Congressman Jamaal Bowman is an educator. He was principal of a middle school in The Bronx, New York City, serving high-needs students when he ran for Congress. He was re-elected in 2022. He is a strong voice in Congress for public schools,
He issued a press release calling on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to withdraw her budget proposal to increase the number of charter schools in New York City. He knows the damage this will do to the vast majority of students, who are in public schools.
He said:
For Immediate Release
Date: February 3, 2023
Contact: wanjira@bowmanforcongress.com
NEWS: Rep. Bowman Statement on Governor Hochul’s Budget Decision to Divert Traditional Public School Resources
NEW YORK, NY – Yesterday, Governor Kathy Hochul released her FY2024 budget, which included a proposal to remove the regional cap on charter schools.
Rep. Bowman released the following statement in response:
“As a life-long educator and former middle school principal in the Bronx for over a decade, I witnessed firsthand the value and impact traditional public schools have on children’s lives and learning,” saidCongressman Jamaal Bowman Ed.D (NY-16). “As much as I want to applaud Governor Hochul’s funding of the Foundation Aid initiative, I am extremely disappointed by her proposal to remove the regional cap on charter schools which will dramatically divert critical resources from traditional public schools. With over 1500 public schools in New York City that serve over 1 million students, this effort will be destructive for the learning of our city’s children, especially for the almost 90% of minority children who are currently enrolled in public schools.”
“Let me be very clear. The core of the Foundation Aid was created to help provide more equitable and sustainable educational opportunities for children in our traditional public schools. Increasing the development of more charter schools is not what the Foundation Aid was designed for. District public schools are foundational to a functioning democracy, while charter schools – especially those run by large networks – often perpetuate the very inequities that prevent us from realizing the potential of our democracy.”
“There is a standard of excellence and equity that makes public schools the most viable option for all our children. The qualification and certification standards for teachers are high, ensuring the highest level of educational opportunities for our children. Students engage with a diverse community that reflects the demographics of this country early in their childhood development stages. Accessibility and affordability ensure that parents, caregivers, and families are partners in their child’s learning. From PTA initiatives and parent-teacher conferences to programs that create a true learning partnership with parents, public schools allow for many avenues where parents can purposefully engage in their child’s education.”
“I call on Governor Hochul to keep the charter school cap exactly where it is –which is much higher than it was initially supposed to be.”
About Rep. Jamaal Bowman
Congressman Jamaal Bowman was an educator and advocate for public schools for over 20 years and previously served as principal for the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action (CASA), a public middle school he founded in 2009 in the Baychester neighborhood of The Bronx. Rep. Bowman is a life-long New Yorker who lives in Yonkers with his wife and children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
”District public schools are foundational to a functioning democracy, while charter schools – especially those run by large networks – often perpetuate the very inequities that prevent us from realizing the potential of our democracy.”
“…charters…often perpetuate the very inequities…” but not always. Public schools are often great–but not always.
And your point is…? Look at the stats. Public education serves the vast majority of children much better than charters, which have a less than enviable record overall. So what if your charter school serves your child better than your neighborhood public school. We do not strengthen our public school system by taking already scarce dollars out of public education to operate a shadow system that only serves the chosen few. If you are looking for perfect, die. They say that heaven may meet your criteria.
My point is obvious–just read it. But just to help you out, I’m not talking about racists, elitists or crooks out to steal our public ed money. I’m asking about children who are NOT served by public schools. You teach special ed and you’re not aware they exist? Do just say to hell with difficult or unsuccessful students (special ed, regular ed, gifted, whatever) because we’re serving your “vast majority” just fine, and we don’t live in heaven anyway?? You portray exactly the arrogant, know-it-all, my-way-or-the-highway response that compels some parents to search for alternatives.
All charters and vouchers perpetuate inequities because they take money that should have been invested in public schools. There cannot be two parallel systems of eduction in competition with each other without degrading both by unevenly distributing resources. That is an objective fact.
‘Great’, on the other hand, is a subjective adjective. Which schools are great is mere opinion. You have a right to your opinion, of course, but it’s just an opinion, of course. Let’s stick to facts when plotting the course of our courses.
”There is a standard of excellence and equity that makes public schools the most viable option for all our children. The qualification and certification standards for teachers are high, ensuring the highest level of educational opportunities for our children.”
Did my son have “the highest level of ed. opportunities” when the principal at our rural school refused to advance him one year in math because “it would be an administrative nightmare”? (Another district 25 miles away did this as a matter of policy, but no transportation was available.)
I sympathize with your frustration with your rural school system. It sounds like the math instruction was available but the principal was too rigid to put him in a higher level. However, I hardly think that is reason enough to force the school district to fund a charter, which would undoubtedly affect the level of services the district could provide for all the students. If a majority of parents in your district are similarly frustrated, then it sounds like it is time to fight/vote for change.
Simple logic tells us we cannot afford to fund two school systems. I certainly don’t want my tax dollars funding someone’s for profit operation. My children are grown. My taxes are paying for the public education of another generation of children. I might even fight with you to find a way for your child to get the math he is ready for within the system. I am not paying for your or anyone else’s private school demands that are not fiscally responsible. Make no mistake, charter schools are not revenue neutral, and even if they were, we can’t afford the drain on public resources.
You ignore the paradox of educating most students well, while leaving some behind. We have a similar situation in policing and health, where most of us have good coverage, feel safe, and get a prompt response when we need help. Do we ignore those who DON’T, because we provide law enforcement and health care to most, and that’s the most efficient use of our dollars?
Stop harping about private, racist, profiteering schools. I agree with you on that. Do you HAVE a solution for those relatively few children and parents who are NOT being served by their school?
Mark,
Not by opening more charters and giving out vouchers. Those children will not be better cared for, if they are accepted at all.
No, but how would a voucher help him?
Your very palpable anger due to your desire to take a math class early is clear and, therefore, understood. While one must agree with striving for excellence, no one in good conscience can agree that not being able to take a math class early is a good reason to be dissatisfied with the education you receive or angry at any local public institution. There are events in school that can change a student’s life trajectory, but taking an accelerated class is not one of them. Parents stress themselves out far too much.
“…no one in good conscience can agree that not being able to take a math class early is a good reason to be dissatisfied with the education you receive or angry at any local public institution”
Says who? What gives you the right to define MY conscience as not good and YOURS–which allows violating education regulations for convenience– as good?
Mark,
Your argument is totally incoherent. A charter can’t afford to open in a rural area to serve a couple unusually advanced students in math — it’s not cost effective. So it is more likely that a charter would pick out all the cheapest to teach students while your son, and especially all the kids with special needs are left behind in a school system that now doesn’t have the money to offer any student advanced classes in anything, let alone serve the kids with special needs.
By supporting charters, it is YOU, Mark, who is saying to hell with difficult or unsuccessful students (special ed, regular ed, gifted, whatever) because charters have enough “successful” students to serve and we don’t live in heaven anyway??
Difficult and unsuccessful students are too expensive for a charter to serve.
Mark says: “We have a similar situation in policing and health, where most of us have good coverage, feel safe, and get a prompt response when we need help. Do we ignore those who DON’T, because we provide law enforcement and health care to most, and that’s the most efficient use of our dollars?”
What kind of solution is taking half the money from public police forces and giving it to “charter” police forces who ignore all crime in high crime neighborhoods because it’s not cost-effective for them to bother policing those neighborhoods? What kind of health care would be to take half the money from Medicare and give it to “charter” insurance companies that provide health insurance to the healthiest seniors and send them back to the public medicare system if they get sick and can’t be cured in a week? How does that work to help the people who are ignored now when the charters don’t want to serve those people in the first place?
“There are events in school that can change a student’s life trajectory, but taking an accelerated class is not one of them.”
And OF COURSE, no other opinions are valid!?
This is mine: “There are events in school that can change a student’s life trajectory, and being bored out of his mind by a redundant class that is a waste of his time and in violation of sound education policy is one of them.”
“Parents stress themselves out far too much.”
Sorry to disappoint your preconceived and incoherent labels, but I didn’t push my son into this. HE was bored with school, HE wanted to do home school. HE wanted to go back to our public school a few years later. HE thought 7th grade math would be boring. HE wanted to accelerate his sequence of math classes by two years. HIS teachers thought it was reasonable AND were agreeable. HIS principal agreed when I reminded him of the state policy that he was ignoring.
I only “stress out” over a few things–like when paid public officials ignore effective laws or regulations voted on and enacted for the common good.
That got into my experience, this conversation. I spent 34 years at a rural school. Even toward the end of my career, as the school became more suburban, the issue discussed here was always around. Mark, I feel your principal, who called moving your child into a higher math class because it would be an administrative nightmare, was just copping out, We did this all the time. The first year I taught, we started trying to in.duce kids to move up. As a rural k-12, we had the flexibility to walk a kid down the hall who was ready for Algebra I whenever we wanted to. I think he was being unimaginative.
That said, few rural areas could support charters. They are always stepchildren, receiving funding with formulaic feces designed to rob poor and rural area and give to the wealthy suburbs. It could have been that the principal had no money for what you wanted to do. In rural schools, there is always fighting for dollars for programs.
Charters siphon off students from public schools making them less efficient. With more students in public secondary schools, public schools can offer more courses and an array of options for students. If not possible, computer assisted instruction may be able to provide enriched programming, particularly in math.
Mark
Am I missing something here. Is there a math course higher than Calculus in his High School. If they moved him up a grade somewhere in his k-12 Career. Would there have been an opportunity to go beyond AP calculus in HS if that was even offered at his HS.
The questions I have are : Did it impact his acceptance to the college of his choice? I have to assume he was a straight A math student and received very high Math SAT scores . Did this have any impact on his College education? Did it impact his career?
”Students engage with a diverse community that reflects the demographics of this country early in their childhood development stages. .”
Dump The Charters & Get Us Some Librarians!
60 Kindergarten + 1st Grade Students.
On the steps of NYC Department of Ed/DOE.
January 12 2023.
Demanding a school librarian for their P.S. 261 School Building.
Asked that librarians be hired at EVERY school in NYC.
https://truthout.org/articles/students-and-parents-are-fighting-to-save-nycs-imperiled-school-libraries/
What should they do if NYC Ed continues to fund charters instead of librarians in public schools? Does there come a time when parents and staff can demand state money for their own charter school in order to hire the librarian they need?
“Black History is infused in lessons all year… controversial figures left out of traditional school texts are explored…We have to actually bring books that are never going to be in the classroom, maybe in public schools… “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s ‘What Color is My World?’ and that’s our classroom text….Other nationalities are celebrated”
Good for Mr. Bowman, staff, and students! But what if they were in a rural or small city district and were forbidden to use that approach? Would they be justified in demanding funding to start their own charter school?
You mean what should they do if they live in a bigoted, racist community? I imagine there are a few people here who have had more than enough experience with that environment. In fact, it is hard to ignore the resurgence of such extremism right now. I believe white southerners thought your charter solution was the way to protect their children from the evils of integration. (We northerners just tended to make sure that no one without white credentials could live close by. That tended to make neighborhood schools pretty homogeneous.)
I’m sorry, Mark, for all the snark. I know you are trying to do what is best for your son. I would suggest that you see if his teacher can provide some advanced study. There is always more to a subject presented than is deemed appropriate at a certain age. One of the math teachers a couple of my kids had in middle school used to provide a weekly challenge activity/problem and, believe me, they were challenging as more than a few parents would attest. You might try digging up some resources and asking the teacher if there is a way to integrate them. I would caution against making them a graded activity. The kids who will really benefit will probably tackle them just for the joy of conquering them. They could even be little group projects for like minded students.
Thank you for the snark apology, and I apologize for mine. I am simply trying to get at the problem and paradox of the FEW who fail among the MAJORITY who succeed.
The solution you propose for my son’s boredom with easy math (over 3 decades ago) would not have worked, because it would have required–during each year K-8
–sitting through material he’d already mastered on his own.
My solution was home-schooling, which was practical for me because I worked mostly at home. After three years, he went back to school in 7th grade. I asked for him to be advanced two years in math. The principal and the guidance councilor said no, fearing he would be frustrated, hold the class back, be with kids two years older, etc, etc. “And you want him to skip TWO years and go to 9th grade math??”
Not only did they site those reasonable concerns–but which were ultimately up to me– they tried to hustle me by IGNORING state ed regulations. However, I had studied the regs. thoroughly, and said, “You are required by the state to have a written plan for the acceleration of capable students. May I see that plan?”
“Oh….well…a…a student must have the recommendation of his grade level math teacher, and the advanced math teacher, in this case our 9th grade math teacher. Your son must also get an 85 or better on the final exam for 8th grade math.” I replied, “Great, how soon can that be done?” A few days later, he qualified without problems, and entered 9th grade math.
But get this–as I was leaving our final meeting, the principal said softly to me, “Please don’t tell anyone we did this for your son, because a lot of other parents will want this for their children.”
At the end of the school year he scored 100 on the NYS Math 1 Regents exam. He continued through Math 2 and 3, with scores of 100 and 94, in grades 8 an 9. in 10th grade he took calculus, and in 11th a computer course. In 12 grade he took a math course 2 days a week at our local college.
My complaint and concern do not end there. During my 20+ years since, teaching in three different Title One schools (mostly K-6), I have observed and fumed–over and over and over–as student after capable student was denied “Gifted and Talented” courses because enrollment was limited or because grades weren’t good enough. MOST of those latter students were quite capable of doing “Gifted and Talented” work (what an AWFUL name!)–their grades were low because they were bored out their minds!
They wanted “Gifted and Talented” because regular science classes had been pushed out of the curriculum by long “blocks” devoted to the 3Rs and improving test scores
I KNOW they were capable because as an arts teacher, I had them ALL in class EACH year.
I also know parents who took their kids to charter schools or other public schools SEEKING more individual attention and more variety in the curriculum. They didn’t care who the students were–rich or poor–black, white or green. They just wanted their needs met.
speduktr’s apology wasn’t snark.
Mark,
I understand your rage, Mark.
The principal was a jerk.
The focus on the tests is destructive for everyone. NCLB has messed up education for more than two decades.
I don’t think charters would have been a better alternative. They have few advanced classes (most are too small). The no-excuses curriculum would have frustrated your son. You were a great advocate for him, and he eventually got the challenges he needed. You are right. It shouldn’t be so hard.
Diane,
“Rage” for me has a connotation of being out of control or carrying a grudge. That’s probably not what you meant, but for possible clarification of what I am advocating– I consider myself at a lower level, perhaps characterized by the phrase “he attempted to fool me once; will beware of him in the future,” or the word “resolve”
Actually there were two principals involved– K-6 and 7-12.
The latter (and the guidance counselor) knew acceleration was approved under state regulations, but denied us until they realized I knew the reg. I was disappointed in this principal, because he had many other good qualities, and otherwise ran the school well.
At the time of my earlier attempt for acceleration in the K-6 school, I was not yet aware of that state reg. I simply asked, and was denied, so went to home school. I WAS disappointed by the principal’s response: “We can’t provide a special program for your son. It would be an administrative nightmare. You should be proud that he is doing so well.” (Remember that term “administrative nightmare!)
Ten years later, I was doing my first semester of student teaching in a 3-4th grade classroom about 25 miles away. Imagine my surprise when math period first rolled around and I learned that ALL eight 1-4th grade classrooms had it at the same time, with many students stitching rooms for math at a different grade level!
As a beginning teacher, I was assigned to a corner with a group of four students: a 3rd grader who was way behind, two 2nd graders, and a very sharp 1st grader. My mentor teacher taught all the advanced 4th graders and sent her lower 4th and her 3rd graders to other rooms.
A few weeks later, I happened to recall that “administrative nightmare” comment by my son’s principal 10 yrs earlier. As soon as the opportunity arose to talk to him, I asked him about the children changing classrooms and grade levels for math. He said, “This helps us meet the needs of all students. We got the idea from another school several years ago.”
I couldn’t resist. “Does this pose an administrative nightmare for you?” He gave me a puzzled look and said, “No, the teachers work out who goes where. They like it.”
The principal you describe sounds like what Duane Swacker calls “an adminimal.” The principal’s principles are flexible.
Correction: “As soon as the opportunity arose to talk to HIM, I asked HIM….”
HIM refers to the principal in whose school I was student teaching, NOT the one who had denied us acceleration ten years earlier.
Overall, as someone that has taught K-12, elementary teachers tend to be more flexible and more willing to adapt to student needs. By middle school, teachers are more focused on teaching curriculum.
In 30 years of teaching, I have always experienced that excellent, gifted students are often the ones who often suffer in our current educational system. In a class of 25 kids, if you have 1-2 brilliant students, they are always able to move faster than other students. They become bored and many times just can’t stand the antics and disruptions of the other kids who either can’t keep up, don’t care or disrupt class. They are forced to be in the required class to get credit. Also, teachers have had to dumb down the curriculum quite a bit because students just can’t handle the work. I see this all the time and it’s gotten worse over the years. 15-20 years ago I taught at a much higher level than I do now and so has my husband. Teachers have to teach to the middle. They have to try to make the material accessible to most students. One teacher can do only so much. Also, there often aren’t enough teachers who could handle advanced courses, and school scheduling is terrible -even for teachers. Many teachers I know eat lunch at 9:30 in the morning. Don’t get me started on the schedule. And schools often don’t have the resources (teachers, materials, etc) to provide advanced courses. So, I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think we can expect that ANY institution will be able to provide everything a person needs. But I think that’s part of learning to be a mature person – to realize that the whole world can’t be molded to fit your needs and to be able to find other alternatives to get you needs and desires met. I think in many cases parents have to seek out other alternatives – tutoring, internships, etc for their kids although I don’t think charters, in many cases, can provide what parents are seeking either.
Mamie, as usual, a thoughtful, wise comment. Wouldn’t it be a welcome change to address the issues you raise instead of the nonsense that politicians focus on?
Yes Diane, that would be great. In my 30 years of teaching, I have never heard an administrator say, ” Gee, I made a mistake. I was WRONG. Let’s see if we can work together to find a solution.” Never. And my husband who has been teaching 25 years hasn’t either. Yet I am supposed to be reflective in my teaching and figure out what I can do better. Apparently I haven’t had many good administrator role models in that department!
“They didn’t care who the students were–rich or poor–black, white or green. They just wanted their needs met.”
Totally understand. Thank you for filling in a lot of blanks. Charters, however, are not and have proven to be NOT the solution for a myriad of well documented reasons. As a retired special education teacher, I am well aware of the multitude of ways districts fail to serve the needs of individual students. Human nature being what it is, I don’t think we will ever succeed in meeting the individual needs of each student. We can’t even define what that means or respond with the changes over time as it is. I am thinking that there has to be a way to empower all parents and students to advocate for themselves. That being said, there will always be fiscal, time, geographical, and… limitations on direct services. Come to think of it, that seems to be true of life in general. No doubt we could do better in many arenas.
Mark, I wrote a reply that is in moderation, and I’m pretty sure Diane is traveling right now so not logging in all the time to release comments in mod. Please check in again soon to read more. Thanks.
It’s no longer in moderation.
Groovy, thank you.
Diane can you “return” my recent posting at the bottom, 7 pm? My punctuation is confusing in the last 4 paragraphs, and, I wanted to come out in a wider and shorter layout.
Forgot about time zones: It’s at 9 pm your time
Oops! It’s at 9 pm your time. I forgot about time zones.
LeftCoastTeacher–
“There cannot be two parallel systems of education in competition with each other without degrading both by unevenly distributing resources. That is an objective fact”
What do you call a large diverse city district with multiple schools? Each school has a “specialty” or a “magnet” and students and parents can choose ANY school in the district (limited only by capacity). Some schools are more in demand than others because of their “specialty”. Some schools are more in demand because they are assumed to be “better”. Some schools are in demand because they are perceived as being in “better” neighborhoods.
This looks like competition to me. I worked and lived in two such districts (7 and 10 years). The schools (and the parents, and the administrators, and the teachers) competed for students, funding, repairs, playground equipment, after-school programs, computers, and teachers.
What do you think is happening know, when so many teachers have left the profession and fewer college students are choosing it? Two weeks ago I heard my former principal, now a superintendent in another district, complain that he looses teacher after teacher to the two neighboring states which pay more and have better benefits.
LeftCoastTeacher, Re my “snark apology”: I used a confusing choice of words. I meant to say “Thank you for your apology about your snarkness”.
Actually, I would not have labelled it as such. “Snark” is not a word I use because it sounds rather negative. (In fact, I’m not sure exactly what it means; will have to look it up.)
What I objected to and have objected to and will continue to object to, is certain topics being beyond discussion, where people jump to knee-jerk conclusions, who assume the negative, and have certain words, phrases and topics that automatically cause them to misconstrue (sometimes intentionally), label and/or dismiss someone or something that was said. “Disingenuous” seems to be a favored word by some.
Mark: If there is already competition for money between schools, and that competition is hurting students in some schools, why do we need to add a layer of competition? Maybe we just need an abundance of funding.
In a school district, the fixed costs of school sites should be met by an elected school board that distributes them evenly. It’s not a popularity contest.
Roy and LCT: To me, discussions about competition, fixed costs, and fair distribution obscure something more fundamental: How can we better meet the needs of each student? Not ALL students, EACH student.
I emphasize this because thinking about ALL can lead to satisfaction overall, while neglecting struggling individuals.
Should we rejoice if 90% of our students achieve at grade level? I’d want to know what we can do to get the other 10% there, and then beyond.
I think of the lecture by Tom Peters, in which he described his search for the secrets of successful business management, which resulted in his book “In Search of Excellence.” After interviewing many of those “at the top”, he found no “secrets.” Gesturing with both arms, he exclaimed, “There is no secret! All you’ve got to do is serve your customers.”
We try to meet the needs of each student. If I recall correctly, Diane reported months ago that there are three districts currently doing it right, creating IEPs for all, for example. I’m going to bring out an old phrase from before the NCLB that makes some educators nervous, differentiation of instruction. Instead of placing students on tracks, we used to have strategies for allowing studies to be student centered without putting them in special classes and without pretending to meet their needs by placing them before a computer with an AI platform. The students learned differently together in the same class. I still do it.
More importantly than meeting student needs, however, the reason in the first place that we try to meet student needs is to endeavor to get every student prepared to meet the needs of our democracy. School is more about acclimation to democratic society than about cranking out workers who do what U.S. Sec of Ed Cardona wrongly and wrongfully called “meeting industry standards.”
Thinking of students as customers and of parents as enabled to choose what their children learn is dangerous. Dangerous, I say! To use extreme examples to make the point, we do not want to succor parents who want their children to learn that white people are some sort of master race, who want to ban books, to foster the growth of segregation, or to abolish the theory behind The Origin of the Species. There must be a balance between what parents want and what society needs.
Public schools seek to find that balance. School choice seeks to overthrow that purpose of education. Socrates knew it. John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau knew it. Ben Franklin and John Adams knew it. John Dewey and Horace Mann knew it. So did MLK.
Roy and Mamie: You make good points about the problems of school funding and demands on teachers. But we are drifting away from my initial points—- 1) In some cases, students can be better served simply by moving them to a more advanced class; no money or extra teacher time required. 2) In some cases, like in NYS a few decades ago, this acceleration of capable students was recognized as sound education policy and formalized in a state regulation that required schools to have a written policy for acceleration.
Mark– thanks for sparking a great discussion.
LeftCoastTeacher:
You write– “We try to meet the needs of each student.”
===I agree, but my concern is more about the students whose needs are NOT being met.
“Diane reported months ago that there are three districts currently doing it right,”
=== ONLY three? Where–in the whole US? If so, there are a lot more students not being served than I ever imagined.
“Students and parents creating IEPs for all, for example. I’m going to bring out an old phrase from before the NCLB that makes some educators nervous, differentiation of instruction. Instead of placing students on tracks….”
===IEP’s are great, as long as they don’t become just another name for tracks. (IEP means individualized education program)
“We used to have strategies for allowing studies to be student centered without putting them in special classes and without pretending to meet their needs by placing them before a computer with an AI platform. The students learned differently together in the same class. I still do it.”
===I agree. The infernal pendulum…maybe IEP’s will come back. And the computer is often improperly used as an electronic baby-sitter and brain-washer, esp. in the so-called home “education” trade.
“More importantly than meeting student needs, however, the reason in the first place that we try to meet student needs is to endeavor to get every student prepared to meet the needs of our democracy.”
=== I see ‘meeting student needs’, ‘preparation for democracy” and competency in all curriculum areas as being parts of the whole.
“School is more about acclimation to democratic society than about cranking out workers who do what U.S. Sec of Ed Cardona wrongly and wrongfully called “meeting industry standards.”
===I hadn’t heard that from Cardona…disappointing. I would like to hear him discuss and define that more clearly. Perhaps he is referring to including career training in the curriculum. Some call it ‘college and career ready’. That’s very important in my opinion, but not as a separate track, to the exclusion of academics.
“Thinking of students as customers and of parents as enabled to choose what their children learn is dangerous. Dangerous, I say!”
===I say it too! I have NEVER advocated for that. HOWEVER, there is a BIG difference between parents and students using ‘choice’ to limit the curriculum; and those who seek to expand it, then ‘choose’–in frustration–to go elsewhere when nothing changes.
“To use extreme examples to make the point, we do not want to succor parents who want their children to learn that white people are some sort of master race, who want to ban books, to foster the growth of segregation, or to abolish the theory behind The Origin of the Species.”
===I fully agree. However, these and many other important topics are only covered minimally–or not at all–in some public schools, so some parents look elsewhere.
“There must be a balance between what parents want and what society needs.”
I think I know what you mean, but I would not call it a ‘balance’. It should be MUCH MORE about ‘what society needs’ than about ‘what parents want.’ If parents don’t like it, let them move to Idaho or Florida!
“Public schools seek to find that balance. School choice seeks to overthrow that purpose of education.”
I do not agree, unless you insert the word ‘often’ after the word ‘choice’. Over the years, I’ve known many parents who chose a different school because they were seeking MORE breadth and depth for their children, and NOT an education of racist, religious, and/or political indoctrination.
“Socrates knew it. John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau knew it. Ben Franklin and John Adams knew it. John Dewey and Horace Mann knew it.So did MLK.”
Franklin and Adams were revolutionaries…insurrectionists…but looking for a better way. Fascinating! What would Gandhi have done?
Horace Mann said, ‘Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.’ There are various victories to be had and various approaches. Good people can take different approaches toward the same goal. Humanity and children are the ultimate goal, not a particular definition of ‘school’.
Mark,
I don’t think anyone knows how many districts are successful at teaching every student well. It may be 3 or 300 or 3,000. I don’t know. What I know for certain is that NCLB was a Death Star for education, forcing every district to use testing as both a measure and a goal. It warped education. It’s ironic that the federal role in education became enormous, destructive, and intrusive under a Republican President.
Instead of writing, “Diane reported months ago that there are three districts currently doing it right,” I should have written, ” Diane reported months ago about three districts currently doing it right.” I wish my usually reliable memory could bring up the details.
LCT, I don’t remember the subject or the comment. What “it” was I referring to?
NCLB and ESSA has messed up education in every school.
My apologies for assuming that LCT’s sentence implied the word “…ONLY three teachers…”. I made a quick comment about that portion of the post with out examining it more closely.
“…reported ABOUT three teachers doing it right…” is probably what you both meant.
Doing what right?
Only three teachers?
How would anyone know?
Diane– This is the beginning of the long post to which I was responding in MY long post of Feb 6, 8:58 pm.
leftcoastteacher
February 5, 2023 at 7:08 pm
We try to meet the needs of each student. If I recall correctly, Diane reported months ago that there are three districts currently doing it right, creating IEPs for all, for example….
Mark,
I don’t remember the post. I wish I did.