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A fascinating email found its way into my inbox last week describing a visit to a high profile, “no excuses” charter school. The email was written by someone who is solidly pro-reform and strongly pro-charter. She spent the morning visiting Big Name Charter and pronounced herself aghast. “The school is fantastically well run, and the kids are on task —- and it is all fuzzery all the time. The reading curriculum is Fountas and Pinnell; the math curriculum is so bad it has sparked parent uprisings across the country,” she writes.I've had an email from a person involved in public education who says KIPP is firmly committed to constructivist curricula. I'll post if the person who wrote gives me permission.
For now, I'll share my correspondent's analogy: giving excellent teachers bad curricula and expecting them to perform miracles (which they do) is similar to depriving the best doctors of antibiotics, diagnostic tests, and effective surgical techniques and telling them to "heal the sick."
From my perspective as a parent who values a traditional liberal education taught via direct instruction and deliberate practice, I find myself asking once again: why is it parents in my group can't have what we want?
Why do we have to have what other people want?
And why do we have to pay for it?
Speaking of what other people want, our board of education election was held last Tuesday. The candidate we supported lost.
The candidate who won pledged to keep Math Trailblazers and said we would not be replacing Trailblazers with Singapore Math.
One of the candidates who won last year made the same promise.
Meanwhile we've got parents in town who are paying to have their children take private classes that use Primary Mathematics.
Are there any parents anywhere in the country paying out of pocket to provide their children private lessons in Math Trailblazers?
More and more, I'm thinking micro-schools could be an answer for parents like me.
update: my correspondent's email is up
Michael Goldstein on teacher choice
6 comments:
A friend of mine came up with a funny line the other day.
Since Trailblazers was adopted 7 years ago, we've had one Trailblazers fix after another, all of which we've paid extra for. Last summer, for instance, we hired a person from Bedford, one of the few remaining districts in Westchester using Trailblazers, to help make it work. Now the administration is developing a unit on measurement because kids aren't doing well on measurement.
My friend calls this the "Trailblazers bail-outs."
"why is it parents in my group can't have what we want?"
Because parents in your group are (a) in the minority versus the rest of the population (NOTE: there may not be a majority), and (b) there is a large and powerful interest group that wants to do something else.
"Why do we have to have what other people want?"
Because there aren't (usually) enough of you in one spot with (a) the desire, (b) the money, and (c) the awareness to support a private school. If you were part of a larger minority (e.g. Waldorf folks) you could probably get what you wanted assuming you were willing to pay for it.
"And why do we have to pay for it?"
Because you will go to jail if you don't. Same reason that peace advocates have to pay their fair share for the US military. And libertarians have to pay their fair share for welfare programs and social security.
As a society we have decided over time that more and more things are important enough that we don't let people opt out of paying for them. One side effect of this is that more and more people will be grumpy about at least *SOME* of the spending.
-Mark Roulo
As a society we have decided over time that more and more things are important enough that we don't let people opt out of paying for them.
Sure, but I'm not talking about paying for 'public education,' I'm talking about paying for fuzzy math.
My question isn't why the country requires us to pay for public schools, but why the public schools have approximately 100% of the power to do what they want.
Also, it's a rhetorical question.
sigh
Because parents in your group are (a) in the minority versus the rest of the population (NOTE: there may not be a majority),
The funny thing there is that I'm probably in the majority where the math curriculum is concerned.
I've looked at survey data over the years; the 'basics' win with parents.
That reminds me!
Both candidates, at the candidates forum, said they favored teaching the basics.
My observation is that the real majority/minority split has to do with respect for authority. A majority of parents support public school administrators' right to choose curricula they themselves would not choose.
I've seen that over and over again.
Honestly, most parents don't even know what the "basics" are in math. Most parents are terrified of math and mainly want a math curriculum that isn't too difficult. As long as Johnny is getting good grades without too much homework, so he can get to his sports practices, they are happy.
And now nobody's getting grades!
I talked to a friend who has kids in grades 4-5. She said they essentially have no quizzes or tests, and the only reports parents receive are the standards-based report cards.
No one knows what the report cards mean.
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