Thoughts on School Choice and the Fight to Preserve Public Schools

Is it time for school choice? Before those against vouchers and charters start throwing rotten tomatoes, let me explain. As most who've read this blog know, I am and have always been a staunch public school advocate. I do not believe that anything miraculous will happen if suddenly vouchers were available for every student, nor do I think that an increase of a thousandfold of the number of charter schools is suddenly going put us at the forefront in international PISA scores. Often those who push these choices do so for ideological reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with what's in the best interest of kids. So I am certainly not siding with free market fundamentalists who believe that market forces will suddenly catapult student achievement to first in the world. I simply don't see that happening. I also certainly do not side with those who think public education should be abolished and that the government has no business in it. Public education in this country has done wonders in providing opportunities and futures for kids. Still, what makes me ask the question, "Is it time for school choice?" has more to do with a public education system more interested in preserving itself than being introspective and asking why parents and their students want options in the first place.

Immediately, when public education begins to argue against charters or school choice, they begin crying about the loss of funding. From my perspective, this is entirely the wrong argument to make. It betrays a perspective that sees each student as an additional dollar sign to be added to a total, instead of a individual student to be taught and provided with educational opportunity. When districts begin using dollar amounts lost to defend against school vouchers or charter schools, they are demonstrating the wrong attitude. Instead, they should be asking why parents and students want to attend charter schools or want vouchers in the first place. Instead, they fight battles with the wrong ammunition, when they would be much better off being introspective and asking the tough questions about why their students are leaving or leave in the first place.

I suspect most parents just want the best schools they can get for their kids. They really don't care whether they are a charter school, private school or traditional public school; they want school to be a positive asset in their child's life. Public school districts, school leaders, and educators can work to provide those schools for parents, or they will continue to pressure politicians to give them options. I haven't the data, nor do I know even if it exists (maybe a reader out there can provide it), but I can't but wonder if there's a correlation between the proliferation of charter schools and school vouchers in places where public schools focus more intently on self-preservation rather than focusing on making themselves better. I realize many schools fight budget constraints, and poorly funded schools who are struggling can't compete. Still, when public schools lose their focus and spend more time on self-preservation than taking an honest look at themselves, schools couldn't possibly be focused on the primary mission of educating young minds.

What I have learned these past few years as a principal of a public school of choice, not charter, is this: many parents are seeking options, especially at the high school level. They want alternatives to the large, often impersonal, traditional high schools that most districts still operate. They are least interested in arguments about why charter schools are a bad idea because big schools will lose funding. They don't care about how efficient these large schools operate, and you can honestly throw all the test data you want to try to convince them of the effectiveness of that school. In the end, they want their child to be in a school that cares about them, that knows their child as individuals and not as test scores or a number. Finally, they want their child in a school where that child wants to be.

So, is it time for school choice? I think that question has been answered, at least here in North Carolina. Public schools districts had better stop fighting the battle of self-preservation, and start looking to see how they can re-form their schools into places that meet the needs of kids.

StudentFirst Charter School Found to Be Putting Administrators First in Charlotte NC

In a recent Charlotte Observer article entitled "StudentFirst Charter School to Close Next Week" 300 students will find themselves without a school next week due to the foundering of this charter school on the rocks of mismanagement and downright incompetence. According to the article, state consultants hired to investigate this charter school found:

• academic shortcomings
• unopened mail
• unpaid bills
• overpaid and overstaffed administration
• tens of thousands of spending not properly documented

Of course the irony of the name of this charter school rings loud and clear once you read the grocery list of issues above. 

I have long understood that the theory most have about charter schools is to create schools that can avoid the red tape and regulation that regular schools face. Say what you want, but in regular public schools, it is fairly difficult for this kind of thing to happen. There are "pay scales" that control how much administrators are paid. There are regulations dictating how money is handled and paid. As much as we administrators might fuss about these regulations sometimes when we're dealing with administrative matters, this incident is a reminder that not all regulation is bad. 

When you create an governmental entity that can operate outside the rules the rest of us have to follow, corruption will follow. Now North Carolina has increased the possibility of more charter school corruption by lifting the ceiling, and we have a current United States president and secretary of education who are avid charter school supporters. 

Should we be really surprised when a charter school called "StudentFirst Academy," whose actual name sounds like it should be "Administrators First" suddenly becomes so corrupt that 300 students are cast into the street to find their education elsewhere? As a whole charter schools are no better than regular public schools. Their ability to avoid regulation is a recipe for more corruption and wasting of tax payer money like StudentFirst academy in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Carpet Bombing of Public Schools by a Pro School-Privatization Movement

The assumption behind "Parent Trigger" laws, according to Diane Ravitch in her new book Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools, is "If parents seize control of their school, they can make it better." As Ravitch points out, with a great deal of data, there is no evidence to support this assumption. What is amazing to me is how this so-called "parent empowerment" legislation came into existence in the first place. At the heart of the development of "parent trigger" laws have been key players in the for-profit charter school industry, who, with an obvious conflict of self-interest, have combined forces with organizations of free market fanatics (the American Legislative Exchange Council comes to mind here) to introduce these measures in state legislatures. But what has really happened here? How have these people like Ben Austin, who founded the pro-charter, pro-parent trigger organization Parent Revolution, been able to both successfully push through a mechanism that makes it possible for parents to commandeer a public school then turn around and hand that school to a for-profit charter school company? It would appear that they have done so through a combination of tactics and maneuvers that belittle public education as a whole, and that use popular media to push their specific agenda of privatization.

One tactic the pro-charter movement has used extremely well is to blanket attack the quality of public schools in general. It is actually akin to carpet-bombing the media with movies, think tank reports, and pseudo-studies denigrating public schools, thereby supporting their cause.They do this by misrepresenting data, focusing on public school examples of extreme failure, and by undermining general public faith in public schools. Aided by both politicians who would like nothing better than shutting down public schools altogether and educators who have bought into the audit culture of testing and accountability, this job of mis-representing the reality of public education is made much easier. Politicians have passed laws such as those in North Carolina and Florida that assign letter grades to public schools based on test scores. Educators, specifically those in state departments of testing and accountability are providing "the data" that ultimately feeds this system and the assumptions that all public schools are failing. What's amazing in all this is the simple fact that data clearly shows that charter schools do not as a whole do any better than public schools, and because there is no unified measure of private schools, there is no way to empirically support the assumption that they do any better either. By blanketing the media with "gloom and doom" reports surrounding the latest test scores, the public's confidence in public schools has eroded and will continue to do so, at least until educators begin calling out those engaged in this tactic.

Another tactic employed by the pro-charter movement is evident in the series of pro-charter school movies that have recently appeared. Waiting for Superman, Won't Back Down, and The Cartel, are all part of concerted effort to undermine confidence in public schools and promote charter schools and vouchers. Using movies to promote causes is common. What might be just a bit sleazy about these movies is how they misrepresent reality and mask who's really behind the movie. Waiting for Superman and Won't Back Down are made by Walden Media, funded by billionaire libertarian Philip Anschutz who funds a variety of think tanks and organizations pushing free market philosophy and thinking. His interest in the destruction of public schools and pushing for market-based education reforms  is obvious. Bob Bowdon, the maker of the film The Cartel also has strong ties to free market libertarian organizations, so it is clear also what his real agenda is. One other film, The Lottery, is also another movie that promotes charter schools and denigrates public schools. One can add this movie to the "Charter School Commercial Genre" of movies created by the those with the financial means to push this free market, public school privatization agenda in the guise of teary scenes of kids and parents not getting the education they so desperately want. Those creating these movies and documentaries have learned well how to attack public schools and promote privatization as the only way to save education.

Ultimately, at the heart of all this is that there are those who are willing to distort facts, misrepresent reality, and even implement mechanisms like parent trigger laws to undermine public education. I can't help but wonder though whether this whole attack on public schools is a symptom of a larger struggle taking place within American culture. That struggle is between those who advocate libertarian, free market systems where pursuit of selfish interest is in the interest of society and those who understand that government has and must play a role in refereeing and being a part of all our systems because pursuit of self-interests can't always be trusted, whether they be economic, political or educational. This struggle is being waged across all aspects of American culture, with education being one of those battlefields. What makes all this really frightening to me in some ways is that those pushing this free market, libertarian agenda, have a license to push their self-interest at all costs. Because what they are doing is automatically assumed to be for the good of all, no one looks critically at their actions, or if someone does, they're immediately criticized for not supporting free market interests or worse: being a socialist.