THE EDUCATION FRONT

The Dallas Morning News' Diane Rado produced an insightful story Sunday about Dallas' problem with 10 of its high schools being on the lowest rung of the No Child Left Behind ranking system. I won't re-report her details. You can read them here. But I would like to offer some ideas that readers can consider as they think about chronically failing schools, especially if they're trying to figure out how serious a district is in saving kids in those schools.

Admittedly, turning around failing schools is difficult, but there are ways to see if a district is getting after this. Here are a few thoughts:

First, what is a district doing to bring in operators of successful charter schools, like KIPP, to give the students in failing schools an alternative? I don't mean having a nice one-time talk with operators of proven charters, but a serious wooing of them to help.

Second, what are districts doing to help schools who may have a problem with a small group of students but not necessarily the entire school? What are they doing to get them over the hump? For example, what sort of reading intervention strategies are they using? Or who are they following or talking to get the best math expertise? The National Math and Science Initiative is trying to ramp up schools' ability to teach math. Are districts talking to groups like that?

Third, what kind of leader is a superintendent bringing in to fix a problem school? Hopefully, they are moving strong principals into these schools. But they don't always do that.

Now, I admit superintendents are kind of like major league baseball managers. They don't always have the best talent surrounding them. If that's the case, and they don't have enough good principals, who is the superintendent consulting for help? What educational leaders is he or she talking to for counsel?

Fourth, what kind of pressure is a district putting on its middle schools? If it is truly intervening with them so their students are increasingly likely to reach high school ready for those demanding years, maybe that district deserves a little slack in its attempt to turnaround failing high schools. But if the district is only giving lip service to middle school reform, they deserve no slack.

Fifth, where is a district recruiting its teachers? What educational schools does it seek out? Which one of the emerging teacher prep programs, such as The New Teacher Project or Teach for America, is it getting on the phone? Again, I don't mean a call here or there, but a big effort to draw in teachers who've gone through rigorous leadership training.

There is no magic way to turn around schools. But there are ways to determine how serious a district is in pursuing that goal.

The Dallas school board had a big election this week, resulting in two new trustees: Bernadette Nutall and Bruce Parrott. More trustees will be up for election in May, meaning we could have even more new faces.

Nothing wrong with new faces. Institutions need change to keep growing.

But there seems to be this sense that things would be better if Dallas Achieves, Michael Hinojosa, the business community and trustee Jack Lowe, the former school board chairman, weren't around. I can't prove that, but that's my gut feeling after interviewing some of the candidates and reading about them. This newspaper's Diane Rado characterized the election this way in yesterday's paper:

"In what some call a watershed victory, Tuesday's Dallas school board runoff produced a new five-member majority that's expected to be less malleable and more inclined to challenge the administration and the status quo."

If that indeed is the result of the election, I worry that the district's attempt to create higher expectations in every school gets lost in the attack on the status quo. The big push by Dallas Achieves, Hinojosa and some business leaders to create more demanding schools will become targets, perhaps accidentally, in the revolt.

What a shame that would be. DISD actually is producing strong magnets, growing better principals, seeing more schools earning the state's exemplary or recognized ranking and starting to use data systems to improve schools. Most of those are the result of a sense of urgency that the "status quo" crowd has tried to engender. If we start chipping away at this new culture, heaven help us.

Of course, no one would come right out and say, let's dumb things down. Everyone wants progress. But we could see it retarded if the reform push of the last several years, which Hinojosa, Dallas Achieves, the business community and reformers like Lowe have led, becomes caught in the crossfire.

I may be over-reading things. I hope I am. But if I'm not, I hope the very good things that have gone on here over the last decade, including when Mike Moses led the district, don't get burned down amidst populist anger. A lot of kids would lose out if that happened.

No matter who wins the Dallas school elections today, the board has two primary responsibilities ahead of it.

The first -- and most important -- one is to reassure the public that it is paying very close attention to the district's financial, management and administrative issues. Without stronger oversight, the public's not going to pay attention to any academic achievements. We don't need to recount the horror stories here; we've all read them plenty of times. What the board must do is get into overdrive on the oversight front.

The second big responsibility involves the academic side. The board must build upon recent DISD classroom successes and start focusing on strategies that help children do more than simply pass the TAKS test. Instead, we need more students passing the TAKS exam at the "commended" level, which shows they are on a path that is getting them ready for college.

Here, too, we don't have to recount all the reasons. We've read plenty of stories about how students are not really proficient in key subjects, even if they are passing the TAKS.

But we shouldn't give up. The district has a wonderful new data system that allows educators and parents to drill down into how well each school is performing, beyond passing the TAKS. And Dr. Hinojosa has said that he wants students going way beyond passing the TAKS.

So, here's an idea for the trustees: Set goals for the percentage of students it expects each school to pass the TAKS test at the commended level. Since some schools have 30 percent or less of their kids passing the TAKS at that more demanding level, the district will need to stair-step in the requirements. But we need goals.

There are plenty of public and charter schools where kids do really well, so it isn't a matter of putting too much pressure on kids. It instead is insisting that they get the best education that can give them the most opportunities in life.

In my book, these are the two most important tasks for the new board. The first is needed to build credibility, but the second is needed to help the students.

The DMN's Diane Rado's report today on DISD fifth graders not being ready for middle school buttresses an earlier report by Holly Hacker that too many high school students aren't ready for college or a good post-high school job. According to Rado's report, about half of DISD's fifth graders are not on track for the more demanding middle school years.

Before we go any further looking at the fifth grade data, this information is a perfect example of how data can inform educators what's really going on with their students. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the Dell Foundation and others are pressing for more sophisticated data systems in schools so parents, teachers and principals can have a precise snapshot.

Now, the data itself. The DISD scorecards that Rado based her reporting upon are pretty illuminating. Some of the info is a bit hard to fathom, but, basically, the district considers a fifth grader "on track" if he or she passes the TAKS in reading, math and science and has not failed more than one core class.

That's probably a fair assessment, but here's what I worry about. Passing the TAKS test is not the same as passing it at the commended level. We've talked about commended scores here before, and they are really important. They tell whether a child is on track as early as elementary school for college or a good post-high school job.

I don't want to take away from the hard work educators engage in to get kids to simply pass the TAKS test. They have to stick to the curriculum, intervene with strugglers and think creatively to get kids to that point.

But what the Texas Education Agency and districts like our own in Dallas need to really zero in on are the commended scores. They tell us more about the student's chances for economic and social mobility than the basic passing score. We raised this issue with several DISD school board candidates and I hope parents take up this cause, too.

In fact, when you look at some of the schools that are showing 60 percent or more of their fifth graders being "on track," they show even fewer kids passing the TAKS at the commended level.

I'm not bringing up this higher standard to demonize the district or teachers. It is really hard to get a large number of kids to meet a tougher standard. But that's what they -- and we as parents and taxpayers -- need to keep shooting for. As Rado's report shows, we are far from there.

Here's further proof of the pockets of excellence within the Dallas school district: Dealey Montessori, Peabody Elementary, Hexter Elementary and Townview's School of Health Professions just won the coveted Blue Ribbon award from the U.S. Department of Education. The prize rewards schools that succeed despite big challenges, like facing high levels of poverty.

The Dallas winners were four out of 26 in the state, and four out of 314 across the country. And they won for the progress they showed on meeting the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act.

As with DISD's nationally-recognized high schools, such as Townview's School of Science and Engineering, these Blue Ribbon winners show students can get a good education within the Dallas school district. They have to know how to navigate their way to the better schools, but opportunities are there.

The next huge step is ensuring all neighborhood schools deliver a quality education. That way, students don't have to hope they can find their way into a good school.

I think DISD's taking some steps to get there, such as trying to improve its principal corps. But a big urban school district is a hard beast to tame. I go back and forth, thinking it may be more realistic to think DISD can only achieve pockets of excellence. But then, I think of all those kids who get stuck in poor schools, and how unfair that is to them.

That's when I go back to thinking we in Dallas have no choice. We have to keep pushing for quality schools in every neighborhood. It's cruel to the kids if we don't.

So, hats off to the Blue Ribbon schools. May they inspire others, but we can't afford to stop with pockets of excellence.

The following is a guest blog post from Kelsey McKinney, a senior at Booker T. Washington High School and one of our Student Voices volunteer columnists.

Yesterday ,at 10:30 A.M I and about 400 of my fellow students at Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts gathered in the school's theatre. Slowly, we trickled from our first period classes through hoards of media to hear the President of the United States speak directly to us. When presented the opportunity to host the United States Trade Representative Ambassador Ron Kirk, our school rose in hospitatlity.

We spent last week in excitement over the coming fanfare. We read up on the current controversies and news behind our event. We anxiously prepared questions to ask the honorable Ambassador who would grace us. When Tracie Fraley--our principal--addressed the student body about the necessity of good behavior and proper dispositions, she merely reinforced what we already planned to represent. Ambassador Ron Kirk, you see, is part of our family. His daughter is our friend, and he wears around his wrist the support bracelet many of us wear. He has a heart for our student body. Honestly, we have a heart for him.

A huge number of school districts and campuses are appealing their state ratings. And as Tawnell Hobbs reported Sunday, it's mostly tied to new state rules that classify more kids as dropouts. Schools want a break, saying they were slapped with a lower rating because they had a few too many dropouts.

Tawnell described how schools pound the pavement to find these kids:

At Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas ISD, principal Edward Conger and his staff located four students who affected their school's rating - one was in prison, another had transferred to a different school district, and two were in other schools.

Conger refers to his roster of missing students as "the V.I.P. list" because of the importance of locating them.

If Thomas Jefferson is typical, you've got to wonder who really benefits: the kids or the grownups? Those four kids are likely getting no more or less an education after being located. Surely in some cases, schools do get kids back in class. But how often is this just a big accounting exercise?

It reminds me of a scene from "The Wire" when ex-con Cutty applies for a custodial job at a middle school but it's really a truancy officer job:

Out on his truancy rounds, Cutty learns what his job is really about. The school is only interested in having the kids show up for one day a month in September and October - the minimum attendance that assures each school will be funded for the fullest enrollment. Cutty is incredulous. "Naw, naw man. School is school," he says to deaf ears. "Which one of y'all still needs your September day?" his round-up partner asks the kids in an abandoned lot.

With school starting next week, I'm going to take a step back from a heavy-duty policy discussion and talk about the common sense things that make a difference in a school's life. We spend a lot of time here debating such topics as schools using data to improve student learning, but something as simple as a parent or parents being involved in their child's education can make the biggest difference.

That was one of the points Sunset High principal Tony Tovar made in his guest blog entries about his North Oak Cliff school's progress. And he's right: Sunset has a huge parent buy-in, in part because Sunset has a dynamite community liaison.

Certainly many other schools have active community liaisons. They call parents, knock on their doors and all but chase them down in the parking lot.

But parents need to take the first step.

Several commenters last week asked why Sunset did well on the state's ranking system but is falling behind on No Child Left Behind's way of measuring schools.

One of the major reasons is the difference in the way the two systems measure graduation rates. No Child looks at how many people graduate in four years. The state asks how many students completed their senior year or enrolled for another year of high school by the last Friday in September.

In other words, the state includes students who took more than four years to finish high school. In this day and age, that's not unreasonable. Some high school students need more time.

No Child also only measures 10th Grade English Language Arts and math performance and participation. The state measures TAKS scores in 9th, 10th and 11th grades.

Sunset didn't do as well on No Child for two reasons: 95 percent of our 1oth graders with limited English proficiency were supposed to take the English language arts test, but only 94 percent of them took it. We are appealing this statistical difference.

Also, the math performance of our students with limited English proficiency was behind the rest of the school. That kept us from doing well on No Child.

The success of Adamson comes as part of a reform effort by the district and the school.

As principal of Adamson for the past five years, I can tell you the success did not happen over the course of the past two years. It began to happen within the third year.

This week, we are introducing a new set of guest bloggers. I have asked Rawly Sanchez, DISD's deputy chief of staff and former principal at Adamson High School in Dallas, and Tony Tovar, the principal of Sunset High School in Dallas, to participate. Due to their school duties, they can't blog the entire month. They instead will post entries this week and perhaps next.

I selected them because their North Oak Cliff high schools have moved up significantly in the state's annual high school rankings. Adamson jumped from being ranked "unacceptable" two years ago to earning a "recognized" ranking this year.

That's a remarkable step given the challenges Adamson faces in educating many students who are not proficient in English. You may recall the series we did in June 2008 on Adamson and the reality it represents for many Texas schools.

Likewise, Sunset moved up this year. It went from "acceptable" to "recognized." Also like Adamson, Sunset's student body is largely Latino, and its progress has been cited in many places, including in this column and a cover story in the Observer.

I've asked each of these educators to comment about the approaches that have worked in their schools. My thinking is that perhaps their strategies can be used elsewhere, especially at campuses with numerous Latino students.

As I've written here before, I think the state's greatest challenge is creating better educational opportunities for Hispanic students, who make up about half the Texas student body. Along with the state doing its share, parents and educators need to work together to get more Hispanic students graduating from high school and college. The state's progress is increasingly linked to its growing Hispanic population, so I'm excited about hearing from these two educators.

Before they debut, a reminder about this blog's policies: We debate ideas, policies and strategies, but we don't attack people. If comments turn personal, they will come down.

Of course, I hope we don't have to get to that point. This topic is big enough for discussion without it having to turn personal. So, chime in and let's have a robust, respectful exchange.

We had Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa in for an ed board meeting Tuesday. He brought along the district's new chief financial officer, Larry Throm.

I'm pretty sure this was the first time Dr. Hinojosa had been in since the "great unpleasantness." You know, the budget overrun last year that ended up costing teachers their jobs during the school year.

Hinojosa pointed out a number of the academic improvements in the district, which indeed there have been. For all the bad headlines about its financial management, Dallas' school district keeps progressing.

Thought the readers and guest bloggers over here might want to chime in on this topic on our "Bridging the Gap" blog.

Dallas has a well-deserved reputation for knocking down its historically relevant buildings, but is the Adamson facade debate one of those side issues that takes focus and resources away from more fundamental student-centered challenges?

We reported this story today about fewer DISD students finishing high school. Obviously, that's not a good trend, although this report about promotion trends in Oak Cliff schools is good for DISD and the southern half of the city. I first read this in the Oak Cliff People, which got the information from Bill Betzen, a computer applications teacher at Oak Cliff's Quintanilla Middle School. Roy Appleton also reported on this in his DMN Oak Cliff blog last week.

According to Betzen's report, Oak Cliff high schools are retaining more, not fewer, high school students. Over a ten-year period, they "improved their average promotion rate by 10.1 percent," writes O.C. People writer Silver Hogue.

I haven't had time to dig more into this, but it certainly tracks some earlier good news about Adamson and Sunset. Both schools are likely to receive "recognized" rankings from the state this year. That's the second highest rating the Texas Education Agency hands out.

These reports may seem contradictory: DISD is losing more students, while Oak Cliff schools retain more. But this situation captures the plight of big urban districts They can go backward and forward at the same time. You just hope they have more going forward than backward.

There's no way anyone could call the Dallas school board's weeks-long attempt to reduce staff at learning centers and magnet schools a thing of beauty. First, they said they had to cut. Then, maybe not. And finally, yes, cuts were in order. Whatever.

The process wasn't as important as the fact the board reduced positions at the learning centers primarily and the magnet schools secondarily. I can't say every magnet needed a trim, but the centers did. They haven't produced as many positive results as the extra bucks poured into them would warrant. In some cases, the results have been no different than those achieved at regular schools.

It may have taken the board a while to deliver, but it did -- and in a way that spreads the pain around the centers.