In case you missed it?..On February 2 -- Groundhog Day -- we held a terrific (& quite lively) event to discuss the seemingly eternal problem of low-performing schools and what to do about them. We tied it loosely to the cult classic movie Groundhog Day, in which the main character lives the same day over and over. As you'll see, we were fortunate to secure a wonderful panel of experts. After a welcome from moderator Mike Petrilli of Fordham, we heard from David Stuit, partner at Basis Policy Research. David presented the findings from our report, Are Bad Schools Immortal? He was joined on the panel by Jeanne Allen, president of The Center for Education Reform; Justin Cohen, president of the School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight Education; and Elaine Weiss, national coordinator for the Broader Bolder Approach to Education. Debate grew very animated at times. Here are just a few of the highlights and photos (?lots? of gestures!)
And hey, if these photos just aren't enough, you can watch the event video here.
David Stuit: The study looked at 10 states, identified low-performing elementary and mid-schools, and tracked them. Found that 72% of charters and 80% of district schools stayed low-performing. Only 1% turned around.
Allen: People throw around data points without knowing the context. ?.Bad charters need to go out of business, but even with the study we don't know anything. ?.Need to demand accountability on how we vet data.
Cohen: We can't tweak things and get better results. ?.We've got to stop the light touch stuff. Pull the band-aid off and make big shifts. ?.Real lesson of Groundhog Day movie is that Bill Murray learns he needs to do things differently.
(By the way, Cohen apparently watches this movie every year!)
Weiss: We need to get these kids up to speed BEFORE school. Need high quality pre-school and parent education. ?.Accountability should be about support. ?..Want to use examples from top 10%, and dramatically overhaul bottom 10%.
--Amy Fagan and Joe Portnoy