Fundamentalism in the education reform debate

Perhaps I'm not rabid enough in the charter school debate.  As a charter school advocate, I seem to be in the moderate crowd.  I'm not completely opposed to traditional public education.  I don't think it ought to be shut down or unions, necessarily, busted.  I don't think that all existing public schools or districts are bad. 

I do believe that many public schools are bad and that change in the traditional public school model is difficult.  This is due to bureaucracy, unions, no real penalties for continuing to operate lousy schools or keep lousy teachers. 

On the other hand, there are states in which charter schools are not held accountable for success (or failure).  Individuals do sometimes take advantage of the public funding of their schools.  For profit management companies do sometimes either make mistakes or in rarer cases (from what I've observed) actually seek simply to make a profit rather than truly improve education. 

The facts also support the fact that innovation and success in education can happen both in traditional public schools as well as in charter schools.  There are plenty of charter schools that do not operate for profit and often provide a better value to the community than their public school counterparts. 

As I've been observing the landscape for the past eight years, it seems to me that part of the problem in education reform is that there are many fundamentalists out there on both sides.  There are those who will only support "public" schools or charter schools.  Just like religious fundamentalists, these education advocates only take into account evidence for their own beliefs and ignore evidence that doesn't support their beliefs.  In addition, they often hold to some views as unquestionable, even if they are not.

For example, the traditional public school advocate is likely to support teachers' unions whether or not those unions actually help kids.  There is an almost unquestioned assumption that the problem is with the students and not with the teachers.  It's as if there are no bad teachers and that no teacher should ever be fired because you can't prove 100% that a teacher is bad. 

The traditional public schools advocate is likely to also hold the belief that unless a school is subject to a vote of the entire public that it cannot possibly be a valid school or good for kids.  Unless a school is directly controlled by the local school district, it cannot possible practice good governance or use public funds well.  It is interesting that for many of these people, local control is rarely their dominant political view.  So, they oppose a charter school both because it operates somewhat independently of its district, but they also oppose it when the state overrules the local district.  This seems to be a contradiction as the state government is the larger democratically elected body.  This is an example of traditional public school advocates using whatever arguments they can to oppose charter schools.

It is apparent that these arguments against charter schools are not rational.  They are, in fact, simply based on presupposition and a desire not to have charter schools.  It's also possible that they are based on fear--fear of the unknown or fear that the charter school might actually do a better job than their local traditional school.  It also may be a fear that the charter school might teach a different method or different content than they prefer.  The other fear that appears to be present is a fear that teachers at a charter school work harder because they want to.  Of course, this is another unquestioned presupposition of the traditional public school advocate.  Teachers work hard enough.  Teachers have a tough job.  Teachers should not be expected to work harder or for less money than they currently do in the traditional public school system, even if they choose to.

This doesn't mean that a charter school advocate is necessarily any less dogmatic.  It is often true (as with myself to some extent) that charter school advocates believe in charter schools simply because of freedom and the desire to control their children's education.  There is some logic here as the argument has been made that funding should follow the student.  However, it also does seem logical that 1. the government should be able to set at least some minimal standards that a charter school has to meet, and 2. that the funding amount in most states is based on an average so that any individual student does not necessarily deserve the entire funding amount follow him or her.  Of course, this also means that some students should have more money following them.  This calculation would be extremely difficult, but could be made if needed to make the funding flow fairer.

The charter school advocate often makes positive statements about charter schools that are either not true or that support the notion of charter schools, even when a charter school is failing by almost any standard.  As with the failure of a charter school, the proof is often not 100%.  There are often variables involved that are not as straight forward as comparisons to other local schools or looking at demographic statistics.  There are charter schools that are so bad that it is difficult to imagine that given all of the benefit of the doubt could be considered worth keeping, and yet some charter school advocates will still support their right to exist.

The other aspect of charter school advocacy that seems dogmatic is the justification of unlimited profits or the idea that parents choose the school; therefore, it must be a good school.  It's pretty obvious that parents don't always know what is best for their children or that parents do not follow up.  It's also true that the government funding a school ought to have some say in whether or not a management company is performing well or not.  Schools contract with vendors all of the time for all sorts of products and services from for profit companies in which the clear motive of the company is to make lots of money.  It doesn't make sense that just because a company is for profit that it can't manage or create a great school or that profits are unreasonable.  It does make sense that an entity that is under a government contract should allow some review by the governmental agency and that its contract with a school be subject to governmental contracting rules.

Charter school advocates are a bit interesting because it's almost like an eclectic denomination.  Direct instruction schools operate down the way from Montessori schools both advocating for charter school rights.  In this way, charter school advocates may be less fundamentalist than others.  It's rate that I hear a charter school advocate suggest that his or her particular type of charter school should be allowed, but another type not be allowed. 

The difficult part of this for someone like myself is that it's so difficult to convince someone on either extreme.  Just as with religious beliefs, the presuppositions are so strong that they are considered to be self-evident.  Anyone who disagrees is crazy, which means that the hard core advocates of either position will never understand each other.  Fundamentalism is alive and well.  Until the education debate is ruled by reason and respect for the views of others, I'm afraid that sheer desire will continue to rule the day.

Colorado better than most?

States don't do a good job of monitoring federal monies going to charter schools.  That's what this article says.  I haven't done work in a lot of states, but my experience in Colorado and Arizona is that the states do a pretty good job.  I work with multiple charter schools authorized by different districts.  I've also had to resolve issues directly with the state department of education.  My experiences is that we do a good job of making sure that the money is appropriately spent and that reporting is in compliance with federal law.  So, I'll give credit to the Charter School Institute, Colorado Springs School District 11, Falcon School District 49, Denver Public Schools, Harrison School District 2, and Pueblo School District 60 for keeping the schools that I work with accountable to follow their budgets and to appropriately document expenditures in line with those budgets.

I'd just add a note that even if a state isn't doing a great job monitoring, that doesn't mean that the money is being wasted.  When I've worked with districts that didn't do a good job monitoring, the schools that I worked with were still doing a good job of spending the money according to their grant budgets.