- Kaya Henderson: Students, Not Economic Future, Should be Schools' Top Priority
- Chancellor Henderson paints her picture of education reform
- The moral imperative of No Child Left Behind
Kaya Henderson: Students, Not Economic Future, Should be Schools' Top Priority
The Washington Informer
By WI Web Staff
January 14, 2015
Although D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson credits a solid public education with her achieving the American dream — a well-paying job, her own home and car — she isn’t sure the nation’s public schools systems are equipped to provide today’s students the same opportunities.
Addressing an audience recently at the American Enterprise Institute’s Vision Talks at the National Geographic Grosvenor Auditorium in Northwest, Henderson, 44, said she doesn’t borrow money from her parents and pays her own bills — a future she warily envisions for her own children.
“I’m doing exactly what a good public education is supposed to do for you,” said Henderson, a native of Mount Vernon, New York, whose family lived in the projects of that city for 47 years. “I am living the American dream, so my vision for education is totally fueled by my individual experience, by my experience as Kaya the mom, and then as my experience as Kaya Henderson, chancellor of D.C. public schools.”
But Henderson said students are ill-prepared by the education system and pointed a finger at educators, parents and policymakers — all of whom she blamed for decimating the importance of teaching a variety of life skills in today’s classrooms.
“We’re concentrating on the wrong things,” said Henderson, the third longest-serving D.C. chancellor since the 1960s. “We are measuring the wrong things. … We’re trying to increase test scores … or we’re trying to secure our economic future.
“But Kaya the mom doesn’t really care about our economic future. Kaya the mom cares about whether or not [my sons] Robert and Marcus are going to come home after college and live with me,” she said.
The 17-year DCPS veteran said she’s watched educators and parents devolve from changing life outcomes for young people to fixating on five policy levels and defining education reform in alignment with teacher evaluations, charter schools and high-stakes testing.
“Those are all important pieces of the puzzle, but the puzzle is so much more complex than that,” Henderson said. “[Yet] we’ve allowed ourselves to be reduced to a set of policies, that if we apply on a silver-bullet initiative, that they’ll fix everything,
“We have huge opportunities to completely change the way we teach, and what we teach. But right now, we’re all busy fussing and fighting about all kinds of random things that don’t matter,” she said.
Chancellor Henderson paints her picture of education reform
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
January 15, 2015
In a fascinating 15 minute talk, given as part of the American Enterprise Institute's series entitled "Vision Talks", DCPS Chancellor Kaya Henderson presents her vision of education reform that is transformational from the way most of us involved in this policy area think about the subject. Anyone interested in the improvement of public education needs to invest a relatively short amount of time to listen to her words.
At first I became upset by her assertions. Ms. Henderson claims that her work is not about raising student academic test scores. In fact, she revealed that she does not know her own kids' results on standardized examinations. The Chancellor speaks eloquently about how traditional public schools served her mother, herself, and her two children. She points out that her mother was the first in her family to go to college and that Ms. Henderson's life began with her growing up living in the projects of New York. She now enjoys a middle class lifestyle after having the opportunity to attend Georgetown University and believes she is now experiencing the American dream.
Her main thesis is that education reform is not about teacher evaluations, high stakes testing, charter schools, or human capital. She observes that there are a handful of excellent charter schools as well as a handful of outstanding regular schools. She also believes that there are a handful of both charters and traditional schools at the bottom rung of performance. I would disagree with her on these assertions. But what came next was instructive.
Ms. Henderson stated directly that the aim of public education is to consistently produce superior results for a majority of kids, no matter if they are classified as special needs or English as second language learners. It is, according to the Chancellor, a problem of scale. She stated that quality instruction is not about hiring excellent people to work in schools, although that is important. The Chancellor remarked that DCPS now has the strongest staff in teachers and the front office that it has ever had. Producing a great education means providing these individuals with the tools, resources, and environment to allow them to do a good job. Some of the aids she specifically mentioned include blending learning, the Common Core standards, and competency-based education. She argues that we cannot keep teaching the same way that we have over the last 100 years. The end goal is to change the life outcomes of all children.
She closed by discussing the story of Rashema Melson. Ms. Henderson related that Ms. Melson attended Anacostia High School, one of the most troubled facilities in her system. The student lived for two years at the shelter at D.C. General. The young woman went on to become the Valedictorian of her senior class and is attending Georgetown University on a full four year academic scholarship. Ms. Melson eventually wants to go to medical school.
For Ms. Henderson what occurred with Ms. Melson represents the true meaning of education reform. It is simply to help as many Rashema Melson's as possible who graduate from a regular school with the help of outstanding educators that paid attention to her and were able to provide her with the opportunities to excel.
The moral imperative of No Child Left Behind
The Washington Post
By Editorial Board
January 14, 2015
EDUCATION SECRETARY Arne Duncan tells a story that was distressingly familiar for children of color before the implementation of the No Child Left Behind law. At his mother’s after-school tutoring program on the South Side of Chicago, he worked with a young man who thought he was headed to college. The student was on track to get his high school diploma — on the honor roll, in fact, with a solid B average. But, Mr. Duncan discovered, his tutee also was functionally illiterate.
In those years, no one was held accountable for student achievement, and schools routinely ignored and concealed the problems of struggling students, especially poor black and Hispanic students. Returning to that way of operating should be unthinkable, but that is unquestionably what will happen if testing and accountability requirements are gutted from federal law.
Rewriting No Child Left Behind is a priority for Congress and the administration. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate education panel, aims to bring a bill to the Senate floor next month. Everyone agrees that the law, a product of bipartisan cooperation between President George W. Bush and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, should be improved based on the experience of the past decade-plus. Some of its provisions are overly punitive or prescriptive. But its underlying principle is sound: Schools need to know whether students are learning, and they should do something about it when they aren’t. Writing that principle into law was a civil rights achievement that must not be undone.
The achievement is threatened by an unholy alliance between conservatives who oppose any federal role in education and teacher unions, which claim to favor progressive policies until those policies begin to bring accountability to the teaching profession. These opponents of the law, blowing a lot of smoke about “corporatist” reform, would like to eliminate the requirement that students be tested annually in math and reading in grades three to eight and once in high school. Mr. Alexander’s draft bill doesn’t take a stand on this, instead presenting a range of options in what the senator characterized as an attempt to start a dialogue about testing.
That dialogue should start with a fact: The law has worked. The performance of poor and minority students has improved in the past 10 to 15 years. The Education Trust, advocates for closing the achievement gap, has catalogued the evidence in the performance of minority and low-income students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, commonly described as the nation’s report card; in a rise in graduation rates; and in greater participation in college entrance and Advanced Placement tests.
Some districts may test too often or teach too much to the test. There is room to fix problems and, as we said, improve the law. But any member of Congress should be embarrassed to even contemplate returning to an era when the absence of annual measurement allowed failure to be swept under the rug. Educational opportunity is, as Mr. Duncan said Monday, “a civil right, a moral imperative.” The country needs to ensure that no one is being denied that right.