Charter

It seems that even on this, the most depressing of days, I have to hear about The War of the Charter, a topic as illustrative of people working against their own self interest as the election of...that. Charter schools and the CA proposition that supports them are important for this, and possibly only this reason: they provide a space to experiment within the confines of a bureaucracy. That bureaucracy--the public school system--will not otherwise do more than cautiously increment and thus can evolve at only a glacial pace. That pace is in no way well matched to the rate of change in the environment--social, business, Earth--for which the school is intended to prepare its students. It is almost certainly the case that the mainstream schooling your child is receiving is inadequate to the challenges we are facing. Change, and the experiments that drive change, is therefore sorely needed.

In business these days the inability of large organizations to innovate successfully is a simmering, sometimes boiling, concern. As one former Yahoo executive mournfully noted, "When you do innovation in a large company, the immune system will come and attack you." When I think of the history of our own long-running MAP educational experiment I observe parental T-cells in action, seeking, with less or more poisonous vigor, to destroy the alien body within. Certainly that accurately describes the narrow-minded response of the Ross Valley School District to the current Charter petition.

Education is an unsolved problem. We should be united in our desire to solve it and supportive of those who seek to explore alternatives that don't cost the student $42,100 per annum, alternatives that, if successful, will influence classrooms throughout the Valley, perhaps throughout the country. We are indeed in the midst of an educational crisis: it's at least part of what's produced the near-majority decision to spit in the face of facts, kick meritocracy in its striving ass, and elect...that. You may, in the overused argot of Facebook progressives, stand with Ross Valley Schools. In doing so, you might preserve a precious few dollars for a gym teacher or library book. Neither will help your child find a role in the coming society. A charter school, on the other hand, just might.