Of all the strange sights to which the Bizarro World of American politics has borne witness of late, perhaps none is as strange as the coming together of Arne Duncan, Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton as Barack Obama's education musketeers. A more unlikely political alliance is hard to imagine.
Officially, the trio composed of Mr. Obama's earnest Education Secretary (Mr. Duncan), the hard-right Republican (Mr. Gingrich) and the self-anointed voice of America's oppressed (Rev. Sharpton) was dispatched by the President last fall to investigate innovation in the classroom. But their tour of U.S. cities was really a promotional junket for his radically un-Democratic education policies.
The centrepiece of this agenda is the President's $4.35-billion (U.S.) Race to the Top fund, a carrot dangled in front of cash-strapped states to induce them to dramatically expand the role of charter schools and punish, even fire, teachers who fail to lift student scores on standardized math and reading tests. The first $600-million in Race money was awarded this week to the “winners.” Delaware will get $100-million and Tennessee $500-million, after both agreed to lift caps on charter schools – which are publicly funded, but privately managed K-12 institutions – and to base teacher pay and advancement on how well their students perform.
Whether pushing the tough-love triad of choice, competition and teacher accountability will actually raise the woeful performance of American school kids compared with their international peers remains to be seen. What is not in doubt is the groupthink that has seized politicians and policy-makers across the United States – and quite a few in Canada, too – according to which markets are the solution to all that ails public education.
There was a time when only Republicans championed this view. But in the past decade, the pro-charter, anti-union Wall Street Journal has not lacked for reformist Democrats to lionize in its editorial pages. Two of its favourites are Mr. Duncan, the former head of Chicago's public school system, and Michelle Rhee, who took over in 2007 as chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s public schools, possibly the worst in the nation. Like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gained full control of the city's schools in 2002 after the state eliminated 32 local boards, the reformers have shuttered “failing” schools, sought to reward and penalize teachers based on test scores, and overseen an explosion of charters, largely catering to minority students.
Indeed, Harlem is the nation's poster-neighbourhood for charters. From Geoffrey Canada's Promise Academies to its KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) schools, the long waiting lists for Harlem's charters attest to African-Americans' frustration with a public school system many believe failed them in the past, is failing their children now and will as assuredly fail their kids' kids.
Touting challenging curriculum, envious test scores and uncommonly dedicated teachers, American charter schools have done a good job cultivating their winner image. The truth is that, just like public schools, charter schools come in good, bad and ugly varieties. That alone is telling, considering that charters can count on the most motivated students and “counsel out” persistently low-performing kids.
BUYING INTO THE HYPE
Nevertheless, American policy-makers have wholly bought in to the charter hype. If they're not replacing public schools with charters, they're implementing charter-like teacher accountability in the public system.
When it comes to teachers, just how do you separate wheat from chaff anyway? Education experts have agonized over this question for decades without resolution. Yet Mr. Duncan, Ms. Rhee and Mr. Bloomberg all share a deep conviction that they know how. If your class improves its scores on standardized state math and reading tests, they figure you're wheat. If it doesn't, well, you're toast.
