Pasi Sahlberg, Finland’s education ambassador to the world, recently warned the British government that high-stakes testing would not improve student achievement and that choice would undermine equity.
Pasi’s excellent book “Finnish Lessons” has been translated into 15 languages.
Finnish education is the reverse of everything we do, yet their students excel on international tests.
When asked what advice he would give England’s education secretary, he said:
“‘I am afraid, Mr Secretary, that the evidence is clear. If you rely on prescription, testing and external control over schools, they are not likely to improve. The GCSE proposals are a step backwards’.”
Pasi was equally dismissive of the minister’s enthusiasm for academies (similar to our charters). He said:
“He is similarly dismissive about Gove’s enthusiasm for academies and free schools, largely modelled on those in Finland’s neighbour, Sweden. “In Sweden,” Sahlberg says, “everybody now agrees free schools were a mistake. The quality has not improved and equity has disappeared. If that is what Mr Gove wants, that is what he will get.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Just read all of yesterday’s posts and comments.
Doesn’t equity also evolve when teachers are on a pay scale based on years and not competing with one another? (Equity among the teaching force?) Does a first grader have a chance at equity if one teacher gets paid more for “innovation” and the others on the team resent him/her, rather than the team knowing they are all compensated on the same scale and therefore elevate the kids when they work together and offer up their different talents for the whole?
Was the pay scale based on years and continuing education bothering teachers? It seems like teachers were ok with it all, but others were not and at the end of the day merit pay (already changing shape in NC http://triangle.news14.com/content/top_stories/697063/mccrory-pushes-teacher-innovation–cuts-to-mandatory-testing) is going to prove itself to not elevate equity in the school climate. I have always known that as a teacher there would be some who work less hard or have less to bring to the table than others, but that for the good of the students you allow administration to worry about that and you just do your job. I don’t think resentment was the climate of the teaching force before. It’s like the Coke bottle in “The God’s Must Be Crazy” (an excellent movie)–we might find we want to get rid of this Coke bottle!
I suspect a lot of this reform is like a kid wanting to have a chance to get in the kitchen and cook without mom’s help in their own way, only to realize mom might have known more than kid ever realized and that maybe the way mom was doing it was no so bad afterall. ?
As for Finland, I would like to go there sometime. Perhaps an innovation grant can take me there. ???
For the record I did not type the apostrophe in Gods. Auto put it in. Unlike many in our society, I do understand the use of the apostrophe.
Just sayin. (Those things bother teachers because we know we are always setting an example).
You might want to think about equality of opportunity rather than equality of outcomes when it comes to salaries. At most four year post secondary institutions the faculty negotiate their salaries as individuals. This leads to large differences across fields and within departments (in my department the salaries for long time permenant faculty range from the mid $70’s to over $250,000 for our distinguished professors, but in other fields distinguished professors will earn less than $150,000), but I don’t believe you will find students of the more highly paid faculty feel they are necessarily getting a better or worse education than students of less well paid faculty.
The teaching environment in a university bears little resemblance to that of a K-12 public system. I could make a mile long list or leave you to examine the similarities and differences for yourself.
There are many differences, but which differences do you think are relevant to the issue of how compensation has different impacts on the faculty at the two institutions?
There’s some interesting discussion of teacher evaluation here, skip down to “Evaluating Teachers: It’s Not Rocket Science and Shouldn’t Be”
http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/firing-linethe-grand-coalition-against-teachers
I just finished Finnish Lessons. Their culture in terms of what they value is very different: cooperation not competition, concern for others vs. take care of your own. Unfortunaltey, the way things are going, we don’t have the cultural mindset to pull off the changes Finland made and that is very depressing.
This quote jumped out and accurately captures many in the privatization camp…you know who:
Even in business, these larger than life strategies of turnaround and improvement do not produce sustainable improvement. Companies may be broken up, assets sold off, and employees fired with impunity, and all this might increase short term shareholder returns, but few strategies of these sorts survive in the long term and many turn around companies eventually become casualties of their leaders’ reckless behaviors. Indeed, management expert Manfred Ket de Vries explains how many so-called turnaround specialists are little more than psychiatrically disturbed narcissists, sociopaths, and control freaks (Ket de Vries, 2006).
http://www.finnishlessons.com/
As soon as education becomes about competition, there are winners and losers. There was a year (in a school where I used to work) that the teachers were ranked from highest to lowest. We were each told our “number.” It was one of the most dehumanizing practices in education that I’d ever been exposed to, and of course teachers started talking among themselves and found out how we all “ranked.” Soon, we all were closing our doors and NOT sharing what our ideas and resources were, because then we had to compete for our survival to keep our jobs, knowing that the folks on the bottom could be booted out. Competition brings us to the level of animals in the wild… instead of human concern for one another, it’s all about “survival of the fittest.” We became one big “Lord of the Flies.” Did our kids benefit? Of course not.
That has not been my experience in higher education despite the fact that every member of the faculty is evaluated annually by the other members of the faculty, and these evaluations are used to determine merit salary increases (and promotion in rank) when those are available.
TE: higher education is a different animal than K-12. No children involved.
Your post here is not about students but the adults, the professional salaried teachers. What are the differences between K-12 and post secondary faculty that allow the post secondary faculty to work in an environment where they are evaluated by their colleagues as individuals while the K-12 faculty can not function in that environment?
Tip Joanna…once you respond, if you do, TE will find one point to shred apart and then continue the “discussion” towards another venue. He can’t be wrong. He wants to preach not discuss. Been there done that….signing out now.
Perfectly happy to discuss. I had hoped to find where between students choosing classes inside a high school and students choosing schools the common ground disappeared and what the reasons for the disappearance are, but no one seemed to be interested in going down that path. Perhaps you would be?
I can only tell you my experience… and it was a DESTRUCTIVE experience. Listen or not.
He will not.
I certainly believe that it was destructive in your experience, I am just interested in figuring out why it is not destructive at the post secondary level.
TE: all I have for you is Buddha.
“As the shadow follows the body;
As we think, so we become.”
@ Linda, I too have seen the same pattern w/ TE.
Most everyone has.
Neither you or Mr. Sahlberg are looking at the problem fully, in a realistic way.
Yes, choice and charters lead to the students with more family support and motivation being given the opportunity to move to a new school. So that can exacerbate the problems at the schools they left behind, in big city school districts.
But it also means the new school has more kids that are ready to learn (which is the primary reason why some charters do better). That gives that child a chance. It will likely be their only chance to get the education they deserve. In urban areas, it may be their only way out of poverty.
While the US could learn a great deal from Finland about what really helps teachers teach and children learn, we are not Finland. We are not remotely close to being Finland or becoming Finland. We don’t seem likely to seriously begin to address the poverty and family issues any time soon.
You can’t tell a family whose child is in school today to sit tight in their school, full of kids who aren’t ready to learn, because one day it might get better. That child only gets one chance for an education, and it will shape their entire life.
And that means, Ms. Ravitch and Mr. Sahlberg, that you can only advocate against choice in the US if you can promise that family you’ll address the poverty and family issues that are getting in the way of teachers being able to teach and students being able to learn.
And if you’re the least bit honest with yourself and us, you’ll admit that’s not going to happen. Not this year. Not for many years. We can and should begin, but you have to deal with the country we actually live in.
There’s a lot more work to do in clarifying what works and what doesn’t – based on facts and evidence – schools and in charters in particular, and unmasking the flashy gimmicks that are hiding the truths. But we also have to look realistically at what we can do now for children in school today.
Students in urban districts need school choice. By advocating against choice, you’re slamming the door on that child’s way out, out of an environment where they won’t get to learn, and slamming the door on that child’s path out of poverty.
Many students in cities have less choices, because the choice belongs to the school, not the students and their families. They choose you or they get rid of you. It is a complicated system designed to weed out the undesirables and it suits the privatizers.
Let them have choice = let them eat cake. Don’t be fooled.
No, in many districts the families have choices.
For example, in Boston students can choose from TPS, “in district” charters, other citywide schools, or charters. Those are real choices made by families.
If you’re referring to the admission or attrition policies of charters – those are important issues, but not the issue we’re discussing here. The issue here is the “Choice Doesn’t Work” statement.
Also, those issues don’t apply to most of the options Boston families have, only to the out-of-district charters.
Clearly for some students and families the ability to choose a school does work. It’s just a fact, no getting around that. Let’s start there, and understand why it works (see above), then we can have a real conversation.
Also, it’s true that choice does undermine equity – but in the real world, the equity we have is that most students get to all go to poor, underperforming schools. That’s the “equity” that Ravitch and Sahlberg’s argument offers.
That’s the real debate – among the real choices that are actually before us, in the short to medium term.
In a sense, I agree with Linda on this. The larger society just goes on its way, blithely ignoring the ‘serfs’ not bound to the land exactly but bound to a condition of life permeated by ignorance and very difficult to exit. It’s not even likely that many schools can alleviate this debilitating ignorance. Some may, like the Harlem Children’s Zone, but clearly schools like that require more investment per capita than any public school system can, at the moment afford. O’Reilly in the last couple of weeks has been tracing the disaster of the inner cities to the breakdown of the black nuclear family. It seems plausible on it’s face, but my intuition says that’s not ultimately the true cause, though it may be a pretty clear correlate. I don’t know WHAT the true cause is, but I haven’t seen expressed in words an explanation that rings true enough to suggest a remedy.
How is East Hartford faring these days, as opposed to let us say Farmington? I bought my first suit at G. Fox in the old days before the modern era began.
Wow! We agree on something. Farmington schools will most likely, in terms of test scores, always outperform East Hartford. Real estate and income is higher there. That’s the problem with CT we have very poor cities and some of the wealthiest suburbs in the country, therefore we will always have an “achievement gap” no matter how they spin “reform”. I hope your health is improving. You seem happier. 🙂
Linda,
I have a relative who teachers in the Bristol public schools. You’re right about the roller coaster distribution of school systems throughout Connecticut.
I am less than thirty minutes from Bristol. They have been searching a pond for the Hernandez gun all this week. You are in NYC or did I get that wrong?
I am in NYC for now.
Who is Hernandez?
My relative lived in Farmington (actually, it might have been Plainville), but I think moved to Unionville.
The Patriots football player who grew up in Bristol, made it to the NBA and apparently is a murderer and a sociopath. See article. I was just in Unionville today…it is a section of Farmington.
http://touch.courant.com/#section/2224/article/p2p-76887863/
Farmington is a rich suburb of West Hartford, which is a rich suburb of Hartford. Plainville is low rent. I know. My grandparents lived there.
If you are ever in CT I can meet you for dinner or you can come have a home-cooked meal. Who knew we would become virtual BFF’s? 🙂
That’s most kind of you, Linda. I haven’t been in Connecticut since my mother’s memorial service in New Britain. I’ve done shooken the dust of CT offa mah heels long ago. I can’t stand how the trees come right down to the road on both sides. Out here in Michigan there’s room to breathe, flat, flat, flat, with miles of soybeans and corn in every direction. I felt so, so . . . constrained on that last visit so many years ago. But as a child I loved roaming the rocks and hills and going blueberrying with my beloved grandmother. I even shook Mrs. Roosevelt’s hand there in the dark back corridor of the public high school when my much honored mother was picked to drive her back to the airport. Is Bradley Field still the “no terminal” place it was 30 years ago? Tarmac egress.
Not sure…there are still lots of tobacco farms up there, an aviation museum and then the airport. Yes, we have many trees jutting out into the road and they have wreaked havoc the last two fall storms shutting down schools for days. It sounds like a wonderful childhood filled with beautiful memories for you.
Just read about it.
Sad.
And of course, guns have to be in the picture.
Poor Bristol and so many others.
That who will address poverty and family issues? The school?
Curuious what you mean there.
As a child, when I complained to my folks about kids around me who were not ready to learn (who really only bothered me on the bus or at PE because otherwise I was not around them because the school gave us what we needed academically), and I pined at a private school experience like some of my church friends had, my parents assured me they would take me on trips and to museums and so forth, but that learning to be around folks who do not have the same priority in learning helps prepare me for life.
I do not know what the situation then was like in more urban areas, but twenty years later when I taught in an urban area I saw teachers making sure those who were ready to learn were nurtured appropriately and those students realized that not everyone would be ready like they were. But many stayed focused despite those distractions (good students know how to do that). Nevertheless public school is for everyone. It is part of the digs that there will be kids there not ready or wanting to learn.
I guess charters are a solution because they are off and running. And time will tell whether they solve problems, create more problems, or both. I just still wish there was more support for strengthening the public school setting instead. But I guess that ship has sailed. Water under the bridge at the moment.
That may be fair description of suburban or economically integrated districts.
But the issue of choice in urban districts is different. Like most American cities, Boston is in broad terms geographically segregated in terms of socioeconomics and race. So the issues have to be thought of in the context of concentrated areas of disadvantage and poverty.
To connect back to your example – the dynamics are very different when those issues affect a smaller fraction of students, than when they affect all or a very large share of the students. There’s some research that suggests the issues change above 50% poverty in a school.
Regarding this:
“I guess charters are a solution because they are off and running. And time will tell whether they solve problems, create more problems, or both.”
There is no question that choice and charters both solve (for some families) and create (for other families) problems. But because we aren’t having a real discussion in this country, we aren’t getting to issues like this.
If we could get real about all this, we could figure out how to address the problems it creates, and get better overall outcomes.
But one side won’t recognize that charters/pilot schools/district-wide choices can solve problems, and the other side won’t recognize that charters create problems.
So the real answers and the best solutions are off the table.
Here in NYC and other cities with mayoral dictatorship of the schools, so-called “school choice” is a misnomer, since parents are not given the choice of an adequately-funded neighborhood public school, and the actual “choices” are made by the system, whether via bogus lotteries or opaque algorithms.
Like everything else proposed and implemented by the so-called reformers, “choice” is a hustle intended to bust the unions, privatize the schools, and increase the wealth and power of Overclass.
Would you be in favor of “choice” if it did not require quotation marks?
My daughters attended real, neighborhood PUBLIC schools, K-12, in a NYC district that provided ample choice, even for students outside the district.
Fortunately for them, that was before the current, perverted model of “choice” was forced down the throats of parents, students and communities, for the purpose of willfully destroying the neighborhood public school.
Now, the so-called “choice” is made by algos written by faceless, unaccountable technocrats, in service of a small venal, power-mad and destructive group of plutocrats.
So you are not opposed to student choice in principle, but just how it has been implemented in NYC?
Your comments seem to confirm that the issue is not the idea of choice, but the implementation of it in NYC (and other areas).
Choice is not a hustle.
Choice doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with privatization, there are many in-district choices in Boston.
Choice as designed and implemented by so-called reformers is most assuredly a hustle and a textbook example of state-sanctioned looting.
Really? That’s your reasoning?
First, you get all fluffed up about “choice”, as in Bloombergian choice, when what we’re talking about is plain old choice. As in, what the word really means to regular parents.
Then, you go off about Choice, as in, all that is unholy about edreformers. As if they owned the word.
Nope, just regular old choice. In Boston, that means parents can try to go to a half-dozen different schools, plus some citywide schools. And they can also apply for charter schools.
If what you say is true – please feel free to document it – it is the exception that proves the rule.
I think Joanna hits on what I believe as well. I do agree with Finland’s system, but their schools have Finnish children and a few immigrants who are assimilated. Families in Finland believe in education and respect their teachers. There is less poverty and ignorance. Their classrooms are disciplined and quiet. Finns are notoriously introverted and cerebral. Americans are typically extroverted (many, not all) loud, and not cerebral at all. We can’t really replicate results from other countries because most of our families and children don’t value or respect education. We see this when adults get on this blog and bash teachers. The more I delve into this and use my classroom experience, I see that it is all really about whom you teach and not what “system” you have. German kids succeed academically under any system: Fascism, Communism, or Democracy. That is why Germany always succeeds as a country. It isn’t the system; it is the people with an unbreakable focus on education, work ethic, and doing things thoroughly. This is why certain ethnic groups in America have succeeded and others have failed. It is all about family culture. Germans were poor when they first came to America, but they weren’t running around killing people, disrupting classes, or yelling at their teachers. They were studying, working hard, and taking advantage of this country’s resources.
So are you saying that generally, black, inner city culture is to blame for the continuation of poverty?
If so, how would it be changed?
CAN it be changed?
What am I missing? What is it that is “in” the German people, including the immigants, that permitted them to survive AND thrive in this country’s wide open society?
What is it that is “in’ the German people. . . ?
We be gut Germans! (Actually I’m more of an American mutt, we can’t quite determine lineages on both sides of my parents. Seems there were some shenanigans going on back before their generation.)
Weren’t the Germans of that generations performing in public schools in an era where there was no NCLB or RTTT?
Granted, in the 30’s, 40’s, and early 50’s, urban schools could have 50 to 60 kids in one classroom, but disrespect for the teacher was very rare. .. .then again, the measurement system used back then to evaluate teachers and students is nothing like what it is today. . . .
Choice, as advocated by the Rheeformers, is just a phony baloney bumper sticker slogan to silence people. It’s like a politician advocating for mom, the flag and apple pie. Are you against mom, the flag and apple pie? Choice weakens the real public schools by stealing funds and leaving the real public schools with the more expensive students to educate.
And that’s a good example of why we can’t have a discussion, or understand how this all really works.
What is the “good example”? Not sure what part of the post to which you refer.
In my city, there are plenty of middle class families make the choice to charter lotteries and winning The demographic of certain charters do not reflect the demographic of the traditional public schools these families would attend.
Why do they need a lottery school when these children would perform well in their neighborhood schools? I listen when parents describe the lessons in their charter schools and it is similar to what my child is doing in his neighborhood school, albeit with a different demographic.
Why are these families entering charter lotteries?
To have something different, maybe? Boutique instead of department store (when you can’t afford boutique?). I am just guessing. I see that in my town too.
In many cases, it’s to avoid the “others.” That’s the reason I have gotten from parents about why they pulled students from our multi-ethnic and multi-wealth school into a charter. Then, their children do not have to “mix with those others.” In other words, segregation.
Choice? In Chicago, parents pleaded for their public school to stay open. They were not given that choice. Chicago has a contract to open more charters that will be taking over some of the vacated public school buildings. Choice? Most parents want robust public school and would choose that, but more and more, it is not an option on the list of stunt double charter school choices.
Here’s another thought on choice (and I do think some good discussion is going on here because we see many different notions of what “choice” in schools entails).
Most of us can choose our doctors (I presume–or you get a list you can choose from per insurance). But I would take privatized schools of choice a step further–it’s like choosing our own prescriptions (sort of). So, as I was raised, teachers in the public school have been trained in various methods of reaching learners (they don’t just write Haiku poems and learn about bulletin boards–they study philosophies and psychology of learning, history of American education etc.). So you submit to a humility, for the years you are in school, to trusting that these professionals will be able to guide students. Likewise as parents we trust that systems are in place to enable teachers to recommend other educational services that students need (on both ends of the bell curve–bringing in IEPs and the team decisions, made by professionals and guided by school psychologist, administrator and some testing). In my experience as a teacher and parent, I find that this system works more often than not. (In private schools the landscape and network looks a little different, but I will stay on public school for now).
So, just as we submit to doctors and the research and professionals who find, manage and make medication for that medication, in public school we submit ourselves to the professional judgement of teachers (just while we are under their guidance). So what if we could just go get whatever medicine we wanted? No prescriptions necessary.
We would have lots of addicts, overdoses, misuse etc.
Is it possible that the idea behind Punic school helps instill a certain dose of collective humility and patience that a choice market does not? Hence the new addictions and overdoses on “being right,” “being better,” “rules don’t apply to me,” “righteous indignation?” Or were public school teachers embodying too much of that themselves?
Collective humility. What about it?
I would argue it is more like choosing the approach to medicine than a particular specific treatment.
fair enough.
Why do we have poor schools in the first place? In Finland, I imagine that there are poor children, but I doubt that there are poor schools. The fact that we have poor schools at all creates the demand for choice. Of course, the poor kids who don’t have an adult navigating the choice route for them have no choice. They stay at the poor school to which they have been assigned while their former classmates, the ones whose parents want them out badly enough to jump through the hoops on their behalf, abandon the poor schools and their poor students.
We should not have poor schools. We may have schools that serve poor students, but the schools themselves should not bee poor. The fact that we don’t just tolerate them, but rather perpetuate them, says much more about our society and its priorities as we pay lip service to choice.
That illustrates the problem, but probably not in the way you meant.
You’re suggesting that spending more money on schools will solve this. We need to do more in schools, but it won’t be enough.
The outcomes at school are driven primarily by out-of-school factors. Some of those can be addressed by wrap-around services delivered at school. We should do much more there. It is money very well spent for the impact it can have.
But as many have pointed out – schools and teachers can’t do it all. These are societal issues.
And none of this supports an argument against choice, or provides evidence that “choice doesn’t work.”
You imply that those who choose better schools are “abandoning poor students.” These are poor students, too. In many if not most city school districts, the populations are predominately poor and of color, and the disadvantaged students are concentrated together.
Taking away choice in public schools doesn’t take away choice from middle class families – they’ll always have other choices. They can move, or use private schools.
Taking away choice in public schools systems only hurts those who have no other choices.
It’s not always true that middle class families can move to better towns or afford private schools. In my town, there are several charter schools full of middle class students and the demographics of these schools is not reflected in any of the traditional public schools in my town. These families, while middle class, cannot afford to move to towns with better schools or private schools.
However, giving choices also hurts those who have no other choice (maybe they can’t get a ride to the charter, maybe they need free lunch, etc) or those who don’t win a golden ticket to the charter school. Even if (and that’s a big IF) the charter school is better, the net gain for society as a whole is nil or negative.
So how is skimming off those who can handle the choice system and reducing the resources for neighborhood schools solve the problems of students who need more support to succeed? How does deprofessionalizing the teaching profession and eliminating collective bargaining improve schools, public or charter? (Remember, our most highly unionized workforces tend to score very high on NAEP and fare very well in international comparisons.)
Who said anything about deprofessionalizing teaching and eliminating collective bargaining?
How does posting a rant on an entirely different issue, without reading the posts, help anyone? You can surely post that more times than anyone cares to respond, so if your goal is to kill discussion, well done.
Sorry you took it as a rant. I did not intend it to be. It especially sounds like it when you only quote one part of the post, but I have been on the blog too long and am focusing on the abuses of charters. Given the ideal charter school that actually outperforms the neighborhood public schools, takes any and all students that want to attend, hires teachers and treats them like professionals then we can talk about quality charter schools. Such schools are few and far between and yet charters are popping up like weeds forcing the closing of neighborhood public schools in many urban communities. Right now, we are trying to save public education as a public good. Charters, in general, do not fit that bill.
2old2tch,
I think you have set a very high bar for charter schools. Neighborhood public schools do not accept any and all students who wish to go there, the use a geographically based admissions. Would it suffice for charter schools to accept any and all students who wish to go to a charter school from a catchment area?
TE, go back and read the post to which I was responding. That will put my characterization of an ideal charter in perspective.
I look forward to “Get Real” meeting Duane Swacker and Dienne.
This is going to get good.
I would be interested to know if are an educator “get real”?. I would also like to know about your experience with charter schools and school choice? I have student taught in two charters; and the policies were very similar to those a person would see in the military. The students had to walk in straight lines, had to eat their lunch in silence (even military members can talk during lunch), and critical thinking was discouraged. Are these the types of school choice you are advocating for?
Another thing, why are most charters and school choice only available to inner-city children? If they are so great, then why are the districts in the suburbs not demanding the same thing? I have heard the “these kids don’t have any other good choices” rhetoric before, so please provide a more comprehensive reason as to why school choice is needed.
Read the above posts, you wouldn’t ask most of this if you had.
Look at what’s offered in Boston if you want an idea about school choices. Parent driven choices, in most cases. (Yes, there are some charter schools that manage admission and attrition in ways they won’t acknowledge, but that doesn’t change the fact there there are choices, and choice does work for many families.)
IMO the main reason school choice is offered in the cities is because
(1) there are too few good schools in the cities,
(2) the nearest school may not offer what some families are seeking, much more so than in the suburbs; and
(3) the issues around out-of-school factors are a far greater issue
Also, as for the snarky “please provide a more comprehensive reason as to why school choice is needed” – I think I’ve laid out very well that choice can and does work. All the objections have been straw men – the “choice” in NYC, or the prison-like charter schools you were somehow foolish enough to join, twice.
“Choice doesn’t work” doesn’t work.
I got mine. You get yours. Get real get real. Go reform. Go USA!
Get real, the “straw men” you read about in other experiences are not straw men but acutual examples of choice. The problem with choice is that is not a real choice “if I have to choose between whether nor not there are skilled, highly-qualified teachers in the classrooms (as opposed to TFA 5-week wonders) and whether or not there’s resources available to deliver a high quality school day to the neediest children.” (Mike Klonsky) The big problem is that this choice movement is not about high quality education but profit and greed. The greed motive is cloaked in “choice” which sounds great to the uninformed.
That’s not choice, we can agree on that.
So that’s not what we’re talking about, can we agree on that?
Eg read Ravitch’s original post. Then maybe the discussion.
Don’t know about meeting Get Real unless he/she is somewhere near to the beautiful Missouri River hill country of Southern Warren County, MO which I doubt because he/she seems to know a lot about the schools in and around Boston. Other than having my oldest son born in Worcester and living in MA for 3 years in the 80s I really don’t know much about Boston’s schools.
But I’d invite anyone to come and ride the Katy Trail Bike path that follows the Missouri River from out by Sedalia on the west end to past St. Charles on the east. What counts as a “river” sometimes in New England we wouldn’t even consider a creek-ha ha! But then if you grew up where two of the world’s largest rivers converge you’d know why.
But check the bottom of the posts as I’ve got a few questions/comments.
I have a relative who lives in Chesterfield, a suburb of St. Louis. It’s a pretty state. Does someone as progressive as you feel out of place there?
Robert,
Chesterfield abuts the Missouri River on the south side west of St. Louis. I’m on the north side another couple of counties west, 40-50 miles or so. Chesterfield is considered one of the more choice suburbs with excellent public schools (public school districts in MO do not always follow political entity’s boundaries, they are political entities in and of themselves).
I eschew labels, especially political and/or pertaining to religious beliefs. I consider myself a free thinker (small f & t). One thing about most Show Me Staters is that they are, for the most part fairly pragmatic and need to be convinced before making major changes in the way things are (which has it’s good and bad aspects) hence the moniker.
I find that in talking with many folks that if one treats the other with respect on a one to one basis everything works out. I do take considerable umbrage at those who claim to have “all the answers” to social ills (myself included-ha ha). I actually have way more questions than answers for most things but when I do arrive at an “answer” I will have tried to put all logical and rational thought into it as I could have and have little tolerance for those who don’t put that kind of effort into what are usually very complex human problems.
Duane,
Thank you. . . I see.
I agree.
Took our RV to Sedalia for the state fair (right?) round about 2000 in my rock n roll days. Isn’t that where Brad Pitt is from?
I taught in KCMO.
Thank you for your posts, as always Duane.
Don’t know about Brad Pitt, I’m not much of a “modern culture” type. Have never been to the state fair, but been to Sedalia to deliver furniture back in the 70s. Been to many a county fair. These days I prefer quiet and solitude so I have a tendency to head out to one of the many rivers in southern MO for some fishing, canoeing/kayaking/johboating (no motor, just paddles) and primitive type camping usually from October to March-no bugs and very few people.
Or your comments, rather. I always use those interchangeably but I guess only Dianne makes the posts.
And thank goodness. I only have time to follow one blog and this is it.
Thanks for your kind words, Joanna!
‘ “In Sweden,” Sahlberg says, “everybody now agrees free schools were a mistake. The quality has not improved and equity has disappeared. If that is what Mr Gove wants, that is what he will get.” ‘
So I read the original post. I’m still looking for the part that praises charters.
I have no problem with choice, as long as those who provide the services under the auspice of being a “public”, “not for profit” entity provide adequate services for ALL students and that ALL aspects of the operation is open for view to all the constituents. Concurrently, any for profit entity that accepts government monies for the education of ALL students should be under the same provisions of opacity at all levels and is subject to all the restrictions/policies/regulations of the public schools. And any entity that attempts to “educate” students without accepting government funds/monies/resources can do whatever they choose without said restrictions/policies/regulations and they can succeed or fail in the vaunted “free market”.
Yes! Well put. Same rules for EVERYONE, but that is not the case.
I don’t care if they are for profit or non-profit. If they get government money, they should play by the same rules. I think, from the rest of your post, you would agree.