Michael Paul Goldenberg explains why progressives are suspicious of KIPP and TFA:
There are a couple of key issues that seem to arise (or sit just below the surface) in nearly every conversation about educational policy these days. No one who is critical of the school deform movement (in which I squarely place KIPP and TFA) thinks that because poverty is such a devastating factor that no one should try to create better schools with great teachers, and in other ways to improve education for the nearly 25% of American children living below the poverty line. It’s grossly unfair to suggest that in criticizing deformers, their motives, and their policies, Diane Ravitch and many others are saying, “Until poverty is addressed, do nothing about education.”
KIPP, TFA, and other programs may well have started out as well-intentioned attempts to make things better for underserved students, schools, and neighborhoods despite poverty. But they have morphed over time into fiscal and social conservative models for how to create miracles without needing to address critical social and economic issues. Whether that transformation reflects the political views of those running these programs or simply represents mission slip combined with the influx of capital from those who saw an opportunity to promote panaceas meant to convince politicians and the general public that obviously most public schools were horrible (and please note, this analysis slyly shifts tactics by starting with the neediest, most disadvantaged schools and communities but then creating policies like NCLB that are guaranteed to make the vast majority of public schools appear to be “failing” because of doubtful criteria and truly crazy mathematics). Once the notion that “US public schools are failing” becomes accepted common wisdom, the financial vultures move in with a host of projects that are almost entirely about making a profit from a crisis. This is the way disaster capitalism operates.
So maybe KIPP, TFA, and other magic bullets are “pure of heart,” but looking at them over time, it appears reasonable to start picking at all the ways in which they have become cult-like, absurdly self-promoting, creating and/or believing all the hype that arises about them, and desperately denying any and all criticism raised about what they’re actually doing. And so we hear some people suggesting that these are examples of people really doing something good, really making a difference, and being unfairly bashed by mean-spirited critics like Diane Ravitch.
Two points I have to try to make here. First, KIPP et al., will look either like pawns or frauds as long as they are so unwilling to recognize their role in a national crisis that goes far beyond schools, one that is fundamentally about the concentration of unprecedented wealth and power in the hands of the few coupled with unprecedented levels of poverty and need among a scandalously high percentage of the nation. They fight so hard to stave off reasonable questions and criticism that I can’t see how Schorr expects people not to continue to get a clearer picture of what’s behind the hype.
But perhaps at least as important is the TYPE of education KIPP provides, the kind of teaching TFA promotes, and what that means for students. On my view, KIPP is a very regressive philosophy. It’s “work hard, be nice” mantra sounds wonderful to many people, but to me, given that KIPP is working mostly with poor students of color, it sounds very much like “get back in your place. Don’t complain. Do what you’re told.” And given that there is so much emphasis on chanting, rote, and in general the sort of bunch o’ facts education that none of its wealthy backers and cheerleaders would EVER accept for themselves or their children, it feels racist, classist, and reactionary: designed to ensure that inner-city students of color and poverty are pacified with marginal and minimal skills that will not lead them to satisfying, challenging lives with competitive salaries. Frankly, I would scream if my son were in a KIPP-style school, and so would most educated parents.
I can’t possibly develop this argument completely here, but I hope I’ve raised a couple of key points that will get some folks who don’t understand why there is a great deal of animus towards KIPP, TFA, and other projects coming from progressives. We want a better analysis of the social/economic justice issues to inform the debate. And we want a better kind of education for all students, not just those whose parents can afford Sidwell-Friends and the like. The day President Obama puts his daughters in a KIPP school or one staffed with TFA novices is the day I’ll start considering that he really believes those are fine approaches to education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
spot on. terrific analysis. there’s a great book that gets at this–Learning on Other Peoples Children. fantastic read.
thanks, Mr. Goldenberg!
Sums it up neatly.
This essay is powerfully written, and makes a trenchant point. But the essay’s thesis overreaches and, in the process, undercuts credibility that supporters of public schools — I count myself as a fierce one of those number — desperately need, now.
The bright side is that Goldenberg exposes KIPPS’s dark core. After my first couple of visits to KIPPS schools, I started calling them “American Madrassas.” On the outside, they feature the cheeriness of American culture; but, at heart, they share more in common with the drill-and-kill philosophy that is used to educate poor boys in Muslim countries. Goldenberg drills straight to the class-and-race-based condescension of this approach. I hope more people get to read this.
On the other hand, Goldenberg fails to provide any support for two very large claims that his thesis asserts, namely that Teach For America also betrays America’s underclass children, and that it’s “grossly unfair” to accuse prominent critics of TFA and KIPPS of not supporting educational reform. Before I write any more, let me say that noting Goldenberg’s absence of evidence for his assertions does NOT mean that I think there’s any evidence of absence. That is to say, I’ve read what Diane Ravitch has written for years, and know for a fact that she has many powerful suggestions for how to improve public education. And, while I’m less convinced that TFA is a malignant force in public education, I’m open to being to persuaded. But only by evidence.
None of the six paragraphs in this essay focus on the failings of Teach for America. Similarly, none of the paragraphs make any note of other school-improvement policies to KIPPS and TFA that are supported by Dr. Ravitch and other critics. In contrast, Goldenberg provides at least five specific examples of how KIPPS miseducates its students. Rule one of persuasive writing — literally the first that I teach my students — is to state only what you intend to prove and prove what you state. In terms of that rubric, this essay is only one for three.
This failure isn’t just an academic matter. Many of my former students have worked in Teach For America, and they will be hurt if and when they read this essay. That might be alright — the truth sometimes hurts. But a condemnation without an explanation of why they did more harm than good is not only going to leave them unconvinced; it could very well create more enemies than public education already has. Moreover, those creatures –Goldenberg’s neologism, “deformers,” describes them perfectly are already itching to attack. Overstatements provide these creatures with easy targets, while weakening the credibility of our strong arguments. In illustration of that last point, I would dearly love to press the “Facebook” button at the bottom of my computer screen so that my non-teaching friends could read something sensible about KIPPS instead of media puffery. In offering this authentic assessment, I hope that Goldenberg will be able to rework this important essay so that it is ready for Prime Time.
Here is an article by Prof Paul Thomas who has written extensively about the harm of Teach for America. At end of the piece are many important links. Check it out: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/12/unpacking-tfa-support-twisted-logic-and.html
Take a look at the earlier posts about TFA lying and/or stretching the truth about their own stats. Or Michelle Rhee lying all over the place about the New Teacher Project stats. BTW, the “reformers” are going to say that what is said here is a lie or an exaggeration or an hysterical traducement no matter what is actually said here and no matter the tone in which it is offered.
No one should for a moment forget the strategic role TFA and KIPP played in the near-total privatization of the New Orleans schools in the aftermath of Katrina, and their role in busting the teacher’s union there.
Cult-like, they are at best insipidly patronizing, and at worst racist and classist in their relations with the communities they colonize.
They are the point of the spear of the Shock Doctrine, as applied to public education, and should be fought, exposed and shunned everywhere.
(http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/11teach_for_america_has_become_e.html)
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Student Under Construction
Current Post: Frustrations Of A Student in the Midst of Education Reform
“Whether they want to acknowledge it or not, SFER (Students for Education Reform) gives way for attacks on public schools. Maybe not directly, but when you take the time to sit down and look and what they are doing, what they are advocating for, and who they partner with, it’s not hard to find. The problem is, it’s much more convenient to take things at face-value and what sounds good. Too many people hate hearing the truth because it’s inconvenient, it makes them feel bad, and people hate to put their egos aside–it’s human nature, I get it. But I can only hope, for the sake of our future education system and our students, more people will challenge what simply “sounds good.”
Read the whole article!
http://teacherunderconstruction.com/2012/08/28/frustrations-of-a-student-in-the-midst-of-edu-reform/
I’m white, upper middle class, a Harvard graduate — and I’d love to have my kids in a KIPP school if one were convenient. You might like to think that such a demographic is against “drill and kill,” but who do you think pays for many millions of kids to have extra tutoring from Kumon, Sylvan, and the like? Don’t so blithely assume that other people are all hippie “progressives” who just want their kids to be happy free spirits who never actually have to learn very much.
Stuart, perhaps you should not so blithely assume that just because Sylvan got your kids to memorize a bunch of factoids that they actually know something.
You’re completely missing the point. I don’t send my kids to those places, and I didn’t actually say that Sylvan was the best way to attain knowledge. What I do say is that if millions of parents are essentially buying extra “test prep” for their kids, then it is untrue to pretend that all parents are against test prep. Indeed, it is rather narcissistic in any circumstance to assume that everyone wants the same thing as you do.
Maybe you would send your child to a KIPP school, but I’ll bet you wouldn’t get your spouse to agree to it. Also, almost none of the “reformers” finds it “convenient” to send his child to such a school. No, this would not be a school for the sons and daughters of Harvard grads (or even State U. grads who read this blog).
As for “kill and drill,” it’s true that many of us paid for test prep so our kids would do well on the SAT but most of us understood that the real education came from the hours devoted to reading, discussing, writing, looking through a telescope at night, “playing” with the computer, and taking trips around the country. I still recall the article by the journalist who visited a Test-Prep Academy and found the students studying history out of a test-prep booklet. That was their textbook!
Stuart, my son went to Harvard too but he gives the credit to all the privileges he enjoyed as the child of the middle class, not the Princeton Review. Be honest with yourself – what led you to Harvard? Let’s try to spread some of that good stuff around.
Like the post, you are misestimating what other parents want and caricaturing KIPP as well.
If I thought that “real education” came from all that you say, then why should I bother sending my kids to school at all? Why not just “unschool” them?
My kids are in an elementary public school in Texas; it’s predominantly black and Hispanic (18% white). So here we are in Texas, the home of test prep, if one believes what one reads. And a predominantly minority school to boot. One would think that such a school would be nothing but test prep, right?
Here in the first week of school, she’s already spent one evening cutting out words from magazines for some silly project, leaving paper clippings all over the house. Ah, for a little test prep.
Stuart, it’s very revealing that you interpreted what I described as “real education” to be something that occurs outside of school! Actually when I referred to “lots of reading, discussing, writing …” I was thinking of both school and home.
“Here in the first week of school, she’s already spent one evening cutting out words from magazines for some silly project, leaving paper clippings all over the house. Ah, for a little test prep.”
Projects are only silly to someone who doesn’t understand cognitive development in young children. Hands-on experiences are important for learning. They should not be measured by how tidy they are for adults.
Is there any evidence that cutting words out of magazines serves any legitimate educational purpose? There are easier ways to procure words.
Do you also have “obvious,” common sense views on accounting, lawyering, veterinary medicine and cosmetology? You’ve fallen off the pons asinorum here.
Go and be a troll on someone else’s blog.
This is a site to discuss better education for all, not a site to insult the education profession or me.
Be grateful I haven’t deleted your nasty comments.
If you continue in this tone, I will delete you.
If such evidence exists, why not bring it forth and settle the matter?
Case for Hands-On Learning
http://www.raftsac.org/case-for-hands-on.html
Diane — as someone who daily criticizes certain schools or pedagogical approaches, you wouldn’t want to be taken to have criticized the entire “education profession.” Please make the same distinction here: I criticized the “progressive” disdain for facts, as well as one particular teacher who assigned one vacuous project. That is not the entire profession by any means, and nothing that I said could plausibly be read that way. (I do apologize for using the word “hippie” — that was needlessly disdainful.)
Cosmic Tinker: I think it’s great to have hands-on science activities, or manipulatives to learn the concept of division, etc. But that tells me nothing about whether it’s ever useful to cut random words out of a magazine to then paste somewhere.
Stuart Buck: You asked about research and the article provided a lot of it, incuding this:
“…researchers found that the longer ESL students participated in hands-on learning, the higher their scores were in science, writing, reading, and mathematics (Amaral & Garrison, 2002)”
Why did you focus on math and science and overlook what it said about the impact on writing and reading? Just as math is a complex symbol system representing abstract concepts, so is language, whether it be a first language or a second language, and active learning helps students develop literacy skills as well.
“I criticized the “progressive” disdain for facts, as well as one particular teacher who assigned one vacuous project.”
Who are you to tell people they have a “disdain for facts”? Who are you to judge whether or not a learning experience is “vacuous” or meaningful? I get paid to teach this stuff and I’m not going to give anymore of it away for free to someone who appears to be a rude imposter posing as an educator, asking questions so he can claim some measure of expertise in our field and then set education policy. Go study cognitive science yourself.
Let’s try to focus on the question here: I suggested that cutting random words out of a magazine wasn’t educationally useful. You seem to disagree.
But have you explained exactly why? I.e., have you offered a specific rationale for believing that cutting words out of a magazine is the best use of time? No.
Have you offered evidence on the point? Not that is relevant. You point to a citation that concerned reading/writing scores, but if one looks at that study, it was looking at the effects of a hands-on science program that included keeping a science journal. The program that was studied did NOT include cutting words out of magazines, not as far as one can tell. (It’s not even a strong study anyway in terms of design.)
Anyway, one can’t take one study of a particular type of hands-on learning, and then act as if anything called “hands-on” is thereby justified, no matter how completely different it is from what was studied. By analogy, if one study finds that blueberries are healthy, that does not mean that blueberry-flavored Danishes are healthy.
Stuart, I will try to answer your question, but before I do I want to make this point: Children learn in certain ways, in accordance with the developmental stage that they are in. It’s fairly easy to know which stage they are in through observation and questioning. So, for example, by playing with my ten-month-old grandchildren I can tell that they are at a stage where they want to dump things, listen to rhymes and songs and push buttons. Knowing this, their parents and I have purchased toys and books that cater to the stage they are in at this time. Of course, these toys would be inappropriate for an older child or adult. To the untrained eye, the baby who throws things out of his crib and watches them fall is just “being a baby and wasting time” but the attentive and knowledgeable parent recognizes this as a learning milestone.
At every stage of childhood, there are activities appropriate to the present development of the child. At five, six or seven, a child enjoys cutting paper, making books and pasting or taping “stuff” inside of them. An experienced parent and teacher knows this and so, in order to facilitate word discrimation, might say, “Let’s see how many words we can cut out of this magazine,” or for a more advanced child, “Let’s see how many words we can find that would be a name for something..” To be specific, the child would be practicing visual discrimination, word recognition, classification and motor skills (use of scissors, turning pages). Equally important, he would enjoy the activity, just as your daughter probably did. Basically this activity gets the child into print. Like adults, the child probably stops along the way to look at pictures, to read (if he can) and/or ask questions about something he sees. If you think this activity was too easy and a waste of time for your daughter, try doing the same activity with a toddler.
Please keep an open mind and read about how children learn. You’ll be glad you did.
I see what you’re saying, but I’m not talking about a preschooler here: it’s my fifth-grade daughter, who will be 11 early in the school year, and who has been reading Anne of Green Gables at home.
Well, I’ll admit this activity seems inappropriate for an eleven year old child, but without knowing the teacher’s objective, or your daughter’s involvement in the task, I can’t comment. However, I can pass on this advice that a mother of five brilliant children gave me when my sons were little:
If you are not pleased with your child’s progress at school, make a change. Remember that you and your spouse are your child’s most important teachers. Good luck!
As far as I can tell, the activity was to come up with words to paste onto the front of each student’s history journal. A history journal sounds like a good idea, and writing words on the front is no problem, but cutting those words out of a magazine (as if one were a serial killer trying to leave an anonymous note) and then spending time in 5th grade pasting (time that could have been spent learning something about history) seems inefficient at best.
I don’t have enough information to comment on your daughter’s assignment but I can tell you this with absolute certainty:
A parent’s attitude toward the school and the teacher is likely to have a profound effect on the child. NEVER show disrespect for the teacher in front of your child. If you feel you cannot support the teacher, make a change.
Oh of course, I haven’t said any of this to my daughter. And actually, she’s very artsy herself and didn’t seem to mind. But speaking as a non-artsy person, I would have been miserable with an assignment like that.
If there’s one thing that more people need to understand (including the original post), just because you personally enjoy a particular way of doing things doesn’t mean everyone else does. In fact, what makes you happy might make other people miserable, and vice versa.
Yes, I can agree with that. And that’s why teachers are trained to respond to the interests and strengths of the individual child. Parents are in the best position to do this and that’s probably the main reason why they are their child’s most important teachers.
Linda: Look up who you’re talking to and don’t waste your breath. This is not a concerned parent. He’s a troll from an extreme right wing billionaire hedge fund foundation focused on setting education policy and privatizing public ed. Also example of how someone with no training in education can now earn a doctorate in “education reform”.
Linda — speaking only as a parent of five children in public schools, I appreciate your uniquely thoughtful and relevant replies.
As someone who is actively working to set education policies in this country, you should already know a lot about learning and teaching, but it is evident that you do not. Most likely, that is because education “reformers” place no value on P-12 teacher training and experience, or on expertise beyond content area knowledge. Therefore, you were not required to have any prior training or experience teaching in P-12 public education for your doctoral program –and it shows.
I reviewed the Course of Study of your doctoral program in the “Department of Education Reform”, with its “Endowed Chair in School Choice”, at the University of Arkansas, and I think most real educators would be alarmed by it. I saw no course requirements in child development, cognitive science, or curriculum and instruction, and yet, the very first semester, doc students study, “Program Evaluation”: It looks decidedly biased towards furthering the “failing schools” narrative and promoting the school choice agenda:
http://www.uark.edu/ua/der/PhDProgram.html
Conversely, it was in my doctoral program at a private Catholic university that I first learned about the negative ramifications of school choice on public education. I saw no evidence of bias towards a private school agenda nor CYA for parochial schools there. Not being a Catholic, I was very alert to this, too, and rather surprised, until I independently studied some things about that Order. This, while the National Catholic Education Association supports school choice, demonstrated to me a true commitment to social justice.
Yes, I know “social justice” are dirty words for many who claim that “reform” allowing for school choice is the “civil rights issue of our time”. However, the conceptual framework for my School of Ed was professionalism in service of social justice, and I do favor that over corporatism in service of personal gain.
I’m white, was raised in an upper middle income family and attended a public middle school in the 60s which implemented the same militaristic approach used by KIPP. It was very much like being in a “Kids in Prison Program”, as some former students have characterized KIPP. It was absolutely horrible.
I found the approach torturous, uninspiring, mind-numbing, a creativity killer and I learned very little. I would not wish that kind of experience on any child –unless they knowingly chose to go to a real military school.
One of the most interesting aspects of my career as an educator has been in discovering how many early childhood parent cooperatives there are that choose play-based curriculum over drill for skill academics. The parents are college educated, upper-middle income people who know their kids don’t have to be tortured in order to learn and grow optimally.
Curious…do kids who go to Kumon and Sylvan actually DO anything with what they’re “learning”? Do they make anything? Do they create anything, put it out there in the world, have other people use it, refine it, etc? Do they do anything that prepares them to succeed in ways other than pass a test somewhere?
We are test prepping our kids for a lifetime of under or unemployment as we’ve not yet woken up to the idea that knowing stuff doesn’t do you a bit of good if you can’t do anything with it. KIPP drills and kills for one purpose, to improve scores. How any one could advocate putting their own children through that escapes me, but it shows the extent to which we’ve bought into that scary narrative.
Apparently, Wendy Karp and her husband, KIPP Board chair Richard Barth, aren’t willing to have their children eat their own cooking: their kids don’t go to KIPP, but instead to a progressive public school.
Aside from (public) wealth extraction and capital accumulation, the Skinner Boxes known as corporate charter schools are really there for the training (“Be Nice! Work Hard! Don’t Ask Any Questions!”) of the Worthy Poor, while the Unworthy Poor are increasingly relegated to underfunded, undermined public schools, until they too get turned over to the financial and real estate interests that are salivating over them.
I don’t know of any “reformer” who sends his child to a KIPP school. Even the great apologist for KIPP, Jay Mathews of the Washington Post, did not. That should tell us something.
I also see no reason whatsoever to believe the Kopp/Barth represntation that their kids are in anything other than private schools. Everything they say is either bullshit (in which case it doesn’t matter) or has to be checked ( and can’t be because no school will confirm a student’s attendance to a third party unless you’re Jerry Sandusky in State College, PA).
Stuart you are right – it is the the upper middle class parents who pay for Kumon, etc. There is a Kumon and two other tests prep centers in my upper middle class, overwhelmingly white, neighborhood. In NYC scores on standardized state exams determine which middle schools and high schools students will attend. Many parents can afford to buy their children entry into superior schools. And they do. I’m sure Kumon is making a nice profit. But if you think for a minute that those same parents don’t spend their spare time organizing and raising money for their children’s elementary schools to have art classes (with visiting artists), music classes (taught by professionals), drama, PE, special trips etc., you are sadly mistaken. They know full well that a comprehensive well rounded education and test prep are two different things. Lucky for them, they can afford to the play the NYC/NYS education game and go to test prep AFTER school. For those not as fortunate, there are middle and high schools for them which may or may not be closed by the time they graduate.
By the way, did you know that NYC is the third most segregated school system in the US? Yes, right behind Dallas. Mr. Duncan’s home turf, Chicago is #1.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/11/nyregion/segregation-in-new-york-city-public-schools.html
OK, so you’re saying that these parents want both test prep and a well-rounded education with music, art, etc.
Well, that’s exactly what KIPP tries to do! Focus on reading and math to get those basic skills in order, but leave enough time in the school day for music, art, and all the rest.
Offering art, music and PE is no guarantee that kids won’t be drilled in there, too, in a school that’s all about controlling and manipulating kids. In my military style public middle school, we had those classes:
In art, everyone was directed to make the same things. Students were not encouraged to do anything that promoted exploration, experimentation, the expression of individuality or divergent thinking.
If you had walked into my music class, you probably would have thought it was a course in US history, because we were drilled so much on that in there. We sang some American songs occasionally.
Our gym teacher was the chief Drill Sergeant for the school. He strictly enforced the rules in class and out, such as that everyone walk without talking in single file on the white line that was painted around the perimeter of the hallways and gym floor, ensuring that we squared our corners –and go back and do it again if we had not done it to his liking. Then there were all the physical drills in gym class.
Specials were not safe havens from rigid school policies.
“Don’t so blithely assume that other people are all hippie “progressives” who just want their kids to be happy free spirits who never actually have to learn very much.”
What’s the PeeWee Herman saying? “I know you are so what am I”. “Hey fella, how about bending a couple in the dooda room. If you catch my meaning, if you catch my drift”.
“school deform movement”? Is that a typo?
Aren’t “progressives” a euphemism for socialists? No wonder the U.S. public education is tanking.
Tell us what improvement has been made? Far more civil countries than ours with a lower poverty level have elements of “socialism.” Conservative “christians” should look at the socialistic tendencies of the apostles. It is ironic that they prefer Social Darwinism while decrying the science of Darwin.
Very wry comment. This has puzzled me as well- convenient but blatant ignoring of Christ’s admonishments on behavior as recorded by the apostles. Wonder if this is a function of the dramatic rise in power of evangelical christianity which excludes anyone from their ‘club’ who does not accept the precepts of the church. There are the haves ( christians and the right kind at that) and then there are the have nots ( everyone else who is not the right kind of christian). Catholics tradition were along those lines but waited until after death for setting the demarcation. Thank goodness or the tradition of catholic school (for good/bad) in poor communities would never have taken hold.
Not a fan of parochial schools but some of the nuns who ran them were some of the best examples of christian socialism ever embodied.
You found the words I have been looking for. I’ve always admired your work! The demeaning condescension of KIPP and TFA, assuring all they have the secret to educating all children better than the public schools when in fact they do no such thing is really galling.
Gee, all those horrible socialist programs like public schools, police departments, fire departments, public roads, the judicial system, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the truly socialistic VA and the military itself. The author of the Pledge of Allegiance was also the author of the sermon, “Jesus the Socialist.” Francis Bellamy was a self avowed Christian socialist.
Reblogged this on Class[room]-Conscious.
I teach at a KIPP high school and have been thoroughly disillusioned and am looking to get out as soon as possible. We are absolutely driven by test scores (though I wouldn\’t say that\’s unique to KIPP; I think most schools are feeling the state breathing down their necks these days) and my lesson plans have to account for every minute, and students must produce an \”exit ticket\” every day evaluating what they\’ve learned. Obviously, in high school English, this doesn\’t allow for the fact that you often realize what you\’ve learned a bit further down the road, and it leaves no room for the sort of open-ended, robust debate and discussion of literature that characterized my (middle-class, public school) education. We\’re so busy breaking things down into component parts so we can say that a student can show he\’s mastered indirect characterization or metaphor on a five-minute quiz at the end of class that we never get to the beauty of Tolstoy\’s language or the aching desperation of Hemingway’s ”Hills Like White Elephants.”
My greatest regret is that I moved mountains to get my godson into a KIPP school and turned down an opportunity for him to go to boarding school because I thought it was too elitist. It may have been, but it would have given him a comprehensive education as well.