Blog Post In Need of Improvement

Despite my hesitance, my first edition of Blog Posts In Need of Improvement was a rousing success -- it remains my most-viewed post. I've been keeping an eye out for others that need improvement since then. I have a few marked that I've been thinking about, but I'm not quite ready to roll them out. In the meantime, I noticed this one on Friday and it's so glaringly problematic that I feel I need to address it ASAP. So I'll interrupt my regularly scheduled program to bring you this special edition of Blog Post (singular) In Need of Improvement.

Same rules apply as last time:

BPINI 3: Success: Over the meadow and through the woods, Flypaper (Fordham Institute)

Why: Liam Julian posits on why moving poor kids to wealthier schools doesn't help -- using an offensive and ill-fitting analogy. He cites a recent article in The Atlantic (not online yet) that chronicles the move of many former project residents in Memphis to outlying areas. Apparently the result (or at least one corresponding occurrence) was that crime spread throughout the city. Julian argues that this happened because "Dangerous neighborhoods are dangerous for a variety of reasons, but at the core it’s because they’re inhabited by... criminals, who, when transplanted to better neighborhoods, are simply able to steal better merchandise."

First of all, I find the insinuation that most people who live in the projects are criminals both false and offensive. Let's not forget that these are people that we're talking about. Secondly, the analogy that follows -- that dispersing kids to richer schools also doesn't work -- fails in a number of areas.

1. He argues that the reason dispersing poor people to wealthier neighborhoods doesn't work because they're criminals and they simply drag down the other neighborhoods. Does this mean that dispersing poor schoolchildren to wealthier schools won't work b/c they're bad people and will just drag down the students in their new school? That's the logical direction of the analogy, but it's not where Julian goes.

2. After a number of clicks, I ascertained that he was basing his assertion that spreading kids out to different schools doesn't work on this article. When I read the article, however, I found out that it was further refinement of the findings in this article that found that a group of public housing residents who applied for vouchers to move and received them did not, for the most apart, out-achieve those who applied and didn't receive them. Both articles offer a number of convincing reasons for the result. Among other things, only about half of the people actually moved, only 1/5 of that group moved to areas where the poverty rate was below the state median, and the new schools that children attended were only marginally better than their old ones. The point being that both articles raise serious caution about simply claiming that moving to a different neighborhood doesn't help. I'm not too familiar with the research base on integrating schools, but I asked around a bit and am under the distinct impression that positive effects of moving low-SES students into higher-SES schools has been found to have positive effects.

3. He eventually concludes that "Bad schools are bad not because of who sits next to whom, but mostly because of the... bad teachers and bad administrators who work in them." While there's merit to this sentiment, this does not support his argument. If schools are bad simply because of the teachers and administrators that work there, and are not influence by anything else, then moving a kid from a low-performing school to a high-performing school should work wonders. Indeed, that's the premise of the school choice movement.

After reading the post it's hard to conclude anything but that not enough thought was put into it. I don't find the misleading summarizing of previous research and offensive assumptions to be particularly helpful in our quest to improve America's schools.

Better Post, Same Blog: The Remorseful Joel Klein
Why: Mike Petrilli reports back on an interesting presentation and discussion with Joel Klein. His summary is both interesting and insightful, and he offers a pretty balanced view of Klein's tenure in NYC.

Blog Posts In Need of Improvement

Alexander Russo has his "Best of the Blogs." The idea occurred to me a few weeks back to create a "worst of the blogs" list as a counterbalance, but it seemed far too judgmental and condescending for my taste. Given my espoused distaste for some of what passes as dialogue in education policy, however, the idea rattled around in my head for awhile. I've finally reached a compromise.

Today I'm starting a new section titled "Blog Posts In Need of Improvement" -- a title I deem tongue-in-cheek enough for others to know that I'm not taking myself too seriously. I have no desire to put myself on a pedestal or scold others, but I would like to encourage more thoughtful and productive dialogue. Here are the rules and criteria:

1. Blog posts will be classified as "in need of improvement" when they fail to productively advance discussion and, instead, root for one side over another. Posts that are accusatory without evidence, thoughtless, derogatory, or fail to take the good of society into account are all eligible. Selection will not be based on ideology or poor grammar.

2. Blog posts that are selected will be accompanied by the selection of a productive and thoughtful post from the same blog. I'm not out to get anybody, I just feel an odd desire to point out when people aren't helping.

I'm going to lead off my list with a couple of oldies-but-baddies:

BPINI 1: I Pity The Fool!, Jay P. Greene's Blog
Why: Greg Forster chooses to revel in the "smackdown" of teachers who wrote letters to the Wall St. Journal, despite the fact that there's no possible way to tell whether or not the letters are evil given their brevity. He chooses to take sides and root for the downfall of others rather than working for the betterment of schools. In response to my criticism of the post, he defends his right to criticize "the blob" -- a derogatory term used to refer to teachers with whom he disagrees.
Better Post, Same Blog: The Devil's In the Implementation
Why: A thoughtful post analyzing the recent analysis of Reading First and what might have gone wrong.

BPINI 2: P.U. to B.U., Flypaper
Why: Chester Finn decides, without ever having met the man, that the new dean at B.U. will ruin the school -- apparently based on a glance of his resume and the fact that he currently works at Wisconsin. Finn writes that "He is reportedly hostile to charter schools and high-stakes accountability and just about everything else worth being in favor of nowadays." In the future, I hope Finn bases his judgments on facts rather than what somebody is "reportedly" like. I further hope that we can stop viewing education reform as a series of separate ideas, some of which we should root for and some which we shouldn't.
Better Post, Same Blog: Quizzing for Reading Data
Why: In her inaugural Flypaper post, Amber Winkler delves into the numbers in the latest report on reading -- examining why the numbers are they way they are rather than simply reacting to the table.