Game, set, match

"At 1900 N.E. 10 Street, amid rows of low income neighborhood blocks with blight and abandoned buildings, there is a little brown school building," Stacy Martin reports for CapitolBeatOK.

When school is in session, it is filled with students from homes just like one would expect: poor families, kids with parents in prison, adults who are addicted to drugs, neglectful, absent in their kids’ lives. Some have ceded their parenting to grandparents. These are proven obstacles to student achievement.

The building’s school on the first floor, F.D. Moon Academy, is now one of Oklahoma City’s most troubled elementary schools. Federal law has compelled the district to seize control and turn it around. But go upstairs to the second floor, and you will find irony incarnate.

On that second floor, there are the same kinds of kids from the same backgrounds. But this is (Knowledge is Power Program) KIPP Reach Academy, a charter school. It is the highest achieving middle school in the Oklahoma City Public School District ...

Meet the (suburban) parents

Lew Andrews has a very good article making the case that, when it comes to education reform, upper-middle class suburban parents are often part of the problem.

"[I]f we were being brutally honest," says Chester Finn, assistant secretary of education in the Reagan administration and now president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, "we would be saying to suburban America that your kids actually aren't learning very much either."

One telling indicator of the low quality of suburban schools is the rise of tutoring. In 2008, PBS's Nightly Business Report estimated professional tutoring to be a $4 billion industry that year, concentrated in the suburbs, with a 10 percent estimated annual growth rate.

Even this figure does not take into account either the common off-the-books arrangements with moonlighting teachers or burgeoning Internet options. With small online providers like Colorado-based e-Tutor seeing revenue jump from $180,000 in 2009 to a quarter million in 2010 despite the recession, the Kaplan online university division of the Washington Post has launched its own reading and math programs for elementary and middle school students.

How is it that intelligent and motivated parents, many sacrificing financially to afford homes in the most expensive suburbs, end up as uncritical supporters of a public school system that does a better job of filling students' leisure fantasies than providing a rigorous education?

Preschool gains limited, difficult to replicate

Heritage Foundation analyst Lindsey Burke says "the long-term social benefits to good preschooling for poor children found by a new study of a Chicago pilot program would be difficult to replicate for other children and towns, experts say."

While researchers found modest gains for low-income children, education experts cautioned it would be difficult to replicate these outcomes on a large scale, as with programs like Head Start, or for middle- and upper-income children.

"Any argument for universal preschool must show that middle-income and upper-income children are helped by having government-funded preschool available to all children," said Lance Izumi, senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute. "Previous studies, such as the RAND study that was issued during the campaign for universal preschool in California, specifically admitted that there was little evidence showing that preschool improved the achievement and life circumstances of middle-income and upper-income children."

States' experience with offering universal or state-funded preschool programs have shown "disappointing" student achievement results, Izumi said. Internal reviews by the Department of Health and Human Services have shown for decades that the nation’s largest preschool program, Head Start, does nothing for students' test scores past first grade.

"Concluding that a program like this would benefit the average, middle-class child is akin to suggesting that penicillin will improve your child’s health," [Goldwater Institute president Darcy] Olsen said. "Penicillin is great for fighting infection in the sick, but has no effect on those who are not in need and may even be harmful."

I remember a conversation last year in which state Rep. Jabar Shumate (D-Tulsa) told me that even the best preschool is for naught if the child then goes to bad schools for 12 years. He's right. As Olsen puts it, "changing a child’s trajectory requires fundamentally reforming our public schools into schools that can meet children's learning needs throughout the years."

'Future schools'

Jonathan Schorr and Deborah McGriff on blending face-to-face and online learning.

'School violence is getting out of hand'

So says 16-year-old Kalynn Antwine, a student at Webster High School in Tulsa:

I am ashamed of how our teachers, students and even parents do not take school violence seriously. ... Verbal abuse is worse than physical abuse because most likely if someone sees you being hurt they will help. If someone is putting you down, most people will just watch. I find it sad that this happens often. In Michigan, a 15-year-old girl committed suicide because her so-called friends started calling her names and being mean to her.

And it's not just Michigan. Jordon Shinn reported in The Daily O'Collegian on November 10, 2010, that "bullying was a hot topic at the Stillwater Board of Education meeting Tuesday night, as the father of a recent suicide victim gave his testimony to a room packed with quietly concerned parents."

Early in the meeting, Patricia Hughes, assistant professor for the School of Applied Health and Educational Psychology at OSU, gave a presentation on bullying in Oklahoma schools.

"It's leading to suicide more and more often, more and more young," said Hughes. "We're seeing an escalation in the incidents, in the violence. Here, we're seeing suicides happening very, very, very close to us."

Hughes participated in the Oklahoma Anti-Bullying Survey of 2005. The largest study of its kind done in the United States, it surveyed more than 10,000 third-, fifth- and seventh-graders from 85 school districts in Oklahoma, according to www.ok.gov/health.

"What we found out is that one out of five kids in Oklahoma schools is worried about bullying," Hughes said. The survey questioned students about three areas of bullying: physical, social, and sexual.

Advanced Academics expanding

"Advanced Academics, an online tutoring service, plans to add 50 more employees as it expands its home office in Bricktown," Steve Lackmeyer reports today in The Oklahoman.

'School voucher programs and the effects of a little healthy competition'

Gray Lady says homeschooling 'more mainstream'

Homeschooling "has become more mainstream," The New York Times reported last week in a story on a homeschool commencement ceremony in south Florida.

And speaking of homeschool commencement ceremonies, I happen to know a little something about those.

'Charter school pensions: the sum of teacher unions’ fears'

"As if the teachers unions need another reason to hate charter schools," Michael Petrilli writes, "here’s one: The finding, from a new Fordham Institute report, that when given a chance to opt out of state pension systems, many charter schools take it. Furthermore, a fair number of these charters replace traditional pensions with nothing at all."

'The shelf life of state virtual schools'

Bryan Setser asks some important questions:

• Can state-led virtual schools be nimble?
• Can choice coexist with competent and creative curators?
• Can state virtual schools get out of their own way?

Red states rule

Blue-state schools are "the shame of a nation."

OEA honcho pockets $229,768

The Oklahoma Education Association lost 707 members last year, Stacy Martin and Patrick B. McGuigan report over at CapitolBeatOK. Consequently, the union's 2010-2011 dues of $438 are set to rise to $450.

Many OEA members doubtless think a good chunk of their dues money goes to purchase their liability insurance. Think again! "Most of the dollars deducted from teachers' paychecks," says education reporter Mike Antonucci, "are inserted into the paychecks of someone else." Someone else like the OEA staffer who pocketed a cool $229,768.

Big year for school choice

A full 42 states have introduced voucher or scholarship tax credit legislation this year.