Turning around low-performing schools is hard. Most strategies financed by federal dollars have long shown disappointing results, and states have avoided fundamental reforms, instead hiring specialists and retraining school staff.

But states have the opportunity to do something different under the Every Student Succeeds Act, which allows them to try creative strategies for fixing their worst schools, and education leaders ought to take advantage of it. As Nelson Smith and I argue in a recent article in NASBE’s The Standard, one promising option is charter school expansion, wherein struggling schools are replaced by charters.

Under ESSA, states must identify and take action on two types of troubled schools: those requiring comprehensive support and improvement (the lowest achieving 5 percent of Title I schools, plus high schools with low graduation rates) and those that need targeted improvement because they routinely fail a particular group such as low-income, minority, or special education students.

ESSA is intentionally silent on what states should do about such schools—even when they require “rigorous intervention” because more timid correctives have not worked. This deference is a major change from the No Child Left Behind Act, as is ESSA’s scrapping of NCLB’s School Improvement Grants. States are instead required to set aside 7 percent of their Title I funds to turn around low-performing schools using “evidence-based improvements” of their choosing. The 2018 appropriations bill signed in March provides $15.8 billion for Title I, meaning $1.1 billion is available for these efforts in the current fiscal year.

All fifty states and the District of Columbia have now submitted plans to the U.S. Department of Education to meet these and other ESSA obligations. The agency did not ask for many specifics on how states would handle turnarounds, however, so most avoided tipping their hands. And every state’s new budget, superintendent contract negotiations, and annual list of education board priorities is an opportunity for leaders to review progress and fill gaps.

There are at least two persuasive reasons charter school expansion is a turnaround strategy worth pursuing. The first is that charters have long shown promising results for disadvantaged students trapped in struggling schools. CREDO’s massive 2015 study of urban charter schools, for example, which reviewed forty-one regions, concluded that “[U]rban charter students [are] receiving the equivalent of roughly forty days of additional learning per year in math and twenty-eight additional days of learning per year in reading” compared to their peers in traditional public schools. The study revealed particularly strong charter performance for “black, Hispanic, low-income, and special-education students in both math and reading.” Of the regions studied, “regions with larger learning gains in charter schools outnumber those with smaller learning gains two-to-one.”

Second, as Fordham’s recent report, Charter School Deserts, finds, there are more than 450 areas across the country ripe for just this sort of charter school creation. The report defined “charter school deserts” as areas of three or more contiguous census tracts with moderate or high poverty and no charter elementary schools. It finds that thirty-nine of forty-two charter states have at least one desert each—and the average number of deserts per state is a worrying 10.8. That’s a lot of deserts. And because schools with higher levels of poverty are more likely to be low performing, that’s a lot of opportunities for states to use charter school expansion as a way to improve the plight of students attending struggling schools.

To be sure, there’s no magic in the word “charter.” Getting the best out of this model requires vigilant authorizers, adequate resources, and diligent management. But charters can achieve powerful results by innovating in talent, professional development, curriculum, school structure, schedules, and beyond. And they seem to have the strongest comparative advantage in the distressed areas where the needs for a fresh start are greatest.

Efforts in Texas and Florida provide possible templates. Back in March, the U.S. Department of Education approved Texas’s ESSA plan. And as my colleague Mike Petrilli wrote, this was a “big, big deal.” That’s because the state included provisions in its plan describing how it intends to use its Title I set aside money for, among other things, “Closing the identified school and consolidating the students into a higher performing or new school, whether charter or district managed,” and “creating new schools, whether district or charter, to provide students in identified schools with new and better education options....” In short, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told Texas that it can use these federal funds to start new schools, including charters, and close low-performing ones, rather than just work to turn them around. Some had argued that the money couldn’t be used in this way under ESSA. The Education Department didn’t agree, and now any state can follow in Texas’s footsteps.

Florida’s “Schools of Hope” legislation presents another template. Passed in 2017, the law provides incentives for high-quality nonprofit charters to locate within five miles of low-performing schools as Hope Operators. The state board of education approved rules earlier this year requiring that applicants must already have cleared some high bar—either being awarded a replication grant by the federal Department of Education, or by the Charter School Growth Fund, or being chosen by the local district as a turnaround operator.

Decades of turnaround efforts have done little to transform America’s lowest performing schools. Under ESSA, states have the novel opportunity to try a new strategy: charter expansion. These schools have long been a blessing for the country’s most disadvantaged kids, many of whom are trapped in failing district schools because they don’t have access to other options, like charters. States can now change that. And they should. 

This essay was adapted from an article titled “What Are the Options?” written with Nelson Smith in the May 2018 issue of NASBE’s The Standard.

With the 102nd running of the Indianapolis 500 just days away, it felt right to explore another race that featured rip-roaring speed and heart-pounding momentum. In my last post, I called out a few variables that contributed to Indiana’s robust education policy landscape at the beginning of this decade. As I shared in that piece, a confluence of events led to an alignment of the stars, one that’s unlikely to be repeated anytime in the near future. Under the leadership of Governor Mitch Daniels and State Superintendent Tony Bennett, we proposed and enacted sweeping legislative changes that affected teacher quality, collective bargaining, and school choice (charters and vouchers).

During this period, Indiana was unafraid of education innovation, and had some good results to show for it—a testament to the many educators across the state who embraced these changes, as well as gutsy policymakers. Although we accomplished most of what we initially set out to do, there was plenty more that needed to be done when our efforts were abruptly halted by politics. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but the greatest pain is not knowing what might have been. It’s purely conjecture, but I believe Indiana today would be a national leader à la Tennessee or Massachusetts if we had been able to see our reforms through.

Last month’s NAEP results raise further anxiety. It appears that achievement progress has stalled in the Hoosier State; the question is what happened and why. Notwithstanding what we got done between 2009 and 2012, what’s transpired since should serve as a cautionary tale. Specifically, there were three repercussions from the 2012 election that trickled down and adversely influenced schools and districts across Indiana. This is not to say that there are not good people in the state who have been (and continue to be) committed to the direction we had initially set out. Rather, these three pieces made their work much more difficult.

1. Tumult at the top

In 2012, then Congressman, now Vice President Mike Pence was elected as the fiftieth Governor of Indiana and was immediately at odds with the former teachers union president, who was sworn in as the new state superintendent after she upset reform champion Tony Bennett. Overnight, the state went from having a unified vision for education to two diametrically opposing views—with the pro-reform old guard (myself included) on one side, and the anti-reform new supe and her attendants on the other. I didn’t stick around long enough for the prolonged aftermath, but by many accounts it was like watching a car crash in slow motion. The mixed messages coming from the state sowed confusion and frustration in many schools and classrooms.

There’s been a lot handwringing over what Governor Pence did or didn’t do to defend the reforms we had put in place (e.g., Common Core), but I give the current vice president high marks for quickly establishing a new agency early on in his administration to act as a stopgap against those who wanted to unravel the accomplishments of the previous four years. Created by executive order, the Center for Education and Career Innovation helped fill the vacuum in state-level policy leadership following the election. With all of the squabbles and finger pointing, it’s tough to say how much forward progress was made (the agency was abolished a year later), but I shudder to think what would have happened if the agency hadn’t been there initially to provide some stability. It wasn’t the most elegant solution, but the state was in uncharted waters and it took courage to make a move that was necessary, but unpopular with some.

2. An exodus of talent

It comes with the territory, but the change in state leadership meant that a lot of talented people with a great deal of institutional knowledge also packed their bags. The new state superintendent completely dissolved the Innovation and Improvement division, which I led. And the key leaders on educator quality, policy, and accountability, who had been working hand in glove with school district leaders to implement the new laws, departed.

Nor were there smooth transitions. Ours might not have been as messy as the one on Pennsylvania Avenue, but many beats were missed during the handoff. For example, I was never asked to summarize or share my division’s organization and performance goals, even though my team was the tip of the spear on our reforms. As it stands, state education agencies already have a difficult enough time attracting and retaining talent. Capacity is a perennial issue, and it was tough to see all of the hard work around recruitment and retention washed away in one fell swoop. 

3. Politics trumps policy

There’s no need to mince words: The 2012 state superintendent election in Indiana was a brass-knuckled affair. Many families that went to parent-teacher conferences that fall received both their child’s report card and a bumper sticker. And giving credit where credit is due: The opposition utilized a creative ground game—albeit of suspect legality—to paint Tony Bennett as a caricature of the heroic leader and steadfast reformer that I know him to be. For example, a social media post went viral the weekend before the election claiming that Tony was aiming to dismantle music education across the state. It was an absurd claim about a change that we neither had the authority nor the inclination to implement, but it typifies the fighting style we were up against. Our opponents effectively pioneered the trafficking of alternative facts and fake news years before it became popular. I guess you could say they were ahead of their time.

Even after we lost, they continued their attacks. The ongoing barrage sucked all of the oxygen out of the room. With no new policy ideas to offer, political games and name-calling dominated the day, and the relationship between the new superintendent and the new governor descended into dysfunction. The supe and her aides kept up their antics in an effort to distract and disorient. The net result was that policy innovation came to a standstill.

***

Suffice it to say, 2013–16 was a difficult chapter for education policy in Indiana. The anti-reform forces that rose to power did everything they could to throttle and sabotage forward progress, from teacher evaluation and school turnaround to accountability and school choice. Watching all of this happen from the sidelines wasn’t easy. Fortunately, the voters came to their senses and recognized that the interminable tension and pointed clashes weren’t in the best interest of anyone. (The governor’s ascendancy to the vice presidency surely had an effect too.) It also turned out to be the last straw for state legislators, as they made the office of state superintendent an appointed one, instead of elected, for the first time in the office’s 167 years history. Given that more than half of the state’s budget is dedicated to education, there’s something to be said for providing the executive branch greater latitude over this position.

As vitriolic, unrelenting, and opposed to reform as our opponents were, I believe their shortsightedness will be looked back upon as simply a minor setback. The positive effects of the reforms we installed will continue to emerge in the coming years. Enshrined into Indiana law, there was a limit to how much damage the opposition could do. To their chagrin, many have become sustained changes that touch the lives of every student in the state. It’s a legacy that all Hoosiers should be proud of. And although I no longer count myself as a resident, I raise a bottle of cold milk to all of my friends there who continue the good fight on behalf of Indiana’s children.

The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the author and not necessarily the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Virtually every state has moved, incrementally or fully, from administering standardized assessments on paper to online, so there’s been plenty of discussion about whether taking a test on a computer or tablet, versus with paper and pencil, affects student performance. (Recall that the same issue was raised when NAEP scores were released in April, with Louisiana voicing particular concerns.) In other words, is it true that “mode effects”—meaning the physical medium by which one takes a test—can depress scores in ways that have much to do with the medium and little to do with what students know and can do? 

Enter Ben Backes and James Cowan from CALDER who examine, first, whether students who take Massachusetts’s state test online score systematically lower than if they had taken the same test on paper; and second, whether there are any differences across subgroups of students.

Recall that Massachusetts in 2015 and 2016 administered the PARCC test both on paper and online. And in 2015 districts could chose between MCAS (the old state test) or the new PARCC test. During this period of flux, state officials agreed to a hold-harmless provision for all schools administering the PARCC in either year, whether on paper or online—meaning that no school’s accountability rating could fall as a result of their PARCC scores. Descriptive findings show that 72 percent of elementary and middle schools switched to PARCC in either 2015 or 2016. Of those, 57 percent administered the test online at least once.

The CALDER study examines schools that administered PARCC in both years, which includes about half of Massachusetts students enrolled in grades 3–8 between 2011 and 2016 and 88 percent of students in schools administering PARCC in 2015 and 2016. Backes and Cowan use two analytic approaches: a linear regression (OLS or ordinary least squares) and a differences-in-differences design that compares the differential effect of the mode on both the treatment and control group over time. They use the MCAS paper assessments as control variables in both approaches.

They find “test mode effects” of about 0.10 standard deviations (SD) in math and 0.25 SD in English language arts (ELA). These effects equate to about 5.4 months of learning in math and eleven months of learning in ELA in a nine-month school year—obviously both substantial. They find similar results across both models. They also perform a number of robustness checks to ensure, for instance, that preexisting trends in school outcomes aren’t driving their results, and they determine that is not what’s occurring.

Next, Backes and Cowen look to see if there are mode effects in the next year, to check whether this was a one-time phenomenon. But they still find differences that can be attributed to mode—though for second-time test takers the effects are about one-third as large as the first year in math, and about half as large in ELA. Additional analyses also suggest that student familiarity with the tests is what’s driving the reduced mode effect seen in year two. Finally, relative to subgroups, they find little variation by subgroup, except that mode effects are more pronounced in ELA for students scoring at the bottom of the distribution. 

When scores were first released for all PARCC states, testing officials explained that mode effects were an issue, but that it would be up to individual state and district leaders to determine the scope of the problem, as well as what to do about it. Backes and Cowan take that advice one step further, recommending that states take test mode effects into account when using assessment scores for accountability purposes.

In 2017, Massachusetts started to use statistical adjustments to correct for mode effects—at least during the transition from paper to online. Given officials’ propensity in that state to make wise decisions and witness subsequent success, other states should do their homework and perhaps follow suit.

SOURCE: Ben Backes and James Cowan, “Is the Pen Mightier Than the Keyboard? The Effect of Online Testing on Measured Student Achievement,” Calder (April 2018).

Teacher quality is acknowledged, nearly universally, as one of the most important contributors to student learning. Debate revolves around how to best train, hire, improve, support, and retain teachers. This last point is especially relevant to a large urban school district like District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS), which sees 8 percent of its “effective” and “highly effective” teachers leave every year. This is a significant loss—financially and in human capital. A recent report from Bellwether Education Partners presents results of a DCPS-administered exit survey and extracts recommendations for it and other urban school districts about how to retain quality educators.

The survey was administered to 1,626 teachers departing the district between February 2015 and January 2018 and asked their reasons for leaving, their next career moves, and how DCPS might have kept them. Researchers disregarded answers from teachers who were retiring and moving, and from teachers who said no change would have retained them. Of the remaining respondents, 772 self-reported their last rating according to the district’s teacher evaluation system: 69 identified themselves as minimally effective, 220 as developing (these two categories comprise “low performers”), 319 as effective, and 164 as highly effective (these two comprise “high performers”). Researchers Kaitlin Pennington and Alexander Brand disaggregate responses by performance band to focus on the reasons effective and highly effective teachers gave for leaving.

One notable finding is that work-life balance was the most common reason for leaving given by high performers: 40 percent cited it among their top three, and 28 percent rated it as their number one reason. Pennington and Brand note that one-fifth of the latter group, mostly teachers in their early thirties, listed schedule flexibility as a retention tool that might have kept them, and about half of those mentioned wanting to spend more time with family, particularly young children.

School leadership was another frequently cited issue, reported by 34 percent of high performers. Those who gave it as their number one reason for leaving listed recognition, behavioral support, and instructional support from school leaders as the top three retention efforts that might have kept them in the classroom.

Results of the survey indicate that teachers are interested in leadership opportunities of their own, with 12 percent of high performers headed to a leadership opportunity in their next role. Interest in leadership stood out as a factor among high performers of color, 19 percent of whom listed more leadership opportunities as the number one effort that would have retained them.

The report has some limitations, mostly created by the survey itself. Sample sizes are small, and results group all schools together, which makes it harder to note whether some issues are district-wide or are specific to grade bands, locations, or even individual campuses. For example, the 163 high performers who listed school leadership in their top three reasons for leaving might come from only a handful of DCPS’s 115 schools.

Nevertheless, the survey’s outcomes suggest potential areas of focus for DCPS and other urban districts. Retaining those who want to spend more time with family is a challenge; teaching, which is built around rigid routines and schedules, is especially resistant to the kind of flexibility new parents might want. But districts might, for instance, try job sharing for middle and high school teachers, in which two teachers both work half-days in one position, or offer extended multi-year unpaid leave and allow parents to return to the classroom after the hiatus. And teachers who depart because of lack of leadership opportunities might stay if offered supplemental school-level leadership roles or entry into a strong leadership pipeline.

Although DCPS already retains 92 percent of its high performers, efforts to keep more of the other 8 percent—investing in supportive principals, leadership opportunities, and sustainable workloads—would benefit the whole district. And the more we know about high performers through surveys such as this one, the better DCPS and other districts can craft strategies that both improve schools and keep strong teachers in the classroom.

SOURCE: Kaitlin Pennington and Alexander Brand, “Retaining High Performers: Insights from DC Public Schools’ Teacher Exit Survey,” Bellwether Education Partners (May 2018).

1. News was a little scarce out of this week’s meeting of the state board of education, but here’s what we’ve got. The board approved a resolution asking the state legislature to delay the implementation of composite letter grades for schools. (Dayton Daily News, 5/15/18) A board committee recommended narrowing the definition of “dropout recovery school” and boosting the standards to which the remaining such school should be held. (Gongwer Ohio, 5/14/18) However, in less-official business, the board heard from state Senator Peggy Lehner that the legislature is disinclined to extend lower, test-free graduation requirements beyond the Class of 2018. Despite the board’s previous recommendation to the contrary. (Dayton Daily News, 5/15/18)
    
2. There is a strange tone of glee in this piece about the ECOT-branded items up for auction. But what can you expect, really. It’s just money, right? (Columbus Dispatch, 5/14/18) Maybe some folks should care more about former ECOT students. Well, these guys do, but only in terms of getting safe harbor from accountability so the former ECOTters who transferred to them won’t “drag down” their academic ratings. How kind. What happens if the ECOTtters bring up your ratings, gang? Does that count? (Toledo Blade, 5/14/18)
    
3. I don’t usually cover straight-up crime stories in the Bites, but this is pretty brazen. If these accusations are true, you have to admit the guy’s got moxie. (WEWS-TV, Cleveland, 5/15/18)
    
4. It was a packed—and expensive—agenda for Dayton City Schools’ board of education last night. Over $1.7 million in additional spending was approved, by my back-of-the-envelope calculation. This includes those retroactive raises for administrators we talked about previously, some new buses, and a crap ton of additional legal fees for various ongoing cases. The total price tag for this meeting will probably end up being higher since the terminations approved will also likely incur a billable hour or two to finalize. P.S. – Preschool will only be available to Dayton families four days a week going forward but teachers will get paid for five. (Dayton Daily News, 5/15/18)
    
5. We end today with two stories on the same topic from different sources. The variation in approach is interesting, as usual. A provider of educational and therapeutic services for children on the autism spectrum has requested a tax abatement to help them afford construction of a new indoor gym facility in Lorain. The school board has already signed off on the abatement request and the last stop in the process is Lorain City Council. The two stories cover the same city council committee meeting on the topic, held earlier this week. After 600 words of positivity and praise regarding the school, the plan, and the kids served, the Morning Journal’s coverage noted that the public discussion got a little “testy”. Specifically, the testiness arose when some speakers were deemed to not be sensitive enough to students with disabilities, so the MJ reported. (Northern Ohio Morning Journal, 5/14/18) In the Chronicle’s version, deviation begins in the headline, which identifies the provider as a charter school. My quick research shows that this is likely incorrect, but even if it’s true, it is less-than-germane to the discussion being reported. That discussion is characterized as combative and focused more on the clients than on the type of provider or facility. The provider’s CEO is reported as playing defense in her remarks right from the start. References to homelessness, drug addiction, and clients “milling around” adding to downtown Lorain’s “problems” were also included. (Elyria Chronicle, 5/15/18) In case you’re wondering, the committee approved sending the request to the full council. Let’s see how that discussion is covered when it happens.

1. The tiny Sandusky school district in northern Ohio is home to a new(ish) charter school within its borders, and at least one person seems pretty steamed. Unfortunately, that person is the one writing about it in the Register. It is amusing to me how much good news is actually contained in this piece while nonetheless being shaded throughout. I should probably say “attempted shade” because most of what passes for bad news is either naïve or flat out wrong. That includes the nature and operation of charter schools, their funding, the “misleading” name of this particular school, the role of high quality teachers, and why such a non-district choice exists in the first place. You know—small stuff. (Sandusky Register, 5/13/18) A similar situation occurs in this piece from the nearby town of Norwalk, but in reverse. What is intended to be a story about how great it is that parents and students in the area have so much school choice is entirely suspect due to the numbers presented. The data related to folks opting in to Norwalk versus Norwalkers opting to go elsewhere seem to me to belie the positive sales job in the quotes. Did the reporter know this or is it an accident? Read it and decide for yourself. (Norwalk Reflector, 5/14/18)
    
2. Meanwhile, in the “big city”, the promised auction of (most of) the assets leftover from the former ECOT charter school got underway on Friday. Appropriately, it is an online auction. Bidding will remain open until mid-June. Remember, it’s common knowledge that none of those computers actually have as many miles on them as they seem to, so there’s bound to be some great bargains in the lot. Buy early, buy often. (Dayton Daily News, 5/11/18)
    
3. Someone should do a study to find out how often an “extensive” superintendent search turns up the candidate which has been right under the school board’s nose all along. (Willoughby News-Herald, 5/12/18)
    
4. The students of Youngstown Early College High School posted some impressive stats this school year, as they have in years past, and district CEO Krish Mohip is justifiably proud. YEC is on the grow for next school year, which is awesome. (Youngstown Vindicator, 5/12/18) In Lorain Schools, the list of building deans is what’s on the grow. Names and positions for most of the district schools (each school will have two deans – one for academics and one for family engagement) were released last week. (Elyria Chronicle, 5/12/18)
    
5. Finally today, if you can stand more stories about the awesomeness of the Hamad family, so can I! This one specifically notes the role that interdistrict open enrollment played in the success of two of the Hamad children. It does not note, however, that that option will likely not be available for the youngest brother next year...or indeed for other students who might want it. (Columbus Dispatch, 5/14/18)

Can we call a place a desert if we refuse to let water in? The Fordham Institute recently released an interesting look at which communities in the U.S. have a significant portion of low-income students but very few choices when it comes to their education. Fordham calls them “charter school deserts,” and they created interactive maps of each state with the deserts highlighted.

Sadly, these are easy to identify in Missouri. Just find the Census tracts where more than 20 percent of children live in poverty and circle them. The school choice spigot in Missouri is firmly turned off, with little hope that it will be turned on any time soon. The Missouri legislature has refused to transfer any power away from local school boards and into the hands of parents. As a result, students who live in areas of concentrated poverty around Springfield, in the southern part of the state, and in the bootheel have no options beyond their assigned public school. Going by the current laws governing charter schools, you would think that all the parents outside of St. Louis and Kansas City are perfectly satisfied with their children’s assigned public school.

In contrast, our two largest cities look more like charter school oases. Nearly half of all public school students in Kansas City and one-third of public school students in St. Louis attend a public charter school. Parents in these two cities aren’t unique in their desire for high-quality school options for their students—they’re just the only ones who can access them.

This week National Charter Schools Week is being celebrated across the country, including in those districts with at least 10 percent of their students in charter schools. One in five public school students in the U.S. attends school in one of those districts. In fact, every day nearly 3.2 million public school students head out the door to a public charter school. These schools expand public school options for parents across the country. Unfortunately, in Missouri we’ve chosen to reserve them as punishment for failing school districts and to leave everyone else thirsty.

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in a slightly different form on the Show-Me Daily blog.

The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the author and not necessarily the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

NOTE: In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, Fordham Ohio staffers will be blogging about teachers, principals, and guidance counselors who made a positive difference in their schooling and in their lives. This is the fourth and final post, which does double duty of celebrating National Charter Schools Week as well. The first post can be found here; the second can be found here; and the third here.

Growing up, I attended five different elementary schools. District transportation interruptions, school closings, and family relocations forced me into changing schools at the end of each year. My memories of middle school aren’t much better: They involve metal detectors, fights erupting on cafeteria tables, and teachers reading the Dayton Daily News instead of teaching. Overall, the schools I attended were poorly staffed, overpopulated, and nearly devoid of learning.

By the time I entered high school, I was at a significant disadvantage. My parents and I were skeptical of the district high schools’ ability to adequately equip me with a strong secondary education and effectively prepare me for college, so we selected a charter school instead: the Dayton Early College Academy (DECA).

DECA was founded in 2003 as Ohio’s first early college high school focused specifically on first-generation students. DECA not only accelerated my learning but also promoted a sense of belonging, support, commitment, and cultivated community among students and faculty. The college-going school culture was pervasive and promoted by constant messages that all students were able to succeed academically and enroll in college.  

DECA’s integration of its Gateway system, in addition to my rigorous coursework, provided me with the skills necessary to perform well in college. As a high school student, I interned with the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, and local non-profits—all while building a network of professional connections that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would end up providing crucial social and cultural capital.

I’m incredibly appreciative of my charter high school for providing me with an education that prepared me for college. But what I am most appreciative of is the support that propelled me beyond college admission and eventual graduation. At DECA, I gained life-long advocates and mentors that, to this day, still allow me to sit in their offices and ramble about my confusions, frustrations, fears, and achievements.

But of all the teachers, leaders, and mentors I had, Danya Berry—my high school guidance counselor and the current assistant principal at DECA—proved to be the most transformative. Danya made me feel seen from the moment I entered the building. When I walked through the hallways with my head down and shoulders drooping, she would casually ask me to step in her office. Then she would close the door, sit on her office chair, raise an eyebrow, and ask, “So, what happened?” Her personal attention made me feel visible, and I could never wear a mask around her; she always saw right through it.

Danya also pushed me out of my comfort zone. She challenged me with difficult questions and believed in me even when I had little self-efficacy. If not for her insistence, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to apply to The Ohio State University—nor would I have had the courage to have the difficult conversation with my parents that I might want to go to college out of the city.

I believe that one of the reasons that Danya was so impactful was because of her ability to invest deeply in relationships and encourage students, which is ingrained into DECA’s core values. DECA, at its core, shines a light on students that are often forgotten. For me, it disproved my previous self-defeating misconceptions about disadvantaged and first-generation students. Now, as part of Fordham’s sponsorship team, my journey with charter schools has come full circle—and my appreciation for DECA has grown immensely.

When my eldest son Culver was in elementary school, he was an avid reader, but I couldn’t get him to touch anything but science fiction. By the time he was eight, I was becoming concerned that he would never read anything else, so I headed to Bank Street Bookstore, a wonderful children’s bookstore on the west side of Harlem. A young woman who worked there approached me to ask how she could help. When I described my dilemma, she smiled, “I’ve seen this before—you just haven’t found the right books.” She asked me more about my son and began picking out books outside of the sci-fi genre, drawing on what appeared to be an encyclopedic knowledge of high-quality children’s literature.

Culver was enraptured with Sarah’s picks. Thanks to her selections, his reading took an omnivorous turn and I regularly returned to the store for more recommendations. Just around that time, in 2006, I opened the first Success Academy and had to stock our classroom libraries. I ordered the pre-set publisher’s collections that are used by so many schools—but I was shocked by how little the sales people knew about what they were selling. My experience buying books for my own children had led me to conclude that we were in a golden age of children’s literature, but the books the publishers sent in no way reflected that reality.

So, I returned to Bank Street and asked Sarah, whose recommendations had inspired Culver’s passion for reading, to recommend books for our libraries. Eventually, I hired her as our first director of children’s literature, so that all kids in our schools could have access to great books and have their passions represented. She helped us hand-pick fiction, poetry, and nonfiction books for our classroom libraries, and for our K–4 and middle school curriculum. We sought out books that would help our scholars fall in love with the written word; books that featured beautiful illustrations, eloquent writing, and complex and resonant ideas and themes; whose layered meaning would spark classroom debate and beg rereading. (We share our K–4 book lists, and other aspects of our K–4 THINK Literacy curriculum, at no charge via the Success Academy Ed Institute.)

Most public schools exhibit a pervasive disregard for text quality and content, and it is a missed opportunity. Voracious reading is a critical way to build background knowledge and vocabulary, to cultivate students’ capacity for analysis and critical thinking, and to support their development as fluid, expressive writers. But these benefits don’t accrue if students are reading books with unimaginative illustrations, limited vocabulary, shallow ideas, and a narrow range of topics. This applies as much to kindergarteners as it does to middle and high schoolers, and it is the impetus for our fierce engagement with literature at Success Academy.

Even before children can decode, they can grapple with complex ideas. Therefore, while we have a strong phonics program in kindergarten and first grade, we also devote ample time to reading books with powerful illustrations and intriguing stories that can support robust analytical discussion. For example, Caps for Sale—a favorite among our kindergartners even though few can read it on their own—is a great story for digging into character: What does the peddler’s response to the monkeys reveal about his personality? How do we know? In class discussions about Corduroy, our kindergartners come to profound insights about the themes of friendship and home, of being lost and found.

Text quality is also important for modeling strong writing. In our first-grade writing unit on personal narratives, for example, we inform and inspire scholars throughout the unit with great personal narratives—such as Aunt Flossie’s Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) and First Come the Zebra. As we read and analyze these books, scholars grow in their understanding of how to use imagery, word choice, and story structure to convey important information about the narrator. When they write their own narratives, they work on applying these newfound insights.

Careful text selection is also a perfect opportunity to intentionally build background and cultural knowledge, while exposing students to a rich variety of genres. We love poetry at Success Academy, and by the time our scholars reach the end of elementary school, they have read Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Maya Angelou, Victor Hugo, and many others. They have read and analyzed fairy tales, folktales, and myths from all over the world and understand the origin and meaning of common expressions such as “the Midas touch,” “a Herculean task,” and “slow and steady wins the race.”

Furthermore, by strategically selecting texts across genres to highlight a myriad of cultures, histories, and identities, we give our scholars a foundation of knowledge about their own heritage and that of other groups. From “Lowji Comes to America,” about a boy immigrating from Bangladesh and adapting to his new home; to Mountains on the Moon, a novel that combines Chinese folklore with fantasy, to biographies of African-American frontiersmen, inventors, and artists, text selection is a vital way to provide scholars with an inclusive and multicultural educational experience.

Regardless of the genre, we choose texts based, above all, on the power of their ideas. We believe that reading is thinking, and at Success Academy, we work hard to select texts that are worth thinking about. Ultimately, this is the foundational ingredient of a rigorous, sophisticated literacy curriculum—and it is a simple and low-cost way that all schools can improve the education they give their students.

(For complete information on the fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short texts included in our K–4 literacy curriculum, including free book lists for each grade, visit the Success Academy Education Institute.)

Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in a slightly different form on Linkedin.

The views expressed herein represent the opinions of the author and not necessarily the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

1. We start today with two awesome student stories. They are both a little off the beaten path for Gadfly Bites, but were too great to pass up. The first one comes from the sports page: Cin’Quan Haney just graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in physics and is headed to a great job and what seems to be a very bright future indeed. Haney is from Dayton and was a walk-on member of the OSU football team for three years, hence the placement of this story in the sports page. He took the field for only one play in his entire career but gives huge props to the coaches and staff for helping him boost his already-strong academic efforts. In this profile, he also gives huge props to his high school—Chaminade-Julienne—for its role in his personal growth and education. Why is this important? First, because Haney’s life included a full hand of what some folks like to call ACEs—adverse childhood experiences. Those experiences should have, according to those same folks, precluded some or all of Haney’s now-demonstrated success. Those folks are dead wrong. Second, because whatever Cin’Quan Haney needed to succeed in school was either not available in Dayton City Schools or was not enough for him and his mother. Folks who believe that school choice should not exist and that status quo one-size-fits-all district schools should be the only option are—you guessed it—dead wrong. Third, Chaminade-Julienne High School takes students on the EdChoice Scholarship program. There is no indication that Cin’Quan Haney sought or received a voucher, but CJ participating in the state’s voucher program means that the same supports and opportunities that Haney credits for his success are far more widely available to Dayton students than without it. Those folks who oppose vouchers are dead wrong too; and this is proof. (Columbus Dispatch, 5/10/18) But don’t take my word for it. Who am I, after all? This story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution makes the school choice and voucher case directly. It is the story of Cameron Smith, one of the first recipients of Georgia’s special needs scholarship back in 2007, who graduated with honors from Reinhardt University last week. Smith’s mother describes how she sent her son to a magnet elementary school outside of his Atlanta neighborhood because she felt it was the right fit for his needs. When it was time for middle school, however, she felt she had no choices in the city schools until the scholarship program came online and helped her access a Catholic school across town. While she makes it clear that the voucher amount was in no way sufficient on its own, she is also very clear that Cameron would not be on the path he is today without the assistance of school choice options and vouchers. And where does that path lead? To Ohio! Cameron Smith is joining a theater troupe in the Buckeye State…as soon as he’s back from a trip to the Vatican with his chamber singing group. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 5/9/18)
    
2. Can you stand some more good news today? Me too! Youngstown Schools boss Krish Mohip presented some data in his public CEO Update meeting this week—all of it good. Modest but clear improvements in math and reading scores, attendance, and student GPA across the board from the start of the year. Not only is the positive news worth talking about, so is the fact that the community got ACTUAL REAL TIME STUDENT DATA at a public meeting! What is not worth talking about is what the elected school board were “discussing” at their own separate meeting held at the same time across town. (Youngstown Vindicator, 5/10/18)
    
3. This is not a riddle: What do you call a charter school when you like a specific school of that type but you don’t like charter schools as a category and wish they would all go away (except, of course, for the one you like)? The answer can be found in this piece, which notes that Steel Academy (great name, BTW) in Akron, which is undoubtedly a charter school but which serves mainly students with ADHD and other learning disabilities and so is not called by that term, will soon part ways with a service provider which had been its backbone for most of its existence. In any normal story about charter schools in Ohio (see below), especially one from the ABJ, this piece would include the term “charter school” in some screamy headline and would probably include a history of questions raised about relationships and money and leadership. It would definitely imply that this is the end of the line for said charter school and might even suggest that it’s probably already closed. This piece, however, seems very hopeful to me. A new provider will be found and our beloved “free public school” should be right as rain soon. (Akron Beacon Journal, 5/11/18) Turns out that Cleveland Metropolitan School District will not be closing its gifted school after all and dispersing its students among other “general ed” schools, following some loud and visible pushback from students and families. District CEO Eric Gordon announced the stay this week, along with a revised plan that will see all the gifted students crammed together on just two floors of the current building while construction all around them—part of the reason for the original dispersal plan—continues for the next couple of years. The good news is, of course, that the gifted school’s student body has been steadily dwindling over the years—ANOTHER part of the reason for the original dispersal plan—so perhaps it won’t be so tight a squeeze after all. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/10/18) Well, we knew all the good news couldn’t last. So here’s the bad news: Cleveland’s Montessori High School will close at the end of this school year due to declining enrollment. It is a unique institution: a non-religious private high school using the Montessori Method and with a boarding school component as well. It’s location on the lovely University Circle was pretty cool too. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 5/10/18)
    
4. In case you missed it, the Auditor of State’s report on ECOT was released yesterday. Hizzoner has some thoughts, which I will skip over for now, but I did want to parse the headline here for a minute. How certain are we really that ECOT “inflated” the amount of time that “students spent learning”? Surely not every minute that students spend in brick and mortar schools is “learning time”. How do we know that some of the time ECOT students were logged in but not “active” didn’t include watching movies or filmstrips on another device? Maybe they were having a field day on the side yard trampoline? Perhaps they were running laps in their garage or practicing music in the corner of their rooms? What if they were conducting a mom-sanctioned walkout in protest of something? Or they were in the bathroom or trying to remember their locker combination or texting about why Dionne was wearing THAT on video today? Or napping at their desk or reading a book or giving their little sibling a swirly? I think we have more questions than answers here, honestly, but as noted above who am I to ask? (Associated Press, via Akron Beacon Journal, 5/10/18) Editors in Tiffin had an interesting take on the ECOT story post-audit,  reinforcing the similarity they would like to see between bricks and mortar and online schools. (Tiffin Advertiser-Tribune, 5/11/18)
    
5. We end today where we began: on the sports page and in Dayton. As my loyal Gadfly Bites subscribers will be aware, 2017-2018 has been annus horribilus for Dayton City Schools athletics. Brawls, investigations, vacated wins, sanctions, court cases, fines, and firings. All of this awfulness has led to big changes in job descriptions, hiring, and training for ADs and coaches district wide. The new plan was unveiled this week with hopes of implementation for next school year. (Dayton Daily News, 5/11/18)