Disrupted: Public-Education Reform in the Nation's Capital

Autor/in	Toch, Thomas
Titel	Disrupted: Public-Education Reform in the Nation's Capital
Quelle	In: Education Next, 20 (2020) 3, S.38-50 (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1539-9664
Schlagwörter	Public Schools; Educational Change; Academic Achievement; School Choice; Competition; Leadership; Accountability; Charter Schools; Educational Finance; Unions; Teacher Evaluation; Teacher Empowerment; Professionalism; Socioeconomic Influences; Neighborhoods; Racial Segregation; Elementary Secondary Education; District of Columbia + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Public school; Öffentliche Schule; Bildungsreform; Schulleistung; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Wettkampf; Führung; Führungsposition; Verantwortung; Charter school; Charter-Schule; Bildungsfonds; Teacher appraisal; Lehrerbeurteilung; Professionalität; Sozioökonomischer Faktor; Neighbourhoods; Nachbarschaft; Rassentrennung
Abstract	When the District of Columbia's city councilors handed Mayor Adrian Fenty control of the city's public schools in 2007, they were hoping for salvation. Or maybe just absolution. Fenty appointed Michelle Rhee, then-president of The New Teacher Project, as chancellor. She and her longtime colleague and eventual successor Kaya Henderson spent the next decade transforming public education in D.C. from a traditional, single-delivery model to a competitive, performance-based educational ecosystem--providing a promising new example of urban school reform. The reforms of the Rhee and Henderson eras have paid off in improved student achievement. How did the school-reform stars align in a city beset by failure for so long? A number of catalysts enabled change: (1) school choice and the competition for students; (2) tenacious leadership; (3) tightened accountability for the charter sector; (4) substantial funding for the reform agenda; and (5) few teachers union constraints. The transformation of the D.C. public schools has illustrated that traditional public-school systems, not just charter schools, can be laboratories of reform. Rhee and Henderson have modeled effective strategies for rigorous teacher evaluations that also promote educator empowerment and professionalism. The common-enrollment system has quieted the fractious debate over neighborhood schools, preserving students' right to attend schools close to home. It has also brought to light the reality that some neighborhood schools are substandard and reinforce racial and socioeconomic segregation. The depth and breadth of the public-education reforms in the city confirmed that many schools in Washington and nationally lack the capacity to improve on their own, that betterment at scale requires a degree of centralized leadership and substantial support. Ultimately, the past decade of reform in the nation's capital has shown how hard it is to raise the trajectories of students living in impoverished urban environments--but that it is possible. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Education Next Institute, Inc. Harvard Kennedy School, Taubman 310, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; Fax: 617-496–4428; e-mail: Education_Next@hks.harvard.edu; Web site: https://www.educationnext.org/the-journal/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01