Northwest Spring

Rainy Day on the Palouse: Music to Study By

My Latest Daily News Editorial: How effective are charter schools?

Public education in America is in a fallen, corrupt state and charter schools are the imminent savior of our American way of life; that is if we believe the hype from the raft of educational documentaries released in 2010 like “Waiting for Superman”; “The Lottery”; “Teached”; and “The Cartel”. According to these much ballyhooed films the American system of public education is going down the toilet, and charter schools are a big part of the prescription.

When we moved to Moscow in 2006, we enrolled our daughter in kindergarten at Moscow Charter School (MCS) on the recommendation of some community members. I still recall our first visit to the MCS campus in March 2006; although the academic achievement of MCS students was above average, I was primarily impressed by the community and competency displayed by the teachers and students. In 2007 my wife became president of the Parent Advisory Team at MCS, and in 2008 I joined the MCS Board of Directors. My tenure on the MCS Board taught me many valuable, bittersweet lessons.

Contrary to popular belief, charter schools are public schools and are funded by public dollars. The simplest way to describe how charters differ from “regular” public schools is that they trade funding for flexibility. Charter schools are able to stretch a buck further than most “regular” public schools. This is both a good and a bad thing. Charter schools receive the basic per pupil allotment from the state of Idaho but are unable to benefit from monies raised through local levies. School districts in Idaho were able to absorb drastic education cuts last year through local levy money, but not charter schools. Thus charter schools are hit much harder in difficult financial times than regular public schools.

In spite of these funding discrepancies, most charter schools in Idaho still offer smaller class sizes and more diverse programming than regular public schools. For example, the teacher to pupil ratio at MCS is about 20 to 1, significantly lower than most public elementary schools in Idaho. MCS, through donations and community support also continues to offer foreign language, arts, P.E., drama, music, and technology programming, whereas many public elementary schools in Idaho have seen the slow elimination of many of these programs. Tom Luna’s proposed agenda for reform will surely see the elimination of many more of these programs in the future along with an exponential increase in class size in most regular public schools in Idaho.

Despite their relative efficiency and diverse programs charter schools are, unfortunately, no better at increasing student achievement than regular public schools. Last year, a major longitudinal study by the U.S. Department of Education showed that over the past 8 years, the testing and achievement results at charter schools are on par with other public schools; charter schools are no better and no worse. Certainly there are shining examples of outstanding charter schools that challenge this finding, but there are also shining examples of “regular” public schools that challenge the notion that all schools in America are failing our children.

Where charter schools really shine is in the creation of a committed community of learners. Research over the past 10 years, while critical of the scholastic value of charter schools, has shown that students, teachers, and parents are more connected and involved in the day-to-day activities of the school. Regular public schools have a tendency to lose kids and families because of their large size and bureaucratic mazes; charter schools are small enough that parents can get involved with every aspect of their child’s education. Successful charter schools have a committed core of parents and teachers who are invested in the success of that school, and although that’s not an element of excellence that Tom Luna or the federal government is interested in measuring, it is the primary reason why, for me and my family, we choose the charter school.

Music for CORE 105/155: The Monsters We Make

"What Is Normal" Core Discovery Class ITunes Mix

November Editorial: On Education Policy, the Tea Party, and ME!

I think that it’s important to point out that one of the strongest messages delivered by the electorate last week is: Education is not important to Idahoans.  Idahoans reelected the only governor in the history of Idaho to cut public education funding, a superintendent of public instruction who has no experience in the classroom, and many of the legislators who shepherded these cuts through the legislature.  Thankfully, here in Latah County, we retained legislators who value public education and are strong advocates for our schools…but, this past election also highlighted a strange political divide around the issue of public education.

I freely admit that my political leanings tend to the left and, like many others in Latah County, I am not a really big fan of the Tea Party movement and its anti-government libertarian agenda, but as I began to notice Gresham Bouma’s “Burma Shave” signs I found myself agreeing with his message about education.  Me, a liberal intellectual, agreeing with a Tea Party Republican about public education policy!  I couldn’t believe it at first, but I have come to accept that Bouma’s message about local control is of the utmost importance if the American public school system is to survive.

Since the Reagan administration, the federal government has slowly expanded its reach into educational policy.  Reagan’s original intent was to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, but the release of a scathing report by his handpicked National Commission on Excellence in Education titled “A Nation at Risk” backfired.  “A Nation at Risk” argued for increased federal oversight and touched off a political tidal wave of increasingly heavy-handed federal education mandates.  The most recent of these being the infamous No Child Left Behind, currently due for reauthorization by the new Congress.

Education policy is now dictated by politicians who see public education as a tool to promote their agendas and influence the electorate.  The past twenty-five years of federal policy has removed educational decision-making from the hands of professional educators and has perpetuated the mindset that “those who can do, and those who can’t teach”.   Our political system has devalued and deprofessionalized educators.  Decisions about curriculum, assessment, classroom management, and more are now made by the least qualified: politicians and interest groups. 

Education policy has homogenized curricula and assessment across the country because politicians don’t trust educators.   We have schools obsessed by content standards and yearly test scores.  Schools across the country are now driven by what students (supposedly) need to learn, instead of teaching students how to learn.  Knowledge has been politicized through increased federal and state oversight of the curriculum.  Politicians can dictate what they think students should know, but this is an amateur approach to education that divorces the content of education from the process of learning.  Trained educators wouldn’t make this mistake, but they are forced to work within an educational system that requires them to live with this mistake every day.

Idaho is no different.  Despite our collective tendency to distrust the federal government, we have elected officials who support and perpetuate educational mandates that erode the authority and professionalism of our teachers and administrators.  Teachers and students have become political pawns upon whose back Governor Otter and the Legislature balance the budget.  The State Department of Education is obsessively preoccupied with the costly pursuit of ensuring compliance with federal mandates, and meanwhile my daughter has to bring home roughly stapled photocopies of reading books because there are only 7 books for her whole first grade class.  

So, if anything I’ve learned something through the past election cycle it is:  1) Mr. Bouma and I may have something in common.  I think we might agree that allowing communities, educators, and parents to take a more active, collaborative role in running schools is a better alternative to the direction we are currently heading, and 2) never underestimate the educational value of a well-placed, pithy “Bouma Shave” sign.

My Latest Newspaper Editorial: Sheltered Workshops Tarnish ADA's Intent

Here's the original: http://www.dnews.com/story/Opinion/54215/

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  The passage of the ADA by the George H.W. Bush administration was seen as a landmark civil rights policy for people with disabilities and was touted as a step toward ending discrimination on the basis of ability in the United States. Although the ADA has provided impetus for many important changes, the overall intent of the law has not been fulfilled.

As a researcher in the field of disability studies, I am very interested in the origins of attitudes toward individuals with disabilities and other physical differences. Over the years I have consistently identified a disturbing undercurrent of bitterness toward individuals with disabilities. A couple of years ago I spoke with a group of teachers from across Idaho about students with disabilities, and I was honestly shocked by some of their responses. One teacher said: "The handicapped kids give me a job, but I often wonder if I'm wasting my time. Most of the kids I work with won't grow up to have jobs, pay taxes, or contribute to the community; they will just be a burden on the system when they grow up." To be fair, this sentiment is widely held by many across our community and country. 

We live in a culture that is hopelessly preoccupied with physical perfection, and we are quick to judge those who appear or behave differently. We also live in a country that equates an individual's social worth with "productivity" - we glorify those who can generate/accumulate capital and look good while doing it. These distorted values leave many of us disillusioned and demoralized, but it also provides the energy for perpetuating destructive stereotypes about individuals with disabilities as unproductive, helpless and objects of pity. 

The ADA was drafted to combat the discrimination and prejudice that historically has relegated people with disabilities to the role of recipients of charity. The overall intent of the ADA was to extend basic civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities who experience discrimination in employment, housing, transportation, education and community life. The idea was to change society's treatment of people with disabilities, and to provide the legal recognition of individuals with disabilities as equal, productive members of American society. 

The ADA dramatically altered the urban landscape for individuals with disabilities in larger cities - curb cuts, ramps and accessible public transportation are now important elements of the U.S. urban geography, but individuals with disabilities in rural areas, and especially Idaho, still have to deal with a widespread dearth of public transportation, accessible homes and businesses, community resources and viable employment opportunities. Unfortunately, Idaho is a state that is severely underdeveloped in the area of viable employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Nationally, the rate of unemployment for people with disabilities is an astounding 63.2 percent. In Idaho the rate of unemployment for individuals with disabilities is 57.4 percent, according a 2009 report issued by the Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics. Admittedly, Idaho is doing marginally better than the national average, but Idaho's numbers can be deceiving. Idaho is a state that still supports a large sheltered workshop industry where people with disabilities are employed for extremely low pay in dead-end, grindingly boring jobs. Most sheltered workshops also are exempt from minimum wage laws, a fact that makes them one of the sole bastions of modern slave labor in the U.S.

Sheltered workshops are counterproductive to the intent of the ADA. People with disabilities deserve the opportunity to hold meaningful, community-based jobs and to be viewed as truly productive members of their communities and the state. Idaho has a moral imperative to address the disability employment situation in our state. The ADA is a good foundation, but it doesn't change attitudes or provide jobs. As disability activist Mary Johnson has noted: "A law cannot guarantee what a culture will not give."