Karen Francisco is the editorial page editor of the The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette in Indiana. She is one of the few journalists who are outspoken supporters of public education. I met her when I visited Fort Wayne in 2010 after the publication of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. She offered the following post to help me get through the period when I am in the hospital and unable to write. She is brave, thoughtful, and relentless in standing up to the powerful elites in Indiana who are dismantling a once much-admired public school system.
Why I fight to save public schools
Karen Francisco, editorial page editor, The Fort Wayne (Ind.) Journal Gazette
There’s an episode of “The Twilight Zone” in which an airplane passenger looks out the window to see a monster dismantling the aircraft engine. His terror escalates when he realizes he’s the only one who can see it happening.
There have been many occasions over the past two decades where I have felt like William Shatner’s character in that classic episode: Why don’t people realize public education is being dismantled in front of their own eyes?
That’s my motivation for fighting for public schools. People must understand what’s at risk.
It was as a parent that I had my first glimpse of the destruction underway. On a back-to-school night in September of 2000, I listened as a middle school math teacher complained that he would not be introducing any new material until the state’s standardized tests were administered. He had been instructed by the administration to spend the first six weeks of the school year reviewing fifth-grade math lessons to bolster performance on the tests. I instantly knew why my then-sixth-grader was, for the first time ever, complaining he was bored in school.
As an opinion journalist, I have opportunities other parents don’t have to question elected officials. When our editorial board met the next week with the Indiana superintendent of public instruction, I recounted how my children were spending so much time reviewing past lessons, and I asked Dr. Suellen Reed why so much emphasis was being placed on standardized testing.
She launched into the accountability talking points I could eventually recite by heart. It was my first clue that not everyone saw the damage I sensed was beginning to occur. A costly scheme to label public schools with failing grades would help convince taxpayers and parents that children from low-income households needed vouchers to escape those schools.
To her credit, Reed would be among the first of Indiana’s elected officials to acknowledge where high-stakes testing was headed, but her resistance cost her the position she held for four terms. The governor wanted a superintendent supportive of his privatization agenda, so he tapped Tony Bennett, an affable high school basketball coach with a newly earned superintendent’s license. Together, they pushed through massive charter school expansion and a voucher school program. When he signed the bill, Gov. Mitch Daniels literally gave it a kiss.
I am fortunate to work for a publisher who is a strong supporter of public education, so our editorial pages became a persistent voice challenging Indiana’s unbridled rush to privatization, and I was eager to write editorials and bylined columns about what was happening all around us. The governor’s press secretary called my editor to complain after I served on a panel at a public education advocacy event. On a visit to our newsroom, Bennett told me he thought of me as one of those angry parents screaming at the coach from the stands.
Unfortunately, our editorial voice was about as effective as one of those basketball parents. The vast majority of our readers and area lawmakers were either supportive of the far-ranging privatization effort or silent. It would have been easy to give in to the complaints from some readers that our editorial board was wrong to oppose school vouchers, if not for the voices of educators and academics.
“The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” by the esteemed proprietor of this blog, was a revelation. I had the opportunity to interview Diane about the book and later to meet with her when she delivered a lecture at our regional university campus. Her address energized a growing community of ed reform critics. including Phyllis Bush, a retired Fort Wayne teacher who galvanized a group of educators under the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education. In West Lafayette, Indiana, Superintendent Rocky Killion teamed with Steve Klink, a staunch public education supporter, to produce “Rise Above the Mark,” a 2014 documentary that was an early warning cry about the growing obsession with testing and its detrimental effects on education. The Indiana Coalition for Public Education joined the fight. Its board now includes three of the four former Indiana state superintendents, with Bennett being the exception.
I wish I could say Indiana has seen some success in fighting off the privatization monster, but that’s far from the truth. More than $1 billion has now flowed to private and parochial schools through the voucher program, with no accountability. A scandal involving a virtual charter school cost taxpayers at least $85 million, with seemingly no concern from lawmakers or taxpayers. In the current legislative session, the Republican supermajority is throwing everything at school choice: income limits that make vouchers available to wealthy families, ESAs, full funding for online-only schools and more.
There was a time when newspaper editorial boards could move mountains. As my industry has withered, that is no longer the case. But I’m taking heart this year in a growing number of voices questioning the support of private and parochial schools at the expense of Indiana public schools. It seems like there are now many of us aware of the destruction and determined to stop the monster before it sends public education crashing to the ground.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I didn’t know where to post this, but I though others here might want to see it and pass it on. Apparently NASA is asking for volunteer help at border facilities. CBK
https://www.insider.com/nasa-reportedly-asking-employees-to-volunteer-at-border-facilities-2021-4
I think people will realize it but it will be too late.
Once it’s parceled out to contractors it will never go from privatized to public. That just isn’t how it works in this country.
Higher ed is essentially completely privatized now due to the efforts of people who share the same ideological views as ed reformers- is the privatized system better, more inclusive, more equitable, less expensive than the public sector higher ed was?
No. It’s not. K-12 won’t be either.
It’s a shame because it’s incredibly reckless. Ed reformers have no earthly idea how privatized systems will shake out. Their insistence that it will be more equitable, higher quality, less expensive are ALL guesses.
They’re dismantling and destroying something they don’t value and with such CERTAINTY.
“We Know What Works”. Yeah, sure you do.
Health care in the US is really a good comparison. Look at the ferocious opposition to the mildest “public” portion of any health care legislation.
The people in this country couldn’t even get a “public option” added to a publicly-paid health care plan.
Once public schools are gone, they’re gone, and we’re at the mercy of markets.
It will be a disaster, and it will especially be a disaster for low income people.
Thank you Karen Francisco for this report on Indiana and keeping Diane’s blog going. . I gather that the higher education community in Indiana does not care that this take-down of public education is happening, or if so, does not see any implications for their enrollments.
I taught at the Indiana University many decades ago. Back then, public schools were eager for student teachers from the public universities.
The major afflictions in education arose when journalists featured the illicit affairs of high-ranking officials and the ever-present town versus gown controversies about practical versus academic instruction.
Red state governors and legislature are in the middle of a “smash and grab” on public schools. They are passing haphazard, reckless laws to move as much public money out of public schools as possible. It matters because public schools are the people’s schools. They are a public asset of great value. While often taken for granted, they helped build this nation, and they help us to build a better future for our young people. Conservatives want to blow up the venerable institution of public education. As Diane has noted, this is anarchy, not conservatism.
Like so many people I owe a debt of gratitude to the public schools. They enabled me to see a world beyond my own neighborhood. They provide opportunity and access for so many working class and poor students. The testing regime that has been foisted on public schools is an attempt to over burden public schools with time wasting nonsense. These biased, racist tools are used as weapons against public school students and schools. The tests are an attempt to bludgeon public schools into submission. With high stakes, they waste resources and result in a narrowing of curricula. They pigeonhole students and deny them equal opportunity, particularly when they are placed in a separate and unequal non-public school.
It is unfortunate that Dr. Cardona fails to understand the punitive impact of standardized testing on students and schools. Tests have nothing to do with equity. Anyone that believes they are about equity is naive or suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Perhaps Dr. Cardona needs a history lesson on the origins of standardized testing. Maybe he should read some of Diane Ravitch’s books.
I recently saw Katie Porter criticize Biden’s jobs plan because it mostly creates jobs for men, and there is no child care provision. Public schools need an advocate that will speak up and urge President Biden to keep the promises he made to public schools. He needs to eliminate the testing vice grip that is squeezing the life out of public education. Biden must eliminate the federal incentives for charter school expansion. These are the promises Biden made to a room full of public educators. It is time for us to invest in our efficient,accountable and democratically organized, community public schools.
public school, “if you cant beat them, join them.”
Private school, “if you cant beat them, lead them off a cliff.”
Thats your dixiecrat president.
You’ve either allowed yourselves to be radicalized or you’ve accepted foreign funds. I cant in good conscience support these public schools. You’re outright unamerican subversives and intrenched in unreality. Talking to you has been like reading from a list of common fallacies except for the fact there was a chance to actually learn something while reading from a list of fallacies. I dont know what universities passed people like all of you but they already sound like great places to find fire wood and nothing else.
Diane, You’re already available in app form from google play. Why should anyone pay you anything?
Adam peterson Do go away. CBK
Not worth the effort. Public schools are just breeding grounds for pandemics, monsters, arsonists, shooters, gangs, organized crime, and people that dont care their own president thinks its a good foreign policy to run an afghan pederast heroin cartel. The internet can do a much better job and everyone has a smart phone already.
3tril a year budget for k-12 when 3bil could be doing it better.
Even people who had public math class can see that.
If you dont like how public schools are being treated, start a public school website. Only way you can fight charters is to do it better and cheaper.
Thank you Karen Francisco for defending public education, the best interests of students and schools and the taxpayers, and for revealing the scandals, myths, and various shortcomings of both charter and private schools.
Perhaps the biggest myth of all is that of school choice. As charter and private schools drain more and more funds from public schools, curricula and student services are narrowed yet the charter and private schoolss are not replacing those courses nor services. For example, as public schools lose special ed. funds and services for the special ed. students most difficult to educate, charter and private schools deny enrollment to these students or accept them only until student count day and then counsel them out but keep the money. So many private schools just send these students back to the public school for the reduced special ed. instruction and servicesthe public school has been left with as a result of this “choice”. So these kids are left with fewer choices and services than before charters or private schools began after taking money from public schools for their own purposes.
This year the legislature is attempting to eliminate career and technical education courses for about a dozen careers – another loss of choices to students. Again, charter and private schools will not be offering replacement of these lost courses – further limiting student choices in careers. Workforce crystal ball gazers contend there are not high paying jobs for cosmetolgists and students of culinary arts. Maybe the males in charge of workforce development don’t know that many nail techs make more money than our poorly paid teachers and retirees.
As you correctly noted, standardized testing is also squeezing curricula, traumatizing students, parents, and teachers, and for what? Penalizing schools, but the tests don’t inform instruction or even permit students, parents, or teachers to see what the student missed on the test. These multi-million dollar tests are worthless for instructional purposes. They don’t even come back to the teacher before the students have graduated to the next grade or building. It’s a colossal waste of time, money, and stress for local students and educators – eliminating the choice to use that time for teaching rather than testing. Why doesn’t standardized testing at least lead to remediation to anyone and everyone failing the test?
Sadly, instead, Indiana’s policy is to label the student and provide no remediation funding for summer school or other remediation. Again, their choice to catch up to their other students had been taken away.
School choice is a myth. The choices are disappearing, and our students and staff are losing out as a result.
A number of us teachers were completely blindsided by the “smash and grab” policies of Indiana’s ex-superintendent Tony Bennett. He was enabled by then-Governor Mitch Daniels, and despite Bennett’s defeat in the 2012 election, the hostile atmosphere toward public education, teachers, and unions continued into Mike Pence’s term.
Although the “education wars” had been going on in Indiana for many years, Bennett ratcheted up the rhetoric. He blamed teachers for everything wrong with education. He severely curtailed teachers’ rights, all in the name of “accountability,” and he celebrated when Gov. Daniels, at the stroke of a pen, slashed $300,000,000 from the ed budget in the wake of the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009. As a self-anointed reformer, Bennett demonized teachers, stopping short of calling us the number 1 enemy of children.
During those traumatic times, Karen Francisco’s editorials offered a full-throated defense of education. They were (and still are) most welcome in a state which believes that anyone with an “R” after their name is automatically assumed to be a good candidate for public office.
In the last year, teachers became “first responders” and heroes, but the state legislators continue to hammer away at public education. While most Indiana residents are concerned about the pandemic and the economy (and their own financial stability), the legislators will cynically try to divert more money away from public education into vouchers.
I understand the years-long process Indiana has pursued through very deceptive tactics to destroy public education. But, what I don’t understand is the motivation for such elaborate, patient, brick-by-brick deconstruction, and what the ultimate goal is. I’ve heard some say that the Dominionists believe that religion should drive education. Could we be headed to public education controlled by churches? I certainly see attempts to integrate religion, mostly Christianity into curriculum. I’m sure that part of the goal is to do away with unionized educational staff. But, is that an end or simply a means to another end? I’d love to hear Ms. Francisco’s comments on these ideas.