Innovation and Illusion

Part 1 of a series on Somerville Schools William C. Shelton and Joe Beckman (The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.) Genuine innovation is often only recognized in hindsight. The media eventually notice the results and declare them to be innovation at work. Although not yet widely noticed, Somerville's school system is becoming one of the more innovative in the nation. But not so long ago it was producing extraordinary and widely noticed results that, in hindsight, were an illusion. And the "innovation" behind that illusion, while in plain sight, went unnoticed. Standard and Poors are the folks who placed high credit ratings on CDOs, those worthless bundles of home mortgages that tanked last year. Under contract with the Gates Foundation, they also developed a scale for evaluating schools and school systems on "gain score." That's how students' performance on standardized tests improves or worsens between grades, particularly between the seventh and tenth grades. During the Argenziano administration, Somerville Public Schools had the highest gain scores in the Commonwealth, and among the highest in the nation. Even more noteworthy, this occurred as Somerville's school population was decreasing, while the number of immigrant children for whom English was a second language was increasing. Without questioning what lay behind such a remarkable accomplishment, many city officials took pleasure in boasting about it. What lay behind it was this: a little under 100 sophomores who took the test had received an entire year of "test preparation" by having been held back in the ninth grade for a year. As the proportion of bilingual and special needs students entering the ninth grade had increased, more freshmen failed to meet the high school's standards for promotion to the tenth grade. They were required to repeat the year. So the ninth-grade population grew to be 25% more that that of the other grades. One consequence was that those tenth graders taking the test who had taken the same classes twice boosted the average gain score. There were other consequences as well. Kids held back were separated from a supportive network of peers and friends, but received no focused help from teachers, tutors, or parents. Feeling isolated, often persuaded that they were stupid, more kids dropped out. Another consequence was that putting 100 kids through an extra year of school cost about $1.5 million per year. The greatest consequence, however, was that the causes for students' learning difficulties were never identified and dealt with. When asked about the high retention rate, a former School Committee member said that, "you can't blame the schools if the kids don't test well," expressing the general attitude of many school officials. The most common explanation offered for the high retention rate was to blame the kids and their parents. Preoccupied with survival concerns, disproportionately poor, immigrant, or parents of kids with real learning disabilities, they were in scant position to argue back. The blamers didn't ask what problems the schools themselves could cure. Or how they should adjust the curriculum to more effectively educate the changing population. Or how to provide better guidance. Or which elementary schools most needed help in preparing their students for ninth grade. But why ask questions when you have the highest gain scores in the state? Grade retention was justified with arguments against "social promotion." Indeed, promoting students who have not learned the fundamentals in order to keep them with their social peers sets them up for continued failure and produces illiterate graduates. But there are alternatives other than obligating them to repeat the same experience that didn't work the first time. In Chicago, where Obama's Secretary of Education made his name, school leaders realized decades ago that retaining kids year-to-year was tantamount to giving up on those who most needed help. In the 1970s, they made principals responsible for the failure or success of their schools. Evaluating both required clear and simple grade, retention, and dropout-rate data, and those data revealed that 90% of middle school students who were held back with poor grades didn't graduate high school. If you're told you're stupid often enough, you'll begin to believe it. Back in Somerville, a new Schools administration, new high school principal, and new guidance department produced real innovation. A straightforward "redirect" program now offers timely tutoring, counseling, and instruction before vulnerable kids fail so many tests that they have to repeat an entire course. It works better for the students, their families, their schools, and the taxpayers. In the next few columns we'll look at how it's often housing, economics, law enforcement, health, and their chaotic interaction that undermine school improvement, rather than factors that can be directly controlled by schools themselves. We'll consider how teachers' unions are educationally more progressive than self-described Progressives. And we'll examine how Somerville schools are meeting challenges that confound public educators throughout the nation by creating innovations that remain invisible, unless one pays attention.