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Sunday, November 20, 2011

Governors are responsible for schools
The Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School is in Philadelphia's Callowhill/Chinatown community.

Today’s politicians think they have discovered the key to election success: Act like you’re not part of the government, even if you’re running it. Trying to sidestep the antigovernment funk that the public has been in for years now, they try to cast themselves as outsiders, as nonparticipants in a system that actually looks to them to keep its cogs lubed.

Perhaps nowhere is this approach to governing more maddening than when elected officials whose responsibilities include educating children start talking like public schools are a bacterium they won’t touch. The schools are always their problem, and their means teachers.

Both Govs. Christie and Corbett play this game, though Christie has toned down his rhetoric. Corbett, in unveiling his school reform plan a week ago, still sounded like he would rather hand out vouchers and close traditional schools across Pennsylvania, if given the chance.

In past speeches, Corbett has said to improve schools you need an “escape route” so parents can “vote with their feet.” He said schools need competition, and that can only come when public funding for schools is portable. “I liken it to a backpack,” he said. “It’s carried to the school with that child.”

Children do need alternatives to languishing at bad schools. But Corbett can’t act like the only role he’s supposed to play is to provide an “escape route.” He runs the government, including the state Department of Education. Instead of throwing up his hands at bad schools, it’s his responsibility to fix them.
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