Reform school confidential; what we can learn for three of America's boldest school reforms

Washington Monthly, Oct, 1992 by Katherine Boo

Convenient, that is, in the short run. It may not be tomorrow, or even next year, but, as Chelsea's parents indicate, citizens excised from the reform process can prove far more toxic to change through their votes in elections and on bond issues than by their "meddling" in a third grade class. This fall, hispanic parents actually threatened to keep their kids out of school, while BU muttered about taking a hard look at the practicality of its long-term investment in Chelsea.

"At this point, it would be a blessing if BU just left," says Juan Vega. The university's hand-picked superintendent, Peter Greer, has already taken the hint Earlier this year, he resigned to run a private school in New Jersey.

"F"ing school reform

To be sure, from each of these hope-freighted reforms have sprung some triumphs: Spry Elementary's makeover, the rising elementary scores in Rochester and Chelsea. And in the context of so much bad news about public schools, it's tempting to be grateful about good news, however small. Perhaps the goal is, as Churchill said about democracy, to be, not the best, but the least bad.

But the trouble with toasting Rochester, Chicago, and Chelsea for slender gains is that they had the leadership and the motivation to be a lot more than least bad. They aimed to empower good teachers and get rid of bad ones; to wrest money and control from bureaucracies; and to include families, whatever the class differences and difficulties, in a learning process that precedes and transcends the classroom. In their early days, these three cities held the keys to real reform. And then they lost them.

The dampened hope in Rochester, Chelsea, and Chicago should make liberals not just furious, but determined. If we really believe that funneling public money into private school is wrong, we have a moral obligation to address the politically hazardous sources of public school reform's continued failure--tenured incompetence, administrative protectionism, parental detachment and alienation. Until we do, there's little guarantee that the next Brilliant Ideas for reforming our schools from within won't be more wasted efforts. Only this time around, the casualty list may include, besides all those Peggys unleashed into the economy, the notion of public education itself.

Katherine Boo is an editor of the Washington Monthly.