What about education reform? « Northwest Digest

What about education reform?

By Anton at August 18th, 2009.

With all the hysterics, misrepresentations (from the right, the center and the left – mostly the left) and downright nastiness circling around legislation to reform health care in the United States, it’s nice to see a thoughtful local columnist focus on an issue that often sneaks under the radar.

What Peter Callaghan does in his column yesterday is, basically, ask one, simple question: what will it take to fill our schools with teachers who are held accountable for their students’ success?

Roughly 50 million school children in the United States will head back to the classroom soon and a large majority will be greeted by teachers and administrators excited to educate another generation of American students. For that, we are all grateful.

However, still too many students will enter a classroom occupied by teachers not motivated to do their best because, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Who fails when kids fail in public schools? The drop-out and failure statistics in the public school system nationwide is shocking if one does not look often.

Nearly one and a half million of the 50 million school children heading back to the classroom will head to one of roughly 4,500 public charter schools; if recent history is any indication, the number of charter schools and the number of students will continue to rise (according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 1.2 million students were enrolled in charter schools two years ago).

At this point, most people agree that public charter schools – first made legal in Minnesota in 1991 – have provided too little for proponents to gloat. However, across all social, economic and political lines, public charter schools are gaining a lot of support. The charter school idea is entirely logical and gaining steam.

In the Wall Street Journal last week, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation for teachers, said since the vast majority of school children in this country can be found in traditional public schools, the vast majority of federal dollars should be spent on those public schools. That’s a great plan. Let’s line Randi’s pockets and throw more money at a system that, according to Bill Gates, has been in “crisis for decades.”

It is ironic to think both sides of the health care divide continue to pick on each other for all types of organizations that wedge between a patient and a provider. At the same time, millions of children are heading back to school with a giant and powerful organization blocking a clear view to their teacher. How many people are screaming about that?

UPDATE: The Gates Foundation doing more good in education.

Tags: Bill Gates, Peter Callaghan, public charter schools, public schools, Randi Weingarten