Interview with Alexander Russo and Andrew Rotherham and Joe Williams on Computer Science: Sound-off Among Education Bloggers

My sense is that, underneath the everyday policy and political disputes, one of the fundamental issues has to do with the conflict between how teachers (and to some extent parents) conceive of teachers' roles versus how policymakers and some school reformers see teachers' roles.

It's essentially a conflict between the autonomy and creativity that many teachers and their advocates associate with what should go on in classrooms, and the more uniform, even centralized standards of practice that district leaders and some school reformers think would be the better way to go.

We have to do a better job of having frank and honest discussions about what is - and isn't - working in our schools. Even in cities with some of the worst schools imaginable, you often don't have to go very far to find schools serving the same kinds of students that are managing to get the job done.

There are a lot of reasons these concrete discussions don't take place (politics, ego, knee-jerk defensiveness, etc.) but they have to happen if we're going to get anywhere.

From my perspective, this is where parents have to get in on the action. They need to picture (or visit) an ideal school and start asking (specifically) what is standing between their kids' school and utopia. There are likely to be a lot of different answers to those questions, but if done honestly, they can change the tone and content of much of the current debate about reform.

Too many parents accept things they way they are, when they should be asking why things are the way they are.

With all of the talk about accountability, parents need to remember that they play an important role in the process, but they have to understand the real nature of the problems they are trying to solve.

Where I live in New York City, we have been theorizing about this question for years, only we like talk about having BILLIONS more each year, as is currently guaranteed by the successful Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

My answer is going to start with a caveat that may make people groan (and sound like I am copping out) but I've always thought that this kind of money should be put in some sort of "accountability escrow account" so that school leaders couldn't touch it unless they had made a convincing case that their financial houses were in order. I've never been convinced here in NYC, for example, that money is spent particularly wisely. Please note that I'm not suggesting that more money isn't needed, just that it is hard to tell when you see so much wasted on a regular basis.

I think facilities deserve a good chunk, for example, but it needs to incumbent on school districts to show convincingly that good portions of the school construction money isn't being skimmed by the Gambino Crime Family. (Harder than you think in NYC.)

I think investments in quality pre-school in underserved areas can be important, but the devil is obviously in the details of ensuring quality.

I think teacher salaries should generally be increased, especially for the best teachers we've got. The latter part of that idea is obviously a major sticking point.

Mainly, I've always thought there was something screwy about rewarding faling (and sometimes historically cruel) school SYSTEMS with boatloads of cash. I'd rather see the money go to the VICTIMS and allow it to follow them to the public (including public charter) or private school of their choice. Let the individual schools decide the best use of additional resources. (Some schools need things like smaller classes much more than others.)

Here is my beef with NYC's discussions about this topic: Every year we have to buy basic things like paper towels and copy paper for our kids' classrooms. We're talking about pumping more than $5.6 billion more per year to the city schools budget for all sorts of goodies. But in the end, parents will still be buying paper towels and copy paper.

Good question. The answer appears to be something along the likes of: it is difficult, but public charter schools all over the place are showing it can be done (often, however, while relying on outside fundraising and grants.)

The idea that public charter schools are perceived as a threat also can translate into other problems, including acts of bureaucratic sabotage. The end result is that many charter schools are made to feel like they are competing with both arms tied behind their backs.

Interestingly, one of the most articulate spokespeople for the need for increased per-pupil funding for charter schools in my area has turned out to be our local teachers union president, who also has had to raise outside money for her two union-run charter schools.

Hi,

Great question. First, thanks to NAPCS for hosting this forum. For my money, the biggest problem facing American public education is the enormous variance in the quality of education that children receive. We have public schools that are the envy of the world and public schools that are the envy of no one, and often they’re located pretty near one another. These disparities show up in substantial gaps in student achievement, graduation, and other outcomes.

As the world enters what looks to be a time of pretty intense competition among nations this variance puts the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage. That issue gets a lot of attention. What is more troubling in the near term, I’d argue, is what it means for the social fabric of the country to have educational, and consequently life, opportunities basically allocated by zip code.

There are a whole host of issues that play into this, funding, governance, teacher quality, social policy, and so forth. But writ large, it is these inequities that I see as the primary education problem we face today.

Great question. In Chicago, whose charter schools I know best, there's lots of learning to be done on both sides. The charters aren't nearly as good, generally speaking, at dealing with special ed and ELL schools as neighborhood schools. As everywhere, there are questions about whether the charters (and small schools) are even providing required services, or screening out special needs kids. That may be changing.

What district schools can learn from charters, I think, is in some cases about thinking in a new or creative way -- whether it be scheduling or curriculum or staffing. Not all of what charters do is limited to charters, I don't think.

Over all, however, there are precious few opportunities for cross-polination, and an overabundance of ways for the two types of schools to compete. There's one fledgling effort in Chicago called The Alliance, run by an organization called BPI, that is gathering charter and district schools together to do some co-learning. But I hear that this tpe of cross pollination is generally infrequent.

I think that one of the most unfortunate aspects of all the back and forth between, for lack of a better set of terms, the “charter camp” and the “traditional public school camp” is that we’re missing an opportunity to learn from the experiences, strengths, and weaknesses of both models.

For instance, one of the real problems facing many charter schools is the nuts and bolts logistics of running schools. This is something the traditional public school sector has down pretty well. Conversely, though debunkers abound, I think that there are things the traditional public school sector can learn from the outstanding charters that are doing a substantially better job with disadvantaged students than the traditional public schools are.

Basically, charters are a move toward mass customization in education, something I’d argue is essential for the future of public education as a broadly supported institution. But, for that to happen we need to take the best of the existing institution today, it’s access, breadth, and durability and marry it with the best aspects of what charters bring to the table, more choice for parents within the public sector, more customization, etc…In other words, there is plenty for both sectors to learn from each other.

Successful traditional public schools offer charter schools opportunities to learn about leadership, parent involvement, classroom management, etc. Too many to list.

Charter schools offer traditional systems lessons about the best ways to build school-based teams of educators, ways to cut through the red-tape to focus on what teachers and students really need to make learning thrive, etc. I think there are also lessons to be learned about what role various incentives can (and can't) play in terms of trying to maintain a high quality teaching staff.

I think these types of questions are easier to imagine if you steer away from thinking about charters as a TYPE of school, but rather a method of CREATING the kinds of schools that end up looking like the most successful traditional public schools, and better.

Remember, if it were easy to replicate successful public schools in traditional systems, no one would even be talking about charter schools today.

The have the potential to change the established power structure within public education. The people who have the power aren't keen about giving it up, which is a natural reaction to a perceived threat.

I don't think there's much evidence of this, yet. As I've written before, the charter movement has in many places and ways slowed down since its heyday, and remains a small or marginal force in most places despite the press and push of many folks. I'm not saying that's right or good, just that it's real.

Maybe we're at the start of another big charter push -- some would say that's begun already. But I think that small schools, and to some extent voucher initiatives, stole some of the energy from charters. NCLB choice might have done a little bit of the same. It's a zero-sum game, to some extent, in terms of politics time and energy and money.

Charters are competing against other forms of school choice and governance as much as they are competing against districts. This is especially true when it comes to the political and foundation aspects.

I think Andy's point about the (slow) movement toward mass customization is a good one, and I think charter schools clearly are allowing people to view things a bit differently in some respects.

I think charters, and the pressure they represent, are injecting themselves into some collective bargaining sessions around the country and contributing to the emergence of a lot of school-based waivers from one-sized-fits-all labor agreements that allow individual public school sites to act more like independent charters without actually becomming charters.

My problem with people in the charter school world, however, is they have done a particularly lame job of explaining to the public what they are doing, what public education can learn from them, and why chartering is even necessary in the move to create more high-quality schools in areas where they are desperately needed.

Even in places like New York or Chicago, where the mayor has control over the school system, school districts are pretty limited in how much accountability they exist. You can vote a mayor in or out based on his or her devotion to the schools.

But in some places mayors (and school boards and superintendents) don't or didn't until recently actually have all that much control over individual schools, principals, or teachers. Even without union contracts, there are city councils and state lawmakers and state boards to deal with, and those meddlesome folks in DC.

So there's so much accountability that in some places it all seems to cancel itself out. Everyone's responsible, so no one's responsible. Depressing, I know.

The political people do listen to their constituents, which in turn also end up being the people with power. Organized teachers do a much better job of influencing elections (i.e. acting as real "constituents") than the public at large when it comes to education issues. But they aren't alone. Textbook companies, software vendors, and other corporate interests also understand that getting cozy with people with power in education translates into $$$.

Joe Six-Pack has allowed himself to become irrelevant in education policy. This is a big problem. As you note. politicians listen to the folks making noise, and the public is generally quiet, except when it comes time to vote on school budgets and such. If they were as interested in the quality of their schools as the amount of their tax bills, things might be different.

Good question. I actually think there is more bipartisanship than people commonly assume. Don’t forget that Bill Clinton was a strong proponent of charter schools and today in the U.S. Senate there are a number of Democratic senators, perhaps most notably Tom Carper (DE), who are staunch supporters of charters schools. At the state and local level there are a lot of state reps who are strong supporters.

That said, I see two problems. There is not enough Democratic support, and I think that’s unfortunate because as I said earlier I believe that offering more choice and customization in the public sector is vital to maintaining and broadening support for public education. Second, and related, some Republicans support charters for the wrong reason, basically they never met a choice plan they didn’t like.

Politically, the growing discontent among urban and minority parents about the quality of schooling that their children receive means that as a party Democrats are going to have to have more to say on the choice issue than just no and charters offer a progressive way to harness the best aspects of choice while mitigating some of the problems.

The most productive steps that the charter sector can do here are (a) be relentless in focusing on quality and quick to address low-performing charter schools and (b) keep engaging and motivating parents, politicians will respond to that.

I’m always leery to make predictions but I think in 15 years the idea that institutions other than local school districts can offer public education as a service in a community will be much more accepted and we’ll look back on today’s debates and shake our heads. In other words we’ll be more comfortable with pluralism than we are today.

Andy and Joe may have better answers, but I think that if someone in charter-land focused the next five years on bringing the "lessons" (experiences, ideas, energy) of charters into regular schools -- rather than creating more charter schools or changing existing state laws -- then people would understand and acccept charters at dramatically higher levels. Until then, it's just going to be more of the same trench warfare.

I want to preface my answer by stating that I believe the sector is starting to do much of this:

1.) The sector needs to own the quality issue. It needs to steer parents clear of bad charter schools so they will wither more easily. We can't wait for authorizers to do their job. The market is capable of weeding out crap, but only if the sector helps push it.
2.) It has to start explaining why charter schools matter to the larger public. In some ways, the sector deserves the treatment it gets in some quarters because it isn't being particularly proactive about defining itself or its method of creating new schools. One problem is there seem to be a lot of people working in charter schools who, themselves, aren't able to articulate what difference their charter-status makes.
3.) It needs to build more of a bi-partisan political base, engaging the teachers and parents at charter schools more actively in the political process.

Three things: Quality, quality, and quality. There are not as many low-performing charters as charter opponents like to claim but more than some charter proponents want to admit. Parental choice simply isn’t enough to regulate quality in education and the charter sector must ensure that charter schools are quality options and those that are not are dealt with. And, just being as good as other lousy options isn’t enough.