Corporations versus Human Persons

The story of United Airlines and the Shameful Assault on a Paying Customer has been more thoroughly covered than almost anything this week (congrats, Beloved Leader Trump, on a widespread distraction from your latest screwup). We've had lessons from the airlines in free market delights before, but this is an even more direct and clear example of why the corporate approach is a bad idea for public education.

And that is how you run a No Excuses airline

Note that the United screwup is even worse than is generally reported. Though folks have blamed this on an overbooking of the flight, but actually, the airline wanted to bump four paying customers so that they could fly four of their own employees to Louisville.

This means they absolutely had the option of saying, "We need these employees in Louisville? Well, the seats on the plane are already filled with paying customers, so obviously we'll have to solve this internal transportation problem some other way." But no. They had a clear choice to make between the interests of the company and the care of the customers, and they picked the company. Well, not exactly "picked," because there was no decision so much as an auto-default to choosing in the corporate concerns, a default so strong and obvious to them, that they clearly didn't even reflect on how this should look.

And why should they? Sure, it would be shabby treatment for four customers, but the airlines barely bump one customer out of a thousand, and when you're operating at large scale, the smooth wheels of corporate operation can afford to grind up a tiny number of customers. And the selection process carefully selects those customers for lousy treatment who are the least valuable customers to the company.

That's just part of a larger picture. Airlines have also been quietly deserting many cities and providing fewer choices, because the corporate goal, of course, is not to serve everybody, but to serve the people who are worth serving, the people who fit your business model, the people who can bring you the kind of return you want on your investment. As New York Magazine notes:

For decades, airlines have been cancelling low-volume routes, reducing service quality, raising prices, merging to achieve economies of scale, declaring bankruptcy, and sucking up billions in public subsidies, and the industry still teeters on the brink of insolvency.

The bloodied face of the passenger-- well, former passenger-- is the corporate mindset written in its hugest, starkest form. Customers are there to meet the needs of the corporation, not vice versa. At Deadspin, Albert Berneko argues for the human over the corporate. He quotes the tweeted response of two United staffers-- the man wouldn't deplane. What else were they supposed to do? The answer, of course, is almost anything except summon police to drag him off the plane:

Like any other corporation, its precise reason for existing is to interpose cold, absolute machine reasoning in between the humans who created it and the humans whose money and/or labor the former want; if it had humane or conciliatory answers—ones responsive to or even cognizant of any prerogative short of maximizing its own moneymaking efficiency—to questions like “What should United Airlines do when it f**** up?” it would be a malfunctioning corporation.

If you don't yet see the parallels between the airline industry and the burgeoning charter school industry, here's another excerpt from Eric Levitz's NY Mag piece:

But thanks in no small part to lax antitrust enforcement by President Reagan and his successors, deregulation ultimately turned a public quasi-monopoly into a private one. Or, as Phillip Longman and Lina Khan put it in a 2012 essay for Washington Monthly, Carter’s reforms shifted “control of the airline industry from experts answerable to the public to corporate boardrooms and Wall Street.” [my emphasis]


Now, I don't accept for a second that our public school system is a monopoly, and the trajectory from public good to private corporate interest is different, but the end result is the same-- a corporate concern that must put corporate interests ahead of individual human interests.

Airlines desert unprofitable cities. Charter schools ignore unprofitable communities. Airlines push out customers who get in their way. Charter schools do the same. And neither feel a mandate to make sure that every citizen is well-served. Both ultimately are more concerned about keeping the corporate machine running smoothly than about what must be done to the cogs and wheels to keep that smoothness gliding on without interruption.

Also important to note-- the rise of airline "unregulated competition" has resulted in a business that is dominated by four (very mutually supportive) companies. The Free Market does not like competition, and it never has. It likes sorting out winners and losers, and it likes giving winners the kind of market control that Free Market acolytes abhor in governments.

Is it possible that corporations can avoid being soulless and human-hostile? Sure, it's possible. But a corporation must by its very nature put its own financial success and corporate control high on the list of priorities. Is it possible that a government-run institution can become stiff and dry and soul-crushing in its own special way? Sure. But public schools are built around a simple goal, a promise to every single student in the country, and to every citizen of the country itself, to do right by every single student. But as Derek Thompson wrote in the Atlantic:

Companies in concentrated industries, like the airlines, have legal cover to break the most basic promise to consumers without legally breaking their contracts.

Corporate privatization has in its very dna the strands that lead us to some poor, bloodied man being carried off a plane on a stretcher. Privatizing schools leads us toward that path, demanding compliance and dealing only with those whom it deems worthy of being allowed to serve the corporation. There are places for the corporate approach in our society, but the schoolhouse is not one of them.

Trump Education Sad Argle Bargle

So, Donald Trump held a town hall, if your idea of a town is a place where only CEOs live. It included some Presidential word chunks on the subject of education, and happened all the way back on last Tuesday and yet somehow I missed it (almost as if I'm not actually a CEO) but Valerie Strauss was right on top of things for the Washington Post.

As one might expect, the entire conversation was a fact-free zone. It included some fact-free questioning from Catherine Engelbert, the head honcho at Deloitte, a consulting/accounting company you're probably not important enough to know about. But to be clear, this is a consulting firm that does not actually do anything, but describes itself with language like this:

Clients count on Deloitte to help them transform uncertainty into possibility and rapid change into lasting progress. Our people know how to anticipate, collaborate, and innovate, and create opportunity from even the unforeseen obstacle.

Englebert walked straight out of Lehigh University with her BS in Accounting and into a partnership at the multinational company. So when she talks about the “disconnect between what employers need and what are our students coming into the workforce are prepared to deliver,” you know that she backs that up with all the first-hand knowledge of a multinational bean counting consultant. Englebert throws in some statistics-- NYC schools graduate 70%, and only 37% are assessed as college and career ready. The first number may have some basis in reality, but the second has none. That's okay-- it fits in with the Trump narrative that public schools are a festering black pit of carnage and fail. His response--

Why are the numbers so horrific in terms of education and what happens when somebody goes through school and then they can’t read?

Well, sometimes they become famous and get tv shows and even become President. Even Englebert didn't allege that we are graduating a bunch of illiterate folks, and she tries to add that NYC has done some great things and couldn't we throw some more money at public-private partnerships, but Trump plays her off and notes that public education in cities is "rough," because all cities are hell-holes of despair and non-whiteness.

Other highlights from our Commander in Chief?

Charter schools are another thing people are talking about, a lot, and some of the charter schools in New York have been amazing. They’ve done incredibly well. People can’t get in, you can’t get in. It’s been, I don’t call it an experiment any more. It’s far beyond an experiment. If you look at so many elements of education and it is so sad to see what is coming, what’s happening in the country. … The cities. It’s a very rough situation.

Yes, people are talking about charters, just like they've been buzzing about that Frederick Douglass fella. I will agree that charters are no longer merely experimental-- we've established pretty clearly that under most of the operating circumstances in this country, they are failing to produce any kind of real success.

But education? Sad. Many elements are sad. I would be impressed if Trump could name a single element of education, but not holding my breath.

Also, he's going to do something about Common Core. Or he's already doing it. That part is unclear, although given the current laws on education, I think it's safe to say that he is doing everything he can about Common Core, which is nothing. He seems to think that Common Core is about school districts being controlled from DC, where there are bureaucrats, he says, who may be very nice but are making lots of money and don't give a hoot about your local community. It is unclear whether he is describing how things used to be or how they are currently operating under Trump; one more indication that he still thinks he's a candidate and that government's problems are not actually his responsibility. It is also unclear whether he knows that he has stacked his education department with a heaping helping of Jeb Bush-issue, Common Core lovers.

Betsy DeVos is doing a "terrific" job and has one of the "toughest jobs of any of our secretaries," which would explain why taxpayers are paying millions of dollars for DeVos body guards. She's also got a "tremendous track record," a statement for which I have supplied the subject and the verb because Trump begins just dropping out nouns with superlatives stapled to them, rather than actual sentences, but anyway-- doing what? As USED Secretary? Previously? I mean, we've all been looking over her track record pretty closely and I'm not sure where the word "tremendous" applies, though she does have tremendous amount of money, so maybe that's it.

Oh, and in other tremendous news, Trump reports that Ivanka and some other administration officials are "totally in love" with education issues and what the hell does that even mean? What does it mean to be in love with an issue? "Oh, I just feel so warm and fuzzy when I think about income inequality, but when I look at systemic racism, I want to take it home and cuddle it all night long." It's almost as if he sees issues not as problems to be solved that affect the real lives of real people, but as a sort reality show challenge, a game that gives you the opportunity to show how awesome you are. "Oh, yeah-- I am in love with the rope climb because I always have the fastest time."

As an education commenting guy, I have read many, many, many extrusions of education argle bargle. Arne Duncan could spout sentence-ish gibberish like nobody's business. But Trump, who has only a couple of main education themes to hit -- schools are awful, charters are wonderful, and Common Core, whatever it is, must go, somehow-- can fracture partially-formed empty sentence husks with a special kind of flair and wild carelessness, like a driver who pushes a car past the edge of a cliff because the law of gravity won't be enforced for him.

Trump also says "I think we are going to have a great four years," and I'm not sure what great is supposed to mean, but I am pretty sure that "we" does not include those of us working in public education.

Will Investors Love Fake Teachers?

Well, this was, of course, inevitable. We've heard a lot about CGI students as a training (and evaluation) technique for teachers, a freakish notion in which teachers or neo-teachers square off against cyber-puppets in an uncanny valley showdown.

And we've also hear endlessly about artificial intelligence being used to craft a personalized education program, somehow.

I'm from the future and I'm here to teach you stuff

So why not extend both ideas. Alex Salkever is here with the pitch, not in an education site, but at MarketWatch, a site for investors searching for the Next Big Thing. Salkever is VP of marketing/communications at Mozilla, and the co-author of The Driver in the Driverless Car. On LinkedIN he says that he helps "companies grow by building communities and creating memorable content."

And he thinks avatars are the teachers of the not-too-distant future.

Do avatar teachers seem too far afield? Let me ask another question: Does your child use artificial intelligence to learn? More parents will be answering yes in the coming years.  

It's easy peasy. "AI covers everything from smarter automated robotic reservations systems for airlines to tiny food delivery robots rolling through Washington, D.C. to virtual pharmacists that spot potential for adverse drug reactions based on our past histories and current prescription regimes." And how much harder than that could teaching be? Well, actually, the avatar teacher would have to be "strong AI," and "we aren't at Strong AI yet," but don't worry--

...we already can educate all children much better using today’s technology than with more traditional methods in the classroom. That’s because computers provide reliable feedback, don’t get tired and can guide learning to emphasize areas where reinforcement is needed. 

Sigh. Yes, it's one more technician who's sure he knows how to replace teachers even though he doesn't understand the job. Or hasn't done enough research to know tech-heavy models like Rocketship Academy (motto: just keep your young eyes on those computer screens) have failed to launch. Or that tech-heavy models like virtual schools, aka cyber schools, have been shown to actually be worse than nothing at all.

But while Salkever acknowledges that some of the necessary tech is still emerging, he has one piece that he thinks is key-- virtual reality goggles.

I won't sell you the data-- not even to save the farm

The CGI teacher will be right there in the goggles in 3D! And the goggles will read all manner of physiological feedback from the student. So if you thought Big Data's collection of test scores and personal data seemed scary and excessive, just imagine data miners scooping up your child's every physical reaction to every stimulus provided by the programming. Salkever knows this is hugely Big Brothery, but parenthetically, he hopes "that we will build proper privacy and data control mechanisms to let pupils and parents decide who can see their vital information about learning and biological responses." Yes. Because keeping data secure is something that we've been excellent at so far, and because corporations regular say, "Yes, we could sell that to you, but it would be wrong, so we just won't." And remember-- this is a pitch in a site aimed at investors.

Not creepy enough for you yet?

The world becomes the classroom and the classroom becomes the world. This isn’t to say that the real world goes away. To the contrary. The blending of the two, with our guide to teach us along the way, creates a seamless digital and analog learning space.  

Wow, that's-- wait! What?

Look, there are so many things wrong with Salkever's pitch. Let's just pick a couple.

1) His fake digital teaching is only good to the extent that it resembles teaching done by real humans. So how is it better? His suggestion is that it doesn't become tired or get bored or ever miss an answer, but human students do all those things, so why is a piece of software that doesn't well-suited to teaching them. We've got research right now that tells us that students learn better when they see someone like them in the classroom. Right now we're drawing the conclusion that this means black students do better when they have even one black teacher; I'm betting we can learn that human students learn better from human teachers.

2) Software is only as smart as the person programming it. Avatar teachers will not be programmed by God, like digital manna downloaded from heaven. They will be programmed by humans. That means the artificial intelligence will not be any smarter about, say, American literature than the person who programs them. And if you think everything that can be possibly known or understood or divined about American literature can be loaded into one program, you are probably not a very good literature student. The possible responses to a chess move are many, but they are finite-- it is possible to program every possible situation into one digital brain. The possible responses to all the works in the American literature canon is infinite. Which brings me to

3) A digital teacher depends on a "fill the pail" model of education. It assumes that teaching is about downloading pieces of information from your brain to the students'. It assumes that there is no discovery, no exploration, and definitely nothing to learn in a classroom that is not already known. In short, digital teachers are the perfect tool for replacing teachers from, say, the late 1800s.

4) The people who are pushing this stuff are largely ignorant of teaching. Salkever allows that there will not be teachers any more-- just "lots of very good coaches (once called teachers) who focus on the creative, motivational and communications aspects that are far harder to translate into the digital realm." In other words, teachers. Because the creative, motivational, and communication aspects are the largest part of the teaching game. Presumably the "coach" would also handle things like breaking up fights and interrupting games like "Who can shoot a spitball closest to the avatar's nose."

I suppose those who believe that education is a simple technical task could really close the loop here and put a digital teacher avatar in a classroom with digital avatar students. It would not involve any actual humans or human relationships at all, nor would it have anything to do with education. But, oh, the investment opportunities.

Soap Box Derby Equity

We have tied to explain the problems of equality and equity and opportunity dozens of ways. Here are two you've probably seen, many times:

I'm going to offer another metaphor today-- the soap box derby.

Let's imagine two racers approaching the starting line. Our two young divers are seated in similarly-built cars, made well enough for the race. The race down the hill begins at the starting line, but before they arrive at that line, anything goes.

Chris's car is carried to the starting line, and there Chris sits, waiting for the flag to be waved, at which point Chris will take off the break and let gravity move the car down the hill.

Meanwhile, Pat is lined up further in back of the starting line. Pat has family there, too, and when the flag waves, Pat's family will push Pat just as hard as they can.

A few seconds later, we see the two cars on the hill. The race has begun. Pat is out in front, going far faster than Chris. But when someone among the spectators complains that the race is not fair, the reply they hear is this:

"It's perfectly fair. Look-- they're in equal cars, on the same hill, each one steering and driving their car depending on nothing but their own skills, reflexes, talents and abilities. If Pat wins, that must be because Pat is a better driver, and Chris would be better off building a skill set and becoming a better driver than worrying about. Because right now, on that hill, they are perfectly equal."

We could make the metaphor more complicated, give Pat and Chris different vehicles to represent various obstacles Chris brings into the race. But here's the thing-- even if Chris has just as good a car, is just as strong and sharp, works just as hard at driving, history is still on Pat's side. Everything that happened before the starting line was crossed makes a huge difference.

Research tells us over and over again that families of origin make a huge difference, that history stacks the deck before a child even crosses the starting line. We also know that how our society functions makes a difference as well (I might expand the metaphor by adding that Chris is stopped by police every ten feet down the hill).

I'm not arguing for inescapable destiny. I'm not saying that children who are born poor or raised poor are doomed, their fate set in stone, nothing we can do about it. There's plenty we can do about it. There are soooo many things that we can do in school to help boost up those racers who didn't get the extra push to start, and we should be doing every single one we can think of, because success is attainable for every child who walks through the school door.

But we can't do anything if we don't understand the situation. And if we are looking at the two racers on the hill, saying, "Well, they're totally equal with the same resources and situation, so I guess Chris just isn't trying hard enough," then we don't understand the situation, and we won't find the solutions we need.

What the Public Sees

While reading my way around the web this weekend, I came across this "Topline Report" of the Phi Delta Kappa annual poll about education issues. I'm way late to sifting through this data, but it's an interesting report, so I'm going to do it anyway. It gathers together the data over the past several decades into some quick-and-dirty charts, and it makes for some interesting reading. The newest results aren't very new (May of 2016), but the trends over the years are illuminating.

Biggest Problems?

The survey allows for three open-ended responses to the question of the biggest problems in schools. In 2016, funding won with 19% which is down 13% from just two years ago. 2009-2014 funding stayed on top with over thirty percent voting for it.

Standards have rarely made the list at all, except for a period from 2004-2009 (No Child Left Behind days) when they hovered around 3%. They reappeared as a problem in 2015 at 7% and were way up to 9% last year.

The chart is also a reminder of some things we used to consider a big deal. 9% considered discipline a problem, but from 1969 until 2010, discipline was never out of double digits, and from 1969 till 1987, it never dropped below 20%. Why are we so much less concerned nowadays? Better behaved children or, as I suspect is the case in many of these answers, does the shift reflect a shift in what is reported by the press and amplified by whoever's trying to stir things up. Violence, drugs, and overcrowding were also seen as huge problems back in the day and now don't register so much. Race was a regular double-digit issue in the 70s but in 2016, it only stood at 2%-- the first time it cracked the list at all since 1996.

How Good Are Which Schools?

PDK gives us the classic question-- how good are schools. Specifically, how good are the nation's schools, your community's schools, and your kids' schools?

Responses here have been remarkably consistent, particularly given the amount of hammering on public education that has been done.

The percent of people willing to give their community schools As or Bs actually peaked in 2009-2015 at close to or above 50%. The percentage has never dropped below 40% since 1974 except for the period between 1977 and 1983 when it fell to the thirties. I blame my brother and sister, who were in high school at the time.

The A-B rate for the nation's schools have hovered around 20% since 1981, though in recent years, the percentage of people saying those schools are failing has inched up from 3-ish to 7-ish. Yeah, schools are okay in our town, but Those People over there need to get their act together.

And my child's school? It's awesome. The percentage of parents giving their child's school and A or B has stayed right around 70%. In a couple of years PDK did it two ways-- just public schools, and all school parents. When you fold in the non-public parents, the approval rating goes up a percent or two, which makes sense.

The implication, as always with this data set, is that direct first-hand experience with a school leads to a higher opinion of the school. Is it significant, do you think, that reformsters most often want to fix terrible schools that they have no first-hand experience with?

Tough Enough?

Responders to the survey could be a bit... conflicted about some things. The same parents who thought their schools were great also thought the schools were doing a mostly-middlin' job on teaching some of the Main Stuff. There are plenty of ways to read this-- I'm gong to go with the conclusion that parents measure a school based on far more than the academics. Which would mean that evaluating schools and providing "consumer" information based on the results of a single math and reading test would not provide parents with anything close to the information they want to make a choice.

53% of parents believe that new standards have made a change to what is taught in their children's classrooms. But they are almost perfectly split on whether those changes are positive or negative.

50% believe the changes include more time spent on standardized testing, and 44% blame the changes for increased homework.

The responders are also almost evenly split on whether or not charter schools should have to meet the same educational standards as other schools. I wish this were paired with a question that asked if the responders think public schools should have to meet the same educational standards they're required to meet now.

Fixing a Bad School

Only 14% said that the solution to a bad public school is to close it down-- and keep in mind that around 80% believe there are bad schools all over the place (just not in their neighborhood). But 62% also believe that the administration and faculty should be replaced.

Communication

About half of the parents responding to various questions about the issue felt that their school heard them and gave them adequate opportunity to voice their opinion. That would indicate room for improvement.

Taxes

53% would support raising property taxes to improve schools, and the majority believe that spending the money on teachers would be the way to go, however almost 50% also believe that the money would not end up where it was supposed to.


Again, I will remind you that these data are a year old as well as being subject to all the vagaries of survey data collection. Most of all it's important to remember that surveys like this don't tell us what's actually happening-- only what folks see or think is happening. Funny that issues we used to hear about all the time, like discipline and race, just kind of disappeared-- not because they became less of an issue, but because the conversation just shifted elsewhere.

It's a reminder that schools can't really afford an approach of "Well, we'll just do our jobs and let people think what they want to." Because there are always a multitude of voices that are willing to speak up and create an impression. It is that very phenomenon that explains why so many people believe that Our Schools Are The Worst Of All Time even when there isn't a single spot of evidence to support that. It has just been repeated, over and over and over and over and over and over, until folks figure that they wouldn't keep hearing it if it weren't true. Meanwhile, supporters of public education have sat mostly silent.

It's the thing that reformsters have always understood far better than public school advocates-- in a war of perception, voices matter and messages matter and hammering it all home matters.

ICYMI: Early Earth Day Edition (4/9)

Every Sunday I try to share some of the noteworthy reads of the previous, focusing on the pieces you might have missed. You can also keep up with plenty of what's worth reading by using the column to the right, where I list most of my regular reads. Read-- stay informed-- and share. If something speaks to you, amplify that voice, boost that signal, and get the word out.

Is Louisiana's NAEP Miracle Significant

Gary Rubinstein is a gifted debunker. Read here as he explains why Louisiana is bragging abot a nothingburger, and in the process, learn a little bit about how little those NAEP scores really tell us.

Arizona Shows What Can Go Wrong with Tax Credit Vouchers

Seems we're all spending a little time talking about the stealth vouchers-- education tax credits. Here's an example of how badly they can go wrong.

Prince

Audrey Watters and the end of educational technology.

Crony Capitalism

Jennifer Berkshire talks to Dr. Preston Green about the parallels between the charter boom, Enron, and the housing bubble disaster of 2008.

Why Google Can't Replace Individual Human Knowledge

Interesting piece about why the whole "we don't need to know stuff because internet" argument is specious and just plain wrong.

Standardized Testing Creates Captive Markets

Steve Singer provides one more way to understand the wrongness of the Big Standardized Test. Hint: it has to do with $$$$.

Why Do Rural Legislators Vote For Voucher Programs That Deliver No Benefits to Their Counties

Looking at education tax credits in Pennsylvania, the writers ask a simple question-- why are rural legislators voting for these things that provide zero benefits to rural areas?

Teacher Evaluation: It's About Relationships

Russ Walsh looks at teacher evaluation from the, you know, human being perspective.

40 Quick and Easy Switches for Earth Day

My daughter is also a bloggist (or rather, I am also a bloggist because she got there first) and she frequently offers concrete advice for people who are interested in being more responsible economic and ecological stewards. Here are 40 simple things you can do.

Field Guide To Choice Advocates

The world of choice/charter/voucher advocacy has always been a barely-tacked-together quilt of varying interests and goals. The elevation of Betsy DeVos to Secretary of Education under His Royal Trumpness has stretched-- and in some cases snapped-- those bonds. When choicers appear in your neighborhood, you could find yourself dealing with select sub-species of the breed; you can use this handy field guide to determine what, exactly, you're dealing with.



Concerned Parents

In the charter-choice world you will form time to time encounter parents whose frustration and bad experience with their local school district has driven them to seek alternatives. They want charter schools because they want to put their child in one. Many of these choicers spend only a short time in the movement, lasting only about as long as it takes them to discover that their charter presents all the same problems they encountered in public schools, except for communication and responsiveness, which is worse.

A key identifying feature is that these choicers actually have actual children in the local system. This is the only choice variety that cannot be faked. It is always appropriate to open a dialogue with Concerned Parents-- they have real issues, real concerns, and the highest sincerity index of anyone we'll encounter on this list. They have something to say about your local public school, and you should listen to them.

Social Justice Advocates

Similar to the concerned parents, but without the actual local children. They have noticed on the federal, state or local level that systemic racism and neglect can cause, in particular, major urban school districts to fail the non-wealthy and the non-white, and they have concluded that an alternative system might be the better choice.

This is a dwindling species. Charter/choice advocates had a chance to ally with these folks, but steadily scamming, failing, and silencing local voices, the larger movement has lost credibility with the people at ground level (see also "NAACP Charter Moratorium"). You can spot authentic SJA's because they can stop talking about charters and choice long enough to also discuss equitable funding. You can also spot them by looking at whose voice is actually being amplified. Fake SJAs are sure they know what's best for Those People. Real SJAs actually let Those People lead the conversation.

Competition Junkies

Their argument is that everything is made better by competition. They will complain about the "monopoly" of "government" schools. The strong should thrive and the weak fall under the wheel. With a competitive choice system, schools will sharpen their edges to become the best, cutting open the veins of mediocrity so that all the boast are lifted on a rising tide of the losers' blood.

Ask the competition junkies what should become of the losers and the students who go to school in them. The unspoken assumption of competition junkies is that there are winners and losers and if you lose, it's because you deserve to lose, which means you deserve whatever bad things happen to you because of it. Cookies are for closers. If you are trying to argue that this system is unfair or damaging, expect some mansplaining about weakness and snowflakes.

Free Market True Believers

The government should be taken completely out of the education business, education should be provided by a broad assortment of providers (not just schools, but companies that provide courses and microcompetencies as well). Education is a big beautiful $600 billion marketplace, and for too long entrepreneurs have been forced to gaze at that lush field longingly, drooling through an impenetrable wall of rules and regulations. Tear down that wall! Give vendors free and unfettered opportunity to get onto that playing field. The corollary is that parents should also be free to spend money at any of those newly-free companies.

If all of this flexibly creative disruption results in more students getting a worse education, that's completely beside the point for the FMTB. For them, there is no higher value than unrestrained vendors and unaided buyers chasing each other through rolling fields of money.

The Brilliant CEOs

These guys aren't ideologues-- they're just businessmen who would like to make a buck and run an edu-business. Unlike the Free Market True Believers, CEOs believe there should be some rules, because it's bad for business when you let a bunch of undisciplined incompetents and fraudsters ruin the brand. Plus they're pretty sure they can take everyone else in a fair fight. The CEOs are pretty sure they're the smartest guys in the room, and the system they like is the one that lets them implement their personal vision without having to answer to other people, whether it's the damn teachers (doesn't the help know its place?) or the idiot elected officials (Can't we get rid of elected school boards?).

It's not that they want to make more money; it's just that money is how you keep score, and they are playing to win, to show the world that if Brilliant CEO was given complete control, the freedom to hire and fire and set hours and wages. Brilliant CEO wants choice because he wants to be able to create his school system from the bottom up rather than dealing with any system that already exists. You can't really debate or discuss with these guys because, sorry, you're just beneath them.

Jesus School

I've heard it more than once from folks in my own neck of the woods. "Originally, most societal organizations were para-church groups. We lost the government, the schools, the hospitals. The country would be better if we took them back."

When implemented, vouchers have proven to be a windfall for private religious schools, sometimes pulling them back from the financial brink. But these choicers are not in it for the long haul. They would like to get tax dollars directed away from public schools and toward private religious schools (where they feel that money rightfully belongs) until, some day, the Christian schools are big enough and successful enough that the public system can be shut down-- or at least scaled back until it's a lightly-funded holding pen for the children of infidels.

These folks have been around for a while, consigned to the fringe both by public attitude and the law. But now that one of their own is the Secretary of Education, they're feeling pretty feisty.

Separatists

The most notable example would be the segregation academies that sprang up across the South after Brown v. Board. Their basic position is that we need choice because they don't want their kids mixing with Those Other Children. They would also rather not pay taxes to support the schools for Those Other Children. This group tends to speak in dog whistles because they know that, even with Trump as President, open racism is only socially acceptable under select circumstances. Expect to hear about letting students find the school that is the best fit, or which gives them the most comfortable social experience.

Union Crushers

We can't fix the existing system because of the union. The teachers union controls everything, from selecting school board members to setting their own wages to taking advantage of a tenure system that keeps even the worst teachers on the planet fully employed for a full decade after they die. This group is pretty sure that the whole public school system is a scam set up by NEA and AFT, a fake "education" system set up so that a bunch of lackluster halfwits can steal public tax dollars that they turn around and hand over to the damn unions. The only possible solution is to burn the public union-infested system to the ground and replace it with one where teachers are paid $1.50 an hour and like it and don't act so smug all the time just because they went to college.

Frauds and Charlatans

They really only have one goal, and that is to run an education-flavored scam that puts more money in their pockets. They will gladly pretend to be members of any or all of the above groups as long as it gives them an angle they can play that will get them what they want. And since now it's apparently okay to use even the highest public office in the land to enrich friends and family, these guys will be more brazen and omnipresent than ever, from the legislators in Florida who make sure their family charter business is well-cared for to Buffalo school board member whose board position helps him make big bucks from charter business and says, when called on it, "I'd be a friggin' idiot if I didn't."

They close their schools mid-year, make themselves filthy rich with public tax dollars, implement education plans with no educational experience or training, use charters as a tax dodge, and run every kind of scam you can imagine. Often they are shameless, but just as often they pretend to share the goals and values of whatever charter-choice advocates are leading the charge that particular day. You can't really talk to them, because they will either keep changing their story or, when pinned down, will just not care.


Charter/choice advocates can take any of these forms, and they can hold these positions with varying degrees of sincerity. These different varieties of advocate also come with a full range of knowledge, from a handful with actual education experience and training all the way to the many clueless amateurs who think that because they once went to school, they know everything. Learn to recognize the difference between these breeds so that you know whether to approach with caution, conversation, or stubborn contrariness.