So Much to Talk About in Public Education and This is What the Times Prints?
You have to shake your head. What's up with the Times?
I'm pretty sure this guy isn't about throwing off the chains of public school education but more about vouchers. That he cloaks his rhetoric in the "it's for the kids" school of thought doesn't make it any better. (Note: like charters, we did vote on vouchers previously and again, the answer was no.)
So here’s a crazy idea that just might set the stage for real innovation to happen — a deep change to unleash the creative flow of new thinking and practices. What if we abolished our compulsory school attendance laws, let public schools partner with families and communities to define their own educational programs, and allowed families to choose the kind of education that best fit the needs of their child?
What would education without compulsory attendance look like? I can imagine a plethora of innovative programs: part-time schools; programs focused on specific skills, interests and themes; programs integrated with other community organizations; new public resources available for self-directed use. The sky is the limit.
Yes, and a pony for each kid as well.
This sounds a lot like what Mitt Romney wants to do with Medicare - give old people a check and let them figure it out. Do parents and elders really have the time and knowledge to reinvent everything to suit their needs?
I just went through a years-long process of figuring out how to care for my elderly mother (long-distance) and it was a humbling experience. It is complicated and worrying and you almost never know if you got it right.
And every single parent should be doing this for their child? There's a reason we have public education.
I'm pretty sure this guy isn't about throwing off the chains of public school education but more about vouchers. That he cloaks his rhetoric in the "it's for the kids" school of thought doesn't make it any better. (Note: like charters, we did vote on vouchers previously and again, the answer was no.)
So here’s a crazy idea that just might set the stage for real innovation to happen — a deep change to unleash the creative flow of new thinking and practices. What if we abolished our compulsory school attendance laws, let public schools partner with families and communities to define their own educational programs, and allowed families to choose the kind of education that best fit the needs of their child?
What would education without compulsory attendance look like? I can imagine a plethora of innovative programs: part-time schools; programs focused on specific skills, interests and themes; programs integrated with other community organizations; new public resources available for self-directed use. The sky is the limit.
Yes, and a pony for each kid as well.
This sounds a lot like what Mitt Romney wants to do with Medicare - give old people a check and let them figure it out. Do parents and elders really have the time and knowledge to reinvent everything to suit their needs?
I just went through a years-long process of figuring out how to care for my elderly mother (long-distance) and it was a humbling experience. It is complicated and worrying and you almost never know if you got it right.
And every single parent should be doing this for their child? There's a reason we have public education.
Comments
This op-ed is so out there, it frames approving charters as a reasonable, centrist option--it's the least citizens can do to get some innovation into a stodgy, calcified system.
Whatever this author's conscious intent, this piece was published because it serves the ST corporate ed agenda. Any opinion by anybody who is in favor of blowing up the system serves the interests of privatizers who will be only too happy to swoop in to pick up the pieces.
There are people out there who don't have good schooling choices and they are going to lean toward what they think will give them a better alternative than the same old "stodgy, calcified system."
-fill the void
It is foolish.
People need to be reminded that the choice is not this reform (whatever this reform is; charters, vouchers, ending compulsory attendance, or wearing socks inside-out) or nothing. The choice is this reform or some other reform.
People need to be reminded that students and families don't need more choices; they have a lot of them already. They need BETTER choices. Neither this proposal nor charter schools offers any reasonable expectation of a better choice (let alone a guarantee).
To me, the persuasive argument is that this will result in a "defunding" of the best, most efficient educational model we have -- in favor of handing public funds to private enterprises to use with little oversight and (even worse) no commitment to efficient use of public funds.
We don't do this with water and electricity. We don't do it with public transit funds. This bill allows private interests to pull existing public schools OUT of the public system, set them up for however many kids they feel like serving (with whatever admissions and retention criteria they want). If they "convert a 16 classroom school with 4 portables that currently serves 500 kids (25 per classroom), but decide that they only want, say, 15 kids per classroom and no portables, within a few years, that building will only educate 240 kids. Where do the others go? Who knows! Not their problem.
AND, in the meantime, if the building is new and up to date on earthquake standards -- they will still siphon off a percentage of future levy dollars -- so if the remaining school system needs X dollars to renovate or rebuild other, old schools -- tough. They will have to raise X plus whatever additional amount the charter "gets" -- even though they don't need it (because they had the good sense to "convert" a newer school). This is nuts. Who would ever vote for a school levy when the dollars were used so illogically, and flowed to the hands of unaccountable charter operators?
This is the classic "private profit/public risk" scenario, played out in schools. If having charters increases costs, etc. == they are responsible for none of those costs. If they fail to take a proportionate share of ELL and SPED kids -- they share none of the costs of the kids they exclude. BUT -- they get public assets (converted schools) AND levy dollars, without regard to need, and with no obligation to maximize use of space or facilities.
What a scam!
Another parent
-- Ebenezer
The problem is that anti-charter people sipmly don't offer another option. And while the "anti-charter" claims have some merit, there's also another side to each of them. And that other side, hasn't been addressed.
As Jan notes, "government knows best" isn't a good argument. I don't know anyone who believes this for themselves. Some believe it for "the masses" but not for themselves. How patronizing.
"Oh money is going somehwere else" isn't good because the money is still following the student.
The other related argument "Oh, look there's no accountability for the money" really falls flat given that there's 0 accountability in the current system.
"It segregates the rest of the schools" is hypocritical - most of the proponents of this have their kids in highly segregated "advanced" learning situations, or other boutiques which also result in concentrating "problem" kids in the rest of the system. That's perfectly fine by them. Evidently, the don't want the same deal for others that they've worked out for themselves.
"Oh the poor special ed kids". This is a really odd argument. Since when did anybody care about them? We only give a rip about special ed when we use it for something else - charter schools, splitting APP, etc.
"Private profit/public risk" is also lame. What's the risk? If the schools aren't popular, then people will vote with their feet. Or, another charter will take the place of the unpopular one.
-parent
It's actually informative to read I729 and R55, as some of the language there was stronger in terms of closing charter schools. But even there, there was stronger language for closing due to poor performance, but not for issues such as stealing money or harming children. Due process there as well.