I do kick around an idea. Student-Controls-The-Dollars Charter School. Take the $13,000 or so we get per student, spend the minimum ($8,000 per kid?) to deliver a product the state will sanction, and free up $5,000 per student to control.

Electives, educational travel, online courses, clubs and sports, tutoring, counseling, etc. Perhaps even college savings accounts.

In addition, if a student struggled in the “core” (ie, reading, math, which state requires or they’ll shut us down), the cost of tutoring is deducted from the $5,000….(no choice on this).

It’s a good question.

The pre-school market is a fairly capitalistic one.
I send my kid to a pre-school down the street, 3 mornings a week. I think it costs $40/morning.
We also have a nanny ($18/hr) and lots of help from Grandma and the uncles. There’s a ritzier pre-school a couple blocks up, costs 50% more. And Bright Horizons, a fairly sizable corporate daycare, not too far away.

I’m glad we’re consumers with choices. With that said, I am sort of surprised that the market has not generated very good choices in my area.

I agree with your point about “decline.” What Golden Age does he reference?

The larger point is that various efforts at markets and choice haven’t yet panned out great in American K-12. Generally better than status quo, for sure, but often so so so modestly better at least measured by test scores, with a few exceptions (like Boston and NYC charter schools). Adam Smith might say “That’s because you only add in SOME market features, but not all of them.” He might be right.

For example, a key limitation of our charter school is that — since we can’t raise our price — we can’t invest. That is, we can’t say to the Taxpayers of Massachusetts, if you’ll pay me an extra $1,000 per year per student, I will deliver to you a 20% better product as measured by such and such. If that were possible, I would probably make a one-time investment at upgrading our English curriculum, with the notion of recouping the investment over 3 or 4 years by raising price.

I lean liberal in terms of the value of wanting to help others.

But I’m more libertarian in ideas of how to help others.

My little brother argues that a third area should be the public sector infrastructure. I.e., do the $4 trillion deal, but Obama should fight for $500 billion of infrastructure spending in exchange for equiv cuts to Medicare/Medicaid.

What do you think about that?

You raise good points.

Finland story is complicated. A dominant feature, in my mind, is they reject most people who want to be teachers. We don’t. We set very low bar.

Also, there are low-performing nations that are like Finland in policies. Meanwhile, there are high-performing nations like Singapore which have different policies (like top-down curricula).

Many folks simply reject aspects of the Finland narrative that fit they preferred policies.

Imagine if charter school supporters pointed to a homogenous white charter school and proclaimed it as The Answer. Folks like Ken would, I bet, hoot with derision. “Nothing to learn here.”

Yet they embrace Finland….

Dear Philip,

I wrote this letter in November, and notice that it wasn’t posted yet. Sorry for the delay – I was very happy to hear from you.

Wonderful to hear your voice – here and on your blog, which I will bookmark and continue to read my way through. (I have subscribed, too, by e-mail to your site.) I love your re-vision of the Waring Mission statement twenty years later, the chance to re-read some of your thinking over the years about education – and the general elegance of your blog.

How could I ever forget you?

Do you know that since we saw you last, our Pacific Community Charter School (California Charter #192, founded 1999) has expanded from K-8 to K-12, twice received the highest (six year) accreditation by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and now has over 100 students and faculty? A few years ago three seniors of a class of five were admitted to Stanford (all graduated with honors), we’ve had a California youth poet laureate, a kid who earned a pilot’s license as a for-credit “passage,” a fireman, students who spent time in Italy, India, Brazil, Argentina, and Egypt (our son, Zack, who you may remember as a Waring baby, is currently on a Junior – college – year in Cairo on a full Ambassadorial Scholarship). You and Josee visited here just as this school was taking shape, and I have always known that Randall and I would never have become so deeply involved in this project if we had not seen and known and tried to emulate your and Josée’s spirit and energy. You proved to be dangerous role models. I’m so happy to be in touch – and to have this wonderful access to your writing.

My new novel, Daughters of the Revolution, is forthcoming this June from Knopf. There are definitely aspects of my father and family history that you will recognize – and there is also a head of a private (boy’s) school near the center of the book (based on Nobles, not Waring). But it’s your world too, and I hope you might be interested. We often see Alex Burger and Charlotte – and have been in touch with many, many alums over the years, both on east and west coasts, and think of Waring often as a formative, essential, happy time in our lives. (It was, it was!)

Our son Zack is now 20, and has been in Egypt for five months, though he spent the last, tense days of the revolution in Rome and Barcelona.

I hope we can keep in touch.
Best,

Carolyn
redtag@mcn.org
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