Publisher’s note: Educator Peter Huidekoper produces Another View, a newsletter he pens when not overwhelmed by the demands of teaching. This is his latest effort.
One must pay attention when a book on education—yes, education!—garners so much talk it is likely to influence policy. Or it certainly hopes to. This reader finds Diane Ravitch’s book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” both fascinating and disappointing.
It is fascinating to follow her review of education reform in America over the past twenty years—and to compare and contrast her look at standards, choice, and accountability, and the work of foundations, with what I have seen in Colorado over this time. But it is disappointing to see how inaccurate and unfair she can be in her critique.
I admire many sections of the book. I’d love to quote entire paragraphs on too much dependence on multiple choice tests and on her vision of good schools with a rich and rigorous curriculum.
But given the largely positive press she has received, including two reviews in The New York Times, I will focus on what I find unsatisfying. For I would be sorry to see her account go unchallenged. If you accept her position—get off the charter school bandwagon! Teach for America is no answer! tell those market-based foundations to take a hike!—you too might want to join the members of the National Education Association who gave Ravitch a standing ovation after she spoke at their convention (July 6). Reformers have to ask themselves tough questions, and I’m glad she poses them. Why indeed so little progress? But praise her stance as “completely logical”? No.
The subtitle of her book, “How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education,” gives me the first topic; then I will address two others: new teachers and the curriculum.
1. Choice and Charters
Ravitch fails to show how choice harms public schools in part because, for a highly respected scholar, she proves surprisingly inaccurate in defining her terms. Her definition of charters is a slippery one, and grows increasingly far removed from the truth. She first says they “were considered public schools under private management” (ch. 7–“Choice: The Story of an Idea,” 121).
She then says “private managers” and “private firms” operate many of these schools. A page later she acknowledges charters can be managed by “a local community group,” which is most common in Colorado. (Only a minority of Colorado’s 153 charters have a “contract with an outside company or agency” according to an email I received from Kelly Grable, Colorado League of Charter Schools, July 15. Fewer than 20 of our schools contract with for profit companies.)
But in this chapter—and in recent statements and speeches—she harps on the theme that charters are part of a movement to “privatize public education.” By the end of this chapter, she says charters now “are supposed to disseminate the free-market model of competition and choice” (146).
In a recent interview on “Democracy Now” with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez she went further:
(The Obama Administration has) said to the states in the “Race to the Top” … that the requirements to be considered are, first of all, that the states have to be committed to privatizing many, many, many public schools. These are called charter schools. They’re privatized schools…. And I think that with the proliferation of charter schools, the bottom-line issue is the survival of public education, because we’re going to see many, many more privatized schools and no transparency as to who’s running them…. (March 5, 2010)
She is wrong; charters are not privatized schools. Were the parents overseeing the charters I taught in “privatizing public education”? Ravitch’s misleading comments continue, including her claim that “charters often get additional resources from their corporate sponsors, enabling them to offer smaller classes, after-school enrichment activities, and laptop computers for every student.” (I can hear most Colorado charters asking, where ARE those corporate sponsors?) It’s not my experience, and it contradicts the study from Ball State University, “Charter School Funding: Inequity Persists,” May 2010, which states: “charter schools continue to receive nearly 20 percent less funding per pupil than district schools.”
She concludes this chapter with excessive harshness: “The rhetoric of many charter school advocates has come to sound uncannily similar to the rhetoric of … the most rabid haters of public schooling. They often sound as though they want public schools to fail” (146). Again, Ms. Ravitch, definitions! Charters ARE public schools. Is she listening to superintendents like Bennet and Boasberg who would argue that charters make the system stronger? And many charters have been pleased to share their strategies and lessons learned with non-charters in their community. Haters? Really?
All of us who have worked for and taught in charter schools know they are not perfect. We have seen enough over the past 17 years (I’ve visited 50 in four states) to know that too many—even our own schools!—fall short of our expectations. But the movement deserves more honest criticism than this.
Finally, it is too easy to say the advocates of a specific reform oversell it as THE SILVER BULLET, and then, lo and behold (what a surprise!), the idea proves far less transformative and magical…. Ravitch makes a habit of this, suggesting the most extreme (and naïve) voices urging a certain reform speak for all, when in fact many of us have been more moderate in our expectations. One example: “The advocates of choice—whether vouchers or charters—predicted that choice would transform American education….They invoked the clarion call of A Nation at Risk as proof that America’s schools were caught in a downward spiral; only choice, they argued, could reverse ‘the rising tide of mediocrity’ …” (126-127).
“Transform”? “Only choice”? Were we all such “true believers” that we put so much faith in this one strategy? In four issues of Another View #21-#24 in the summer of 2000, I examined what seemed at the time to be four key components of education reform: standards, choice, governance, and teacher development—a fairly common definition. Few of us put all our eggs in one basket.
She does this again in looking askance at the push for small high schools as a meaningful option in our cities (as I did in Another View #44). “The movement’s ardent adherents believed that small schools were the cure to the problems of urban education” (205). Of course by speaking of us as so simple-minded to think this was The Cure, we are bound to be proven wrong. But please first tell me who called it such a silver bullet? Shame on us if we did. Most of us were more inclined to speak of it as one way to better meet the needs of many high school students. And we’d still argue that.
2. Opening the door to new teachers / alternative licensure
Ravitch again oversimplifies when she examines the recent trend to focus on teacher quality, which has given new life to the movement for alternative licensure.
The teacher was everything: that was the new mantra of economists and bottom-line school reformers. And not only was the teacher key to closing the achievement gap, but the most effective teachers did not need to have any paper credentials or teacher education. … there was no reason to limit entry into teaching; anyone should be able to enter the profession and show whether she or he could raise test scores. (184)
Not exactly. The Gates Family Foundation, for whom I worked, partially funded the alternative licensure office at the Colorado Department of Education in the early 90’s, and later I evaluated an alternative licensure program for the University of Colorado at Denver. Paper credentials still matter—but they often have to do with what a person studied in college, the courses taken and how well they did, as well as previous work experience. (Just as this mattered at the private school that first hired me; of course the headmaster cared about my “credentials,” but they had nothing to do with education courses and a license.)
Alternative licensure programs and pathways like Teach for America do not open their doors to “anyone.” This past spring, TFA selected only 4,500 applicants out of 46,359 applicants. (Name me a School of Education as competitive as that!) Again Ravitch mocks TFA for what no one claims it can do: “it is simply an illusion to see TFA as the answer to the nation’s needs for more and better teachers.” Another straw man; another bow to the unions. Of course TFA is not The Answer. But do we believe public education in Colorado is stronger for welcoming another 150 TFA folks this fall to teach in our highest-need schools? Yes!
3. How ironic: The curriculum she admires – is here largely due to choice
My favorite section in the book is on the importance of a strong curriculum (“Lessons Learned,” 230-238). Ravitch articulates how vital it is to develop a rigorous and well-rounded academic program.
One of the unintended consequences of NCLB was the shrinking of time available to teach anything other than reading and math. Other subjects, including history, science, the arts, geography, even recess, were curtailed in many schools. (107)
So it is not surprising to see her praise the “sequential, knowledge-rich” curriculum of Core Knowledge (236). Here she sounds like the Ravitch who co-authored “What Do Our 17-Year-Olds Know?” (1987). But consider the irony, given her criticism of choice. (I tip my hat to Vincent Carroll, who made a similar point in “Don’t write off the ‘Orcs’ just yet,” Denver Post, May 15, 2010. This would be the wrong week for me to be guilty of plagiarism!)
- In our Race to the Top application, Table 2 lists the major “recognized school reform models” in Colorado’s charters (p. 170). Core Knowledge is first—49 charter schools; Expeditionary Learning and Montessori are tied for second with 4 schools each.
- Colorado has the highest percentage of Core Knowledge schools in the country, and only New York state has more of them. Of the 770 public and private schools in the United States “using all or part of the Core Knowledge curriculum,” over 90 are in Colorado (see list at the Core Knowledge Foundation website).
Look back at the mid-90’s and recall how few Core schools existed prior to the early success of several Core Knowledge charters: Littleton Academy, Cheyenne Mountain Charter Academy, and Liberty Common School among them. Schools that, in part because of their autonomy and clear academic mission, could stay committed to a well-rounded curriculum rather than succumb to pressures—from the state, the district, or even parents—to narrow their program. Schools that—to speak to another of Ravitch’s criticisms—will neither be consumed nor compromised by tests.
Isn’t it fair to say that choice and charters in our state stimulated the rapid growth of public schools with the very kind of curriculum—“rich in knowledge, issues, and ideas”—Ravitch advocates? So much for undermining education in Colorado.
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I really enjoyed this article. I have had this book on my nightstand for quite awhile but felt that I “should” read it, rather than actually wanting to read it, since I don’t agree with many of her positions. You saved me the effort! I appreciate the thoughtful critique and am glad not everyone is buying it without comment.
We know quite a bit about Diane Ravitch but very little about you. Your claim to be a teacher seems to be fairly limited to private school, charter school, or home schooling by inference. I don’t know how you can possibly have anything else but a biased view of Ravitch’s work. Furthermore, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. A charter school may decide not only its own curriculum but also who gets to attend the school. Doesn’t sound very public to me.
Rex: Charter schools admit students though an open lottery. They do not decide who gets to attend the school. You may have them confused with public programs including magnet schools, and most gifted and talented and similar programs that have selective admissions policies, and which do select students. Charters do not. Quack quack.
I will concede your point about student selection, but admission is still limited unlike a public school where everyone must me admitted. Why have a lottery? Why not just admit anyone who wants to attend that school simply because the parent thought it was a good school to send their children? And don’t kid yourself. There is selectivity occurring. A more honest alternative to a lottery would be for a parent to submit his or her agreement via a contract to a list of expectations of the school. That way the burden of accountability is placed exactly where it should be: on the parents and on the child.
Rex,
The Charters who turn away students do so for space constraints: there are more students who want to attend than they can accommodate in the building. It’s worth pointing out that virtually every magnet and G&T program in DPS does this as well, and that space is limited at every school — almost all the high quality schools in Denver turn away students who want to come who do not live in their assigned boundary. There are not simply enough good schools in Denver to meet the demand.
I would argue that any presumed selectivity in Charters is clearly far less than selective admissions magnet schools, and more democratic than a system where the best schools are in the most expensive neighborhoods. How is sorting students based on real estate and family income (which is often highly segregated) somehow more fair than an open lottery?
Alexander, magnets, as the name implies, attract students whose interests, intellects, and talents fit with those schools. While not everyone gets in, it is an honest, merit-based approach. As for locations of the schools, I did not realize that GW, an IB school, and the Denver School of Performing Arts are in expensive neighborhoods. That would also hold true for other magnets such as Lakewood High School and Alameda High School in Jeffco that are IB schools located in unquestionably IN-expensive neighborhoods.
One argument you continue to avoid is that parents and students need to be held accountable for their poor performance. In Colorado, students do not repeat grades if they fail them until they get to high school. That’s called social promotion, and it’s wrong. More importantly, most parents of poor performing students do not send their children to school ready to learn. Their expectations and support are inexcusably low or completely lacking. The public sees scores for students who perform poorly in reading and writing and blame the teacher, but the truth is that both the public and parents just want teachers “save” their children and to do the job that the parents failed to do in the first place. So, changing that social dynamic will probably not happen. We will probably not be able to fine parents for being poor parents.
But there are two things we can do in the schools to significantly improve students’ performance. First, pore lots of effort and, yes, money into pre-school and K-3 education. After third grade “saving” the child becomes problematic. If a child is not reading on grade level proficiently, he or she has a very minimal chance of making it later in school. Follow the Ed Demming TQM approach to business on this: create your product well the first time and you will save money and time.
Second, end social promotion. You are not going to damage little Johnny or Mary’s self-esteem by not letting them go to the next grade if they are not performing well. In fact, if you do move them on just because they got a year older, then you are just enabling their failure. Hold the students and the parents accountable. They should not get a free pass.
Third, find, hire, support, and pay well the best teachers you can for all grade levels and, in particular preK-3. Great teachers teach because it is what they do well. It is not a “calling” in a spiritual sense. How much should teachers be paid? What is a child’s success in school worth? Think on it. What would the market bear?
“Were the parents overseeing the charters I taught in “privatizing public education”?” Just because you don’t agree with Ravitch is no reason you have to go all lawyerly on her, Peter. Her intent is quite clear and the Ball State study does not contradict her claim. The study was global, Ravitch’s comment clearly was not. Therefore, you’ll have to try harder to tear her down…which you attempt by calling Ravitch on her usage of “silver bullet.” It’s an idiom, for heaven’s sake, a metaphor, ok?
“I examined what seemed at the time to be four key components of education reform: standards, choice, governance, and teacher development—a fairly common definition. Few of us put all our eggs in one basket.”
But the choice component has been pushed since 1983 like never before and seen in that light, it is the one that stands out as your other three are unremarkable. You seem to imply all four are necessary for reform and without choice, no reform, eh?
It’s really not ironic that there is a CK charter and you know, it is quite possible Ravitch is not familiar with each and every charter in the nation. Speaking of one nearby, DSST, and looking at its funding, they do a remarkable job. No, not doing so much on so little–but raising so much money and having so many well-connected corporate sponsors, er, supporters on their various boards. You know, if each and every school were a charter school, would each and every school have this same or a similar list of supporters who are actually responsible for making the place work? Hey, I think it is fine to make an example of DSST to show charters can work. It’s even ok to use children to market a concept certain interest groups hold near and dear. And go ahead and ignore the self-selection process that makes any data on student success without quantifying selection, suspect. I just wonder if the movement is sustainable in the real world. From what I’ve seen so far, the research is not really going in the direction of charters and that any advantage they have over non-charter public schools, is meager at best.
Frankly, I don’t think schools will be privatized, not en masse anyway. I mean, where is the profit in that? What is the product and to whom is it sold? How would the erstwhile consumers even know what they have bought is worth anything? And even if one could say the private schools graduated more kids with higher scores and all schools turned private, eventually that would become the new normal and more eventually after that, people would complain that still, privatized schooling is failing to meet our expectations: “It’s 2083 and our kids are not ready for the 22nd century workforce…get the pitchforks and torches!”
Good piece. I had a similar reaction to Ravitch’s claim that charter schools are “privatizing” education — it’s so clearly inaccurate and, whatever one may say of Ravitch, she is far too smart for such an obvious mistake.
A friend interpreted it differently — Ravitch (the theory goes) is not really talking about schools, but about teachers. In replacing tenured positions with at-will teachers, Charter schools are “privatizing” a unionized workforce. However unbalanced the logic, it makes some coherence with her position against alternative licensure — and clearly points out who has the most to lose by the “privatization” threat of Charter schools.
It’s been a while since I read the book so I apologize to Diane in advance if I get this wrong, by my recollection is that the privatized element she focuses on is governance. Doesn’t she focus a great deal on the shifting of governance away from elected representatives and toward — in particular — wealthy funders? I think she also notes the importance of market competition under a charter-ized system, with resulting increased stratification of students.
Of course, other elements of privatization are also occurring, such as the outsourcing of important school services — with the most important element being the private companies that run charter schools. We annually publish “profiles” reports that have described the growth of this sector: http://epicpolicy.org/ceru/publications/612
Another element of privatization is described in our annual reports concerning “Trends in Schoolhouse Commercialism” (http://epicpolicy.org/ceru/publications/613).
Kevin, c’mon — since when do funders of nonprofit organizations provide governance? And since when are non-profit organizations equal to “privatization”? If so, there are large swatches of all our social services that have been “privatized” by those awful organizations like the Red Cross and United Way. Are they immune from your criticism? Are there any valid non-profit models that are not similarly tainted?
The tradition in the US – and certainly in Colorado – has been local control of our schools. If anything, charters are hyper-local; their governance is a board composed of local community members, which almost always include parents of students — and they are authorized by the same elected members. What is the accountability to elected representatives inherent in TPS that Charters lack?
It’s an Orwellian complaint that nonprofit school organizations governed by volunteer community members under the oversight of the same BOE are somehow “privatized.”
So, Alexander, will Charters in Colorado comply with the new National Standards? Or will Colorado’s parochial attitudes about education treat them with disdain? Furthermore, the success of Charters is a mixed bag. You can Google any number of articles showing both success/failure rates. Given that Charters are niche schools, one would expect their success rates to be very high, but they fail to meet the needs of the vast majority of students because of the limited nature of their curriculum, building size, and student body.
For those “lucky” enough to attend a charter school, most receive a good education, I assume. But since when does having attended a school qualify one to be an overseer of an educational institution. Would you allow the same oversight for a medical clinic or a law firm or an architectural firm?
The one aspect of charter schools that should be adopted by all public schools is holding parents and children accountable for their actions or lack of actions. Perhaps, like charter schools, if the parents or students don’t meet expectations, maybe the public schools can tell them to take a hike.
And like charter schools where teachers are hired “at will,” why not make all teacher hiring “at will”? Of course, to do that teachers would have to be able to go wherever they could find the best job without losing credit for their experience, education, and accomplishments. The policy and practice throughout America is to offer teachers who move from one district to another only about 7 years’ experience regardless of their actual years. What other profession practices this? Offer teachers the right of movement and pay them commensurate with their experience, and schools can and will hire the best they can find. The problem with this, of course, is that school districts and states will not be willing to hire the best because that would mean raising taxes.
Charter schools are a convenient band-aid used in place of doing the right thing for children in particular and education in general. They are attuned to ideological agendas but not the pedagogical needs of a heterogeneous populace.
Rex,
Yes, I’m pretty confident that charters — similar to every other public school — will comply with any mandated State and National standards. Why would you think they would not?
I don’t know why you say that charters are “niche schools” who “fail to meet the needs of the vast majority of students” — did you not point out earlier that many have far more students who want to attend than there are spaces? That sounds neither like a niche nor like they are failing to meet needs. And their academic success in Denver is unquestionable, even if the national data is mixed.
I don’t understand the question in your third paragraph — surely organizations should be allowed to select their governing Boards for the skills and abilities they believe are important (and most prefer some variety). Would you not have a nonprofit health organization board with people who know (for example) community organizing, technology, finance, legal experience etc? Surely a range of skills is preferred to having the same profile a multitude of times?
I would like to see a lot more flexibility in labor policies in education both ways: for principals to have more control over who they hire, and for teachers to have more control over where they work (by shifting between districts easier). On this I think we can agree – the current system makes little or no sense to both sides.
Your last sentence is so generalized and trite (the “pedagogical needs of a heterogeneous populace” indeed) that I’m inclined to think it speaks for itself. That you would judge the quality of schools purely by type rather than any sort of educational outcome speaks more about your criteria and bias than anything else.
Alexander, unlike you, I have refrained from Ad Hominem attacks, and I will continue to do so.
I believe that Colorado is traditionally parochial in its approach to education as demonstrated by districts’ insistence on “local control.” I will, indeed, be amazed but gratified if districts follow the national standards. But since charter schools by nature go their own ways with only a modest acknowledgement of state standards why should we expect that they would pay any attention to national standards.
Charters, obviously, fill niches. Otherwise, why would they exist at all if they are, as you say, just public schools. They are not just public schools. And when you quote someone, you should not quote out of context. Fortunately, others can read the entire quotation. Wouldn’t all parents like to have their children in small schools with small classrooms? But that is not practical in a large population nor economical. Or perhaps not. Maybe you know of a way to make all schools small charter schools. If so, why don’t you tell us? Put your money where your mouth is. Or maybe charter schools aren’t for everyone, just the lucky few. Everyone else will just have to make do. Survival of the lucky. If charter schools are so good, why not make them available to everyone?
You never answered my question about professional organizations of which a school is one. My wife and I have spent many years in large corporations, both for profit and not. Each corporation had its own experts and sometimes employed consultants. None was run by ad hoc committees of volunteers. Are these volunteers going to be accountable? Nope! Will they hold parents and children accountable? Nope! They will only find fault among the educators. CEOs know that’s no way to run a business. Why would you think it would work in a school?
Regarding labor policies, it’s one thing to agree, but another to acknowledge that such a change will not happen. Raising taxes to pay for the kind of educators that everyone seems to demand will not happen. Until market forces are allowed to come into play, teachers will continue to be paid poorly, unions will continue to have something to gripe about, and those opposed to public education will continue to point to underperforming schools and blame teachers for not doing the job that parents should have done in the first place to prepare their children to learn.
Finally, I have no idea what you mean by “you would judge the quality of schools purely by type rather than any sort of educational outcome.” Anyone inside or outside of education should ask the question, “If it’s not about learning, what is it about?” Educational outcomes are very complex and cannot be put into a little box. They cannot be compartmentalized any more than children should be. I’m sorry if I used a big word like “pedagogical,” but I thought that since we were talking about education, that would not be a word that, pardon the pun, would be out of school. I judge the quality of a school on whether it facilitates the learning needs of the children.
Incorporating as a non-profit does not turn an organization into a public entity. It just means that those running the corporation do not generate a profit (i.e., no dividends). One could, of course, run a non-profit to tremendous personal benefit through, e.g., high salaries. I believe this was one of the issues with the Chavez schools here in CO. It’s certainly an issue with other charters around the country.
Anyway, since Diane Ravitch is a huge supporter of parochial schools, I assume she doesn’t consider non-profits to be “awful”. And her book, as I assume you know, describes in great detail her concerns with the influence of funders.
Speaking for myself now, I think charters created and run locally, without bringing in outside organizations, are very consistent with the principles that gave birth to the charter idea. The potential problem is that this is becoming a smaller and smaller part of the sector. I don’t think there’s anything “Orwellian” about that vision or those concerns.
Rex,
We seem to have taxed the ability of WordPress to accommodate threads, but I’ll try to respond to your questions.
First, I don’t believe criticism of a specific statement falls into the category of an Ad Hominem attack. What I do see, from the very beginning of your post (which claimed that charters “decide who gets to attend the school”) is a series of patently false and misleading statements. I’m happy to attack those.
To various other points in your posts:
1. The best schools in Denver, aside from charters, are either selective admissions (and low FRL), or in expensive neighborhoods (and also low FRL). For example, DSA is in a neighborhood that is not reflective of its student body (which is ~ 10% FRL). That’s the point about the open admissions policy of charter schools – you neither have to live in a affluent neighborhood or already be academically proficient to attend. Their enrollment is more democratic, not less.
2. I actually agree with you on social promotion – I would not end it, but I would change the default so that a child is not socially promoted without paternal agreement. I think that is a sound policy change.
3. I don’t believe you asked a coherent question about “professional organizations of which a school is one.” The closest I can come is your phrase “would you allow the same oversight for a medical clinic…” but I don’t have any idea what the “same oversight” refers to. Same oversight as what? If you care to clarify, I’m happy to answer.
If your question is will the volunteer boards of charter schools hold their organizations accountable, my answer is an emphatic yes and there are plenty of examples of schools across Colorado who are doing just that.
4. “Charters, obviously, fill niches” – I disagree. Charters exist because parents think their children will get a better education here than at their alternative public school. Most are remarkable different from each other – there is no single program or approach that qualifies a school as a charter. If all charter students were in one district, it would be the third largest in Colorado. I don’t think that is a niche, not do I think the purpose of charters is any different than that of other public schools: to educate kids.
5. I likewise don’t understand your insistence that charters “are not just public schools.” What else are they that a traditional public school is not?
6. “Maybe you know of a way to make all schools small charter schools” – well, I might know a lot of things — but no one, least of all me, is advocating this point.
Incidentally your assumption that charters have small class sizes is not true (see also #4) – and, of course, there is little to no evidence that small class sizes have a positive educational benefit (STAR study most famously).
7. “Maybe charter schools aren’t for everyone, just the lucky few.” Huh? See #2 above. You seem to both argue to limit charters and that there are not enough to meet the demand.
8. What I mean by “you would judge the quality of schools purely by type rather than any sort of educational outcome” is that you clearly put charter schools in a separate category without any regard to their quality or other benefits.
Despite your final claim to “judge the quality of a school on whether it facilitates the learning needs of children” you repeatedly tar all charters with the same brush (with generalist tripe like “charters are a convenient band-aid used in place of dong the right thing for children in particular and education in general”). There are lots of schools that are “facilitating the learning needs of children.” Some of them are charters. So why would you not both acknowledge and support those – wid yer mighty big words ‘n all…