Lee Iacocca, John Dewey, and idea who's time has not quite come

I remember Lee Iacocca from commercials in the 80's saying, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." Remarkably, he managed to convince the American public that the K-car was the answer, which kept Chrysler afloat until they could invent the minivan segment - which was, after all, a K-car underneath. He also said in those commercials, "Either lead, follow, or get out of the way."

For now, at least, I'm choosing the latter, and putting both Innovation Maine and the project that it grew out of it, Maine Enterprise Schools, on hiatus. For more than two years (or, depending on how you count, 18) I've worked assiduously on both local and state levels with the fundamental assumption that Maine's public schools would be better off leading innovation than having it forced upon them.

Since that day, our approach has depended on negotiating agreements with existing public school districts. We have not accomplished that, despite coming close many times. No agreements for the 2009 school year, for the 2010 school year, or for the 2011 school year. And while we've had credible offers to fund pilots programs as private schools, I've held firm that the work we do must situate these schools as viable options for any student in any community in which we work. As John Dewey wrote nearly 100 years ago, "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy."

There is plenty of irony, of course, in the fact that the only high school in Maine that gets consistently good press is Casco Bay High School, a project that I helped start by making EXACTLY the same argument I was making now - that existing school districts can and must lead the change process. To be fair, we had $600,000 of Gates Foundation money to grease the skids - but even then were treated by many folks as if we were taking opportunities from some kids to give them to others. But now Casco Bay has been successful enough to have a waiting list - as a new public school started by an existing district - and lots of folks hold it up as an example of what we need more of.

As the one who made the arguments and helped to see the ideas implemented, I'm fully aware that CBHS is only a partial model for what will work in most of Maine. On a simple level, the scale of Portland's school system could support a third large-ish high school; relatively few existing districts have either the numbers or the available infrastructure to create a "from scratch" 3-400 student school.

MES, then, made the argument (and the detailed, sustainable budget projections to back it up) that our scale (40 to 100 students); our model (grades 6-12, individualized, experiental, place-based learning) and our plan to site our schools on existing, underutilized assets (public trust farms, educational non-profits, mothballed school buildings) would deliver better results for the same money. Better results for the same money is usually a winning argument. And it is an argument that FUNDAMENTALLY supports public schools by insisting that our sites are open, by lottery, to any student.

But we were not able to convince any sitting Maine superintendents that such an approach was worth the effort, and we were not willing to graft it on to existing systems in any of the many ways suggested - schools within schools, at-risk only, "private and special" schools - because each would have compromised our ability to deliver what we promised: high quality learning experiences, excellent teaching jobs and graduates ready to engage in work, college and citizenship.

Our fallback plan was to advocate for a well designed public charter law (those who have been following the blog know that we don't advocate just any charter law) and, if we could, hang on until one passed. Last week though, the partner organization with whom we'd been planning on a joint approach for 8 months or so backed out - the stated reason being that their larger strategic plan did not include being associated with charter schools. Having not been successful in building the funding infrastructure to survive for another 18 months without this partner, we've decided to hang up our spikes - at least for now.

There is no question that this is a personal disappointment, but we knew it would be a tough slog. The larger and more important questions, though, have not to do with my particular pet project, practical and transformative as I think it would have been. This blog was not meant to shill for one particular organization, but to "critically examine policies and practices in public education and advocate for innovative, autonomous public schools that complement, rather than compete with, our existing schools." So rather than make this a sour grapes kind of statement, I think it might be worth examining MES inability to gain traction in the light of the policies we've been advocating - and here is where I think our "failure" also bodes ill for the future of genuine education reform in Maine.

At least three superintendents have told me that rather than sign on with MES now, they'll just wait until a charter bill forces them - and gives them a ready-made structure - to do so. Depending on the checks and balances that ultimately are built in to a charter bill, that could be a good thing. But I'm almost certain that many of those in the education establishment - those currently clinging to every dollar, every student, and every outdated building, practice and model - are going to find themselves deservedly (but sadly for them and the kids they claim to serve) with much less to cling to.

Why? While charter school legislation may pass in time for schools (including MES sites) to open in the fall of 2012 or 2013, I'm not sure they will do so in a way that meets the "complement, rather than compete" goal. I hate to say it, but it looks to me like the various interests that have a stake in either propping up or blowing up the current system are going to "succeed" in doing both.

To continue the Lee Iacocca thread, entities that are too big and established to fail end up sucking all the resources from the systems that may have grown to replace them had they been allowed to fail - when, in essence, they had "produced" themselves out of the market. The first Chrysler bailout saved one of the big three for twenty years or so - until the more recent bailout. Jobs were saved, dislocation was prevented, and politicians and business leaders could take credit for averting the collapse of an important institution.

But in doing so, they propped up a failed business model for far too long. Chrysler, with it's Jeeps and Dodge Ram pick-ups and SUVs, depended more than any other car company on the kinds of gas-guzzling anachronisms that both fed and were fed by a willingness on the part of the public, and the elected officials who claim to serve the public, to ignore the long-term consequences of buying and owning such vehicles.

Chrysler never learned to build small, fuel efficient cars well. When what almost anyone with even a tiny inclination towards adding two and two together predicted would happen did happen, and the market for guzzlers tanked, so too did Chrysler. (That Daimler-Benz, which does know how to build small cars (and guzzlers) quite well, tried and failed to change that culture is part of the story; whether Fiat, which was able to swoop in as a potential savior with a deal sweet enough to make the risk that Chrysler will sink the whole ship worth it, will succeed remains to be seen.)

The relevant point here is that, regardless of how obvious the failure of the current system is, the energy of the gate-keepers (politicians of every stripe, teachers' unions, school superintendents and their professional associations, foundations, think tanks, etc.) has been and continues to be, in Maine at least, almost entirely focused on keeping the "company" in business. Any conversation about the fact that by almost any measure the "company" continues to fail in largely the same ways it has for years is lost in the headlong efforts of each part of the whole to justify its continuance nearly exactly as constituted.

Yes, some kids are learning. Yes some kids are going to college. And despite those parents who have the means pulling out of public schools at increasing numbers, there is not a public outcry for entirely new system of schools. It is worth remembering, though, that before both bailouts, Chrysler was still selling some cars. The continued very partial success of a system should not be considered, in my book anyway, as evidence that we should continue to invest in that system.

And though the reasons why we continue to do so are understandable, that understanding does not mask the fact that such reasons are versions of the same rationale that continues to make our schools less and less able to meet the needs of more and more students. Put bluntly, the difficulty of re-directing existing funds towards schools that work better for kids trumps the ever more apparent need to do so.

We know that we were attempting something big - some might say unrealistically so, even grandiose. We also know that good ideas are a dime a dozen, and that there is an intense competition for the non-profit dollars which we've hoped would provide seed capital. And we know that the chicken and egg nature of our project made it so that we needed money to lock down a site and a site to lock down money. We've not been able to - at least not yet - get firm agreements that would make all this happen – whether we needed to make a better case, or make it differently, or employ a different strategy is all part of what we’ll now have plenty of time to reflect upon.

And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then count us flattered. I've been making the argument that taking some of the easier, more traditional approaches (private schools, "push-in" or "pull-out" programs that are grant dependent, rather than revenue dependent, etc.) will ultimately increase, rather than decrease, the overall inequity in the system. But I understand why an individual non-profit or schools would want to run with some of these ideas without building in the kinds of sustainability or equity that we think is worth insisting on: they have to keep their doors open; they have local or organizational priorities, and - especially if funders are more willing to fund what I think of as twentieth century non-profits than those that really push the envelope - they have to go where the money is.

In the letter I sent to MES supporters, I quoted William Faulkner: “All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.” We’ll see what the legislative process produces – what degree of imperfection allows which things to become more or less possible. If and when it becomes possible to create a system of public schools that act on what Mr. Dewey knew a century ago, rather than make excuses for why they must continue to do the opposite - as he says, at the expense of our democracy - we may be back in the game. Until then, thanks for reading, and best of luck to each and every one of you who, despite the imperfections, continue to try to do the impossible.