Thursday, April 2, 2009
Education / Kotz / Politics Karl Dean's Scary Flirtation With Charter Schools
Posted by Pete Kotz on Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 5:45 AM
If you read the brochures, they're supposed to offer competition, innovation, a reinvention of the learning process. They're designed to be free from the rule-bound bureaucracy and intransigence of administrators and teachers' unions at conventional schools. Yes, it would be cool if it were all this easy. But it isn't.
I used to live in a state (Ohio) that shared Dean's views. There, the urban schools were much worse than Nashville's. So the state loaded up on charters. Suddenly, there were schools for the arts, the disadvantaged, the internet, the Muslims. If there was a special interest group, it had its own school. And all were supposed to lift said groups through small class sizes, dedication, and innovation foreign to conventional bureaucracy.
To say they were a failure is to say Hitler had a mildly angry disposition. As a group, they just didn't fail in terms of standardize tests scores--where they performed even worse than the poorest city schools--they failed on every level.
Newspaper reporters had a field day with corruption. There was widespread embezzlement, huge payrolls for administrators and their relatives. Teachers' paychecks bounced, they were booted out of buildings for non-payment of rent, classroom supplies were skimped on to save money for the companies that ran them, and learning was an afterthought. Sometimes schools would close abruptly in mid-year; students found out when they arrived to locked doors. And when the state tried to audit books, records were often non-existent. There was no way of knowing where millions in government money went.
One for-profit company, owned by one of the biggest Republican fundraisers in the state, received more than $100 million a year to run a chain of charters. Its test scores were the worst in the state.
It was as if Ohio had purposely created a system that would be much worse than the one it already had, but at least it was more expensive too.
Proponents like Dean believe they can avoid all this. But they can't. Under the proposal, charter control would move to the state, which can't even manage the current system. It gives more power to the crazies in the legislature--guns for every child!--and Tennessee can't afford a new, greater mechanism for oversight.
But the worst problem is the most fundamental. The truly successful charters share basic ingredients: Charismatic, innovative, and dedicated people in charge. Teachers with the same qualities willing to work for less pay and with less resources. And parents willing to get involved.
The charter expansion presumes these people are out there in abundance, just waiting for the call. But if it was that easy, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place, now would we?
Comments (14)
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There are already some early signs of charter failure in Nashville. While KIPP Academy and Lead Academy have shown great promise, Smithson-Craighead (S-C)has not. By almost every measure, S-C has lower scores than the Metro Title I funded elementary schools. Nevertheless, the School Board let them expand into middle school in last few months.
Did the school board approve the expansion of S-C just to present the image of being pro-charter? Were there issues of race at play? Did the Mayor pressure? Who knows. Without regard for the answer, that decision should alarm us all, whether we support charters or not.
I hate to see KIPP and LEAD lumped together with S-C, but they are destined to if they don't "police their own". Charters can play a role in improving our system. They will just end up being another "bright idea" if they are not evaluated on a case by case manner. There seems to be no appetite for that to date.
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Charter schools are just like other public schools: some thrive and some are languishing. They often have more passionate, younger teachers and have latitude in teaching styles. For example, they are very result oriented as opposed to process oriented. Ohio was uniquely offensive because the Governor was as crooked as a corkscrew when the charter legislation was set up and all his cronies had their hands in the for-profit charter school companies. Ohio is an egregiously bad example of "charter school" legislation and implimentation.
Nashville's education problem isn't going to disappear until its people, on every social and economic level, learn to value an education for its own sake instead of what it, or perhaps more specifically, how much you've paid for it, signifies on their resumes.
Even among wealthier families that I've seen, once a kid hits the age of 8 or more, any attempt to have a conversation that displays what they're learning in school or their intellectual curiosity is met with, "well aren't you smart. Hey, there's cousin Mike, why don't you run outside and play."
Don't delude yourself into thinking kids don't pick up on that.
I think you're right, She Who Shall. Ohio's system was notoriously corrupt. But while Tennessee's state government is no where near as corrupt, it's twice as incompetent and addicted to pushing conservative ideology at all costs. The latter might be even scarier than corruption.
You don't think big Republican fundraisers or top Bible thumpers would have an advantage in getting licenses here? And do you think the state would ever intrude on these people if their schools went awry?
I guess I see the same thing happening in Tennessee as happened in Ohio, in that nothing about state government indicates it can shepherd innovation.
Just because something failed in one state, doesn't mean it would fail in Tennessee and just because some parts of Tennessee state government are poorly run doesn't mean all parts are.
Punditry is fun. Anyone can have an opinion. But has anyone done any reporting on the state Department of ed? Seems like they've done a good job getting Metro Schools in order, but then again, maybe some reporting would show differently.
This is like saying football in the Mountain West Conference is so-so, thus football in the South East must be horrible. Then you highlight one or two SEC teams that stink it up and there it is.
In old fashioned debate, this is the fallacy of association.
Charter schools are defined by state law and governed by state and local rules and policies. If you want to see what TN is doing then look at their charter schools, not Ohio's.
For starters, every charter schools in Tennessee is making AYP, something that over 130 Tennessee public schools cannot say. And this includes Smithson Craighead.
Tennessee has the toughest accountability in the nation. If a school fails AYP two years in a row they are closed. That took place two years ago in Memphis.
Tennessee charter schools have to have a yearly, independent audit to show where every penny goes. State law allows that a charter school that can't account for their money can be closed after one year.
Bloggers are great for creating debate and discussion. This blog is great for that. The rough spot with bloggers is sometimes they don't do all of their homework. This is one of those cases.
The blogger is right on the money with Ohio, but way off the mark for Tennessee.
Good points, There It Is, but I think Tennessee is doing so well now because the law is so restrictive and there's local control. There aren't very many of them, so there's easy oversight.
But the expansion proposal changes what makes Tennessee's charters work. It turns decisions over to the state, which seems a scary proposition to me. It also may allow for-profit schools into the game, whose primary concern is money rather than learning. And it further assumes there's all these talented teachers and administrators just waiting to work at places like this. If it's a modest expansion, it may well work. If it goes beyond that, I think you're looking at the chaos found in countless other states.
Here are S-C's scores - 2007 = 2 D's and 2 F's; 2008 = 4 D's. Because it improved it made AYP. Now that's something to cheer about - in S-C's sixth year.
Warner Elementary and is run by the District and serves essentially the same kids, on the other hand, had the following scores - 2007 = 2 C's and 2 D's; 2008 = 2 C's and 2 D's. Even though their kids had higher scores, Warner did not make AYP.
Without any regard for the poor performance at S-C we, the City of Nashville, just gave them the right to expand and no one seems to care.
Experiments that fail should be terminated. Let KIPP run every middle school as far as I'm concerned but don't reward failure. We've had 30 years of that in Nashville. Enough is enough.
The key to the legislation is the design behind it. It does involve the State more but the acutal application process doesn't change at all. I listened to a presentation by Matt Throckmorton the President of the Association and he insisted that the hurdle to approval needs to remain very high.
As long as that remains in place the weak applications won't get through. And you are right, there are only so many quality operators so again, a tough application process will weed the weak ones out.
I suggest you contact President Throckmorton and get his take on it. And I don't know anything about allowing for-profits in Tennessee. I don't think that is part of the associations legislation but I will need to double check.
I don't know what AtHome's beef is. S-C founder was an early critic of PG and even called attention to S-C's great scores a few years back as unrealistic and not possible. I don't know whether I would have the disorganized buffoonery of the TN State Legislature or the organized corruptness of Ohio. I think I'll take TN but the TDOE are very professional and quite competent. Some wise and knowledgeable elected leaders have not in the past realized that charter schools and other variations on the theme of how children learn was a coming reality in TN. But it's good that we weren't the first pancake like Ohio on charters and Wisconsin on vouchers. It's fine to make mistakes, just learn from them and don't make the same mistake twice. Unfortunately, we don't do that very well either.
I've got no beef with S-C. There is no evidence that they are succeeding but I have no beef with them. My beef is with the Mayor, the School Board and the rest of the City that knows S-C performs no better than the average District school and worse than many, yet we let them expand.
That, to me, seems like a good example of making the same mistake twice.
I know KIPP's numbers, don't know that LEAD has been around long enough to have a trend. One of the major differences with KIPP and LEAD vs S-C is that KIPP and LEAD have many business leaders backing their success and giving them leverage with the MBOE and MNPS. S-C does not have that Board profile. So? That being said, I do appreciate your calling it a "good example of making the same mistake twice". I definitely think there is some have/have not tension here, especially with the rezoning vote focused on North Nashville.
If they go slow and maintain high standards for selection, the might be okay. But to me the wild card is the legislature. Once the crazies see a new toy to play with for the culture wars, the best of intentions will be DOA.
I don't think the entire process is understood. The legislature can add the State Board of Education as an authorizer but that does not change the authorizing process. The current application process is set by the Dept of Education and that won't change. And currently the State Board hears appeals for denied applications.
The legislature is not even considering changing the application process, just allowing the State Board to hear original applications in addition to the current appeals. And in their current role of handling appeals they have denied most, only approved three. This means they are being very judicious about the process.
