Update: Joe Williams at The Chalkboard responds. 

I want to point out two posts for you to ponder. The first is part of Joe Williams' excellent look at the conflict between parents and New York city school administrators in the NEST+M school. The second is a post at From the Trenches about a new neighbor, a KIPP school that doesn’t quite match the demographics of the school district its in (an issue I’ve taken up here before).

Despite the fact that he blogs for a union-busting organization representing charter management, Joe has a lot of interesting stuff to say about the tensions within a school system. He’s getting at some of the issues in the democratic (small d) accountability structure of school districts. That the City, in order to see that resources are properly allocated across the system, would have to come down hard on a particular school for pushing some envelopes on its program is interesting. Joe’s point seems to be that when a school is acting in a way that undermines the broader good, there is reason to rein it in.

My question to Joe is, what is the analogous cure for the district dealing with the new neighbor in the From the Trenches post? This question isn’t meant to be an attack on charter schools or the people who sail in them. But its clear there are a lot of unresolved issues in resource allocation and management, that Joe and I have blogged about before, and I think this real-life scenario might be a good way to pick up that thread. In the case of NEST+M, the challenges are ones that can be resolved through the political process. In the From the Trenches case, this isn’t so.

I’ve written before that we should try to see public education as an ecosystem.  In this perspective, there are likely tradeoffs that will come from the creation of new schools. The idea is to make those tradeoffs explicit, rather than implicit as they are now, and to try to minimize the harmful effects. But how to do that fairly is a different question, which I'm hoping we can get to at some point.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Perhaps the most widely read economist on the Internet notes the market’s inability to predict the senate election. He writes, "But the idea that there's something magical about market aggregated preferences seems to have infected the minds of too many people. They provide a cute distillation of conventional wisdom, but that's all."

I’m reminded of research that shows that parents pick schools based on factors such as race, religion and ease of commute, (see here, here and here). Given this, I don’t get why people are surprised when voucher subsidization of these choices doesn’t lead to improved student outcomes.  And if you don't know it, the title of this post is a shout out to this.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

UPDATE: Sherman to the rescue! See his comments below. 

Something still doesn't sit right with me about the final paragraph from Clint Bolick's recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that I mentioned in a previous post.  Bolick writes:

Though educational uniformity has emerged recently as a primary device to stifle education reform, it is nothing new.  Nearly a century ago, the Ku Klux Klan and other nativists sought, nearly successfully, to ban private schools established by Catholic immigrants in the name of educational uniformity.  The U.S. Supreme Court repudiated those efforts and proclaimed the right of parents to control their children's education. Judges faced with similar arguments today need also to reject arguments that would destroy parental choice for the sake of those whose motives are far from noble.

Why does it feel like Bolick is rewriting the history of public education to serve his own purposes?  Who could sort this out? Hmm.  Paging Sherman Dorn!

Posted by Michele at 07:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sara at the Quick and the Ed expands the blog discussion about public officials sending their children to public schools, writing,

Something feels terribly insensitive when the person arguing that children from poor families must be forced to remain in crummy public schools, because allowing them to leave would hurt the public school system, is someone who has no similar compunctions about removing their own children from the same system.

The discussion put me in mind of the mom in The Color of Water (great book if you haven't read it) and the lengths she went to to get her children into high-quality public schools.  I also know from teaching in a Catholic school that some families of modest means make financial sacrifices so that their children can attend a school of their choice.  All of which is to say that it is worth remembering that lower income families often can figure out ways to make choices within the constraints of the current system.  Does that mean that I think children should be stuck in "crummy schools" unless their parents are crafty enough to get them out?  Of course not--but some choice does exist, including public school choice, in many communities.

I also must disagree with Sara's sense that this discussion amounts to using children as "debating props."  I mean, in a perfect world, wouldn't we all agree that the one of the best strategies for improving schools is for engaged parents to come together and decide to actively support their neighborhood public school, working with the staff to make it a wonderful teaching and learning environment?

To me, the key is getting that critical mass of parents together to make it happen.  I am watching this happen in my community, a close-in suburb to DC with a lot of variability in the quality of the public schools.  In a neighborhood where many parents have tended to send their children to private schools, some are now giving the neighborhood public school a chance.  If it works, it will be to the betterment of the school, and the benefits will extend to children from all family backgrounds within the community.  Here's hoping it works! 

Posted by Michele at 06:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Check out the back-and-forth between Edspresso and The Chalkboard on whether public figures should send their children to public schools. While I think it's fine for folks to spend their own money on private school tuition, I do think that the standard-bearers for public education should send their children to public schools. And yes, that includes folks who work for teacher unions.  Plus, as common sense and the research shows, folks operating at this level usually can afford to exercise "residential choice" and just move to a better public school district if needed.

Posted by Michele at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)