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

by Diane Ravitch

  The very notion of a “Race to the Top” betrays the equity mission of the historic federal role in education. A “race” implies winners and losers. Equity implies a commitment to the education of every child. The reason that the federal government became involved in funding education was to promote equity, not to select winners and losers. Competition inevitably favors the strong and disadvantages the weak. The role of the federal government is not to honor the strong but to level the playing field for those students who have the least and need the most.

  The U.S. Department of Education should reclaim its mantle as an agency whose fundamental mission is to promote equality of educational opportunity. At a time when nearly one-quarter of the children in this nation live in poverty, the U.S. Department of Education should promote equity for needy children, sponsor first-rate research, and advance educational policies that are supported by research and evidence. It should award grants based on need, not on competitions among districts and states. It should defend the civil rights of all children. It should advocate for early childhood education, class size reduction, social services, and other research-based policies for all students. It should provide research and information about the best programs across the country and around the world. It should inform the public and the profession about appropriate and inappropriate uses of assessment. It should continue its periodic national assessments of subjects taught in school, based on samples of the student population. It should provide research-based information to assist teachers and parents of children with special needs. The secretary of education should use his bully pulpit to keep before the public a vision of good education.

  It should never again attempt to control every school in the United States. No one in Congress or the U.S. Department of Education has the knowledge, experience, or wisdom to impose his or her ideas and plans on every school and community in the nation. Just as we do not expect the U.S. military to police the streets of every city, town, and hamlet, we should not expect the Department of Education to direct the education of every child in every public school.

  What, then, of the state education departments? They should resume their roles as agencies that serve the schools and districts of their states. They should provide technical assistance, resources, professional development, and other forms of support that districts may need. They should work together with teachers and scholars to develop curriculum frameworks so that there is continuity in teaching history, science, and other subjects in districts across the state. It should not be left to every district whether or when to teach science, the arts, civics, and history; state curricula should reflect modern scholarship, not religious or local opinion.

  Every state should have teams of inspectors who visit schools and provide expert advice, who are empowered to send the schools whatever support services and resources the students need. Those who work in state education departments should see themselves as co-equals to those who work in schools and district offices, as partners and colleagues who collaborate to reach a shared goal: the education of the children of the district and the state. The state education commissioner should see himself or herself as an employee of the state board, not as the person who gives orders to schools that everyone must obey. In many states, there is more experience in the schools and in the district offices than in the state offices. The state commissioners should respect the wisdom of those who are closest to the schools of their community and should intervene only when a local board or district leadership is corrupt, irresponsible, or incompetent.

  Then we come to local school boards. The corporate reformers don’t like school boards. They think they should be abolished or rendered toothless. In urban districts, the reformers want the mayor to have absolute control, unchecked by a school board with the power to question or overrule his decisions. In recent times, mayoral control began in Boston in 1992, in Chicago in 1995, in Cleveland in 1998, in New York City in 2002, and in the District of Columbia in 2007. Detroit tried mayoral control in 1999, but voters abandoned it in 2004 (which was probably just as well, since one of the mayors after 2004 went to jail).

  The results of mayoral control have been mixed at best. From the reformers’ perspective, mayoral control is a success because it enables the mayor to close schools irrespective of community opinion and to open privately managed charter schools. The reformers consider it essential to sever any connection between the schools and any democratic control that might impede privatization. But the downside of mayoral control is that it eliminates the role of the public in public education. It eliminates the democratic nature of public education. It produces disengagement and anger among parents and community members, whose opinions are excluded from any decisions affecting their children and their communities. When people appear at hearings about school closings and their voices are disregarded, it erodes trust and civic engagement. Community anger about school reform was a leading cause of the defeat of Washington, D.C., mayor Adrian Fenty when he sought reelection in 2010. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s school reform policies featured school closings, opening of more than a hundred charter schools, and a relentless emphasis on standardized tests to evaluate schools and teachers; by the end of the mayor’s third term, only 22 percent of New York City voters wanted his style of autocratic control to continue. Chicago’s system of mayoral control and its unending parade of reforms stoked the anger of the Chicago Teachers Union, which went on strike in 2012 for the first time in twenty-five years. When voters in most precincts in Chicago were asked whether they favored mayoral control of the schools, a resounding 87 percent said no.5

  There is a reason that 95 percent of school districts in the United States have an elected board. Schools are a central part of the fabric of life in communities, villages, towns, and small cities. In big cities, the school boards are supposed to represent the interests of the communities that are served, whether by election or by appointment. Parents and members of local communities should have a voice in the democratic process of decision making. They should be heard. The purpose of the board in major urban districts should be to allow public participation, not to shut it out. Most people don’t like the idea of autocracy. Most Americans think that when it is their children and their tax dollars, they should be able to choose the people making the decisions or at the very least to be heard respectfully.

  The reformers are correct when they say that school boards are an obstacle to radical change. They move slowly. They argue. They listen to different points of view. They make mistakes. They are not bold and transformative. They prefer incremental change. In short, they are a democratic forum. They are a check and balance against concentrated power in one person or one agency. The same complaints may be justly lodged against state legislatures and against Congress. They debate, they move slowly, one house checks the impulses of the other, they listen to their constituents. That’s democracy.

  Authoritarian governments can move decisively. They listen to no one outside their inner circle. They are able to make change without pondering or taking opposing views into account. But they too make mistakes. And because they do not listen to the opposition, they may make even larger mistakes than democratic bodies. There is an arrogance to unchecked power. There is no mechanism to vet its ideas, so it plunges forward, sometimes into disastrous schemes.

  Local control of the public schools is a venerable American tradition. American public schools should have elected local school boards. Their power is not absolute: they work within the context of federal and state law regarding civil rights and curriculum standards. The local board should be a forum for public opinion. The reason for this is clear. The school board picks the superintendent, and the superintendent works for the school board. When she makes a major policy decision, she must stand up in public and explain that decision. When she decides on a budget, she must stand up in public and explain it. Members of the public get to comment. If the decision or the budget meets overwhelming public rejection, the superintendent must rethink
the decision. She cannot do whatever she wants or whatever the mayor wants without a thorough public airing. If the school board flouts public opinion, its members may go down to defeat.

  In major cities that have an appointed board, different officials—not just the mayor—should select the board. The appointed board should serve for set terms, not at the pleasure of the appointing authority, so that members have a measure of independence. In big cities with an appointed board, there should be local school councils where parents can become involved, work with school staff to review the budget, and have a say in the education of their children.

  If we believe in democracy, and if we believe that public schools must act in concert with the principles of democracy, then we must reject authoritarianism from any quarter, be it the mayor, the state education department, or the federal government. No one should exercise untrammeled control over education policy and have the power to ignore public opinion. The children belong to the parents, and the schools belong to the public, not to the mayor or the governor or the president. Public officials are elected to serve the public, not to control it.

  No reform idea is so compelling and so urgent that it requires the suspension of democracy. Supporters of top-down reforms say that the situation is so dire that “we cannot wait.” Their ideas are not good enough to require the sacrifice of democracy. Only in wartime do we willingly suspend our right to have a say about how we are governed, and even then we lose our liberties at our peril. The rise or fall of test scores and graduation rates is not a sufficient reason to eliminate democratic participation by the people. Elected officials should respect the judgment of professional educators about how to run schools and work cooperatively with them to make sure that the needs of students are met and that the budget is sufficient and responsibly managed, but educators too ultimately work for the public.

  Schools need the support of the entire community, including parents, educators, community leaders, civic leaders, business leaders, and the mayor. Two decades of experimentation with the governance of public schools has demonstrated certain fundamental truths: Some decisions should be made at the national level; some at the state level; and some at the local level. Every school should be able to respond to the needs of the children it enrolls and have the resources to do it well.

  Because public schools need the support of the public that funds them, they should have the widest possible community support. Community support means democratic governance. School districts should be governed by those who are willing to work diligently to improve them and by those who have the greatest stake in the success of the children and the community.

  CHAPTER 31

  The Toxic Mix

  SOLUTION NO. 10 Devise actionable strategies and specific goals to reduce racial segregation and poverty.

  There is one certain conclusion that can be drawn from studies of educational achievement: poverty has a negative effect on student learning. On every test, whether in reading or in mathematics, the results are stratified by family income. Students from the wealthiest families tend to have the highest scores, and students from the poorest families tend to have the lowest scores. Every standardized test produces this result, whether it is the SAT, the ACT, state tests, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or international tests.

  This does not mean that poor children can’t learn. Even though they start school far behind their advantaged peers, some poor children will overcome the odds and achieve academic success. But make no mistake: the odds of success are against them. Children who live in poverty have less access to health care, are more likely to have undiagnosed illnesses, are more likely to miss school because of illness, are less likely to have educated parents, are less likely to have books in the house, are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods, are more likely to be hungry and homeless, are more likely to change schools because of their family’s inability to pay the rent, and are less likely to have economic security than their peers who grow up in middle- and upper-income families.

  Nearly a quarter of children in the United States are now growing up in poverty. By the Census Bureau’s calculation, the percentage of children living in poverty today is about the same as it was in 1964. For children who are white, the current poverty rate is 12.5 percent. For children who are Asian, the poverty rate is 13 percent. For children who are Hispanic, it is 34 percent. For children who are black, it is 37 percent. This should be considered a national scandal.

  Cognitive scientists recognize that poverty damages children’s lives. A report prepared by the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child concluded that children’s brain development is affected by excessive stress. A certain amount of stress and challenge is “essential to survival.” But, the report said, “severe, uncontrollable, chronic adversity … can have an adverse impact on brain architecture.” Children who have been subject to abuse or neglect, children who have been exposed to drugs and alcohol, children whose parents face economic hardship, children whose mothers are depressed, may be subject to “toxic stress.” The report suggests specific ways to reduce toxic stress: allow parents to have family leave to take care of newborns and infants; make sure that low-income parents who want to care for their young children have the means to do so rather than seek immediate employment; reduce the turnover of staff in programs that promote stable relationships between children and caregivers; provide expert help to parents who are struggling to deal with their child’s behavioral problems or developmental delays; provide qualified clinicians to help young children and their mothers deal with the consequences of toxic stress; change public policies that force mothers of young children to return to the workforce as a condition of receiving public assistance. It is humane and cost-effective for society to help all young mothers learn nurturing skills, enable them to spend more time with their children, and help them to raise them well.1

  Poverty is the most important factor contributing to low academic achievement. Even high expectations, as important as they are, are unlikely to be enough to overcome the adversity that results from not having enough money to meet life’s basic needs.

  Poverty is not the only factor that affects academic achievement. Racial segregation also contributes to low academic achievement. As the U.S. Supreme Court said in the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, “To separate them [children in grade and high schools] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” At the time of the Brown decision, seventeen states and many districts had laws requiring the segregation of students by race. The Supreme Court decision overturned such laws in 1954, but segregation as a matter of fact has long survived the demise of de jure segregation. Today, racial segregation remains a pervasive fact of life for millions of black children, primarily as a result of residential segregation. The only difference is that today they are often in schools with equally impoverished Hispanic children. Children who are black or Hispanic suffer from higher rates of poverty and segregation than white or Asian children.

  School segregation is increasing, according to the Civil Rights Project at the University of California in Los Angeles, which cites the expansion of charter schools as one of the causes. Sadly, desegregation is no longer a priority for the federal government. Few federal programs mention desegregation as a prerequisite or even a goal when allocating competitive grants. The project reports that segregation has recently intensified for Latino students, “who are attending more intensely segregated and impoverished schools than they have for generations. The segregation increases have been the most dramatic in the West. The typical Latino student in the region attends a school where less than a quarter of their classmates are white; nearly two-thirds are other Latinos; and two-thirds are poor.” The most segregated schools for students of Latino or Hispanic origin are in California, New York, and Texas.2

&
nbsp; According to the project, 80 percent of Latino students and 74 percent of black students attend majority-nonwhite schools. Forty-three percent of Latinos and 38 percent of black students attend intensely segregated schools, where fewer than 10 percent of the students are white. Fifteen percent of black and Latino students attend what the project calls “apartheid schools,” where white students make up 1 percent or less of the population.

  Segregation is most concentrated in the nation’s cities. Half of the more than sixteen hundred schools in New York City are more than 90 percent black and Hispanic. Half of the black students in Chicago and one-third of the black students in New York City attend apartheid schools.3

  Many black students are doubly segregated, by race and by poverty. The report finds that “the typical black student is now in a school where almost two out of every three classmates (64 percent) are low-income, nearly double the level in schools of the typical white or Asian student (37 percent and 39 percent, respectively).” The most segregated schools for black students are in New York, Illinois, and Michigan, the least segregated in Washington, Nebraska, and Kansas. The project reports that resegregation of black students is on the rise in the South. While great progress was made in the 1970s and 1980s, the South began backsliding in the 1990s after the Supreme Court allowed districts to abandon their desegregation commitments.

  The greatest forward movement for desegregation—and the most significant narrowing of the achievement gap—occurred when the federal government and the federal courts worked in concert to integrate schools. However, for at least the past decade, the federal government and the courts have abandoned their interest in desegregation as a national priority. In the absence of committed leadership by elected officials, desegregation has disappeared from the national agenda and from public consciousness as a valuable goal. Now the media unthinkingly celebrate the seemingly miraculous (and isolated) successes of all-black or all-minority schools without questioning whether racially segregated schools should exist.