Surprising Myself

Okay, it is a gorgeous Saturday and I am inside, taking a quick (I hope) break from grading. That's all right, I'll make up for it on some gorgeous weekdays in July. [I'll also take a couple of cross school seminars in July, but enough of that.]

The thing I want to mention is that I just sent a couple emails to state senators, urging them to oppose the charter school bill. I had been fairly ambivalent about this, but a couple of points and a couple of old reservations turned my thinking.

First, MEA has been saying that this is not the time to shift funding from core programs (ie. existing schools). True that. Alternative schools with experimental models would be nice, but taking the money out of existing budgets is not something we can afford in a downturn like this, even if it is only the per-pupil cost following the pupils that leave. The marginal cost of a single student is not as much as the per-pupil cost of EPS, so charter schools still yield a larger than proportional loss to existing public schools.

Second, I don't think the bill is really necessary. When Portland wanted an alt ed school, it opened Casco Bay. When the state wanted a math and science magnet school, it opened MSSM in Limestone. With the RSUs forming, schools in those districts have some capacity to create other programs if they want. Towns that opt out of RSUs need to accept the consequences -- good and bad -- of their decisions. The state can create whatever programs they want and local districts can create schools within the existing laws governing schools. The charter school bill is really just an end run around legislation that is in place to protect students from fools and mountebanks.

Third, speaking of mountebanks, any charter school bill that I ever opened would definitely not include the creation of them by post-secondary institutions. There are good ed profs out there -- I have been fortunate to study with a couple of them -- but there are also a lot of impractical idealists who have read a lot about "learners" but don't seem to know anything about kids.

Fourth (am I allowed a fourth?) I get frustrated at the propaganda that schools' supporters crank out to make it look like their programs are working. The PPH printed a puff piece on Casco Bay High that would have made Goebbels blush. To claim that they are getting better results for less money per pupil when they pay no building costs is a ridiculous comparison. I'll bet we could claim that the PPH is a profitable company too, as long as we didn't include electricity, heat, water, and building maintenance. We'll only see more spurious statistical shenanigans if we start chartering schools all over the state and it will be harder and harder for parents to know where their kids will be best served. [NB. CBHS has done well by the students it serves, but the PPH's effort to paint a pretty picture would irresponsible. Apples to apples, folks.]

I have a lot of sympathy for the public school choice movement. If Deering's 4x2 schedule or Cape's shorter classes appeal more to a SoPo kid than our 80-minute rotating schedule, enrolling out-of-district should be free and easy. I ain't afraid of the competition. But I don't want to enable a lot of bad programs to spring up, draining money from existing schools in order to fund the kooky experiments of educational theorists. If an idea has real juice (like Casco Bay or MSSM) let its supporters pitch it to existing districts, foundations, or the Legislature.

And if you feel like contacting your state senator about the charter school bill, you can begin at this site.