Paul J. Gessing
Very rarely do the left wingers who continuously criticize any attempt to reform New Mexico’s foundering education system say anything that surprises me. Conspiracies abound and the term “privatization” is thrown about like a slur.
But Emanuele Corso, in his recent attack piece “Skandera takes steps to undermine public education,” argued that Hanna Skandera and the Rio Grande Foundation are teaming up (along with a host of nefarious right-wingers nationwide) to “industrialize” education.
Corso has actually flipped reality upside down with this particular accusation. The reality is that America’s educational system has been based on an outdated “industrial” model for more than a century. And, while that worked just fine when large numbers of Americans went from “industrial” schools to working in factories, the current system is not designed to spur critical thought and independence.
For a history of the industrialization of American education, I highly recommend the works of John Taylor Gatto. A long-time educator, he has written extensively on the ways government-run school systems dumb our children down. A quote of his sums his findings up nicely:
“That seemed crazy on the face of it, but slowly I began to realize that the bells and confinement, the crazy sequences, the age-segregation, the lack of privacy, the constant surveillance, and all the rest of the national curriculum of schooling were designed exactly as if someone had set out to prevent children from learning how to think, and act, to coax them into addiction and dependent behavior.”
This is the traditional model of government schooling. No matter what a class is discussing and no matter how engaged the students are, a bell rings and the subject is dropped immediately and all of the students get up and move on to the next class. Free market reformers wish to move beyond this model and allow teachers, parents and students to choose the educational models that work best for them.
A few of the many student-centered models advocated by reformers are home schooling, virtual schooling, charters, vouchers and tax credits to allow students and parents to choose private and parochial schools, and, yes, traditional public schools if they are reformed in ways to achieve greater accountability and improved results. This hardly smacks of the one-size-fits-all “industrialized” model that Corso and others repeatedly accuse reformers of attempting to foist on New Mexico children.
A curious argument
The most curious, specific, argument Corso and other status quo advocates often make is that charter schools “do not have a better academic record than their public school counterparts.” New Mexico has had an effective charter school law since 1999. Since then, charters have served tens of thousands of students. According to the New Mexico Coalition for Charter Schools, over 14,000 New Mexico students currently attend one of 82 charter schools across the state. Is Corso saying that these parents are too ignorant to know what school is right for their child? Is he saying that New Mexico should get rid of its charter schools?
I’ll be the first to admit that New Mexico’s charter school laws could use some work. According to the Coalition for Education Reform, New Mexico’s law receives just a “C.” Even if that law were approved to an “A,” charters may not be the answer for all students.
That’s why we need to continue to reform education and expand the number of options available to parents and students. Corso and the critics of the Rio Grande Foundation and Hanna Skandera need to stop criticizing from the sidelines and start proposing specific reforms that can improve education without breaking the bank. Until they do, they are doing New Mexico’s children a huge disservice.
Paul J. Gessing is the president of New Mexico’s Rio Grande Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan, tax-exempt research and educational organization dedicated to promoting prosperity for New Mexico based on principles of limited government, economic freedom and individual responsibility.