Public Schools: Kicking Ass and Taking Names
October 2nd, 2006 | by Craig |I understand that I’m taking a somewhat extreme case here, but I have to ask my sinestra pals: Is this failure, or what? And how would you propose to fix it? More money, maybe?
These are all from Detroit Public Schools, which is, hands down, one of the worst school districts in the nation. The local boards recently regained control from the state, which took them over in 2000 after a long string of problems ranging from corruption to incompetence and everything in between.
So, how fare they now?
A 16-day teacher strike may have cost Detroit Public Schools 25,000 students, district officials said Thursday, a potential loss that would mean a cut of $190 million in state aid and almost certainly another dramatic downsizing of schools and employees.
[…]
The district is embarking on a massive campaign to woo students back, with phone calls and letters to every student’s home, enlisting the help of community groups and churches, in addition to count-day pizza and ice cream parties to make sure students are in school Wednesday.
Detroit News, 9/22/06
So where did these students go?
Detroit Public Schools may have lost 25,000 students, but few suburban school districts or charter schools are reporting large influxes of new students this year.
[…]
William Kiefer, associate superintendent of the Warren Consolidated Schools district, called Detroit’s numbers “mind-blowing.” Many surrounding school districts are not Schools of Choice that could accept Detroit students. But even if all suburban districts could accept Detroit students, he still doesn’t see how they could absorb so many.
Detroit Mackenzie High School has seen a noticeable drop in enrollment since school started. Asked where he thinks all the students went, Principal Bernard Bonam said: “I have no idea; I really don’t have any idea.
Detroit News, 9/22/06
I wonder where they’ve gone. The next story gives a hint.
Benjamin and Tanya Marshall are part of a new home-schooling movement led by black families fed up with the public school system.
Nine years ago, the Suisun City, Calif., couple put their oldest son, Trevaughn, in kindergarten after discussing teaching him at home. When he had a substitute teacher several times in his first six weeks, they pulled him out.
[…]
A desire for more rigorous academics and greater emphasis on black history also has led black families into home schooling, educators say.
Although home-schoolers often are stereotyped as white and evangelical Christians, in 2003 about 9 percent of home-schooled students were black, and 77 percent were white, compared with a total student population nationwide that was 16 percent black and 62 percent white.
The numbers of black and white home-schoolers rose about a third from 1999 to 2003 to encompass about 1.3 percent of U.S. black students and 2.7 percent of whites.
Researchers say the number of black parents who are home schooling their children may be growing even faster.
Detroit News, 9/27/06
I know that the couple in question isn’t in Detroit, but it’s still interesting, yes?
But wait! There’s more!
Jack Barnhart, 11, sometimes acts out by screaming and crying.
Once, when a teacher could not convince the autistic child to cooperate, she dragged him by his feet across the classroom, causing a carpet burn on his back, according to his mother, Karen Barnhart.
She took him out of Birmingham Public Schools and put him in a private school.
[…]
Many parents complain that some special education teachers and educators are unqualified, a problem compounded by “inclusion,” which puts special-needs students into general classrooms. The districts say they’re doing the best they can under trying circumstances.
Fair enough, but why aren’t there qualified teachers?
The wide array of impairments that fall under the special education umbrella has outstripped districts’ ability to manage them, according to Kathleen Golinski, executive director of special education for the Oakland Intermediate School District.
“There are 847 regulations a special education administrator is supposed to be on top of,” she said.
“The nature of the role is so large, it can be overwhelming. It is one of the hardest jobs there is in the district.”
Detroit News, 9/27/06
Granted, picking on Detroit is hitting the low-hanging fruit, but the system there is failing, and it’s failing badly, and parents have no recourse. Many schools around the area won’t take students from Detroit, so for a lot of students there is no chance of going elsewhere for a good education.
Interestingly enough, the district is contracting with other schools to boost their count and get more money.
Granted, more money isn’t the solution, but can you guess who could potentially trip them up?
If you guessed the teacher’s union, you are correct.
School district officials signed contracts with a dozen alternative high schools on Wednesday, just in time for those students to boost enrollment numbers on the statewide count day.
The future of those schools is uncertain, however, because the schools require waivers from the Detroit Federation of Teachers that will allow them to hire teachers who do not fall under the union’s collective bargaining agreement.
The battle over these waivers has informally reopened contract negotiations between the district and the union. The first round of negotiations sparked a 16-day strike that delayed the start of school by more than a week.
[…]
Janna Garrison, president of the union, said she is willing to give the schools one-year waivers under three conditions:
- If the district pays for its own attorney fees incurred seeking a court order to end the strike
- The district pays the fees for retired Judge James Rashid, who was ordered by the courts to join the negotiations.
- The district returns preparation hours for K-5 teachers, one of the concessions the union made in the tentative agreement brokered Sept. 12 that ended a 16-day teacher walkout.
District officials criticized the union, blaming them for the 11th-hour approval of the contracts and saying the union was using the waivers as a “bargaining chip” to try to reopen negotiations.
“It’s absurd,” Womack said. “How dare you hold the district hostage, but how dare you hold at-risk students hostage?”
He said the district is willing to pay attorneys’ and judges’ fees, but is not willing to renegotiate the contract.
Garrison reasoned that the district would be getting millions of dollars from the students. She added that district officials did not approach her for the waivers until Friday.
“Now they’re going to get this money that they were not expecting,” she said.
Detroit News, 9/28/06
My solution? I think this makes a good case for charter schools and vouchers. If your school isn’t doing the job, you should be able to vote with your pocketbook and find one that does. Withdraw the money until they clean up their house and begin to focus on what schools are supposed to be about: education.
As school district officials stressed on Friday that attendance figures — 25,000 less than expected — will rise by count day next week, business and community leaders expressed fears that any significant loss of students will have a negative “ripple effect” on the region.
“Education is a very important ingredient when trying to attract knowledge-based jobs,” said Richard Blouse Jr., president of the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce.
If companies seeking to locate in the city don’t have faith in the schools, they may think twice about coming, Blouse said, adding that the impact would cost jobs in not just the city, but throughout southeast Michigan.
Detroit News, 9/23/06
6 Responses to “Public Schools: Kicking Ass and Taking Names”
By Shane Mason on Oct 2, 2006 | Reply
Craig,
Don’t be silly. You can’t just solve every problem with money. There needs to be an insertion of competence into the system. More money might help attract better teachers and more effective administrators. It might not though.
I can say this: My daughter went to a private school for her earliest years. It was much less effective and instructive than moving her to a private school. Time was not spent efficiently, the teachers seemed really scared of the ‘richer’ parents. It was a mess.
How about just trying the money route a little. JUST a little. What is Iraq at now, about 331,000,000,000. That would hire about 6 million new teachers for 1 year (or 1 million for 6 years). Maybe we could spend just a small fragment of that money to figure out where the heck the problem really is.
By Craig on Oct 3, 2006 | Reply
I didn’t say that you could solve the problem with money, other than using it as a tool to hold the system accountable.
The links I gave above show how desperate these schools are for funds. If they don’t perform, then take the funds to someone who will.
Giving them more money will just give them an opportunity to bleed it in new and innovative ways.
The teachers unions have shown repeatedly that they are no friends of education. Their only interest is in securing more money.
How to put competence back into the system? Start firing bad teachers. Easy in theory; hard in practice. That would be, again, thanks to the unions.
Joe Clark should be brought in to these failing schools and get them squared around.
Yeah, that would be a good start.
By DMerriman on Oct 3, 2006 | Reply
Let’s not forget another factor: parents. Specifically, the ones that expect the school system to take care of things that the parents can’t/won’t be bothered with; or the ones that refuse to hold their own kids accountable for their (mis)deeds in school; or simply don’t give a hoot, and seem to figure school is another kind of daycare/sitting service.
Any parent that fusses about the school system needs to be asked “Okay, so where are YOU on Parent-Teacher night?”
By Gman on Oct 3, 2006 | Reply
Excellent post!
Craig, I was sold on vouchers because it’s a conservative thing…until I read this article back in 1995.
Rule of thumb: Gov’t subsidy (even if indirect) is followed by gov’t intervention.
Thoughts?
By Dani on Oct 3, 2006 | Reply
I took a class on teaching gifted kids from MSUB several years ago. There were a few other parents there, too. It was interesting to hear the conversations. Many of the teachers expressed that exact concern- that we would want to homeschool our kids, because the school district would lose money. To me that didn’t seem like the most compelling reason to want to keep the gifted kids, but oh well.
Gman, that article was written by a college freshman. The references were terrible and not actually supported by real data as far as I can tell. It’s been twelve years since then. Surely better information is available to see whether the fears of government intervention have come to pass in areas that do have vouchers. That would be of great concern to me as well, and certainly people have argued that point, but has it happened? I don’t know.
As far as bad kids coming to private schools, well that happens anyway. They last a few weeks, and get booted out. Private schools can do that much more easily. Also, the really bad kids don’t ever move out of public schools because their parents don’t give a damn, which, of course is why the kids are no good in the first place. Evidently, the parochial schools in Chicago weren’t afraid of this potential problem- long ago Cardinal Bernardin challenged the public schools to send the worst of the lot, but got no takers.
By Gman on Oct 4, 2006 | Reply
Dani, it happened at Hillsdale and Grove City Colleges. It’s not whether the abuse is happening; it’s whether there is a potential for it. Why would a private school want to compromise its independence by taking gov’t subsidized vouchers? Heck, look at legislative proposals all over the country seeking to force homeschooling parents to get a license to teach. The nanny state control mongers are out there, Dani. Just because vouchers are a cause celebre for conservatives, doesn’t make it good public policy. Regardless, vouchers do little to disrupt the gov’t monopoly on education. Privatization is the policy that will really inject competition into the education market. Too many are afraid that the private market won’t be able to handle the task, yet it does so for millions and millions of goods and services.