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Since the beginning of this decade, the British government has allowed private “sponsors” to manage state-funded “academies” in an initiative to create innovative, bureaucracy-free schools for non-fee-paying students in areas where few students finish high school prepared for further studies. “Academies,” therefore, is the Queen’s English translation for the American “charter schools,” and at least one of the academies that opened this year should sound familiar to observers of the “no excuses” brand of charters here in the States.

Photo courtesy of the Guardian

At Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton, as in Achievement First and KIPP schools, students wear a formal uniform, learn to sit up straight and be respectful, and have classes until late in the afternoon, according to the Guardian’s profile of three of the 47 academies that opened this fall. Evelyn Grace is one of six British schools operated by Ark — an acronym that stands for “Absolute Return for Kids” — which touts a “no excuses” approach to academic achievement on its website. At the three Ark schools that were open last year, children had four periods of literacy and three periods of math each day with the long-term goal of “100 percent” success at preparing students for university entrance requirements.

This fall marked the largest single-year expansion of the academy initiative, and as the pace picks up the Guardian asks a once-familiar question that has largely vanished from the mainstream conversation stateside: “Isn’t there something faintly unsettling about very rich people setting the terms by which poor students are educated?” But it finds that Evelyn Grace parents embrace the school’s rigid discipline, with one saying, “The more boundaries the better.” And given the educational disparities that plague British schools — only 30 percent of 16-year-olds from the poorest quarter of families pass the five tests that comprise the minimum standard for school completion, compared to more than 70 percent of their most affluent age-mates — officials are willing to try anything that could work, particularly if it costs the government little in the way of new funds.

One big difference between Evelyn Grace and charter schools in the States: Evelyn Grace will soon move into a permanent, state-of-the-art facility designed by renowned architect Zaha Hadid, while American charters often have to scramble for space that isn’t even tailored to meet their needs.

Tucked in at the end of Elizabeth Green’s Sun story about Obama’s education orientation, Obama advisor Jonathan Schnur argues that dividing education policy into two camps — those who side with the “Broader, Bolder” platform and those who prefer the Education Equality Project’s — “presents a ‘false choice.’” Philissa hinted at the same point in her post about “total schools.” The more I read posts accusing “Broader, Bolder” supporters of making excuses or “Education Equality” supporters of scapegoating schools and teachers, the more I tend to agree.

As an educator, it makes no sense to sit around and wait for society to level the playing field so that all your kids come into school healthy, prepared to learn, and fully supported at home. You see that you have kids who didn’t benefit from good prenatal care, nutrition, early childhood education, or clean air, and who face physical and developmental challenges as a result – but what are you going to do about it? You throw yourself into your teaching, and, if you’re lucky, your school comes together to tackle the other issues to the extent possible. You can work some wonders this way, but you know, deep down, that while it’s not an excuse, you could do more if the background issues were addressed.

As a policymaker evaluating schools, it makes no sense to ignore context. (more…)

The education blogosphere is abuzz this week with responses to Jay Mathews’ most recent Washington Post column, in which he issued a call for a term other than “paternalistic schools” to describe the wave of schools, mostly charters, featured in “Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism,” a new book out of the Fordham Institute. Mathews considers several terms — including “tough love schools,” “achievement-focus schools,” “high-intensity schools,” and “tough little schools” — but says none of them successfully conveys to parent and policymakers alike all of the schools’ characteristics. Other suggestions have popped up around the internet, from “relentless schools” to “elite charters.”

Over on her blog, Joanne Jacobs is toying with “total schooling,” suggesting that the term comprises both the academic and “values” approach these schools employ. I have to take issue with Jacobs’ nomenclature, because I’ve actually been thinking recently about the term as well, but in a somewhat different way: as an education counterpart to the notion of “total war.” Total war is a modern iteration of warfare in which one side marshals all of its resources, both military and civilian, to defeat the enemy. World War II is widely considered a total war, for example, because civilians contributed to the war effort and were considered legitimate targets for military action.

The theory translates imperfectly to the education world, of course, but in my mind, “total schools” would be those that marshal all of the resources of the community to defeat the “enemy” of low achievement. (more…)