Somebody Explain This to Me
For the past eighteen years I have worked as a high school/middle school principal along side a dedicated staff and a committed community to improving a school. In that time we have increased graduation and college going rates, engaged our students in more internships and college courses, created an advisory system that keeps tabs on all of our students,
and developed the highest graduation standards in the state (including a Senior Project and Graduation Portfolio).
But reading the popular press, and listening to the chatter from Washington, I have just found out that we are not part of the movement to ‘reform’ schools.
You see we did not do all the stuff that the new ‘reformers’ think is vital to improve our schools. We did not fire the staff, eliminate tenure, or go to pay based on test scores. We did not become a charter school. We did not take away control from a locally elected school board and give it to a mayor. We did not bring in a bunch of two-year short-term teachers.
Nope, we did not do any of these things. Because we knew they would not work.
There is no evidence that firing staffs and using the turn around strategies that failed when Secretary Duncan was in charge of Chicago’s schools is suddenly going to work (here’s the evaluation from Duncan’s supervisors).
Tying teacher pay and tenure to scores on the current batch of narrowly constructed tests has never worked and will not, as Thomas Hilton, former researcher at the Educational Testing Service notes, work now.
Charter schools do not do any better than good old public schools. And there is no evidence that eliminating democratic involvement with our schools through elected school boards improves educational opportunities for kids. (I cannot do better than Diane Ravitch on these.)
While I applaud the commitment of the young people who see things like Teach for America as a way to serve the nation, it is a shame that we think the best we can do for kids in our most challenged communities is a steady diet of inexperienced short term teachers. (And it might not be all that effective, according to a new report examining the academic achievement of students under the instruction of TFA staff.)
So would somebody please explain to me why the new reform agenda is made up of so many unproven or failed strategies? Everywhere I turn the mantra is the same—fire teachers, close schools, start charters. Even from people who should know better.
One more thing, I also find it interesting that some of the more powerful pushers of these ideas are the so-called titans of Wall Street—the Broad Foundation, Bill Gates of late, and Democrats for Education Reform (a bunch of well-funded venture capitalists). Hey, private capital did such a great job with the economy (and oil wells) why not turn over our public schools to them?
While legislators and opinion writers seem to have drunk deeply from the ‘reform’ Kool-Aid, I believe the people who work with kids at the school level know better.
What we know is this.
To turn around a school and keep that success going requires educational leadership committed to through teacher assessment and support—I have fired tenured teachers and worked to expand the skills of every teacher in our building. And in turn my staff has taught me more than a few things about leadership and professional development.
To make sure every young person learns means constant reassessment of the curriculum, multiple measures of student achievement, and support systems throughout the school. We cannot rely on the archaic standardized tests we today use to judge student learning as they dumb down and narrow curriculum. And we must make sure that every student has equal access to the conditions to learn in every school.
To have every student rise to his/her potential we must use our communities, through internships, mentoring, and, yes, school boards that hold educators accountable to the local community.
I know this is no longer thought of as reform. And as I get ready to shake the sweaty hands of my 18th graduating class, I have to admit to being part of the educational establishment. But would somebody please explain to me how the success of my staff, and many schools just like ours, is no longer of value to a nation that seems to still want a good public education system?
Maybe we just don’t have a good press agent
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Comments
The explanation is this. There are powerful people on the right in your country and mine (Canada) who have one goal. The privatization of the entire public school system. They see a public school system as socialist and un-American in the same way they see public health care. Some are simply ideological right wingers of the Hayak-Friedman variety. They actually believe that stuff. Some want to make a buck off the change and some see privatization as the Trojan Horse for religious eduction. There is one very powerful group standing in their way. That group is teachers unions. Public school teachers and their unions must be demonized and destroyed or the entire project cannot go forward. It all relates to privatization. If you don't believe it, you are a complete fool.
Thank-you, George. I could get started here and continue, so I will try not to. I have believed, for years and years, that public school teachers and public education are one of the easiest targets to hit, so everyone takes aim. We are beholden to taxpayers for our jobs, we perform a daunting task that few folks really appreciate or understand, especially the "reformers." Virtually all individuals I speak to sing our praises, but research has informed us thusly. Yet, almost everyone wants to vilify us.
The American "right" and some on the left have done a good job demonizing unions in general, even the folks who would benefit from a union job are cheering for the final demise of the union. The private sector is touted as ideal, despite the egregious abuses in the private sector that have helped to destruct our economy in recent years and the light has been shed upon them.
Private charter school companies abound throughout the country. Those with the best records keep students in school 40-60% more hours per year, working their teachers as much as 10+ hours per day (7:15-5:00 with oncall via phone for homework help until 8:30 every night in yesterday's article)for the same money. Almost no industry demands this of their workers, no teachers will have family lives working this kind of schedule and no energy left for any other endeavors, yet people seem to think this is great.
Perhaps I should stop here, however thank you for your thoughts and observations.
You said it right George. Here in North Carolina a few School systems, notably those in the most disadvantaged areas, are threatened with these same sanctions by some of our state judges . It is only natural that almost no teachers choose to work there. Even the best teachers realize that there is more to student academic success than another so called proven educational strategy. Disapline and attendance are a constant issue in these schools where judges claim that the school systems are committing academic genocide. Almost everyone is doing the best they can under impossible conditions.
I hope soon that we see the fallicy of this train of thought. We need someone who possess true courage to begin the correct process. I believe this.
"It's not about the children, it's about educating the children."
I agree with the above comments. Duncan, and his allies want to create a business model within our school system. Standardized testing is the education version of sales goals. Each teacher must reach a certain level, or sales goal or they are fired, the school is shut dowm.
This attack on the American school system is an attempt to create a two-tiered society. The ruling elite would have the best education, that sought to teach kids critical thinking skills. These are necessary to rule the country. The second tier are students from the middle class, the working class and the poor. These students would be subject to continual testing of reading, math and sceince skills. Only a few would have the chance to apply these skills. Social studies has a limited role in this regime, mainly there to transmit a pariotic version of American history, and to obey the government. These students have few resources, inferior facilities, and inexperienced teachers.
We must fight against privatization, and the destruction of the public school system.
After 40 years as a public school teacher, administrator, parent, PTA president, researcher and advocate, I find a number of things help improve student achievement. Many are things that George mentions. But George also "disses" things that in some places, at some times, have helped. For example, I helped start and worked in a k-12 public alternative in the fall of 1971 (yes, 1970). that school did and does many of the things George describes (advisory system, internships, shared decision-making, project based learning, graduation based on demonstration of skills. It's still around and operating
But when the school started, many educators said we don't need to do anything new – we should just improve existing schools. I don't think it's either or.
Ted Sizer, with whom George and I both worked, had the same view. We need to do many of the things that George suggests. We also need to give people a chance to start new within district options – and to start charter public schools – both of which Sizer did.
Charter schools are a distraction like having a mosquito in the room when people are working hard to improve the core public schools that must always be the pillar of eduction.
Read reform looks at the successful whole nations or states or provinces tasked with educating everybody, not with culling off a few for another "experiment".
Fixing public schools is long slow grinding expensive work. There is no silver bullet. Spend more, cut class sizes, ECE, better recruitment and training of teachers like Finland, higher standards for poor kids.
One reason Canada does better than the USA is funding. In Canada if your neighbourhood is rich we take teachers and other resources away from you because you don't need them. We spend more resources on the poor who actually need them.
If you compare white and Asian scores in the USA with western Europe or Asia, the USA does quite well. Factor in the Black and Hispanic scores and the USA scores plummet. There is your problem.
Anyone with eyes can see where charter schools lead us: to privatized education, albeit privately run schools that operate on the taxpayers' dime.
Those who insist that charters don't "cream" may be correct in the literal sense, however they establish roadblocks to be navigated that effectively sort students.
These roadblocks that sift out the less desirable include: an application process, the mandate to attend an orientation meeting, a parent participation requirement (a minimum number of volunteer hours per year).
In even low SES communities these roadblocks or hoops effectively weed-out students from the least desirable of situations, allowing those coming from homes where the commitment to education is stronger.
Of course, let us not overlook a school year that is 40-60% longer and teachers who must work from 7:15 to 5 P.M. and then field homework calls until 8:30. This creates a workday that is longer than almost all other professions.
Does this signal a return to conditions in the 19th century when the average American worked a 60 hour, or more week, and education was a privilege and a dual education system where the least desirable will remain in our public schools and the rest will be educated in privately run charters?