Morning Shots

Over the weekend, the New York Times published an article about the growing fight over charter schools in suburban districts. The story focuses on Milburn, New Jersey where the median family household income is $159,000 (yeah, that’s not a typo).

Charter opponents provide the typical anti-charter school rhetoric – drains money, the local schools are excellent, test scores are high, etc. But they don’t acknowledge that even at the best schools there are students who still struggle. Just because the district is rich, the notion that one size doesn’t fit all isn’t negated.

Additionally, the district superintendent perpetuates the attitude of many other public administrators who believe that education dollars are theirs and not the people at large. He claims that the district is already losing money – never mind that Millburn has the highest property tax in New Jersey with an annual average of $19,000. It should also be noted that many states provide impact aid for districts where there are charters, which translates to charter schools getting less per-pupil funding than the student’s previous district.

This debate is just warming up. We’re going to see more and more of these types of articles because even in good districts not every need is met. Regardless of whether you’re rich or poor, some kids still struggle with school.

Indianapolis Public Schools launched a campaign this month going door to door to try and bring back nearly 5,000 dropouts ranging from ages 7 to 23. It’s a positive effort that’s for sure – especially in a district that has a dropout rate of 24.6 percent.

But don’t get too high on that horse just yet.

Why after decades of letting these kids slip through the crack is IPS making an effort to re-engage them? It’s a pretty simple answer – competition.

IPS enrollment has declined by about 8 percent since 2006. Many of these students, at least those that haven’t dropped out, have moved to surrounding township schools where test scores are better or to the various city charter schools. What makes it even more pressing for IPS is that the state just approved a school voucher program for low-income students.

Competition is spurring action. The status quo is being jettisoned in the process and thousands of students lost over the years are getting a second chance.

IPS may be more concerned with incomes than outcomes, but at least the kids are the beneficiaries.

Ayn Marie Samuelson and Beatrice Davis Fowler come out swinging with their book Exposing the Public Education System, bringing to bear a glut of anecdotal and statistical evidence upon the issue of why so much money is spent on the United State’s public education with such mediocre to poor results. The root problem, they urge, is that the school system has gotten away from us – the parents and community members – and has become a monolithic barrier to successful education of our young. Right they are!

Throughout the book, the authors argue that our public school system is beholden to the vices of bureaucracy, in all the worst sorts of ways: corruption, special interests, non-transparency and perpetuation of the status quo. You name it, they’ve flagged it and provided more than three examples for each.

But while this approach to ‘exposing’ our nation’s biggest bureaucracy provides extensive insight into how bad things can get in your local, Tuesday night school board meeting or your governor’s attempt to pass substantial reform efforts, they do their project a disservice by (yes, I’m going to say it) giving us too many examples. The text struggles to go beyond the exercise of indicting the system.

Let me explain: there is a subtle but important difference between exposition and argument, and it is this: the former describes the problem(s) at hand, while the latter tackles the problems, in the effort to offer alternative solutions. While the book’s title makes it clear that this is a text that is heavy on the business of “exposing,” I was hungry for solutions after two chapters, but I wasn’t given any until the tenth! Nearly 300 pages later the authors present some substantive policy ideas that address decentralizing schooling and engaging parents and

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