Interesting piece in the Seattle P-I about Democrat Brian Weinstein’s victory in traditionally Republican Mercer Island. [Teachers key to Democrat Weinstein’s ousting Mercer Island state senator]
Voters “were very frustrated with Jim Horn,” Weinstein said. “People on the Eastside to a large extent move here because they want their kids to go to good schools. It wasn’t hard to convince them.”
This is how you win elections, and it fits very nicely into some thinking I’ve been doing on how Democrats can start taking back the country. We’re not wrong on the issues, we’re running the wrong candidates and the wrong kind of campaigns.
I’ve got a bit more thinking to do, but you can be sure I’ll share it with you and ask for your input once I get all the pieces in place.
Amen!
Weinstein’s strategy is very sound–people know how hard it is to teach a class with 30 kids in it, and they also believe that good pay attracts good teachers. I just have one thing that I don’t understand, and that is why teachers reject charter schools. Maybe there is something to charter schools that I don’t understand, but I’d think teachers would welcome them. It would seem to me that all those trouble makers in class could be sent to a charter school started in the school district, and this would help classroom teachers, and perhaps the trouble makers. I also understood that charter school could slant their curriculum toward the interest of the student–i.e. students that stay in school only to play sports could be in an “athletic school,” that teaches math, reading, science, social studies, and geography with an athletic slant–aiming toward winning the athletic student a scholarship for college. These jocks might even get their grade average improved in the bargain. Maybe some of you can explain to me why teachers are so vehemently against charter schools.
I’ll give it shot. Whatever the merits of charter schools in theory, in reality the right uses them (along with vouchers) as just another tool in their efforts to break the teachers unions and defund public schools. That’s where the money is, teachers’ salaries. It also, ironically, diminishes the power of local school boards.
That said, I pretty much disagree with your entire premise, that A) somehow, charter schools automatically fix all kinds of problems inherent in public schools, and B) that you can’t implement the same kind of experimentation and specialization in our traditional public schools.
My daughter (now seven) has been attending a Montessori program at Graham Hill Elementary (in Seattle) since she was three. And the PTA is seriously exploring turning Graham Hill into a “pre-eight” program. This is essentially a charter school within a public school… and it works!
It’s about unions. Charters don’t have automatic union membership. Hence they are very scary.
Goldy;
A few years ago, I was somewhat involved with fighting off the extreme right wing who did actually use charter schools and especially vouchers “as just another tool in their efforts to break the teachers unions and defund public schools. That’s where the money is, teachers’ salaries. It also, ironically, diminishes the power of local school boards.” The Ontario Tories under Mike Harris and Ernie Eves really took away local school boards’ power to the point that three of them (Hamilton, Ottawa-Carleton and Toronto – my spelling may be wrong on the first two) defiantly filed deficit budgets in the summer of 2002 and got replaced by the provincial gov’t by an unelected, unaccountable board supervisor.
Food for thought – even though I like on its face Bennington’s idea of slanting cirriculum towards students’ interests. That’s what in Ontario, under the new Ontario Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty and in Great Britain under the bodacious leadership of Tony Blair PUBLIC schools are now allowed to focus on an item like the arts, shop, etcetera. I forget the name of the program – I want to say “Lighthouse Schools” but that’s for schools that are high achievers and asked to share best practices.
Let me get back to you on this.
Josef
In fact, in Seattle, each public school is run as a separate business entity with a lot of discretion in how they spend their money. The get a fixed budget based on their enrollment, and beyond the basics, can spend the money to shape the program of their choice. Unfortunately, there’s very little money left beyond the basics.
Still, some schools manage to create specialized curricula (like the Montessori program at Graham Hill, or free full-day kindergarten at some schools.) When money becomes less of a barrier (through large private grants, or a lot of PTA fundraising) then you can get really innovative programs like the New School at South Shore.
But in the end, the disparity between one public school and another usually comes down to money. A PTA at a school in a wealthier neighborhood can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars… money that is often spent to hire more teachers. Whereas schools in poorer neighborhoods might not have a PTA at all.
PTA is important, all right. It makes all the difference in my neighborhood.
I appreciate your replies. I think ALL state public school should go to the Seattle governance model. That said, since I’m a rural Democrat, I think we should have an equalization pot for rural districts. If redistributive wealth of that nature is too much, then we may have to go to a plan b involving a tax hike.
And you don’t think the “Leave no child behind,” isn’t a right wing plot to make school vouchers a reality and do away with public schools–as is home schooling I might add! Most home schoolers are Christian righters. I thought that the Charter school initiative would have local school boards contract for the operation of such schools by nonprofit corporations. The term “contracts” seems to mean, in my opinion, that local school boards would set the conditions for the running of the charter school up to and including using certified teachers that are members of the teacher’s union. Let’s face it the problem with our schools is that they are antiquated and in many places the students are out of control. Back in 1950 there was a huge outcry, “Why can’t Johnny read,” and it seems that the same statement is being made today, fifty years later. We need innovation in our classrooms–and it would seem to me that charter schools might be just the way to do that.