Education: Food for Thought

From today's Wall Street Journal, an editorial by Dr. Paul Peterson, professor of government at Harvard University and director of its Program on Education Policy and Governance, and Matthew Chingos, a research fellow at the Program:

In effect, a competition was run among the three types of management -- for-profit, nonprofit, and government-run. Four years into the race, here are the results: Students at schools managed by for-profit firms were roughly six months ahead in math than would be expected had the schools remained in the hands of the school district. In reading, students in schools managed by for-profit firms were two months further along than they would have been if the schools had been under district control, though that difference was not large enough to give us statistical certainty. Meanwhile the nonprofits -- and the school district's own reorganized schools -- did no better than expected.
Our findings are based upon information gleaned from nearly 400,000 student test scores made available to us by the School District of Philadelphia. They gave us the test scores of every tested student for the years 2001 through 2006, allowing us to track student performance at for-profit, nonprofit and low-performing district schools both before and after the management changes took place.
...Though we believe our methodology to be state of the art, our findings will nonetheless be controversial, because they contradict a prior study by the RAND Corp. in February, which found no impact of private management on student performance. The RAND study, however, failed to separate out the schools managed by the for-profit firms from those managed by the nonprofit organizations. In our study, too, management effects are nil when the two are mixed together, as the positive impacts of for-profit firms are canceled out by the negative impacts of nonprofit organizations.
Even Adam Smith would not expect that for-profit management will work anytime, and anywhere. But the Philadelphia results demonstrate that putting schools in private hands could lead to improvements in education. At the very least, the current Philadelphia for-profit schools should be allowed to continue under private management. If results from the first four years continue to hold up, they make a strong case for giving the private sector a larger role in urban education

This issue will continue to unfold. Any thoughts?

American Cancer Society’s Cattle Baron’s Ball

Clay Gibbons is Co-Chair of this year’s Cattle Baron’s Ball and invites everyone to come out and help “Stomp Out Cancer”.
The event is on November 9th at Rembert Farm in Alachua. Check out www.gainesvillecattlebaronsball.com for more information or contact clay at 352-372-2534x116

Congratulations Anne Kress!

Check out the article in the Alligator about Anne: http://www.alligator.org/

Congratulations on your new position Anne!

Education Session

Yesterday's session was very thought-provoking. If you'd like to continue the discussion about possible remedies to some of the problems in our educational system, please do so below.

Junior Achievement Breakfast

On October 25th Junior Achievement will have its annual breakfast meeting. If anyone would like to attend they should contact Bryan Harrington.

For more information on JA, its goals, and the breakfast meeting, visit the Junior Achievement website.

Education Shadows

Rachel McGriff enjoyed her lunch at Ft. Clarke Middle School:

Here is the nutritious, carb-loading lunch served at Ft. Clarke Middle School. I would have LOVED some Grandy's yesterday...although since I went to the cafeteria with a teacher, I had the option of sweet tea instead of milk.

Social Services Day

I hope everyone found the Social Services session to be informative and thought-provoking. Here are some photos taken by Rachel McGriff at Gainesville Harvest.

Another hearty Grandy's lunch


These are from our visit to St. Francis House

Community Tour

Not a bad photo op.

Sensible shoes
Ready to Learn
Group photo
Meditating on the state of the community.
Ready for move-in?

SimSoc

He's no princess.

Snazzy headwear
Cell Phone Embargo
Way to negotiate on their level!

Getting ready for the day.

Welcome LG 34!

This is the blog for Leadership Gainesville Class 34. We are looking forward to another great year and hope that this will be a helpful source of information as we proceed.

Yay for LG 34

Thanks for setting this up Joe! It's going to be a fun 9 months!