Voucher/ Charter/ Small Schools updates

In the past couple of weeks, I've been hitting the education issues pretty heavy. To remind you:

• I've talked about the systemic problems of Wisconsin's voucher program
• I strongly advocated against electing a school board member who has gotten rich off of Bill Gates's small school money
• I went off pretty good when he won anyway
• I noted the financial problems of a local institution that runs charter and voucher schools, as well as how they shut down the paid-for schools while keeping the voucher school open until the last state checks come
• I posted an insider's view on why you can't say charter schools have a level playing field

Today, I want to follow up on a few of those stories, and point you to some additional resources and good reads.

First, shari at "An old soul . . ." links to an article providing a somber, if a little over-the-top, warning about Gates and what his motives might be:

Gates has spent almost a billion dollars influencing American public schools, and while his donations seem laudable on some fronts, especially in an era of increased federal demands coupled with reduced federal spending, his philanthropy remains problematic. When corporate leaders shape government institutions according to their needs, we move away from democracy and toward corporatism [. . .].

While I agree with Gates that there is indeed a crisis in our schools, it should not be confused with any perceived crisis over achievement. Schools in wealthy neighborhoods consistently score first in international comparisons in a number of subjects, and when SAT scores are desegregated according to race, all subgroups have seen consistent point gains over the past 30 years. The real crisis in our schools reflects the most serious crisis in our democracy: diverse peoples with multiple voices and needs have little say in the major decisions shaping their lives. [. . .]

Corporatism [. . .] requires citizen obedience to corporate demands; individual needs are ignored. In the case of public schools, CEOs have great influence on the curriculum whereas parents have none. Individual students become products whose manufacture is subject to the whims of the market. [. . .]

When Gates told his audience that "in the international competition to have the biggest and best supply of knowledge workers, America is falling behind," he failed to mention two salient facts. First, it does not matter how many "knowledge workers" our schools produce if corporations continue to offshore IT jobs, which are growing at a rate of less than 3% a year. Second, and more importantly, we are not all "knowledge workers" nor should we be. In a democracy, individual differences and nuances should be respected and valued, not standardized. Teacher innovation, family desire, and community need should influence public education. The corporatist mentality is a one-size-fits-all mindset, a mindset more totalitarian than anything else. Parents who want their children to grow up to be more than blindly obedient worksheet completers must challenge CEO classroom encroachment. Citizens who value democracy must join them.

Next, more on vouchers, but this time in our nation's capital. It seems that the voucher program all those wealthy, white, Republican congressmen foisted on poor, black Democratic DC is not wroking as planned. Sure, it's early, but a Department of Education report on the first year noted shows "a failure to achieve legislatively determined priorities, an inability to evaluate the program in the manner required by Congress, and efforts by administrators to obscure information that might reflect poorly on the program." People for the American Way noted from the DOE documents that only about 4% of the students in the program, despite clear language in the law requiring priority for them, were from schools deemed "in need of improvement." The 96% included hundreds of students alread in private schools. This might be the worst: "The program allows private schools to impose their normal admissions tests and thus pick and choose which students to accept. In addition, private schools participating in the voucher program that charge tuition higher than the voucher amount of $7,500 are permitted to charge the additional amount to voucher students, limiting the availability of meaningful “choice” for low-income families. Both these facts were obscured in a 'Frequently Asked Questions' document prepared by" the administrators. There's more here.

Finally, charter schools. Conservative blogger (look at his sidebar) Mark Lerner points to a new book critical of charter schools, and backs that claim up with his own experience teaching at one. In language that echoes some of what Patrick, my charter school insider (see the link above) used, the book notes how charter schools are not always exemplars. The Boston Globe
article that Lerner links has even more. Try this (my emphasis):

Not only did [the authors] find that charter schools do not generate higher student achievement in general or the educational performance of central city, low-income minority children in particular, they also found that charter schools are associated with increased school segregation. And they found minimal accountability. Despite their inability to show across-the-board improvement, fewer than 1 percent of charter schools have been shut down for academic failure. [. . .]

[M]any charter schools rely on less-experienced, uncertified, and often less-well-paid teachers. In a regular central city school, 75 percent of the teachers have more than five years' experience. In a charter school the percentage is only 34 percent. In public high schools, 70 percent of the math teachers either majored or minored in math in college. In a charter high school, the percentage is 56 percent. ''While freedom from certification rules undoubtedly permit charter schools to hire teachers who are more qualified than typical teachers in regular public schools, the data do not reveal evidence that charter schools, on average, are actually using their freedom to do so," the authors wrote.

Mishel and Carnoy both said that whatever systemic problems the charter school movement is trying to address, they may be far outside the realm of either public or charter school.

Some of these links came through the Education Wonk's Carnival of Education. There is chaff among the wheat there, but all dealing with educational issues.