Blog — Education

Posted 2/1/12 by Common Good

Providence Journal: One Size Does Not Fit All

The Providence Journal recently published the following editorial criticising a proposed state law against student texting. As the editors argue, the question isn't whether the law is good policy--it's whether a one-size-fits-all approach prevents independent schools from using common sense to solve their own unique problems.

Another unneeded mandate

Red tape and mandates continue to swamp Rhode Island’s local communities, as part of America’s propensity to turn everything into a law.

This year, state Rep. Peter Petrarca seeks a state law dictating to local schools a policy on student texting, even though many (most?) schools already have their own policies on cell-phone use. And Sen. John Tassoni, who last year failed to pass a statewide ban on students using cell phones during school hours, wants a similar bill in the Senate.

Are they acting this way so that they can boast to constituents they are doing something at the State House? There are far more pressing issues for our elected officials to confront, such as continuing services for the most needy, dealing with unsustainable spending on public-employee benefits and improving public education and one of America’s worst business climates (caused in part by excessive red tape).

According to Mr. Petrarca, studies indicate that 40 percent of students acknowledge that they text during class, and politicians may be able to win over some voters by boasting they are doing something about that scary statistic.

In the real world, though, such mandates add burdens to our already struggling cities and towns, which must enforce them. And it is by no means clear that a one-size-fits-all state policy would work better than individual districts’ efforts to control the problem. Districts, after all, are there on the ground, fighting cell-phone misuse first-hand. It’s their responsibility.

Rather than impose more unessential mandates, the General Assembly should focus on getting rid of some of the costly mandates that exist.

Posted 9/29/11 by Common Good

Today’s Read: Washington Post on a Case of Rules Trumping Results

The Washington Post editorialized today that a Montgomery, MD, elementary school’s longstanding and successful exercise program—that was shut down after administrators became concerned that it might violate the district’s ethics policy—should be allowed to restart. (You can read more about the program and the bureaucratic absurdity it’s currently facing in this earlier Washington Post op-ed by district parent Morris Panner.)

The paper writes of district parents’ request to Montgomery Superintendent Joshua Starr to reinstate the program: “Let’s hope Mr. Starr has the sense to encourage a program of proven worth. Indeed, unless he’s more interested in the rule book than in results, he ought to be looking for ways to replicate this successful model at other schools throughout Montgomery.”

Read the editorial in full and leave your feedback in the comments section below.

Posted 8/12/11 by Common Good

Providence Journal Editorial: Join Start Over

In a Friday editorial, the Providence Journal endorses the Start Over campaign and encourages its readers to join the effort. A snippet:

The initiative promotes such reforms as (our favorite!) ‘sunset sessions’ of legislatures to get rid of outdated laws; making laws briefer and easier to read; and creating health courts to bring more medical science and rationality to medical disputes now dominated by trial lawyers.

Voters and candidates in this election cycle should pay close attention to Start Over for proposals on how to create a more efficient, more rational, more courteous and less costly society. Again, see www.startover.org and join the campaign. (The site has some hilarious examples of legal overreach. And you can send your own.)

This is not a right vs. left issue. It’s about common sense.

Read the editorial in full and leave your feedback in the comments section below.

Posted 5/31/11

Legal Idiocy #13: Maryland School’s Policy ‘Prevents … Even a Modicum of Common Sense’

Criticizing Easton High School’s (MD) April 2011 decision to suspend two 17-year-old lacrosse players for possession of a pen knife and lighter—pursuant to the school’s “zero tolerance” policy on weapons, and despite the boys’ explanation that the items were used to fix their lacrosse sticks—the Baltimore Sun editorial board writes:

It’s entirely appropriate for Talbot County or any other district to have a policy against deadly weapons at school. The problem is in officials’ insistence that such a policy prevents them from employing even a modicum of common sense. It is a problem not limited to Talbot County; too often, those in a position of authority appear scared to exercise judgment for fear that they will be criticized and instead seem to wish that every conceivable situation they encounter might be addressed by inviolable rules that they can simply follow.

Posted 5/31/11 by Common Good

Legal Idiocy #12: Lady in Red Tape

The Herald News(MA) reports that the Westport School Committee faced “a little bureaucratic conundrum” in April 2011 after a parent offered to donate a prom dress to a student in need. “The parent wanted to go through the school,” noted the school superintendant. The committee eventually declined to accept the dress out of concern that, if it were accepted, it’d have to be considered school property. And one committee member offered up this nightmare scenario: “If we end up with five of them a year and we have to keep them, we’ll be dry cleaning them ….”

Posted 5/24/11 by Common Good

LET’S TALK: There’s Too Much Bureaucracy in Removing Bad Teachers

The Associated Press reports on a New York State Senate hearing which revealed that state school districts “aren’t disciplining some bad teachers in the classroom because of a costly and ‘broken’” process. It took one year to remove a New York City teacher convicted of manslaughter. And the issue isn’t unique to New York: A 2008 report from the Center for American Progress found that only between .1 and 1 percent of tenured teachers are dismissed annually nationwide (despite one estimate that “between 5 and 15 percent of tenured teachers are incompetent”).

Posted 5/17/11 by Common Good

Maryland School the Latest To Show ‘Zero Tolerance’ for Discretion

Two 17-year-old lacrosse players were recently suspended from their Maryland high school for running afoul of the school’s “zero tolerance” policy on weapons. One of the students, who had never before been in trouble at the school, was suspended for ten days after a pen knife was found in his lacrosse bag. (He was also handcuffed and arrested by the police for “possession of a deadly weapon.”) The other student was suspended for one day after he was found with a lighter—which the school deems “an explosive device”—during the same search. School officials were not moved by the students’ explanation—which was supported by coaches, players, and parents—that the items were used to fix their lacrosse sticks—and instead insisted they were just following Maryland law.

Designed to give school officials more authority, as Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard explains in Life Without Lawyers, zero tolerance policies have come to symbolize some educators’ inability and others’ unwillingness to take responsibility to do what’s right. On this, the Baltimore Sun asks: “If we consider it a central mission of our schools to teach children not just to memorize facts but also how to think and reason, what kind of message does it send if those in charge employ none of those skills?”

Posted 5/16/11 by Common Good

Legal Idiocy #8: The Seats on the Bus Go Unused

An April 2011 New York Times article relates that the Port Washington, NY, school district sends out 17 buses with 1,122 total seats at the end of the school day, despite the fact that more than half of those seats routinely go empty, to comply with state laws that require districts “to provide a seat for every eligible child every day.” “‘It’s ludicrous to be doing this, and you can’t get anyone to listen,’ said Geoffrey N. Gordon, the Port Washington superintendent, who estimated that the practice of running more buses than needed costs the district $2 million a year.”

Posted 5/11/11 by Common Good

Joel Klein on How Legal Excesses Hurt American Education

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, former New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein relates how legal excesses have hindered America’s public schools. Of the New York City teachers contract — which hamstrings school administrators' and teachers' ability to make daily choices — Klein writes: “[It’s] an extraordinary document, running for hundreds of pages, governing who can teach what and when, who can be assigned to hall-monitor or lunchroom duty and who can’t, who has to be given time off to do union work during the school day, and so on.”

Klein goes on to argue that, due to the legal hurdles put in place by unions, “it’s virtually impossible to fire a teacher for non-performance.” “In New York City, which has some 55,000 tenured teachers,” he explains, “we were able to fire only half a dozen or so for incompetence in a given year, even though we devoted significant resources to this effort. The extent of the problem is difficult to overstate.” 

Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard has written extensively about the need to free schools from too much law, including most recently in a letter to the New York Times in which he argues that there’s a deal to be made with educators—bulldoze bureaucracy in exchange for accountability. “There’s no need to tell teachers how to do their jobs if they can be accountable when they don’t,” he writes.

Read more from Start Over’s “Solution” section—and provide your feedback here.

Posted 5/2/11 by Common Good

Legal Idiocy #5: The Early Bird Keeps Its Job

According to a February 2011 report by The New Teacher Project, “it’s actually illegal in 14 states to consider any factor other than a teacher’s length of service when making layoff decisions.”