Re: AP's Ben Feller: Media Stooge for Privatization

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

On May 10, 2006, at 8:25 PM, Horn, James wrote:
> From Feller:
>
>
>         When a school reaches the end of the line, its district has  
> five choices:
>
>         1. Hire an outside organization to run the school.
>
>         2. Reopen the school as a charter school, with new  
> leadership and less regulation.
>
>         3. Replace most or all of the school staff with any ties to  
> the school's failure.
>
>         4. Turn operation of the school over to the state, if the  
> state agrees.
>
>         5. Choose any other major restructuring that will  
> fundamentally reform the school.
I'm not clear on who is actually authorized by the law to make these  
kinds of decisions. State departments of ed? School districts? School  
building principals? And does this vary from state to state? In the  
Feller piece (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/ 
6420AP_School_Makeovers.html), the following info appears:

--snip--


Most districts are opting for the last choice, a wide-open category.  
It allows for approaches that are easier to pull off than firing  
teachers or opening under new management. "Most schools are not doing  
radical things," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on  
Education Policy, which has studied restructuring efforts in  
California and Michigan. "They are offering professional development,  
rethinking the curriculum, bringing coaches in, and trying to improve  
the school without wiping the slate clean," he said. In Michigan,  
many schools improved their test scores by using a mix of strategies,  
a good lesson for other states, Jennings said.


The Education Department monitors whether districts are restructuring  
schools and aims to help them assist. But it does not get involved in  
how they do it. "I don't know that we have a preferred way," said  
(Assistant Education Secretary Henry) Johnson, the Education  
Department official. "Whatever way that works is the preferred way."

Maryland tried a get-tough approach. The state schools chief ordered  
a state takeover of 11 struggling schools in Baltimore, invoking the  
federal law. But Democratic state lawmakers halted the plan, then  
overrode the Republican governor's veto when he intervened.

--snip--

So from the above, we see districts acting, schools acting, and a  
state department of education acting. Does the law have any language  
on this?

It appears to me that option 5 (above) does not represent a loophole  
so much as a sign of hope in the Bush administration's plans to  
scuttle public schools as we know them. If schools can make it  
through the gauntlet of public shaming that failure to make AYP  
involves, and if districts really are empowered to make decisions  
about how to address their needs, then perhaps NCLB was just a bad  
dream. After all, if the end of the line really is, "Choose any other  
major restructuring that will fundamentally reform the school," then  
what do schools have to fear?

But do all school districts really have the freedom to exercise this  
kind of autonomy and judgement? In Feller's frame, schools are taking  
advantage of a loophole, as mouthed by Fordham's Petrilli. But what  
are the actual data saying on this? Jack Jennings says that "most  
schools (in California and Michigan) are not doing radical  
things," ("offering professional development, rethinking the  
curriculum, bringing coaches in, and trying to improve the school  
without wiping the slate clean.") Even if this is the case, what are  
most schools doing in other states, not just California and Michigan?  
As the Feller piece notes, "Seven states - California, Georgia,  
Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania - account  
for almost 70 percent of all schools ordered to restructure." What  
will the other 43 states do as their schools inexorably reach the  
failure zone? And as the Feller piece cryptically concludes,  
"Education Department officials caution that the current numbers are  
still being verified."

I smell a rat here.

As we have seen in Baltimore, Philadelphia, the SF Bay Area, Chicago,  
and more and more in St. Louis, certainly urban school districts have  
nothing like this kind of autonomy and ability to exercise  
professional judgement. As we have seen, it's usually a Broad/Edison/ 
Gates/KIPP style headlock that schools are subjected to. And while  
school boards themselves are penetrated by Broad, et al (see http:// 
www.wweek.com/editorial/3226/7507 for a report on Broad and Portland  
public schools), we see the public being whipped into a "I hate  
public schools" frenzy that pieces like Feller's only serve to  
foment. If schools are depicted as basically thumbing their noses at  
accountability -- "If parents get information that their school is  
failing for six straight years, and everyone keeps their job, how is  
that a restructuring?" --, they cannot expect to enjoy public support  
much longer.

Therefore, to hasten the demise of public schools, it's the same old  
bash and chip strategy that right-to-lifers have put to such  
effective use.