great topic in general. generally, i don't think that a policy is progressive if it's rejected by middle and upper middle class whites, whether students or their parents [see kozol for me detail as to how folks think about the issues]. neither here nor there though.
i reject both vouchers and charters on principle, in the first instance, and on what little comparative evidence we have.
i simply don't think turning the schools over to some modified version of the free market is a particularly good idea. and we don't have to go to far to see why: the university system in the states already operates according to this logic: a combination of charters schools, voucher systems, and state run systems. the result: students are a market; they are TBBs--Tuition Bearing Beings--whether that tuition comes in the form of gov't financial aid or their parent's wallets or whathaveyou. indeed, the admin [concerned as they are w/ profits and budgets] increasingly speak of students as 'markets' as 'consumers' and as 'customers'. at my alma mater, they're 'external customers'. i don't see any increase in equality or individual freedom as choice in that system. indeed, i see a very inequitable, hierarchical system and really very little choice. it is no accident that cornell's website proudly and unabashadly displays their corporate connections. who are they speaking to: the student market b/c cornell has to compete for students and the way they do that is by promoting their capacity to land their students w/ jobs in major corporations.
yes, i realize that schools are already Mcdonaldized. But, turning toward some variation of the market model will not make that go away and it is a fundamental mistake to think it will: the tendency toward corporate bureaucratization in the name of efficiency and profit is the logic here and not better products as a result of competition. when i say McDonaldization, i mean the process whereby standardization will turn those schools into prison-like conveyer belts in ways far more insidious, i think, than they already are. and those indoctrination factories of the future will have a much more saavy p.r. team of spin doctors than the goofuses that run the show now. the logic of standardization is inevitable under this model because secondary schools are funnels for the uni system too. in order to compete for the student market, the schools will fetishize, even more, standardized testing, curricula, training. and, in order to have a good reputation in the uni system [and thus a good rep that they can sell to parents] they will standardize the product that gets pumped out: not students, but gpa's, sat scores, etc.
chubb and moe's voucher system calls for local offices that educate parents on how to make choices and assess info. can't see how those offices will be any different than pr offices at uni's, otherwise known as the office of admissions. nor can i see how, if independent operations, they will be anything more than racist/classist organizations for funneling the 'right' students to the 'right' schools with not especially benign appeals to test scores, iq tests, personality tests, vocational tests and the like --all said to be objective assessments of the potential for educational achievement and attainment.
local control is fine, but there's no reason why that's not possible now and there's no reason why local control isn't possible were school funding equitably redistributed at the state level. [max resting your claims about lack of parental involvement on teacher's comments and answers to surveys is *really* problematic.] local control in a free market model is a sham. peabody's dept store on main st where you can 'have it your way' is nice an' all, but peabody's can't compete: peabody's gets bought out by, oh say, NIFAP Inc., [national indoctrination for a profit, incorporated] with headquarters in lord knows where and subsidiary interests in the 3-M co., Pepsi, etc OR peabody's gets dusted like nobody's business when walmart sets up shop.
and, historically, the force that has resisted state bureaucratic standardization has been teacher's with a sense of professional efficacy and a commitment to the profession. this has been systematically eroded in the k-12 system and is very much part of the reason why schools suck. it will be eroded even more when teachers are only seen as workers. it is not an accident that uni's are trying to turn professors into employees whose only purpose is to serve the customer in the name of profit [the attack on tenure, calls for the discipline of the market to whip profs into shape, etc].
also, as i recall, the comparative evidence on school performance suggests that private parochial schools do no better than public schools. so this notion that local control and doing things the old fashioned way hasn't produced better schooling. but that info is from the early 90s and perhaps max has better info than i. when i get a chance i'll look for the research.
i'll also get in touch with a mentor who just wrote _teaching in america: the slow revolution_. he addresses these school reforms as i recall and he supports charter schools. Jerry's not much of a marxist though and we used to go at it over that, but he was decent enough to put up with my bitchyness and address the criticisms/position on those terms.
kelley
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