Panel, Conference Presentation
Big City Education: We Know What Works, So Why Don't We Do It?
- Approximately 75 million children in large urban districts will be educated over the next 16 years, requiring urgent action to prevent a below-basic education as progress in closing the achievement gap remains insufficient relative to the past decade's growth rate.
- Many districts are predicted to revert from specific reforms due to political changes, with only New Orleans noted as an exception where core reforms continue, suggesting educational reforms often undergo political iterations and lose fidelity.
- Current schooling structures are expected to be inadequate for desired results, with plans to redefine the school day and year, shorten days, reduce uneducational intersessions, and restructure accountability to incubate best practices rather than employing punitive models.
- Between 2009 and 2013, 40 to 45 percent of large urban districts showed statistically significant gains, yet these were deemed insufficient despite a 12 percent compound growth rate in charter schools over the last three years.
- School improvement grants replacing up to 50 percent of teaching staff in the lowest-performing schools reportedly achieved the greatest improvement relative to the national average, with results sustaining through the second year.
- In Los Angeles, the lack of mayoral control is expected to create barriers compared to other cities, with a goal to achieve a 67 percent high school graduation rate, leaving one-third of students without a diploma or college pathway.
- Funding is predicted to remain contingent on demonstrated success, with specific proposals to restore state education funding to 42 percent (up from a drop to 34 percent) and mandate competitive wages slightly higher than the private sector to compete with Finland.
- Mandatory pre-K education, full-day kindergarten, and after-school tutoring with a one-to-five student ratio are proposed as essential strategies to reduce the achievement gap and ensure students enter kindergarten ready to learn.
- A "quid pro quo" federal model is proposed where 50 to 70 superintendents implement specific reforms including global standards and new assessments in exchange for funding and a mandate to deliver immediate results, aiming to prove public education yields returns now rather than in 10 years.
- Teaching reforms include establishing a clear career path with performance-based pay, bypassing existing tenure structures for new hires via a two-tiered system, and denying tenure for several years until effectiveness is demonstrated.
- A Chilean model utilizing national curriculum and Response to Intervention (RTI) systems is projected to increase reading scores meaningfully and jump math scores within two years across 1,100 schools without changing principals or teachers.
- Political will to sustain K-12 improvements is expected to waver if upfront financial investments do not yield visible returns for an extended period of 10 years, despite evidence that full-day kindergarten results may appear as late as 8th grade.
- The current approach is predicted to shift from excessive pilots to "building runways" for scale, emphasizing the need for stability over four or five years and the removal of obstacles to allow high-performing practices to be instituted across all school types.
- A future forum is expected to be held in a much larger format next year to address education as the most important issue facing the nation.