Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution (17 page)

The influx of immigrants and the need to bring in more, however, increases the urgency of education reform. The problems are particularly pronounced in states with strong teacher unions,
which use their political muscle to preserve the status quo at tremendous cost to children. Fortunately, courageous governors and other public officials are placing the interests of children above the special interests and advancing systemic education reform, as illustrated by Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel facing down the unions over their opposition to needed reforms. Many more—especially Democrats, who are often susceptible to union influence—need to place the interests of kids first.

The challenges will grow as our population diversifies. One-quarter of all children in the United States have at least one foreign-born parent. Immigrant children have some advantages, particularly a far greater likelihood than native-born children to live in a family with two parents.
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And some, especially children from South and East Asian countries, such as India, China, and Korea, have high-earning and better-educated parents on average than native-born children. But poverty and language barriers contribute to severe educational challenges for many immigrant children, especially Hispanics. More than a third of Hispanic fourth graders are English-language learners. Children from Mexico and Central America have the lowest high school graduation rates in the United States.

The Pew Hispanic Center reports that although Hispanics
tend to place a very high priority on education and aspire for their children to attend college, language barriers and the need for many young Hispanics to leave school to help support their families lead to low educational attainment and high dropout rates.
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One part of the solution appears to be English immersion. Sixth Street Prep, a charter school in eastern Los Angeles County, provides a good example. Its students are overwhelmingly Hispanic and low-income, and one-third are English learners. The school uses a “full immersion” approach, teaching subjects in English rather than in both English and Spanish, to move English learners to language proficiency as rapidly as possible. Remarkably, 100 percent of the school’s fourth graders scored proficient on the state’s mathematics test, and 93 percent on the English language-arts exam.
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While the jury is still out on such immersion efforts, we are strong believers in giving states and schools broad discretion to try different approaches. At the very least, the federal government should cease its use of civil rights laws to thwart such efforts, which has the perverse effect of taking away educational options from the very children who are the intended beneficiaries of those laws.

The results documented at Sixth Street Prep could be attained at any school—they simply demonstrate what is possible for even
the most disadvantaged children. But in order for such results to be the norm rather than the exception, true systemic reform is necessary. We need to remember that for all of the wonderful benefits it has produced, our nation’s education system is largely based on a nineteenth-century agricultural calendar and a mid-twentieth-century industrial organizational model. Our needs have changed dramatically, as has our ability to deliver a high-quality, highly personalized educational opportunity to every child. That we have not acted on this ability—that millions of children remain mired in educational cesspools despite massive expenditures of taxpayer dollars—represents the greatest failure of American public policy, one that gravely threatens our nation’s future.

Our two states, Florida and Arizona, have been at the forefront of systemic education reform.

Starting in 1999, Florida embarked upon a series of reforms designed to improve public schools and broaden educational choices.
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The A+ accountability plan grades all public schools from A to F, based on academic performance. For the first time, parents have an objective, easily understood assessment of their
children’s schools. An accountability system is foundational to a high-quality education system. Florida’s holds each student to the same high standard of achievement. It does not focus on a student’s ethnic background or socioeconomic status.

Believing all kids can learn and recognizing that kids of all colors and backgrounds can excel, Florida focuses on the academic level of the individual student. The progress and achievement of every student, as measured by objective assessments, determines the school’s grade. To ensure that students who are struggling are not overlooked or brushed aside, the assessment of students performing in the bottom quartile is double-weighted. And parents zoned for chronically low-performing public schools can transfer their children to better-performing public schools.

All parents should be empowered to choose the best schools for their children, and in Florida and Arizona school choice is widespread. Last year in Florida, nearly 800,000 students attended schools selected by their parents, not by district zoning laws. More than 200,000 students attend public charter schools. About 25,000 special-needs children attend private schools using scholarships. Almost 50,000 students from low-income families receive scholarships funded by tax credits to attend the schools that best fit them. Florida provides four-year-olds access to free
pre-kindergarten literacy programs. Last year, more than 180,000 children were enrolled in pre-kindergarten literacy programs and 85 percent of parents chose private providers. And last year more than 150,000 students in the state took courses online.

Florida’s performance pay system rewards teachers who help generate student academic gains. It also provides monetary incentives for teachers who accept positions in low-performing school districts or who teach high-demand courses such as math and science. In 2002, Florida began providing bonuses for teachers whose students earn passing grades on Advanced Placement courses, which has helped significantly increase the number of students taking and passing such courses, especially minority students. Those courses translate into increased college attendance and success. Florida also recognizes several methods of alternative teacher certification, which increases the number of qualified teachers.

Reading is the gateway for learning. In 2002, the state curtailed “social promotion” by requiring that third graders be able to read at grade level before being admitted to fourth grade. By placing a strong emphasis on reading for K–3 students, and requiring early detection of struggling readers and customized interventions,
Florida has cut nearly in half the number of children who are functionally illiterate at the end of third grade.

The combined reforms have produced dramatic results. Florida is the only state in the country to substantially narrow the racial academic gap. In 1998, before the reforms were adopted, Hispanic fourth graders in Florida were far behind their white counterparts in reading as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (scoring an average of 198 points compared to 223 for white students), but by 2009 the gap had nearly disappeared (223 points for Hispanics and 229 points for whites).
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All student groups experienced gains. In 1998, 69 percent of white Florida fourth graders scored at the basic proficiency level or above, while only 31 percent of black students and 46 percent of Hispanic students did. By 2009, those percentages had grown to 77 percent of white fourth graders, 56 percent of black students, and 71 percent of Hispanics.

The results are even more remarkable when placed in a national context. By 2009, black students in Florida were scoring above or equal to the average score for
all students
in eight states, even though all eight boosted their overall test scores during the same period.
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Florida’s Hispanic fourth graders, meanwhile,
achieved scores equal to or higher than the statewide averages for all students in thirty-one states.
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Other states have begun adopting Florida’s far-reaching education reforms. Those measures are based upon a very simple premise too often lacking in education policy:
Education should be about children, not the adults who serve them.
Expanding choices for children—especially for those disadvantaged children who otherwise would be consigned to failing schools—and holding schools accountable are the cornerstones of meaningful education reform.

Some of the most important educational innovations are taking place in charter schools. Networks of charter schools such as KIPP Academies and SABIS International Schools are providing superb educational opportunities to tens of thousands of minority and low-income children, proving that high quality and high expectations can produce consistently positive results.
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Similarly, school choice programs that are growing in number across the nation provide access to private schools for families whose limited financial means ordinarily would preclude such choice. Wisconsin’s Annette Polly Williams, a former Democratic state legislator, former welfare mom, and architect of the Milwaukee voucher program, quipped during the Clinton administration that Bill
and Hillary should not be the only people living in public housing who could send their child to private schools. She was right, and elected officials of both parties need to recognize that
where
children are educated is far less important than
whether
they are educated.

Both public and private school choice programs tend to focus on where educational needs are greatest: low-income communities. Indeed, some states restrict charter schools and private school choice to low-income and special-needs children. But we need excellent schools for all children. Even many of the “best” public schools are producing graduates who need remedial education, and far too few with the skills needed to pursue demanding majors in top universities.

Arizona stands out for incubating charter school networks that produce stratospheric results. BASIS Schools Inc., founded by economist Michael Block and his wife, Olga, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, provide a challenging curriculum with an emphasis on mathematics and science.
Newsweek
recently ranked the two oldest BASIS schools, in Tucson and Scottsdale, among the top five public high schools in the United States—and the only two in the top five without selective admissions.
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Taking a different approach, the Great Hearts Academies provide a classical
education, emphasizing learning through the “great books” of the Western tradition. In the grand American tradition of competition, charter schools are inducing traditional public schools to become more innovative and responsive to students’ needs.

Effective charter schools flourish in Arizona because of the state’s light regulatory touch, which allows experimentation and replication of success. Admission is by random selection, and many Arizona charter schools have large numbers of low-income and immigrant students. Charter schools are judged by their success, and poor-performing schools are shut down. Charter schools now account for 25 percent of all Arizona public schools and enroll more than 14 percent of all public school students. Charter schools perform disproportionately well on state exams: nine of the ten top-ranked public schools in science are charter schools, as are eight of the top ten in reading and math.
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The most successful charter school networks, including BASIS and Great Hearts, now are expanding to other states, and BASIS opened a campus in the nation’s capital in 2012. Other states should follow Arizona’s lead and provide a regulating environment in which charter schools can flourish.

Our educational system as a whole is currently too slow to take advantage of revolutionary advances in technology that make world-class educational opportunities available to increasing numbers of children. Many states focused a great deal of attention and resources on lowering student/teacher ratios. But for the most gifted teachers, the best possible student/teacher ratio is infinite. Technology now makes it possible to make the best teachers available to large numbers of students via online learning, and to personalize education to the individualized aptitudes of every student through interactive education.

In a book about immigration, it is fitting that a model for this trailblazing approach was developed by Salman Khan, whose mother emigrated from India and his father from Bangladesh.
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Growing up in a poor community in Metairie, Louisiana, Salman excelled in math and was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He found lectures boring and earned two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree in four years. After obtaining an MBA from Harvard Business School, he embarked upon a lucrative job as a hedge fund analyst.

But it was by making tutoring videos for a cousin that Salman
found his true calling. He posted them on YouTube, where they received tens of thousands of views each day. Emails from grateful students convinced Salman to start the nonprofit Khan Academy, whose mission is “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.” The academy has produced thousands of short instructional videos ranging from basic math and algebra to the French Revolution and the Electoral College, along with interactive quizzes and progress charts. With an operating budget of $7 million annually, Khan Academy has reached an astounding ten million students—a cost of 70 cents per student. It is the ultimate in low-cost, high-return, individualized interactive education, powerfully illustrating the rapidly expanding realm of the possible in education technology.

There simply is no excuse for providing low-quality education to American students. So is it possible to develop public policy that can harness and nourish these technological advances to produce a twenty-first-century system of learning? Absolutely. Charter schools—and for that matter, all public schools—can combine the best of traditional learning with the tools made possible by technology.