Dear Jersey Jazzman,

Bravo. You’ve done an excellent job in your piece “Chartery Snake Oil” twisting the words of this piece by James Aycock. In doing so you’ve demeaned a hard working educator and a good school by completely distorting his message. In general I found your critiques to be hyperbolic, off base and in some cases completely decoupled from the actual piece itself. I’d like to respond to three of your more inappropriate and damaging critiques and explore the implications of your distortions on the future of education policy.

First, the most damaging distortion you’ve made is turning Mr. Aycock’s words “poverty does not have to be destiny” into “poverty is not destiny.” Though similar, these are two very different statements that lead to two very different policy conclusions. To twist these words is to twist the piece’s entire message.

The first phrasing, which Mr. Aycock DOES use, acknowledges that poverty plays an essential role in educational outcomes but that it does not have to dictate them. It acknowledges the possibility that students can still achieve excellent academic outcomes despite poverty, but acknowledges that poverty must still be taken into account when creating school policy.

The second phrasing, which was NOT used in this piece, is generally used to imply that poverty DOESN’T matter and can be disregarded as irrelevant. No such claim is made. To claim that Mr. Aycock used this later wording is to reverse the entire message of his piece, that we can improve student outcomes even in the face of poverty. In fact, to argue otherwise is to challenge the very mission of public education. If you truly believe that poverty equals destiny, then why even have a system of public education at all? That’s a question only you can answer. This distortion contains damaging implications which I will explore later in this response.

Second, you’ve misrepresented Mr. Aycock’s message about the impact of these two schools by highlighting data to claim that they’ve been falsely painted as “miracle schools.” Even worse, you’ve implied that he has lied about the achievement of his school by accusing him of being a snake oil salesman, a very serious charge indeed. I have two issues with this. First, a miracle denotes something that is so unbelievable that its unexplainable. No one is claiming that either school represents a miracle (in fact the word doesn’t even appear in the piece). I suggest that you and your readers explore some of Mr. Aycock’s other pieces on Grizzlies Prep. If you do so you will learn that what you label as a “miracle” is actually the result of strategic thinking and hard work by a dedicated faculty with the goal of continuous improvement. For example, their math scores (which you cite as poor) were not great this past year. As a result, Mr. Aycock led the way to institute a supplemental math support program to better serve their students in this area.

Second, if you read the piece through you’ll note that the author acknowledges that Grizzlies Prep isn’t a miracle school and that it still has work to do. It’s aim is to catch up its kids from a low starting point (a 3rd grade reading level in 6th grade) and put them on grade level by the time they graduate. But there is no miracle involved, only hard work. Mr. Aycock notes that even after one year his kids still aren’t where he wants them to be regarding their reading scores, but that they are growing  over time so that by the time they leave Grizzlies Prep they should be on grade level. You completely gloss over this data in your response and fail to acknowledge the success highlighted by Mr. Aycock, that being student growth.

Third, you also claim that the piece states reformers have “discovered the cure” for what ails public education. The words “cure” and “reformer” don’t even appear in the piece, nor does the piece in any way contain any discussion of broader policy implications other than a brief reference at the end. This implication is a complete fabrication designed to suit your own purposes. And by including this in your response you’ve misrepresented Mr. Aycock’s message and doing a disservice to your readers.

Most troubling, I came away from your response with the belief that you disagree with Mr. Aycock primarily because the two schools he highlights happen to be charter schools. This may be the most damaging impact of your response because it precludes any positive learning coming out of this story or any similar stories on your part.

Is your standard in education to only learn from the success stories you like? Would you throw out the story of an amazing teacher in a public school as irrelevant because he’s a proponent of tying student data to teacher evaluations?  Would you toss out the improving scores of a district or state because it’s accepted philanthropic grants? Would you demean a superintendent who chooses to publicize the improvement of his district as, to use your words, “puffing up himself?”

The answer is (or should be) a resounding no. We can learn something from every success story. When we do dismiss the experiences and opinions of those we don’t agree with, we put our kid’s futures at risk by shutting ourselves off to potential solutions. We shouldn’t throw out stories like Grizzlies Prep simply because we have differing opinions on the best policy regarding schools. Throwing around rhetoric and misrepresenting arguments only hurts our students in the long run.

In a very real sense, you’ve fallen prey to the very smugness you accuse Mr. Aycock of harboring by implying that you have a monopoly on the truth when it comes to education policy.

Education is a complicated field. If we find something that works I believe we should be obligated to explore it further rather than dismiss it out of hand. This blog strives to learn from the successes we find in teacher’s stories, whether they teach in traditional public schools, charter public schools or private schools.  Because in the end we need solutions, not controversy and rhetoric, to change kids lives. I can only hope you’ll follow our example in future pieces.

Sincerely,

Jon Alfuth, Founder of Bluff City Ed

[p.s. added 6/12/14: I am currently abroad and unable to do any number crunching similar to that done by JJ in his piece. My intent all along has been to look at the data and do something similar when I have more regular internet access. However, I do believe that the tone and semantics in JJ's piece deserve a response, hence this piece.]

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[update at 2:42 PM, 6/10/14]: the original piece stated that GP students enter on a 5th grade level in 6th grade. It is actually a 3rd grade level in 6th grade and has been updated accordingly.