Mr. Obama, Tear Down This Educational Wall!

Nick Gillespie | March 25, 2009

In The New York Post, Reason contributor Ryan Sager writes up a recent Rand Corp. study that finds charter schools are generally effective in helping the kids that attend them. And he praises President Obama for rhetorically defending school choice (and enacting it by sending his daughters to a private school) but argues that simple jawboning won't bring real reform:

The president's rhetorical support of school reform alone has helped to shift the education debate, putting teachers unions on notice: Even under a Democratic president, they can't safely stick to the status quo. It's also given the cover of the president's enthusiastic support to state and local legislators who'd like to come out strongly in favor of charters.

But it's not enough.

Consider New York, which finally raised its [charter school] cap in 2007, to 200 from 100 in exchange for a law that automatically unionizes charter schools whose enrollment goes over 250 students.

The cap at 100 stunted the growth of charter for years. The new cap provides a little more breathing room, but New York already has 115 charter schools operating, with 30 more approved to open in the next 18 months. The cap will at least need to be lifted again soon; it should be scrapped.

Or consider Ohio, a state that is analyzed in the Rand study and whose Gov. Ted Strickland wants to cut charter school spending by 20 percent (despite the fact that charter schools receive $5,700 per student versus close to $10,000 per student in traditional public schools).

What should Obama do to back up his words? Sager says the president should do "something bold to help Paterson and other charter-supporting governors and legislators around the country:"

Tie one or more federal funding streams to the lifting of the caps.

The most logical candidate would be the "incentive and innovation grants" in the stimulus bill. It's a $5 billion pot of money over which Education Secretary Arne Duncan (a reformer out of the Chicago school system) has almost complete discretion.

Whole thing here. Hmm, that comes dangerously close to making me think the stimulus bill might not be totally awful.

Comments

TofuSushi|3.25.09 @ 10:00AM|#

If the government would require private schools to have Ayn Rand on their reading lists this problem would go away.

Taktix®|3.25.09 @ 10:05AM|#

And he praises President Obama for rhetorically defending school choice...

What?!?

I'd put more stock in his pen hand than his mouth, since he signed the bill ending D.C.'s voucher program.

When will people learn that politicians lie. They all fucking lie. How is that not common knowledge?!?

Reinmoose|3.25.09 @ 10:10AM|#

But this time it's different, Taktix.

Hope!
Change!

Reinmoose|3.25.09 @ 10:12AM|#

Really, though, I think it's a survival instinct. If we keep alive the hope that he's not really intending to do the terrible things he says and is really intending to do things he doesn't say or says infrequently, then we can go about our lives in peace.

Isn't that, after all, what made a lot of people (including staff at Reason) vote for him?

Disclosure: I voted for Bobbarr

Warty|3.25.09 @ 10:26AM|#

Ted Strickland is an utter asshole. Yo, fuck that guy.

SpongePaul|3.25.09 @ 10:26AM|#

The reason private schools are better and have higher standards than the public schools is because they don't have to listen to all the Gov rigamaroe and red tape. they are free to disiplin and educaste as they see fit. and thye usually do it for less per student than the public schools. tuition to a catholic school is 10-12 per year. this state spends 14,500 per student and is last or damn near last in education. and the private schools get no taxpayer money and still are better. THe only problem is people who choose to send thier kids to the good schools still have to pay for everyone elses crap education.

|3.25.09 @ 10:41AM|#

The president's rhetorical support = bullshit on toast.

Agree? Disagree?

TofuSushi|3.25.09 @ 11:21AM|#

Disagree R C.

|3.25.09 @ 11:25AM|#

The reason private schools are better and have higher standards than the public schools is because they don't have to listen to all the Gov rigamaroe and red tape. they are free to disiplin and educaste as they see fit.

They also get to discriminate who they let in.

Of course charter schools are going to be better when in order to be allowed to attend you have to take exams and compete with other students and the school gets to pick the best students. Non-charter don't have that luxury.

We have charter schools here in Chicago and they all require testing and other criteria for consideration to get in. (Connections help to...principles get a finite number of picks that they can use to enroll kids without having to compete against all the others)

|3.25.09 @ 12:10PM|#

When will people learn that politicians lie. They all fucking lie. How is that not common knowledge?!? [emphasis added]

When I hear politicians that's my default position. I'm right far mare than I'm wrong.

|3.25.09 @ 12:16PM|#

They also get to discriminate who they let in.

Of course charter schools are going to be better when in order to be allowed to attend you have to take exams and compete with other students and the school gets to pick the best students. Non-charter don't have that luxury.

We have charter schools here in Chicago and they all require testing and other criteria for consideration to get in. (Connections help to...principles get a finite number of picks that they can use to enroll kids without having to compete against all the others)

Dunno 'bout Chicago but in Michigan if more apply to a charter school than seats are available, a lottery is used to select who gets in. Charter schools are, after all, public schools.

IOW, linky-link please?

Which leads to the obvious Linky-link

|3.25.09 @ 12:17PM|#

Delete redundant last line of my previous.

|3.25.09 @ 1:06PM|#

Dunno 'bout Chicago but in Michigan if more apply to a charter school than seats are available, a lottery is used to select who gets in. Charter schools are, after all, public schools.

J sub D,

My bad. There is a lottery in Chicago as well. The article I read that I was basing my comment on was talking about the principle's perogative (that priciples have X number of seats set aside for them to place whoever they want in the school outside of the lottery process)

Although, unlike public schools Charter schools can kick kids out for whatever reasons they see fit and send them back to non-charter neighborhood schools. Chicago's charter schools get to set their own policies and disiplinary codes and have been accused of dis-enrolling the kids who have behavioral issues and some of the kids that don't perform as well.

Linky : http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1337780,CST-NWS-skul18.article

|3.25.09 @ 1:25PM|#

Although, unlike public schools Charter schools can kick kids out for whatever reasons they see fit and send them back to non-charter neighborhood schools. Chicago's charter schools get to set their own policies and disiplinary codes and have been accused of dis-enrolling the kids who have behavioral issues and some of the kids that don't perform as well.

But not everyone was full of praise for Duncan's initiatives. With the school closing hit list due next month, teachers charged that CPS charter schools -- which have replaced some closed schools -- are "destroying'' neighborhood schools by luring away high-scoring kids. Meanwhile, they said, neighborhood schools are being forced to absorb low-scoring kids.

Jesse Sharkey, a Senn High union delegate, said that after a fight at a charter school in March, 19 kids showed up at Senn with letters saying they had been "dis-enrolled'' from the school. Charters "are allowed to kick people off the island,'' Sharkey said. "We're supposed to take all children. How is that fair?"

AI see an unbacked claim from an public school supporter about charter schools only accepting the better students and a verifiable claim that they expel violent misfits.

Kinda like the public schools should be doing, huh?

Matt|3.25.09 @ 1:58PM|#

I really see no logical argument against school choice and I especially hate it when politicians - most of whom send their kids to private schools - don't support it.

Effectively, they're saying "A private school education is for us, rich, entitled people, you poor families send your kids to shit schools."

I was fortunate enough to go to a Catholic elementary school and high school, and if it wasn't for my Catholic high school education I certainly wouldn't be where I am now.

|3.25.09 @ 2:19PM|#

I was fortunate enough to go to a Catholic elementary school and high school, and if it wasn't for my Catholic high school education I certainly wouldn't be where I am now.

I went to a damned fine public school system.

I don't see that as a reason to support completely failed public school systems.

|3.25.09 @ 3:26PM|#

No, really, what's wrong with Ted Strickland?

Paul|3.25.09 @ 5:41PM|#

The president's rhetorical support = bullshit on toast.

Agree? Disagree?
TofuSushi | March 25, 2009, 11:21am | #

Disagree R C.

Disagree, it's more Bullshit on a cracker.

|3.25.09 @ 5:44PM|#

ChicagoTom, you might want to acquire some chocolate sauce for your toes, as you seem to be putting them in your mouth a lot recently.

Perhaps you could, you know, verify the liberal talking points before sullying your good name by posting them. Because I care.

Mad Max|3.25.09 @ 11:59PM|#

'praises President Obama for rhetorically defending school choice (and enacting it by sending his daughters to a private school)'

Good for President Obama! His duties as a father take precedence over his duties as PotUS. His paternal duties are prior in time, and in the order of nature.

His two daughters are the only two Americans whom the President has the right to treat paternalistically.

If, however, the President decides to get involved in educational policy, he should be involved on the right side, not the wrong side like now.

'Although, unlike public schools Charter schools can kick kids out for whatever reasons they see fit and send them back to non-charter neighborhood schools.'

In Chicago, that would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Jeff Balla|3.26.09 @ 1:28AM|#

Nick, it sounds like you're in favor of earmarking money from the "$5 billion pot" to go to support charter schools.

Gosh, and I thought you opposed earmarks!