Death And Life Of Great American Policy Fads
Diane Ravitch’s about face on school “accountability” — which favors charter schools, vouchers and standardized testing, as well as demotion of teachers and administrators who fail to achieve set criteria — is interesting, in the way that ideological conversions often are. With due respect to Dr. Ravitch, however, and most other writers who follow the debate, “school accountability” is a misnomer. Public schools are now and always have been accountable. The so-called “accountability” movement only wants to make them less so.
As every schoolchild likes to say, America is a free country. That is, parents have the right to settle in whatever school district they choose. (They also have a constitutional right to send their children to private school if they wish.) Predictably, therefore, those families willing to pay the most for a good education gravitate to the best schools, the “price” of which is reflected in the cost of real estate and local property taxes, while the families that care the least about education gravitate to the worst. Meanwhile, the extent to which parents value education itself enhances (or degrades) school quality, as schools are always more likely to thrive when they can attract the families with the highest social capital. Thus, good schools and “good” (that is, education-valuing) families cluster together. So long as Americans enjoy freedom of movement, supply and demand will always tend to produce a huge gap between successful and failing schools. The outcome is basically fair and not altogether inefficient.
America’s public schools are one example of how even governments, when subject to market discipline, can produce a superior product. Compare Soviet arms during the Cold War. The Soviets excelled at producing weapons because otherwise foreign governments wouldn’t have purchased them. Similarly, some public schools consistently excel, because otherwise they could not attract the best parents and students, thereby allowing those schools to excel, thereby attracting more good parents and students, and so on in a virtuous cycle. In both cases, governments — in contrast to the usual rule — have had to compete for customers.
The “accountability” movement, however, wishes to match customers with schools as planners, rather than the customers themselves, deem fit. School vouchers, for example, a favorite policy of “accountability” proponents, punish those very school systems that have already worked very hard, thank you very much, to attract the best students and most civic-minded parents. (It’s no surprise that vouchers have proven to be politically unpopular, including if not especially among Republican voters.) Similarly, shutting down failing schools and redistributing their students punishes those schools that have performed marginally better and thereby attracted marginally better students and parents. The “accountability” movement, in short, wants to equalize the quality of educational products, no matter the price paid for them. Whatever this merits of this policy, it surely does not show much faith in the free market.
Finally, I must commend Dr. Ravitch’s editor on the choice of title for her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Although to invite comparisons to Jane Jacobs’ classic, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, smacks of hubris, in this case the comparison is apt. Jacobs identified the hidden mechanisms that make city neighborhoods work but which well-meaning modern planners had overlooked. For example, Jacobs found that mixed-use neighborhoods are safer, for shopkeepers’ constant watch on the sidewalks tends to discourage mischief. By contrast, super-blocks, high rises and office towers suck life out of the streets, thereby making them more menacing places.
Similarly, there is a hidden mechanism that makes the American School System work, and which modern planners ignore — namely, freedom of movement, which creates a well-functioning market for public education. Planners such as “accountability” advocates who want to turn bad schools into good ones (and, often, by implication, vice versa), no matter what their scheme, are doomed to disappointment. Admittedly, Dr. Ravitch, who seems to believe that everyone is entitled to a good education no matter how little she is willing to pay for it, probably rejects this thesis. Moreover, it does not appear that Dr. Ravitch even identifies, Jacobs-like, the hidden mechanisms that make public education in the United States so much better than planners give it credit for. Still, I do like the title. Perhaps Dr. Ravitch’s editor was thinking of something the author wasn’t.
I always thought that standarized testing on a national level wasn’t a bad idea, if for no other reason than to get a handle on what’s really going on. But the rest of the hubub such as No Child Left Behind I suspect is worthless.
One idea I had was perhaps mandating a mechanism polling the *parents* of children to grade their kids’ schools, and then requiring publication of the results. After all why should anyone pay much attention to the grades the government gives? A far away government? Why not let the actual customers do so? Because it put the alleged credibility/wisdom/authority and etc. of the Education Establishment in its deservedly-lesser place?
Let parents rate ‘em, and then let schools ignore the ratings at their peril.
I saw no mention of people like myself who value education very highly but who are dirt poor, and hopelessly unable to “move” to a more expensive community.
Ditto what Jim said, Austin. It’s simply not possible for everyone who values education to move into a good school district, precisely because they cannot afford housing there. The poor and the working class don’t have the kind of freedome of movement necessary to make your theory work — hence the discussion about being students being “trapped” in bad schools.
Jim/Rod – I see now that I sounded needlessly callous in my post.
Still, I think my basic point is sound and, indeed, pretty much indisputable — namely, that school reforms are bound to fail, as (i) a school’s quality is to such a large extent a function of its families’ social capital, and (ii) precisely in virtue of their high social capital, “good” families will gravitate to the best school districts. Adequate education for all (adequate, that is, by the standards of the highly educated sorts of people who talk about school reform) can only be achieved by imposing unacceptable restrictions on freedom of movement.
Now, it’s true that I also suggest that this result is not as unjust as it may appear, as families are in fact generally matched with schools in accordance with how much they value education. You are troubled by the cases of people who value education highly but are still trapped in bad schools. I am troubled by these cases too, though I suspect that the number is smaller than imagined.
To reduce the number of such cases, how about this: since reforming schools is so inherently difficult, we should instead try to make housing more affordable even in the best school districts. I would consider first reforming zoning laws that restrict density and discourage/prohibit rental housing.
What constitutes a good education? The ability to read Thomas Aquinas and understand what you are reading? The ability to read Maureen Dowd and recognize drivel?
The word education is largely meaningless removed from a substantive context. The establishment that has evolved to deliver “a good education” is a bureacratic blob, another academia-government combine that is just plain bad. Its theoriticians will never convert the chicken manure they have spread from sea to shining sea with chicken salad. The fact of the matter is they don’t know how to – could anything by now be plainer.
Freedom of movement mitigates in favor of the afflicted; likewise having parents who can recognize Dowd for the hack she is; likewise a bolt of inspiration hitting some poor kid studying in a library on an Indian Reservation somewhere in North Dakota.
People with little money are up against it, that much is certain. But if they are stuck with a bad school, they are stuck with it now and honesty requires they be told now that help ain’t around the corner, and ain’t anywhere except in their own determined resourcefulness.
You want proof. Track SAT scores for say the last 50 or so years.
Families that don’t care about education would continue to send their children to poorer schools under a voucher system. Nowhere do “planners” over-ride parents. It’s not called “school choice” for Orwellian reasons.
Jane Jacobs cited evidence of urban planning causing problems. Nowhere do you do so for the harms of vouchers or charter schools. Even Ravitch only claims that they aren’t a panacea and hesitates to implement them out of “precautionary principle” conservatism. My impression is that the evidence shows that such reforms have relatively minor effects, though some of my commenters call their positive effects “the best established fact in all of education policy“.
[...] Bramwell has penned a very convincing post over at The American Conservative on why school choice can actually lead to the dumbing-down of our [...]
[...] Bramwell has penned a very convincing post over at The American Conservative on why school choice can actually lead to the dumbing-down of our [...]
really? you think the number of people trapped in bad schools (even though they value education) is small? how many intercity schools have you visited? how do you know that all these kids/parents don’t value education? I find that to be somewhat condescending.
your solution of making the rental property cheaper would essentially be school choice under another name. why not just go straight to vouchers?
also, if you truly want to match them as customers see fit, then vouchers increase mobility and matching. school districts are planning.
i think you think some schools are “punished” by allowing kids who want to go there, to go there. if the kids want to go there, then isn’t that a sign that they “value” education? isn’t that the customers matching up?
[...] The American Conservative » Death And Life Of Great American Policy Fads [...]
[...] Bramwell says we can’t fix bad public schools so we should just solve America’s affordable housing problems: To reduce the number of such [...]
You honestly believe that parents choose to live in poor school districts because they don’t prioritize good education? I mean, seriously? Are you being intentionally naive?
I could go on at length for how your proposition penalizes poor children for their bad choice of parents, but if you’re foolish enough to believe that poor people could live in good school districts if only they had their priorities straight, I don’t reckon you’d follow the argument.
In reference to vouchers, I agree in a sense: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There are many high quality public schools in the U.S. that don’t need repairing.
However, in the case of a broken school system, I can see a stronger case for experimentation — including the use of vouchers. The end game is finding something that works.
One major point of disagreement: “the extent to which parents value education itself enhances (or degrades) school quality, as schools are always more likely to thrive when they can attract the families with the highest social capital”.
The first clause is fairly non-objectionable. The second clause is a gross simplification.
Case in point: When a magnet school like the top-rated Thomas Jefferson School for Science and Technology in Fairfax County selects students it doesn’t factor parents’ “social capital” into the equation – it looks at standardized tests, essays, and the interview process. The end result is that a lot of kids from middle and low social capital families end up getting into the school ahead of kids from more privileged socio-economic backgrounds. Based on the line of reasoning that “social capital” equals higher quality we should be able to infer that TJ underperforms schools in the region where the student body is made up of students from more privileged backgrounds. Yet this is not the case.
Social capital may correlate with high quality schools, but there are other relevant variables at work in terms of causation. I would argue that it’s probably more constructive to look at those other variables.
I’m dubious too that most parents don’t care as much about the education of their children vis a vis parents with the “highest social capital”. Regardless of what a parents “social capital” is, my sense is that most desire the best possible education for their kids. The challenge is that economic constraints enter into the equation. Mobility is also constrained by realities like employment opportunities.
This point seems remarkably obtuse:
“School vouchers, for example, a favorite policy of “accountability” proponents, punish those very school systems that have already worked very hard, thank you very much, to attract the best students and most civic-minded parents. (It’s no surprise that vouchers have proven to be politically unpopular, including if not especially among Republican voters.)”
The very schools? So in inner-city DC and Cleveland and Milwaukee (the sites of three voucher programs), we find “the very school systems” that are doing their best to attract good students? That’s quite a remarkable contention to anyone familiar with those public school systems.
Moreover, voucher programs are very popular with inner-city black residents. But it’s easy for privileged whites to sneer that vouchers aren’t very popular . . . they’re not popular with the people who count.
Lost in the responses above is the central importance of teachers. I ran a school for many years that was considered to be unique and student outcomes were high.
After hiring the best candidates that I could find, I concentrated on providing them with a highly tailored and individual training program assisted by my most profoundly gifted teachers. The better I became at providing quality curriculum and support, the better the school became in supporting student growth.
As I read about Finland’s success, I see that our approach mirrored what happens there. I did not bash my teachers but simply counseled out those that did not grow.
A rich and articulated curriculum and support for your teachers is precisely what Ravitch talks about.