Archive: Metro Monday
Forget about rating teachers---rate schools instead.
Those unfortunate people in the District may worry about the quality of their teachers, and wait anxiously for the results of the school system’s controversial new evaluation of classroom techniques and test score improvement. But those of us in...
By Jay Mathews | November 8, 2009; 11:00 PM ET | Comments (16)
Perils of rating teachers--Part one, the District
In the last half of the 19th century, many inventors pursued the dream of building an airplane. Duds and crashes were frequent and skeptics numerous. Only a decade before the Wright brothers’ 1903 flight, British physicist and engineer Lord...
By Jay Mathews | November 1, 2009; 10:00 PM ET | Comments (40)
Two D.C. high schools get a New York makeover
After days of frantic blogging on the latest D.C. schools crisis and trading speculation with interested readers, I find it refreshing to visit three educators who are making major changes in two of the city’s lowest-performing high schools. Unlike...
By Jay Mathews | October 25, 2009; 10:00 PM ET | Comments (15)
Test that makes U.S. look bad may not be so good
Politicians and pundits are using results from the Programme for International Student Assessment|(PISA) tests to say our kids are falling behind the rest of the world, so maybe we should get some PISA practice. Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, a...
By Jay Mathews | October 19, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (15)
School Rules Stifle Gifted Student
Anyone who wants to appreciate how strong a grip high school has on the American imagination, and how clueless some school districts are about this, should consider the story of Drew Gamblin, a 16-year-old student at Howard High School...
By Jay Mathews | October 5, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (23)
Despite Test Scores, Shaw Is on the Right Track
On July 11, Brian Betts, principal of D.C.’s Shaw Middle School at Garnet-Patterson, was at Dulles International Airport about to leave for a vacation in Spain. He was feeling good. His first year running a school whose students struggle...
By Washington Post editors | September 28, 2009; 06:00 AM ET | Comments (7)
Elite Schools Don't Make Elite People
I promised a high school counselor in California I would update a very old online column whose printout on her wall is too faded to read. It asked a question I think students immersed in college visiting and application writing...
By Jay Mathews | September 21, 2009; 03:19 PM ET | Comments (2)
Retest D.C. Classes That Had Dubious Exam Results in '08
My colleague Bill Turque's energetic coverage of suspicious erasures on D.C. school standardized tests in 2008 reminds me of my attempt many years ago to delve into the only classroom cheating scandal ever to become a major motion picture. This...
By Washington Post editors | September 14, 2009; 08:26 AM ET | Comments (11)
Certification Of Teachers as Painful Farce
I was flooded with e-mails after my Aug. 24 column on high school teacher Jonathan Keiler. Prince George's County officials said he was going to lose his certification because he had not taken enough education school courses, even though he...
By Washington Post editors | September 7, 2009; 09:00 PM ET | Comments (7)
When a Gifted Teacher Has to Jump Through Hoops Just to Keep His Job, Change Is Needed
I am not a big fan of merit pay for high-performing teachers unless the entire school staff is rewarded. But I have no doubt that our current teacher pay upgrade and certification system, based largely on education school credits,...
By Jay Mathews | August 24, 2009; 11:31 AM ET | Comments (6)
Metro Monday: Here's a Wise Investment: Help Students Who Need Money to Finish College
Two weeks ago, I challenged Columbia University professor Andrew Delbanco's claim that "a great many gifted and motivated young people are excluded from college for no other reason than their inability to pay." I had never found a student like...
By Washington Post Editors | August 10, 2009; 11:35 AM ET | Comments (18)
IB Teacher Takes Risks, With Impressive Results
The nation's most important education policymakers are holding news conferences these days. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have announced that they want states to strengthen their standards so more students will be ready for college. Dozens of governors...
By Jay Mathews | August 3, 2009; 12:46 PM ET | Comments (1)
Barring Gifted But Poor Students from College
I try to stay away from the New York Review of Books. It is a trap for aimless readers like me. I may enjoy a piece on the last Khan of Mongolia. But that makes me want to sample...
By Jay Mathews | July 27, 2009; 03:18 PM ET | Comments (9)
Metro Monday: What Is Montgomery Schools' Secret?
If you don’t like Jerry D. Weast, superintendent of schools in Montgomery County, do not take the new book “Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County Public Schools” to the beach for your summer reading. Your...
By Washington Post editors | July 20, 2009; 12:25 PM ET | Comments (4)
Metro Monday: Should High Schools Bar Average Students From College-Level Courses and Tests?
Fifteen years ago, when I discovered that many good high schools prevented average students from taking demanding courses, I thought it was a fluke, a mistake that would soon be rectified. I had spent much time inside schools that...
By Washington Post Editors | July 13, 2009; 03:44 PM ET | Comments (8)
New School Board Member Has Influenced a Legion of Educators
When I first met him a dozen years ago, Mike Durso struck me as an okay principal. He didn't say much about himself, but his school, Springbrook High in Silver Spring, was well-run. The students liked him. He had been...
By Washington Post Editors | July 6, 2009; 01:45 AM ET | Comments (0)
Metro Monday: Note to Union: Don't Mess With Success at This High-Achieving Charter Middle School
Sometime last year, while negotiating a teacher contract for the KIPP Ujima Village charter middle school in Baltimore, founder Jason Botel pointed out that his students, mostly from low- income families, had earned the city's highest public school test scores...
By Washington Post Editors | June 29, 2009; 11:54 AM ET | Comments (8)
Grading the Column's First Year
Summer arrives in a few days, so this will be the last Schools & Learning page until August. I am not happy about that. It's shameful to admit, but this column is both my occupation and my favorite recreation....
By Washington Post Editors | June 15, 2009; 02:09 PM ET | Comments (0)
Is AP for All A Formula For Failure?
I spend much time with aggressive Advanced Placement teachers. They tell me, quite often, that students must be stretched beyond their assumed capabilities. Whenever I try to pass on this advice, however, I become a target for ridicule and...
By Washington Post Editors | June 8, 2009; 11:20 AM ET | Comments (3)
Charter Schools Provide Good Model on Teacher Pay
It is hard for me to find a school leader with a track record for raising student achievement who does not admire almost everything Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is doing with the D.C. schools. Yeah, I said almost. One...
By Washington Post Editors | June 1, 2009; 10:26 AM ET | Comments (2)
At-Risk Need a Mix of Good Teachers, Social Services Help
Karen Kaldenbach, an 18-year-old high school senior in Arlington County, remembers vividly what life was like when she was 11: "I saw Social Services almost as much as I saw my mother, who was always drunk. Her best friends,...
By Washington Post Editors | May 25, 2009; 12:00 PM ET | Comments (0)
Senioritis Is One Symptom of a Creative Deficit in Class
Last year, I wrote a defense of high school senioritis as a useful break from academic drudgery. This made me, briefly, a hero to teenagers across the country. Then I returned to my usual theme that classes leading up...
By Washington Post Editors | May 18, 2009; 11:46 AM ET | Comments (1)
A $100 Billion Question: How Best to Fix the Nation's Schools?
If you had $100 billion to fix our schools, what would you do? A surprisingly smart list of suggestions for the education portion of the federal stimulus money is circulating in the education policy world. A group of experts...
By Washington Post Editors | May 11, 2009; 01:00 AM ET | Comments (48)
Rare Alliance May Signal Ebb In Union's Charter Opposition
I didn't see many other reporters Tuesday in the narrow, second-floor meeting room of the Phoenix Park Hotel in the District. A U.S. senator's party switch and new National Assessment of Educational Progress data were a bigger draw. But...
By Washington Post Editors | May 4, 2009; 11:08 AM ET | Comments (5)
Senior Projects Encourage Insight Via Sustained Effort
Jay's column from The Post today: When Wakefield High School first required senior projects 12 years ago, students suspected it was a plot to drain the last precious drops of joy from their teenage years. "We were pretty disgruntled,"...
By Washington Post Editors | April 27, 2009; 11:06 AM ET | Comments (1)
Schools May Pass High Stakes Tests, But Fail Low Performing Students
Sarah Fine, a 25-year-old English teacher at Cesar Chavez Public Charter School on Capitol Hill, vividly recalls a conference with the mother of a 10th-grader who read at a third-grade level. "Shawn is a real asset to our class because...
By Washington Post Editors | April 20, 2009; 10:17 AM ET | Comments (12)
Accelerated Math Challenge, For a Student and Her Mom
Anne McCracken Ehlers's third-grade daughter was not doing well in accelerated fourth-grade math at Whetstone Elementary School in Gaithersburg. Becca was spending far too long on her assignments. She was confused. She was unhappy. Ehlers is a teacher herself, in...
By Washington Post Editors | April 13, 2009; 09:11 AM ET | Comments (5)
You've Been Wait-Listed. Here's What You Do Now.
Are you stuck on a college waiting list? Frustrating, isn't it? You feel disrespected, unlucky. But you are not alone. Some selective schools send more wait-list letters than acceptance letters. This year's economic uncertainties might produce the largest number...
By Washington Post Editors | April 6, 2009; 08:44 AM ET | Comments (1)
Some Happy D.C. 8th-Graders Moving Up Without Moving On
Christian Carter's conversation with his mother began last fall just before dinner. The eighth-grader said he didn't like any of next year's D.C. high school choices. The places were too scary or too disorganized, he said. He wanted to stay...
By Washington Post Editors | March 30, 2009; 08:22 AM ET | Comments (4)
Saying 'When' On D.C. School Voucher Program
I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. I have supported D.C. school vouchers. The program has used tax dollars well in transferring impoverished students to private schools with higher standards than D.C. public schools. But it has reached a dead...
By Washington Post Editors | March 23, 2009; 07:55 AM ET | Comments (3)
One Principal Knows What to Do With Stimulus Money. Do Others?
I doubt we will get much school improvement out of the roughly $100 billion in stimulus funds the Obama administration is about to spend on education. The windfall will save the jobs of many hardworking educators, which is good, but...
By washingtonpost.com editors | March 16, 2009; 07:16 AM ET | Comments (1)
St. Mary's Builds New Path To College
Just before Christmas in 2000, Layla Wynn's college dreams evaporated. A philanthropist broke a promise to support higher education for her sixth-grade class. She had become a top student at Cardozo High School in the District, but her parents --...
By Washington Post Editors | March 9, 2009; 11:56 AM ET | Comments (0)
Better Teachers, Not Tinier Classes, Should Be Goal
Here and in the rest of the country, school superintendents who have been forced to raise class size hope they can reduce the number of students per class when budget troubles ease. Having seen many successful large classes and many...
By Washington Post Editors | March 2, 2009; 06:37 AM ET | Comments (27)
Creative Leaders' Will to Succeed Is Key to KIPP
Jaime Escalante, the man who taught me the power of great teaching, had a Spanish word he used often in his East Los Angeles math classes: ganas. It meant the will to succeed, the urge to make an extra effort....
By Washington Post Editors | February 23, 2009; 09:02 AM ET | Comments (23)
Boosting Schools' Value Without Spending a Dime
As happens in every recession, Washington area school systems are cutting back. It's depressing. Here's an antidote: Harness the creativity of educators, parents and students to improve our schools without more spending. Some teachers I trust helped me come up...
By Washington Post Editors | February 16, 2009; 09:06 AM ET | Comments (21)
Test Scores Provide Valuable Measure Of Success in D.C.
Brian Betts, a new principal in one of the District's most troubled neighborhoods, excitedly displayed his school's latest reading test results. Tall green bars on the graphs meant that in some classes a majority of students were proficient. This was...
By Washington Post Editors | February 9, 2009; 07:10 AM ET | Comments (2)
In Cutting Sports Funding, Everyone Loses
Times are tough, particularly in our schools. We don't have the money, beleaguered education officials say, for every student who wants to play games after class. Some school sports have to go. Loudoun County is talking about cutting junior varsity...
By Washington Post Editors | February 2, 2009; 02:18 PM ET | Comments (0)
Despite Flaws, Site Rating Preschools Fills a Critical Need
I remember how my wife and I, and our friends, found preschools when we had children that age: We asked each other if we knew any good ones. That unscientific approach is still the way people do it, even as...
By Washington Post Editors | January 26, 2009; 02:06 PM ET | Comments (0)
Sorting Children Into 'Cannots' and 'Cans' Is Just Racism in Disguise
Tomorrow marks a turning point in the history of our schools as well as our country. Note how the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom we honor today, had to confront the cold, hard, in-your-face prejudice of a legally segregated...
By Washington Post Editors | January 19, 2009; 01:58 PM ET | Comments (0)
What is Metro Monday?
Every Monday Jay Mathews has a column that appears in print on the Schools & Learning page. Read more of Jay's Metro Monday here....
By Washington Post Editors | November 30, 2008; 11:05 AM ET | Comments (0)
