The way of the future in public education

A review of a brilliant effort by an excellent math teacher at a KIPP academy charter school in Washington D.C.

New Teacher Jolts KIPP

So many limitations that we face at Eisenhower to create these results. Limitations that we are overcoming, slowly, but limitations nonetheless.

The largest and most tragic limitations are the legal and political limitations.

So many of the kids I face, ideally, should not be in special education. Like Lisa Suben's students, these kids should be in regular education math, reading, social studies, and science classrooms with teachers who are committed to their success and unsatisfied until they achieve it.

My kids end up in special education, largely, because so many general education teachers refuse or don't know how to do what Lisa Suben is doing: remediating problems with basic skills from lower level curriculum, covering the curriculum with enthusiasm and an expectation of success, engaging students regularly and with higher level thinking skills, and expecting students to think at the highest levels.

And, sadly, the paperwork requirements of special education put limitations on time and energy by teachers like me who are committed to these higher standards and levels of achievement. This is not an excuse. It is just a reality of the world of special education.

We are making progress in my special education math class. But it is far slower than if we had teachers like Lisa Suben doing the kind of work that I do in my special education math class (and far better than me) in general education classes.

I am curious to see how that model sustains itself with teachers raising families and with teachers and students who do not make explicit choices to attend a KIPP school, as Lisa's students did, but I very much believe that having many more schools like KIPP available and more often the norm will change the dynamic of teacher and student commitment to their work substantially, over time.

Teachers will fight this. Even good ones, who are stubbornly committed to models that emphasize district, state, and Federal compliance, mandates, and bureaucracy. And which keep teacher unions in business. And expect far too much in terms of meaningless bureaucracy and expect far too little of schools and teachers, generally, in terms of results.

It is clear that it will take a long time to make Lisa's experience more the norm. But it is clear to me that it is possible when teachers are freed up to do exactly the kinds of things that Lisa has done to produce results rather than lose precious time and energy complying with regulations in general and special education which have very little to do with achievement and much to do with justifying labels, attitudes, and elaborate intellectual rationalizations for why teachers do not expect success from students.

A rising tide of achievement of folks like Lisa and her students could raise a lot of ships, if we would let it. But it will mean letting go of the excuses and the political and legal squeeze on teachers to comply rather than to achieve when student achievement lags and when kids and teachers are not doing what we want them to do.

We can change this. But it will meaning coming to terms with the failure of the current approach. Even Lisa's amazing performance did not meet the impossible mandated standards of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is a failed effort to improve student performance and which, even in Lisa's case, is clearly a significant barrier to student and school achievement.

Money for schools is great, but it can come from other more private sources, as it does in the KIPP case. The choice provisions of the law could be expanded, but ultimately local district politics must welcome choice and a more open education market in a way that no Federal law can ever mandate.

Support for school choice must be created from the ground up in school districts, rather than imposed from above, where it entrenches and produces resentment and resistance that will become hardened down the road without support generated at the ground level. Political history is plentiful with examples of good ideas, like school choice, being imposed from above and producing resistance and resentment, no matter how strong the idea may be. And certainly the results from mandated efforts like IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Act) and the No Child Left Behind Act do not show promising results in terms of welcome embrace and fulfillment of legal obligations by schools facing those acts, since those obligations, more often than not, conflict with much more basic commitments to teaching and learning.

Milton Friedman's commitment to education as the centerpiece of the Rose and Milton Friedman foundation is no accident. Education is the field in America that is most in need of market reforms and more freedom, generally, to cure its ills and it is a fundamental need by a liberal democracy to fulfill its values and commitments to freedom, equity, and democratic self-governance.

Lisa Suben's performance should rightly be a shining example to everyone in public and private education of what is possible with kids when teachers believe they can perform and when kids choose to be with teachers who believe in them and expect much of them.

And efforts like Lisa's and the KIPP school she teaches with are only possible with the freedom to excel without the legal and political double-binds that afflict public schools today. As those double-binds are removed, we should not be under the illusion that all teachers and schools will perform as strongly as Lisa. But our efforts will be stronger as schools and teachers and students have the excuses and limitations for their performance removed from their forward momentum.

The poorest performers in schools and in life will only find dignity when they are held to the standard of the best performers, and when they finally learn to hold themselves to that same standard. There is much discussion and debate that will be necessary about what they will look like, given the needs of parents and children to live lives together without achievement as their only or even primary priority. But the only real dignity available to children and adults is one where we support and expect the best from and for all children and adults.

Thanks to Lisa and KIPP for showing us the way.

Love,
Ben