In North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, superintendent Peter Gorman came up with a new strategy to help save numerous failing schools. In 2008, Gorman announced a district-wide competition, the “Strategic Staffing Initiative” (SSI), in order to identify the most effective principals. The winners of the SSI were chosen based on statistics such as growth in student achievement as opposed to how long the principal had served or how highly their school was regarded.

Gorman then met with the winning principals and offered them the “opportunity” to help turn around a struggling school. The three-year deal would include a 10 percent raise, more freedom from district rules, and the option to bring eight people with them as part of the transformation team.

 

All the winners accepted and just one year after the initiative started, all seven SSI schools saw a rise in student proficiency on the state test. Read the full article by Pat Wingert at Newsweek online.

Presumptive mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray introduced Kaya Henderson on Wednesday as the interim chancellor of DC public schools and vowed that reforms launched under Michelle A. Rhee would continue when he takes office in January. Gray appeared at a mid-morning news conference with Rhee, Henderson and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who will formally appoint Henderson at Gray's request.

Gray, the DC Council chairman, beat Fenty in the Democratic primary election last month. The group took only a handful of questions from a hotel conference room packed with journalists, and neither Gray nor Rhee shed light on what they called a "mutual decision" to part ways.

In a prepared statement, Rhee said that leaving after nearly 3 1/2 turbulent years was "heartbreaking," but she said Gray "deserves the opportunity to work toward his goal of 'One City' with a team that shares his vision, can keep progress going and help bridge the divide. In short, we have agreed - together - that the best way to keep the reforms going is for this reformer to step aside." Read more in The Washington Post online.

President Obama created a grant program to copy his block-by-block approach to ending poverty. The British government praised his charter schools as a model. And a new documentary opening across the country (Waiting for Superman) revolves around him: Geoffrey Canada, the magnetic Harlem Children’s Zone leader with strong ideas about how American education should be fixed.

But Canada and his charter schools have struggled with the same difficulties faced by other urban schools, even as they outspend them. While its cradle-to-college approach, which seeks to break the cycle of poverty for all 10,000 children in a 97-block zone of Harlem, may be breathtaking in scope, the jury is still out on its overall impact. And the cost of its charter schools — around $16,000 per student in the classroom each year, as well as thousands of dollars in out-of-class spending — has raised questions about their utility as a nationwide model. Read more of this article by Sharon Otterman in The New York Times online.

In Georgia, state standardized tests that students took last year showed an unusually high number of eraser marks. As many as 250,000 incorrect answers were changed to make them correct. The tests are given to children in grades 1-8. The results determine whether schools meet federal benchmarks under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue  has launched his own inquiry. More than 50 schools in Atlanta were flagged for cheating.

Testing experts acknowledge that high-stakes tests create immense pressure for principals and administrators to improve scores, so there can be a kind of desperation that leads to cheating. James Wollack, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says how Georgia deals with this situation will set a precedent for other states.

As the governor's investigation continues, Atlanta's public schools are now holding 12 weeks of remedial classes for kids who failed the 2009 tests, and the district is figuring out how to improve test security. For more, visit NPR.org.

 

A landmark deal that will eliminate step raises for Baltimore City teachers based on years of service and instead reward teachers based on performance and student achievement will make the city's schools a model for the nation, according to a report by Vic Carter on WJZ.com. Maryland was recently awarded $250 million in Race to the Top funding, with Baltimore City getting more than $46 million to support school reform. To learn more, read the full article.