Magnet schools I’d like to see

Our school district is thinking about turning one of our elementary schools into a magnet school. I think it would be great if the district could make a magnet school work, though I do have some questions about the idea. In any event, the news got me thinking about what sort of magnet school “themes” I’d find most appealing. Here are my ideas:

• School’s Not Boring Magnet School
• Humane Lunch Period Magnet School
• Students Have Autonomy Magnet School
• Intrinsic Motivation Magnet School
• Local Control Magnet School
• Free Time Is Important Magnet School
• Think For Yourself Magnet School
• Standardized Tests Are Overrated Magnet School
• No Homework Magnet School
• Democracy and Individual Rights Magnet School
• Question Authority Magnet School

I won’t hold my breath. Most of them are probably illegal.
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The easiest way to meet the diversity goals

One of the issues in our school board election is how to address the disparities in free- and reduced-price lunch (FRL) rates at different schools. FRL status is what the district uses as a proxy for low-income status. Some of our elementary schools have very high FRL rates – as high, in one case, as 70% – which indicates challenges for those schools that other schools don’t have to deal with. The district recently passed a diversity policy aimed, in part, at reducing those disparities between schools.

There has been a lot of brainstorming about how to meet the diversity goals. Redistricting, which will have to occur when new schools are built, can help to some extent, though too much gerrymandering would not have public support. Many candidates have suggested exploring the possibility of creating magnet schools to lure a mix of incomes to schools that would otherwise be high-FRL. I agree that we should explore magnet schools, but they do raise some logistical questions. The redistricting will almost certainly have to occur before we know whether a magnet school will have enough appeal to work. We’d also have to decide whether to devote an existing school building to the project. If we do, we’re either forcing a “theme school” on people in that attendance area whether they want it or not, or we’re eliminating an attendance area altogether and relying entirely on transfers in. One alternative is to have some kids in a school be part of the magnet program, while others are not, though then the non-magnet part might still have a very high FRL.

Board candidate Brian Kirschling has promoted an idea based on a system used in Champaign, Illinois. As I understand it, the system would essentially abolish attendance areas altogether. Instead, the district would ask each family for its list of preferred schools, then assign each to a school based partly on the stated preferences and partly on factors such as diversity, proximity, siblings, and capacity.

The appeal of the idea is that the district would no longer have to draw boundaries lines and then agonize over adjusting them when they become outdated. But the idea raises several questions. If, for example, everyone in Manville wants to attend Lincoln Elementary, but not all of them can, who would make the decision about who goes and who doesn’t? I don’t think people would be comfortable giving that kind of discretion to our school administrators. It could be done purely by computer algorithm, but the algorithm would have to be so complex that it would be opaque to almost everyone. (Would we bring in consultants to create it?) And presumably it would have to give some weight to proximity, which in effect brings back the concept of attendance areas, at least as a factor. Properties closest to an elementary school would still be especially sought after – good news for Manville and Windsor Ridge, bad news for the low-to-moderate-income neighborhood across Court Street from Hoover, if it closes. Will the rich just get richer?

Moreover, the expense of buses would put limits on whether kids in any one area could attend different schools. The more you think about it, the more it starts to sound like old-fashioned attendance areas, but with fuzzy boundaries that the administrators can adjust as they see fit. In that respect, it’s similar to the idea that Nick Johnson has advocated: Firm attendance areas in a certain radius around the schools, but administratively-assigned schools for the remaining areas. Under either system, families who live farther from the schools bear the “burden” (if it is one) of not knowing in advance where they will attend, so there is still an incentive to buy in some areas rather than another, which ultimately privileges those with the money to buy in those areas.

There’s no perfect system, and all of those ideas are worth exploring and developing. Still, I keep coming back to this idea: When the new schools are built, use the accompanying redistricting to mix populations to some extent within reason. Then, if there are still disparities to be addressed, keep diverting resources into high-FRL schools until they become so appealing that people choose to transfer into them, and FRL rates fall of their own accord. In particular, bring down the class sizes in those schools until people are banging on the doors to get in. (Bad metaphor: with our new security measures, everyone has to bang on the door to get in.)

In the last election, the candidates’ common refrain was “Redistrict resources, not kids” – an indication that the basic concept is palatable to voters. But notice that I’m not arguing that we should tolerate large FRL disparities as long as those schools have a lot of resources (though some would make that argument). I’m arguing that we should make those schools so appealing that the FRL rates in fact come down via voluntary transfers.

Think of it as essentially creating a Small Class-Size Magnet School. But it has an advantage over other theme-based magnet schools, because the class sizes can be adjusted from one year to the next until you zero in on the desired diversity goal. A curricular theme, on the other hand – such as a science- or arts-focused school, either works or it doesn’t. Re-adjusting class sizes every year is a lot easier than re-adjusting boundaries or re-adjusting themes, and anyone who wants to send their kids to the school in their attendance area will still have the option to do so.

It’s true that diverting resources to one school necessarily means taking them from others, but that cost would at least be spread over many schools, and wouldn’t fall on any one group or neighborhood. (Presumably any magnet school would require diverted resources.)

Thoughts?

Fellow blogathoner Karen W. chimes in on a different aspect of the diversity discussion here.
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Why not orange jumpsuits?

EduShyster is on a roll trying to find any data, anywhere, on college graduation rates of students who attend “no excuses” “college-prep” charter schools. Meanwhile, she came across this article about one such school in New York:

The Excellence Boys Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn was defending itself Tuesday against parent complaints that its new, “Scoreboard Behavioral System” was discriminatory and treating disciplined students like prisoners.

. . .

A father of two sons who attend the Middle Academy, grades 5 through 8, contacted PIX 11 about a memo sent out by the school in early January. The memo explained the Middle Academy would allow students to earn—or lose—achievement points, based on their behavior. Starting each school week with 50 points, any student left with 0 or less points by week’s end would be subject to five days of detention–and designated “Out of the Brotherhood”. This means they would be placed in a separate room for breakfast and lunch—and ordered to wear a light green Polo shirt, instead of the blue Oxford shirt boys in the Middle Academy typically wear as part of their uniform. Other scholars, as the school refers to students, would not be able to interact with the disciplined boys.

“It’s offensive,” said ‘Jason Vincent’ (not his real name), who e-mailed PIX 11 about the practice, “because, first of all, they’re all young, black men, and I don’t feel that I should have to be concerned with a school seeming like a prison. That’s not what I send my children to school for.”

The principal defended the program on the grounds that “We have a college prep school and everything we do here is about getting students ready for college. . . . What we’re doing here is about getting our kids to college.” And when they get there, what will they make of that completely alien environment?

Read the whole article.
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How about a “community trigger”?

The latest idea being pushed by education “reformers” is the “parent trigger.” Under this proposal, if the majority of parents at a school sign a trigger petition, the parents can then take control and “transform” the school.

The proposal is not only unwise, but fraudulent. None of the parent trigger proposals would enable the parents to withdraw from No Child Left Behind’s mandatory philosophy that raising standardized test scores is the sole goal of education. Proponents of the trigger assert that it “allows parents to pick from a host of empirically tested school reform strategies,” which is a nice way of saying that their choices are limited to only those options that the “reformers” have approved of in advance – for example, starting a charter school, getting a voucher for a private school, or closing the school entirely. If you want a school that doesn’t share the reformers’ values, sorry, no empowerment for you. (See this post.)

Moreover, why should parents have sole control over any public school? Isn’t the whole idea behind public schooling that education benefits the entire community, and thus the community should establish and fund schools? On what basis could non-parents be excluded from any say over the public schools? (Read, for example, Suzanne Lamb’s defense of why she, as a homeschooling parent, still cares about what happens at her local public schools.) But the public nature of public schools has never been favored by the reform crowd, who are privatizers at heart.

Why not have a “community trigger”? If the citizens of a school district want to pursue their own educational policies, we could let them. You wouldn’t even need a petition, you could just empower the school boards that already exist. Come to think of it, you wouldn’t even need a gimmicky name like “community trigger”; you could just use words we already have, like federalism, pluralism, and democracy.
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Guest Post: World-Class Schools?

Karen W., who regularly comments here, has done us the service of wading through the details of Governor Branstad’s education proposal. Here is her summary and some of her thoughts. (One apology about the post title: I packed a lot more irony into that question mark than perhaps any one character ought to bear.)

The Branstad-Reynolds administration recently released a legislative brief describing their education reform recommendations for the 2012 legislative session. The details are now available in the 156 page Senate Study Bill 3009 available here. The recommendations, in a nutshell, are to further centralize control of Iowa public schools in the Iowa Department of Education (DE). (Note that I am summarizing primarily from the legislative brief—I haven’t had time to wade through SSB 3009 yet).

Section I—Great Teachers and Leaders. Proposes to have the DE control a statewide job listing and application system which would include the results of a required personality and disposition assessment of the applicant (even though 80% of districts voluntarily use another listing service). Proposes to require a 3.0 cumulative college GPA and a passing score on unspecified exams (likely Praxis exams) for admission to teacher preparation programs and to obtain a license without any serious public discussion about what prospective elementary teachers learn in the teacher preparation programs (hint: it isn’t the five components of science-based reading instruction—see the NCTQ report here). Proposes to bring educator licensure under the DE and relegate the current Board of Educational Examiners to handling ethics complaints. Proposes to create uniform systems of educator evaluation, lengthen teacher/administration probationary status, end judicial review of dismissals (lawyers make things complicated), and end seniority-based layoffs (introducing the opportunity for arbitrary decisions). Proposes to expand a School Administration Manager program (DE wants principals to be assigned other duties). Proposes that the DE will decide what professional development (PD) should be done each year and DE approval will be required for all PD programs (one-size-fits-all comes for teachers/districts). Proposes to create a task force on teacher leadership and compensation (which presumably will make the same recommendations already rejected at public meetings around the state).

Section II—High Expectations and Fair Measures. Proposes to provide model curricula to aid districts in implementing the Iowa Core standards (remember that the Iowa Core began as voluntary, model standards). Proposes to “expand the Iowa Core into other areas that have been neglected for too long, such as music and other fine arts, foreign languages, entrepreneurial education, physical education, applied arts, and character education” (note that there is no reason to think that school districts have neglected these areas so watch for recommendations for new assessments aligned to these new standards so teachers of these subjects can be drawn into standardized-test driven evaluation and accountability). Proposes more assessments: kindergarten readiness measures, high school end of course exams, PISA, and college and career readiness measures ($6.3 million). Proposes a value-added measure for accountability that will take student demographics into account. Proposes a statewide literacy program to support high-quality reading programs (from the same people who wrote balanced literacy into the Iowa Core) that includes a controversial third-grade retention component.

Section III—Innovation. Proposes an Innovation Acceleration Fund (amounting to $3.94 per student enrolled in public and accredited non-public schools). Proposes a pathway to competency-based education systems. Proposes expanding online learning opportunities. Proposes removing restrictions on charter schools, but just the ones limiting them to school districts so that universities, community colleges and nonprofit organizations could also apply. Proposes that the director of the DE have authority to waive compliance with rules and statutes to provide flexibility for school districts trying to improve learning (note use of the rule of man approach introduces the likelihood of arbitrary decisions—why not use a rule of law approach to create more certain flexibility by repealing rules and recommending the repeal of statutes that are identified as preventing districts from improving instruction?). Proposes a task force on time and schools even though Iowa students have more compulsory hours of instruction than students in Finland (see here and click on table—maybe we should be looking at more effective use of time rather than just adding more of it). Proposes a statewide parent engagement network. The legislative brief refers to the ISPIN program and IPIRC, which offer tips on how parents should take responsibility for homework completion, and what questions we should ask our children about school. SSB 3009 (p. 127) requires the DE to create a Statewide Parent Advocacy Network with parent representatives identified by the District Boards of Directors.

To what extent do we have “public” schools in Iowa anymore, in the sense that the public (local community to be served by the school district) has any meaningful participation in decision-making about the educational program offered by the district? The Iowa Core mandates what, when, and how students should learn. The Iowa Core favors use of technology, constructivism over instruction, balanced literacy over direct, explicit, systematic, and complete instruction in phonics, and has rejected traditional math and science. Is there any compelling reason these decisions (or any of the ones raised by the Branstad-Reynolds proposal) should be made at the state level rather than the local level?

Any thoughts on the Branstad-Reynolds education reform proposal are welcome. What action would you like to see the legislature take on education this session?
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Why is school choice so unappealing?

I don’t think all schools should be the same. One of my complaints about No Child Left Behind is that it imposes a single educational philosophy on every public school in America: school is about raising short-term standardized test scores, period. That strikes me as wrong not just because I disagree with that philosophy, but because I value pluralism. Moreover, it seems short-sighted: why put all of our eggs in any one basket? Why turn educational policy into a nationwide winner-take-all battle -- especially if there’s a good chance you might lose that battle?

If it were up to me, I’d allow genuine local control over educational policy. There’s no reason that schools in Iowa City should have to follow the same approach as schools in, say, rural Texas, or even schools in more conservative parts of Iowa. Why not let each community do it in its own way? Wouldn’t more people be satisfied that way?

But this idea raises one of the age-old tensions in law and politics. To get more freedom for myself, I have to grant more freedom to other people. Many people in Iowa City might dislike the choices made by that Texas town, and want to put a stop to them. But you can’t have it both ways. Is it more important to preserve our community’s freedom to run its schools as it chooses, or to stop that Texas town from doing its own thing? Remember, if everything is decided at the federal level, it might end up that the Texans are the ones telling Iowa City what to do, not the other way around. Arguably, that is exactly what has happened, and I’m thinking of one Texan in particular.

So you would think that I’d be drawn to the idea of school choice, and at least in theory, I am. But school choice is complicated by yet another issue: we’re making choices about what to do with a completely disenfranchised set of people -- children -- who have no choice in the matter at all. Suppose our district starts up the Corporal Punishment Magnet School, filled entirely by kids whose parents choose it. No one would be forcing me to choose it, so could I object? I think I could.

So even in theory, it’s hard not to have some ambivalence about school choice. Then you see what passes for school choice in practice, and ambivalence turns to skepticism and suspicion. Though some people are making valiant efforts to create charter schools that follow humane educational principles, they can’t escape the law’s requirement that all schools are ultimately judged solely on their success in raising standardized test scores. The kind of choice I’d like to make is simply not allowed.

Meanwhile, though, consider some of the choices that are allowed. When our current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was the head of the Chicago school system, he “oversaw the controversial move to bring full-fledged military academies to the Windy City.” Andy Kroll reports:

Today, Chicago has six military high schools run by a branch of the armed services. Six smaller military academies share buildings with existing high schools. Nearly three dozen JROTC programs exist in regular high schools, where students attend a daily JROTC class and wear uniforms to school one day a week. And at the middle school level, there is a JROTC program for sixth, seventh- and eighth-graders.

Chicago may have the nation’s biggest JROTC program, but it is no longer an anomaly. Due to increases in federal funding for JROTC programs, the military’s presence in public schools is greater than ever before. More than a dozen academies partly funded by the Department of Defense have sprouted up from Philadelphia to Oakland, and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2009 passed last year will increase the number of JROTC units nationwide from 3,400 to 3,700 by 2020, at a cost of $170 million. (Peacework magazine obtained a list of schools that have requested JROTC programs.) The Marines are in discussions to open new JROTC academies in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, helping to expand a program that critics contend has blurred the line between education and recruitment. . . .

Now that Duncan is the nation’s top education official, anti-recruitment activists worry that he will use his position to promote the expansion of JROTC and military academies as solutions for cash-strapped or underperforming school districts. . . . “These are positive learning environments,” Duncan said in 2007. “I love the sense of leadership. I love the sense of discipline.”

Meanwhile, former Defense Secretary William Cohen is reported to have called JROTC “one of the best recruiting services that we could have.”

Can a pluralist object?
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Great news! Boot camps for poor kids!

America’s education reformers are fawning over the “Knowledge is Power Program” for charter schools, the latest manifestation of our national love affair with authoritarian -- er, I mean, “tough love” approaches to education. KIPP schools believe in a long school day (some schools go from 7:30 am to 5 pm, with two hours or more of homework a night) and a long school year (with Saturday classes and three weeks of summer school) -- resulting in 67% more time in class than typical public school students. Discipline is emphasized. Students are taught to “sit up straight,” “nod,” and “track the speaker with your eyes.” Teachers use chanting, repetition, and clapping and posture rituals. (See FedUpMom’s posts on the topic here.) KIPP’s promoters claim that it boosts achievement as measured by test scores and college acceptance rates, though these claims are, of course, disputed.

Many people love the idea of making the KIPP option available to the urban poor. But Dana Goldstein reports that there are “troubling questions” about whether middle-class and affluent parents are willing to send their own kids to KIPP schools, which present “particular challenges to parents who are accustomed to the schedules and social routines of high-quality neighborhood public schools.” She describes one suburban mom’s experience of enrolling her child in a regionally-based KIPP kindergarten:

Kerryn Azavedo, a graphic designer in Lincoln, Rhode Island, pulled her son out of Blackstone Valley after his kindergarten year, dismayed by what she calls the school’s overly strict discipline policies and lack of after-school activities. She complained that Blackstone Valley’s extended school day, from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m., left her son exhausted and with little opportunity to participate in organized extracurriculars. (Extended learning days were originally intended to provide enrichment for poor children whose parents are unable to provide after-school supervision or activities.)

When Azavedo brought her concerns to the Blackstone Valley administration, “I never felt welcome,” she said in a phone interview. “They say, ‘This may not really be for you, somebody else might really need your spot, you’d be okay wherever you went.’” Azavedo didn’t like the fact that the school lacks an independent parent-teacher organization; instead, administrators organize parental involvement. And she was surprised to learn her son had sat for standardized tests five times during the school year, and unhappy that the school did not notify parents of each individual testing date.

Though initially attracted to the idea of an integrated charter school, Azavedo is now actively organizing against the opening of new Rhode Island Mayoral Academies throughout the state. “If it’s not good enough for mine, dammit, it’s not good enough for yours,” she said. “I can do something about it because I’m an in-tune parent. I bought it for a year, but I caught on.”

I can see why parents who are poor and stuck in a really bad school district might enlist their kids in a KIPP school. They’re trying to beat some tough odds and could reasonably decide that KIPP is their least bad option.

But is it surprising that the KIPP model might be unappealing to middle- and upper-income parents? Maybe they’re happy to leave KIPP schools to the urban poor for the same reason they’re happy, on the whole, to let poor people staff the prostitution industry: Because they’re not that desperate yet. Maybe they can see how oppressive and dehumanizing the KIPP model is, and are fortunate enough that they don’t need to do that to their kids.

Does that necessarily mean we should take the KIPP option away from the urban poor? No. But it’s hardly cause for celebration that urban poor families are so bad off that they’re grateful for options that more fortunate people won’t even consider. If we support prison-like schools for the urban poor while declining to impose those schools on our own kids, we have good reason to feel queasy -- especially at a time when the government seems uninterested in addressing urban poverty in any systematic way.

Goldstein, by the way, notes “that although other charter school models are less trendy, they do exist.” She mentions Community Roots, “a diverse Brooklyn charter based on more traditional philosophies of educational progressivism and activity-based learning. The school is overwhelmingly popular with both middle-class and poor families in its neighborhood.” How much money is being poured into studies designed to show that those schools “work”? How much attention is being lavished on them by educational pundits and “reformers”?

I’ve been mixing it up with people on this issue in the comments over at E.D. Kain’s blog. For someone who claims a big libertarian streak, Kain is surprisingly unbothered by what goes on in KIPP schools -- disappointing.
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In Orwellian edu-speak, top-down is bottom-up

President Obama this morning:

We need to reward the reforms that are driven not by Washington, but by principals and teachers and parents. That’s how we’ll make progress in education–not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

. . .
The idea is simple: if states show that they’re serious about reform, we’ll show them the money.

. . .
Our challenge now is to allow all fifty states to benefit from the success of Race to the Top. We need to promote reform that gets results while encouraging communities to figure out what’s best for their kids. That why it’s so important that Congress replace No Child Left Behind this year–so schools have that flexibility. Reform just can’t wait.

Could there be a more incoherent Presidential statement? We want to encourage communities to figure out what’s best for their kids, and if they agree with me that raising standardized test scores at any cost should be the sole goal of education, then I’ll show them the money! See, it’s bottom-up!

When it comes to No Child Left Behind, please: Don’t mend it. End it.

My thoughts on real “bottom-up” educational policy are here.
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The latest links

A few interesting links (with tantalizing excerpts!):

E.D. Kain reviews “The Finland Phenomenon,” a new film on Finland’s sane and successful approach to education:

To be honest, I finished the film feeling a bit angry – angry that for all the talk of school-choice in our current education debate, the choices available to me and to my children (not to mention the countless people far less fortunate than myself) are really false choices. No matter whether you attend a public school or a charter, you are really bound to the modern testing regime.

Emily Yoffe’s review of Race to Nowhere in Slate:

At a screening I went to, at a school in Montgomery County, Md.—which has one of the highest ranked school systems in the country—the parents who took to the microphone afterward could barely contain their outrage.

Alfie Kohn on “Ten Obvious Truths We Shouldn’t Be Ignoring”:

If we all agree that a given principle is true, then why in the world do our schools still function as if it weren’t?

How to sell recess and gym to school administrators:

Physical education classes may be scarce in some schools, but an activity program combined with school lessons could boost academic performance, a study finds.

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The Montessori charter school effort now has a website . . .

. . . here.
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A Montessori charter school in Iowa City?

One of my readers has been keeping me apprised of the progress of a bill in the Iowa legislature that would make it possible to create a Montessori-style charter school here in Iowa City. (Iowa’s current charter school laws are apparently very restrictive, with the result that there are only seven charter schools in the entire state.) I’m afraid I have failed this reader by not becoming more informed about the specifics of the bill. I blame that on my general lack of enthusiasm for the concept of charter schools, which, under the No Child Left Behind Act, rise and fall on their standardized test scores just as much as regular schools do. (On that topic, see this post.) Nonetheless, I thought I should at least post a link to other, more informative sources about this bill.

I agree that if the people of Iowa City would like to offer at least one elementary school that operates on the Montessori school model, there’s no justification for state and federal laws that would prevent that from happening. But the bill itself apparently contains some provisions -- for example, one that would exempt charter schools from the state’s collective bargaining laws, and one that would remove them from the jurisdiction of the local school board -- that would sure give me pause. With the right amendments, though, I could see how such a bill would give people at least a little more choice than they currently have.

More information appears here and here. Beyond that, I leave it to commenters who know more than I do.
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The choice they don’t want you to have

I always feel a certain irony when I hear proposals for “school choice.” Many of the people advocating for school choice, after all, are the same people who brought us the No Child Left Behind Act, which was designed to coerce school districts into adopting policies that they otherwise would not choose to adopt. Not exactly a choice-friendly concept.

Under No Child Left Behind, my local public schools -- and all public schools in America, in fact -- now must pursue the policy of raising standardized test scores at all costs. School officials who don’t raise standardized test scores can end up losing their jobs. But if they turn out kids with no intellectual curiosity, kids who see reading as a chore, kids who perform just to please the teacher and get by, kids who’ve never learned how to use good judgment, ask a good question, or make a good decision, kids who see adults as adversaries, kids who take no pleasure in learning -- nothing bad will happen to them.

When I complain about the effects of that policy -- for example, about the fact that my kids’ lunch periods have been cut back to fifteen minutes or less, in the name of maximizing instructional time -- I can count on local school officials to sympathize with me, and then to patiently explain that they are just responding to No Child Left Behind’s pressure to raise test scores. If I’m concerned about what’s happening in my kids’ elementary school, I should write to President Obama. Not exactly empowering.

Yet many so-called school choice advocates are fine with all that. In fact, their “choice” proposals require you to choose a school that operates on No Child Left Behind’s premises. They remind me of Henry Ford’s policy about the Model T: You can choose any color you want, as long as it’s black.

Take charter schools. The government gives charter schools an exemption from many of the laws and regulations governing other public schools -- but only in exchange for a commitment to be accountable for student performance, as measured by the same standardized testing criteria that other public schools must meet. For a parent who objects to the whole idea of letting standardized test scores drive educational policy, charter schools offer no choice at all. “We want to give you lots of choices,” charter school advocates seem to say, “as long as it doesn’t interfere with our imposition of a uniform concept of education on the entire country.”

Here’s the school choice experiment I’d like to see tried. Let our school district require every parent to make an initial choice between two options. If the parents want to put their kids in a classroom governed by policies dictated by the federal government, they could choose the Federal Option. If the parents would prefer classrooms that are governed by policies chosen by the local community, they could choose the Local Option.

For the kids in the Federal Option, school would look a lot like it does now. No Child Left Behind would be in full force, and the district and its school personnel would have to meet NCLB’s standardized testing benchmarks or face the statutory penalties. In these classrooms, the district would do whatever it takes to raise math and reading test scores, regardless of the other values that might have to be sacrificed. Subjects with no direct bearing on standardized test results, such as art and music, would be cut back as necessary. Recess and lunch would be minimized. Untestable qualities such as curiosity, skepticism, creativity, and initiative would not be pursued. Whether the kids actually enjoy learning would be a secondary concern, at best. To keep the kids from squirming during their lengthy test prep sessions -- er, I mean, lessons -- the teachers would instruct them on the importance of unquestioning compliance with rules, and would single out the quiet and obedient students for special praise and rewards.

Down the hall, though, would be the Local Option classrooms. What would they be like? That would be entirely up to the people of our district. Maybe they would decide that there is more to being well-educated than what is measured by standardized tests. Maybe they’d give the teachers more autonomy over what and how to teach. Maybe they’d put more emphasis on developing the kids’ intrinsic motivation and pleasure in learning, and less emphasis on external rewards. Maybe they’d challenge the kids to think critically about the world around them. Maybe they’d recognize that kids need downtime, physical activity, and a decent lunch to learn well and to develop social skills. Maybe they’d treat the kids more like kids and less like employees. Maybe they’d take a few lessons from Finland. Or maybe they’d do none of those things, and come up with their own ideas. Who knows what our community might choose. It’s been so long since anyone asked.

I suppose there could be some awkward moments, when the kids in the Federal Option classrooms, with their ongoing math and reading drills and their nightly worksheets and their behavior charts and their abbreviated recesses and quiet fifteen-minute lunches, saw their friends down the hall having what would likely be a more meaningful -- not to mention enjoyable -- educational experience. Since the Federal Option classrooms would, by definition, be less likely to reflect the parents’ preferences, it might be hard for parents to choose those classrooms for their kids. But as things stand now, we all choose them every day. We’re just not constantly reminded that there could be another way.

Right now, of course, this experiment is impossible. My district could set up Local Option classrooms, but it couldn’t use tax money to pay for them. Why? Because the people who brought us charter schools don’t really believe that communities should be allowed to run their own schools.

What do these people have against choice?
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What passes for school choice

Nine years ago, Stanford University started a charter school in East Palo Alto, to try to bring the benefits and resources of a great university and “state of the art instruction” to a struggling school district. This week, though, the local school board voted to close the school because of low test scores.

Unlike other nearby charter schools, which focus “primarily and almost exclusively on academics,” this school “focused on academics and students’ emotional and social lives.” The school’s supporters protested that test scores are “not the most accurate measure of student achievement, particularly if you have new English language learners.” The school “puts a lot of attention on a variety of skills and opportunities that don’t necessarily promote higher scores,” its president said. “If you’re just looking at test scores,” one student said, “then you don’t see what we’re learning.” Although the school’s high school completion and college acceptance rates were impressive, the board was unswayed by the school’s arguments.

This is why I have no faith in the “school choice” movement. Under the prevailing conception of what “school choice” means, families will have a choice among several schools that are all being measured by the same criteria -- which are, inevitably, based on standardized test scores. If what you want is a school that would aspire to fulfill a different set of criteria, forget it. No choice for you.


..How can I comment?