Only School Choice Will Keep Them Honest
That’s also why the biggest political winner in education by far in the past year has been charter schools. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first, but the Obama administration’s pro-charter rhetoric has been more than just talk. Charter caps are being lifted because the administration really does support charters.
Why? I think it’s mainly because a critical mass of their political base on the left has embraced the principle that parents should be put in charge through choice, and I think that has happened precisely because they want a reform that will keep the system honest. More and more people on the left are sick and tired of the empty promises they’ve been peddled for decades: that this time, throwing another huge chunk of money at the blob will fix the schools — and this time, we really, really, really mean it, cross our hearts and hope to die.
The social justice folks on the left just don’t buy it anymore. They now see that the blob has been pulling the wool over their eyes for generations. You can imagine how they’re feeling about that right now. And woe betide you if the wrath of the social justice folks falls upon you; they’re not known for being gentle with those whom they perceive as enemies of social justice.
Case in point: Did you know that the same team of scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners, scruple-at-nothing propagandists who produced An Inconvenient Truth has now made a hard-hitting documentary bashing teachers’ unions and advocating charter schools? And it was the very first film picked up for distribution at the Sundance Film Festival?
But in addition to the turning of the tide among the social justice folks, there’s one other reason for charters’ success. And it points to a reason for conservatives to hope that the success of charters will ultimately lead to bigger and better things down the road.
The recent surge in the political fortunes of charter schools has been fueled by the less dramatic but steadily growing success of private school choice: school vouchers and similar policies that allow students to attend private schools using public funds. There are now 24 private school choice programs serving 190,000 students nationwide, up from just five programs in 1996. And private school choice is continuing to gain ground every year with the creation of new programs and expansion of existing programs, even in tough years like 2009.
As my friend Jay Greene likes to put it, vouchers make the world safe for charters. That is, it’s because of the more modest success of vouchers that charters have exploded. As long as vouchers are on the march and are thus a credible threat, triangulating legislators who need the blob’s support can embrace charters without paying too high a price for doing so. If the blob cuts off its support for legislators who back charters, it won’t have anyone on its side when vouchers are on the agenda. Because vouchers are out there, the blob has no choice but to suck it up and pretend to be OK with charters.
The next question, though, is whether charters alone are going to be sufficient to keep the system honest. Charters have ridden to success with the help of a lot of new supporters, but those supporters are a demanding constituency. The social justice folks expect results.
The whole point about charters — their reason for existing — is that they’re a compromise with the blob. Charters are privately operated, but they’re government-owned and accountable to government-appointed authorities. They’re free from some of the onerous regulations that are hobbling education in regular public schools, but not from all of them.
This compromise approach means charters succeed in extracting something from the blob. But it also means the extractions they exact are inherently limited. By their very nature, charters are able to resist the blob, but only so far.
There is actually a shocking level of ignorance about these facts. A majority of Americans think charter schools are not public schools (they are). Even more — 57% — think that charter schools charge tuition (they don’t). And a whopping 71% believe that charter schools are allowed to select their own students (they can’t; they have to take all comers and admit by lottery).
By the same token, charters are not a scalable approach to creating more parental choice. The amount of parental choice you get from charters is fixed. Oh, it will fluctuate somewhat as the political winds blow favorably or unfavorably to charters. But ultimately the scope of parent choice you get from charters is never going to be very much more than what you get from them right now.
That means the educational improvement you can get from charters is also limited. The empirical evidence does show that charters outperform regular public schools. But that’s damning with faint praise; they’d have to work pretty hard to avoid outperforming public schools (especially in the particular neighborhoods where charters are typically allowed to operate).
But the size of the educational impact from charters is moderate. It’s not radically transformative. And because charters are based on compromise, it’s never going to be radically transformative.
Even in the relatively modest and restricted programs we have now, school vouchers deliver substantially more educational improvement than charters. But, more important, vouchers are scalable. By expanding the scope of choice (removing limits on who is allowed to choose, the value of the voucher, and what kinds of schools parents are allowed to select) you can create more choice and get even better results. And by implementing a universal voucher program, you could really take the shackles off and unleash a transformative revolution in the quality of schooling.
And the more choice you have, the more you keep the system honest. Private school choice delivers much stronger accountability for the public system, because it empowers parents much more.
People on the left are turning to charters because they don’t trust the blob any more and they want a reform that doesn’t rely on the honesty of politicians. Charters do create some of that kind of pressure to keep the system honest. But because charters are beholden to government — maintaining a strong element of government control is a core part of the whole concept of charters — they don’t perform that function nearly as well as vouchers.
A few years down the line, will the newfound supporters of charters on the left still be satisfied with the level of accountability for the public system charters create?
Well, let me ask you two more questions that might give you the answer to that one. Just how much vigilance does the government system need in order to be kept honest? And are social justice activists easily satisfied with marginal change or do they tend to prefer policies with revolutionary potential — like vouchers?
What’s the problem?
The circle is complete.
Affirmative Action teachers passing Affirmative Action students who become voting Affirmative Action Democrats.
Not to anyone in particular and everyone relatively:
“It’s the Leftist Indoctrination, stupid.”
“I’ll admit I was skeptical at first, but the Obama administration’s pro-charter rhetoric has been more than just talk. Charter caps are being lifted because the administration really does support charters.”
If so, it can only mean that Obama has some nefarious plan for charters. There has got to be some sort of underlying “Hitler Youth” concept operating that will be put into practice when the moment is right. And for Obama’s crowd, that could be 30-50 years down the road. They are very patient, and will do anything to undermine traditional, Judeo/Christian, American society and values.
I taught in public schools in central California for 20 years. They are simply huge cesspools of union control. No district will even report any bad news to the Ed. Dept. in Sacramento as they don’t want to look bad. Principals regularly sweep student problems under the rug or simply study them to death with a child study. Under NO circumstances would I allow either of my children to attend public schools in CA. I was a union rep for 2 years for the NEA at our school simply because no one else would do it. The NEA is the worst thing that has ever happened to public education w/ possible exception to the federal Dept.of Education. If you really want to have your kids learn something you have 2 choices: 1) homeschool or 2) send ‘em to a private school. Public schools in CA are just a step below the same in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nuff said!
As a long time public school teacher and NEA member, I say, “Bring on the charter schools!” I would love to teach where children want to be, a school that they and their parents have chosen. Any accountability measures at a regular public school are flawed because many of the students simply don’t give a damn. Many public schools are simply warehouses. This stifles the learning of the kids that want to be there and devours the time of teachers and staff. I have trouble explaining the nuances of Emerson and Thoreau to Mary and Mark, because Ethan and Jerry are acting like jerks on the other side of the room. And then when test time rolls around, Ethan and Jerry will tank the test, on purpose, too. And somehow it’s the teachers fault when scores are poor. Give me a charter school full of kids that want to learn and you can hold me as accountable as you please.
Thanks, Delia. You said it for me.
Don’t expect squat from the mouth-breathing public, product of the PC/MC school systems.
Miniscule gains arousing the American public by the MA elections, Sarah Palin, etc., as covered by only ONE network, have vanished back to complaisancy with the Superbowl.
Zero will happen to change anything, MOST certainly academia.
You write that: “The only answer I can see is school choice.” School choice is a major answer, but there is more on the way. A NEW tool the blob cannot control is arriving: A student can connect to knowledge individually and independently by owning a mobile device that browses the internet. I am building a blog and website here to describe and advocate this exciting new way education can happen outside of the blob’s control:
http://handschooling.com/mobiles/
A section I have not yet written will advocate putting standardized testing and other forms of certification openly online. This will be huge in “keeping them honest” without having to give the blob anything. What does the blob do when your ten-year-old gets an “A” in Algebra 1 using her mobile to certify? She will show that certification to her school, telling them she doesn’t have to take the dumbed down math they offer.
Here are some reflections on “the blob” as background for what a threat it is — and how delightful it will be when handschooling extracts knowledge from the blob and puts it in student hands.
http://www.goldenswamp.com/books/109Ideas/ogre/ogre.html
Once again, a post that I’ve made is not showing up. Are you people censoring me? If so, why. The missing post had nothing inflammatory in it. What gives?
@7: I wouldn’t worry too much yet.
Someone pointed out to me the other day that posts with multiple links, for example, can take days to post, if they post at all — blogging software is apparently programmed to scrutinize or plain dump post with too many links in case it’s spam or something. This guy recommended I break up any series of links into many little posts. Also, I’ve noticed that posts that are “too long” have a tendency to take a while to appear. Or it could be a glitch in the connection. If you think yours has been lost, maybe just try reposting it. Does that help?
School choice is a terrible concept, so bad, in fact, that it is amazing that more politicians don’t favor it. “School choice” says that we are unwilling to reform the existing system, face down the school unions, get rid of social engineering issues, push/challenge the students and demand results from the tendered resources. Rather than confront these issues, choicers want to simply start another system over there and pay for it with resources diverted from the old system.
But, how long do you think it will take for both systems to demand, in the aggregate, more resources than just the old and unions demanding more pay/less work/no supervision in the new systems and parents, unwilling/unable to participate in the process but demanding miraculous results and politicians pandering to the parents of the idiot children who think the new system cuts into their texting time, sets unreasonable dress codes and doesn’t adequately recognize the educational value of rappers and other black celebrities?
Choicers are simply deferring the problems. The solution is to get rid of the teachers’ unions and start demanding results from the teachers. They are adequately compensated (especially for the results they achieve); they just need to be kicked in the butt and be held accountable. One simple step might be be more selective when allowing high school students to enter teachers’ ed programs; bad applicants guarantee bad graduates and bad teachers.
Charter schools are great, but we need full school choice.
$2,000 tax CREDIT for each child for charter schools, private schools, religious schools, or home schooling.
FREEDOM WORKS! Try it some time.
8. Anjika:
They posted it. See #2 above. Thanks for your advice.
@9, NCBob.
But school choice isn’t about starting “another system”. It’s about allowing many — in fact, an unlimited number of — competing systems, not just two, where any bad schools (not just bad public schools) are allowed to die a merciful death. Because the incentives will be different (bad schools will be starved for students rather than just being fed extra money) we can reasonably expect the results to be different.
After working as a tutor in the public schools, I came to the conclusion that nothing within the public system — not even more intelligent and dedicated teachers — can make the difference we hope for. To put it bluntly, in public schools, the structure is set up so that intelligent and dedicated teachers cannot teach where they are most needed. It’s better to threaten the public schools with competition. That’s a real incentive to clean up their act. And if a given charter school system starts going sour, another better one will soon take its place. The incentives matter, maybe even more than the people do.
Charter schools are a good thing. Sure. Why? Because you can require kids to wear uniforms. You can require kids to actually do their work. You can require parents to actually care. You can require kids to show up on time and not miss school. If they don’t follow the basic rules above. You can send them on their way. Public schools have lots of kids that have been kicked out of private/charter schools. Sure. Charter schools are public, but they have more rigorous rules you HAVE to follow to stay there. Class sizes are smaller. Kids want to learn. Parents want them learn. That is the key.
Sorry, NCBob: competition is the force that makes the world go round, from biology to economics.
NO top-down, government-controlled system can ever be meaningfully reformed. Breaking the teachers’ unions might help a bit- but we’re still stuck with life-tenure government employees and layer upon layer of overpaid, reform-resistant bureaucrats.
We don’t rely on government to feed or clothe or shelter our children, nor should we expect it to educate them.
6. Well, they didn’t have online schools when I was in elementary school, but I did take the Pre-Algebra final exam in 5th grade. The district hemmed and hawed, but they had to concede that getting an A on the final exam was sufficient to place out of the course, and they let me take Algebra I in 6th grade. I, along with two other students in my graduating class, completed Geometry and Algebra II while still in middle school, and I completed two years of calculus by the time I graduated from high school, along with AP Statistics, which, despite being a joke course compared to Calculus, was a very good foundation for my radiation lab courses in college. As for online schools, my brother now attends one since the high school I graduated from has apparently immensely deteriorated since my graduation, or maybe I was just sheltered from how bad the problems really were.
“Even in the relatively modest and restricted programs we have now, school vouchers deliver substantially more educational improvement than charters. But, more important, vouchers are scalable.”
The point above is critical, suggesting that vouchers/tax-credits are the kind of transformative reform that is needed. Though I’ve been told that “choice begets choice,” and therefore the proliferation of charters is good for the broader sensitization to parental choices in education, there is another factor that needs to be considered. With the spread of charters comes increasing pressure on urban private and faith-based schools. Though competition is good, it is virtually impossible for urban private schools to compete with free charter schools. Faith-based schools serving low-income populations have been closing steadily in recent decades, shrinking the “scalability” of vouchers and private school options. More charters is likely to quicken this decline. It is great that “vouchers make the world safe for charters,” but what will make the world safe for urban faith-based schools? More vouchers and quickly. Otherwise the pool of choices will continue to shrink.
I’ve got a spin on this I’ve never heard anywhere else. School choice encourages and frees up religious choice. If the government will give you a voucher, and you can take it anywhere to get your child an education, then the yeshiva, parochial school, or evangelical Protestant school can get the funding along with the public education fiasco. If we make the situation that the kids have to compete to go somewhere other than public school, the private non-denominational schools would probably arise also, for those parents who didn’t want public school, but also didn’t want religious instruction for their children.
No one ever wants to point out that wealthy opponents of school choice (Ariana Huffington, President Clinton, etc.) send their own children to private school while advocating that those who aren’t as well off as they should be stuck with the public school system. It’s been repeatedly noted that a large portion of PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS make sure to send their own children to private schools, while campaigning loudly to be allowed to keep the children of the poor warehoused in their failing schools, so that they have job security. Last I heard, in L.A. Unified the percentage of teachers with their own kids in private schools was ca. 40%.
The difficulty is that unions are so entrenched that they will fight anything like this, and they have oceans of money with which to fight. When Governor Schwarzenegger got elected on a reform platform and tried to gently reform the school system, the result was $100 Million in TV commercials attacking him day and night for a year. He lost, and we’re worse off than we were before. My guess is that a combination of inertia, vehement teacher’s union opposition to any sort of reform, and political corruption put reform beyond the reach of any politician in our current crop.
Is there really a ‘choice’ when it comes to public schools? Really? Name me a public school without Leftist school teachers and I’ll buy you a private island.
Like new utopian I’m extremely suspicious of Obama’s motives for supporting anything. Charter schools can’t help much if the teachers are union. School vouchers are a much surer way to improve public schools and education in general. Keeping the NEA out of them is crucial. Any public service unions are a threat to good governance and fiscal responsibility. It’s difficult for me to conceive of the “blob” the NEA and the social justice activists as separate let alone adversarial groups. If the social justice people are for anything to do with schools we may be sure indoctrination is the goal.
“they just need to be kicked in the butt and be held accountable.” You mean the teachers or the parents? Mom and dad come home and check out in front of the boob toob, and guess what, Jonnie and Janie do too. Privatize the whole damn mess. I don’t pay for your kids and you don’t pay for mine.
There is nothing that government can do better or cheaper than the private sector. For the very minimal things that the government must do, like the military, law and contract enforcement, and a handful of other things, we accept the inefficiencies.
To the extent that we need to provide for the poor, it should be done with instruments like vouchers and food stamps – to be spent wisely by the recipients in the private sector as if it were their own money.
Such aid programs should not attempt to make recipients comfortable and content with their status. To the contrary – it is good if it is uncomfortable and a little inadequate so that there is ample incentive for people to find a way to provide for themselves if at all possible. This may sound harsh but it is harsher still to create a huge underclass of society based upon the long term debilitating affect of permanent entitlement programs.
We can start with education. States need to go 100% private and tell the Federal Department of Education to get lost.
The unions still have an ace card–the ability to forcibly unionize anyone who gets government money. Look at what happened in Michigan with home-operated day care.
I kind of agree with #2 new utopian. Obama may be using this to put indoctrinators who are even more “progressive” into the schools and to install a federally-mandated “progressive” curriculum.