Nadine, if you completely removed government rules and regulations from the system of education, then perhaps this would be an issue to worry about. Since President Bush's plan will only offer parents "a limited choice" when the school is failing their children, I don't see it as a large problem.
Be that as it may, and just for the sake of discussion, let's say that it is something to worry about. I would answer it in this way. "A rising tide, lifts all boats".
One of the main reasons America has become the success it has in the world economy, is because our institutions, and businesses, are more closely connected to the customers then other nations are. As one business innovates to create more value, others businesses are given an "urgency to change" in order to keep up.
When you have a system (like our current public education system) where the needs of the customers are secondary to the needs of the system. Eventually, the goals of the system begin to decay. It's the main reason socialism doesn't work long term. Socialism puts a barrier between the provider of the service or product, and the customer of that service or product (the government bureaucrat).
As one school excels in a given district, other schools will be given an example to emulate. Principals and Teachers talk, so do parents and students. When they discover some of the things school A has done to improve education, an "urgency to change" is created.
If that school is further rewarded monetarily for their success, or rewarded in other meaningful ways. Schools in that district will strive to receive those rewards too. "A rising tide, lifts all boats".
Eventually, if they fail to improve, the people involved in running the school should be held accountable. If that means firing the principal, or a few teachers who are unwilling, or unable to educate themselves, they so be it.
Whenever people are given the freedom to make decisions regarding a product or service. Some people will always make poor decisions. Some parents will undoubtedly make poor decisions in regard to their childrens education needs. However, given the choice, most will not.
For the truly handicapped children in our society, government programs are already in place to assist them. With limited vouchers, this shouldn't change those schools provided they are meeting some form of metric evaluation results.
Vouchers alone are no panacea though. Many other things will need to be done in conjunction with vouchers. One, I would suggest, is an across the board quality metric system, measuring such things as 1) test results, 2) attendance, 3) involvement of students in learning activities, 4) parental surveys, 5) teacher surveys, 6) percentage of those attending higher education, 7) cost per pupil, 8) involvement by parents at PTA and so forth. In other words, an entire QIS system should be operating, with objective auditors, very similar to the way in which many corporations measure their suppliers quality system.
Unfortunately, many of these ideas are foreign to education leaders. So we need to start educating them across the board in sound management principles. This has to start at the top. Which means, we cannot have a President or Secretary of Education who simply spouts the NEA politically protective party line whenever the issue of vouchers comes up.
A few years ago, I worked with one school principal and set up a reading metric system. Unbelievably to me, they had NEVER measured reading results at the school before. They had never collected the data in order to determine if they were being effective. In other words, they had changed the program of reading, perhaps a half-dozen times over the years, without ever KNOWING whether it was working or not. I have little doubt this type of thing is epidemic in public education across the country today.
One knowledgeable motivated principal can make a real difference, but when you have a system disconnected to the customers as we have, where the rewards built in are out of alignment with the organizations values. People will take the path of least resistance.
The same thing happens in many business organizations which have their internal reward system disconnected from the needs of their customers. How often have you seen a very large bureaucratically run company succeed extremely well in one department, but for some reason is unable to duplicate the success in other departments, no matter how much effort is put forth by upper management?
The example is right there for them to look at, but often times, since the rewards built in to the system are aligned directly opposite to what they're trying to achieve, little progress is made on a corporate scale.
In so many ways, that's what is happening in our public education system. And it's why the structure must be attacked at the root cause for us to see meaningful long term positive results. Vouchers can be the catalyst upon which this change begins.
Michael |
