In response to the 10/25/2012 post, “The Hidden Agenda of
Choice” a reader writes:
SC,
I do
find the logic in this post below the blog’s typically high standards.
On
the other hand, thanks for encouraging everyone to vote out those who put our
school funding in the toilet. It won’t immediately change anything, I know, but
we keep pounding on the rock.
Here
is my critique of the post:
The authors of “The Hidden Agenda of Choice” cannot go
unchallenged for their fuzzy logic, outrageous statements, or blatant attacks
on fellow public schools, namely charter schools.
Fallacy #1: Since when is KIPP (or any other school)
maintaining “soft (but real) requirements of continued attendance of the child”
deemed unconstitutional? Every school should require student attendance and ask
for regular parent participation.
Fallacy #2: Anyone who believes that charter schools
operate “outside the bureaucratic entanglement of government bodies” has never
worked in a charter school. The Texas bureaucratic entanglements for all public
schools (including charters) include PBMAS, AEIS, FIRST (financial monitoring),
Data Validation Monitoring, PAR Monitoring, State Accountability Monitoring,
Federal Accountability Monitoring, State Performance Plan Monitoring,
Residential Facility Monitoring, Data Validation and Verification Monitoring,
special education requirements, ESL, 504, and the list goes on and on. Just
which outside “entanglements” is the author referring to?
Fallacy #3: The author’s leap from operating outside
“bureaucratic entanglements” to sidestepping civil and constitutional rights is
incomprehensible. To coin a legal phrase, civil and constitutional rights do
not disappear at the charter schoolhouse door. And those “pesky civil and
constitutional rights”are never sidestepped.
Fallacy #4: And now, as if throwing charters under the
constitutional bus wasn’t enough, we jump into the author’s favorite (and
always under the surface) agenda – vouchers. If you can’t fight charters as public school competition, then let’s
throw in vouchers and attack private and parochial schools, too.
Fallacy #5: It has been argued before in this blog that the
rich are proposing vouchers to save money. Incredibly, the author would have us
believe that the wealthy would destroy
public education as we know it
(italics mine but intent his) for a $5,000 “tax break to the wealthy” (see 9/25
post). The theory goes: 1) Make the state accountability tests harder; 2) Claim
schools are failing; 3) Keep the conspiracy alive (e.g. OMG: they killed TPM
because it looked like schools were doing OK!); 4) Therefore, failing schools
need to rescued by “school choice” and “vouchers”. What an amazing conspiracy
theory, and all so the rich can save more money!
Fallacy #6: The author then proposes his own school choice
plan – basically the “So you want school choice? I’ll give you school choice!”
program that says let parents demand anything they want from a school. You
don’t like testing after 8th grade? Done. You want your kid to take
English on-line? Done. You want to set your own accountability standards for
your child (no, really, I’m not making this up – see the 9/26 blog “Pretty Lies
and Powerful Truth (Part B). Done. Imagine the nightmare, the frustration
of teachers and administrators, trying to implement this outrageous proposal.
Imagine this free-for-all parental system and the demands it would make as it
ruined any ability to run any schools.
Now, to put my cards on the table, I run a charter school
system and am very pro public schools. The dollars we get to run our schools
are the same tax dollars that any other child gets. And I’m proud that charter
schools in Texas have given thousands of students (mostly low income) a public
school choice, and, I believe, a better education. But let me say a few words
in defense of Milton Friedman who proposed vouchers over 50 years ago as a way
to get government out of helping the “producers” of education (namely, schools)
and into helping the “consumers” of education (namely, parents). He felt this
was government at its best. And as to providing vouchers to parents to attend any
school, well, here are his own words:
“As to the
benefits of universal vouchers, empowering parents would generate a competitive
education market, which would lead to a burst of innovation and improvement, as
competition has done in so many other areas. There's nothing that would do so
much to avoid the danger of a two-tiered society, of a class-based society. And
there's nothing that would do so much to ensure a skilled and educated work
force.” (Reason.com Dec. 2005 interview).
Now, I am not a
voucher proponent. But the difference between Milton Friedman’s purpose for
proposing vouchers (to equalize and improve the school system, especially on
behalf of the poor) and the reasoning on vouchers by the author of these posts
(to benefit the wealthy) is vast and ironic. I think I’ll
side with the Nobel Prize winner on this one. And whenever I hear someone like
the author of these LYS posts argue so vehemently and irrationally against
choice (on which our very economic system was founded), it makes me wonder what
interests they really have at heart – our children or our status quo school
system? As for me, I say let our schools be rich, competitive marketplaces of
ideas and practice and then let the parents decide what is best for their
children. We will all – students, parents, teachers, administrators, the rich,
the poor, and society as a whole – be better off.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
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