Who Should Have the Monkeys?

This is my follow up to Who's Got the Monkey? post, where I noted that we the public and we the parents have all the monkeys, the responsibility, the blame if you will, for our under-performing public schools.  Other than an occasional "we could have said that better," I can't recall any district accepting the blame for low test scores, low graduation rates, and wide achievement gaps, not to mention their high cost of operation.

I have sympathy for School Board members.  They're not getting rich, work mostly night and weekends, and once they hire a Superintendent, really don't have that much influence on day to day matters.  Most of the game is rigged by the Legislature, and we all know who they work for, or at least used to.  So I can understand why they might push back on us taxpayers, parents, and business owners to help them out.  It's for the children, whose educational success helps us all.

But we outsiders can't fix everything, for we can only control the input.  Suppose your child is taking French in high school, loves it, or would but the district's only French teacher est incompétente.  What can you do about it?  Nothing other than complain, drop the course, or find another school if you can afford it.  What can the district do about it?  Almost nothing given the union rules unless the teacher is truly willing and able to step up which I fear is too often the exception, especially once tenure kicks in.

No, the only ones with power to truly change things around are in St. Paul, ignoring Washington D.C. for now.  As such, they should have at least some of the monkeys that the districts think belong on our backs. 

Let me put it this way.  I as a parent have great responsibility for my child's success in school.  I as a citizen have responsibility for electing competent, courageous Legislators to create an overall framework for success.  But I don't need the district pretending that the latter has indeed happened, that the district is doing the best they can, leaving just me and my child with the monkeys.  The district further blurs this situation by lobbying the legislature directly in my supposed behalf, for which they have no standing or moral justification.

The school boards (not the administrations since this is politics) should stop giving the Legislature wish lists and start giving them monkeys.  Whatever money you get, you set class sizes accordingly, and make it clear to the public who's in charge of what.  Do the same with regulations, have a little fun even by exposing the ridiculous complexity, how much it costs to comply, how little it contributes to actual education, and how it precludes the transparency that would truly serve us all.

We also must let our Legislators know that the current pro-union, anti-choice, low standards, outdated methodology is no longer acceptable.  Neither is another Minnesota Miracle, given the failure of the original and its smaller versions since.  They have the monkeys.  If they can't fix the districts, pin that money on the students and let us try.

Comments

[Give2Attain]

A very timely post given this RAS post regarding the recent LAC visit to the Legislators. I am happy parents went to speak their minds. Without pro-education lobbying, the money would go to another squeaky hinge. However it is amazing that the LAC is "setup by the RAS Board" and coordinated by "RAS Employees".

http://rdale.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?sessionid=2c7a1d46f5eadc145d17d84c8d39a5ea&pageid=152007&sessionid=2c7a1d46f5eadc145d17d84c8d39a5ea

I would really appreciate it if someone affiliated with RAS education would once in awhile say. We really screwed this "specific situation" up, this is what it cost, here is what we learned, here is how we resolved it quickly and here are specific steps we are taking to make sure we do not do it again. As I teach the girl's, errors and mistakes are fine as long as you learn from them.

It reminds me of a story I read... A VP in company makes a major blunder that costs the company $10 million. Therefore he goes to the CEO fully expecting to be fired. When he apologizes and expresses his thoughts. The CEO responds, "Why would I fire you? I just spent $10 million training you."

Maybe they are concerned the public is not as wise as the CEO... Or they are concerned about law suits... Or they don't make mistakes...

[Speed Gibson]

Despite your good intentions, I have to ask: did you really do "pro education" lobbying? Or "pro status quo" lobbying, i.e, still more money?

[The Big Stink]

Public education is too big too fail. Before the bank, auto and insurance bailouts, we have been shoveling cash at teacher's unions in order for them to secure political (funding) leverage. Public education is only marginally concerned with actually educating. It has become a jobs program for union employees. Period. Those of us with actual ideas for innovating have been frozen out of the process because our solutions don't grow the beast. When the system implodes and/or collapses and voters throw out the bums in charge, we can talk about change. Until then, we're only discussing which shade of lipstick best highlights the Pig of Public Education.

[anonymous]

Give--interesting scenario, and I agree about the value of transparency. Remember a while back when a local surgeon removed the wrong kidney from a patient? Inexcusable, and the apology was swift and genuine. I wonder, though, how many who oppose public education wouldn't just see that situation as an opportunity to pounce and the teacher/principal/board would be under relentless attack for *different* problems. Safer, certainly, to quietly fix the problem and move on.

Speed--Doesn't lobbying for anything imply funds? ie, pharma or ag or small business or arts or senior citizen lobbyists (paid or citizen) all work toward legislation that will benefit their industry or group. Are the rules different for schools?

--Annie

[J. Ewing]

Annie, Speed can speak for himself, but there are actually districts which lobbied to be relieved of onerous regulations. Of course the easy way to accomplish this would be to have the government simply give the money to parents and let parents pick a school more innovative and less regulated.

There is also a very simple solution to the problem as stated, which is for the district to have a prioritized, program-based budget. Since those things commanded from on high would be the highest priority, the tax paying public would be able to see the cost of regulation. They would also be able to find places in which the school district was spending vastly disparate sums on very similar activities, pointing out where we could get more education for less money. Throw in true merit pay for teachers and you have a pretty complete monkey relocation program.

[The Big Stink]

J: You're suggesting transparency? Which alternate universe are you writing from?

[Give2Attain]

Whether it is "pro education" or "pro status quo" lobbying, it still makes Legislators think twice about taking money from the schools and giving it to light rail subsidies, welfare subsidies, city subsidies, old folks subsidies, etc, etc, etc... It seems folks need to keep their hands out or they will be forgotten. Here's is the LAC's 2010 brochure:
http://lac.rdale.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/gwp/494491/856303/File/LAC%20Brochure%202010.pdf?sessionid=23139270921ec3801316efad6c609120

It would have been ironic if they had slipped some teacher incentive, school competition, or other non-status quo concepts into their platform. However, what else would we expect from a group organized by the status quo. At least they are lobbying against some of the regulations...

As for being attacked for admitting problems... That is how I got into this whole blogging thing. I had to work pretty hard to clarify unsubstantiated posts that attacked RAS during the Vote YES campaign... Oh, the good old days...

[The Big Stink]

G2A: They are never going to "slip" in incentives, competition, etc. That would be like asking a tiger to go vegan. The battlefield in education reform is at the state capitol. Local districts can only change things on the margins - or sponsor another referenda to insulate themselves from the laws of economics.

[Speed Gibson]

Annie, I have no problem with individuals and non-governmental organizations lobbying. The line being crossed by the school districts is that they're using my tax money to do it. The teachers unions also cross this line, since their lobbying expenses come from their dues that come from public paychecks that come from my taxes.

I might relent if this was truly an intellectual exercise, listening to BOTH sides. But empirically this is obviously a DFL show, obviously a DFL spending show. It is the DFL that wants money without commitments, consequences or later review of the results.