Nicholas Kristoff has a column in the New York Times this morning that I wish that I’d written. Here’s how it opens.
The Democratic Party has battled for universal health care this year, and over the decades it has admirably led the fight against poverty — except in the one way that would have the greatest impact.
[Okay, I don’t agree so much with the notion that the democrats have a stellar record in the fight against poverty. But, whatever. Beside the point. Read on.]
Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers’ unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools.
[Bull’s eye. And they/we have trotted out every excuse in the world for doing so. Take the Los Angeles Unified school system, for example. (Please. Take it.)]
President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, are trying to change that — and one test for the Democrats will be whether they embrace administration reforms that teachers’ unions are already sniping at.
[And a test for the administration will be how forcefully it stands up to the above-mentioned usual suspects that they need to either get on the train or get out of the damned way.]
It’s difficult to improve failing schools when you can’t create alternatives such as charter schools and can’t remove inept or abusive teachers.
[Duh!]
A devastating article in The New Yorker by Steven Brill examined how New York City tried to dismiss a fifth-grade teacher for failing to correct student work, follow the curriculum, manage the class or even fill out report cards. The teacher claimed that she was being punished for union activity, but an independent observer approved by the union confirmed the allegations and declared the teacher incompetent. The school system’s lawyer put it best: “These children were abused in stealth.”
In California, we see the same pathology — as long as the students in question are impoverished and marginalized, with uncomplaining parents, they are allowed to endure the kind of teachers and schools that we would never tolerate for our own kids.
[At least not if we’re sending “our own kids” to private schools. Even in the so-called better schools in LAUSD staggering incompetence is tolerated. Yet it is tolerated to a much greater degree in the failing schools in the city’s less affluent areas.]
A Los Angeles Times article this year recounted how a teacher rebuked an eighth grader who had been hospitalized for slashing his wrists in a suicide attempt. “Carve deeper next time,” the teacher allegedly advised. He was even said to have added: “You can’t even kill yourself.” A review board blocked the termination of that teacher.
[SNIP]Research has underscored that what matters most in education — more than class size or spending or anything — is access to good teachers. A study found that if black students had four straight years of teachers from the top 25 percent of most effective teachers, the black-white testing gap would vanish in four years.
This last point is exactly what Paul Adams of the Chicago-based Providence St. Mel schools told me a few weeks ago when I asked him to boil down the elements that had made his schools so successful—despite the fact that they are situated in the same kind of lower-income areas that characterizes Chicago’s failing and violent schools.
“First, you have to hire smart people and get the dummies out the classroom,” he said. “Teachers who are not passionate and committed have to go.”
(It goes without saying that incompetent and abusive teachers, of the ilk that the teachers’ unions still fight to keep from termination, wouldn’t be allowed near a Providence St. Mel kid.)
Yet Adams had to battle the unions every step of the way when he took over a failing public elementary school. And, despite his nationally lauded successes, representatives of Chicago’s massive troubled school district have never bothered to even pay a visit to Adams’ schools, to figure out what he might be doing right.
I had my first up-close-and-personal view of how bad it really is in the Spring of 2005 when the LA Weekly sent me to report on a series of race-based brawls at Jefferson High School in South Los Angeles. At the time Jefferson was one of the lowest scoring high schools in the district, with an API of 482.
The more time I spent at Jeff High, the more I saw that the riots were not the problem. They were the symptom of a school full of students who were lashing out blindly from within an institution rife with astonishing levels of neglect and dysfunction.
That same spring and summer, Steve Barr and Green Dot Charter Schools made their first bid to take over an existing LA high school. Their target was Jefferson.
In the months that followed, although Green Dot gathered enough parent signatures for the charter transformation, the school board and the union moved heaven and earth to successfully block the takeover. (As I remember, Jefferson’s union rep referred to Barr—in non-joking terms—as Satan.)
The district touted all the plans it had to improve Jefferson High School. The result? In 2006, when the next round of API scores came out, not only had Jeff’s scores not risen, they had actually dropped by 25 points, from 482 to 457.
This year, in 2009, the scores have gradually crept upward. They are at 515.
However, Animo Ralph Bunch, Animo Film and Theater Arts and Animo Pat Brown—three of the six small charter schools that Green Dot opened in the fall of 2006 in the Jefferson’s neighborhood after the takeover failed—have 2009 APIs of 629, 707, 753 and respectively.
Late last year, Animo FTA was named in the bronze medal category in US News and World Report’s list of America’s best high schools .
Two other Green Dot Schools, Oscar de la Hoya Animo and Animo Leadership, scored even higher—at number 53 and number 94,—in U.S. New and World Report’s top 100 schools in the nation.
Last week, the New York Post reported that the NYC teachers’ union is starting to abandon its “open hostility to charter schools,” including Green Dot.
The teachers’ union of Los Angeles, UTLA? Not so much.
Great post. I agree 100%. I would add, however, that a robust effort to retain better teachers must include boosting the prestige and compensation of the profession. To really get good teachers you need increased accountability, increased responsibility, and increased resources. It needs to be an attractive job to educated and motivated college graduates. Ignoring the money angle may be politic, but it sets us up for at best spotty improvement.
Completely agreed, Mavis.
There was an interesting woman – not from Harlem Children’s Zone/Geoff Canada but another charter project in Harlem on Morning Joe (yeah, I know but sometimes I get insomnia) this morning. They were doing great work. The starting point in the classroom has GOT to be the interests of the children. The TUs had better get on board with that or they’re going to lose all support.
Somebody wake me up if Woody comes on yammering about how we liberals don’t “get it.” I don’t read his shit anymore, but I’m assuming it will be more of the same reckless, accusatory hyper-partisan drivel.
reg can confirm what this justice of the peace said.
I had a tax deadline today, so I haven’t read this post, but that won’t keep me from sharing this with you.
Texas man faces execution after jurors consult Bible to decide fate
Kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out.
You see – if Colorado Ballon Boy would have been educated by LAUSD teachers and it sorry ass school system – He would have never thought of such an ingenious prank.
Only an idiot would chase around that ballon – thinking that there is indeed a six year old boy flying around insdie it.
In my days at the University graduate level, I experienced an eye opener of sad reality. The wealthy students (liberals or conservatives) are not happy that some under privileged minority (usually from broken down LA or Urban City schools) can beat them on obtaining a higher grade or test score.
I remember taking classes like Global Economics, Public Policy, International Relations and scoring the highest grades in my graduate class – all strictly done on a bell curve scoring system.
When I would do this – those so called bigot racist students really changed there minds on “us” and “you” Mexicans – or better yet “you spanish speaking” people. I just they just dont know what to call us anymore.
When I visited UC Santa Cruz to teach a presentation, I was amazed and thrown back on how they score their students. – No grades, just written summary of how you are doing in class – pass or no pass. I thought this was so cool…but then you really think about it and what happens if the student is a total idiot and deserves to be failed?
Universities dont flunk people – they just kick you out…
After they break the teachers’ union they’ll break up public schools, Celeste. Then, while certain people like you will have no problem and just send your kids to private schools, poor people won’t be able to afford it. Vouchers will only do so much. What private investors are going to build enough private schools for ALL poor kids? How many vouchers can the existing schools take? The end result is no school for poor children, period. I’ll take a teachers’ union with SOME irresponsible members teaching poor children over nothing.
“After they break the teachers’ union they’ll break up public schools, Celeste.”
That’s preposterous. Nobody wants to break the unions. In my observation, that’s been the threat by some of my liberal friends who send their kids to private schools and think they know what’s good for lower income parents and kids without ever having to take the trouble to actually talk to any of those parents or kids.
Meanwhile, generations worth of our children are getting trashed by a system that seems more concerned about holding on to its own power than educating.
Oh, yes, and news flash. Charters are public schools.
The unions are in need of reform, as are big, administration heavy districts like LAUSD.
Teachers need to be decently paid and protected within reason. But incompetence does not need to be protected in any profession—and certainly not at such a high cost to our kids.
By the way, I raised my son as a single mother, and he went to public schools.
Don’t make assumptions.
Norwalquero. One more thing: I don’t mean to insinuate that you don’t know or talk to people in lower income neighborhoods. I don’t have any way of knowing if you do or you don’t.
But I’ve heard this same argument before—made by friends and/or colleagues who are delivering such pronouncements from a great height.
They will break up the teachers union and leave poor kids in street (especially the mexican kids).
They are already taking over L.A.’s Eastside from those who have been ignored, except when they need hard working cheap labor or they need innocent victims to feed the prison industrial complex.
They are gentrifying the Eastside and forcing a new culture on us.
The majority of traditional latino parents from Latin America countries have limited education, only completing elementary and sometimes middle school grade levels. Mexico, as other Latin American countries, don’t pay for student’s materials or books. – Parents from these countries truly believe its a blessing that our US schools will provide free public education. In their countries of origin, a teacher and school systems are highly respected and never challenged. People truly believe that the schools are there for the overall good of the general public.
So, saying that – aside from the stresses of working a back breaking 8 to 5 job this country, I dont believe these parents have the will or the courage to challenge any school system and specifically target its incompetencies. – Believe me, its like hitting a rock with a hammer on trying to educate or convince these parents that their childrens current education needs any type of improvements.
Due to the above factors, again, it creates a 2nd and 3rd generation of poorly educated working class minorities – having limited mobility to upper level of education and social economical movement.
You end up having a community of mostly English/Spanish speaking children not able to properly learn either languages at a proficent level or able to advance to a higher level of education – limiting their chances of obtaining higher paying jobs.
I truly believe that better off families always attempt to have have their children in better school districts (a natrual part of parenting), a school distric with better qualify teachers, and living in much better communities. These families dont really care about LAUSD making any drastic changes for the better of their students – but they do care about their own school districts within their own communities. When you really think about it, the majority of parents are very protective and concern that their own children will receive the best education possible – whether is free or not.
Is not the majority of LAUSD administration made up of these better off families? Do they really really care about making drastic policy changes for the children of Los Angeles – its not like their own kids attend these schools. Now do they…
I really believe LAUSD needs to be broken apart into smaller school districts – financial accountability is vital to the survival of these school districts. If LAUSD has failed so terrible on the financial side – what makes people think they will ever succeed with their students.
Celeste, born and raised in Norwalk. If you think it’s a sheltered suburb, come visit, anytime. Frankly, I’m insulted at that assumption. Sounds like a desperate attempt to discredit my argument, without actually discrediting it, which you didn’t.
Charter schools are being used by the right to bust unions. You have to be naive to think otherwise. After they bust the unions, charter schools will be next. Rich people do not want to pay for poor kids to go to school. that’s what this is all about. They already send their kids to private schools anyway, and they no longer want to foot the bill for poor kids, so they’re trying to break the union and then the public school system. They do that by making both look bad. And even though your intentions may be good (then again, your insulting assumption that I’;m somehow sheltered and don’t know what I’m talking about is making me wonder about you…), you’re only helping out their cause in the long run. The idea is to make schools look like hell, and exaggerate their problems. Like, for instance, making it seem like ALL teachers are sitting there texting while their students are running amuck, even though only a few lousy teachers are like that. But when you write an article and bring up those few people as examples, giving the impression that all teachers are like that, what would be the difference between you and a right winger doing it for their agenda? Because the result will be the same. Try and see the big picture.
And Celeste, you say that you know how rich people talk because of friends and colleagues talking like that. Guess what, esa, I don’t have any rich or upper class friends and/or colleagues. I don’t even know how they talk. Therefore, I couldn’t even accuse someone of talking like a rich person, know what I’m saying? It must be nice to have your connections.
Norwalquero, Green Dot is already unionized (though not part of the LATU). I’m sure unionization among other charter schools will increase over time.
You’re certainly correct that there are people out there who thought charter schools would be a good way to bust up the union. On the ground, however, the vast majority of people who work in education are basically pro-union, even if they disagree with aspects of the LATU platform. Charter schools aren’t going anywhere and while they aren’t a magic bullet, they offer the possibility of improvement. The union should find a way to work with these schools when possible. That’s the best way to ensure the success of the union – to work with reformers, who are natural allies if not perfectly aligned on every issue, and not simply oppose all changes.
Both Green Dot-type schools & Duncan-Obama reform ideas improve prospects for students who are in the classroom seats in urban neighborhoods. The thing that Duncan-Obama reforms and pre-Locke Green Dot schools fail to address is how to deal with the students who are NOT in those seats. And by age 16 or so, in the Jefferson community, those students are the majority. Dropouts in that community are conservatively estimated to be 50% of the student population. So any real reform effort — federal, charter, or otherwise — should really start there, with the majority of students, students who are not even attending school. Instead, those students are at best only a secondary consideration. But if they are the majority, it seems that radical and broad-sweeping reform would start with them.
Norwalquero, I had no intention of suggesting that you’re an out-of-touch rich person. I don’t know anything about you experience.
That’s why I included the second comment. I was irritated by your assumption about me, (out of touch rich person) and reacted. Then I went back and reread what I’d written and realized that my comment suggested a similar uninformed assumption about you, which—as I said— I did not intend.
What I am saying, is what you said hit the same place that I have heard for years from folks who do not have a stake in the game.
Again: That is not to say that youare coming from that place or experience. I thought I made that clear. If I didn’t, allow me to do it now.
About the rest, however, we’re just going to have to disagree. I know amazing and devoted teachers who are total heros. More teachers than not fall into that category. And unions are needed.
But when I hear that UTLA is going to court to block the district’s decisions to allow charters to bid on some of the district’s new schools, I find it infuriating. They don’t have a solution, yet they try to block anything or anybody that offers one since it threatens their power.
As Mavis said, Green Dot is unionized. They just aren’t UTLA.
I don’t think any issue in America is more important than public education. Seriously. It’s the elephant in the room. Nothing could be more crucial. Which is why I bother to write about it. But I don’t buy the argument that by challenging the existing structure that we’re playing into the hands of the right, etc. etc.
It’s that thinking that’s gotten us into this calcified, ungodly mess.
What would you suggest we do to improve things? I’m sick of seeing thousands and thousands of LA kids given inadequate education or worse being bounced out of school and ending up in the juvenile justice system. And having that happen year after year while the grown-ups jockey for power and the excellent and dedicated teachers are slapped down for any innovation.
By the way, I know Norwalk. I was raised in Whittier.
Good point CST. You’re so, so, SO right. I asked Paul Adams about that issue too. And I got a fairly good answer, but in the end, he was bouncing kids out when it got to rough.
And we cannot be content to do that. We don’t get to do triage between our nation’s children and to say these are worth it while these….hey, too much trouble.
Thanks for making that point.
Yes, I’m glad you asked Paul Adams that question. Because that’s part of it: How do we educate the “troublemakers”? But of those 50% (conservativley estimated) who have dropped out of Jefferson by their senior year (as well as a lower but still-would-surprise-a-lot-of-folks attrition rate from some of the Green Dot schools you mention), many are not troublemakers at all. They are a combination of students who drop out due to poor preparation for high school level work, parenthood, financial difficulties in the family, trouble on the streets but not in school, and yes, some who seem to find trouble both in school and out. It seems overwhelming when you think about it! But all I’m suggesting is that in addition to asking how do we organize schools more effectively in terms of raising test scores (the bottom line for the feds, and hence, Green Dot & LAUSD, too) we also ask how do support students in coming to school at all. I think if the policy makers & the education reformers spent a little more time on this question, we would approach reform in a much broader, more holistic way.
For a touble youth, landing in juvenile hall or a camp actually ends up a God forsaken savior in terms of education. – While on home on probation, the majority of these juveniles will skip school freely or when on the run for a warrant, they can go for months and years without schooling. I dont see the problem with a child being educated while detained. They are required to go to school as the law says they should. In many instances, this has been the only way for many to receive a high school diploma. Not in the best situation of life – but you will indeed get an education – like it or not.
Is it called Whitteer not Whittier?….j/k
A lot of interesting comments. Thanks all.
Was just checking out Fremon’s post on Alex and saw this. For real? UTLA is the problem? UTLA is the only organization trying to improve what actually happens in the classroom. We (I’m a member) are the only ones trying to support the teachers who really put it down, day after day, in the classrooms.
Anyone who cites test scores as a measurement of educational progress has missed the point already. Slightly higher test scores are nearly always an indicator of a dumbed-down, teach-to-the-test curriculum. There are no essay questions on the CST test. There are no critical reading questions. Just decontextualized, multiple-choice questions with “right” answers.
Schools are f’ed up, no doubt. But you got to go a little farther to place the blame than the nearest adult. I’ve been on hiring teams that’ve offer jobs to teachers I KNEW were going to be terrible but did it anyways because NO QUALIFIED PEOPLE APPLIED!!! The “problem” teachers are not in the departments or schools where there are people lined up to apply. They’re in the schools and departments where virtually no one wants to teach. You can’t fire your way into better applicants.
And btw, G-Dog and the Homeboys is part of my 10th grade curriculum. The only reason I can do that is because UTLA stood up for the teachers who wanted to assign it when the district tried to force us to strip books like that from the curriculum so we could spend more time assigning one page readings with multiple choice questions at the end.
Oh, one more thing. Celeste writes:
They (UTLA) don’t have a solution, yet they try to block anything or anybody that offers one since it threatens their power.
Totally untrue. We have tons of solutions. We are, after all, the 40,000+ teachers who work with these kids every day. The problem is we often have just enough power to block ill-conceived reforms but not enough to push through a real reform agenda. Flores-Aguilar’s plan will result in a two-tiered public education system in LA so we’re trying to stop it, true. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want any reform. We need authentic, democratic, community based reform at every school. We’ve been pushing for that for a generation. Don’t get it twisted.
Sean, email me privately, if you would. You’d be a great person to do a guest post to give another progressive perspective regarding the things you wrote above. Let’s talk.
C.
If charter schools are public schools, why do they NOT want to abide by attendance boundaries set by LAUSD? Why do they not have elected leaders and transparent record keeping and decision making processes?
What is wrong with UTLA asking the courts to halt the giveaway of public schools while the courts investigate whether schools built with taxpayer funds can be handed over to charter management organizations, which are privately run?
As a writer, the way things are written can lead to a certain impression. I believe its called connotation. The way this post is written connotes the idea that teachers are against charters for the purposes of control and power. WRONG. Charter schools have not done right by English learners, special ed children, and students who exhibit challenging behavior. Sean is right. Ask a teacher in the classroom any time.
Avalon,
Thanks for you comment. It is helpful to hear from more teachers since you guys are, in the end, the experts.
Please comment more.
I’m not, by the way, suggesting that all teachers are against charters. Not even close. I know that not to be true. I am, however, suggesting that the union under AJ Duffy has been consistently and vehemently against charters.
(Also the union rep at Jefferson was also very strongly against them, particular against Steve Barr et al.)
As we both know, not all charters are created equal. Some charters do extremely well with English learners and special ed kids, because some give them more one-on-one attention. Some not so much.
But during that year I observed Jefferson, they had, as I remember, 58 kids in one ESL class and some of their IEPs were two and three years out of date. It’s hard to do worse than that.
Whereas, for example, at Animo Inglewood (a Green Dot charter), I met a kid with Asperger’s syndrome who thrived at that school, while in his time at earlier public schools, his mother said he was drowning.
So it’s complicated.
I’m furious at the district, not at teachers, many of whom I regard as heroes.
I’m confused. I read, and expect my children to do well in school. Both are. Both average over 90% on standardized tests.
My wife’s sister does not have a book in the house. Her 2 kids are horrid students. Decently behaved, but a long way from gifted. Its sad, but the poor quality of students work is more due to lack of expectations from parents. Any kid who wants to do well, can, unless physically prevented.
I taught many years ago, LAUSD, private school briefly, and in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone. I once had a class of 57. All well-behaved, all learned. It depends what the students want, first, what the parents want 2nd, and the teacher, 3rd. Teachers are subject matter coaches. We can help anyone who wants to learn. A teacher can not force someone to learn who does not want to learn.