A Good School

Now that Baby M and most of his friends are safely ensconced in suitable preschools, the hot topic is "where are you sending him for kindergarten?"  Parents are on a never-ending quest for a "good school."  I have heard the words "good school" thrown around so much in the past months that they have lost all meaning.  Is a good school the one with high test scores?  Involved parents?  An arts focussed curriculum?  A lawn?  Mostly white kids?  Any school that is not part of LAUSD?  Depending on who you talk to it could be any of these.

So when I saw Diane Ravitch on the Daily Show talking about the state of public education, I decided to pick up her new book The Death and Life of the Great American School System.   Diane Ravitch is a historian of school reform and served in the Education Department under the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations.  Her book provides an in depth look at the last 20 years or so of school reform. Interestingly, many of the policies she once advocated for-- testing, accountability, choice and markets--  she has now reversed position on.  As she explains in the book, her views changed as she "saw how these ideas were working out in reality."

The main point of the book is that market based and data driven reforms will not help, and quite possibly are hurting the quality of our public schools.  She uses several case studies and, somewhat ironically, test scores to illustrate her point.  Indeed, one problem with data is that depending on how you slice it, it can be used to show schools are or are not improving.  Ravitch convincingly makes the case that by obsessing over scores on standardized tests of the most basic math and reading skills, we are leaving our students unable to do much more than fill in a bubble on a multiple choice test.  They are "unprepared to lead fulfilling lives, to be responsible citizens and to make good choices."  And by using those scores exclusively to evaluate schools, teachers and administrators will teach only the test material, will manipulate who takes the test or will cheat in order to keep their jobs.  She argues that by creating a market for schools, we create winners and losers as the most motivated students and families flock to charter schools and neighborhood schools are left with unmotivated or problem students.  Instead of citizens linked together by a school, we are consumers, each looking out only for our own interests.  She writes, "The market, with its great strengths, is not the appropriate mechanism to supply services that should be distributed equally to people in every neighborhood in every city and town in the nation without regard to their ability to pay or their political power."  She does see a role for religious, private and even charter schools, but one that does not drain away the best students from public education.  Her prescription for fixing schools includes a well-defined comprehensive liberal arts based curriculum, an inspection based assessment method for schools and teachers, well-educated teachers and extra help for disadvantaged families.  This was a fascinating book and if you are at all interested in education policy I highly recommend it.

So what does this all mean for me and my search for a "good school"?  Well, I've always felt strongly about the importance of neighborhood schools.  And I was all set to attend my local school with its pretty good API score (but very good based on demographics), diverse student body, involved parents and new playground equipment.  But then I thought I should do some due diligence and learn about my other options-- charters, magnets, open enrollment.  I toured a nearby charter school and found they include foreign language, arts and music in their regular school day, things my neighborhood school only offers in after school enrichment classes.  The charter school also has a pretty good API score, but it is well below average based on demographics.   So, what to think?  Is my neighborhood school teaching to the test at the expense of other subjects? Are the charter school students lagging behind on basic skills? I'd love for Baby M to learn a second language and be well-versed in the arts.  At the same time, I want to support my neighborhood school and allow Baby M to make friends who live nearby.  After reading this book, I will spend a little more time researching the curriculum used by the schools and observe some classes in each.  I still have least a year before Baby M starts kindergarten and plenty of time to find that all elusive "good school."