Chester Finn, Jr., Bruno Manno, and Brandon L. Wright declare in the Wall Street Journal that public schools and elected school boards are dying a slow death and being replaced by charter schools. All three are associated with right wing think tanks (Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Walton Family Foundation).
Bear in mind that some 50 million children attend public schools, and fewer than 3 million attend charter schools. Bear in mind also that voters have never voted to replace public schools with privately managed charter schools. Americans have never been asked whether they want to pay their taxes to private corporations to run schools that can choose their students. The charter movement has flourished because of massive investments by billionaires like Gates, Broad, and Walton, political support by right wing groups like ALEC, right wing governors, and the unfortunate support of the Obama administration.
Public education, open to all, has for many years been considered an essential democratic institution and a basic cause of the great economic, social, and cultural success of our nation. Finn & friends hope for and celebrate its demise. They tacitly acknowledge that charter schools don’t get higher scores than public schools. They note that some charter operators are frauds. What they don’t admit is that they welcome the Hyper-segregation of American society. One of the reasons our society functions as well as it does is because public schools bring children from different backgrounds together, across lines of race, religion, class, gender, and ethnicity. It doesn’t happen enough, but the authors don’t care if it happens at all. They welcome the return of segregation as a step forward, not retrenchment from our ideals.
Similarly, they see no value in democracy. Elected school boards are a fundamental exercise of democracy. They are established in state constitutions. Yet the authors would wish them away and replace them with privatization.
This article and the book it is based on comes at a time when the privatization movement is staggering. Charters were just recently criticized by the NAACP and the Movement for Black Lives, a collection of 50 organizations. Charter scandals are breaking into the mainstream media, most recently with the admission by an online charter founder in Pennsylvania that he stole $8 million from the school. And the CREDO study finding that students in online charters learn close to nothing. And then there was the John Oliver program on the shoddy and corrupt practices of charters that close overnight and charters that steal and cheat taxpayers. And there was the Washington State and NLRB decisions that charters are not public schools.
When the charter movement began, Finn and Manno wrote about the promise of charter schools: in return for public money, they would be held accountable for better results at lower costs. Now we know that charters are not held accountable, do not produce better results unless they cherrypick students, and do not cost less.
They write:
“America’s devotion to local control of schools is dying, but it is also being reborn as a new faith in charter schools. These independently operated public schools—nearly 7,000 across the country, and counting—provide a much-needed option for almost three million youngsters in 43 states.
“As students return to school, the enterprise responsible for educating them is changing in ways that few people are aware of. Charters are fomenting a quiet revolution in governance in public education.
“The prevailing arrangement in America’s 14,000 school systems starts with an elected board. The board appoints a superintendent, who manages more-or-less uniform public schools staffed by a unionized workforce of government employees. This setup functioned well for an agrarian and small-town society in which people spent their entire lives in one place, towns paid for their own schools, and those schools met most of the workforce needs of the local community.
“This arrangement does not perform nearly so well in a country of mobile and cosmopolitan citizens, where states make most education rules and furnish most of the money, where government intrudes in myriad ways, and where discontent with education outcomes is rampant. It doesn’t meet the requirements of people who change neighborhoods and cities as well as jobs and careers, and it’s ill-suited for an era of fervent agitation about equalizing—and compensating for—the treatment of children from different backgrounds, locales and needs.
“Nor does local control mean what it once did. Some 90 school districts today struggle to educate more than 50,000 students each in systems sprawling over many miles and run by massive bureaucracies. The Houston Independent School District is responsible for 215,000 pupils, Chicago for 400,000, Los Angeles for 700,000 and New York City for more than a million. The governance of these systems doesn’t work well when elected boards have evolved from panels of public-spirited civic leaders into gaggles of aspiring politicians and teachers-union surrogates.
“The feebleness of traditionally governed public schools explains the burgeoning alternatives. Yet far from undermining local democratic control, these new schools are reinventing it—down to small communities of families that now run their own schools, each with six or seven board members.
“Because these boards function more like nonprofit organizations than political bodies or public agencies, their members need not stand for election. Being generally union-free, they don’t have the headaches of collective bargaining. And with freedom to engage and deploy principals and teachers, and to adjust budget, curriculum and instruction to do their students the most good, charter schools are attracting to their boards selfless citizens and community leaders who see a plausible chance to promote change.
“The charter phenomenon is also reinventing the school district. Instead of geographically bounded municipal units run in top-down fashion, “charter management organizations” comprise virtual networks—confederations, really—of similar schools that may be located hundreds of miles apart, that mostly run themselves, but that can draw on the organization for expertise and services that individual schools may not be able to muster for themselves. The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) started as a single classroom in Houston and now boasts 200 schools in 20 states. Eva Moskowitz’s high-performing Success Academy began in Harlem and now has 41 schools in four boroughs of New York City.
“Charters don’t answer every education prayer. Their test scores are all over the place, though the best studies show strong, positive effects for poor and minority children. Funded with about three-quarters of the per-pupil dollars that traditional schools receive, many charters have trouble making ends meet and rely heavily on private philanthropy and entrepreneurial energy.
“Established education interest groups—always more attentive to adult jobs than to kids’ learning—fight them relentlessly, as do a few civil-rights groups aligned with the unions. Some charter leaders and board members have been guilty of self-dealing and corrupt behavior.
“But that’s where democracy comes in. While autonomous in many ways, charters are ultimately accountable to public authority. They’re a new species of school, but they remain public schools, open to all comers, paid for by taxpayers and licensed by the state. If they fail to meet standards of academic performance and fiscal soundness, charters—unlike district schools—are supposed to be closed or restarted under fresh leadership. More than 1,200 charters closed between 2010 and 2015 even as more opened. Some states are still figuring out how to make this work, but most are getting better at it.
“Twenty-five years from its beginnings, chartering portends profound changes in the structure of American public education. That’s why the battles around it are about more than market share, test scores and discipline codes. They’re proxies for what’s really in dispute: power and control over a K-12 education behemoth that spends more than $600 billion a year and employs some six million adults.
“Local control as we’ve known it is growing obsolete. Let’s hail the kind of local control that charter schools embody. And welcome back to school, girls and boys.”
Messrs. Finn, Manno and Wright are the authors of “Charter Schools at the Crossroads,” out from Harvard Education Press in October.
Charter Schools Are Reinventing Local Control in Education
http://www.wsj.com/articles/charter-schools-are-reinventing-local-control-in-education
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I wonder how Finn and friends would feel if told they had no chance of belonging to the noble body of education policy and law makers?
They do not care about that. Finn et all are LOBBYISTS, that is their sole function, it is the only reason they wrote their screed in the first place. They are defacto policy writers, not directly as legislators, but by the positions of influence bestowed upon them by the primary, non governmental funders and proponents of reform. Here’s a description of their playbook, one familiar to most all of us. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/12/lobbying-10-ways-corprations-influence-government
“America’s devotion to local control of schools (democracy via school boards) is dying, but it is also being reborn as a new faith in charter schools. ”
This is truly the Bizzaro-World, Orwellian Newspeak:
“Democracy” is “reborn” in a newly-establed corporate-controlled system of schools whereby parents and citizens …
— HAVE ZERO DEMOCRATIC DECISION-MAKING POWER over the governance of schools,
— HAVE ZERO OPPORTUNITY TO EXERCISE ANY DEMOCRATIC OVERSIGHT over the governance of schools;
— HAVE ZERO OPPORTUNITY TO REMOVE THOSE WITH ACTUAL POWER over the governance of schools.
This reminds me of the un-elected Chicago School Board member Jesse Ruiz, who said:
JESSE RUIZ: “But for our city, I honestly do believe that it would be best left as it is, as an appointed school board, because it’s an incredibly complicated and diverse district. There are very difficult decisions to be made, and sometimes they’re not very popular decisions, and I would have to—I WOULD HATE to have to worry about my next election when making a vote.
“I NEVER worry about that. I’ve NEVER HAD TO worry about that, or worry about WHO, WHO… uhhh… I am pleasing, or un-pleasing with my vote. All I worry about is what’s best for the students in the city of Chicago. And so therefore, that’s the system that I prefer.”
That quote is excerpted from a longer post of mine called …
HOW PUBLIC SCHOOL GOVERNANCE WORKS IN CHICAGO:
Jesse Ruiz, a current appointee to Chicago’s unelected School Board, appeared at a forum held at the City Club of Chicago last February 2, 2015. It was a discussion about whether Chicago should keep its appointed (by the mayor) school board, or return to the old system of having citizens elect a board. The return to an elected board was overwhelmingly endorsed by Chicago’s citizens in a non-binding vote last spring.
In defending the unelected Chicago School Board upon which he sits, Jesse opened his mouth and made some “WTF-did-he-just-say?!” statements that were, thankfully, captured for posterity on video.
NOTE: Earlier this summer, Jesse was also briefly the interim Chicago Schools CEO (not Superintendent… schools are a business in Chi-town) when the then-CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett had to resign after prosecutors announced an investigation of her conflict-of-interests in spearheading a multi-million-dollar contract to a principals’ training organization that she had ties to… but that’s another story.
Anyway, back to Jesse Ruiz, who, years ago, was also appointed to the Illinois’ State Board of Ed, where he served for several years. At Ruiz’ aforementioned appearance at a City Club of Chicago forum, Jesse started talking about how hundreds of school districts in Illinois had elected boards, and while serving on the Illinois board, he got along well with the members of those elected boards—he calls them his “colleagues”.
However, Ruiz nevertheless argues that Chicago must not have an elected school board, and made the following justification: (here’s the video.. go to about 06:58 – 07:35)
(06:59 – 07:35)
JESSE RUIZ, Chicago Board of Ed.: “But for our city, I honestly do believe that it would be best left as it is, as an appointed school board, because it’s an incredibly complicated and diverse district. There are very difficult decisions to be made, and sometimes they’re not very popular decisions, and I would have to—I WOULD HATE to have to worry about my next election when making a vote.
“I NEVER worry about that. I’ve NEVER HAD TO worry about that, or worry about WHO, WHO… uhhh… I am pleasing, or un-pleasing with my vote. All I worry about is what’s best for the students in the city of Chicago. And so therefore, that’s the system that I prefer.”
I don’t know about you, but Jesse’s really “un-pleasing” me with his justification for the 20-years-and-counting cancellation of popular democracy in the governance of Chicago’s public schools, and where the corporate reformers and profiteers that bankrolled Rahm Emanuel’s election now drive the policy… and not Chicago’s citizens.
How about you guys? Are you as “un-pleased” with Board Member Ruiz’s comments as I?
You can extrapolate this Chicago scenario to other situations… say… that of Hitler after he passed the 1933 “Enabling Act” that dissolved the Weimar Republic and its democracy in early 1930’s Germany. I can just see Adolph sitting around with Goering and Goebbels shooting the breeze.
HITLER: “But for the Reich, I honestly do believe that it would be best left as it is, subject to my dictates as Fuehrer. There are very difficult decisions to be made, and sometimes they’re not very popular decisions, and I would have to—I WOULD HATE to have to worry about my next election when making a vote.
“I NEVER worry about that. I’ve NEVER HAD TO worry about that, or worry about WHO, WHO… uhhh… I am pleasing, or un-pleasing with my vote. All I worry about is what’s best for the citizens of the Third Reich. And so that’s the system that I prefer.”
Yeah, I BET you do, Adolph.
You could write the same parody for Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, or whatever undemocratic dictator you choose.
But seriously, that’s how democracy works. When some policy implementation is unpopular and “un-pleasing” with the citizen-taxpayers—no matter how much Board Member Ruiz, or any elected official is desirous of such implementation—that fear of being removed from office in an upcoming election is a necessary check-and-balance, one that reins in Ruiz and his fellow Board members from doing something that the voters—his ultimate “bosses” in a democracy—do not want to happen. The will of the people will prevail in this scenario… theoretically, at least.
This was particularly relevant when Ruiz and his unelected Board closed 50 traditional public schools—with them replaced by privately-run charters—despite overwhelming polling saying that the tax-paying citizens of Chicago would be very “un-pleased” by this. (I know, I’m beating the “un-pleased” joke to death… that was the last one.)
At the very least, these schools being closed had elected Local Schoolsite Councils (LSC’s) made up of parents and community members, with albeit minimal decision-making power. The privately-managed charters that are currently in the process of replacing them, however, have no such LSC’s, and thus, the parents have ZERO input. Parents are barred from the meetings of that board, which are held in secret, and chaired by businessmen who have ZERO experience as teachers and/or administrators.
MORE ON…”Board Member Ruiz” in my next post.
The Wall Street Journal is about is reputable as Mad Magazine. It used to be a great newspaper, 30 years ago. I’d lump them in with The Weekly Standard and similar publications.
Look no further than the owner.
In its heyday, MAD Magazine was quite subversive in its social commentary and was an excellent publication overall. It was far superior to what the WSJ has become today. There’s no school like the old school.
You should send your well written rebuttal to the ‘Wall St. Journal’ as a letter to the editor. Local government and control of public schools and money are as relevant as ever, and it has nothing to do with the nature of our society. Parents are stakeholders in public schools. They have a democratic right to participate in their children’s education. It is unfortunate democracy is an inconvenience to those that want to strip citizens of their democratic rights. We don’t not need to use public resources to establish less efficient and effective parallel school systems. We do not need to send public funds to corporations so they can exploit our young people. We do not need to use public funds to further segregate students. We live in a democracy, and citizens have a right to a voice. If a democracy is such a burden to “reformers,” they should get Bill Gates to buy them an island where they set up any system they choose and leave public schools to the public.
A few observations.
1. Most Americans DO vote for public schools. There is no mass migration away from them, and even in places where the public schools have been degraded (mostly by official neglect and refusal to spend appropriate funds) parents stand by sending their children to public institutions. Neighborhood schools is a concept that is very much alive.
2. Milton Friedman was an early advocate of some kinds of “competition” for school students. But Friedman did not advocate making such shifts without appeal to a free market, and pilot projects to demonstrate the “new” system could work. In other words, don’t abandon What Works (Bill Bennett’s term) for unproven hopes. Charter schools have not demonstrated an ability to educate the mass of Americans, to educate well a substantial number of Americans, nor to fit into American society as the bricks in the walls of good tradition and American prosperity that public schools have been. Too early to call the game in favor of a team that could just as well be forced to forfeit for having failed to field a complete team or play a complete game.
3. Charter schools tend to do well with upper middle class parents, and often with those same students. But that’s not a problem in American education. There are many suburban schools and many urban schools and rural schools, that are more popular with the same demographic groups. Very few analysts complain that upper-middle class Americans need great, public-sponsored reform for their children’s education. Charters are a solution in search of a problem that probably doesn’t exist.
Which is not to say charters are benign. They often cause great disruption in neighborhoods and schools where great attention is needed for students who are underprivileged in one or more ways.
4. Yes, there are scandals in public schools — often not reported as such, but scandals nevertheless (A $50 million high school football stadium? Really?). But management of charter schools is a black box. One of our NATO allies accuses a large American charter operator of working to create a coup d’etat against the elected government of that ally. Far too few people even ask the appropriate questions, but it is certain there is no one who can say with any authority whether or not any charter group is working for or against American interests, domestically, let alone internationally. How many have any public audits, or serious scrutiny from school overseers? In Texas, several charters have been closed unceremoniously amidst notes of fraud and other scandal, probably a greater percentage of charters than public schools wracked by any “scandal.”
5. Has any state got a good, working system of checking charter school progress? In the public schools in our area, charters cause a couple of different, unusual budget situations. One, some systems suffer enrollment lower than expected, when charters open up and students migrate from public systems. In Texas this is difficult to manage, since charters don’t notify school districts in advance when students shift (taking state funding with them, a form of voucher). But then there is the mid-year and end-of-year budget shortfalls caused by the migration of students to public schools from home schooling and charter schools. Students decide they want a public school experience, and their parents agree. State funding comes slowly, and schools must work without adequate funds to meet those students’ needs. Planning for public schools is practically non-existent anyway due to tax-cut fever and slow legislative action. These unexpected, unanticipated and unfunded floods of refugees from charters only compound problems all around.
Under Finn’s direction at the old Office of Educational
Research and Improvement, USED published a series called “What Works,” and a shorter series written by Bill Bennett on “James Madison” schools, offering model school plans and curricula for public schools. (Manno was Finn’s assistant there, then).
None of the charter schools really come very close to those old models. It seems to me that before we say Bill Bennett and Checker Finn were dead wrong in those publications, we need hard research into charter schooling, where and when it works, how it affects our overall goals of an educated population that votes with care (and close to wisely, we hope), and a workforce trained to be flexible enough to make economic success in a changing world economy.
That research doesn’t exist. No Child Left Behind Act said changes in schools must be based on hard research showing new methods work better. There is no body of research to back a claim that charter schools work better, or that public school boards are outdated, or that there need be any significant change in most places from publicly-elected boards governing open-to-all-comers public schools.
I’d say let’s wait. But you and I both know it is unlikely anyone will do that research soon. Let us buy no piggy education system in a poke.
“As students return to school, the enterprise responsible for educating them is changing in ways that few people are aware of. Charters are fomenting a quiet revolution in governance in public education.”
Changing in ways that few people are aware of?
These are “public” schools, right? Yet “few people are aware” of ed reform goals to privatize the whole system? And that’s a good thing?
Good Lord. I don’t even think they hear themselves.
I ask only one thing. Run on privatization. Because that’s what this is. Do the public that one favor- run on what you plan to do. Then we can have a real debate.
If people in the US really want to turn public schools over to contractors, I’ll go along with that.
Chiara,
“Charters” can’t “foment” anything. People foment.
Chiare .
Are you going alone ?
No your not alone , righteous people Diden’t like lovers of money , por people are not alone. Thanks God he is our hope , don’t let thoses lovers of money lost your peace , not say no to Charters . Believe me , I’m not good at all tipping ( I’m non – English Specker but trust me , modestly I know very well how charters works , Charters are nothing but fraudulents corporations .
Up to you but I loss my son , Charters boards of members are Evils .
I’m not a rokie . I’m the only one who can tell you the true ..
Why ? Because the only thing I go is investigate Charters . 24/7 .
Maybe someone can help me: how do the claims of being “agnostic” fit in with the declarations that public schools are now obsolete?
In what possible sense is that “agnostic”? If your movement goal is to eradicate existing public schools you’re not an “agnostic”. That’s just dishonest.
Run on privatizing the system. You owe people that.
It continues to amaze me how political professionals in the ed reform “movement” never offer anything to public schools.
What is it we get when this “movement” reaches their goals? A set of contractors with appointed boards and existing public schools eradicated? Sign me up!
Why would any community who values their public schools hire these people? I’m supposed to pay people who are bound and determined to privatize the system I already have? How is that a benefit?
I’d really like it if someone would file a demand for who meets with the Obama Administration. If this administration limits advice and counsel to members of this “movement” then they have a duty to tell the public they’re privatizing schools.
The President didn’t run on this. No where did he mention he was “quietly” replacing democratic governance of public schools with contractors and appointed boards.
Calendars of presidents now are mostly open. No longer does the Washington Post publish the daily calendar before the day’s events, but Archives and the White House website generally provide enough information to do accounting.
If you’re not seeing the reports, perhaps you should dig them up and analyze the calendars to see who meets with the president.
Most meetings are unreported, on all topics. Not because they are hidden or not public, but because no one reports on them.
Advocates for replacing elected school boards with private charter school boards confuse consumer driven market choice of products with the democratic act of voting. In addition, they see education as an individual commercial transaction between a parent as consumers, rather than as something as society orchestrates for the broader community’s social well-being. Most important, they cynically place little value on attempting to well educate all children. Instead, they settle for educating some. That is why the disruption of closing failing charter schools does not trouble them any more than closing a restaurant with substandard food or service. To them, it’s collateral damage of the marketplace. Poverty and low wages are a given in their worldview. What is subject to change (maybe) is who gets to escape their inherited class position. What remains intact is the position and power of the already privileged.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
Thank you, Arthur.
“. . . but it is also being reborn as a new faith in charter schools.”
And as with all faith based traditions, that faith is based on mythology, lies, impossibilities that render adherents to only believing and supporting those who deliver the mythology, lies and impossibilities.
…and so the circle is complete.
In the name of the flounder, the sunfish, and the holy mackeral,
go in peace.
Now you’re talking my lingo, NoBrick!!
The patois of a proficient pyscho pursuer of the piscatorial pleasures.
They are operating under the assumption that if you say something often enough, even without evldence, people will believe it’s true. With social media, 24 hour news cycles, big money, and right wing media, they are doing their best to make the public believe that the Emperors of Charter Schools are wearing new garb when, in fact, they are bare butt naked!
And it’s a fat assed bare butt at that!
You must be standing far enough away to not see how hideously ugly that ass is, warts, karbuncles and all. It’s bad, really bad stuff you can’t unsee. Just trying for accuracy here…..
WSJ piece: Dark Money-sponsored propaganda piece, no more. Free market acolytes preaching to their own choir hoping to convince non-believers that free markets solve everything. Hmmmmmmm…Great Depression, S&L Crisis, Dot.Com Bubble, Housing Collapse, Inequality starting with St. Ronnie in 1981 and soaring beyond world historic levels. I don’t think so. Out-of-control capitalism and the gutless politicians who abet it will be the source of our own demise.
The Wall Street Journal’s thesis is strange—and contradictory. If the writers want to pick on a sprawling bureaucracy, the target shouldn’t be a public school system that is broken up into thousands of discrete units across the country, all independently run. A more logical target would seem to be the military.
The other error in the Journal story is that charter networks are often larger than public school districts, especially if you consider the for-profit management chains behind them. Those large chains have grown more bureaucratic than nimble, with bloated administrative staffs and ridiculously high salaries for a few people at the top (think: SA).
For my community, mobile as it may be, I’ll take the traditional agrarian model. As a citizen and taxpayer, I want oversight, and I’d like a say in what gets taught. I’ll take good old-fashioned democracy any day!
Here’s a description of their playbook, one familiar to most all of us. Finn et al are part of the well funded echo chamber of those who do not appear to be but are in fact lobbyists for the charter industry. Cunningham is the same kind of creature. It’s time to start calling them by that name, LOBBYIST, because that is exactly what they are and it’s all that they are. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/mar/12/lobbying-10-ways-corprations-influence-government
I wish we would not lead with the “charter schools segregate” argument. I note (on comment threads to ed articles) that this argument is laughed at by inner-city parents looking to get out of under-funded over-crowded & sometimes dangerous local traditional public schools.
And for good reason: US public schools are already highly segregated due to societal issues of which the schools are merely a symptom. We here understand that charters exacerbate segregation; civil rights groups have begun to take note & speak up. It is an argument to be made, but surely takes a back seat to the issue of splintering communities & hobbling democratic control by the community. Even there, we have lots of ground to make up: many if not most large inner-city public school districts were taken over by mayors or states long ago. Local community control of schools has been swallowed in such cases, leaving community parents feeling their voice is very small and counts for little.
To my mind, charter schools/ ‘school choice’ [ even vouchers] appeals to Dixiecrats, Westerners, & the Northeast/ Midwest for different reasons. Dixiecrats & Westerners are both under the umbrella of ‘let’s spend less $ on education’. Theirs is an unholy multiple-partner marriage that encompasses less $ to spend, ethnic separatism (whites from blacks &/ or Chicanos), religious fundamentalism, & ornery individualism [anti-public good sentiment]. In the Northeast/ Midwest, the main issue is sprawling urban districts left poor by decades of mfg decline leaving them ripe or in most cases plucked by state/ mayoral takeover. The train of democratic community control left the station a while back.
IMHO the primary argument to be made is, let’s peel public school control back to the district. Let’s pare back the fed DOEd to the only broad national issue that counts: equal access. Restrict them to intervening in cases of blatant inequality. And the way to wrench top-down control from state DOEds is to restore district boards of ed. Perhaps those inner-city mega-districts need to be broken back down into community organizations. Let the state DOEd’s establish curricular guidelines, but stop them from top-down mandates via local boards of ed. As in NJ, collect excess monies from rich districts for dissemination to poor districts, but let those poor nbhd districts decide how to use the $.
The only argument I usually hear against letting local districts control their schools is, oh but backward folk will mandate silly fundamental curricula like creationism and American exceptionalism. Perhaps I am in the minority, but I am OK with that. The individual community has to evolve at its own pace. Much of the right-wingnut passion in today’s politics is pushback against liberal federal laws & SCOTUS decisions from the ’60’s. I draw a parallel to what happened in Eastern Europe after 75 yrs of Soviet tyranny held a lid on ancient Balkan tribal warfare. When the USSR collapsed, the Balkans picked up where they were in the early-20thC & things had to play out in the 20th/21st-C context. Backward folk in the 21st-C will evolve as they need to, in order to draw industry/ jobs to their areas.
I happen to like a little representation with my taxation. So public means just that, I as a citizen get a vote and a voice in how my local school is run. …or are you in the reform crowd saying that you know so much better than me and my neighbor citizens?
And these viewpoints will not only disenchant potential teachers, but also encourage current teachers to move on to other occupations, ones with unions that will keep them from being abused.
Then who will be left to teach the children? We’ll be back to those one room school houses scattered throughout the countryside, taught by former stay at home parents who want to control what their children learn and with whom they associate.
The demographic at Fordham Institute is obsolete.
Finn is also associated with the Hoover institute. At the listing of Hoover “overseers”, there are about 115 names. The number of clearly identifiable female names, is only 15. The demographics at Hoover, are obsolete.