May
7
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels Is Trying School Reform – Finally Action to Remedy Serious Public Education Decline in America
by Paolo von Schirach
May 7, 2011
WASHINGTON- Why is US public education so pitiful? Simple answer: because America has not managed to create a system whereby seriously motivated people get into the teaching profession and stay there because they are rewarded commensurately and because they are free to do the best they can for the children.
But no, If you listen to Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a powerful teachers union, our failures are due to ideological obsession on “market based reforms” that placed unwarranted emphasis on test scores and in creating charter schools to compete with –apparently outstanding– public schools. Well, says Weingarten in a The Wall Street Journal op-ed piece (Markets Aren’t the Education Solution, April 25, 2011), other countries that are doing well in education revere teachers and teachers unions. And these teachers in South Korea or Finland do not teach to the test, and the kids get a great education, and so on.
US at the bottom of the pile in education
What was conveniently (or should I say brazenly) omitted in this WSJ piece by Weingarten is that the highly unionised US public education system is at the bottom of the pile in all recognized and believable international rankings. The rankings are so bad that many question America’s ability to retain international competitiveness when young Americans are so poorly educated. Is the point here that attempts to introduce market based reforms are the cause of this steady deterioration? Nonsense.
Crisis pointed out back in 1983
The US public education system has been going down for decades. The first major alarm on declining standards came with the landmark report “A Nation at Risk, The Imperative for Educational Reform”, released way back in 1983, when there was no talk about “school vouchers”, or “charter schools” as alternatives to public schools. And Arne Duncan, the Obama administration own Secretary of Education, is quite blunt in recognizing the serious failures of the system, even though the federal role in public education is relatively modest, as education is a local government responsibility.
While we may grant that some attempts at school reform may have been misguided and poorly executed, most tries originate from deep frustration with a bureaucratic, union dominated, system that does not even recognize that there is a “quality” problem. If the system functioned just fine there would be no need to devise alternatives.
Current system is about teachers and not about students
In the end it is all very simple. Good, dedicated and truly motivated teachers are the foundations of good schools that deliver quality education. But the union-dominated US system does not reward excellence and does not allow quality to emerge and become the standard. Unfortunately, the current system is mostly about the teachers –their security and tenure– and not about the intended beneficiaries, the students. And a system promoting mediocrity is self-perpetuated by promotion criteria for teachers based on seniority, and not on performance. You are rewarded for being there, not for being good. Besides, the whole public school bureaucracy is slow moving and risk averse. In far too many jurisdictions, failing schools continue to under perform indefinitely, this way shortchanging children and their families.
Washington DC schools: money was spent; but no results
The Washington, DC public school system is an unfortunate example. Until Mayor Adrian Fenty hired Michelle Rhee as Schools Chancellor, the DC system had the dubious record of the highest per pupil spending in America and one of worst academic records. Money was allocated and spent. But it went to administration and salaries rewarding sub par principals and teachers. So, there was money; but no accountability and horrible outcomes for DC children.
Children future based on a “lottery” to get into a charter school
The recent 2010 documentary The Lottery, by Madeleine Sackler, illustrates dramatically how families in New York City view public schools as traps. Parents do not want their children to go to a failing public school. There is a choice, represented by a charter school. But the charter school has only limited space. Hence a lottery system. The lucky ones get in, the others don’t, and are condemned to go to a bad public school. The documentary shows the hopes and the anxieties of parents who really want their child to get lucky and get into the charter school. So, this is where we are in America. A child’s life chances are determined by the luck of a lottery draw. You get picked, you have a shot at a decent education. You do not get picked, and you are thrown back into the swamp of failed public schools.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels tries reform
Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana is trying to change all this, at least in his state. Recent legislation he promoted will introduce real school choice for families. If a family is not happy with the school assigned to their child, they will have a voucher that can be used in any other certified school in the state. The idea is that this way there will be competition. As parents can choose, failing schools will see their enrollment go down, with negative consequences on future funding that will be based on enrollment.
Besides, the legislation will encourage the creation of more charter schools, as a way to have introduce competition. And most importantly, it will be the end of the union imposed seniority system, based on the “last one in first one out” criteria that caused the firing of the state’s “teacher of the year“, on seniority grounds. This way, when there are budget cuts, the system will choose whom to fire. And teachers will be evaluated on student progress.
Now, this is only a start. And who knows how all this will be implemented. But the basic point is that choice and accountability should incentivize schools to get better teachers and to reward them for their good work. And how do you see good teachers work? You see it if students do better.
Teachers believe that schools are about them, and not about the children
The sad story here is that in America teachers got organized and lobbied for themselves, mistakenly thinking that teaching is really about them. The children, the intended beneficiaries of a complex public education system, obviously do not have unions and lobbies. And so they do not have a seat at the table. Parents should act for their children. But in many cases they trust the professionals, even when they should not.
In Indiana at least they have elected Governor Mitch Daniels who is trying to act in the children interest.
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