Why Our Betters Like Charter Schools

You must read this post from Mercedes Schneider, if you have not already, showing the many connections between Education Post, the administration, and the usual gang of reformsters.

This is not news, exactly. We've seen it before. The Center for American Progress was founded by John Podesta after he left the Clinton White House and before he left CAP to run the current Clinton campaign (catch him in Connecticut, trying to distance the Clinton campaign form the same policies that CAP pushed). Go back and watch Food, Inc for just one layout of the revolving door between companies like Monsanto and the government agencies that set food policy. Go all the way back to Eisenhower and the military-industrial complex.

Oddly enough, this type of government, this way of running a group of organizations, is readily recognizable to anyone who lives in a small town. It's not about "How can we find the best person to handle this?" It's about "I know a guy."

Boy, I wish we could find somebody to get this policy pushed through. "Hey, I know a guy."

Man, if only we could get some groups started to build some support for this policy. "Hey, I know a guy."

We need somebody with the expertise and connections to run this operation. "Hey, I know a guy."

We really need to get somebody in that office who shares our vision. "Hey, I know a guy who's be perfect."

This is not meritocracy. This is betterocracy. This is operating a whole system of organizations through your personal connections with The Right Kind of People, and it doesn't matter whether the organization is a business or an advocacy group or a lobbying outfit or an agency of the US government. What matters is getting the Right Kind of People in there, people we know, people we already have connections to and who know how to get the right things done in the way that we agree with.

This is where the GOP and Democrats agree-- they may disagree about what exact policies should be followed, but they both agree that the way you get things done is by getting the Right People in the Right Positions. Letting people vote? Well, sometimes that's a tool you have to spend money to harness, but it's also great if you can work around it. Democracy has no value in and of itself. In fact, it can be downright dangerous because sometimes those crazy voters will go rogue and refuse to put the Right People in office.

And what is the charter school movement except an attempt to extend this same operating system to the education business. Isn't it simply our bettercrats looking at public education and saying, "Well, this is stupid. have to get elected? Have to get special qualifications? Have to negotiate with the help? Have to be plugged into the whole system that is NOT run by the Right People just so I can open a school? That's no good. When I want to open a school, I should just be able to call a guy I know. And if I'm looking to get some schools opened in my area, I should be able to just make some calls. And all of this should be under the management of the Right Kind of People."

The networking is the tip off. In sectors of a small town, there are only so many qualified and interested people, so everything in certain sectors is run by the same group of people. They move around between jobs (Right now, Chris, you can help most by running this non-profit, and we'll move Pat into the City Hall job. Maybe next year y'all will trade back), but it's always basically the same group of folks. In a small town nobody may kick because nobody else cares how things are run. Or someone may kick and you get a spectacular power struggle.

In the big time, the network idea still works, but now admission to the network is tougher because you have to have the right connections, prove you have the right stuff, be able to flash the right stack of money and show of power. And of course you can still run into spectacular problems, like when some demented narcissist or cranky old guy get in the way of the people whose turn it was to get the Big Job.

But the point doesn't change. The charter school movement is about the takeover of public education by the network of Betters, the people who would like to be able to operate schools without having to deal with government and elections and rules and unions. What are operations like the Broad Academy and Teach for America except a way to formalize the injection of Right People with the Right Connections into the system? When Detroit needed a superintendent, somebody said "I know a guy" and called Eli Broad who said "I know a guy" and made a call and--whoosh!-- John Covington left one job to take another.

Sure, there are people who get into the charter biz to make money. But I'm increasingly convinced that the movement as a whole is mainly by extending the system of Government by the Right People by Way of Their Connections with Other Right People to our education system. They would like to operate schools with the same system they use to operate Ed Post and CAP and the Broad Academy. I know a guy. I'll make some calls. We need to get the Right Person working on that. Charter schools are just the logical extension of that system into the world of education. For those of us who don't know the Right People-- well, that's just proof we aren't the Right People ourselves.

ICYMI: Edu-reads from the week

Here's your assortment of reading goodies for the week:

Race and the Standardized Testing Wars

Kate Taylor's piece from yesterday's New York Times is a worthwhile read about tough issues. Additionally, she quotes Jennifer Berkshire's Have You Heard podcast and Jose Luis Vilson (an actual teacher). Nice to see a major mainstream article about education that doesn't just go straight to the usual reformy mouthpieces (though those voices are certainly represented here).

Sam Brownback Declares War on Kansas

Kansas has become a real showplace for the efforts to starve government to death and beat democracy into dust. Here's a good look at how Brownback did it.

Charlotte Danielson on Rethinking Teacher Evaluation

I know I already wrote a whole blog piece about this, but if you haven't gotten around to reading Danielson's thoughts, now's your next chance. Worth a look.

My ESSA Accountability Plan

Russ Walsh offers his own basic layout for an accountability plan under the new federal education regulations. This is how it could be done well.


The New Emergency Manager: Woman who got over $100K for school she never opened now imposing CEOs on struggling schools

From Eclectablog, a tale of more "you can't make this stuff up" shenanigans from Governor Snyder.

Off the Deep End: Swim Test vs. Standardized Test

Jesse Hagopian, Progressive Education Fellows, nationally renowned ed activist, and editor of More Than A Score, takes a moment to respond to writer's attempt to dismiss the opt out movement.

He Is More Than a Test Score

One writer's personal response to the results of the testing movement.

Who Will Lead the Edu-Revolution

Jose Luis Vilson's blog hosts the North Carolina teacher of the year, who offers some challenging thoughts for teachers of non-white, noon-wealthy students. It's the piece that includes this line: "teachers cannot simply advocate for student’s educational rights and stay silent on their civil and human ones."

More About MI Super

Nancy Flanagan, a top blogger who was one of my earliest inspirations in this bloggy biz, left a comment on my earlier post about Michigan's call for more testing, more often, of more students. It adds some important insights that I lacked, and I think it's important enough to get moved up here where people who don't read the comments will still see it.

Hmm. I actually live in Michigan. And while you didn't say anything that was technically not true--there's more to the story.

Michigan, as you mention, has a really creepy governor (more automaton than Captain Evil) and a batshit crazy, Tea Party-ish Republican legislature. The Superintendent is not--unlike most states--selected by the governor. S/he is chosen by an elected State Board of Education.

Earlier this week, a team of some 30 Republicans crafted a resolution to dismiss the (duly and democratically elected) State Board and the Superintendent--and replace all of them with a CEO, chosen by the Governor. Of course, this would require a change in the constitution, so they're putting that on their to-do list, but they made a really big deal about it. It's their goal. Soon.

The Superintendent was a kind of compromise choice, made by the (mostly Democratic) State Board. There were other (better) candidates, but Brian Whiston was chosen, largely because the Legislature loathes the State Board--and he had built relationships with legislators, when he was a lobbyist. That's right, they picked him *because* he was a lobbyist, and an actual public school superintendent, in a majority-Muslim district.

He actually does know some things about running a school district. The piece you were referring to (start testing earlier!--test more often!) drew lots and lots of scorn, but it was mostly about dumping the MI version of the SBAC/CCSS test, and replacing it with MAP testing in the fall, to address something teachers have been asking for: early feedback on kids.

Personally, I think it's a crappy idea, but I think it's the Supe's way of trying to make nice with the legislature, let them know he's not going to let go of accountability, even though he's recommending dumping the high-stakes test we most recently had.

Furthermore--he's not really in control. The legislature doesn't want a Superintendent or Board. They want to completely trash MI ed funding and firewalls between public and private. They want to "unbundle" the public system. The Superintendent was hoping to give them an idea that would fly, and keep channels of communication open between the Board and the Statehouse.

Brian Whiston is not the worst Superintendent we've ever had, by a long chalk. In fact, he hasn't been in place terribly long, and had a personal tragedy early in his term, so we haven't heard much from him. I would rather have him than someone appointed by Governor Endless Stare.

Sad thing--MI used to be a flagship union state, with excellent public schools and universities.

So maybe Whiston is trying to navigate through a tough place and getting stuck with some crappy choices. We'll see what happens next. 

One System To Rule them All

Every once in a while something turns up in the comments that is just too good not to pass on. This is from reader J. Chaffee (If I had a good elvish font, I'd use it).

 










Data Systems for the administrators under the sky,
Systems for the teacher drones in their halls of stone,
Systems for Mortal students doomed to die,
One system for the Corporate Head on his dark throne
In the Land of Cyber where the Shadows lie.
One System to rule them all, One System to find them,
One System to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Cyber where the Shadows lie.

No More Lone Genius

Earlier this month at the Harvard Business Review, Greg Satell wrote "It's Time To Bury the Idea of the Lone Genius Innovator."

He opens his argument with the story of Alexander Fleming. You know the standard bit-- Fleming finds his experiment with bacteria has been ruined by fungus which is killing every piece of bacteria it touches. So he has a flash of insight, redirects his attention to the fungus, and voila! Penicillin!

Except that, as Satell points out, is not it. Fleming makes his discovery in 1928. It doesn't become widely used until 1943. In between someone had to stumble across Fleming's research, figure out why it was important, figure out how to make the new wonder drug, and finally how to make it to scale. And Satell doesn't even address other steps such as publicizing the new drug widely enough that physicians would catch on to and promote its use.

Satell's point is that we need to drop the lone genius story. Simply having an idea isn't enough, and that such ideas don't happen in a vacuum to begin with-- you're always standing on somebody's shoulders.

He reminds me of this old video clip about First Followers. Favorite line: "A first follower turns a lone nut into a leader."

I'm mindful in both cases of how much our educational models can lean toward the lone genius. We put huge emphasis on Doing It Yourself, and that seems to make sense because if you can't do it by yourself, how do we know if you can do it at all?

But both Satell and Dancing Guy both remind us that the guy who comes up with an idea is not much more important than the guy who can recognize that the idea is worth pursuing and developing.

This kind of first follower, first developer skill is especially on point in an age in which the whole skill set of 'research" has changed. Back in my day (sonny), research meant combing the stacks of the library hoping to find one or two sources. But kids these days can find a mountain of sources-- the trick is to figure out what is worth paying attention to.

Jack Teagarden and Louis Armstrong were jazz geniuses who created solos that were profoundly awesome. But they were influenced by musicians that came before, they were creating those solos while playing with other musicians, based on songs composed by other writers, and they continued to draw influence from a myriad of sources-- some that no authority could ever have predicted (fun fact-- one of Armstrong's favorite bands, which he would often go listen to when they played the same town, was the sweetly unjazzlike Guy Lombardo). No musical genius was ever a lone genius.

We often default to a classroom model in which each student is supposed to be a Brilliant Idea Generator-- a lone genius. A gifted soloist. But perhaps it's a better idea to work with a model that fosters not simply collaboration, but an interlocking set of roles and an ability to separate wheat from chaff, Coke from New Coke, potatoes from potato chips. We still favor an approach that tells every student to keep her eyes on her own paper, but perhaps we should be telling her to look at everybody's paper-- and figure out which one is worth supporting, following and developing.

Satell is ultimately arguing in favor of more public-private-government partnerships. That's fine, I guess, sometimes. But I'm more interested in the human level. It's very American to think that one is either a mighty, heroic leader, or a schlubby drone. But collaboration, innovation, progress, success and culture come out of a much more complex web of relationships, skills and mutual support. This is one more reason that every student should be in band or choir or play on a team. And I'd like to see the rest of us find better ways to bring this reality into the classroom as well.

What Can You Do?

It has become an oft-repeated progression in the world of the public education debates. People become curious, then interested, then informed, then alarmed. Then they ask the question--

What can I do?

In some places, it's obvious. Some cities and communities are on the front lines of these battles and they need people to stand up and make noise right now, today. Parents need ton turn up at meetings. Teachers need to speak up at school. Letter writers. Sign carriers. People to stand shoulder to shoulder with those who are standing up.

But what if your district is not on the front lines (yet). What can you do to stand up for public education? Here are some thoughts.

Educate yourself

Read up on the issues. Dip into the blog list that appears on the right column of this page-- these are just some of the voices out there, but they're a pretty good assortment. If the politics or focus or tone of a particular blog doesn't grab you, keep sampling others. We are a large, literally motley crew. We are large; we contain multitudes.

Read books, too. There are several excellent out there that are great for the general reader.
















There are plenty more, more added to the list every day.

Communicate and Share

Spread and share the word. Tell people what you know.

The biggest weapon the resistance to ed reform has is information. The more people learned about Common Core, the less they liked it and the harder they resisted. And while not everyone may feel comfortable trying to explain what's going on, everyone has access to other writers' explanations.

Share on twitter. Retweet. Post it on facebook. Pin it. I am always surprised at the number of people who ask if it's okay to share a blog post-- certainly you can share it. That's pretty much what all of us have in mind when we write the things. If you like it and if it speaks to you, pass it on. Share, share, share.

And don 't hesitate to communicate with the writers and commenters you see. If you hear a politician say something that you know is wrong, write or call or email them and try to help them understand how they've missed the mark (pro tip: "You idiotic lying sack of beetle dung" is not a very effective way to approach this sort of communication). Reach out. Open a dialogue. You cannot expect people to know what nobody has ever told them.

Join up

There may well be local activist and advocacy groups that you can join and support. The opt out movement has grown many branches, and other regions have the groups that ben formed to face local concerns (for instance, Nebraska has been charter free for years, but now that charter fans have drawn a target on the cornhusker state, a group has been created by supporters of public schools).

Nationally, the movement has taken many forms.  Educolor can be found on line in many communities, doing the work of elevating the voices of public school advocates of color on educational equity and justice. Facebook is peppered with pro-public ed groups; if you prefer large and feisty, there's the Badass Teachers Association.

And the Network for Public Education is doing huge work these days, creating a voice that is anchored in grass roots origins, but which doesn't suffer from looking home made and amateur hour (like, say, certain blogs that individuals maintain on their lunch hour). You can become a member of NPE, and you can offer them some financial support to keep up the important advocacy for public ed. And if you want to step up that support, join and support NPEAction, the political action arm of NPE.

These may seem like small things, but they are actions that anyone can take. Reformsters are spreading their ideas through a massive money-fueled carpet bombing, co-opting of politicians, and a wide array of astroturf group. But folks on the side of the resistance have had some amazing successes fueled by nothing but determination and information. You don't have to be out on the sidewalk, holding a sign, to make a difference. Spread the word.

Stand Up. Stand Together: Reflections on Raleigh

I had a lot of reasons to stay away from this year's Network for Public Education conference in Raleigh, and up until the last minute I thought I wasn't going. Finances, family stuff, social anxiety, time off, general work stress, concerns about the venue-- all that and a few other things made me balk.

I'm certainly not unique. Lots of folks have lots of reasons not to attend a conference, some of them damn good reasons. But in the end, I went. And I'm glad I did.

Here are some of the reasons why.

* Ten hours in the car with my wife, both ways. My wife is my best friend, and we travel well together. It's always a treat, and last weekend it made a nice break for us to sit down in the same place for a while.

* Bonus student reunion. Because we are facebook friends, one of my former students received a facebook alert that I was in her town. I got to see her for the first time in seventeen years, meet her husband and some of her friends. Of the six, three were former North Carolina teachers, so I got offer condolences to some of the people that NC has driven out of the profession.

* Hearing Reverend Barber. The man has a voice, and he has something to say. He put the struggles of education and race and building a better, more just society in context, and with clarity.

* Listening to Tammie Vinson, Margo Murray, and Patricia Boughton from Chicago make a bit more clear how, on the ground, black teachers are being pushed from the profession. Also, learned a terrible thing I did not know-- that CPS had a history of extending tenure only to white teachers.

* Watching Jennifer Berkshire and Peter Cunningham do their thing.

But mostly it was the people. Seeing people that I'd first met last year, and meeting more people that I hadn't had the chance to talk or meet to before. The conference is remarkably plain and simple, and leaders Diane Ravitch, Anthony Cody and Carol Burris set a tone that is warm and open. Ravitch is a hugely important figure to the movement, nationally known, respected and recognized, and yet she spent the weekend looking like she was just hanging out, casual and approachable and so constantly surrounded by people who want to talk to her. One of the lessons that both conferences have underlined for me is that you don't have to posture and put on a big show when you are talking about what you truly at your core believe.

The value of a conference like this is that it reminds you that you're not alone, that you are not the only person who sees what's happening. That mutual support, that building of a national network of people who share a concern and passion for public education. Their interests may not align perfectly, but that for me is one of the beauties of the pro-public ed movement-- I am automatically suspicious of any movement that demands we all be on the same exact page.

Ed reform is barely covered in the press, and coverage is often simply reprinting press releases or presenting unquestioned comments from the reformster side. We could lean just on the blogs and articles that we read and continue to pass them along, but to see the actuals live and in person, to hear their voices, to ask the questions and hear the response is all so valuable (almost in the same way that a live teacher is more effective than education by computer screen).

And while it would be a mistake to just keep preaching to the choir, it's good to spend some time with the choir, to know that we're sharing the same music, to be reminded of just how the song goes before we go back out into a world where other clangorous tones fill the air. My thanks to the leaders, organizers and funders of the conference. For me it has meant renewed focus and energy, and I'm grateful.