DriveThru – Get What You Need

More than 1 million students don’t finish high school each year—that’s nearly one in three, according to President Obama.

Hmm. How to fix this problem.

Hey …I have an idea. What about actually making the schools accountable to parents? How about letting parents use a portion of their tax dollars to choose the best school, public or private, in their area?

That puts the power in parents’ hands. It’s a market-driven way to spur reform —and best of all, there’s factual proof school choice works.

Oh wait—that idea’s already been axed by the Obama administration.

That’s the problem with big government. It always wants to keep the power in its hands. In fact, when it comes right down to it, it looks like this government would rather support firing teachers, than empowering parents.

This week President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, stirred the waters by praising a Rhode Island school board that fired all the staff—teachers, principals, counselors, everyone— in a small-town high school that was graduating less than half of its students. The board took this action after the teachers’ union blocked reform efforts minus significant extra pay.

In fact,  President Obama has made the Rhode Island school board the new poster child for his latest education initiative— $900 million worth of federal grants so states can “turnaround” their lowest performing schools. (This follows last year’s $3.5 billion allotment.)

“Turnaround” means they have choices ranging from converting the school to a charter, putting it under new management or, as is happening in Rhode Island, firing and replacing at least half of the staff.

While the effort to rescue kids trapped in failing schools—and buck unions entrenched in the status quo—is extremely heartening, at the same time, a top-down, government-directed strategy remains short-sighted.

Because it still makes the schools primarily accountable to big government—not parents, who are actually closest to the kids and the neighborhood schools they attend, and therefore have the best understanding of what’s really happening on the ground.

For instance, parents in Chicago—where Arne Duncan first tried out this “turnaround” strategy—have voiced concerns about whether their children actually end up in a better school after the original one is transformed or eliminated. They pointed to a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research “showing that most students affected by closings were transferred into schools that also were academically weak,” reported a New York Times article.

Why not avoid these entanglements by just putting the power in the parents’ hands in the first place? After all, we know school choice works. But there’s scant evidence that turnarounds work.

And what was that again President Obama said about making “whether it works” the test for his policies?

There’s been a growing movement afoot for states to “voluntarily” adopt national curriculum standards. So far 47 states have signed up (the holdouts are Alaska, Texas and South Carolina).

“Voluntary” is a subjective word, since it’s becoming obvious how the Obama Administration intends to use federal funding as a stick to force contrarians into line.

While this is a concerning trend, it’s not really time for flashing sirens yet—because, so far, academics are still fighting amongst themselves over who exactly should have input into the final standards and what they should look like. It remains to be seen whether the states can agree.

So I guess you could say the threat level is yellow.  In the meantime, we can look to England for some insight into where this might lead.

In 1989, England implemented a national curriculum with a call for uniformity on core subjects. But what started as core standards, now includes compulsory sex education classes that teach kids about homosexuality and same-sex unions.   Apparently, faith-based schools are not exempt—they’ll have to engage in controversial teaching, while explaining that it “runs contrary to their religious beliefs.”

Others experts have expressed concerns that politically correct agendas are edging out core subjects and that student performance on national tests has stalled in recent years.

So before we embark on another failed experiment, perhaps we should learn a lesson from our friends across the ocean.