This comment was posted by a reader:
A HUMBLE OPINION ON THE CHANGING OF THE
GUARD
How will privatization of our school system over the presently run public school system be certain to have any effect on education let alone making education improve by having students achieve better grades? Is the hope to have education improved only because it is privatized? Is the hope to give people a choice in school variety? But we already have four choices in which school to send children: public school, Christian school, parochial school, and private public schools like Groton in Massachusetts. Maybe all that is certain with privatization is that one owner and manager, public education is dismissed and another owner and manager now runs the show, the profiteer. Now, who benefits for certain from this change of the guard of poor performing schools? The students? The teachers? The new owners?
Whether student learning will be bettered, whether ALL students, the present goal of NCLB, will improve is unknown for certain. If charter schools methods are so much better all that is necessary then would be for the public school to adopt same such methods. Who can say: is it possible student achievement can get worse with charter schools? Students learn their subjects through a teacher not who owns or manages or runs the educational system. Education should not be run as a business like management runs a business of selling and buying goods and services. Teachers and children are people, not commodities. In a way students are both employer and employee of their own business in their own education. Education is for them, not management to make a profit from. The teacher is the conduit, the aqueduct of bringing fresh water of learning for the student. Fire one teacher after privatization takes over and there is now no union there to help the dismissed person the class gets another teacher who may be worse yet and not better. So, fire and hire, fire and hire, like in private work places since charter schools have no unions; interesting fact.
It surely must be easier to gauge the effectiveness of say a machinist whose handiwork is an inanimate creation. The outcome of a machinist’s labor rests on 90% of the machinists’ competence and ability and 10% on the material used, that is whether the steel, iron etc, is flawed, etc. But to gauge effectiveness of one teacher with just one gauge, the test, when student class participation, seatwork, homework, or graded papers handed in of student’s answers to a video just viewed are other means of teacher evaluation for student achievement and progress, must surely be inaccurate. Why? Reason one: if a student gets a D on the test but does well with class participation, etc. the student can raise his score to a C or better. So the student achieves better than the test show’s she is. According to the test results, the teacher is poorly performing, along with his student, but the student herself, by her own effort and intelligence and with help from her teacher brought her grade up unknown to the test observer. The student has been an overall success unbeknown to the test observer (these tests include the regular classroom tests as well as those tests necessary for NCLB). Second reason: Because, apart from these other methods of evaluation the effectiveness of the teacher depends very much on the infinite variety of the personality, physical health, emotional health, of 20 or more human beings in the classroom, including the teacher’s own, as to whether pupils are listening to a lecture or are working on that written test. Such human qualities will determine much of the motivation of each student, and as such, in the words of that renown first and second century Roman professor and orator of public speaking, Quintilian, have “study and learning depend very much on the good will of the pupil,”(towards their classmates, education, their school, and their teacher) “a quality which can not be secured by compulsion,” and which was then and remains to this day a very big reason for the success or not of a student.
But with many, if not all unions weakened, or maybe some worse off, partly due to reaganism and globalism, and giving in to a successfully rapid and furious political and corporate abusiveness and assault to have the public blame union and teacher for total student failure, when in fact it is at least both participants to blame, the corporatists’ and political allies’ derision and the union and teachers defensive posturing, serves only to weaken education. Just how little or how much is less important then that some weakening occurs. And, with the general population down on education even before this abusiveness and also due to the billions going overseas for both wars and for foreign aid, many politicians of all parties ride this wave of popular discontent with education to the shoreline of and for their own political advantage.
Now, unless this is the primary intention of the political and corporate derision to weaken all but the classroom, where the real education exists and occurs and is insulated and protected, for the most part, by the noble teacher from the weakening of the system, then there is no good, or not enough good to condone the continued existence of the current group of reforms, is there?
I believe a successful attempt at privatizing any or all of the general welfare and public health and happiness is at best risky and at worst maybe illegal or even unconstitutional. Privatize social security, public schools or any other public function and where the government will seek to aid, equalize, and help retirees, etc, the private enterprisers will first need to determine the cost of helping and the need for securing a profit for themselves before considering promoting the public welfare and health and happiness. If a profit cannot be made, can profiteers be trusted to promote the public health and happiness which is a very important concept of our Enlightenment heritage? Profiteers will only promote the PUBLIC good once and foremost their own PRIVATE interests, made in profits, is promoted first, correct? The people’s trust and happiness should not be allowed to reside with people who will likely have a conflict of interest in promoting the general welfare. Once social security, public schools, health care, or any other public interest is privatized what will keep the profiteers, now the owners of that specific public interest from one day deciding that they now no longer want to own that public interest and either sell it to who knows who or downright just decide not to have it anymore?
And one last thing which should surely show the short-sightedness and poorly considered set of current reforms. Schools which continue to fail are ultimately closed down. The students of these closed schools now go to charter schools or to the schools which were closed when they were public schools and which now are reopened and managed by private enterprise. And now, like magic these children who were failing before will “poof” miraculously begin to achieve better, will now be a success for no other reason then because another manages the school. How much better will the programs, directives, etc. of the directors of a privately run school be, which will have no governmental restrictions, when the public schools now could likewise take the initiative if allowed by state and federal regulations to implement programs, no one knows. Why wait to privatize a school which will have little if any restrictions, when all that need be done today is lessen if not eliminate restrictions on our public schools so they can initiate programs on their own with no government interference and become more like the charter schools would be? Ludicrous.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The author poses excellent arguments. There are other “privatization models” we can reference as well to see the validity of the points made here. One example that comes to mind is our health insurance system. I can remember when the “HMO” came in and was touted as revolutionizing health care. But insurers have bottom line profit which comes first and foremost and this became quite evident as time went on. Think “pre-existing” conditions. Nobody in the healthcare business initially promoting HMO and PPO’s etc told the consumer that eventually it would get to the point that a documented skin rash or a head ache would become a “pre-existing” condition to deny payment for a surgery or to justification to increase health insurance premiums to extreme monthly payments! But, when “for profit” runs health insurance, bottom line is the issue first and foremost above the people “buying” the insurance. THE BEST TREATMENT OF THE PATIENT kicks in last – how ironic. So why should the people of this nation expect the privatization of education to be any different? There are too many failed “business” models to look to in this regard… look at what happened to hard working people’s pensions with Enron! Look at predatory real estate loans given to people who were not financially fit enough to have a loan. Why were they given the mortgage loan? Banks smelled a profit. It was not about the well-being of those taking the home loans (they were virtually assured of not being able to keep up with the payments and losing their homes). Politicians need to be reigned in to follow the “checks and balances” that were set forth by our Forefathers. Humanity for the public-at-large over the profit of a few was certainly the intention.
Privatization of public education is actually a noble gesture, and is historically one of the most radical forms of desegregation ever endeavored. Extension of opportunity and vouchers for public school students to transfer to private/better performing schools (where this is in fact so) also signifies the apparent under-use and availability of highly coveted slots in those schools,* and should ultimately compel healthy competition amongst public schools to implement new innovative approaches to improve student performance and extended services to students, parents, and communities.
(*The notion of private juxtapose federal funding for private education presents a dichotomy, however, where it would require out of pocket costs for tuition amounts not covered by vouchers from students who would otherwise be privileged to a complimentary public education, or where students who would not be capable of paying residual costs would not be privileged to the same quality education).
Notwithstanding, educational quality and equality should be a reality for all schools, so as to warrant less need for proliferation of additional schools that would either be under-attended and/or create enrollment gaps in other schools; schools should be proliferated only where there are a lack of educational facilities, or where existent facilities or schools are overpopulated, and/or where newly formed schools would offer specialized classes or programs that are not offered at other local schools.
Types of Distinct and Potential Program Offerings of Privatized, Magnet, and Charter Schools
Performing & Other Arts, specialized Math & Science, International Studies (including residential programs for students from visiting countries), Business, Law, College Prep, Specialized (Residential) Fitness & Academic, etc. are some program and/or potential program offerings of private, magnet, and charter schools, though either or all of these courses could also be offered at traditional public schools.
Privatization would also best avail accommodations (residential as well as educational provisions, etc.) for the more than 1 million homeless children in America, a significant portion of whom are not attending school at all, and who suffer illness and early morbidity due to malnutrition and exposure to extreme cold and/or hot weather, a matter that is rightly the responsibility of our schools, in conjunction with the Department of Family and Children Services and other relevant agencies, to resolve.
Types of Residential & Prospective Residential Programs
Types of residential and/or prospective residential programs in public, private, magnet, and charter schools include co-ed and single sex dormitories or boarding schools, and dormitories for homeless and other students and their families that would be or become income-contingent for employed parent/guardian residents.
Privatization at best would entail corporate sponsorship* of traditional public schools, and not merely vouchers for transference to traditional private schools (*corporate sponsors could consist of any companies, churches, etc. that would provide significant monetary and/or other resources to any particular school(s)).
Additionally, government funding of education should not be based on property taxes, which should be eliminated altogether and superseded with a conservative across-the-board hike in income taxes for all tax payers (including non-homeowners with children attending public, private, and other schools). This would secure more funds for equal distribution amongst all schools and for other services that are traditionally funded by property taxes; and homeowners would actually own their homes once they’ve paid for them.
Conclusion
The ultimate goal of privatization should not be to dismantle the public school system, but to encourage excellence and compactness amongst all public, private, and other schools, so as to avail the very best of opportunities to even the very least of the poor.
A Sound Strategy for the Privatization of Public Education
Privatization of public education is actually a noble gesture, and is historically one of the most radical forms of desegregation ever endeavored. Extension of opportunity and vouchers for public school students to transfer to private/better performing schools (where this is in fact so) also signifies the apparent under-use and availability of highly coveted slots in those schools,* and should ultimately compel healthy competition amongst public schools to implement new innovative approaches to improve student performance and extended services to students, parents, and communities.
(*The notion of private juxtapose federal funding for private education presents a dichotomy, however, where it would require out of pocket costs for tuition amounts not covered by vouchers from students who would otherwise be privileged to a complimentary public education, or where students who would not be capable of paying residual costs would not be privileged to the same quality education).
Notwithstanding, educational quality and equality should be a reality for all schools, so as to warrant less need for proliferation of additional schools that would either be under-attended and/or create enrollment gaps in other schools; schools should be proliferated only where there are a lack of educational facilities, or where existent facilities or schools are overpopulated, and/or where newly formed schools would offer specialized classes or programs that are not offered at other local schools.
Types of Distinct and Potential Program Offerings of Privatized, Magnet, and Charter Schools
Performing & Other Arts, specialized Math & Science, International Studies (including residential programs for students from visiting countries), Business, Law, College Prep, Specialized (Residential) Fitness & Academic, etc. are some program and/or potential program offerings of private, magnet, and charter schools, though either or all of these courses could also be offered at traditional public schools.
Privatization would also best avail accommodations (residential as well as educational provisions, etc.) for the more than 1 million homeless children in America, a significant portion of whom are not attending school at all, and who suffer illness and early morbidity due to malnutrition and exposure to extreme cold and/or hot weather, a matter that is rightly the responsibility of our schools, in conjunction with the Department of Family and Children Services and other relevant agencies, to resolve.
Types of Residential & Prospective Residential Programs
Types of residential and/or prospective residential programs in public, private, magnet, and charter schools include co-ed and single sex dormitories or boarding schools, and dormitories for homeless and other students and their families that would be or become income-contingent for employed parent/guardian residents.
Privatization at best would entail corporate sponsorship* of traditional public schools, and not merely vouchers for transference to traditional private schools (*corporate sponsors could consist of any companies, churches, etc. that would provide significant monetary and/or other resources to any particular school(s)).
Additionally, government funding of education should not be based on property taxes, which should be eliminated altogether and superseded with a conservative across-the-board hike in income taxes for all tax payers (including non-homeowners with children attending public, private, and other schools). This would secure more funds for equal distribution amongst all schools and for other services that are traditionally funded by property taxes; and homeowners would actually own their homes once they’ve paid for them.
Conclusion
The ultimate goal of privatization should not be to dismantle the public school system, but to encourage excellence and compactness amongst all public, private, and other schools, so as to avail the very best of opportunities to even the very least of the poor.
Another thought just came to mind with the health insurance analogy.. how many people in this nation have had a manager with no medical experience determine which medicine a person can have or whether or not a person can have a life-saving surgery? Should this not be in the realm of the trained professional – THE DOCTOR? Should a patient and doctor have to FIGHT and waste valuable time at a critical stage? So why then are untrained “CEO’s and national education secretaries like Arne Duncan allowed to make VERY IMPORTANT education decisions about how and what is taught in the classroom? Privatization is clearly ALL ABOUT PROFIT for those running the enterprise… IT IS NOT ABOUT THE STUDENTS.
Change the language, change the perception. Public schools have been demonized so strongly, the very term, public, conjures up negativity in the minds of many citizens today. The word, private, however, exudes quality, best, beter than, prestige & class. Slowly, the term, charter, is enjoying a positive perception by many. It’s the shiny, new bauble in education. Just by saying it’s a better alternative, makes it so. Hold it right there. From my experiences & observations as a teacher/parent/citizen, tremendous angst & obsession are creeping into the lives of families choosing private/charter over public. The loss of a sense of neighborhood, a belonging, of the familiar is taking its toll. I’ve seen and heard bitter arguments between families, students over the mass exodus from public to an alternative. It’s become such a competition, that those in the fight lose all perspective of what harm they are doing to their children. It is a shameful display of arrogance, ignorance and poor judgment that ultimately detroys commaraderie among neighbors, respect for the sacred development of a human child and devotion to the American way of life. All for prestige, position, my kid goes to a better school than yours does…very divisive. The idea that one school has all the answers is a fallacy. Give me a solid public school, devoted teachers, supportive parents & kids eager to show up and I’ll show you the best chance at a great education.
In my mind there is one overwhelming issue that is left unspoken about privatizing the schools. In my district, there is an average per-student cost of approximately $14,000 that is being paid by the taxpayers. Given that the reformers have touted school vouchers that have the government paying 50% of each student’s tuition, that would leave the individual family’s cost at $7,000 per student per year.
I know of no middle class family that can afford this burden. Certainly, the poor cannot do so. One advantage of the public schools is that the cost is spread over the entire taxpayer base for the overall benefit of society. This taxpayer support is essential for the continuation of the middle class and greater career opportunities for everyone in the long run.
If we allow the privatization movement to succeed, education will become the privilege of the privileged few. The middle class will die out to join the poor, resulting in a caste system of unprecedented proportions in the U.S. Illiteracy and poverty will be the long-term effect. We will return to the “Gilded Age” of child labor, extremely long working hours for every member of the family, and unprecedented wealth for the few.
In 1997 all secondary schools in The Netherlands were ‘privatized’. From that year on, all school boards are private not-for-profit companies and receive a ‘lump sum’ according to the number of students.
Thirteen years later, in 2010, the school boards received more than twice as much money of what they received back in 1997. But the number of students is the same, class size has not decreased, teachers’ wages have hardly improved (they did not even keep up with the inflation, and have stood still for the past five years due to the economic crisis), learning results have not improved (we do worse on PISA while the US is improving).
Privatization has brought us nothing but happy school boards, who are willing and able to make billions of tax payers’ money disappear. Non-teaching staff has tripled; every non-teaching function is in a higher salary scale than teachers are; many schools have merged into giant organizations, so school boards can give themselves huge salaries because they are ‘responsible’ for oh so many students and employees. Such school board members pay themselves four to five times the salary of the best paid high school teacher.
Even more expensive are their ‘hobby’s’: investing tax payers’ money in buildings, in lucrative financial products, in trainloads of technology of dubious educational value, in prime offices for the school board themselves, in PR, and in expensive trainings in how to become even better managers.
In the mean time, becoming a teacher has grown to be among the least popular of careers. 30% of teachers in The Netherlands does not have a teaching license or has not studied for one day in their life the subject they are supposed to teach. There is a national “School Inspector” but he needn’t be informed about teachers’ licenses and he does not consider it his job to inspect if teachers are really teachers. Because of the unemployment rate, due to the crisis, an idea has been vented that unemployed people can be asked to teach in order to make up for the welfare they receive. School boards are happy to cooperate, because it is a great chance to hire very cheap ‘teachers’ whom they can easily get rid of.
The Dutch taxpayer give School Boards 9000 euro for every student, but has no say in how this money is spent. This is what you get when you ‘privatize’ all education.
Thanks for the “real” world example!
As an advocate of allowing students a greater range of choices in their education, I read this with a great deal of interest. There are to many issues to comment on all of them, so I will just pick a few.
Students certainly have the freedom to choose a private school, but only if they can find someway to pay for them. The issue of public payment for alternative schools or classes is about WHICH students will be given a choice.This is not only about schools, but individual classes: poster Joanna Best talked about a highschool student who was taking university classes paid for by the student’s family. Should there be a policy that the public school district pay for any class a students takes from an accredited school?
The issue about promoting the public good is an important one, and economics has worried about the conflict between private enterprise and public good for a long time. In general, economists argue that competition between providers will result in an outcome that can be viewed as good for society as a whole. There are, of course, some conditions that must be fulfilled for this to be true, and that would be a good place to begin a discussion about asymmetric information, externalities, and scale economies in education.
The comparison between a teacher and a machinist is an important one. Because it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of a teacher in teaching, rather than measuring the output of teachers we tend to measure inputs into the teaching process: how much education a teacher has, requiring continuing education, experience, etc. While having more inputs into teaching may be associated with better outcomes, we have created a system where the goal has become to increase the inputs rather than improve teaching. I think the solution to this issue is for teachers to take control of the evaluation process. I have no doubt that they know who in a building teaches well, who teaches poorly, and are professionally offended by poor teachers.
In the discussion of charter schools, the poster characterizes private businesses as an endless cycle of “hire and fire” as if there are not many long term professional employees in every private business. Hiring new employees is incredibly costly to a business, so they work hard to avoid having to do it. I think this will not be an issue in the long run.
Finally, I find the discussion of privatizing social security and healthcare an interesting one. It seems to me that social security, medicare, and medicaid are all much more like voucher programs than public schools. If we wanted a social security system like traditional public schools, beneficiaries would get access to government provided goods and services rather than getting resources to buy goods and services from the private economy. The same is true for medical care. It seems to me that folks who argue for a voucher system are arguing that public education be made more like the way we provide healthcare, goods, and services to older americans and the poor (note that the food stamp program is a bit of an exception, but it has always been a program designed to subsidize farmers as well as the poor)
“Hiring new employees is incredibly costly to a business, so they work hard to avoid having to do it. I think this will not be an issue in the long run.”
But hiring interns, short-term contractors and temps is not incredibly costly, so that’s what business is doing, increasingly. An example: I was recently talking to friends from Silicon Valley about work and when it came up that I had been at my current position for 19 years, they were incredulous. One said, “19 years is unheard of. 19 months is a pretty good run here!”
I think this actually could be an issue in the long run, as TFA and TFA-like organizations rush to fill the need for short-term, non-professional teachers. Your suggestion, then, that we need to measure teaching outputs, rather than inputs becomes crucially important. Perhaps we need to get an army of brainiac economists like yourself on this, because we sure don’t have anything that’s working in that department right now.
And while your busy designing those measurements of teaching output, don’t forget that they must show definitive conclusions in the first year of teaching, or they’re worthless. Any measurement that takes longer than that will be moot, as that teacher will have moved on before the results are back in.
When I think about employees, I do not talk to folks in silicon valley. I go to the downtown stores and businesses.
Here is a BLS press release discussing job tenure in the economy. There are links to a variety of tables.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm
Last month, the federal government reported that only 47% of workers have full time jobs while part time employment is at an all time high: http://www.policymic.com/articles/53093/july-2013-jobs-report-only-47-of-adults-have-a-full-time-job-in-obama-recovery
Cutting back hours and hiring workers as part time employees or independent contractors are now very common practices. These are amongst the reasons why retail and fast food workers have been protesting and striking across the country, but that’s found a lot in other fields, too, like the tech industry and higher ed.
Economist, what was I supposed to see in the BLS link?
I found that public sector employees have about double the tenure of private sector employees, that younger employees have less tenure than older employees and that in the private sector, service employees have less tenure than manufacturing employees. All of this seems to support my position that private sector employment in a service industry is likely to be short-term among the employees of the future.
My children were in a charter. The local elementary school was year-round, and I teach on a traditional schedule. We actually really liked the local school, but we had to send them elsewhere.
It has been my experience that charters seem to relish the power to fire. The turnover rate at the charter school where my boys went (notice the past tense–we got them out of the charter as soon as we could) was crazy high every year, probably around 50 percent. Some of the teachers were amazing, and often got picked up by local districts. Many were awful, and either stayed or were laid off.
And get this: my husband worked for a charter school several years ago in special ed. He caught a junior high-age student looking up pornography on a school computer. The school had terrible security on their computers. Upon further research, my husband discovered that the kid had been doing it for about 6 months. My husband had had the student for three weeks. When my husband reported it, they fired HIM, even though most of the time the student was looking at porn, my husband hadn’t even been at the school. This was a month into the school year. I wonder who they got to replace my husband in the middle of a year, particularly one certified in Special Education.
Charter schools employ massive turnover as a business strategy. I think my husband was “too expensive,” so they found an excuse to get rid of him.
Regardless of economic theory, TE, the privatized education world doesn’t actually work like that. Economic theory would assume that these schools would be risk averse because they want the school to succeed. The charter schools DON’T CARE if the school actually succeeds, just that they get their share before the bottom falls out, preferably by getting rid of as many expensive teachers as possible I’ve seen it countless times in charter schools.
Private schools are often held up here as the example of what a good school should be, at least when posters want to talk about the 1%. That suggests that private schools do “work” in some contexts. Perhaps it would be useful to think about why some private schools work and “privatization ” does not.
How on earth did you get that “private school works in some contexts” out of my statement???????????
Private schools are fine, but when they take public money, they should have to comply to basic codes of conduct, like due process. Do you think my husband, or many other teachers fired for specious reasons that are really about money, got due process? Think again!
Lousiana Purchase,
Spare yourself and don’t reason with the unreasonable. Many people on this blog have come to a consensus about TE’s reasoning abilities, focus, and uncanny ability to decontexturalize and micro-shred arguments to the point where the shred is no longer recognizable.
I know, Robert. But sometimes I have to fight anyway. But thanks for the advice.
Regarding the jobs portion of the conversation, thought this might be of interest:
New jobs disproportionately low-pay or part-time
http://news.yahoo.com/jobs-disproportionately-low-pay-part-time-162103614.html
From the article:
“The 162,000 jobs the economy added in July were a disappointment. The quality of the jobs was even worse.”
If you are interested in a more detailed breakdown of the numbers, here is a link to the BLS press release for July. The press release includes links to the underlying tables.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Something not mentioning in many of these posts is how it is that profit can be extracted from the effort, while changes that are supposed to be made to improve the system are made. In business, if massive changes are to be made in the way business is done, extra expenditures are budgeted to facilitate the change: additional training, new decor, new facilities, etc. and those monies come out of the profits of the company in the hope that even greater profits will be available thereafter.
With public schools starting at zero (0) profit, how is it these companies can promise all of these improvements while spending less than the public schools were doing? More voodoo economics I suspect.
Why is it we do not issue these charters to non-profit enterprises, why drain resources out of an already strapped system?
“With public schools starting at zero (0) profit, how is it these companies can promise all of these improvements while spending less than the public schools were doing? ”
The answer is obvious, Stephen. Cut the major cost involved in education–teacher pay. How do you do it? (1) No unions. (2) Increase the student/teacher ratio by not educating the expensive students. (3) Short-term temps as teachers. (4) Stop distracting and stressing the system by being exempt from high-stakes testing.
When shareholders become the only ones to whom you must answer, the equation becomes a lot simpler and the objectives a lot clearer.
The author states very adequately what I’ve been thinking for at least the last 10 years, or so. I’m also of the opinion that there’s serious conflicts of interest and possibly criminality & constitutional concerns involved in privatization.
Hopefully our nation’s children will endure and will (by virtue of having a human brain) be able to think critically despite the anti education reforms being implemented around the country right now! I read an interview on none-other-than Yahoo News where George Clooney rails against hedge fund managers taking over the film industry. Hmmmm…. just seems to support the need for “checks and balances” to be restored in government so as to keep big business in check. Even the Hollywood A-listers who do blockbuster films are starting to take notice of being controlled by “the few”…
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/george-clooney-hedge-fund-honcho-daniel-loeb-stop-161611465.html
Since when did improving education have anything to do with what the so-called reformers are demanding?
Look at their words, let alone their behavior, and it’s little but “creative destruction,” “global competitiveness,” “disruptive innovation” and other B-School platitudes.
In other words, it’s about money and control.
As I read the comments on this blog, both here and in other posts, I find myself agreeing less and less with the angry, negative “anti-everything new and different” attitude I’m seeing so often. If we as educators hope to win over anyone but ourselves to our cause, we have got to start taking other stakeholders seriously. Even if they are ignorant. Even if they have been deluded. Even if we know they are against us. Many times they have a point. And although often that point is based in perception more than in reality, we still need to address it as if we are someone other than a “Bad-Ass Teacher.”
I teach in the first state in the US that allowed public sector unions to exist and, as of 2011, they are gone, for all practical purposes. This is a portent of things to come everywhere. We can not think that we have much political weight to throw around anymore. We have got to be responsive.
Reading Edushyster rants is entertaining to those of us on the inside, because they are spot on and they point out the hilarious contradictions inherent in the cynical marketing efforts of the privatizers. Kind of like Dilbert cartoons were funny back when I was a cubicle-dwelling engineer. But Dilbert didn’t change corporate culture. The powerful interests that build the cubicles have changed that culture and made it even more unpleasant than Scott Adams could have imagined when he first began making the Dilbert strips. The same thing is already starting to happen in education. We have got to stop entertaining each other with our smug, know-it-all insider sniping at the stupidity and injustice of privatizer-driven reforms. Instead, we have got to pour our efforts into doing our work extremely well and doing local, positive PR work with the very public that will ultimately either allow or forbid privatizers from taking over our local schools.
The superintendent of my public school district has very wisely devoted most of the past few years to cultivating a positive culture in our community by reaching out to everyone involved, across the political and social spectrum, and by displaying true leadership among the staff of the schools in getting us to step up and show our taxpayers by example that we are the ones they want running our schools. Because of drastic cuts in education funding, this will be the last school year that we will be able to offer the educational programming we now do without going to the local taxpayers and asking them to override the state’s funding formula and voluntarily increase their taxes. If the staff of our schools had been posturing as BAT’s for the last two years, there’s no way we get the additional funding. Because we have reached out into our community and said, “Educating your kids is our primary concern, and here’s how we’re showing it,” when we now have to go out into the community and say, “We have been doing all we can, and now we need some help,” we will be far more likely to get their support.
In fact, business leaders in our community have already come to the superintendent and asked if he will work with them to find creative ways to help reward teachers outside the legal restrictions placed on our monetary compensation by the state. A related story was told by one of our negotiations team. This spring, they went to the school board and asked for a collective salary increase to match inflation. The board members, all conservatives and all veteran negotiators, came in with a low-ball bid. Our head negotiator responded by saying, “This offer is less than the increase in the cost of living, so it is essentially a pay cut. Can you please tell us what we can do as a staff to show you that we’ve added enough value to warrant keeping our current salary?” The board members looked surprised and then excused themselves to private conference. They came back ten minutes later with the maximum salary increase allowed by state law.
Can we start looking beyond our anger and find ways to work together positively? Full disclosure: I’m from Wisconsin. We have undergone a dramatic and quite public change in our situation as teachers in recent years. You probably saw us on national TV get soundly trounced by the powers that be. I struggle with as much anger as anyone might imagine following those incidents. But it’s just not productive.
I have a big sign in my classroom that says, “Be good. It works like magic.” We all know that isn’t always true, but over the long run, because most people aren’t sociopaths, it usually is right. So I remind myself from time to time that poster is for me as well as the students.
I think this is a very wise comment.
You’re very lucky to have a good superintendent. That makes a world of difference in schools. Unfortunately, a good many teachers aren’t so lucky, and with the transition in education, and many other sectors of society really, to bosses who think that abusing their employees is a sound strategy, you may one day see what many of the rest of us are dealing with. I don’t see ranting here. I see frustration with those who would say that educators are stupid, lazy, and destructive to society.
“Being Good” will not save you if you have an administrator who doesn’t care about human beings. Having been through one of those kind of administrators, I can tell you this. I tried to keep under the radar there, and was still told I was a trouble-maker when I reported a student who was horribly bullying a kid with a mental disease and then drew a picture of me blowing up. “Being Good” doesn’t fly with these people, unless you mean by “being good” you mean sucking up. I won’t be a toadie for anyone. I had a nervous breakdown the second year teaching at that poisonous school and had to get out. I was the second nervous breakdown in two years. In return: the toxic principal was named state principal of the year. Don’t tell ME that “being good” will do the trick.
I have a great superintendent right now. That hasn’t always been the case.
The last one was just exactly the kind of abusive, tyrannical bully you are describing. Despite years of outstanding service and several local, regional and national awards, I was a nobody to him until a certain student earned a C in my class when her influential parents were expecting an A. He ordered me to change the grade, which I did, and then when the public backlash started coming in he threw me under the bus by fabricating a story and formally disciplining me for altering grades. During the next school board meeting after I was disciplined, the room was packed with angry parents and community members. I wasn’t there–didn’t even know it was happening, kids had told their parents and the word had just spread. He backed off the next day because in my small town, moral capital matters and he came to know I had invested more than him.
After that, he made my life a living hell for 5 years. He attempted to fire me and force me to quit on numerous occasions, but guess what saved me–not my bad-ass teachers union, which, when push came to shove buckled under and did nothing. It was the relationships I had built with students and parents by using my energy to focus on being an excellent teacher instead of being angry. I outlived him and he’s now pissing off teachers in some other district. Being good certainly worked for me in that case.
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. No one should have to go through that. What I found was that even when students and parents love you, most administrators won’t care, and won’t buckle under. This is particularly true in larger communities, where not everyone knows everyone.
DE,
“He ordered me to change the grade, which I did,. . . ”
That was your first mistake. I had a similar situation my first year of teaching were a “powerful” member of the community did not like the grade his daughter earned the first semester. I told my principal (and I would have done the same with the sup) that I wasn’t changing anything. He could if he wanted but I wasn’t doing so. No problems after that!
Duane,
I’m an employee. Lots of teachers forget that. I don’t.
Dave
What bothers me are the denials that they’re privatizing. Obviously, they’re privatizing. The charter schools are private entities in all but funding. The charter school lawyers insist they’re private entities when they’re sued, at both the state and federal level!
So why do they have to lie about it? If a privately-run, publicly-funded school system is better, why not sell that to people, instead of all this nonsense about “portfolios of schools”? Arne Duncan says with his usual phony bravado that charters “will comprise 10% to 20% of public schools”. Where is this certainty coming from? I hope it’s not coming from state charter regulations, or authorizers. They’re a joke.
The for-profit online charters alone are exploding. You cannot swing a cat in Ohio without hitting a charter school ad. I sometimes think K-12 gets so little media scrutiny because they’re funneling millions of public dollars to advertising IN the same media who are supposed to be “watchdogs”.
We’re privatizing the K-12 system with virtually no public discussion on that issue. It’s the craziest, most reckless thing I have ever seen.
I fully expect people to be petitioning the US Senate for a “public option” in K-12 education in 20 years, under a future “national school reform bill”. And, just like with health care reform, they won’t get a “public option”.
We’re doing to education what we did to healthcare; fragmenting it. We get lousy outcomes (over-all) in healthcare, and we pay more than anyone else in the world. Why in the HELL would we want to do that same thing to public education?
So I’m watching the news last night, and I see Toledo Public Schools now has ads up. They’re competing with the absolute blizzard of publicly-funded charter ads in Ohio. I get direct mail pieces from Ohio charters that are 70 miles away. My son is a public school 5th grader. Is he supposed to commute 70 miles? How much public money are they wasting on this? Does my local district now have to throw education money away on ads to compete with these charters?
Is this a good outcome, reformers? Where money that was collected from the public to go to schools is going to advertising agencies and tv and radio stations? You’re pulling money DIRECTLY out of these kids’ schools and sending it to advertising companies and media conglomerates. Was this one of the grand “innovations” we were promised?
Special Report: The profit motive behind virtual schools in Maine
Documents expose the flow of money and influence from corporations that stand to profit from state leaders’ efforts to expand and deregulate digital education.
By Colin Woodard cwoodard@pressherald.com
Staff Writer
Milton Friedman called for the privatization of public education and his plan was implemented in Chile, so one need only look there to see what possible outcomes await us.
Contrary to Friedman’s predictions of positive results from privatization, in Chile, that led to a highly stratified, segregated society and education apartheid, giving the most choices to wealthy elites and where the remaining public schools became dumping grounds for lower income children and the most challenging students. (Sound familiar?)
Although implemented during the Pinochet regime of the 70s and 80s, the education policies that have promoted such inequity have persisted long after democracy was restored in 1990, demonstrating how difficult it can be to restore public education once the government has stopped investing in it.
Thus, we have seen Chilean students staging hunger strikes and rioting in the streets over the past two years, demanding the restoration of free public education, but to no avail under a conservative government that remains committed to private sector involvement in education.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/voucher_report/v_sosintl.shtml
What would make you think that Milton Friedman would think the outcome in Chile was not positive? This is a guy who advocated the elimination of licenses to practice medicine, for Pete’s sake.
He was a true believer in the free market, if there ever was one. I’m sure if he were alive today, he’d argue that the situation in Chile is the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people.
Ed Schultz…public schools facing systematic destruction…MSNBC:
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/45755822/ns/msnbc-the_ed_show/vp/52665628
It’s so wonderful that Ed really gets it and plans to address the issue more in the future!
I have to find the addresses for Melissa HP, Chris Hayes and Ed. They are all MSNBC, but I don’t know if they are all NYC. I don’t do Facebook, so I was going to snail mail.
A Sound Strategy for the Privatization of Public Education
Privatization of public education is actually a noble gesture, and is historically one of the most radical forms of desegregation ever endeavored. Extension of opportunity and vouchers for public school students to transfer to private/better performing schools (where this is in fact so) also signifies the apparent under-use and availability of highly coveted slots in those schools,* and should ultimately compel healthy competition amongst public schools to implement new innovative approaches to improve student performance and extended services to students, parents, and communities.
(*The notion of private juxtapose federal funding for private education presents a dichotomy, however, where it would require out of pocket costs for tuition amounts not covered by vouchers from students who would otherwise be privileged to a complimentary public education, or where students who would not be capable of paying residual costs would not be privileged to the same quality education).
Notwithstanding, educational quality and equality should be a reality for all schools, so as to warrant less need for proliferation of additional schools that would either be under-attended and/or create enrollment gaps in other schools; schools should be proliferated only where there are a lack of educational facilities, or where existent facilities or schools are overpopulated, and/or where newly formed schools would offer specialized classes or programs that are not offered at other local schools.
Types of Distinct and Potential Program Offerings of Privatized, Magnet, and Charter Schools
Performing & Other Arts, specialized Math & Science, International Studies (including residential programs for students from visiting countries), Business, Law, College Prep, Specialized (Residential) Fitness & Academic, etc. are some program and/or potential program offerings of private, magnet, and charter schools, though either or all of these courses could also be offered at traditional public schools.
Privatization would also best avail accommodations (residential as well as educational provisions, etc.) for the more than 1 million homeless children in America, a significant portion of whom are not attending school at all, and who suffer illness and early morbidity due to malnutrition and exposure to extreme cold and/or hot weather, a matter that is rightly the responsibility of our schools, in conjunction with the Department of Family and Children Services and other relevant agencies, to resolve.
Types of Residential & Prospective Residential Programs
Types of residential and/or prospective residential programs in public, private, magnet, and charter schools include co-ed and single sex dormitories or boarding schools, and dormitories for homeless and other students and their families that would be or become income-contingent for employed parent/guardian residents.
Privatization at best would entail corporate sponsorship* of traditional public schools, and not merely vouchers for transference to traditional private schools (*corporate sponsors could consist of any companies, churches, etc. that would provide significant monetary and/or other resources to any particular school(s)).
Additionally, government funding of education should not be based on property taxes, which should be eliminated altogether and superseded with a conservative across-the-board hike in income taxes for all tax payers (including non-homeowners with children attending public, private, and other schools). This would secure more funds for equal distribution amongst all schools and for other services that are traditionally funded by property taxes; and homeowners would actually own their homes once they’ve paid for them.
Conclusion
The ultimate goal of privatization should not be to dismantle the public school system, but to encourage excellence and compactness amongst all public, private, and other schools, so as to avail the very best of opportunities to even the very least of the poor.
I don’t know where you cut and pasted this neat theory from, Yolanda, but it may interest you to know that this idea is already being tested in practice. I would suggest that you read some informational text to try to find some shred of evidence that the theory has worked. Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the most extensive test of this hypothesis and therefore might be a good place to start your investigation.
I actually wrote it myself, and cut and pasted it from my blog. http://yolandamichellemartin.wordpress.com/category/education/. I was not aware that Milwaukee was conducting any pilots of this nature; I’m glad to hear that they are, however. A male friend of mine lives and works in the school system there. I’ll have to get with him on it. Can you provide links to any online articles regarding Milwaukee’s educational pilots that are of relevance to what I’m here discussing. I’d also love some feedback from you all on why any particular aspects of what I propose would not work. The source of ideas should not matter if they are viable (though I am employed with and have a son who is attending Shelby County Schools (Memphis), and I pull from my own experiences as a student and employee. The good thing about having choices in education, etc. is that if the services or treatment isn’t good, you’re privileged to go where it is. And excellence in service, thus, becomes the hinge of retention.
Yolanda,
Milwaukee has had an extensive voucher program for years and it has been fairly well studied. Search Diane’s blog for articles, I know she’s written about it in the past, so that would be an easy first step. Suffice it to say, the evidence has been rolling in and it’s pretty certain that shuffling all that money from the public school system has not improved things. Not only are the voucher schools not outperforming the public schools, but the public schools, despite our public religion of competition, have not improved either.
I have no interest in arguing your theory. The proof is in the practice and competition in education, ranging from merit pay to Race to the Top hasn’t worked, no matter how nice the theory sounds.
It seems the fact that we have arrived at a place where those who think privatization is a solution are gaining ground and prevailing, indicates that we were not succeeding in finding a prevalent formula for success in public education. I much prefer the principle of public education and will continue to push for it, vote for it, and work for it. But clearly something wasn’t working for a large number of voters. I wish I knew in plain English, bullet points even (no pun intended per new armed guard talk) what that was, exactly.
I remember commenting to an awesome guitar player friend once who was in a busy rock cover band that every time I went to see his band there was an odd guy in a dress who would stand at the edge of the stage. And my guitar player friend said, “Yeah–doesn’t it make you love America even more when you see that? That guy can do that and be who he wants to be.”
And even though I could not relate to the strange guy at the edge of the stage in that moment, I knew my friend was right. That is why we are lucky to be Americans.
At the same time I had another friend, a black male, who would jest that he was going to park in the handicap spot because he is a black man in America.
So maybe some people have been, are, will be more lucky than others? So the question is, what school approach best enables the most chance at good luck for all Americans?
Chance favors the prepared mind. Which approach best prepares student minds?
I know what I think.
NC passed a voucher bill. The vouchers for $4200 and cannot exceed 90% of the school’s tuition. The high flying private schools in my town cost much more than $4700 (although how someone getting free/reduced lunch will come up with even $500 is a mystery to me).
For a party that preaches fiscal responsibility, I question why they would encourage people with so little income to pay for their child’s K-12 education? What will happen when the maxed out credit card is denied for the next month’s tuition? Will the school throw them out? it sounds like we are setting ourselves up for a education crash. When people apply to these schools, is their going to be a process in place to ensure they can pay the tuition difference -similar to qualifying for a mortgage, car loan, etc?
What will be the long-term social issues for these parents when they retire and have even less money because they paid for private schools?
We also have to ask, is the goal of privatization to improve education? Perhaps not. I remember a poster commented that this is a way to show there is a bigger need for charters.
there not their
So, once again I ask, what are we going to DO???!!! We talk to each other; we work behind the scenes; we continue blogging, but what do we actually DO?
How are we making the public aware of these issues? In my state, the reformers have long had a series of television commercials touting the benefits of public education reform. They have bought out or intimidated news reporters into supporting reform and denying us a voice with which to get our message out. Some of us have spoken with reporters, even providing them with thousands of documents proving the corruption of the reformers’ claims of improving education. We have had no success in getting these stories published or in the public eye. The reformers have all of the advantages.
So, what are we going to DO?
Here’s my suggestion: Build relationships with kids and parents. Go to your local school board meetings with reasonable, affordable solutions to problems, not just to bitch about pay and conditions. DON’T join the Bad Ass Teachers, if for no other reason than their name reinforces the negative image the corporate reformers have painted on the public consciousness. Above all, teach your heart out and by your actions convince the public that we are the ones they want in charge of education.
I already do everything you are suggesting. I even have parents visit my classrooms. But I do not believe that it is enough. I teach in an urban district in which there is little parent involvement with the students or with the school.
There is another issue that really concerns me deeply; the President of my Union, Melodie Peters of AFT-CT, recently sent out a news letter in which she seems to be trying to present our governor, Dannel Malloy, as being pro-teachers’ unions. No governor in our state history has been more anti-teacher than he. I am sensing that she will try to lend him our Union’s endorsement when he runs for reelection next year. In other words, our Union leadership seems to be selling us out in favor of a key supporter of corporate reform.
Loved these two lines,”It surely must be eaiser to guage the effectiveness of say a machinist whose handwork is an inanimate creation. The outcome of a machinist labor rests on 90% of the machinists’ competence and ability and10% on the matierial used…