"No Excuses" Plus Lots of Extras

by
Gerald W. Bracey

Center for Education Research, Analysis, and Innovation
School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
PO Box 413
Milwaukee WI 53201
414-229-2716

May 27, 2000

CERAI-00-14

"No Excuses"Plus Lots of Extras

By Gerald W. Bracey

May 27, 2000

To the Editor, WashingtonPost:

While I share GenevaOverholser's desire to improve the educational lot of the nation's poorchildren, I do not share her belief that the Heritage Foundation's "NoExcuses" report shows us how to do it. The "No Excuses" projectcould find only 21 low-income, high-performing schools out of 17,000, and theseschools have many resources going for them. Here are some of the things thatcontribute to those high test scores that Overholser doesn't mention:

(1) Extra effort. Theseprincipals are obsessed with their schools. They work 14-hour days and ask thattheir teachers live similar lives. One of the principals even admits that toreplicate his school on a national scale "would require a group ofeducators that does not exist today."

Another principalinterviewed 100 to 150 teachers before making a hire. To put just one newteacher in 17,000 low-income schools would require 25,500 interviews.

(2) Extra money. Several ofthe schools are private and charge $5,000 to $6,000 annual tuition. Given thatfew of the students receive scholarship assistance to meet this fee, onewonders just how poor the families in these schools really are.

In addition, some schoolsreceive considerable amounts of money from private sources. A press releasedescribing a $300,000 donation from Johnson Controls to four private religiousschools cited in the study reads, "We are pleased to join Chrysler, Ford,General Motors and many other corporate sponsors in this worthwhileeffort."

(3) Extra time. A number ofthe schools have 11-month school years. Many have test-oriented after-schoolprograms, and some have Saturday programs.

(4) Smaller size. Smallschools and small classes achieve more. Many of the report's schools are small.One, for instance, has only 152 students in seven grades; another has 285spread over 14 grades (pre-kindergarten to grade 12). If we attempted to rendersuch small schools and classes nationwide the construction costs--not tomention the salary costs--would be staggering.

(5) Selectivity. Publicschools take anyone who lives in the neighborhood. The study's schools do not.One-fourth of the schools are private; others are magnets. These schoolsexercise substantial selectivity in whom they admit. In an international studyonly one of 41 nations' schools (South Africa) scored lower than the District'spublic schools in math and science, and only two of 41 (Colombia and Kuwait)scored the same. To eliminate this colossal gap will require a colossaleffort--much more than Overholser's challenge to simply "Free thePrincipal."

--Gerald W. Bracey