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Posts Tagged ‘public education’
March 26th, 2012 at 1:39 pm
Meet Your Next Secretary of Education
Posted by Print

If the next Republican president has a brain in his head — and if the federal Department of Education must remain (it sadly seems as if we’re beyond a day when cabinet departments can disappear, their very existence now functioning as prima facie evidence of their worth) — he’ll pick Michelle Rhee to be his Secretary of Education.

Rhee spent three years as the chancellor of Washington D.C.’s public schools — one of the nation’s worst (and most expensive) educational systems — before resigning in the fall of 2010 with the election of a new mayor. During that time, Rhee was a game-changer, firing nearly 250 under-performing teachers in one blow, closing down failing schools, and devising an extraordinarily clever workaround for tenure reform.

These days, Rhee is running an education non-profit and living in Sacramento, where her husband, former NBA star Kevin Johnson, is the mayor. In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend, she demonstrated why — in addition to her impressive record — she has the chops to be the next Secretary of Education; Because she not only has a strong grasp on first principles, but an artful way of presenting them:

Q: You are archenemy No. 1, according to the teachers unions. Do you see a way to work with them rather than wage war with them?

Rhee: First of all, we definitely did not wage war on the union. In fact, the union has very little to do with what we’re focused on really at all.

What we are focused on is a pro-kid agenda. And if we have to fight the existing district bureaucracy, state legislators, teachers, whoever is standing in the way of kids getting the education they deserve and trying to protect the status quo, and maintain the way things are, we’re going to be willing to fight against any of those.

I believe that the teachers unions are doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. They were designed to be professional organizations that protect the rights and privileges and pay of their members. … The problem is that we don’t have an organized national interest group with the same heft as the teachers union that’s advocating on behalf of children.

This, it seems to me, is a remarkably sober response to the ever-expanding influence of teacher unions on education policy: I will not decry you, I will simply defeat you. Game on, Madame Secretary.

April 29th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Community Organizing Targets Public Education

Conservatives are rightly convinced that private sector initiative is the key ingredient to almost every major improvement, be it economical, cultural, etc.  But before individuals can make big changes, they must be legally allowed to do so.

Thanks to Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top program, states like California opened up their public school districts to more parent involvement.  (These kinds of reforms are necessary to qualify for Race to the Top funding.)

According to Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles-based organization helping parents maximize their rights under the law,

The Parent Trigger is a historic new law that gives parents in California the right to force a transformation of their child’s current or future failing school. All parents need to do is organize – if 51% of them get together and sign an official Parent Trigger petition, they have the power to force their school district to transform the school.

If successful, parents have five options:

1) Charter conversion:

If there is a nearby charter school that is outperforming your child’s failing school, parents can bring in that charter school to transform the failing school. The school will then be run by that charter school, not the school district, but it will continue to serve all the same students that have always attended the school.

2) Turnaround:

If parents want huge changes but want to leave the school district in charge, this option may be for them. It forces the school district to hit the reset button by bringing in a new staff and giving the local school community more control over staffing and budget.

3) Transformation:

This is the least significant change. It force the school district to find a new principal, and make a few other small changes.

4) Closure:

This option would close the school altogether and send the students to other, higher-performing schools nearby.  Parent Revolution does NOT recommend this option to parents – we believe schools must be transformed, not closed.

5) Bargaining power:

If parents want smaller changes but the school district just won’t listen to them, they can organize, get to 51%, and use their signatures as bargaining power.

Parents get to pick which option they want for their children and their school. For a much more detailed overview of each one of these options, please click here.

All public policy needs to do is create space for private initiative to occur.  Once it does, the ingenuity of the American people will make the most of the opportunity.

For more on Parent Revolution, click here.

March 14th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Detroit Public Schools Charter a New Course

For every crisis there is an opportunity.  The Detroit public school system is in a fiscal state of emergency with a mandate to eliminate its $327 million deficit.  At first, leadership planned to close 40 of the district’s 142 schools.

Now, more innovative heads have prevailed.  Yesterday it was announced that instead of closing schools the district would convert 41 of them into privately-run charter schools.  Estimated savings to the taxpayer: more than $28 million.  Estimated benefit to parents looking for a hand-up out of failing classrooms: priceless.

Of course, teachers’ union advocates bristle at the idea that nearly one-third of their Detroit membership will be laid off and required to reapply for jobs without costly pension funds and tenure protection.

But the data doesn’t support the status quo.  Since Louisiana lawmakers transformed New Orleans into the only public school system where a majority of students attend charter schools, scores on student achievement exams have risen dramatically.

Louisiana’s reform was made possible by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.  Michigan’s ongoing financial crisis may be just the opportunity Detroit families need to get the education – and the tax relief – they deserve.