Save 'Cash For Clunkers'
So, it looks like the Cash for Clunkers program will be saved! I see an interesting parallel here with the significant push here from D.C. to “turnaround” failing public schools. Everyone wants a better car, and everyone wants our public schools to be better, but the difference here is how we get to these outcomes. Now, I am sure folks will automatically rail on me for even broaching this comparison, but I think it is clear. If cars are outdated, environmentally unsound, unsafe, and just downright bad, we don’t continue trying to repair them. We take them off the road! And, now the federal government is incentivizing folks to do that. And, it’s not just for the people in those cars, it’s for everyone else too. WHO doesn’t hate being stuck behind an outdated clunker on the highway spitting out excess fumes. These are the cars that breakdown too and make everyone’s rush hour even more awful. So, the benefits for this are beyond the direct holder of the car, it’s others on the road, our environment, and the businesses selling new cars. Amazing what a little incentive can do.
Now, the same goes for school turnarounds in my eyes. We can only do so much at certain schools that are downright failing our children. And, we have an option like the trade-in program! Instead of just pouring countless resources into “turning around” certain schools, we should use the federal school turnaround resources to help create new high quality successful schools, especially replicating public charter schools that are already excelling. Just like with cars, the benefits are far beyond the direct students. Not only are we helping put children into a better school, but we are likely driving new resources into a community associated with that new school.
So, if Congress is going to save the Clunkers program, I sure hope they will take a serious look at this and say, there comes a point where turnarounds can only do so much, and the real goal should be incentivizing the creation of new excellent schools where they are needed.
I've waited a few days to make this comment, because I did not want to overreact.
I think that this might be the dumbest thing that I've ever read. It's timely, but it's facile and idiotic. I cannot believe that anyone who actually understands how schools work would write such a thing.
We can mass produce cars. We can design and test a prototype and then mass produce tens of thousands of nearly identical cars on demand. We can be assured of features and quality. We can order automotive parts with the same confidence. And when there are problems, we can recall the cars and simply replace/repair whatever needs to be repaired.
Therefore, when we replace a clunker, we know what we are replacing it with. Risk -- particularly on fuel efficiency -- is astronomically low.
None of that applies to schools or charter schools. Garber writes of "creation of new excellent schools" as though we can be assured that new schools will be excellent schools. The research has shown -- over and over again -- that it is no easier to create an excellent charter school than an excellent non-charter public school. We can look around and see from experience how hard it is to create and maintain an excellent school. When we have the integrity to control for students factors, family factors and peer effects, we see that the number of truly excellent schools (i.e. schools' whose outcomes are far in excess of what those factors would predict) are exceptionally rare.
Why is this the case? Well, we all know that teachers matter. Students do not learn on school boards, boards of directors, or in governance structures. They don't learn in faculty meetings, either. Students learn in the interactions with texts, their own minds, with other students and with the adults in the schools -- mostly their teachers. Moreover, it is the teachers who try to set up and manage those interactions. Unlike catalytic converters, we cannot simply order as many new top of the line teachers as need to replace our old clunkers. Without getting into the debate about teacher quality (i.e. why it is where it is, what needs to be done to increase it, etc.), anyone who knows the least thing about schools understands that teachers are key.
But Garber just wants...well, what does Garber want? An excuse to replace bad or mediocre traditional public schools with bad or mediocre charter schools? I don't know, but I don't see anything connected to the realities of creating or maintaining school excellence in this idea.
Mike, we read it closer than you did, and the report only said 37% were less successful than districts; 63% were equal or better. But all these numbers skew too negative and to find out why, read this.
As to your larger point, we agree that chronically failing schools are clunkers, whether charter or not, and should be traded in.
-Nelson Smith
Will you be willing to trade in the 83% of charter schools that are worse than the local public schools? Or did you forget to read this:
http://credo.stanford.edu/reports/MULTIPLE_CHOICE_CREDO.pdf
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