But Would It Work? by Linda Perlstein

To me, the strongest education reporting—the strongest reporting on social issues in general—illuminates the relationship between public policy and real life. Particularly in education, that relationship is often a disconnect, and one worth explaining. (Which is why I made that disconnect a primary theme of my last book.)

After reading Michele McNeil’s solid piece in Education Week on May 14 about Mississippi’s surprising new accountability plan for superintendents, I saw a prime opportunity for journalists to explain how human realities could stand in the way of a policy that might sound good on paper. In "Mississippi to Superintendents: Fix Districts or Lose Jobs," McNeil explained legislation that the state’s governor signed in May. Under the law, superintendents will be fired if their district, or at least half of their district’s schools, are labeled "underperforming" under the state’s accountability system two years in a row.

The law faces a voting-rights test, McNeil wrote, because two-fifths of the state’s superintendents are elected instead of appointed. Her story focuses heavily on the issues of elected versus appointed superintendents, as well as the logistical considerations of the law. Which leaves lots of room for further exploration of what I see as the key issue: whether such a policy would hurt or help schools and children.

The definition of "underperforming," in this case, has not been defined. But certainly it will be based primarily on test scores. I wonder if people really understand what it takes to increase scores as dramatically as they probably need to in these districts, and the implausibility of doing so that fast through solid academic reform. Michelle Rhee, the Washington, D.C., chancellor, recently warned as such. "It's not possible to take a chronically failing school and in a few months or a year turn it around," she said in April. Now try several schools.

Say a superintendent arrived in July just as the most recent batch of scores came out. With a two-year clock ticking, he or she would have to institute personnel and curricular changes immediately, without much study of what’s appropriate, what’s feasible and what works—for that specific district, for those specific schools. Many experts will tell you that the worst reforms are concocted in haste.
Rather than waiting for a policy to take effect and then measuring its worth, as we too often do in journalism, Mississippi and national education journalists, as well as anyone interested in school reform, should ask these questions:

• What do superintendents and administrators say about how long it takes to assess what’s not working in a district?
• How long does it take to identify problem employees and terminate them, given contractual restrictions?
• What kind of steps go into changing curricula? In schools and classrooms, what happens when new curricula and instructional policies are introduced?
• How long do experts say it takes for the effects of systemic reform to show up in student test scores, if they do at all?

Yes, there are examples of schools and districts that have dramatically improved their pass rates on state tests, but are there many—or any—that have done so in two years?

It would be great to see these questions addressed in the media before such laws are signed; as much as possible, we should aspire to help readers anticipate the effects of policy change before the policy is a done deal. There are many areas in which to do that these days, especially in regards to the many elements of No Child Left Behind reauthorization.

But even once a law is inked, there’s a lot of legwork that can be done to sort out the relationship between policy and ground-level reality. In the case of the Mississippi law—and possible copycat legislation elsewhere in the country—journalists shouldn’t wait a minute to address its implementation. The clock is ticking, not just for Mississippi’s superintendents, but for us.

Linda Perlstein had baby Milo Henry Miller at 5a.m. on June 11- he was 7lbs., 13 oz. and 21 inches long. She is on maternity leave until September. . To be put in touch with an interim public editor over the summer, contact Mesha Williams at 202-452-9830 or publications@ewa.org or contact them directly.