Monday, December 6, 1999 in Wall Street Journal
Back in one of the icier hours of the Cold War, some obstreperous Prague dissidents got together and signed a manifesto demanding that basic human rightsbe respected behind the Iron Curtain. For years their only reward was ridicule at the workplace, intimidation by authorities, and other uncounted miseries. Later though, when scribes sat down to chronicle the Cold War’s end, it became clear that the simple Charter 77 document had been an early beacon in lightning the path to profound change.
Charter 77 came to mind when we learned this week that a group of current and former public school teachers and superintendents from across the land was signing a daring pro-market Statement of Principles for school reform. Revolutions have their course, and one can’t help but sense that the humble Statement is a marker in the education revolution that is sweeping the land, one of the first giant cracks in the nation’s great public school edifice.
Consider, first, the document itself. Unlike the usual proposals that come from teachers, or their unions, the Statement doesn’t see public school reform as the government’s job. It sees it as a market challenge.
Thus is reads: Government currently controls the vast majority of schools in this country; our system of education would be improved by a multitude of providers as opposed to a government monopoly. We’re accustomed to such language in the contect of venture capital. But this is a new one for teachers.
Then there is this: Teaching is a profession and good teachers deserve recognition and compensation based on their performance. In other words, au revoir to the tenure system. And: Children are the reason for education and [the] system’s need must never take precedence over the needs of the children. Taking this to heart would signify a big shift in America’s public school system, which too often seems to view schools as job machines for teachers rather than being their to serve children.
As with Charter 77, the Statement’s importance lies as much in its signatories as in its content. The most notable is Jaime Escalante, the Bolivian immigrant who became America’s most famous math teacher. Three decades ago Mr. Escalante fought public school authorities to show the world that even the poor children of East Los Angeles were capable of becoming math stars; many of us know his story from the film “Stand and Deliver.” Now Mr. Escalante is fighting for choice.
Another signatory is Anthony Trujillo, the crusading El Paso, Texas school superintendent who dissed his state’s education establishment by daring to put principals on one-year contracts and — shocking! — hold them accountable for their own results. Student performance in Mr. Trujillo’s district vindicated his work, but his maverick ways eventually landed him out of a job. Yet another signer is Marva Collins, a Chicago teacher whose demanding high standards ruffled feathers at the Chicago School Board. (For the complete list of signatories and full text of the Statement of Principles see www.teachersvoice.org. The signers also serve on an advisory board to entrepreneur Ted Forstmann’s Children’s Scholarship Fund.)
These are the early dissidents, and the Statement of Principles is their samizdat. There is no doubt that they, particularly those who still work in public schools, will continue to face the opprobrium of some peers. But it is also sure that other teachers eventually will come along to add their names to the Statement. Making educational entrepreneurs of classic public servants may take a while. But then so did Charter 77’s revolution.