{"id":216,"date":"2014-11-21T20:05:02","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T20:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mocoedblog.org\/?p=216"},"modified":"2014-12-15T21:46:40","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T21:46:40","slug":"jerry-and-jodys-kids-where-are-they-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mocoedblog.org\/?p=216","title":{"rendered":"Jerry and Jody’s Kids: Where are They Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past October, the Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) renamed Broad Acres Elementary School after its former principal Jody Leleck, who died of cancer in 2012.\u00a0 The school now is named the Jody Leleck Elementary School at Board Acres.[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Leleck is credited with raising the academic achievement levels of Board Acres students over a five-year period between 1999 and 2004.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n

Leleck\u2019s friends agree that renaming Broad Acres after her was a noble way to honor her legacy.\u00a0 I did not know Leleck, and yet on the surface, I also agree with the renaming.\u00a0 But recently, when I posted a comment about the renaming on a Leleck friend\u2019s Facebook page, asking, \u201cWhere are the Leleck kids now?,\u201d you would have thought I had called for a Spanish-Inquisition of the Leleck legacy.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the friend thought I was questioning the Leleck Broad Acres legacy.\u00a0 Honestly, all I think I was asking was if is there was any real <\/em>interest in knowing what became of the Leleck kids.\u00a0 After all, isn\u2019t knowing how these students turned out later in middle school or high school or later as adults the point to having a legacy?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The origins of Jerry\u2019s Kids<\/h2>\n

As Leleck was settling into her new chores at Broad Acres Elementary school, Jerry Weast was settling into his first school year as the new MCPS superintendent.\u00a0 During that first year, Weast kicked off a major early childhood initiative that poured additional resources into elementary schools located mostly in low-income Montgomery County neighborhoods, including the Broad Acres community.\u00a0 The Weast initiative, officially referred to as the Early Success Performance Plan (the Plan), included \u201c \u2026 a series of interwoven early education inititiaves, including reduced class size, full-kindergarten, revised curriculum assessments aligned with curriculum, professional development, and increased family\/school communication.\u201d[iii]<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>\u00a0For the first year alone, experts documented the initial price tag of the Plan at $100 million.[iv]<\/a>\u00a0 MCPS was indeed investing a lot of resources into bettering the lives of its poor students.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MCPS students exposed to the Plan soon became known as Jerry\u2019s kids.\u00a0 One might catch a Board of Education meeting on cable TV, and when discussing the Plan and how it was moving along, it was common to hear a Board member ask, \u201cHow are Jerry\u2019s kids doing?\u201d\u00a0 Researchers focused on documenting the Plan, and its impacts, also referred to the various cohorts of students exposed to the Plan as Jerry\u2019s kids.[v]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over the years, I\u2019ve raised the same question about the Weast legacy as I did earlier about the Leleck legacy.\u00a0 Frequently, I have asked friends, experts, and researchers familiar with MCPS and the Plan, \u201cWhere are Jerry\u2019s kids?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That first cohort of Jerry\u2019s kids should be college sophomores now<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

One can easily do the math.\u00a0 The first cohort of Jerry\u2019s kids entered MCPS as kindergarteners during the 1999-2000 school year. \u00a0And so, 15 years later, assuming college was a goal\u2014and that is a typical goal for most MCPS graduates, the vast majority of Jerry\u2019s kids (Class of 2013) should be college sophomores. The second cohort should be college freshmen (Class of 2014), the third should be MCPS high school seniors (Class of 2015), and on and on.\u00a0 A typical MCPS class is roughly 10,000 students, and a typical cohort of Jerry\u2019s kids is roughly 1,000 students.[vi]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Keep in mind that Jerry\u2019s kids (various cohorts) are narrowly defined here as those MCPS students, especially the students of color, exposed to the Plan starting in 1999, although there have been attempts to broaden the group beyond these specific cohorts.\u00a0 For example, in 2010, a Pew report[vii]<\/a> made the claim that the Plan produced impacts across all<\/em> grade levels, and that the Plan also resulted in more MCPS seniors enrolling in college. But in 2010, that very first cohort of Jerry\u2019s kids sat in the 9th<\/sup> grade.\u00a0 The notion that the Plan already had impacted college enrollments for MCPS students exposed to the Plan logically was not possible.\u00a0 If college enrollments were increasing, and they were (this is well documented by MCPS), that outcome was not caused the Plan.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unfortunately Leading for Equity<\/em> does not tell us where Jerry\u2019s kids are<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

To date, there have been a few organized attempts to document the Plan and its impacts.[viii]<\/a>\u00a0 The best, and perhaps the most exhaustive attempt at documenting the Plan, is the 2009 book Leading for Equit<\/em>y: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County Public Schools<\/em>.\u00a0 For free, one can find a great deal of the book\u2019s content at: http:\/\/www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org\/leadingforequity\/<\/a> .<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leading for Equity<\/em> documents the various moving parts under the Plan, as well as how they fit together.\u00a0 There is an entire chapter devoted to how MCPS unions partnered with MCPS management and the Board of Education to support and implement the Plan.\u00a0 There is another chapter devoted solely to discussing the data systems MCPS put in place to monitor the Plan.\u00a0 The book concludes with a chapter that prescribes a step-by-step blueprint for replicating the Plan outside of MCPS.\u00a0 But what\u2019s missing from Leading for Equity<\/em> is any specific data that allow readers to figure out what happened to Jerry\u2019s kids.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There are a few sweeping bulleted data points in an early chapter of Leading for Equity<\/em>; however, it is clear that what\u2019s presented does not at all represent data tied to specific cohorts of Jerry\u2019s kids.\u00a0 For example, one data point is: \u201cIn 1999, 36 percent of all students enrolled in algebra by eight grade, including 17 percent of African American students and 14 percent of Hispanic students. In 2008, 60 percent of all students, including 38 percent of African American and 39 percent of Hispanic students, enrolled in algebra by eighth grade.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This change in a single data point is impressive.\u00a0 But unfortunately, the first cohort of Jerry\u2019s kids were 7th<\/sup> graders during the 2007-08 school year (2008), and so the change reported says little about the impact of the Plan.\u00a0 But even if the first cohort of Jerry\u2019s kids had been 8th<\/sup> graders, this Algebra data point, is not how one would show and track change if the goal was to demonstrate the Plan\u2019s impact.\u00a0 What we want to see would be comparisons of Algebra enrollment rates between cohorts of non-Jerry\u2019s kids and Jerry\u2019s kids.\u00a0 A table such as the one below might sufficient.\u00a0 Such a table would trend Algebra enrollment rates across various senior classes from 2006 (Class of 2010) through 2011 (Class of 2015). \u00a0If the Plan was impacting outcomes in a positive way, one would expect to see steady enrollment rate increases across the classes.\u00a0 And further, we really must see tables that isolate and focus just on Jerry\u2019s kids.\u00a0 Simply, throwing out a data point that says, \u201cBlack kids increased AP enrollments\u201d says practically nothing specific about Jerry\u2019s kids.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note to readers:\u00a0 The table below is a suggested template.\u00a0 The table is intentionally blank.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n8th<\/sup> grade Algebra enrollment rate (% enrolled)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cohort<\/td>\nJerry\u2019s kids<\/td>\nTotal<\/td>\nWhites<\/td>\nAsians<\/td>\nBlacks<\/td>\nHispanics<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Class of 2010 (06)<\/td>\nno<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Class of 2011 (07)<\/td>\nno<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Class of 2012 (08)<\/td>\nno<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Class of 2013 (09)<\/td>\nyes<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Class of 2014 (10)<\/td>\nyes<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Class of 2015 (11)<\/td>\nyes<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

At the middle level, one also could compare Jerry\u2019s kids to kids demographically similar.\u00a0 As a typical MCPS class snakes it way through the grades, we know that kids come and go.\u00a0 By middle school, especially by the time 8th<\/sup> grade Algebra rolls around, we could probably muster up a fairly large group of kids that look like Jerry\u2019s kids demographically, but missed the benefits of the Plan because they entered MCPS at later grades.\u00a0 These groups of Jerry-like kids make for ideal comparison groups.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Did Jerry\u2019s kids really close the gap?<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jerry Weast retired from MCPS in 2011.\u00a0 When he retired most MCPS-watchers[ix]<\/a> concluded that Jerry\u2019s kids were wonder students who had not only narrowed significant long-standing achievement gaps\u2014test scores, graduation rates\u2014but had closed them. \u00a0In fact, in early 2010, Weast testifying to a U.S. congressional subcommittee stated with clarity that MCPS had closed its achievement gap.\u00a0 He told the subcommittee \u201c<\/em>The district (MCPS) is proud of its accomplishments during the last decade in improving the level of student achievement and closing the gap between white and Asian American students and African American and Hispanic students.\u201d[x]<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, MCPS discovered shortly after Weast\u2019s departure that gaps really had not closed at all.\u00a0 MCPS\u2019s new superintendent, Joshua Starr, found himself embarking on a new journey to accomplish what Weast had not accomplished\u2014narrow and close significant long-standing achievement gaps.[xi]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And so the work of raising the achievement levels of non-whites\u2014mostly black and Latino students\u2014remains a MCPS priority.\u00a0 And it should remain a priority because the work is not done.\u00a0 But what amazingly has never been a priority is answering the simple question: Where are Jerry\u2019s kids?\u00a0 <\/strong>Perhaps Jerry\u2019s kids did<\/em> close some gaps. Jerry\u2019s kids are generally compared to MCPS whites (and Asians), with those comparisons revealing gaps never closed.\u00a0 But what if we compared Jerry\u2019s kids only to their peers\u2014those who never benefited from the Plan\u2019s investments but are demographically similar. Shouldn\u2019t we want to know what such comparisons reveal?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t we know if Jerry\u2019s kids outperformed their peers?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A long list of questions without answers<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let me be more specific here about thing we might want to know.\u00a0 And so 15-16 years after implementing the Plan, and spending more money than most public school districts can ever hope to spend, the public has no answers to a long list of critically important questions about Jerry\u2019s kids.\u00a0 Questions such as:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n