Cohen V. Chu

3 Replies to “Cohen V. Chu”

1. Except that LIFO will increase their access to more experienced teachers in this tight job market. Experienced teachers won’t be able to be as picky about where they teach.

2. For the life of me, I can’t understand Mass Insight’s logic on this one. Education has its own Gresham’s Law were bad reforms will tend to drive out good ones. If reputable turnaround specialists want to succeed, they should resist this premature scaling up. How anyone can look at the NCLB debacle and say the answer is more “sticks” is beyond me.

3. “It’s important to remember that the schools eligible for SIG are those schools where nothing we’ve done in the past has worked,” said Justin Cohen, President of The School Turnaround Group at Mass Insight. “None of the recommendations proposed in Chu’s report were prohibited under NCLB’s school improvement framework, and yet the number of underperforming schools has continued to grow.”

   He fails to mention–as I’m sure Andy does as well–that no one ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTED what Chu recommends. Part of the problem is money has not been targeted effectively at these schools.

   And it is NOT unions. Texas does not have unions and it has the same problems with low-performing schools. If unions were the problem, then Texas and the rest of the southern states would not have need for any turnaround work. Yet, much of the turnaround work is happening in these states.

   Explain that! I;m sure Andy will have no response because it would cause some cognitive dissonance and explode his world view.