Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools

by Diane Ravitch

  CHAPTER 21

  Solutions: Start Here

  Reformers frequently say that poverty is just an excuse, that poverty is not destiny, and that a child’s education should not be determined by his or her zip code.

  Poverty is not an excuse. It is a harsh reality. No one wants poverty to be any child’s destiny. Public schools exist to give all children equal educational opportunity, no matter what their zip code.

  Schools fail when they lack the resources to provide equal educational opportunity. And they fail not because of lack of will but because poverty often overwhelms the best of intentions.

  Poverty persists not because schools are bad and teachers don’t care but because society neglects its root causes. Concentrated poverty and racial segregation are social problems, not school problems. Schools don’t cause poverty and racial segregation, nor can schools solve these problems on their own. W. E. B. DuBois said during the depths of the Great Depression that “no school, as such, can organize industry, or settle the matter of wage and income, can found homes or furnish parents, can establish justice or make a civilized world.”1 DuBois was not “making excuses.” He was placing the blame for poverty and inequality where it belongs: on the shoulders of those who control industry and government.

  DuBois recognized that schools alone cannot create equality or eliminate poverty. They can help highly motivated students escape poverty. Many thousands of personal stories attest to the power of one teacher, one principal, one school, that saved a student from his or her parents’ life of hardship. Educators and schools do have remarkable power to change lives.

  As important and inspiring as those stories are, they are atypical. There is no example in which an entire school district eliminated poverty by reforming its schools or by replacing public education with privately managed charters and vouchers. If the root causes of poverty are not addressed, society will remain unchanged. Some poor students will get the chance to go to college, but the vast majority who are impoverished will remain impoverished. The current reform approach is ineffective at eliminating poverty or improving education. It may offer an escape hatch for some poor children, as public schools always have, but it leaves intact the sources of inequality. The current reform approach does not alter the status quo of deep poverty and entrenched inequality. After more than a decade of No Child Left Behind, we now know that a program of testing and accountability leaves millions of children behind and does not eliminate poverty or close achievement gaps. The growing demand for more testing and more accountability in the wake of NCLB is akin to bringing a blowtorch to put out a fire. More of the same is not change. The testing, accountability, and choice strategies offer the illusion of change while changing nothing. They mask the inequity and injustice that are now so apparent in our social order. They do nothing to alter the status quo. They preserve the status quo. They are the status quo.

  Will it be expensive to address the root causes of poor academic performance? Of course, but probably not as expensive as the cost of doing nothing.

  We need broader and deeper thinking. We must decide if we truly want to eliminate poverty and establish equal educational opportunity. We must decide if we truly want to build a society with liberty and justice for all. If that is our true purpose, then we need to move on two fronts, changing society and improving schools at the same time.

  Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University reminds us that we know full well how to improve schools:

  It’s not as though we don’t know what works. We could implement the policies that have reduced the achievement gap and transformed learning outcomes for students in high-achieving nations where government policies largely prevent childhood poverty by guaranteeing housing, healthcare and basic income security. These same strategies were substantially successful in our own nation through the programs and policies of the war on poverty and the Great Society, which dramatically reduced poverty, increased employment, rebuilt depressed communities, invested in preschool and K–12 education in cities and poor rural areas, desegregated schools, funded financial aid for college and invested in teacher training programs that ended teacher shortages. In the 1970s teaching in urban communities was made desirable by the higher-than-average salaries, large scholarships and forgivable loans that subsidized teacher preparation, and by the exciting curriculum and program innovations that federal funding supported in many city school districts.2

  These policies were hugely successful from the 1960s into the 1980s. Darling-Hammond points out that “the black-white reading gap shrank by two-thirds for 17-year-olds, black high school and college graduation rates more than doubled, and, in 1975, rates of college attendance among whites, blacks and Latinos reached parity for the first and only time before or since.”

  Thus, those who throw up their hands and say that nothing works are wrong. Those who say that public schools are obsolete and broken are wrong. Those who say that we must abandon public education and replace it with free-market schooling and for-profit vendors are wrong. When the public schools have the appropriate policies, personnel, resources, and vision to achieve attainable goals, they respond with positive achievement.

  If we know where we want to go, we can begin to discuss the strategies that will move us in the right direction.

  We need solutions based on evidence, not slogans or reckless speculation.

  CHAPTER 22

  Begin at the Beginning

  SOLUTION NO. 1 Provide good prenatal care for every pregnant woman.

  Chapter 10 reviewed research documenting the importance of prenatal care. Babies born to women who did not get prenatal care early in their pregnancies or who got none at all are at risk of being born preterm. Prematurity is the leading cause of death among newborns. Those who survive are at heightened risk of having learning disabilities and other impediments to their full development. Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the United Nations, wrote that “newborn deaths—those in the first month of life—account for 40 per cent of all deaths among children under five years of age. Prematurity is the world’s single biggest cause of newborn death, and the second leading cause of all child deaths, after pneumonia. Many of the preterm babies who survive face a lifetime of disability.”1

  A report published by the March of Dimes, the World Health Organization, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, and Save the Children gave a low grade to the United States for its failure to prevent premature births. Of 184 countries assessed, the United States ranked 131st. As Time magazine put it in describing the study, this is “a worrisome distinction the U.S. shares with Somalia, Turkey and Thailand.” Twelve of every 100 live births in the United States are preterm, about 500,000 each year. Only a handful of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia rank below us. The best country in the world when measured by the rate of preterm births was Belarus, where fewer than 5 of every 100 children were born prematurely.2

  The March of Dimes global report shows that the average rate for preterm births among developed nations is 8.3 percent. Astonishingly, the U.S. rate of 12 percent was approximately the same as that of nations in sub-Saharan Africa, which lack our vast resources.

  Now, here is an interesting question: Why do reformers brandish international test scores, whose validity is uncertain, yet ignore the global report on preterm babies, in which the United States ranks shamefully low in comparison to other developed nations? The human, financial, and academic costs of preterm births are real. Number 131 out of 184 nations in the world: remember that dismal statistic the next time you see or hear a claim by a reformer that we are number 12 or 14 or whatever on international tests of mathematics or science. Why not a sustained national campaign to make the United States first in the world in ensuring that every woman receives the prenatal care she and her baby need?

  Reducing preterm births would improve the life chances of half a million children in the United States every year. It would guarantee that more children arrive at school hea
lthy and ready to learn. It would improve academic performance by preventing many cognitive and emotional disabilities. It is far less expensive to prevent learning disabilities at the beginning of pregnancy than to remediate those disabilities for many years into the future.

  The March of Dimes report has specific recommendations. They include well-constructed programs to improve nutrition, family planning services, and health education and to reduce substance abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, and exposure to environmental pollution. Women need access to comprehensive prenatal care, as well as quality childbirth services and emergency obstetric care. The global report set a goal of a 50 percent reduction in the preterm birthrate for every country by 2025. In the United States, that means driving the rate down to 6 percent, which would bring us closer to the rate in other developed nations.

  Frankly, it is shocking that the world’s richest nation has such a high preterm birthrate. It is shocking as a matter of humanity, because so many young lives will be needlessly lost or damaged. It is shocking from a financial standpoint because of the long-term costs of preterm births to society.

  This is an excellent place to begin a genuine program of social reform. The research is clear. The need for action is clear. The short-term and long-term benefits are clear. There is a widespread consensus on how to address and remedy the problem.

  Children will be healthier. They will have fewer disabilities. There will be fewer referrals to special education in the future. The costs to society will be reduced, far more than the cost of the medical care provided at the right time.

  Our society, our children, our families, our communities, and our schools will reap the rewards.

  CHAPTER 23

  The Early Years Count

  SOLUTION NO. 2 Make high-quality early childhood education available to all children.

  The achievement gaps among different groups of students begin before the first day of school. Gaps exist between African American and white students; between Hispanic and white students; and between advantaged and disadvantaged students, because they have been exposed to very different environments. Some children hear many words and have a large vocabulary; others do not. Some children have parents who are college educated; others do not. Some get regular visits to the doctor and the dentist; others do not. Some live in comfortable homes in safe neighborhoods; others do not.

  These differences affect children’s readiness to learn. They influence their vocabulary and background knowledge. Access to health care and nutrition affect their physical and mental development. Of course, all children can learn, but some have a head start because of their socioeconomic circumstances, while others start far behind.

  By itself, early childhood education cannot completely close the gaps caused by inequality of wealth and inequality of opportunity, but researchers have concluded that it is more successful in narrowing the gap than most other interventions. Early childhood education programs have abundant research to support them, unlike the currently fashionable “reforms,” which have very little or no research or experience to back them up.

  One of the most prominent advocates of early childhood education is James Heckman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist at the University of Chicago. Heckman approaches the subject as an economist, in search of the most cost-effective way to heal economic and social dysfunction. In the past few decades, he says, the proportion of children born into disadvantaged environments has been increasing, putting them at risk of teen pregnancy, crime, poor health, and a lifetime of low earnings. He observed that the accident of birth powerfully affects one’s life chances; this is bad not only for the individuals but for society, which loses their potential contributions. He assembled evidence to demonstrate that “the absence of supportive family environments harms child outcomes.” The good news, however, is that “if society intervenes early enough, it can improve cognitive and socio-emotional abilities and the health of disadvantaged children.” Early intervention not only enhances the life prospects of children but also has a high benefit-cost ratio and rate of return for society’s investment. Heckman argues that early intervention is more cost-effective than later interventions that target older students and adults. Building a strong foundation for learning in the early years is crucial: “Skill begets skill; motivation begets motivation.” He writes that “if a child is not motivated to learn and engage early on in life, the more likely it is that when the child becomes an adult, it will fail in social and economic life. The longer society waits to intervene in the life cycle of a disadvantaged child, the more costly it is to remediate disadvantage.”1

  Heckman believes that noncognitive skills are as important for success in life as cognitive skills. But federal education policy, represented by No Child Left Behind, prioritizes cognitive skills and ignores noncognitive skills like motivation, self-discipline, and the ability to work with others, even though these skills are highly valued in the workplace. The growing divide in American society, Heckman writes, is attributable in large part to the decline of the American family, the growing proportion of children raised in disadvantaged families, the dramatic rise in the proportion of single-parent families and never-married mothers, who are less likely to invest in their children as they are growing up. This phenomenon, he says, is “especially pronounced for African American families.” Compared with poorly educated women, more educated women are less likely to have children out of wedlock and more likely to be married, have fewer children, and invest more time and resources in the upbringing of their children. The children who lack these circumstances start far behind. Heckman insists that poverty is not destiny and that society can effectively intervene to change the early environment in which children are raised. Heckman cites longitudinal studies like the Nurse-Family Partnership program, the Perry Preschool Project, and the Abecedarian Project to demonstrate that investment in early childhood education improves noncognitive skills, has significant, lasting effects, and thus represents the best return on society’s investment. Heckman recommends that when center-based programs end, they should be followed up by home-visiting programs that encourage a permanent change in the child’s home environment and improved parenting. Such interventions, he recognizes, must be sensitive to cultural differences.2

  Heckman’s work was influenced by major longitudinal studies of preschool education. The most important of these studies was the Perry Preschool Project. David Weikart, who had just earned a PhD at the University of Michigan, started the project in 1961 at Perry Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. At the time, many people assumed that IQ was fixed and that interventions made no difference. Weikart set out to prove they were wrong.3

  The project enrolled fifty-eight poor African American children, beginning at age three. Most of the children attended for three hours a day for two years. The school developed its own active-learning curriculum that encouraged children to plan their own daily activities. Most of the Perry teachers had master’s degrees in child development. There was one teacher for every six children. They received salaries similar to public school teachers. Teachers made weekly home visits, teaching parents how to turn everyday activities into learning experiences for their children.

  The project tracked the progress of these fifty-eight students until they were adults, well into their forties. They were “less likely than students in the control group to skip school, be assigned to a special education class, or have to repeat a grade. By age nineteen, 66 percent of them had graduated from high school, as compared to 45 percent of those who hadn’t gone to Perry.” As adults, they earned more, paid more taxes, were less likely to be on welfare, and were less likely to have been incarcerated. They were more likely to own a home and a car. On average, those who had the benefit of the Perry Preschool Project were contributors to society. Of the control group, 52 percent spent some time in jail for various offenses, as compared with 28 percent of those who had been in the preschool program. From the perspective of economists, an investment in high-qual
ity preschool education improved the lives of those who were in the program and paid handsome returns to society.4

  It is important to note important aspects of the Perry Preschool Project that contributed to its stellar record:

  One, the teachers were professionals, very well trained for their work.

  Two, class sizes were small so that each child received the time and attention needed from the teacher.

  Three, parent education was integral to the work of the project. Teachers paid weekly home visits to teach the parents to engage their children and support what they were learning each day.

  Knowing what we know from research about the value of early childhood education, how do we compare to other nations in providing it to our population? The Economist magazine surveyed the condition of early childhood education in forty-five nations in terms of availability and quality. The Nordic countries led the pack: Finland, Sweden, and Norway were at the top, “thanks to sustained, long-term investments and prioritization of early childhood development, which is now deeply embedded in society. In general, Europe’s state-led systems perform well, as the provision of universal preschool has steadily become a societal norm.” The United States, the wealthiest nation in the world, ranked twenty-fourth, in a tie with the United Arab Emirates. Compared with the top European nations, where preschool was near universal, only 54 percent of U.S. children in the relevant age group attended preschool.5

  Since we know as a matter of fact that the achievement gap begins in the earliest years, reformers should be demanding an expansion of early childhood education of high quality with well-prepared teachers. I want to stress the second part of the last sentence: high quality with well-prepared teachers. Few Head Start centers meet those requirements. Is it not a scandal that we rank twenty-fourth among the world’s most advanced nations? Reform could make a difference here if we mean to reduce the achievement gaps and improve the lives of children.