Morgan Targets Cobb Achievement Gaps

At his second town hall meeting of the year, Cobb County Board of Education member David Morgan spoke to parents and community members Saturday about closing achievement gaps in South Cobb and throughout the county.

In front of a room of about 30 at , Morgan—whose post covers South Cobb—said there are three key programs he thinks will help: the Rocketship Education Model, Teach for America, and the National Council on Teacher Quality audit.

After allowing attendees to speak about various issues, including the , redistricting and , Morgan stated his case for why academic achievement gaps are his main priority.

He presented the fall 2010 Iowa Test of Basic Skills results for South Cobb schools, which were consistently below the district’s average across the board.

Attendees voiced their thoughts on the reasons for this, which included: more lower socioeconomic households, more money in other schools to purchase supplemental teaching materials, and a pervasive lack of parent engagement.

Most agreed the top reason was a lack of parent involvement. Morgan presented a different reason.

He explained that when he taught at Knowledge Is Power Program Academy charter school, it was, at the time, the highest performing school in Atlanta Public Schools. Success was not based on socioeconomic backgrounds or parent engagement, he said.

In fact, Morgan said the school was only two miles from the system’s worst performing school in the same neighborhood with the same community.

Morgan said the high level of performance was because of high levels of parent and teacher quality, and he said the keys to ensuring that quality is finding principals and teachers who are competent and who fully embrace the challenges that exist in these schools.

“You’ve got to have that flooding your culture,” he said.

Morgan explained that when he was first elected to the board, he wanted to address the disparities in South Cobb. But several people felt he was only pointing out the negatives in the area or simply pointing fingers at administrators or faculty members of certain schools.

“I’m not assigning blame to anyone. It is what it is … The gap is there," he said. "I’m not throwing any teachers or principals under the bus."

Rocketship Education Model

Morgan first introduced the Rocketship Education Model for elementary schools. In this model, students attend one block of math and science, two blocks of literacy and social studies and one block called Learning Lab.

In Learning Lab, students have computer lessons that are individualized to meet their learning needs.

“I believe in this model,” Morgan said.

Rocketship allows for “blended learning” that reaches each student on his or her level. The model helps ensure that, as teachers direct their energy to helping underachieving students get caught up, children on advanced levels are not left “twiddling their thumbs” or being “undereducated," he said.

Teach For America

Morgan also proposed bringing in more Teach For America educators to the district to increase teacher quality.

Last year, Gwinnett County won the prestigious 2010 Broad Prize for Urban Education and $1 million for students graduating in 2011. Morgan said the prestige of the award helps bring in additional funding from private organizations, like The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The Walton Family Foundation.

According to Morgan, Gwinnett has 75 Teach for America teachers, while Cobb only has one.

Gwinnett is the largest school district in the state with 161,000 students. The Cobb County School District is not far behind with a district-wide student population of 107,000 as of October 2010.

Morgan said he would like the district to have 25 Teach For America educators by the start of the next school year.

“Their training is second to none,” he said, adding that Teach For America provides ongoing training and guidance for its teachers. “I don’t think you can microwave a good teacher … I believe in ongoing training so you can get better at your craft, and that’s a budget fight.”

National Council on Teacher Quality audit

Morgan’s third potential solution to the achievement gap problem: have the National Council on Teacher Quality audit the school district's human capital practices and policies.

“We have to change current policies that prohibit us from getting the best teachers,” he said.

The audit would cost $75,000. Morgan said the Gates Foundation would pay $65,000 and the remaining $10,000 would come from the Cobb Chamber of Commerce and Wellstar if they get on board.

Morgan, along with National Council members, will present the audit plan to the Cobb Chamber, Wellstar and the NAACP in late April at the Cobb Chamber.

“If the chamber says, ‘We back that,’ the school board will say, ‘We back that,” Morgan said. He added that the chamber is “concerned with economic vibrance,” and good schools drive up property values.

Companies want to do business in communities with high property values, Morgan said.

The county has a policy that says tenured teachers must receive a contract at another county school if they are found to be an ill fit for their current school, Morgan explained.

Administrators at the tenured teacher’s new school have no say about whether they want or need that particular teacher, the board member said.

The National Council audit, which takes four months, could help change this policy, Morgan explained.

These are only the first steps in Morgan’s plan to help close the achievement gap, he said, adding he intends to unveil two more in the near future.

Key Points of Rocketship Education Model (from its website):

Learning Lab does not require certified teachers and allows for reduced staffing by five teachers and five classrooms per schools, saving $500,000.

The savings are reinvested into:

• Principal training—each new principal receives a full year of training.

• Response to intervention—students below grade level get an extra hour of tutoring.

• Academic deans—each school has a full-time academic dean to mentor teachers and run a Response to Intervention.

• Teacher salaries—Rocketship pays roughly 20 percent higher than surrounding districts.

Key Points about Teach For America (from its website and from Morgan's town hall materials):

"Teach for America is a nationally recognized nonprofit that specializes in putting the best and brightest individuals in urban classrooms to teach. Their model for preparing teachers for success looks like this:

• Recruitment—Teach for America recruits from the most prestigious and hailed colleges and universities in our country. The organization also recruits highly accomplished career-changers from other industries.
• Institute—A five-week intensive training program designed to set corps members up for success from their first day of teaching.
• Coaching—Throughout their two-year commitments, corps members receive one-on-one coaching from program directors and meet in learning teams to further develop the knowledge and skills needed to lead their students to success.
• Online support—TFANet is an online hub for corps members and alumni and includes lesson plans, videos and other resources. It is a forum for corps members and alumni to connect.

Key Points about the National Council on Teacher Quality (from Morgan's town hall materials and from its website):

"The National Council on Teacher Quality advocates for reforms in a broad range of teacher policies at the federal, state and local levels in order to increase the number of effective teachers. In particular, NCTQ recognizes the absence of much of the evidence necessary to make a compelling case for change and seeks to fill that void with a research agenda that has direct and practical implications for policy."

NCTQ specializes in doing audits on school districts about their human capital practices and policies. They give formal recommendations to the district about what practices and polices are detrimentally impacting student achievement.