Teachers' unions say they don't oppose charter schools--they just oppose letting charter schools cherrypick districts' best students. If students were assigned randomly they'd be fine with that.
Whether this claim is honest or just shining us on, it's wrong.
Charter schools do cherrypick. That sounds undemocratic, unfair on the face of it.
But I see it as triage.
Once, a long time ago, I worked in ghetto schools for a while. I observed that education did not generally happen there. Classes were controlled riots.
The reason wasn't bad teachers. It was (a) students raised to have total disdain for anything educational; (b) the inability of teachers to kick misbehaving students out of their classes.
Most ghetto classes comprise a plurality of kids who'll go along with learning something but don't feel a passion for it, a minority of kids who really do want to learn, and a handful of kids who are so damaged--often in utero--that they're incapable not just of learning but of letting anyone else learn. I don't blame these kids. It's just the way it is.
But liberal brainlock decrees that we sacrifice everyone in a futile attempt to save the unsaveable.
Charter schools won't admit such kids, or quickly chuck them out. That seems unkind, but it's even more unkind to destroy the future of most ghetto kids by ensuring that nobody learns anything.
I once had an 8th grade science class. Most of the class read at a 4th grade level. OK. I could deal with that. But the class also contained several large boys who'd been held back and were functionally illiterate. I told the authorities about this. They told me that it was my job to create a separate lesson plan for them and, well, keep them entertained. The vibe was that I was a racist white boy if I couldn't help all these black kids. The mandate could only be achieved by sacrificing everyone else in the class. Eventually I quit.
"Successful" teachers in ghetto classes succeed by giving everyone meaningless busy work, keeping them relatively quiet and occupied until the bell rings.
The worst enemies of black, Latino and other underachieving groups in school are the people who say they're most fervently on their side. They have doomed generation after generation of such kids to failure by failing to make the hard decisions--to kick out all kids who can't or won't let other kids learn. Forget the stoned dozers. It's the ones who won't stop talking, ignoring the teacher, using the class to partay--they're the ones who must go.
We need a separate school system for such kids--one that's more like reform school, whose main goal is to keep them off the streets and teach them some sort of useful skills if possible.
The other kids would then be able to learn, using ordinary teachers. And most teachers are ordinary. There's no reason to expect more, all things considered.
Since this will never happen, the next best solution is charter schools that will save at least some of the students. Oh, and charter schools also have a chance of escaping mandated curricula with the most mind-numbingly boring textbooks designed to not offend any right or left winger. Reading them is like eating hospital food.
I'd rather have mandated public school education with a nationally determined curriculum and textbooks, like all other rich nations have, and very stringent requirements for homeschoools so they don't turn out indoctrinees instead of learners.
Meanwhile, charter schools will at least save some.
Beats nothing.
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2 comments:
I tell you what will work: Money... for the students.
Imagine what would happen to a classroom of kids if they were paid to:
a) Be there (not truanting).
b) To behave themselves and not be disruptive.
c) To pass tests and other important regular assessments.
Money could also be paid to students who not only pass but also get good results, as well as to poor students who improve their performances.
Money could be paid to the parents as well.
And what would happen if they truant? Well, they don't get their attendance pay. And what would happen if they were disruptive? Well they wouldn't get their good behaviour pay - not to mention the pressure from their fellow students to shut up. And what would happen if they don't study or do the work? Well they won't get their academic performance pay.
And if their parents are being paid as well for their child's school performances, surely they would be motivated enough to "encourage" him or her to go to school and to shut up and work when he/she is there.
I know this sounds base - what of the intrinsic value of education? I agree, except that I think it would be far more likely for a school student to be motivated by something extrinsic (like money) rather than something intrinsic they cannot see as being important.
See here and here.
Personally, as a high school teacher, I would be happy to get 20% less pay if it meant that each day I would be presented with students who were well behaved and motivated and who care for their education.
Speaking as a former high school teacher...I'm less worried about it being base than I am about it assuming human beings are rational.
And it's irrational to act as if people are rational.
You may not have this problem in Oz, but here we have a significant number of kids who are physically incapable of rational behavior.
For one, you've got those with fetal alcohol syndrome. They lack impulse control and always will.
There are other physical problems that lead in the same direction, such as getting lead in the system in early childhood from the lead-infested paint common in ghetto buildings.
And then there's also the effect of being raised without affection and without instruction or modeling in rational thought. Many ghetto kids have no sense of future, or of consequence. These kids live in the moment, and not in a good way.
Not that they don't have training--they're trained to deal with conflict with violence, and to defend what they imagine is their honor with violence. They're trained to be intensely prejudiced against white people, authority figures (especially the po-lice), to be disdainful of anyone who works for "chump change", such as teachers, and generally to put self first; that is, classroom civility--even the idea of speaking in turn, then listening to what others say--is "acting white." And "acting white" is heinous.
Most middle class people have little or no experience with such folk. I got to, thanks not only to working in ghetto schools, but also to a short stint working in a juvenile detention center.
It's there that I met a whole bunch of kids with little or no impulse control. It's chilling, really. Pleasant one moment, murderous the next, with none of the sense of time and consequence you and I have.
And if a handful of such kids are in your class, they'll take your money, and they may try to behave.
But they can't. And they may be sorry they can't. But they still can't.
And as I said, a few kids in your class who are damaged in this way will make learning not happen in your class.
I know what you long for--actual students. In my years of teaching, such people were few and far between, even with middle class, well-behaved kids. They didn't care about learning any more than the ghetto kids did--they just learned to show it in a more restrained manner.
So you have my sympathy. Students are wonderful. It's thrilling to teach students. The rest, who believe themselves to be perfect and in no need of anything you have to impart, gave me no pleasure to try to teach.
Still, one way or another, I'd be happy to try your social experiment--as long as schools can expel those who won't let others learn. I don't care if they can't learn themselves, as long as they don't stop others.
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