Article from Education Week describing the success in increasing graduation rates in a once trouble district. I can’t even imagine seventy-nine percent of Philadelphia students graduating. While I don’t know much about this story, one segment struck me as crucial to any genuine reform:

Respecting teachers. Both the superintendent and the school board agreed that teachers at the lowest-performing schools would be allowed to select the curriculum and professional development they thought would best help them reach their goals. Maintaining this kind of autonomy was not always easy—for the teachers or for those who advised them…

Cincinnati teachers were treated like professionals are in other fields. In addition to special off-site workshops, there was recognition for schools showing exceptional progress, along with praise—to the news media and face to face—for educators in buildings with significant signs of growth. Veteran and younger educators alike responded with genuine openness, willingness to learn, and a growing belief that major advances were possible.

Sadly, empowering those individuals who spend the most time with the children always seems to be last on the list of reforms.

Link to Jared Diamond’s piece in yesterday’s Times.

Reading journalist Mark Hertsgaard’s account of how Americans perceive and are perceived throughout the world. He quotes British journalist Rupert Cornwell:

No one wraps self-interest in moral superiority quite like the Americans do.

Hertsgaard, Mark. The Eagle’s Shadow : Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2002.

In my work in Philadelphia, I’m struck by how often people declare that “the students are lucky to have _____,” whether it’s a good teacher, some exotic new technology, or some unexpected resource.

While luck has little to do with it — it’s not luck in Newton, or Radnor, or Edina –there’s another piece. What’s rarely considered is what the students bring to the table: students may be lucky to have some new computers, but the world is lucky that the students have a new avenue of expression. Students may have a great teacher but most good teachers know that it is their students who make them who they are.

There’s an article in today’s Times discussing how organizational experts benefit students, particularly boys. While I’m not opposed to these consultants (I wish they were free and available to ALL students), I do think it’s worth considering the impact that organization might have on high school classrooms.

For all too many classrooms, having a neat binder is enough. Gathering the worksheets serves as a substitute for any kind of genuine inquiry or authentic work. So I could see where a student taught to meet these requirements would enjoy greater academic success.

On the other hand, these skills will serve all students. Those involved in authentic, worthwhile projects probably need the organizational abilities even more.

My concern, though, is for the classrooms where organization is enough, where organization is the starting and ending point, where the goals of the room never move past the clean notebook. It’s tempting to make organization the focus of your assessments, particularly when the alternative — rigorous academic tasks — require so much work.