What a wonderful video! The kids, teachers, administrators, etc. at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis should be very proud. Hopefully others can learn from their success.

Then, too, it appears that the Memphis Education Association is ready to riot in recent weeks.

Although I'm not sure anyone from the Obama administration could likely smooth those teachers' ruffled feathers, it isn't particularly surprising that the administration determined they had damage control to attend there.

Yes, I'm still reading up on this stuff hours later...

Back to the subject of "pay for performance," I note that this week even Tom Boasberg, a former Teach for America staffer and the current superintendent of Denver schools (we discussed him here last month), now concedes it doesn't work:

One area (the billionaires' foundations) haven't backed away from is pay-for-performance - even though there have been decided failures. The superintendent of Denver schools, where one of the first such pay programs was launched with foundation money, said it failed to improve teaching from teachers on staff though it did lure strong new teachers. "No demonstrable motivational effect," Tom Boasberg said.

Sigh.

If that fantastically improved grad rate at B. T. Washington High really is valid and sustainable and if teachers and administrators there really have discovered some "silver bullet," of course congrats are in order for them and their students and of course I'm all ears.

All I'm saying is that in the news coverage I've come across tonight, I don't see any explanation offered for their alleged success, beyond just a single mention of this "pay for performance" mechanism which, curiously, seems NOT to have worked elsewhere.

Please share any details you may come across? Good night.

(link...)

From Cathy's link:

But here’s the thing: Veteran teacher and author Gary Rubinstein looked into the graduation rate rise and discovered something that casts a different light on that achievement.

Rubinstein, a Teach for America alumnus and author of two books on teaching -- “Reluctant Disciplinarian” and “Beyond Survival” -- wrote on his blog that he looked at demographic figures for Booker T. Washington and found this:

I found that there was a lot of attrition over that four year period. The school enrollment was 760 in 2007, 732 in 2008, 649 in 2009, and then in the ‘miracle’ year 2010, down to 566. So the school had lost nearly 25% of its students in that time period, which is also the exact percent that the graduation rate climbed by.

I looked into this sudden drop in enrollment to find if I could learn if the 200 students who disappeared were the ones who were less likely to graduate. It didn’t take long for me to locate this article, which explains that two housing projects right near the school were torn down, thus displacing the 200 students that account for the drop.

The actual demolition of the projects didn’t happen until a few months after the miracle, but surely people started leaving once they found out about it. Though some of the displaced kids, as the article states, found a way to continue going to their school, most didn’t.... The poorest, and thus least likely to graduate, kids were exactly the ones that the school lost.

Enlightening. Thank you.

Not to take away from the fact that schools are playing number games to survive, listen to the student introducing the President -

Using NCLB's measure of Adequate Yearly Progress--which I humbly acknowledge is a measure I and others have suggested is really too narrow to mean much--those data nonetheless indicate that B. T. Washington's higher grad rate does not necessarily translate into more Memphis-area grads who were "college or career ready" last year.

From the 2010 State Report Card and archival data:

In Math--

2007 scores: Proficient or Advanced 68% / Below Proficient 32%
2008 scores: Proficient or Advanced 89% / Below Proficient 11%
2009 scores: Proficient or Advanced 90% / Below Proficient 10%
2010 scores: Proficient or Advanced 52% / Below Proficient 48%

In Reading/Language Arts--

2007 scores: Proficient or Advanced 85%/ Below Proficient 15%
2008 scores: Proficient or Advanced 85% / Below Proficient 15%
2009 scores: Proficient or Advanced 91% / Below Proficient 9%
2010 scores: Proficient or Advanced 54% / Below Proficient 46%

In summary, while BTW's grad rate rose dramatically in 2010, so too did its students' aggregate proficiency drop dramatically, in both math and reading/language arts.

(Note: My understanding is that changes made in the way the DoE calculates grades for achievement and value-added effective with the 2009 State Report Card do NOT preclude our ability to compare 2009 and 2010 proficiency scores?)

Hmm. Today's Memphis Commercial Appeal reports a development in this story relating to the dubious track record of Booker T's principal.

Seems she was charged in 2008 with two instances of grade changing, she was suspended by the school system in 2009 for more charges of this sort (and others), and she was the subject of a petition drive in 2010 that netted 241 signatures from parents calling for her removal.

As if questions didn't already abound concerning Booker T's amazing single-year 21% jump in grad rates.