Students Need Innovation Over Privatization

In communities all over this country, we are seeing parents increasingly choose to educate their children in alternative private educational programs. For most of these families, they are having to pay the additional expense required for the instruction as well as the local taxes that fund public education.  What would drive these parents to take on this additional financial burden? What is driving this “flight” from traditional community schools? In some cases I do believe that it truly is a devout religious decision between parents and children and I applaud families making that personal choice. It is my belief that most families place their children in private Christian schools because of their feeling that they have no other suitable public or private option.

Teaching quality is not what is driving parents to private school…Its’s customization & innovation at the school and class level. Private schools and homeschooling are growing because they are centers of innovation and discovery. These schools are free from the regulations that burden public schools and have the opportunity to teach to the needs of the individual student. Public schools have suffered because of politicians and school officials constantly redefining what success looks like. For schools and teachers to succeed there must be consistent expectations with a system of measurable accountability. If we want to see “No Child Left Behind,” we have to turn our public school teachers loose and free them to innovate. The small/private school model can work in every school with a leadership team at the school and central office level committed to real productive change.

My Republican friends are pushing charter schools and voucher programs as the solution. The problem is that charter schools and vouchers are still “public education.” In fact, these programs may make things worse by shifting resources and impacting diversity within our schools. These programs pick schools that will succeed and fail by addressing the symptoms without fixing the problem. Politicians like vouchers and charter schools because they are easier fixes and make for better speeches! The problem that we have in education is not teachers and money….it the speed at which we innovate and address problems. We have to start innovating again and focusing on the right solutions!

Here are a few ideas:

1. Increased technology to get real time results for immediate differentiation of instruction.
2. Pre/post students every nine weeks….Skip what they know and teach what they don’t.
3. Textbooks need to go….iPads/tablets may be they solution here. (possibly cheaper too in the long run).
4. END high pressure testing (CRCT here in GA).
5. Replace high pressure tests with 9 week exams that cover the common core YTD (final 9 week exam would be cumulative).
6. These exams would be diagnostic rather that punitive.
7. Every class should be different and in a different place.
8. We need leaders in public school…Not just people who managed to get “leadership degrees.” Find and promote REAL leaders (it’s to easy to be declared a leader)!

Implementing these approaches would close the gap between public and private schools and better prepare our students for the world that they are going to be stepping into.  We can make public education work but sound bites, demagoguing and political intrusion will not get it done. Our kids need innovation not privatization…politicians are you listening?