There are times when reality is zanier than satire.
Read about Douglas County, Colorado, where choice fanatics run the district.
They want students and families to choose schools the way you choose a color for your car or a brand of cereal.
In other words, they don’t believe in public education.
They don’t believe in the democratic ideal of common schooling, where children from many backgrounds learn together. They believe in consumerism.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Part of democracy is working for the common good. Part of democracy is recognizing that there is no single path to the common good. Part of democracy is allowing people to make some choices.
The Supreme Court has been clear that there are some limits to our freedoms (ie you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater is a classic restriction on free speech).
But democracy means, among other things, that families and individuals have many choices.
LikeLike
Yes, and thanks to advocate/apologists such as yourself, they increasingly have a choice about everything except having an adequately funded neighborhood public school.
LikeLike
Joe’ s motto: Survival of the fittest.
See analysis here of what real reform looks like, not preserve their status quo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/29/how-school-reform-preserves-the-status-quo-and-what-real-change-would-look-like/
LikeLike
No, my work is let’s honor a variety of schools that are helping young people, and let’s help improve public schools.
http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_23076316/homeroom-collaborative-effort-gives-high-school-students-better
Here’s a link to an editorial from last Friday that comments on this:
http://www.twincities.com/opinion/ci_23108307/friday-opinuendo-st-paul-legacy-sequestration-manipulation-and
LikeLike
“let’s help improve public schools”……is it only the public schools that need improving Joe?
All charter schools are examples of excellence and do not need improving? I don’t think that’s what you mean.
LikeLike
By the definition of 41 state laws, legislation adopted by the US Congress and signed by the President and the District of Columbia, charters are public schools. So, yes, I certainly include charters in public schools that could use improving. Our focus is with urban, rural and suburban public schools serving relatively high percentages of low income, limited English speaking and students of color.
Yes, I also agree we need to work on factors outside schools, as those inside schools. Not one or the other. Both.
LikeLike
Off topic, but since it comes up a lot, are charters public? Not most of them, according to the U.S. Census: http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/05/us-census-bureau-most-charters-not.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JerseyJazzman+%28Jersey+Jazzman%29
LikeLike
This whole so called school choice bumper sticker slogan is so disingenuous, so deceptive and so destructive. So if you are against so called “school choice,” then you are against motherhood, apple pie, the flag, democracy and the American way. Number one, we already have school choice; you can send your kids to private schools or religious schools or home school them. The problem with school choice is that it drains funds and resources from the real public schools. Charter schools are private schools that use public tax money. Here in NJ, we have no say whether a charter school is dumped into a perfectly good school district with successful public schools. The residents don’t get to vote on the charter school budget or the charter school board of directors. In most districts in NJ, the residents get to vote on the school board and on the budgets. The charter schools, by their very nature, do not work in cooperation with the REAL public schools. Charter schools and school vouchers are a HORRIBLE idea hatched by ideologues who HATE public education, hate unions and if they are honest, really hate paying teachers a good salary.
LikeLike
Elite private schools in NYC: Léman Manhattan Preparatory School has a gym whose floor is cleaned twice a day. The Trinity School has three theaters, six art studios, two tennis courts, a pool and a diving pool. Poly Prep Country Day School raised $2 million to open a learning center this year that has six full-time employees offering one-on-one help with subjects as varied as note-taking and test-taking.
LikeLike
Joe,
A different way to look at the common good. http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/05/02/public-education-common-good
LikeLike
Forty years ago, when a multi racial group of parents asked the St. Paul Public Schools to create a k-12, project based public school, those parents heard the same argument.
As a fan of public school choice and an opponent of vouchers, I think public education should offer a variety of options. The Gallup poll shows a vast majority agree. Of course, for some people, it’s ok for wealthy people to have options in education but not for people from low income families.
LikeLike
“As a fan of public school choice and an opponent of vouchers, I think public education should offer a variety of options.”
Joe — why are you opposed to vouchers?
LikeLike
Thanks for your question:
1. I’m opposed to public funds going to k-12 schools that are allowed to have admissions tests of any kind. I’m opposed to public funds for k-12 schools that can screen out students on the basis of standardized tests, grades, or performances. Public schools ought to be open to all kinds of kids – no admissions tests.
2. I think the last thing the US needs right now is to fund more schools that promote one religion as better than all others (that’s one of the central reasons for parochial schools – to promote a particular religion as better than others).
3. Trying to regulate what parochial schools teach will get into governments into very difficult religious/free speech issues. Is a parochial school allowed to promote discrimination against another group (as some religious schools do)? This could include people of a different religion, people with a certain sexual orientation, etc.
Those are among the reasons. What do you think?
LikeLike
I don’t like vouchers, partly for the reasons you cite, and partly because I think they gut public services.
LikeLike
Joseph,
“By the definition of 41 state laws, legislation adopted by the US Congress and signed by the President and the District of Columbia, charters are public schools.”
Joe, have you ever taught public school for a high needs, low income ELL population or similar to it? If so, for how long?
If the charters are public schools, why is it that they generally can “counsel” children who are the “wrong fit” out of the school or can expulse permanently children for behvioral problems, ones that public schools would be mandated to keep such a child.
I can see charters having freedom to manage as they want. . . they should! But the fact that most here in New York, for exmaple, have much lower percentages of English lanugage learners, cognitively challenged/IEP children, and children iwth severe emotional issues is of alarming concern. It’s ond of the biggest red flags about charter schools out there. And it’s real.
This is neither a way to level the population “playing field” for charters or public schools.
And I see not too much else wrong with charters except that the staff MUST become unionized. Charter admins and factulty should absolutely, 100% become unionized and demand collective bargaining, period end of story.
And their union should be the antithesis of Randi Weingarten’s leadership. Most of our unions, except for Karen Lewis and the CTU, are in business for themselves.
LikeLike
Mr. Rendo, thanks for your questions.
Yes, I taught for 7 years in a k-12 public school option in St. Paul, Minnesota that served about 50 percent low income students, many of them students of color. About 20% spoke a language other than English. Then I was an assistant principal and acting principal in a different urban public school for another several years, serving similar populations.
I currently work with district & charter public schools serving more than 80% low income students, more than 75% students of color and more than 25 percent students who don’t speak English as a first language.
I’ve also worked with public schools in other parts of the country. In each state where I’ve worked, district and charter public schools have been allowed to expel students. I’ve also worked with alternative district schools in many parts of the country. One of their most common complaints is the number of students who are pushed out of some traditional district secondary schools, into alternative schools.
Having said that, there are some great district schools. I write a weekly newspaper column that reaches several hundred thousand people/week. I often write about good things happening in schools. Here are a few examples.
http://hometownsource.com/2013/05/08/joe-nathan-column-national-coalition-honors-outstanding-district-and-charter-public-schools/
http://hometownsource.com/2013/03/28/new-high-schoolcollege-collaborations-are-win-win-win/
This post is long enough – I’ll respond to your other comments later today as I need to go to work now.
LikeLike
Are private schools sufficiently undemocratic that they should be outlawed?
LikeLike
And a related question:
Does every parent that sends their child to a private school, a selective public school, or a zoned school in a wealthy neighborhood fail the test of believing in “the democratic ideal of common schooling”?
In other words, do the vast majority of NYC parents with means fail Diane’s “democratic ideal” test?
LikeLike
Is the democratic ideal enhanced by the top 1% controlling the economy, the legislators (through lobbying and campaign donations), the laws, the regulations or lack of same and the schools and how the schools are structured? Is it part of the democratic ideal to have a few billionaires dictate how our schools are to be administered. Bill Gates alone has more power and say on education reform and the holy, holy, holy, school choice BS crapola than 100 million ordinary Americans.
LikeLike
“Is the democratic ideal enhanced by the top 1% controlling the economy, the legislators (through lobbying and campaign donations), the laws, the regulations or lack of same and the schools and how the schools are structured?”
Ironically enough, maybe. The masses are generally less tolerant, less informed, and less democratic than the elites. Thus, one line of thinking is that elites, not the masses, must be the governing class for democracy to flourish. Assuming they govern wisely, of course.
On the other topic, it’s a fact that the elites look down on public schools, and will avoid sending their children to public school whenever possible. This is true regardless of political affiliation or the specific policy views held by those elites. They may view public education as a leech on society or as a cornerstone of democracy. But either way, they’re not going to send their own children to public school. And you and I probably wouldn’t if we were in their position, either.
LikeLike
Private schools don’t get public tax money. However, with the proposed voucher programs, I guess they will get public money at some point. So will those spiffy vouchers fully cover some elite private school with a tuition of $35,000? Will vouchers amount to a subsidy for rich people to send their kids to the most expensive elite private schools?
LikeLike
Elite private schools are not going to accept vouchers. Voucher students will attend charter schools like KIPP or religious schools.
LikeLike
We regulate private spending when we think it interferes with the democratic process, and some, including me, think we should go further than we do now. Should spending on private schools be added to the list of prohibited private expenditures?
LikeLike
too bad you don’t also mention the new pay scale… more money for less years.
LikeLike
Isn’t this Edshyster report satire?
LikeLike
No Ellen, I live in Dougco and this is true stuff. . . Hard to believe, huh?
LikeLike
No this isn’t truly satire this is true and teachers are leaving Dougco en masse. My wife teaches art a Denver’s most difficult middle school and the music teacher choose to come their from a very affluent dougco school just to escape. They are losing hundreds of teachers and the community is furious.
LikeLike
Maybe Douglas Co. has too much radon seeping in the basements, turning otherwise good people into reformatrons.
LikeLike
I live in Douglas County and just find it so interesting to watch what this choice can do to a community. I find this to be a “what’s best for me” mentality.
And yes, this is truly what is happening in Douglas County.
We have school board elections in November and if we don’t vote out 4 of the corporate reform school board members, I think our public schools are done.
LikeLike
This is the true merchandising of social and academic cognitive development! How perverse.
LikeLike
Why do we expect our children to pick a major before they enter K? What ever happened to a well-balanced liberal arts education? (It is the dreaded L word that scares people)? When I ask my son what he wants to be when he grows up, his usual answer is a police officer. I guess I need to find a school with a public safety theme?
LikeLike
Although given that this is a wealthy neighborhood, it may not be a representative laboratory for the effects of school choice on education in America. However, if the district is willing to be up front and honest about data, it could become a way to see what might happen if we scrapped the whole public school system and went totally to charter and magnet schools. This might help answer some serious questions about important issues. E.g. will this system use more more efficiently and result in better education at lower cost or will the money go into the pockets of a few top executives? What will this new system do about English language learners and academically challenged students, not to mention defiant or troubled young people? In a sense our current patchwork system is inherently unfair to public schools, since charter schools are allowed to cherry pick the best students and then trumpet their “success” as evidence that the system works. If charter schools were forced to accept and keep the same demographics as the neighborhood they serve, then the playing field would be more level.
LikeLike
Catherine, for several decades, some district public schools hav been pushing some students into “alternative public schools. My first job in 1970 was Minneapolis public school for the 50 Minneapolis middle school students that the other middle schools most wanted out of their schools.
Over many years, I’ve attended conferences around the country with “alt school educators.” One of the topics often discussed is how to deal with district schools that “encourage” students to leave. I’m not saying it happens everywhere but it does happen in some places.
LikeLike