One of the themes of the corporate reform movement is this:
“We know what’s best for other people’s children but it is not what’s best for mine.”
Many of the leading corporate reformers went to elite prep schools and/or send their children to them.
Schools like Exeter, Andover, Deerfield Academy, Sidwell Friends, the University of Chicago Lab School, Lakeside Academy (Seattle), Maumee Country Day School (Toledo). At these schools there are beautiful facilities, small classes, experienced teachers, well-stocked libraries, science laboratories, and a curriculum rich in the arts, sciences, languages, and other studies.
I hope you read this post about Chicago billionaire and school board member Penny Pritzker. She sends her children to the University of Chicago Lab School, which has the best of everything, but feels no embarrassment that the children of Chicago who attend public schools that she oversees do not have the same advantages.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends his children to this school. Arne Duncan is a graduate of it.
Remember that theme: Other People’s Children.
This reader thought about what Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants for his own children. Why doesn’t he want the same for all Chicago’s children?
| Others have mentioned that Rahm’s own children attend the University of Chicago Lab Schools. If true, it irks me to no end that they benefit from a school:Whose motto is “learning by doing”Whose total school population is less than 1800 students, nursery school through 12th (and it is still called nursery school, which has an entirely different connotation than preschool or pre-K)
Where John Dewey himself formulated and applied his progressive educational theories Where Vivian Gussin Paley, a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, spent many years researching and writing about the importance of young children’s imaginative play (she is a great hero of mine because she documents children’s first language, play, with respect and thoroughness). Most people’s children, mine included, don’t have the benefit of time at school to learn together through play. They have been robbed by adults who don’t understand or care about child development. The school for Rahm’s kids develops character, values diversity, and provides depth in learning (see website). Other people’s children are left with worksheet after worksheet and empty bubbles to fill in on a test. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am a CPS art teacher. I have over 20 years experience, I am national board certified and a parent of 2 future CPS students, needless to say I am very committed to making our neighborhood schools as great as they can be. Unfortunately I also only work part time. Although the U of C Lab school has 7 full time art teachers on staff and students have art every day, our mayor and self-appointed school board think my students only deserve art once a week. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. There is a grass root movement in Chicago to move to an elected school board, so self-serving billionaires like Penny Pritzker will have no say in what happens to the 60,000 deserving students in our neighborhood schools.
Your school board is what the powers that be want for all public schools. No local control.
True teachers believe other people’s children are our children.
Unfortunately, true teachers aren’t the decision makers in education right now…
FYI, CPS has over 400K students, not 60K: http://www.cps.edu/about_cps/at-a-glance/pages/stats_and_facts.aspx
Gov. Bobby Jindal has his in the LSU Lab School. Both he and his wife attended East Baton Rouge public schools. They graduated from a public magnet school.
Has anyone heard any reformer explain their justification for the double standard? The only response I recall was when someone mentioned to Chris Christie that his kids attended private schools to which Christie claimed that was none of his business– translation: “I have no real good answer, so I’m just going to resort to being a bully.”
As a Chicago Public School Teacher and parent of a future CPS student thank you!
In Chicago when Rahm Emanuel is asked this question, he replies that it is his perrogative as a parent to decide where his children go to school not the public. He has emphatically said that he will not discuss this issue further and immediately and angrily leaves the interview; which he has done in many ocassions. He truly does not care for the children of Chicago, he only cares about helping a powerful minority that supports his ambitious agenda.
I do not question his right as a parent to send his children to the school he wants. He is paying the bill, not asking for a voucher to subsidize is choice.
I do fault him for hypocrisy. As mayor, he should every child in Chicago to have the same education opportunity that he wants for his own children.
I don’t understand the hypocrisy that many posters accuse Rahm Emanuel of. As far as I know, we are not a socialist nation, yet. As a capitalist, democratic republic, individuals should be allowed to exercise their free will to choose what they think is best for themselves or family members, so long as does not negatively impact society. Even as a public servant, Rahm has the right to pay for his children’s private education, as can everyone else, including his critics, if they want to and can afford it. The CPS has a limited, not a open-ended, budget, so it stands to reason it can not offer everything to everybody. Given the poor graduation rates and college attendance of CPS students, something definitely has to change within the constraints of a limited budget. Unfortunately, tough and sometimes unpopular choices have to be made by our leaders including Rahm.
I did not criticize Rahm Emanuel for choosing to send his children to private school. He is paying tuition and that is his right.
What is hypocritical is to want the best for his children but not for other people’s children.
I went to public school in Texas many years ago. Strangely enough, our ordinary public school had arts for everyone, foreign language classes for everyone, science laboratories, a good library, a band, a chorus, daily physical education.
It was not as posh as an elite private school, for sure, but it offered what now seems to be out of reach for many public schools.
Why is that?
The ad hominem attacks on Mayor Emanuel here are just nauseating intellectual cop-outs and smack of petty jealousy. Critique the man’s policy, not his personal life.
The answer to “why the ‘double standard'” is pretty simple: the average person cannot spend as much on education as the wealthy. Public schools get their funding from taxpayers, who are people too. Wanting the average person’s child to have “the best” is one thing, and figuring out how to make that economically feasible is something else. It simply is not feasible for our society to fund all public schools to the point that they have the same resources as elite private schools without making significant cuts elsewhere or raising taxes. It’s easy for the peanut gallery to bemoan the lack of a high standard of public education, but the same peanut gallery is not willing to take home a significantly smaller paycheck to achieve that high standard.
So if you want to critique Rahm for the low standard of public education, think about what he should be doing differently, not where his kids go to school.
The issue is that Rahm, Duncan, Obama, etc. benefited from progressive education themselves and/or choose that for their own kids, but they won’t permit it in public schools. It’s not just about money. I know many teachers who implemented project-based learning on shoestring budgets for years, in Chicago, who are not allowed to do that anymore due to today’s policies. CPS has been eliminating the few programs like this that existed, from preschool through secondary.
Even if it was about money, many educators like to see the kind of money that’s going into standardized testing earmarked for instruction, but that’s not the priority of this administration.
Tough (Nerd) Love …
Governor Snyder: Your Child Can Be Educated For $6K Per Year, But $20K Per Year Not Enough To Educate My Kid
► Fundraising video mentioned in the article
Where is the NAACP in all of this? I would think that this would tick them off and motivate them to take a stand against education reform. With elections coming up, Jill Biden should join forces with her colleagues and husband to educate the community by giving them our perspective of education related to social justice (equitable opportunity, SES gap, effects of high-stakes testing on students & teachers, corporate takeover, social supports, early childhood supports, etc.).
This thought came to mind when thinking about an Oprah show a while back. Why don’t we have field trips where these elitist schools trade for a day/week/month with a low-income school. The parents, school board of these schools are required to volunteer in the other school as well–followed by a discussion on their findings nationally. Problem solving is helpful when both sides have a true experience of reality. I often wondered if parents of students in elitist schools would dare to take these kinds of challenges–to get personally involved instead of throwing donations here and there and calling it good.
@James Reilly, I believe it is hypocritical to push an agenda that is antithetical to what you apparently KNOW is high quality education. It is not about the costs. We are spending amazing amounts of money on the testing industry alone. It is about Rahm and Arne (and Obama) swallowing what Broad, Gates, and other vulture philanthropists have decided is good for other people’s children and spitting it out in the form of RTTT reform. I have been around education long enough to have seen good public schools function in the way Diane described. At the elementary level, it meant that children were given the freedom and time to grow, to develop, to be children. They were not pushed to memorize meaningless facts, required to sit for far too long taking bubble tests, bombarded with worksheet after worksheet pulled out of the big publisher’s workbooks. They weren’t asked to spend their childhood focusing on a narrow set of skills that left out much of the fun of learning. They had time to put on a play about the first thanksgiving, time to color, time to be the baby in the housekeeping center, time for recess, time for nature walks, time for field trips to the symphony or a museum. They were allowed to be children and learn to love learning. They were allowed to take a few years to learn to read because stories are joyful…instead of being drilled with the dolce’ sight words at the ripe old age of five. They were allowed to draw pictures in their journals instead of required to have words, then sentences, with proper spacing. They didn’t really know what a test was for the first few years of school, and they certainly weren’t assessed and re-assessed ad nauseum so that their “placements” could be made and so their teacher could be evaluated. We have lost our way. Young children are suffering, and it infuriates me that the guys I thought might change the tide (post-George W Bush and NCLB) seem to KNOW better when they pick their own children’s schools, but don’t care about the daily wear and tear this whole crazy movement has on other people’s children. Teachers know it is wrong, and I believe many try the best they can to shield the little ones from the drudgery. But, the curriculum has to be covered, and the tests will hold them accountable, even if what we ask them to do is developmentally inappropriate.
I agree it is hypocritical. My son is going to the fifth grade this year and I’m considering keeping him home during the njask exam. He’s my kid and I feel it is developmentally inappropriate . The farbrook school in shorthills, NJ is an example of learning done right but it is an expensive independent school that does not give their students standardized tests.
What would the cost be yo transform every school in Chicago to a public version of the UC Lab School?
the “Other Peoples Children” motif is a good one for the TfA movement as well–i’d bet dollars to donuts that none of the TfA leadership have their own children in schools where there are TfA “teachers.” those schools and teachers are good enough for “other peoples children,” but not theirs.
also, check out the excellent book, “Learning on Other Peoples Children,” an expose of TfA practices. its eye opening.
It would cost more than the city has which is a nearly 1 billion dollar deficit! Parent groups have proposed plans that would increase art and gym, support after school programs and allow more opportunity for hands-on learning, but CPS and the mayor emphatically refuse to discuss the future of our children’s education with parents. Rahm’s only solution is to impose a longer school day with no additional funding and essentially let schools try to figure out how to make it work, while secretly hoping schools fail so he can close them and create more charters.
Well, the defense/industrial complex needs that money more! Kids (except for those with rich parents) don’t need education, anyway – they’re just going to be doing menial jobs, right? 😦
Sarcasm aside, what drives me nuts is that this country has plenty of money for the wrong things and is cutting back on the important things – except for where it applies to the wealthy. Who, oddly are the ones making the cuts. See how that works?
Check out the CTU document, The Schools Chicago’s Students Deserve at ctunet.com/deserve for answers to the question posed about the cost to transform CPS into public version of Lab School.