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The Power of Involved Parents

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2012 //
23

This parent writes about how he and his wife decided to enroll their children in an urban public school and to remain closely involved in their schooling and their lives. As black parents, they knew all the risks, and they decided not to move to the suburbs. As college graduates, they wanted the best for their children, and they made an informed choice.

As it happened, both kids got a good education, both went to top colleges, and both are on their way to good professional careers.

This is a testament to the power of informed parenting.

In the Scholastic-Gates survey of teachers, teachers were asked what they wanted most. The greatest number said they wanted families to be more involved. (What mattered least: longer school days and hours, merit pay).

This family showed what a difference it makes when families do their share–and more.

Categories Parents

What We Can Learn from the New PDK/Gallup Poll

By dianeravitch
August 22, 2012 //
2

The annual Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll on education was released today.

The sponsors characterize public opinion as split, which is true for many issues.

We must see this poll in the context of an unprecedented, well-funded campaign to demonize public schools and their teachers over at least the past two years, and by some reckoning, even longer.

The media has parroted endlessly the assertion that our public schools are failures, they are (as Bill Gates memorably said to the nation’s governors in 2005) “obsolete,” and “the system is broken.” How many times have you heard those phrases? How many television specials have you seen claiming that our education system is disastrous? And along comes “Waiting for ‘Superman'” with its propagandistic attack on public education in cities and suburbs alike and its appeal for privatization. Add to that Arne Duncan’s faithful parroting of the claims of the critics.

That is the context, and it is remarkable that Americans continue to believe in the schools they know best and to understand what their most critical need is.

Here are the salient findings:

1. Americans have a low opinion of American education (how could they not, given the bombardment of criticism?): only 18% give it an A or B. And here is the real accomplishment of the corporate reformers: Those who judge American education as a D or F have increased from 22% to 30% in the past 20 years. Actually, their success in smearing U.S. education is even greater, because in 2002, before the implementation of NCLB, only 16% judged the nation’s schools so harshly. So the reform campaign has doubled the proportion of Americans who think the nation’s schools deserve a D or F.

2. When asked to evaluate the schools in their own community, 48% give them an A or B, which is the highest rating in 20 years.

3. When asked to evaluate the school their oldest child attends, an astonishing 77% give it an A or B. This is the highest rating in 20 years. Only 6% give it a D or F. This question elicits the views of informed consumers, the people who refer to a real school, not the hypothetical school system that is lambasted every other day in the national press or condemned as “obsolete” by Bill Gates.

4. When asked whether they have trust and confidence in teachers, 71% said yes. Americans continue to respect and admire teachers, despite the nonstop public bashing of them in the media.

5. When asked whether standardized test scores should be used to evaluate teachers, opinion split 52-47 in favor. Considering that the public has heard nonstop endorsements of this bad idea from President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and most other political figures–and very limited dissent–it is surprising that opinion is almost equally divided. How did so many Americans manage to figure out that this idea is problematic at best?

6. When people were asked to describe the teachers who had the greatest influence in their lives, they used words like caring, compassionate, motivating, and inspiring. Interesting that few remembered the teachers who raised their test scores.

7. There has been a big change in what the public sees as the biggest problems facing the schools today. Ten years ago, the biggest concerns were about discipline (fighting, gangs, drugs, lack of discipline, overcrowding). Today, the biggest problem that the public sees, by far, is lack of financial support. 35% chose that option. Among public school parents, it was 43%. Concerns about discipline almost faded away in comparison to concerns about the lack of financial support for the schools.

8. On the subject of vouchers, there was a surprising increase in the proportion who would support “allowing students to choose a private school at public expense.” It increased from 34% to 44%, which is a big jump. I recommend that future questioning ask about support to allow students “to choose a private or religious school at public expense.” That would be closer to the reality of voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, D.C., Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana.

9. On the subject of charters, public opinion dipped, from an approval rating of 70% in 2011 to 66% in 2012. It will be interesting to see where this number goes as the public begins to understand more about charters in their own communities.

10. A question about the parent trigger was so vacuous as to be misleading. The question was “Some states are considering laws that allow parents to petition to remove the leadership and staff at failing schools. Do you favor or oppose such laws?” 70% favor, 76% of public school parents favor. This is a misleading question, however, as the parent trigger is not a matter of simply allowing parents to sign a petition, but of allowing parents to take control of a public school and hand it over to private management. My guess is that the public doesn’t know much about the parent trigger concept and hasn’t heard a discussion about the pros and cons. So, I don’t put much stock in the response–after all, why shouldn’t parents have the right to sign a petition to change the staff at their school? It does show how clever the corporate reformers are in framing issues that advance privatization and doing it in ways that are deceptive and alluring.

11. In a series of questions about the Common Core standards, most people believe they are a good thing and that they will make the nation more competitive globally; about half think they will improve the quality of education while 40% think they will have no effect. These answers exemplify why polls of this kind must be viewed with caution. I am willing to bet that the majority of respondents has no idea what the Common Core standards are; and willing to bet that 98% have never read them.

In future versions of the poll, I hope that questions will be asked about for-profit schools, privatization, and vouchers for religious schools. These are big issues today, and the poll should ask about them.

My takeaway from the 2012 poll is that the corporate reform movement has succeeded in increasing support for vouchers, but that the American public continues to have a remarkably high opinion of the schools and teachers they know best despite the concerted efforts of the reformers to undermine those beliefs. This is an instance where evidence trumps ideology. The reformers have not yet been able to destroy the bonds between the American people and their community’s schools.

 

 

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Opinion Polling, Parent trigger, Parents, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, US Education, Vouchers

Texas Parents Plan Rally for Chicago Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
3

Just in:

Here in Austin, Texas on Saturday, August 25th 7:00-9:00 pm we’ll be having a rally to support the Chicago teachers. Parents supporting teachers. Solidarity!
TexasParentsOptOutStateTests@yahoo.com
Categories Chicago, Education Reform, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Parents, Texas

A Parent’s Letter to Frank Bruni of the New York Times

By dianeravitch
August 19, 2012 //
33

I just received this comment. This parent should be invited to appear on NBC’s “Education Nation,” on Morning Joe, on Rachel Maddow, on CNN’s “Newsroom,” and on any other talk show, most of which put people on camera who have never been public school parents or teachers or principals. She is more knowledgeable than Michelle Rhee or Bill Gates or any of the other “reformers”:

Dear Dr. Ravitch,I was composing my own letter to Frank Bruni early this morning, and didn’t see your post until later. Thanks, as always, for your advocacy. Below is a copy of the letter I emailed to Mr. Bruni this morning.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Poyourow

Dear Mr. Bruni,

While I usually enjoy your opinion articles, I was dismayed by yesterday’s article on parent trigger laws. It seems to me that you do not know much about the issue and are relying for your talking points on the PR campaigns of the groups that support them, ironically not grass-roots parents’ groups but primarily astroturf groups with financial, policy, and personnel links reaching back to groups like ALEC (groups which you are certainly no fan of when it comes to their impact on other policy areas).

You seem to take for granted several ideas I would challenge you on: (1) that American public schools and teachers are failing, (2) that middle-class families should desert urban, public schools, (3) that charter schools are the answer to any problems in the current public educational system, and (4) that parent trigger laws would a helpful tool for remedying problems.

For the record, I am a parent with two children in my neighborhood public school in Philadelphia. Our school manages to hold together and serve well a coalition of low-income, blue-collar, and middle-class families with striking racial as well as socioeconomic diversity in a Philadelphia neighborhood–61% of our students are economically disadvantaged, 45% white, 45% black, 5% Latino, and 5% multiracial and other designations. We are not a rich school and cannot stage fundraisers such as the ones held by the Upper West Side public schools in NYC profiled in the NYT earlier this summer. In fact, we (and all public schools in PA) were hit hard by the education budget cuts enacted when a wave of extremist state legislators came into our state government in 2010. $1 billion has been cut from public education statewide in PA, and it has impacted our school heavily, raising class sizes while stripping the school of necessary teaching and support personnel, contracting the curriculum (music and language teachers were cut last year, and the school had no money previously for an art teacher), and leaving kids behind academically without the tutoring previously provided.

Yet our school remains strong, continuing to make AYP and to attract neighborhood parents, primarily because of the cross-class coalition using the school. Even if we haven’t raised $1 million for our school, many parents volunteer, run after-school clubs, and try to solicit community resources to help the school provide what has been eliminated because of cuts at the state level. The reward is that our children get to attend an integrated, academically sound public school in our city neighborhood that is open to all. We are part of a growing movement in several cities (including NYC) that has parents choosing to invest their time and energy in public schools, not only for their own families’ good but to strengthen the fabric of their neighborhoods and cities.

Which brings me back to your op-ed. I am a public school parent–not a teacher and not a union employee. I find the representations of the state of public education in the U.S. promulgated by films such as “Won’t Back Down” and “Waiting for Superman” to be harmful and inaccurate depictions of the current dilemmas faced by public school students, parents, and teachers.

Private schools have done a good sales job over the last decade or so, feeding the cultural panic among middle-class parents, creating anxieties in them that they cannot use the public schools and must purchase high-priced private schooling, tutoring, etc. at any price if their children are to succeed in life academically and economically. However, it is the class and educational background of parents that is the most critical variable in children’s success. While many currently make the claim (which you echo) that U.S. public schools are way behind other countries, when socioeconomic class is taken into account, American students do as well or better than the countries we say we wish to emulate. It is poverty that is our greatest problem. Middle-class children who attend urban public schools, even those in schools with very low average scores, do fine. If we want to solve the educational crisis that does exist for kids from low-income families, then creating jobs, stable health care, and an economic security net for their families is one key–and finding ways to create schools integrated by race and socioeconomic background is another–and providing appropriate funding, early childhood education, and smaller classes is a third.

The voucher, charter school, and parent trigger movements aim in precisely the opposite direction by draining public schools of funds desperately needed in this climate of scarcity and creating a two-tier system of schools, segregating kids even further by race, class, English language learner status, and disability. Indeed as the CREDO study by Stanford University shows, charter schools do not provide better educational opportunities; many provide worse. The people behind the push for parent trigger laws are not idealistic parents but chain charter operators hoping to expand their profits at the public expense–and their right-wing backers hoping to undermine our understanding of education as a public good. I hope you do some research on this topic and reconsider your opinion.

Sincerely,
Rebecca Poyourow (a usually appreciative reader)
Categories Budget Cuts, Parent trigger, Parents, Pennsylvania, US Education

Dilemmas of School Choice

By dianeravitch
August 18, 2012 //
7

Karen Francisco writes about education for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette. Whenever I see her work, I wish I lived in Fort Wayne, so I could see everything she writes. She is one of our most thoughtful commentators on the subject of education.

In this article, she ponders the complexity of school choice.

What happens when parents want their children to go to a school even though it has low scores?

What should public officials do? What are the tradeoffs between accountability and choice?

What should we expect of public officials who say on one hand that parents know best, but then proceed to shut down a school that parents love?

How should we balance priorities?

Categories Accountability, Indiana, Parents

Defending Parents Against Stereotypes

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2012 //
2

A reader writes in support of low-income and working-class families and reminds us of the importance of collaboration:

Diane, thanks again for your clarity and calm through what must have been a difficult week.  Your small manifesto looks so obvious, when it is quietly laid out.

Unfortunately, the conversation also gets hijacked by those with an agenda to attack low-income families, and working class parents in general, with false and degrading stereotypes. When that happens, it undermines the teachers who serve the majority of honorable inner city residents and uneducated, but nonetheless dedicated, low-income parents. It undermines our support for the struggles of real people to attain fair and just education opportunities for their own children, and it undermines the struggle of teachers to provide one.

It reinforces the political drive to destroy public education, with the underlying argument that economically stressed Americans can disinvest in the education of the “hopeless” poor, and save their own children by setting up willfully exclusive institutions.

Commentators have to be careful not to let their own “side” do that in the name of the teaching profession.  Notice that the opponents of public schooling readily join in on such denunciations; its their bread and butter, after all.

Two decades ago, I subbed in a Boston high school with a newly appointed minority principal (it was Juliet Johnson, in fact).  Court ordered busing had desegregated the students, but not the entrenched teaching corps, and some older teachers really did maintain a mutually reinforcing culture of bitterness, racial prejudice, and resentment.  The generation parenting today’s Boston students suffered those attitudes as children.

Their trust isn’t automatic, especially considering the concerted attack their own children  now face.  Colleagues, let’s build trust with the families we serve, and earn it, and cherish it.  When family support does break under the onslaught of violence or drugs or despair, there is a whole community in place that knows it, and tries to come to the rescue of its own children.  Reach out to them, and lets add our voices to theirs.

Categories Parents

What’s Needed Now: R-E-S-P-E-C-T

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2012 //
8

A reader comments on the discussion about parents, teachers, and students:

It is amazing to me how fast the conversation gets hijacked by those with an agenda to trash public education. I have stated before and will repeat it. Parents and educators must work together in partnership. It is the most productive way for our students to benefit from an education. It bothers me to hear disrespect directed toward either teachers, parents, or students.
As an educator I feel it should always be our position to be positive role models. Others may disagree, but I hope that those students and adults who I have worked with over the years have felt respected by me. No matter what behavior I am faced with, I always try to react in a positive way. Believe me, I am faced with these situations daily. I have had to learn this, over the years, because it isn’t always easy when you are faced with negative or disrespectful behavior. But I can say that a positive, respectful reaction almost always turns the situation around. A negative reaction almost always results in an escalation of the problem.
Thanks Diane, for being such a positive role model for us. I hope that we, as educators, are able to keep the fight for public education going in a positive direction, with positive results. It’s not easy when we are faced with such negative and false media reports, and especially negative parent reactions. We need to turn the tide back to a respect for educators.
Categories Parents, Students, Teachers and Teaching

What I Think about Parents

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2012 //
17

Over the past few days, there has been a lively discussion about the rights and responsibilities of parents.

This was occasioned by a letter I posted by a teacher, who said that parents don’t always know what is best for their children and that some parents are irresponsible.

After this post appeared on a homeschooling website, and perhaps others as well, I received many comments making outlandish accusations, in effect, saying that I thought parents were abusive, irresponsible, and incompetent.

For starters, I would like to point out that I frequently reprint letters by other people expressing their views. Their letters may or may not reflect my own views.

Since many writers asked me to state my views about parents, I will do so here.

I am a parent. I had three children, two of whom are now grown. One of my children died of leukemia many years ago. I now have three grandchildren.

As a parent and grandparent, I don’t believe that any government official or teacher cares more or knows more about my children than I do. Other parents, I am sure, feel the same.

Every important decision about children should be made first and above all by their parents.

Parents know best what their children need.

The government has an obligation to provide a free education in a public school to all children.

If parents choose to homeschool their children, they have a right to do so.

If parents choose to send their children to a private or religious school, they have a right to do so.

Government cannot take away their right to make those decisions.

The government does not have an obligation to pay for religious or private schooling for any child.

The only time that the government has an obligation to step in and negate parental rights is when children are abused and harmed by neglectful parents.

It is rare that it happens, but it does happen, and children’s health and safety must be protected.

To be sure, there are exceptions to the generalizations stated above:

A medical doctor knows more about the child’s health than his or her parents.

A teacher usually knows more about math or science or history or foreign languages than the child’s parents.

But make no mistake: Parents are their children’s most important educators.

Parents shape the attitudes, values and behavior of their children.

And parents–not the state– have the primary responsibility to raise up their children as good and decent people.

Categories Parents

Who Owns a Public School?

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2012 //
9

The question of ownership arises because the “parent trigger” idea enables 51% of parents to “seize control” of their public school and turn it over to a private corporation to manage.

But do the parents “own” the school? Is it theirs to give away?

My view is that it belongs to the public. The public created it. The public paid for it. It belongs to the public. It belongs to those who attended it in the past and to those who will attend it in the future. Next year’s parents and students have the same interest as this year’s. And so do those who will be parents and students in the school five years from now.

If the school is unsatisfactory, if the principal is incompetent, take your concerns to the superintendent and the school board. If most parents speak up, they will not be ignored (unless you happen to live in a city with mayoral control, like New York City or Chicago, where the mayor doesn’t care about parent opinion).

This reader has similar concerns.

What exactly does “taking back a school” mean? Are you suggesting that we allow a group of people (whether it’s 51% of parents or some other group) to take over a public school and “give” it to a private corporation or organization? If so, then I disagree completely.

On the other hand, if you mean, changing the publicly elected school board then I would agree completely. If you mean working with the teachers and parents to improve the educational program, then I agree. If you mean changing the legislature, governor, or other elected officials who are killing public education then I agree — completely.

As Diane has said many times, public schools belong to the public, not 51% of the current parents. You can prove that for yourself by going to a high school basketball or football game. The “alumni” are often there in great numbers. Public schools belong to the community. They are centers for community pride and memories. They are (and should be) a stable influence in a community. 

If 51% of parents decide that a school is no longer meeting the needs of their children and give it away to a private company, what happens next year if 51% of the parents decide that they want to convert it back to a traditional public school? The parent trigger laws do not allow that. Once the public school is gone…it’s gone.

I’m a retired teacher…and I would LOVE to “take back” public schools from the “reformers.” That’s why I write to my legislators. That’s why I belong to a community group which works for public education (neifpe@blogspot.com). That’s why I blog. That’s why I try to inform as many people as I can about what’s happening to public education.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, NYC, Parent trigger, Parents

An Apology to Offended Parents

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2012 //
2

This teacher wrote a dissent to the letter that caused a ruckus. She wrote it immediately. I posted her dissent. Now she writes again. Will any of the angry homeschooling parents read what she writes? Obviously, they did not read her previous comment defending parents.

The lesson. Be informed. Don’t rush to judgment. Stop, look, and listen.

The letter you posted actually offended me, too.  I didn’t think it was respectful to the disabled children in that teacher’s care, or to their parents.  I tried to reframe the question, but I don’t think anybody can undo the breach of trust when a teacher denounces the families she serves with such contempt.

I know the teachers who took care of my son had to “clean dried feces off his butt.”  I am so thankful that his teacher, Lillian, never flung it at me like that.  She didn’t stay with severely impaired children because she could “do whatever I want”.

I hope the parents who are spitting and cursing understand that most teachers don’t agree with those statements.  I apologize to them.

Categories Education Reform, Parents
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