Maryellen Butke (Photo courtesy of RI-CAN)
Mr. Plain recently received some pushback from commenters about his recent article, Butke’s Campaign Puts Focus on Education ‘Reform’. I’m not going to recount the slightly convoluted backstory (read the above-linked article, the preceding article about Senator Perry’s retirement, and especially Ms. Butke’s post to Mr. Nesi’s blog), but here is the key quote:
My feeling is that Regunberg, Crowley and Bukte somehow need to reconcile their somewhat disparate points if Rhode Island is to holistically improve the education it offers. We need to offer a better education to all students without making life any tougher for our hard-working teachers, who hold one of the most important jobs in our community. That’s the progressive solution to reforming public education.
On its face, there is very little to disagree with. Hell, I support both those things too! Right?
Ehh, no. This quote (which certainly was written without ill-intention) hints at the brilliant and subversive rhetoric that conservative corporate education reform has been pushing for years. It reinforces false idea that education can be improved while simultaneously devaluing labor. In the quote above for example, “Offering a better education to all students” becomes positioned as the priority for education reform groups like Ms. Butke’s RI-CAN distinct and against the labor movement’s priority of respecting “our hard-working teachers.” Claiming the progressive solution is a compromise between two opposing points reinforces the myth that labor is not focused on providing an excellent education.
I’d strongly argue teachers unions and other labor groups are largely looking out for the students’ best interests, directly or indirectly, but others can engage in that debate. I instead want to direct attention to the false claim that improving education is a pursuit that should be above the fray of politics.
We should all be on the same page by now that we need to do better by our youth. If you disagree, you haven’t been paying attention. But this deliberately inoffensive claim is as about as far as Ms. Butke will go in her public rhetoric—the how is harder to come by. In her response featured on Nesi’s Notes she “welcomes debate on the how” but offers no answers. However she does claim no less than 6 times that reforming public education means setting aside politics. Others can attest to how political RI-CAN’s work beyond the op-eds has actually been, as there are enough tricks and ploys to fill multiple articles.
This would-be neutral stance ignores that there is nothing more political than educating a child. If you disagree, ask yourself why RI went without an equitable (but imperfect) funding formula for over a decade, why public school students in RI pay for transit and private school students don’t, or even why some textbooks cover evolution and others don’t. I may be accused of begging the question, “education is political because it’s political,” but the fact is these the answers to these questions will always be determined by the relative power of the groups involved, and students’ learning experiences can vary wildly across communities as a result. That people and power necessarily determine what our children learn should be undeniable. Still, Ms. Butke denies:
I have never considered my views on education liberal or conservative. Though a lifelong progressive, it never occurred to me that teaching and learning in public schools was a partisan issue. At its core, education reform is about improving educational outcomes for kids. How could anyone – Democrat or Republican – disagree with that?
I have no clue what “improving educational outcomes” actually means, so I guess I’m the lone dissenter. What I do have a clue about is that in a field like education, moves like these to depoliticize and take the “neutral” high ground are themselves politically charged maneuvers. Relentlessly asserting political neutrality performs two functions for the education reform movement:
1) It builds the myth that the inverse is also true — that engaging in political work means opposing educational advancement. So, in a mind-bending twist of logic, teachers unions and other groups must defend themselves against the absurd charge that they don’t care about education.
2) It allows the Gates, Waltons, and Broads of education to throw their hands in the air, claim innocence in the current state of education, and bestow themselves license to privatize schools and dismantle public education’s most promising aspects—democratic control, universal access, standard-setting fair and inclusive labor practices, etc.
When we consciously or subconsciously suggest education and politics are two different issues, we perpetuate the narrative. I believe this was the concern shared by the commenters above.
However, I do side with the overlooked conclusion of Mr. Plain’s last article: this is an opportunity to debate our most important but most frequently back-burnered issue, education. Let it be established that by declaring for political office, Ms. Butke no longer has grounds to claim the solutions to our educational woes are neither Democratic nor Republican. Platitudes like “Great teachers and great schools” won’t cut it when it comes to an up-or-down vote on school funding or collective bargaining.
Exactly how will you fix schools once in office Ms. Butke? (Of course, this goes for other candidates as well.) It is up to voters in District 3, myself included, to ask questions that push past the sterile rhetoric, and it is each candidate’s responsibility to answer those questions, in detail. If we ask often enough and listen hard enough, I’m confident voters will learn some things they don’t want to hear.
There is also the assumption in the corporate rhetoric that unions are decision makers on school policies like hiring, firing, curriculum, management, budgeting and generally running the operating of the school systems. Schools committees, management, politicians all get a pass….why is that?
“why public school students in RI pay for transit and private school students don’t”
Don’t the parents of private school students still pay for a spot in public schools they don’t use? Those parents aren’t getting transit for “free”.
I have no clue what “improving educational outcomes” actually means, so I guess I’m the lone dissenter.
Unless I’m missing something ‘improving educational outcomes’ seems pretty clear. If progressives want to be taken seriously when it comes to educational reform they must jettison the incestuous relationships they have with the teacher union leadership. Status quo is all they want and while the majority of teachers may want to ‘improve educational outcomes’ they are constrained by their union leadership. You say charters were born from the ideas of progressives but where are they now. Just for the record, I’ve never been anti-union and never will be. They have their place at the bargaining table but so far they haven’t been bargaining for “improving educational outcomes.”
Actually, your comments are both anti-union and uninformed. I had forgotten after an absence from blogging about the false courage and factual misstatements of the anonymous commentators.
And, for the record and under the law “their place” at the bargaining table is as equals. Tremble at the thought.
Sadly, the original purpose of charters has been subverted, but good charters do exist and are still possible.
Sorry Bob, I’ve been at the table. Not your particular table but been there and done that. The problem for you is that people are no longer uninformed. I have no problem with your union bargaining for whatever you can get but don’t try an fool people to think you’re all about reform and that you and your henchmen don’t target pro-reform candidates.
Butke is not the only candidate R I – Can is fielding. You make no mention of Maura Kelly. You also do not mention anything about DFER which is never written about on these pages. What’s going on with that and the list of people like their “Funky Fifteen”?
www.dfer.org/2010/11/how_the_funky_f.php
How about Ruppert Murdoch hiring Joel Klein as V P for Newscorp or the 500 billion Murdoch says is there for introducing new technology into the school systems. That is what this is all about plus the power to control what is taught in schools.
As far funding for private schools – it is unbelievable how it is simply accepted w/out question. Take a walk around Hope, Olney and LLoyd on the East Side and have a good look at all the new building that has taken place at Moses Brown just since the Reagan years and compare to Hope. You can go to Saint George’s or LaSalle and find the same thing. Providence schools have been abandoned since the white flight of the sixties. Now the school system is being scapegoated because of the racism inherent in suburban America. It’s unconscionable.
Charter schools, first, last, and always, are privately managed entities that use public funds.
Is there one ostensibly “public/private” arrangement in the entire world that is not controlled by the private side? Probably not.
But all of this is old boilerplate rhetoric anyway.
Places that can afford to have a middle class, like Barrington and East Greenwich, are still using their public schools to promote real estate values.
Places that have slipped below the middle class level of having options are witnessing every day the true meaning of economic neocolonialism.
If you pay taxes in places like Central Falls and East Providence, but you are by no means sure that your elected representatives do, in fact, represent you, then you are a colonial.
Right, Bob?
And, while I’m at it, aren’t charter schools the vehicles of the neocolonial mentality?
Instead of being reflective of the values of the electorate and their representatives, they are more responsive to the boss man, whether that be Bill Gates, Eli Broad, or some generic homegrown CEO.
Hello, we’re Moody’s, and we’re running you now.
If you look at what the original Fourth of July was all about, it truly was a declaration of independence, along the lines of, “Thanks, but no thanks, for the supposed security protection and for the domination of your markets and your hand-picked marketeers. We’ll go it alone, building our own communities and our own institutions along the way. In fact, our pride in self-determination will be reflected by the seriousness with which we value ourselves and our freedoms.”
But, no.
Present realities, and “realists” would have it that we surrender our public institutions to the same marketeers who raped Enron or fixed the LIBOR or sold REIT’s collateralized by synthetic CDO’s –or who rated toxic financial waste as triple-A. Maybe they should use our tax monies to fund their school corporations, too. (You don’t think that they’d use their own, do you? It’s overseas.)
Yes, let’s do that: Let’s surrender without a real fight and be the loyal servants of a pathological and entirely self-interested financial order.
Nuts.
“Present realities, and “realists” would have it that we surrender our public institutions to the same marketeers who raped Enron or fixed the LIBOR or sold REIT’s collateralized by synthetic CDO’s –or who rated toxic financial waste as triple-A.”
Hyperbole aside, at least I’d have a choice. Right now the only choice I have as to which public school I can send my kid to is to choose what city I live in. That is a crappy way to pick a school.
If we’re going to continue with socialized education (and there’s no reason to believe that’s going away any time soon), then wouldn’t the “progressive solution” be to tie the funding to the kid, instead of the location, and let the parents choose the school? Wouldn’t that force the under-performing schools to shape up or close down?
“…wouldn’t the “progressive solution” be to tie the funding to the kid, instead of the location, and let the parents choose the school?”
So the kids with rich parents shuttle them out of town to attend schools in Barrington? Is that about it? What about the rest of the kids who’s parents can’t afford to drive them across the state or do you plan to bus them? How many kids will that help? I think Barrington proposed taking 12 kids in total before the idea was shot down. What about the thousands of other kids? Progressives want better schools for all kids.
Here’s a “choice” plan for you: let’s hold a lottery in every town for the school slots. When the Barrington kids are sent to school in south Providence or Central Falls, just watch how quick the funding formula changes.
“So the kids with rich parents shuttle them out of town to attend schools in Barrington?”
Who says the only good schools are located in Barrington? There are many schools on the West Bay that are also good.
“Progressives want better schools for all kids.”
And I’m no different. If the schools want the money, they have to sell the parents on the value of the education they’d provide, and then they have to actually live up to those promises. That will force the schools to improve, which will provide a better education for all students.
I used Barrington as an example, and you didn’t answer any of my questions. What happens to the other 988 kids when a thousand apply for admission to Barrington? Relocating a couple of lottery winners isn’t going to fix any of the underlying problems affecting the students on the south side. Your plan is a fix for about .01% of the kids in the system.
“That will force the schools to improve, which will provide a better education for all students.”
Goals without method… appealingly simplistic and guaranteed to fail (read Deming).
“Relocating a couple of lottery winners”
What lottery? I’m talking about tying the school funding to the child instead of to the city and allowing the parents to choose what school to send their kid to. That turns the children/parents into the customers, which means the schools now have to serve them if they want to get paid. How does that help only 0.01% of the kids?
So all the kids from Providence can just show up in Barrington, regardless of whether the district has space, and Barrington will be forced to accomodate them? That’s the plan?
A. Those same kids would also be getting wooed from other high schools like Cumberland, East Greenwich, North Kingstown, etc…
B. URI isn’t forced to accept just anyone who shows up at their doorstep. Barrington High would accept or reject students, just as private schools do now, and how colleges, private and public, always have.
That’s what I thought. That’s not a solution for all or even most students, not to mention that it’s discriminiatory against English language learners and students with learning differences. In fact, it’s likely to “help” the students who need it least as a few of the best ranked schools poach a few of the best students.
There are plenty of private schools and colleges that market themselves to troubled students, or low-income students, or students with different interests or learning needs. Not every “firm” in a market goes after the top 1% of earners or achievers – look at how many “TTT” law schools have popped up over the past few decades so that everyone and their grandmother can be a lawyer – RI has its very own in Bristol.
It comes back to my point about there being cars and computers for poor people as well as for the ultra-wealthy. There are far more efficient ways of ensuring that poor students, or special needs students, or whoever the specific demographic is that you’re concerned about, receives an adequate education than the bureaucratic system we have now.
“There are plenty of private schools and colleges that market themselves to troubled students, or low-income students, or students with different interests or learning needs.”
I’m not sure I’d say there are plenty, but there are some.
And I’m not entirely against the idea of providing students with learning differences or those from low income families more options. Again that’s what charter schools were supposed to be (Highlander comes to mind).
A market for schools wouldn’t just serve “0.1%” of the kids in the public school system. It would serve all of them because schools would have to compete for students, and not only for the top students either. In a market system, there would likely be schools that specialized in helping struggling students and students who wanted to learn a trade instead of go to college as well. We see this happen across all manner of goods and services in other markets.
Your argument is like saying that only 0.1% of the population is served by the car and computer markets because only 0.1% can afford the absolute best cars or computers in the world. The fallacy is that the quality of other tiers of products also improve and costs are driven down through competition. There are cars and computers for poor people because companies compete for their business as well. Those products might not be exactly equal to the top-of-the-line products for the richest individuals, but overall the system is better in serving the vast majority of individual cases, and it would certainly be better than the atrocious system we have now which does a disservice to all kids and families.
So when thousands of students apply next year to Barrington HS, you plan to accept them all and presumably bus them there from wherever they are, yes? 100 kids to a class, what could go wrong?
No. In a market system, the school would decide which students to accept. This is how private schools and colleges work now.
Transportation is a trivial detail that could be handled any number of ways and has nothing inherently to do with education.
And so 99.9 % of the kids stay right where they are by “choice” when they find there are no open spots. That’s harrdly a solution that works for most.
Maybe we’re talking past each other or I’m misunderstanding you – what I want is a real market of charter, or preferably private, schools in which children are free to apply to any school they choose and schools are free to accept any children they choose and government will pay for the lowest income students. 99% of children would most certainly not stay where they are in such a system.
“what I want is a real market of charter, or preferably private, schools”
There it is. What you want is to dismantle public education, not save it. That’s at least being honest.
I’m sorry if I ever gave the impression that I was in favor of public education. The system we have now is an abomination with all the wrong incentives, and it is horribly letting down most of our young people. I don’t see any reason why education should be a public service besides the issue of the poorest children who would otherwise be unable to afford it. But there are far more efficient, market-based approaches that could cover the cost for them. A good rule of thumb is to not to create a government bureaucracy to run any service you can find in the phone book.
“If we’re going to continue with socialized education (and there’s no reason to believe that’s going away any time soon), then wouldn’t the “progressive solution” be to tie the funding to the kid, instead of the location, and let the parents choose the school? Wouldn’t that force the under-performing schools to shape up or close down?”
Dream on jgardner. The progressive solution is to kill any chance at choice (Cranston) despite the high demand and to run any supportive candidate out of Dodge. I’ll get a bunch of thumbs down but no one can deny it with a straight face.
Progressives oppose any form of school choice because it threatens the worst teachers (nobody will choose them). They won’t even acknowledge that some teachers are better than others because that threatens the union system that rewards all teachers equally regardless of merit and protects even the worst teachers from being let go. These fundamental differences of philosophy have nothing inherently to do with “high stakes testing” or “corporatization,” so the fact that every discussion of school choice results in those words getting thrown around like water balloons at a summer birthday party is evidence that they are afraid to get to the real heart of the problems.
And what I find more amazing is that my suggested “progressive solution” is essentially single-payer education. Many progressives swear single-payer is the solution to fixing our healthcare system, yet in the years I’ve been reading this blog, I haven’t read a single progressive even entertain the notion when it comes to our education system.
There is one glaring problem with the argument that unions are serving the interests of the kids as well as the teachers:
1. There exist teachers who are certified to teach but, just like in any trade, aren’t good at it and never will be (“bad teachers”).
2. The unions have deliberately created a situation in which it is essentially impossible to remove bad teachers, short of egregious misconduct, for the purpose of preserving their own membership (power).
3. The unions oppose giving students or their parents any opportunity to opt out of classrooms or schools taught by bad teachers.
4. Therefore, the unions support forcing some kids into classrooms taught by bad teachers, and they oppose giving parents any choice or opportunity to remove their kids from such classrooms.
I will never support any system that condones this, and I would like to hear from any of the die-hard unionists here how any of the above statements is incorrect. The logic is obvious and inescapable to me.
I just want to mention that I’m a progressive and I support school choice. I also support the choice as to whether to attend school at all.
Right. To eliminate those mythical few bad teachers, you hire corporate types, fresh off the used car lot, to boss people around and completely demoralize what’s left of whatever exists at a given school.
We’ve had years of this stuff, long enough to know that it is ruinous.
Mythical bad teachers? Have you ever put children through a public school? The myth is that there are no bad teachers. Nothing could be more frustrating than a bad teacher. God forbid you complain about it. My favorite was an elementary school principal who tried to intimidate my wife when she complained that the work sent home was two grades below what my daughter had already been taught in the same damn school. Unfortunately the country bumpkin principal didn’t realize he was dealing with a tough city girl. He stood up and started talking down and before he knew it he was back in his chair with her finger about six inches from his nose. Unfortunately, my daughter finished the year in that class. They refused to move her to the other same grade classroom because of class size restrictions. Thanks for making RightToWork’s point.
“Mythical” bad teachers? LOL. I suppose pretending there are no bad teachers is the only way progressives can maintain their cognitive dissonance supporting unions that overtly sacrifice the education of students for the sake of teacher employment.
For what it is worth, I put two children through the Providence public school system. I have seen the good, bad and the ugly. I went to parochial schools – fourth grade through high school, so I have something to compare things to. I only belonged to a union once, when I was sixteen years old. I worked at the Outlet Co. where I was required to join.
My oldest child was the only white kid in his kindergarten class. The middle school they went to was 66% minority. They encountered poor teachers on occasion. I had worse teachers at the parochial schools I attended. By and large, most of the public school teachers were very competent. Some had PhD’s. I had one devote a lot of time to my son who was failing in math in the seventh grade. One of his teachers told me he was headed for reform school. My partner and I noted at the time she was recovering from an operation to remove a brain tumor. We didn’t take what she said personally. I wouldn’t have wanted to have seen her out of her job. What my son needed was parental intervention and a little extra help which his math teacher gave him on his free time. He just started his fourth year of med school. I have had experiences with teachers who were mercenary and devoted as little time as they could to their students but what I found, by and large, is that the public school teachers working in the schools my kids went to were very dedicated people. I just cannot see how loss of tenure will not result in political pressure being put on teachers.
I, also, had another child who was very advanced in mathematics. We refused to send him across town to Green where he would have been put in the more advanced classes for his grade. Every year I had to call the middle school he went to to remind the administration that he had taken his current grade level class the year before so he could be put into the math class of the grade ahead of the one he was in. It was frustrating and aggravating but you know what? He wasn’t the only child whose needs had to be considered. He made out very well, in spite of it all.
I think there are plenty of problems, obviously. Judging by the cars they drove the vice-principal and principal at the middle school seemed overpaid – arriving every day in a BMW and big Mercedes, respectively. I think the biggest problem with public employee unions is the fact that private sector companies that don’t want to play fair and square can just pick up their marbles and move elsewhere. Schools, hospitals, the DPW, etc cannot be moved out of state or overseas. Things are out of balance. Privatization of public schools will not improve anything, though. In the long run it will just take more control away from local communities and siphon off funds that are needed for non-corporate schools to operate efficiently and effectively.
How about the cooperative running of a school, emphasizing respect for the professionalism of teachers, placing discipline squarely in the hands of the administrators (not the police and the courts,) and kicking the moneychangers out of the temple of learning?
Most of the teachers that I worked with were sincere in their interest in making their school a better learning environment. They didn’t need finger waggers to goad them to that, although they certainly had to tolerate them.
It’s just that, nowadays, the finger waggers have talk radio and the local fascisti on their side. Every false move is gleefully touted as the apocalypse by people who have pretty much spiritually lost it.
Also, not everyone is capable of communicating consistently on the level that good teaching requires. Ever listen to Don Carcieri for more than five minutes?
Teaching should be a professional job. It should not be subject to kooky politics everytime someone, far removed from the unions, but not from their pension funds, steals from the economy.
Community values are now labelled socialistic by the same types who would plunder what’s left of our institutions for financial advantage, inevitably fleeting.
Our national sovereignty is fast disappearing. The values and the institutions that built America are being sold out in the rigged markets of the world.
It will take selfless, disinterested breakout thinkers to restore some semblance of belief in our republic, to reel it back from the precipice. It’s time for people who truly understand us and value us to lead us, probably at great sacrifice to themselves.
Know any people like that? Let’s face it; it’s a Jesus moment, and I’m not talking about the smoke and mirrors guy.
Times like these tell us that that man was historically real.
Rhode Island got lucky with Roger Williams, someone who was humbled by the example of Jesus.
Maybe, it will get lucky again.
Let’s just keep Gary Sasse out of it.
“Teaching should be a professional job.”
I agree. So let them act like professionals and kick their ultra-militant NEARI union, which is always in the news for its embarrassing, thug antics, to the curb and get some real professional representation. They can stop buying off local politicians with quid-pro-quo campaign contributions and union e-mail/newsletter campaigns. They can stop showing up to school committee meetings in red shirts to shout down and ridicule anyone who opposes their agenda. They can accept a few extra hours after school here and there without extorting the school system for $90/hour. They can acknowledge that the worst among them don’t deserve job security for life and should be removed from classrooms where they hurt kids’ education. The list goes on and on.
If they want to be viewed as professionals, they should start acting like doctors or lawyers or one of the other high-skill professions instead of a mob of angry coal miners or truck drivers. Teachers can’t have it both ways. I hope they strive to act like professionals and clean house at their next union meeting – I really do. As long as they are represented by a bunch of juvenile thugs, they will be perceived and treated that way.
“Teaching should be a professional job. It should not be subject to kooky politics everytime someone, far removed from the unions, but not from their pension funds, steals from the economy.”
Don’t you see? You’ve just put forth an excellent argument for the privatization of education. When taxpayer funds are used to pay for something, you inherently make that ‘thing’ political.
Hey, let’s run that neo-colonialism idea up the flagpole again and see who salutes.
School performance is tied to two things: the education level of the parents and the amount of reading material at home. Of course these factors need to be ignored in the reform debate because they are related to poverty, and it’s just too hard to blame our teachers for that as well.
School performance is tied to more than just those 2 things.
Yo, Nev, loved the thought.
If you haven’t seen the You Tube video of Flanders entertaining the Projos at the Venus, please do so.
Pay particular attention to the quality and characteristics of the laughter in that room. After awhile, it sounds like braying.
Care about poor people? Hell, no. We just feel sooo much compassion for their ed monies.
So all this talk solves nothing. The reasons for student’s poor performance are many but most stem from the FACT that teachers have very little authority over what goes on in their classes. I read an article in Julia Steiney’s column in the projo giving the results of a study which found that less than ten percent of what happens in schools is controlled by school boards. State and federal regulations have piled upon each other over the years. Teachers long ago lost a say in what they are required to do. For example, teachers are not allowed to flunk students. This has come about because of the belief promulgated by some psychologist that self esteem is essential to a child’s well being. Self esteem cannot be conferred from outside ourselves. Each of us has learned to respect ourselves and others by fulfilling our own obligations. Nowadays, students expect to do well because almost no one fails. This is only possible by reducing what students need to do to get a good grade. It has become the teacher’s fault if a child flunks, not the child’s. Why the teachers go along with this can be explained in several ways. The main factor is the teachers’ fear of getting sued and losing their houses. Unions do provide some malpractice insurance for teachers. But teachers believe, perhaps correctly, that if the school gets sued, it will reflect poorly upon their job performance. It is not uncommon for parents to threaten legal action and administration responds with pressure on a teacher to change a grade. If you don’t believe this happens, ask a couple of teachers you know if they have ever known of someone who has had to do this. A second factor that affects the ability of a school to do well is the diversion of resources from all the students to the few who need extraordinary care. I am NOT advocating the return to the bad old days when special ed students stayed home and out of sight. Many children with disabilities have benefited from all the laws passed concerning individual educational plans. However, there is just not enough money in any school system to provide all the services that are required for each and every special ed student. So only the squeaky wheels get the full court press. It is unfair to the students and it is dishonest to tell parents that their children will receive all the help they need to succeed in school. Then there are the extreme situations which schools must accommodate: students whose medical problems are so profound that they require nursing care in the school; and lest we forget, those who are completely uncooperative and those who come to school only for social connections and drug connections. How can a school discipline a kid who has already done time at the training school? Does a drug dealer care about getting detention or suspension? And then, sadly, there are students who suffer from mentally ilnessl. Their parents lack medical coverage. These students depend upon the counseling they can sometimes get at school. All these kids need help that our schools just do not have the resources to provide. Doesn’t it make sense that for these students, the state should provide specialized schools with the specialists trained and equipped to provide the services necessary for the health and well being of the student. Remember when we were at school so many years ago? We had one principal and one vice principal. The school existed to provide education and not much else. Just look at the list of administrators, drug counselors, gang prevention programs, emotional counselors, guidance counselors, social workers and school policemen who now suck up so many educational dollars away from ‘education. These arejust some factors that contribute to the problems facing schools. If you believe that I am even partially correct in the above description of problems facing public education, then shouldn’t the conversation about fixing the schools center upon modifying the existing laws so that the system itself improves rather than just moving kids from one school to another? Perhaps passing a law protecting teachers from being sued (like the laws existing for public officials) and establishing ‘charter’ schools devoted to helping segments of the school population needing specialized services, would help all students get a better education. I look forward to reading your opinions. Elaine Prior