Craig Barrett: “The solutions [to problems in education] are incredibly simple.”

by David Safier

More from Craig Barrett, the head of Brewer's new education task force, A-Wreck (AREC: Arizona Ready Education Council). Barrett went on Brahm Resnik's Sunday Square Off, opened his mouth and inserted his foot regularly. This is a very smart man, but to be a good Brewer/Keegan/Goldwater-Institute partisan, he has to play fast and loose with logic.

Barrett said lots of things deserving comment. This is the most outrageous, about what it takes to improve education:

"The solutions are incredibly simple. They're so simple, it's pathetic."

The millenia-old attempts to create quality education for the elite, the 200 year old American struggles to create quality education for the entire population — all dismissed by Barrett as the work of hacks, when the solutions are "so simple, it's pathetic."

It's like saying to someone, "You're struggling with paying your multi-thousand dollar medical bills? The solution is so simple, it's pathetic. Make more money!"

His "simple solution," by the way, is high quality teachers, high expectations/standards and a good feedback loop through data systems. And achieving those things are simple — how?

Craig, go teach at a school with middle-achievement level students for six weeks. Then tell me about "simple."

The man loves his charter schools. He thinks they'll point the way to quality education.

"Only 10% of the kids in Arizona are in charter schools. 90% are stuck in the public school system."

"Stuck" in the public school system.

Charters, good. Public school system, bad. Barrett ignores every reasonable study which has indicated similar students in charters and district schools achieve at more-or-less the same level.

To make his point, he wants us to:

"Take BASIS as an example."

BASIS is the exception, not a reasonable "example." If I wanted to talk about the wonders of TUSD, I might say, "Take University High as an example." But I wouldn't, because University High doesn't exemplify TUSD schools any more than BASIS exemplifies charters.

You want a reasonable comparison? Stack BASIS and a few other high performing charters against the likes of University High, Catalina Foothills High and similar district schools around the state. That would be a reasonable comparison.

Barrett knows damn good and well, charters in general don't outperform district schools in general. Watch how he almost slips and says charters outperform "public schools," then catches himself. He's talking about the continuing growth of the number of students in charter schools.

"[Students moving to charter schools] will continue as long as charter schools — the top performing charter schools — continue to outperform public schools." [boldface added]

Cute. He catches himself and compares "the top performing charter schools" with all district schools. The proper comparison, of course, should look at the top performing charters and the top performing district schools. But that wouldn't make his point, now would it?

For years, Barrett has been touring the country spouting his privatization gospel. He may be new to most of us, but he's got a long track record.

[Note: Mr. Barrett, charter schools are public schools. You can kind of get away with using the term "public school system" to distinguish the two, but, much as the privatization crowd likes to evade the subject, charters are publicly funded schools which are under the jurisdiction of the Arizona Department of Education.]