Flanfire

David O. Russell [Texas schools need our help, not courts’, Austin American-Statesman, February 23, 2004] has a point when he says that “... we need to see beyond special interests and keep our eyes on the big picture: education excellence.” Russell is speaking about the need for Texans to determine for themselves how to restructure public school finance to ensure that taxpayers will get a better product.

Russell continues in a good vein in stating that past achievements in bolstering student performance “should only be a first step in our quest for a better public education system.” He is also correct in stating that, “Educators and schools must be provided with the tools, programs, and dollars to help ... students reach their potential and beyond.”

But Russell stops far short of even asking the questions state leaders need to be asking about the future of Texas public education. For example, does the structure of the typical public school district in Texas really work for today’s families and students? For example, should we relocated elementary classrooms closer to homes, to jobs, to churches with after-school care? Do high school schedules provide enough opportunities for students to experiment with elective courses to help them find a niche?

A major concern should be the number of students who decide for a wide variety of reasons that the public school system just does not work for them. Some of our high schools are the size of small cities. While this might make for higher quality football teams and other elites, does it really work for everyone? International studies suggest that smaller student bodies may be much better at addressing the needs and concerns of the majority of students.

The sad fact is that individual parents have little opportunity to seek out schools whose structures, programs, and policies provide the best type of learning environment for their own children. Meanwhile, schools segregate children by age and (effectively) by clique, leaving parents ill equipped to combat the stereotypes that their children’s schools enforce.

If Texas really wants to improve the quality of education statewide, the state will do well to provide universal vouchers, with larger vouchers for children with disabilities or special needs (language development, for example). Such a scheme would enable parents and education pioneers to work together to create schools that work better for their children than the ones we have today. Not everyone would immediately choose this path, but that would not be so bad.

To be really creative, school districts could simply lease out classrooms (if space is available) to alternative education providers, and we could even create education cooperatives in which students massed at a single location would be eligible for common participation in extra-curricular activities (such as sports, music, and even academic competitions).

The basic point is to empower teachers and parents to be stronger partners in the education of children under their mutual care. Today’s system creates barriers between parents and those directly in charge of overseeing their children’s education - to the extent that parents are at a major disadvantage. If the school is unresponsive, they must grin and bear it unless they are wealthy enough to relocate or choose a private school for their children.

As our children grow older, many become much more independent (for various reasons) and may even have to work to help pay family bills. Others may have severe emotional problems, while still others are victims of harassment and worse from fellow students. Yet most face the sole choice of dropping out entirely or submitting to unworkable situations while trying to gain the credentials of a high school diploma. Is there any wonder so many are resorting to the General Equivalency Diploma?

Public schools typically use statistical tricks to deny the obvious - senior classes typically far fewer students than freshman classes. In a study I did of Arkansas schools, the greatest disparities between freshman and senior classes were in the university city of Fayetteville. Huge numbers of students in the northwestern suburbs of Houston, a fairly wealthy area, are leaving public high schools - largely because they have rightly discerned that they are not really wanted.

Just imagine the changes that could take place if parents and their children could work together to choose learning environments that work best for their children. Just imagine the changes that could occur if teachers could band together to form schools that dynamically meet the real-world needs of these parents and children (including teenagers).

Today, if a child has bad experiences at a school, the parent can do little to make that child’s school experience much better. This can yield huge buildups in tension in the home, and many parents who already feel powerless to help their children with their education or even with their personal development find themselves even more powerless against a bureaucracy that gives them little choice but to kowtow to their children’s masters.

It is also true that people with a real stake in outcomes are more willing to invest themselves in the processes that lead to those outcomes. This is very true of parents given the opportunity and the responsibility to help choose their children’s education structures, teachers, and even educational goals. Let a thousand flowers bloom! Liberate Texas schools as part of the education finance reform initiative, and we will more easily expect academic performance to rise.