Public School Reform is a Myth

Our Legislature is at it again.  They are pushing a school reform agenda that not only harms schools and harms the kids we serve, it serves no educational purpose I can detect.  I speak of vouchers, parent trigger law, charter schools, school choice, high stakes testing, teacher accountability, etc., etc.  If the Legislature jumped into any other profession with such meddlesome ideas the political ramifications would be swift and sure.  That is not true for education for some reason.  In fact, other than shifting public dollars to private sector entrepreneurs I can find no evidence of success for any of these reforms.  Why in the world would we continue such efforts when we know they do not work?  Perhaps I am dumb.  I am truly dumbfounded.

I believe that at the heart of these reforms are two false assumptions.  The first and most insidious is that public schools would perform better if they injected private sector market models in the operation of schools.  The second assumption, just as powerful but more harmful, is that the success of a school can be measured by a high-stakes, one day, super-secret, standardized test and that student performance on the test rests entirely in the hands of the educators in that building.  Both assumptions are not only false, they are so blatantly false and so ignorant of what we really know about student performance and school performance that believing in these assumptions is akin to believing the sun orbits the earth and to continue to fund a space exploration program based on that assumption.  In other words, if the supporters of school reform are correct why aren’t we seeing positive results?  They have had years to demonstrate that these models are superior to standard public education and they have consistently failed to do so.  What in the world is going on here?

Successful private sector folks must believe in their heart of hearts that the market and competition are the only models that can improve schools.  I find several things most interesting about this.  First, the private sector folks who push this model are financially very successful thanks to the private sector model.  We do not see former CEO’s of Studebaker, Eastern Airlines, Norton Motorcycles, Lionel or Pan Am backing these reforms.  Just as the market rewards winners it punishes then cannibalizes losers.  The winners always believe the market is right.  Losers not so much.  Do we really want that mentality driving our model of educating kids?  Do we really want to reward high performing schools and punish low performing schools?  Worse, do we really want to cannibalize any public school that serves children?  If you cannot imagine an organized effort to identify then punish institutions that serve children you need look no further than the current Texas (and national) school reform agenda.

The second interesting thing about the first assumption is that it is in no way related to the performance of public schools, much less public school professionals.  To support such notions is a frank admission that the person has no knowledge of what happens in a public school on a day-by-day basis.  None.  The private sector functions to identify winners and losers.  Public schools function to ensure that all kids are winners.  These are diametrically opposed missions.  Public school folks do not go to work worrying about cost overruns, deadlines or what the schools down the street or across the state are doing.  They drive to work thinking about how to structure a lesson to ensure the most learning for their covey of kids or strategies to help the kids that did not get it the first time.  (Though it may be worry about the line at the copy machine.)  The best way to accomplish the public school mission is to collaborate, get and share ideas with other professionals in other places.  No Radio Shack is not going to call Best Buy for help, but hopefully the schools where the employees’ children of those two organizations attend do that very thing.  In fact, it would be immoral for one school or one teacher to develop a strategy that really helped kids and keep it a secret for a competitive advantage.  Private sector models have no place in public schools.

The second assumption is equally absurd.  Yes, the teacher makes a difference.  One could argue that the teacher makes a huge difference in the learning of the kid.  But teachers are not the only variable that influences student performance.  In fact we know the variable of greatest impact on student success in school is the family’s income, and the family’s education level.   Kids that come to school from poor homes lead by adults with less than a college or even high school diploma simply do not do as well as rich kids from educated parents.  The fact that we collect data and then judge that performance on one day each year is absolutely bizarre and inaccurate.  On any given day kids will have good days, bad days, be hungry, be mad, had a fight with their parents, got rejected by a significant other, etc., etc.  No way can a teacher be held accountable for the #2 pencil bubbles of any given kid that day.  Legislatures, state departments of education and Pearson (the test manufacturing company) very much want to keep the content of the tests a secret.  A teacher can lose his or her job and certification if they learn what is on the test and share it.  Think about that.  How would you prepare kids to take a test when as a teacher you do not know what is on the test?  When teachers teach, and know what they teach, and know what they want kids to know, and develop their own teacher made tests to measure what kids know, the test outcomes are much more meaningful.  We do not do that anymore.  Obviously because teachers are no longer qualified to develop their own tests and someone in the private sector must make millions to do it for them. 

Teachers can and do make a huge difference.  But a teacher cannot overcome the kids’ background and home life.  Nor can he or she overcome the kid’s poverty or value structure.  Nor in the brief time teachers are with the kids can they ensure healthy eating and appropriate dental and medical care.  Teachers cannot fix those things, but kids bring all those things to the table on test day and those tests measure teacher competency.  That is absolute lunacy.

So just for the sake of argument, lets toss any and all school reform efforts that are based on judging schools by test scores and that are modeled after private sector measurements and motivations.  If we could throw those two assumptions out, what reform efforts would be left?

Not charter schools.  Charter schools do not teach kids better.  In fact they can kick kids out and force them to return to public schools.   Charter schools simply are a duplicate publicly funded K-12 education system designed to make the private sector folks who run them very rich.  We do not need competition.  We need collaboration.

Not vouchers.  Why would we allow public school money to go to wealthy parents who already have enrolled their kids in private school?  Such a strategy may increase the number of private schools eventually, but not immediately.  Is that what we want?  More private schools?  Do we believe they do better than public schools?  They do not when family income is factored out of the results.

Not high-stakes standardized tests.  Results of such tests may be interesting, but they are surely not the end all and be all of school evaluation.  If they mattered teachers and kids should get the results during a time when there was a chance of remediation.  We do not get the results that fast.  If they mattered, state departments of ed would not have to publish the degree of error in the test data while they draw a hard line at some number to determine who passed and who did not.   If they mattered, a group of teachers in that subject would design the test and teachers would know what was on the test in advance.  Schools will always have tests and other strategies to measure student knowledge and performance.  To make such a strategy be a one-size fits all, high stakes event is ludicrous.  Worse, teachers and others now spend an inordinate amount of time administering sample tests to see if the kids are “ready.”  What a waste of time.

Not teacher evaluation systems based on test scores.  That strategy clearly helps no one, not the kids, not the teachers.  Who will teach the most challenging kids if the quality of the instruction is measured by test outcomes?  If the test scores have no meaning and no value as I argue, then they surely should not be used to make professional personnel decisions.

No parent trigger law.  Such a law allows parents to look at test results and conclude they need a new direction for the campus, new staff, etc.  The flaw here is twofold.  One, the decision is based on test scores and two with a dramatic shortage of experienced, competent, qualified educators why would you want to start over?  That will make things worse.  In the entire US of A where private sector thinking has pushed parent trigger laws virtually no group of parents have ever enacted those provisions.  It is a failed reform effort on the books to further intimidate teachers.  We do not need to intimidate teachers, we need to support them.

Texas has been on the school reform mission since 1985.  Each year our state leadership laments our failing public schools.  I would argue schools will continue to fail following the above reform agenda.  Our legislature is crazy if they think we can follow the same strategies we have followed for 30 years and get different results, or somehow head down the wrong road faster and arrive at our destination.  I would argue policy wonks and legislatures who think like that should be the ones held accountable for school outcomes.  They are the ones making the rules.

I oppose the reform agenda.  I oppose anything that demeans or diminishes the teaching profession.  I oppose anything that compromises teacher salaries other than to raise them. 

I support making school a place where kids can and do learn under the influence and guidance of a teacher.  I support small class sizes so that teachers are more able to customize their instruction.  I support paying teachers a livable wage.  I support responding to them as though they were college-degreed and professionally trained and licensed.  Oh yeah, they are!

In other words, the “reform” agenda must be reformed.  It has failed.  It has made some private sector folks very rich with tax dollars collected for public schools at the expense of those serving kids in public schools.  That must stop.  I would argue that the Legislature should take the same attitudinal approach to public education they want teachers to take toward students:  focused, caring, supportive. 

And please, Texas voters, stop sending right-wing radio talk show hosts and lawyers and ranchers and oil men to Austin to make decisions about public education.  Attaining wealth does not necessarily mean one attains wisdom.  Receiving a majority of the votes does not imbue one with perfect perceptions.  It is those folks who are nailing kids by hammering on the schools.