Public schools have been falling short for years. On top of their failure to realize the potential of students in general, these schools are also failing to meet the challenge of continuing to educate students in the era of COVID-19.
Between intermittent operations and the lack of clarity over the continuity of education plans, schools have consistently underperformed over the past five months. Everything I am seeing suggests that this underperformance will continue into the fall and for years to come.
The simple question is why — not why the schools are failing, but why parents continue to allow themselves and their children to be subjected to this underperformance?
Perhaps the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on parents and students has been to inculcate a view that, since education is compulsory, it should be viewed as a given rather than as an active investment by families and students in their futures. By shifting to an attitude of ownership, families can bring with them the consumer-driven attitude responsible for the democratization and quality improvements characteristic of so much of the modern world.
When a product is defective, you return it. When you are paying for a service that fails to deliver, there is only one thing to do: Fire your school.
The biggest obstacle to firing someone is the need to find an alternative. Fortunately, in the United States, alternatives abound, whether through intradistrict or interdistrict transfers, through public charter schools, or through private schools, many of which have generous financial aid packages available and that make themselves accessible to students from every economic background.
The questions parents should ask in evaluating a new school are:
1. How will this education prepare our children for the world they will be living in tomorrow rather than the world the textbook authors are living in today?
2. How will the school guarantee a seamless education that takes full advantage of the classroom but can also move online when needed, guaranteeing that schedules and courses will remain predictable and unchanging even if the percentage of students allowed on campus at any given time continues to shift?
3. How will the school ensure that the emotional and social needs of students are met, whether in person or online, and that students will become fully realized adults, ready to enter the world of work or higher education when they reach the end of high school?
These are questions any good school should be able to answer. Unless you have good answers to these questions from your current school, what you must do is obvious: Fire your school.
Raymond Ravaglia is the chief learning officer at Opportunity Education and is the former associate dean and director of Stanford University’s Pre-Collegiate Studies program.
