So yesterday we replaced my wife's car, which has lost an argument with an errant deer. Used car shopping is a pain, but if you want to talk about something that has truly and completely been disrupted by technology. Little browsing, because everyone does that on line. Little haggling compared to the old says because everyone can go online and see what the car is worth. Few tremendous bargains, but few total rip-offs. But still enough paperwork to fell a tree. At any rate, we're mobile again. Now here are your readings from the week.
A Harlem School That Former Students Say Was Run Like A Cult
Rebecca Klein at HuffPost with a scary tale of one private school that promises, among other things, to save its students "from te homosexual demons in the public school system."
Life For US Students Under Constant Surveillance
The Guardian takes a look at how bad surveillance has gotten for US students. Spoiler alert: really bad.
How the Denver School Board Flipped
Denver's super-reformy district was a point of pride for reformsters, but public school advocates just took it back with the last school board elections. The Have You Heard podcast has the story of how it was done.
Uber's Self-driving Car Didn't Know Pedestrians Could Jaywalk
Speaking of Betsy DeVos's metaphor for school choice, and speaking of using AI for all sorts of edubusines... Wired reports on a cyber-car fatality and its cause-- bad programming.
PISA: Illusion of Excellence, Marketing Baloney
Okay, I paraphrased the title a bit, but this Washington Post column from Yong Zhao, an education expert with a keen knowledge of China, is the week's best antidote to all the chicken littling over PISA scores.
The Teacher Walkouts
A California Sunday Magazine piece that interviews ten teachers with different perspectives on striking. Interesting piece, with photos by student photographers.
How GreatSchools Nudges Families Toward Schools With Fewer Black and Hispanic Students
Matt Barnum ruffled many feathers with this Chalkbeat piece that takes a look at how those school ratings really work. Not well, as it turns out.
PA's Weakest Districts Targeted
The York Dispatch editorial board offers an absolutely blistering take on charter schools.
How Corporate Tax Credits Rob Public School Budgets
The headline of this CityLab article pretty well lays it out. A look at some fresh data shows just how bad the hit is.
Support for Charters in 2020 Elections Comes with a Price
Andre Perry, at the Hechinger Report, is just the king of nuanced and balanced looks at charter policy that clarifies some of the root issues. Here he talks about the week's flap over Black leaders anjd charter support.
Teacher Turnover and Retention
Brookings did a big fat meta-analyis of the research on teacher retention and attrition. Interesting discussion starter ensues.
America's Epidemic of Unkindness
From the Atlantic, the best thing not ab out education that I read this week, and a hopeful, thoughtful piece. God damn it babies, you've got to be kind.
End of Semester Bingo
From McSweeney's, the end of the semester bingo card you've been waiting for. An oldie but a goodie.
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Friday, December 6, 2019
MI: Governor Whitmer Files Private School-Whomping Brief
Back in 2016, the Michigan legislature, always on the lookout for a way to send public tax dollars into private pockets, passed Section 388.1752b, a little amendment to the School Aid act that required the state to reimburse private schools for any money they spent "complying with health, safety, or welfare requirement mandated by a law or administrative rule of this state."
In other words, the state would pay them to follow the law.
It's intriguing to imagine how a law like this would play out in the rest of the private sector. "We have a bunch of work to do to get up to code, but don't worry-- the state will pay for all of it." It's easy to imagine how this could be abused as well. Church needs some more access ramps and that will mean redoing the whole façade of the building; just call the state and have them write a check.
But Michigan has an constitutional ban on giving public money to private and/or religious schools. So roughly five minutes after 388.1752b was passed, it was being taken to court. Now that it's made it to the Michigan Supreme Court, it's been generating a steady string of motions and amicus briefs from interested parties, like the Michigan Catholic Conference.
Today the stack of briefs got a bit taller with an addition from Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Michael Rice.
Having taken a look at the case, the governor and superintendent have concluded "that the state can provide funds to nonpublic schools to help them pay the costs of complying with state mandates, but only if those mandates are related to student transportation. Beyond that, the statute’s funding of nonpublic schools is constitutionally prohibited."
In other words, the private schools, says the governor, may go pound sand, and do it on their own dime. But they can have busses.
Hard to say how this will turn out, but I have to say that it's certainlyj a breath of fresh air to see a governor, particularly in the state of Michigan (Motto: Betsy DeVos is our least popular export).
In other words, the state would pay them to follow the law.
 |
| This lady. I like this lady. |
But Michigan has an constitutional ban on giving public money to private and/or religious schools. So roughly five minutes after 388.1752b was passed, it was being taken to court. Now that it's made it to the Michigan Supreme Court, it's been generating a steady string of motions and amicus briefs from interested parties, like the Michigan Catholic Conference.
Today the stack of briefs got a bit taller with an addition from Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Michael Rice.
Having taken a look at the case, the governor and superintendent have concluded "that the state can provide funds to nonpublic schools to help them pay the costs of complying with state mandates, but only if those mandates are related to student transportation. Beyond that, the statute’s funding of nonpublic schools is constitutionally prohibited."
In other words, the private schools, says the governor, may go pound sand, and do it on their own dime. But they can have busses.
Hard to say how this will turn out, but I have to say that it's certainlyj a breath of fresh air to see a governor, particularly in the state of Michigan (Motto: Betsy DeVos is our least popular export).
White Flight, Without The Actual Flight
We can talk about lots of complicated economic and sociological forces that have fed the problems of school segregation in this country, but the root causes are pretty simple–historically, we have a whole lot of white folks who don’t want their children to go to school with the children of black folks, and they have been creative about finding ways to avoid it.
When Brown v. Board of education forced desegregation, communities all across the South responded with segregation academies, private schools where only certain children were welcome. While we’ve long known about these schools, a new website called Academy Stories has launched, featuring first persons stories from people who attended those schools. The site has only a handful of stories at the moment, but each one is worth the read, a story of what the years of desegregation looked like to students. In some cases, the move to a private academy was masked by language about quality and being “pioneers.” Some were more direct. Writes one:
Others might cloak their racism in talk about providing “quality education” or “upholding our traditions,” but my father voiced his prejudices for all to hear.
There was also, of course, white flight. White families exited areas in search of neighborhoods that came with whiter neighbors, and whiter schools, taking their children and their money with them.
In recent years, another approach has appeared–the splinter district. These occur when a community aims to secede from their current district; these new districts frequently adopt a new border that corresponds to racial and/or economic borders–a sort of school district gerrymandering. It’s white flight, without the actual flight.
At least two studies in the last year have provided data on this splintering, and the picture is not pretty. EdBuild, a group that is aligned with education reformers, issued the report “Fractured: The Breakdown of America’s School Districts.” It comes complete with a map that shows the location of 128 attempts to secede. (The cluster in Maine is a different phenomenon, the result of a state attempt to force massive consolidation of districts; later administrations reversed that policy, and districts rushed to return to their original form.) EdBuild found that thirty states have processes in place to facilitate school district secession.
A study released by AERA in September found that this kind of school secession in the South had increased the level of segregation. The study looked at East Baton Rouge (LA), Shelby County (TN) and five counties in Alabama; it found that secession is “eroding what has historically been one of the cornerstones of school desegregation in the South: the one-county, one-school-system jurisdiction.” In East Baton Rouge, an October 12 vote was held on the formation of the City of St. George, a wealthier, whiter enclave within the larger city. Supporters argued that they just wanted local control, particularly of their tax dollars, but a separate school district is part of the deal. The measure passed the vote, and though the process would take several years to complete, it will leave the rest of the parish that much poorer.
St. George will become an “island district,” completely surrounded by the larger district. Sometimes island districts are wealthier than the surrounding districts, though in some areas, they may be isolated pockets of poverty. They are not strictly a southern phenomenon; such fractured districts can be found in states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. Ohio also saw a new wrinkle this year when the tiny village of Hunting Valley (pop. 700), the state’s wealthiest community, briefly won a state tax law that excused them from paying $3 million in taxes to the area school district.
Why is there an apparent rise in such shenanigans? In 2017, Emmanuel Felton at Hechinger Reports suggested that the federal government has simply stopped monitoring and enforcing desegregation orders. Betsy DeVos has been regularly criticized for undercutting the effectiveness of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights. That falls in line with her hearing appearance in which she could not offer a single example of discrimination that would trigger a federal intervention.
We should not pretend that putting a stop to the fracturing of school districts would be a cure-all. In 2015, reporters outlined in painful detail how the school district of Pinellas County, Florida, had systematically segregated and underfunded five elementary schools, turning them into the worst in the state. We know that tracking and gifted programs can often be used to create segregation within a school. More recently, the documentary series “America To Me” has shown that even in a diverse and integrated school, racial issues abound. Nor do charter schools show any promise in solving the issue of segregation.
History tells us that white folks who want to keep their children separate can be creative and determined about doing so. Meanwhile, the white school age population has decreased steadily, leaving whites a majority minority in U.S. schools. Allowing the continued fracturing of school districts with widespread gerrymandering and the erection of a hundred little walls are not productive ways to deal with the new reality.
Thursday, December 5, 2019
My Toddlers Can't Read
Here at the Curmudgucation Institute, the Board of Directors has taken a great interest in the printed word.
We have, for instance, entered the Me Do It phase for one of our most beloved tomes (Little Excavator, by Anna Dewdney). I am no longer allowed to read that book to the Board, but must hold it open while a Board member recites the text. We can do then same thing for select portions of that other best-seller, Digger, Dozer, Dumper. The Board also enjoys just sitting and holding a book and flipping through the pages, one at a time, just like the Institute's CEO and his wife, the Executive Breadwinner.
The Board is currently 2.5 years old. In my professional opinion, they cannot actually read. They do a great job of picking up visual cues and hints from the illustrations and context of the books, but I'm not sure they even fully grok the connection between the A-B-Cs all over the page and the words that go with that page.
I have two older children, so I've seen this movie. At some point the letter-sound connection will click. At some point they will start to learn that particular letters make particular sounds, and they will start connecting the marks on the page to the words and stories that they already know.
When that day comes, there's one thing I know for sure-- the damn reading wars arguments will still be going on.
How can this argument still be going on? How?
Look, maybe, somewhere, there's a whole balanced literacy language fan who would claim that my toddlers are now actually reading. Maybe. But they aren't. They need to add the decoding piece that allows them to sound out actual words and not just depend on random lucky guesses.
But by the same token, if you "sound out" a word that you don't know, what have you got? Nothing.
The current push for the "Science of Reading" insists that the science is settled. It isn't (you can read the article, but don't skip the comments). Even if the "brain science" were completely settled, so what? We know a lot of science about love and relationships, but that doesn't mean you can use it to scientifically make someone become the love of your life. There's a limit to how much you can program people like computers. Why this current crop of agenda-driven journalists and amateur reading analysts is so devoted to phonics and phonics only is a mystery (well, partly-- some folks depend on this stuff to make a living). What's also striking is how unscientifically the science argument is often made-- this article follows the usual pattern, built around a heart-tugging anecdote and vague on specifics.
I worked on the top end of this, working with lots of not-very-proficient readers nearing the end of their school careers. They came in a few types. Can sound the word out, but has no idea what it means. Can only bring themselves to read when the material is interesting. Will guess wildly based on first letter. Lacks the life experience to make sense-- literally to construct any sense-- of what they're reading. Reads words, but not sentences. I had poor readers who couldn't (or wouldn't decode). I had poor readers who could decode, but couldn't do anything with the decoded words. Humans who have trouble reading come in a million different configurations, and so remediation has to come in a million different configurations as well.
Why is this so hard? You can't have reading without decoding. You can't have reading with only decoding. Reading involves a whole complex of skills, and none of those skills can be taught or acquired outside of the business of actually reading. Every reading student brings a different web of experience, knowledge, interest and processor power, which means that teachers need a toolbox filled with many tools.
In the meantime, too much literally meaningless phonics drill kills an interest in reading. Too much practice with material that is too hard kills an interest in reading. Too much drill that suggests that everything can be read only one way and someone else knows that way and you don't and if you can't figure out what that other reader thinks then shame on you for being wrong wrong wrong-- well, that doesn't build anyone's interest in reading, either.
The reading wars, at their worst, are always the same thing. A bunch of chefs standing in a kitchen, trying to make a salad, with a couple of them insisting "It has to be all lettuce and nothing but lettuce" and another arguing, "No, it has to be all cucumber slices, and they have to be sliced exactly like this." Also, one of them will turn out to not actually be a chef at all-- just someone who read a book about vegetables.
I suppose the wars are exacerbated by the current decidedly unscientific notion that reading must be pushed to younger and younger ages. I can mock the stupidity of thinking that pedagogy can somehow overcome human development. I can understand that this emphasis on making kindergarten the new first or second grade is wrong and even harmful. But even I feel the pressure-- the Board whiled away the morning just playing with toy cars all over the living room and at the time I was impressed by their focus and touched by how they played together so well. But now it's the afternoon and I am second-guessing myself and wondering if I should have been providing them with more enrichment. In times like this, it's no wonder that so many people are reacting so strongly to the argument that we must have all phonics all the time right now or how will we ever get these tiny humans to read in time??!! The reading wars seem mostly fought between folks on the over-simplified extremes of the different camps.
It's a dumb argument, raging while the real work is done by folks who live in the complex middle between the poles. At some point, the Board of Directors will be ready to start actually reading, at which point, the EB and CEO will provide all manners of support, and hope to high heaven that their school does the same. They'll have to, if we're going to have the Board reading and writing novels by December of kindergarten.
We have, for instance, entered the Me Do It phase for one of our most beloved tomes (Little Excavator, by Anna Dewdney). I am no longer allowed to read that book to the Board, but must hold it open while a Board member recites the text. We can do then same thing for select portions of that other best-seller, Digger, Dozer, Dumper. The Board also enjoys just sitting and holding a book and flipping through the pages, one at a time, just like the Institute's CEO and his wife, the Executive Breadwinner.
 |
| A Board member considers the deeper themes of Hank the Cowdog |
I have two older children, so I've seen this movie. At some point the letter-sound connection will click. At some point they will start to learn that particular letters make particular sounds, and they will start connecting the marks on the page to the words and stories that they already know.
When that day comes, there's one thing I know for sure-- the damn reading wars arguments will still be going on.
How can this argument still be going on? How?
Look, maybe, somewhere, there's a whole balanced literacy language fan who would claim that my toddlers are now actually reading. Maybe. But they aren't. They need to add the decoding piece that allows them to sound out actual words and not just depend on random lucky guesses.
But by the same token, if you "sound out" a word that you don't know, what have you got? Nothing.
The current push for the "Science of Reading" insists that the science is settled. It isn't (you can read the article, but don't skip the comments). Even if the "brain science" were completely settled, so what? We know a lot of science about love and relationships, but that doesn't mean you can use it to scientifically make someone become the love of your life. There's a limit to how much you can program people like computers. Why this current crop of agenda-driven journalists and amateur reading analysts is so devoted to phonics and phonics only is a mystery (well, partly-- some folks depend on this stuff to make a living). What's also striking is how unscientifically the science argument is often made-- this article follows the usual pattern, built around a heart-tugging anecdote and vague on specifics.
I worked on the top end of this, working with lots of not-very-proficient readers nearing the end of their school careers. They came in a few types. Can sound the word out, but has no idea what it means. Can only bring themselves to read when the material is interesting. Will guess wildly based on first letter. Lacks the life experience to make sense-- literally to construct any sense-- of what they're reading. Reads words, but not sentences. I had poor readers who couldn't (or wouldn't decode). I had poor readers who could decode, but couldn't do anything with the decoded words. Humans who have trouble reading come in a million different configurations, and so remediation has to come in a million different configurations as well.
Why is this so hard? You can't have reading without decoding. You can't have reading with only decoding. Reading involves a whole complex of skills, and none of those skills can be taught or acquired outside of the business of actually reading. Every reading student brings a different web of experience, knowledge, interest and processor power, which means that teachers need a toolbox filled with many tools.
In the meantime, too much literally meaningless phonics drill kills an interest in reading. Too much practice with material that is too hard kills an interest in reading. Too much drill that suggests that everything can be read only one way and someone else knows that way and you don't and if you can't figure out what that other reader thinks then shame on you for being wrong wrong wrong-- well, that doesn't build anyone's interest in reading, either.
The reading wars, at their worst, are always the same thing. A bunch of chefs standing in a kitchen, trying to make a salad, with a couple of them insisting "It has to be all lettuce and nothing but lettuce" and another arguing, "No, it has to be all cucumber slices, and they have to be sliced exactly like this." Also, one of them will turn out to not actually be a chef at all-- just someone who read a book about vegetables.
I suppose the wars are exacerbated by the current decidedly unscientific notion that reading must be pushed to younger and younger ages. I can mock the stupidity of thinking that pedagogy can somehow overcome human development. I can understand that this emphasis on making kindergarten the new first or second grade is wrong and even harmful. But even I feel the pressure-- the Board whiled away the morning just playing with toy cars all over the living room and at the time I was impressed by their focus and touched by how they played together so well. But now it's the afternoon and I am second-guessing myself and wondering if I should have been providing them with more enrichment. In times like this, it's no wonder that so many people are reacting so strongly to the argument that we must have all phonics all the time right now or how will we ever get these tiny humans to read in time??!! The reading wars seem mostly fought between folks on the over-simplified extremes of the different camps.
It's a dumb argument, raging while the real work is done by folks who live in the complex middle between the poles. At some point, the Board of Directors will be ready to start actually reading, at which point, the EB and CEO will provide all manners of support, and hope to high heaven that their school does the same. They'll have to, if we're going to have the Board reading and writing novels by December of kindergarten.
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Buddy, Can You Spare A Ride (To The Charter School)?
Remember the days when charter school fans were bragging that they would do more with less? That chorus has been replaced by complaints of how unfair it is that they don't get as many tax dollars for their privately-owned businesses as the public school system gets, resulting in fun new ideas like Florida's notion that charters should be entitled to a cut of any special levies that taxpayers pass to support public schools.
A new demand is surfacing now-- privatizers want taxpayers to help cover transportation costs.
Right in the front row of this new choir is Ben DeGrow. DeGrow is currently the ed policy point man for Mackinac Center, located in Michigan (motto: "We helped grow Betsy DeVos and now she's our gift to all America, you're welcome"), an advocacy thinky tank focused on "economic freedom," aka "the freedom of rich folks to get more rich." He previously worked at Denver's Independence Institute, a Libertarian thinky tank. Like many good think tank education experts, he has no actual education background. Well, okay-- according to the Mackinac website, "Ben’s classroom experiences include service as a university graduate assistant and as a substitute teacher in Michigan public schools."
DeGrow popped up at The Hill last week to make the argument for transportation scholarships (well, that, and to oddly try to accuse Jennifer Berkshire of a progressive and being weirdly obsessed with Betsy DeVos). We need these scholarships, he argues, to reduce obstacles to school choice.
We'll get to what he proposes in a moment, but first, let's note that he makes a huge, huge leap in his argument-- namely, that charter operators actually want to remove this obstacle. The patterns of segregation, the use of charters to gentrify neighborhoods, the fact that some charters do in fact provide transportation-- all of this might suggest that the transportation obstacle is just another way for charter operators to legally keep Those Peoples' Children out of their school. At a minimum, the transportation obstacle weeds out families that don't have a firm commitment to providing total support for their child (the kind of thing that Robert Pondiscio discuses at length in How The Other Half Learns).
So I'm not so sure that all charter schools really want DeGrow's "help" with this "problem." There's no way of knowing how many, exactly, but I'd bet that a large number of charters consider the transportation obstacle a feature, not a bug.
DeGrow drops some intriguing ideas into his Hill piece, like the notion that some "young and growing companies" have In recent years "have given parents in certain areas digital tools they can use to hire qualified drivers"-- so, Uber money (as we'll see, not exactly)?
His focus is mostly Michigan where one might think that good solution for the mostly-for-profit charter sector would be "dig into your pockets and pay for transportation since that's part of the cost of doing business as a school.' But no--it's a standard-issue reformy disruptor model, where instead of even suggesting that government or the charters should solve this problem, tax dollars should just be given to parents who are then "free" to figure it all out for themselves.
DeGrow has actually written a whole thinky tank paper report thing about this. The details aren't entirely compelling. For instance, a Mackinac survey of 950 charter school parents found that 200 didn't get their first choice because of transportation issues. 15%. That's similar to the percentage of students with special needs in Michigan (depending on who's counting). This recent piece puts students with special needs as 10% of public school population, but only 3% of charter school population. Mackinac ought to take a look at what the obstacles are keeping students with special needs out of charters.
DeGrow discusses other models for such a program. In the US, it's Florida again, with Step Up For Students, a tax credit scholarship program that allows you to give money to ed-related businesses instead of paying your taxes. Step Up includes a transportation scholarship program. Outside of that, we have to go to Australia for examples.
Meanwhile, the Urban Institute has been studying up on the issue, resulting in some data that DeGrow might find useful, if not exactly helpful. New Orleans doesn't come up in his discussion, but the UI paper looked at it, and in New Orleans, they've solved the "obstacle" problem easily-- charter schools are required to provide transportation. It costs them money. But then, so do books and desks and other items that are part of the cost of doing business. UI researchers did also find that transportation issues affected how schools handled recruitment.
Funding is a challenge here; there's no pretending that the gas money follows the student, or that moving five students off a single bus helps it run cheaper somehow, or that a child's cut of te bus costs could pay for anything other than inflating bicycle tires. So how is this supposed to be paid for.
DeGrow says "the concept is relatively simple"-- some "discrete" amount of state funding (aka tax dollars) could be "set aside" (aka "spent") for this program. The money would go on a debit card. From there, the families spend their travel vouchers however. Uber and Lyft don't handle under-18 folks, but DeGrow knows of a couple of hot new companies that do. Or you could pool with neighbors. DeGrow takes an entire overwritten paragraph to note that rural folks don't use ride shares much because ride share companies don't open in rural areas because it's hard to make money there.
The costs are not cheap. DeGrow wants to do a pilot in Detroit, and he estimates that rideshare costs work out to roughly $1,400 per student, or a million for 700. At $7.77 per student per day, that seems mighty optimistic (DeGrow's touching article anecdote involves a woman who travels 100 miles). In fact, UI's study also looked at Detroit and found it that it had the highest percentage of students attending outside their neighborhood-- in fact, "75 percent of nearby high-quality schools are located outside city limits." DeGrow envisions some philanthropic buy-in or special funding-- in fact, he thinks that DeVos's Education Freedom Grants (another tax alternative funding deal).
UI researcher Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj passed on a "widely shared sentiment" from New Orleans official:
If you are going to say you have school choice, it is somewhat meaningless if parents can't get to the schools they are choosing. I do think school choice and the requirement to provide transportation go hand in hand. ... Not providing it essentially negates choice.
That idea was, she reports, "less prevalent" in Detroit and NYC.
It is another face of the same old problem. Charter advocates want to have a multi-headed educational ecosystem with many parallel parts, but they want to pay for it with the same money that used to run a single system. Too many charter operators want to be in the school biz, but they don't want to actually pay the costs, and keep looking for ways to get someone else to pay the bills while they reap the revenue.
It's like a guy who says, "I want to open up a new burger joint next to Burger King, but I want the city to give me the building, and I want a cut of every meal that Burger King sells, and I wan someone else to pave the parking lot, because I find the lack of a parking lot is an obstacle to my customers."
If you want to be in the business, pay the costs.
A new demand is surfacing now-- privatizers want taxpayers to help cover transportation costs.
Right in the front row of this new choir is Ben DeGrow. DeGrow is currently the ed policy point man for Mackinac Center, located in Michigan (motto: "We helped grow Betsy DeVos and now she's our gift to all America, you're welcome"), an advocacy thinky tank focused on "economic freedom," aka "the freedom of rich folks to get more rich." He previously worked at Denver's Independence Institute, a Libertarian thinky tank. Like many good think tank education experts, he has no actual education background. Well, okay-- according to the Mackinac website, "Ben’s classroom experiences include service as a university graduate assistant and as a substitute teacher in Michigan public schools."
We'll get to what he proposes in a moment, but first, let's note that he makes a huge, huge leap in his argument-- namely, that charter operators actually want to remove this obstacle. The patterns of segregation, the use of charters to gentrify neighborhoods, the fact that some charters do in fact provide transportation-- all of this might suggest that the transportation obstacle is just another way for charter operators to legally keep Those Peoples' Children out of their school. At a minimum, the transportation obstacle weeds out families that don't have a firm commitment to providing total support for their child (the kind of thing that Robert Pondiscio discuses at length in How The Other Half Learns).
So I'm not so sure that all charter schools really want DeGrow's "help" with this "problem." There's no way of knowing how many, exactly, but I'd bet that a large number of charters consider the transportation obstacle a feature, not a bug.
DeGrow drops some intriguing ideas into his Hill piece, like the notion that some "young and growing companies" have In recent years "have given parents in certain areas digital tools they can use to hire qualified drivers"-- so, Uber money (as we'll see, not exactly)?
His focus is mostly Michigan where one might think that good solution for the mostly-for-profit charter sector would be "dig into your pockets and pay for transportation since that's part of the cost of doing business as a school.' But no--it's a standard-issue reformy disruptor model, where instead of even suggesting that government or the charters should solve this problem, tax dollars should just be given to parents who are then "free" to figure it all out for themselves.
DeGrow has actually written a whole thinky tank paper report thing about this. The details aren't entirely compelling. For instance, a Mackinac survey of 950 charter school parents found that 200 didn't get their first choice because of transportation issues. 15%. That's similar to the percentage of students with special needs in Michigan (depending on who's counting). This recent piece puts students with special needs as 10% of public school population, but only 3% of charter school population. Mackinac ought to take a look at what the obstacles are keeping students with special needs out of charters.
DeGrow discusses other models for such a program. In the US, it's Florida again, with Step Up For Students, a tax credit scholarship program that allows you to give money to ed-related businesses instead of paying your taxes. Step Up includes a transportation scholarship program. Outside of that, we have to go to Australia for examples.
Meanwhile, the Urban Institute has been studying up on the issue, resulting in some data that DeGrow might find useful, if not exactly helpful. New Orleans doesn't come up in his discussion, but the UI paper looked at it, and in New Orleans, they've solved the "obstacle" problem easily-- charter schools are required to provide transportation. It costs them money. But then, so do books and desks and other items that are part of the cost of doing business. UI researchers did also find that transportation issues affected how schools handled recruitment.
Funding is a challenge here; there's no pretending that the gas money follows the student, or that moving five students off a single bus helps it run cheaper somehow, or that a child's cut of te bus costs could pay for anything other than inflating bicycle tires. So how is this supposed to be paid for.
DeGrow says "the concept is relatively simple"-- some "discrete" amount of state funding (aka tax dollars) could be "set aside" (aka "spent") for this program. The money would go on a debit card. From there, the families spend their travel vouchers however. Uber and Lyft don't handle under-18 folks, but DeGrow knows of a couple of hot new companies that do. Or you could pool with neighbors. DeGrow takes an entire overwritten paragraph to note that rural folks don't use ride shares much because ride share companies don't open in rural areas because it's hard to make money there.
The costs are not cheap. DeGrow wants to do a pilot in Detroit, and he estimates that rideshare costs work out to roughly $1,400 per student, or a million for 700. At $7.77 per student per day, that seems mighty optimistic (DeGrow's touching article anecdote involves a woman who travels 100 miles). In fact, UI's study also looked at Detroit and found it that it had the highest percentage of students attending outside their neighborhood-- in fact, "75 percent of nearby high-quality schools are located outside city limits." DeGrow envisions some philanthropic buy-in or special funding-- in fact, he thinks that DeVos's Education Freedom Grants (another tax alternative funding deal).
UI researcher Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj passed on a "widely shared sentiment" from New Orleans official:
If you are going to say you have school choice, it is somewhat meaningless if parents can't get to the schools they are choosing. I do think school choice and the requirement to provide transportation go hand in hand. ... Not providing it essentially negates choice.
That idea was, she reports, "less prevalent" in Detroit and NYC.
It is another face of the same old problem. Charter advocates want to have a multi-headed educational ecosystem with many parallel parts, but they want to pay for it with the same money that used to run a single system. Too many charter operators want to be in the school biz, but they don't want to actually pay the costs, and keep looking for ways to get someone else to pay the bills while they reap the revenue.
It's like a guy who says, "I want to open up a new burger joint next to Burger King, but I want the city to give me the building, and I want a cut of every meal that Burger King sells, and I wan someone else to pave the parking lot, because I find the lack of a parking lot is an obstacle to my customers."
If you want to be in the business, pay the costs.
Monday, December 2, 2019
PA: Voucher Bill Still A Threat
Pennsylvania House Speaker and Betsy DeVos fanboy Mike Turzai has suffered a momentary setback in his drive to use Harrisburg schools as a launching pad for a PA voucher program, but he reportedly has not given up.
HB 1800 targets the ailing school district at a point where it has only recently been placed in financial receivership under the control of a state-appointed overseer. One might think that the legislature might take a minute or two to see if their Plan A is going to work, but Turzai smells an opportunity, and he's willing to be the guy who runs into the operating room five minutes after the start of a critical operation and hollers, "She's gonna die anyway-- let me have some of those organs."
The PA Auditor General has weighed in, pointing out that the bill would "bleed out" the district. This is particularly true because the bill would actually award vouchers to students who live in the Harrisburg district, but have never actually attended public school. For those families, the vouchers would be a tasty little windfall. For the district, the vouchers would mean that the district would lose a mountain of money before their enrollment dropped by a single student.
The bill has plenty of other lousy features. It expressly forbids the legislature from exercising any accountability or oversight over voucher-receiving schools, and it expressly preserves the power of voucher receiving schools to reject any applicant for any reason. Under this bill, private and religious schools get to decide; it is truly school's choice and not school choice.
The bill squeaked out of committee over two Republican no votes. Then it was pulled from a full house vote; Turzai didn't have the votes.
According to the PA Association of School Administrators, the speaker is pulling GOP representatives in for some arm-twisting. The bill is not dead yet. If you want to stop the push of vouchers into Pennsylvania, keep calling and emailing your favorite legislator.
HB 1800 targets the ailing school district at a point where it has only recently been placed in financial receivership under the control of a state-appointed overseer. One might think that the legislature might take a minute or two to see if their Plan A is going to work, but Turzai smells an opportunity, and he's willing to be the guy who runs into the operating room five minutes after the start of a critical operation and hollers, "She's gonna die anyway-- let me have some of those organs."
The bill has plenty of other lousy features. It expressly forbids the legislature from exercising any accountability or oversight over voucher-receiving schools, and it expressly preserves the power of voucher receiving schools to reject any applicant for any reason. Under this bill, private and religious schools get to decide; it is truly school's choice and not school choice.
The bill squeaked out of committee over two Republican no votes. Then it was pulled from a full house vote; Turzai didn't have the votes.
According to the PA Association of School Administrators, the speaker is pulling GOP representatives in for some arm-twisting. The bill is not dead yet. If you want to stop the push of vouchers into Pennsylvania, keep calling and emailing your favorite legislator.
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Patriot Act: No More Batman
This is a genius clip from Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act show. An interview with Anand Giridharadas about his book Winners Take All, and as Giridharadas tweeted, "he explained my book better than I can." It's all about Bruce Wayne. This is a 90 second clip, well worth your time.
When it comes to billionaires, we need to tax that ass. #NowStreaming pic.twitter.com/4qUwVo6Nyp— Hasan Minhaj (@hasanminhaj) December 1, 2019
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