Where The Schools Debate Heads Next

(Analysis) After the experts, students, teachers and fans finished weighing in, after the bloggers completed their real-time discussion, and as readers posted morning-after comments, two observations emerged about the current state of the debate over school change in New Haven: Our city wants to chart its own ​“third path” that differs from how most of how the rest of the country thinks about public education. And we’re not quite sure how to get there yet.

That sense emerged from the jumble of conversations that took places on several levels at once Tuesday night in a first-of-its-kind multi-media public forum over school reform. It took place on the stage of Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School, where author Diane Ravitch discussed ideas from her controversial book ​“The Death and Life Of The Great American School System” with parents, students, teachers, and administrators from New Haven schools. It took place off the to side of the stage and in cyberspace, where journalists and elected officials led a real-time online discussion about the panel discussion. It took place in the audience, where hundreds of people showed up to hear the panel and then many lined up to ask Ravitch questions. And it took place at home, where people could watch the event and follow the discussion in live streams on their computers; and then, Wednesday morning, weighed in with more comments about the events at the bottom of a news story. (Check all of that action out here in this file.)

In all that conversation, people who disagreed on specifics largely agreed on some central ideas. They agreed with the current consensus among Democrats and Republicans alike in the country that dramatic change must come to public schools. They largely rejected that bipartisan consensus about how to proceed; in that sense they echoed Ravitch, who helped chart that new consensus as an official in the first Bush administration then concluded that No Child Left Behind and similar bipartisan reforms have failed.

So what should a city do instead if it wants change? The broad outlines have emerged in New Haven’s early changes and the discussion Tuesday night: Work with teachers to draw up meaningful evaluations while offering struggling teachers and schools more help; recruit great teachers and principals more effectively; focus on a broader curriculum than just math and English assignments that match standardized tests; reconstitute failed schools either with not-for-profit charters or by giving public school administrators new powers to make new rules; promise students a free college tuition if they work hard and give them lots of help along the way.

But New Haven’s participants admitted they haven’t quite figured out the alternatives yet. In New Haven, the third path is a work in progress. (Click here for an archive of Independent stories on school reform.)

Unlike in debates in Congress or at most think tanks or White House press conferences, participants in this discussion largely rejected the idea of largely focusing on test scores to rate schools and teachers, to decide which schools to close and whom to fire. But they also agreed that test scores do need to be used as part of a broader way to evaluate success and failure. But panelists spoke in only general terms about what those other metrics would be.

“I’m still not hearing a clear alternative,” Register reporter Angela Carter blogged at one point.

“Ravitch is talking about her big jump from the right to the left. She became increasingly discouraged about the importance of testing as she watched NCLB unfold across the country,” the Courant’s Rick Green added. ​“I’m waiting to hear how we will know whether third graders are learning to read.”

Most striking was the absence of blaming teachers or their unions for the failings of schools. Nationally, philanthropists, politicians, reformers — and the movie ​“Waiting For Superman” — have blamed the unions for blocking needed changes or making it too hard to fire failing teachers. They’ve promoted charters as a way to work around unions. In Washington and New York school officials have been at war with unions. Onstage Tuesday, the teachers union’s Tom Burns praised the city’s school reform drive. Charter advocates Michael Thomas of Achievement First and Alex Johnston of ConnCAN echoed city officials’ contention that charters play an important role but aren’t the only solution for the city.

A reader named ​“JimJim” added this thought to the online live chat: ​“I’ve heard the most union-enthusiastic teachers say they’d be happy to eliminate tenure, if there is a fair system of termination. People want to be treated fairly — and we can’t let budget constraints cost an experienced (and more expensive) teacher his job just to be replaced by 2 younger, cheaper ones.”

Similarly, in other cities Teach for America has proved controversial. TFA participants come into urban schools, often from elite colleges, with a short-cut training program, then often leave after two years. They are welcomed by some, then criticized by teachers unions or critics like Ravitch, who feel more professional training is needed to produce a larger corps of committed career teachers.

Some of those issues emerged in discussion over TFA Tuesday night. But mostly — as with charters, as with testing — TFA was seen as one constructive idea among many, not a silver bullet.

“Tom Burns from the teachers union doesn’t take a swing at Teach for America,” the Independent’s Melissa Baily noted on the live blog when the issue arose on the panel. ​“He said he welcomes their energy/idealism — if they stick around.”

A New Haven school administrator named Richard Therrien weighed in on the live blog.

“TFA teachers (at least in science), do about the same in NH, no better/no worse than traditional/alternate route… and yes, we are happy when they stay!” he wrote. ​“But if they do a good job for the 2 – 3 years, then I know kids have learned…”

Alex Johnston, a Board of Ed member who also runs a pro-reform group called ConnCAN, discussed another idea that’s controversial in other cities: Seeking to involve parents more by having teachers offer ​“parent training.”

In New Orleans and Washington, many low-income parents have resented what they saw as condescension from young, elite teachers trying to tell them how to raise their kids but not really understanding urban family life. Johnston spoke of how teachers can provide videos, for instance, about good parenting.

Another panelist, Nilda Aponte of the the Teach Our Child parent advocacy groups, was asked if that is a good idea. Yes, she responded. She spoke of how she and other parents often feel unequipped to help their kids with homework, for instance. New Haven teachers have helped her with that, she said. She has kids in both traditional and charter public schools in New Haven; when teachers have reached out with parenting ideas, it has always been a plus, she said.

Participants also seemed unanimous in praising but also in asking nuanced questions about Promise to New Haven, the plan under which Yale and the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (a financial sponsor of Tuesday’s event) are guaranteeing that students who do well in city schools will get significant, sometimes 100 percent, help in paying for college tuition.

“Well, kids graduating from NH high schools, even with good grades are having trouble doing college work,” someone going by the handle ​“Fair Haven Fair Haven” blogged.

“Robert Robert” added: ​“In studying states with incentives for students to attend college, the mandate that the students have a B average has defeated the purpose of moving urban kids with no history of college into college kids. Realistic thinking and enhanced opportunities can go hand in hand. This is not to say that students shouldn’t reach as high a level as possible to attain the Promise, but the reality is that going above a C average for many (most) urban students is a dream. The Promise is great; it just won’t reach the kids who need it most, and it will help middle class city kids who would have attended college anyway.”

Mayor John DeStefano, one of the live bloggers, responded to Robert Robert.

“Promise isn’t a entitlement. If you can’t get a B in HS are you really likely to do well in college. So let’s get these kids from pre‑k and build the aspiration and work ethic for success,” he wrote.

To be sure, some shortcomings of planning made the event and ensuing discussion different from the national debate. More aggressive union detractors and charter opponents declined impassioned invitations to participate. And the panel had 13 members; that made it difficult for any one participant to get into more extended debates.

But when you factor in the hundreds of people who showed up in the audience, the many more who joined in the online conversation, and the ability of school officials to make big policy changes in conjunction with the teachers union, there was no doubt that New Haven, as often happens, is marching to a different drum from much of the rest of the U.S.

Marching while also still working on what the map will look like. That was clear from the continued search for solid ways to measure the success and failure of schools and teachers.

In numerous comments on the live blog discussion, the Courant’s Rick Green sought more specifics from Diane Ravitch (“DR”) and other participants:

• ​“How do we measure success? DR: ​“We are relying on very flawed measures of success … We are judging students by the test scores”
Does she really know the CMTs? Shouldn’t we have a test that tells us whether third graders are reading?”

• ​“DR says a successful school is one that has a ​‘rich and balanced’ curriculum.’ What on earth does that mean?”

• ​“I agree that the test-crazy bureaucrats makes it seem like testing is the answer. But to pretend that tests are the villain is just as bad.”

• ​“I think it’s OK to test an 8‑year-old on fundamental reading skills. That’s what the CMTs do. Why is that a problem?”

Meanwhile, deputy schools chief Garth Harries sent in an update on the measurements question to the live blog as the panel was wrapping up. ​“On the question of 21st century skills — just this afternoon, we were presenting to our HS principals a plan to better assess 21st century skills, in parallel to conventional subject grades. Good stuff, developed with our leaders and teachers — stay tuned,” he wrote.

What struck many participants wasn’t so much the specifics of Tuesday’s multi-layered conversation, but the fact of the conversation itself: How many people in New Haven care about school change and want to improve public education.

“What’s interesting about all this to me, a reporter from Hartford, is that I’m hearing a community discussion that includes a variety of groups,” Rick Green noted. ​“We aren’t seeing this in Hartford.”

Or as ​“GuestGuest” wrote in: ​“thank you for this forum and look forward to being involved in the future! Thank You!!!”