still waiting for a political candidate to release a detailed analysis of one of the several inner city schools that have shown great improvement through a smart choice of principal and teachers, focused teaching and longer school days and years. I think a smart candidate would say: "This is what I am talking about. I am going to do to create more schools like this." Instead we just get nice-sounding slogans and irrelevant statistics.I agree with the concept that political candidates don't really offer much in the form of concrete proposals. Given the pending legislative sessions in each state, and the fact that I am not a candidate for office, I am going to offer my own, admittedly radical plan for school structure reform.
1. Immediate Full County-based Choice for Parents. Now this is of course the most radical departure from the norm and would require some work, but I am not unmindful of the problems with school choice on a statewide scale, so why not on a county scale. Allow all parents, regardless of location to choose any school in the county for their children with a certain percentage of seats, call it 50 percent, reserved for residents of the geographic area where the school is located. The parents can then choose the school best geared for their children.
2. Expansion of Magnet School Programs. Many counties have some schools with magnet programs, with science and technology, languages, and performings arts usually topping the list. By encouraging the expansion of magnet programs in all or most schools, you can diversify the choices for parents. I would also suggest increasing or implementing magnet programs in elementary and middle schools as well, rather than normal focus of magnet programs at high schools.
3. Weighted School Funding. The state and local governments would do well to separate capital budgets from school budgets and put the construction and maintenance of school facilities into its own state and local budget line items, separate from teh actual education of the students. Then, with issues of physical plant removed "per pupil" expenditure, the funding for each student follows the student to the school the student and parents choose. Thus, the schools with more students get more money since they need to provide more services.
4. A Teacher Draft. This is a big one, but it would involve giving principals the power to hire teachers and could be conducted not unlike sports drafts, with the worst performing schools getting first crack at the available pool of teachers. Like professional sports drafts, each principal would be able to designate as "franchise teachers" a certain percentage of teachers in order to keep them out of the draft. A teacher could refuse a "draft" but only at a penalty (which I can't think of one right now, but I imagine smarter people could). Yes, I know that the unions will scream bloody murder on this score.
5. Merit Pay and Bonuses. In conjunction with the teacher draft would come pay differentials for teachers based on all sorts of criteria, from advanced degrees to working in poor performing schools, to success in preparing students for tests, value-added education, etc. The bonuses for the best teachers would be big, not a few percentages points amounting to a few hundred dollars after taxes, but significant, ranging from ten to twenty-five percent of base pay. Signing bonuses for going to poor-peforming schools and other incentives for teachers at all levels should be implemented.
6. "Commuter Schools" and "Virtual schooling." So many parents have to commute significant distances. If you have full choice within a county, you could construct schools along major commuter routes, allowing parents the option of choosing schools along their route to work rather than other schools. Such a choice could extend beyond county lines and could include schools near major employment centers rather than simply neighborhood schools. Along the same lines, utilizing available technology, you could expand the use of virtual schooling, permitting students in small groups from across the state or county to take specific courses, perhaps higher level courses not available in all places, in a virtual environment.
Of course, I recognize that some of these proposals are incredibly radical and certainly not my own. But if courageous lawmakers were to put all of these into one bill and be public about it, I would imagine that some of these ideas may take root as policy debates and topics, pushing the level of debate from platitudes and slogans to real discussion on the merits of real choice.
State legislative sessions will begin in January and February and now is the time to start talking about these ideas.
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