Market based school reform fail

Market-Oriented Reforms' Rhetoric  Trumps Reality

Top-down pressure from federal education policies such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, bolstered by organized advocacy efforts, is making a popular set of market-oriented education “reforms” look more like the new status quo than real reform. Reformers assert that test-based teacher evaluation, increased access to charter schools, and the closure of “failing” and under-enrolled schools will boost at-risk students’ achievement and narrow longstanding race- and income-based achievement gaps. This new report from the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education examines these assertions by comparing the impacts of these reforms in three large urban school districts – Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago – with student and school outcomes over the same period in other large, high-poverty urban districts. The report finds that the reforms deliver few benefits, often harm the students they purport to help, and divert attention from a set of other, less visible policies with more promise to weaken the link between poverty and low educational attainment.

School improvement; preparing for the fight over NCLB/ESEA

The Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign is now preparing for new debates around re-authorization of "No Child Left Behind" (the Elementary and Secondary Education Act). NCLB has continued to be in force despite the clear lack of improved student outcomes and the law's expiration four years ago. Whether Congress engages this year in the long-overdue reauthorization process or again defers action, BBA will be a vocal participant in the debate. In particular, we will emphasize these key points:

• Discussion around education reform has come to focus excessively on improving teacher effectiveness as the means of raising student achievement, especially that of disadvantaged students. While educational improvement should include greater support and professional development opportunities for weak teachers and, if that fails, their removal, many other problems faced by schools also demand attention. Learning is impeded by curriculum that is often of poor-quality, lack of school leadership that understands and can improve instruction, and drastic budget cuts that limit teacher recruitment, increase class sizes, and eliminate essential student supports (such as nurses, counselors, and librarians).