What The Heck Is A Chief Innovation Officer? (And Does Your District Need A Proactive Change Agent Visionary Leader To Transform Your Human Capital With Capacity-Building Systems?)

My college job was in the private sector, working in the education and communication department of an industrial manufacturing company. In ways that my college education could never hope to, my time there drove home how there are plenty of folks making a good living using language to obscure rather than reveal, the there's a whole art of using language to try to convey importance and weight while cloaking the actual content of those words with smoke and mirrors. On the one hand, it's appalling, like watching someone use the Mona Lisa to scrub the grime off their car. On the other hand, it's its own kind of hilarious language, a linguistic emperor's new clothes. We entertained ourselves by cranking out faux bulletins in corporate argle bargle; I actually have a bound collection of our best work.

I am reminded of all that when I read some of the corporate baloney unleashed on education (not that education doesn't have its own ridiculous jargon). Take, for instance, the new-ish corporate ed reform job of Chief Innovation Officer. Right off the bat, we know this is corporate-style baloney, because of the desire to signal this is a Real Important Job by making it C-level with a Chief in front. The whole trend of turning school administration jobs into "chief" jobs is about "translating" education-speak into corporate-speak.

The Center for Digital Education offered its own balonified exercise in explaining CIOs in 2013; you know from the very first paragraph it's going to be richly foolish:

Chief innovation officers are slowly popping up in school districts around the country. Some say they fill a gap in leadership that's preventing education from moving forward.

First-- "slowly popping up"?? I'm trying to imagine slow-popping popcorn, or a jack-in-the-box that emerges like an arthritic octogenarian. Nope. If you're going to pop up, you can't do it slowly.  Second- "some say"?? Some what? Some corporate guys who want to remake education in their own image.

It turns out that "around the country" meant "in at last four school districts" in 2013. The article features plenty of unfounded assertions, like "Right now, probably 70% of school districts  need a complete makeover." Don't expect any support or elaboration for that. The article interviews a new CIO who's supposed to provide "visionary leadership" and who says an "exciting piece" of his job is "to empower people  and build capacity in a way that inspires." But the article also notes that the CIO job description is varied from place to place; in Detroit, the  job is simply "to better prepare students for college." What that has to do with innovation is not clear.

Not that the corporate world where the term originated knows either. The term supposedly comes from a 1998 book, Fourth Generatio R&D,  and wikipedia says it's for the person most reposnible for managing change, who comes up with new ideas and who recognizes them when other people bring them up. Inc offers its own explanation which involves championing innovation and driving new growth. Back in 2009, Forbes was sure that you needed one for your company. LinkedIN shows close to 200 openings at the various times I looked.

Education has always been where corporate fads go to die (before Outcome Based Education, there was Management By Objectives), but modern ed reform, with its belief that education needs to be run like a business, has accelerated that process. So as we saw above, CIOs were a coming thing in 2013. In 2016, edWeb was explaining why schools needed a CIO in the same graceless language

Education is experiencing an extraordinary transformation that requires Innovative Leadership to implement major change initiatives and redesign numerous systems within a school district. A strong movement driven by Future Ready Schools is charging toward a personalized learning environment to prepare students for college, career, and life readiness that links the learning in the classroom to a real world setting.

It just sounds so smart, you know. Major change initiatives. Redesign numerous systems. Charging toward a personalized learning environment. It has the solid ring of corporate argle bargle-- you almost know what it means, close enough that you assume that with some specialized training you'd have a better idea what exactly they mean. That's a more charitable assumption than figuring that they are keeping the language vague and grand because they themselves don't know exactly what they mean, but they still want to make the sale. It's like moving a product by giving it a fancy designation, like JSB-400; it makes it sound hard-edged and sciency, even if you just made the whole thing up. Corporate reform wants to sell itself as hard-nosed scientific management, and so we get this language to hide the fact that they are just as vaguely fuzzy-headed as those bleeding heart humanists who want to call teaching an art.

Meanwhile, you can get a CIO certificate to prove, I guess, that you are a visionary change agent of environmental disruption. And higher education is being scolded for having only 25% penetration of CIOs.

To really capture the baloney-fest, here comes Bellwether Partners with an interview with two CIOs-- Margo Roen (Education First) and David Saenz (Forth Worth ISD).

Roen's view of the job is more entrepreneurial-- grab data, look for "gaps," fill gaps through "internal capacity building or external partnerships," and then "formalize these strategic partnerships through performance contracts that clearly lay out expectations, autonomies, and supports for partners." So, figure out what test  prep you need and hire  some companies to provide it. Saenz is more managerial-- the CIO handles "change management" with various projects and communications with "internal and external partners," plus knowing how all the parts of a school district works. So, pretty much a superintendent.

Roen notes that there is still "not one prototype for the role" which is charming but really, what other job could get away with that. Certainly nobody's response to "We need more evaluation and accountability for teachers" is not "Well, there really isn't one prototype for the role." Roen believes innovation "can help create new solutions and more equitable systems, and use a more focused process to surface innovation needs." So, figuring out what  problems ned to be solved and solving them-- is that really innovation, or just basic management?

Saenz gets to describe a typical week, and it's mostly meetings, but wow, what meetings. His typical week is "centered around meeting with a wide range of stakeholders to help foster collaborative decision-making as we address gaps in our district." He facilitates the work of the Office of Innovation, including the Innovation Action Team, a "cross-functioning team" with  all sorts of key officials (including the "human capital office.")

Saenz also talks about the supports in place, like a "district culture" that enables CIOs "to push the limits of their district's capacity and form new schemas for how we manage our schools." He also lapses into plain English long enough to say that a lot  of this is about charter school authorizing. Which for some of you will come as no surprise at all, because "innovation" these days is a euphemism for "privatization."

Which brings us to the last question in the interview-- why would a superintendent want a CIO. The argle bargle answer is that they are too busy with the daily problems and putting out fres that they lose the big picture. In other words, reformsters have found that getting their agenda fulfilled sometimes takes a back seat to actually running the district, so if the district could have someone working on privatizing full time, that would be a big help. Or, if you prefer, someone "who who is solely focused on the big picture, who shepherds forward an annual cycle of proactive evaluation and planning, and wakes up and goes to sleep every day thinking about the range of options and quality in the district."

All of this noise is generated in service to two obscure two things: 1) nobody pushing this stuff can offer  a specific, concrete explanation of what it is and 2) it's about  privatizing and profiteering.

It also reminds us of a point that is perhaps not made often enough (my hat is tipped here to Andrea Gabor, who addresses this really well in her book After the Education Wars) -- that we have a problem not just with reformsters who want to use business methods to manage education, but with reformnsters who want to use lousy business methods to manage education.

For teachers, the important point is to believe your own eyes and ears. You know language, and you know baloney when you see it. When it looks like someone is trying to fake you out with a bunch of baloney, they probably are. In this case, they definitely are. If you think you can see the emperor's bare ass, it's because you can. Do not be intimidated by what a friend of mine use to call Big Wig Lingo.

And for the people pushing this stuff. Take a step back, really looking at what you're saying, and ask yourself if anyone should take this kind of billowy jargon seriously (spoiler alert: the answer is no). If you really have something to say, you'll do better in plain English.

ICYMI: Applefest Weekend Edition (10/6)

Applefest is a thing in my small town, like the most giant tchotchke/food/car/etc festival a small town could hope to put on. So for three  days we have walked till we dropped, only instead of dropping I'm going to sit here and pass along some worthwhile reading from the last week.

The Unmet Promises of a New Orleans Charter School

From The Nation, one more example of how charters in NOLA never quite lived up to the hyped promises that were made.

I Think My Bladder Changed  

From Yahoo Lifestyle's series of interviews with teachers who left the field. Short, but utterly recognizable.

Let's Review Matt Bevin's Plan To Undermine Public Education In Kentucky  

The Lexington Herald Leader is not having it with Kentucky's pro-privatization governor, and here is the whole breakdown of his program (recogizable from plenty of other states, unfortunately)

Craziness: How Mongomery's First Charter School Has Devolved Into Chaos In Less Than Six Weeks 

Not enough supplies or teachers and a principal who has already been pushed to an angry resignation by the board. LEAD is a mess under a loader who asserts that charters don't have to follow laws. The Alabama Reporter has the whole wretched story. Oh, and as a bonus, there's a Gulen tie, too.

Teachers Won't Embrace Research Until It Embraces Them  

The Right To Read project looks at how the "reading science" crew treat teachers, and how that seems unlikely to engender teacher loyalty or acceptance.

What's Wrong With Assigning Books--And Kids--Reading Levels

Reporters at the Washington Post books section provide yet another reminder that Lexile scores are not vert reliable or trustworth. Some concrete examples, including the one showing that Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a higher Lexile score than The Grapes of Wrath or The Sound and the Fury.

Black Male Teachers Have Positive Effects On Students of All Races  

Nice little op-ed from a former Black male teacher.

Inside the Koch's Vision for Public Education

Have You Heard interviews the author of Kochland about what exactly the Kochs want to see in public education (spoiler alert: less of it).

It's Not A Flashdrive

If you are a teacher, the odds are good that there's at least one student vaping in your classroom, right in front of you. The indispensable Mercedes Schneider has collected some of the info you need to catch up on this newer trend.

      

The Next Big Problem With School Shooter Preparedness

We think we're seeing the worst side effects of our national preoccupation with school shooters.

We aren't.

The problems with active shooter drills have already been widely documented. In the best of circumstances, active shooter drills are disturbing, even if they are focused just on the adults in the building. I've been through a drill with shooters using blanks; it's rough. But we've ben seeing stories about drills that went wildly over the top-- execution-style shootings with pellet guns, and drills that are treated as an actual real event.

The trauma experienced by children is widespread and severe. Stories on facebook and twitter and in the supermarket abound. Children who are worried about sneezing or afraid that if they can't learn to stifle tears, they might give their position away to the shooter. The NEA felt the need to create a guide for helping students cope, while a steady stream of articles catalog the fears such drills awaken and the reasons active shooter drills should be stopped.

But from Florida comes news that hints at the next level of trouble sparked by drills and news coverage and the business of building fear into our children:

A ten-year-old girl is facing charges after she brought a steak knife to her elementary school in Florida, according to authorities.

According to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, the girl said she brought the knife to Stanley Switlik Elementary School so she could protect herself if an armed attacker entered the school.

Most of the controversy surrounding these events centers on the district attorney's bizarre decision to level criminal charges against this girl (and the school's bizarre decision not to have her back). And that's all pretty awful, but that's not where I want to focus.

A student thought she needed to bring a weapon to school to protect herself from any scary attacker.

It's not a surprise this happened in Florida. In the "Florida man" state, students are subjected not just to the active shooter drills, but have hard all the discussion surrounding putting armed guards in schools, of arming teachers in their schools. Many of them have heard the insistence that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

It should have been obvious. Why would a student not conclude that she needed to take a weapon to school?

This time it was a ten year old with a steak knife. Eventually it will be a sixteen year old with a hand gun. In the worst case scenario, that sixteen year old won't be arrested and charged for acting out of fear-- he'll be shot by some security guard, or, God help him, an armed teacher. Someone who, in a split-second moment of terror will think that student is a threat. And that's just one scenario-- I can't even begin to imagine all the different way things can take a turn for the worse when a frightened student brings a weapon to school.

But I believe it will happen again. We are building a toxic atmosphere of fear, fed by the foolish notion that the only solution for fearful things is even more fearful things. We are busy convincing students that they are in mortal peril and that only weapons can save them. Maybe there's a guard or a teacher or a cop on the way, but how could some students not conclude that the best way to have the most immediate protection is to have a weapon of their own. And there's no way that ends well.

A Teacher's Final Lesson

If you live in western Pennsylvania, you may already know the story of Ashley Kuzma. If you don't, I'd like to share it with you.

Kuzma was born in Beaver County, PA, and graduated from Freedom Area High School in 2005. She attended Pitt where she earned a Bachelor's in History and Poli Sci, and Edinboro University, where she earned a Master's in Education and a teaching certificate. She worked as a long term sub teaching social studies, then later became a gifted support teacher for Lancaster schools, then taught gifted at McDowell Intermediate High School.

Teaching was a challenge as she suffered from throat problems that made her increasingly hoarse. A biopsy revealed those problems to be the result of laryngeal cancer. She went through radiation treatments, then a partial laryngectomy. She returned for the final day of school with a feeding tube. Then the cancer came back. In September  of 2018, she went into the Cleveland Clinic for a total laryngectomy, plus 30 radiation and 5 chemotherapy treatments. She returned to the classroom, able to speak softly with the aid of a prosthesis held against a permanent opening in her neck. As a young teacher, she did not have nearly enough sick days accumulated to cover her absences, so much of her treatment occurred during unpaid leave.

Her story became more widely known when a friend entered her in a Norwegian Cruise Lines contest that offered free cruises for 30 teachers who showed a passion for teaching. Kuzma was one of the winners.

Before it was time to leave for the cruise, Kuzma learned that her cancer was back. She traveled to Mexico and Chichen Itza. Her treatment options were limited.

On September 22, Ashley Kuzma died at the age of 32.

Before she passed away, Kuzma completed one other exceptional act. She wrote her own obituary. Here are some excerpts:

When you have recurrent laryngeal cancer that just won't take no for an answer, you have a lot of time to think about death. The good thing is I no longer have to worry about saving for retirement, paying off student loans, or trying not to get skin cancer??? One positive outcome from having recurrent cancer was that it taught me to let go of the insignificant things and to just enjoy the people and places. After three recurrences, my body finally had enough and I passed away on Sunday, September 22, 2019 at the Cleveland Clinic.

I am extremely grateful for the life that I lived. I was fortunate to have a loving family, supportive friends, a stable and meaningful job, and a house to call my own. My wish for you is to stop letting insignificant situations stress you out. Do what is important to you. Relax and enjoy the company of those around you. What do you value in your life? In the end, that's what matters.

This obituary was written by Ashley preceding her passing as part of the many preparations to make the transition easier on her family.

There's not much to add. I am reminded of my old friend Susie who, during her rounds of chemo, would step outside between classes, lean against the building, throw up, and then go back to work. I am reminded of Jim, who kept showing up to teach his classes until the doctors made him stop. There is nothing good to say about people who die young. It's just a reminder that as long as we're alive, we have work to do-- but we won't be alive forever. Don't sweat the insignificant things. Know what matters; let the rest go.

Bad Administrator Field Guide

Is there a lousier job in the world than that of a school administrator. For the past twenty years, it has been all of the responsibility and none of the power. Yet a building principal (and to some extent a superintendent) have enormous control over a teacher's workplace-- how miserable is it, how safe is it, and how hard is it for teachers to do the job they signed up to do?

Administrators come in all shapes and sizes these days (though they are still mostly men), especially since the last twenty years of reformy baloney has done some bad things to the hiring pool. But there are still good ones out there who somehow find a way to fulfill the basic function of an administrator-- that is, to provide the tools, setting and processes that encourage your people to do their best work.

But there are other  admins out there. Bad ones. This taxonomy is by no means complete, but here's a quick introduction to some of the species you might find yourself dealing with:

The Conflict Avoider    

I just want to go through the day without any yelling, either from me or at  me. If you run into my office screaming that the building is on fire, the first problem I will want to solve is that you are in my office screaming. If you are screwing up, I will not call you into my office; I will just send an email scolding everybody. My go-to response in a crisis is to suggest we all  just shut up about it and wait for it to go away quietly on its own. If I must pass on bad news, I will do it in an email on Friday afternoon at 6:00 PM.

The Cruise Director  

I'm hoping that my principalling duties don't become so demanding that I don't have time to put a fun puzzle or quiz in your mailbox every morning. I think a good way to maintain morale is to have fun contests, with prizes to be awarded from the bag of Oriental Trading goodies I have in my office closet. If you insist that you would rather be treated like a grown-ass professional adult, I will alternately freeze you out of important work stuff and tease you in annoying ways that you can't push back on without being insubordinate. It's your own fault for not being a team player. I don't  know why you're such a grump-- I'm pretty sure the kids think I'm cool.

The Boss, And Don't You Forget It  

I don't have any particular educational philosophy or guiding management principles other than my desire to assert dominance over everyone I meet, whether it's a thirty-year classroom veteran or a five year old kindergartner. I will escalate the smallest disagreement just to show you that I'm in charge here.Your only hope of getting me to change direction is to set it up so that I think it's my idea and I'm straightening you out.

The Random Synapse

Most of the time I'm happy to just stay in my office and let you teachers do your thing. But every once in a while I read an article or attend a workshop, and I get all inspired. Remember when I read that book about learning styles and made everyone rewrite their curriculum and start using new lesson plan forms? Lucky for you I also have a short attention span.

The Ladder Climber  

Yeah, your school is lovely. The problem is "Didn't mess with success and just kept things running smoothly" doesn't look as good on my resume as "dynamic agent of transformative change," so I'm going to be implementing several huge programs to change how things work. I may or may not get my next job offer before we get these new ideas off the ground (I'm already interviewing), but that's okay because I've put no thought into sustainability because I don't expect to be here long enough for that to matter. Hell, on my way out I'm going to take all my materials with me anyway (for the portfolio), so you're not going to have the materials or information you need to keep it going anyway.

The Commuter  

I don't live here, and I don't visit. Half the kids in this school couldn't pick me out of a line-up if I were standing there with an inflatable doll and an oversized teddy bear. I have no idea about the culture and values of this community, and nobody who lives here has ever seen me outside of the building.

The Phantom

I probably said something about my office being open, but here's the thing-- I'm never in it. I go to conferences and travel to other districts and deliver speeches about my awesome managerial-- well, I don't have to explain how I spend my time to you. Do you have a problem? That's why I have an assistant.

The Data Overlord  

The past decade has been freakin' awesome! No more talking about all that human interaction stuff-- all I need are spreadsheets with test scores plugged in. You say that there important aspects of education that can't be measured by standardized test scores, but I say if it isn't something that can be handled by Excel, it just doesn't matter. I have three big beautiful computer monitors in my room, and that's all I need. If I have to direct teachers to improve their data, I can just email them. If I play my cards right, I won't have to interact with carbon based life forms for weeks at a time. What do you mean, "Do I even know the students"? I've studied all their data at great length. What else do I need to know?

The Train Engineer  

We will by God have order around here. I don't care if the students are learning or the staff is miserable-- I just want order. Know what you're supposed to be doing, and if you can't remember,  just consult the systems laid out in the policies and procedures manual. It takes all my time just to keep things orderly around here. God, but it would be so much easier if we didn't have all of these students.

The Royal We

The way I see it, loyalty is important, so I'm loyal to those teachers who are loyal to me. I mean, I don't have time to take care of everyone's problems, so why not focus on solving issues for people I like, and  who show their gratitude. Why not stack committees with good team players (my team, that is). And why not hand out privileges and perks (including the selective non-enforcement of rules) to people that I like? And why would I want to listen to people I don't like? Get on my team, or shut up.

The Amateur

I never had an actual classroom teaching career, so I really don't have the faintest idea what the hell you teachers do all day. I will compensate by insisting that you implement policies that I pull out of my butt. And if you ever need some helpful support or coaching, you can be sure that I won't provide it, because, again, and I can't stress this enough, I have no idea what the hell you do.

I've Made A Huge Mistake    

"Get out of the classroom," they said. "Take a cushy admin job and get a huge pay bump," they said. Now I can't quit because my family needs the health insurance, so I spend my days hiding and running away.

The Dunning Kruger Test Case

I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but I'm blissfully unaware of the gaping chasm of professional ignorance taking up negative space in my brain. Some days I get cranky because of the feeling that a bunch of people are in on something that I'm oblivious to, but mostly I'm content to offer directives and advice that fall somewhere between "useless" and "dangerously wrong."

The Bad Policy Fatalist  

You don't have to tell me. I know as well as you do that the Big Standardized Test does not give us useful data, that our VAM-based evaluations are bunk, and that our budget cuts are happening not because of mismanagement or eroding tax base but because of charter schools. I know that many of these things that have been passed to us by the state are toxic educational malpractice. My response will continue to be a shrug. This is what the state says to do, so, well, we'll just do that. I know it sucks to have class time wasted on test prep and practice exams, and that much of this policy is an assault on teachers and students. Boy, wouldn't be great if someone had your back and stood up for you in the face of all this. I wonder where we can find someone like that.

The Bus Driver     

Every school has its occasional crisis. Problems of one sort or another will always arise. When they do, you can be sure that I will be the first to step up and throw you under the bus. I don't know what's gone wrong this time, but it sure as hell isn't my fault.

The Helpless Bystander  

After  you've worked for me for a while, you will wonder why they pay me. There is no problem so small, no issue so trivial, that I can't shrug and walk away. "I wish I could help, but that's the  policy," I'll say, and you'll point out that I "wrote the frickin' policy in the first place," but I'll just nod sadly and walk away. See, doing things is hard, and it's already been a long day. Hope you can find a person to help you solve your issue.

The Chameleon   

I  know what I told you yesterday about the issue, but since I talked to you, I've talked to someone else, and that person wanted hear different things than you did, and I'm firmly committed to whatever I said in my most recent conversation with someone.

The Passive Aggressive Delegator

Look, I don't have time to do everything myself. And I went to some training where they said empowering teachers was a good thing and helped a school run better. So I'm putting you on this committee and empowering you to study up on this issue and come up with a solution, and I will keep sending that solution back to you for reconsideration until you finally come up with the answer that I've already decided I want. And if that isn't fun enough, next year I'm sending you all to PLC training, most of which I'll ignore as I implement plain old principal-directed work groups. But I'll call them PLCs because that's cool.

You may find many of these types combined into one big bad admin turducken. And there are, of course, many more, and I'm sure we can read about them in the comments (and yes, many of these bad managers are not exclusive to education). I've skipped over the big city politician-admins  and the guy I once worked for who expressed everything in ill-fitting sports metaphors. But you have to draw the line somewhere.

What Is The Real Promise Of School Choice

AEI hosted a pep rally for the DeVos $5 million scholarship tax credit, and afterwards, Rick Hess put up the latest entry in AEI's 60 second that "reminds" us of the "real promise" of charters and choice:

Thank you to @BetsyDeVosED, @KellyannePolls, and state decision makers for a great conversation about Education Freedom Scholarships today! In any discussion about school choice, it's important to remember its *real* promise. @rickhess99 explains #In60Seconds pic.twitter.com/Q0ADrHom9S

— AEI Education (@AEIeducation) October 1, 2019

Yes, apparently the real promise of choice is that it will empower educators to start up schools where they can do their thing. This has to be the six gazillionth tweaking of the charter argument, and one of the least convincing to date. [Note: Hess wrote after I posted that he has been making this point  for a very long time. That would make him, by my count, the only one, but it would still mean that this is not  a new tweak after all.]

After all, the argument for the longest time was that choice was necessary to rescue students from failing public schools and the failing teachers who failed there. Hess says that the real promise of choice is not higher math and reading scores, but  of course that was exactly the promise of school choice; if it was not a real promise it was certainly a marketing promise. These score-raising  charters would be staffed by Teach For America folks, or other alternative path folks, because public school teachers were not desirable. One selling point for many charters has been that they are teacher-proof-- the charter system's program is set in cement, sometimes scripted, sometimes enshrined in computer software so that the teacher is just a coach.

Feeling empowered yet?

There have been other real promises of charter schools articulated. Mike Petrilli was willing to say out loud the promise that charters would allow strivers to get away from Those Other Students. And as study after study showed that choice didn't raise scores, some advocates switched over to the idea  of a moral imperative for choice; iow, it doesn't matter what the educational effects of choice might be, because parents should be free to choose. Lately, that argument has been given a religious spin. And while not many put it down anywhere outside of tweets and conversation, do not underestimate the number of people who simply want to see "government" schools crushed (and those uppity teacher unions with them).

It is hard to think of a choice or charter program that has made any attempt to empower teachers. "Empower teachers" in a charter setting usually means "free them from evil union rules that interfere with their freedom to donate an extra sixty hours of work of free" or "liberate them to be paid poorly." Instructionally, charter and choice schools often are less likely to give teachers power and more likely to put them in a straightjacket. Teachers who have any objections to working conditions are scolded for putting  adult concerns ahead of the children's interests; unsurprising from a movement that has been dominated by education amateurs who belittle the expertise of actual teachers.

While I am sure that there are good individual examples here in there, if the empowerment  of teachers has been a major purpose and theme of charters and choice, I missed it somehow.

This new rationale is not completely out of left field for Hess, who wrote The Cage-Busting Teacher about how individual teachers could break loose and become forces for educational good wherever they are. But it's important to note that in the video, Hess is talking about "educators" and not "teachers,"and by current standards, anyone who wants to get involved in the education business can call himself an educator. Heck, put in two years with TFA and you are suddenly an education policy  expert.

In fact, one piece of the video is not new at all. Hess notes that these reformy educators hit a "wall" created by government officials, central offices, school boards, and the community. It's an odd but familiar complaint-- "I want to launch my new edubusiness idea but all these stakeholders are acting like they have some kind of stake in this, like they've been elected or hired to watch over public education. They are harshing my entrepreneurial buzz." But with a Secretary of Education devoted to dismantling public education, and who considers business interests the most important interests of all,       it's a timely complaint.

Actually, on reflection, it's possible I'm not being fair here, and that Hess is actually talking about what has truly been the first and foremost real promise of school choice all along-- the promise that businessmen, hedge fund investors, and any other entrepreneurial education amateurs will finally be given a way to tap into that giant mountain of taxpayer education money, a way that will circumvent elected officials, government regulation, and the judgment of actual education professionals.

Are School Vouchers A Path To Religious Freedom?

Let me make a confession-- I am not at all unsympathetic to many Libertarian beliefs. I am wary of government involvement in many arenas, and the bigger the government, the warier I am. Additionally, I know some Libertarians personally, and they are perfectly nice human beings. But when you start turning general Libby philosophical notions into specific policies, particularly in areas where my exercise of my liberty crashes into your exercise of your liberty-- well, that never seems to work out well-- or even consistent.  At a minimum, I find some of these conclusions puzzling.

Let's take the new Libby talking point on school vouchers, as articulated in many venues by CATO Institute's Education Guy Neal McCluskey. 

The argument that to have "equality under the law," religious folks need to be able to fully exercise their beliefs, including sending their children to a private religious school, and so taxpayers should fund vouchers for just that purpose. 

This is a close cousin of the argument that this administration has put forth in a variety of forms, which boils down to this: if your personal faith says you should discriminate against certain classes of people, but federal law says you can't, then federal law should step aside for your personal beliefs. This point of view has scored a victory or two, and it's important because it marks the first time that the battle between the free exercise clause (you should get to exercise whatever religious beliefs you hold) and the establishment clause (the government should not choose a side in the world of unending religious debates) is being decided in favor of the exercise clause.

You have, of course, always been free to send your chid to a religious school. What's new here is the argument that the government should pay for it. 

I'm confused at finding this argument coming from conservative Libby folks. These are the same folks who like to characterize taxation as theft, but in their support of vouchers, Libbys are saying that citizens should be taxed so that their neighbors can practice their religion. Imagine telling a community of right-wing Trumpian Christians that their property taxes will be used to send children to an Islamic school, or Southern Baptists discovering that their tax dollars will be supporting the local Catholic school. This does not require a great deal of imagination, as part of how we got here is the outrage of religious taxpayers being riled up (sometimes honestly and sometimes at the prodding of those who would like to weaken public schools) that their tax dollars are going to a public system that allows the study of Other Religions (aka the not-Christian ones) or Transcendental Meditation or evolution. Good heavens-- just watch this administration go after colleges just for saying too many nice things about Islam.

Their argument is that they don't want their tax dollars to support a school that doesn't teach the things they agree with-- but a voucher system will not change that one iota. The public system is ideally religiously neutral, and yes, I know it is not always successful in that regard, but at least the ideal is there. A voucher system with no religious restrictions allows, even requires, your Christian tax dollars to be sent to a school that  explicitly teaches that your faith is wrong. 

Beyond that, a voucher system also gets government in the business of religious oversight. It's possible, I suppose, to have a voucher system with no oversight at all in which parents are handed a government check that can be spent on private school tuition, textbooks, an X-box, or a used car. We could have a system where the government just gives the money away, no questions asked. But again, that seems to have been one of the objections reformy folks have to public schools in the first place, and I think, "Just give us your money and don't ask where it's going" is unlikely to fly with folks interested in accountability.

So at a bare minimum we get a system in which a government agency asks, "Are you going to spend  this on something legit? Is this place a real school?" When then Catholics, the Free Methodists, the Muslims, the Satanists, and the Pastafarians are fighting over limited resources and are each struggling to prove that they're a real school that is entitled to voucher funds, how exactly is the Government Bureau of Legitimate Religious Schools going to make that call? And why would anybody want them to??

It is a measure of how narrow-focused and how assured of their own supremacy that Christianists are that they tend to imagine that breaking down the wall between church and state would only unleash Christians in the public square, and not also every other religion and anti-religion to fight for space in that same square. Nor are enough people of faith conscious of the fact that the wall between church and state protects the church just as much as it does the state.

I always expect Libertarians to struggle with religion-related issues; after all, Libertarian Patron Saint Ayn Rand thought religion is for dopes. But I am sincerely puzzled that Libbys would advocate for any of this. I expect a certain amount of "Anybody should be able to educate their kids any way they want," (even though I'd argue that as a country we have a stake in making sure that everybody gets an education based on the strongest current body of knowledge we have available). But when you add on "and taxpayers should foot the bill," I'm just sincerely puzzled to find Libertarians and other righties cheering. They didn't  want to pay for anyone's health care; why would they want to pay for their education?

There are plenty of other reasons to oppose vouchers without religious restrictions, including the tendency of such schools to discriminate in ways that are, and should be, illegal. That's before we even get to questions about accountability,  both financial and academic, as well as the sheer financial inefficiency of trying to pay for multiple school systems with the money that wasn't enough to fund a single system. 

Maybe Libbys like this idea for no reason other than it punches another hole in public education. I generally think of Libertarians as more intellectually honest than that, but I have a hard time seeing why they would be interested in pushing federally-subsidized religion. Yes, parents chose, sort of (is there any better  marketing hook than "Give us your voucher dollars or your child might go to hell"), but taxpayers, those poor abused victims of the government pay. It's a bad idea for so many reasons, reasons that cover such a broad range that some of them should be visible no matter where you sit-- even if you sit way over on the right.