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Fri, 27 Jun 2008
Part of the state budget bill passed last week created "Mayoral Academies" a new kind of school. This was a controversial article of the budget, with labor fighting hard against it, but fairly easily overcome in the vote. So what's the story behind this effort?
One version of this story has it that these are an exciting new experiment in public education, established due to the bravery of Cumberland's Mayor Daniel McKee and midwived by important members of the progressive movement like Ramon Martinez, leader of Progreso Latino in Central Falls. The schools will be regional, serving one or more towns, and operated by non-profits, so are able to attract grant funding, possibly lavish, from the likes of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sounds good? Here's the other version: Rhode Island now has a new label on its charter schools, with zero protections for the teachers who work there. The establishment was made possible by so-called progressives who abandoned their union allies (who recently stood with them on immigration, Medicaid and child-care funding) in the hope of getting better schools for some of their children. These are schools that will be funded by tax dollars, but run by one of a handful of already existing nonprofit agencies that run schools, so we have the first step towards privatizing our public school system.
Which version is right? Trying to decide, I read the bill that established these academies, and it just takes the old charter school statute and sprinkles "with the exception of mayoral academies" all over it. It says that any charter school established by a mayor is hereby exempted from almost all regulation, from labor rules to retirement plans to the number of school days in a year.
Now charter schools are interesting in many ways. Certainly there's plenty to fix about the existing school system, but that's exactly the problem. The Met School is, I hear, a fine place, but I don't yet see how it's helping Providence's Central High School a few blocks away.
So I moved on to the Mayoral Academy report, issued by McKee in January. What I learned from the report is that these academies are all about money. There's a page or two of stirring vision for the future of education in there. Had all the usual stuff about "very high expectations" and "energetic and talented leadership." But it was completely lost amid all the tables about taxes and relative costs between Rhode Island and other states.
So if money's the subject, let's talk about money. Charter school proponents often talk about how charter schools won't displace public school funding. But that was clearly proven untrue in 2004, when the Governor's budget took $7.9 million from the state's public schools and gave the exact same amount to the charter schools. Subsequent budgets have been only slightly less blatant. By now, this point is unarguable: more charter schools equals less money for other schools.
The Mayoral Academy proponents talk about money from private foundations they expect to pour in to support them. No doubt there will be some, because anti-union education reforms seem always to attract initial funding from big foundations. A lot of capital was suddenly available fifteen years ago when Baltimore experimented with privatizing its public schools. (Baltimore gave up on the experiment only four years later. It didn't help school performance, and was too expensive.) The first one or two Mayoral Academies can expect substantial support from out of state, which will be a fabulous thing for their students. After that, who knows?
But there's money, popping up again. "Money isn't the problem," is a sort of mantra among education reformers, but they're wrong. Money is very much the issue in education, and if you need proof, consider the Mayoral Academies themselves. When you get to the bottom of all the claims and counter-claims, essentially what Mayor McKee is saying is that with more resources -- taken from teachers instead of taxpayers -- he can create a school with superior outcomes.
And what do you know? The school departments and teacher unions also say that with more resources they can create schools with superior outcomes. What a coincidence.
So the big difference between the teachers and McKee is only where these resources come from. McKee wants it to come from teachers and from the existing public schools -- and from the grant fairy. Teachers say that the amounts you can get that way are just too small to make a big difference, and besides public schools should be funded by the public.
But this gets to the real issue. No one should have any doubt that, liberated from all kinds of rules, Cumberland and other towns can establish some wonderful and cozy schools, with all the finest equipment, fascinating courses, individualized attention. But so what? They'll only be providing this experience for a small, randomly-chosen, population of students. What about everyone else? Their parents pay taxes, too.
Mayor McKee's Academy, his solution to our education woes, will leave the majority of students in its region still in the same schools, but now with less money. The students who don't luck into his Academy will find themselves hearing about the wonderful opportunities available there, but they won't be able to share them -- a land of equal opportunity for the lucky. I'll leave it to others to explain why that's such a good idea.
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