Education policy

教育政策

Class struggle

階級的掙扎

NEWARK

?紐瓦克市（美國新澤西州港市）

Cory Booker helped turn round Newark’s schools. Taking credit for that in the Democratic primary is tricky

科里·布克幫助紐瓦克的學校扭虧為盈。在民主黨初選中取得這樣的成績并不容易

On september 24th 2010 “The Oprah Winfrey Show” hosted the unlikely trio of Cory Booker, who was then the Democratic mayor of Newark, Chris Christie, who was then the Republican governor of New Jersey, and a skittish-looking Mark Zuckerberg. They were there to announce a $100m donation from the Facebook founder to help Newark’s beleaguered schools. Mr Booker promised it would be a “bold new paradigm for educational excellence in the country”, and helped raise another $100m in matching donations.

2010年9月24日，《奧普拉·溫弗瑞秀》(The Oprah Winfrey Show)主持了一場出人意料的三人秀:時任紐瓦克市長的民主黨人科里·布克(Cory Booker)，時任新澤西州州長的共和黨人克里斯·克里斯蒂(Chris Christie)，以及外表輕?。▊€人不明白外國人對扎克伯格的看法，用這個詞實在不知道選哪個中文意思，如果說他年起，那就應該是看起來略顯輕浮吧）的馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)。他們在那里宣布Facebook創(chuàng)始人捐贈1億美元幫助紐瓦克的貧困學校。布克承諾，這將是“美國教育卓越的一個大膽的新范例”，并幫助籌集了另外1億美元匹配捐款。

詞匯

Trio/ ?三重唱；三件一套；三個一組

Skittish/輕佻的，善變的；不安的，易受驚的；難駕馭的

Beleaguered/圍困的；包圍的

Paradigm/ ?范例；詞形變化表

Now that Mr Booker is a New Jersey senator running for president in a crowded Democratic primary, he seldom brings up the Zuckerberg donation. That is not because the schools have failed to improve. They have done so signi?cantly, though not to the degree envisioned by Mr Booker, who exclaimed that “you could ?ip a whole city!” Instead, it is because the ingredients of Newark’s education turnaround—the closing of bad schools, renegotiating teacher contracts to include merit pay, and expanding high-performing charter networks—are anathema to the Democratic primary voting base.

現(xiàn)在布克先生是新澤西州的參議員，在競爭激烈的民主黨初選中競選總統(tǒng)，他很少提起扎克伯格的捐款。這并不是因為學校沒有改善。他們?nèi)〉昧巳绱孙@著的成就，盡管沒有達到布克所預想的程度。相反，這是因為紐瓦克教育改革的組成部分——關閉質量差的學校，重新談判教師合同以包括績效工資，以及擴大高效的特許經(jīng)營網(wǎng)絡——這是民主黨初選選民的詛咒。（結合全文 chart-憲章；執(zhí)照；特許狀；應該可以理解為一種私立學院，民辦學校）

詞匯

Envision/想象；預想

Ingredients/材料；佐料

Merit/優(yōu)點，價值；功績；功過

Anathema/詛咒；革出教門；被詛咒者；令人厭惡的人

Outside Newark, the public perception of the school reforms remains widely negative. Much of that is due to Dale Russako?, a journalist, who wrote an in?uential and stinging portrayal of the e?orts in her book, “The Prize”. Cami Anderson, the hard-charging superintendent appointed to oversee the plan, was widely criticised, and then resigned after Mr Booker decamped from Newark to Washington in 2013. Ras Baraka, a former high-school principal who is the current mayor, won election after making the contest a referendum over Ms Anderson’s popularity.

在紐瓦克以外，公眾對學校改革的看法仍然普遍持負面態(tài)度。這在很大程度上要歸功于記者戴爾?魯薩科夫(Dale Russakoff)，她在自己的《獲獎》(the Prize)一書中對這些努力進行了頗具影響力且尖銳的描述。被任命監(jiān)督該計劃的嚴厲主管卡米?安德森(Cami Anderson)受到廣泛批評，在布克2013年從紐瓦克搬到華盛頓后辭職。前高中校長、現(xiàn)任市長拉斯?巴拉卡(Ras Baraka)在就安德森的人氣舉行全民公投后贏得了選舉。

詞匯

Stinging/激烈的；刺人的；

Portrayal/ ?描繪；畫像，肖像

Superintendent/監(jiān)督人；負責人；主管；指揮者

Referendum/公民投票權；外交官請示書

A review of the recent evidence suggests this pessimism is misplaced. For district schools, the high-school graduation rate has climbed to 76%, up from 61% in 2011. A study done by researchers at Harvard found an initial drop-o? in test scores, and then, after the reforms set in, a big improvement in English tests, though not in maths. Two-thirds of the growth was attributable to changes in the composition of schools—the closing down of a third of the city’s public schools and expansion of high-performing charters. Today, 31% of black pupils attend schools that exceed the state average, compared with 10% in 2011. All this, even though Newark remains profoundly poor. Nearly 40% of the children live with families making less than the federal poverty line (currently $21,300 for a family of three). The vast majority, 79%, of schoolchildren are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.

對近期證據(jù)的回顧表明，這種悲觀看法是錯誤的。在地區(qū)學校，高中畢業(yè)率從2011年的61%上升到76%。哈佛大學的研究人員進行的一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，學生的考試成績一開始出現(xiàn)下降，但改革開始后，學生的英語考試成績有了很大提高，盡管數(shù)學成績沒有提高。三分之二的增長歸因于學校組成的變化——關閉了該市三分之一的公立學校，并擴大了表現(xiàn)優(yōu)異的特許學校。如今，31%的黑人學生就讀的學校超過了該州的平均水平，而2011年這一比例為10%。所有這些，盡管紐瓦克仍然極度貧困。近40%的兒童生活在收入低于聯(lián)邦貧困線的家庭(目前一個三口之家的收入為21,300美元)。絕大多數(shù)(79%)的學生窮到有資格享受免費或減價的學校午餐。

詞匯

Misplaced/不合時宜的；不適宜的

Federal/聯(lián)邦制的

If Mr Booker believes deeply in anything, it is school choice. In 1998, when he was still a little-known city councillor, he founded Excellent Education for Everyone, which advocates charter schools and voucher programmes. He sat on the board of Alliance for School Choice, a national organisation, alongside Betsy DeVos, who would become education secretary under President Donald Trump.

如果布克先生堅信什么，那就是學校的選擇。1998年，當他還是名不見經(jīng)傳的市議員時，他創(chuàng)立了“人人享有卓越教育”(Excellent Education for Everyone)，倡導特許學校和代金券（政府補助消費者抵用券）計劃。他和貝琪?德沃斯(Betsy DeVos)一起，是全國組織“擇校聯(lián)盟”(Alliance for School Choice)的董事會成員。德沃斯將成為唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)總統(tǒng)任內(nèi)的教育部長。

詞匯

Councilor/議員；顧問

Voucher/收據(jù)；證人

?

School choice has always scrambled the usual left-right divide in American politics. Mr Booker’s belief in it di?ers strongly from Ms DeVos’s and as a senator he voted against her con?rmation. Whereas those on the right see parental choice as a good in itself—and as a way to expand religious education—progressives favour charter schools as a path to opportunity for poor black and Hispanic children whom urban school systems have failed for decades. “What do middle-class people do? They don’t wait for the district to ?x itself. If [school choice] is good enough for middleclass people, then poor people should be able to as well,” says Shavar Je?ries, a civilrights lawyer who runs Democrats for Education Reform, a pro-charter group.

擇校一直擾亂著美國政治中常見的左右分化。布克先生對此的信念與德沃斯女士截然不同，作為參議員，他曾投票反對她的任命。而那些右翼人士則認為父母的選擇本身是一件好事——同時也是擴大宗教教育的一種方式——進步人士則傾向于特許學校，認為這是一條為貧困的黑人和西班牙裔兒童提供機會的道路，這些兒童的城市教育體系已經(jīng)失敗了幾十年。“中產(chǎn)階級做什么?”他們不會等著這個地區(qū)自我修復。如果(學校選擇)對中產(chǎn)階級足夠好，那么窮人也應該有能力，”支持特許經(jīng)營的民主教育改革組織(Democrats for Education Reform)的民權律師沙瓦爾?杰弗里斯(Shavar Jeffries)這樣說道。

詞匯

Civilrights/民事權利

Ms Anderson, the former superintendent, who now runs a school-discipline initiative, feels vindicated. “The results speak for themselves,” she says. “The fact that the establishment has been quiet is because it’s working.” The rhetoric from Mr Baraka, the mayor who pushed her out, has changed from outright hostility to comfortable neutrality. Ms Anderson describes an ingrained culture of cronyism before she arrived: requests to hire as a teacher the girlfriend of someone politically connected, even though she could not write a cover letter; or not to sack another grandee’s nephew for punching someone in a school cafeteria. Ms Anderson ?red most of the district’s principals, whom she found unsatisfactory, and hired her own handpicked ones.

安德森女士，這位前校長，現(xiàn)在掌握著校園紀律管轄權，覺得自己是對的?！敖Y果不言自明，”她說?！斑@所學校之所以保持沉默，是因為學校還在正常工作。把她趕出去的市長巴拉卡先生的言辭已經(jīng)從完全的敵意轉變?yōu)闇睾偷闹辛ⅰ０驳律枋隽怂先吻案畹俟痰娜稳宋ㄓH文化:要求聘用一位有政治背景的人做老師，即使她不會寫求職信;或者，不要因為另一個大人物的侄子在學校食堂打人而解雇他。安德森女士解雇了該地區(qū)的大部分校長，她發(fā)現(xiàn)這些校長并不令人滿意，于是自己親自挑選了一些校長。

詞匯

Superintendent/監(jiān)督人；負責人；主管；指揮者

Vindicate/ 維護；證明…無辜；證明…正確

Rhetoric/修辭，修辭學；華麗的詞藻

Ingrained/根深蒂固的；徹頭徹尾的；生染的

Cronyism/任人唯親；任用親信

Disruption was also especially threatening because the school district was one of the largest employers in the city. The budget was nearly $1bn a year—meaning that even the impressive-seeming $200m donation, which was spent over ?ve years, represented only a 4% annual increase in funding. Some of the jobs supported by the big budget seemed super?uous. In her book Ms Russako? describes a Gogol-like setting in which the clerks had clerks. More than half of the district’s funding—a notpaltry $20,000 per pupil—was gobbled up in central-bureaucracy costs before it reached classrooms.

外界的擾亂尤其具有威脅，因為學區(qū)是該市最大的雇主（撈錢地？）之一。預算為每年近10億美元，這意味著即使是5年多的2億美元的驚人捐款，也只代表了每年4%的資金增長。大預算支持的一些工作似乎是多余的。在她的書中，Russakoff女士描述了一個類似gogols的場景（Gogol/果戈里，果戈理所創(chuàng)作的文學作品，大都是圍繞著故事而展開的，但是他故事的編排與發(fā)展卻是荒誕不經(jīng)的。在這種荒誕不經(jīng)的故事中，作者安排一些荒誕不經(jīng)的結局與過程，在這祥不可思議的故事情節(jié)中，去感受作者的對俄國社會與俄國專制制度的殘酷性。果戈理往往是在人民的社會生活中找尋主人公，他們大都是俄國制度下的小官僚，然后，對這個小官僚進行夸張的人生塑造，從而達到作者諷刺俄國社會制度與社會現(xiàn)實的作用），在這個場景中，職員有職員。該地區(qū)超過一半的資金——每個學生不少于2萬美元——在到達教室之前就被中央政府的官僚成本吞噬了。

詞匯

super?uous/多余的；不必要的；奢侈的

clerk/辦事員；文書

paltry/不足取的；無價值的；

It’s up to you, Newark

由你決定，紐瓦克

A third of pupils in Newark now attend charter schools. According to an assessment done by credo, a research out?t at Stanford University, in 2015 Newark’s charters were the second highest-performing in the country. They delivered gains in maths and reading almost equivalent to a full additional year of instruction, the researchers estimated. The latest state assessments for reading and maths for pupils in the third to eighth grades (roughly between the ages of 8 and 14) still show stark di?erences—60% of pupils in Newark’s charter schools were pro?cient in English, compared with just 35% in the traditional public schools. For maths, the numbers were 48% compared with 26%. In both cases, the charters beat the state average—a remarkable achievement given the impoverishment of Newark and the high quality of the state’s other schools.

紐瓦克市三分之一的學生現(xiàn)在就讀于特許學校。斯坦福大學研究機構credo的一項評估顯示，2015年紐瓦克的特許學校排名第二。研究人員估計，他們在數(shù)學和閱讀方面取得的進步幾乎相當于整整一年的額外教學。最新的針對三年級到八年級學生(大約在8歲到14歲之間)的閱讀和數(shù)學的州評估仍然顯示出明顯的差異——紐瓦克特許學校60%的學生精通英語，而傳統(tǒng)公立學校只有35%。在數(shù)學方面，這個數(shù)字是48%，而在數(shù)學方面是26%。在這兩種情況下，特許學校都超過了該州的平均水平——考慮到紐瓦克的貧困和該州其他學校的高質量，這是一個了不起的成就。

?

As a result, demand for charters from parents is high. Before a common enrolment system was in place, the waiting list for kipp schools, a high-performing charter network, had 10,000 children on it, says Ryan Hill, the co-founder. One of the topranked high schools in the state of New Jersey is North Star Academy Charter, which is 98% non-white and 85% poor. Its most recent valedictorian is heading to Princeton.

因此，家長對教學質量的需求很高。聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人瑞安?希爾(Ryan Hill)表示，在實行共同招生制度之前，kipp學校(一個表現(xiàn)優(yōu)異的特許經(jīng)營網(wǎng)絡)的等候名單上有1萬名學生。新澤西州排名最靠前的高中之一是北極星學院特許學校(North Star Academy Charter)，其中98%是非白人，85%是窮人。最近一次致告別辭的學生代表將前往普林斯頓大學。

詞匯

Charters/憲章，合同（這里應該可以引申為教學質量，一種入學前就已有的一種教學質量保證）

Valedictorian/（畢業(yè)典禮上）致告別辭的最優(yōu)秀畢業(yè)生

Not all charters are so good. On average, their outcomes are similar to those of traditional public schools. They do better in cities, and worse elsewhere. The problem is that teachers’ unions are at their strongest in precisely the places where charters are best, making the politics of school reform treacherous for Democrats. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator also running for the Democratic nomination, favoured school choice before she was a public ?gure, on similar progressiveminded grounds (she worried that the zero-sum race to buy property near good schools was endangering middle-class ?nances). But she opposed a referendum to increase the number of charters in Boston, despite the fact that these are the highestperforming in the country.

并不是所有的合約都這么好。平均而言，他們的成績與傳統(tǒng)公立學校相似。他們在城市做得更好，在其他地方做得更差。問題在于教師工會在特許經(jīng)營最好的地方最強大，這使得學校改革的政治對民主黨人來說是危險的。同樣競選民主黨提名的馬薩諸塞州參議員伊麗莎白?沃倫(Elizabeth Warren)在成為公眾人物之前就傾向于選擇學校，理由與她類似(她擔心在好學校附近買房的零和競爭危及中產(chǎn)階級的財務狀況)。但她反對在波士頓舉行公投，增加特許經(jīng)營的數(shù)量，盡管這些特許經(jīng)營（的學校）是全國表現(xiàn)最好的。

詞匯

Treacherous/奸詐的，叛逆的，背叛的；危險的；不牢靠的

Mr Booker is trying to navigate these treacherous waters. His proposed education manifesto for 2020 is to increase funding for educating special-needs children and to pay teachers more. These proposals are ?ne. Yet Mr Booker is the only candidate with a serious educational achievement under his belt—and the essential ingredients of that turnaround are not what he is promising now. His campaign replies that there is no one-size-?ts-all solution for education reform.

布克先生正試圖駕馭這片危險的水域。他提出的2020年教育宣言是增加對特殊需要兒童的教育資金，并增加教師的工資。這些提議很好。然而，布克先生是唯一一位在教育方面取得重大成就的候選人，而這一轉變的關鍵因素并不是他現(xiàn)在所承諾的。他的競選團隊回應說，教育改革沒有一刀切的解決方案。

詞匯

Treacherous/奸詐的，叛逆的，背叛的；危險的；不牢靠的

Manifesto/宣言；聲明；告示

Ingredient/材料；佐料

one-size-?ts-all/一刀切；一體適用；萬全之策

Mr Booker is already taking ?ak for his record in Newark. “Cory Booker Hates Public Schools” blusters a headline from Jacobin, a widely read democratic-socialist magazine. He has some defenders too, though. “It is a shame to deride the good work that was done in Newark as a defect of his candidacy or his worldview,” says Derrell Bradford, a long-time advocate of education reform who worked with Mr Booker early in his career. “Newark now is better than when I took my job in 2002. If you’re a poor kid, a black kid, your opportunity to succeed is much higher than before. Is it what it should be, or ought to be? Still no— but there’s been tremendous progress.”

布克先生已經(jīng)因為他在紐瓦克的記錄而受到抨擊?！翱评铩げ伎送春薰W?！?，這是一本廣泛閱讀的民主社會主義雜志《雅各賓》的“氣勢洶洶的”標題。不過，他也有一些捍衛(wèi)者。長期倡導教育改革的德雷爾?布拉德福德(Derrell Bradford)表示:“嘲笑紐瓦克的良好表現(xiàn)是一種恥辱，因為這是他競選資格或世界觀的缺陷?！薄凹~瓦克現(xiàn)在比我2002年上任時好多了。如果你是一個貧窮的孩子，一個黑人孩子，你成功的機會比以前高得多。它（教育政策）應該是什么，或者應該是什么?仍然沒有——但是已經(jīng)有了巨大的進步。”

詞匯

Blusters/咆哮，氣勢洶洶地說（但效果不大）

?