Follow-up on Cochrane turnaround

I got an email today from David Markus,  the writer of the Edutopia package on Cochrane's "turnaround" that I wrote about yesterday.

I had re-messaged Markus,  the publication's editorial director,  to let him know former Cochrane Principal Terry Brown was challenging his account of then-Superintendent Peter Gorman visiting the east Charlotte middle school in 2006 and proclaiming,  "This may be the worst school I have ever seen."  Brown,  who ended a three-year stint as Cochrane's principal at the end of the 2006-07 school year,  says Gorman never visited the school while he was there.  Brown said he and Gorman had several conversations during the year that the two of them shared in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  and Gorman never gave him any indication that he held such dim views of Cochrane's academic performance.

Markus stands by his reporting: "In an email to me on November 2nd, Pete Gorman corroborated the 'worst' school quote and added that his visit to Cochrane was the most disheartening school visit of his career."  No word from Gorman;  I haven't been able to reach him since he announced his resignation in June.

I still don't know who pitched the Cochrane turnaround story,  which has gotten national and local attention,  or whether Markus realized that part of the proficiency gains he cited came from a change in N.C. testing rules that bumped up most low-scoring schools.  But on the general topic, Markus said:

"We believe it is a  'turnaround'  for the statistics we cite.  As a student of school turnarounds I am sure you know that when a school has fallen as low as Cochrane had,  it will take several years to dig out.  Cochrane is well on its way after only a few,  but as we make plain in our package,  their rise to excellence is not nearly complete.  Nor is it guaranteed.  That said I am very impressed with (Principal) Josh Bishop's team and the results they are achieving."

We're certainly in agreement that turnarounds are complex and slow.  This got me curious enough to do my own walk down memory lane ... actually, the N.C. school report cards. Here's what the numbers show, with some context.

At the end of 2006-07,  the year Gorman may or may not have proclaimed Cochrane the worst,  67 percent of its students passed the reading exam and 37 percent passed math.  The school fell short of the state target for growth,  generally described as an average of one year's academic gain per student.

In 2007-08,  after Brown's retirement,  Valarie Williams was hired to lead Cochrane.  State officials also introduced an eighth-grade science exam,  and bumped up the number of correct answers needed to pass the reading test.  Most educators agreed the old cut-off was too low,  but the change brought a plunge in pass rates across the state,  especially for minority and low-income students and the schools (such as  Cochrane) that served them.  In 2008, Cochrane's pass rates were 32 percent in reading, 34 percent in math and 14 percent in science.  Cochrane again failed to make the growth target.

In 2008-09,  North Carolina started requiring students who failed state exams to try again,  boosting pass rates across the state.  That year Cochrane hit 47 percent in reading,  54 percent in math and 35 percent in science,  and it met the "expected growth" target.

In February 2010,  Gorman reassigned Williams to Vance High School as part of his "strategic staffing" plan to improve that school.  Josh Bishop became interim principal (he got the permanent job at the start of 2010-11).  That year ended with Cochrane at 52 percent passing reading, 67 percent passing math and  61 percent passing science. The school made "high growth."

Last year Cochrane held steady at 52 percent passing reading, declined to 59 percent passing math and rose to 63 percent passing science,  with an "expected growth" rating.  It was a year when many CMS schools saw some slump in scores.

The gains in math and science are impressive, even with the retesting boost.  Still,  it's worth noting that Cochrane continues to hover around 50 percent proficiency on reading.  In 2011,  only 43 percent of students passed both reading and math exams,  a mark that signals readiness to move on to the tougher high school courses.  And the black,  Hispanic and low-income students who make up the majority of Cochrane's students had pass rates about 10 percentage points lower than the average for those same groups in CMS and statewide.

Cochrane turnaround tale ... really?

The contrast between Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools'  glowing national image and the controversy that surrounds it at home is a source of much discussion.

I suspect those of us in the thick of things do tend to fixate on problems.  Up close,  bumps in the road can look like mountains.

But if problems get exaggerated locally,  I've also seen success exaggerated nationally.  Most recent case in point:  The Edutopia package on Cochrane's  "turnaround"  that's been widely circulated.  I first saw it on the ASCD Smartbrief,  a national roundup of education reporting,  early this month.  CMS officials played the video portion at the conclusion of a Dec.  13 report on schools in transition.

My first reaction was confusion.  Cochrane,  an east Charlotte middle school that's starting to add high school grades this year,  hasn't been on my  "success story"  radar.  Had I missed something?

A look at my data sheets said no.  Cochrane ended 2011 with a composite pass rate of 58 percent on state exams.  Of 35 CMS middle schools,  only four scored lower  --  and two of those,  Spaugh and Williams, closed this year.  More telling,  only two middle schools earned a lower growth rating,  a measure designed to make sure schools are judged on how much their students gain,  not just how well prepared they are when they arrive.

So why is one of the district's weakest middle schools being highlighted as a school that  "beats the odds every day"?  David Markus,  Edutopia's editorial director and the writer of the main article,  hasn't responded to my message asking who suggested the story.  In another part of the package,  an endnote thanks The Broad Foundation for sharing research about top urban districts.

The package focuses mostly on Cochrane's significant gains in pass rates from 2008 to 2011.  What's not  mentioned is that the same can be said for most struggling schools in North Carolina,  thanks to a change in testing that took effect in 2009.  In 2008,  students took the test once.  Starting in 2009,  those who fell below the "passing" line were required to try again,  and be counted as passing if they met the mark on the second test.  Generally,  the more failing students a school had,  the bigger the  "retest"  bump it showed.  As CMS superintendent,  Peter Gorman frequently blasted the retesting system as giving schools an artificial inflation in pass rates.

Gorman, who left CMS in June to work with education technology for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.,  is featured in a dramatic opening to Markus'  story.  It describes Gorman visiting Cochrane in 2006,  the year he started as superintendent: "Known for his no-nonsense determination to turn around the district's failing schools, Gorman minces no words in describing Cochrane: 'This may be the worst school I have ever seen.' "  Gorman is later quoted as saying, five years later, "There was no instructional focus. It was the most disheartening school visit of my career."

Terry Brown,  Cochrane's principal in 2006-07,  called me after reading the first version of this post.  While I had noted that Gorman certainly wasn't saying such things publicly at that time,  and that administrators tend to give their most vivid  "bad schools"  accounts in hindsight,  Brown, who retired in 2007, says this goes beyond dramatic reconstruction.

"Gorman never visited Cochrane the first year he was there.  Not one time,"  Brown said.  "He was scheduled and canceled.  I'm appalled.  None of this is true."


Bottom line:  Edutopia, a publication of the George Lucas Educational Foundation,  is dedicated to highlighting academic solutions that include technology, teacher development and "comprehensive assessment."  CMS is well known for those approaches,  and Cochrane,  as noted prominently in the story,  is working with Texas Instruments to use technology in math instruction.  One sign that it's helping,  from my spreadsheets:  CMS reported that last year only 49 percent of Cochrane sixth-graders were proficient on math exams,  while 65 percent of eighth-graders were.  One troubling signal:  That's down from 75 percent of Cochrane eighth-graders proficient in math the previous year.

I don't want to detract from the hard work and high aspirations of the faculty and students at Cochrane.  I'd love to write their turnaround story sometime down the road,  when I see solid evidence that it's justified.  All this is just to say that improving education is complicated business,  and it's wise to scrutinize naysayers and cheerleaders alike.