by John Jensen, PhD

Why is education reform so hard?

The problem may lie in our plans, of course.  Poor plans don’t work well.

But we have been at this a long time.  Why don’t we learn from our mistakes?  I’d like to attempt an answer that suggests an initial step for reform efforts.

Rational people occasionally look at themselves and ask, “How am I doing?”  About a recent experience we may say, “I could have done that better,” and “Next time I’ll remember to …”  We take it for granted that we have our own unique system of approaching life, and we improve it in bits and pieces seemingly freely.

Examining our experiences as a set, however, our pattern appears far less free. Any given event might depend on chance conditions, but our overall responses to life constantly issue from our standard behavior.  We may make the same mistake over and over,  do poorly what others no smarter than us do well, dismiss the same kind of information repeatedly, and react predictably to events.  Using our habits of self-limitation, we sort our way through life with the habits completely accounting for our level of progress.

Occasional dissatisfaction can prompt us finally to ask why.  Why are we so stuck in the way we are?

Think of it like this. Today’s pattern is the leftovers of everything we have experienced, felt, decided upon, and chosen.  More than the impact of events from outside us, what we have claimed about them matters most.  Our personal interpretations drive feelings that in turn drive habits that become ourselves.  As we forget the events that brought them on, the patterns of response become us and serve up our actions automatically.

For better or worse, the effect of this is that 99% of what we think, feel, and do arises automatically. Automaticity is our critical limiting condition.  We automatically discount certain people and believe others.  We automatically bring a certain thought into our heads and don’t notice others.  We automatically judge information, events, and plans according to our standard priorities.

Automaticity has the effect of limiting our capacity even to imagine an alternate way of doing things, an alternate plan, an alternate behavior we might engage in, and even less so anything that challenges our worth or rationality. If change means we must admit we were wrong before, we spontaneously object from deep within our protective cover.

The same limits hold for group activity. Our personal automaticity becomes group automaticity as we cluster with people who already agree with us, and together convince laggards to adhere to group norms. “Our” people tend automatically to believe others like us, assume viewpoints standard in our group, and interpret events with prescribed prejudices. We spontaneously categorize some people as “other,” and give their viewpoint short shrift. We label and pigeon-hole them before we even consider their ideas.

Such social patterning cannot fail to affect education reform. Even with the best intentions, we find it hard to open ourselves to change and carry it out.  Just for fun, try this exercise to check yourself.  Look in the mirror, and with congruence and conviction say to the person in the mirror, “You are very limited in your thinking.  You have dismissed countless ideas that might help you.”  The two sentences are categorically true of each one of us but you may notice a protesting voice inside.  If so, the point is not that readers of this website are narrow thinkers, but that all of us human beings have the same problem!

The implication for education reform is, “Because I automatically dismiss ideas that could help my school, I may have to check my own reactions if I am to avoid sabotaging change.”  The more firmly you insist that your own view is right already, the more you need the warning.

It is said that you can divide the employees of schools or any organization into three categories: speedboats, barges, and reefs.  Speedboats dash about making waves and trying to move things. They bring change.  Once a direction is clear, barges carry the load but without much flexibility to change course.  Reefs try to sink the whole  thing by presenting obstacles to others’ efforts.

For reform to succeed, all three of these need changes in their thinking, but those who need it the most—the reefs—find the greatest difficulty. Even a few reefs in a group can make a big difference.  Present conditions usually are  what multiple interests will put up with so that any given stakeholder may possess the power to sink a change process.  And those rewarded most under present conditions tend to become a conserving force keeping things as they are.

For initiating mutual change, we first need to recognize what softens the resistive patterning.  What loosens it up enough that change can begin?

Group dynamics give us a clue.  People change best and easiest when they enter a group and involve themselves in its actions and values. Membership is the doorway, but beyond the door is active involvement; developing common values and a means of carrying them out. Education reform may need to start in a group process of support, self-examination, and group action.

People do not re-examine their personal pattern under force or pressure.  Mutual care and support instead enable even large numbers to work together to achieve a purpose all perceive as worthy. If your district weighs a change process, point out that people advance best when they are cared about, their thinking becomes the template for what occurs, they can envision constructive change, and they can support each other as they act together.

When you ask them to give up what they are in order to become what they can be, they need reassurance that this is possible.

John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of the three-volume Practice Makes Permanent series (Rowman and Littlefield). He will send a proof copy of the volumes to anyone on request: jjensen@gci.net

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Superintendent of Louisiana schools John White has announced that a $5 million federal grant will be used to train teachers who are interested in working in turnaround schools in the state. The money will cover a year of intensive training for interested educators who will then take on leadership roles at schools most in need of intervention.

This use for the “Believe and Succeed” grants is part of White’s 5-step program for 2013, and he has said that he expects the participation rates in the new initiative to be low at first with only a few teachers submitting applications to compete for the $50,000 grants.

Still, the program could be a remedy for nearly 200,000 Louisiana students currently enrolled in failing schools. Expansion of charter schools has gone some way towards relieving the crush, but according to NOLA.com, not enough of them are currently operating to take over the full load. The training program will either serve as a stop-gap while more charters ramp up to speed, or as an alternative approach to turn around a failing school system.

State figures released in January show that 7 percent of the state’s schools are charters. And viewing charters as only way to turnaround a failing school also shuts out some would-be reformers, White said. For the winning grant recipients, the state education department is recommending five principal training programs: Building Excellent Schools, Columbia Summer Principals Academy NOLA, Leading Educators, New Leaders and the New Teacher Project. Most are open only to participants in the greater New Orleans and Baton Rouge regions. However, applicants may also choose other training programs or design their own.

With the newly-trained leaders at the helm, White said that he expects the new schools to be run autonomously with minimal district interference similar to charters. Among the freedoms allowed will be complete control over personnel, budget, and curriculum.

The districts that would like a say on selecting the candidates for training will have to kick in part of the training cost. The program isn’t limited to individuals, and is open to non-profits and charter operating companies as well.

However, district approval isn’t necessary. In that case, the department will increase the grant amount to cover the entire cost of the training plus a year’s salary for the future school leader. Most independent applicants will be matched down the line with failing schools that want change, possibly in a different district. Or candidates may be directed to create a brand-new school through the charter system.

The deadline to submit application for those who wish to be part of the first training class is April 26th of this year.

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by John Jensen, Ph.D.

In Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley, played by Eddie Murphy, stuffs a banana into the tailpipe of the car of the two policemen assigned to make sure he leaves town.  He drives off and their car stops.  A banana halts a multi-thousand dollar system designed to move people efficiently.

John Jensen, Ph.D.

A system is an intricate array of details working in harmony with a larger structure that sustains them.  We think of systems as resilient because they cope successfully with  challenging conditions. But when parts depend on other parts, a single one failing can stop the whole thing.  When a two-dollar rubber belt under the hood breaks, the whole engine quits. We constantly look for the breakdowns in our systems, and fix the details that caused them.

Education comprises a hierarchical system extending from the micro (one child thinking one thought) up to the formal structure of U.S. society with its Congressional appropriations and Department of Education.  Somewhere along it should be points where interventions can enhance its operation. Where do we aim?

Top-down approaches are popular these days  for structural  rather than educational reasons. “The top” is where money is controlled and employees’ actions can be redirected even though a channeling effect occurs by starting here. People may do their job in ways drifting far from their ostensible educational purpose. We’ve watched billions spent and armies of people marshaled into changes that have produced mediocre fruits.

We might be more likely to find the game-changer at the micro end of the system where a key detail could make a disproportionate difference.  For example, with firearms, a quantum leap up from muzzle-loaders came with development of the cartridge and of rifling instead of a smooth barrel. Improvement of the auto (top speed now challenging the sound barrier) has been by incremental changes in details: gasoline for fuel, ball bearings, gaskets, cylinders, and so on. In education we would like to identify the detail that ramps up performance, the banana removed from the tailpipe that enables the whole system to take off.

So where at the simple level is a glitch we might change cheaply and easily? One is sandwiched right next to students’ very thought processes. We give them a thought today and tomorrow it’s gone!

The problem is not peripheral, accidental, nor occasional. We can hardly get more basic than a pattern replicated daily coast to coast undermining the very essence of education. We exerted effort yesterday to plant a thought and today it has already disappeared. Imagine the progress possible if we could alter that, if we could reliably teach them something today and tomorrow they still have it. Such a change could be transforming. If we could learn how to lengthen for just a day the otherwise self-extinguishing knowledge that flows through their attention,  we might be able to  extrapolate how to extend it for two days, and from two days to a week, a week to a month, and a month to a year.  Students able to assimilate learning would make quantum gains rapidly. The more they retained about what they already knew, the more readily they could integrate new ideas.

Granted that some may not regard this as a problem. We see what we want.  Henry Ford, asked why he didn’t have more car colors, replied, “People can have any color they want, as long as it’s black.”  We could similarly define top auto speed of 20 m.p.h. as no problem—unless we say it is.  And children forgetting most of what crosses their mind (and teachers constantly re-teaching it) is no problem–unless we say it is.  What’s the rush, after all?   If you want to teach children at 20 m.p.h. and your district agrees, case closed.

Our freedom even to deny that a problem exists is the reason why we desperately need imagination.  We must at least conceive the problem and a direction for a solution.  Consider that in the Middle Ages, people could have built a hang glider with materials available then, so why wasn’t it done?  It wasn’t done because someone had to recognize the possibility and have a clue about how to build one. And why aren’t people interested today in stretching how deeply and quickly children can master substantial knowledge?  Why isn’t it important to push that boundary?

To be honest, I don’t know. Maybe the reason is inability to picture it as possible.  Maybe it’s  having no clue for how to go about it.  Maybe it’s decades of attention channeled in the standard track, like a horse with blinders.  But regardless of why the issue is ignored, the embarrassment is that we already know how to do it.  It has been understood for decades but not utilized.

Any conscious adult uses the standard means to carry knowledge one day to another—for work, for learning, to get a driver’s license. We rehearse what we want to call up. Later we demonstrate that we have learned it by calling it up again. We demonstrate it later by doing it earlier.  We do the same thing beforehand but in a rough, primitive, and clunky form; then smooth it out by doing it more.

The way you learn to explain the Civil War is by explaining it.  You learn to ski by skiing. You learn to play a musical instrument by playing it.  You learn to do mathematics by doing mathematics. You begin with basics grasped approximately and do them at the level you understand. Then you repeat them while adding more variables and nuances, a fundamental  pattern applying to all learning, K-12.  Do it first simply.  Hold onto that much and add to it.  Do it again. Hold onto that much. Do it again.  Add to it.  Save. Add. Save. Add.

If I have overlooked some confounding variable contradicting my point above, anyone is welcome to bring a ball peen hammer to my skull.  I am ready for someone to convert me. But so far, I just don’t get where the mystery lies. Is there anything else that will produce the eventual skill than actually doing it?

If you agree that there is not, let me suggest a shorthand way of describing it. It’s called practice.  “Practice makes perfect,” remember?  Skill development is in proportion to the quantity and quality of practice. And we practice knowledge by expressing it.  Later we will be called on to demonstrate what we know, so in practice, we demonstrate at first haltingly what we know piece by incremental piece. We add all our pieces of apprehended learning into a comprehensive field that hangs together in our mind.

If we don’t do this, we don’t achieve the field. No practice = no skill development.  Nearly all students receive grossly inadequate practice for the learning expected of them, and many get none at all—even while adults wonder, “Why aren’t these kids learning?”  The reason they don’t is that the instructional design engulfing them does not proportion class time use for the assimilation of knowledge.

Teachers interested in change would want to know how to redesign class time.  For this, it’s important to understand the necessity of a match between goal and method.  You may want to get across thirty points of knowledge today, but the goal works only if your methods match it: “Yes, I can get thirty points started into everyone’s permanent learning today, and with proper followup can guarantee that they reach that level with it. And I can do the same tomorrow and the next day.”  Method and goal coincide.

But your self-talk may go like this: “I want to get thirty points of knowledge across, so I’ll present them, and the children will do the best they can. But I know in my heart that some will understand few points, some will grasp most, but only a small number will actually retain them permanently. I need to count on other teachers later to reinforce  these ideas.”  The match between goal and method?  Poor.

A third scenario. “I want to get thirty points across, but realistically twenty is the best they can do day by day and still make them permanent, so I’m cutting back my presentations to twenty.” How is the match?  Excellent.  Goal and method align. The teacher proportions the bite of knowledge to what followup can reasonably handle.  But only twenty points a day? Why be so stingy? The governing criteria are first the resolve to achieve permanent learning, and second, accepting its discipline of method.

To really have a goal (and not just smoke-and-mirrors window-dressing), you use the goal as a criterion for what you choose to do. Here, by designing permanent learning, we determine the optimum pace.  The faster ideas reach the “permanent” end of the pipeline, the faster we can insert fresh ones into its beginning. The pipeline itself remains valid as long as we use outcomes as our standard. When our emphasis instead is on certain pace of required input, the more we present that students cannot master, the more we reduce instruction merely to familiarization, and the less that marginal students actually learn.

Instruction time is no longer apportioned so students assimilate what they receive, both students and teachers fall under pressure they have no means of meeting, and “covering” materials determines pacing. It’s like obliging students to eat their lunch in five minutes but because they can’t, concluding that we must stuff food into their mouths. They either throw up or rebel, because eating doesn’t work that way.

Comparably, people don’t assimilate ideas by facing an unending stream of them. Teachers sabotage such required pacing anyway by the use of “review questions for the test” that years back would have been regarded as teacher-complicit cheating.  Review questions acknowledge that learning to that point has been tenuous, for familiarity instead of mastery, and now faced with an impending test, teachers must settle on a few important things.

So first we choose to teach anything at all for permanent learning.  Once applying this purpose to all our students, and grasping the methods that accomplish it, we can expand the quantity we raise to that standard. Next we choose to teach that way from Day One rather than just in the last two weeks of the term.  Currently the system does not oblige teachers to teach for permanent learning, and it fails to distinguish the methods that bring it about. Teachers present, re-present, involve, circle back, assign homework, and so on, in a manner that structurally produces long-term learning only for some students and some ideas, not all for all.

To appreciate how easy permanent learning can be, we examine teachers’ personal experience: “You learn a subject by teaching it.” We can recast this slightly as “To the extent that teachers make knowledge understandable to someone else, they enhance their own understanding.”  Stated as talking time, we find that  for students to learn as well as teachers do, they must explain their learning as much as teachers do. If the teacher talks for fifteen minutes explaining a lesson, students need to take turns in pairs for thirty minutes, each spending fifteen minutes expressing what the teacher explained.  Once they can explain the material correctly, their route to permanent mastery is clear: Do the same with chunks of increasing size until they can explain the whole course beginning to end.  To breed the next generation of great teachers, saturate their school years with joy communicating to peers their mastery of one subject after another.

Some might object that this won’t work because students are not disciplined enough to work together. To the contrary, this is easy to arrange, and students cooperate because they enjoy the activity. I explain how to go about it in my books (noted below), proofs of which I can send to anyone interested.

This is our banana-level detail: students explaining their learning to each other.  The social aspect reinforces its significance, the explanatory aspect broadens their understanding, and the repetitive aspect deepens their assimilation.  Cause and effect. Ease of design. No cost. No mystery. No excuse.

John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of the three-volume Practice Makes Permanent series (Rowman and Littlefield). He will send a proof copy of the volumes to anyone on request: jjensen@gci.net

The post John Jensen: Permanent Learning is Possible, and We Know How appeared first on Education News.

According to the New York Daily News, nearly a fifth of the city’s schools have earned grades bad enough on the latest edition of the annual progress report that they are now facing the possibility of being closed.

This year’s list of schools that have received an F, a D or a third consecutive C grade is nearly twice as long as last year’s. In total, 217 of the city’s middle and elementary schools were found wanting according to the standards set by the state compared to 116 the year before. Although only 14 schools were actually closed last year, Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s plan to close 24 more was thwarted by arbitration after the city’s teachers union threatened to file suit to stop the closures.

Bloomberg’s allegations that the arbiter’s decision barred the students of the 24 schools in question from “shar[ing] in the great American Dream,” were proven false to some degree after the seven of the 24 schools showed improvement on the latest grading data.

Two of the seven — Junior High School 30 and Middle School 391, both in the Bronx — earned a respectable B rating this year. The other five earned C’s. This, despite months of anxiety for students, parents and teachers as they fretted about the school’s future — or lack thereof.

“They put us through all this hell last year and now they’re saying we got a B?” asked Sheila Sanchez, 36, a member of the Friends of JHS 80.

The fight to keep Junior High School 30, one of the 24 targeted for closure last year, drew the attention and support of one its most famous alumni: writer, actor and director Penny Marshall. Sheila Sanchez, one of the members of Friends of JHS 30, said that the fact that the school earned a B just goes to prove that the criteria used by the administration to select the schools that should be targeted for turnaround — which often includes the replacement of up to half the staff — don’t work well.

Schools spokeswoman Erin Hughes defended the city’s move to close the turnaround schools and replace half their staffs — and said good grades this year don’t change the city’s reasons for closing the schools.

“Improvement in any school is a positive thing, but it doesn’t mean that these schools wouldn’t have been able to improve even more with new effective teachers and the state funding that they would have received if we were able to implement the turnaround model,” she said.

The post 217 NYC Schools Could Find Themselves Targeted for Closure appeared first on Education News.

Deputy Secretary of Education Tony Miller went to the district — which serves around 63,000 students — to meet with the 2011 Nevada Superintendent of the Year, Dr. Heath Morrison; Deputy Superintendent Jane Woodburn; and President of the 2011 Nevada School Board of the Year, Ken Grein, to congratulate them on the turnaround.

Supported by a School Improvement Grant (SIG) and a $9 million Teacher Incentive Fund grant, Dr. Morrison and his team put in place a strategic plan which aimed to get every child to graduation despite deep cuts in funding from the state.

“Dr. Morrison and his committed team set ambitious goals and began instituting innovative solutions to drive dramatic change,” writes Miller.

As well as expanding its early learning programs, the district focused on developing a workforce-ready curriculum – stressing the importance of using student learning data to inform and improve instruction.

“District leadership also enhanced its teacher evaluation system to better recognize key drivers of student learning.”

To create a plan that looked to ensure that students graduated ready for college without the need for remedial courses, Dr. Morrison partnered with local colleges and universities to help inform curriculum development

“With the estimated cost of remedial education being $5.6 billion nationwide, these are the kind of efforts we need to ensure that our students are fully prepared to not only get to college but to graduate from college.”

Working with businesses, parents, and advocacy groups, the district created a “Parent University,” in an attempt to involve the community in learning. The program uses twenty-two organizations to offer over 200 classes to help families help their children succeed.

And the results of these measures have impressed Miller:

“After four years of stagnating graduation rates, the graduation rate in WCSD has increased 14 percent to 70 percent in just two years! Every single school in the district has improved, and the district overall has seen the most growth in graduation rates among black and Hispanic students, as well and English learners.

“The district’s High School Signature Academies serve as hubs for learning, and focus on areas such as health sciences, digital technologies, and sustainable resources.

“In Nevada, where the unemployment rate is 13 percent, the highest in the country, these academies are providing the skills necessary for the 21st Century workforce.”

In a state where currently only 1 in 10 high school freshmen go on to graduate from college, WCSD has demonstrated that in the words of Superintendent Morrison, “demography need not be destiny” when it comes to providing a world-class education for all students, writes Miller.

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“It is a model that is unique to Chicago’s success. It is working here superbly. … There would be a conflict if I didn’t do it — that I had a great model that L.A. wants to steal from us, and I held it back,” Emanuel said.

“It is not a conflict to give kids a good education. It’s the responsibility I have as mayor. The conflict would be if I knew it was here and I was scared to do it because of politics. I told you I would spend political capital to make sure the kids of Chicago have the opportunity to do something in their lives. … I will not let politics stand in the way. That would be a conflict that is shameful.”

If the plan is approved then 429 teachers and school administrators will be out of work. And CTU President Karen Lewis, questioned the “lack of transparency” in selecting the schools to undergo turnarounds.

“We are concerned about how these actions demoralize our students, further decrease their confidence in themselves and also rips them from the adults they do know and have built relationships with,” Lewis said.

If the strategy is approved, it will go to the targeted schools and implement comprehensive teacher training, rigorous course work and standards, tutoring in reading and math and extra-curricular activities to help students who fall behind catch up with their peers.

“You can’t do ‘turnaround light.’ You have to have school leadership. You have to have teachers that are well-trained. And you have to have enough of them in the building so that you can make a fundamental change in the culture of the school,” said Martin Koldyke, AUSL’s founder and chairman emeritus.

David Vitale, Emanuel’s handpicked school board president, once served as chairman of the AUSL board. Tim Cawley, chief administrative officer at the Chicago Public Schools, previously held a top job at the organization.

“We’ve had a recent change of leadership there. That’s one thing that Jarvis Sanford [AUSL’s managing director of elementary schools] doesn’t put up with. He makes sure that the leadership is up to snuff and we’re getting the kind of results that we need,” said Koldyke.

Chicago Public Schools is expected to announce this year’s round of school closings next week.

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Julia Steiny

But then they came up with four — and only four — models for how to deal with these schools. I remember reading them over and over again looking for the good one. In vain. By its very nature, education policy made a million miles from a classroom – by Congress, say – risks insensitivity to the everyday reality of flesh-and-blood teachers and kids.

But let’s back up and look at the feds’ big plan for struggling schools.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) strategy left over from the Bush administration had two good results. First, states were forced to upgrade their data systems, so the public could get a better idea of whether kids were learning. Second, that data revealed conclusively that certain populations, like kids in poverty, were being sadly under-served. The problem with NCLB was that its main strategy for helping children was to heap a lot of bad test scores, threats and humiliating name-calling onto schools.

Frankly, we didn’t learn much of positive value from all that naming and shaming.

The new administration decided to focus instead on supporting innovation. Good, much more positive approach.

In the case of what they call “the persistently low-performing” schools, they allocated significant money for districts to support big changes at these schools. If the education industry can learn how to fix these schools in specific, it will learn how to help the poor, minority and special-needs children who are disproportionately stuck in them.

So, at the dawn of 2010, the feds told each state to create criteria to identify their most troubled schools, including all high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent.

The Alliance for Excellent Education reports that 15,277 schools, or 16 percent of all schools nationwide, were identified as “persistently low-performing” schools. Each became eligible for federal School Improvement Grant money. Some schools opted out of the grants because other reform efforts were already underway.

The others, however, had to fix their problems by choosing from among the four federal models. They are:

Closure – Close the school altogether and transfer its students to high-performing schools in the district.

Turnaround – Replace the principal and at least 50 percent of the staff.

Restart – Open the school under a third-party education management organization, one that is independent of the district, such as a charter operator.

Transformation – Reform the entire instructional environment, develop teacher and school leader effectiveness, reward teachers based on student performance, increase community engagement, and extend learning time.

Oy.

The first three models mainly reveal the policy-makers’ doubt that these schools might have any strengths. But in my experience, even badly-troubled schools sometimes have a core of fabulous people working under impossible circumstances. These three models change the circumstances by evicting most or all of the adults, presuming they are the root of the problem. And to be sure, they might be. But if they’re not, what a waste of the best thinking and experience of the people most intimate with the kids.

The fourth, Transformation, does just the opposite. It leaves the people AND the circumstances absolutely in place. Even the vague “extended learning time” can mean 5 paltry minutes. So under Transformation, the school district officials and the new principal can design a plan, but if they want to be able to hire teachers from outside the district, the union can always say no. If the principal wants to be free of a deadly curriculum, the district can say no. Transformation provides no leverage.

Recently I heard the new principals of four problem schools give presentations of their transformation strategies. Utterly gutless. The thinking seemed same-old, same-old. Every job was preserved, with the same person in it, probably doing pretty much the same thing, despite some nice-sounding programs – a triumph of rhetoric over action.

Not surprisingly, 74 percent of the nation’s “persistently low-performing” schools chose Transformation.

If I were able to add a 5th option, I would describe it as:

Radical Site-Based Management with Teeth

This model would identify a talented, committed core of people already in the building – assuming there is one – and empower them to take control of their own destiny. The district and community could decide if such a core exists and who, precisely, they are. Then, give them charter-like powers to develop their own strategies and unshackle themselves from any provisions of labor contracts and district policies they consider detrimental to teaching and learning. Give them power over and responsibility for their budget, personnel, strategy, schedule, and so forth. Free them to make a plan they believe will make them successful – within their budget. Keep the core staff and give them real power to change the circumstances.

Like creating any school, site-based management is not for the lazy. But trusting a core of existing staff would build on existing strengths. Experienced, talented adults who know their kids and their needs are the perfect people for the job. They have strong feelings about what’s been holding them back. Capitalize on their knowledge. What’s to lose?

These models all have risks. But empowering the best of an existing staff would show some respect for what good there is even in some of our most troubled schools. And they’d be more likely to turn things around for the kids faster than some outside group starting yet another new charter school.

At least give them a shot.

Julia Steiny is a freelance columnist whose work also regularly appears at GoLocalProv.com. She is the founding director of the Youth Restoration Project, a restorative-practices initiative, currently building a demonstration project in Central Falls, Rhode Island. She consults for schools and government initiatives, including regular work for The Providence Plan for whom she analyzes data. For more detail, see juliasteiny.com or contact her at juliasteiny@gmail.com.

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