Education Week - March 27, 2013 - 32

EDUCATION WEEK

MARCH 27, 2013

www.edweek.org

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

LETTERS to
the EDITOR

Write a letter
to the editor!

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31

period. Their ideas evolve
as they explore a variety
of materials and persist in
making sense of it all. Then
they share their ideas with
others, who develop their
own interpretations, pursue
further study, or embrace the
perspective.
It’s time to start a conversation
about content-area reading.

Letters should be as brief as
possible, with a maximum
length of 300 words.

Send to:

ewletter@epe.org

To the Editor:
The Commentary “Schools
for Other People’s Children” by
Alan C. Jones (Jan. 23, 2013)
was an excellent exposure of
the problems inherent in the No
Child Left Behind Act. It should
be published in every newspaper
and educational journal in
America.
An overzealous testing regime
can be detrimental to the
creative thought process and
self-confidence of our children by
rewarding regurgitation of facts
instead of their problem-solving
ability. Schools are not factories,
and students are not widgets to
be tested and measured to some

MANAGING EDITORS Karen Diegmueller,
Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

DESIGN DIRECTOR Laura Baker

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS
Mark W. Bomster, Kevin C. Bushweller,
Debra Viadero

ASSISTANT DESIGN DIRECTOR Vanessa Solis

COMMENTARY EDITOR Elizabeth Rich
DEPUTY COMMENTARY EDITOR
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily

arbitrary standard.
The reality behind the push
for reform is that supporters of
nclb, including big businesses,
stand ready with their remedial
educational products deemed
necessary to “save” or “turn
around” public education. Follow
the money. Who stands to profit
from this enormous market for
resource material?
The push to implement the
Common Core State Standards
comes from private industry. These
companies are already geared up
to take advantage of curriculum,
professional development, and
testing associated with the
standards, offering a landslide
of products under the guise of
benefiting public education.
Public education should never
be privatized. Currently, private
enterprise is controlling public
schools in ways that we can’t even
imagine. Advertising is pervasive
and insidious. There should be a

strict demarcation between public
education and corporate influence.
Mr. Jones clearly articulated the
problems in public schools when
they are not allowed to teach
their students to the best of their
abilities. It’s not too late to become
a vibrant, functioning school like
the private Sidwell Friends School
in Washington, which Mr. Jones
cites in his Commentary.
States could opt out of the
mandates stemming from the
No Child Left Behind Act by
forfeiting, if necessary, their
federal Elementary and Secondary
Education Act money. By doing
so, their schools could then
drop the testing that is tied
to the requirement to provide
accountability for using Title I
funds.
Karla Christensen

The Many Keys to Radical
Classroom Change
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36

sures, but if we consistently
evaluate our performance, these
scores should largely serve to reaffirm what we already know.
At the same time, expectations and goal-setting
are more than abstractions. At up Academy,
teachers are observed
and participate in a
coaching meeting with
their respective managers
(one of our school’s three deans
of curriculum and instruction)
every two weeks. As needed,
teachers and school leaders
work together in developing corrective action. Students are assessed frequently to ensure they
are on track to meet interim assessment goals. We work closely with parents to complete this circuit of knowledge,
with conversations via biweekly progress
reports to update them on accomplishments
or rough spots along the way.
At my reinvigorated school, there is no
such thing as getting “stuck” with a bad
teacher ... or a bad student. There is no such

thing as “slipping through the cracks.” It’s
virtually impossible for bad practices—in
teaching or in learning—to persist without
being recognized and addressed.
Our management model does include a
level of autonomy uncommon in regular
public schools, and some elements like
the extended, eight-hour school day at up
Academy (with an additional ninth hour
for homework support and detention)
aren’t realistic for everyone. But our best
practices are gathered from hundreds
of schools across
the country. We
simply put all those
pieces together and pride ourselves on the attention we pay to the
details of execution—and many of
our processes could be rolled out in
your school, too.
Our model proves that dramatic
change happens
when you get the
details right, foster constant collaboration, and track
the results. I think
it’s a model we all can
learn from. n
Steve Braden

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The writer is a retired educator.

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Education and Business
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The writer teaches social studies in
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Education Week - March 27, 2013

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