Debate on Damon's speech

Mickey Muldoon (whom I've never met, but seems to be a great guy based on his bio: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/sarameads_policy_notebook/search.html?blog_id=87&tag=Mickey%20Muldoon) thinks I was wrong to write that I thought "Matt Damon gave a hugely dopey and hypocritical speech" at the farcical Rally to Continue the Insanity.  Here's what Muldoon writes:

Like It or Not, Matt Damon Has a Relatively Nuanced Perspective on Charter Schools

Posted by Mickey Muldoon on August 9, 2011 at 1:59 pm

In case it needs reiterating, Matt Damon is actually a pretty smart guy. He holds a Best Original Screenplay Oscar. He went to Harvard. He produces documentary films. He volunteers and donates to whole host of NGOs and non-profits. Sure, he's no authority of education, but he's probably the kind of person worth at least giving the benefit of the doubt.

So I was pretty disturbed by a couple of vindictive and downright insulting critiques of Damon that I found in my inbox last week, responding to his appearance at the "Save our Schools" rally in Washington:

·         A New York Daily News headline: "Matt Damon would deny charter school students education alternatives he had as a child."

·         Whitney Tilson's blast email: "Matt Damon gave a hugely dopey and hypocritical speech."

Now, the Daily News article (all 90 words of it) takes two of Damon's unrelated comments egregiously out of context, with no substantive attribution. Moreover, as far as I can tell, Matt Damon isn't even unilaterally opposed to charters! Here's what he did say: "It's a big question … there are great charters and there are lousy charters … they don't necessarily perform better than public schools."

Even the most fervent charter advocate – say, Whitney Tilson – wouldn't disagree with Damon's balanced statement. So why is he "hugely dopey"?

And then, in a Gotham Schools interview, Damon actually showed a whole lot of subtlety in his understanding of the complication of "co-location" – where charter schools and district schools share facilities. Here are some excerpts:

The co-location thing is a problem, and that's starting to drive a wedge in the community … I have a friend at a charter school in Harlem … at Thanksgiving, turkeys with all the trimmings were handed out to the charter families in front of the other families … Now, obviously, somebody funding this charter school went, like, "you know, we gotta give these guys some Thanksgiving turkeys," and that's a wonderful thing to do, but in its application, it's actually causing a problem.

This is a completely valid point. It's a great blessing that some charters have significant philanthropic backing, but it's also true that that does create some resentment among those kids and families who don't get the same backing – especially when they occupy the same facilities. Perhaps that's a price we're willing to pay for wider school choice. But it's absolutely worth pointing out.

So here's a final thought on Damongate: at the end of the day, Matt Damon is simply a wealthy and relatively intelligent Hollywood actor with a pet social issue and no professional or financial stake in education reform whatsoever. At a time when almost every other major voice on education reform has a direct professional connection to one of a small number of major education philanthropies, or to a teachers union, we should actually respect the smart, independent voices in this debate, not insult them.

- Mickey Muldoon

Note: Mickey Muldoon, a staff assistant at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute from 2009-2010, is a computer science graduate student at Brooklyn College and previously worked at the New York City Department of Education.

My thoughts:

 

·         Read/watch Damon's speech at the rally: www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/matt-damons-clear-headed-speech-to-teachers-rally/2011/07/30/gIQAG9Q6jI_blog.html.  This is what I was responding to, not the interview that Muldoon links to, which I hadn't seen.

·         I don't doubt that Damon is intelligent (despite attending Harvard ;-) and is a good person, whose heart is in the right place.  Lots of smart, good people have opinions about our schools and what should be done to fix them – but that doesn't mean that their opinions are worth diddly-squat.  Perhaps Damon thinks he knows something about this issue because his mom is early childhood education professor at Lesley University, but from what I know about the vast majority of ed school profs, I think it's likely that this is where his dopey opinions come from…

·         I called Damon a hypocrite because he opposes giving other parents school choice (in the form of charters and, I'm sure, vouchers/tax credits) while practicing school choice with his kids (sending them to an expensive NYC private school, which I do as well – but I'm fighting to give EVERY parent choices!) PLUS his parents practiced school choice to benefit him (from the NY Daily News):

"I moved to Cambridge, Mass., when I was 10 years old because of the alternative schools there that my mother ... really wanted me to go to, and I got in."

Many New York parents would do the same if they had the means. But they don't, so they choose charter schools. Sounds about equal, Matt.

·         I called his speech dopey because, from start to finish, it's just a bunch of clichés that could have been (and, in fact, likely were) written by union hacks, from "Their time wasn't taken up with a bunch of test prep — this silly drill and kill nonsense that any serious person knows doesn't promote real learning" to "I don't know where I would be today if my teachers' job security was based on how I performed on some standardized test" to "If they had to spend most of their time desperately drilling us and less time encouraging creativity and original ideas; less time knowing who we were, seeing our strengths and helping us realize our talents" to "the next time you encounter some simple-minded, punitive policy that's been driven into your life by some corporate reformer who has literally never taught anyone anything."  There's a serious debate to be had about the proper role of testing, how to balance accountability with not turning our schools into test prep factories, etc., and there are indeed some simple-minded, punitive policies that are being promoted – but Damon's speech shows none of this nuance and complexity.

·         Muldoon thinks this comment shows fairness and depth of thought, but I disagree:

The co-location thing is a problem, and that's starting to drive a wedge in the community … I have a friend at a charter school in Harlem … at Thanksgiving, turkeys with all the trimmings were handed out to the charter families in front of the other families … Now, obviously, somebody funding this charter school went, like, "you know, we gotta give these guys some Thanksgiving turkeys," and that's a wonderful thing to do, but in its application, it's actually causing a problem.

These are the same dopey, clichéd union talking points that characterized his speech.  Does he know that more than 700 (!) NYC public schools share buildings – that's more than HALF!  Yet sharing space only seems to be a problem with maybe two dozen – less than 5%.  Guess what these two dozen have in common?  They're NON-UNION (i.e., charter schools).  So, yes, these co-location battles often pit student against student and parent against parent – but it's not the charter schools that are responsible for this!!!  In reality, it's the union stirring up trouble to protect its own interests – and to hell with what's best for kids.

·         In conclusion, if Damon were truly a "smart, independent" voice in this debate, then I'd welcome him and be happy to debate him (for example, as I'm debating Gary Rubenstein).  But based on what I've heard and read, I don't think Damon has the foggiest notion of what he's talking about; I see no evidence that he's done any research or thinking about this issue and I'd bet a lot of money that he's never ONCE set foot in a high-performing charter school.  Until he's done his work, no one should pay any attention to him.