Reforming schools, again and again
For the last 20 years, we’ve pushed and pulled the K-12 education system so much that it’s nearly unrecognizable — especially if you grew up in the falsely idyllic world that existed before we knew about the achievement gap, learning disabilities or the damage caused by inequities in school funding.
It’s hard to argue that reform wasn’t, and isn’t, necessary. A high school diploma that leaves its recipient unprepared for career or college isn’t worth much, and an educational system that works for middle-class white kids and fails everyone else isn’t public education, not by any reasonable definition of the words.
And so much of education reform has aimed, with varying degrees of competence, to address that deficiency. There have been efforts to more evenly fund school districts, regardless of community wealth, and to install consistent standards and expectations that don’t accept a student’s race or economic status as an excuse for inadequate education.
The state created the Educational Achievement Authority, a state reform district, to manage and improve the lowest-performing schools. There have been reforms — and this is where things get tricky — to offer alternatives to traditional public schools, such as charters or online education, that aren’t doing the job.
That’s “school choice,” in reform parlance.
Here in Michigan, the push for school choice has encompassed the creation of charter schools, schools of choice that accept students from other districts, the elimination of the cap on charters and repeated attempts to legalize vouchers, a mechanism that allows parents to use taxpayer dollars to pay for private school. These are all components of a broad national agenda premised on the idea that free-market principles can improve education.
Reformers intent on school choice promised that the marketplace would reward good schools and force bad ones to close.
But that’s not how it’s worked.
Proponents of school choice say it offers parents real alternatives to failing schools. Critics say it beggars traditional schools, leaving less money to educate nearly the same number of kids in schools burdened by the same fixed costs.
They’re both right.
The state allocates per-pupil funding on the basis of enrollment, so when a student leaves a traditional public school for a charter or a schools-of-choice district, the traditional school’s revenue declines. Because kids who leave are scattered across a district, it’s almost impossible to make cuts that correspond to the funds that were lost — it’s not as simple as eliminating an entire class, or shuttering a school building.
But there are no guarantees that a charter school will outperform a traditional school — in fact, a Free Press report last year found that in too many instances, charter outcomes are the same or worse as the schools they were meant to replace.
So, here we are: We’ve found a cure, but it may be worse than the sickness.
Gov. Rick Snyder is preparing to propose legislation intended to fix Detroit Public Schools, which remain in both academic and economic crisis. It’s not the only troubled district in Michigan, so no matter which remedy Snyder develops for DPS, it will likely be applied elsewhere. Snyder’s proposing, among other remedies, a central commission to oversee both traditional public and charter schools in Detroit, with a common enrollment system and consistent educational standards.
The Legislature is advancing bills that will emphasize third-grade reading skills, an indicator of future academic success, and reform teacher evaluations, although not based on the recommendations of a commission created to revise the system.
We’re still waffling over how best to test whether students are meeting the Common Core educational standards, an attempt to create voluntary national guidelines for educational attainment. Because our governor is a Republican, and the GOP dominates both chambers of the Legislature, it’s unlikely we’ll deviate far from the GOP playbook.
On the choice front, vouchers are verboten in Michigan, but Great Lakes Education Project Executive Director Gary Naeyaert says he expects a legal challenge to that prohibition.
So where do we go from here?
Well, there’s Minnesota, which has invested heavily in pre-K, and has raised taxes to support schools. And Massachusetts, where per-pupil funding is allocated according to student needs, and teacher training and development is state-supported.
Or there’s Nevada, where vouchers, rebranded as “education savings accounts,” have gotten traction. Nebraska’s version of vouchers allows parents to apply state and local funds to private school tuition, online education or homeschools.
Or Wisconsin, where a newly created Milwaukee education commission can privatize public schools.
Education at present is a chaotic landscape, with no quality controls, says John Austin, president of the state Board of Education. Austin wants to see more substantive control of charter schools, a greater effort to shut down those that don’t meet state standards.
Naeyaert says the opposite: Low-performing public schools must go. If DPS disappears, he says, replaced by charters and schools of choice, he won’t have much heartburn.
Oddly enough, Richard McLellan, the architect of Michigan’s charter school law and the state reform district, seems to side with Austin. Charters have become part of the establishment, he says, so they’re now part of the problem. And at least in Detroit, he says, the school-choice people haven’t done a very good job.
But disruption, McLellan says, leads to change, even if it’s difficult.
It’s safe to say that Michigan’s schools are changing. Again. But into what, no one can say.
Contact Nancy Kaffer at nkaffer@freepress.com. Reforming schools, again and again: