Get Out of Their Darn Way and Let Educators Innovate

When Jackie Elliot made the switch to teaching, from a career in public health, she was 36-years-old and by no means a naïf - she understood that public education was not in the best possible shape. Still, in 1986 as a novice teacher at Pacoima Elementary School in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, she was astonished at what she found, not just at Pacoima but all over the Los Angeles Unified School District. Classrooms and schools were filled to overflowing, individualized attention was rare, a sense of nurture was absent.

"In public health, we were very committed to our patients," Jackie told me last week. "If we were doing in the health field what we are doing in education, we would have dead bodies littering the streets."

Like many idealistic, energetic young teachers across the nation, Jackie decided to push for change within the system. And like many of her idealistic, energetic cohort, she quickly realized the sheer weight and will of the bureaucracy she was up against. "Working with this stuff, at Pacoima, I just hit walls," she says. "I couldn't even get parents into my classroom because I was forbidden to have parent volunteers."

Jackie began to formulate a vision for a public middle school that did things differently. It was not a complicated vision, nor an expensive one; indeed, this new school could be run, she figured, on the same per student monies allotted to mainstream public schools like Pacoima. She began to work it out on paper: Twenty-five children per classroom, 100 per grade level, school size no more than 300. Parent engagement. Counseling services, because she knew from her public health days that when kids didn't feel well, they weren't going to learn well. Arts programs. Doors opened at 7 in the morning, closed at 6 at night, so that kids who wanted to could get off the streets. A structure that doesn't resemble a penitentiary.

She wrote a proposal solid enough to receive startup charter school funding from the federal government. She put out the word that she was looking for students, scheduled parent meetings in a nearby auditorium, and in no time at all had a full roster. One might assume that Jackie was finally operating outside of the oppressive district umbrella - but one would be wrong. In a landscape of absurdities, this one's a whopper: The very district that Jackie and other L.A. education entrepreneurs are revolting against is itself responsible for green lighting or rejecting their charter school applications.

It's like "asking McDonalds to approve the opening of a Burger King across the street," one education mover and shaker scoffed to me, recently.

~ ~ ~

Setting Jackie aside for a moment, might we agree on a few central truths?

Let's take as axiomatic that public education in the U.S. is screwed up and needs fixing; there's no need to waste space quoting the trove of statistics demonstrating the failure of our educational system, particularly in urban, low-income areas (alright, a few stats: each year, nearly a third of public high school students fail to graduate with their class; the number is closer to half for black, Hispanic and Native American populations). Let's also take as axiomatic that most teachers and school administrators would prefer that their students learn, grow in mind and heart, and succeed in life. Students, we can assume, would also like to grow and to succeed.

So there is a general disconnect between what we want for students, what students want for themselves - and what students get out of the educational process. We can blame teachers for not bucking the established order, students for checking out too easily, parents for insufficient support of schools and their children, politicians for employing empty rhetoric over action, society-at-large for its grossly misplaced priorities... let's go ahead and blame all these folks, not forgetting ourselves. There is plenty of culpability to go around. Indeed, let's take as axiomatic that we are all to blame, each in his or her own way, either through action or inaction.

I'd like to suggest a less obvious axiom: That a better educational system is within reach if we'd only get out of the darn way and let reform happen. Why in the world do Californians tolerate a process whereby charter school applicants must seek permission from the school district? Charter schools are in no way perfect by default, but shouldn't we encourage new ways of thinking and doing rather than tossing up unnecessary roadblocks? Some other states employ so-called "alternative authorizers," boards or public officials who are authorized to approve or deny charter applications independently of the their districts - Ohio, for instance, and Indiana, where the mayor of Indianapolis has himself chartered several schools.* We would all do well to emulate one of those models.

In California, if a charter is denied by the district, it may be appealed to the county, and finally to the State Board of Education. In the last three months alone, at least three different charters (New West Charter School, Micro-Enterprise Charter Academy and Lifeline Education Charter School) which had previously been denied by their districts and by L.A. County were approved by the state. If the state board, not exactly known for its lax standards, is willing to approve these charters, then why had they been denied twice previously? Even if the right decision is made in the end, this is a terrible amount of red tape to wade through, particularly for teachers who are acting out of inspiration and goodwill and must scrap about for the time and money to soldier on.

~ ~ ~

Back where we left her, Jackie Elliot was taking her charter proposal to the L.A. Unified School District. One of their first questions, she remembers, was "why do you think you can do it better?", and although she did not say it out loud, her immediate thought was, "you have to be an imbecile not to do it better."

Part of the resistance, at that point, stemmed simply from the fact that charters were a new phenomenon and district bureaucrats didn't know how to handle the process. But another part of the problem, Jackie says, was that "they felt frightened. Why would they approve somebody to start a middle school that might do better than theirs, and would make them look inadequate? The charter schools can be models for them, but in reality, they'd rather not see us exist, because if there's a school that's doing better than they are, it's going to propagate the growth of the movement and make them look worse."

Long story short, after an arduous process Jackie did get her charter - as she tells it, when the district finally realized that she would not go away - and PUC Schools** came into existence. Their first school, Community Charter Middle School, was in 1999 the first charter school ever to open in the San Fernando Valley, and since then PUC has added 7 new charter schools to their portfolio. Although test scores alone cannot demonstrate the full efficacy of a school, and our cultural overemphasis on testing is a major problem in its own right, test scores have nevertheless become the major evaluative tool in education, and so it is worth mentioning that the PUC Schools' latest California State Test scores are solidly above nearby mainstream schools.

But the point here is not to argue the virtues, or drawbacks, of any one charter organization. The point is to work out kinks in the process by which they come into being, so that when a teacher's frustration blossoms into epiphany and the urge for action, she encounters support and encouragement rather than raised eyebrows and needless bureaucratic hurdles. We all agree that public education is a mess, and one of the best remedies is also one of the simplest - allow the innovators room to innovate!

* The California Board of Education is an alternative authorizer in that specialized "statewide benefit" charters can appeal directly to the Board, but even this ability recently came under attack. In their defense, California legislators have authored several failed bills to fix the problem (Assembly Bill 2764 in 2004, Senate Bill 844 in 2005).

** Full disclosure: NewSchools Venture Fund, where I am a part time journalist-in-residence, provides support to charter schools including PUC Schools.

Comments

[AlwaysAmused]

Ill be damned, and the devil must be shivering because as crazy as it sounds I actually agree wiht someone whos articles appear on thsi site.

You're right, the problem is the public school system itself.Or more tot he point, the fact that for the vast majority of families thsoe public schools have no competition. What i find most itneresting about your article is that it took a newcommer to the system, to see the problems. Thsoe within the system are so entrenched that they can't think of any other way of doing things. However I do ave to take issue wiht one thing you said, namely your second axiom, I simply cant accept it. WHiel there are some few teachers who do genuinely care about the educationof their pupils, most simply care about serving thier thirty and getting their pension.

As to the fools who deride anything thats doen "dor profit" I would ask you what exactly you think it is the teachers go to work for. The simple fact is that it will be the spread of charter schools which will keep the prices down, assuming we can avoid the problems that lead to medical inflation, namely over regulation, lack of competition, government coverage mandates, and to a lesser extent lawsuits. Assuming we dont allow the gov to place mandates on the charter schools beyond the minimum educational requirements, ensure that there are several charter schools competing in each area, and make sure that parents can see accurate data on how each school performs whether charter or public, this type of intiative could well save our educaional system. I would also point out the research which shows that having a charter school in the area increases the quality of education for public school students as well.

As to unionization; its the very teachers unions themselves which are responsible for much of what ills public education, though that should come as no surprise. Its the unions which most fervently fight ideas like merit based pay, and firing underperforming teachers.

[elleng]

'The sheer weight of the bureaucracy' is the reason we sent our daughters to private/parochial schools; its still costing us, but its worth it in my opinion.

And because of their fine, engaged teachers, both of our daughters want to become educators.

[nikto]

Charter schools are FOR PROFIT in California, which means they are beholden to
stockholders and investors.

Expect the same rising cost$ in Education that we now see so commonplace in MEDICAL CARE, if privatization efforts continue as rapidly as
they are now doing (hint: NCLB HELPS this process greatly).

How does 18% cost increases PER YEAR sound?
That is what we will get.
Eventually, parents will have to pay out-of-pocket for school.
Guaranteed, eventually.

Also, the ONLY thing that really helps charter schools be "better" is that they are EXCLUSIONARY---They just kick out the bottom 30% of kids with chronic low functioning/disruptive behavior---WHICH PUBLIC SCHOOLS ARE
NOT ALLOWED TO DO!!

Yeah, that is a great answer to Education ills:

Make Public schools compete with other schools that DO NOT HAVE TO ADHERE TO THE SAME RULES.

Real smart, America!!

We will sow what we reap, and
it won't be pretty.

[caesarf]

I am not in favor of the for profit model charter school. However I have in the past sent my children to a non profit charter school that was innovative and highly inclusive. Admittance by lottery is the standard at charter schools. Many parents in the community chose the school for their children who were not making it in the traditional public school setting. There were numerous children who had serious behavior problems that were not addressed effectively in the public school who benefited from the close personal attention they received at this particular charter program.

During our time at the school, (5 years) there was only one student who was expelled permanently-for repeated rules infractions including violence against other students and drugs.

That is not to say that all charter schools are good. There are some that are better models for success-and they should be rewarded and emulated.

[ventana]

Public Education didn't USED to be a mess. Then they started "innovating" and now it is.

They also started hiring people who had gone to school to get Masters of Education degrees, rather than MSs MAs and PHds in the actual disciplines that need to be taught.

The result? Innovation? Oh yeah, tons. And plummeting education standings on the international stage.

And *parents* aren't the problem. *No Mothers in the Home* is.

[caesarf]

Pretty simplistic ventana. In my neighborhood, all the children have mothers in their homes all day long, and the children still are miles behind their counterparts in wealthy neighborhoods.

As for innovation, I can assure you that there is none at the local public Title I school down the street. The teachers and administrators are given specific units to teach in prescribed blocks of time and may not deviate from the plan.

I do agree with you about the Masters in ed degree dominance over other degrees-it does not make sense to me that an individual with an advanced degree in a subject is less qualified than a teacher with an ed degree.

[Overd0g]

Public schools will always be mediocre in general. The whole "no child left behind" philosophy guarantees it. First you force parents into the system at gunpoint (govt. mandate), you force teachers to tolerate poor performers and disruptive students, and then you dream of excellence in results. Aint going to happen. Having said that, *parents* are the #1 reason for student underperformance in schools. And the government is not, and can never be, a substitute parent. So don't get so worked up about a problem that is self perpetuating and unsolvable. If the parents aren't involved and driving their kids to perform, the best schools will "fail their students". It's the parents, by and large, that fail the students, not the schools. The schools merely measure the degree of parental failure.

[Nova16]

The public schools are doing a good job. The students tracked in advanced placement are taking Algebra 1 in the 7th grade and calculus as upper classmen. Eventually these students are enrolled in local colleges during their senior year. The major problem with educating/training all of our youngsters is the time old problem of the normal curve and 50% of students falling into the below average range which affects the academic achievement of many students. Home schooling and charter schools will not change this fact. It is, however, the task of the schools to place every student in program suited to his/her abilities and interests for success. When I was in school many students dropped out and could find employment in the mines, lumberyards, steel mills, farms, industry and factories, construction without a high school diploma. This is not the case today and remain in school, without an interest in education and therefore may create problems for others. The biggest problems of the public schools is the watered down teaching of reading, grades 1-6, which has hampered the progress of many students. Lowered test scores in the US when compared to other countries always belie the fact that we test all our students and they only test their academically oriented ones.

[mageduley]

Even in the normal public school setting, innovative teachers are routinely beat down. An older teacher, giving lessons strait out of the text, then reads the newspaper while the kids are trudging through the prefab assignments out of the textbook, is not teaching. It is not suprising then, that it seems the teachers unions are against merit pay. Merit pay would encourage innovative teachers, something the run of the mill teachers hate.
A good analogy seems to be the assembly line. Older workers trudge along. Then comes someone fresh and new, assembling faster and more accurate. The older workers slam the new ones. "Slow down...you're making us look bad."

[blindjester]

Charter schools are not an innovation. They're just different buildings. Any exciting new teaching method you can do in a charter school building you can do in a public school. If you've got some secret method that works, write a book, and we'll all do it.

I agree with the notion of smaller schools, but we don't need charters to do that. We need school boards to do that, and anyone can run for the school board if they want that to happen.

Everyone needs to stop saying that schools are failing and "everybody knows it." That is one of those repeat-it-until-they-believe-it Goebbels-type lies. That just serves the corporations that want public money to teach our kids. The students who try hard and have some parent support almost always do fine, and usually do well. The question for teachers is how to get them to try hard, and how to get parent support.

Check out charters in Arizona. They were supposed to revolutionize education in the state. They have never equaled the achievement in the public schools. Funny that's not advertised more...

[CLR]

There are many problem with our educational system. To me however, the number one problem is that we are "trying" to educate children who don't even belong here. Children of ILLEGAL immigrants fill our classrooms. We spend far too much time trying to work with them that we neglect our other students. The federal government needs to do their job and fix the ILLEGAL immigration problem.
We also need to get back to the basics. Education has been put into the position to "parent" children. The parents of today need to do their job and let the teachers get back to their job of teaching.
The educational system has plenty of money - we just don't use that money wisely. If we could fix these 3 problems the educational systems would be fine.

[realitytrumpsbull]

I think, with runaway immigration, the day has come for DigiTeach. A computer, a basic computer, costs about 400 bucks. Put the
educational content online, and save even MORE
money by cutting out the commute. Never have
to worry about getting snowed out, or building
more school facilities, because you can fit
enormous volumes of education content onto
a hard drive, which the kids can access from
home. The brick-and-mortar model isn't long
for this world in university-land either,
may as well get all 21st century about it
and get the kids online, say, after 6th grade.
That way, your home can be your private school,
and the teachers can invest more time in
developing content and grading work than dealing
with classroom overcrowding and discipline
problems. Imagine, a generation of home-schooled
students...

[suki21693]

There is nothing wrong with homeschooling, but it is not for everyone. This suggestion makes the same mistake that the public schools are making now. One-size-fits-all education simply does not work.

Before this huge bureaucracy overtook the school system, we had individual teachers, most of whom did a fine job of realizing they were dealing with individual children. The current assembly line approach to education is robbing children of their childhood and robbing our society of a generation of educated think citizens prepared to think for themselves.

[BobinNC]

More privatization? Hmmm. Sorry, Charlie, I will not concede you to that all public schools are terminally screwed-up, and if they are screwed, as one poster noted, look at the top of the food chain not down at the bottom. In schools, nothing much is usually lower than the teacher on the power matrix and usually nothing that is not much higher than the football coach. Yes, we are overwhelmed with bosses, subbosses, subsubbosses, executive assistants to subbosses. and adjuncts to executive assistants of underbosses. Education is emulating the health care insurance bureaucracy with very similar results in many cases.

[bethinCary]

I would also like to add a suggestion for making teachers better: LISTEN TO YOUR STUDENTS.

In college we had to grade our teachers-usually after a few months.
Why are high school kids at least not able to grade thier teachers.

The reason I bring it up is that I have a 14yo teen. I've asked her about her teachers-but I'm always very vigilant about her math teachers. She's making good grades under this woman, who has been teaching for 20 years. She did however tell me that many other kids are having trouble under her. The teacher makes remarks like"you should know that already" or "if you had read the chapter...". I hate to think that kids already turned off and tuning out to this teacher by her remarks-will hurt themselves by turning away from math. I think it would be beneficial to give kids a little bit of control-by having them fill out teacher questionaires.

[CLR]

What is wrong with those remarks? Some concepts they should already know and if she assigned reading then the students should have read the chapter. A few comments doesn't make this woman a bad teacher. What about bad students? We can't take every student we are given and magically turn them into learners. If students don't take a bit of responsibility for their own learning, especially in high school, then they will never learn.

[Camel54]

I am not a teacher, but I shudder to think of what my life would be like if I were judged professionally by a 14-year-old. Students frequently give their parents less than favorable accounts of how their teachers perform, it helps the student look better at home. It's a bad idea to take a teenager's version of reality as fact. However, I agree their input should be sought even though it should hardly be the most highly weighted.

[caesarf]

The teacher's remarks to the students are entirely appropriate. Math is perhaps the only subject taught in school that is truly objective. One has either done the neccessary preparation or one has not.

[ChristianEcon.com]

The single biggest issue in public education today, at least in "right-to-work" non-union states, is that teachers are getting pounded by increasingly top-heavy management models and extreme levels of dictated micromanagement, in addition to being squeezed from other directions by the decreasing levels of self-control exhibited by students and parents while at the same time being held increasingly accountable for it.

They are burdened with more tasks and responsibilities every school year--in a classic case of too many job-justifying chiefs and not enough indians.

Taxpayers need to be aware this is happening.

Do you want your children educated by teachers who are increasingly under-the-gun, stressed out, and exhausted? Do you think they can really do a good job under these conditions?

This situation also discourages people who would otherwise be strong teachers from entering the profession. I work in a large, relatively wealthy school district in a right-to-work state. When teachers in a district and in neighboring districts unanimously express things like, if they had it to do over again, they would never in their right mind choose teaching as a career, it discourages others from becoming teachers.

It's not the job of public education to fix all the ills of society, and teachers should not be being held more and more accountable for how these problems manifest themselves through children, especially behaviorally.

It's also a fallacy of cause-and-effect to blame graduation rates solely on the education system and not at all on external societal issues. Public schooling in general has been an astounding success over time considering the task it's charged with. Stop baselessly bashing it, and support unionization to return some control and influence to classroom teachers, which in turn will attract better quality teachers, at least in non-union states.

[Camel54]

ChristianEcon, well put, excellent points. Kudos.

I found myself wanting to be more critical of the premise of Mr. Barrie-Anthony's post, but was not able. I am not a fan of the charter school movement, but in those instances where a teacher, the person at the bottom of the power ladder as noted by another commenter, can find a truly better way to approach this issue, why not make it the example? Standardized testing is horrible as anything other than a relative guide as education is a cottage industry so to speak. When the teachers in an area, you know, the professionals who are in contact with the students every day, who know them, who do the actual work of educating, have good ideas, they should be allowed to innovate.

I am also very glad Mr. Barrie-Anthony qualified many of his assertions with realistic acceptance of blame for us all and the reality of how effective or ineffective certain things are. Everyone seems to think teaching is something we are all born with the ability to do; we all think we can do it better. If so, let's all take the blame for not having done it better, and let's get to work on the repairs.

[OldManOnFire]

Education is supposed to allow us to learn, to gain knowledge, to have personal growth, to have more opportunities in life, etc.

Yet our public education system creates a 72% average high school graduation rate, in which I can also assume another 20% are in the abyss of the bell-curve, which means 50% of our kids are learning little to nothing.

If we're too stupid to analyze issues and find consensus on the best possible solutions, what does this say about our education and our future?

I just hope we can do better before we annihilate ourselves!!

[dadw5boys]

Charter Schools get the Tax Payers Money but do not have to meet the NO-CHILD LEFT BEHIND RULES and TESTING?
So these schools are better teaching art and music and independent thinking without repetitive lessons in the basic skills?
Why not throw NO-CHILD LEFT BEHIND OUT and just build more schools and pay teachers better instead of having 2 standards for schools?

[caesarf]

Charter Schools must fulfill all the same NCLB rules and testing requirements as traditional public schools.

[Mormondude]

The simplest solution is to allow school vouchers. Then the PARENTS get to decide which learning environment is best, rather than a government bureaucracy.

Market forces have helped to reduce costs and improve quality in countless other areas, why not give it a chance in education?

[Wilburrr]

Education should not be market driven. As a manufacturer, I control the quality of incoming raw materials. Education cannot, and should not, do that. I have yet to see a charter school for special education students, the most expensive to educate. I prefer the Jeffersonian model. There are some excellent people in education (Google 'Bill Daggett' for instance), they have identified the problems and are designing creative solutions. As the article says, let the innovators innovate. (Of course you can push things along by reading Dr. Daggett's bibliographies, attending school board sessions and asking questions...