It’s very hard to believe that famed Governor Chris Christie of the great state of New Jersey would fear a loss of power come November as he seeks reelection as Governor. He’s enjoyed a long and rich history of support in the Garden State, owing in large part to his ability to stand up to special interests, and most notably, the teachers unions. Then why, some are wondering, is he permitting (Encouraging? Turning a blind eye toward?) his Commissioner of Education who has continually discouraged the creation and growth of innovative and often organic schools of choice through the state’s 17 year old charter law? Just yesterday, Chris Cerf turned over his Department’s previous decision to permit two virtual charter schools to open, citing both procedural as well as ideological issues with the concept. This is not new. In previous months and years, NJ officials have misread charter applications, presumed knowledge about individuals, organizations, and educational approaches with which they have little experience, and thus discouraged a movement that started in 1996 to turn around failed “Abbott” districts and middle class enclaves that tolerated mediocrity. The bi-partisan movement was once robust and understood that without trying new things, we’d never succeed. While a full majority of NJ kids still read below basic standards on national assessments, the state’s leadership seems to believe that picking and choosing favorites to come into NJ or expand is a recipe for success. Looking at cities from Detroit to DC, one can easily recognize that it simply ain’t so. Meanwhile, the leadership touts its successes with teacher evaluation reforms which are modest and Newark restructuring efforts which have done little overall to change a school system still firmly in the hands of union bosses.

It probably doesn’t feel that way to the NJ Commissioner of Education. Having heard from him on many occasions when I’ve uttered similar complaints, the response comes down to things like ” I have the highest confidence in my analysts, the lead one is a PhD from Stanford and one of the leading experts in the country” and “Our AG [Attorney General] has grave concerns about their [virtuals] legality under our current law which I am trying to get fixed. Not sure how this will turn out in light of internal debate. I’d much rather have their cooperation in getting this right for future openings than fighting about this now, but I expect that is too much to hope.” That was a year ago. It was too much to hope.

Meanwhile, he offered this in his letter of explanation as to why he would pull the plug on two previously approved schools whose online learning delivery modality has been celebrated by thought leaders the nation over:

“Since the time the initial charter application was approved in January 2011, the discussion regarding virtual charter schools has continued in education as well as legislative circles within the state and across the country. In part because New Jersey law did not anticipate operations of an entirely virtual school, ongoing analysis continues amongst all stakeholders regarding the legal and practical implications for opening a virtual charter school in New Jersey that will enroll and deliver instruction to students located across the entire state. Complicating the analysis is the fact that, despite the presence of virtual charter schools in other states, there is inadequate independent research into both their academic effectiveness, as well as the necessary elements needed to ensure effective oversight. Equally important from the point of view of an authorizer is the lack of sufficient information or research on effective accountability or quality assurance practices for authorizers of virtual charter schools.”

Legalese, hogwash and CYA material. In fact, such language is right out of the opposition’s playbook!

Today the Department and its Governor are moving to take over Camden from dismal educational failure. That failure is supposed to be addressed by a number of partnerships with school groups, many of which have been already privately negotiated. How will the Governor propose to change the state of education in Camden without utilizing the state’s charter law and engaging groups of all kinds with all different approaches? As they squash the kind of work that online education succeeds in accomplishing for a unique but wide variety of students, what’s the possibility that they’ll succeed in Camden. Indeed, the two Chris’ seem to be suggesting by their actions that if they are in charge, they can move mountains, but others cannot. That’s hardly the experience school reformers have had some twenty years and thousands of new charter schools later, let alone the evidence of research based effective-schools models that confirms that decision making closest to kids — by parents and teachers — combined with accountability and freedom from onerous contracts — is the recipe for school success no matter what one’s lot in life.

Amherst College and Columbia Law-educated Cerf should know that and want to do whatever he can to extend the same kinds of educational offerings to students in the state which he helps govern. Indeed his alma maters are famous for adopting new innovations regularly, including online learning, intended to expand the endless possibilities that education is supposed to be about.

*An earlier edition of this piece incorrectly cited Cerf as attending Harvard and Deerfield and has since been corrected.

New Jerseyans have sadly never had an opportunity to witness the benefit of a truly statewide charter school environment that helps children succeed, all schools improve and educators thrive. Unlike most other states, New Jersey law rests all authority to approve and vet charter school applications with the state Commissioner of Education.

The law unofficially discourages applicants outside of major urban zones and funds charters more than 20 percent less than traditional public schools. It has created an environment where local school district opposition to charters is left unchallenged by the state whose job it is as the charter authorizer, and as most other good authorizers do, to work to ensure schools under their authority can be successful. For these reasons and more, New Jersey continues to earn a ‘C’ grade, ranking 20th weakest out of the nation’s 43 charter school laws.

Bureaucracy and operational interference by the state Department of Education have discouraged many applicants, and hurt many existing schools whose limited budgets cannot handle constant re-regulation of the very non-achievement related policies and procedures that charters were intended to escape. Indeed, many charters throughout the Garden State succeed despite heavy administrative burdens, lower per-pupil funds and a hostile political climate. Their achievement is well documented, and yet, year-after-year, the state fails to manage, even with best practice models, the schools that currently exist and continues to operate an application process that is dysfunctional at best.

Just more bureaucracy

That’s why the proposal introduced by Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, D-Middlesex, calling for local voter approval of charters, imposing more bureaucracy in the name of increased standards, and creating a new nine-member charter school review board is the antithesis of sound charter-school policy. It is another attempt by opponents to squash the modest charter movement that New Jersey has developed over the past 18 years.

Diegnan has heeded the cries of the interest groups parading as a Save Our Schools movement who believe any choice that is not made by centralized districts is a bad choice. SOS, the New Jersey Education Association and related groups all espouse a centralized school district system only, one that eliminates a parent’s right to choose and forces children to be branded by their zip code.

Innovation in New York

Meanwhile across the river, the State University of New York, in addition to local school boards and the New York State Board of Education, is designated as a charter school authorizer and has a proven track record of approving quality charter schools. In most cases across the country, universities have proven to be exceptional and highly effective authorizers. They bring a wealth of innovation to the K-12 sector, both in curriculum and infrastructure. They possess a naturally high degree of public scrutiny and competitiveness and have a real interest in improving the pipeline for their students. Such is the case for SUNY’s Charter Schools Institute, responsible for the Empire State’s highest-quality charter schools.

Diegnan’s charter proposal is truly a step in the wrong direction for New Jersey’s charter school movement. The idea of creating a charter school review board has proven to be bad policy in other states as it only adds yet another layer of bureaucracy to the school approval and oversight process. If the goal of New Jerseyans is to improve educational outcomes for its students, lawmakers are just a ferryboat away from seeing what truly works in K-12 education reform.

It is time for innovative, truly independent and multiple authorizers to turnaround the state’s mediocre charter environment and free students falling through the cracks in the traditional public school system.

The question of the week is another one of those issues that has a history. Some 25 years ago, skills and workplace task forces and commissions were prevalent among government and industry. The US Chamber of Commerce had a workforce development office; the National Alliance for Business existed and pushed for business-like relevancy in education. The BRT was similarly inclined and then there was the SCANS commission. Everyone seemed to be saying the same thing then as they are saying now – that we have to make school relevant and ensure that the students of today are the strong employees of tomorrow. That may be a nice objective, but the way by which we get there is wrong-headed. We need to look at history. We have been down this road before.

The push for changes to curriculum and training and school content resulted in a hodge-podge of programs and mandates for schools that neither translated into higher order thinking among students nor better prepared workers. That’s because doing so didn’t teach them to read or write well or be able to function at levels in school or work that higher ed or employers required. Surveys of both categories resulted in scathing reviews of American education. Give us well-rounded, competent students who know how to work hard, who understand consequences and can be flexible on the job and we’ll train them for our needs, they said.

The backlash, if you will, came from the modern day state standards movement. States from Massachusetts to California to Virginia created rigorous standards, schools got disciplined about expectations and consequences and the business complaints about the American student dissipated.

Why the resurgence? Maybe it’s because we no longer have consequences for not meeting standards in states. Maybe it’s because we are listening to administrators and federal officials who aren’t really talking to local business people. Maybe it’s because we are confusing preparation for work with the purpose of education.

Whatever it is, the traditional public school system hardly educates US students as it is in the fundamental core of this nation and the world, and how to think, read, converse and understand it all so they may be productive conversationalists, workers and community members. There is of course a place for apprenticeships and vocational education but those should be choices parents make, not choices government makes for children. We don’t do enough as it is to provide options but where we do, you see many tailored programs that address school and work issues. The answer now as it was 25 years ago is to create opportunities for personalized learning, for variety of approach and concentration. That way, those who are demanding that schools offer vocational and work related skills to students can have their way, those who believe school has a deeper more lasting purpose can have theirs and families can choose what fits their child best and at what level.

We currently have a very modest version of this– it’s called the charter school movement. From the Henry Ford Academy in Dearborn, MI to LA’s High Tech High, there are an array of options that have been created to combine academic rigor with work-related skills. (Check out the other choices that already exist.)

Let’s find ways to offer more options that address local needs, rather than invite a top-down response to an issue that has more to do with our lack of rigor generally in schools than a lack of workforce related skills being taught.

Dear Ms. M.,

As our family takes time during Teacher Appreciation Week to celebrate the teachers that have blessed our children, we are reminded how truly important the profession of teaching is to a child. We focus on the ways their teachers helped them learn and improve with mistakes over the years. We talk about my experience as a student and my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Shinn, who inspired me to become an educator. My boys love hearing that I used to hate reading and writing back in the day until Mrs. Shinn allowed me to shine in my own way. They also love hearing about my former students and how I taught them, finding inspiration in their accomplishments.

Every year at this time I use this week to focus on the positive. I remind my children how far they have come, and all the great lessons that are still in store for their future. We talk about each grade they have made it through and how their teachers helped them.

This year was different. This was the first year my older son recognized that we never really talk about his first grade year. The year he was in your class. In that moment I allowed myself to be reminded of this painful time for my son and me as a mom and educator. I remembered (like it was yesterday) the very moment you told me he was having difficulty reading, and you suggested we work with him more at home. We did. I remember when you told me he could have dyslexia, and you suggested we have him diagnosed. We took him to his doctor right away who said, “He absolutely does NOT have dyslexia. If I had a dollar for every 1st grade teacher that said a student had this disorder, I could quit my job.”

I choose to leave the profession of teaching, the profession that I love so dearly, in order to focus fully on being a mother to my children. I knew that my duty, both as an educator and mom, was to get to the bottom of why my son was not learning to read. I continued to seek your advice as a fellow educator and the teacher to my son. I believed in you and trusted that you had all the answers. After all, you were the reading specialist at the school, and you have a masters degree in teaching reading.

I knew there was a problem when my son started crying before school. This was completely uncharacteristic and a huge red flag. He said he hated school and wanted to stay home because he didn’t understand it. He said it was too noisy in class. At one point he asked me if he was “special needs” and if so, why didn’t we tell him? My child, your student, felt like a failure in your classroom. Your continued response was to “do more at home.” There was one time when you brought me all your masters’ books and asked me to go through them because you just did not know what else to do.

The moment that I didn’t see coming, finally arrived February of that year, after months of concern and trying to work with you in resolving this together. My desperate worry for my child’s lack of growth in your classroom came to a head. Exasperated I said to you, “We are doing everything at home we possibly can to help,” and asked, “what more can YOU do to help my child?” You crossed your arms and sternly said, “Julie, we have nothing to offer your son.”

My heart felt like it stopped. I knew in that very moment my son was going to have a wasted school year in your class. I also knew you had washed your hands of this “problem.” I don’t remember if I even responded to you or not. I do remember walking away from you feeling such profound disappointment and frustration, yet total resolve to not let my child fail. It was in my hands now, and mine alone.

That day I had to sit my dejected 7 year old child down and tell him, “This is not your fault. Unfortunately, you do not have a great teacher this year, but I am going to do everything I can help make this better for you. There are great teachers out there, and one day you are going to be a great student like you always wanted to be.” As I explained to your student/my son the new learning plan I had for him, I could see a slight glimmer of hope in his eyes.

I found a tutor. I told you that from this point forward, my son was going to do my homework, and not yours. Most importantly, I found my voice. I got loud. I spoke to anyone that would listen about how my son was failing in first grade. Come to find out, there were other children not doing well in your class, either. My son was not alone, and parents that were feeling the same fear for their child as I was, were also no longer alone. In fact, seven of the children in your class were going to parent-paid, after-school tutoring because you had “nothing to offer.”

Your apathy towards my child’s academic achievement ignited a flame in me that continues to burn to this day. It is why I started Parents Advocate League. It is why I continue to speak out at board meetings and education hearings at the state for students and parents. I volunteer my time to help other parents that feel lost in this system because of you and teachers like you. Your apathy is also why I value the profession of teaching more as a parent than I ever understood as a teacher in my own classroom. I get it now.

I can say with confidence and undeniable proof that one bad school year really can have a profound and negative impact on a child. Eventually, my son made progress, but it has been a constant uphill struggle for him. He started feeling more comfortable, and was open to learning new things. He had some great teachers that helped him along the way, and we celebrate them every year at this time. His greatest improvement came in 6th grade when he enrolled in a new charter school. His state test scores went up over 100 points! Most importantly, he developed a love of learning that carries him to this day. His true colors are finally shining through, like I knew they could. I feel like I can honestly say he has finally recovered, and is on the road to achieving his dream of going to the Naval Academy.

So, going back to my son’s question as why we never talk about his first grade year. I explained to him that he had a point. We should talk about that year because of all the years he has been in school, THAT was the year we all learned the most important lesson of our lives: every child deserves a great teacher every, single school year. A great teacher really does make a difference in the life and future of a child.

This Teacher Appreciation Week, I want to recognize you and thank you. Thank you for teaching us such an important life lesson. Thank you for helping me understand that I can make a difference in my children’s education beyond making copies or holding bake sales. Thank you for inspiring me to find my voice, and to encourage other parents to stand up for their own children. Thank you for the unforgettable memory of the moment you gave up on my child. Horrible though it was to hear those words, it empowers me to this day to stay strong in difficult times and reminds me to never give up, because every child deserves a great teacher.

Thank you.

I truly hope you are well and that you learned a lesson from that year too.

Sincerely,

Julie Collier
Executive Director and Founder
Parents Advocate League

“People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.”
–Oliver Goldsmith

(‘In other words, self-reflection is essential but seeing others exhibit characteristics or actions that are worth learning from is also helpful. It offers perspective and examples of successful practice.’ From Rick Larios, a veteran education reformer who cut his teeth at Edison Learning, I receive a special “thought” every day that almost always inspires.)

This particular quote seems particularly apt today, the second day of National Charter Schools Week, a time to reflect on as well as celebrate the milestones made when this simple concept was created by thoughtful people in the late 1980s.

The birth of the first charter law in Minnesota in 1991 ushered in a major, bi-partisan movement. The first school, City Academy High School in St. Paul was what it was all about – teacher driven, with parents highly empowered and curriculum tailored to the interests and needs of students. TIME Magazine would, a few years later, call it a “Grassroots Revolt.” And so it was. Organic, interesting innovations in teaching and learning began to be developed in application after application, school after school. Innovations in authorizing were similarly adopted, with laws suddenly empowering universities, mayors, and city councils to step up to the plate and engage in creating the “new public school.”

Some 22 years, 6,200 schools, 2.5 million students and 6 million adults involved later, there are many more policies and laws than ever dreamed, and a rigorous push for more and better schools daily, demanded largely by the people who led the battle to start – frustrated teachers and parents who know that they and their children can do better if given a choice.

Yet too often, those involved lose sight of that original goal and spend time advancing bad ideas that have no connection to the original concept. So it was that Tuesday’s Thought from Oliver Goldsmith which struck me as particularly apt today. “People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.” It happens to the best of us, the best movements. In the charter school world today, it’s happening, period:

• With an authorizer group that believes its model for authorizing is the only one, despite evidence to the contrary and examples of disconnect with the very people authorizers are intended to support and serve;
• With charter school networks, which believe that their way of educating is the best and only way, to the detriment of the small, independent groups who know their communities and families best and work hard to serve them outside of the public eye, yet fail to garner the public attention that the more well-funded among us get;
• With policymakers who believe in charter schools but keep putting their names on bills that empower more government involvement, and disempower the people running the schools;
• With organizations, who limit their visions and often focus on turf over substance;
• With funders who fail to question – have I become blinded by one model, one group, one approach?
• With all of us who assume that it’s someone else’s job to fight these fights and challenge their friends to do better.

And yet, despite all of these internal deficiencies the reform eco-system has, where thousands of great stories of student and educator success are evident, day after day, in the nation’s cities and towns, and blissfully ignorant of the grasstops battles that are waged over policies to help them maintain and advance their most precious commodities, our kids. To wit:

At Archimedean Upper Conservatory Charter School, FL, the first two graduating classes (Class of 2012 & 2013) have had tremendous success with college placement. Of a combined total of 65 students of the first two graduating classes, 97% have been admitted to 4-year colleges and universities, roughly 60% have been admitted to Top-100 colleges and universities and about 15-20% have been admitted to Top-20 colleges and universities including Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Williams, Amherst, Stanford, MIT, Pomona, Brown, Duke, West Point, Vanderbilt, Emory, and more. Archimedean Upper Conservatory although has been in existence only since 2008 has several successes in academic competitions including: National VEX Robotics Silver Medals (2011 & 2012), National Science Olympiad (2012), National History Bowl & Bee (2011, 2012, 2013), National Ocean Sciences Bowl (2013), National Academic Championship (2013), State Science Olympiad Silver Medalist (2011 & 2012), State Science Olympiad Bronze Medalist (2013), Miami-Dade District Geography Bee Champions (2011 & 2012), and more.

At Boys Latin Charter School, Philadelphia – the only public school in town to take the National Latin Exam – students have increased their medal count each year and actually doubled last years total. They compete in Certamen, a “college bowl” competition for HS Latin students, competed at Yale and most recently at Holy Cross, where the Boys Latin young men placed third (against competitors from toney New England private schools). College enrollment percentages beat any ethnic or gender rates in the District, including Asian girls. The first two graduating classes had college enrollment rates of 74% and 81% respectively, mostly in 4-year institutions. There does not appear to be another public HS in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania graduating more than 25% African-American males who can beat that performance. Because it is an all-boys school it thrives on competitive outlets.

Evergreen Community Charter School in Asheville, NC is recognized for its environmental mission as well as its academics. It’s been a Designated Honor School of Excellence for two consecutive years and received the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Award for being a school that exercises a comprehensive approach to creating “green” environments through reducing environmental impact, promoting health, and ensuring a high-quality environmental and outdoor education to prepare students with the 21st century skills and sustainability concepts needed in the growing global economy (2012). The school’s Middle school science teacher, Stuart Miles, won North Carolina’s Charter School Teacher of the Year (2010-11). Evergreen received the Exceptional Environmental Education Center award from the Environmental Educators of North Carolina (2010) and was approved for charter renewal for 10 years and full SACS CASI accreditation through AdvancED, an organization that advances excellence in education worldwide (2009).

Great Valley Academy in Manteca, California demonstrates the power of the “Ripple Effect.” In its first year the API score was 800, without test prep. Its kids include high numbers of children with dyslexia, ADD and Autism, yet their students are able to function without academic deficiencies. Great Valley ensures that not only does every child succeed academically, but every class learns to run a business. And there’s still time to be a model for physical fitness and instill strong character in its students. In a short period of time they have been so successful that the traditional school district signed a contract with its leaders to implement the program in their schools and they are beginning to work with a county school to do the same.

These are but a few models that exist. Visit these charter schools — and others — TODAY by going to their websites at the Center’s Online Directory, and get involved, become outspoken and ALWAYS seek to improve (without asking government to impose additional restrictions and bureaucracy to get there!)

For more ways to improve what you do in the charter school eco-system, check out these ideas and tools:

The Essential Guide to Charter School Lawmaking: Model Legislation for States
 – CER has developed a roadmap for policymakers and advocates that focuses on essential elements of charter school law: Independent and Multiple Authorizers, Number of Schools Allowed, Operations, and Quality. This framework is based on 20 years of experience working with charter school leaders, policymakers, and legal experts, and reflects what actually works – and what doesn’t – when it comes to ensuring sound charter school policy.

The Parent Power Index (PPI) measures the ability in each state of a parent to exercise choices – no matter what their income or child’s level of academic achievement – engage with their local school and board, and have a voice in the systems that surround their child. The Parent Power Index gives parents an interactive tool to discover whether the state affords them power –and if not, what they can do to get it.

Start a Charter School Today! Use CER’s step-by-step toolkit to help you through the process of establishing a charter school.

There has long been a troubling attitude in our society about low-income parents.

Put bluntly, it goes like this: Poor people make poor parents.

Of course, folks in proper circles usually don’t come right out and say it, which is what made the recent comments by state Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, so stunning.

When asked by the media about the parent empowerment bill (Senate Bill 862, House Bill 867), Sen. Simmons responded:

“Let’s face it, the parents are the very people who haven’t been involved in their own children’s lives so as to cause the school to improve. What kind of credibility do you give to the parents in those kinds of circumstances?”

Everybody knows who he is talking about, because the bill is meant to address consistently failing schools in low-income neighborhoods.

Forget about the historic neglect of these schools.

Forget that school districts and unions have used them as out-of-sight, out-of-mind depositories for ineffective personnel.

Forget about the long history of promoting illiterate children to certain failure just to move them through the system.

Forget that many of these parents are working two minimum-wage jobs to support their children and don’t have time to form a PTA or lobby in Tallahassee.

It’s all the parents’ fault. Let’s face it.

If a school fails year after year, the judgment of those running the school should not be challenged by the parents of the children the school is failing.

The people responsible for the failure are competent, but the parents are not.

They can’t be trusted with decisions about changing school management, because they will get bamboozled into turning their school over to some nefarious profiteer. And during the process, they will squabble among themselves and create discord in the community.

So take away their power to act, and reduce them to hoping that this next time around those who have consistently failed their children will somehow get their acts together. If they don’t, then so be it. If the unions block the removal of ineffective teachers, so be it.

After all, it’s the parents’ fault. Let’s face it.

Maybe I would expect this out of union leaders, politicians beholden to their campaign contributions, education bureaucracies and parents who send their children to high-performing schools and see only that side of public education. But it disturbs me to see black legislators tacitly give their approval through their silence and their votes.

I have devoted the past 25 years to ensuring that poor minority children have access to an equal education. In this effort, I do not pledge allegiance to traditional public schools, charter schools or voucher schools.

I don’t care about the vehicle. I care about the result. And I’ve found the result is much better when parents are allowed to make choices.

Those vested in the current system attack choice. They throw out buzz words such as “privatizing education” or “corporate reformers” or “destroying public education.”

But this is what they don’t want people to know: The reason there are a growing number of charter schools, the reason for the long waiting lists, the reason why vouchers are so coveted, is because parents want them. And of course, the only intellectually honest rebuttal to that demand is that these parents don’t know what is best for their children.

Now if parents make a six-figure paycheck and can buy school choice, that is an entirely different matter.

I certainly found Sen. Simmons’ comments to be distasteful. But I do give him credit for at least having the courage and honesty to say out loud what many in the Legislature appear to be privately thinking.

T. Willard Fair is a former chairman of the Florida State Board of Education, the president and chief executive officer of the Urban League of Greater Miami Inc., and a member of the Foundation for Florida’s Future Board of Directors.

I don’t remember anyone explicitly teaching me financial literacy, but ever since I was a working teenager, I’ve known how to manage my money and what it means to have debt, to pay interest, and the basics. Part of that was because my parents were small business people (I guess) but also part of it was because my peers were similarly inclined. I remember one high school math teacher talking about saving and I certainly remember when I had to get student loans and read the info that I was given. Later, I just knew I had to pay my bills.

Yet no one in high school ever really touched the subject of the economy, and the idea of capitalism was simply a footnote in the textbooks. Most people today don’t understand how business works, which is the primary reason that everyone assumes when enterprises fail it must be because of greed. There is more written about the evils of business than discussing what commerce really is, so if we’re not actually being factual and honest about how money flows and why it’s important, I’m not sure we can expect anything other than financial illiteracy. This isn’t a job, however, for a dedicated course, but should be part of the fabric of what we teach and how we teach everything from history to government to economics to basic math! Consider that even when we talk about businesses managing schools today, the entire education establishment protests, as if doing such a thing were not a natural or important part of the general fabric of our basic economic foundation.

Ironically, the same president who has been highly critical of American business and whose administration is working hard to banish for-profit education companies has declared April to be Financial Literacy Month. We should perhaps begin with first things — teaching our young people from their earliest years with content that recognizes the important of American commerce, business models, currency and how people’s monetary habits —- or dependence on it — can either aid or harm the economy.

The student loan crisis isn’t about financial illiteracy. It’s about the corresponding values we as a society place on debt, and right now, our leaders aren’t exactly role models on that score. Solve the education problem, teach students about their nation’s founding, its economic model and what we should and shouldn’t expect government to do for us, and you achieve financial literacy. And maybe you get people who start voting for people who don’t expect debt to manage the economy, too.

Irresponsible Leadership That Goes Beyond Pinocchio’s Noses

The Center for Education Reform wrote last week about the Chicken Little behavior this administration is leading on education, along with countless school leaders and association spokespeople. We are happy to have sparked a mini-debate on the subject! But what remains absolutely astonishing is that among all of these thousands of entities that spend and receive federal money, no one seems to know or to be even talking about how the almighty federal dollar flows.

NEWS FLASH — there isn’t a pool of money sitting in the Department of the Treasury with educational purpose just waiting to be cut. The reality is MOST OF THE MONEY FOR THIS YEAR – almost 90% of it — has been drawn down or collected by states and districts!!! Some states — like New Jersey — already have all of their money for the year.

Of that which remains — limited Title funds, some Head Start, for example — between 5-8% of the remaining 10% will likely be reduced. That amounts to less a half a percent overall for the year!

I’ve personally called people who should know whether and how federal spending flows and what might be left that states need, yet they’ve been clueless. There is no public information available by the US Department of Education that shows what has been distributed to every state and district and what remains. Without data, no wonder school districts are in a tizzy!

It’s easy to incite outrage when our leaders — who the public presumes understand policy and budgets — tell people they are going to lose their beloved teachers, the arts, after-school, food, early childhood and more.

The reality is that while school and school district bean counters most likely know for certain what money they have, what funds they might lose and how, the US Education Secretary clearly doesn’t, and superintendents and school board officials aren’t saying. After all, it’s easier to create a problem than a solution.

That’s plausible, some might say, but what about the fiscal year that starts October 1?

Well, Congress must contend with pending budget issues regardless of sequestration, and yes the uncertainly of spending levels absolutely affects the plans some may have had. Schools and districts should prepare for the kind of reduction that is often caused by natural enrollment fluctuations when student populations change, either due to birth rate impact, changes in regional composition, or even competition.

Financial fluctuations are a fact of life for most public enterprises. It’s not new and it happens every few years for schools, regardless of who’s in power. In the all-important enterprise of education, it’s time we recognize that what we know and how we conduct ourselves is especially critical to the children and students whose lives we aspire to improve. We must demonstrate that truth, problem-solving, intellectual rigor and the ability to weather any storm are critical attributes worth having and worth learning, in and out of school.

In light of this week’s State of the Union and a renewed focus on how to fix our educational deficiencies, it’s time for us all to engage in a little history lesson. This spring will mark 30 years since A Nation at Risk was issued.

And yet, how many have even heard of the report these days – a report which, while drawing the ire of many in the education establishment, was factual, clear, well-regarded by a majority of diverse lawmakers, and is still relevant today?

I was not even a year out of college when the report was issued, an inexperienced, junior staffer on Capitol Hill. It was uncanny how much I could relate to the report’s assessment of education. I’d grown up in a beautiful, middle class, homogeneous neighborhood with brand-spanking-new schools, lots of local control, in a community with involved and mostly educated parents and great teachers.  I earned mostly A’s and had been led to believe I’d gotten an excellent education. Then I went to college and was met by the cold reality that my education wasn’t so great after all. It had been shallow on many levels and lacked rigor. I had been ill prepared for higher education.

There I was sitting at the seat of political power in the U.S., reading a report that might as well have been talking about me. Among its many conclusions:

Secondary school curricula have been homogenized, diluted, and diffused to the point that they no longer have a central purpose. In effect, we have a cafeteria-style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main courses. Students have migrated from vocational and college preparatory programs to ‘general track’ courses in large numbers. The proportion of students taking a general program of study has increased from 12 percent in 1964 to 42 percent in 1979. This curricular smorgasbord, combined with extensive student choice, explains a great deal about where we find ourselves today.

I realized I had been stuffing myself at the education smorgasbord in high school, able to take “Golden Twenties” in place of “U.S. History,” photography instead of American Lit.

Had it not been for my own natural competitive drive, I would not have known I had to play catch up during my first two years in college. But I recognized, with a sinking heart, there were probably many who did not even know they’d been duped.

A Nation at Risk was released in April ’83. Despite the clear evidence that something had to change, leaders in the House of Representatives summarily dismissed proposals to address the alarming findings.

Education Secretary William J. Bennett led a major, renewed effort at addressing our national ills. He advocated three critical ingredients to address our problems that would be coined “The 3 Cs” — Content, Character and Choice:

Content — what we teach our children, how we teach it, who teaches it;
Character — what we expect of ourselves, our schools, our students, our society and the virtues that character, well-defined and taught, represent; and
Choice — creating opportunities to address content and character, and ensuring that parents, who are a child’s first teacher, and educators, have the freedom to direct the education of their children, of their schools.

At first, Bennett was considered radical. There were many who actually mocked his ideas, accusing him of being out of touch and anti-education. It’s quaint, looking back on it now, thirty years later. Much has fortunately changed. Progress has been steady (though slower than necessary). They say the best ideas are those that withstand the test of time. Principles are those untenable but lasting things that drive every generation. Bill Bennett’s three simple letters now represent the very same issues upon which millions of people across diverse backgrounds have and do, agree.

Acceptance was slow to come back then, but Bennett’s ideas, and those of his generation of great thinkers, began to take hold. They were the stuff that inspired the real odd-couples of education reform igniting a movement of choice and accountability to address the findings of the National Commission and subsequent panels and commissions throughout the 80s and 90s – Tommy Thompson and Polly Williams; Tom Ridge and Dwight Evans; Jeb Bush and T. Willard Fair; Rudy Perpich and Ember Reichgott-Jung – from state to state, Rs and Ds, black and white, came together to create the nation’s first school choice programs, charter school laws, and standards!

I met them all, cheered them on, wrote about them, and often helped them solve a problem or challenge. But few knew what they were really doing or the impact they’d have (other than their opponents of course). The media was antagonistic, and Washington was out of touch. And in those days, ideology was everything. You were either conservative or liberal. There was no in between and you were treated only by your labels in the education arena, not your ideas.

There had to be a way to turn that around, cross-pollinate those efforts, spread them farther, faster and make reform mainstream. So we set out to do just that. That was the beginning of The Center for Education Reform (CER) in 1993. Today, there are hundreds of groups advocating for those same principals.  And a new generation of technology, people, and groups are deploying the old ideas in dramatically more sophisticated ways.

But is it sticking? The answer is a bit more complex than “yes” or “no.” While there is progress, at this rate, it will take another 30 years for scores to increase even a few percentage points, for graduation rates to advance in a meaningful way, for college entrants to be truly prepared, for all those parents who most need it to have choices.

The State of Education still is not strong, and thus the union is not either. As best said in A Nation at Risk:

In a world of ever-accelerating competition and change in the conditions of the workplace, of ever-greater danger, and of ever-larger opportunities for those prepared to meet them, educational reform should focus on the goal of creating a Learning Society.

That “Learning Society” requires more than a plethora of books, conferences, speeches and isolated pieces of legislation. It must extend to urban and suburban corridors alike. The problems are widespread. Clearly it’s time for us all to go back to school, to relearn those imperatives for reform that started before Arne Duncan was Education Secretary, and before Michelle Rhee took on a district and won. We must remind ourselves that a few million new choices for children pale in comparison to the tens of millions more who still need them. It’s time to examine history to truly understand what has worked and what hasn’t. We should look back and decipher how exactly a generation of activists was able, finally, to accept and embrace notions that seemed radical just 30 years ago.

I know a good place to begin. Let’s all reread A Nation at Risk. It is three decades old (“ancient history,” my kids would say) but sadly, it reads like it was written yesterday. We still have much to learn from it. We are still at risk.

Adapted from A Nation At Risk, A Movement Ahead

To the Editor:

Regarding “More Lessons About Charter Schools” (Feb. 1), the conclusions of the report covered in the editorial are based on misguided methodology criticized by well-regarded researchers, at the heart of which are comparisons of school performance across states, which have uneven and varying definitions and levels of standards and proficiency, making it all but impossible to make meaningful conclusions about how one set of schools performs nationally in any core area.

When CREDO analyzes student performance in individual states, the comparison is based on similar criteria, making the conclusions more realistic, though still seriously flawed on outcomes given the methodology of comparing charter students to virtual twins. However, both the 2012 report and the 2009 findings, which are widely cited in the media and by policymakers (though hardly studied by either), are lacking a definitive measure of achievement and are therefore inconclusive and inconsistent with the evidence widely available through high quality authorizers, states with transparent data sets, and other research institutions.

Jeanne Allen
President
The Center for Education Reform