Governor Stitt's State of The State - Public Education - Where We Can And Can't Agree

I would like to say this as an opener to this piece: This is not a rebuke of Governor Stitt - there are many things our Governor has done of which we all approve - but there is a sincere lack of agreement in the area of 'School Choice' that needs to be addressed. I am not criticizing to criticize, but to make points I think EVERYONE - especially Republicans - should think about before blind acceptance of the concept of state-sponsored 'school choice' through yet another voucher system.

SB573 - Statewide Charter Schools

School Choice is an interesting concept that can mean many things to many people.  For some, it means establishing a system of Charter Schools in order to provide choice to parents when confronted with failing neighborhood public schools.  For some it means establishing a monetary system by which parents can use their tax dollars for home school, private school or other means of education other than failing public schools.

At first, I thought charter schools were the way to go.  In fact, my mother and I both taught at Independence Charter Middle School in Oklahoma City, the school established by our current Superintendent of Public Schools - Janet Barresi.

Today I read Oklahoma Education Truths blog regarding SB573 - a bill authored by Senator Clark Jolley and Representative Lee Denney.  Here is the link to the bill.

From the blog by way of COSSA: 

SB 573 by Senator Clark Jolley (R-Edmond) and Rep. Lee Denney (R-Cushing) creates a statewide Public Charter School Commission and grants the Commission authority to authorize and oversee theestablishment of charter schools in any school district in the state.  This bill circumvents the authority of the locally elected board from exercising local control of the education of the children in your community. This bill is eligible for a House floor vote once it is placed on the agenda which could be anytime.  Title is on the bill. Please contact your Representative immediately and ask them to vote NO on SB 573!

Here are my concerns with such a bill - and with the charter school movement itself:

1. Charter schools take public money yet school board members are chosen from inside the school community with one member of the community at large.  This produces a situation in which taxpayers pay for the school but then have absolutely no say - through a seat on the board - as to how they are run.
2. Establishing schools in such a way can allow the influx of non-American and other influences as we've seen and are seeing with the Gulen Charter Schools movement in Oklahoma and the rest of the nation.  This is not healthy - supplying public money to a school that has ties to Islam.  It would be the same for a Communist school or any other school utilizing anti-American-leaning curricula or services supported by tax dollars.
3. This particular bill would create another new commission.  My GOODNESS!  How many Boards and Commissions can we have in Oklahoma?  It's into the 700's by the way.  When we allow unelected board members set policy and procedure for programs and offices paid for with tax dollars we are not utilizing democratic principles.  This is taxation without representation in the highest form.  This is a centralization of government not in any way supported by the principles on which this country was founded.  Enough with the boards and commissions.  This is why we have a State Department of Education.  This is why we opposed and will continue to oppose the Educational Quality and Accountability Board (another of Senator Jolley's bills)
4. Until you remove Common Core from the state, it doesn't matter what Charter school you attend - the Accountability measures our state has put into place will force every student under Common Core for testing.  What choice is there in education with ANY taxpayer supported school.
5. Why take money away from public schools to provide CHOICE in the first place?  It makes no sense. Just let public schools have public money.  Then, institute 'open enrollment' across the state and let parents enroll their kids wherever they would like.  Sure some schools would have waiting lists and not all parents would get their first choice, but it would be a start.  Competition can and will create greatness - certainly we've seen that notion played out historically across a wide range of programs. 

I'm not a charter school proponent anymore, but I'm torn as to what to do on the issue and I'm still growing, learning and studying the issue.  I like the idea of Education Savings Accounts like Arizona has, but I also believe in public schools.

Sadly, there is enough blame to go around in the public school arena.  We simply need to sit down - unemotionally - sort them out and work toward a solution.  All I know is that micromanaging schools to death in the name of accountability is simply stupid and clearly not favoring those that work in the schools (teachers), those who pay for the schools (parents) and those attempting to gain an education (students).  If public schools were baseball, we'd be out.

John Dewey Would Be So Proud

I am closing out my day today and just realized. My post yesterday is absolutely the dream of John Dewey, our Marxist/Socialist "Father of Progressive (read 'modern') Education". He is taught like a God in teacher ed courses at Universities and Colleges everywhere - just as his followers had hoped.

School will provide all your needs.

That is what he wished - his Utopian fantasy. In fact, he thought parents were mostly morons and that the state could do a better job of raising little American young people than they. After all, some of them were getting divorced - as the Industrial Revolution began to re-define the stable, two parent family - some of them were neglecting their children to go to work...(if you want to really get a good feel for Dewey and his plans for public education - all of which have now come true - I urge you to get the book, John Dewey and the Decline of American Education - How the patron Saint of schools has corrupted teaching and learning by Henry T. Edmondson III)

Think on this a minute...I was told by a superintendent just recently that the reason why his district provided 'early childhood education' (tax-payer subsidized day care) was because the district 'next door' did. He would lose students as parents moved their kids to the OTHER school to take advantage of the program.

Butts + Chairs = dollars in public schools.

So...it was either provide free state-provided day care to parents, or lose his students AND his funding.

Yes folks, it's about the kids.

No. It's about class warfare, it's about building fiefdoms, it's about power, it's about MONEY. That's what public education is about in America today.

Here's what it will be soon - and a big shout out to ROPE board member Jo Joyce for this little nugget today:

Swedish Officials To Take Permanent Custody of Home Schooled Boy

Yes, according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund, little Domenic Johansson, son of Christer and Annie Johansson, has been in foster care since 2009 when he was seized from the plane on which the family was attempting to flee to his mother’s native India.

Home schooling is legal in Sweden, however, it is necessary to get materials with which to home school your child from the principal of the school of your child's prospective attendance.

However, this principal was not in favor of homeschooling and was hostile to the parent’s request.

“He was very short and not at all in favor of homeschooling,” Christer told the HSLDA. “I told him that it was my right under Swedish law to home school and that I was making contact with him to make the necessary arrangements and to get the materials. We were planning to leave Sweden in just a month or two. Mr. Eneqvist told me that he ‘didn’t care about my right’ that I didn’t have a ‘right to educate my son like that’ and that he was going to take the matter farther.”

The couple, who are devout Christians, had been planning to return to India where they were going to start a new ministry with the poor, but decided to delay the trip in order to get their son’s schooling arrangements made.

And so, as it was, the principal was a man of his word and somehow got the 'state' to remove little Domenic from his parents care. He has now been a 'ward of the state' for 24 months.

Let's see. That will never happen here in Oklahoma...REALLY? We now have the FOOD NAZI'S telling kids what they can and can not eat at school and a legislator that every year submits bills to try and kill the home schooling option in Oklahoma.

Even reasonable legislators like Representative Janine Noland expresses 'concern' over the idea of home schooling because she is acquainted with a family made up of crack-addicted parents who 'home school' their kids because they are often too stoned to get them there.

If you have reasonable legislators with this perspective, what about those like the one that tries to outlaw home schooling every year?

I guess, in the end, not only do we get the government we deserve, we also get the life we deserve - we're either free to pursue our lives under the Constitution given us by our Forefathers - which requires WORK to keep in place - or we can live our life in the chains of governmental tyranny because it just takes too much time out of our little Dancing With The Stars, Blackberry-texting, salon-going, lunching-out day to make the effort to secure our liberties for ourselves and our posterity.

Ferocious Opposition?

A new Wall Street Journal book review today, sparked an absolutely fabulous response by one of ROPE's new friends, Gretchen Logue. The review, entitled, "Learning the Hard Way; The reformers who want to save the public schools are starting to make a difference, against ferocious opposition", also made me wonder whether ROPE and our allies will now be labeled, "The Ferocious Opposition"!

From the article:

"The reformist agenda includes two key components. First, teachers and principals must be held accountable for their impact on student achievement—rewarded with pay and promotion or punished, at the extreme end, with the loss of a job. Second, the current public monopoly in K-12 education needs to be disrupted, by offering more choices. These include privately operated, publicly funded charter schools—schools that are not bound by the usual public-school rules and regulations—and publicly funded vouchers that can be used to pay for private schools."

This argument for school choice in this reform agenda must be discarded because the two main premises are faulty and/or false.

"Teachers and principals must be held accountable for their impact on student achievement—rewarded with pay and promotion or punished, at the extreme end, with the loss of a job." Great idea in theory! But think about it: you are a 5th grade teacher who faces MAP testing. Your class is made up of 8 IEP students (out of 20) and the majority of your kids are "low average". The majority of them have come to you reading on a 3rd grade level. You bring them up as much as you can and they DO make progress, however, most of them don't make a 2 year learning leap in one year, and don't make the 5th grade MAP benchmark as being "proficient". Is that the teacher's fault? Should he/she be punished because of the make-up of those students? Remember, the benchmark for determining a "highly effective" teacher is for the subgroup to pass, it is not enough for the subgroup to progress. Impossible goals ensure failure. No wonder Arne Duncan declares up to 82% of schools will be failing. They can't possibly meet impossible goals!

The second part of the "reform" agenda includes "schools not bound by the usual public school rules and regulations". Okay. If you truly believe that, then the current multi-million lobbyists for school choice have lied to the public. Charters WILL BE UNDER THE SAME MANDATES as traditional public schools: common core standards and the assessments crafted by the consortia. If you are looking to charters to provide innovation, it's not going to happen. All this "choice" does is to move the children from one building to another and have different teachers. If you think the unions are the only problem in education, you will love this plan. If you believe the problems are multi-layered (think faulty curriculum, indoctrination, lack of parent/student involvement), there will probably not be much difference.

The other statement in that "reform" sentence: "and publicly funded vouchers that can be used to pay for private schools" sounds fabulous, doesn't it? How will the private schools like to be under the same federal mandates if they accept federal money? We all know federal money comes with strings...and this means those schools will probably have to adopt themselves to common core standards and federal mandates, thereby defeating the real "choice".

I wish the lobbyists were forced to tell the truth. This "choice" is false choice and will just transfer the money from the unions to hedge fund companies and venture capitalists. Conservatives believe that's the free market. It's not, though. It's taxpayer money funneled to private companies with little personal financial risk. What kind of capitalism is that? And oh, by the way, the taxpayer is funding a system in which he/she has no voice. I call it "totalitarian democracy".