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Is Your Child Being Taught from a Script?

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Is Your Child Being Taught from a Script?

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Is Your Child Being Taught From a Script? | Education.com

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If your child's teacher is using "scripted teaching," he may be using a tightly worded script to explain concepts, ask questions, and interact with students.

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Making Schools Work with Hedrick Smith . School-By-School Reform . Scripted Lessons | PBS

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Eric Smith, the superintendent responsible for success in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina, advocates the scripted strategy. He argues that in order to create change on a large scale, schools must get on the same page with their curriculum so that teachers know what is expected.

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This dissertation explores the implementation of a scripted reading program in one district. It includes pros and cons of scripted programs along with recommendations.

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An action research study that explores the downside of scripted programs

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An action research study that explores the downside of scripted programs

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Scripted Reading Instruction? What's a Teacher Educator to Do?

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Scripted Reading Instruction? What's a Teacher Educator to Do?

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A teacher's rant against Teacher's College's curriculum

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A teacher's rant against Teacher's College's curriculum

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Many school districts are forced to purchase, institute, and receive staff development on, new curricular materials due to failing to meet NCLB targets. Here is all you need to know about one of the most popular choices of districts: The Lucy Calkins Writer's Workshop, a useless heap of crap that no self-respecting teacher would rely on. Sure, there are a couple of good nuggets, but that's about it. You can get those nuggets from any veteran teacher, without the million dollar price tag. Here is the money section from a Hoover Institute review of Lucy's material:

So Do Her Methods Work?

Calkins is shaping the education of millions of children, yet no independent research backs the efficacy of her programs. Aside from grumblings from the New York City teachers required to work under her system, there has been remarkably little open debate about the basic premises behind Calkins's approach, or even feedback on how the programs are faring in the classroom.

What controversy exists generally centers around two concerns: First, her programs do not explicitly teach phonics-which she calls "drill and kill." She favors a "whole language" approach to literacy, which builds on the premise that reading and writing develop naturally in children. Her detractors argue that this lack of direct instruction leaves many children, especially those who already struggle, at a disadvantage.

The other argument, perhaps resonating with a larger audience, is that her methodology lacks real content, has no reference to any knowledge that should be learned. In The Art of Teaching Reading, she explains that she doesn't want "all reading and writing to be in the service of thematic studies" but instead seeks to "spotlight reading and writing in and of themselves." Calkins's insistence that students should focus mostly on writing about their lives rankles the many educators who believe that curriculum should be focused on content-rich material, and that students should read and write about information outside of their own personal lives. Broadening one's knowledge base strengthens reading comprehension, builds vocabulary, and deepens knowledge of the world, all of which help students understand the text, but also, as E. D. Hirsch writes, "what the text implies but doesn't say."

What has not been openly questioned is the assumption that Calkins has retained her ordinal stance, that it is the teacher's job to midwife a child's own, often richly imaginative voice, rather than impose her own. Calkins's program originally gained its popularity, at least in part, because of its mission to help children make their distinct voices heard. She was known as a champion for flexible, creative teaching, uniquely attuned to children. "If we adults listen and watch closely," she wrote in 1986, "our children will invite us to share their worlds and their ways of living in the world." And while this impulse continues to inform aspects of her approach, she has tended over time to become increasingly focused on enforcing her own methodology; many of her techniques limit children's genuine engagement with reading and writing. This insistence on only one way to do things, not surprisingly, has translated into a demand that teachers quiet their own impulses, gifts, and experiences, and speak in one, mandated voice.

Recently, Common Good, a bipartisan organization committed to "restoring common sense to American law" asked New York City public school teachers to keep a diary for 10 days and consider specifically "how bureaucracy impacts everyday teaching." The results were presented in a town hall-style meeting attended by more than a hundred educators and union representatives. One of the topics was "mandated teaching," which referred specifically to the required presence of Calkins and Teachers College in city schools. The responses were almost universally negative.

This entry from a teacher's diary is typical: "Administrators expect all our reading and writing workshops to adhere to an unvarying and strict script....For example: 'Writers, today and everyday you should remember to revise your writing by adding personal comments about the facts.' Sometimes I feel like I'm a robot regurgitating the scripted dialogue that's expected of us day in and day out."

A kindergarten teacher reported how she was instructed to ask her students, on the third day of class, "to reflect on how they'd grown as writers." She explained that the children were still preoccupied with missing their mothers and felt the assignment was "ridiculous."

The truth is there isn't one way to teach writing, or a limited number of ways to have conversations with children about their imaginative work and their lives. Calkins would have done well to heed the counsel of Donald Murray, whose prescient caution she quotes in The Art of Teaching Reading: "Watch out lest we suffer hardening of the ideologies. Watch out lest we lose the pioneer spirit which has made this field a great one."

Barbara Feinberg is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as the New York Times and the Boston Globe . She is the author of Welcome to Lizard Motel: Protecting the Imaginative Lives of Children , Beacon Press, 2005.

So, citizens, inform yourselves. Stop voting for a board of education that has no clue about education. Hold your superintendents responsible for implementing mandatory crap and calling it a best practice. Talk to a teacher about this stuff. Find out how we really feel (promise to keep conversations private, because we all fear for our jobs).

UPDATE: There are some folks who really like Lucy Calkins, and they feel as if those of us who rail against it are being unfair, or trying to hurt feelings, or something. This is a pretty silly way to get your point across. If you think Lucy Calkins--a whole language advocate--is the best way to go, then state why, don't whine and say it works for you, therefore it should work for all.

Also, let's make it clear that the program has different assets and liabilities depending on what age students are using the program, the competence of the teacher, the background knowledge of the teacher regarding the teaching of reading and writing (besides LC) and myriad other considerations.

My state scores for my 2nd graders the last 2 years in a row have far exceeded the state, district, and grade-level average in my own school--by and average of 10 points! I shun Lucy Calkins, I shun Everyday Math and Scott Forseman Math. Why am I successful? Honestly, it doesn't take much more than being smart yourself, learning a little theory, finding out what standards need to be met, and then teaching the kids! If you can't do it, well, then, you just can't do it. I believe teachers are born, not molded!

More railing against Lucy Calkins here. Some of the problems folks are having with these reviews are that they emanate from right-wing machines. Just because someone is Right, doesn't make them always wrong. People are simply more complicated than that (yes, simply complicated. it works)!

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The Curriculum of Sanction: Lucy Calkins (updated)

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Many school districts are forced to purchase, institute, and receive staff development on, new curricular materials due to failing to meet NCLB targets. Here is all you need to know about one of the most popular choices of districts: The Lucy Calkins Writer's Workshop, a useless heap of crap that no self-respecting teacher would rely on.

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Oregon adopts Units of Study to avoid scripted programs

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Oregon adopts Units of Study to avoid scripted programs

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Portland Public Schools, searching for a new way to teach young students to read and write after years of struggle, has decided to go it alone.

At the strong urging of teachers and other educators who've sampled various reading series, Oregon's largest district on Tuesday rejected offerings from every major publisher. Instead, it decided to buy six components from five companies and combine them into a unique reading and writing curriculum of its own.

Beaverton schools have already made a similar shift and will add the same main reading program that Portland picked, Units of Study in Reading, to all 33 of its elementary and K-8 schools this summer.

It's becoming increasingly common for the nation's school districts to create their own elementary reading curriculum. Educators have realized that rigidly adhering to a single reading series, which used to be praised as showing "fidelity," poorly served a lot of children, including those learning English as a second language, said Donald Bear, a literacy expert and author of both mainstream and supplemental reading programs.

Mixing and merging an assortment of reading programs "is risky," said University of Oregon education professor Gina Biancarosa, a Harvard University-trained expert in reading and literacy. The effectiveness of the suite of materials Portland and Beaverton have chosen is unproven, and the approach requires greater skill and judgment by teachers to pick the right lessons and the smartest sequence for skill-building.

But sticking with a mainstream reading series would be risky, too, Biancarosa said, noting there's no solid evidence that textbooks by familiar names such as Scott Foresman or Houghton Mifflin are effective either.

Portland picked teachers from about three dozen schools who tried the six components it plans to adopt, plus a seventh program it didn't pick up, for much of this winter and spring. District officials measured some of the results, but so far have declined to release the findings.

Mainstream reading programs, which contain scripted lessons designed to teach phonics, fluent reading, accuracy, comprehension and vocabulary, are called comprehensive core reading programs. Research into how young readers learn, along with a big nudge from the federal No Child Left Behind law, enshrined them as standard in nearly all U.S. schools over the past decade and half.

But after Portland Public Schools' current reading series, Scott Foresman's Reading Street, didn't pan out well, district officials were open to novel options. A district selection committee eventually suggested forgoing any mainstream reading series until at least 2023.

Teachers and other educators on the district's selection committee had two primary reasons for ruling out mainstream offerings, said Elizabeth Martin, one of five former teachers who coordinate and provide training for elementary literacy instruction in Portland Public Schools.

Most series failed to broadly include cultural minorities or portrayed them in stereotypical ways, she said. And all of them catered to a limited band of students in the middle, offering little instruction that fits well for the weakest or strongest readers, Martin said.

Portland chief academic officer Chris Russo said the district must do a better job teaching to all children to read -- and black and Latino students in particular.

In 2014, the last year Oregon's old state tests were given, 27 percent of the district's third-graders failed the reading exam. In 2015, using the more challenging Smarter Balanced tests, 43 percent of Portland third-graders, including about 70 percent of blacks and Latinos, fell short of the national proficiency standard.

Russo is hopeful the new approach, backed with lots of teacher training, can help drive the huge improvements Portland schools need to show.

This fall, the new approach will be fully implemented in all Beaverton elementary schools and in 10 of Portland's 56 elementary and K-8 schools. Portland plans to provide the new materials to its remaining 46 schools over the next two years.

Both districts plan to rely heavily on teachers' judgment to interpret test results and customize lessons, small group work and independent assignments to match the needs of individual readers, said Portland's Martin and Beaverton's Nicole Will, administrator for elementary curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Teachers don't view that as putting too much weight on their shoulders, Will said. Rather, they've been hungry to cast aside scripted programs and use their professional judgment to match lessons to students.

"They're finding it refreshing, exciting," she said.

Elizabeth Skorohodov, a kindergarten teacher at Atkinson Elementary in Southeast Portland, tried out Units of Study this spring and was relieved to no longer have only lessons that sail over the heads of her struggling readers and bore her most advanced ones.

"It is very much based on the interests of the kids," she said. "It's highly engaging, and all my students are seeing themselves as readers and writers. It is a really rich program, and I saw results."

The materials Portland chose

Teachers at schools across Portland who tested various options are fired up about their committee's final selections, which the Portland school board approved unanimously Tuesday night.

Teachers will need to weave all the programs together and customize the scope and arrangement of lessons for individual students. That will require far more training than simply opening a teaching manual containing a year's worth of scripted lessons.

Both Portland and Beaverton plan three full days of training in August for K-5 teachers in schools adopting the new programs. The districts also plan to offer whole and partial days of training during the year. Portland will also pay eight full-time coaches for the 10 schools that get the books this year: Arleta, Bridger, Forest Park, Grout, Laurelhurst, Lewis, Sitton, Vernon, Vestal and Whitman

Portland is taking those steps because it learned a lesson when it last adopted new reading materials in 2007, Russo said.

The district first failed to get widespread buy-in from teachers, a problem it rectified this time by asking two large teacher-dominated committees to frame and make the selection, Russo said.

The district then compounded the problem, he said, by providing almost no training to teachers, except in high-needs schools. As a result, some teachers barely used the textbooks, while others felt ill-equipped to use their full spectrum of features, he said.

Biancarosa, the University of Oregon expert on literacy education, said providing as much training as Beaverton and Portland plan to offer is smart.

"Professional development and coaching is really key, no matter what what curriculum or potpourri of products you are putting together," she said. " Sixty hours of training in the first year sounds fantastic."

There is no evidence from a valid scientific study to show that Units of Study in Reading, either alone or in a suite like the ones Portland and Beaverton are developing, work to get nearly all students to learn to read well.

To assure taxpayers, parents and teachers that the new materials are effective, Biancarosa said, Portland Public Schools should hire an independent research team to examine the results and make them public. Russo said the district is committed to doing so, but has not decided on any specifics of who would to the research or what metrics and standards of success they might use.

At a public hearing, Meg Hagan, a parent of two Portland students and an advocate for students who have difficulty learning to read, pressed the district's curriculum director and board members to explain how they'll determine whether the new materials are a success. None of them gave specific answers.

State reading tests, given starting in third grade, won't show how well the program is working in the earlier grades. But parents and educators will want answers to that question after the new approach is in place, Biancarosa said.

But board member Julie Esparza Brown, whose day job as a Portland State University education professor involves knowing research about early reading instruction, said she and the rest of the board will insist on seeing evidence the new approach is paying off for all groups of students.

Biancarosa said current tests developed at UO that track young students' progress in reading can provide important insights if researchers compare results from the 10 schools with the new materials to 10 very similar Portland schools without them.

"It doesn't have to be a massive study," she said. "But it would be important to have an evaluation of the immediate and the more lasting effects of the shift."

Bear, author of a comprehensive reading series and also the "Words Their Way" phonics, vocabulary and spelling program that Portland and Beaverton chose for their new approach, said publishers are making it easier for districts to pick and choose different elements that add up to a holistic way to teach reading.

"Publishers of both supplemental and comprehensive programs are responding to this interest by creating a greater variety of materials," he said. They know that, under the Common Core State Standards, teachers are expected to get all students to read and write at more advanced levels - and it will take more individualized, culturally responsive teaching materials to get them there, he said.

"This is an exciting time," Bear said. And, he predicted, "There will be further changes, and more adaptive instruction at students' developmental levels, as digital materials become more available."

Most elementary schools devote at least an hour and a half daily to teaching reading, and that time will be used differently in Beaverton and Portland schools that switch to the new materials, officials said.

Lessons for the whole class will take up less time. Instead, students will get more one-on-one and small-group time with their teacher and spend more time working independently or with partners to read small books and do other word work geared to their skill level.

Teachers are eager for the switch, educators in both districts say, because students engage much more deeply in work they choose and in lessons pitched perfectly at their needs.

"This whole thing has been transformation for our whole system, in a very positive way," Will said.

-- Betsy Hammond
betsyhammond@oregonian.com

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Teaching children to read: Portland, Beaverton reject mainstream series, forge own approaches

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Two of Oregon's largest districts reject all major publishers' comprehensive reading series and adopt a suite of smaller programs, tests, phonics lessons and classroom libraries, trusting their teachers to knit all those together to seamlessly help more students become strong readers and writers

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And, no, they're not scripts

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As the school year comes to a close, many of the schools I work with are launching into a week or so of in-service, summer institutes, and other professional development. It's "curriculum season" in many places around the country. For many writing teachers, that means diving into the Units of Study for Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing by Lucy Calkins and colleagues. (Click here and here if you've never heard of them!) I'd like to share some tricks for reading the units, whether this will be your first experience with the Units of Study, or you've been using the units for many years.

Full disclosure: I coauthored one of the units, and work very closely with all the authors. Also, my work requires that I teach all the units K-8. The advice below has been gathered from my experience working with teachers in schools across the country.

Step 1: Keep an open mind. Seriously. You might think that you are willing to try anything, but then by Session 4 you're starting to think, "Well I could just change that..." By Session 10 you're thinking, "Well I could just do this session the way I did it last year..." Then you'll decide to use a different kind of paper, and you'll skip this and add that... and by the end of the unit, you've actually told yourself that you're not going to do very much of the unit at all-even though you thought you were being completely open-minded the whole time. Instead, I recommend reading each session with the intention of teaching the session as it is. Then, during the school year, you'll adapt your teaching to the KIDS, rather that preemptively adapting all the sessions before you've even given them a try. Resist the temptation to try to squeeze the new ideas to fit with what you already know, or what you've always done in the past.

Step 2: It's not a script. Okay, that's not really a step so much as it is a fact. The units are written as a guide, a suggestion for how the unit might go. No two groups of kids are the same, and no two teachers are the same, so you WILL need to make adjustments. This might at first seem contradictory to Step 1 above, but actually it's not. The sessions make it pretty explicit that you can substitute your own examples, your own stories, connections, and ideas. The books are overflowing with advice for how to make each unit your own.

Step 3: Think long-term. As authors, we knew that our audience would be rereading the series year after year and we knew that we needed to pack the books chock full of advice about teaching writing, and about teaching in general. With that in mind, each year you might pick a lens with which to read. Maybe your first year, you'll read just to figure out how to teach the minilessons. Then in Year 2, maybe you'll read to pay more attention to the coaching notes in the sidebars. In Year 3, you might dive into the suggestions for conferring and small group work, and the charts in the second half of the If...Then Curriculum books (charts you might not have even known existed the first year).

Step 4: Read each minilesson. Take notes. This is what I do: I read the minilessons in parts. First I take the "Connection," and I distill the main point. "What am I doing here?" I think to myself. Then I do the same for the "Teach," the "Active Engagement" and the "Link." I use a large post-it and make a few bullet points for each part of the minilesson, and that is what I teach from when I'm sitting with kids during actual writing workshop. Reading this way helps me figure out what I'm going to be doing, and then I don't have to read directly from the minilesson like a script while I'm teaching!

Step 5: Do the work that the kids will do. I cannot even imagine reading the units without trying out some of the writing that the kids will be doing. First of all: It's fun! Second of all: I don't think I could really digest the sessions without trying them out on myself (and sometimes on my husband, or my daughter, or my nieces and nephews...)

However you decide to go about reading the units (or any professional texts) this summer, it's always better with friends. Recruit some of your colleagues to read the units with you. Maybe you'll divide up units and then report back to one another. Maybe you'll all pick one unit to read together. If you can't get friends to read with you, tell as many people as you can that you're going to be reading. That way, you've committed to it and you can feel great when you've accomplished what you set out to do.

Happy summer, everybody! May you write lots, read a ton, and come back to school energized and inspired.

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As the school year comes to a close, many of the schools I work with are launching into a week or so of in-service, summer institutes, and other professional development. It's "curriculum season" in many places around the country. For many writing teachers, that means diving into the Units of Study for Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing by Lucy...

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Scripted teaching or scripted instruction refers to commercial reading programs that have highly structured lessons, often with specific time allotments for teaching specific skills, and often word-for-word scripts of what the teacher is to say. Scripted instruction has often been advocated for schools where teachers have had inadequate teacher training and is also seen as way to standardize the quality of instruction.

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Is it every okay to make teachers read scripts?

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Is it every okay to make teachers read scripts?

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Even though this article focuses on a scripted curriculum in Kenya, its observations could be relevant elsewhere.

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American entrepreneurs have created a popular alternative to Kenya's dismal public schools. The key: handing out e-readers and making sure teachers recite every page.

Terrance F. Ross

Sunlight streamed through an oversized classroom window in Kisauni-a slum in Mombasa, Kenya-as a group of 6-year-olds fixed their eyes on their teacher. As he rhapsodized about the intricacies of grammar, he snuck a glance at his Nook e-reader every couple minutes; it was imperative that he follow the guidelines written there. Without much prodding, his students enthusiastically recited the spelling lesson in unison. The cheerful ambience stood in stark contrast to that of most public schools in the poverty-stricken district.

The teacher-or academy manager, to be more precise-worked for Bridge International Academies, a for-profit company that has grown, in only six years, into a behemoth in Kenyan education. The company has done this by focusing on one core tenet: accurately evaluating teacher performance. Its first academy opened in the Mukuru slum in January 2009, and as of October 2014, Bridge has over 350 locations and 100,000 pupils in Kenya, with plans for expansion into other Anglophonic developing countries-Uganda, Nigeria, and India-slated for 2015. In each new location, the goal is the same: to solve the problems that plague primary schooling in the developing world, and make a profit in the process.

* * *

In the Mombasa classroom, two visitors sat on the sidelines, smiling broadly whenever a student answered a question correctly. Shannon May and her husband, Jay Kimmelman, first came up with the idea for Bridge thousands of miles away in rural China. May, then a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, was teaching English in the Huangbaiyu village in northeast China, where she was able to see the inadequacies of primary education firsthand. "It's not that kids living in rural China were any less intelligent that people living all around the world," May told me. "It's that at the only schools available to these families there was very little education being delivered. The system was foreclosing opportunities for them before they were even 12. It's not the children. All children can learn if they are put in the right situation."

Working with Kimmelman, an experienced ed-tech innovator who co-founded the Web-based student assessment platform Edusoft in 2000, May launched Bridge in 2008. The couple decided to launch the endeavor in Kenya, where the statistics tell a grim tale. A World Bank Service Delivery Indicators report in 2013 highlights a litany of factors: Every day, children in Kenyan public schools receive 1 hour and 9 minutes less teaching time than their private counterparts. Across a term (semester) this equates to 20 days less of teaching time. Teacher-student ratios are lower, and frequently the teachers fail to show up at all.

Service Delivery Indicators at a Glance

Even when the teachers do come to class, it's unclear how much they're offering the children. The same report showed that only 35 percent of Kenya's public school teachers showed "mastery of the curriculum they teach." Seniority did not correlate with greater competence. As Kimmelman explained, there's very little regulation of the teaching profession: "A teacher is just put in a classroom and told, 'Okay, teach, let's see how well you do by the end of the year.'"

Previous attempts to solve this problem have been expensive, and ineffective. According to the same report: "The government spends more than any of its neighbors. There's a disconnect between Kenya's spending on education and learning outcomes. More of the same is not enough."

With public schools in such struggling condition, the country has seen a rise in private schooling over the past decade. Enrollment has grown from 4 percent in 2005 to 12 percent currently. GEMS Cambridge International School, a private schooling company that currently operates in 14 countries worldwide, charges almost $6,500 a year for kindergarten, and that figure grows exponentially as a child moves from grade to grade. In a country where half the population lives on less than a dollar a day, even less-expensive private schools are rarely an option.

This is where Bridge has found its niche: somewhere between the exorbitantly expensive private schools and the absentee-ridden public ones. With a tuition of $6 a month, has positioned itself as an affordable alternative, offering the quality of a private school without the cost.

Mukhtar Abdi Olge, a national coordinator at the Kenyan National Examinations Council, laments "pathetic" teacher commitment in public schools and praises Bridge's efforts: "They are not only fixing all the aforementioned challenges but also, in each day of their success, shame the government officials and teachers in public schools."

* * *

While the scale of Bridge's expansion is aggressive, it's the company's methodology-known as "scripted instruction"-that's causing the most controversy. Before the first academy opened, Bridge purchased tablets wholesale (they used Nooks when I visited but Bridge are brand agnostic), modifying them with their own software. The goal was to not only provide the teachers with detailed instructions but also monitor their performance. Teachers must check in via their tablets when they arrive and run their lessons almost verbatim from the tablet's lesson scripts. Back at Bridge's Nairobi offices and Massachusetts-based headquarters, all the data is compiled and analyzed. With their company issued smartphones in tow the Academy Managers (the "principals" at the schools so to speak) are in constant contact with headquarters. Their phones also moonlight as a modem for the tablets, syncing various data including: lesson plans, tardiness and test scores. Whenever teachers arrive late to school, miss a class, or even take too long to scroll through a specific lesson, it's all tracked by Bridge's "Master Teachers"-the moniker given to members of the company's analytic team-in nearly real time.

This system all but guarantees consistent results: If you were to walk into any location on a given day (and in the same level class) the teachers would be giving the same lesson. But by its nature, this approach stymies individuality and spontaneity. Dynamic educators who are adept at innovating on the fly and creating unique classroom experiences don't necessarily exist in the Bridge system. They are eschewed in favor of teachers who can follow instructions well. Bridge's argument seems to stem from a utilitarian philosophy: Based on Kenya's dismal public school statistics, it's better to give all children a basic, reliable education than hope for talented teachers to come along.

"If you look at our teachers versus teachers in another institution you might actually think, 'Oh well, maybe that teacher has less experience, less education,'" said May. "But in the end, lots of studies have shown that teacher training doesn't correlate to classroom success. We have teachers actually teaching in the classroom."

Bridge's reliance on technology seems particularly fitting in Kenya, a country known as the regional leader in technological advancement. Bridge's model revolves around what's known as short-cycle rich-data feedback. The company is also in the process of developing software so teachers know exactly which student to call on for a specific question based on previous test scores and levels of participation.

This advanced technology stands in stark contrast to the schools themselves. The academies, constructed either with a cement or brick base with corrugated metal sides and roofs, aren't the most aesthetically pleasing; in fact, there isn't even electricity at any of the locations. A generator may be brought in on occasion if needed, but the rooms are outfitted with large windows that make them feel larger and bring in natural light. This lack of frills allows Bridge to scale rapidly. In January 2013 alone, 51 schools were built across the country. Before establishing each one, the company hired locals to scout out the communities, looking for various indicators-from village size and population to the amount time it would take for most students to walk to the school site.

Bridge have also been able to cut corners when it comes to teacher qualification issues. At Kenyan public schools, teachers are required to have official certification, but many poor institutions let this slide out of necessity. Many Bridge teachers are uncertified as well, and some have only have a high school degree. But Bridge scrupulously evaluates its potential teachers. The criteria are vast: In urban areas specifically they must live about 500 meters from the school, and regardless of location they all go through a rigorous roughly 300-hour training program where they are assessed every six days. Bridge doesn't necessarily seek out for the most dynamic teachers but instead focuses on those who can deliver a lesson clearly and concisely, without wavering off course.

"Part of what we do is ensuring that teachers understand this is a profession, they're going to be monitored and evaluated," said May. "They'll be rewarded when they do well, held accountable for what's not going well and they can't just not show up, they can't just not teach."

So far, it's been working: Bridge's students score an average of 35 percent higher on core reading skills and 19 percent higher in math than their peers in neighboring schools. But not everyone is on board. Kate Redman, a communications and advocacy specialist for UNESCO's Education For All initiative, isn't convinced by Bridge's long-term prospects.

"A large-scale adoption of this method of teaching would signal a very narrow model of education-one where education is most certainly not created through classroom interactions," she said. "Such an education is unlikely to spur the imaginations of the students or encourage critical thinking or social mobility. It is more likely to lead to rote-learning, and would likely leave little flexibility. There is no evidence it can serve as a permanent approach."

Redman also warns against Bridge and other private schools for potentially "imposing external cultural values" on the country. While private schools can help, it can be a slippery slope as well-the onus should remain on public schools to keep improving. Kenya's current education system dates back to 1984, when the Commonwealth nation emancipated itself from the British curriculum. There have been problems ever since, but Redman insists that Kenya needs to find its own footing. "The school curriculum is more than the inculcation of basic skills. It is also a reflection of culture and cultural diversity," she said. "Only by creating a national curriculum, incorporating cultural understandings, can authorities address particular local and national challenges."

Bridge has already faced a number of cultural hurdles in a land where tribal ties run deep. Inevitably Bridge once found itself in the middle of a family dispute-one of their locations was completely burned down overnight by a resident who thought he was entitled to the land Bridge had leased from his mother. Eventually the mother attempted to renege on the deal and the case was sent to the courts. The company has also dealt with closures: Earlier this year, two of its locations were shut down in the Kuria District (only briefly, according to Bridge) due to registration concerns. One report claimed that Bridge officials were advertising free schooling in an attempt to bolster their numbers; when the residents were forced to pay, they complained to the government, which may have led to the shutdown.

"They have also lost many pupils due to parental dissatisfaction with the basic physical structures they call 'schools,'" Redman said.

Bridge has denied these claims, citing sensationalism in Kenya's media as the source. In places like Kenya, details do tend to get muddied quickly. Efforts to contact the reporters in question were met with no response.

For all its possible flaws, Bridge's supporters insist that the company is filling a much-needed role in a country whose public schools simply aren't working. Redman sees this as too simple an argument.

"That is the line given by anyone working in private schools," she said. "While to some extent it may be true in certain circumstances, you have to ask yourself whether all the energy spent on such schools might not have been better spent."

Harry Patrinos, a manager for The World Bank's education sector, doesn't share Redman's concerns. He believes private companies like Bridge can have a "spillover effect," inspiring governments to try new things. "In the few countries where we've seen a great presence of private schools, the public sector response, either because of competition or pride, was, 'We can do it [too]!'" he said, adding, "We need to explore all avenues. Maybe it is part of the puzzle that for some learners, a scripted program is great. But from all of those innovations, there are lessons to be learned. And whether you replicate those innovations or take those elements and put it into the public system-either way, the system will improve."

Patrinos's observations reminded me of my own visit to the Bridge schools in Kenya last year. I was joined by Hasan Joho, then the newly elected governor of Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city. As we roamed around visiting multiple academies, the popular politician was mobbed by locals. A murmur seemed to follow us everywhere: "Hasan Joho is in the slums!" Word of mouth spread quickly, and soon hoards of people were clamoring for his attention at every turn.

Joho handled the hoopla well, seemingly accustomed to it. As we entered the academy, he picked up the Nook with visible excitement. As the teacher gave him a brief demonstration, his eyes lit up. Later, the class briefly came to a halt (likely causing a glitch in Bridge's tracking methods) as a soft-spoken child who couldn't have been more than 10 years old nervously asked Joho a question about politics.

Before we left the academy and the crowds of adoring locals swarmed around him again, Joho told me he was impressed. "So far this is the best I have seen," said Joho. "I will not shy away from saying that we will be emulating this and finding ways for our local schools to do the same."

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Is It Ever Okay to Make Teachers Read Scripted Lessons?

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American entrepreneurs have created a popular alternative to Kenya's dismal public schools. The key: handing out e-readers and making sure teachers recite every page. Sunlight streamed through an oversized classroom window in Kisauni-a slum in Mombasa, Kenya-as a group of 6-year-olds fixed their eyes on their teacher.

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Moustafa, M. and Land, R. (2002). The reading achievement of economically-disadvantaged children in urban schools using Open Court vs. comparably disadvantaged children in urban schools using non-scripted reading programs. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Urban Learning, Teaching and Research 2002 Yearbook, 44-53. Available at http://curriculum.calstatela.edu/margaret.moustafa