Practical Theory

As a former English teacher, and as someone who believes that programs that work should continue, I'm very deeply dismayed by the Department of Education's decision not to fund the National Writing Project. NWP has, for many, many years been an unequivocal good in education. There are few pure wins in education, but NWP is one of them.

If you need more convincing, SLA teacher Zac Chase has made the argument in a much more compelling fashion. Go read what he wrote. Here's a sample:

Were this simply an impassioned plea, I would have hesitated to write. The data speaks for itself, the National Writing Project has offered a significant return on investment in its 36 year history. Federal funding for the NWP must be maintained if we are to continue striving to meet the Project’s goal of “a future where every person is an accomplished writer, engaged learner, and active participant in a digital, interconnected world.”

Then, when you're done, write to your Congressmen and Senators. Urge them to to sign Rep. Miller's Dear Colleague letter. The National Writing Project is an important organization that has created a national network of teachers who share a vision and a plan to help students find their voices, both on and off-line. They deserve our support, and we all benefit from their continued work.

At some point in time, I think we have to start asking ourselves what is going on at the US Department of Education. Just this week, Secretary Duncan (and his PR people via twitter) said ""We have to stop lying to children," in reference to the levels of achievement students reach. And then he supported a school district's decision to fire all its teachers at a high school. This is after he slammed teacher prep programs back in the fall.

(He did take time to praise a charter school organization recently, though.)

So what is the end game?

What is the point of attacking educators as liars, praising leaders who fire entire faculties and calling into question the way we teach teachers?

Can you imagine if another cabinet member did this? Could you imagine if the Secretary of Defense talked this way about the soldiers?

What is the point?

There's only one reason to erode public trust in public education -- to destroy it.

Seriously.

It was the the "we have to stop lying to children" line. Not "we need to do better." Not "we need to find better ways." Not "we need to change."

"We need to stop lying to children."

Think about that... Duncan is claiming that public educators are deliberately lying to children.

You only do that if you want to tear something down.

I think the Race to the Top push to expand charter law is only a first step. I think we're going to see a federal push for vouchers before the end of the Obama administration.

And lest you think I've got the tin-foil hat on, the email blast from EdWeek had as its lead a story about how Florida is expanding its voucher program and that Illinois and New Jersey may be soon to follow suit with more and more bi-partisan support for vouchers. (The article claims that Obama will not expand the DC voucher program, but we'll see.)

What I worry will happen over the next ten years, unless there's a movement to stop it, will be a federal push for state voucher programs followed by a massive explosion of publicly subsidized private and parochial schools where parents will be able to supplement the public voucher with their own monies. I think there will still be a "public option" for families, but they will probably be more underfunded and needy than ever before. There will always be a need for schools for the kids who can't take advantage of the new market-driven system, but in many places -- especially in our cities -- they will become the schools of last resort.

There is a lot of money and power lining up behind voucher programs, and make no mistake, vouchers will mark the end of public schools as the hallmark of the American democratic experiment.

And here's the thing... if this is what Obama and Duncan want, why aren't they saying so?

If we want something different, we are going to need to fight for what we believe in. We cannot expect the usual allies. We are going to have to retake the language of school reform from those who would tear down our work. We are going to have to partner with students and parents. We are going to have to listen deeply and create a new language of reform that is authentic... one that puts the best of what our schools can be at the front of every message.

We are going to have to lead.

I'll be there. Will you?

I've been reading RTTT stuff and NCLB stuff and Ted Hirschberg's stuff and value added / growth model stuff...

And what I don't understand is this:

Where does the certainty that these tests measure what the testers think they do come from?

I'm not being facetious here. I'm really not.

I don't understand that certainty. I wish I had it about my own ideas. Or maybe I don't.

I think there's a danger when you stop thinking that your idea is good and start thinking that it's True.

I think these people believe that their tests are True. Or that if they keep working on them, they will be.

Education itself is often good, but it's rarely True.

As my favorite TV president once said, "There are few days with absolute rights and absolute wrongs, and they usually involve body counts."

I fear the body counts that are coming -- and are already here -- if the current educational leaders in this country don't stop and realize that what they have are ideas, not truisms.

"What Do You Think?"

Somewhat unexpectedly, I hit upon an epiphany during my Leadership 2.0 session at EduCon 2.2.

I had a very simple structure to the session -- I listed in the description three ideas that I hoped would be common to the people who showed up. The short description on the conference site stated:


From there, my idea was to simply attempt to build some common language around those ideas and then talk about leadership strategies to allow a group of educators to engender their use in a school. The not-so-dirty-secret is that I hoped that the process of building common language during the session would, in fact, model the leadership practices I try to walk every day. As you can see below, the slidedeck was nothing more than a framework for the conversation.


We were talking about modeling these values as leaders and the idea that teachers need to model inquiry for students as well and Ben Wilkoff asked a great question. He said (and I'm paraphrasing,) "I'm concerned that I don't know how elementary teachers model their own inquiry in their classroom? After all, there are very few times when they really don't know the answer."

And I answered, "There's one question that we always don't know the answer to -- 'What do you think?'"

And as soon as I said that, the next thoughts came pouring out -- and I've been thinking about them and talking about them for the past few days before being ready to put them to "paper." That's the question we can always ask to further our own learning -- "What do you think?" It is the question we don't know the answer to... it is how we learn more about the people we teach.

And then the next avalanche hit.

That question is the connective tissue that I'd never found between two central tenets of my own philosophy. That's the link between inquiry and care.

"What do you think?"

Caring about our students is more than hugging them... more than being kind to them... more than greeting them at the door when they come into the classroom.

Caring about our students is about listening to them. About learning about them -- from them. It is, as I've written before, about understanding that if we hope to be a transformative figure in their lives, we must be willing to be transformed ourselves.

And that starts with a question -- "What do you think?" and then listening, fully and deeply, to their answer. That is the ethic of care made manifest in the inquiry process.

And I'd never put it together that way before. And I can't imagine not thinking about it that way now. And here's the next cool part... that happened because of the structure of the session. It happened because the session attendees were empowered to challenge and question and talk to one another. Even though I was facilitating -- teaching, as David Jakes would insist I say -- I was open to listen to the folks in the room, not just as a means to get where I wanted to go, but because I really did care about their ideas. And because of that, I could learn too.

I've always believed that our ideas are made better when they encounter other ideas and are changed by them. What I think I'd sort of instinctively felt but never found the words for was that it's not just about the ideas in that moment. The very act of listening to the answer to a personal question -- "What do you think?" is not just an academic exercise, it is a foundational act of caring.

It is the link between the way we teach our subjects and the way we teach our children.

"What do you think?"

Thanks to Ben and all the folks at EduCon 2.2 who pushed my thinking forward.

I'm trying to make sense of this weekend... and obviously, I'm incredibly close to EduCon (and more than a little tired), but I had to get at least this much out.

The weekend was incredible. On the most basic level, the best part of the conference was watching SLA students and parents run every logistical aspect the conference... not just 10 A students, but over 100 students working together to make the entire weekend amazing.

SLA students were presenters / facilitators in several sessions, and they were participants in many more. They worked tirelessly to make the live broadcast work. (And they were at school for hours after the sessions on Saturday rendering video.) They were docents for some of the panelists. And of course, they had the chance to have a personal session (or three) with Jeff Han as he worked with them on "the wall."

I admit, if part of TFA's strategy is to have their alumni go into policy, I hope that, no matter what fields SLA alumni go into some day, that they all somehow keep a hand in education, as active parents, as school board members, and some as teachers, I hope. It is amazing to me to see students start with pride in their school experience and use that as a springboard to care deeply and speak powerfully about education.

Thank you to all the SLA students. I am so proud and so humbled by your work.

In a few days, 500 educators from all over continent (and a few from further afield) will descend upon SLA for a three-day conference called EduCon. This whole thing started about two and a half years ago after EduBloggerCon at NECC, where 70 folks got together to have loosely constructed conversations. When it was over, I wrote about what was running through my mind and I foolished announced that we were going to host a conference on the weekend in between the NFL conference playoffs and the Super Bowl.

A month or two went by, and we were on the verge of cancelling the whole thing because, well, we were still forming a school and all. And then I got an email and John Pederson told me he'd already booked his ticket, and we figured we actually had to go ahead and do the thing.

That first year, we had about 250 folks. The next year, we were closing in on 400. This year, we're going to top out at 500 folks... and we're never getting bigger than that. EduCon has become for us at SLA an incredible part of what we do every year, and even as our school has grown in roughly the same numbers as the conference, it touches the school deeply and profoundly, as kids take a greater and greater role in hosting the conference. For our teachers, it provides a chance to share with the world the amazing things that I get to see in their classrooms every day, for our parents -- who run the registration tables and slice a few hundred pieces of stromboli and serve hundreds of lunches -- it gives them a sense of pride to see people come from all over to their child's school, and for our kids, it gives them the chance to see themselves as active agents in a national -- even international -- dialogue about education and school. It is that moment that makes the conference worth the few gazillion hours we put into it every year.

But what also makes EduCon so incredibly worth it is the community that has been created around it. There are many, many educational conferences every year, most much bigger than EduCon, but we think we have something very special that happens over those three days. The conference is about the community of people and the ideas we share. It's not a place for big speeches, it's a place for well-thought conversation. It is a place for ideas, not stuff, and there isn't much swag at all and there isn't an exhibit floor. What there is, in abundance, is really smart people who care deeply about the future of education and how we all can make it better.

It is our hope, every year, that part of what makes EduCon so much fun is that it is in and of a school... All of us at SLA want EduCon to be a place where people who care about education can come together to debate, to listen, to talk, to learn together with and from each other. And to that end, what really makes EduCon special is the incredible good will that everyone comes with... whether it means pitching in to help clean up the cafe after cheesesteaks or making sure that the classrooms are straightened up after Sunday sessions or being willing to throw out an idea in a session because no one is there to just listen, EduCon works because people come to it knowing that they have to be a part of making it work.

And the cheesesteaks are pretty good too.

If you are coming to EduCon, make sure to say hi... I'll be running around like a lunatic all weekend long, although, it is my goal to make it to at least two or three full sessions this year. If you aren't coming to EduCon, we are again sharing the whole conference live. We're using Elluminate this year (thank you, Steve Hargadon!) so feel free to listen in and take part.

And thank you to everyone who comes to the conference, who has worked to make it a success, who shows up with the good will and openness and idealism to believe that we can make schools better than they are. We can't wait to see you all at school this week.

[The juxtaposition that inspired this post is our current educational situation as typified by Race to the Top and the loss of a generation of wise educational leaders including, this weekend, David Mallery.]

This idea is not my own, but if intelligence is speed, then wisdom is slowness.

I write this after reading about the death of David Mallery from Christian Long who tweeted out:


I worry a lot about that these days. I worry that we are losing wisdom. Wisdom is a funny thing, because it isn't something you are born with, and it isn't something you can acquire quickly and easily. It is hard-fought, path paved with mistakes and regret and reflection. Those folks who acquire the term "Wise Beyond Their Years" often have had to get there the hard way.

The people we are losing understood the balance of intelligence and wisdom. Ted Sizer understood that listening is as important as speaking. What we have instead is a "Race to the Top" with goals that are completely unproven, and many states falling all over themselves to change their long-term policies for a short-term influx of money.

As John Wooden has long said, "Be quick, but don't hurry."

Let us be clear, the problems facing schools are serious, and they demand that we work diligently and quickly to make our schools better.

But let us be wise in our changes. Let us listen to the people who must enact the changes. Let us consider what we do and how well we can do it. Let us not demonize those who oppose is by turning their arguments into strawmen. Let us, instead, do things wisely and well. If for no other reason than we want our students to do so as well. If that means that we must slow down to listen, to reflect, to come to consensus, so be it. Better we make the wise decision than the expedient one.

Read the older educators... Read Ted Sizer and Deborah Meier and Herb Kohl... and feel the wisdom in their words. They write without hubris, but instead with an acknowledgment of their own flawed humanity. They write with an understand that they cannot be all things to all children, but with the knowledge that they must come as close as they can.

I am far from religious, but I am reminded a lot these days of the serenity prayer:


I worry that our inability to have the wisdom to know the difference is going to do a lot of damage. In the days of hyper-culture, this isn't just a problem in education, of course. But when we lose sight of the value of wisdom in education, how can we expect it to surface on any large scale anywhere else?

I spent too much time this week having hard conversations with many students and parents around some incredibly difficult issues. As I tweeted out at one point, "lately, the things we cannot write about / blog about have been taking up much of my time." We can write about theory and practice and ideas and successes, but we can't write about the things that break our hearts for obvious reasons. But those moments when we try to help our kids and their parents deal with the most difficult things are some of the moments we need the most help, the most guidance, the most understanding, because there is no handbook, and there is often no clear right answer or clear best thing to say.

So we do the best we can, we get council from trusted colleagues, and we work with kids, and we work with families. And then we reflect on our decisions and try to figure out how to be better tomorrow than we were today. As a principal, there are days when I wish there was some handbook, some great big chart with an X and Y axis of issues and severity, so that I could follow the lines and figure out exactly what I was supposed to do, but of course, there isn't, and there can't be, because those kind of proscriptive rules never come with nuance, and short of the situations of mandatory reporting, those moments always contain nuance.

For me, the answer is to never fall in love with my answer... to always question... to always wonder... to always reflect... and to always remain self-critical. I say all the time that we should be humbled before the enormity of what we are trying to do. Weeks like this remind me of that painfully and powerfully... as I am confronted with my own flawed humanity as I try to help my students deal with theirs as well.
 
Kids are facing a more and more challenging and confusing world. They need us to be the best versions of ourselves we can muster. And that means we have to listen as best we can. And we need to never grow cold to the problems of children, and we can never think that we have all the answers.

I tried to be the best principal I know how to be this week. I sincerely hope I did right by the children in my care. Whether I did or or whether I fell short, I promise to try to be better next week.

[I've written about this in a roundabout way before... I'm hoping this blog post is the beginning of me hashing out -- in writing -- the evolution of my thoughts on this topic.]

In my recent article in Principal Leadership magazine, I wrote this:

Those of us who work in education talk a lot about student engagement, but I don’t think that goes far enough. Engagement is certainly better than boredom, but schools should set the bar for themselves is much higher. What schools should strive for is student empowerment.

For the longest time, the idea of engagement has dominated the conversation in ed-tech, and it's never quite sat right with me. There are a couple of reasons for this... first and perhaps most disconcerting, is that engagement too often got translated to "fun." And that put us in competition with video games and and Facebook and movies and hanging out after school and everything kids do for fun that isn't school. We lose that battle most of the time almost by definition. (And that's not because kids are kids... it's because kids are people. I love my job, but in any isolated moment, would I rather be hanging out with my kids or my wife or my friends or playing Ultimate or basketball or reading a book of my own choosing? Easy choice.)

We chose engagement because it beats boring. But it's not a goal. And in fact, I think it's created some weird developments in education because too many folks have set it up as a goal, because teachers have been placed in a position where the engagement of the student created a performance aspect to class that, in the end, didn't serve the goal of student learning.

Empowerment feels better to me. It, in the end, is the word -- the idea -- that sets us up for a more student-centered classroom because it is about what the students get from the experience once the class is done, not what happens during the class. It also allows us to do away with the notion that the classroom is always fun. It's not. Let's look at coaching for a moment... a coach who is worried about engagement as the goal lets the kids scrimmage most practices because it is engaging and fun. But an empowering coach puts the kids through smart drills that allows them to play their best basketball during the games. Those days when you walk through the offenses and the defenses 100 times aren't always engaging... in fact, they can feel like a lot of work. But they pay off. And that's what we want in our classes. It's o.k. if there are days when the work that kids do feels like work. We have to be o.k. with that. And we have to understand that school is work... but that it can be meaningful, powerful, empowering (and even engaging) work. And that the work we do together in school means that kids can apply that work to their own lives in ways they see fit and that allow them to thrive.

So yeah, I'm thinking a lot about empowerment these days.

No... I haven't given up blogging.

I've had a bunch of issues around upgrading this blog from a several year old 0.8 release of the software to a more recent one, and I didn't want to start writing new blog entries until those issues were resolved. They still aren't, but I feel more confident that I won't lose these entries in the meantime -- which is good.

So far, the only casualty was the loss of comments from blog entries in September, October and November. (Sorry about that. Not sure what happened to them.)

The end goal is to ring in 2010 with upgraded blog software and an upgraded look to the blog. It is starting to look very, very 2005, and we can't have that.

So stick with me... sorry for the lack of noise coming from the blog. I'm coming back soon. What's been nice about this month is that there have been a TON of times I've really wanted to blog, which tells me that I've still got something to say on this thing.

(And hey... go read my article in this month's Principal Leadership Magazine entitled Shifting Ground. Woo hoo!)

So last night, the Science Leadership Academy Home and School Association threw the first huge fundraising night in our history. In a true collaboration between home and school, the school had a silent auction last night which raised a sizable chunk of money, but just as importantly, brought over 150 parents, teachers and friends together for an evening to celebrate and support SLA.

It is on nights like last night when you can see the power of a school community. Our Home and School parents were incredible -- the auction was a monster. It took hours and hours and hours to pull together, and I know there were moments of trepidation and frustration as no one knew if we could really pull this off. And the teachers and students created some amazing Advisory baskets that added a great flair to the night. And the end result was incredible. Not only did we have a great financial night, but it was a great chance for teachers and parents (and grandparents) to talk to each other and celebrate all that we have accomplished in our time together. We also had a couple of tables of student work so parents could see what the money we were raising goes to, and it is amazing to compile a cross-curricular pile of work and really see the imaginative and powerful and thoughtful work that kids do at SLA.

And for senior parents, it was also a time to recognize that our time together is approaching an end... some students have already gotten into college, and we were able to celebrate that. Other (most) parents are still playing the waiting game, and we shared the anxiety of that whole process. But overall, what we shared is a sense of a four-year journey together. It's one of the joys of a small school -- you know the families... you've been with them... through good and bad... and therefore impending graduation is both a very happy and a little bit sad thought. We even had talk of an alumni association as several parents told me they weren't quite ready to let go of the school yet.

In the end, it was a wonderful night, and this blog post is in part a recognition of the amazing community of SLA teachers and families, and a huge thank you to everyone who made the night happen, and an even bigger thank you to everyone who has contributed to making SLA a place I look forward to going to every single day. It is a wonderful community, and I am privileged and thankful to be a part of it.

[No... he doesn't really mean it.]

A little over a year ago, Gary Stager wrote an article for the Huffington Post about the new-found Democractic fascination with bashing teacher's unions -- and why that is about as counter to Democratic ideals as one could imagine. Today, his words are all the more true.

Blaming educational problems on teacher unions is even more absurd when you consider that states like Texas have no teacher unions. Is Texas immune from student achievement challenges? Hardly.

The larger question is a matter of leadership and employee relations. How does reducing teacher creativity, independence and responsibility for decision-making help instill those qualities in the children they teach? How does alienating teachers, placing them in rubber rooms or attacking their motives make them a partner in school reform? How does insulting your base and violating a fundamental American liberty create a wise and more just society?

Do you want your children taught by defensive or depressed teachers who feel assaulted by the community they serve? How does that state of affairs contribute to educational excellence?

If the educational neocons succeed and break the backs of teacher unions, what do they think would happen? What would magically occur the next day? How are schools expected to improve? I demand that these Democratic tough guys and gals tell me what they will do next.

Go read.

... with the following important message:

GOOOOOOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!

Game One was a thing of beauty. How about that Cliff Lee? How about that Chase Utley?

(And how about that Ruben Amaro? He took the World Champions and made them better without giving away the farm system.)

GOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!

So after reading E. D. Hirsch, Deborah Meier, Diane Ravich, Nel Noddings, President Obama's speech and Robert Pirsig, the students of Modern Educational Theory have written their first draft of their vision of what school should be. These are first passes at these ideas, and these are purpose statements that will evolve over the course of the year. Here was the structure of the assignment:

We, at this point, looked at several different views of education, from Deborah Meier's vision of democratic education, to Robert Pirsig's "Church of Reason," to Diane Ravitch and E. D. Hirsch's views of core knowledge, to Nel Nodding's ethic of care, to President Obama's speech on the first day of school.

Now, it is your time to take your stand.

You are to write a two page position paper creating your vision of what school should be.

Your paper should consider the following points:

• Clearly define your vision of school:
  
  • What is its purpose?
    
  • Why is it good for the individual?
    
  • Why is it good for sociery?
    
  • What does your vision of school value? Prioritize?
  
  
• Given this vision of school -- what differences would you see in the structure of school when compared to a "traditional" school?
  

We read each other's papers and you can see the comments beginning to evolve. Their current assignment is this:

Pick two essays (try to pick ones that haven't been done that much yet) and ask two hard questions of the vision expressed.

(For example, if someone speaks deeply about student choice in learning, a question may be -- "How will a young student know what they love without exposure to the ideas?")

Take the best part of the vision expressed and ask the author -- 'What is the worst consequence of your best idea?' The goal is for all of us to understand that there are no perfect ideas in education, and also to allow the the author to think about what problems could arise in their vision and how they might mitigate (lessen, deal with) some of them.

I'm really thrilled with much of the thoughtfulness that the kids display in the essays. It is, obviously, clear that the kids have been at SLA for years, but I don't think that's their only vision of what school can be -- which is important to me. The kids have their own thoughts, and I'm really interested to see how these visions continue to evolve.

So... please, feel free to comment on their essays (commenting is moderated because of spam, but I'll approve them, I promise!)

There is an inspiring article in today's New York Times about the Ted Ginn Academy -- a school started by a security guard / football coach. It is a story about an unlikely, non-traditional educator who built a school that is succeeding for students where others have failed. It is not unlike the stories being told about KIPP and Mastery Charter... a group of dedicated educators going above and beyond and saving every child.

And that's where I have a problem.

They aren't... and papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post are so excited for this narrative, that they are perpetuating the myth.

From the article:

Even as the city's graduation rate has fallen to 54 percent, Ginn Academy, now in its third year, has grown to 300 students, and no one has dropped out. Of the 37 students in its first senior class, 32 have already passed Ohio's mandatory graduation exam.

And later in the article:

Ginn Academy, which opened in September 2007 with 100 freshmen and 50 sophomores, now occupies a former middle school with more than 100,000 square feet of space. It has attracted top educators and visitors from outside the district who come to see the innovative school in action.

And I'm left with only one question:

What about the other thirteen kids?

Maybe some moved... maybe some decided that the Ginn Academy wasn't for them... but did any of them struggle so much that they transferred back to the "traditional" schools they left? Were any of them encouraged to leave by administration who saw that the kids were not on board with the school? What are the stories of the other thirteen students? The article reads as if everyone is going to graduate from Ginn, but clearly, not every student made it through the school.

Lest people think I'm beating up on the school, I'm not. If they average a 76% on-time graduation rate in their first year in a district that averages 54%, that's a huge victory. Your first year, you figure everything out, and inevitably, some students leave the school as you shake out what the school really is. To do as well as they've done is awesome and important and noteworthy -- it just doesn't sound as good to the New York Times.

[Full disclosure -- SLA is on track to graduate 90% of the original students in our starting class from our school (and all the students who have transferred in) -- and I'm amazed by those numbers and the incredible work our students and teachers have put in to get there... and yes, we chose our kids.]

But the bigger question is -- why does the media insist on perpetuating this storyline? Let's take the KIPP schools as an example... there is now enough evidence to suggest that KIPP schools have a high level of attrition... and while there doesn't yet seem to be research to define exactly why that is happening, we can assume that not every student who left KIPP or Ginn Academy (or SLA, for that matter) left because their families moved... some students left because they weren't having success.

How different would the current educational conversation be if the KIPP folks said, "Yes... in some of our schools, 25-40% of the families choose to leave KIPP, but KIPP isn't for everyone, and for the students who stay, we do right by them?" What if these schools admitted that it would be much harder to have the success they have if they didn't have the traditional schools to send kids back to when it didn't work out? What if these schools admitted they didn't have all the answers, and instead had to admit that, yes, they do amazing things for many students, but they haven't figured out how to get to a significant percentage of their population, despite Herculean efforts?

Why isn't that the dialogue right now? Because it's not as easy to raise millions of dollars on "We're figuring it out too?" But that would only explain one piece of that puzzle... why is it that Jay Matthews, the New York Times, the Education Empowerment Project, the US DoE and so many others so willing to promote a myth?

Because it is easier... because if we could only believe that we could solve all the problems of educating students in poverty with charismatic school leaders and hard working teachers... and that all the kids who don't get the education they need are simply being underserved by those lazy teachers... that would absolve our society for not being more just, more equitable, more fair. We could point to those schools that succeed against all odds and say, "See... if they do it, every school should be able to do it." It is a myth that keeps us from really understanding what is necessary to solve the problems for the children of our cities. It is the myth of the schools that have solved the problems.

Except those schools haven't.

Not completely. Not for every student. In the end, those schools -- like all our schools -- struggle and fail to reach every kid.

Just ask the other thirteen.