Review of “Nice White Parents” 

Real estate and American values in conflict. 

It is summer. The time that History and English teachers get to dream. I have read some excellent books and listened to some great podcasts while painting bedrooms and completing projects for the love of my life. I heard an advertisement for "Nice White Parents" on the tail end of the NPR "Serial" podcast. (Great Podcast!)  I was instantly intrigued because I have been in education for 17 years and started in the School District of Philadelphia where most of my students were Black and Latino. At first glimpse, it was difficult not to write off the podcast by NPR Chana Joffe-Walt as provincial. The experiences described were about Brooklyn in NYC. I teach in Pennsylvania where home rule in school districts governs and funds everything. The pod cast does not transfer well to my experience in Pennsylvania. Lydia Kulina does a great job of reviewing this in the Medium Blog. Funding should follow the student, and not local real-estate values. This is currently how cyber charter schools are funded. No teacher should be teaching over crowed classrooms in 90 degree heat. However, Joffe-Walt with her thesis of financially empowered white majorities and minorities steer changes in education is valid for the following reasons. 

1. White flight from the city to the suburbs has increased segregation in schools. 

2. Administrators in the suburbs attempt to increase diversity with limited financial motivation and success. 

3. Gentrification creates conflict and upheaval in traditional black and immigrant communities on the fringe. 

These are all linked by economic factors that are tied to majority European dominance. When the immigrants settled this country, they valued both liberty and equality. In my review of Joffe-Walt's contributions, she describes racism, but does not dig deeply enough into the values of a dominant European majority. 

The first settlers valued individual liberties. Jonathon Winthrop believed that they were creating a city on a hill that would be a beacon to reform Europe from a state religion without individual choice. White flight from the city to the suburbs is directly related to this value. When it comes to education, people are moving to the suburbs to improve the perceived safety and opportunities for their children. Black parents also look to improve their opportunities. Booker T. Washington created the Tuskegee Institute to raise up dis-empowered blacks with desirable skills. People compare themselves to others and sacrifice to get something better. This creates a direct conflict with equal educational opportunities. Federal funding like the Race to the Top has done little to change these unequal education opportunities. Will more centralized funding that removes parental choice work? While I believe state funding following the student is a good idea, Title I programs, and states that have funding that follows the student (New York) have shown that change will not happen until there is a significant shift in American values. 

Administrators in Pennsylvania are charged with increasing diversity as an unfunded mandate. They come up with strategies that usually involve delegating this mandate to a staff person or parent. In the first podcast of "Nice White Parents," it does a great job of showing how a desperate principal delegates the problem of losing her school because of lower enrollment by working with a parent to infuse white kids into a traditional Black and Latino school. In this episode, they discuss the "bliss point," which is the percentage of white kids necessary for parents to want to place their kids in this school located on the fringe of gentrification. The bliss point is 26%. The school shortage in a gentrified community like Cobble Hill Brooklyn can not be compared to many school districts in America, but the idea that principals look to delegate unfunded mandates is sound. Changing school funding formulas will lead to greater equality in education especially in states like Pennsylvania where local funding rules. However, it negates the sacrifice that parents made to place their children into a school with safety and opportunity. Joffe-Walt's premise seems to be that unless white parents sacrifice and send their kids to schools on the fringe of their comfort, change will not happen. 

The balance of liberty and equality will always be in conflict. In my opinion, this is a function of social class instead of race. This is because the choices parents make to set their children apart will always exist regardless of the funding formula. If parents choose to sacrifice to send their kids to fringe schools, then they need motivation to do so. The charter school movement is one way that parents are choosing to experiment with education. Making these sacrificial choices is necessary to integrate schools and increase equality in education. Mandating these choices is another strategy that could backfire. When parents are forced to send their kids to schools that are not their choice, then human nature and American values will continue to search for ways to distinguish their children from others. In one of the podcasts, white students take over an entire floor which upsets peace and learning at the school. This is not the preferred outcome of this change. Schools and school systems need to take into consideration American values when making policy changes. Severe structural change may lead to greater equity in education, but if this happens at the expense of learning achievement, then what have we accomplished? 

As the COVID pandemic has revealed, Online Learning is an option that uses a technological solution providing all parents with options, opportunities, and safety. When a student learns online, they can easily be provided with similar resources and environment. Schools can experiment with blended models where teachers use a flipped classroom approach to encourage collaboration and teamwork onsite two to three days per week. The program I currently teach in uses this model. In some cases we are forced to operate 100% virtually because our students are too far apart to meet together. This allows us to transcend social class and mix diverse economic classes together. This diversity enriches our program while it increases equity in education. It is my hope that our virtual program will expand to include more team building and face-to-face collaboration opportunities. This type of program will become more of a possibility as the pandemic opens up new ways for parents to work from home. When this cultural change becomes the norm, then it will not be unusual for parents to be interrupted in the midst of business meetings. Parents will also be empowered to look more closely at their children's education. All of this involves sacrifice, but this is the kind of sacrifice that American values will embrace. 

An open letter to Pennsylvania Legislators

It looks like we are going to get hit. I got this last night from our CEO. Please write / call the leaders in the Senate and House to let them know that you oppose cuts that have been proposed by the governor (as much as 30%), House Bill 530 (4-8%) and other proposals that attempt to treat charter schools as second class public schools. Here is my sample letter.

 

 

 

 

Dear Senator, State Legislator, and Governor,

The current plan to cut charter school funding to the lowest common denominator will hurt charter schools severely. Our school, PA Leadership Charter School has 2500 students. We do not advertise, and we do not have an economy of scale to operate at just under $6000 per student. We will be forced to increase class size, lay off teachers, and move to turn-key solutions that will eliminate teacher and student interaction. How can this be helping students? I oppose cuts that have been proposed by the governor (as much as 30%), House Bill 530 (4-8%) and other proposals that attempt to treat charter schools as second class public schools. Raising the Education budget from $350-$400 million at the expense of charter school is a mistake. I am aware of the efforts in Harrisburg by my elected state legislators, House Representatives, and Senators to undermine the support for PA public-charter schools and to cut funding to the charter-education model that serves individual Pennsylvanians who cannot thrive or succeed in their local school district. Charter students are public-school students, too, and their education and successes are just as important as their district counterparts.

I am asking that you please give your support to equality and fairness in the allocation of public-school state funding and, in doing so, provide the freedom of educational choice to all Pennsylvania parents and students.

Creating legislation against charter schools makes PA’s educational communities feel like second-class citizens when they do not deserve to be treated or served as such. Please do not cast a vote that will further distance or delay our state’s need for the school choice and individual-student accommodations provided by PA charter schools.

Please update me on how you plan to support Pennsylvania charter and cyber-charter schools so that my family and I can feel confident about the future of school choice. I look forward to your response.,

Can you please get back to me on this?

Please consider writing your legislator about this. Some of the most innovative public charter schools are the smallest. Governor Wolf's budget cuts target these schools, and will punish them severely for innovation. You can send a template email at this site in 5 minutes. 

If you are feeling more ambitious, then you can find your legislator by typing in your address here. Please consider sending a quick email to him. Also send a note to the governor, and your state senator at these links. 

• the governor
• state senator

Pat Parris

The PA Budget cutters should read this first before cutting the education budget.

Dear Legislator, 


I have been a distance-learning educator for over ten years. During this time, I have seen many students who have been genuinely helped by this form of education. 
One thing that makes our learning platform different is access to quick responses from a teacher. Our students benefit most from this individual attention that we are able to reassure them with. They use the Open Source Moodle platform, and we communicate with many of them each day.  Our Moodle Platform is equipped with an instant messenger to help students at formative times when they begin to struggle. This access to a learning coach will be greatly diminished by a funding cut. 
I meet with students in groups every day in a multi-media classroom. My students have formed life long friendship with other students through this setting as well as looking to their teachers as mentors. I have been able to conduct these classroom sessions while in Panama, China and Quebec. The opportunity to tutor students in this setting will be greatly diminished. Teachers will have less time for synchronous instruction if funding is cut. 
Over time we get to know our students through their writing and responses in the classroom. We can access their group interaction, as well as their knowledge and skill in academics with the technological tools of multi-media classrooms, internal email, instant messaging and highly interactive lessons.  
If our students use distance education as a form of correspondence school, then they could have been doing this in the early 20th century. While it is true that we could still develop a relationship with them through their writing, it is not a reason to spend this kind of money on learning though the Internet. There is nothing new about correspondence based learning. The Cyber Charter Schools of today use technology to rapidly reach students at critical times of learning. We can catch them at thresholds of learning to ease the transition from one concept to another. We can foster a mentoring relationship with them when we celebrate milestones of accomplishment together, and can correct or redirect them when they need it. Most importantly, we can prepare them for the 21st century in a way that could have never been accomplished in the 1900’s. 
Our students are learning to reason with technological change. This is quite different from traditional education that clings to a process that is based upon rewarding compliant behavior. In a global world of change, someone needs to be testing new methods of learning that will eventually become mainstream. As other countries catch up with our standard of living, the process of preparation for the real world of work must change with it. 
Will we regret the cuts in this funding when other countries do a better job of preparing students to interact in a world where computers are the universal language? Pennsylvania will be rewarded for their leadership in connecting real world change with the skills necessary to face it. Our legislators in Pennsylvania should follow in the footsteps of our forefathers and do the right thing. Our Commonwealth has a stellar record of advocating for woman’s suffrage, homeschooling, equal rights, and family values when they were not popular. Over time our citizens will embrace the principles of educational choice and funding which follow the student instead of the system. Who is to say that this is not the next great revolution in education, and Pennsylvania is leading the way. 
For another point of view, please read this article.http://www.dailylocal.com/opinion/20150226/another-view-defending-cyber-charter-schools