Seriously, Folks: School Voucher Proponents Need to Get Real
“The happy album’s coming out from Sony on October 15th …
and you can download it for whatever you want to pay! . . .
“ That system fails at every level, but most importantly, it fails as a system. The problem isn’t the teacher’s unions, or the school boards, or the district offices, or the principals, or the ideology about curriculum … or rather, the problem is that all of these things are problems, locked in a poisonous relationship with each other. ”
I won’t say that these – alone or together – are without problems. But I believe much of the cause for the systemic failure you discuss has to do with a set of factors you leave off this list: NYC public schools serve a largely poor & minority population with little mainstream cultural and social capital, from often at least somewhat – and sometimes very – chaotic and dangerous neighborhoods; additionally, and mostly as a consequence, they’ve been badly underfunded for a very long time. And that, of course, is underfunded just compared to schools serving a far more advantaged population. to say nothing of underfunded in terms of the resources necessary to provide disadvantaged populations with a good education.
The over-a-decade-long fight to get a decent level of funding for NYC public schools (CFE v. State of New York was filed in 1993, and the final decision from the Court of Appeals was in November ’06) reveals a lot, I think, about the immense hostility to providing such kids with a “sound and basic education” – see for example the 2002 ruling by the appellate division that constitutionally all was required was to provide a middle-school reading level and preparation for unskilled, low-wage jobs, and since the schools were generally managing that, that there wasn’t a problem.
The voucher promise of choice, if workable for more than a lucky few, is one thing, although I am quite pessimistic on this point. The fantasy of competition, however, is another matter entirely – it’s part of the myth that failing urban schools are in trouble ultimately because they’re not trying hard enough – lazy teachers, badbad unions, etc. – and need market discipline to whip them into shape (or drive them out. This of course serves to obscure the unpleasant reality – that we don’t care, as a society, about actually providing poor urban kids with a decent education, and frankly don’t like them that much.
