Sign Up For Our Newsletter

LA MAKES THE WRONG CHOICE. The nation celebrates#SchoolChoiceWeek this week. Being able to choose one’s own school is vital, and giving every student, parent, and teacher the opportunity to shape their own education is really what this is about. Yet in Los Angeles, with a district acquiescing to demands based on faulty assumptions about what makes education better, and teachers finally allowed to go back to work, opportunity is once again under attack. The union is pounding its chest today over an agreement that would have the school board consider stopping the growth of the popular and successful competition, which with 30% of LA public school students enrolled are cleaning their clock. Don’t like the competition?, they say? Squash it!

DON’T BELIEVE US? Read the Post

EXCLUSIVE FRANCHISE? Some 30 years ago Ted Kolderie wrote that in order to improve education school boards could no longer be the only game in town.  The district’s exclusive franchise to own and operate public schools is akin to a monopoly. To create new opportunities there must be new entities, and thus the concept of charter school authorizers was born. States with only school boards authorizing charters (even if there is a state appeal) reinforce the monopoly.  We are seeing the effects of that free and clear in California. Indeed the CER National Charter School Rankings & Scorecard – since 1996 – underscores that, without multiple, independent authorizers, there will be neither quality nor quantity nor equitable funding, nor better education period. That’s why year after year CER’s people scratch their head when the other rankings are posted by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Based on their concept of a model law, NAPCS scores charter laws not on what they have the potential to produce but on whether they have allegiance to a model. That’s akin to supporting a monopoly. Which is why states which have fewer than 10 schools because their processes are so bureaucratic and centralized get high marks in their rankings, while in ours, they get barely passing grades.

This choice week let’s acknowledge that it’s not what we want that is best for kids, but what their parents want, and let’s give it to them.  While much of the ballyhoo is about charter schools, choice comes in all forms, which we must embrace and foster if students are to achieve their goals and dreams.

BUT THERE’S ALWAYS FEAR OF SUCCESS.  It’s not limited to LA. In Washington, DC year after year unions and system defenders fight the growth and the expansion of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which turns 15 this year.  Then there’s New York, where Jewish schools are the target of bureaucratic ire. Really?

FULL STEAM AHEAD. Opponents of the Discovery Charter School in Durham, North Carolina, a STEAM-based (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) middle school initially serving 200 students and expanding that number to 528 within three years, have been working overtime. While Durham has thousands of minority and low-income students who would be the prime beneficiaries of the new alternatives to be offered by Discovery, the usual suspects on the local school board threw hissy fits at the thought of having to actually compete with anyone.  Happily the Charter Schools Advisory Board approved Discovery’s application.  The school will open when it receives the expected approval from the state board of education.

“SMALLER CLASS SIZES NOT PROVEN BUT TEACHERS STRIKE FOR THEM.” Now there’s a headline, from the Associated Press. And it happens to be true. There is little data correlating class size to student achievement. What correlates is teacher quality. The facts didn’t matter in the strike; only that unions could extract a commitment from LA officials to do something they believe is a benefit to teachers, quality or not.

THAT’S WHY CHOICE IS SO CRITICAL. Let parents decide if they want a school with small, or big class sizes. Maybe they want a school with no class at all, like hundreds of thousands parents escaping the uniformity of traditional public education for a more individualized approach.

WHY THE ESTABLISHMENT FEARS COMPETITION?  Citing statistics proving the superior performance of charter schools can seem like bringing coals to Newcastle, but facts are always the best antidote to propaganda. The headline of this story from Indianapolis says it all (and could be applicable to most any location in the country ): “Study finds learning in Indianapolis schools lagging, but charter schools stand out.”  As our attorney friends are fond of saying, “Res Ipsa Loquitur”.

HELPING THE DADS.  We were delighted to see this story about a program in a Foxboro, Massachusetts charter school to bring fathers and other male role models into classrooms. “Volunteers spend one whole day at the school, arriving at 7 a.m. to greet the students, attending an orientation and spending the rest of the time in the classroom and helping out around the school.” In a day and age where our young people have too few male role models we tip our hats to Foxboro Regional Charter for the courage to address a serious problem in our society.

SUPPORTING THE MOMS. Sometimes parent’s choices cause others to question – and defend – their own.  Rhode Island Parent Power Advocate Erica Sanzi writes thoughtfully about this contradiction, that many of us moms have encountered over the years. There is a tendency by people, especially mothers in my opinion, to insert themselves into the personal choices that other mothers and families make for their children. It starts with breastfeeding, moves on to, “What do you mean you let your kids eat McDonalds?”, and quickly morphs into, “I went to this school, my kids went to this school, why wouldn’t everyone else in the world want to go to this school?”

AND REMEMBER. When your heart pings because you read about the conditions of public education, remember that the people striking, opposing parents and stopping changes that would yield success are the ones who created this system and work to defend, not change, their $700 billion monopoly daily. Then, join us in the fight to ensure opportunity for every student, every learner at every level.