z45\doc\web\2000\10\sizerno.txt ann cronin: gates is funding sizer-based methods to get wacko small schools with reduced course offerings, but it's been disaster whenever it's been tried. Gates and Van der Ark are Sizerians. No wonder. Sizer made a BIG impression at the Gates Foundation Education Summit last winter. Sizer's Horace Series (Horace's Compromise, Horace's School and Horace's Hope) all outline the small school as the salvation of American secondary education. Combined with Cohen, et al., authors of The Shopping Mall High School, the assualt on the comprehensive public high school has been in full swing for about 15 years. These works are the seminal theory for the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) and were funded with money from a number of private foundations. CES and Sizer are long time beneficiaries of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Carnigie Corp (also the founder of Marc Tucker's NCEE), Annenburg, and now the Gates Foundation. Sizer's ability to woo the foundations is remarkable when one consider that CES has a proven poor record of achieving academic success. Among the most popular of the CES reform mandates is the notion of less is more. Less means less offering of courses, less extra-curricular activities, less students to teach, less work for teachers, less grading, less content learning. By decreasing all of the above, you are supposed to get more. What you often get, however, is frustration and anger, and many schools have abandoned CES. San Diego threw it out citing poor student performance on norm-reference test and increasing truancy and recitivism. The education standard of the CES is the "exhibition as evidence of authentic learning." This means kids teach themselves and their peers, do projects kept in portfolios preferably digitally, and exhibit to the community which makes learning authentic. Teachers are not authentic evaluators of progress nor are they to be the sage on the stage. Report cards must avoid non-authentic measures such as grades. Teachers are to "coach." (Funny-CES hates hs sports, but admires deeply coaches.) CES advocates that teachers be only guides on the side. Teachers, however, need lots of extra time each day in CES schools to plan their authentic non-content based guiding rather than teaching. From this you get integration of subjects like math and foreign language (Jackson HS, Mill Creek--1994-95), schools within schools (Eastlake HS, Sammamish1999-01), senior projects (everywhere), closing band, vocational and arts programs (Finn Hill Jr-1999), the Anytime, Anywhere laptop program sponsord by Microsoft (Snohomish SD1997-now), the mandate of community service for students to permit teacher planning time(LWSD) and the Block Schedule, which drives all of the above. Buildings built to accomodate CES look a lot like the open classrooms of the late60's and early 70's. The pod of the 60's becomes the learning center of the 00's. Oddly, Columbine is a CES school that tried to embrace much of what Sizer advocated. Like many of the large public HSs, Columbine had a mixed approach to Sizer. Less is more brought disaster. None of this makes much sense, unless you want to go to a high school devoid of all but a few subjects and community service as the only valued extra-curricular activity. While CES advocates would love to kill football, they usually just bemoan rather than change sports activities. AP is judged to be as bad as Voc-Tech in CES. They are also opposed to high stakes testing. Sizer even had words about Lauren Resnick and the New Standards Project in his newsletter a few years back. In other words, the model fits well for a convent school (many still exist, Forest Ridge in Bellevue being the most visible in WA), but not well for any one else. The problem is that kids and parents like comprehensive public schools with the panopoly of people, classes and activities. After 15 years, CES is alive and well, the Gates money being one of many grants. The question is why do the philanthropic foundations control public education? Without them, none of this nonsense would exist. And when did Bill Gates abandon great r&d for fuzzy headed thinking about education. He needs to look at the good reseach on CES--it damns CES. Anne ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arthur Hu" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 18, 2000 6:20 AM Subject: [wa-ed-deform] Gates supporting wacko "small schools" > > PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS SHOULD FEAR BILL GATES - SMALL SCHOOLS > z45\clip\2000\10\mammoth.txt Seattle Times Company Editorials & > Opinion : Tuesday, September 19, 2000 Neal Peirce / Syndicated > columnist Mammoth high schools should fear Bill Gates "Schools that > work.. are small - no more than 400 students. " "Vander Ark's choice > for "the coolest school in America" is the Country School, a publicly > supported charter school in rural Henderson, Minn. Amazingly, this > school has no courses, no curriculum and no bells. Students devise > study projects, which they have to defend before parent-community > meetings three times a year. " > > [yet another reason to oppose wacko charter schools] > > Bill Gates' mega-philanthropy, the $22-billion Bill and Melinda Gates > Foundation, is taking on a mega-institution - America's high schools > with multi-thousand student enrollments. > > In a series of announcements made from Alaska to Rhode Island, the > Gates Foundation last week announced an initial $56 million in grants > to start and support model schools that offer small, personalized > learning environments. > > The timing couldn't be more opportune. The horrific 1999 shooting at > Colorado's Columbine High School triggered many second thoughts about > America's big, comprehensive high schools. > > Critics are saying these schools may succeed at mounting strong > sports teams. But bigness makes it all too easy for shyer, > overlooked, sometimes very troubled children to retreat into a haze > of anonymity. > > America is reaping the harvest: serious numbers of dropouts, millions > of graduates unprepared for college or career - at the very time the > New Economy demands ever-rising learning skills. > > The Gates Foundation commissioned Tom Vander Ark, former school > superintendent in Federal Way, Wash., to tour America looking for > what's working - and isn't - in our schools. > > Vander Ark did find examples of well-run, adaptive schools, settings > where virtually all kids learn well. But he also discovered a > terribly disturbing fact: There are no U.S. school districts where > all kids are learning well. > > The major villain, he determined: large, comprehensive high schools, > institutions that typically "lose" half their kids to dropout or > academic failure. > > Schools that work, Vander Ark determined, are designed around healthy > relationships, especially between teachers and students. And these > schools are small - no more than 400 students. Result: no anonymity > is possible. Instead, there's collaboration and mutual respect. > > In that atmosphere, computers and other new technologies can more > easily be introduced. Racial and ethnic diversity is less of a > problem. And, according to the Gates Foundation, students are more > motivated, there are fewer dropouts, and more graduates win college > acceptances. > > Vander Ark's choice for "the coolest school in America" is the > Country School, a publicly supported charter school in rural > Henderson, Minn. Amazingly, this school has no courses, no curriculum > and no bells. Students devise study projects, which they have to > defend before parent-community meetings three times a year. > > Rarely does one see as dramatic a challenge to the tired old teaching > model of students coming to school, sitting in rows of chairs, and > watching teachers work (instruct). The new model, instead, involves > teachers coaching students to perform - a fitting model for the > Internet age. > > The Country School's seven teachers and three aides for the 125 > students are members and owners of EdVisions, a worker co-op that > runs the school. Members of the community raised funds and then > plunged into building the school. Students are responsible for > day-to-day cleaning and property maintenance. But they're also > responsible for meeting Minnesota's statewide educational standards. > > The Gates Foundation is giving the EdVisions Cooperative $4.4 million > to help start 15 similar schools, beginning in Minnesota and > Wisconsin. Offering teachers an opportunity to run their own schools, > independent of central bureaucracies, is a model about as radical as > you can get in the U.S. public school world. > > With another Gates Foundation grant - this one $8 million - the > University of Minnesota's long-time school reformer Joe Nathan will > create small, focused schools inside large high schools in St. Paul > and Cincinnati. Similar initiatives are planned in Detroit, > Cleveland, Boston, Kansas City, Seattle and San Francisco. > > The idea is to create new schools of 300-400 students each inside the > existing buildings of big schools. And there are ways to do that, > said St. Paul School Superintendent Patricia Harvey, "without tearing > down buildings and starting over." > > Consistently, the Gates Foundation's new grant list suggests a > serious, long-term effort to start or support centers to push > creation of new schools, use of technology, and new kinds of > relationships between students and adult mentors. > > Read the list and you come away convinced this may be the start of > America's most serious effort ever, not just to shatter the dominant > "bigger is better" mindset that led to our big comprehensive high > schools, but to open Americans' minds to very new forms of education > for the 21st century. > > Along with the dollars (likely to grow dramatically in the future), > we're seeing a corporate-like strategy to shake up today's dominant > school models. It's not vouchers; it's surely no rubber stamp for > today's schooling systems. It may promote and use charter schools, > but not inevitably. > > The core idea is pragmatic: What works? How do we start remaking > America's schools to do better for the millions of kids falling > through the cracks? > > There may be irony in that idea coming from America's most vast, > modern-day pool of personally acquired, high-muscle-power wealth. But > that doesn't make it any less significant. > > > Neal Peirce's e-mail address is npeirce@citistates.com. > > [ seattletimes.com home ] [ Classified Ads | NWsource.com | Contact > Us | Search Archive ] Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company > > > > Arthur Hu "Fairness in Diversity" Kirkland WA > http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/ > > Net-Tamer V 1.11P - Registered > > > > > -------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~> Get FREE long-distance phone calls on Tellme! 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