The New Blacklist

I think this sort of behavior, when done by folks on the political right, used to be called "blacklisting."

Houston, You Have a Problem

Houston is showing us how not to run a teacher performance pay program. When 92 percent of the teachers qualify for the bonuses, something is wrong. This type of incentive pay system is just a phony and cynical way of boosting everyone's salary.

"Waiting" is Worth the Wait

I was fortunate last night to have attended a special screening of the documentary "Waiting for Superman," which follows the paths of five or six at-risk school kids, from different walks of life, who must enter a lottery to get into a local charter school. Please find a way to see this film when it gets wider release. It's in parts inspiring, heartbreaking and infuriating -- a call to change that only the most jaded could ignore. Also in attendance were some of those who aren't "waiting for Superman" at the local level, but are working for school reform now, on the front lines or behind the scenes, like District 2 Superintendent Mike Miles and school reform advocate Steve Schuck (please see my previous post on these heroes).

Sad today, though, to wake up to news reports that Michelle Rhee, one of the school reformers profiled in the film, is resigning as chancellor of the D.C. school system. What ann unfortunate thing for District kids. It feels like they all just lost the lottery.

Obama's War on Summer Vacation

Wreck the economy, if you must. Spend us into oblivion. Lead a federal takeover of health care. Drag us deeper into the quagmire called Afghanistan.

But you go too far, Mr. President, when you begin messing with summer vacation!

Obama's just lucky school kids don't vote.

Bad News from the District of Precambria

Just as it seemed on the verge of gaining real momentum, Michelle Rhee's courageous effort to reinvent the abysmally-bad D.C. school system faces a major setback, and possibly reversal, following the ouster of pro-reform Mayor Adrian Fenty. Mayor-to-be Vincent Gray pledged that reform would go on, in the wake of his upset win over Fenty. But Rhee isn't buying it, judging from the unvarnished opinions she shared with The Washington Post.

Rhee's detractors -- starting with local and national teacher unions -- will gloat and applaud, as hard-won improvements are rolled-back. But it's D.C.'s school kids who will suffer most for this untimely and unfortunate turn of events.

Somehow I see a think tank in Rhee's future.

Post Goes Postal on Teacher Unions

Say what you will about The Washington Post -- and most conservatives say it's a left-leaning piece of fish wrap -- but the paper's editorial page in recent years has become a strong and consistent voice for school choice and school reform. Some on the paper's news side still shill for the teacher unions and other anti-reform reactionaries. But the editorial page has seen the light.

Today's editorial, which comes to the defense of a successful Baltimore charter school that's been the target of "outlandish demands" by the city's teachers union, isn't an aberration. The Post has been a fairly reliable ally of D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, in her epic struggles to turn that school system around. And the paper's oft-repeated mantra of "put children first" is helping bring slow but perceptible change to some public school systems that need it most.

Now, if only the Post would incorporate that pro-freedom, pro-reform ethos into all its editorials.

But then there would be no reason for The Washington Times.

Voting with Their Feet for Charter Schools

Debate about the effectiveness of charter schools, vis-a-vis their conventional public school counterparts, seems never-ending. Some studies suggest they're superior; others say that's a myth. Both camps point to the anecdotes and analyses that bolster their case. The waters remain murky.

But by one oft-overlooked but critically-important measure, parental demand, charters seem to be making the grade. Just look at today's Denver Post:

"Alma Meraz's eyes welled when her daughter's name was pulled from a cookie jar during an enrollment lottery for the high-performing West Denver Prep charter school.

"I'm so happy," said Meraz, who cleans houses for a living. "I need her to go to this school for better opportunities. For a better life."

West Denver Prep — which some parents have come to view as a first step toward college and possibly a lifeline out of poverty — is rated the second-best school in Denver.
The school's college-preparatory curriculum and swift interventions for struggling students have been touted for helping at- risk kids beat the academic odds. West Denver Prep now posts some of the best academic growth in the state.

The middle school also draws nearly double the number of applicants it can seat, meaning waiting lists are long and disappointments high during the annual school- choice enrollment period.

It's a scenario played out across the state each winter, as parents battle to get their kids into popular, high-performing schools during the choice period.

The Colorado Department of Education estimates about 38,000 children are waiting to get into Colorado charter schools. One such school, Classical Academy in Colorado Springs, has 7,800 students on its wait list."

While the so-called experts duel and debate, education consumers are speaking loud and clear. More and more Americans, if given the choice, are voting with their feet for charter schools. And that's a good enough measure of success for me.

Beware Greeks Bearing Gifts

George W. Bush cracked open the door to a federal takeover of American public schools with the unfunded mandates imposed on states through his No Child Left Behind program. Barack Obama is tearing that door off its hinges, and driving a truck through the gaping hole, by using stimulus funds to force state compliance with his own education agenda, as the New York Times reports today.

"Holding out billions of dollars as a potential windfall, the Obama administration is persuading state after state to rewrite education laws to open the door to more charter schools and expand the use of student test scores for judging teachers.

That aggressive use of economic stimulus money by Education Secretary Arne Duncan is provoking heated debates over the uses of standardized testing and the proper federal role in education, issues that flared frequently during President George W. Bush’s enforcement of his signature education law, called No Child Left Behind."

Both the Bush and Obama efforts travel under the guise of "reform." Both efforts include elements that many backers of improving education support in principle (higher testing standards and more accountability in the case of NCLB, for instance, and more charter schools in the case of Obama's No Taxpayer Left Alone program). But neither initiative serves the long-term interests of American public education, since both are unprecedented assaults on state and local control of schools.

No sector of American society that falls under federal dominance has flourished as a result. Almost everything Washington touches turns to shit, as we all know. That's reason enough to be wary of Uncle Sam's growing involvement in public education under Bush and Obama. And because federal involvement never comes without strings attached, and a hefty price tag attached, it's better in the long-run that such matters remain under state and local control.

I would like to see more charter school-averse states change their attitudes toward the alternative schools, so I might be inclined, at first blush, to applaud the Obama administration's use of stimulus funds as leverage against charter-resistant states. But because I try to think 2 or 3 moves ahead, I also anticipate that the Obama administration and its teacher union allies will eventually use this same leverage to force the unionization of charter schools, and to impose federal standards upon them, effectively robbing charter schools of the very things that make them unique, independent, effective and appealing.

Here's a hint of things to come in a related story from the Associated Press:

"Unions and their members do not oppose all charter schools, but they do want more say in how teachers are chosen. The American Federation of Teachers is actively seeking a bigger role in charter schools and has helped to unionize several."

Barack Obama's support for charter schools at first glance seems at odds with his political alliance with anti-charter school teachers' unions -- until one realizes that this administration intends to facilitate a union takeover of these schools through passage of the so-called card check law, which will make organizing the American workplace as easy as collecting enough signatures. Obama's support for charter schools is tolerated by teachers' unions because they understand that their chances of co-opting these schools will get a big boost from this union-friendly president.

That's why this backer of charter schools is skeptical of Obama actions that seem, on the surface, to be pro-school choice and pro-school reform. Beware Greeks bearing gifts. Charter schools have a better chance of remaining genuine charter schools if they are free of the federal government's -- and Barack Obama's -- smothering embrace.

There go the Charter Schools

The absence of teacher unions has long been one of the defining characteristics of charter schools.

It's what leaves the teachers free to teach, without constant reference to what's in "the contract." It's what leaves school administrators free to manage, without butting heads with obstructionists within. Absent is the adversarial relationship between "management" and "workers" that unions feed on. These schools put the interest of students first, and teachers second. It's one of the secrets of their success.

Yet of late I've seen a number of stories about teacher unions infiltrating charter schools, including, in just the last few days, this story in the New York Times, about the tensions caused by one attempted takeover in New York City, and this article in the Los Angeles Times, with an eerily similar storyline.

The N.Y. Times:

"Perhaps the standoff should not be a surprise. Charter schools, which are publicly financed but operate independently, were founded in opposition to teachers’ unions; many of the movement’s supporters view union contracts as a fundamental flaw in public education that keeps ineffective teachers on the job. And KIPP, like many charters, has hired teachers without traditional training and requires long hours and weekend work, usually for extra pay.

Teachers’ unions initially ignored charter schools or viewed them as the enemy, but as the charters grew in size and influence, the unions’ feelings warmed somewhat. Green Dot, a Los Angeles-based charter network, has unions at each of its schools, including one that opened with the teachers’ union’s cooperation last fall in the Bronx.

In New York, 18 of the state’s 115 charter schools are unionized, including two in Brooklyn operated by the teachers’ union. What happens to the unionization effort at KIPP AMP is being closely watched nationally as a test of whether two powerful forces in education will cooperate, coexist or devolve into protracted battles."

Clearly, the unions, having failed to thwart the charter school movement, are adopting a new strategy, of trying to infiltrate the schools and destroy them from within, by turning them into conventional public schools, where unions, not administrators, call the shots. The unions portray these takeovers as signaling their willingness to be part of the solution, not the problem, and as proof they aren't the obstacles to innovation and excellence they obviously are. Thus the lead in the Times story (my italics added):

"With its stellar test scores and connection to a national network, the KIPP AMP charter school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, presented a ripe opportunity for the city’s teachers’ union to prove that it, too, could embrace innovation that fuels rapid improvement for students."

But a more practical, bottom-line motivation lurks behind the takeovers. The wild popularity of charters has the tide turning decisively against unions. It represents a steady drain on union membership, union dues and union power -- which is all most unions care about. Unless they find a way to co-opt charters, not only will unions experience a continuing decline in membership and money, but America will before long have two public school systems existing side my side.

One system, free from union influence, will be succeeding, while the other, anchored down by union dominance, will be failing. And that will be the most glaring evidence yet of the cancerous influence these organizations have had on American public education.