A Tentative Embrace of Charter Schools?

Matt Welch | May 27, 2009

The New Yorker has a fascinating profile [registration required, or just read it for free here] of Los Angeles charter school revolutionary Steve Barr of Green Dot, the outfit that engineered a hostile takeover of one of South Central L.A.'s worst public schools in 2007. It's mostly one of those irrestible force/immovable object stories, in which a hardass discovers at mid-life his calling to take on massively powerful and entrenched public-education bureaucracies, but sprinkled in was some news I hadn't seen about the Obama administration at least paying lip service to the idea of taking Green Dot national:

Barr got a call from thenew Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. He flew to Washington, D.C., at the end of March, for what he expected to be a social visit. At the meeting, Duncan revealed that he was interested in committing several billion dollars of the education stimulus package to a Locke-style takeover and transformation of the lowest-performing one per cent of schools across the country, at least four thousand of hem, in the next several years. The Department of Education would favor districts that agreed to partner with an outside group, like Green Dot. "You seem to have cracked the code," Duncan told Barr. [...]

"We're being asked, 'Could you guys do five schools in L.A. next year? Could you expand beyond L.A.?' If you'd asked a month ago, 'What about Green Dot America?,' I would have said, 'No way.' But if this President wants to get after it I'm going to reconsider." [...]

Duncan asked Barr what it would take to break up and remake thousands of large failing schools. "One, you have to reconstitute," Barr told him--that is, fire everyone and make them reapply or transfer elsewhere in the district. "Arne didn't seem to flinch at that," he said. [...]

This month, Barr expects to meet again with [American Federation of Teachers President Randi] Weingarten and her staff and outline plans for a Green Dot America, a national school-turnaround partnership between Green Dot and the A.F.T. Their first city would most likely be Washington, D.C.

I am more than a tad skeptical about Arne Duncan's commitment to union-challenging reform, particularly in Washington, D.C., and there's something disproportionate about showering cheap praise on the drop while an expensive bucket rots nearby, but at this point in the ongoing travesty that is our public education system I will take what reasons for optimism I can get.

Watch Drew Carey talk about Locke High School below:

Comments

Xeones|5.27.09 @ 10:00AM|#

This would be a refreshing change from the administration's so-far-usual strategy of statist fuckassery. For this reason, though i hope i'm wrong, it's probably too good to be true.

Brian Moore|5.27.09 @ 10:35AM|#

I kinda have the same feeling. I really, really hope this is true, but because I do, I'm almost certain it won't pan out.

|5.27.09 @ 10:40AM|#

Drew Carey is like John Stossel without the Freddie Mercury mustache. I'm practically a gushing fanboi at this point.

It's almost enough to make one a Sounders FC fan.

|5.27.09 @ 10:53AM|#

Duncan asked Barr what it would take to break up and remake thousands of large failing schools. "One, you have to reconstitute," Barr told him--that is, fire everyone and make them reapply or transfer elsewhere in the district. "Arne didn't seem to flinch at that," he said. [...]

Show me.

Full disclosure - I am not now nor have I ever been a Missouri resident.

Some Guy|5.27.09 @ 11:01AM|#

there's something disproportionate about showering cheap praise on the drop while an expensive bucket rots nearby

Ah, the wonder of low expectations.

|5.27.09 @ 11:14AM|#

This would be a refreshing change from the administration's so-far-usual strategy of statist fuckassery.

Not really. This is consistent with the administration's usual disingenuous distraction, with press releases saying one thing while something else altogether is actually being done.

Pending, of course, the administration actually doing something.

Note, however, that what's being talked about here is a federal takeover of local schools. Does that really sound like a good idea? And the caveat that they will take over local schools that "partner with" outside groups opens whole new vistas of abuse. What groups? Partner how?

Why do I suspect that ACORN is about to open a new school subsidiary?

Matt Welch|5.27.09 @ 11:36AM|#

Note, however, that what's being talked about here is a federal takeover of local schools. Does that really sound like a good idea? And the caveat that they will take over local schools that "partner with" outside groups opens whole new vistas of abuse. What groups? Partner how?

Thanks for making the point(s) that I neglected to.

Fascitis Necrotizante|5.27.09 @ 11:57AM|#

What groups? Partner how?

Here's hoping for a fun opportunity to reenact Ocean Hill-Brownsville.

Xeones|5.27.09 @ 11:58AM|#

RC, Matt, the Fed pretty much already took over the local schools. See also: what is this goddamn Department of Education, and why the fuck is it in my Cabinet?

Tim Cavanaugh|5.27.09 @ 8:28PM|#

At the meeting, Duncan revealed that he was interested in committing several billion dollars of the education stimulus package to a Locke-style takeover and transformation of the lowest-performing one per cent of schools across the country, at least four thousand of hem, in the next several years.

What is it with liberal technocrats and their fascination with doing takeovers of "tranches" of lowest-performing schools? Villaraigosa couldn't even do it in Los Angeles; how is Arne Duncan going to Do It To America?

The Locke takeover only happened because the school blew itself up. It seems to me doing a nationwide bottom-one-percent is on the order of Operation Market-Garden in terms of geographical, economical and logistical incoherence. I mean, good on Barr if he tries it, but what does he know about the District of Columbia, Alexandria, Virginia, Beaufort, South Carolina, Ulster, NY and the like?

More to the point, shouldn't the people in those places be starting Green Dots of their own? What's the evidence that good school practices are scalable or exportable or manageable from a central HQ?