This is education reform?

Several years ago I signed up for an Information Technology industry event in New York city.  I was interested to see the city as I hadn't been there since I was a kid.  I don't remember much of that long-ago trip but the bits and pieces I do recall leave me to believe that my grandparents were very careful about where we went in the city.  I do not, for instance, recall a trip to Times Square – a must see destination for any current day tourist – and with good reason.  In the 70's Times Square was an insanely dangerous place (interestingly, the vestiges of those days aren't too hard to find even today) so we didn't go there.  

In any event, I needed to get to NYC.  The timing of the shuttle flight didn't work for me.  I didn't fancy driving up there.  Having driven to Atlantic City in the recent past I thought the tolls might add up to more than the cost of a flight.  So I decided to take the train.  I really didn't know much about how to travel by train so imagine my surprise when I discovered that I could simply walk to the train station in Old Town and hitch a ride directly to Madison Square Garden!!  Like 4-5 blocks from where I was staying.  That just blew me away.  The trip itself was an eye opener.  Yes, Amtrak needs some private sector thinking but I really didn't expect much.  I was pleasantly surprised at how much space you have on a train.  However what was really shocking was the condition of the rail infrastructure.  The rail platforms in Union Station  look like they just arrived from a war zone and the crumbling walls, fences and general disrepair of the track side infrastructure was surprising.  So it's pretty interesting that train travel, commuter trains and even street cars are making a comeback as we are now discovering that you can't simply pave your way to efficiency.  Think about that.  We as a society have spent the past 70 years actively destroying mass transit infrastructure that worked in favor of that which does not scale – the car.  HOT lanes represent the death throes of car-centric commuting.  We find ourselves trying to solve problems that we had a handle on decades ago and, as we continue to try to prop up car-based transit with variable tolls and private sector partnerships and ever more pavement, we end up stratifying a resource meant to empower every member of our society – not just those that can afford it.

What happened, in essence, is that in trying to empower the individual, we ended up doing just the opposite by shirking our responsibilities as a society.

That's where I'm afraid we are heading with "education reform" in its current manifestation.  I think we must be careful about tearing down institutions that have successfully educated generations of Americans in favor of the latest shiny thing.  "School choice" seems to be the latest fad.  Look, I've got no fight with private schools of any stripe.  I fully support people's choice if they want to homeschool and also think those kids should be able to play sports, etc. at their public school.  Doing otherwise seems punitive and petty.  I've done a lot of thinking and research on how to open a charter school in Manassas in what I call an "additive" manner.  I talked to members of the School Board and DMag about it.  They weren't wild about the idea but they did humor me.  I came to the conclusion that we are probably too small a district to do the charter school thing in an additive way – a way that brings more resources instead of simply moving them around shell-game style.

A perfect example of this shell game parading around as "reform" is the idea of educational savings accounts (HB 389).  This law would allow folks that pull their kids from the public schools to receive 80% of the state money dedicated to educating their child into a "savings account" that they could spend on other educational options.  One argument for such a thing are that "It's my tax money" and there is no arguing that it is.  However, I do not have a child in any public school so why would I need to continue to pay?  It's "my tax money" as well.  I could use ten grand in a savings account.  Opponents point out that this, in their opinion, has more to do with funding private faith-based schools – something that the state constitution seems to prohibit.

This is a far more important thread that is being pulled than may seem obvious.  Two reasons:

First of all, incrementally de-funding the public schools will not fix them.  If we're being intellectually honest, we'll make the difficult point that socioeconomic status has far more to do with educational outcomes than we might care to admit.  We might further point out that Manassas has far more single-parent, low-income families than our City Council wants to talk about.  Let alone attempt to address.  An example of what EDGE (a business group I helped start) discovered when helping get the new pre-K system started: we were donating desktop computers to kids so that they could do the online curriculum and found that not only did the kids lack a computer, they didn't even have a damn desk.  Prefering to not get into the furniture biz, we started giving out laptops.  That was IN MANASSAS. 

The second, and more important, reason is that this is a thing that we as a society are undertaking.  Education is the great equalizer and we as a society have taken the troubling turn towards viewing the public schools as simply vendors of education.  That view won't work.  If the public schools are "broken" then we have to fix them, not de-fund them.  This is a "we" thing.  Not a "they" thing.  Someone else is not going to get this done.  We as a society have to do it.

Another talking point about this kind of "reform" is that this would provide competition, resulting in strong schools.  Are we turning government institiions into survival of the fittest?  Has that worked anywhere else?  Also, If that's true why aren't we using this model for the really marginal things that the state does – like selling liquor?  Certainly the private sector is capable of selling liquore far more efficiently than the state is, right?  If I go accross the Potomac and buy liquor it is both cheaper and I have more options.  That doesn't happen because our state government likes to control that aspect of our life (odd for a "conservative" state) and it is a painless source of tax income.

I can tell you, based on my time in office that it would help immensely if there were more resources to help local elected folk.  Yes, their professional staff should be of significant help but outside resources provided by the state or the feds that provide a third-party expert would be great.  Turn the department of education into a group of experts to help local districts and their leaders understand best practices.  This is a societal problem and, just like transportation, if we stratify our educational facility more than it currently is, it will become, and stay, "broken".  A situation that benefits politicians and corrupt officials….and nobody else – well – unless you live in a wealthy district.  Then it'll be ok.

The General Assembly should focus more on that and forget about de-funding the public schools.  They should also stop campaigning aginst the public schools.  They are doing an insanely difficult job and could use a hand, not political brickbats.