kitchen table math, the sequel: "The Mire" and the middle class squeeze

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

"The Mire" and the middle class squeeze

by Will Okun

Midway through another brilliant lesson on five-paragraph essays, chaos erupts in the back row among the students who do not care. My first-period English class crashes to a standstill as several failing students ignite a hysteria of insults. Other students stew in frustration as they wait for me to restore order and continue the lesson. Sitting in the front row, Kentrail is visibly exasperated that I cannot do my job. Shatara’s teeth and fists are clenched; she stares at me with accusatory anger. Finally, Ronetta screams, “Make them shut up!” Only after the temporary removal of the two instigators six minutes later does the class return to our discussion of thesis statements.

Class time not wasted on discipline is often squandered explaining make-up work to oft-absent students or reviewing remedial skills that should have been learned in early middle school. Intelligent, motivated students like Kentrail, Shatara and Ronetta suffer the most on such days when academic progress is glacial. Too often, their individual brightness is consumed in the mire of the whole. They should not be in this class; they should not be in this school.

“It’s frustrating because we go so slow. Teachers are distracted by students who are not really trying to do anything. They get more attention than the people who are trying to learn,” fumes Shatara. “It’s frustrating when you know that other schools are doing more and learning more.”

As I have described in previous blog posts, our school has too many students who are making no legitimate effort to learn or pass classes. These students attend periodically to socialize, to sell drugs or to alleviate boredom. Some are mandated to attend by the court of law or by a relative. Others are just too young to drop out. They do not carry book bags; they are not in possession of pen or paper. When the hallways and classrooms are in order, these students mourn, “It’s dead as hell in here.” The threat of F’s, parent conferences, detentions, and suspensions are pointless. Unfortunately, no one in the family seems to care. Only the threat of expulsion garners temporary compliance.

How can dedicated students like Shatara receive a proper education amid the havoc created by such a preponderance of “troublesome,” uncaring students?

I'd especially like to hear from teachers on this one.

My own take is that everything about this scene is wrong. Everything.

First of all, the disruptive kids are in trouble. At this point every one of them would likely "qualify" for special ed, which means the school is obligated under the Child Find provisions of IDEA to identify them, test them, and refer them for services. Which the school obviously has no intention of doing.

That would suit me fine if the school went straight to remediation. Pull the disruptive kids out of the class, hire a behavior analyst, and get a behavior management plan in place now with the people to staff it. Restart these students' educations at the spot where they fell, leaped, or were shoved off the track and go from there, using supervised homework sessions, daily assessments, and all the rest of the tools a precision teacher would bring to bear on the situation.

That's for the kids whose needs are manageable within a school serving the general population. The kids who are severely mentally ill and/or dangerous move to a therapeutic school. And, yes, these schools exist; our taxes pay for them.

Every student in this story is then educated in the "least restrictive environment" that meets his needs. For the severely oppositional kids, LRE is a therapeutic school; for the not-so-severely oppositional kids, LRE is a self-contained classroom with a low student-teacher ratio and one-to-one aides if necessary; for Kentrail and Shatara and Ronetta, the least restrictive environment is a classroom filled with other Kentrails and Shatars and Ronettas, and without a bunch of hooligans disrupting the proceedings.

None of that is going to happen, and few amongst us are going to know the reason why, that reason being the fact that schools are not legally obligated to educate the young people in their charge. A parent can sue a hospital that flubs his child's care; a parent may not sue a school that flubs his child's education. It's the child's fault if he didn't learn. Or the parents', or society's or what have you.

Not the school's.

So they do what they do. There's no reason not to.


the middle class, the schools, and the middle class squeeze

This situation has ramifications that go far beyond the damage being done to the individual students in this class.

The folks at Fordham may be cooing over the many "choices" available to the "middle class," but the reality is quite different, as I discovered when I dipped into The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke by Elizabeth Warren & Amelia Warren Tyagi:
In just twenty years [1981-2001], the number of women filing petitions for bankruptcy had, in reality, increased by 662 percent. As I soon discovered, divorced and single women weren’t the only ones in trouble; several hundred thousand married women filed for bankruptcy along with their husbands.

Our research eventually unearthed one stunning fact. The families in the worst financial trouble are not the usual suspects. They are not the very young, tempted by the freedom of their first credit cards. They are not the elderly, trapped by failing bodies and declining savings accounts. And they are not a random assortment of Americans who lack the self-control to keep their spending in check. Rather, the people who consistently rank in the worst financial trouble are united by one surprising characteristic. They are parents with children at home. Having a child is now the single best predictor that a woman will end up in financial collapse.

[snip]

Bankruptcy has become deeply entrenched in American life. This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. … And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce…

[snip]

The rise in housing costs has become a family problem. Home prices have grown across the board (particularly in larger urban areas), but the brunt of the price increases have fallen on families with children. Our analysis shows that the median home value for the average childless couple increased by 26 percent between 19874 and 2001—an impressive rise in less than twenty years. (Again, these and all other figures are adjusted for inflation.) For married couples with children, however, housing prices shot up 78 percent during this period—three times faster. To put this in dollar terms, in 1984 the average married couple with young children owned a house worth $72,000. Less than twenty years later, a similar family bought a house worth $128,000—an increase of more than $50,000. The growing costs made a big dent in the family budget, as monthly mortgage costs made a similar jump, despite falling interest rates….

Why would the average parent spent so much money on a home?

[snip]

For many parents, the answer came down to two words so powerful that families would pursue them to the brink of bankruptcy: safety and education. Families put Mom to work, used up the family’s economic reserves, and took on crushing debt loads in sacrifice to these twin gods, all in the hope of offering their children the best possible start in life.

The best possible start begins with good schools, but parents are scrambling to find those schools.

[snip]

Everyone has heard the all-too-familiar news stories about kids who can’t read, gang violence in the schools, classrooms without textbooks, and drug dealers at the school doors.

[snip]

So what does all this have to do with educating middle-class children, most of whom have been lucky enough to avoid the worst failings of the public school system? The answer is simple—money. Failing schools impose an enormous cost on those children who are forced to attend them, but they also inflict an enormous cost on those who don’t.

[snip]

For most middle-class parents, ensuring that their children get a decent education translates into one thing: snatching up a home in the small subset of school districts that have managed to hold on to a reputation of high quality and parent confidence.

[snip]

A study conducted in Fresno (a midsized California metropolis with 400,000 residents) found that, for similar homes, school quality was the single most important determinant of neighborhood prices—more important than radial composition of the neighborhood, commute distance, crime rate, or proximity to a hazardous waste site.

[snip]

By way of example, consider University City, the West Philadelphia neighborhood surrounding the University of Pennsylvania. In an effort to improve the area, the university committed funds for a new elementary school.

The results? At the time of the announcement, the median home value in the area was less than $60,000. Five years later, “homes within the boundaries go for about $200,000, even if they need to be totally renovated.” The neighborhood is otherwise pretty much the same: the same commute to work, the sam distance from the freeways, the same old houses. And yet, in five years families are willing to pay more than triple the price for a home.

the cost to families of declining confidence in the schools
In the early 1970s, not only did most Americans believe that the public schools were functioning reasonably well, a sizable majority of adults thought that public education had actually improved since they were kids. Today, only a small minority of Americans share this optimistic view. Instead, the majority now believes that schools have gotten significantly worse. Fully half of all Americans are dissatisfied with America’s public education system, a deep concern shared by black and white parents alike.
That was in 2003.

Things are worse today.


once more, with feeling

In order to free families from the trap, it is necessary to go to the heart of the problem: public education. Bad schools impose indirect—but huge—costs on millions of middle-class families. In their desperate rush to save their children from failing schools, families are literally spending themselves into bankruptcy. The only way to take the pressure off these families is to change the schools.

The concept of public schools is deeply American. It is perhaps the most tangible symbol of opportunity for social and economic mobility for all children, embodying the notion that merit rather than money determines a child’s future. … As parents increasingly believe that the differences among schools will translate into differences in lifetime chances, they are doing everything they can to buy their way into the best public schools. Schools in middle-class neighborhoods may be labeled “public,” but parents have paid for tuition by purchasing a $175,000 home within a carefully selected school district.

It is time to sound the alarm that the crisis in education is not only a crisis of reading and arithmetic; it is also a crisis in middle-class family economics. At the core of the problem is the time-honored rule that where you live dictates where you go to school. Any policy that loosens the ironclad relationship between location-location-location and school-school-school would eliminate the need for parents to pay an inflated price for a home just because it happens to lie within the boundaries of a desirable school district.

A well-designed voucher program would fit the bill neatly. A taxpayer-funded voucher that paid the entire cost of educating a child (not just a partial subsidy) would open a range of opportunities to all children. With fully funded vouchers, parents of all income levels could send their children—and the accompanying financial support—to the schools of their choice. Middle-class parents who used state funds to send their kids to school would be able to live in the neighborhood of their choice—or the neighborhood of their pocketbook. Fully funded vouchers would relieve parents from the terrible choice of leaving their kids in lousy schools or bankrupting themselves to escape those schools.

We recognize that the term “voucher” has become a dirty word in many educational circles. The reason is straightforward: The current debate over vouchers is framed as a public-versus-private rift, with vouchers denounced for draining off much-needed funds from public schools. The fear is that partial-subsidy vouchers provide a boost so that better-off parents can opt out of a failing public school system, while the other children are left behind.

But the public-versus-private competition misses the central point. The problem is not vouchers; the problem is parental choice. Under current voucher schemes, children who do not use the vouchers are still assigned to public schools based on their zip codes. This means that in the overwhelming majority of cases, a bureaucrat picks the child’s school, not a parent. The only way for parents to exercise any choice is to buy a different home—which is exactly how the bidding wars started.

Short of buying a new home, parents currently have only one way to escape a failing public school: Send the kids to private school. But there is another alternative, one that would keep much-needed tax dollars inside the public school system while still reaping the advantages offered by a voucher program. Local governments could enact meaningful reform by enabling parents to choose from among all the public schools in a locale, with no presumptive assignment based on neighborhood. Under a public school voucher program, parents, not bureaucrats, would have the power to pick schools for their children—and to choose which schools would get their children’s vouchers. Students would be admitted to a particular public school on the basis of their talents, their interests, or even their lottery numbers; their zip codes would be irrelevant. Tax dollars would follow the children, not the parents’ home addresses, and children who live in an $50,000 house would have the same educational opportunities as those who live in a $250,000 house.

Unfortunately, the flaw in this logic is that many children living in $250,000 houses are in trouble, too.

Still, I'd take it.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lots of stuff to think about there and it's impossible to comment on everything in this little box so I will just offer one thought. I believe there is more than enough blame to go around. And there is more than enough accountability to go around. As a teacher who, IMHO, works by butt off to help students learn I am quite offended by anyone that schools and by extension, teachers, should be sued. I've seen many, many students who put forth ZERO effort. Should I be held accountable because they have no interest in learning? No - as long as I am doing all I can.

SteveH said...

" ... and by extension, teachers, should be sued."

That's a big stretch.


"Should I be held accountable because they have no interest in learning? No - as long as I am doing all I can."

This isn't about you. The problems of education are not defined by the problems faced by good teachers. As a parent, I am quite offended that many teachers can't see the big picture. When teachers see kids come into a class with issues of all sorts, all they seem to think about is how they can possibly be expected to get these kids ready to take the standardized tests. They blame the kids. They should be yelling and screaming at the administration.

What about kids like Kentrail, Shatara, and Ronetta? Why are the other kids even in that classroom? As Catherine says, how did the other kids get that way? You don't throw them off the bus, but you don't keep them in the same classroom. As I've said before, if you wait long enough, you can blame the kids and parents for everything.

There is an easy solution; full parental school choice. Public schools can't have it both ways; maintain a monopoly on education, but throw up their hands when it comes to fixing the problems. Kentrail, Shatara, and Ronetta could go to another school right now. They shouldn't have to wait until the whole system is fixed.

Individuals matter right now, not statistics.

Katharine Beals said...

Unfortunately, the flaw in this logic is that many children living in $250,000 houses are in trouble, too.

Indeed. I live in the neighborhood this article describes (we got in before the new school arrived, and benefited from the then-low housing costs) and my kids go to the new elementary school.

The teachers are the best in the district, our class sizes are small, and our facilities are great.

And, while the rest of the school district uses Everyday Math, we get to use Investigations, because it was handpicked by the math experts at Penn's Graduate School of Education, which has a special relationship with our school. These experts are so well-trained that they know not to sacrifice their principles to the arrogant loudmouths (surely a conservative minority) who claim that their children are bored and under-challenged in math.

Especially because, as more and more highly educated parents move into the neighborhood--because of all our great teachers and small class sizes and facilities, and because of all those other highly educated parents--our math scores keep on rising.

Anonymous said...

Teachers would also benefit from an open choice system in education. I don't understand why so many of them fight school choice. I can only conclude it has something to do with the type of person who chooses to become a teacher. And things are changing. Parents are tired of basing every job and housing decision on an outdated Soviet-era style public education system that is unresponsive to changing public expectations and interests. I think it would be exciting to be a part of the next generation of public schools. Why aren't more teachers excited?

Anonymous said...

Brewhaha said...
>>Should I be held accountable because they have no interest in learning?

columnist Will Okun wrote
>>How can dedicated students like Shatara receive a proper education amid the havoc created by such a preponderance of “troublesome,” uncaring students?

I know from my own children's experience that the premises stated are false. These students do care and have an interest. They put on a false front. What child is going to stand up and shout "i'm clueless" in front of an entire class, especially when they are blamed for not knowing skills that weren't ever taught?

My own child was dropped from honors math b/c the teacher the year before didn't bother to teach 4 of the req'd pre-reqs(fractions, decimals, percents and ratios) that were spelled out in the state standards. Now he continually hears that his team is the 'stupid team' and all are accused of 'not trying'. While I spent the $$ and time on tutoring, his former teacher rec'd a 10% raise this year and a specialist to refer her 'failing' students to (thanks to Response to Intevention). This system has turned into a daycare social operation, with the parents homeschooling at night (if they can).

Catherine Johnson said...

Hi brewhaha--

Should I be held accountable because they have no interest in learning? No - as long as I am doing all I can.

The situation here is a school-level problem; it's the school that has made the decision to place these students in the same classroom together and to allow the failing students to a) continue to fail and b) push the non-failing students towards the same fate.

These kids, judging by this description (which I believe to be true), cannot function in this classroom. I doubt they could function in any heterogeneous classroom at this point.

They need to be provided -- and I mean "provided," not "sentenced to" -- a clssroom in which they can function.

I don't have enough knowledge of the legal system to know what the grounds are for suing doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc. I do think the country is overlawyered ...so I have no idea whether, in the real world, I'm for or against citizens having the ability to sue schools for academic negligence or abuse.

I do know that SPED parents have (some) legal rights & (some) standing; in fact, we can sue schools (not teachers - the two aren't the same thing...)

This has been a real shock to me, dealing with public schools.

My special needs kids have rights.

My typical child has almost no rights at all. A school will roll right over a typical child & his parents, too.

When you come in as the well-informed parent of a special needs child, it's a whole different story.

In any case, although trying one's best is all that an individual teacher can do, it's not the right standard for schools & school boards, particularly not when parents have no option other than private or parochial school or homeschooling when schools try their best and fail.

Catherine Johnson said...

They blame the kids. They should be yelling and screaming at the administration.

Everybody blames the kids!

If you read the comments after the TIMES story, you find one person after another talking about "losers" and they don't mean the school administrators who decided that heterogeneous grouping is more important than learning.

Catherine Johnson said...

As I've said before, if you wait long enough, you can blame the kids and parents for everything.

Right.

Catherine Johnson said...

Every single kid in this class is being failed by the school -- and the teacher is, too.

I have an email from a teacher (I'll have to ask to see whether I can post) describing classrooms she's seen. This teacher is a behavioral consultant as well as a teacher; she's well-versed in behavior management. She's seen kids in classes who couldn't be managed by Skinner himself in that setting. Kids with severe bipolar disorder, kids who have started fires ----- these kids are put in normal-sized classes with typical kids and ONE teacher. No aide.

AND: this is why the middle class is going broke. Everyone knows this is happening all over the country; schools do what they do.

If your school wants to put a fire-starter in the seat next to your 8 year old (this teacher works in elementary schools), its free to do so, no questions asked.

As I recall (I need to check her email again), this teacher also said that the one significant difference between urban & suburban schools is that suburban schools are more likely to transfer severely disruptive kids to special classes.

Assuming I'm remembering correctly, find that intriguing.

Catherine Johnson said...

I live in the neighborhood this article describes (we got in before the new school arrived, and benefited from the then-low housing costs) and my kids go to the new elementary school.

I figured you did!!!

I was planning to ask.

Catherine Johnson said...

Especially because, as more and more highly educated parents move into the neighborhood--because of all our great teachers and small class sizes and facilities, and because of all those other highly educated parents--our math scores keep on rising.

right

that's our situation here exactly

the parents get richer & better educated while the teachers get younger and the school gets constructivized

plus we have the added factor of math/science teachers accepting in-district tutoring jobs

there's not a lot of incentive to improve classroom instruction -- or even to acknowledge that classroom instruction matters

it's all about extra help

extra help and tutoring

Catherine Johnson said...

Why aren't more teachers excited?

ding! ding! ding!

I have the answer to that one.

TEACHERS HAVE BEEN THROUGH MORE FAILED EDU-REFORMS THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT.

I suspect that if I were a teacher my confidence in choice as a solution would be extremely low.

My confidence is pretty low, speaking as a parent. (Though I support choice --- )

Catherine Johnson said...

These students do care and have an interest. They put on a false front.

I've seen this.

I've seen it in my own kid as early as age 9 or 10. ("Math is for nerds." "Math is for geeks." "I'm not Asian.")

I have no idea what's going on with these particular students, and they don't belong in that class with that teacher. AT THIS POINT IN TIME, THESE ARE SPED STUDENTS.

However, it's absolutely the case that when kids are repeatedly taught content that's over their head, when they're repeatedly made to fail because they don't have th prerequisite knowledge to succeed, you get hostile, disruptive, oppositional behavior.

A behaviorist would look at these behaviors and figure out how to change them.

That is key.

This teacher can do nothing with these students. That's not a criticism; that's a fact.

There are teachers out there, and classroom settings, that can.

That's where the disruptive kids need to be.

Catherine Johnson said...

I should add that I do understand that by the time a student has reached his teens, your options for remediation are more limited.

Quickly, I'll mention that we've been on the periphery of a situation in which a teen has gone off the rails. Urban school, drugs, gang violence, etc. (This student is white, fyi.)

The parents were able to get him to a therapeutic school. (I believe they will also be involved in legal action against their school district, which failed to refer their son for services. I don't know the ins and outs of that situation or the exact grounds for the action.)

In any case, the therapeutic school has done a huge amount to turn the situation around. Huge.

Before this student transferred to the therapeutic school, his parents were thinking his future held prison or death.

Now his future probably holds college, and he has a fantastic score on the SAT (with poor grades).

Nevertheless, there are still "issues," and I assume there will continue to be issues in the near future.

Redkudu said...

>>I know from my own children's experience that the premises stated are false. These students do care and have an interest. They put on a false front. What child is going to stand up and shout "i'm clueless" in front of an entire class, especially when they are blamed for not knowing skills that weren't ever taught?<<

LGM,

Yes, thank you. Too often people lead with the old double standard - s/he's disruptive/apathetic, and doesn't do any work! (I should note, however, that in my experience there are many who don't and who do work hard to teach them all, no matter what.) Sometimes I want to shake them and say do you think the fact they're not doing any work might be a clue to the rest of the behavior?

What does apathetic behavior do for a student? Gets the teacher to leave them alone. What does disruption do? It's not always about getting the teacher's attention - it's about diverting attention from the task at hand that they most likely can't complete.

And again, from my own experience, I would estimate about 80% of those students are the ones who come to me completely unable to do the work. I'm getting to where I can spot them on the very first day now (especially with the first lesson I use), based on the types of disruption they cause. (Which makes it easier for me to immediately implement my own interventions.)

And as a teacher, I know that what should happen is something very close to what Catherine suggests - but that it rarely does. I recommended a young man for remedial reading just last year, based on a reading assessment administered by our reading specialist in which he scored at the third grade level (I was teaching juniors) and was fought at every turn by the counselors (didn't want to change his schedule), the student (didn't want to be in the "special" class), and his parents (didn't want to upset the student in his junior year). He didn't have to take the class.

Catherine is absolutely right about why teachers fight reforms - we see a new one EVERY SINGLE YEAR, and they get whackier and whackier. You can spot them during professional development, and you groan inwardly because you know you may get a performance review based on something that, with some classroom experience, you know is not best practice, or is not best for the student. Research data is often manipulated when presented to us as proof of a program's efficacy (if data is presented at all), and is often left unsubstantiated so we don't even know where it came from.

Vicki Snider did a wonderful job presenting the teacher's pov on this in her book "Myths and Misconceptions About Teaching," which I read this summer after recommendations from this website and D-Ed Reckoning.

If I could do anything in education, I'd educate teachers to rethink what apathy and disruption might really be signs of, instead of hearing them echo the idea that they mean a student "doesn't want to learn."

Well, sure. Put a novel written in French in front of me and expect me to discuss themes, characters, motifs, and symbolism for 90 minutes, and I'm going to get bored and angry too. (I'd probably go the apathetic route, unless I'd had sugar, in which I'd definitely be giggly and disruptive.)

Redkudu said...

After reading my response, I felt I should add some support of teachers. I am often critical of poor teachers, I do believe we are under-educating and under-estimating our students, and a lot of that comes from poor practices, which comes from poor training, worthless and minimal evaluation, and etc, etc.

But I can also say, having just come from 3 days of new-to-district teacher training (where it looks like the same-old, same-old despite this school having a rare opportunity and visible need to create a brand new paradigm) that I can understand both why parents are frustrated with teachers, and why teachers become so adamant about things like their classroom autonomy, their right to eclectic teaching over alignment, and so forth. This job, for many reasons, will chew you up and spit you out. I sometimes think we construct certain myths in order to a) combat our own feelings of frustration, apathy, and anger over the yearly roulette wheel of reform, and b) give ourselves a way to go home every night and not weep in frustration over all the things we tried to set in motion on behalf of a needy child that are blocked at every turn.

PaulaV said...

My sister, a former middle school teacher, went on a sabbatical and never returned. There were a myriad of reasons, but above all I feel she simply felt helpless. Every year the wheel was reinvented and every year more kids failed.

The job ate her up and spit her out.

Anonymous said...

There certainly are no easy answers (even "school choice" has it's own problems and I'm generally in favor of it).

I would just add this to mirror what has been said earlier: "if you wait long enough, you can blame the school system and school administration for everything". That's a popular pasttime.

The fact is that education is not easy on a large scale. It would be wonderful if we could all hire private tutors and mentors for our children but we can't. We have to have some form of system - and no matter what system we have (even school choice) every single part of that system (each student, each teacher, each parent, each administrator) has to step up to the plate and take some responsibility.

Unknown said...

"The only way to take the pressure off these families is to change the schools."

This isn't necessarily true. As a freshly divorced parent, I faced a choice. I could buy the expensive house in the good school district and kill myself paying for the house; I could buy the cheap house in the unaccredited school district and kill myself paying for the private school. I bought the cheap house, got a lower-paying but flexibly scheduled job, and homeschool. I probably no longer qualify as 'middle class', but we have what we need (including a nice house in a nice neighborhood; thanks to the school district issues, I got a bargain) and I am able to pay my bills and my son is appropriately educated. He's eight years old; he's learning and growing NOW. He doesn't have time for 'them' to fix things, if, indeed, they can be (especially in this particular district). I said goodbye to the pressure by simply saying goodbye to the schools.

SteveH said...

"We have to have some form of system - and no matter what system we have (even school choice) every single part of that system (each student, each teacher, each parent, each administrator) has to step up to the plate and take some responsibility."

"has to"? It's not all or nothing, and not all factors are equal. There is nothing stopping us from evaluating pieces of the puzzle and fixing them. We can't wait for poverty to be fixed or apathetic parents to go away.


Choice is a way to fix a lot of problems. It provides a process for change that includes parents. It gives parents the ability to try and fix or improve the education for their kids. It allows kids like Kentrail, Shatara, and Ronetta to get out right now. Currently, we have a large scale, statistical, "rising tide" solution with NCLB; slow improvement towards a minimal goal. Kids may float a little higher, but they will never fly. We don't have to get rid of NCLB, which helps at the low end, but something has to be done at the high end.


Everything is moving towards choice, but there are forces who want to limit choice and keep parents out of the loop. The moratorium on charter schools has finally ended in our state, but the public education administration still gets to approve all new charters. The only charters they will approve are for schools that will take students the public schools really don't want. When the state testing results come out, many of the charter schools don't look very good. They use this to prevent the expansion of new charters. What they really don't want are charter schools that attract the better kids. It's all about control and money. Our town doesn't want to let any of our kids go to charter schools because our schools are "High Performing" on state tests. Few seem to notice that this refers only to low end cut-off expectations. Our schools think it's their money even though the charter school payments don't come from the school budget.


The monopoly has to be broken. Parents need control and choice.

Anonymous said...

>>We have to have some form of system - and no matter what system we have (even school choice) every single part of that system (each student, each teacher, each parent, each administrator) has to step up to the plate and take some responsibility.

We need to agree on goals and priorities. Right now, of the social, emotional, and academic trio, social is taking priority in the core academic classes in elementary. This leads to many children of normal and above normal intelligence who don't have the fundamentals. The practice of not teaching the minimum core academic grade level curriculum to unclassified children needs to be eliminated...it costs far too much down the road (here it's the cost of NCLB mandated remediation in Gr. 4-8 as well as summer school, help sessions, and specialists for RtI). It is less costly to do the job right the first time. Elementary needs to do as the m.s. and h.s. do: Group by skils/pace needed and skip the whole class nonsense. Non-core subjects, sports, transportation, clubs, service projects and lunch/recess can be used for socialization purposes.

Independent George said...

We need to agree on goals and priorities.

I disagree.

I support choice precisely because I believe it is impossible for us to agree on goals & priorities. Instead of trying to achieve a consensus curriculum that satisfies everybody, I think our only hope is to let parents, teachers, and students opt out of programs they don't think suits them.

If teachers insist on progressive education, then let them teach at progressive schools; if parents demand content-oriented academics, let them find schools that suit their needs. And if there's a mismatch between the supply & demand for either, then let the prices adjust until the market clears.