Arne Duncan: not the change I hoped for, not the change I can believe in (unedited)

I have to say during the lead up to the 08 election, I allowed myself to be hopeful. Then senator Obama was saying all the right things. “No child left behind” was a failed experiment that would become a thing of the past and education would finaly after much lip service become a priority. If only I would have read the find print as fast forward two years things have become much worse. Teachers now have all the responsibility but none of the authority to teach our children and have had creativity and flexibility stripped from them all in the name of data. Instead of doing whats right for our children we have turned to “in vogue solutions”, like charter schools and merit pay that both rob public schools of valuable resources and that the “data” says work no better than not doing them.

I was very disheartened the other day when now President Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan came to town to visit the new KIPP (Knowledge is power program) school. The KIPP school is truly a formidable beast. Kids go to school longer, on Saturdays and all year long. They have to wear uniforms and parental involvement is mandatory. It also has resources far above and beyond the resources that local neighborhood schools have including a 500,000 dollar grant to support it’s music program. That’s right folks this pseudo private school gets money from the government for a music program just as music programs in most middle schools are being slashed. Hey Mr. President and Mr. Secretary of Education, how about helping the kids at P.S. this or P.S. that so they can have a music program to before you fund one at the KIPP school. I mean aren’t the kids in public school worth it as well?

You know what scares me the most? Its whats going to happen when the KIPP school succeeds and the man on the street says, look there, why can’t they do it at PS this or PS that. Public school teachers must be terrible. Then the powers that be in their far off ivory towers are going to have the excuses they need to further rob teachers of flexibility and creativity and buy them with even more paper work. They are going to have one more reason to take money out of the coffers of the already struggling public schools and steer money to more charter schools and voucher programs. Arne Duncan by showing up and patting backs has just given them tacit approval to do so.

Arne Duncan also talked about every kid going to college and this is a sentiment that his boss President Obama has echoed on many occasions, further showing us just how out of touch they are with the reality of the situation. I would just like to remind them that we don’t have the students and parental involvement we wish we had, we have the students and parents that we do and it’s time we made realistic plans to service their needs as well. The truth is the way we are doing things now with a one size fits all everybody is going to college regardless of ability, desire, and family support, curriculum, stacks the deck against the public school. It practically ensures failure. We need to change things so that in six or seven years from now when two sixth graders graduate, one from the KIPP school who goes to college and one from PS that graduates with a skill and gets a steady job with room for advancement we should applaud both. To me that’s much better than dooming one to a life of public assistance and hopelessness, that’s the public school kid by the way.

In the end however other than a shiny bow, the KIPP school can’t make any promises that the public school can’t and their principal admits it. On the way to work I heard at my public school, I heard him on the radio. He said, if the kids try hard and stick with the program, we’ll see them through. Well you know what I am going to go ahead and make the same promise to all the kids in the county at all the public schools. Kids stick with it and try hard and we will get you through as well.

Unless you are teaching rocket science, education is not rocket science. Instead of trying extraordinary measures, charter schools and merit pay, by the way most teachers teach at the challenged schools because they love the kids there not because they were bribed to do so, lets do what we should be doing anyways.

Lets put discipline in the classroom, lets not pass kids along until they have the skills to be successful at the next level, lets put in safety nets like social workers, counselors and legitimate summer school opportunities, lets have multiple curriculums' that play to kids strengths and desires, even if that means they don’t go to college right after they graduate and lets do so by making, the teaching of trades and the arts as important as the teaching of math and science, lets not make school drudgery, it’s no strength that is a kid doesn’t like school they aren’t going to do well, lets bring back rigor and slow things down, lets make sure they master the subjects even if that means they learn fewer subjects (we went threw 157 pages in a nine weeks in one of my classes as I was a t the mercy of the pacing guide) and most importantly instead of dumping on teachers and making them the scapegoats for all that’s wrong in education, we give them some autonomy, don’t over burden them with task after task that has little to do with education and allow them to use creativity and flexibility as much as they are required to use data.

I wish the staff and students at the KIPP school nothing but success. They have a long and hard road ahead of them but at the same time I urge the powers that be not to forget about the neighborhood schools and the students and teachers there. I urge them that instead of funding pseudo private schools that really can’t be fairly compared to the typical public school, that where noble at the same time go to extraordinary lengths, how about they do whats right by the student and teachers at the neighborhood schools first. Then if that didn’t work, though I believe with all my heart it would, then well of course we would have to try something different.

Think about it, shouldn’t we be doing what we should be doing first and then only if that doesn’t work try something else after. Isn’t that how you do, say everything?

Arne Duncan and his boss, do not represent the change I hoped for. I hoped we would take education seriously and realistically. I hoped we would play to children's strengths and start respecting teachers. If extraordinary charter schools is the change they are selling, it is not a change I can believe in.