Because we didn't think the kids could succeed

The Times has another story on schools in NYC, this time explaining the Bloomberg administration's decision to work on "turnaround" efforts rather than shutting down schools and reopening them as smaller charter schools. While it seems like a better choice, one thing struck me in a not-so-pleasant way.

“This notion that some kids can make it and some kids can’t, I don’t buy that,” Steve Barr, who founded the network, said in an interview. “I’m of the belief that all kids can be college-ready if you give them a chance.”

While there are definitely teachers and administrators who don't care about students or think there's no way to combat the many problems that schools like the ones in the Bronx face, I doubt you could find one person in the building who would say, "Oh, yeah, well, we pretend to teach them and everything but there's really no point. They're poor and stuff and they'll probably always be dumb and eventually work at McDonald's."

You know who works in schools like that? Usually new teachers without much experience who weren't given a shot at teaching in schools with fewer problems because they...didn't have experience. They're people like me, who are somewhere at the end or finished with programs, who want to do well (and sometimes, maybe we do extremely well) but are faced with the pressure of dealing with the horrible climate the media and people who watch "Waiting for 'Superman'" and think we're a bunch of cynical, gravy-train dipping folks who don't want to work for our benefits and pensions. We're also worried about at least seeming to do well so that we can earn tenure within three years because that's what we're told we need to do, otherwise we'll keep getting pushed back in the system and will start from scratch.

The teachers and administrators who are fired from these schools will still be in the system. They'll just be somewhere else. Somewhere else, hopefully, includes schools that support their teachers and are able to pinpoint problems in pedagogy and curricula and lead the way to increasing teacher effectiveness. Rather than spend money on restructuring schools, why not pour that money into supporting the current staff and getting more parents involved in the education of their children? Turnaround efforts, wildly popular and taking prominence in the Obama administration's Race to the Top, have no evidence of being helpful. It's just as likely that five years from now the district will look at these schools and wonder why the hell they turned it around and will scratch their heads wondering what new reform measure will work.