Two wrongs don't make a right

1. According to the DC Wire blog of the Washington Post, in "Rhee: Republicans Do Education Reform Better" Chancellor Rhee argues that:

"Republicans are much better at education policy than Democrats," she said. "Democrats are soft on accountability and they're anti-NCLB [No Child Left Behind], they don't want to test anyone. This attitude in my mind does nothing for the neediest students who need help the most."

To Rhee, Democratic leaders pander to unions and other interest groups who are "driving the agenda on school reform. Everyone thinks Republicans are for the rich, white oil guys to whom they give tax breaks and Democrats are for kids and the underclass. I don't think the Democratic Party operates that way. So we were there [in Denver] speaking out and pushing the Party to move in a different direction."

She's right that Democrats generally don't want to make hard choices, find accountability difficult, and have a hard time really getting at the problems of municipal-institutional failure. And this is discussed, quite well, in Fred Siegel's The Future Once Happened Here. Widely derided by progressives as a screed against the poor, I happen to think it's a great book, analyzing quite well the decline of municipal institutions, and attempts at reform (by Republicans and Democrats) in the 1990s.

2. But I don't think Chancellor Rhee is right necessarily that the Republicans understand urban educational reform. For the most part, charter schools are a way to destabilize traditional schooling, and privatize it. I don't criticize people who send their children to charter schools, because they are hoping to find excellence in a situation in which they have few options.

No Child Left Behind isn't necessarily getting at the problem in the way that Chancellor Rhee might believe, although it does add accountability to a system that lacks it. What it measures may not be what should be measured, and the way that the school curriculum is being reshaped around testing could in fact be significantly negative.

There are a number of examples of quality achievement within low income student populations from school districts that don't have Mayoral Control. Note that the City Journal published a very critical article about Mayoral school control in NYC, and the City Journal is published by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. See "Buyer’s Remorse on Mayoral Control"** as well as "School Choice Isn’t Enough: Instructional reform is the key to better schools."

Montgomery County is a perfect example. It has sound school management. It's teacher corps is unionized. Teachers get paid pretty well but not astoundingly. There are great resources and systems provided to support teachers as well as students with greater needs.

Education Week has a story on this from February (available for free only through the end of the week),When "When 'Unequal’ Is Fair Treatment."

Where is the real plan to improve the management of the schools. Were the problem only an issue of quality teaching, maybe Rhee's plans would be enough. But without building a robust _system_ of improvement, wrecking the system won't build one anew. And then maybe the real end game is merely that of strengthening charter schools, which are currently independent of public oversight, and fit the conservative ideology of privatization of government functions.

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** This article also criticizes how the school system website is more like a commercial and campaign site for the Mayor's educational agenda, rather than focusing on K-12 education and what the school system does. (I have similar concerns about the www.dc.gov website.)