Fostering the talents of individual students

Big Ideas in Education: More on Harvard's Ed.L.D. Program:

...In many ways, Weast's tenure (he announced his pending retirement last week) is a unique story of the triumph of political will over the status quo: Weast moved successfully to divide the high-performing, low-poverty and low-performing, high-poverty sections of his district into two zones, green and red, and funnel attention and resources from the former to the latter. Weast has identified seven keys to college readiness as his benchmarks for success in the district: they include on-time advancement to college-ready math and reading, and high performance on AP, IB, SAT and ACT exams. It is Weast's particularly political style of leadership, however, that has garnered his staunchest criticism, from parents and policymakers who argue he perpetuates inequalities in the district by low-balling accountability measures.


I spoke to one of these critics, district parent and gifted and talented education advocate Frederick Stichnoth, at length. In our conversation, Stichnoch argued the key to racial equity isn't simply ensuring all races achieve the same elementary benchmarks but to foster the talents of individual students, particularly minority students who can serve their communities best by achieving their full potential. By focusing narrowly on the seven keys, Stichnoth says, Weast has hidden broader differences in programming between green and red zone schools that prevent poorer and more diverse schools from serving individual student needs. More generally, Stichnoth views the division of the district into zones as itself hypocritical and counterproductive. By partnering with Harvard, and the rest of what he calls the "national education elite," Weast has avoided the district's particular problems by adopting the "cultural competence, courageous conversations and college-readiness buzzwords."


Stichnoth is not alone in his criticism of Weast's technique. Washington Post education writer Jay Matthews offered a measured criticisms of Weast's strategy as described in Leading for Equity as focusing too little on quality teachers (a criticism Education Sector analyst Elena Silva thought unjustified). The Post's Daniel de Vise also outlined critiques of the proxies Weast and the book use to measure growth, noting a declining minority graduation rate during Weast's tenure. Though from arguably different angles, both critiques argue Weast gave too little focus to district particularities and spent too much time shoring up political support for his agenda, a strategy which PELP and Harvard make no bones about emphasizing...