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Teacher vs. teacher, charter schools galore Thursday, Dec 22, 2005 By John Brummett You have these corporate-funded bashers of public schools acting under the auspices of the aptly named Hoover Institute, a right-wing think tank at Stanford. They're tied in locally with the extreme conservatism of Arkansas businessmen such as Walter Hussman, publisher of the Little Rock newspaper. These are the kinds of people who put their kids in private schools, then presume to declare what's wrong with the public schools that labor ever amid criticism, often nobly and bravely, to serve all socio-economic groups, not just the privileged ones. Backed by Gov. Mike Huckabee, these corporate-funded bashers put out a report the other day that Huckabee labeled an objective outsiders' perspective on the state of Arkansas public education. We should not engage in personal attacks. That we don't like these people and their attitudes doesn't mean they couldn't produce a good idea, or one worthy of sober contemplation. Here's what they came up with: 1. We need to pit teacher against teacher for pay raises based on percentages of improvement in student test scores. 2. We need to throw regulation to the wind and let just about anybody start a charter school anywhere. 3. We need to let just about anybody with a bachelor's degree who can pass a test teach. The theme, perhaps you've gathered, is to introduce competitive practices that have proved so successful, supposedly, in the private sector. But it's my observation that much modern-day private sector excellence has been not necessarily merited by competition, but inherited. A fellow runs well ahead of the pack mainly because he got a head start. His speed is average, maybe better. Still, some guy who started with the pack persistently gains on him. But the guy gaining ground surely will be too busy trying to catch up to find time to share some of his own ideas about how to get the people behind him to run faster. Perhaps that smacked of a personal attack. Excuse me. Let's attack the ideas. For one thing, much of the private sector does not base employee pay on relative performance. Like public schools, much of the private sector establishes a range of pay for a position. Fluctuations within that range are based almost totally on longevity. Getting an extraordinary raise in the private sector entails pretty much the same thing as in the public schools, meaning a promotion to a position compensated at a higher rate. In your typical newspaper newsroom, for example, a reporter does not get a raise because he comes up with a story that a colleague missed the day before. The first guy might get fired, which is a different issue altogether. A reporting staff operates ideally as a unit producing a single news product. So should it be with a public school faculty, which should work co-operatively, not cut-throat, to steer a youngster from grade to grade with appropriate learning. (Columnists, by the way, are different in that they compete for readers.) Teachers aren't salesmen or investment bankers competing for capital and living by commissions. As for charter schools, I happen to like their idea very much. No one has extolled more lavishly the corporately funded one at Helena. I supported legislation to increase the number allowed in Arkansas, particularly in poor and depressed areas. But to say there should be virtually no limit and that charters should be granted almost devoid of preliminary regulation, subject only to the performance of those getting the charters, is to take too great a risk with children. As for allowing non-traditional teachers, it's a fine idea that we already implement. But we do so only with a reasoned process called "alternative certification" that requires at least a bit of instructional training before turning somebody loose in front of a class filled with wide-eyed kids. This is not to say that businessmen and fortunate sons can't have any good ideas for public schools. It's just to say we haven't heard any lately. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
