New Youk‘s schools: The great experiment

[2007.11.10]New Youk‘s schools: The great experiment伟大的试验

New York‘s schools
The great experiment
伟大的试验
　
Nov 8th 2007 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition
　
Bringing accountability and competition to New York City‘s struggling schools
将责任激励和竞争机制引入苦苦支撑的纽约中小学
　

　
THE 220 children are called scholars, not students, at the Excellence charter school in Brooklyn‘s impoverished Bedford-Stuyvesant district. To promote the highest expectations, the scholars—who are all boys, mostly black and more than half of whom get free or subsidised school lunches—are encouraged to think beyond school, to university. Outside each classroom is a plaque, with the name of a teacher‘s alma mater, and then the year (2024 in the case of the kindergarten), in which the boys will graduate from college.
在位于纽约布鲁克林区的Bedford-Stuyvesant贫民社区，有一所名为“卓越”的特许学校，那里的220个 孩子，校方对他们的称呼不是“学生”，而是“学者”。这些“学者”全都是男孩，大部份是黑人，由于家境贫寒，他们中超过一半人享受免费或政府补贴的学校午 餐。为了勉励他们产生远大理想，校方鼓励他们，不要仅仅关注眼下的学校，而应该拥有自己的大学梦。在这里，每间教室外都钉有一张铭牌，上面刻有老师的母校 名称和一个年份数字，如果是幼儿园班，那就刻2024，这意味着，这个班的孩子们2024年将从大学毕业。
　
Like the other charter schools that are fast multiplying across America, Excellence is an independently run public school that has been allowed greater flexibility in its operations in return for greater accountability, though it cannot select its pupils, instead choosing them by lottery. If it fails, the principal (head teacher) will be held accountable, and the school could be closed. Three years old, Excellence is living up to its name: 92% of its third-grade scholars (eight-year-olds, the oldest boys it has, so far) scored “advanced” or “proficient” in New York state English language exams this year, compared to an average (for fourth-graders) across the state of 68% and only 62% in the Big Apple. They did even better in mathematics.
在美国， 这种特许学校眼下正呈燎原之势。和他们一样，“卓越”学校是一所独立运营的公立学校，由于承担了更大的义务，它在运作上也被赋予更大的灵活性。但是，他们 无权自主选择生源，而是通过抽签决定。如果运作失败，校长将为此承担责任，学校也有可能因此关闭。成立三年来，“卓越”没有辜负它的名字：在本年度纽约市 英语语言考试中，该校92%的三年级学者拿到了“良”或“优”的成绩，这些孩子今年八岁，是该校最高年纪的学生。相比之下，全纽约州达到这一成绩的平均比例（四年级）是68%，而纽约市仅有62%。在数学方面，“卓越”学校的成绩还要更好。
　
This is the sort of performance that the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, now wants to extend from New York‘s 60 charter schools to all of the city‘s schools. On November 5th, the mayor and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein, announced what is in effect the final piece in their grand plan to charterise the entire city school system. As charter schools remain politically contentious, though, they have been careful not to use that phrase in public.
这一优异的表现，正是纽约市长迈克尔·布隆伯格愿意看到的。他希望全市所有的市立学校向这60所特许学校学习。11月5日，市长和纽约市教育行政主管约尔·克莱因宣布了整套改革计划的最后具体内容，该计划旨在将全部的公立教育系统进行特许经营改造。由于“特许学校”在政治上依旧存在争议，他们在公众场合使用这个词的时候仍旧十分谨慎。
　
When Mr Klein took the job in 2002, having led the Clinton administration‘s efforts to break up Microsoft, The Economist joked that he should try to do the same thing to New York‘s schools monopoly. He more or less has. Under the new scheme, every school run by the city will receive a public report card, with a grade that reflects both academic performance and surveys of students, parents and teachers. The first grades were given out this week.
克莱因在担任该职务之前，曾负责过克林顿政府的微软拆分案。他于2002年就任本职时，《经济学人》开玩笑地说，希望他也能对纽约市的教育垄断大刀阔斧地动作一番。如今看来，他基本上不辱使命。根据最新的方案，每一所市立学校都会领到一张公共反馈卡，上面将依据教学成果以及对学生、家长以及老师的调查对学校做出评级。第一份评级结果已于本周公布。
　
Schools that do well will get a boost to their budget; the principal may get a bonus of up to $25,000 on top of a base salary of $115,000-$145,000. Schools graded D or F (about 12% of them this year) will have to submit improvement plans that will be implemented with support from Mr Klein‘s department. Principals whose schools are still faltering after two years will be fired. Schools still failing after four years will be closed. Though each element of what is happening in New York has been tried elsewhere, this seems to be the most far-reaching urban school accountability initiative in America. Mr Klein claims that no school system on earth has innovated on the scale of New York.
对表现优异的学校，政府会增加其预算，其校长也能在115000-145000美元的基本薪金之外获得不超过25000的额外奖金。而被评为D和E的学校（今年有12%） 则必须提交整改计划，并由克莱因领导的教育部门给予相应的协助。两年后仍旧不及格的学校校长将会被解职，四年后还是不及格的话，学校将因此关闭。虽然纽约 这套方案中的每一项内容在其它地方都有过尝试，但这仍然是美国影响最为深远的城市学校责任制改革方案。克莱因表示，迄今为止，地球上其它地方还没有过如此 大规模的教育系统改革。
　
Even New York‘s previous reforming mayor, Rudy Giuliani, failed to improve the city‘s disastrous schools, despite several attempts. When he ran for election in 2001, Mr Bloomberg said the school system was “in a state of emergency”. The graduation rate in 2002 was alarmingly low, 51% of students compared to a national average of 70%. Most New Yorkers thought the system impossible to fix.
就算以改革著称的上一任市长鲁迪·朱利安尼，也无法改进纽约糟糕的教育质量，尽管他也为此做出过努力。在2001年市长竞选时，布隆伯格就曾说过，纽约的教育系统，情况“万分危急”。2002年，该市毕业率仅为令人震惊的51%，而全国平均水平是70%。大部分纽约市民认为，教育系统已经无可救药了。
　

　
To do something about this, Mr Bloomberg demanded, and got, the thing that Mr Giuliani had with the police but not with the schools: mayoral control. As soon as he had it, the new mayor promptly moved the schools headquarters from its sprawling building in Brooklyn to be next to the heart of his government in City Hall. He hired Mr Klein, and they set about changing things—initially by taking decision-making away from the patronage-heavy local school boards, and then by decentralising it to accountable principals, and by actively piloting experimental charter schools that could be models for others. A new “leadership academy” was created to train principals. Big schools with poor graduation rates were closed, and replaced with smaller ones, often several sharing the same building once occupied by a single big school.
为图有所作为，布隆伯格努力争取，并最终牟得了市长直接领导权。朱利安尼曾利用该项权 利进行过警务改革，但没有运用到教育方面。独揽大权后，他做的第一件事就是将位于布鲁克林区破旧建筑里的教育主管部门移入市政厅，与他自己的办公室一墙之 隔。接下来，他聘请克莱因作为政府教育部门主管，随后他们二人开始了改革行动：首先，剥夺各校理事会的决策权，这些理事会内部官官相护，效率低下；其次将 权力分配给实行责任制的各校校长；然后积极推行特许学校作为试点，从而为其它学校树立榜样。此外，他还创设了一个“领导学院”用以培训校长。很多毕业率未 达标的大学校被关闭，取而代之的是若干规模较小的学校，过去一所大学校的校园校舍如今被好几所小学校共同使用。
　
Many of these innovations were paid for by wealthy philanthropists, including Bill Gates of Microsoft, Eli Broad from Los Angeles and sundry hedge-fund managers who have been cajoled into handing over millions of dollars at the annual Robin Hood Foundation auctions. Mr Klein says that this private source of funds was crucial in paying for experiments that might have involved huge political battles had they been paid for out of public funds. The hope is that in future, such reforms might be more widely supported.
这些创新方案中，有相当一部份得到了慈善人士的鼎力相助，其中包括微软的比尔·盖茨，洛杉矶的伊莱•布罗德（Eli Broad）以及很多在一年一度的罗宾汉基金会慈善拍卖会上慷慨解囊的对冲基金经理。克莱因说，这些私人资助对于试点工作至关重要，因为，倘若想使用政府公共资金，大量的政治口水仗将随之而来。未来充满希望，因为类似的改革以后应该能得到更多方面的支持。
　
Even before this week‘s reforms, progress has been sufficiently impressive that the Broad Foundation declared New York the most improved urban school district in the nation. Some $500,000 in Broad scholarships will be distributed to graduates. In 2002 less than 40% of students in grades three to eight (aged eight to 14) were reading and doing maths at their grade level. Today, 65% are at their grade levels in maths and over 50% in reading. Graduation rates are at their highest in decades. Last year the city outperformed other New York state school districts with similar income levels in reading and maths at all grades. The gap between white and minority students has been narrowed.
即使在本周的改革措施出台以前，其取得的进步也令人印象深刻。布罗德基金会宣布纽约为全国范围内进步最快的城市学区。布罗德基金会将为毕业生提供大约50万美元的奖学金。在2002年，只有不到40%的三到八年级（8到14岁）学生，其阅读和数学能力达到其年级标准。如今，数学方面，已经有65%达标，阅读也有超过50%达标。纽约的毕业率达到了几十年来的最高水平。去年，该市所有年级学生的阅读和数学能力超过了与其收入水平相当的同州其他学区。此外，白人学生与少数民族学生之间的差距也已缩小。
　
The New York reforms rely on collecting a lot of data. An $80m computer system designed by IBM will give teachers access to information about student performance and progress as well as contact information for parents.
纽约改革的成功有赖于收集了海量数据。一套价值8000万美元，由IBM公司设计的电脑系统使老师们能方便地获取学生在校表现、进步情况以及其父母的联系方式等信息。
　
Equally crucial has been Mr Bloomberg‘s success in winning round hitherto reluctant principals, who have agreed to sign a new accountability contract, and the teachers‘ unions, which despite quibbles broadly support the new system. The fact that teachers‘ starting pay is up on average by 43% since Mr Bloomberg took office may have helped. But whatever the reason, there seems a good chance that the reforms are here to stay.
同样至关重要的是，布隆伯格成功地迫使原本不情愿的校长们同意签署一项新的责任制合同，以及让吹毛求疵的教师工会最终全面支持该计划。自从布隆伯格上台以来，教师们的平均起薪上涨了43%，也许正是这点发挥了作用。但不管原因究竟如何，令人欣慰的是，改革的车轮已经踏上旅程。