We have seen it all before. A predictable plot, bad script, bad director and bad actors. All ready to perform their roles. All the while, we, the audience, are forced to choose between the good versus evil plot put before us.
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But, I am not talking about a movie. I am talking about the response to Republican Presidential Nominee Mitt Romney's education plan announcement two weeks ago. As expected, both political parties acted out their respective roles beautifully. Republicans sang Romney's praises, while Democrats eviscerated him. The most galling of the responses, however, came from USA Today columnist DeWayne Wickham, who derided Romney's plan. Wickham actually believes that parental choice is "fool's gold of education reform."
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Hold on! Say what you want, but the truth is that the emerging cry for parental choice is warranted, and it's not coming from the Republican Party playbook. In fact, the national education revolution is being driven by low-income parents who are disgusted with the fact that they are forced to send their kids to bad schools with no other options. Parents like Gwen Samuel, who is driving the parent revolution in Connecticut and those public housing mothers from Louisiana who rallied and fought for the statewide voucher bill recently passed by the Louisiana legislature. And, of course, the primarily Latino parents in Los Angeles who stood up to the union and LA Unified bureaucracy by signing petitions for a change in leadership at their kids' school -- the first exercise of the innovative parent trigger law that is now sweeping the nation.
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These parents don't care about partisan politics. They just want their children to get a good education. To that point, there is no Republican or Democratic way to teach a kid to read, write, count or compete. Only good teachers, good parents and good schools can do that.
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The truth is that while the politicians and pundits continue to play their parts, more and more of our kids are falling behind. For this, both parties bear tremendous responsibility. Instead of advocating for and enacting policies and approaches that truly put kids first, we now have an overly politicized education system where adult interests and politics take precedence over the education of our children. This has led to tepid, watered down education policy positions from both parties that, if enacted fully, would take years to implement. Quite honestly, if we were to peel the onion on what Romney and Obama propose, there isn't much difference between the two. Both say they want to reform our K-12 system; both support performance pay; both support charter schools and both support teacher quality initiatives. Yes, they differ on other forms of parental choice and the role of the federal government, but both tout their proposals in stark political terms.
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Folks, if we want to change our education system, we need to elevate the discussion and be bold about it. The one issue we should rally around as Americans, without the political shenanigans, is the education of our children. Wouldn't it be a welcome sight to see the top presidential candidates discuss their education proposals with unifying and aspirational tones? Proposals calling for the immediate and radical change needed in this country to make schools work for today's kids. Proposals that, when offered to the American people, give no deference to the politics of education, but are thoughtful and forward-thinking with children yet unborn in mind. Pie in the sky? Maybe. But one thing's for sure -- that would be a movie well worth watching.Â
Follow Kevin P. Chavous on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Kevinpchavous
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No voucher will be sufficient to let poor students into exclusive private schools-- those students will remain insulated from "those people" and vouchers will give them a little extra folding money for skiing vacations.
But there will be money to be made in providing service to those poor students. Just create a "school" based on a business plan of spending less to "educate" those students for less than they'll bring in in voucher money. Cyber schools in many states like PA are already making money hand over fist doing it.
What's wrong with that? These schools have as job #1 making a profit. Looking like they're educating students may make the top ten priorities. Actually educating these students will come much further down the list. And they will be accountable to nobody but the company owners. Meanwhile, public schools stripped of resources, will struggle to educate those left behind (like the special needs students, who are too costly to educate).
I suppose you're right in the sense that profit-seeking is not always political. But it won't help education, either.
The problem is far more the students than it is the school itself. The students make or break the educational environment.
Yes, the concerned parents are not happy with the environment their kids are trying to learn in, but the problem is not the school so much as it is the other students (and perhaps their children as well).
But really, there is no school to go to to avoid the disaffected students.
I expect to see a real rise in on-line based home schooling as the most concerned parents pull out of the most impacted schools.
We can all wish this was parent-driven but it's money and privatization driven.
What is truly needed is a plan to fix the broken funding structure that sees tens of thousands of dollars funding each student in wealthy districts while at the same time providing poorer districts and the schools that most desperately need additional funding with a fraction of that.
Yep. But there are lots of Republican and Democratic ways to degrade the quality of education. Romney and Obama both do it, and you advocate it yourself, by pushing the "parent trigger law" that gives additional power to precisely those parents who've already demonstrated that they're not doing their jobs.