No doubt, the fetching Lisa Graham Keegan will play well on television as an education adviser to President-elect McCain. It will be instructive to see if the national media look beyond the blond good looks and quick mind to see that Keegan represents everything that voters want to get away from in Republican education policy.
As a legislator and then as superintendent of public instruction in Arizona -- the equivalent of education secretary -- she aggressively embraced the "charter school movement" and made Arizona into a national leader as an education "marketplace," where charters became as ubiquitous as Circle K stores. Properly constituted and regulated, individual charter schools have turned in impressive results nationally. These individual charters can be studied for best practices, but, there's little evidence they can handle the job of public schools on a massive scale. Evidence mounts that many fail to ourperform public schools, yet are more costly and prone to financial abuse.
The results of Keegan's crusade in Arizona were nothing short of tragic. Acting as if Arizona public schools were overfed, union-wrecked systems seen in a few big cities back east, she pushed for "school choice" in the form of charters. Few appear to perform well. Some are prime business ventures for well-connected right-wingers. Many are fly-by-night storefronts with no playgrounds, libraries or cafeterias. I recall seeing one where a roach coach would stop by at noon and toot the horn, as if it were a construction site. I guess the school owners were preparing the pupils for their future careers. Meanwhile, the costs of a school library -- a given when I was in Arizona public schools -- are foisted on the city library.
The Arizona Republic's news story made this important point:
Before Arizona adopted Keegan priorities such as charter schools and the high-stakes AIMS test, the state ranked below the national average in math, science, reading and writing, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a division of the U.S. Department of Education. More than a dozen years later, it still does.
Public education has become much more stratified between rich (well-funded districts, largely in the outer-ring suburbs) and poor (starved districts in heavily minority areas). Schemes such as tax credit donations go, naturally, to the already better-funded districts where the "donors" live. Distinguished high schools such as Camelback and Coronado have been allowed to fall into the category of "troubled inner-city schools." Arizona has remained near or at the bottom nationally in school funding, class size, teacher pay -- the real metrics necessary for success. Indeed, they are prerequisites for any further reform.
Keegan's charters skimmed public funding that should have gone to public schools. "Choice" and its many fads were part of every excuse in the shameful Legislature to cut education funding for real public schools. Meanwhile, there is little oversight of how charter money is spent, much less transparency about the owners' connections to legislators and Republican politics. Yet the "charter schools movement" (sounds like something promised by a laxative) is so politically potent that it slaps down any effort at real reform or even examination.
On another level, the charters contribute to the pernicious destruction of the things held in common, for the public good rather than private profit, that built the great America of the 20th century. They masquerade as public schools, with little accountability to the public in many states, and even a successful charter is an educational equivalent of a gated community. Meanwhile, money and power continue to strangle American meritocracy.
Keegan went on to become head of something called the Education Leaders Council in Washington, D.C. Before the group collapsed in scandal, it was on the gravy train of GOP earmarks. Like the charter schools in Arizona, it's difficult to find anything this organization accomplished. The Arizona Republic reports:
In a pair of 2006 reports, the inspector general for the U.S. Education Department said the ELC had used money inappropriately during the time Keegan was its chief executive. The ELC also had a poor financial-management system and inadequate written procedures for subcontracting, the reports said.
Even before the report, The Arizona Republic reported that some ELC board members were alarmed about Keegan's $235,000 salary and six-figure deals for other executives. During a three-year span beginning in 2003, eight members of the ELC's board of directors quit, along with four of its top executives, including Keegan, the auditors wrote.
Somehow she landed back in Phoenix with a $175,000 a year job working for Maricopa County (this in a city where the average salary is well below the national mean, partly because of the right's vendetta against quality education). Now she's on board with President-elect McCain. Government has sure been good to these people who keep telling us "government is the problem."
Perhaps we should give Keegan the benefit of the doubt. Many people, frustrated with the state of public education, were entranced by the idea of school choice. I was one of them, in the late 1980s. In practice, it has failed, and never more so than in Arizona. There, the big issues were never those of, say, Chicago. They were never the problems the conservative intellectuals could throw to such effect, the education welfare queens. Indeed, old liberals did much damage themselves in the 1960s and 1970s.
But in Arizona the consistent problems have been lack of adequate funding, failure to keep pace with population growth, the destabilization of districts by sprawl, and the historic migration of a Mexican workforce to keep Arizona's ponzi scheme economy going. Keegan never addressed these real issues.
Once when someone challenged John Maynard Keynes about changing his position on a particular issue, the great economist retorted, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?" On the right, the answer is clear. Keegan will be pushing her same "reforms" for McCain, no matter the tragic, scandalous results. No matter the damage to Arizona's future in a competitive global economy. No matter the way the state's education "marketplace" has helped create a permanent underclass. No matter the damage to individual children. The facts, after all, have a liberal bias. These "market-driven approaches" are very profitable for the right. Expect to hear horror stories about "liberal" public schools and those lazy, overpaid teachers at "government schools." Meanwhile, the actions of the right, from relentless budget cuts to "school choice" to mindless teaching to the test, these have wrecked our schools. They have been in charge for a generation. These are their failures.
I'll say this for Lisa: She lands well.
Particularly good analysis today. Yes, the "movement" is a failure. The facilities are horrendous and require a relatively new form of commuting - even for Phx - the commute to K-8.
While not very specific (which I don't want nor expect in a stump speech) Michelle Obama seems to get it when it comes to education. Her impressively intellectual, yet plain spoken speeches on this issue are pretty amazing too.
As you've pointed out, education cannot be solved in a vacuum. The short term improvement is to fully staff high quality teachers in struggling schools and reduce class sizes. These things simply cannot be done without more funding than Arizona currently allocates. Longer-term is where I think Mrs. Obama's mind is. To really fix schools you must fix entire neighborhoods. She used to be on the Chicago planning commission, so unlike some others, she actually has implementation knowledge in this area, not wild-eyed idealism.
Land-use policies need to be re-tooled to require more diversified housing. Actually outlaw income segregated communities. Then, a host of redevelopment mechanisms need to be in place to restore our crumbling inter-city neighborhoods. And yes, this needs national leadership. Such reforms need to be tethered to federal education funding. School quality, after all, is probably the biggest driver of the non-subsidized demand for sprawl, so smart growth policy then is linked to education policy.
Posted by: Curt | May 21, 2008 at 02:06 PM
The emergence of charter schools is an incredible irony to me, as I hold the availability of private education (in the traditional, non-subsidized sense) as being largely responsible for erosion in public education. The well-heeled have a disproportionate influence on public policy and spending, and if Bif and Buffy are safely tucked at "the Acadamy", there is little motivation for tending to the well-being of the public facilities. This is an indirect form of public subsidy for private schools.
So the solution? Start directly subsidizing private education with charters, so the "middle class" can get in on the starvation of public education.
It is my sense that whenever we have chosen to create a public service, be it education, health care or garbage collection, it is corrosive to offer privatized alternatives. As a society, honestly assess that which is to be public and private and make the choice. Mixing the two is simply a subversive way towards manufacturing "gated community" services.
Posted by: Petro | May 22, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Good one, Jon. Her attitudes toward education mirror the "rugged individualism" that's to blame for more than a few Arizona problems.
The sociologist Ben Barber once asked, "If we can't do education as a public, then what can we do as a public?"
Posted by: Dan | May 22, 2008 at 07:44 PM
Jon Talton is an extremely talented writer, in my view, so it was particularly un-fun to read his snarkiness directed at me. But my husband and I are fans in spite of ourselves and him, so I wrote Jon and he suggested I post something.
While I doubt it will happen, I hope folks will check the facts on public charter schools. The people who start them and run them are largely teachers, often formerly part of the union leadeship, who simply wanted to control the environment they teach in and be more effective for their students. 6 of the 10 highest performing high schools in AZ are chrters, and when you look at math it is 14 of 15.
To say this is a failed experiment is a head-in-the sand ridiculous statement. There are well over a million students in public charter schools in America. They usually serve a higher percentage of minority students,with many of the models such as KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Aspire Schools, Green Dot Schools, built around a mission to serve in low wealth urban settings where kids are horribly undeserved right now.
I find it amazingly ironic that people who claim to embrace innovation would believe we should not seek ways to re-invent our public education system to accomodate the initiative of those who know our kids best. There are some mind-blowing models out there, brought to us by teachers, who had to fight tooth and nail agianst their own colleagues just for the right to exist.
I agree it is correct to seek to raise the hopes of an entire neighborhood. But why not believe that you can do that in part by creating community in the school that exists there? Teacher owned schools, community run schools are all part of this movement. And it is growing steadily, but not fast enough to serve its waiting lists. How is that not "the public"?
Have you all spent much time talking to parents in low income neighborhoods? Their schools often don't provide much hope.
Corey Booker, Mayor of Newark who chose to live in one of the poorest neighborhoods in town long before he ran for Mayor, is a strong avdocate for school choice and charters. And he is a Barrack Obama supporter. This movement has crossed party lines while you were busy opposing it.
One of the things that frustrates me most about education is that affiliations seem to matter more than ideas. Let me make the world safe for you...there are A LOT of public charter school supporters on Barrack Obama's team. Lots of them own these schools and are seeking to proliferate them.
The world will be a lot better for a whole bunch of kids if you will offer them your support. Or at least check your facts.
Posted by: Lisa Graham Keegan | June 07, 2008 at 09:02 PM
Charter schools have become a target for those who sit at their computer and make judgments of the world outside.
I am very familar with about a dozen Arizona charter schools their staff, ciriculm and most important, the quality of education the children receive.
You may make judgements after taking tours of the public and the charter schools.
The charter schools in Arizona are given less per student than the public schools yet they take on a great number of special needs children whose parents are desperate to find a place of hope for their child.
Let us not forget the child in this war of words!
Posted by: Paulo | June 17, 2008 at 05:55 PM
I stopped reading when I got to this straight-out-of-the-NEA's-talking-points hooey:
"Arizona has remained near or at the bottom nationally in school funding, class size, teacher pay -- the real metrics necessary for success. Indeed, they are prerequisites for any further reform."
Compare those numbers for Washington D.C. and boring old "right-wing" Utah's public systems. Then compare the educational results of those systems. Then try and explain why anybody should take you seriously ever again...
Posted by: Will Collier | July 17, 2008 at 11:15 AM
Unfortunately, Will, that old right-wing talking point won't hunt. Utah is much more white middle-class than Arizona, and has the family cohesion enforced by the Mormon Church.
Arizona has lots of poor, working class folks, a huge cohort of first-generation immigrants, people working two or three jobs to get by, etc. The family chaos caused by poverty, lack of economic opportunity and lack of ladders up in the new economy for immigrants are a huge impediment to public education, especially when it has been starved of resources for decades.
The charter "schools" in Arizona are largely a scam, profitable for the politically connected but hardly providing a better education, much less a valuable "choice." Much less connection to community or civic life.
The result is a tragic, criminal waste of human capital. Somebody will attend your worst performing public schools -- so they'd better be damned good.
Money isn't the only answer -- but in Arizona it's a start. Why not aim to be 40th or 35th, instead of 49th or 50th. Of course many of the elites want a docile, ignorant workforce for the framing crews, cash registers at Wal-Mart and the call centers. They either won't vote at all, or they will fall for the fake grievances and distractions of right-wing radio and corporate media.
I am personally fond of Lisa, and the larger blame for Arizona education problems goes to successive Legislatures. But the charter/choice scam has been tried already. Want America to be like Arizona in a competitive global economy? Vote for President-elect McCain.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | July 17, 2008 at 01:39 PM
Lisa Graham Keenan's post would have been so much stronger had she:
a. realized "un-fun" is not a word. Educator?
b. Barack has one "r" in the spelling.
c. "mind-blowing" is not what a school model should be, unless it's an LSD school.
d. Used Cory Booker as the token black employed to legitimize her position. Disgusting.
I actually agree with school vouchers. But this article, and especially LGK's response, make me think that she might benefit from additional schooling herself. Very disappointing. Deeply disappointing.
Posted by: Lady Olive | November 01, 2008 at 04:02 PM