Joe Williams on Education

Cheating Our Kids: How Politics and Greed Ruin Education (Palgrave Macmillan, October 2005)

Journalist Joe Williams shows how parents can use consumer power to put children first, shining light on the special interests controlling our schools, where politics and pork infuse everything and our children's education is compromised. He argues that increased accountability and choice are necessary, and shows how the people can take back the education system, enhancing responsibility inherent in democracy. The solution is a new brand of hardball politics that demands competence from school leaders and shifts the power away from bureaucrats and union leaders to the people who have a the greatest reason to put kids first: concerned parents. With practical steps and uplifting examples of success, this is a manifesto to action.

Listen to Joe Williams on Detroit's  760 WJR from December !!

Read the Q & A with Joe Williams in the Nov. 29th edition of USA Today

A former New York Daily News reporter and father of two sons in New York City public schools, Williams, 35, presents a rogues' gallery of adults failing to look out for kids' interests: foot-dragging superintendents, thieving payroll clerks, administrators engaged in multi-million-dollar construction kickbacks, union leaders who force lawmakers into unproductive positions. But he also says good public officials are often thwarted by bad systems; he presents portraits of activists who took on the system and offers 12 "Rules to Help Parents Take Back Their Public Schools." ("Rule No. 5: Don't trust PTAs to do anything other than raising cold, hard cash.") USA TODAY spoke with Williams:

Q: Amid all the examples of people getting rich off tax dollars for public schools, what's the worst case you've seen?

A: The misuse of federal E-Rate funds for wiring schools to the Internet is particularly shocking. This is a $2.25 billion per year program that no one seems to have any control over. In the most outrageous case, more than $100 million was spent to wire schools in Puerto Rico, but only a handful of computers actually ended up with Internet access. A lot of grownups made a mint off the program, but the kids were no better off.

Q: You say teachers' unions "don't exist to fight for kids," and that we judge many school reforms "based on how teachers feel about them." If teachers are doing the work, what's wrong with that?

A: The unions are at their best fighting for teachers, not kids. It'd be foolish not to listen to what they say because they are the ones doing the work. But that doesn't mean they should be the only voice, or even the dominant voice. When you look at the decisions we make regarding our schools, we often spend more time debating how they impact the adults than how they impact kids. School system employees become conditioned to the idea that they will get their due, regardless of whether children are getting theirs.

Q: You say Democrats are beholden to unions. How about Republicans?

A: Republicans have a couple of problems. One is their refusal to acknowledge that providing a quality education costs money. They like to combat greed and incompetence in school systems by starving them of resources rather than dealing with structural problems. Some conservatives are so obsessed with things like school prayer and creationism that they believe these are education reforms. They also can become obsessed with dreams of beating back unions because they are political adversaries. The practical effect is that Democrats aren't allowed to talk about bold and radical solutions, while Republicans seem to do nothing but talk.

Q: Many parents see the No Child Left Behind reform law as the real problem. Is it?

A: Some of this stuff wasn't designed to be popular, such as the new focus on achievement for minority and special education students. On the other hand, the unintended consequences of this law are real. You are starting to see schools that no longer feel they can afford to teach anything that won't be on tests. States are also watering down standards to make it easier for everyone to meet them. I'm quite critical of the Bush administration for being laissez faire in enforcing the law.

Q: You take on philanthropic groups like the Gates Foundation, saying Bill Gates pays no price if his "small high school" reforms fail. What's the problem with philanthropy in schools?

A: I actually give Gates credit for seeming to be more skeptical of the small schools results than the people who actually got his checks. The problem is with "we, the people," not with the philanthropists. We need to be far more picky and place their offers of assistance within a larger context of where we want our schools to be heading. Money can become a huge distraction for school leaders, who end up twisting their reforms in knots to get in on the latest fads and funding.

Q: So what can parents do to fight for better schools?

A: Former American Federation of Teachers president Al Shanker said the New York City union needed to "become a disaster" to be taken as seriously as a hurricane that had worked its way up the East Coast. Parents also need to be a "disaster." No one who has power in education got it by asking nicely. Public education is about politics, politics is about power, and if parents want control over what happens to their kids, they have to go out there and steal power from someone else. I'm not suggesting that parents be out there running schools, but if they were a little more demanding, we wouldn't be in this mess