The case for charter schools (not-for-profit)

Sarah Palin’s recent gaffe regarding Paul Revere’s midnight ride struck me as one of those journeys into a “Fun House.” We’ve all had that experience – at the annual carnival or fair we get in a boat or a little train and prepare to be shocked by creatures jumping out at us. We know it’s coming, but all the same, it’s scary.

But who cares. I sat through quite a few history classes in my time. Who is to say that Sarah’s rendition is not as credible as the official one. Remember that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a mere seventy years ago, and is so decked in patriotic streamers that the real history of that time is hard to know. Likewise with the dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities – real events have been replaced by official narratives which are now taught daily in our schools. History is indeed bunk.

Getting “good grades” is important, we are told, so that regurgitation is considered meritorious behavior. The best way around this dilemma is simply not to teach history in the schools. It’s all bullshit anyway, overseen by patriots wearing blinders and taught by people who know no better. Imagine if the real motive behind the Texas Revolution in the 1830’s, that the Texans were rebelling against Mexico’s outlawing of slavery, were taught for just one day in one Texas school – there would be another Texas rebellion and that teacher would be summarily fired.

Charter schools are a good idea, as I see it, because they can free us from the doldrums of education – the factory bells and whistles, the competency testing and regurgitation. I do not beleive that kids are naturally lazy or disinterested, or that we need this system of negative reinforcement to get them to perform well in their studies. Bright kids will shine in any system, even in spite of those systems. But average kids, or kids who could do a whole lot better than they do are turned off by our factory system of teaching.

Imagine that information flow were reversed and that school was about students teaching teachers. I don’t mean that kids would rewrite history or reinvent math – I mean something more basic. Teachers would explore the inner workings of kids, looking for their special interests and talents. Kids would be engaged alongside the teachers. There’d be no bells, no regimented schedules. Kids would explore various fields of knowledge and skill. When they hit upon something that gave them a psychic jolt, they’d follow that path. It might be mechanical engineering, art, music, study of the past, business or even, sigh, accounting. Something will get their attention. Being “smart” is the result of being interested and applying oneself to something. We’re all smart enough to do one thing well.

Rather than handing out bad grades for subjects that kids do not excel at, they would simply find out that they do not have those aptitudes without negative fallout. Artistic kids would not be taught bookkeeping, mechanically adept kids would not be immersed in horticulture or Emily Dickenson. Education would be fun, and a prelude to an exciting life of exploration of the self and service to others as one’s talent dictates. If education is not about making life more interesting and fulfilling, if it is only about turning out workers and keeping up with other countries, then don’t complain when kids don’t respond to the bell.

We do need basics, of course. Kids need to know how to read and write and parse a sentence, add and subtract and do compound interest and think critically. We should be taught at least a second language, perhaps a third, when we are young and our minds soak up that stuff with ease. That can all be done in elementary years. But a good portion of each day ought to be left for individual immersion in subjects of interest.

Whatever we’re doing now, it’s not working. Charter schools offer a pathway to change. We can experiment a bit, let the kids off the hook for not working hard on things that do not offer positive feedback. By the time a kid leaves his twelfth year of schooling (if that many years are even needed), she should have some idea of her talents and passions and be about her life’s work. From there we could have post-secondary schools or apprenticeships, colleges and even graduate school for the really gifted ones. But those first twelve years were for me mostly a waste, and I’d bet for many others too.

Just a caveat or two about charter schools: They should be non-profit. The profit motive instantly puts a school at odds with its mission, as quarterly results encourage fudging of results, selection bias towards apparently brighter kids, and budget cutting to satisfy investors. Education, like health care, should be a not-for-profit enterprise. And, we should approach them with conservative caution – treat them as test laboratories, only expanding when something is shown to work. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey wants to privatize that state’s schools all at once without any regard to what already works or caution about what might not work. He’s fooking crazy.

My two bits.