When I read Paul Thomas’s reflections on “choice,” it reminded me of an exchange I had in conversation with John Merrow recently in Manhattan at the JCC.
Thinking about choice, Paul wrote:
“Just as workers in the impoverished South have been manipulated into voting for and embracing ideologies against their own self-interests—where “right to work” resonates even though the law allows employers the right to fire at will—a populist/libertarian refrain that idealizes “choice,” in fact, serves as a mask for maintaining an imbalance of individual freedom in the U.S.
“Poor and minority parents should have the same choices as affluent and white parents” is a compelling refrain.
“But it is ultimately a lie.
“Idealizing and prioritizing choice renders choice meaningless—but those arguments do insure that the 1% always wins.”
When I think about school choice, I can’t help but remember that “choice” was the battle cry of segregationists in the Deep South. They knew that choice would preserve the status quo. I sometimes think that George WallCe and Strom Thurmond must be having a great chuckle as they watch the new bipartisan “reformers” claim that choice “is the civil rights issue of our time.”
Which brings me back to my conversation with John. He asked if I was opposed to charter schools. I don’t know if I answered as clearly as I will here. In a better society than the one we have, we would have a good school in every neighborhood, and there would be no reason to have a dual school system. There would be neither charters nor vouchers. Every child would have equality of educational opportunity.
The irony today is that the more choice we supply, the more we abandon the possibility of a good school in every neighborhood.
As Paul put it:
“For choice to matter, though, the Commons, the public good must be established first.
“Just as [Deborah] Meier notes that no child chooses her or his parents, home, community, or socioeconomic status, we must acknowledge that no one should be required to choose the basics of human existence.
“No one should have to choose a good police force.
“No one should have to choose a good military.
“No one should have to choose good medical care.
“And no one should have to choose a good school.
“The implication of having to choose the essentials that should be a part of the Commons is that bad alternatives exist—and they must not.
“The only way to honor choice as a free people is to first insure the Commons that allow choice to exist in equitable and ethical ways.
“Idealizing choice as a primary and universal good is a lie like “right to work.”
“The first choice of a free people, ironically, is to insure those conditions that should require no choice—and public education is one of those foundational contracts among a free people that must be guaranteed regardless of to whom or where a child is born.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How, Diane or Paul, would you counter those who say that your “no one should have to choose this” premise could equally be applied to good shoes or good clothing?
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Can’t speak for either Diane or Paul, but I would say that education is not a personal commodity, but rather a collective, common good.
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To Dienne — the people who’d make the shoes/clothing comparison would probably say that shoes or clothing, too, arguably contribute to the common good. Some of them might go further and say that they mistrusted a government-mandated form of government-approved education: “Of COURSE any government would want to mandate that all citizens were trained by the government to believe and know EXACTLY what the government wanted them to believe and to know: no less, but assuredly no more, than the government would provide!” How would you counter _those_?
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Somehow, Kate, there is a difference. I seriously doubt whether we will ever have a national debate about providing clothing other than as part of a safety net, like food stamps. I pay taxes to provide education to everyone’s children through public schools. I’m not paying taxes to clothe everyone’s children. Someone else probably has a more elegant argument for determining common good, but this one works.
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the only quibble I have with this writing is that I would make sure that the word “quality” is inserted before “public education”, and that there are adjectives defining quality, outlining what kids get in a quality education…. in other words, that there is a guarantee that all kids will get the quality, nurturing, whole child education the most “aware” of the rich give their own….
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The better question is: What is the “good education” that no one should have to choose? Which leads us right back to where we started.
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There is the rub. Different people will have different views. Without the lubrication of choice, the educational system could grind to a stop.
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The “choice” is either Wall Street corporate control of schools or a democratically elected school board. I would ask the school choice advocates why they eschew the founding principles of our representative democracy. This question is more critical than a false, forced analogy.
The libertarian, free-market approach is more of a religion and ideology of convenience than a working methodology of governing. The simple minded belief of an “invisible hand” transforming self interest and greed into a successful and prosperous society works only in thought experiments and the minds of self-deluded individuals professing a self-made success denying the advantages of birth right, trust funds, public sector support, good health, and dumb luck.
Clearly, our economic system is fundementally flawed and failing most Americans. The rise of Reagan-esque deregulation, devaluation of humans, silencing of Labor, and endowing rights to corporations has created an inequal, angry, and ignorant populace. People believe what they are told even if it means destroying their safety nets and access to education. Teachers are now the enemy, a threat to national security, the root cause of all the problems in America. People hate Teachers, but love their own teacher.
Why America wants to apply discredited business methods responsible for the worst recessions in history to our schools is a type of collective insanity we need to snap out of. Capitalism needs to evolve. Schools should be able to operate and improve under the control of parents and teachers – not politicians and billionaires. Our system cannot revert back to the 1850’s and hope to succeed.
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The only “choice” in education is made by the schools.
Stop with the nonsense of education as a consumer good–it is a public good. Libertarianism is a twisted “ideology” that was designed to find “intellectual” cover for unfettered greed of the rich and corporations at the expense of everybody else.
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There’s nothing in the Constitution about local school boards.
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Cripes, Joe, there’s nothing in the Constitution about education, period. There’s also nothing in the Constitution about lunch counters or buses, but the courts have found that such services can’t discriminate. So why is it okay to discriminate and have mayoral control only in poor and minority areas?
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Dienne, I’ve never suggested that mayor control is a better way to go.
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Also, I’m opposed to allowing any k-12 public school to pick & choose its students, district or charter.
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The “democratically” elected school board is impotent.
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IwanttoCommentbutthespacebarisnotworkingThetextisfineinmyWordprogram
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Here in LA Unified, where I believe we now have the distinction of having the most charter schools, here are two examples of how “choice” works:
1. When the District passed a policy several years ago of allowing “Public School Choice” so that charters could take over existing District schools, the proponents wore t-shirts that read “My Child/My Choice.” Presumably they didn’t understand the irony and selfishness implied. A more honest message would have been “public money/private agenda,” as we have seen around the country where charter schools are encouraged.
2. Our current District leadership is all for school-site decision making: we get to “choose” whether to have a nurse or a librarian, a teacher or a counselor, a custodian or a clerk. Unfortunately, we need all of those things, and “allowing” us to choose is akin to letting us choose death by hanging or slow poison.
Further, do we really want our schools competing with each other on the basis of public relations? Shouldn’t we ensure great public schools for all? Choice has no meaning if all of the options are not real.
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Some of the finest (district) public school options I ever saw were in LA. Do you teach in any of them?
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School repairs or iPads?
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This is the first time that I’ve heard that I have a right to a good military.
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The classic Libertarian line, Flerp, is that the only legitimate functions of government are enforcement of contracts and defense, and providing for the common defense was one of the key elements of the theory that informed the founding of this republic. However, the founders wrote of providing for the common was defense, not of providing for insanely expensive and counterproductive foreign military aggression and adventurism in order to line the pockets of cronies via no-bid contacts.
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They also didn’t write that Americans have a right to a good military.
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I must say I don’t understand the point this post is making. I guess it just reinforces my belief that the different sides on these issues are often talking past one-another.
I’m asking this in a genuine, non-rhetorical way: What evidence is there that public school monopolies will provide a good education in low-SES minority neighborhoods in the United States? Maybe there is just some massive body of evidence out there that I’ve simply missed, being a relative newbie to the education field.
Its not as if the debate is between the side that thinks folks from low-SES minority neighborhoods DO NOT deserve a good education, and the side that thinks that folks from low-SES minority neighborhoods DO deserve a good education (although the types who like to use words like “Rheeformer$$$” would have you believe otherwise). Rather, the debate is over what educational policy will maximize the chances that a student from a low-SES minority neighborhood will receive a good education.
Its all fine to declare KIDS DESERVE FREE, HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION [ insert applause]. KIDS DESERVE FREE, HIGH-QUALITY HEALTH CARE [insert applause]. KIDS DESERVE TO FEEL SAFE IN THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD [insert applause]. But thats just empty political rhetoric. True enough, but without any serious content. It conjurs up an image of a baby-kissing politician delivering a speech from atop a hay stack in Iowa (after a barbecue dinner, perhaps, to show how Joe Average he is). Its all aspiration, no substance.
When someone like Michelle Rhee delivers politically potent oversimplifications about the magic of charters or whatever, Diane Ravitch is quick to expertly delve into the details of the claims raised, cautioning us to “Be wise. Think critically. Read carefully”. Good advice.
Like I said at the beginning, perhaps I just missed the point of this post. But those were my immediate thoughts.
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One can philosophize but what happens when charters vs public happens in reality? So far I see no evidence that charters do any better, statistically they usually do worse. There is no perfect solution to solve every problem, in schools or elsewhere. But our public school system has helped build this country into one of the best in history. To weaken or destroy it even is to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
The big question for education in my mind is: who is to run the schools: scholars, educators, child psychologists or politicians? In the search for truth do we trust as our sources our best scholars or politicians with an axe to grind, beholden to corporate CEOs who pimp and then prostitute our politicians.
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“better” or “worse” are not simply measured on a bubble test.
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Having family living in Canada, it is interesting to read this post as it highlights the differences in thinking about these issues between the US and our enlightened neighbor to the north and the resultant actions that the two countries are pursuing. The fundamental philosophies are so very different!
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This could be a good place to explore where the common ground about about school breaks down. I take it that even the most orthodox poster here would agree that students in a high school should have some choice about courses they take in the building. Only heterodox posters like myself are comfortable with younger students making choices between buildings. Somewhere the common ground breaks down. I think it would be instructive to find out where it breaks down and why.
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Finally, we begin to get a real discussion of the relation of rights and culture to education.
The bias toward state control is abundantly clear in Paul Thomas’s remarks, but it is also clear that “choice” doesn’t mean much for lots of kids.
It seems to me that we first need to explore which “basics of human existence” we think are inherent rights. Thomas seems to include a lot.
What do we think of the four (or five things if we include Meijer) mentioned by Meijer and Thomas that they claim must be provided by the Commons to all citizens of the country before one can begin even to speak meaningfully of choice? Is he right?
Thomas is apparently dealing with the same fundamental question that Jefferson wrestled with in the Declaration of Independence. He mentioned three rights which were among those inherent in a human’s existence. Thomas seems to be trying to say that in addition to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” there are others. Jefferson, by saying “among them” acknowledges that he has not provided an exhaustive list.
The question is important because if a government is not protecting our inherent rights, the people have a right of revolution throw off their inadequate government. They have a right to change the government, as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.
So, are the things Thomas mentions also included among the inalienable rights any human being has? A good police force, a good military, good health care, and good schooling? (In addition to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That would make seven fundamental rights. Is Thomas correct?
Any takers?
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Harlan, Robert Nozick, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia, a Libertarian classic that I suspect you would approve, says that only proper function of the state is the watchdog function–by which he means, basically, mutual protection–enforcement of contracts and defense.
Well, some of us believe that defense includes defending helpless kids from the accident of being born poor and without access to proper food and sanitation and shelter and health care and schools, that it includes defense of the right of workers (like teachers) to organize and strike, and that it includes defense of the common–the land, the air, the water that by right belong to no one and to all, the use of which should be taxed to provide for this kind of real defense against real ills. And this Georgianism that I am espousing here–taxes on resource use that amount to leases by the public as a whole of what, by right, belongs to everyone and to no one–represents what Milton Friedman, of whom I am sure you approve, called “the least bad” sort of tax.
And there are many of us who don’t think that “defense” means murderous foreign military adventurism undertaken to line the pockets of oligarchs who manufacture instruments of destruction, and we don’t think that it means regulation of thought (e.g., what can be taught and when, what assessments people give their students, etc).
And there are many of us who believe that something like what I am describing here represents a third way that transcends and leaves behind the old left-right divisions, and those of us who think that way are tired, very, very tired, of the rehashing of the Cold War and of the stupid, easy labels, liberal and conservative, which have become meaningless. There is nothing conservative about the bilking of the taxpayer done by Ronald Reagan and George Bush, Jr., for example, who talked the small government line but sent to the hill, every year of their respective presidencies, the largest federal budget in history to that time, in real dollars.
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Bob, I don’t think anyone here would refuse to provide social safety nets for the disadvantaged. In fact, billions of tax dollars are used for that purpose annually; mostly ineffectively.
The idea that every child or even most children that attend public schools are disadvantaged is a straw man argument meant to stir up guilt in the hearts of citizens.
I don’t pretend to know all the answers to society’s ills, but I do not think it should not fall on the department of education to solve them all and I don’t think that those who are prepared for the rigors of academic life should be relegated to mediocrity because of a burgeoning social decline the causes of which go way beyond economics.
In the past, schools did not have to be parents, doctors, ministers and psychiatrists to the vast majority of their students. Those who don’t need or want those services would prefer to have their children attend schools were the majority of a student’s time is spent on actual academics.
As a nurse who works in an inner city ER I don’t for one moment blame parents for wanting the choice to keep their children out of these public schools where they are more likely to learn about drugs or gang life as they are to learn algebra. Schools are just not very good parents and when parents don’t do their job everyone’s child is impacted.
So long as I continue to have the choice (which I hope in America will be always) I will keep my daughters 12 and 14 out of the public schools. (They are doing fabulously learning on line,attending coops, participating in 4H etc.) Do I worry that they won’t get
“socialized”? No, Actually I am trying very hard to avoid that.
I love the concept of public schools, but no one wants to admit that many of the problems impacting education today will not be solved with more money, a longer day, a longer year etc. We need a major culture shift and I don’t see anyone advocating that.
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Much false argument here, Robert, especially your view of Reagan. However, I do agree that Bush should be lumped in with Obama as a budget ballooner, though of course under Bush the debt was manageable whereas what Obama added to the debt is the precursor of slavery and calamity. You shouldn’t conflate them.
I might be willing to agree with you that a third way is needed were it not for your rather loose words like “defense” in different contexts.
I see your claim to be advocating a third way as hollow. I don’t trust you to really mean that you don’t want to regulate thought.
Sorry.
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The problem with trying to have real discussions of political and economic matters is that people almost never attend to what was actually said. Instead, they scan for a couple of key words that enable them to toss the other into a category–on my side, the side of the angels, or on the other, the side of the evil doers–and then launch into an attack on the straw man they’ve created. So, these discussions are usually fruitless.
However, increasingly, people in the United States are seeing through a lot of BS. They are growing tired of people using “freedom” to mean things like “free to prevent workers from freely associating and going on strike. They are growing tired of people thinking that the elderly person who has lost everything she worked for all her life because people speculating in the housing market screwed up, the economy tanked, she was fired, and she lost her home, the equity in which represented her entire life’s savings, that that person is “free.” They are growing tired of people arguing that a billionaire and Joe Sixpack should both be “free” to contribute however much they wish to contribute to a political ad campaign because such contributions are speech. They are growing tired of the abuse and misuse of the words freedom and liberty to refer to the freedom to place one’s boot on others’ throats with impunity–the freedom to impose monopolistic prior restraint on trade, as would be done by the creation of an Orwellian national database of student responses, owned by a single individual, to which curricula would be correlated.
People are beginning to see that there is no Republic party that represents the right and Democratic party that represents the left but that both simply represent the oligarchs for whom they write legislation to advance their personal interests, as in any banana republic.
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At any rate, it’s long past time for us to start thinking beyond the left/right categories, to think anew. We have vested far too much power in a central federal government. It is distant, venal, corrupt, stupid, wasteful, and incompetent. We need a lot of return of control to the local level, where social sanction can keep the hoodlums in check. Here’s a model: The feds exist to provide a watchdog function to ensure that basic liberties are upheld. But most of the money and the decision making returns to the local level. The feds say, you must provide free and equal and nondiscriminatory schooling to all. If you don’t, your citizens can sue you in our federal courts. But otherwise, it’s up to you to figure it out.
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I like your idea of the-Feds-as-basic-watchdogs-and-nothing more. Here’s my question, though, about how this would be applied to education. Suppose that (in a nation organized as you suggest) the schooling in some region is SO far from being “free and equal and nondiscriminatory” that the citizens living in that place do not even know that they have the right to sue … Perhaps they are so poorly educated that they are WORSE than illiterate. (I have actually seen this. An illiterate usually KNOWS that he or she cannot read … But I have met illiterates who, though they couldn’t read, firmly believed that they could and did. Any of us can think of how many people — in the government or out of it — might wish to create such a segment of the citizenry and to discreetly profit at the expense of those persons,) Suppose, Bob Shepherd, that you get to rewrite the Constitution and other laws, starting tomorrow — what do you do, to ensure that the theoretical “government as watchdog/free-equal-and-nondiscriminatory” ideal is realized in practice, and is not perverted (as so much has been, in so many ways) into eventually becoming its own opposite?
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Bob, I believe that the increase in social decline is directly related to the the increase in social programs. For each social program meant to lift someone out of poverty there is a proportional increase in dependency.
Charity should be local and personal. How many young women have babies out of wedlock because they might get their own apartment in some project. How many young men don’t marry their “baby mommas” because she’ll lose the apartment or the food stamps or the EBT card. More importantly what happens to the spirit of someone who knows they have sold any hope for true success for a life of subsistence?
I don’t want to deny the truly needy, but what are needs and what are wants? There will always be someone with more. Creating a “victim” mentality will never liberate people. In fact, it effectively does the opposite.
A net big enough to ensure no one falls between the cracks may just be big enough to ensure no one ever climbs out either.
Common Core is a blatant example of how big government in collusion with crony capitalists, first creates dependency and then imposes crisis intervention with a model that will relegate every single, American student to an educational experience designed to make them fit for a life of servitude.
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Harian,
The question is not simply what we consider to be inalienable rights, but whether we have any inalienable rights at all. The endowment of inalienable rights as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. depends upon the understanding that those rights come from a Creator. In the absence of a Creator we are left with various privileges that a more enlightened elite deem necessary to human existence.
So many of your queries would not be necessary if the federal government had been limited, long ago to it’s intended role. With federal bureaucracy inflated to today’s degree we are all subjects to nonelected “Czars” that pass “regulations” (ie laws), in virtually every aspect of our lives without any representation whatsoever of the people. (Not unlike King George).
We no longer have any semblance of the government our founders proposed. Maintenance of a republic requires constant vigilance. The desire of would be tyrants to rule, it seems, is greater than the people’s willingness to keep ever vigilant to the threats to liberty.
Much of the effect of factions on the individual could have been mitigated by proper enforcement of the Constitution, state’s rights and separation of powers. Democracy trumps Republic when the greed of people remains unchecked.
They say the average democracy lasts approximately 250 years. I think any answers to your questions will sadly, be done in a post mortem.
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There are countless things that are essential to human life. The question is who should provide them and how.
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There is no choice because everyone has to teach to the same standards – Common Core standards – public, charter or Diocese Christian private.
The department of CA just published the comparison of old CA standards and new Common Core CA standards in math and ELA. Guess what – most of standards from Algebra II, Trigonometry, Geometry, Probability and statistics are GONE. The table comparison is SHOKING. Just look at that …
Analysis of California ELA standards to Common Core standards http://www.scoe.net/castandards/multimedia/k-12_ela_croswalks.pdf
Analysis of California Mathematics standards to Common Core standards http://www.scoe.net/castandards/multimedia/k-12_math_crosswalks.pdf
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Just so people know, “right to work” is NOT “at-will” employment. RTW has to do with banning closed union shops, while “at-will” employment covers employers and employees who do not work under contract. Employers are free to fire employees for any reason (as long as the employee is not in a protected class), while employees can quit for any reason. “At-will” employment is in every state in the country; RTW is not.
I don’t know why people persist in confusing the two when they are NOT at all related.
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I demand choice of water supply!
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Yes, choice was the battle cry for southern segregationists.
It also has been advocated by many progressive educators since the 1960’s – when many of us recognized that there was no single best way to organize learning and teaching.
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Furman “Furman University is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in Greenville, South Carolina, United States. Furman is considered South Carolina’s oldest and most selective private university….By survey, The Princeton Review ranked Furman University as no. 9 in their top 10 most socially conservative schools in 2009.[11]
Wikipedia
How ironic that a professor at South Carolina’s “most selective private university,” ranked in the top 10 most socially conservative schools” criticizes people trying to improve public schools. Perhaps he might take a look at the admissions and other practices at the place where he teaches.
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Despite what Alanis Morissette sings about, if it rains on your wedding day, it ISN’T ironic. Perhaps you find it so, but it doesn’t MAKE it so.
Now that is a bit of irony, though.
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Sorry, I don’t know what you are trying to say. I find it ironic that a person from a conservative, highly selective university is so opposed to giving families ( many of whose youngsters won’t be able to get into the university where he teaches, even if they wanted to) options in public education.
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Watch out! Socratic irony coming:
Me: Are there really any institutions of higher learning, especially private liberal arts universities, where all–or even most–of its faculty agree with all of its policies or practices?
Joe Nathan: Well, uh, I guess not. But maybe I will find one if I perform a Google search.
Me: Isn’t it more of a commonplace for at least some of a college’s faculty to oppose the college’s practices and policies?
Joe Nathan: Perhaps. Well, think about this: Isn’t it paradoxical or odd that Thomas works for an institution that practices procedures that contradict his own views?
Me: Didn’t we just address this? Is that your expectation for all college professors? Is that your understanding of irony, that every paradoxical, odd-like situation, or reality that you do not understand is irony?
Joe Nathan: Sorry, I don’t understand. I still find it ironic.
Me: Do you?
Joe Nathan: Huh? I have no idea what you mean. I completely understand irony.
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Having spent about 15 years in the k-12 public school world, and about 25 years in the post-secondary world, I’ve seen lots of university profs who are critical of what others do but quiet about problems of their own institutions.
Have you seen anything from the professor questioning how his own institution operates? He’s quite free with his opinions which would restrict options for youngsters from low income families. I’ve looked and not been able to find anything from him that suggests he applies his considerable criticism of others to the place where he works.
Can you point to anything in which he criticizes how that university operates?
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Do I really need to find an example? Even if he is quiet about his college’s policies and procedures, does that make it ironic? C’mon, think about it.
For the sake of argument and for those who have trouble following an argument, let’s go down this rabbit hole………. It might imply a degree of unconscious hypocrisy if I didn’t find an example, but it certainly isn’t “ironic” if I didn’t find one……..On the other hand, if I did find one, it doesn’t prove that the situation is ironic or that it isn’t ironic. Some people might be saying “Well, Morrigan, what does it all prove?” Yeah, that’s what’s I wanna know, too.
Well, I think it proves that this line of argument is evolving into something else entirely. We are talking about irony, right? Hmmm.
Some might find it ironic that you did not mention the word irony or any of its morphological variations or even any synonyms for irony in your last post about your supposed “ironic observation” that you are supposedly trying to prove.
But I do not see that as irony. I see it as a tactical move of misdirection that didn’t pan out for you. But if it wasn’t a tactical move, then that would certainly be ironic.
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Actually many things are moving ahead as I hoped, despite people like that professor
Millions are signing up for “Obama-care” – in many cases giving them better health care for less money than they had before. There’s growing support for strong early childhood programs, especially for low income youngsters. There’s growing support for using a variety of measures to assess students and schools rather than just rely on standardized tests. Every year more families are making use of public school options, either within districts or via charters. There’s far greater respect for marriage equality than there ever has been in this country.
There’s plenty to work on, and plenty of progress.
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Whoa, whoa. That makes absolutely no sense for this thread whatsoever.
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I’m all for choice. In respect to the education of my sons, I had many public school choices: moving to a new community, applying for inter and intra-district transfers, open enrollment, and magnet schools. In addition to that, my state (CA) allows parents to place children in the schools in the communities where their employment and/or child care is located. If these choices weren’t enough, there were plenty of parochial schools with modest tuition.
But this is what I do not understand: How can an individual or corporation start a private “charter school,” get the taxpayers to foot the bill, pocket the profits, and then prohibit those taxpayers from having any governance over that school? When did that law get passed, and by whom? I can’t remember voting for anything of the sort, nor do any of my friends. Can anyone explain this?
Yes, we all have choices and some are more important than others. To me, it’s extremely important for the public schools to remain under the governance of the people who pay for them. Maybe some people are clueless enough to allow some individual or corporation to come in and take over their local school, but I’m betting the average American will not allow this. Only time will tell.
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Linda, glad you have enjoyed various public school choices in California.
California’s elected representatives voted for a charter law. As in the other 41 states that have approved charters, it was approved by the state legislature.
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Thanks. I hope people write to their representatives to have these laws repealed, or at least modified. I can see state administered charters run by parents and teachers, but to give these tax-supported schools to private individuals seems unbelievably crazy to me.
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I have absolutely zero governance over public schools. Neither do you and neither does anyone else on this blog.
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That’s not true. Most of us have elected school boards and can vote for the members. In addition to that, we can go to school board meetings and voice our concerns. If enough of us make noise at a school board meeting, change often follows.
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The salient issue with respect to charter schools is whether they are an effective and moral instrument of government policy and use of public tax dollars, not whether individual parents gain or loose or whether parents should have a right to “choose.” Government policy that is designed to give some children an “opt out” of neighborhood schools that have been deemed ineffective is a recipe for pitting parents against one another instead of joining together to fight for quality education for all. Choice is only a function of a policy that prioritizes competition between individual parents and between schools over systemic improvement. Government advocacy for a public system of choice based on the explicit idea that schools differ not just in educational emphasis, but in quality, fails the If I am only for me, than who am I moral principle.
I discuss this in greater depth in Education Reform and the Corrosion of Community Responsibility: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/26/education-reform-and-the-corrosion-of-community-responsibility/
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So you really are opposed to any choice that allows students to choose a school other than their neighborhood school that they don’t like. Is that correct? You’re not just opposed to charters. You are opposed to allowing families options within their district if they don’t like the neighborhood school?
Is this correct?
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It looks like the poster would like to keep the children of some parents in the school to act as hostages. Work hard to improve the local school or else your children will not get the education you desire for them.
It seems like the students of active, involved, parents are being treated as a means to improve education, not an end in themselves.
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No, he is saying that this isn’t a school problem, it’s a community problem. As a member of a community, every parent has a responsibility not just to their own children but to all the children in the community. When parents leave neighborhood schools it has consequences for others. Maybe you think those consequences aren’t important, but if you are looking at making policy they are. The more we emphasize the individual over the community the further we move away from having “public” schools and the more we move toward a system of private education that caters to the individual wants of parents – the education “you” desire for them. And, by the way, it is parents choosing the schools, not students.
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I believe at least one frequent poster here has children in private schools and advocates for public schools. Why require his or her students to be in the public school system?
I agree that moving some students out of neighborhood schools has consequences for other students. I have often made the point that having students choose a school has the potential of creating winners and losers relative to a system where students are assigned to a school. The logic of that position also runs in reverse. Not allowing students to choose a school ALSO creates winners and losers.
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We don’t require them to be in the public school system, but taxpayers don’t pay for their “choice” either. The point of the article is that if we met your responsibilities as a society the public schools system wouldn’t pick “winners and losers” at all. The only reason it does is that we have abdicated that responsibility.
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The discussion about winners and losers is usually around the peer impact of students on each other. That is typically the explanation that Dr. Ravitch offers for higher test scores in paired studies of charter schools, and that seems very reasonable to me. If there is a positive peer impact, screening out poor peers will help those that make it past the screen. Not screening out poor peers will help those that would have been screened out.
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meant our responsibilities.
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Yeah, that’s part of the “community” responsibility we have as parents. My children have learned a lot from the “poor peers,” however you want to describe that. And they have influenced some of those “poor peers” to as well. Our communities are made up of all kinds of people. That diversity is what real “public” schools are about and I would hate to lose that.
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Our communities are made up of all kinds of people. In general, our school districts and catchment areas are not.
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MAP, there are a vast array of communities – including wealthy suburbs that have 5-10% low income families (at most) and few people of color.
Just saying a school is “public” tells you nothing about the diversity of its student body.
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Oh, yeah they are. It depends how you define different types of people. There are certainly children of all academic abilities. What “choice” is doing is segregating us even more than we are now and I would don’t think that’s a good idea. Regardless of how much or little “diversity” there is, further reducing that diversity should not be part of our policy.
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Ma,
There are always trade offs with important choices.
Here is a list of the mathematics courses offered at Thomas Jefferson High School, a (very) selective admission magnet school:
Advanced Geometry w/Discrete Math
Advanced Algebra 2 w/Trig & Data Analysis
Advanced Precalculus
AP Calculus AB
AP Calculus BC
Advanced Topics in Calculus
Multivariable Calculus (fall)
Complex Variables (fall, odd years)
Numerical Analysis (fall, even years)
Advanced Mathematical Techniques (spring)
Linear Algebra (spring)
Differential Equations (spring)
AP Statistics
Mathematics of Finance
Instead of bringing the students together in one high school, we could require all the neighborhood high schools to be prepared to teach this set of classes for the students who happen to have street addresses in the catchment area. It would be much more expensive, but it would increase “diversity” in the local high school. It would also likely be a worse experience for advanced students as they would have few classmates in their classes.
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Joe Nathan: Of course there are. I said it depends on how you define diversity. “Choice” isn’t changing that at all and it won’t unless we actually decide that we are going to work towards (force) integration of our schools. I’m all for that, but the solutions you propose do nothing to solve that problem. Charter schools are incredibly segregated, and now ever within communities we are seeing the students with involved parents leaving the public schools and going to charters. So what diversity there was is being destroyed. It might be good for some students, but it further eroding communities and leaving a lot of kids behind.
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Teachingeconomist: No, we shouldn’t teach all those classes at every school. I’m not opposed to TAG programs and things like that. Every student should be able to be educated to the best of their ability. But what does that have to do with choice? It shouldn’t be the parents who decide to go to those programs, it should be decided by the students ability. For the classes you mention it would be a very select few I would imagine.
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It has a huge amount to do with students attending schools based on their individual interests and abilities rather than their street address. How else can you gather them together unless the neighborhood school is not the only option?
Fairfax county fills an entire high school (about 1,844 students) with students at this level of achievement. Given their very stringent admission requirements (15.7% admission rate), my guess is that if they swapped out the students they admitted for their top rejected students, no one would notice much of a difference in the student body. How many others across the country might benefit from having the opportunity to join their academic peers?
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teachingeconomist: I agreed with that. Students should be able to reach their full potential. I has nothing to do with “choice,” though. It would probably also benefit those high-performing students to interact with other students once in a while that aren’t their “academic peers,” while also helping those lowly other students as well.
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Will you require all high schools to offer courses that actually allow all potential students to reach their full potential? Will you have all schools offer the curriculum that suites each student the best, be it a Montessori, Waldorf, or progressive? Carol Burris is a celebrated principal here, but her high schools stops offering math classes at AP Calculus BC. Thomas Jefferson offers at least another year of mathematics courses. There are over 1,800 students in Fairfax County that reach their full potential by enrolling in a high school that offers the courses. Are there no students in South Side High School whose potential includes studying vector calculus and differential equations?
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At what point do you draw a line, TE? There are gifted athletes, writers, musicians, scientists, artists, historians, debaters, linguists,… the public school system cannot fulfill everyone’s desires to pursue a specialty. Drawing money from the public til does not make that any more possible. At some point a family has to make sacrifices to go where opportunities are or do their best to raise their children to be able to pursue their interests on their own. No, a public school does not owe your son the chance to advance well beyond what the community is able to provide at the expense of less advanced classmates. At some point the individual must take responsibility for their own learning if there are not viable alternatives that the community can realistically and fairly support.
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Line drawing is what this is all about. I agree with you 100% that they must be drawn, and we must be aware that is what we are doing.
How many kinds of students should we say public schools do not owe a chance to develop to their full potential? After all, it is not just the gifted that are expensive to educate. What about my foster son, and is myriad of learning disabilities? What of the physically handicapped? Should we educate those students up to their ability at any cost? Shouldn’t those individuals take responsibility for their own learning?
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I think we get stuck on “full potential” as well. Is it somewhere written that we as a society are responsible for developing everyone to the limits of their potential? How do we determine these limits? We need to also decide what providing a public education is supposed to do. Can anyone ever remember someone promising them that they would receive an education that would develop them to the limits of their potential? Is education something that is done to or for you or is it your response to education? I’m not expressing myself very well, but these are all questions that occur to me.
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And what about the other end of the ability spectrum? For a very long time our society paid little attention to developing those students to the limits of their potential as well. If we are going to decide to deliberately not develop each student to the limits of their potential, it seems to me that this group of students needs to be considered. I think there is an argument that can be made that students with low potentials to begin do not warrant large amounts of expenditures on their behalf. I do not know if this argument will win the day, but your position does open this possibility.
I have to say that all this influence on individual responsibility must make Harlan Underhill content with the direction this thread is going in.
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I taught “the other end” for a number of years. We devote more energy to that end because their ability to be contributing members of society is more at risk. They are more likely to be a cost to society than a benefit without support. I live in an upper middle/upper income community where parents have the ability to provide lots of extras. They are also very demanding of public schools and not always realistic about the demands they make on their children. There are many highly intelligent people, but there are few who are truly off the charts. Since we now know that IQ is not static, the more we can provide an enriched environment in our schools the better our students will do. That environment cannot be restricted just to the school if we want to maximize its effect. I also think we have to be very careful about what we consider to be an enriched environment. IQ gives a very limited description of intelligence. Economists do not necessarily make good farmers or artists or carpenters. We should not assume that a quality public education is defined purely by its breadth of academic offerings. So what do we decide is our public base? How do we describe that base in its multitudes of iterations across communities? Are there any nonnegotiables which apply to all communities. That may be what CCSS was intended to describe however inadequate it is and however warped it has become.
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I think the breath of offerings is more important in some areas than in others. An English class may have students read Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Elliot. The talented humanist can be satisfied that they are reading some of the greatest authors that have written in English.
What works by the great mathematicians are read in math classes? Is Galios there? Fermat? Noether? Erdos?
Mathematics is much more limited by the curriculum than other classes students might attend.
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Every subject is limited by time constraints and what is deemed essential. You demonstrate that in your description of what an English class should contain.
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Indeed that is correct. Someone is always making choices.
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Yes, it would benefit those students. They might find, for example, that they are great at math or writing but not so great at painting or plumbing or carpentry, which also are valuable skills. This is part of the reason that I’m opposed to the idea of allowing districts or charters to create a school that uses an admission test.
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teachingeconomist: If there really all those students whose ability – and not their parents – determine they should take those courses, then maybe you should go to the school board and have them taught at more schools. That’s how it works.
And no, I wouldn’t offer programs that “suit each student the best.” At some point students – and parents – need to realize that not everything is going to be their way and that they have to accept that and adjust. The world won’t tailor everything to their needs. They’ll still do fine in life, especially if they have the ability to take those courses you claim they are all prepared to take. This idea that we have to provide everything to everybody is ridiculous.
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I think yours is a perfectly defendable position.
But we should not pretend that your position is that each student should be able to reach their full potential. You argue that we should choose which students we will enable to reach their full potential, which students we will not enable to reach their full potential.
Economics is all about choices, this is familiar territory for me. Shall we think hard about which students we will try to enable to reach their full potential and which we will not? It will be an interesting discussion.
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I think we have a different definition of “reaching their full potential” and I think you overestimate the number of students that really would benefit from having the courses you mentioned available. I don’t know any high school in our area that offers any of those courses, so you must come from an incredibly high achieving area. Of course there are limits can be provided and what you are proposing is that high schools should be offering college level courses. If they are really at that level they should probably apply to a local university. For 99.99999% of the kids high school offerings are just fine.
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I do not come from Fairfax County, I just happen to know of Thomas Jefferson High from some conversations I have had from others. I live in a college town in the middle of the country. I did face something of the issue for these students, but concluded that sending a 15 year old to college was not a great idea, though we did consider Bard at Simon’s Rock for a bit. Thanks in part to a standardized test score, the local public school principal accommodated our choice to send our middle child to the local university for courses. We had to pay the tuition and the courses did not count toward high school graduation, but it did keep him interested enough in academics to graduate.
It is certainly true that small numbers is a possible reason to not offer a group of students the ability to achieve their academic potential. It might well apply to other small groups of students, and it might be interesting to think about those other groups. Students with extreme physical disabilities come to mind. They are expensive to educate and small in number. In small rural districts like those that dominate my state, providing them the opportunity to achieve their academic potential puts a severe financial strain on the district.
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Minnesota has a series of laws called Post-Secondary Options that allow high schools students, starting in the 10th grade to take courses for free on college campuses. In the 10th grade, a student can take a career-tech course. If she/he earns at least a “C”, they can take additional courses.
At the 11th and 12th grade levels, students can take all or part of their courses at public colleges or universities, and participating private colleges and universities. $ follow students paying all costs of tuition and books. Transportation $ are available to help low income students get to the colleges. Some PSEO courses are available on-line.
These laws have helped encourage districts all over the state to offer additional AP, IB and “College in the Schools” courses. For example, about 30,000 students a year participate in one or more AP classes, about 27,000 participate in College in the Schools classes, and about 6,000 take one or more courses on a college campus.
More info here:
http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/StuSuc/CollReadi/PSEO/
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That sounds like a really cool program.
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Agreed. Also, you might want to look at the 60 second videos of the 3 kids who are taking college level courses in their district high schools. We now literally have some students who have earned A.A (2 year college degrees) in the same month that they graduate from high school.
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You’re getting all this stuff about Fairfax County secondhand? I was going to look it up but then decided I didn’t really have the time. Something about it didn’t seem quite right. Now I know I don’t have to.
It sounds like the public school did right by you, too. That’s the way it is supposed to work. They didn’t have to create a new school, but when they had an exceptional situation they did their best to take care of you. I don’t see how “choice” would have done a better job.
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map,
If by all this stuff you mean 1) the math curriculum at Thomas Jefferson High School, 2) the enrollment at Thomas Jefferson High School, and 3) the acceptance rate at Thomas Jefferson High School, it is all a matter of public record.
If looking it up, here is the general link for you: https://www.tjhsst.edu/
I do not want this comment to go to moderation or I would provide the links to the the quoted classes, school size, and acceptance rate. If you want to find the curriculum, click on Research and Academics, click on Math/CS, click on Math, and look at the classes.
If you want to find the acceptance rate, search using the terms ” Thomas Jefferson high school student population admissions statistics” and find the document “2013-14 Profile……”. It will be a PDF document and will list class size and admission rate.
After that, tell me what does not feel quite right.
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It worked reasonably well for my family because the local university is closer to my home than the assigned high school. Most of the high schools in my state are rural, have less than 250 total students, and are many many miles from any college. Public education works less well talented students in those schools.
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What didn’t seem right is that you care about a high school in Virginia when you don’t even live there. That’s what I don’t understand, not what their curriculum is or their admittance policy. What this school offers is between them and their community and you or I don’t really have anything to say about it.
I’m done with this. This has gotten so far from the original point of the article I had to go back and look at your original comment. It was something about parents being held hostage, which still seems hyperboIic. I still don’t know what point you are trying to make. You now seem to be arguing that we should cut services to physically and learning impaired children because we don’t offer college level courses in high schools like those are in any way the same thing.. That comparison is making my head spin so I have to go. Have a nice night.
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This blog is about public education. There are no qualified admission magnets in my state, so if I am to talk about them, I must use examples from outside my local school district.
My original point was that the original post argues that students should be required to attend the local public school to ensure that the local public school would eventually be raised to an acceptable quality. This position has a long history on this blog, one that I am not comfortable with. It seems to me that many posters here are very free with advice about how other parents children should be educated.
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I don’t think that is the point at all: ‘ “The first choice of a free people, ironically, is to insure those conditions that should require no choice—and public education is one of those foundational contracts among a free people that must be guaranteed regardless of to whom or where a child is born.” ‘ For whatever reasons, we have not done a good job of providing good public education to everyone, but the more choice in the form of charters and vouchers we provide the further we are from being able to provide an education to all.
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Actually in this thread I have not talked about vouchers or charter schools at all. I have talked about qualified admission magnet schools.
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You are missing the point. Try again.
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What exactly then, is your point?
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That’s because you don’t understand the purpose of “public” education. It isn’t about you or your children! It’s about all of us and all of our children! We all care about all the children and we all have opinions on how all the children are educated. We take those opinions and come together as communities to put together “public” schools that look out for the “common,” not individual, good. You are no more or less important than anyone else and what you want is no more or less important. Which was the original point of the article.
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It seems to me that your position is that public schools should be designed to allow some students to reach their full potential, but designing a system where all students reach their full potential is too expensive. As an economist, I can appreciate that argument. Lets have a discussion about which students are too expensive to educate to their full potential.
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And now you are pitting one set of parents against another, which was another point of the article. You are making a great case for the author’s position.
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MAP,
I am the one arguing for the position that ALL students be educated to their full potential.
You are arguing that these students are too expensive to educate to their full potential, not me. I am simply asking if gifted students are the only group that you think are too expensive to educate to their full potential, or if there are others as well.
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When did I ever say that? I never talked about money at all. I just said that what you are arguing for is for high schools to teach college-level subjects. Why would we have high schools do that when we have colleges? You child’s needs were addressed in this way. If you really think high schools should teach these classes you should advocate for that. But that, of course, has nothing to do with the original point of the article that this thread came off of. I’m going to bed.
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map,
When you say “Of course there are limits can be provided….” those limits are limits on resources, that is they are too expensive in terms of the resources that need to be devoted to them.
You bring up an interesting issue in our educational system. Perhaps the criteria should not be that every student is educated up to their potential, but that every student is educated, as far as possible, up to some standard. Those whose potential is less than that standard we will try to educate to their potential, those whose potential is greater will have to wait until they are old enough to attend college.
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Maybe it’s because you are an economist, but not everything is about money. I’m talking logistics and duplication of effort. It doesn’t make sense for K-12 districts to offer college-level courses when others offer them and can actually teach them more effectively. Let’s say there happens to be a sixth grader who is ready for calculus. Should the middle school have a calculus class or should that student go to the high school? Which makes more sense? The crazy thing is that you were in this situation and your public school district worked with you to get you child the class you wanted. Joe Nathan mentioned a program where high school kids can take college courses and we have the same program in my state. And, again, what does this have to do with “choice,” the actual topic of the article?
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One of the central principles is the the power of individuals and organizations to make decisions. People to get lots of decisions in a democracy.
As a parent and urban educator, I think well designed public school choice plans are vital for progress. It’s not the only important thing to do. And choice can be mis-used (I think allowing schools to have admissions test is a misuse of public school choice).
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Economics is not about money, economics is about resource use. Your concerns about duplication of effort, for example, is based on the idea of opportunity cost. Having two people doing the same job is costly because one of the could be doing something else. Logistical issues are also about resource use and institutional structure. My middle son, for example, had to take an online class taught by K-12 in order to reconcile his high school schedule with the classes he wanted to take at the university and state mandates about courses required for high school graduation.
Having a 15 year old go to college is a choice, and not one widely available. As Joe Nathan pointed out, giving students that choice in Minnesota required a state law. Alternatively students might use college generated courses available on the net to learn at the appropriate level, but schools would need to recognize the need and accept the courses for credit. One of my middle son’s friends did that to learn some linear algebra using MIT’s class because, in part, his family could not easily afford the tuition to take the class at the local university.
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Have you Googled Dual Enrollment? There are programs all over the country, with more starting up all the time. And, again, you were able to work something out. You friends child was able to take a course from MIT! What exactly is it you want? You seem to be complaining that it is sometimes hard to arrange classes. I’m sure parents of special needs kids also have to jump through a lot of hoops and advocate for their kids. You are really starting to sound like a whiner. Get over yourself and realize that life is hard sometimes but you’ll get through it.
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Dual Enrollment laws vary all over the country. Some require families to pay for the courses.
Minnesota law does not. It expands opportunity for all students – including those from low income families as transportation funds are available to help students from low income families. Another value of this school choice law is that it has encouraged many high schools to offer new courses in their high school. Doing well in these courses also allows students to earn free college credit.
Here’s a link to 3 district high school students talking about the value of taking such courses:
http://centerforschoolchange.org/2014/02/alternative-school-students-speak-out-on-dual-credit/
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The mainstream position on this blog would not have allowed this to work. Most who post here, for example, would close K-12. My son’s friend did not get any credit towards his high school diploma by working through Gilbert Strang’s course at MIT. My son received no high school credit for the 25 hours of college classes that he took while in high school (and no credit for them in college, though he did get placement and credit for AP).
But that is not what this thread is about. It has stumbled on the very interesting question about what the goals of primary and secondary education should be. You started with the statement that “Every student should be able to be educated to the best of their potential”. Through this discussion that has been modified a bit to say that it is too expensive (again in resource use) to have that as a goal for students with unusually high potentials. That seems like a reasonable position to take. The next question is if there are other groups that might also be too expensive (again in resources used) to educate to their full potential.
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But Mn’s law allows students to earn high school (and if they enter a Mn public college or university) college credit by taking these dual credit courses. The courses can be taken either on the high school campus, on line, or on a college campus. Mn’s law also makes taking these classes free, including tuition, lab fees and books, if taken on a college campus. The books also are free if taken on a high school campus.
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You can say something a million times and it doesn’t make it true. You are the only one who thinks that’s what this thread is about, and you mentioned it at least one other time in the comments section away from this thread. That’s your obsession, nobody else’s. I don’t feel like arguing about it anymore. I hope you can find peace.
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And you know what, you are one of the people who give “choice” a bad name. I can’t imagine a “choice” that any school district could give you that would be good enough. It seems like people have bent-over-backwards to accomodate you and you can’t be satisfied. It is all you, you, you. Do you ever think about anyone else? I don’t see any evidence of it.
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Though I usually don’t comment on personal attacks, I think that TE, you, and others posting here really do care about lots of youngsters, not those in their own family.
Incidentally, map are you a parent or a teacher, both, or ….?
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I’m a parent, and that isn’t a personal attack. All TE has talked about is how things affect him and has actually broached the subject of taking services away from other children so that schools can meet his needs. That is what I am basing my opinion on. Never once in all the time my children were in school did I ever expect the school to accomodate me because, quite frankly, my children aren’t any more important than any one else’s children. That’s the difference in outlook that the author of the article at the beginning of this thread was getting at and the it has been on display throughout this thread: Do you care only about yourself or do you care about every child.
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Thanks.
I think lots of us including you and TE care about our own children and other people’s children.
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I think it would help TE to step back and appreciate all he has been given.
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map,
I am using the example of my middle child to get at the point you brought up: that “Every student should be able to be educated to the best of their ability”. If we have THIS EXACT SAME GOAL for every child, we will have to DEVOTE DIFFERENT AMOUNTS OF RESOURCES to each child. A child with learning disabilities may require many more resources to be educated to the best of their ability than a child with no learning disabilities. A child with a very high ability level may require many more resources to be educated to the best of their ability than a child with relatively low ability levels.
You modified this position quite reasonably to say that educating every child to the best of their ability might require too many resources for some children and used children with high abilities as an example. I simply asked if there are other groups of children that might also require too many resources to educate up to their ability.
This is an interesting policy question, and the type of things economists think about all the time. It has nothing to do with my middle son (who is going to graduate from college next fall after all, so this is all in the past), but how we decide to allocate resources and importantly who gets to decide that question.
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“It has nothing to do with my middle son (who is going to graduate from college next fall after all, so this is all in the past), but how we decide to allocate resources and importantly who gets to decide that question.”
Then say that and skip the games. We are playing with ideas now not making policy, which is a much messier process. You do not always have to be the one who pokes holes in dreams. My children used to accuse me of being too practical; they were probably right that my weighing pros and cons shot down some of their dreams too soon.
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I did say that, over and over. I thought I would be chided for repeating myself.
I thought it worth pushing this point because it is at the heart of many of the discussions here. Who gets the resources? Who gets to say how these resources are to be used? What is the most effective way to allocate these resources? How do we measure effectiveness? All key questions that lie at the heart of much of the debate here. In this thread they surfaced.
We are playing with ideas about policy, testing them, thinking about what the implications of those policies are. Poster map proposed a laudable guiding principle for public education and pulled back from it when the actual costs of the policy were discussed. This is often the case.
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I never changed my position. I still believe every child should be given the opportunity to be educated to the best of their ability and as a society we should strive for that. That’s always been my position and it always will be and I never said anything different. I said there are limits to what it makes sense for high schools to do, but we have talked ad nauseum about options for students to take college courses (enabling them to reach their full potential). From everything you have said you took full advantage of those opportunities. I never said that any child would take too many resources to educate and we have to decide somehow who gets what. That’s your spin. The bottom line is that you have been given a bounty of resources and you don’t appreciate it. That’s the main thing I am taking away from this.
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Map,
I don’t want to rehash this, but you might want to think about why you say there are limits to what high schools can do for students. If it is not a lack of resources, what exactly limits what high schools can do?
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High schools could do anything. It just wouldn’t make any freaking sense for them to duplicate what colleges already do. I give up. Every high school should have a law school, and a medical school, and a nursing school, and a veterinary school, and an engineering school, and a business school, and every thing else that colleges already have. Happy now?
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They could, except they don’t have the resources to do it.
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No, they could find the resources if the idea was sane. It’s the idea being insane that would keep anyone from actually committing the resources. So I guess you’re right: common sense and sanity do limit the resources that could be spent on your ideas. And thank God for that.
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The good citizens of the state of Colorado just voted down by a large margin a measure that would have increased taxes to pay for universal full day kindergarden. My state has not even come that close. No doubt the public schools in these states can not find the resources to do this because it is just an insane idea.
Perhaps if we just modified you goal for public education a little. Every student should be given the opportunity to fulfill their academic potential up to the traditional high school curriculum circa __________ . I left the date blank as I am not sure what date you would like to put there.
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The resources are available. You just have to convince people to provide them. You should advocate for that in your state.
High school students have access to a vast array of college resources, as you yourself have found out, so I don’t understand your point. Why would we limit any child?
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Resources are generally already employed doing everything from caring for the sick to providing lattes at Starbucks. We can increase the resources used in education if we convince folks to give up the other stuff we are doing with them. There is always an opportunity cost to any activity.
Some high school students have a vast array of college resources available if 1) they have public school officials willing to bend the rules for them, 2) have the means to pay tuition as a special students, 3) have enough credits built up to graduate from high school without counting the college courses, 4) have access to the college courses either because of proximity or a distance learning program at the college, and 5) know about the possibilities. (at least this is true in my state. Your state may differ)
Joe Nathan posted about students in Minnesota who graduate from high school and from community college at the same time. This is something new, but not because students have changed. What has changed is the opportunity students have to do this has changed. That is a good change in secondary education, but it is destructive of the old zoned neighborhood school system.
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1. Yeah, that’s what I said about resources. There are no limits to what we could spend on education and if you want more spent you should advocate for that.
2. Life is hard. Everything is not going to be handed to you. The opportunities are there, as you well know.
3) 99% of kids will still take most or all of their classes at traditional high schools, so why would that be a threat?
You have a lot of preconceptions. No one is going to be able to change your mind. Plus, you want this to be some kind of economics academic argument. I live in the real world and these types of arguments are boring and not very helpful, so this is the last thing I am going to say on the subject. Bye!
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map,
1) There are limits to what we can spend on everything, including education. We are always limited by our resources and are ability to turn those resources into the things we need and desire.
2) Life is hard. There are many populations of students who require that we spend more on average to educate. How should we view the education of blind and deaf students? How should we view the education of students with physical disabilities? My foster son, for example, has a variety of learning disabilities. What would constitute an insane amount of resources to help him reach his potential? What is a sane amount? Does the level of his potential have any bearing on how much we should spend?
3) It is in no sense a threat, it just reinforces the advantage that the children of the relatively wealthy have over the children
I am not sure what you think my preconceptions are, or what I should change my mind about. I live in and think about a world with constraints on what we can do, in a world where doing more of one thing requires doing less of another. A world that does not have constraints, one where everyone can have everything does not seem very real to me.
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“That is a good change in secondary education, but it is destructive of the old zoned neighborhood school system.”
You are really hung up on the “old zoned” rhetoric. I am not sure how Minnesota arrived at their program and if Minnesotans see it as an innovative way of enhancing public education or a destruction. I firmly believe that there are ways to improve public education while still serving the common good. We definitely don’t need national power brokers telling us how to do it. Those are decisions much better left to the states and communities that make up each state. Our needs and wants are more likely to be even noticed the closer control is to our daily lives. The national government may be able to help with equalizing some opportunities since the resources of states are vastly different. At what point and under what conditions we expect some personal responsibility is also an important consideration.
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I focus on the traditional zoned public school because that is the preferred alternative for the mainstream posters on this blog. Choice schools are criticized because 1) the act of choosing is a screening method that helps some students and harms other students because the more involved families are skimmed and 2) having students from the same neighborhood attending different schools disrupts the cohesiveness of the neighborhood.
As far as I can tell, charter and magnet schools are the results of decisions made by the state. Would you view those as correct decisions?
As for personal responsibility, how much more respect for personal responsibility can the education system have than by allowing the student to choose the school? You will get a much larger variety of approaches to education in that environment and more respect for the individual.
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If I didn’t believe that public education is a public good, then I might buy into your litany. Since I see public education as the most equitable way to provide for that public good, I find your insistence on individual choice at the expense of the public good offensive and counterproductive.
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2old,
I don’t think you mean it this way, but to an economist “public good” is a technical term. Public goods are ones that 1) are not excludable (that is no one can be prevented from having access to the good) and 2) are not rival (your using the good does not prevent another from using the very same good). The classic example is strategic defense, but there are many other examples.
Education is not that kind of public good. It is excludable. Traditional public school buildings do keep students out, private schools keep students out, charter schools keep students out. Education is not rival until it is congested. This point is made again and again on this blog: classes that are too big students don’t learn as well.
Education is what economists call a club good, and one that generates benefits for those being educated and society as a whole.
As for my emphases on choice, I think its importance grows as students get older. I don’t think it is reasonable for every school to be all things to all students. I do think that there is some school that is all things for particular students. Everyone gains if they can find each other.
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In many PDs, it is often proffered that students should have choice in their assignments in order to motivate them. The “choice” we are being offered is exactly the same. What will motivate our compliance?
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“Choice” according to reformers is the opportunity for poor urban children to choose from a set of underfunded schools in their district NOT a fully funded affluent school in a neighboring district… The “Vouchers” advocated by the conservative/libertarian wing of the “reform” movement don’t even match the per pupil costs of the underfunded district poor children attend let alone the nearby affluent districts. How can we claim to have “the pursuit of happiness” when parents cannot provide their children with an opportunity for an even start with their neighbors?
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Actually, there are many proposals involving public school choice. Some include the opportunity to attend options created by teachers in their own district. Some include options to attend public schools outside their own districts. Some include taking courses on college campuses, with state allocations following them, paying for those costs.
There is no single set of “reform” proposals that all those working to improve public schools agree on.
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Public schools have the average student 180 days each year. Assuming four hours of actual classroom time per day and 12 years of primary education the average student spends 8,640 hours in a public classroom and though many know how to have safe sex, a significant percentage are graduating illiterate.
The response, as demanded by the teacher’s union and progressive politicians was universal kindergarten with still no change in the illiteracy rate. We increased tax dollars per student (in the most depressed areas upwards of $30,000/year per child) and still no change in the illiteracy rate and now the left cries for universal pre K as the panacea for a failing education system.
The founders knew that the only way that a system of self government can work is to have an informed and educated citizenry. As the levels of illiteracy increased, government intrusion upon this basic human right, essential to liberty also increased.
The top 1% will always have choice, but assuming that this cry for choice comes only from the top 1% is ludicrous. The only alternative choice for most in the middle class has been home school or parochial school. Many of the parents making those choices do so at great, personal, financial burden. They must be quite motivated to make that choice. Their choice has nothing to do with lack of compassion for those who are more disadvantaged it has everything to do with offering their own child the very best educational opportunities which, sadly, the public schools have not been able to provide.
The preflight instuctions from the stewardess before a plane takes off inform us to put the oxygen mask on ourselves before trying to help our children or fellow passengers in the event of an emergency. The increasing exodus of the middle class from public education is a similar response.
It would be great if public education could offer every single child a quality education, but over the past 100 years the quality of a public education has declined precipitously as teachers have become the conduit for the state’s intrusion into citizen’s lives and the state uses the school house as a vehicle to indoctrinate our children in their political views and prepare them for a life of servitude. I have seen no radical overhaul that will pull them out of that nose dive. That includes common core which, effectively, is not an effort to reform schools as much as another federally initiated and funded imposition on self government.
What went wrong? I believe that the teachers union has, in part, contributed to the environment that has excluded citizens from actually participating in the process of creating curriculum and pedagogy. Parents involvement in their child’s education has been relegated to the role of fund raiser and lap dog for the teacher’s union and their political agenda.
The institution of the department of education added another expensive and expansive layer of bureaucracy which makes it increasingly difficult for citizens to actually effect any real reform of schools. We have been completely cut out of the process of self government in regards to education.
Our increasingly diverse culture has imposed on the schools the job of effecting a new common culture and while some parents willingly relinquished their roles to teachers and the state, many other folks, happy with the traditions of their old culture, have reacted by seeking alternatives to public education.
These have created a crisis that the state has responded to with increasingly despotic impositions on education; ironically, leaving many of those on the political right and left to, for the first time, find common ground.
There is nothing more essential to liberty and self government than to allow the citizenry to be equal partners with teachers in educating their children. Where the state also has an vested interest in the education of citizens; it’s interests, in a government “of the people, by people and for the people” should not take precedence over the rights of the citizens to participate in this essential human right. In fact, the very nature of self government should preclude any conflict. If there is major conflict between the people and the state then we have veered greatly from the republic as it was established and have something much greater to worry about.
Finally, the teacher’s union, which has been complicit in many of these impositions, can not be the leader in any real reform. It will have to be the people.
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Janine, though I agree that (district) public schools don’t meet the needs of many youngsters, I don’t just blame unions. In fact, unions in some places have worked hard not only for their own members, but also for youngsters.
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Mr. Nathan above starts from an incorrect premise when he suggests that parents ought to have choice “if they don’t like their neighborhood school,” thus the right to a charter option. Presumably they don’t like the neighborhood school for one of two reasons: either the “wrong children” attend that school, as in the segregated south, or the school lacks certain essentials due to underfunding by the local district, as has been the case in most large urban districts for forever. (And by the way, the teachers unions have not been the cause of either situation.)
Parental choice in either case is fundamentally a selfish choice, because it “saves” one’s own child while condemning “other people’s children” to an unequal education. Now of course parents want the best for their children, but as a society we must do better than that. Choice is fine if special programs beyond the basic are offered, but every school must be funded and supported to provide an excellent well-rounded education. Unfortunately, too many are willing to undercut public education for all in favor of short-term, cheap alternatives. No one “chooses” their parents or their circumstances of birth. If we truly believe in democracy and opportunity, we must as a society go beyond the rhetoric of “free choice” to the reality of “every school an excellent school!”
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Re “we must do better than that” — when “better than that” isn’t being done, why condemn anyone who _doesn’t_ want his/her own children sacrificed for the sake of anyone else’s? Who is more frightening, more reprehensible — a person who won’t sacrifice his/her own children, or a person who _will_?
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Bradinsocal,
I think you may be correct that all the public schools are so similar to each other that many parents may have the motivations you speak of. I think the biggest advantage of giving students and their families more choice of schools is that the monoculture of public schools can be changed to allow buildings to provide different approaches to education that would appeal to families in the district.
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Actually, some districts understand that one of the best ways to help more young people succeed is to offer an array of options. You wrote, “every school must be funded & supported to provide an excellent well-rounded education.”
What many educators and families have learned is that a school cannot simultaneously be a language immersion, core KNowledge, Montessori, arts-focused, school. Some youngsters thrive in one kind of school, some in another. Some teachers thrive in one kind of school, others in another.
These are among the central educational central reasons for offering options.
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The last two posters have merely restated the obvious point that having specializations to choose from would enhance the attractiveness of the the public system. It would be totally lovely if that were the situation, but that is not the real issue today. The real issue is dramatically underfunded public schools versus charter schools that receive not only public funds but also outside support of unknown quantity. To use another old image, the public schools today are asked to “run the race in lead boots,” and then are blamed for shortcomings beyond their control.
That’s what I was referring to earlier when I suggested that focusing on “choice” in the abstract sounds lovely, but the reality is far darker. Some choices are really no choices at all.
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Level playing fields are important.
Districts in most states can levy taxes, sometimes without getting permission from the people who live in the district. Unless they are part of the district (as they are in Wisconsin), charters don’t receive those local property taxes. District schools in many communities also receive substantial grants, whether from federal, state and local sources, or from private communities. Moreover, most state laws allow district schools to convert to charters, thus providing the flexibility some educators want if the teachers in the schools vote to convert.
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“Some choices are no choice at all.” ????? How much social control are you willing to impose so that everyone has real choice in schools?
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Public education is a right for all..
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I would be interested to know, Maureen, how you’d answer (about asserting a right to be given an education) the points that are sometimes raised about an analogous matter (asserting a right to be given healthcare) that are summarized here: http://inpolicy.org/2014/03/bohanan-is-health-care-a-right/
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Then if it is a “right” for all, it must be a “duty” for the rest of us to provide it.
If a duty to labor is imposed on me by force, I think that is slavery.
Thus, when you say “public education is a right for all,” I read that as saying that the cost is slavery for all.
I doubt you would accept that argument. But at least try to refute the premise about “duty.”
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