Newark, School Choice, School Improvement
Cory Booker was elected mayor of Newark this week. He's been on my radar ever since I was the editor of a magazine in NJ, and he was a city councilman. Smart, handsome, dedicated, a Rhodes scholar, a lawyer who could have done something else.
Booker is a Democrat but he supports school vouchers, or at least he has in the past. That fact prompted Matt Yglesias to ask "What would Eduwonk do?" and inspired Eduwonk to answer.
It also spurred folks who disike Booker to weigh in too. NYC Educator suggests that Booker is a fake Democrat, or at best a hypocritical one. Maybe. But I need to correct something about Newark school spending. Newark spent $16,000 per pupil in 2003, and most of the money came from the state rather than city, as part of Abbott. The district spent $7100 per pupil on teacher salaries, compared to $5800 for the state, and $6300 for the county.
In other words, Newark is spending money on salaries per pupil. It also has a teacher/pupil ratio that is about the same as the rest of the state, so I have to question NYC Educator's suggestion that teachers in Newark are paid less than teachers elsewhere in the state and nation.
Eduwonk supports charter schools, but sees problems with vouchers. Like capacity. Vouchers won't build an alternative school system. Also, even the folks at Checker Finn's Fordham Foundation see some problems with vouchers in terms of the goals of people who want to withdraw from public schools and create alternatives--particularly in urban areas.
As for me, once upon a time I was a voucher supporter. But now I realize that vouchers won't, by themselves, do anything to improve education. It's a policy move, not an educational one. On the other hand, I sympathize with Newark parents and others who want alternatives and can't afford them.
If I had a wish it would be that we would actually improve the work of teaching so that all kids would learn and grow, regardless of where they attend school.
UPDATE: True confessions....I am distraught over Chris Daughtry's ouster from American Idol. Really. I'm surprised at how shocked and distressed I was over this. (Here's a Daughtry column in WaPo, written for the intelligensia. Captures it for me spot on.) I think he should do an album of covers: I'm thinking "All Right Now" by Free, and "Burden in my Hand" by Soundgarden, and I have this bizarre idea he should do like a really old Buffalo Springfield song, Mr. Soul--or better yet, Neil Young's" Cinnamon Girl." Anyway, that's what I do when I'm not reading up on Item Response Theory.
Booker is a Democrat but he supports school vouchers, or at least he has in the past. That fact prompted Matt Yglesias to ask "What would Eduwonk do?" and inspired Eduwonk to answer.
It also spurred folks who disike Booker to weigh in too. NYC Educator suggests that Booker is a fake Democrat, or at best a hypocritical one. Maybe. But I need to correct something about Newark school spending. Newark spent $16,000 per pupil in 2003, and most of the money came from the state rather than city, as part of Abbott. The district spent $7100 per pupil on teacher salaries, compared to $5800 for the state, and $6300 for the county.
In other words, Newark is spending money on salaries per pupil. It also has a teacher/pupil ratio that is about the same as the rest of the state, so I have to question NYC Educator's suggestion that teachers in Newark are paid less than teachers elsewhere in the state and nation.
Eduwonk supports charter schools, but sees problems with vouchers. Like capacity. Vouchers won't build an alternative school system. Also, even the folks at Checker Finn's Fordham Foundation see some problems with vouchers in terms of the goals of people who want to withdraw from public schools and create alternatives--particularly in urban areas.
As for me, once upon a time I was a voucher supporter. But now I realize that vouchers won't, by themselves, do anything to improve education. It's a policy move, not an educational one. On the other hand, I sympathize with Newark parents and others who want alternatives and can't afford them.
If I had a wish it would be that we would actually improve the work of teaching so that all kids would learn and grow, regardless of where they attend school.
UPDATE: True confessions....I am distraught over Chris Daughtry's ouster from American Idol. Really. I'm surprised at how shocked and distressed I was over this. (Here's a Daughtry column in WaPo, written for the intelligensia. Captures it for me spot on.) I think he should do an album of covers: I'm thinking "All Right Now" by Free, and "Burden in my Hand" by Soundgarden, and I have this bizarre idea he should do like a really old Buffalo Springfield song, Mr. Soul--or better yet, Neil Young's" Cinnamon Girl." Anyway, that's what I do when I'm not reading up on Item Response Theory.
posted by Jenny D. at 11:57 AM
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