that “teaching to the test” works well. The fact that the Reading scores are down, as I understand it, proves that there is no guarantee that a child’s comprehension skills are bettered by any measure aside from improving the home life of the child, as home is where
communication skills are honed.”

I agree with both of these gentlemen.

The ability to read can’t be faked, at least not on a standardized test. Most kids from reasonably well-to-do families learn to do it before they are in the third grade, with lots of help from family members. Kids who can’t read a lick by then are screwed, and so is the teacher whose job rating depends on making them “proficient”. My first job was teaching reading in Nashville, using flash cards, menus, road signs, and a baby book about “Cowboy Bob” to try to teach embarrassed teenagers how to read. Despite having the smallest classes in the school, I would not have made the ASD cut by a mile. Such is the road to journalism.

Basic literacy might not be enough to achieve “proficiency” because reading comprehension questions about random passages can be baffling and prompt a “don’t have a clue” reaction. Reading for survival, entertainment, and spiritual sustenance has little relationship to the goofy questions that show up on tests and compare-and-contrast theme assignments.

Math is a code. If you have a fourth-grader or have ever been one, you know the tipping point is simple fractions, percentages, and relationships. Give Archimedes a lever and a place to stand he could move the world. Give a teacher a pizza, a pizza cutter, and a reasonable class size and he/she can move the scores. If you don’t know what one-fourth means, much less that it is the same as 25 percent, you’re screwed. Algebra? Bet there are plenty of college-educated business professionals who would flunk Algebra I today if they haven’t been in a classroom in decades.

Science, I suspect, is a statistical outlier because it is rarely if ever taught at all in some failing schools, so any exposure at all, combined with practice testing, is likely to increase test scores.

So give the ASD some slack, and I hope the ASD gives its teachers some slack too, because longer hours and higher demands and drill and kill are going to turn classrooms into “sweat shops” as Kriner Cash said and drive them out of teaching, where most of them are badly needed.

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Opinion

How Low Will ASD School TCAP Scores Be?

Chris Barbic

  • Chris Barbic

The superintendent of the Achievement School District, Chris Barbic, took the unusual step of explaining, or spinning if you will, the TCAP standardized test scores before they are released.

Barbic wrote a column for The Commercial Appeal Friday in which he let the cat out of the bag and confirmed what some teachers have been saying for a couple weeks — the state-run ASD schools (education jargon for failing schools) got mixed results.

“Not all is rosy. Our kids are far behind in reading and we need to catch them up. There are bright spots in reading — for example, students at Gordon Science and Arts Academy grew nearly three grade levels this year. But overall our students’ reading scores dipped.”

There was no accompanying news story on school-by-school TCAP scores, which Barbic wrote will be released the week of July 22nd. In an email to the Flyer earlier this week, Kelli Gauthier, director of communications for the Tennessee Department of Education, said the scores would be released next week. The statewide TCAP results have been released and can be found here.

The ASD has set a high bar for itself — to move the lowest-performing schools to the top 25 percent in five years. Teachers, especially those who lost their jobs because they were deemed mediocre or worse in raising student test scores, will be watching closely.

To its credit, the ASD has not cherry-picked students or schools — just the opposite. But raising test scores across the board in all subjects is, as Barbic wrote, “incredibly difficult work” because low-scoring students can pull down the average.

Veteran teachers are likely to say something like “welcome to my world.”

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Opinion

The Comparison of Detroit and Memphis, Again

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

  • Detroit Mayor Dave Bing

The frustrated mayor who hoped to save the city decided this week to call it quits later this year in the face of overwhelming problems.

He listed them in an interview with a writer for The Daily Beast: Blight, corruption and crime. Historic financial issues. Declining population and low density. A City Council resistant to his plans for change. A Republican governor appointing someone to take over failing systems. The city’s midtown and downtown pocked with abandoned structures, some in the shadows of hotels and stadiums of pro sports teams. Low voter turnout in local elections. Media trashing the city.

The city is Detroit, and the mayor is Dave Bing. Detroit is the national standard for failing cities, as we have been told by Time magazine, a couple of recent documentaries including “Detropia” which was shown in Memphis last year, some books by Detroiters such as Charlie LeDuff’s “Detroit: An American Autopsy,” and about a million newspaper articles, blogs, and reader comments.

Other than that, my view of Detroit is based on nothing more than occasional visits to a small slice of the city. The parallels to Memphis are irresistible, or at least they are to me, a Michigan native, fan of Detroit novelists Loren Estleman and Elmore Leonard, and regular reader of the Detroit newspapers for more than 50 years, back before Bing was the star of the Detroit Pistons.

Finally, I thought four years ago when he was elected mayor, Detroit gets the right person for the job. But when I read the stories about him calling it quits this week, I couldn’t help thinking “Is this what’s in store for Memphis?”

Taking the indictment one count at a time, I would say Memphis is better off. For now.

Corruption: Detroit’s former mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, is in prison after being convicted in March. Memphis had Tennessee Waltz and Main Street Sweeper, which netted more convictions of public officials. But Kilpatrick’s influence was greater. A close call, but Detroit gets the edge as “worst.”

Backgrounds of Bing and Wharton: Both men are 69 years old. Bing was a successful Detroit businessman after his NBA career. He was elected in 2009 and served one term. Wharton, an attorney, has held public offices since 2002, including county and city mayor since 2002. The lesson: a “business approach to government” does not necessarily translate to success with unions, other politicians, and loss of population and tax base. Nor do political experience, charm, and personal decency.

Crime: In one recent survey of “most dangerous U.S. cities” Detroit ranked first and Memphis tenth. In another survey, Detroit was fifth and Memphis sixth. On Wednesday, Bing and the emergency manager announced the appointment of a new police chief. As in Memphis, his job will be reducing violent crime on a budget.

Declining population and vast footprint. Detroit’s population has fallen from nearly two million in the 1950s to about 700,000 in a city of 142 square miles. The population of Memphis, boosted by annexation of 35,000 residents, declined 0.5 percent between 2000 and 2010 to 647,000 in more than 300 square miles.

Low voter turnout: 17 percent in Detroit, and about the same in the 2011 Memphis mayoral and City Council election. Low turnout has been a given in Memphis for decades and the inflated number of “eligible voters” due to the reluctance of the Election Commission to purge the rolls, makes it look worse.

Blight near stadiums: As we’re seeing with the Grizzlies, pro sports can boost community morale and have a big economic impact, but championships (Tigers, Red Wings, and Pistons in last ten years) and new side-by-side stadiums (Tigers and Lions) couldn’t avert Detroit’s population loss, financial crisis, or blighted condition. Downtown Memphis has empty office buildings and blighted sections, but the redevelopment of the Chisca Hotel, South Main Street, and public housing projects will make for a better-looking and more vibrant downtown.

Bad publicity: A Los Angeles sportswriter took some shots at Memphis, as did Forbes and other publications that purport to rank cities. But Memphis gets some good national attention too, for its music, food, and mystique. Our toughest critics are in the suburbs and in Nashville. Wharton, except for complaining that local television news programs over-emphasize violent crime, is not a media critic in the manner of his predecessor, Willie Herenton. Bing was apparently unloading on national more than local media depictions of Detroit.

State oversight: Detroit has an emergency manager. Worst case scenario is biggest-ever city bankruptcy. Memphis has the state-run Achievement School District which has taken over some public schools, and a federal judge and special master overseeing the merger of the school districts. Worst case scenario is failure of the biggest school system merger in U.S. history, but exactly what that would mean in dollars and cents remains to be seen.

City Council opposition: Mayors get things done by cultivating council allies. It is hard to identify anyone currently carrying water for Wharton. On one side is Jim Strickland, pledging to vote against tax increases. On the other is Joe Brown, saying tax the rich because they can afford it and don’t care. There will be bad feelings, but also a balanced budget and probably a tax increase next month. That’s more than Detroit can say.

On May 30th, Memphis magazine is bringing New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu in for a luncheon called “A Summons to Memphis.” If he’ll come, Bing would be a good choice for a follow-up. He’s a truth-teller, with no worries about being reelected, and he has a story to tell.

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Opinion

Why Suburbs Will Eventually Win on Schools

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Where there’s a will there’s a way, and there are more ways than ever when it comes to school choice in public education.

First, there is plenty of will, as evidenced by the smashingly successful suburban referendums earlier this year. The strongest force in the universe is a parent determined to get his or her child into a good public school. The current Shelby County school system is essentially what the Memphis optional schools were a few decades ago: the public school option of choice for middle-class families and some affluent families.

The courtroom setback was a gimme for the Shelby County Commission and federal judge Samuel H. Mays. The ‘burbs were sunk in the opening minutes of the trial in September when commission attorney Leo Bearman played the videotape of that legislative exchange about “Shelby County only.” Attorneys for the defendants promptly objected, but the damage was done. The suburban champions were caught on tape and on Rep. G. A. Hardaway’s clever hook. This was bad law, pure and simple. Mays let the defense team run on for a while about the rural county cover story, but the tape was devastating. Plain words mean what they say. His citation was the dictionary.

The pending segregation claim won’t be so easy. Common sense and mathematics could doom it. There aren’t enough white students in the public schools to integrate all of them. Ninety percent of Memphis public school students attend de-facto segregated schools. That won’t change with unification. Most county schools have diverse student bodies. The exception is Southwind High School, with 12 white students in a student body of 1,653, and its feeder schools. That has the ingredients for an interesting segregation claim, but the federal appeals court has already overruled a Memphis federal court ruling that would have racially balanced the county schools.

The merger of Memphis and Shelby County schools is by all accounts unique in size and scale. It goes against the grain. The trend is smaller, fragmented school systems. I was surprised at just how small some big-city school systems are relative to Memphis. Nashville/Davidson County has 74,680 students. Atlanta has 59,000. Detroit has 51,674. New Orleans had 65,000 pre-Katrina and is a melting pot of charter schools and traditional schools today. St. Louis, taken over by the state five years ago and the subject of a glowing report in The Wall Street Journal this week, has just over 24,000 students.

Nashville, with the blessing of Mayor Karl Dean and Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman, is pushing for charter school expansion to the middle class over the opposition of the local school board. The state-run Achievement School District for failing schools is slated to grow in Memphis. The Republican-dominated state legislature is sympathetic to charters as are private donors such as the Gates Foundation. Vouchers have support. Most important, alternative schools have support from teachers and parents who are the ultimate deciders.

Finally, the dysfunctional unified school board with its core of MCS charter surrender proponents is its own worst enemy. The board, which meets Thursday, is likely to close only a handful of schools instead of the 21 closings recommended by the Transition Planning Commission. (There are 45 Memphis schools and 10 Shelby County schools with under 65 percent utilization, according to the TPC.) This will throw the budget out of whack, condemn the half-empty schools to failure or mediocrity, reduced course offerings, and limited extracurricular activities.

My sympathies and my treasure are with Memphis, but my gut tells me suburbs will get their own autonomous school systems within a few years and that this week’s federal court ruling was a temporary setback. It is as inevitable as conference realignment in college sports.

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Opinion

Report Cards Are Out for Memphis, Shelby County Schools

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Here are some first-glance observations about the Tennessee Department of Education report cards for Memphis and Shelby County school systems released Thursday.

Memphis is losing students. The system has 101,696 students this year, down from 110,753 in 2007. Memphis is losing white students — down from 10,345 in 2007 to 7,928 (7 percent) this year.

Memphis has more teachers and administrators today although it has fewer students than it did five years ago. There are 464 administrators and 6,755 teachers today compared to 359 administrators and 6,438 teachers in 2007.

Shelby County has also lost students. The system has 45,050 today compared to 45,897 in 2007. The county system is also losing white students. It has 23,916 today and had 28,290 (60 percent) in 2007.

Shelby County has more teachers and administrators too. There are 169 administrators and 2,742 teachers, compared to 153 administrators and 2,588 teachers in 2007.

There is a continuing “flight to quality” to high-performing city optional schools like Richland, John P. Freeman, Grahamwood Elementary, and White Station High School (22.9 ACT composite score). In the county, the beneficiaries include Houston High School (24.1 ACT) and Collierville High School (23.9 ACT). The state average ACT composite is 19.6.

As I have written many times before, I believe the report cards contribute to the data-driven schools culture, the flight to quality, and the fail-your-way-to-success model of the Achievement School District, which means the state takes over the worst performers and brings in hard-chargers from outside.

There’s plenty of data for one and all in the report cards. Let the comments begin.

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Opinion

Can Schools Fail their Way to Success?

ASD Supt. Chris Barbic and Gov. Bill Haslam

  • ASD Supt. Chris Barbic and Gov. Bill Haslam

Tennessee’s Achievement School District is in the news today. In Nashville, there was a press conference Monday to announce that seven charter school organizations plan to open nine new schools in the ASD in Memphis and Nashville in 2013, the year of the big change.

Is the Achievement School District like the NBA Lottery? Can you fail your way to success?

In the NBA, if a team is mediocre it winds up with a low-to-middling draft pick, but if it is really bad, it is rewarded by making the lottery and has a chance (but not a certainty) for the number-one pick that can turn the team around in a year or two.

In schools, it seems that if a public school is mediocre it stays that way and remains part of the parent system (let’s say Memphis City Schools). But if it is deemed a failure year after year by state standards, then it becomes part of the charterized Achievement School District and gets an infusion of special attention and new leadership.

And some of the individual teachers and principals at the failing school can also get new life in what purports to be a “worst to first (top 25 percent)” program.

I’ve read a bunch of articles and comments on this, but would welcome your thoughts. As I wrote on this blog last week, I have doubts about “miracle schools” being able to replicate their success on a system-wide scale. And the goal of “100 percent go to college” is a notable achievement, but it might be better if some of those graduates went to trade school, work, or the military.

If you have a connection to either a “failing” school or the ASD and don’t mind identifying yourself, that could be helpful.