For many years, the stance held by most progressive voters on public education has been both simple and narrow: schools are underfunded and need more money. Growing up in a progressive (and very political) household where issues of policy and politics were discussed nightly at the dinner table, insufficient levels of school funding were about the extent of the analysis we ever reached on California’s public education. Everyone knows that we are 47th in the country in per pupil funding, and all we need to do is fix that, pour in a bunch more money, and our problems will go away (so the thinking goes).
Much of the progressive community, led by transformative leaders like President Obama, has come around recently to the shortcomings of this analysis. The progressive education reform movement has concluded that our American system of public education – with huge centralized bureaucracies micromanaging our schools, no meaningful adult accountability for student performance, and little/no parental choice for working and middle class families – is fundamentally broken. President Obama and others have taken the lead, through innovative programs such as Race to the Top, in forcing states and school districts to make the politically difficult choices necessary to transform this system into something that will work for the 21st century, and will finally fulfill America’s promise of a great public education and real social mobility for all. Think tanks like Brookings have outlined how parental choice can work in a progressive context, and in a way that works for all students. And high-quality charter schools have proven that there are innovative school models that can effectively educate all students today, and send whole communities of children to college instead of prison.
However, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that our schools in California ARE still badly underfunded, and DO need additional resources if they are ever to fulfill their potential and promise. And the current cycle of continuous budget cuts, both in K-12 and in higher ed, are dragging an already broken system even further towards the bottom, destroying the futures of countless young lives. Obviously these are difficult times across the board, but we at Parent Revolution stand with those who took to the streets last week and demanded no further cuts to our system of public education, be it K-12, community college, or the UC/CSU systems.
Again, there are structural changes that could help us better deal with the challenges we face. Layoffs based purely on seniority are decimating low-income schools throughout Los Angeles, and must be stopped. It is critical that we slim down LAUSD’s huge bureaucracy and drive more dollars to schools and classrooms where they belong. And future funding streams, such as LAUSD's proposed parcel tax, should help all public school students, and shouldn't unfairly penalize students and teachers in public charter schools. But we also must not forget the basic needs of our schools to have The promise of a great public education for all is the basis of the California and American dreams, and there is simply no way we can attain it without both structural reforms and additional investment of resources. All solutions must be on the table, and common sense ideas – like charging an oil severance fee to big oil companies to help preserve public education – must be adopted. The cuts have to stop.
I just found a podcast by a group called "Dropout Nation" from two weeks ago responding to the criticism from Jay Mathews and others to the Parent Trigger. You can listen to the whole thing here (probably about 6-8 minutes long, and definitely worth a listen). RiShawn makes some great points, stating that "Parents need to play much larger roles in shaping the educational destinies of their children.” He also notes that the Parent Trigger and inter-District transfer rights are “all tools that allow parents to be bigger players and play bigger roles in educational decision making," and that “the real issue is building an infrastructure that allows for parents to make the best decisions.”
I haven’t had a chance to get through the much discussed upcoming NYT Magazine feature, Building a Better Teacher, but in the meantime I wanted to highlight a relatively simple comment on it from Justin Cohen on the piece:
The quality of teaching matters … a lot. And it’s differential.
Figuring out exactly how to find, train, and retain the best teachers possible is a critical and incredibly complex task. However, if we can simply agree on the above statement, I think people on all sides can (and must) ultimately come together and figure out the details. There are already several reform union contracts (Camino Nuevo and Green Dot are two great examples) that are helping to drive parts of this conversation forward, as well as positive movement in Philadelphia that we noted a few days ago. However, if we all can’t agree on that as a starting point – that teaching quality matters and its differential – then it seems to me that we have quite a bigger hill to climb.
Very excited to read the whole piece, and will definitely post my favorite excerpts in the next day or two.
The LA Times reported this morning on the absurd abuse of Black History Month of three teachers at Wadsworth Elementary, who when selecting Black heroes for their elementary school students to celebrate, chose O.J. Simpson, Dennis Rodman, and RuPaul:
The teachers have been suspended as the L.A. Unified School district investigates. According to officials, children at Wadsworth Avenue Elementary School were carrying pictures of [Simponson, Rodman, and RuPaul] at a parade Friday on the school playground.
Other students were carrying pictures of President Obama and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
We stood yesterday with an array of civil rights leaders, including the local NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Action Network, and others, in calling for those teachers to be held accountable for their offensive and derogatory actions. Teaching our students to respect and be proud of their own culture and that of others is a critical part of building a system of public education that is about what is best for children.
Also: see below for local tv news coverage of the incident, including Eric Lee of SCLC and Leon Jenkins from the NAACP explaining their outrage.
I came across an AP story from last week detailing some very encouraging collaboration between local Districts and bargaining units on school turnaround efforts in Philadelphia and elsewhere. The whole thing is worth a read, but I’ll try to give you the key excerpts:
Even in a school system known for its academic troubles, the numbers at Vaux High School are jaw-dropping: More than 90 percent of 11th-graders tested last year could not read or do math at grade level.
But next fall, at least half the teachers at Vaux and 13 more of Philadelphia's worst schools could be gone. And the school day, school week and school year could be longer.
While federal law has long allowed the overhaul of chronically failing schools, such extreme makeovers are likely to become more common because of more money from Washington, a growing consensus on education reform, and newfound willingness on the part of teacher unions to collaborate, experts say.
…
Philadelphia's turnaround effort, dubbed Renaissance Schools, is backed by a union contract approved last month that requires teachers at failing schools to reapply for their jobs; eliminates their seniority rights when it comes to rehiring them; and extends the school day by up to an hour, with the possibility of class up to two Saturdays a month and 22 days in July.
In exchange, all district teachers get raises, possible performance bonuses and the chance for a voice in the restructuring — or the choice of transferring to another school.
This is a picture perfect example of how a kids-first agenda can (and ultimately must) co-exist with a pro-labor one. So much of the research on school turnarounds has demonstrated the importance of things like school autonomy in staffing decisions and extended school days for underserved students, and the local teachers union stepped up and is helping the District to provide these crucial elements of success. And in exchange, teachers get paid more and have an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the process. Everybody wins!
Hopefully models like this can be spread to other districts, like LA Unified, that are in desperate need of successful turnarounds for dozens (if not hundreds) of our underperforming schools.
(For more research and updates on school turnarounds, I would highly recommend the Meeting the Turnaround Challenge blog, hosted by Mass Insight. It's where I originally found this article, and is a real wealth of information about all this).
