Education Documentaries: Too Much Drama

Documentaries about education are all the rage these days. A couple of weeks ago I was invited to join a panel of "experts" to discuss the documentary "A Race to Nowhere." In this film, the high-pressure life of modern adolescents was featured. There were interviews with teachers and students who said there is so much pressure to perform well in school, with the testing and the hours of homework, that actual learning and achievement have taken a back seat. Students are all being taught to do as they are told, and the creativity is being expunged from them as a result. There were also a few heartbreaking case studies of high-achieving adolescents who cracked under the pressure. One of the adolescents in the film committed suicide.

This documentary was shown in the gym of an expensive private school, and the room was packed with parents who seemed very anxious about what they had just seen on the screen. When it was my turn to comment on the film, I tried to relieve some of the tension and fear among the parents in the room. I began by saying that stress and suicide are very real and sad phenomena among teenagers, and that we should do what we can to alleviate them. But then I reminded the audience that most adolescents make it through school (and adolescence) just fine, and that suicide is a very rare event. Less than one percent of adolescents commit suicide. I also mentioned that, in my view, we were experiencing a very creative time in our society. Just think about all of the technological innovations we have seen in the last 10 years.

Although the film we all watched was a documentary, I reminded the audience, that does not mean that it is the WHOLE truth. The film did not include any well-adjusted students or teachers who felt like schools were not overly stressing students out. These teenagers and teachers exist, but the film makers were trying to make a point, so they were selective about who they included in the documentary. In other words, they were going for a dramatic effect.

The same is true for "Waiting for Superman," a new documentary about students and their families who try to escape underperforming schools by gaining entry to charter schools. Because there is more demand than there is supply in these charter schools, students and their families must sit through an agonizing lottery process to see whether they will be admitted into the charter schools. Again, these stories are heartbreaking.

But is the premise of this film--that school choice and charter schools will improve the educational opportunities of poor students--supported by evidence? Not yet. As Ross Douthat articulated in his excellent editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/opinion/11douthat.html), there is not much evidence that school choice increases student achievement. Of course, some charter schools do raise achievement, and some do not. Some of the most successful charter school models, such as KIPP schools and the Harlem Children's Zone, require additional resources in terms of money, teacher commitment, and family commitment. These are all good things that should be encouraged, but to date there is little evidence that we have the will to allocate the resources that would be needed to scale up these successful models.

I'm generally sympathetic to the message in these two documentaries, I have to remind myself that these are movies with an agenda. The fact that they are non-fiction does not mean that they are the whole truth. They are only part of the story--the most dramatic part.

Lessons from Michelle Rhee's Time in D.C.

This week, Michelle Rhee resigned from her post as chancellor of the Washington D.C. public school system. She entered the job as children enter a playground: loudly and without caution. In some ways, she was exactly what they D. C. school system (and many other public school systems in the U.S.) needed. But her approach to school reform efforts ensured that should would not remain in her position over the long haul.

Perhaps the biggest problem plaguing many large, urban school districts is a shortage of highly motivated and qualified teachers. Ms. Rhee recognized that the key to improving schools in D. C. was removing bad teachers and hiring better ones. But removing teachers, particularly those who have several years of seniority and tenure, is a difficult process that produces powerful enemies. Teachers unions, which have worked very hard to ensure that teachers are not fired capriciously, are often powerful political players, and they do not like it when teachers with seniority are fired. Teachers’ unions can influence elections, so one angers them at their own political peril.

Ms. Rhee also closed down several low-performing schools. Americans are funny about our schools. Although we tend to believe that the public school system in general is underperforming, we also tend to be quite satisfied the performance of teachers and schools in our own neighborhoods. When the teachers in our neighborhood school are fired and the school is shut down, people in the neighborhood get angry. Some of this anger is due to our satisfaction with the school that was closed down, and part is due to the pragmatic issue of having to now send our children to a school in a neighborhood further away.

Although I do not support all of Ms. Rhee’s methods toward reform (her insistence on evaluating teachers by using student test scores, for instance), her tenure as Chancellor of schools in Washington D. C. provides many important lessons that are worthy of our attention.

First, we cannot continue to treat low-performing schools with a light hand. As a district, Washington D. C. schools have had some of the lowest achieving students in the country for decades. Despite a history of extremely high drop-out rates and low test scores for students, teachers were routinely evaluated as performing adequately. Ms. Rhee recognized the incongruity of this situation and had the nerve to touch the third rail of education: Some experienced teachers should not remain in the classroom.

Second, we need a better system for evaluating the effectiveness of teachers. This is much more difficult than it sounds, because teachers do not produce tangible outcomes that can be attributed directly to them. (Student test scores are influenced by many factors, not just teacher effectiveness.) The system of teacher evaluation the Ms. Rhee introduced in D. C. includes several classroom observations by impartial master teachers who do not work at the schools where they conduct the observations. This is a good step.

Finally, we need to develop the will, both political and societal, to recognize when teachers or schools are failing and to take the difficult steps required to improve them. Sometimes, this means teachers will lose their jobs. Sometimes, this means schools will be closed. We cannot bemoan the inadequacy of public education if we are not willing to make the difficult changes required to improve it. Unfortunately, there are not simple or pain-free solutions, as the research on school choice and its limited efficacy demonstrates.

Michelle Rhee’s brand of reform has a limited shelf life in any single community. It is simply too disruptive, and makes too many enemies, to last. But that does not mean that he message is wrong. In many school districts, dramatic changes are needed, and they will hurt. Meaningful reform usually does.