Race to the Top = Bullshit

Thanks, David Brooks, for adding to the unlimited library of poorly researched articles on public education. Way to spend a day in a classroom. Way to beat up on the teachers' unions. Way to denigrate public servants yet again. Have at the "troops" next, I dare you!

Yes, Obama's Race to the Top grants sound like one more "innovative" initiative to use free market methods to improve public schools. To reward innovative thinking with federal dollars. Right! This is more of the neoconservative wet dream of wholesale privatization of every sector of government, and ultimately, the death of public education altogether.

Let's look at the highlights:
1. Teachers' unions are bad. Awww...did teachers' unions, I don't know, stick up for their members' rights? Did they bargain for as much pay and the best benefits and working conditions that they could get? NO SHIT! As a member of the NEA, that's what I pay them almost $100 per month for! They should go to work on every state legislature with lead pipes and blow torches for that kind of cash! But seriously, the WEA (Washington State's branch of the NEA) has given in on all kinds of bargaining positions for education reform, including seniority and site-based hiring. Sometimes I have to yell at my union president that he runs a LABOR UNION, not a CHILD ADVOCACY ORGANIZATION!

Seriously, unions will look out after their members. They are supposed to! Is David Brooks, or worse, President Obama suggesting the unions should not fight hard in collective bargaining for their members? The problem is not that the teachers are asking for too much, it is that they are asking for a fair slice of too small a pizza. And unfunded mandates like NCLB don't help that pizza go 'round.

2. Vouchers - Why not just turn public education over to Dick Cheney? That's how we will provide public education - just divide up the state education money and give it to every family with kids and say "have at it!" This is what we are talking about. Do we really want to privatize public education? You think the achievement gap is bad now, wait until we give white middle class families vouchers. This idea will doom our public schools, and our nation to social and economic obscurity.

3. Charter Schools - The easiest to sell, and perhaps the most insidious idea. Don't get me wrong, there are wonderful charter schools. They do great things, and serve their students and families well. BUT, I have never heard of one that doesn't impact the public education system adversely. I"ll give you an example: The City School. The City School is a wonderful charter school in Spokane, Washington. They offer a project-based education for students up to 8th grade. It is a world class, and highly engaging curriculum taught by caring professionals. I was psyched when I saw their presentation at a seminar put on by our state's education department.

Then, one of my colleagues asked a question: "what happens when a student disrupts class, or doesn't do his/her work?" The answer from the principal (the same answer from some half-dozen other charter school videos I have watched): "they're gone." They sign a contract to be here, and if they violate it, they are kicked out.

The problem with this is that EVERY CHILD in the United States is guaranteed a free public education. Charter schools can only be this selective if there is a school like the one I teach at down the road that will take them, warts and all. The real American public school system does not get to cherry pick students or supportive families. We take everyone.

I teach in an 82% poverty school, of which maybe 25% would make it at the City School. But these are American kids, and we need to stop dicking around and develop some strong NATIONAL standards. And then, have the fight in Congress to put some real FEDERAL MONEY into the schools. To make them truly world class. Funded well enough to compete with a global marketplace of economics and ideas. If we don't, if we leave it up to retired rural voters to decide how much county's will fund schools in their property tax-based levies, then we will get our asses kicked. It's simply a numbers game: China and India have more honor students EACH, than we have students total.

Having said that, I will proceed with my usual rant: American public schools, as they stand now, are the best in the world. Period.

No question - unless you are in the top 10% of income or status in your country, you want your kids in American public schools. That is because WE TAKE EVERYONE! Downs syndrome, autistic, behavior disordered, it doesn't matter. We send a bus. We send a bus to the fields for the children of migrant workers. We send a bus to the homeless shelter, or the the corner for the kids who live in a car. We send a bus to the "hood," and to every neighborhood, and put them on a track for a four-year university education and beyond. And we do this every day. Tell me China does this - or India. Or even Western Europe, where kids are trade-school tracked by eighth grade. Hell no, we do what no other country even attempts, every day.

So, put your federal money where your mouth is, or get the fuck out of my way and let me continue doing the fantastic job that no other nation on earth even dares to have its educators attempt - putting every child, no matter their family or disability, on a university track. And, to elected Democrats (Obama), how's about easing up on the unions. Beating up on unions is the Republicans' job. At least is used to be.