We spotted this over the weekend:

I called a lobbyist and asked him for a number: how many of the 212 members of the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate send their children to private schools? These are the people who make the rules for the public-school system. As the state constitution says, "the legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein the children of the state may be educated." How many of them, after they do their constitutional duty, send their children to those schools? Or, after they pass laws affecting the public schools, how many send their own kids to private schools?

He couldn’t tell me. (In fact, considering the age of most lawmakers, he said the real question has to do with the legislators’ grandchildren.) The answer, however, should be well-known.

Because common sense suggests that legislators who have children in public school will be especially interested in improving them, why not make it a requirement: the children of legislators must go to a public school.

Oh, we will make some allowances for very special situations depending on the needs of the child. But we won’t make allowances based on the wallet of the legislators, or the decision that what is good enough for everyone else is not good enough for his or her kid.

In addition, the same rule will apply to administrators in the New York State Education Department. You want to make and enforce education regulations? Wonderful, and your children will be in the schools where those regulations apply.

One final piece. If you are an officer at the state level in a teachers’ union, either the National Education Association of New York or the New York State United Teachers, your kids are in public schools. If you lobby for more public funding for education, as well as protecting the rights of accused teachers, place your children in those schools.

If the people responsible for shaping the public-school system have their own children in them, we won’t be surprised when the schools are more effective. In addition, we can expect the distance between the best and the worst to shrink when influential people must register their children in poor schools.

The Chalkboard finds the idea atrocious:

Horrible, horrible, idea. Cruel, even.

No one - no matter who they are - should ever be forced to send their kids into an educational environment that wastes a child’s time, puts him or her in danger, or limits their ability to have a productive adult life in our democracy. Just because someone is an elected official doesn’t mean they should send their kids to crappy schools.

It just would be nice if they thought of the rest the parental planet when they voted on education issues.

But the school choice movement has actually been here before.  From Clint’s book Voucher Wars, p. 28:

Back in Milwaukee, Polly Williams (the Wisconsin legislator responsible for enacting the Milwaukee voucher program-ed.) was still shaking things up.  She had learned that most of the Milwaukee Public School teachers, like many urban public school teachers around the nation, sent their own children to private school.  Yet they had the audacity to challenge the school choice program.  Fine, said Polly: if the public schools are good enough for our kids, they ought to be good enough for their kids.  So she announced that she would sponsor legislation making it a condition of employment that public school teachers send their own children to public schools.  The response was death threats on Polly’s home answering machine.  Tongue in cheek, I had to advise Polly that her proposal would be unconstitutional–public school teachers, like all Americans, have a constitutional right to send their children to private schools.  But the point about the union’s hypocrisy was brilliantly made. 

And, of course, public schoolteachers are still much more likely to send their children to private schools.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that! 

Back in February, Bill Gates called high schools "obsolete".  It seems some students agree with him:

It is a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland idea. If you do not finish high school, head straight for college.

But many colleges — public and private, two-year and four-year — will accept students who have not graduated from high school or earned equivalency degrees.

And in an era of stubbornly elevated high school dropout rates, the chance to enter college through the back door is attracting growing interest among students without high school diplomas.

That growth is fueling a debate over whether the students should be in college at all and whether state financial aid should pay their way. In New York, the issue flared in a budget battle this spring.

Of course, the question will immediately arise as to whether this is in a dropout’s best interests–if they couldn’t handle high school, how on earth can they expect to handle college?  The article goes into some detail discussing that issue (it seems to be a mixed bag overall).  But there’s another facet to this issue that is worth addressing.  The Gates Foundation’s recent study found that boredom was a big factor in some students’ decision to drop out (p. iii):

Nearly half (47 percent) said a major reason for dropping out was that classes were not interesting.  These young people reported being bored and disengaged from high school. Almost as many (42 percent) spent time with people who were not interested in school.  These were among the top reasons selected by those with high GPAs and by those who said they were motivated to work hard.

Nearly 7 in 10 respondents (69 percent) said they were not motivated or inspired to work hard, 80 percent did one hour or less of homework each day in high school, two-thirds would have worked harder if more was demanded of them (higher academic standards and more studying and homework), and 70 percent were confident they could have graduated if they had tried. Even a majority of those with low GPAs thought they could have graduated.

To be accurate, there are no single answers as to why students drop out.  For these students, terminal boredom probably wasn’t the only reason, or even the biggest reason.  But if a student is fed up and wants out of high school, what’s wrong with him/her moving on to junior college?  We let students graduate from high school early.  So is it necessarily a bad thing if a student is commits to college in lieu of a high school diploma?  We get an unmotivated student out of the classroom, freeing up some tax dollars and classroom space, and make it at least a little more likely that the student, now paying tuition, will take a little more ownership in his/her education. 

It’s also worth pointing out that setting the age of adulthood at 18 is a relatively recent development.  As early as the late 1800s, a 16-year-old was considered an adult, with all the corresponding rights and responsibilities.  In that light, maybe it’s not entirely surprising that so many juniors seem to come down with senioritis. 

Andrew Rotherham and I are out to prove everyone wrong by demonstrating that it is possible to have a civil debate about school vouchers, in this case, school vouchers for children with disabilities.

More “Sense and Disability: A Second Reply to Rotherham (Matthew Ladner)”

Can’t Complete High School? Go Right Along to College - It is a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland idea. If you do not finish high school, head straight for college. (more) 

Unions’ retirement advice is failing teachers - Some of the United States’ largest teachers unions have joined forces with investment companies to steer members into retirement plans that frequently have high expenses and mediocre returns. (more)

Why Supe Selection Is Like Judging a Dog Show - By the end of this column I will have selected the next superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Because I believe that the children, parents, teachers and citizens of Los Angeles are entitled to transparency in such deliberations, I invite you to join me as I work my way toward a decision. (more)

School choice focus of forum - School choice — at least a version that would grant tax credits to some parents who enroll their children in private schools — revealed clear differences for viewers who watched Sunday’s televised debate featuring five Republicans running for South Carolina superintendent of education. (more)

Parents Answer Cellphone Ban in N.Y. Schools - They say the crackdown is too strict and imperils children’s safety. But the mayor holds the line. (more)

GOP’s missed chance: No choice for NH parents - Editorial: Republicans in the state House of Representatives might have missed their best chance to implement one of their platform planks. (more)

It adds up: How teachers in Palm Beach County could earn six-figure salaries -  Looking for a job with eventual six-figure earning potential? You might consider teaching at a Palm Beach County school. (more)

Will school closures do job? - As Seattle Public Schools prepares to shutter as many as a dozen school buildings, there’s growing concern that closures won’t save as much money as expected. (more)

Mayor Faces School Skeptics - In an effort to shore up support for his quest to win control of the Los Angeles public schools, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will go to Sacramento today to lobby business and labor leaders, as legislators warn that the major initiative of his term could be in trouble. (more)

A Mostly Easy Road for Chief of Schools - His wife’s illness is the one issue overshadowing Jack O’Connell as he runs a less-than-stressful campaign for reelection as California’s superintendent of public instruction. (more)

Exit-exam shift not the best answer for high schoolers - Opinion: The California legislature should vote down an effort to weaken the state’s high academic expectations. (more)

Education earmark shows Los Angeles now in political power - A look at a $1 billion earmark for Los Angeles Unified School District–and what it means for the perpetual school finance battles in California. (more)

UPDATE:
CA initiative renews preschool debate - From coast to coast, states are pushing to get more 4-year-olds into classrooms like Cheryl Smith’s thriving pre-kindergarten group at Cool Spring Elementary School in Adelphi. (more)

Ohio EdChoice voucher participation - With the application deadline fast approaching, 561 students, 1.2% of those eligible, have signed up for the new statewide EdChoice school voucher program. Despite this slow start, there is good reason to believe that this voucher program can fulfill its promise of offering true education choice to those who need it most. (more)

Wisconsin yanks school’s voucher status - State officials ordered Sa’Rai and Zigler Upper Excellerated Academy out of Milwaukee’s voucher program Friday, citing possible fraud in student applications. (more) 

With more choice has come resegregation - A school-assignment system established in 2001 to give San Francisco parents more choice has resegregated many schools across San Francisco. (more)

We’re shocked, shocked!

Thousands of students in Inland schools are not taking advantage of the free tutoring available to them under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Minimal efforts to notify parents, lack of transportation for students and low parent interest are reasons cited by many school-district officials, tutoring providers and parents.

In 2004-05, about 800,000 students across the state were eligible to receive the free tutoring that certain schools are required to offer when they fail to meet academic-performance targets for three years in a row. However, only 12 percent received the services, according to a report by the state Department of Education.

Nationwide, only 16.6 percent of the 1.4 million students eligible in 2003-04, the latest year with numbers available, received tutoring.

In Riverside and San Bernardino county school districts, the percentage of students participating in free tutoring programs range from zero to about 34 percent.

In a speech last month, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said districts must do a better job of reaching out to parents and telling them their options.

"More than half of school districts didn’t even tell parents that their children were eligible for these options until after the school year had already begun," Spellings said. 

Why, you would think there was some kind of pattern here!