Put to the Test

This article titled, Put to the Test, appearing in the latest issue of Stanford Magazine (July-Aug. 2006 issue) is worth reading.

It lays out Terry Moe's pro-accountability, pro-choice (read: vouchers, but also charter schools) perspective against Gerald Bracey's argument that privatization ("choice") is the agenda that undergirds NCLB.

Moe's view is expressed as follows:

"If we want significant improvement, we need to target the incentives at the heart of the system. Fortunately, there are potent reforms capable of doing that: school accountability and school choice. Accountability shapes incentives from above through effective management. Under a well-designed system, the states develop rigorous academic standards, measure whether the standards are being met, and attach rewards and sanctions to the outcomes--thus putting a laser-like focus on achievement, and giving educators and students strong incentives to promote it.

School choice, by contrast, shapes incentives from below through grassroots action. When parents are able to vote with their feet, and when they are given alternatives--charter schools or private schools--to the regular public schools, the latter are put on notice that they stand to lose kids and money if they don't perform. And their incentives are enhanced accordingly.

Neither accountability nor choice can be an immediate fix, because institutional reform is a complex and imperfect process. Each of these reforms can be designed and implemented in countless ways, and some may prove much better than others. Success turns on well-intentioned efforts to move--over time, with experience--toward frameworks that adjust for the inevitable early problems and promote school improvement most effectively over the long run. There is nothing ideological about this and nothing conspiratorial. It simply calls for a practical, much-needed search for an appropriate mix of accountability, choice, and traditional schooling--a mix that gets the incentives right and really boosts student learning."


In response, Bracey offers the following:

"I have never believed that this law is the idealistic, well-intentioned but poorly executed program that many claim it to be. NCLB aims to shrink the public sector, transfer large sums of public money to the private sector, weaken or destroy two Democratic power bases--the teachers unions--and provide vouchers to let students attend private schools at public expense. The original proposal, and each subsequent presidential budget, provided for vouchers, but Congress has thus far removed these provisions."

I appreciate, in particular, Bracey's analyses of international mathematics data (TIMMS) that show that at lower percentages of student poverty, our public school performance translates into higher test scores--higher even than Sweden, the leading nation. However, because we have greater poverty than other industrialized nations, our overall score is lower.

As does Moe who alludes to the problematic of teacher union power, he provides other pertinent commentary on the vexed politics of school reform that includes the demonizing of teachers and the chronic and determining conditions of poverty.

Good going, Jerry! -Angela