This morning I posted a question written by Doug1943, rehashing corporate reformer arguments about “allowing children to escape failing public schools.” I invited readers to answer his question(s).
Peter Greene put his answer into a post.
This should satisfy Doug (or not), and this is only an introduction to the rest of the post where Doug will find answers:
Most public ed advocates that I know and interact with would agree that, particularly in some large urban districts, there are some schools with serious problems. I would never tell you that all public schools are flawless and there are no huge problems. There are, from serious underfunding to long-standing institutional racism to a lack of any sort of vision from leaders. There are absolutely some serious issues, but it does not appear to me that choice-charter-voucher advocates are proposing anything that will actually solve any of the problems.
They call to mind lying with a broken leg on the sidewalk, and someone runs up with a chain saw and says, “Hey, I’m going to take off your arms” and I ask what help that will be and are they even a doctor and they reply, “Well, no– but we have to do something!” No, thanks.
Do charters generally do a better job? There’s no clear evidence that they do– often they get the same results with the same kids (as far as we can tell, given that we have no good way in place to measure school success– your reservations about standardized tests are on point) and a little too often they do worse. Do charters solve poverty? No. Do charters and choice spur competition that leads to greatness? There’s zero evidence that they do. Do they allow children to “escape” bad schools? Maybe– but here’s the big problem as charters are currently handled: the escape comes at the cost of making a bad school worse by stripping it of resources. And as I frequently point out, the free market can’t handle this problem. The free market survives by picking winners and losers and dropping the losers out– there is not one single business or business sector in this country that serves every single citizen, but serving 100% of US students is exactly the education gig.
So in short, yes, there are problems and no, the charter-choice-voucher idea doesn’t solve any of them.
So what are my alternative suggestions? Let me first note that the guy who wants to treat my broken leg by chainsawing off my arms is the person carrying the burden of proof. But as someone who is invested in public education, and who has already noticed most of the issues that charter fans holler about in their marketing materials. In the interests of not writing an entire book, let me offer just a quick list of some major steps that, I believe, would help.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
From a general point of view, the discussion of public v. charters involves false equivalencies. Public schools are not for profit and that says it all; everything thing else is commentary.
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A very reasonable and reasoned response, Peter Greene. (I retract my previous statement that schools are just buildings.) I’ll go with your answer in any debate.
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1) Fair, full, equitable funding for all schools.
The key words: full funding for ALL
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All reasonable people want to see adequate and proper resources directed towards all of America’s school children. It is better to educate children than to incarcerate adults. Education spending on young people, will result in a more enlightened and productive citizenry, and less people on welfare. I have no children, but I enthusiastically support education.
As far as equity of spending, I would like to see more spending on special needs children. The learning disabled, autistic, mentally challenged, and otherwise handicapped children, need additional resources directed to them, to help them reach their full potential.
I would like to see more spending and resources directed towards the gifted and talented. The Illinois Math and Science academy is a fine example, that other states should emulate. This excellent school, is supported by the state, and employs public school teachers. The gifted/talented students of Illinois, are sent to this residence preparatory school, and given the challenges and instruction that enables the graduates to get acceptance into fine engineering and technology colleges.
And- I would love to see more NGO’s getting involved in public education. The Masonic Angel Fund, works with public school teachers, to identify children who need winter clothing, boots, food, school supplies, even computers. The teachers provide the organization with the list of needs, and the organization gets the items to the children and their families.
The Scottish Rite (southern jurisdiction USA) operates a system of 100 speech/language/hearing disorder clinics nationwide. The clinics provide services to children with disabilities like stuttering or dyslexia. Hearing aids, and other rehabilitative services are also provided. Fees are charged on a sliding scale, based on the family’s ability to pay. No child is denied services, ever, fees are waived entirely, when appropriate.
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As Greene would probably agree, long before the ’90s teachers were left to teach. Sure, they’re were labor issues from time to time when teachers tried to improve working conditions or pay. Lots of people complained about funding disparities in urban schools, but no one was willing to tackle the problem. Every since “A Nation at Risk” and the New Market Tax Credits, every millionaire and entrepreneur became a self appointed expert and critic because our government chose to monetize our young people. Our policymakers have incentivized the destruction of public education, and this is our current state of products, testing, hardware, software all designed to enrich corporations and create chaos; none of which has a shred of evidence to support their value. The same can be said of charters and vouchers.
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Correction They’re to there; every to ever
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Peter Greene — thank you for your reply, which I will refrain from calling a “rehash of ” whoops, I said I’ll refrain and I will.
I’ll be happy to read your list of proposals.
If you have the time, could you please tell me what you mean by “institutional racism” and perhaps give some examples of it?
And: do you think that there is a problem with underclass culture? A “cultural deficit” as some have called it?
And do you think that the phenomenon of “acting white” is a real one, and a serious problem?
And finally do you think that there is a problem with poorly-qualified teachers who are difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of?
Of course, if you think these issues are all just rehashed corporate propaganda, then you won’t have any proposals for addressing them, but if you think there is at least some reality to them, I’d be interested to hear what you think should be done about them.
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Shocked, Doug, that you don’t know about a prime principal of not only big business in America, but also the philosophy of most colleges and universities in the US, for endless years before government intervention with laws against it…laws that now prohibit “Institutional Racism”. Where have you been for the past century?
Starting with sexism, the partner of institutional racism…..When I entered the formal work force after grad school, I was hired at 21 years old as the token woman exec of a major tech firm (which produced both personal electronics as with radios and tv sets, but also government warfare products). My employer had been informed that the Feds, in implementing new law, demanded that firms with which it did business, had to hire women, and as corporate executives, not only the low paid non-unionized women on the line who produced printed circuits. Surprised, are you Doug?
I was however paid less, as a major university grad, than another man who was two year’s older than I but with no university education, and when I complained at the wage discrepancy, was told that “he would someday have to support a family, but that I would marry and join Junior League”…a direct quote from the VP of hiring. I swallowed hard, did my job, and joined League of Women Voters instead, to learn how to be an effective protester for equal pay. It is still not equal. And sexism joins racism as the continued corporate dun….or maybe dung. That firm did NOT have ONE person of color as an exec, but a few as line operators and janitors.
Most among us here who are older remember that quota systems of universities which only allowed into their ivy covered law, medical, and even undergrad schools, 10% Jews, and practically NO students of color….that is until ‘affirmative action’ became the law of our land.
And these examples are called Institutional racism. Follow up with facts on the military and many other agencies that were separate and unequal until mainly Dems passed laws demanding equality…read the Civil Rights laws of the 1990s Lydon Johnson era.
Suggest you read additional history and catch up with the rest of us, and with progress at undoing institutional racism.
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Doug,
Are you reading the 200 plus comments on Diane’s previous post, or are you just weighing in here?
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Abigail…glad you asked Doug about the other post? The other thread is one of the best we have ever had. Learned so much from everyone…and over 200 comments. Wow. Hope Doug paid attention.
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Doug,
What gives you the idea that “bad” teachers are hard to get rid of? 40% of those who enter teaching are gone within their first five years. In some districts, it is 50%. The problem is how to retain teachers, or how to get rid of them. No business would be content with this churn.
Who do you think hires teachers, evaluates them, decides who gets job security? Not teachers.
Why don’t you try teaching and see how it goes for you?
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Who are these poorly qualified teachers? Can you spot them? Will your list of them be the same as my list?
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Not only that, Doug, but one of the features of education reform is to get MORE “poorly qualified teachers” into education. Teach for America, for example. only trains teachers for five weeks. And now Utah allows anyone with a bachelor’s degree to teach. NO training whatsoever required.
So what say you?
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Anyone who talks about an “underclass culture” and “acting white” and doesn’t know what institutional racism is (while demonstrating it quite nicely in fact) is not someone worth dealing with. Racist troll who thinks the problem is with those dang ign’rant negroes….
I understand, we need to find a way to get the respectable black kids away from the ni—-s, right?
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Apparently, Doug doesn’t do debating. He’s just hit and run.
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And here I thought you were interested in an actual conversation.
Institutional racism takes many forms. Some are obvious, like Pinellas County Schools in Florida that deliberately pushed their non-white students into five schools that they then deprived of resources. Some are less obvious, like approaching non-wealthy non-white students with the assumption that they have some sort of “cultural deficit” because they come from some “underclass.” Addressing these issues is not easy, but step one is certainly to demand that education leaders stop dismissing non-white non-wealthy students out of hand. Another good step is to give control of those schools back to their communities.
You say problem with impossible to get rid of teachers; I say problem with administrators who can’t or won’t do their jobs. If the teachers are poorly-qualified, the question has to be, “Who hired them?” Private enterprise figured out years ago that you can’t fire your way to excellence, and states that have erased all job protections for teachers are discovering the same thing– the right-to-work states have schools that perform below the level of union states.
I actually agree that some large urban districts have job protections for their teachers that are excessive. If I were a taxpayer in those districts, I would certainly want to talk to whoever negotiated those contracts in the first place.
But in the vast majority of school districts, even “tenure” (merely a word for due process) and union protections don’t always protect teachers from being fired for personal, fabricated, unsound reasons unrelated to actual job performance.
But when it comes to staffing, there are larger issues– once you fire your “bad” teacher, where will you find a replacement? If we don’t get the pipeline operating well again, soon districts will hire just any warm body, and they’ll not fire the warm body for fear that they won’t be able to find a replacement.
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Every profession has “bad apples”. Bad cops, bad firemen, bad CEOs (CEOs by the way that have destroyed lives as badly as anyone and received mega bonuses for it, not jail sentences). How come no one wants to fire bad administrators? Just do a little research and you will find story after story of abusive administrators who not only don’t lose their jobs, but three months later, after the heat has died down get promoted.
There is ZERO unbiased research that says any of the reformyist plans work. None. All of this is purely union busting and trying to get out of the pension promises that municipalities make, but now that the oligarchs rule (you know (Gate$, Koch$, Walton$, Broad$, Zuckerberg$) they don’t want to have people make a living or are just such spoiled brats that when people see things differently than they do, they only know one way to react.
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Additionally, in the first ninety days of employment in my district all employees are in a probationary period. They can be fired for no reason with no recourse, union membership or not. I have seen it happen. Principal walked in to the classroom before class started and told the teacher to pack her things while a sub waited out in the hall.
After that, teachers are on one year contracts for three years (this was before 2010 when all continuing contracts were abolished by state laws–now we have teacher shortages since no one wants to work for lousy pay with zero job protections). Tell me, how do teachers get through those ninety days, then three one year contracts and are deemed satisfactory, then all of a sudden turn bad once they have “tenure”? Where are the administrators who are in charge of doing the paperwork (that is admittedly onerous) and seeing that due process is followed?
Florida is particularly bad at rewarding the rich and punishing the poor through A+ money that is awarded through school grades. The schools that need the money the most get nothing while the schools that are from wealthy neighborhoods get checks.
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Peter Greene makes excellent points in his response.
There’s a problem, however, in accepting the concept of “good school – bad school” as a valid concept.
If “school” isn’t just a building, but can still be described as good or bad, what or who makes a good school good and a bad school bad?
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Doug1943 said: “And finally do you think that there is a problem with poorly-qualified teachers who are difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of?”
I guess that is a knock against the “evil” unions and tenure. That’s more or less a zombie myth (about the supposedly impossible to get rid of horrible teachers). Who hires the teachers in the first place? Who observes and evaluates the teachers? Who continues to keep the teachers after the initial trial period? Who continues to observe and evaluate the teachers throughout their whole career? Answer: the principals and the administrators who have all the tools in the world to get rid of bad teachers. We have many right to work states in which unions have been gutted or are essentially nonexistent. Teachers are virtual sitting ducks who can be fired for any reason or no reason in particular.
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Right to work states are the lowest performing.
States that seek well qualified teachers, give them support, pay them well, and have good working conditions get the best results.
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Good teachers, well paid and supported, will get good results. Right on!
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Sometimes, not always. When kids come to school hungry, without decent medical care, not even great teachers can overcome the rumbling in their stomachs.
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Like the line “not even great teachers can overcome the rumbling in a student’s stomach”, will have to use it.
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My answer to Doug1943:
In Austin, Texas we have an exciting reform idea called community schools. It takes the neighborhood public school and partners with social services agencies to support families in order to get the parents into the school and accessing available services to help alleviate poverty, pay for dental care, eyeglasses, coats, and any other need that is going unaddressed. This community schools model is very successful in its pilot form. We are hoping to spread it around. It is acknowledging that we can do more for students in order to improve outcomes but also faces the reality of the elephant in the room: poverty..
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This is a great, not weird idea from Austin. There is a whole body of research that extols the positive student outcomes for community schools. It takes commitment and investment to make it a reality. So many policymakers dare not mention public schools, and they have no intention of investing in them.
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We have some excellent community schools in Florida, but they require outside funding which is hard to come by in most districts. One of the most successful examples has a health clinic in the school that serves students, parents and staff. It brings everyone into the school which has made parent involvement in the school activities sky rocket.
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Well, John Stossel is as clueless as anyone can get. Some people truly think of schools as businesses, as providers of simple services.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/28/john-stossel-trumps-choice.amp.html?client=safari
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Stossel’s a Koch brother, just not officially on the family tree.
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Like!
Or maybe it’s because some of the limbs have broken off due to being diseased.
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Doug1943,
No arguments if people wish to responsibly create options, but that’s not what has been happening.
There are no magic bullets at this point, but we can build on what we know and continue to discover rather than abandon ship and essentially give up and stop looking, ignore all research and hard-won wisdom, and just assert inane and damaging policy while ignoring the fallout.
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Well, said!
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Ed reformers pulled a real bait and switch in Indiana:
“Indiana lawmakers originally promoted the state’s school voucher program as a way to make good on America’s promise of equal opportunity, offering children from poor and lower-middle-class families an escape from public schools that failed to meet their needs.
But five years after the program was established, more than half of the state’s voucher recipients have never attended Indiana public schools, meaning that taxpayers are now covering private and religious school tuition for children whose parents had previously footed that bill. Many vouchers also are going to wealthier families, those earning up to $90,000 for a household of four.”
Mitch Daniels actually promised that the voucher program would be restricted and then broke the promise.
This is what Trump/DeVos will do too- present vouchers as for “poor children” and then expand them to anyone.
It’s about privatization. They want to eradicate public schools. Anyone who hasn’t figured that out by this point is blind.
http://www.journalgazette.net/food/the-dish/Indiana-s-vouchers-wow-GOP-16999984
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Yes. Sorry to post this link twice, but John Stossel has basically come out and said schools should be run like businesses, subject to market competition, and not government-run (public). It’s absolutely crystal clear and direct, in-your-face even. You have to not only be blind but unconscious.
https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/12/28/john-stossel-trumps-choice.amp.html?client=safari
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That’s what these idiots are thinking.
The problem is, essentially, they can’t even think.
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I tend to agree.
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Diane, I’m somewhat baffled why you would give Doug1943’s question this platform. He’s obviously made up his mind and his condescending and snarky answer to Peter’s comments demonstrates an ideological certainty on his part. While I have been a critic of some of these folks in the past, I now choose to ignore them. Unless, of course, they address the substance of your questions in a serious way; that doesn’t mean we have to agree, but instead have a principled debate. Unfortunately, this debate usually takes place among people who have nuanced positions about goals on which they agree. Based on my experience here, these folks are never able or willing to engage in a substantive discussion of the issues or debate definitions or points of view. They drop their bombs and then disappear, never addressing the issues others raise. I think it’s not about preaching to the choir, but rather explaining to the choir why we believe what we do, how we should change, and present ideas about how we get to a better future. Hope this makes sense.
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Thanks, Greg. I started to answer Doug’s questions, then decided to crowdsource the answers. After all, so many readers are wise and experienced teachers.
I get many snarky comments. Sometimes they are vicious and I delete them.
In this case, I thought readers could handle his challenge, which has more to do with ideology than evidence.
I wanted to spur a discussion, and it did.
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Thank you, Diane! When I was a teacher, I would always remind my students and parents that I taught with a point of view to challenge them to agree or disagree with me with substantive arguments. And I sincerely explained that if the world was exactly the way I wanted it to be, it would probably be a pretty lousy place. My best students were always conservatives who engaged and honestly explained their positions. But I think they mostly became pragmatic, principled conservatives who also feared what the world might look like if they were successful. Wishing you (and all of us) the best possible New Year we can achieve.
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Thanks to Diane, Peter Greene but also Doug1943. I disagree with Doug1943 but his comments did “spur a discussion” as Diane noted. In a sense, he helped us….and, maybe all of us helped him in some way, too -though that’s certainly hard to tell.
(I used the word “us” just now…”them” appears to be implied….I guess because it seems clear that many of us on here agree with Diane wholeheartedly. And, then there are those people who wade into this blog with obviously a very different point of view. Sort of makes me want to dive into some blog or website where everyone disagrees with me -though maybe that would make some people there think I’m a “troll”, whatever that really is?) I don’t know….
A couple observations about this “platform” since GregB raised the issue, which is an interesting one.
Diane wrote that she gets many snarky even vicious comments. What kind of online world has our society created when someone as intelligent and humane as Diane can be the regular target of such hostility? I’ll admit, I think I’m somewhat naive to just how nasty the internet can be, since the places I frequent on here are usually my own e-mail, this blog, a quick check of Facebook and, in the winter, weather.com. Most my time using a computer is at school, with my “machine” just steps away from me for usually 10 hours a day. (My recent obsession with the election site 538 ended very early in the morning on November 9. Strangely, the “election forecast” there is still frozen in amber to when Hillary looked like a sure thing. It hurt my brain to look back at it a moment ago. My wife and I were also watching CBS news that whole fateful night and when I hear the network’s theme song come on these days I still feel anxious, uneasy…weeks later. Wow, this is going to be a long four years.)
Diane’s blog is her “livingroom”. Of course, I respect that. But a livingroom is a private place….it is not a public space, in the way that, say, a school board meeting is public. And, I have to wonder sometimes that our wonderful discussions on this blog about preserving PUBLIC education are taking place in a decidedly PRIVATE venue. Has the public arena become so toxic, even vile, that essentially “gated”, electronic communities are sometimes the only thoughtful alternative? Donald Trump got elected because he WAS the twitter candidate, the candidate who used the internet to full advantage. And Hillary’s vaunted “ground game”, including talking to people face to face…it went down in flames. What next for participatory democracy….for our first amendment?
When I worked as a full-time newspaper reporter 30 years ago I covered many, many public meetings. And, like most government teachers, I still require my 12th graders to attend public meetings now. There IS something so wonderful about those open, democratic forums. where people look at each other, face to face.. Any person, with any gripe, can stand up and sound off. And, short of threatening the public officials, you can say whatever you like. Yet, a sort of civility, a sort of decorum tends to prevail. It’s all starting to seem so quaint now, as outdated as Norman Rockwell’s famous Freedom of Speech painting….(Look closely at that one and you could write a book comparing the world in 1943 to today! No computers….no diversity…but not one orange looking man with an weird hairdo ridiculing people, either…..on and on.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Speech_(painting
Diane, you know I love you, But if I was sitting in your actual livingroom right now I’d probably end up putting my glass on your coffee table, leaving one of those water mark stains on the furniture. LNOL….people here are still sleeping. I don’t really know what to make of all this change…..
Gotta go do some school work now.
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John Ogozalek: your comments are wise, warm and worthy.
😎
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Thanks, KrazyTA Your opinion means a lot to me.
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Addendum, by coincidence:
I picked up the paper this morning and there’s an interesting op-ed piece by Gene Policinski of the First Amendment Center; “First Amendment works, if we still have it.”
Scary words to ponder on a dark, snow morning Upstate….. “….if we still have it.”
Policinski makes a point that I think connects to what I wrote above: “What would those founders think of a society in which so many seem to favor the electronic versions of divided “marketplaces” that permit only that speech of which you already approve or that confirms your existing views?”
There’s a lot in the article, including a reference to the 2016 survey that found 4 in 10 Americans unable to name even one freedom listed in the First Amendment. Talk about more bad news for this year about to end.
I read the op-ed piece in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin…the link below came up first, though. http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/story/opinion/2016/12/28/first-amendment-works-will-still/95842218/ It’s a Gannett feature so it’s all over the country.
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We can stop middle class flight from “bad” public schools by:
Strengthening discipline.
Switching to a knowledge-focused curriculum (this is proven to reduce the achievement gap; plus it’s more interesting)
In middle and high school, returning to limited tracking, which is really just differentiation done more efficiently.
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I might be wrong, but public education reform seems to have set its sights on the “B+”, A”, and “A+” students (according to test scores).
Those below that benchmark will have to make due in the underfunded public schools, if there are any left. If they’re gone, then the “B” and below kids will either use their vouchers to attend the sub-par private/religious schools or go to a not so great charter school.
Then, of course, there will be those with the money to send their kid(s) to the best private schools, regardless of merit.
If this is the general idea (Social Darwinism), then I think that the engineers of this experiment are leaving out one of the central precepts of K-12 education: young minds mature at different rates. Especially in the creative thinkers who have strong imaginations. Putting kids in best to worst privately run schools at an early age might create a much larger crack for the late bloomers to fall through than in the traditional neighborhood public school where teachers communicate with each other, the parents, and admins.
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You illustrate how these “reformers” fail by their own professed goals of “giving opportunity” and “making people smarter.”
The “reform” leaders and apologists who cling to this idea of charter schools and test-scores being necessary for “excellence,” don’t know and/or don’t care about things like “child development” and “creativity.” If you bring up these sort of ideas, to the test-and-choice brand of “reformer,” your reasons will likely go in one ear and straight out the other.
There are other explanations for why these people continue to pursue a Social Darwinistic mode of “school reform”:
I stopped looking for a deeper “educational” and “humanistic” logic in the test-and-choice “reform” agenda, because it’s like looking for a steak underneath the dinner table. Crumbs are all you’ll find.
Don’t wear yourselves out, looking. The test-and-choice “reform” agenda is ultimately self-centered and for-profit, and these goals are largely incompatible with a more sensible and inclusive view of “reform.”
We know the core solution to education system improvement is the opposite of what the “reform” movement is doing. First and foremost, focus on social, economic, and political reforms — structural reforms to society in which the students and teachers live. At the same time, fund all public schools, and support all students and teachers to do their best.
Funneling students and teachers into different levels of privilege based on fake assessments of “merit” is unnecessary for improving schools.
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Agreed on all points, Ed.
I have a couple of friends who have done business in the education reform world. It created a strain in our relationship for a while. That’s why I sometimes give the benefit of a doubt when I state an opinion. As in this case, where I’m saying what the motives might be. Though they’re not at the forefront (as in Gates or DeVos) I know my friends aren’t trying to destroy anything. They’re good people with solid creativity.
But they have no K-12 experience and proudly quoted the “building an airplane in mid-air” mantra when it was in vogue. And asked why I was so “rebellious” about the CCSS, as though I was a high school sophomore. People with no experience looking down on a hard working professional of two decades.
Doug:
1) Most of us work very hard. And we can get fired. It’s just that the admins have to build a case to do it. Which takes time and effort. Having worked management jobs in the past, I know what it takes to get it done.
2) Many if not most of the “bad” schools are in impoverished areas where street violence is a way of life and education isn’t as valued a commodity as in other areas. NYC offered more money to experienced teachers if they’d teach in these schools. It never got off the ground. The teachers are threatened, daily, don’t want to stay past dark or go to a nearby cash machine. Unless you’ve been there, you really can’t understand just how severe and widespread the problem is.
I’d venture to guess that decades of hearing only one side of the debate through the mainstream media has gone a long way towards forming your opinion on the matter, Doug. And I imagine you’ve seen some bad eggs in the school system, yourself. I know I have. Propaganda always starts with seeds of truth. I just hope that you and others with your negative opinions of our public school system will take the time out to really read what’s being said in blogs like this one, by professionals in the field who actually do know our stuff and have more than just our pensions in mind when we go to work. I think your motives may be pure…but I question your commitment to forming an informed opinion if you’re going to brush off the opinions of hundreds of thousands of teachers with real time work experience.
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