A Call to Service: on Education
Supported "No Child Left Behind," but Bush reneged
Bush's one exercise in "compassionate conservatism" was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, an education reform effort that I supported. The stated purpose of that legislation was to offer a new bargain to states and school districts,
under which they would accept greater accountability for results in exchange for the resources and the flexibility to get the job done. The Bush administration began welshing on its side of the bargain almost before the ink was dry on the bill,
undermining education funding as part of a larger strategy of directing every available school dollar toward tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. This has been sadly typical of the administration's approach to government:
a rhetoric of compassion and concern accompanied by policies that are compassionate primarily toward the most comfortable members of our society.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p. 11-12
Stop viewing charter schools as threatening innovation
You have to observe a good charter school in action to appreciate the revolutionary nature of what often sounds like an academic concept. I've seen Community Day in Lawrence MA-with a student body that is 80% Hispanic, more that 2/3 poor enough to qualif
for subsidized school lunches. Community Day has no particular gimmicks and no particular advantages over other schools beyond flexibility keyed to results and a lot of determination. Every student is given a personal education goal and an attainment
strategy, based on his or her strengths. And the concept works. In the 2001-02 school year, Community Day had the best statewide scores in Lawrence. Community Day has a waiting list of over 500 kids. We need to empower every school in the public
school system to apply the best practices from schools across the country.
I believe it's time to stop viewing innovative approaches as anomalies or threats to traditional public schools and begin seeing them as part of the future of public education.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.107-8
Nothing good about vouchers can't be done in public schools
I believe public financing of vouchers for private schools is pushing the country in the wrong direction. Vouchers allocate resources not among competing public schools but out of the system entirely. Private schools accepting vouchers do not agree to
accept kids on an equal basis & also do not guarantee that the voucher will cover the cost of education. And most objectionally, voucher schemes do not hold private schools accountable in any way for the educational results they achieve-or do not achieve
Confusing public school choice and innovation isn't just a matter of comparing apples & oranges-it's comparing apples & worms. There's nothing that's good about a voucher system-parental choice, competition, and the ability to provide innovative
instruction-that can't also be achieved by public education. But the kind of public schools we ought to have can avoid what's bad about vouchers: the inequality; the lack of accountability; and the gradual erosion of our sense of commonwealth.
Source: A Call to Service, by John Kerry, p.108-9