Liberal education policy in action

[Amianthus]

The Harlem Miracle

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: May 7, 2009
The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look at the results from the serious evaluations and you find that these inspiring places are only producing incremental gains.

That's why I was startled when I received an e-mail message from Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist. It included this sentence: "The attached study has changed my life as a scientist."

Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children's Zone. They compared students in these schools to students in New York City as a whole and to comparable students who entered the lottery to get into the Harlem Children's Zone schools, but weren't selected.

They found that the Harlem Children's Zone schools produced "enormous" gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.

Forgive some academic jargon, but the most common education reform ideas - reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start - produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That's off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.

Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. "The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes," Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children's Zone's founder and president, has done is "the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It's amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn't matter if we stop there. We don't have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying - literally and figuratively."

These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate. Some experts, mostly surrounding the education establishment, argue that schools alone can't produce big changes. The problems are in society, and you have to work on broader issues like economic inequality. Reformers, on the other hand, have argued that school-based approaches can produce big results. The Harlem Children's Zone results suggest the reformers are right. The Promise Academy does provide health and psychological services, but it helps kids who aren't even involved in the other programs the organization offers.

To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don't have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.

To understand the culture in these schools, I'd recommend "Whatever It Takes," a gripping account of Harlem Children's Zone by my Times colleague Paul Tough, and "Sweating the Small Stuff," a superb survey of these sorts of schools by David Whitman.

Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn't return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.

The approach works. Ever since welfare reform, we have had success with intrusive government programs that combine paternalistic leadership, sufficient funding and a ferocious commitment to traditional, middle-class values. We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap. Which city is going to take up the challenge? Omaha? Chicago? Yours?
Original Article

[Amianthus]

And Mikey is too smart to be fooled like this dummy:

"This is the home of the Harlem Children's Zone - an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort that is literally saving a generation of children in a neighborhood where they were never supposed to have a chance.

"The philosophy behind the project is simple - if poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence; failing schools and broken homes, then we can't just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community. And we have to focus on what actually works.

"If you're a child who's born in the Harlem Children's Zone, you start life differently than other inner-city children. Your parents probably went to what they call " Baby College", a place where they received counseling on how to care for newborns and what to expect in those first months. You start school right away, because there's early childhood education. When your parents are at work, you have a safe place to play and learn, because there's child care, and after school programs, even in the summer. There are innovative charter schools to attend. There's free medical services that offer care when you're sick and preventive services to stay healthy. There's affordable, good food available so you're not malnourished. There are job counselors and financial counselors. There's technology training and crime prevention.

"You don't just sign up for this program; you're actively recruited for it, because the idea is that if everyone is involved, and no one slips through the cracks, then you really can change an entire community. Geoffrey Canada, the program's inspirational, innovative founder, put it best - instead of helping some kids beat the odds, the Harlem Children's Zone is actually changing the odds altogether.

"And it's working. Parents in Harlem are actually reading more to their children. Their kids are staying in school and passing statewide tests at higher rates than other children in New York City. They're going to college in a place where it was once unheard of. They've even placed third at a national chess championship.

"So we know this works. And if we know it works, there's no reason this program should stop at the end of those blocks in Harlem. It's time to change the odds for neighborhoods all across America. And that's why when I'm President, the first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to replicate the Harlem Children's Zone in twenty cities across the country. We'll train staff, we'll have them draw up detailed plans with attainable goals, and the federal government will provide half of the funding for each city, with the rest coming from philanthropies and businesses."
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/07/18/remarks_of_senator_barack_obam_19.php

[kimba1]

too bad oprah skip this and went to africa for her school.

lots of people with deep pockets have tried to help these areas and failed.

[Michael Tee]

Well, they're certainly making all the right noises. The community-wide approach, the integration of medical, financial, parenting, etc. issues into the educational process . . .

I wish 'em all the best, and I sincerely hope my first assessment was hasty and wrong.  I especially like that there are so many "nanny" aspects to the program, calculated to enrage the hard right - - the free medical programs, the active recruitment of locals into parenting and neonatal care classes, etc.

[kimba1]

if you think about it`s a radical form of a no excuse education system

meaning no excuse by actually elliminating the excuses.

the previous form of no excuse was by the less costly version of just telling kids no excuse and raising the bar
for some reason that one had less positive results.

[Amianthus]

I especially like that there are so many "nanny" aspects to the program, calculated to enrage the hard right - - the free medical programs, the active recruitment of locals into parenting and neonatal care classes, etc.

The hard right doesn't have a problem with those - only when they're forced on people by the government do they have a problem with it. This program is all voluntary.

[sirs]

Precisely

[BSB]

Good reading Ami.

I like David Brooks, my kind of Republican.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Different students have different learning styles: some people will learn all they need to know by reading the textbook, others learn better with a hands-on experience, like a science lab. Like MT, I never learned anything in the lab that was not revealed in the textbook, but then again,. I read the textbook, which most of my classmates did not do. The observation of HOW chemical reactions take place and the actual dissection of the frog and (ugh) the decaying chinchillas supplied information that the textbook could not show, so it was certainly worth the bother.

I would be opposed to removing any classes from the curriculum, really. The least useful classes I took in HS were PE (where the jocks got all the attention and we just sat and watched) and Geometry, (where we "discovered" the various volume equations for different shapes). I am sure both classes could have been far more interesting and useful had they been taught with more creativity.

There was a schoolboard member who had a chinchilla "ranch" (actually a barn filled with cages that reeked of ammonia). After he skinned the varmints, he froze them and donated them to the biology class. The school had no refrigeration facilities in the lab, and the cafeteria would not permit the deceased rodents in their walk-in freezers, so they reeked by the fifth period. I noticed this less than many of the other students: several girls were provoked to vomit by the smell.

But we did learn what a chinchilla spleen looked like and were greatly impressed by the length of the intestines. Still, I was unaware that rodents were copraphragic until many years later when we got my daughter a pet bunny.

[Amianthus]

Like MT, I never learned anything in the lab that was not revealed in the textbook, but then again,. I read the textbook, which most of my classmates did not do.

The purpose of the lab is go beyond what you learn from the textbook.

[Michael Tee]

<<The purpose of the lab is go beyond what you learn from the textbook.>>

Nonsense.  I don't recall the entire format of the write-up, but at the start of every chem or physics experiment, we had to write five basic data at the head of the lab report:  Purpose of the experiment, equipment to be used, procedure to be followed and I think two other data.  "Purpose of the Experiment" gave the whole thing away - - you knew what you were out to prove.  If it was a principle of chemistry, it had already been gone over in the classroom or was explained somewhere in the text.  Sometimes the purpose was to measure the quantity of compound produced by a specific chemical reaction; in some cases we already knew the formula to calculate the outcome and the experiment was just to bear out the formula or test our skills in measuring, weighing and generally following instructions so as to achieve the predicted or predictable result.

Never once did we "go beyond" the textbook in the lab, i.e., learn new scientific principles not already covered in the text or the classroom.  We were there to learn the basics, not to win any Nobel Prizes or discover new elements.

[Amianthus]

Never once did we "go beyond" the textbook in the lab, i.e., learn new scientific principles not already covered in the text or the classroom.  We were there to learn the basics, not to win any Nobel Prizes or discover new elements.

Guess I had a different type of teacher, then. We were encouraged to do "what if" scenarios, exploring different ways of doing things. Most of us finished all of the lab work in the workbooks in the first half of the semester, and the balance was spent learning new things that weren't typically covered in either the textbook or the lab workbook. We did a lot of "what would be a different way to approach this problem" type of things in our labs.

[kimba1]

I always thought lab is a retention tool.
reading something from a book is alot harder to remember than something hands on.

[Amianthus]

We were there to learn the basics, not to win any Nobel Prizes or discover new elements.

"Turner spent her time looking at DNA from children with congenital heart disease (CHD); in simple terms, a hole in the heart. 'If we can tell that the baby is going to be born with CHD, hopefully we can get them care faster and eventually as science grows we can actually fix the problem before the baby is born,' explained Turner.

"Out of a hundred samples, Turner found four mutations. Quite a find for any scientist, but for a high school student... well, even her mentor was blown away. 'I was really nervous because I saw one and I wasn't sure if I was right,' said Turner. 'And so I went to her [mentor] and I said I think I found one. She came over to the computer and said, yes, you really did.' "
Young Texas Student Makes Heart Disease Discovery

"Ah-Seng is investigating the impact of monosodium glutamate, a food additive commonly known as MSG, on brain cells. Her research measures how exposure to MSG affects how brain cells grow, and how they communicate with each other. Studies around the world have explored the health risks of MSG, and its relationship to retinal degeneration, obesity, brain lesions and degenerative disorders such as Alzheimer?s and ALS.

" 'This work that Michelle is doing is quite remarkable. Her findings are worthy of publication in a scientific journal," says Naweed Syed, PhD, professor and head, cell biology and anatomy, University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine. 'Heritage has planted the seeds with Michelle. She has had the taste of discovery, and she has created something that will live on in our lab.'

Syed has invited Ah-Seng to return to his lab next summer and continue her research. Ah-Seng is heading into Grade 12 at Cochrane High School where she has already completed Biology 30. 'I love to present students with opportunities, and watch them fly,' says Stephanie Bennett, a science teacher from Cochrane High School. 'Students like Michelle have so much to offer. They believe that anything is possible.' "
Local high school student investigates MSG's impact on the brain

[Xavier_Onassis]

A good example, although quite rare, and done by analyzing data, not by performing lab experiments.

What you are supposed to get out of a science lab experiment is visual and experiential confirmation and evidence of what is taught by the textbook. Or at least, that is the way I understand it. The incident mentioned by Ami is a rare exception of an exceptional student going beyond the norm. A good thing, but also rare. Hence the mention in the press.