Morning Shots

January 17, 2013

We’ve got a treat for you this Thursday afternoon with this blast from the past letter we found in our archives and couldn’t help but share, especially with National School Choice Week only 10 days away and an Arkansas Senator just yesterday proposing new school choice legislation :

(click on the image to see a copy of the actual letter)

October 18, 1990

Representative Polly Williams
State Capitol
Room 18 East
P. O. Box 8953
Madison, Wisconsin 53708

Dear Polly:

I read Don Lambro’s recent column about your version of the school choice bill in Milwaukee. I am fascinated by that proposal and am having my staff analyze it. I’m concerned that the traditional Democratic Party establishment has not given you more encouragement. The visionary is rarely embraced by the status quo.

Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,
Bill Clinton

January 16, 2013

Huh? There are lots of ridiculously inaccurate things said about charters but this one takes the cake.

“…charters are often not designed with the focus of being responsive to parents…”

That’s funny. I’m not sure how one attracts parents if they are not responsive, but apparently an academic at NYU — and a member of the NY State Board of Regents — thinks otherwise.

Down in Tennessee, The Cornerstone charter school has been in a struggle with the district where it is also running a failed charter. There are rumors about behaviorable tactics being used in the school, including one teacher who took away kids shoes because they were playing with them.

That’s a pretty stupid thing to do under any circumstance, but it hardly has to do with responsiveness to parents, a hallmark of the charter school concept and for which most schools demonstrate huge parental satisfaction.

Here’s Pedro Noguera‘s full quote:
“The kind of reaction you are seeing is not uncommon. There are many communities where that has occurred,” said Pedro Noguera, executive director of the Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University.

“It’s more likely to happen in charters because charters are often not designed with the focus of being responsive to parents, the community or the culture of
the children.”

Right.

January 10, 2013

This year’s report from an education news publisher ranks Maryland as number one yet again , and yet again we feel like screaming at the top of our lungs “Wake Up, Maryland! Your schools aren’t No.1!”

In the “Wake Up!” piece, CER President Jeanne Allen points out how the ratings that put Maryland at No. 1 are based on inputs, like funding, and fail to consider student outputs. Last year, the Nation’s Report card “revealed that average proficiency is only 50 percent in math and reading — hardly an achievement.”

Not only that, but “even the federal government knows Maryland isn’t No. 1. Last , the state’s application for charter school funding was rejected because its law is not strong enough.”

Maryland’s ranking on the Parent Power Index, which rates states based on cumulative progress on all reforms and lets parents know how much power they have when it comes to their child’s education, is 38 out of the 50 states and DC — hardly near the top!

Until we start thinking in terms of outputs, as today’s Wall Street Journal piece on grading schools addresses, parents and lawmakers will continue to go on believing that their schools are just fine, when the reality is that schools and the system at large could be doing so much more for our kids.