The Market for Bad Education

I've mentioned before my hypothesis about the continued ability of unsuccessful charter schools to attract students. It goes like this. Good education is hard. If done right, it is hard for the students and the parents. Charter proponents claim that market forces provide all the accountability we need for charter schools. If the schools aren't educating kids, the parents will move them elsewhere.

All well and good if the parents and kids want good eduction and the hard work that goes with it. But not everyone is so virtuous. Some kids -- especially some older high schoolers -- and some parents are more interested in getting through school with a minimum of inconvenience than a maximum of effort and resultant knowledge. If I were unscrupulously pitching a substandard charter school, I would drop hints like "we don't believe homework helps kids any and it creates a burden at home, so we don't assign it."

An interesting hypothesis, but no evidence to back it.

Wait, yesterday's BJ has something. Just maybe . . .

Here's how Stephen Staats spends a typical school day: an hour in a traditional class, followed by three hours at a computer studying English and math. One 15-minute break.

A teacher monitors his progress on a computer screen and is on hand to answer questions and provide encouragement. There are no lectures.

Stephen, 17, likes the short school day. He's out of the building at noon.

``There's no homework,'' he said. ``That's pretty cool, too.''

Pretty cool indeed. What's not cool is the credulousness of the rest of the story.

The story is about Schnee Learning Center, anew charter school sponsored by Cuyahoga Falls School District to try and tap into the alternative high school market David Brennan has thus far cornered. The school set up sounds suspiciously like the Life Skills schools. Fine. But here is a Cuyahoga Falls official explaining the reason behind the school:

Like other charter schools, Schnee is free from some state regulations. It can
offer a shortened school day, which gives students more flexibility for work.
``That's a biggie for many of these kids,'' said Schnee Executive Director Jeff Harrison.

-Really? Teenagers like having less school? Ya think?

Also:

Harrison said some have fallen ``through the cracks'' because they don't do well in big schools. Others simply learn better on their own, he said.

-Still others do better not learning on their own but pretending they are.

The article contains neither a critic questioning these rationales, nor any skepticism on the part of the reporter. Katie Byard at one time was considered the go-to education reporter. Stories like these may be why Oplinger and Willard appear to have taken over much of the beat. They at least know how to make a call to Tom Mooney.

Here's how simple it is to cast some doubt on all this. Try this thought experiment. You are arguing with a public schools critic. You mention a new program being tried in Berkely. Students pace themselves at a computer three hours a day. The only drawbacks -- it costs the same as traditional schooling and the graduation rate is only 20%. Your adversary dies laughing at your wooly-headed liberalism.

Actually, that's Life Skills. School districts may have economic reasons for emulating it. But it's hardly a pedagogical innovation we want replicated.