USA TODAY International Edition
LOOK WHO’S WINNING IN EDUCATION
3 lessons from Tennessee and D. C.’ s performance on nation’s report card
How often does Tennessee get cited nationally for producing great academic gains for its children? Almost never, about the same number of times Washington, D. C., gets touted for its superior academic results.
And yet both Tennessee and Washington stood out last week for making the fastest education gains as the results from the “nation’s report card,” the respected National Assessment of Educational Progress ( NAEP), were released. Imagine that. It’s hard to say which location has the more checkered education history. Only a few years ago, Tennessee got “outed” for setting embarrassingly low education standards. Tennessee students were acing their state tests but failing the far- tougher NAEP. Until a few years ago, Washington, D. C., was regarded as one of the worst urban school districts in the country.
Education leaders in both places are regularly pilloried for reforms they undertook. In Tennessee, a third of the district superintendents, along with the teachers’ unions in Memphis and Nashville, just signed no- confidence letters condemning State Education Commissioner Kevin Huffman. Their message to the governor: Rein him in!
The Washington reforms are famously controversial, designed by former chancellor Michelle Rhee ( Huffman’s ex- wife), who was forced from office in part because of the political turmoil created by those school changes. Current Chancellor Kaya Henderson was able to preserve and improve those reforms partly because she is considerably less inflammatory than Rhee.
THREE REASONS FOR GAINS How can this progress in Tennessee and Washington be explained? In truth, it’s not a mystery. I’ve seen similar progress while visiting other successful schools. There are three reasons behind the improvements:
Start with setting higher education standards. Tennessee did that in 2009. Washington did that even earlier when it adopted the highly admired Massachusetts education standards. And both Tennessee and Washington moved quickly to adopt the more rigorous Common Core standards.
Then, mix in a strong dose of real- world employee evaluation, something common in the private sector but until recently mostly unknown in schools.
In Tennessee, for example, a teacher could go 10 years between evaluations. That changed dramatically in 2011, when Tennessee became one of the nation’s earliest adopters of professional teacher evaluations. It’s not just that the evaluations are tied to how much students learn; it’s that they involve actual feedback to teachers based on what great instruction looks like.
In Washington, teachers routinely won rave reviews despite abysmal outcomes by their students — a contradiction routinely explained away by poverty ( despite higher- poverty school districts with better outcomes). That changed dramatically with its groundbreaking 2009 IMPACT teacher evaluation. At the time, national union leaders dubbed it outrageous. Last month, a national study dubbed it effective. Overall, the better teachers stayed and tried harder, encouraged by the prospect of being rewarded. The “minimally effective” teachers tended to look for other lines of work.
CHARTER SCHOOLS’ BIG ROLE
uFinally, make charter school students a compelling part of the story. In Washington, charter students make up nearly half of all students and are turning in academic improvements at rates that outstrip the traditional district. I’m not surprised. My recent reporting trips to cities that use high- performing charter groups signal the most promising school improvement strategies I’ve ever come across. In Washington, for example, traditional schools are adopting many charter- proven strategies. That’s not stealing; that’s what is supposed to happen. And you can see far more of it in Memphis, Houston, Denver, San Jose and other cities.
Good things can happen in the nation’s schools, but those success stories are fragile. Push- back forces, such as the skittish Tennessee school superintendents, are demanding a return to the more comfortable ways of the past, ways that left at least half their students, the neediest, with educations of insufficient wattage to even qualify them for community college study.
That’s why the education lessons learned from the losers of yesterday, Tennessee and Washington, are so compelling. You will face push- back. You will get accused of pushing too hard. You might get accused of cheating. But education leaders who hold firm with the right reforms will see results.
Monday’s editorial on painkillers abuse overstated the number of hydrocodone prescriptions. According to government estimates, 136.7 million prescriptions for hydrocodone were dispensed in 2011, making it the most prescribed drug in America.