James Merritt

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  James commented on the article | over 3 years ago

  I have a Dream - That Obama will have Vision

  I wanted to add that my doubt that "the system" can be effectively reformed, and my conviction that it needs to be dissolved, are strengthened by the many antagonistic responses, by those who work in "the system," to voucher and charter school "reforms." In my own neck of the woods, voucher proposals are strongly resisted, while charter schools are viewed with deep suspicion, treated like red-headed stepkids, and are even actively opposed with liberal amounts of vitriol, despite documented success of our local charters, and even in the face of national recognition or awards that they or their students have achieved. It almost seems as if, around here at least, "nothing fails like success."
  
  I've only been associated with the private education sector for a few years, now, but it didn't take long to see that, for all the insecurity that attends a real-world business venture, the freedom that private educators have to adopt appropriate technologies, to personalize curriculum and pedagogical approaches to suit every student, and to cater to special needs kids in creative and effective ways, far exceeds that of any public school I have ever encountered. More importantly, the level of parental involvement is gratifyingly high, and comes in large part from the parents' reasonable desire to see for themselves that they are getting value for tuition expense. I  have always thought that parental involvement is key, but over the years, I realized that it is not enough to declare parents as "partners" in the process, "equal" or otherwise -- if parents see themselves as being anything less than the drivers of their children's education, they too often become "silent partners."
  
  One way to stimulate the growth of the private education sector would be to declare a full tax deduction or even better, a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to an educational institution, especially to pay tuition for ANY student or students. Families would get that tax benefit for paying for their own students. Other people could enjoy that benefit by paying for others' tuition, either directly to schools, or indirectly, to scholarship funds.
  
  Of course, even given liberal tax deductions or credits for education -- even if the States and Federal government stopped collecting taxes for education altogether -- there would be many families that couldn't afford to "write a check" to educate their kids. The biggest challenge I see that is faced by privatization efforts is to replace tax-based funding with a combination of direct payment and scholarships from charitable contributions, such that everyone who is now eligible for public education is able to get an education that is at least as good as what they can get from the current system -- and, we hope, better. I think that this could be achieved by establishing one or more large scholarship funds, which would grant partial or full scholarships to students based on need, and which would be endowed by the no-strings-attached contributions of individuals and corporate entities who could then claim the associated tax-deductions or credits. Like big pension funds and other large accumulations of private-sector capital, these scholarship funds would augment their endowments by prudent investment practices.
  
  As in higher-education, guaranteed and non-guaranteed loans would also be available to parents, though the guarantee would come not from government and the taxpayer, but from one or more of the private sector scholarship funds -- the fund might even assume the "Direct Loan" function now offered by the Federal government, with all interest being subject to the same tax benefits for the interest-payer as other educational contributions, and the proceeds going toward augmenting the endowment.
  
  Finally, as now with private schools at all levels, scholarships based on merit, rather than need, could benefit a great many students. These could be offered by the schools themselves, by the aforementioned foundations, or by different ones.
  
  These are just broad brushstroke suggestions, of course. To be serious about privatization, many details, especially concerning funding and access by the economically disadvantaged, remain to be worked out. But I just wanted to mention a few possibilities, to illustrate the basis for my belief that the sky needn't fall -- I expect that it definitely won't fall -- if we shift to a privatized system. I fully expect technology to be exploited with far more agility to lower costs and tuition fees in a privatized system, as each insitution seeks to run a better business than and gain an edge over the competition. So even in the case where a family had limited or no access to financial subsidy, a quality education could be more affordable than an equivalent education is now.
  
  Finally, I wanted to point out that the goal of returning education to "public servants" may be BETTER realized by privatized education than by the public system, because, with parents in control of the funding, the school and its employees will TRULY be their "servants." All too often, the immunities and insulations afforded to public employees leave citizens (parents, in the context of schools) with little real leverage or influence in the ways their tax money is spent or the functions of government are fulfilled. At private schools, everybody knows who pays the bills and that the parent-customer can always walk away: this is a powerful incentive to engage with parents and provide true service to them and their children, which I have seen firsthand.
  
  Clearly, with a privatized system, there will always be the danger of consolidation under big corporate umbrellas, of McTeaching, etc. But what are the present "joint union" school districts, and State and Federal Departments of Education, but large corporate, monopolistic entities that are even LESS responsive to their customers than private sector corporations could afford to be? Just because they call themselves arms of "government" and declare themselves to be "public servants," doesn't erase the fundamentally bureaucratic, corporate nature of those agencies, which is fairly antithetical to the agile, creative, common sense approaches to education that I sense a great many here would like to see practiced.
  
  

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  James commented on the article | over 3 years ago

  I have a Dream - That Obama will have Vision

  I've been concerned with the quality of education available to the public since the days when I was "in the system." I was invited to testify as a (jr. high school) student at the USOE Western Regional Conference/Hearing on the needs of the Gifted and Talent in 1970. I was later invited to contribute an article to the National Elementary Principal, expressing my ideas about how to successfully deal with gifted and talented students. I worked for ten years for Apple, in various technical roles, during the heyday of the Apple II in education and the early years of Mac. These days, my wife runs a private school in our town and I provide some curriculum support for her and occasionally fill in as a teacher or tutor in various subjects. I'm saying all this to establish that I've been paying quality attention to "the system" for a long time and have been involved with education, in one way or another, for much of my adult life. My opinions were not formed yesterday.
  
  After the path I have walked, and the things I have seen and done, I firmly believe that the best hope for our children is to dissolve "the system" and replace it with a network of private schools, putting the parents once again firmly in the drivers' seat of their own kids' education by virtue of writing a check to the schools in which their children are enrolled. I echo earlier comments here, that educators need freedom that I think they will never get in the centralized, politically controlled "system," regardless of reform attempts. Yes, the change we need is sweeping, and it will largely come from getting both the Federal and State governments out of education. Until that happens, I fear that education will remain a political football, and that even the "boldest reforms" will amount to only rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship. The fundamental model is in error, and the freedom necessary to pursue and implement a better model isn't ever likely to come from government control, but rather from the entrepreneurial efforts of people working in the free market.