P is for Several Words, All Starting with 'P'

P is for Paternalism. It is the bedrock of the traditional public school system in Oregon and elsewhere. Paternalism in education includes the well-intended requirement that parents must send their children to a particular (usually 'neighborhood') school based on their place of residence. Paternalistic school districts believe that the children residing within their boundaries are 'their' children and that they have a fundamental right to whatever funding 'their' children generate from the state or federal governments. They believe that offering parents choice regarding attendance is harmful to 'their' students. The only escape from traditional Paternalism is private school or home school. (There are districts that allow students to attend outside their boundaries, but only with the explicit approval of the district and within certain explicit or implicit 'caps' in place.) Corbett School District has had a clear policy of approving all requests to transfer out for the past decade. I don't know of another district that keeps its doors open to that degree. Corbett made that principled decision, by the way, when it was losing 4% of its student population to transfers out, and twice as many students were leaving as were transferring in.

P is for Patronizing. When districts insist that they know best where a student 'fits', local schools are left to deal with those parents who are unhappy with their powerlessness to choose what's best for their children. Concerned parents rightly believe that if they are given no choice regarding attendance then they should have a say in how the school works. They should get to shape curriculum, operating hours, discipline policies, the choice of math programs, the budget, the contents of the library, the hiring and retention of principals. They hold that no individual decision made by any member of the staff should be beyond parental review. Principals and teachers who want to stay in good standing with their Districts know to keep their parents happy. I once had a superintendent for whom the highest complement that a principal could receive was the news that "I haven't received a single call." What should be educational decisions are now politically motivated. And because some parents are much more demanding than others, parents do not get an equal say in school matters. So now parents are forced to attend particular schools in which key decisions are made by other parents rather than by the professional staff. Giving parents a voice always caries the danger of giving some parents more voice than others.

P is for Professionalism. Schools need to 'go pro'. Plans need to be made and executed by trained professionals. Seasoned educators need to be empowered and responsible to make the decisions that matter. Teachers need to make decisions without fear of reprisal. They need to make demands of students without interference. They need to exercise their judgments based solely on what is best for students without regard for the opinions of non-teachers. They need to be liberated from Politics. (Politics is NOT one of our P's).

We are well on our way to 'going pro'. Many of our parents have discovered that their responsibility is to choose the very best school for their children and not to supervise the teachers or the revise the school philosophy after-the-fact. Some of the first parents who made the breakthrough to 'going pro' made the decision to leave. We honor their decision. When they discovered that teachers were going to be in charge of their classrooms, that students were going to be required to behave themselves, that completing assignments is the job of the student and not the teacher or the parent, they made the decision to find a better 'fit'. They did the right thing and we will remember them as people of conviction.

I have said to my staff that I believe that 90% of our students and 80% of our parents have made the transition to the new reality of the charter philosophy. The students are in the building and in the classroom every day, so they have an advantage. They know that their education is their work. They know that their teachers care about them and that they can count on being held to a high standard of effort, of conduct, of scholarship. They know that being kind and respectful greatly increases their standing in the school community. They know that whining is futile. 90%. That's pretty good.

There are those who haven't turned the corner with us. There are those students who still imagine that to remain intellectually inert will eventually result in someone else rescuing them, though I can't imagine how that would look in practice. A small fraction still believe that the accumulation of zero effort, day after day, will eventually amount to something more than zero. We are working with them. Most will come around.

There are still parents who believe that a nasty email will somehow compensate for a student's missing work or that the appropriate response to a student's misbehavior is to accuse the teacher of 'picking on' the student! These are good, time-tested strategies in the Patronizing School, but they are conspicuously out of place in a Professional School.

There are those who, based on past experience, believe that gossip is a school improvement strategy. I must have heard the phrase a hundred times during my career: "I'm not the only one who thinks this way. I've been talking to other parents..." The occasion for the last time I heard this? A student was reprimanded for being rude in the hall. So the expectation is that an administrator will be swayed by the fact that more than one parent doesn't think children should be required to behave in school? Well, in a Patronizing School, discontent (even in the form of gossip) is a potent weapon. But we strive not to be that school. And I predict that parents who are at home in that environment will continue to feel out-of-sorts regarding their experience here.

I think that achieving 80% consensus among parents in our first year of operation is an astounding achievement. The vast majority understand and appreciate where they are. Their students are going to graduate with an astounding array of options laid out before them. They will be ready to stand on their own and will be prepared, through years of practice, to take responsibility for themselves and to help those around them. They will be magnificent...and all the more so to the degree that we hold ourselves accountable to the vision of Professionalism and refuse to settle for less.

What is a Charter School?

Charter Schools are the hope of education turned right-side up. In what respect?

Several come to mind.

With Regard to Foundations:

Upside Down education begins with the obvious need to educate the children of a geographic area. More specifically, in the British Colonies, the public school system was born out of concern that too many young men were lying about town unprepared (and possibly unwilling) to contribute to the well-being of the community. Parents were accused of failing in their responsibilities, and the community felt the need to respond.

Right-side Up education begins with a sense of HOW children ought to be educated and by whom. The school is designed, top to bottom, to support a particular vision. Parents are invited to have their children educated in accordance with this vision. Parents are not asked to take on the roles of designer, principal, curriculum director or classroom teacher. Those jobs are filled by professionals.

With Regard to Parental Rights:

Upside Down education corrals families into neighborhood schools based solely on residency and without regard to individual family preferences. The results are too familiar to warrant description. Parents have a right to provide input. They have a right to ask for change. They have a right to lobby within the system, to advocate for their kids. But they don't have the right to change schools unless they successfully petition the district for permission to transfer or abandon public education altogether in favor of private or home schooling.

Right-side Up education puts ultimate authority, in the form of choice, in the hands of parents. Parents can support the school or shun it. Because Charter Schools are schools of choice, staff members are under no obligation to please each parent or to respond to pressure from groups of parents. Because parents have the right to walk away, they are never trapped in a charter school, but neither do they have leverage to make demands. Educational decisions are made by professionals, and parents retain their right to choose the best option for their children. The tension built in to mandatory attendance boundaries is broken in favor of a voluntary association.

At its best, that's what a charter school does. It resolves the fundamental tension inherent in the traditional school system. It offers a revolution in the partnership between parents and schools.