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  1. Once everyone who contributes a dime has their say about how students are to be educated in the classroom, what kind of classes will meet the approval of everyone.

    Suppose people were assigned to restaurants the same way we traditionally assign students to attend schools. What menu would we expect? First, any potential health hazards to customers should not be on the menu because of the danger of cross contamination. Peanuts, shellfish, and any other foods that elicit strong allergic reactions would be banned. I suppose the next ingredient issue would be meat. What if a devote Hindu moved into the catchment area? Of course, which kinds of meet would also be a problem, so pork is probably off the menu as well. We could go on and discuss the virtues of various vegetables, starches, grains, etc. In the end, when everyone has contributed a dime to our collective restaurant, we will end up with a rather bland menu that no one finds especially appealing. How much better to offer a variety of restaurants?

    Choosing collectively gives us great power to combine all our contributions to the same task, but it also requires compromises that will hurt everyone if the compromises are not necessary. It seems to me that allowing students the ability to choose a flavor of school will allow the teachers in the school the autonomy to do what they do best in the way that they do it best.

    • I do not disagree. Living in an imperfect society makes life interesting. It would be pretty boring to live in a world where everyone agrees with one another. As I said, consensus is often not possible and we have winners and losers. What make America great is that the loser can pick himself up to fight another day.

    • Sounds great, but “choice” often applies only to those the “choice” school allows. The problem is less about “customer is always right” and more about “which market can we target efficiently and profitably”. Choices should be available, but the opening has more often been “failing schools” (not lack of options on the menu).

      • Choice is often limited by circumstances. In my state, the median high school has 250 students. There is little choice of classes available to those students because of the size of the school. Should equality concerns limit the ability of students in larger schools to make some choices that the smaller schools do not allow?

      • If the richness in opportunities is not available because of those sometimes harsh realities, the naturally occurring inequitable outcomes shouldn’t be accompanied by “failing schools/teachers/unions…” rhetoric. The level of thinking/performance being measured on new common core tests is sometimes a few grade levels above the chronological age of the students taking the tests. The best way to get that kind of performance is to provide all with an enriched experience with a variety of opportunities in the arts (visual, performing…),real literature with depth in analysis/discussion… Instead of taking opportunities from some I say give opportunities to the ones who don’t have them.

      • As the parent of a student that routinely worked many grade levels above his chronological age, I have little sympathy for the sort of one size fits all philosophy of traditional public education. It would have been foolish of my local public school district to try to provide the classes that were appropriate for my student. Luckily the local university was able to provide the classes.

        That however, is not especially relevant in this discussion. It seems to me that some students will be best served by something like a Montessori education, while over might be best served by a Waldorf education, and another group by a Chinese language immersion program, etc. This can not all be done in a single school, so I think you have to allow students to enroll in a school based on what is best for the student rather than the street address of the home where the family lives.

      • I agree with the need for making choices available, and any argument I make for equity is not one for sameness-but availability of choices for all

      • I think giving students equal availability to choices involves allowing students to choose the schools that best fit their individual needs and aspirations. In densely populated areas, this should not be difficult. In sparsely populated areas, it is likely to be impossible outside of some sort of distance learning program.

  2. So the question is which educational choices we should leave to the individual student/family, and which choice society should make for the individual student/family. It seems to me that the important points of disagreement concern a) the age of the student, b) the set of classes a student can choose from, and c) who should pay for those choices. Most would be fine with older students choosing from a variety of courses within a school paid for on everyone’s dime. Most would be happy with students choosing all their courses on their own dime (if they have enough of them, of course). Fewer would be happy allowing an individual student/family to choose courses, perhaps all their courses, from sources out side the public school on everyone’s dime.

    I am curious about where you think the reasonable line stands.

  3. What I have experienced as a veteran teacher inside a big city district, is that in the past decade older teachers are being methodically pushed out, and the short-term youngsters hired to replace them are not part of any union, or any organization, within which to engender a broader “civil disobedience.” How can this be addressed? What should civil disobedience in this moment look like?

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