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I don't have a problem with parents choosing a charter that I wouldn't choose for my own kid, anymore than I have a problem with parents choosing progressive private schools. I do have issues with these kinds of content-free methods taking over neighborhood schools when I don't have the option of sending my own child elsewhere. I think most of us are clear that many parents have different goals for their kids, but with the current neighborhood school system, there is no room for multiple approaches, and when charters are limited, then that's all you have.That is exactly the way I feel.
I have no desire to force other parents to embrace the kind of school I want for my child. None!
But, by the same token, I feel strongly that other parents should respect and support my family's values and goals for our child.
After writing and moderating the Irvington Parents Forum for several years now, I believe that parents can't all be happy with the same schools.
Since we all have to pay the same taxes, I believe parents should support each other's choices, and for me supporting each other's choices means supporting charter schools, tax credits for private and parochial school tuition, and funding for homeschooling.
I realize there are different ways to configure a system based on parent choice, but my essential point remains the same: parents in my group need to be able to send their children to traditional, teacher-centered, content-rich schools without having to pay private tuition.
13 comments:
Very well put. I would love to see neighborhood schools specialize in different approaches and allow parents to choose between various public schools.
This approach has worked well in Western Massachusetts. Students are free to attend any public school, and clear differences between them emerge. This is quite beneficial for the public schools as well, as it releases them from maintaining the fiction that they can meet every child's educational needs equally.
Yes, our district is trying to increase choice, even considering an "all choice" model. However, they insist on a rigidly enforced curriculum (which is heavy on pseudo-problem solving, group work, etc.) that is paced to the day (and often the minute).
So that's not really choice at all. It's the same school in different buildings with different teachers, but they're all expected to say the same things, regardless of the abilities or knowledge of the kids.
Sounds like your only choice is the building your child sits in.
But what if those schools don't exist in your area because all the other parents want their kids to go to content-free schools?
Right now, choice is the mechanism in higher ed, and I have watched as college after college slides into the arms race of fancier and fancier buildings, expensive "international experiences" (aka party-in-Paris programs), and more and more administrators to provide all these extraeducational services. And of course, tuition has skyrocketed. But that is what parents *want*. Colleges ignore the market at their own peril. If you have seen the book Academically Adrift, you will know that colleges are becoming more and more content-free. Higher education is a parental choice system, and it is not working well right now.
"But what if those schools don't exist in your area because all the other parents want their kids to go to content-free schools? "
Then I'm not any worse off than I was before, and my options are the same -- move or homeschool, with a somewhat better chance that moving would actually accomplish something.
Let me turn this around -- if school choice isn't the solution (or part of the solution), then what is? More money has failed repeatedly. Higher standards typically get watered down with time and are subject to political pressure from both sides. Changing the culture is something we don't know how to do.
Allison is right that as long as charters (and more and more privates) are influenced by the same ed school philosophies, they aren't going to be very different.
I've seen arguments from teachers that we can't expect schools to educate students until we eradicate poverty. Honestly, my gut response to that one is "good luck! In the meantime, can I have my tax money back since you just admitted you can't do anything with it?" Most school choice plans at least cost less than the status quo and have had the same outcomes, which to me is a win.
Philosophically, I would prefer to see parents in charge of their own children's education, and I figure I have a better chance of influencing fellow parents in my community than I do influencing a school administrator who knows that I can be waited out. At least with the parents, the "why don't they all know the times tables by 5th grade, or 3rd for that matter?" might gain some traction.
Catherine Johnson wrote, "Since we all have to pay the same taxes, I believe parents should support each other's choices, and for me supporting each other's choices means supporting charter schools, tax credits for private and parochial school tuition, and funding for homeschooling."
I agree with her, but laws need to written with the understanding that the worst 1% will try to abuse them. Suppose you offer a $5000/year tax credit for homeschooling. Some people would keep the $10K/year for two kids, keep them home, and not teach them. To prevent this, you would have set educational standards and assess achievement against them. Then you are back to the core problem of defining what needs to be taught in what grade. Currently there is less of a need to monitor homeschoolers, because the lack of government funding means that they are a pretty motivated group overall.
To repeat, I support CJ's call for educational alternatives, but there will still be fights over what needs to be taught.
>>I've seen arguments from teachers that we can't expect schools to educate students until we eradicate poverty.
I've heard them too, and from the school board as well. The Gates foundation money is paying students to come to school here, and the taxpayer is providing alternative bussing and school for those who would be providing daycare for younger siblings or working in lieu of middle and high school. A better solution would be what one of my rural districts did - everyone K-12 starts/ends school at same time, no seperate bussing by grade, one campus for all.
In the rural poverty areas I lived in as a child and in the Dept of Defense school overseas, the teachers did not handicap students with low expectations as they knew the way out WAS education and that each non-special needs students was capable of learning. They also knew that they were hired to educate every child in the classroom not just 'the ones who REALLY need me' or those with influential daddies. No one was in a babysitting situation. We worked - at instructional level. No time to wander the classroom, start fights, or chat with friends.
The solution lies in going back to grouping by instructional need, not race, accumulated wealth, mother's educational level, immigration status or skin color.
There are many different issues related to choice. One is whether parents should be allowed have choice. Is it OK for affluent parents to have choice, but not those who can't pay? Is it a money issue or something else? Is choice OK if it is offered within a school versus offered at separate schools in different towns? How about different schools in the same school district? Is it a choice issue or a control issue?
It's easy to show that choice is no statistical silver bullet, but it is a silver bullet for many individuals, right now. What would be the reason for limiting choice?
One argument against choice is that all of the good students will self-select out and leave the remaining kids in worse condition. Would that really happen? Is it OK to leave the more willing and able kids where they are so that they hide the problems? Schools can then point to those kids and continue to blame the rest, or blame their parents, or blame poverty. The choice is not just between discovery versus Core Knowledge.
What are alternate solutions? Is is really possible to control a school board and force the schools to do something they really don't want to do philosopically? This is not choice, but forcing the school to do something that a large portion of the town might not like. You could try to force schools to offer choice within each school or district, but how is that different than charter schools in different towns? You have less leverage and choice because one group is in charge of all of the choices.
I don't know how anyone can argue that choice doesn't work. It comes down to who gets to decide; parents or others. Is that decision made on an individual basis or a statistical basis by others. If you have enough money, you can be in charge and decide based on individual considerations, but if you don't have the money, you are just a statistic.
Schools don't want parents to have choice. When pressured, they will give a little as long as they remain in control of the choices and the money. Charter schools break that control. Individual parents have more leverage and control. That doesn't mean that the choices will be great, but what other mechanism (over the long term) will end up offering parents the most choice?
This approach has worked well in Western Massachusetts. Students are free to attend any public school, and clear differences between them emerge.
You have to tell us more!
Haven't read the comments yet, but thought I'd repeat myself:
I find the fact that we're paying parochial school tuition in order to gain larger class size, a traditional liberal arts curriculum, and teacher-centered classes to be NUTS!!
Most school choice plans at least cost less than the status quo and have had the same outcomes, which to me is a win.
I know!
Here's the run-down on charter schools, as far as I can tell.
There are a few hundred brilliant charters, and the rest are pretty much indistinguishable from public schools in terms of what is taught and how well kids do.
BUT these charters are cheaper and the parents are happier.
I say that's a deal even if student achievement is no better at all. Less money and less wrangling with the school would have been a big boon around my household.
Suppose you offer a $5000/year tax credit for homeschooling. Some people would keep the $10K/year for two kids, keep them home, and not teach them. To prevent this, you would have set educational standards and assess achievement against them. Then you are back to the core problem of defining what needs to be taught in what grade.
That's an interesting thought experiment -----
I figure I have a better chance of influencing fellow parents in my community than I do influencing a school administrator who knows that I can be waited out. At least with the parents, the "why don't they all know the times tables by 5th grade, or 3rd for that matter?" might gain some traction.
You're right!
I know that from direct personal experience.
Other parents, even when inclined to support the powers that be, are still more likely to agree with 'dissident' parents on issues like the times tables.
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