A real choice for schools during school choice week
School choice pundits have declared this school choice week in Texas. The argument de jour cites NAEP reading scores as evidence that school choice is the best option and that without choice things will just get worse.
Here’s a school choice that would really be worthwhile: recognize that after thirty years of trying to make schools great under a test/punish/stigmatize philosophy maybe it’s time to admit it doesn’t work. (Here’s another: recognize that the so-called Texas miracle was a welcome artifact of a bad policy that finally got us to pay attention to underserved students, not a reason to keep touting what has never worked. But that will have to be for another time.)
The fact is that no other profession regularly stigmatizes a significant number of its institutions as if doing so will create a continuous improvement environment for the simple reason that it never has and never will. That should cause us to ask a very pointed question: why keep doing it? Would we accept a system that stigmatized lots of schools if most of them were in predominantly white, wealthy neighborhoods? Where schools have long been perceived to be good? Or do we accept a system that stigmatizes schools in poorer neighborhoods that serve large numbers of African American and Hispanic children, and children of immigrants or who don’t speak English, because it aligns with our historical biases? Those are some pretty big whys.
What makes it even worse is that we never need stigmatize any school. The truth—even when its painful—need not be stigmatizing. The truth is that every school is effective in some ways and ineffective in others and that information must have very real stakes attached to it. The truth is that no one is always an effective leader, and we can all always improve, but also that there will be times when serious changes are warranted and must be made. None of that need be stigmatizing to the institution or those in it, even when the consequences are serious, so again, the question: why do it?
Here’s something else: if you had the truth about every school the fact is it would be a complex effort to choose one over the other. The good school/wealthy neighborhood bad school/poor neighborhood myth starts to evaporate when suddenly every school is seen as effective in some ways and ineffective in others. That doesn’t mean all schools will ever be the same—far from it. Students will continue to come to school ahead or behind their peers based on the relative wealth of their neighborhood, and there will always be some schools that are ahead of others. In any world, some schools will always be more effective than others and we should know who that is and learn from them, but in a world that runs based on the truth you wouldn’t be able to predict where the effective schools are by zip code.
But the truth doesn’t seem to be the point. The unstigmatized truth—which is the only way any organization has ever improved itself—isn’t useful in the arguments for choice. The fact is that without stigmatization the rationale for choice, charter, vouchers, etc., goes out the window. Or rather, without the stigmatization of a subset of schools historically perceived to be bad schools. Because stigmatization in a world based on the truth would backfire, as suddenly many of the schools they now want to choose would be labeled negatively and stigmatized and no longer be available as a choice. It isn’t just stigmatization that is necessary to justify choice, but stigmatization of the right schools.
The argument for choice falls apart badly when accountability is to the truth.
But let’s get to the basis of the broader argument for school choice proponents in Texas today: NAEP reading scores suck. Therefore, they argue, lets double down on a test-based accountability philosophy that has barely moved the needle in the past thirty years, which therefore isn’t likely to change much going forward, which will leave in place a system that continues to stigmatize schools in poor neighborhoods with large numbers of minority children, which will help keep the school choice conversation alive and well.
If the proper interpretation of NAEP scores is that Texas is in trouble, that would represent a legitimate reason to start searching for causes. One of those would be a thirty-year history of ignorantly clinging to an accountability model that has never made any organization great and pretend that it can. Another would be the ritualistic stigmatization of kids who struggle to learn to read and write. How about the continued marginalization of the educational work force by those who claim to care about education? And the woeful lack of funding? And the fact that education is caught in the perpetual trap of always starting with a narrative of failure. And…
NAEP may well be a clear signal that the educational system in Texas needs a rethinking. So rethink it. Look for causes. Be thorough. Name names if need be and leave no stone unturned. But to say, “hey, we suck, but before you go get all introspective and do the hard work of identifying causes and finding solutions, have we got a deal for you,” needs be seen for what it is: a distraction. An opportunistic land grab. Laziness. An excuse not to tackle hard problems. A willingness to continue stigmatizing students and their neighborhoods who can least afford it in the service of an agenda.
If they are right about NAEP scores signaling something dire about the system of education in Texas, not trying to figure out the why isn’t an argument for anything. It is instead an argument to leave large swaths of children behind, exactly as their signature piece of legislation suggested they weren’t willing to do.
Here’s the bottom line: every school in Texas and across the country is effective in some ways and ineffective in others. That is the truth. If we have that information every school can improve, and no school need suffer the effects of stigmatization, even though the stakes would be unbelievably high. Getting to the truth is the choice we need to make.
Here’s a school choice that would really be worthwhile: recognize that after thirty years of trying to make schools great under a test/punish/stigmatize philosophy maybe it’s time to admit it doesn’t work. (Here’s another: recognize that the so-called Texas miracle was a welcome artifact of a bad policy that finally got us to pay attention to underserved students, not a reason to keep touting what has never worked. But that will have to be for another time.)
The fact is that no other profession regularly stigmatizes a significant number of its institutions as if doing so will create a continuous improvement environment for the simple reason that it never has and never will. That should cause us to ask a very pointed question: why keep doing it? Would we accept a system that stigmatized lots of schools if most of them were in predominantly white, wealthy neighborhoods? Where schools have long been perceived to be good? Or do we accept a system that stigmatizes schools in poorer neighborhoods that serve large numbers of African American and Hispanic children, and children of immigrants or who don’t speak English, because it aligns with our historical biases? Those are some pretty big whys.
What makes it even worse is that we never need stigmatize any school. The truth—even when its painful—need not be stigmatizing. The truth is that every school is effective in some ways and ineffective in others and that information must have very real stakes attached to it. The truth is that no one is always an effective leader, and we can all always improve, but also that there will be times when serious changes are warranted and must be made. None of that need be stigmatizing to the institution or those in it, even when the consequences are serious, so again, the question: why do it?
Here’s something else: if you had the truth about every school the fact is it would be a complex effort to choose one over the other. The good school/wealthy neighborhood bad school/poor neighborhood myth starts to evaporate when suddenly every school is seen as effective in some ways and ineffective in others. That doesn’t mean all schools will ever be the same—far from it. Students will continue to come to school ahead or behind their peers based on the relative wealth of their neighborhood, and there will always be some schools that are ahead of others. In any world, some schools will always be more effective than others and we should know who that is and learn from them, but in a world that runs based on the truth you wouldn’t be able to predict where the effective schools are by zip code.
But the truth doesn’t seem to be the point. The unstigmatized truth—which is the only way any organization has ever improved itself—isn’t useful in the arguments for choice. The fact is that without stigmatization the rationale for choice, charter, vouchers, etc., goes out the window. Or rather, without the stigmatization of a subset of schools historically perceived to be bad schools. Because stigmatization in a world based on the truth would backfire, as suddenly many of the schools they now want to choose would be labeled negatively and stigmatized and no longer be available as a choice. It isn’t just stigmatization that is necessary to justify choice, but stigmatization of the right schools.
The argument for choice falls apart badly when accountability is to the truth.
But let’s get to the basis of the broader argument for school choice proponents in Texas today: NAEP reading scores suck. Therefore, they argue, lets double down on a test-based accountability philosophy that has barely moved the needle in the past thirty years, which therefore isn’t likely to change much going forward, which will leave in place a system that continues to stigmatize schools in poor neighborhoods with large numbers of minority children, which will help keep the school choice conversation alive and well.
If the proper interpretation of NAEP scores is that Texas is in trouble, that would represent a legitimate reason to start searching for causes. One of those would be a thirty-year history of ignorantly clinging to an accountability model that has never made any organization great and pretend that it can. Another would be the ritualistic stigmatization of kids who struggle to learn to read and write. How about the continued marginalization of the educational work force by those who claim to care about education? And the woeful lack of funding? And the fact that education is caught in the perpetual trap of always starting with a narrative of failure. And…
NAEP may well be a clear signal that the educational system in Texas needs a rethinking. So rethink it. Look for causes. Be thorough. Name names if need be and leave no stone unturned. But to say, “hey, we suck, but before you go get all introspective and do the hard work of identifying causes and finding solutions, have we got a deal for you,” needs be seen for what it is: a distraction. An opportunistic land grab. Laziness. An excuse not to tackle hard problems. A willingness to continue stigmatizing students and their neighborhoods who can least afford it in the service of an agenda.
If they are right about NAEP scores signaling something dire about the system of education in Texas, not trying to figure out the why isn’t an argument for anything. It is instead an argument to leave large swaths of children behind, exactly as their signature piece of legislation suggested they weren’t willing to do.
Here’s the bottom line: every school in Texas and across the country is effective in some ways and ineffective in others. That is the truth. If we have that information every school can improve, and no school need suffer the effects of stigmatization, even though the stakes would be unbelievably high. Getting to the truth is the choice we need to make.
We get to the truth for every school and the argument for choice or charters or vouchers or whatever becomes moot, and the only option regarding NAEP scores is to do the hard work we haven’t yet done of solving a real problem.
Some argue that schools are no different than business and should be subject to the same market pressures. However, schools are more like your church than they are like a sporting goods store or another retail operation. People don't switch churches casually in huff. What we need to keep our eye on is the neighborhood school - John is right that we need the truth about our schools to ensure that all of our youth are offered an opportunity to grow and develop.
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