By Tom
I've been back from Pakistan for almost a week now, and as I reflect on some of the differences between us and them, I keep thinking back to a conversation I had with a guy I met outside a conference room. He had these cool shoes on, but they didn't look comfortable.
"I like your shoes," I said, "Are they comfortable?"
"No, they aren't; not after the first hour."
"That's kinda what I thought, just by looking at them."
Then he took the conversation up a notch. "I heard you speak during the panel discussion this morning, and I've got a question about America."
Uh-oh.
"How did you make it across the gap?"
I wasn't really sure which gap he was talking about, but after a few minutes I learned that he was a medical doctor, interested in education and he was talking about the gap between a largely illiterate nation where teachers don't make a living wage and a country where everyone can go to school and where the teachers are well-paid professionals.
This went well beyond conference-hallway small-talk, but I hung in there.
"First of all," I began, "We've got it set up so that property taxes are tied to education funding. That pretty much ensures that there will be a decent school for every kid in the country. And we've also got a teachers' union, which, among other things, has dedicated itself to getting teachers fair compensation."
We talked for a few more minutes before the doors opened and we went into the room. And as usual, I had a lot more to say after I thought about it for awhile and the guy was gone.
The biggest difference, I think, between Pakistan's education system and ours is that they've let competition take the place of proper school funding.
Pakistan has a dysfunctional public school system; underfunded, understaffed, and in many cases, under rubble. Their private schools, on the other hand, are actually pretty good. There's a bunch of different systems, each with their own strengths and their own price, and they compete with one another for the students. The students who can't afford private schools are stuck with the public schools, if they can afford them, which many Pakistanis can't.
With regard to education funding, they've taken the easy way out. Instead of funding education (it's less than 3% of Pakistan's GDP) the government lets the private sector take up the slack. Except they don't. They only teach the kids with money. Competition works fine for the winners. It always does. Not so fine for the losers. And in this case, the losers are kids; and in the long run, the country itself.
America is not Pakistan. Not by a long shot. But we're taking a curious turn in that direction. We've got a strong public education system. It's not without flaws, but it's still strong. We've also got a strong private school system, for those who can afford it. And recently we've come up with a hybrid system – charter schools – that incorporates the best of both worlds: they're publicly financed, yet enjoy the benefits of having an exclusive student body; everyone who goes there wants to be there and wants to learn.
And now, instead of sustainable and equitable school improvement designed to keep our public schools strong, we've got the media, the business community and even the president touting competition as the only way to save public education. Charter schools are supposed to somehow save public schools by competing with them.
Competition can be healthy. If there's two gas stations in town, you'll probably get cheaper gas than if there's only one. When two private schools compete, it's also healthy. But when we set up our public schools to compete with private or charter schools, it's not. Public schools are there for all of us; that's what makes them great. But it's also what dooms them when they're forced to compete with private schools, charter schools, choice schools, magnet schools and any other schools that get to pick the students that get in and "counsel out" the students they'd like to see leave.
Competition can also be fun. It's fun when both sides have a chance to win and when the stakes of losing aren't catastrophic.
But in Pakistan I saw what happens when public education loses. And trust me, it's catastrophic.
Actually, Jason, you’re probably right. I think my opinion of charter schools might be driven by a certain amount of fear and resistance to change. Who knows. Charter schools probably aren’t the hell-on-earth that I worry about, and I fully appreciate that for many families, charter schools represent the best solution for getting a quality education.
I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that some day I’d come out in favor of them. But not yet!
Tom,
I certainly respect your opinion. I do really hope to change your mind about charters one of these days. Most of your arguments seem entrenched, entangled, and ensnared in other prior beliefs that I don’t seem to feel are necessarily related to charters but you see as part of the same puzzle.
I’m sure that the reality is somewhere in between my view of charters as an isolated structural reform with the potential to demonstrate the success of many efforts that have been blocked by the traditional sector and your view that charters somehow prevent us from being smart about 5 or 6 other education policy priority areas or move us away from that direction.
Well, Jason, I think we’ve each completly articulated our views on charter schools. It doesn’t look like I’ve done anything to change your mind, and frankly you haven’t changed mine.
While I disagree with your position, I respect your passion and intelligence.
1. I don’t dismiss the notion that charter school parents have acted in a one-time way which demonstrates an interested in their child’s education that may not exist among other parents. I don’t, however, accept as a tautology that applying to a charter equals a preference for quality academic education, higher engagement on an on-going basis, and greater student motivation. This is a common belief that I think overstates the difference between students who apply to charter schools and students who do not. There are differences, which is why the best studies use lottery results to compare only students whose parents made that active choice. However, given lots of evidence on how people choose schools in a variety of scenarios (not just charters), I see little evidence to suggest that academics is more than one of many, many factors that lead to choice. Why do you thinks so many bad charter schools are not being shut down for lack of customers? Yes there are differences, but to suggest they are having massive detrimental effects on public schools or benefits to charters is not proven nor a given.
In fact, in-district magnets which cream off students with high prior achievement and/or very highly motivated parent-advocates have far greater adverse effects and are probably equally common in our public school system.
3. As for the resources argument, I work very closely with finance in the Rhode Island Department of Education. There are resource starved districts and there are districts that waste money left and right. There are districts that invest everything they can into the areas that matter most for learning, and there are districts that waste money on everything but classroom learning. Painting with a broad brush about spending will cover up any useful conversation and “daring” me to find waste in your own situation is a cop out. The bottom line is there is no either/or argument with resources and charters and to suggest that charters are a resources issue is just plain obstructionist.
Two things that strike me as remarkable– one, that you don’t realize that good authorizing policy closes down those charters which fail which never actually happens with failing traditional schools and two, your call for early childhood education as the answer.
I’m a huge fan of early childhood education. I think we should expand it. But all of the research on early childhood education shows at least as much if not more variation in quality than our public schools. And of course, quality matters. The benefits of early childhood education are only realized with quality programs. I’m just lost as to how we’re going to figure out how to bring the high quality programs for 3 and 4 year olds to the places that need it when we clearly are terrible at bringing high quality programs to the 5 and 6 year olds in the same location?
So, Tom, are you proposing that all of our traditional schools are as good as they can be and they can only get better if we provide them with more money and more time, earlier, with the same kids?
1. First of all, we need to agree that there are real differences between families in regards to how dearly they value education and the ways in which that value is manifested in how they raise their kids. I’ve taught in a Catholic school. We had a very high percentage of families who valued education and acted upon that value, i.e. holding them accountable for their homework, getting them to bed on time, etc. I currently teach in a public school. We have many families who actively support their children’s education; we also have many who don’t. Parents who try to get their kids into charter schools are demonstrating that they value education and that they’ll take measures to see to it that their kids get the best education they can afford. It stands to reason, Jason, that charter school families are more likely to actively support their children’s education than parents who don’t pursue charter schools for their kids. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
2. Competition. Put simply, charter schools, by creaming, make the competition unfair. I think those two arguments go hand in hand. You don’t. Let’s leave it there.
3. You trot out the old “traditional schools waste money” gimmick. Nice, but you’re smarter than that. I challenge you to find a single dime that I’ve wasted in my traditional school. A single dime. And our district administration has cut back to the point where they barely get the work done. Trust me, there’s no fluff or fat out here where I teach. If Duncan really wants to improve public education, he’d attack the achievement gap where it starts: early childhood education. But that takes a whole lot more than $125 billion, and a lot longer than four years. But that’s for another post.
Finally, what amazes me is that charter schools don’t always perform better than public schools. Given the fact that they skim the cream and “counsel out” the kids who don’t “work out” they should do much better than they do. Oddly, over half of them don’t perform as well as the public schools, which don’t have the luxury of picking their students.
1. You’re equating parent motivation with student motivation and assuming that both are fixed. Further more, you’re assuming that motivation to act in one way is the same as motivation to act in a whole host of other ways. There’s no reason to believe that a parent who is motivated to fill out a form with their child’s name and address in the hopes of getting into a different school is actually more motivated to take part in day-to-day learning. Parent engagement, as I’ve heard it described, involves a whole host of activities that don’t seem obviously connected to a one time, small commitment to me. These forms of engagement don’t seen driven from the same place either. For example, we often hear from immigrant parents that there is an expectation in other cultures that the school and teacher will handle education appropriately and totally. My girlfriend reminds me of this all the time (she’s from Mexico originally). Yet, this attitude has very little to do with whether a parent would be motivated to select a school they perceive is better (and then clock out of the process entirely). Moreover, none of these activities suggests that this one-time motivation will transfer to their children.
Of course, there are many charter schools which have been shown to be effective even when comparing lotteried-in and lotteried-out peers so their positive effects (when they work) cannot be explained by creaming alone. Again, this is why I point out that we should look at and blame poor policy conditions when the results are undesirable and not attack the theory itself. This is, of course, the thrust of studies like the CREDO evaluation which finds that charters are a mixed-bag nationwide but work particularly well in certain locations. They posit this is due to various policy contexts that these schools sit in.
2. I was pointing out that you’re making two, separate arguments simultaneously. I know you want to say that charters are bad both because of competition and because of creaming, but what you really do is switch from competition to creaming without ever making a good point about competition.
3. I don’t think it matters how the idea starts, rather where it has evolved to and where and when it has worked, why and how. So basically, whether or not they should be “learning labs” or market-driven (or both) depends on what works and why.
Conflating the resource argument with charters is a dumb road to go down. First, investment in education and structural reform are not mutually exclusive in the slightest. To say that Duncan is using charters to say he’s improving education without spending money is ludicrous considering the $125 billion extra dollars the federal government has given to education in the last year and a half or so. Second, taking the lab viewpoint, charters represent a unique opportunity where both fiscal autonomy exists AND accountability is a necessary precondition rather than a four letter word. Additional resources never improve education alone because those resources can be (and frequently are) squandered. We don’t have the mechanism and/or political will to penalize traditional public schools when they are poor stewards of tax payer money. We also don’t provide schools with the fiscal autonomy to invest as they see fit– most principals have a paltry discretionary fund if they have anything, and most financial windfalls go towards hiring non-instructional staff or raises for instructional staff, even in well-to-do districts. What charters offer is an opportunity to rearrange how we spend and how people use their time while we do a far better job of assessing their successes or failures.
4) What I point out is NOT that wealthy families live in areas with well-funded schools. What I pointed out is that wealthy families have far greater autonomy in choosing both the price and quality of education they receive. These two things are not the same and there are many districts which are likely overfunded provided their preference to quality. Without getting into a lot of public economics stuff, I’d recommend you read about Tiebout sorting. The point is only that anyone who advocates against “choice” is fighting a battle they’ve already lost. The only people without school choice are the poor. Charters offer an opportunity to change that.
5. As for what the charter movement should do and be, I’d offer that they should represent BOTH paths. First, I think they can and should act as a far better means to pressure low performing districts to improve. I don’t think that NCLB or SIG’s method of applying pressure to low performing schools are particularly effective– they are prescriptive while simultaneously being ridden with loopholes and are ultimately about compliance rather than truly changing the outcomes for kids. When and if charters are successful, they can apply serious pressure to districts to improve while not presuming to know how the district should change to best achieve this. And of course, it maintains pressure on that school until it truly improves. Most charters receive less resources than traditional public schools (although there are exceptions). Even when they are receiving equal resources, if they have some flexibility not afforded to traditional schools that is necessary for improvement, charters offer a serious leverage point for school leaders to earn that autonomy. If charters are using more resources (very rare but not unheard of) to achieve their results, it’s the best prove positive a school can have to lobby their community and/or state to increase the investment in the traditional system. If charters are successful in the area because they are able to do things which are forbidden in the local union contract, it provides school leaders with the best case yet to win that flexibility with its staff. If they are operating in a way that does not conflict at all with the local union’s current protections, it gives the union leaders to evidence to say that leadership is failing to adequately coordinate the system so they are prepared to best succeed.
Learning labs are competitive by definition. If they are successful, the adoption of these techniques occurs because there is a downside to the school system ignoring this success. There is no incentive to find successful innovation if there is no benefit to innovating.
Either/or isn’t just a bad proposition, it makes very little sense. These two concepts exists in the charter movement because they support and strengthen each other.
First of all, hello, Jason; it’s been awhile; good to see you back in my comment thread! There’s nothing I like better than a healthy debate, and there’s nothing I like worse than charter schools, so this should be fun!
Let me respond, as well as I can, piece by piece:
1. Whether it’s the students or the parents who choose enrollment in a private or charter school, it doesn’t really matter. Operationally, the student is surrounded by others who are motivated to do well in school. And more importantly, removed from students who aren’t. Consequently, the public school from which that student came now has one less motivated student. That’s what you call “creaming.” It happens, and it hurts public schools.
2. I really don’t understand your second point. I’m sure it makes sense, but I can’t figure it out.
3. I do understand the premise of charter schools. I know that they operate under a “charter:” either produce or get shut down. I also understand that charter schools, as originally conceived by Ray Budde and Al Shanker, were supposed to function as “learning labs;” places where new ideas could be tried out, to inform and improve public education as a whole. What I oppose is what they’ve become: a way for lucky families to escape from poor-performing public schools, and a cheap way for people like Arne Duncan to claim to be helping public education without spending a dime. (Fun fact: Al Shanker, pioneer of the charter school movement, repelled by what he’s seen, now opposes the CS movement.)
4. You accurately point out that families in impoverished neighborhoods have little choice regarding where they send their kids. You also point out that wealthier families tend to live in areas where the schools are well-funded. It’s little wonder that we’ve taken to calling low-performing schools “high-needs schools.” Embedded in this moniker is the ultimate irony! They’re high-needs schools that aren’t getting what they “need.” Instead, we offer a way out to the lucky few.
I have a question for you, Jason: What’s the end game in the charter school movement? Is it a situation where every school is in competition for their students, thus raising the bar for all schools? Or is it still as imagined by Budde and Shanker, a situation where charter schools test out new ideas, which can then be employed by public schools. It seems like the first scenario is ultimately unsustainable and the second (with the exception of Doug Lemov and his wonderful work) just isn’t happening.
“And recently we’ve come up with a hybrid system – charter schools – that incorporates the best of both worlds: they’re publicly financed, yet enjoy the benefits of having an exclusive student body; everyone who goes there wants to be there and wants to learn.”
Here’s where you it way, way wrong. First, the premise that one of the portions that makes private schools better is that “everyone who goes there wants to be there and wants to learn.” First, that’s not true at all across private schools, charter schools, or public schools. These are vehicles for choice for parents, but rarely are students actually the agents making a choice. Even in the instances where they are, the idea that they’re choosing education based on a desire to learn or even on the quality of school (most studies on choice demonstrate that factors like distance to school, racial composition, non-academic activities, etc are far more powerful choice motivators than strong academics) is a false premise.
Second, you switch between a model which hopes to use competition to lead improvement to a system which is using exclusion as a means of improvement. To what extent either of these conditions are created (true competition and creaming) is different under different policy conditions. So let’s not extend that to the theory and instead try and understand what policy conditions create each and which is favorable.
Third, the key element of charter schools that is often over looked is the authorization process. Students and parents don’t close schools by leaving– it just doesn’t work that cleanly in practice. What is unique about charter schools is that when the policy conditions are right, they’re held to stringent performance contracts and lose the ability to operate if they are not operating successfully. The true “market-forces” here are the ability to create the churn that exists due to competition where we can remove the lowest performances and increase the overall quality of the stock of schooling.
Fourth, we already have school choice and to think otherwise is to be naive and to totally misunderstand the TRUE effect of tying school funding to property taxes. Because we tie school quality to property taxes we attach school quality to the price of homes. This means whenever someone purchases a home in any community, part of the value of their home is tied to the school system their home is attached to. The result of this is not that our schools are all decent (at least not in isolation). The result of this is that families which have choice over where they live have choice over how much to pay for schools and the quality of schools just as though schooling was a private good. The suburban middle class can drive to work and has family and community ties that are far wider geographically than the urban lower class. They have enough money for housing that there are several communities they could choose to live for the same price with different prices for education and quality of education attached to real estate prices.
It’s in the lower class neighborhoods in urban areas and the rural poor that have no ability to choose what school system they attend. There aren’t as many choices available for the price they can afford housing. They have more localized community and family ties that would have huge costs associated with breaking out of and moving away. They’re less likely to have transportation for longer distance commuting from work.
The suburbs surrounding the cities compete for similar sets of parents and part of that is offering the right quality of public services at the right tax rates as reflected in home prices. These middle class families are choosing when they move into a neighborhood how important different aspects of school quality are and how much they are willing to pay for it. The premise that choice and competition does not exist is ridiculous– in pretty much every suburban space in the country middle class families are in a school system which is competing. The upperclass has access not only to even more public schooling neighborhoods but to a private system with substantial competition.
The level of competition is low really only in the schools where lower class families send their children. Whether increasing that competition is the key to improving those schools is hard to say– but that is a condition that exists everywhere else along this system for all other people.