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Despite numerous accolades and killer ratings, I’d somehow missed the TV counter-terrorist boat. As of last summer, I’d sailed straight past the first six seasons of 24. Thanks to iTunes, I’ve been catching up, downloading season after thrilling season. Preposterous plotlines and torturous interrogations aside, 24 is highly entertaining and a pure adrenaline rush. Admit it, you’ve watched!

There are TV shows I want to keep watching, like The Office and Lost. But then there are TV shows I need to keep watching, shows like The Wire. Shows which are deeply gripping because they speak to big themes in compelling ways. So I was puzzled when 24 made the leap into my “need to watch” pantheon.

I pondered why I felt compelled to watch back-to-back-to-back episodes on my iPod? Did I secretly want to be a government agent? Was I amused by Kiefer’s comeback? Was it the “beep … BEEP … beep … BEEP” cadence that leads gasping viewers to commercials?

Upon reflection, I realize that as a principal of a tech-savvy, high-needs school, I can actually relate to Jack Bauer. Not because a work day involves espionage, violence and chaos. Okay, there is some chaos from time to time. Yet the real ah-hah moment was when I realized that Jack and his colleagues work in smart, effective ways that we can relate to at CIS 339. I truly believe that 21^st century schools can learn lots from 24.

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Here are some examples of quality practice employed by 24’s Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU):

1. CTU uses cross-functional teams with experts who specialize.

Counter-terrorist operations are carried out by folks with discrete expertise. They have a focused point person making key decisions, but there are also key role players. They have communications experts, weapons pros and scientists. When there’s an injury, a top-notch physician knows what to do in the medical area. Field teams assemble and deploy precisely. Everyone works together, and everyone knows their jobs. As important, everyone knows each other’s jobs and when to ask them for help. When Jack tells Chloe to rearrange the specs for the operation and uplink them to all of the field agents, he’s showing great delegation skills. He also is demonstrating his comfort with his teammates having the answers.

2. CTU enjoys state-of-the-art technology and impressive tech support.

You’ll never hear someone at CTU say “the Internet is down” or “how do you turn this thing on?” They have the coolest gadgets, toys and equipment–and they know how and when to deploy their tech tools. It seems like they only hire the best candidates from a Cal Tech / MIT short list. For CTU, technology isn’t just anoption, it’s the option. Can you imagine Edgar saying, “Jack, I’ve decided that we’re going to track the cannisters of chemical gas using US mail”? Neither can I. We would never tolerate our government agencies saying “enough with techhnology! We’re just going with pen and paper this year.” So why would we ever allow our schools to ‘decide’ whether to integrate technology?

3. CTU values real-time transparency.

CTU agents share the same terminology at the workplace. They use consistent language and they collaborate using real-time information. When Tony Almeida barks “Send the schematic of the power plant to my screen now!” you know that a) he means business and b) transparency is an important value. When Jack doesn’t have video surveilance working , he instructs Chloe to upload satellite still images to his PDA every 15 seconds. This is excellent real-time intformation sharing in practice. Schools need to do a better job with this, and current tools that exist in Google Apps (as an example) make this possible.

4. CTU agents over-communicate.

Many jokes have been made about the duration of Jack Bauer’s cell phone battery. Clearly, 24 serves as product placement for whatever model he’s saving democracy with. However, the bigger picture is that Jack and his CTU friends are modeling the practice of “over-communicating.” They spell out exactly what they need from each other, providing rationales and details. Sure, we know why Jack is asking for stuff–we saw the last scene. But the person on the other end of the phone doesn’t. And when you’re saving the world, you can’t leave anything to chance. At schools, information sharing is critical, and all too often, over-communication is rare.

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Whether CTU agents utilize cutting-edge technology or real-time information sharing, they aren’t just saving America. They’re offering up some serious models for how we can make school teams faster and smarter, as we make our work even more transparent. I’m betting that schools which employ these techniques will quickly join 24 on “need to watch” lists.

• Many city schools on the NCLB failing list serve many ELL’s and special ed students.
• A great run-down of what value-added teacher assessments can and can’t do. Via Eduwonk.
• Open question: What percentage of teachers need to be fired to improve urban schools?
• Rotherham says Duncan will have to work hard to ensure stimulus promotes reform.
• Here’s an excerpt from Donna Foote’s Teach for America book.
• Diane Ravitch didn’t like Obama’s speech, which she sees as calling for deregulation.
• Assigning the Times an English language learner story in its mayoral control series.
• A Gates Foundation program director seems likely to work for Arne Duncan.
• Nancy Flanagan relays the experience of one school in handling KIPP alumni.
• Probing the “immigrant paradox”: Why second-gen students do worse. Via Joanne Jacobs.
• Education philanthropy is taking a hit along with everything else.
• Dana Goldstein says Sweden’s voucher system is nothing like vouchers in America.
• Detroit’s meltdown is even affecting suburban schools there.

The city Department of Education today heralded performance gains among students who are considered English language learners in a new report about how those students have fared under Chancellor Joel Klein’s leadership.

The tone of the report and its accompanying press release is very different from the tone of Friday’s mayoral control hearing in the Bronx, where numerous speakers complained that the department has paid too little attention to ELL students.

The report declares that Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have built a “stronger system-wide infrastructure” to support English language learners, and says that the efforts are “starting to bear fruit.” More than 29% of fourth-graders met English standards in 2008, compared to 4% in 2003; 64% met math standards in 2008, up from 36% in 2003. The report cautions that middle school test scores and graduation rates are not as rosy, but points out that former English language learners — students who once received help in learning English but have since tested proficient at English — are out-performing even non-ELL students.

The report paints a very different picture from the one presented at the Bronx hearing Friday. (more…)

Comptroller Bill Thompson, who is also a candidate for mayor, ended his appearance on NY1′s “Road to City Hall” last night with the clearest preview yet of how he will challenge Mayor Bloomberg on the schools front. He will quote Diane Ravitch.

Thompson cited Ravitch, the NYU education historian who has emerged as a prime critic of the mayor’s education efforts, after host Dominic Carter painted a picture of how Bloomberg is likely to portray the comptroller in campaign ads.

Carter imagined ads that would single out the comptroller’s tenure as president of the Board of Education, in a pitch to associate Thompson with the days before mayoral control of the schools, which the mayor has characterized as dismal.

Thompson replied by challenging Bloomberg’s portrait of the city schools’ progress since 2002. He said that the “eminent” Ravitch has shown that test scores went up just as much before Bloomberg took office as they did when Thompson served as Board of Education president. (He served in that role from 1996 to 2001.) A spokesman for Thompson today sent me to this Ravitch quotation as evidence. The key sentence:

The gains under Crew and Levy from 1999-2002 were larger on the state tests in both reading and math than under Klein from 2003-2007.

I reached Ravitch by telephone today. She told me that she was surprised to hear herself cited by Thompson. (Like me, she happened to be watching NY1 at just the right moment last night — though probably unlike me, in her case the timing of “Gossip Girl” had little to do with that.) “I’m not involved in his campaign or anyone else’s campaign,” Ravitch told me. “I don’t do politics. I haven’t been politically active since the Hubert Humphrey campaign in 1968.” (more…)

After I posted the teacher turnover numbers from the Bronx high school where teachers are currently speaking out against their principal, a reader pointed me to another school with even higher turnover: PS 198 in the Bronx. Here’s that school’s turnover numbers from its most recent state report card:

The exchange inspired me to unveil this challenge for GothamSchools readers: Find the school in the city with the highest teacher turnover. In particular, find a school that out-does P.S. 198′s one-year overall turnover rate of 54 percent.

A couple of ground rules: First, it’s no fair to cite anecdotal information. We will only accept official state statistics. You can find these on page 4 of each school’s “Accountability and Overview Report,” which is linked on the “Statistics” section of every school’s Department of Education Web site.

Also, new schools that are just scaling up their staff — i.e., they only have one or two grades so far, and are adding grades on each year — are out of bounds. These schools might have just a few teachers leave for unremarkable reasons, like moving to another state or having a baby, but becasue their overall staff is small, the change would translate into a high percentage. But, by all means, go ahead and leave a comment about these schools, too.

The number of city schools failing to meet guidelines laid out in the No Child Left Behind law dropped this year to 401 from 432 last year, buoyed by improvements at 58 schools that came off the last. Another 10 schools that had been failing were shut down, while 37 saw their test scores, graduation rates, and other factors that go into the NCLB calculations decline and were added onto the list.

The pattern of improvement matched trends statewide, where the number of failing schools dropped to 665 from 719. The changes follow test scores last year that shot up at a rate so dramatic some researchers challenged their validity. To get off the NCLB failing list, a school must meet performance benchmarks — a combination of test scores, attendance rates, and graduation rates — for at least two years in a row.

Mayor Bloomberg greeted the news as evidence that his efforts to improve the public school system are working. “This is yet another sign that our school reforms are producing real results for New York City students,” he said in a statement. “In a year when many districts across the country saw increases in the number of schools needing improvement under NCLB, the number in New York City fell significantly.” (more…)

When Mayor Bloomberg announced his intention to turn four struggling Catholic schools into charter schools, observers assumed that the plan would require a change in state law. The law currently bars private schools from becoming schools that are funded with public dollars.

Now, it appears that the city is considering circumventing the state altogether, reports Gail Robinson of the Gotham Gazette. The calculation is that asking legislators to change state law according to Bloomberg’s wishes could backfire against his push to retain control of the public schools. The mayor angered some lawmakers when he pushed a bill extending term limits through the City Council last fall, and state lawmakers have also accused him of abusing his authority over the schools.

Robinson reports that city officials and other charter school advocates are focusing on the fact that the state law prohibits converting private schools, but not closing them and reopening them with changes in place:

This could work in a number of ways. The schools could officially close in June and then reopen. Some staff might have to leave or there could be come kind of interim or alternative certification similar to what’s done by Teach for America or the Teaching Fellows program. While the schools would have to be open to all students, the number of applicants might be small enough to all but ensure everyone a seat. After all, as [CEO of the NYC Center for Charter School Excellence James] Merriman noted, one reason the diocese is closing many of these schools is that they are vastly under-enrolled. New organizations could be set up, perhaps including individuals who work for the church but also parents, community members, alumni and others, to serve as the chartering organization and so on.

• Merryl Tisch is the first female state chancellor of the public schools. (Daily News, GothamSchools)
• Tisch thinks mayoral control should continue. (Post)
• In Maspeth, Queens, residents say they want a new high school only if its serves local children. (Times)
• In East New York, Brooklyn, another skirmish over the siting of a new charter school. (WNYC, NY1)
• The state is changing the consequences for schools that land on its failing list. (Post)
• The DOE has launched a new film competition for middle school students. (Newsday)
• Stimulus forces schools to choose between existing programs and new ones. (Christian Science Monitor)
• More people are switching to teaching in an uncertain economy. (AP)
• National standards fan Roy Romer has a new job at test producer the College Board. (L.A. Times)

Earlier this year, Brooklyn Assemblyman James Brennan issued a report arguing that the educational reforms formulated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein were not as influential as the policies and practices that preceded mayoral control.  Although test scores have risen significantly over the past decade, the report claimed, most of the improvements predated mayoral control.  Moreover, in some cases, the progress during the Bloomberg-Klein era has been slower than what was observed before.  The report’s conclusions call into question claims about the impact of mayoral control, a hot topic for the next few months and perhaps beyond.

Andy Jacob, overworked and underpaid Department of Education spokesperson–I’m actually not kidding about this–countered with a memo seeking to refute Brennan’s report.  The key claim:  The test score gap between New York City and the rest of the state has closed more under mayoral control than it did before mayoral control, by a substantial margin.  The source of the evidence?  State tests in reading and math in both the fourth and eighth grades.

New York is a big and diverse state, and it’s not immediately obvious why comparing New York City to the state is a good idea.  One rationale is that this comparison controls for year-to-year variation in the content or difficulty of the state exams.  Thus, if the average test score gap between city and state were to shrink over time, we could discount the explanation that it’s just a function of the properties of the test. (more…)

• Russo reports that a KIPP teacher dropped out of the union drive. UFT confirmed to me.
• San Francisco students are getting cell phones — to monitor their carbon footprints.
• Andy Rotherham announces a winner in his rename NCLB contest: just add excellence.
• How to succeed at expanding Geoff Canada’s promise zone into “promise neighborhoods.”
• Unions should control the teacher-evaluation process. Rotherham is skeptical.
• Mike Smith, who’s now working for Obama, is “somewhat skeptical” of national standards.
• Arne Duncan is suggesting that the better a district uses stimulus funds, the more it’ll get.
• Helen’s account of the Bronx mayoral control hearing: English language learners center stage.