Why It's Hard to Find Middle Ground

In case anyone didn't already know it, I sometimes meet and talk with people who are often cast as villains on this blog. I've met with Kelly Munn of LEV, Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center, the former Executive Director of the Alliance for Education (not the current one), a lot of the staff at the Alliance for Education, and, recently, with Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. It has always been nice. In addition to these folks, I have good relationships with a lot of people at the school district - after we meet and they get to know me. I used to have friendly relationships with Lynne Varner and Bruce Ramsey on the Times editorial board. Those relationships may not be as friendly as they once were. However I may appear in print, I'm actually a pretty easy-going guy who works to see the other person's perspective. It's good for people to meet me in person and see that I don't have horns or a pointy tail.

I've also had a positive phone conversation with Reuven Carlyle, and chats and email exchanges with Tom VanderArk.

I am open to meeting with anyone who, in the false dichotomy of "sides" in the education debate, is on the "other" side and is willing to meet with me. I would be happy to talk with Sara Morris or Lisa Macfarlane, for example.

I don't know how surprising this is for folks. I don't find it surprising at all. Mostly what we talk about is our shared goal - to improve education for children. And mostly we agree on the problems and solutions. Mostly. We are respectful of each other's positions and we presume good intent. It has always gone well. Let's remember that you can only have peace talks with enemies. I haven't tried meeting with anyone really volatile like Chris Korsmo, and it's unlikely that I will ever get to meet with people who are unlikely to acknowledge me (or even my humanity), such as Tim Burgess, Nick Hanauer, or Frank Greer.

After I met with Robin Lake for coffee one morning, she wrote about the conversation in EdWeek. She was kind enough to keep me anonymous. She wrote, accurately, that one of the reasons that I don't speak more publicly about the areas of agreement I have with Education Reformers is that I am reluctant to stand along side "reform advocates he has come to detest."

I'll give you a prime (and timely) example. Charter schools, decontextualized from the political world in which they have been framed, could make a lot of sense. Our schools need to be re-thought and re-designed to meet the needs of diverse students. Today's school needs to be designed from the bottom-up instead of the top-down. The resistance to this needed re-design lies primarily in the state- and District-level bureaucracy. It's certainly not the teachers rejecting the authority and resources they need to help students learn. After we have banged our heads against the wall of this bureaucracy for over ten years, doesn't it make sense to seek another path - a path around this bureaucracy.

That sounds pretty darn appealing to me. It sounds like a really great idea. So why haven't I come out in support of charter schools? Three reasons:

1. Charter schools are not decontextualized from the larger world in which they exist. Charter schools, rightly or wrongly, carry with them a messages of privatization, segregation, and the de-professionalization of teaching. I can see evidence of efforts to write the Washington Charter school initiative so that it doesn't carry that message. It allows only non-profits to sponsor schools and does not allow them to outsource the education services to private vendors. It requires schools to accept all applicants - including those with special needs. It requires all teachers to be certificated. Yet, despite these provisions, it will still carry the stink of charter schools nationally.
   
2. I still want to fix the problem instead of go around it. I am still holding out for reform of state- and District-level bureaucracies. Oddly, the charter schools could be a useful tool to that end. As I have written, the threat of a school converting to a charter poses such dire consequences for the school district that it is a gun to their heads. If we cannot reason with them to change, perhaps we can force them to change with this threat of doom. Then again, maybe we can't. Maybe they would rather go down faithful to their cause and take all of the kids with them. I still believe that change is gonna come, but it is taking a long time.
   
3. I simply cannot stand next to some of these folks who support charter schools. Seriously. I refuse to have anything to do with some of them. With all of the smart things that people could say in support of charters, these folks say the dumbest things. Instead of seeking common ground with their opponents they would rather tweak our noses. When I think of their arrogance and their hubris I can taste the bile in the back of my throat.

So I find myself in a very uncomfortable position, with one foot on the boat, and one foot on the dock.

When I think about it calmly and rationally, I have no objection to charter schools if they are done with the appropriate regulation and accountability. And, from what I've read, I think the Washington charter initiative has that. In fact, I can see them as a powerful tool for positive change, not only for the schools that become charters, but for other schools as well. Once a charter school demonstrates a real inclusive classroom, how can the public schools fail to duplicate it? Once a charter school demonstrates the value of intentionally creating the right kind of culture in a school and intentionally working to motivate students, how can the public schools fail to duplicate it? Fighting the bureaucracy to bring change has proven slow and mostly fruitless. Isn't it time to seek another path? Doesn't it make sense to simply bypass it instead trying to go through it? When efforts to win civil rights at the state and local level failed, didn't people finally win by going around the states and taking the fight to the federal level? Was that wrong of them?

But there is little opportunity to think about it rationally when it is whirled up in so much emotional and visceral reaction. My pride - yes, I do have some - precludes me from standing in solidarity with people as loathsome and stupid as some of the charter school supporters. I can't discount them as fringe (as I might with some of the wackier folks on anti-charter side) when they are not fringe players but among the principal leaders of the effort. And I am trepidatious about the new law. The Washington initiative may look good to me, but there will still be people making the decisions and people are not reliable. Will the people appointed to the Commission really be willing to drop the axe on a charter? Are the laws written air-tight enough to stop privatization? Are they written tightly enough to protect the participation of students with special needs? Won't they be people on the commission be very much like our own School Board directors who lack the strength of will to enforce policies? In fact, isn't it likely that at least one member of the commission will be a former Seattle School Board director?

Again, there is a lot of common ground among education advocates on both sides of this issue. There are things about charter schools that are appealing. I do work to keep an open mind about ideas and weigh them on their own merits, rather than base my assessment of the idea on my relationship with the person who is presenting it (or even how well it is presented). But that is really hard. I keep bumping up against a human resistance, some sort of tribal instinct that demands eternal loyalty to my tribe and eternal enmity with theirs. Only my loyalty should be to the kids, not my tribe, and my enmity should be reserved for the people who are creating the obstacles, not the folks who have a different path around them. I'm seriously conflicted.

I could be won over to charters if they could sufficiently address my concerns and if they would start making smart - and honest - arguments in favor of charters instead of dumb and dishonest ones. Did you hear Shannon Campion on KUOW? She couldn't give a straight answer to even a single question. I could become a supporter if they would make it clear that the obstacle to progress in public education is the bureaucracy, and not the teachers or the teachers' union. But as long as they prop up the teachers as the enemy and disingenuously claim that their opponents are supporters of the status quo, I cannot stand with them. As long as they spout nonsense about the competition and choice, I cannot stand with them. If they could activate my mind instead of my gag response, they could convince me to support charters.