Maybe Policy Matters?

MinnPost has a pretty annoying article up about disagreements and conflicts on the Minneapolis School Board. I say annoying because it's indicative of a lot of whats wrong with political writing these days. That is rather than focusing on the structural realities that drive political disagreement over issues like partisanship, incentives, and interests it treats disagreements on the school board as being caused by "conduct":

Specifically, a majority of the board had opined that its members and the superintendent do not trust one another, work as a team or engage in joint problem solving. To add to the discomfort on display, they also gave each other low marks regarding “demeaning verbal or nonverbal communication.”

But here's the rub. Just a few paragraphs latter the article describes how the board is divided between a largely status quo majority block and a reformist minority block. But rather than explain what these differences are and why they might cause political disagreement the author of the piece goes on to talk about the idea of having everyone taking the, "Myers-Briggs personality instrument" as a way to learn about each others personalities or something.

Well maybe that's the problem, and maybe a round of hand holding and affirmations would help too. But maybe, just maybe, these politicians have different ideas about how to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, what district priorities should be, and whose interests should be considered in decision making. Maybe since they don't all agree they come into conflict not because of a lack of personality tests, but because as Bonnie Honig once put it, "To take difference -- and not just identity -- seriously in democratic theory is to affirm the inescapability of conflict."

To put it another way, if you have a school board of two people where one likes charter schools and one thinks charter schools are evil, you are going to have conflict. Even if both people take personality tests before you try to reach an agreement.

Yes I understand that shouting at each other isn't helpful, and civility is a good thing in public life. But conflict is inescapable in a democracy and it's presence isn't necessarily evidence of poor "conduct" or general dysfunction. If you want a system where disagreement is rare go to Westeros, but you probably wouldn't like it there.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Charter Schools

I recently read a good primer on charter schools and their impact over at Slate. Education reform in general and charter schools in particular have become a hot button issue as of the last few years, but unfortunately a lot of the debate surrounding them is confused. In fact it seems to me that a lot of smart opinionated folks out there don't really know what charter schools are or even what the term "charter school" means. So in the interest of honest debate here's my take.

While the term get's thrown around a lot the term "charter school" is only a general description of the way a public school is created, it has little to do with things like curriculum, style or educational philosophy. As Ray Fisman put it in his Slate piece:

[charter schools] allowed educators and other concerned individuals to apply to the state for permission to operate a government-funded school outside of the public education system. In order to obtain and keep their licenses, these new schools needed to show they were serving their students effectively, based on goals laid out in the school’s “charter.”

Hence the term "charter school," but that's basically it, everything else is up to what the creators of the school want to do. For example, you can create a rigorous college prep oriented school with long days and a philosophy of "no excuses" or you create a high school focusing on vocational skills for at risk high school drop outs (which indeed is what the oldest charter school in the country is). This seems pretty simple, but a surprising number of commentators miss this often completely. In addition, the higher level of scrutiny by officials to ensure that schools are meeting the concrete goals laid out in the charter means that, in theory at least, the ones that don't succeed get shut down. This is of course the theory and it doesn't always work this way.

The important thing to note here is that there's no unifying concept to charters other than they can operate outside of a school districts bureaucracy and local collective bargaining agreements with teachers' unions. Everything else is really dependent on what the creators of the schools and parents who choose to enroll their children want out of a school. Note that having to send your kids to a school you don't like can happen in a system where you have to send your kid to your neighborhood school. This problem, sending your kid to a school you don't like, is a big reason why the charter movement got started in the first place. Historically the wealthy and middle class respond to things like failing schools by moving, because they have money and can afford to do so, while poor people are stuck in the schools they might like, or might hate. Again this is a big reason why charter schools got started in the first place.

Thus the 6,000 plus (and growing every year) charter schools in America represent all sorts of programs with all sorts of philosophies and all sorts of outcomes. Not unlike how traditional public schools represent a wide variety of programs and outcomes. Like more traditional schools charters run the gambit from great, to mediocre to notably bad. As Matt Yglesias likes to put it "on average, charter schools are about average." Another way to look at it is that the outcomes of charter schools are so diverse you can make any political argument you want with them. Which is why when someone says that "research about charter schools is mixed" or "there's no evidence charter schools are better" they need to be told to stop talking and enroll in remedial classes immediately. The point of charter schools is not to create a new uniform type of school called a "charter school" that's uniformly objectively better. The point is to try new things, and give people the option of going to different types of schools, some of which are much better than the failing public schools in their area. As pointed out in the Slate article, "Columbia Business School colleague and leading education researcher Jonah Rockoff puts it, saying charter schools are good is 'like saying Italian restaurants are good places to eat—some are and some aren’t.'" 

All of this makes the people categorically opposed to charter schools all the weirder looking. Education writer Dana Goldstein wrote an article once with a great window into the mind of some anti-charter people:

Kerryn Azavedo, a graphic designer in Lincoln, Rhode Island, pulled her son out of Blackstone Valley [charter school] after his kindergarten year, dismayed by what she calls the school’s overly strict discipline policies and lack of after-school activities.  She complained that Blackstone Valley’s extended school day, from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., left her son exhausted and with little opportunity to participate in organized extracurriculars. (Extended learning days were originally intended to provide enrichment for poor children whose parents are unable to provide after-school supervision or activities.)

When Azavedo brought her concerns to the Blackstone Valley administration, “I never felt welcome,” she said in a phone interview. “They say, ‘This may not really be for you, somebody else might really need your spot, you’d be okay wherever you went.’” Azavedo didn’t like the fact that the school lacks an independent parent-teacher organization; instead, administrators organize parental involvement. And she was surprised to learn her son had sat for standardized tests five times during the school year, and unhappy that the school did not notify parents of each individual testing date.

Though initially attracted to the idea of an integrated charter school, Azavedo is now actively organizing against the opening of new Rhode Island Mayoral Academies throughout the state. “If it’s not good enough for mine, dammit, it’s not good enough for yours,” she said.

I feel for Azavedo, no one wants to have to send their kid to a school they don't like (although lots of poor families have to do this because they can't afford to move to the suburbs) but I honestly don't see why this is the school's fault. The long days and rigid structure is the model the charter is following, and if she didn't like it she shouldn't have sent her son there. I'm sure there are plenty of families that wouldn't like their kid to go to a vocational focused charter school, and that's fine, what they should do is just not opt to send their child to a vocational focused charter school, not try and ban them from the entire state. The great thing about charters is if you don't like it you can leave the charter school and go to a new charter, or your regular school, something that again isn't possible for all families in more traditional schools. All of this serves to make her decision to organize against any charter schools anywhere in the entire state because she didn't like one of them, well pretty bizarre. Rather than trying to limit the choices of other parents she probably should focus on reading the brochures more closely next time.

Charter schools are obviously not for everyone. Indeed some people have no need for them and some don't like them as a category or the individual ones they could send their kids to. And that's fine, those people shouldn't send their kids to charter schools. But some people really do like them and prefer them to their traditional public schools and yes they can make profound differences in people's lives.  As Fisman points out, once long ago, "One early enrollee, Demetrice Norris, told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 1992 that he had spent years, 'being lazy – not doing nothing' before he 'got a life back here in school' and 'got a chance to be something.'" Demetrice should have the chance to be something, and that chance is all charter schools really want.

Dick Gephardt And Education Reform In Minneapolis

MinnPost has a tragic/comedic article about (yet another) brouhaha surrounding the issue of education reform in Minneapolis.  Minneapolis Public Schools has been working with a project sponsored by the Minneapolis Foundation called the RESET campaign and at a recent event CNN commentator and principle Steve Perry said some things that the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers found objectionable.  The result was a series of public statements from both the president of the Federation and a woman named Lynnell Mickelsen who is the head of a school reform organization called Putting Kids First Minneapolis followed by a statement by Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson which seems to be the educational policy equivalent of "can't we all just get along?"

If you follow The School Reform Wars feel free to read the letters and use them as evidence of the morale superiority of your side and the hypocrisy and awfulness of the dreaded enemy.  But my response was more of a "pox on both your houses" thing after reading about what I considered to be poor politicking.  Steve Perry started the whole ruckus by saying things like "we need to call out the roaches" when referring to incompetent teachers and obstinate teacher's unions.  He may have a point that there are incompetent teachers that should be removed and in many districts teacher's unions can make this more difficult, but it's hard to see what he's trying to accomplish here.  Barring a big change in state law any change in the hiring and dismissal process in Minneapolis's school system is going to have to include changes in the contract between teachers and the district, that is, it is going to be something that the teacher's union agrees to.  Calling people "roaches" before you ask them to do something doesn't strike me as a particular wining strategy.

Minneapolis Federation of Teachers president Lynn Nordgren then responded to this provocation by making a series unreasonable demands. First she demanded:

We demand Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson immediately end the partnership with the anti-teacher RESET campaign. There is no place in the collaborative partnership that the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) has attempted to foster with the district over the past several years if they are going to be involved with a campaign like RESET.

So because a cable news talking head said something you don't like the school system should break it's ties with one of the biggest philanthropic organizations in the state?  That doesn't seem like a wise choice to me.  This was followed by another demand that the entire leadership team at Broadway Avenue drop whatever it is they are doing and prove their metal:

We call on Superintendent Johnson and all associate superintendents to spend a week teaching in a classroom. If they are ready to be a part of a campaign that blames every problem in the education system on teachers, they should be ready to be in classrooms showing us how to fix it.

I guess the "collaborative partnership" is over then.  Because some guy from CNN said something you didn't like?  This attitude is no more helpful than Perry's.

Michelsen's response has it's own problems. First of all it unfortunately contains what I like to call "liberal race trolling" which is the unfortunate tendency of certain liberal commentators and bloggers to try and prove their moral superiority over other liberals by stressing that they are "more" concerned about racial justice issues (and thus "more liberal") that other liberals. There's tons of this all over the liberal parts of the internet, and while Mickelsen's points are nowhere near some of the stuff I've seen it unfortunately does contain quotes like:

If the district publicly distances itself from the RESET campaign, that would be a clear signal to the community that the district, once again, is more concerned with the feelings of (mostly white, middle-class) adults than improving the academic outcomes for (mostly brown, low-income) children.

Does this mean that in districts with more minority teachers the problems are necessarily better? Well no, just ask Chicago. Just ask the District of Columbia.  These types of comments also just muddy the water, Washington D.C. shouldn't get a pass just because it's teaching staff is more diverse that Minneapolis, indeed the D.C. school system is much, much worse than ours.  More importantly though, this is a terrible political strategy! In a city of 385,000 people, let alone a country of over 300 million, the only way to do effective politics is through coalitions and partnerships. If right out of the gate you start bashing groups you have to work with or potential allies you probably aren't going to get very far.

A better strategy would be to look for allies rather than jump up to defend the honor of some out of town cable news talking head. At the very least setting up your battle as being between white middle class adults and minority children seems like a poor strategy to me as only one of these groups can vote. Indeed, you could turn the argument around and argue things like "If we don't reform our struggling school system now, in the future the state government could come in take away our local control!" This has the benefit to making the middle class white people be on the same side and the minority children, and does it by pointing out a issue (local control of schools) that middle class white people care a lot about!

A great example of this "let's fix things" politics, as opposed to the "I art more righteous than thou" model can be found in Richard Ben Cramer's great book about the 1988 presidential campaign What It Takes. Cramer is profiling Democratic Congressman Dick Gephardt, who ran for President in that cycle but ultimately lost, and makes a great point about why he was such an effective member of Congress:

Or sometimes, he [Gephardt] might explain that he agreed, but this other guy had a problem, and then he'd explain the other guy's problem. But usually he'd have a plan to get the other guy half of what he wanted, to solve his problem and that way, you'd get what you wanted, or some of what you wanted...if Dick could pull it off...anyway, he was for you.

And sometimes if it was a planned disagreement, like a caucus, or a conference on a bill where the Senate and House could not agree, or some other forum of organized bitterness [like a school board meeting! ed. note] Gephardt would go onto "receive" for a whole day...and when everybody was exhausted, and sour, and stinking from flop-sweat, and the whole ship was on fire from the cannonades on either side, there was Gephardt...who would suddenly take his chin off his fist, break his RCA-dog face into a smile of empathy for all, and he's say: "Lemme see if I can make a suggestion...Bob, Marty isn't this where we can agree, for a start?..." And then he'd lay down some narrow gangplank of common ground, where everyone, from any deck, could get off the burning ship before it sank. And it was beautiful the way he could do it, because everybody would leave with something to tell the voters. He would draw for them their bottom lines-what they really needed to get away with their skins...because he did understand, and the way he did that was, he listened...

Well, that was his goal. Gephardt thought his job was to make the system work on the problems. (Kind of radical, but there it was.)

If you've read the book or know about Gephardt's political career it's obvious he cares a lot about things like failing schools, trade deficits, vanishing jobs in the Midwest and the decline of Unions.  But at the same time he never lets his passion for these issues damage his ability to do the hard daily grind of real politics.  A new teacher contract could have a lot of things that Mickelsen wants, but it probably won't have everything she wants.  That wouldn't make it a failure, instead it would make it just another step forward on the difficult road to social change.  It would make it part of how our political system works on the problems.  Kind of radical, i know, but there it is.

Politics can be difficult and frustrating at times, but it is important not to take these frustrations out in unproductive ways. Improving our educational systems is a monumental task, but it won't be made any easier by ridiculous demands or dysfunctional politics.