But I just said I didn't think my proposals for positive change would do all that much. Education is a slow-moving thing. Real reform will take decades probably. It's statistically unlikely to do much good at all. But I do think I know something about desirable professions, and if we don't take at least that step toward teaching - making it a respected, desirable, professional career that people want to do for a long time - then I don't think we will ever improve our schools.
I don't know if it will fail. That's not really your question.
You do raise good points, though. The way schools are funded needs to be changed and made more equal. Perhaps we should rethink the district model altogether, and make choice within the public school system more of a reality. That could work a number of ways.
And teacher unions could stand some reform as well, though if you look at the numbers you'll see that over 50% of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years. The "bad teacher" problem is largely a myth, consigned to anecdotal evidence at best. The problem with keeping good teachers at so-called bad schools is often because burnout is super high there, and more resources are needed for support, safety, etc.
Frankly I think my solutions have very, very little chance of success. They are rather ideals, guiding lights, not solutions. Not magic bullets. The school choice movement promises much more than I will ever promise.
I don't think that's at all fair. Lots of alternatives have been proposed, and are constantly being proposed. This is not even an either/or choice. My preferred model is to attempt however we can to emulate Finland. We need to make the teaching profession a professional one, with respect and autonomy. We need to provide a high standard baseline for all schools, including free transportation and free meals for all students. We need rigorous teacher training and mentorship, and we need to provide teachers with ways to grow in their careers that go beyond monetary gain.
Essentially, we do need to create a culture of trust in education, and the faux-accountability movement is not the way to do it. We need to spend far more money on education, but that alone won't be enough. We need to have a strong national common standard, which still leaves lots of room for teachers to hone their own expanded curriculum and pedagogy. If we have choice, it ought to be choice provided within the larger framework of the public system - not choice that works against that framework. We need lots more collaboration, not lots more competition. We need to give teachers more autonomy and we need to have high standards for entering the teaching profession to begin with, not arbitrary tests to find ways to fire teachers once they're already in.
In other words, we need a massive effort to change the culture surrounding education, and to rebuild it from the ground up. It can be done, but it won't make anyone any money now. It will be a huge investment in the future of our children, but it will cost lots of money upfront. I could go on.
I don't think we are going to see eye-to-eye on this. The charter movement is fraught with both good and bad aspects, including in some sense parental accountability. But at other times, charters are quite literally shoved down people's throats.
Trumwill - the thing is, in a traditional public school system you have a basic set of rules, you have an institution with ties to the community, you have transparency and democratic accountability. With charters and voucher schools, a lot of these things are missing. This only gets worse with virtual schools which can be run by basically anyone with a website. Not every aspect of oversight is top-down. Sometimes it just means that an institution is accredited and recognized by the college system so that your diploma isn't worthless, or that teachers have to have a background check. This is hardly a horrible top-down thing.
Most school choice programs are need based? In what universe? Voucher programs maybe (though there are very few of those). But charters are almost universally lottery based. Now, lottery-based systems are going to attract only those parents that are motivated enough to go through that process. So that's the first barrier-to-entry.
Second barrier: Many charters require application materials, including essays or portfolios, interviews, etc. That presents a huge disincentive to less-motivated families (read: poorer families).
Third barrier: Many choice schools do not provide bus services. This is a huge barrier to poorer children or single-mother families.
Once you get past barriers to entry, then you have to contend with the quite common practice of firing students. Low achievers and students with behavior problems are routinely pushed out of charter schools and back into the public school system.
Or take special education - as a whole, charters take on far, far fewer special needs kids.
Finally, a huge problem even comparing charters to public schools is the foundation money. Many of these schools are funded by corporate or foundation money, giving them a funding leg up that traditional public schools simply do not have. That's on top of the government money, of course.
I could go on and on. The fact is, while many charter do serve poor communities, even within those poor communities, the best students find their way to the best choice schools one way or another.
Competition breeds winners and losers. By weeding out the losers, it produces good results. School choice works similarly. Good students and white, middle-class families are able to get into the best choice schools and charters, and are able to afford the costs of attending (not tuition, mind you, but transportation, etc.) Charters weed out under-performing students. Selection bias takes care of the rest.
Mind you, I think school choice can work, but we need to have a much higher baseline for the quality of our schools in the first place. Otherwise we risk creating an even more imbalanced system than the one we already have.
The Foundations push lots of different things. I don't think they're "bad guys" I just think they have way, way too much influence over the debate. I also think they believe they can remake public education in the image they prefer. Perhaps it is the conservative in me that says "No you can't."
Mark, if you want an ideological answer it's this: I value public institutions such as our public school system. I see the school-choice reform movement as a threat to the egalitarianism of public education, and an opening for an even greater segregation of students.
Furthermore, I value creativity and free-thinking more than whatever it is they're trying to teach our students with the testing regime.
Combine the two, and I see a real existential threat to public education. I am ideologically opposed to the dismantling of our public school system.
Bob - again, quite right. This post was in part a defense of libertarians, who I think would recoil at much of the school reform movement, including the 'choice' elements, if they ran it through the proper gauntlets.
Well I think we need to illustrate how choice is in fact better than the status quo. And beyond that, we need to look at how choice has been foisted upon communities who have no, ahem, choice in the matter. Is theoretical school choice a possibly very good thing? Yes, all normative assumptions aside, I think it could be. Is it in practice? It's a mixed bag in practice, and again I don't think we need first principles to assess the actual failures of the choice movement.
RTod - yes, thank you. This is exactly what I'm saying. I think libertarians are quick as hell to point to regulatory capture, or the myriad ways in which the state is used against the purposes that progressives intended. But they focus much less on deregulatory capture, which I think is just as important if not more so. Privatization is a good example of libertarian ideas that can go horribly wrong. School reform, I would argue, has been completely captured by anti-democratic forces and corporatist opportunists, and largely they have done so using the language of Friedman and others opposed to the public school 'monopoly' and to unions, etc.
First of all, I think it's important to note that NCLB and the accountability movement are inextricably tied to the school choice movement. Yes, libertarians may have opposed the accountability measures but they have often supported politicians who were very much in favor of testing and accountability. Maybe this is because such measures help break the back of tenure and seniority, and make teachers more easy to judge based on notions of merit. Either way, I have yet to see a reform movement in this country that embraced only choice and not accountability, or that embraced choice without at once attempting to subvert the public school system, teacher unions, etc.
Do I think that teachers unions are inherently good for public education? It depends. I think they can be full of their own pathologies. But they are also the only thing standing between many of these top-down authoritarian reformers.
As to my set of values driving this post - I'm really confused as to what people are asking. I'm writing a defense of the public school system. I think the language of choice and competition has been co-opted by corporate reformers who think they can remake our educational system from the top down, often by hiring bullies or pushing through laws that allow them to side-step democracy. They are well-funded and politically well-connected.
Many efforts to install charters across the country have been undertaken by ignoring the desires of local communities.
I guess my point is, I don't think that the school reform movement is a very good representation of actual libertarian values, but it has nevertheless been supported by libertarians in one way or another, and even if libertarians came out against many individual pieces of recent reforms (such as NCLB) they have not been able to see how all the dots connect, how 'school choice' in and of itself has (at least in its current iteration) been brought about by dictum.
So perhaps they are conservative values that drive this writing. I want to preserve the public education system from Utopian reformers. Then I want to start a new reform movement that is more democratic and more educator-driven. I think we are on the wrong path, and I think the language of libertarianism has been used to take us here, whether or not this libertarian opposes such and such policy or not.
Re: Benton Harbor - it probably should be placed in receivership. Many towns and school districts should be at some point. Again, the thing that bothers me about Michigan is that too much power is concentrated in the governor's office under Public Act 4, and by extension too much power is placed in the hands of EFM's appointed to undertake said receivership. This is dangerous, even if the towns or school districts in question need to be put in better hands (such as Detroit's schools, which were cesspools of corruption.)
We are implementing a new commenting policy. I will have a post up about it sometime in the near future. Those of you who are fond of trying my patience - go for it.
I want to make it clear that we do not take a post-by-post editorial stance here. Posters write what they want without endorsement or oversight. I welcome opposing view, including Tim's view expressed here. I disagree vehemently with it, which is why I wrote a response. But I think we should welcome the conversation even if we also refuse to say that all sides are equally valid. I don't think they are. I think this post is dead wrong. But I welcome the opportunity to say so.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Redistribution and the State”
Thanks. This is in many ways the culmination (or part of it) of the past few months of thinking about all of this.
On “Keynes vs. Hayek, Round 2”
Really? Cowen is GM right? He's no Austrian.
"
Good discussion guys. I agree, Hayek is misused badly.
"
Everything else is ad hoc. I like that.
On “Weekend Jukebox and Open Thread”
I think everyone has been commenting on Tim's post on his sub blog. Since nobody has been posting...
On “School reform, Benton Harbor, and the Tea Party”
But I just said I didn't think my proposals for positive change would do all that much. Education is a slow-moving thing. Real reform will take decades probably. It's statistically unlikely to do much good at all. But I do think I know something about desirable professions, and if we don't take at least that step toward teaching - making it a respected, desirable, professional career that people want to do for a long time - then I don't think we will ever improve our schools.
"
I don't know if it will fail. That's not really your question.
You do raise good points, though. The way schools are funded needs to be changed and made more equal. Perhaps we should rethink the district model altogether, and make choice within the public school system more of a reality. That could work a number of ways.
And teacher unions could stand some reform as well, though if you look at the numbers you'll see that over 50% of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years. The "bad teacher" problem is largely a myth, consigned to anecdotal evidence at best. The problem with keeping good teachers at so-called bad schools is often because burnout is super high there, and more resources are needed for support, safety, etc.
"
Frankly I think my solutions have very, very little chance of success. They are rather ideals, guiding lights, not solutions. Not magic bullets. The school choice movement promises much more than I will ever promise.
"
I don't think that's at all fair. Lots of alternatives have been proposed, and are constantly being proposed. This is not even an either/or choice. My preferred model is to attempt however we can to emulate Finland. We need to make the teaching profession a professional one, with respect and autonomy. We need to provide a high standard baseline for all schools, including free transportation and free meals for all students. We need rigorous teacher training and mentorship, and we need to provide teachers with ways to grow in their careers that go beyond monetary gain.
Essentially, we do need to create a culture of trust in education, and the faux-accountability movement is not the way to do it. We need to spend far more money on education, but that alone won't be enough. We need to have a strong national common standard, which still leaves lots of room for teachers to hone their own expanded curriculum and pedagogy. If we have choice, it ought to be choice provided within the larger framework of the public system - not choice that works against that framework. We need lots more collaboration, not lots more competition. We need to give teachers more autonomy and we need to have high standards for entering the teaching profession to begin with, not arbitrary tests to find ways to fire teachers once they're already in.
In other words, we need a massive effort to change the culture surrounding education, and to rebuild it from the ground up. It can be done, but it won't make anyone any money now. It will be a huge investment in the future of our children, but it will cost lots of money upfront. I could go on.
"
I don't think we are going to see eye-to-eye on this. The charter movement is fraught with both good and bad aspects, including in some sense parental accountability. But at other times, charters are quite literally shoved down people's throats.
"
Trumwill - the thing is, in a traditional public school system you have a basic set of rules, you have an institution with ties to the community, you have transparency and democratic accountability. With charters and voucher schools, a lot of these things are missing. This only gets worse with virtual schools which can be run by basically anyone with a website. Not every aspect of oversight is top-down. Sometimes it just means that an institution is accredited and recognized by the college system so that your diploma isn't worthless, or that teachers have to have a background check. This is hardly a horrible top-down thing.
"
@Mark
Most school choice programs are need based? In what universe? Voucher programs maybe (though there are very few of those). But charters are almost universally lottery based. Now, lottery-based systems are going to attract only those parents that are motivated enough to go through that process. So that's the first barrier-to-entry.
Second barrier: Many charters require application materials, including essays or portfolios, interviews, etc. That presents a huge disincentive to less-motivated families (read: poorer families).
Third barrier: Many choice schools do not provide bus services. This is a huge barrier to poorer children or single-mother families.
Once you get past barriers to entry, then you have to contend with the quite common practice of firing students. Low achievers and students with behavior problems are routinely pushed out of charter schools and back into the public school system.
Or take special education - as a whole, charters take on far, far fewer special needs kids.
Finally, a huge problem even comparing charters to public schools is the foundation money. Many of these schools are funded by corporate or foundation money, giving them a funding leg up that traditional public schools simply do not have. That's on top of the government money, of course.
I could go on and on. The fact is, while many charter do serve poor communities, even within those poor communities, the best students find their way to the best choice schools one way or another.
"
Competition breeds winners and losers. By weeding out the losers, it produces good results. School choice works similarly. Good students and white, middle-class families are able to get into the best choice schools and charters, and are able to afford the costs of attending (not tuition, mind you, but transportation, etc.) Charters weed out under-performing students. Selection bias takes care of the rest.
Mind you, I think school choice can work, but we need to have a much higher baseline for the quality of our schools in the first place. Otherwise we risk creating an even more imbalanced system than the one we already have.
"
The Foundations push lots of different things. I don't think they're "bad guys" I just think they have way, way too much influence over the debate. I also think they believe they can remake public education in the image they prefer. Perhaps it is the conservative in me that says "No you can't."
"
Mark, if you want an ideological answer it's this: I value public institutions such as our public school system. I see the school-choice reform movement as a threat to the egalitarianism of public education, and an opening for an even greater segregation of students.
Furthermore, I value creativity and free-thinking more than whatever it is they're trying to teach our students with the testing regime.
Combine the two, and I see a real existential threat to public education. I am ideologically opposed to the dismantling of our public school system.
"
Maybe so, but then it is also important to realize that sometimes one man's choice is another man's loss.
"
Bob - again, quite right. This post was in part a defense of libertarians, who I think would recoil at much of the school reform movement, including the 'choice' elements, if they ran it through the proper gauntlets.
"
Well I think we need to illustrate how choice is in fact better than the status quo. And beyond that, we need to look at how choice has been foisted upon communities who have no, ahem, choice in the matter. Is theoretical school choice a possibly very good thing? Yes, all normative assumptions aside, I think it could be. Is it in practice? It's a mixed bag in practice, and again I don't think we need first principles to assess the actual failures of the choice movement.
"
Elia - quite right.
"
RTod - yes, thank you. This is exactly what I'm saying. I think libertarians are quick as hell to point to regulatory capture, or the myriad ways in which the state is used against the purposes that progressives intended. But they focus much less on deregulatory capture, which I think is just as important if not more so. Privatization is a good example of libertarian ideas that can go horribly wrong. School reform, I would argue, has been completely captured by anti-democratic forces and corporatist opportunists, and largely they have done so using the language of Friedman and others opposed to the public school 'monopoly' and to unions, etc.
"
I'll just start a new thread down here.
First of all, I think it's important to note that NCLB and the accountability movement are inextricably tied to the school choice movement. Yes, libertarians may have opposed the accountability measures but they have often supported politicians who were very much in favor of testing and accountability. Maybe this is because such measures help break the back of tenure and seniority, and make teachers more easy to judge based on notions of merit. Either way, I have yet to see a reform movement in this country that embraced only choice and not accountability, or that embraced choice without at once attempting to subvert the public school system, teacher unions, etc.
Do I think that teachers unions are inherently good for public education? It depends. I think they can be full of their own pathologies. But they are also the only thing standing between many of these top-down authoritarian reformers.
As to my set of values driving this post - I'm really confused as to what people are asking. I'm writing a defense of the public school system. I think the language of choice and competition has been co-opted by corporate reformers who think they can remake our educational system from the top down, often by hiring bullies or pushing through laws that allow them to side-step democracy. They are well-funded and politically well-connected.
Many efforts to install charters across the country have been undertaken by ignoring the desires of local communities.
I guess my point is, I don't think that the school reform movement is a very good representation of actual libertarian values, but it has nevertheless been supported by libertarians in one way or another, and even if libertarians came out against many individual pieces of recent reforms (such as NCLB) they have not been able to see how all the dots connect, how 'school choice' in and of itself has (at least in its current iteration) been brought about by dictum.
So perhaps they are conservative values that drive this writing. I want to preserve the public education system from Utopian reformers. Then I want to start a new reform movement that is more democratic and more educator-driven. I think we are on the wrong path, and I think the language of libertarianism has been used to take us here, whether or not this libertarian opposes such and such policy or not.
Re: Benton Harbor - it probably should be placed in receivership. Many towns and school districts should be at some point. Again, the thing that bothers me about Michigan is that too much power is concentrated in the governor's office under Public Act 4, and by extension too much power is placed in the hands of EFM's appointed to undertake said receivership. This is dangerous, even if the towns or school districts in question need to be put in better hands (such as Detroit's schools, which were cesspools of corruption.)
On “Pop Quiz”
I have banned Heidegger.
We are implementing a new commenting policy. I will have a post up about it sometime in the near future. Those of you who are fond of trying my patience - go for it.
"
I don't want Tucson to secede unless they take Flagstaff with them. Maricopa county is the problem.
On “The Title of This Blog Post Is Only Slightly Inflammatory”
You can drag me down to the typo police but not without a fight...
On “Muslims and the need for reform or, at least, better PR”
I want to make it clear that we do not take a post-by-post editorial stance here. Posters write what they want without endorsement or oversight. I welcome opposing view, including Tim's view expressed here. I disagree vehemently with it, which is why I wrote a response. But I think we should welcome the conversation even if we also refuse to say that all sides are equally valid. I don't think they are. I think this post is dead wrong. But I welcome the opportunity to say so.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.