Federal report criticizes reform in MPS schools

This story shows that sometimes it is not the kids fault. Our "leader" has taken something bad and made it worse. Our school district is in complete chaos. There is no plan, no direction, everyone is doing whatever they want, every school is becoming anything it wants to without and plan or regard for the district as a whole.

First Things First's impact questioned
By ALAN J. BORSUKaborsuk@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Feb. 17, 2008
The improvement plan being implemented in four large Milwaukee high schools has been given a bad report card by the arm of the U.S. Department of Education that evaluates what works and what doesn't in school reform.
The program, First Things First, "was found to have no discernible effects on (students) staying in schools in its first year of implementation," the What Works Clearinghouse said.
Leaders of the organization behind First Things First criticized the federal report, saying the authors based their conclusion on too few schools that had used the program too brief a time, and ignored results that were more meaningful and more favorable.
Laurie Levin, executive vice president of the Institute for Research and Reform in Education, said: "The idea of using the first year of implementation to make any determination of a reform approach that is comprehensive and complex is essentially irresponsible. It totally misrepresents the world of comprehensive reform and what it takes to be successful."
Milwaukee Public Schools officials and representatives of the program say they are encouraged by how things are developing at each of the schools, and they remain committed to the approach.
"We're on the right path," said Marty Lexmond, director of school innovation for MPS. "The challenges have been and continue to be in front of us, and we continue to use the reform framework to respond. . . . We've definitely focused on improving the relationships among kids and between adults and kids and on improving instruction."
Bradley Tech and Pulaski high schools are in the second year of using First Things First; the James Madison Academic Campus is in its first year; and Custer High School is planning to launch the program next fall. Vincent High School is expected to start the program the following year.
The program aims to create better relationships between students and staff members and to assure that approaches to teaching engage students. Under First Things First, large schools are divided into smaller learning communities of 350 students or so, and groups of about 17 students and a staff member are assigned to a "family" unit that meets weekly and stays together for all four years of high school. Teachers in a learning community share blocks of planning time each week, and administrators frequently monitor classroom activity to try to quantify reports on whether teachers are using the best techniques.
Bradley Tech, Pulaski and Madison each had problems with the launch of First Things First, including resistance from some teachers, difficulty launching the family approach and, in some cases, serious behavior issues.
The federal researchers said four studies on First Things First that they reviewed did not meet their standards for use in judging the program, but a fifth study, focusing on dropout rates at three schools in Houston in the first year of the program, did. It showed no difference in the rate at schools using the program.
Research in Kansas City, Kan., which has used the program in all its high schools for several years, was not accepted because there were no schools in the city that weren't using the program and could be used for comparison purposes.
But Kansas City has been the main showcase of the program's success, and Levin strongly criticized the federal researchers for not accepting results there, which include schools with strong increases in graduation rates and declines in behavior problems.
"To say we were disappointed in what the clearinghouse chose to do with the information we had is probably an understatement," she said.
Levin said the What Works Clearinghouse issued its report even though its parent organization, the federal Institute for Education Sciences, recently granted $6 million for further research on the program.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has made grants of about $11 million to schools around the country to support implementation of First Things First, including two grants totaling $1 million to Milwaukee.
Marie Groark, a spokeswoman for the foundation, said First Things First has been "a very important partner of ours around the country" in pursuing higher success rates among high school students. She said studies other than the one from the clearinghouse had shown it was having a "phenomenal" impact in some schools. The new report, she said, "is in no way definitive or changes our support."