From Lily's Blackboard
by Lily
The friends of my friends down the street are from Norway. She works for the Norwegian embassy. He owns an accounting business. They lived in Maryland for a while before moving back to Norway with their two sons and, thanks to my friends, I met this very nice couple and got to make polite conversation and ask them if they had liked living in the United States. They did. I got to ask them what they missed about the United States after moving back to Norway.
“Well,” they said, as if it would be obvious and didn’t really need to be mentioned. “Of course, you have such excellent schools.”
I blinked. They did not know I was a teacher.
I said, “Could you repeat that?”
“We loved your schools. They cared about our children as individuals. They were wonderful.”
Let me repeat that, just in case Former Chancellor Now Employee of Rupert Murdoch In Charge of Exploring Market Opportunities in the Education Sector Joel Klein is reading this:
“We loved your schools. Our children had such caring teachers. They were wonderful.”
Why, you might ask, would I want Joel Klein to hear this remarkable string of unsolicited pearls? Because he bit my head off for saying the same thing.
I’m hoping that the Waiting for Superman obligatory events designed to hype the movie and sell tickets is finally winding down. Serious folks have already found it to be a clever Hollywood lie. The lie is that they took what appears to be the worst public schools in America and made them seem to be the rule instead of the exception. The lie is that they took what appears to be the best charter schools in America and made them seem to be the rule instead of the exception.
I know I sound bitter, but only because I am. The professional physical and psychological set up at all these events is to have three or four or (in one case) six voices on the side of the lie (charter schools all good; public schools all bad). They become an echo chamber repeating each other and congratulating each other and giving the impression that the whole world is on the side of the SuperGuys who demand “reform” (more charter schools). There was always one teacher (never a public school parent advocate or a researcher who might contradict them), always one lonely teacher set up to be overwhelmed by the invitation-only multitude of panelists as the out-of-touch defender of the “status quo” (see, no one’s on “the status quo” side -“status quo” being the old, bad public school instead of the shiny good private charter school.)
“We loved your schools. They cared about our children as individuals. They were wonderful.”
I got to be the teacher at a star-studded New York event. The topic was our “failed” public school system that needed to be thrown out and replaced with something more “market driven”; more “accountable”; something called “reform” that would give parents private market choices and light a fire under lazy teachers.
I protested the generalization and, silly me, said, “Our schools are working beautifully for a great many children. The problem is that they aren’t working for all our children.”
That’s when Joel Klein took my head off. How dare I defend a failed system? How dare I say it’s working just fine? How dare I be so out of touch with reality? How dare… well, you get it. I dared.
There is always some truth in a criticism, even though we are loathed to admit it. I will admit it. But I will speak the rest of the truth that Joel Klein will not dare. Our “system” is unforgivably inequitable. But it’s not broken for all children.
Where parents have the resources to provide decent health care and child care and a home in a safe community; where schools are not expected to make up for the ravages of crime and poverty and unemployment and drug abuse and medical neglect and hunger, our schools function quite well. But don’t take my word for it.
NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress) in 2006 found that when adjusted for family income, there were no differences between elementary public and private school scores in Reading and public schools outperformed private schools in Math. Between secondary public and private school scores, private schools scored slightly higher but they found no difference in Math scores.
Twenty years ago, Money Magazine did a consumer report between public schools and private schools and found that when adjusted for family income, there was virtually no difference between the two in graduation rates, college SAT scores and college entrance rates, even given that private schools had the killer app – not of parent choice, but of the right of the school to carefully choose their students. Money Magazine declared public schools the best bang for the buck. And rich families agree.
Eighty percent of wealthy families send their kids to public school. Forbes Magazine cuts it down even further to the slice they call “affluent” families at 66% in public schools and even further to show that 55% of the “mega rich” (those who make over $10 million) pick public schools over private schools. Come on, now. Raise your hands. How many of you have always believed that Rich Folks send their kids to private schools? Now you know the truth: The majority doesn’t. The rich choose public schools because they live near excellent public schools.
Schools that are still mainly supported by local property taxes mean that in rich areas, the schools have everything: Computer labs, Advanced Placement Chemistry, French, the Ski Club, the best-paid teachers and the most complete support services. In most neighborhoods, they have a great public school. Great public schools exist. The problem is that they aren’t found in every neighborhood.
The failure of this “system” is that it isn’t a “system”. Every district; every neighborhood school has been structured on the premise that poor kids just need what rich kids have. Now, that would be a start. But they need something different. They need something more. They need support for the Whole Child and support for the Whole Family.
The answer isn’t to tear down our public schools that are working for the vast majority of students. The answer is to find those places where schools aren’t working and do something different. Something more. Preschool and after school programs to help parents who might be holding two or three part-time jobs to pay the rent; GED classes to help unemployed parents so that they can get better jobs that support their families; moving beyond mind-numbing standardized test labels to a world of Art and Music and Technology and Theater and Sports and Vocational Programs that make school interesting and relevant to kids who see their lives as going nowhere fast; more personalized education with smaller classes sizes; counselors and mentors to help parents understand what college might mean to family that never had a college graduate; access to health and dental care; something different; something more.
My friends from Norway were happy with their American schools. They were stunned to hear that I was slapped for suggesting that we had many excellent schools. But I also know that if they had lived in certain communities, they would not have been so happy. So there’s a worthy goal. I want my new Norwegian friends to be able to live in any American community and walk into any American public school and be able to say, as if it were obvious to anyone,
“We loved your schools. They cared about our children as individuals. They were wonderful.”
http://lilysblackboard.org/2011/01/the-folks-who-like-their-schools/
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