The Real Value of Education

This post is the final part in a series of three posts on school choice focusing on value: the value in true bi-partisan support of an issue, the inherent value in choice, and the ultimate value in education.  Read part 1 and part 2 now.

“If you don’t have a college degree, you won’t amount to anything in life.”

“Good thing you’re a stay-at-home mom since you don’t have a degree.”

“Wow, your background and experience is so impressive!  Where did you go to college?  What’s that, you didn’t?  Oh.”

“How do you expect to homeschool your kids without a college degree?”

I could go on.  It seems today that the point of education, the ultimate value people place in it, resides in a little piece of over-priced paper.  Even the conservatives who decry the college and university system and its obvious indoctrination of generation after generation into authoritarian and socialist “values” discount you, your experience, and your value if you choose to not spend four (or more) years post-high school getting indoctrinated.

What?  Is that really what we’ve come to—vesting the ultimate value of education in a piece of paper, one that puts kids into significant debt and generally offers no real value to their ability to work (underwater basket weaving, anyone? gender studies? new age mysticism?)?  Do we really trust these entities to churn out responsible, reliable, good citizens after 12 years in failing public schools?  Or worse—trust them to not undo 12 years of good work in other school options?

The cognitive dissonance is astounding.  The lack of logic is alarming.

So let me get this right…

12 years of public school = bad

College debt = bad

College indoctrination = bad

Therefore, send your kids to at least 4 years of college!

What?!?

Just as when “everyone is special, no one is,” the fact that everyone has college degrees now means no one is special (and college degrees are worth significantly less).  Let’s be honest.  College, currently, is nothing more than extremely expensive high school, part 2. 

But this article isn’t about college.  The point, rather, is what is the real value of education. 

Is the value of education really only to be found in a college degree?  No.

The real value of education isn’t even in “reading, writing, and arithmetic.”  No.

No, the real value of education is in instilling lifelong skills:

• The ability to critically think for yourself
• The ability to question
• The ability to communicate your thoughts and questions
• The ability to find your own answers

The real value of education is in creating active and engaged citizens.

The real value of education is in learning reality, not bias—and how to distinguish between them.

The real value of education is… wait for it… values, not a piece of paper.

Rather than putting ultimate value in what is increasingly becoming a worthless piece of paper, why don’t we reset and refocus the foundation of education back to what it should be: creating and instilling lifelong skills rooted in values.  Before you can create even basic knowledge, foundational values are necessary.

When we have presidential candidates saying things like, “If you don’t have a college degree, you won’t amount to anything in life,” it’s no wonder this nation is in the mess it is.  Oh yes, did I mention I was told that by a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 2016? 

It’s a systemic problem.  It’s far beyond time we re-evaluate the value of, and values in, education if we truly want to make a difference.

The Inherent Value in Choice

This post is part two in a series of three posts on school choice focusing on value: the value in true bi-partisan support of an issue, the inherent value in choice, and the ultimate value in education.  Read part 1 now and check back on 23 September for part 3.

Bigger than the school choice issue, choice in general has inherent value.  The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines value as “relative worth, utility, or importance” and “something (as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable”.

Choice is defined, in the same source, as “the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities” and “the opportunity or power to make a decision”.  Choice is important to prevent monopolies, defined as “exclusive possession or control” or “exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action”.

Choice, no matter what the issue at hand is, creates three things: opportunity, empowerment, and ownership.

Without choice, there is no opportunity, and worse, no progress.  Lack of choice is a creature of habit, a guardian of the status quo, and enemy of progress.  Opportunity means the chance for something new and different, and is often stymied by fear of the unknown and having to work to make a change.  As Thomas Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”  Having choice and opportunity means taking risks.

Another key factor of choice is empowerment of the individual.  That sense of pride and self-fulfillment cannot be achieved by doing something you’ve always done.  Albert Einstein said that “Problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.”  Creating the power and possibility to shift the world around you—from a change in how you spend your time day to day to bigger, life-altering changes like where and how you are educated—and handing that power to an individual is the greatest form of empowerment you can give someone.  You are holding your future, or the future of your children, in your hands.  Why would you abdicate the power to create opportunity to anyone else?

Finally, choice creates ownership.  After being empowered by opportunity, you get to own that choice.  Being able to say, “I did this.  I chose this.  I built that.  I seized that opportunity.” is critical to success in any arena.  Empowerment without ownership is hollow, as is choice without owning that choice.

Basic economics teaches us that where there is competition, there is growth.  If someone can operate in a monopoly, unchallenged and unchecked, what incentive is there for improvement and growth?  If there literally is no other choice, what reason is there to change or get better?  No one can do anything about it, so why bother?

When choice is introduced and a monopoly is broken, doors, windows, roofs, holes in the wall, craters in the ground, and wormholes in the sky open up.  Not only is there competition, but the incentive to change in order to keep customers, clients, or students is created.  Choice allows the best to survive and thrive.  And everyone wins when the best is in competition with each other.

Choice is scary—especially for the status quo.  When you get used to being mediocre and still used or hired, being thrust into the arena of change can create anger and resentment.  In some ways, the creation of choice almost sends monopolies into the stages of grief—mourning what was once “theirs”.  We have seen this happen time and again with school districts who create a hostile environment for charter schools, private schools, homeschoolers, and any other non-monopoly form of education.  But school districts who want to thrive have learned to embrace that chance.

As discussed in the first article in this series, Denver is a great example of creating positive change when challenged with choice.  Washington, DC has been another well document example of this.  Districts that continue to fail are those who tend to oppose choice, and district who succeed are those who have found a way to work with, and truly compete with, other options in their district.  Coincidence?  Absolutely not.

The Value of Bi-Partisan Support for School Choice

This post is part one in a series of three posts on school choice focusing on value: the value in true bi-partisan support of an issue, the inherent value in choice, and the ultimate value in education.  Check back on 9 & 23 September for parts 2 & 3, respectively.

In politics, there are two phrases we hear often: “bi-partisan support” and “it’s for the kids!”

Often these are barely lip service, trying to spin focus on an issue that generally has neither real bi-partisan support nor any real effect on children, but on one issue in particular, both couldn’t be more true.  School choice is an issue that transcends party lines and truly is for the kids.

While some on the left would focus in the “village” they claim is needed to raise children, and some on the right would focus myopically on which specific “choice” is best, a band of parents, school board members, and state legislators are setting aside other differences to increase opportunities for all children.

At the Denver Amplify School Choice Conference in August 2016, a panel discussion between Dr. John Evans (former Republican State Board of Education At-Large member and State Senator) and Rep. Angela Williams (Democrat) shared their perspectives on the truly bi-partisan support for school choice in Colorado and nationwide.

Rep. Williams said that the purpose of the legislature getting involved in school choice is to enhance student achievement, allow for innovative methods of instruction, provide resources for local school governance, and provide parents with alternatives.

Rep. Williams highlighted the legislature's role in education as providing funding, ensuring that all students receive a high-quality education, and ensure that ALL students have equal opportunity to attend high-quality schools no matter their zip code.

Rep. Williams was co-sponsor of three bills to make headway in leveling the playing field for charter schools in 2016: SB16-187 and SB16-188 (both of which died in committee, but were largely incorporated into the School Finance Act, HB16-1422, which passed), and SB16-208, which became law.

In July 2016, the NAACP proposed a resolution at their national convention that was later adopted by their Board calling for a “moratorium on charter schools”.  Rep. Williams, a member of the NAACP responded to this proposal with a forceful proclamation: “I’m not going to stand by and send our children to failing schools.”

Highlighting another area where bi-partisan support of charter schools has made a significant impact, Dan Schaller of the Colorado League of Charter Schools gave a presentation highlighting the success of charter schools in traditionally liberal Denver, Colorado; focusing in particular on the largely cordial relationships between charter schools and the Denver Public Schools Board.

A lot has changed over the past decade for Denver Public Schools (DPS), in large part thanks to the increase of charter schools and the unique relationship they enjoy with the school board in Denver.

Issue	Mid-2000s	2016
Academic Growth	Lowest rate of AG in all mid-to-large CO School Districts	Highest rate of AG in mid-to-large CO School Districts since 2012
Growth Rate	Out of 98,000 available seats, 31,000 (32%) were empty
Timely Graduation	Less than 39% of students graduate high school on time	65% of students graduate high school on time (166% increase)
In-District Schooling	Just under 25% of students left for other districts or options, costing DPS $125m annually	Fastest growing urban school district in the country
Grade Level Performance	33% in 2006	48% in Fall 2014
Additional Issues	DPS now… ·    …sends 48% of their high school graduates to college ·    …has 1 in 7 low-income students go to college (state average is 1 in 20) ·    …has closed or replaced 48 underperforming schools and opened 70 new schools (mostly charter) since 2005 ·    …has a SchoolChoice universal enrollment system which makes it easier for parents to choose their child’s school (in or out of district) ·    …sends over 18% of their students to charter schools

In Denver, bi-partisan support was critical to these successes.  A message-neutral tone, such as focusing on quality schools rather than the type of school, creating results and not being about choice just for choice’s sake, and focusing on the results for the kids being the ultimate goal, not how or where the results were created, built the foundation for progress in a traditionally hostile environment.  Additionally, a focus on pacing progress (sometimes slower to gain in the long run), creating equity (rather than equality), and pursuing autonomy and accountability within the district breeds trust and builds valuable relationships.

Without bi-partisan support, kids will continue to lose.  Focusing on the value of gaining and sustaining that support is key to providing quality education to all children and options to all parents.  It is, after all, for the kids.

Opinion: Education Reform Strategy 101

As the dust settles on the last year and last election cycle, it's time to start thinking about school board elections once again in Colorado.  It has been my position for years that unless and until limited government advocates champion education (and school choice), no other progress... so to speak... will be made in the political arena.

At a Denver school choice conference in December 2014, hosted by the Franklin Center, outgoing State Board of Education Chairman Paul Lundeen presented on how he saw the conversation about education as being framed like a Shakespearean play:

• Act One: Exposition, protagonist introduced, dramatic premise
• Act Two: CRISIS, obstacle, protagonist blocked from fulfilling need
• Act Three: Resolution, climax, denouement

State Representative Lundeen concluded by observing that choice advocates have been trapped in the second act for decades--and for real reform, we need to bring the conversation back to the first act.

2015 provides a perfect opportunity to get back to the basics of education, and education reform, with dozens of school board elections across the state of Colorado.  We don't need to make it a conversation piece; it already will be one.  We merely need to seize the opportunity to drive the conversation in the correct direction.

The most basic principle of all, one that needs public attention, is that the primary benefit of education is personal, and only secondarily is it a public benefit.  In other words, Education is primarily a private good.

The form education takes is driven by the fundamental end of education: is it a societal good, or a private, personal benefit?

If you asked the "man on the street" today, the focus is on the public (or societal) good of education, not the personal.  Our mission in Colorado's 2015 school board elections must be to shift that focus.

Right now, education is approached systematically, with forms and formulas in cookie-cutter schools to churn out the masses, rather than creating individual learning centers focused on the unique needs and achievements of each student.

As conservatives, we tend to focus on the first five of WWWWHW: the who, the what, the when, the where, and the how.  We are logistically driven, and that is shown in our concern for fixing the mechanics of the problem.  But that forgets the heart of the matter--literally; the more emotionally driven component of why.

We need to change our approach to school choice messaging by leading with the why: education should be personal, meaningful, and practical.  If you, as a student, put more into it, you will get more out.  That is our message box.

Education reform is much broader than just school choice (i.e. it exists outside the school choice box), but school choice is fundamental to education reform.  To obtain true, sweeping reform of education requires the realization that a cookie-cutter approach to education fails far too many of our students, and that choice is the first step down the road of personalized and individualized learning.

Perhaps ideally, education will once again be a private institution, but that idea is likely decades away (if it comes to fruition at all).  That is why school board elections are as important, if not more so, than funding private education--because it is our duty to view public and private education as parallel paths, and that we can both work to replace the status quo, failing system while protecting the most vulnerable still in it.

National School Choice Week approaches quickly--at the end of this month (January).  Let's make it our mission in Colorado to not just highlight the successes of school choice (of which I am a product), but change the conversation to make individualized, personal education a reality for all Colorado students.  That reality starts by changing the conversation as we approach November's ballot box.

Wrap Up: the Milwaukee School Choice Conference

To be frank, I didn't anticipate much coming from attending the Western Conservative Summit this summer.  Of course, there were a few interesting speakers and I got to see many friends (which, to be fair, I get to do often anyways), but those events don't do much besides give fleeting enjoyment.  I did, however, meet a gal from the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, and we got to chatting about school board races.  Not long after that, I got an email from another gal at the Franklin Center.  After chatting back and forth for a bit, she asked if I would be interested in attending a conference on school choice in Milwaukee--and, bonus, it turns out my husband can come with as an attendee as well.  It's always fascinating to me how seemingly insignificant events line up perfectly for something much, much bigger.

Matt has spent a lot of time writing about school choice in Colorado from the perspective of the courts.  I spent some time as the Executive Director of the Colorado HEARTH Fund in 2007 and 2008, promoting all school choice (particularly homeschooling).  School choice has always been a subject very near and dear to this homeschooled girls' heart.

The conference wrapped up last Saturday, and I'm still processing all the things I learned.  First, I really must say that the caliber of folks in attendance was top-notch (I particularly enjoyed meeting Alice and Maggie) and it was very cool to be a part of that group.

Of particular note for me were the tours of Hope Christian School and Bruce-Guadalupe Community School--the former catering to a largely African-American community, and the later a largely Hispanic community.  I was so impressed when talking to the coach at Hope who had some great insight into the incredible work they are doing in one of the poorest cities in the nation with an astronomically high incarceration rate for young African American males (1 in 8).  I was also very intrigued to discover that Bruce-Guadalupe is a monolingual school--teaching is in English so that students who come in only speaking Spanish leave bilingual, and to learn that it often helps the parents who only speak Spanish to learn English as well.  There is some truly amazing work going on in those two schools, where kids actually come first.  What a concept!  

My favorite session was a tie between Derrell Bradford's lunch talk (which you can watch here, filmed at another event) and Bob Bowden and Kyle Olson's panel discussion on using emotion and investigative journalism to advance school choice.

Even better than the tours and the sessions was dinner on Saturday night with a few fellow conference attendees and Bob Bowdon.  If you don't know who Bob Bowdon is, take a minute to get familiar and read the link above.  The Onion afficianados may find him familiar as well.  Ah, recognize him now?  Yes.  He is, of most note, the director of The Cartel--which is a must see if you haven't yet.  Clearly, it was a fantastic, fun dinner with the best bacon I've ever eaten.

The networking is always the best part of these events.  Hearing about what is going on in other states and spreading the word about the great results we had on 5 November in Colorado's election made it so worthwhile.  

In case you missed it, reform candidates had overwhelming success in Colorado, sweeping in Douglas County, Jefferson County, Denver County and taking many spots in unlikely places like Adams County.  The Thompson Valley School Board, predominantly in Larimer County, increased their reform member numbers--although one seat is still in limbo (and looks good for the reformers).

Another perk of attending was anticipating the publication of More than Scores from the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice.  What a phenomenal read.  

I'm looking forward to National School Choice Week from 26 January-1 February (yes, I have my yellow scarf!).  In the mean time, watch for more school choice posts as I process everything I learned.  Since we're getting back into serious campaign season (not that this last election wasn't serious), look for more posts on all things campaign-related, including an updated Caucus Training page and the 2014 edition of the RIGHT Republicans Initiative come Assembly and Primary time.  This blog can't be all snark and commentary on corruption in the Colorado GOP, right?

Winners and Losers in Colorado's 2013 Election and a Look Ahead

Now that the dust has settled a little bit, I wanted to just quickly review what happened in the 2013 election in Colorado.  I'm talking about the November elections, not the recalls (that's a whole 'nother beast).  I am hip-deep in finishing up my book (which, if you haven't pre-ordered yet, you can here) and attending a School Choice Conference put on by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but I wanted to give a very brief summary from my perspective of what happened and what that may mean for 2014.

Winners:

• Kids
• Parents
• Teachers
• Taxpayers
• School choice advocates

Losers:

• Unions
• Michael Bloomberg
• John Hickenlooper
• Political operatives

Analysis:

Douglas County, Jefferson County, Denver Public Schools, and several school districts in Adams, Larimer, and Weld counties in particular had great success with reform candidates and slates, which bodes well for improving education across the state.  Notice where some of these changes occurred--Denver, Jefferson, and Adams county, where you have majority Democrats or have been trending Democrat in the past several elections county-wide.  School choice and reform is not a partisan issue.

Coloradoans voted down a nearly $1 billion/year tax increase by a nearly 2-1 margin.

In a bizarre twist of strangeness that only Colorado could concoct, by nearly the same margin as one tax increase was voted down, a tax was passed on marijuana.  In Colorado, apparently it is "tax for thee but not for me."

Sadly, in some cases, reform candidates succeeded in spite of, rather than because of, some of the same old (bad) political operatives.  As long as we continue to have these folks around, we will have to fight that much harder to actually succeed in elections.

Looking ahead:

It is way too early to make predictions for 2014.  To say Hickenlooper is on the defensive now after two losses (the recall elections in September and now Amendment 66--a third might be the flub on the execution of Nathan Dunlap) would be accurate, but whether that will hold true a whole YEAR from now is yet to be seen.  Unfortunately, voters have really short memories, and if Hickenlooper can pull it together this year coupled with a long, likely nasty Republican Primary for Governor, and that could potentially spell success for him in his election.  Remember, since 2004, no Republican has won statewide office after a nasty primary.  It may be more a factor of "us" and less a referendum on Hickenlooper, unfortunately.

What conservatives and liberty lovers must do is capitalize on our success: clearly pro-gun, anti-tax, and pro-education reform messages are winning messages!

The legislative session should be very interesting.  Election years often bring a tamer legislative agenda, and after this year's cocky liberal ram-rodding, it will be very fascinating to watch what happens next.