A concern I have is she will attempt to profit off her teacher evaluating tool IMPACT and that not concern for children drives her ideas. So often it is all about the money. -cpg
From the Washington Posts Answer Sheet
By Larry Ferlazzo
A local magazine here in Sacramento is doing a big story on former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who, apart from Gov. Jerry Brown, might be Sacramento’s most famous newest resident. The writer asked if I would be willing to answer a few questions... Here's a summary of how I responded when he asked what I thought of the policies that Rhee and her allies in the “school reform” movement are promoting.
I responded by saying that I had four main concerns:
1) During her 3 1/2 year tenure as chancellor, Rhee seemed primarily interested in doing “to” teachers and families instead of doing “with” them. This lack of willingness to work in partnership and to listen, symbolized by her TIME Magazine cover holding a broom in a classroom, showed a lack of understanding of the basic tenets of power — sharing it with others doesn’t mean you have less; in fact, it means that the pie gets bigger for everybody with the new possibilities that are created.
2) I was very concerned with her focus on using test scores as the most important tool to evaluate teacher and student success. I referenced the discovery last week that the test scores her own students supposedly achieved when she was a teacher were far lower than she had claimed (see The Best Posts About Michelle Rhee’s Exaggerated Test Scores).
That doesn’t mean she wasn’t an excellent teacher — she might very have been. It does, however, point out that standardized test scores are easy to misinterpret and are probably not the best evaluation tool for teachers — or for students. At our school, we talk about being data-informed, not being data-driven. Test results are just one of many pieces of information that should be used when we reflect on our work.
3) I didn’t appreciate Ms. Rhee and her allies regularly portraying themselves as the “true” champions of children, while the rest of us were just “defenders of the status quo.” I believe that she and many of her allies truly do want to do what they think is best for children — I just don’t agree with their overall analysis of what needs to be done. That does not mean that I do not have the best interests of my students in my heart and mind everyday. I am wary of anyone, anywhere, in whatever policy or personal arena, feeling like they have a monopoly on the truth.
4) Plenty of research has shown that two-thirds of the factors that influence student achievement occur out of school. I don’t appreciate Ms. Rhee and her allies telling us that when we state that fact, we are just making “excuses.” That doesn’t mean that my colleagues and I don’t do everything within our power to push the boundary of that “one-third” area we can influence, including working with parents to try to combat some of those other factors. But saying that poverty doesn’t have a huge impact on our students doesn’t make it so.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/4-concerns-about-rhee.html
Showing posts with label school reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school reform. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
2010, the year poverty became nothing but an excuse
By Mike Klonsky.Educator, Author of "Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society
"We don't use poverty as an excuse for low achievement." -- Springfield, Ill. School District 186 Superintendent Walter Milton, Jr.
2010 wasn't a very good year for public education -- or public anything, for that matter.
A so-far jobless economic recovery has seen a sharp rise in child poverty and with it, new barriers for schools, teachers and learners. It's a matter of fact that hungry and often homeless children aren't as successful in the classroom as those who are well fed, clad and housed.
The past year has seen a drying up of stimulus funds along with further erosion and selling off and privatization of public space, more public school closings and consolidations. Schools and classrooms are growing in size. Massive tuition increases at both private and public colleges and universities render a college education less accessible to working class families, cutting off one of the few remaining pathways to class mobility.
To make matters worse, the past year was marked by a sharp political swing to the right, with big victories for anti-tax Republicans in the mid-term elections. This swing was accompanied by new calls to stop "throwing money at" public education and for the poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Sadly, education leaders within the Obama administration are echoing many of these calls and bending to right-wing pressures.
It was just about a year ago for example, that Education Secretary Arne Duncan began his "no excuses" campaign, announcing in the press that he had "no patience for teachers and schools" that tick off all the reasons why their poor or minority students can't score as high on standardized tests.
Duncan has chosen to ignore poverty's downward effect on test scores and focus entirely on what he calls "bad teachers" and "failing schools." Recently confronted by educators teaching in some of the nation's highest-poverty areas about the need to do something about the living conditions of their students, Duncan cynically responded, "poverty is not destiny."
His "no excuses" mantra, essentially blaming poor students and their teachers for low test results, is now being echoed by many governors, urban mayors and school administrators like Springfield's Milton, all hoping their compliance will somehow be rewarded with federal dollars from Duncan to fill the holes in their shrinking school budgets.
Child poverty has been on the climb in Milton's district and surrounding counties in central Illinois. "It's a sign of the times the past decade in rural American and rural Illinois," said Les Huddle, superintendent of the Jacksonville School District.
In nearby Morgan County, the growing poverty rate and personal financial hardships create a "less-than-stable learning environment for students at home," said Huddle, noting that the Jacksonville district's enrollment dropped by more than 350 students as job losses drove many families away.
Duncan's "lack of patience" has also been taken as a call for tax breaks for the rich, coupled with deep and widespread cuts in social services, public housing, and other anti-poverty measures. The entire burden of his Race To The Top reform has been placed on teachers and their unions, and narrowly focused on schools and on the classroom. In some urban districts, teachers' names are now being posted in the media next to their students' test scores, as if individual teachers are solely responsible for those scores. Inadequate accountability measures, such as value-added, are being pushed as alternatives to collective-bargaining agreements to determine which teachers are to be fired and how much those remaining are to be paid.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that for the first time since the Education Department started counting, there are nearly a million homeless students in the United States. The Post reports that most drift with their families among motels, shelters and relatives' homes with a growing fraction living completely on their own, unparented, uninsured, ill-fed and surviving by their own devices.
Fairfax (VA) one of only two counties in the nation with median household incomes above $100,000, counts nearly 2,000 homeless students in its school division - about 200 of whom are..."unaccompanied." The latter figure is twice what the comparable figure was two years ago, a surge reflected nationally as the faltering economy has undermined many families. (WaPo)
With a surge in family poverty and a growing homeless student population, public school systems are under even more stress and are being turned into beggars. Schools have increasingly been forced to take on the role a welfare provider, both on and off campus, with few of the necessary resources, personnel, or skill sets.
The notion that rising unemployment, declining real wages, and a shocking increase in family poverty are mere "excuses," with little or no impact on student learning, is unworthy of our nation's top school leaders. It tells me that current school reform policies have little to do with sound social or educational research, but instead are ideologically or politically (in the worst sense) driven. In this political environment, Duncan's chants of "poverty is not destiny" sound downright pollyannish and even cruel in light of current conditions and his own policies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-klonsky-phd/the-year-they-begain-call_b_801931.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=989597,b=facebook
"We don't use poverty as an excuse for low achievement." -- Springfield, Ill. School District 186 Superintendent Walter Milton, Jr.
2010 wasn't a very good year for public education -- or public anything, for that matter.
A so-far jobless economic recovery has seen a sharp rise in child poverty and with it, new barriers for schools, teachers and learners. It's a matter of fact that hungry and often homeless children aren't as successful in the classroom as those who are well fed, clad and housed.
The past year has seen a drying up of stimulus funds along with further erosion and selling off and privatization of public space, more public school closings and consolidations. Schools and classrooms are growing in size. Massive tuition increases at both private and public colleges and universities render a college education less accessible to working class families, cutting off one of the few remaining pathways to class mobility.
To make matters worse, the past year was marked by a sharp political swing to the right, with big victories for anti-tax Republicans in the mid-term elections. This swing was accompanied by new calls to stop "throwing money at" public education and for the poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Sadly, education leaders within the Obama administration are echoing many of these calls and bending to right-wing pressures.
It was just about a year ago for example, that Education Secretary Arne Duncan began his "no excuses" campaign, announcing in the press that he had "no patience for teachers and schools" that tick off all the reasons why their poor or minority students can't score as high on standardized tests.
Duncan has chosen to ignore poverty's downward effect on test scores and focus entirely on what he calls "bad teachers" and "failing schools." Recently confronted by educators teaching in some of the nation's highest-poverty areas about the need to do something about the living conditions of their students, Duncan cynically responded, "poverty is not destiny."
His "no excuses" mantra, essentially blaming poor students and their teachers for low test results, is now being echoed by many governors, urban mayors and school administrators like Springfield's Milton, all hoping their compliance will somehow be rewarded with federal dollars from Duncan to fill the holes in their shrinking school budgets.
Child poverty has been on the climb in Milton's district and surrounding counties in central Illinois. "It's a sign of the times the past decade in rural American and rural Illinois," said Les Huddle, superintendent of the Jacksonville School District.
In nearby Morgan County, the growing poverty rate and personal financial hardships create a "less-than-stable learning environment for students at home," said Huddle, noting that the Jacksonville district's enrollment dropped by more than 350 students as job losses drove many families away.
Duncan's "lack of patience" has also been taken as a call for tax breaks for the rich, coupled with deep and widespread cuts in social services, public housing, and other anti-poverty measures. The entire burden of his Race To The Top reform has been placed on teachers and their unions, and narrowly focused on schools and on the classroom. In some urban districts, teachers' names are now being posted in the media next to their students' test scores, as if individual teachers are solely responsible for those scores. Inadequate accountability measures, such as value-added, are being pushed as alternatives to collective-bargaining agreements to determine which teachers are to be fired and how much those remaining are to be paid.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that for the first time since the Education Department started counting, there are nearly a million homeless students in the United States. The Post reports that most drift with their families among motels, shelters and relatives' homes with a growing fraction living completely on their own, unparented, uninsured, ill-fed and surviving by their own devices.
Fairfax (VA) one of only two counties in the nation with median household incomes above $100,000, counts nearly 2,000 homeless students in its school division - about 200 of whom are..."unaccompanied." The latter figure is twice what the comparable figure was two years ago, a surge reflected nationally as the faltering economy has undermined many families. (WaPo)
With a surge in family poverty and a growing homeless student population, public school systems are under even more stress and are being turned into beggars. Schools have increasingly been forced to take on the role a welfare provider, both on and off campus, with few of the necessary resources, personnel, or skill sets.
The notion that rising unemployment, declining real wages, and a shocking increase in family poverty are mere "excuses," with little or no impact on student learning, is unworthy of our nation's top school leaders. It tells me that current school reform policies have little to do with sound social or educational research, but instead are ideologically or politically (in the worst sense) driven. In this political environment, Duncan's chants of "poverty is not destiny" sound downright pollyannish and even cruel in light of current conditions and his own policies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-klonsky-phd/the-year-they-begain-call_b_801931.html?ref=fb&src=sp#sb=989597,b=facebook
Thursday, December 30, 2010
How desperate for reform should we be
By Larry M. Elkin
Our public schools are awash in high-stakes testing, but we aren’t doing well enough. We know this, of course, because the latest test results tell us so.
“To be brutally honest…a host of developed nations are out-educating us,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said earlier this month in response to recently released international rankings produced by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
The United States placed 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 OECD countries.
The real surprises, however, were the scores of two non-OECD education systems included in the study: Shanghai and Hong Kong. Averaged across the three disciplines measured, the United States had a score of 496 on a scale of zero to 1,000. Hong Kong scored 546. Shanghai averaged 577, ranking first in all three categories.
President Obama declared the situation to be a new “Sputnik moment” for American education, referring to the Cold War fears triggered by the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite in 1957. At that time, the U.S. made a massive push to improve math and science curricula as a way of retaining the country’s technical advantage. Harking back to the language of the Space Race, Obama said he wants to protect investments in education (that means spend a lot of federal money) to “win the race” for jobs and economic development.
In reality, however, the U.S. never really fell behind in its race with the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. had a few strong suits, in which it rivaled or surpassed our abilities. Rocketry, at that moment, was one of them. But there was never a time when, overall, the Soviets remotely approached the level of American technology, efficiency or productivity. From cars to nuclear power, Soviet technology was an unreliable backwater.
The current “Sputnik moment” is, like the original, an overreaction.
The PISA rankings show that the average 15-year-old American student cannot answer as many test questions correctly as the average 15-year-old student in Shanghai. But this is no cause for societal or economic panic. What is important is that our companies are able to find the talent they need to develop. Is Boeing having trouble finding enough people with the knowledge of advanced calculus necessary to design airplanes? Are publishing houses struggling to locate people with the reading skills necessary to edit books? I don’t think so. As long as I’m right, American companies will be on solid ground.
Even if companies were having difficulty accessing talent, the most practical solution at a policy level would be, not to teach more Americans calculus or editing, but to reform labor and immigration laws to enable companies to hire the people who have those skills, wherever they reside. The practical solution on a corporate level would be to send the work requiring specific skills to the places where people with those skills are available. Boeing might open a design facility in Finland, which scored an impressive 541 on the math assessment. Harper Collins might hire freelance editors based in Canada, which bested us by 24 points in reading.
The answer is not to simply amp up competition in American schools in order to try to raise our position in international competitions. This, unfortunately, seems to be what education officials intend to do. Education Secretary Duncan said at a press conference following the release of the PISA scores, “The findings, I have to admit, show that the United States needs to urgently accelerate student learning to try to remain competitive in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.”
But “accelerating student learning” to “compete” with other nations is not a path to economic prominence. Japan’s education system continues to be rated one of the best in the world, and is routinely held up as a model which critics of our system argue we ought to emulate. Yet Japan’s economy has remained lethargic ever since it tanked in 1990, and the country’s population – a better indicator of a society’s overall health, in my view – is in an accelerating decline.
The Japanese system, along with many others in Asia modeled after it, emphasizes high-stakes standardized testing. Test scores are used to separate students into stratified levels which dictate their future educational possibilities.
This leads to heavy stress and early burn-outs, so that, by the time they reach the university level, many Japanese students have already exhausted their best intellectual energies. A Canadian who teaches English at a Japanese university wrote in a critique of the country’s education system, “The result of all this test-taking and stress, is a nation of order takers who have trouble making decisions, let alone stating an opinion.”
Already I think the U.S. is in danger of falling into the same pattern. As Rebecca Pavese wrote here recently, some parents of 5-year-olds are so eager to score a competitive advantage for their children that they wait a year before allowing them to start school. This allows these children to accumulate more skills before they enter the now-cutthroat world of kindergarten.
At the high school level, the unprecedented number of star students, all within a few grade points of one another, has led several schools to start naming multiple valedictorians. William R. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, told The New York Times that he had heard of some schools with as many as 100 valedictorians. This crowding at the top forces students who are set on attending top colleges to do even more to distinguish themselves. Scores of colleges these days seem unwilling to admit anyone other than card-carrying superheroes.
Of course, excessive pressure to overachieve is not the only problem troubling the American education system. Far too many kids don’t graduate, and far too many of those who do graduate lack the skills necessary to be productive in a high-tech, service-based economy. Particularly troubling is the ongoing achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We need to fix these problems, but our need to do so is not contingent on how other countries are doing.
Education is very important. Being the international valedictorians based on PISA scores is not. To be successful, a country needs policies that encourage actual economic growth and social development, not good test taking.
A strong nation requires wise government spending, flexible labor markets, the ability to form coalitions, openness to competition, orderly politics, and the willingness to import labor through immigration or to outsource it through trade as needed. These are the things we need to focus on. If America does not continue to thrive in the world, it will be because of the things we do or fail to do, not because of the things people do elsewhere.
http://wallstreetpit.com/54966-a-new-sputnik-moment-as-misleading-as-the-first
Our public schools are awash in high-stakes testing, but we aren’t doing well enough. We know this, of course, because the latest test results tell us so.
“To be brutally honest…a host of developed nations are out-educating us,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said earlier this month in response to recently released international rankings produced by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
The United States placed 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 OECD countries.
The real surprises, however, were the scores of two non-OECD education systems included in the study: Shanghai and Hong Kong. Averaged across the three disciplines measured, the United States had a score of 496 on a scale of zero to 1,000. Hong Kong scored 546. Shanghai averaged 577, ranking first in all three categories.
President Obama declared the situation to be a new “Sputnik moment” for American education, referring to the Cold War fears triggered by the Soviet Union’s successful launch of the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite in 1957. At that time, the U.S. made a massive push to improve math and science curricula as a way of retaining the country’s technical advantage. Harking back to the language of the Space Race, Obama said he wants to protect investments in education (that means spend a lot of federal money) to “win the race” for jobs and economic development.
In reality, however, the U.S. never really fell behind in its race with the Soviet Union. The U.S.S.R. had a few strong suits, in which it rivaled or surpassed our abilities. Rocketry, at that moment, was one of them. But there was never a time when, overall, the Soviets remotely approached the level of American technology, efficiency or productivity. From cars to nuclear power, Soviet technology was an unreliable backwater.
The current “Sputnik moment” is, like the original, an overreaction.
The PISA rankings show that the average 15-year-old American student cannot answer as many test questions correctly as the average 15-year-old student in Shanghai. But this is no cause for societal or economic panic. What is important is that our companies are able to find the talent they need to develop. Is Boeing having trouble finding enough people with the knowledge of advanced calculus necessary to design airplanes? Are publishing houses struggling to locate people with the reading skills necessary to edit books? I don’t think so. As long as I’m right, American companies will be on solid ground.
Even if companies were having difficulty accessing talent, the most practical solution at a policy level would be, not to teach more Americans calculus or editing, but to reform labor and immigration laws to enable companies to hire the people who have those skills, wherever they reside. The practical solution on a corporate level would be to send the work requiring specific skills to the places where people with those skills are available. Boeing might open a design facility in Finland, which scored an impressive 541 on the math assessment. Harper Collins might hire freelance editors based in Canada, which bested us by 24 points in reading.
The answer is not to simply amp up competition in American schools in order to try to raise our position in international competitions. This, unfortunately, seems to be what education officials intend to do. Education Secretary Duncan said at a press conference following the release of the PISA scores, “The findings, I have to admit, show that the United States needs to urgently accelerate student learning to try to remain competitive in the knowledge economy of the 21st century.”
But “accelerating student learning” to “compete” with other nations is not a path to economic prominence. Japan’s education system continues to be rated one of the best in the world, and is routinely held up as a model which critics of our system argue we ought to emulate. Yet Japan’s economy has remained lethargic ever since it tanked in 1990, and the country’s population – a better indicator of a society’s overall health, in my view – is in an accelerating decline.
The Japanese system, along with many others in Asia modeled after it, emphasizes high-stakes standardized testing. Test scores are used to separate students into stratified levels which dictate their future educational possibilities.
This leads to heavy stress and early burn-outs, so that, by the time they reach the university level, many Japanese students have already exhausted their best intellectual energies. A Canadian who teaches English at a Japanese university wrote in a critique of the country’s education system, “The result of all this test-taking and stress, is a nation of order takers who have trouble making decisions, let alone stating an opinion.”
Already I think the U.S. is in danger of falling into the same pattern. As Rebecca Pavese wrote here recently, some parents of 5-year-olds are so eager to score a competitive advantage for their children that they wait a year before allowing them to start school. This allows these children to accumulate more skills before they enter the now-cutthroat world of kindergarten.
At the high school level, the unprecedented number of star students, all within a few grade points of one another, has led several schools to start naming multiple valedictorians. William R. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, told The New York Times that he had heard of some schools with as many as 100 valedictorians. This crowding at the top forces students who are set on attending top colleges to do even more to distinguish themselves. Scores of colleges these days seem unwilling to admit anyone other than card-carrying superheroes.
Of course, excessive pressure to overachieve is not the only problem troubling the American education system. Far too many kids don’t graduate, and far too many of those who do graduate lack the skills necessary to be productive in a high-tech, service-based economy. Particularly troubling is the ongoing achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. We need to fix these problems, but our need to do so is not contingent on how other countries are doing.
Education is very important. Being the international valedictorians based on PISA scores is not. To be successful, a country needs policies that encourage actual economic growth and social development, not good test taking.
A strong nation requires wise government spending, flexible labor markets, the ability to form coalitions, openness to competition, orderly politics, and the willingness to import labor through immigration or to outsource it through trade as needed. These are the things we need to focus on. If America does not continue to thrive in the world, it will be because of the things we do or fail to do, not because of the things people do elsewhere.
http://wallstreetpit.com/54966-a-new-sputnik-moment-as-misleading-as-the-first
Fed Up with the Unintended Consequences of NCLB
From the blog, In the Trenches with School Reform
The name for this post can’t be A Nation at Risk. That’s already been done, but as Diane Ravitch points out in The Death and Life of the Great American School System, sound recommendations stemming from A Nation at Risk (1983) got lost or watered down in the political fray. Now it’s 2010 and we’re all floundering in the aftermath of NCLB. I should call my first post A Nation in Crisis — because I believe that’s where we are as a result of the last 30+ years of educational reform.
I don’t have to write a blog. Diane Ravitch has said everything that needs to be said. And John Merrow warns us where we’re headed in his latest book, Below C Level: How American Education Encourages Mediocrity — and What We Can Do About It. Not only does he discuss how school reform has led to mediocrity, but he warns about the unintended consequences of school reform on our democratic way of life.
But until Arne Duncan reads their books and pays attention — and until President Obama instructs Arne to listen — meaning: stop talking and really listen to educators when they’re trying to educate him on the realities of school reform, I will keep this blog up and running. My hope is that you will leave a comment above, spread the word and get educators and parents to come to this blog, find their state on the map,and leave comments about their specific experiences with NCLB. If enough of you who serve in the trenches are willing to share, we may be able to get our policymakers to take notice. If teachers from 50 states + D.C. reiterate the same concerns over and over, perhaps some policymaker of influence and importance will finally listen.
I could be wrong and all of you will tell me what a delightful, meaningful time you’ve had with NCLB the last nine years. But if I’m right and enough concern is revealed in your comments . . . I’ll categorize your comments and get them available in some kind of organized shape. (I’ll reveal only your username and state.) If you too have been blogging, let me know and I will make sure that others visiting this site know about you. (See bottom of page for who some of these committed and very professional people are.)
Feel free to comment on Race to the Top, the Core Standards and so on.
Then we’ll move on to proposing solutions. (I am adapting Dr. Treffinger’s model for creative problem solving to our problem.) Along the way we’ll try as educators to come to consensus about important topics related to school reform, such as the goals of American education. Let’s try to get the train back on the track before it completely derails. We’d better hurry because sometime in late 2010 or early 2011, decisions about school reform will be made in Washington and will be, as they have these last nine years, out of our control.
Unintended Consequences of NCLB
Every change always seems to have unintended consequences — some good, some pesky, and some totally undesirable. Think of just about any change you’ve made in your classroom or your school. Most times you’ve had to pause and tweak a bit — or a lot. That’s what I’m calling for. Congress needs to pause and assess. It just makes good sense, especially with the sweeping, monumental reform our schools have undergone since NCLB. Once this assessment has taken place, it will be clear to Congress that the unintended consequences have been disastrous. President Obama and Arne Duncan refuse to listen. As for me, I’ve given up on the two of them. Congress is our last hope.
My recommended course of action for Congress: Do not reauthorize NCLB and, along with it, Blueprint for Reform. Reauthorize ESEA as it stood under Title 1. Fully fund IDEA. Then sponsor a Continental Congress on school reform. Give a voice to those in the trenches — educators and parents — and listen to them. They will do what you did not do when NCLB was so quickly passed as President Bush’s first bill. They will start with the end in mind: what are the goals of American education? What are the barriers that have kept us from meeting these goals? You will then begin to see proposals for meaningful reform — but not one set of reforms that must be applied to every school in the nation. And then at the end, where it belongs, you will see addressed what NCLB is largely about — accountability. It’s a worthy and necessary issue. No one is denying that.
My own recommendation: The federal government’s role in school reform should be only to provide direction and clarity of purpose. Support? Yes. Leadership? No. NCLB sent a shock wave throughout the country. It continues to reverberate with unintended consequences that no one could have foreseen. Federal legislation applies to all states and all districts. Interstate commerce, highways and bridges, the military — federal legislation can work in a coherent way. But schools and the populations they serve are diverse, and one law can not fit all. NCLB is the proof.
Teachers, other educators, and parents: go to the map above and record your own comments about your experiences serving in the trenches under NCLB. Explore this website to see what it’s about and what I hope it can help accomplish. Your voice, along with the voices of every educator we can get to this site, can make a difference. Go to my first blog, which is the first of several about my own experiences with school reform as a principal over the last 15 years in Arizona. Anything there sound familiar?
Regardless, before you leave this website, click on your state and leave your comments about school reform. Time is of the essence. It looks now as if Congress will deal with reauthorization of NCLB in January 2011. American Enterprise Institute held a hearing on November 9, 2010, with Congressional aides who are working to reauthorize NCLB. Watch the hearing. You’ll get an idea where things are headed.
Who Else is Trying to Get the Word Across? Where Else Can You Go to Help?
Anthony Cody, who began Teachers’ Letters to Obama on Facebook, writes an excellent blog for Teacher Magazine (edweek.org). Facebook also has a section on “School Reform.” Read teacherken’s posts, called “diaries” at Daily Kos and read his comments there as well as his posts on Huffington Post.org. Read Nancy Flanagan’s comments and many others, on Teachers’ Letters to Obama on Facebook. Nancy Flanagan also has a blog on edweek.org. More and more groups are forming. Go to Uniting 4 Kids and Jesse Turner’s Children are More than Test Scores on Facebook. Join Jesse and Christopher Janotta’s rally July 28-31, including the Save Our Schools Million Teacher March July 30 in Washington, D.C. So many of you are trying to get the word out. I continue to update a list of blogs on the sidebar to the right. If I’ve overlooked you, let me know.
http://www.inthetrencheswithschoolreform.com/
The name for this post can’t be A Nation at Risk. That’s already been done, but as Diane Ravitch points out in The Death and Life of the Great American School System, sound recommendations stemming from A Nation at Risk (1983) got lost or watered down in the political fray. Now it’s 2010 and we’re all floundering in the aftermath of NCLB. I should call my first post A Nation in Crisis — because I believe that’s where we are as a result of the last 30+ years of educational reform.
I don’t have to write a blog. Diane Ravitch has said everything that needs to be said. And John Merrow warns us where we’re headed in his latest book, Below C Level: How American Education Encourages Mediocrity — and What We Can Do About It. Not only does he discuss how school reform has led to mediocrity, but he warns about the unintended consequences of school reform on our democratic way of life.
But until Arne Duncan reads their books and pays attention — and until President Obama instructs Arne to listen — meaning: stop talking and really listen to educators when they’re trying to educate him on the realities of school reform, I will keep this blog up and running. My hope is that you will leave a comment above, spread the word and get educators and parents to come to this blog, find their state on the map,and leave comments about their specific experiences with NCLB. If enough of you who serve in the trenches are willing to share, we may be able to get our policymakers to take notice. If teachers from 50 states + D.C. reiterate the same concerns over and over, perhaps some policymaker of influence and importance will finally listen.
I could be wrong and all of you will tell me what a delightful, meaningful time you’ve had with NCLB the last nine years. But if I’m right and enough concern is revealed in your comments . . . I’ll categorize your comments and get them available in some kind of organized shape. (I’ll reveal only your username and state.) If you too have been blogging, let me know and I will make sure that others visiting this site know about you. (See bottom of page for who some of these committed and very professional people are.)
Feel free to comment on Race to the Top, the Core Standards and so on.
Then we’ll move on to proposing solutions. (I am adapting Dr. Treffinger’s model for creative problem solving to our problem.) Along the way we’ll try as educators to come to consensus about important topics related to school reform, such as the goals of American education. Let’s try to get the train back on the track before it completely derails. We’d better hurry because sometime in late 2010 or early 2011, decisions about school reform will be made in Washington and will be, as they have these last nine years, out of our control.
Unintended Consequences of NCLB
Every change always seems to have unintended consequences — some good, some pesky, and some totally undesirable. Think of just about any change you’ve made in your classroom or your school. Most times you’ve had to pause and tweak a bit — or a lot. That’s what I’m calling for. Congress needs to pause and assess. It just makes good sense, especially with the sweeping, monumental reform our schools have undergone since NCLB. Once this assessment has taken place, it will be clear to Congress that the unintended consequences have been disastrous. President Obama and Arne Duncan refuse to listen. As for me, I’ve given up on the two of them. Congress is our last hope.
My recommended course of action for Congress: Do not reauthorize NCLB and, along with it, Blueprint for Reform. Reauthorize ESEA as it stood under Title 1. Fully fund IDEA. Then sponsor a Continental Congress on school reform. Give a voice to those in the trenches — educators and parents — and listen to them. They will do what you did not do when NCLB was so quickly passed as President Bush’s first bill. They will start with the end in mind: what are the goals of American education? What are the barriers that have kept us from meeting these goals? You will then begin to see proposals for meaningful reform — but not one set of reforms that must be applied to every school in the nation. And then at the end, where it belongs, you will see addressed what NCLB is largely about — accountability. It’s a worthy and necessary issue. No one is denying that.
My own recommendation: The federal government’s role in school reform should be only to provide direction and clarity of purpose. Support? Yes. Leadership? No. NCLB sent a shock wave throughout the country. It continues to reverberate with unintended consequences that no one could have foreseen. Federal legislation applies to all states and all districts. Interstate commerce, highways and bridges, the military — federal legislation can work in a coherent way. But schools and the populations they serve are diverse, and one law can not fit all. NCLB is the proof.
Teachers, other educators, and parents: go to the map above and record your own comments about your experiences serving in the trenches under NCLB. Explore this website to see what it’s about and what I hope it can help accomplish. Your voice, along with the voices of every educator we can get to this site, can make a difference. Go to my first blog, which is the first of several about my own experiences with school reform as a principal over the last 15 years in Arizona. Anything there sound familiar?
Regardless, before you leave this website, click on your state and leave your comments about school reform. Time is of the essence. It looks now as if Congress will deal with reauthorization of NCLB in January 2011. American Enterprise Institute held a hearing on November 9, 2010, with Congressional aides who are working to reauthorize NCLB. Watch the hearing. You’ll get an idea where things are headed.
Who Else is Trying to Get the Word Across? Where Else Can You Go to Help?
Anthony Cody, who began Teachers’ Letters to Obama on Facebook, writes an excellent blog for Teacher Magazine (edweek.org). Facebook also has a section on “School Reform.” Read teacherken’s posts, called “diaries” at Daily Kos and read his comments there as well as his posts on Huffington Post.org. Read Nancy Flanagan’s comments and many others, on Teachers’ Letters to Obama on Facebook. Nancy Flanagan also has a blog on edweek.org. More and more groups are forming. Go to Uniting 4 Kids and Jesse Turner’s Children are More than Test Scores on Facebook. Join Jesse and Christopher Janotta’s rally July 28-31, including the Save Our Schools Million Teacher March July 30 in Washington, D.C. So many of you are trying to get the word out. I continue to update a list of blogs on the sidebar to the right. If I’ve overlooked you, let me know.
http://www.inthetrencheswithschoolreform.com/
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Ravitch answers Gates
By Valerie Strauss
In a paean to Bill Gates, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter calls Diane Ravitch the Microsoft founder's "chief adversary."
It's the world's richest (or second richest) man vs. an education historian and New York University research professor.
Gates, through his philanthropic foundation, has invested billions of dollars in education experiments and now has a pivotal role in reform efforts. Ravitch, the author of the bestselling The Death and Life of the Great American School System, has become the most vocal opponent of the Obama administration's education policy. She says Gates is backing the wrong initiatives and harming public schools.
In the Newsweek piece, Gates poses some questions aimed at Ravitch. I asked her to answer them. Below are the questions Gates asked, in bold, and the answers, in italics, that Ravitch provided in an email.
Gates: “Does she like the status quo?"
Ravitch: "No, I certainly don't like the status quo. I don't like the attacks on teachers, I don't like the attacks on the educators who work in our schools day in and day out, I don't like the phony solutions that are now put forward that won't improve our schools at all. I am not at all content with the quality of American education in general, and I have expressed my criticisms over many years, long before Bill Gates decided to make education his project. I think American children need not only testing in basic skills, but an education that includes the arts, literature, the sciences, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, economics, and physical education.
"I don't hear any of the corporate reformers expressing concern about the way standardized testing narrows the curriculum, the way it rewards convergent thinking and punishes divergent thinking, the way it stamps out creativity and originality. I don't hear any of them worried that a generation will grow up ignorant of history and the workings of government. I don't hear any of them putting up $100 million to make sure that every child has the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. All I hear from them is a demand for higher test scores and a demand to tie teachers' evaluations to those test scores. That is not going to improve education."
Gates: "Is she sticking up for decline?"
Ravitch: "Of course not! If we follow Bill Gates' demand to judge teachers by test scores, we will see stagnation, and he will blame it on teachers. We will see stagnation because a relentless focus on test scores in reading and math will inevitably narrow the curriculum only to what is tested. This is not good education.
"Last week, he said in a speech that teachers should not be paid more for experience and graduate degrees. I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers' pay. Does he truly believe that our nation's schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience? Who does he listen to? He needs to get himself a smarter set of advisers.
"Of course, we need to make teaching a profession that attracts and retains wonderful teachers, but the current anti-teacher rhetoric emanating from him and his confreres demonizes and demoralizes even the best teachers. I have gotten letters from many teachers who tell me that they have had it, they have never felt such disrespect; and I have also met young people who tell me that the current poisonous atmosphere has persuaded them not to become teachers. Why doesn't he make speeches thanking the people who work so hard day after day, educating our nation's children, often in difficult working conditions, most of whom earn less than he pays his secretaries at Microsoft?"
Gates: "Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts?"
Ravitch: "Does Bill Gates realize that every contract is signed by two parties: management and labor? Why does management agree to 400-page contracts? I don't know how many pages should be in a union contract, but I do believe that teachers should be evaluated by competent supervisors before they receive tenure (i.e., the right to due process).
"Once they have due process rights, they have the right to a hearing when someone wants to fire them. The reason for due process rights is that teachers in the past have been fired because of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, or because they did not make a political contribution to the right campaign, or for some other reason not related to their competence.
"Gates probably doesn't know this, but 50% of all those who enter teaching leave within the first five years. Our biggest problem is not getting rid of deadbeats, but recruiting, retaining, and supporting teachers. We have to replace 300,000 teachers (of nearly 4 million) every single year. What are his ideas about how to do this?"
Gates: "Does she think all those ‘dropout factories’ are lonely?"
Ravitch: "This may come as a surprise to Bill Gates, but the schools he refers to as "dropout factories" enroll large numbers of high-need students. Many of them don't speak or read English; many of them enter high school three and four grade levels behind. He assumes the schools created the problems the students have; but in many cases, the schools he calls "dropout factories" are filled with heroic teachers and administrators trying their best to help kids who have massive learning problems.
"Unless someone from the district or the state actually goes into the schools and does a diagnostic evaluation, it is unfair to stigmatize the schools with the largest numbers of students who are English-language learners, special-education, and far behind in their learning. That's like saying that an oncologist is not as good a doctor as a dermatologist because so many of his patients die. Mr. Gates, first establish the risk factor before throwing around the labels and closing down schools."
Gates: "If there’s some other magic way to reduce the dropout rate, we’re all ears.”
Ravitch: "Here's the sad truth: There is no magic way to reduce the dropout rate. It involves looking at the reasons students leave school, as well as the conditions in which they live. The single biggest correlate with low academic achievement (contrary to the film Waiting for Superman) is poverty. Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care. worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse. They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated. They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing. This affects their academic performance.
They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well-off.
"The United States today has a child poverty rate of over 20%, and it is rising. This is a national scandal. The film compares us to Finland, but doesn't mention that their child poverty rate is under 5%. Mr. Gates, why don't you address the root causes of low academic achievement, which is not 'bad teachers,' but poverty. It won't involve magic, but it would certainly require the best thinking that you can assemble. And if anyone can afford to do it, surely you can.
I don't mean to suggest that schools as they are now are just fine: They are not. Every school should have a rich and balanced curriculum; many don't. Every child should look forward to coming to school, for his or her favorite studies and activities, but those are the very studies and activities likely to lose out to endless test preparation. Schools need many things: Some need more resources and better conditions for teaching and learning; all need a stable, experienced staff. Teachers need opportunities for intellectual growth and colleagueship. Tests should be used diagnostically, to help students and teachers, not to allocate bonuses and punishments. Teachers, principals, administrators, parents, and local communities should collaborate to create caring communities, and that's happening in many places. I know that none of this is the "magic way" that you are looking for, Mr. Gates, but any educator will tell you that education is a slow, laborious process that requires good teachers, able leadership, willing students, a strong curriculum, and willing students. None of that happens magically."
I also asked Ravitch about her reaction to the strange comparison Alter made in calling her "the Whittaker Chambers of school reform." She wrote:
"I wondered if Alter knows much about history. Whittaker Chambers renounced Communism and embraced American patriotism. Was Alter suggesting that Bill Gates is the Alger Hiss of school reform? I thought it was a weird analogy.
Taken from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/diane-ravitch/ravitch-answers-gates.html
In a paean to Bill Gates, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter calls Diane Ravitch the Microsoft founder's "chief adversary."
It's the world's richest (or second richest) man vs. an education historian and New York University research professor.
Gates, through his philanthropic foundation, has invested billions of dollars in education experiments and now has a pivotal role in reform efforts. Ravitch, the author of the bestselling The Death and Life of the Great American School System, has become the most vocal opponent of the Obama administration's education policy. She says Gates is backing the wrong initiatives and harming public schools.
In the Newsweek piece, Gates poses some questions aimed at Ravitch. I asked her to answer them. Below are the questions Gates asked, in bold, and the answers, in italics, that Ravitch provided in an email.
Gates: “Does she like the status quo?"
Ravitch: "No, I certainly don't like the status quo. I don't like the attacks on teachers, I don't like the attacks on the educators who work in our schools day in and day out, I don't like the phony solutions that are now put forward that won't improve our schools at all. I am not at all content with the quality of American education in general, and I have expressed my criticisms over many years, long before Bill Gates decided to make education his project. I think American children need not only testing in basic skills, but an education that includes the arts, literature, the sciences, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, economics, and physical education.
"I don't hear any of the corporate reformers expressing concern about the way standardized testing narrows the curriculum, the way it rewards convergent thinking and punishes divergent thinking, the way it stamps out creativity and originality. I don't hear any of them worried that a generation will grow up ignorant of history and the workings of government. I don't hear any of them putting up $100 million to make sure that every child has the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. All I hear from them is a demand for higher test scores and a demand to tie teachers' evaluations to those test scores. That is not going to improve education."
Gates: "Is she sticking up for decline?"
Ravitch: "Of course not! If we follow Bill Gates' demand to judge teachers by test scores, we will see stagnation, and he will blame it on teachers. We will see stagnation because a relentless focus on test scores in reading and math will inevitably narrow the curriculum only to what is tested. This is not good education.
"Last week, he said in a speech that teachers should not be paid more for experience and graduate degrees. I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers' pay. Does he truly believe that our nation's schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience? Who does he listen to? He needs to get himself a smarter set of advisers.
"Of course, we need to make teaching a profession that attracts and retains wonderful teachers, but the current anti-teacher rhetoric emanating from him and his confreres demonizes and demoralizes even the best teachers. I have gotten letters from many teachers who tell me that they have had it, they have never felt such disrespect; and I have also met young people who tell me that the current poisonous atmosphere has persuaded them not to become teachers. Why doesn't he make speeches thanking the people who work so hard day after day, educating our nation's children, often in difficult working conditions, most of whom earn less than he pays his secretaries at Microsoft?"
Gates: "Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts?"
Ravitch: "Does Bill Gates realize that every contract is signed by two parties: management and labor? Why does management agree to 400-page contracts? I don't know how many pages should be in a union contract, but I do believe that teachers should be evaluated by competent supervisors before they receive tenure (i.e., the right to due process).
"Once they have due process rights, they have the right to a hearing when someone wants to fire them. The reason for due process rights is that teachers in the past have been fired because of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, or because they did not make a political contribution to the right campaign, or for some other reason not related to their competence.
"Gates probably doesn't know this, but 50% of all those who enter teaching leave within the first five years. Our biggest problem is not getting rid of deadbeats, but recruiting, retaining, and supporting teachers. We have to replace 300,000 teachers (of nearly 4 million) every single year. What are his ideas about how to do this?"
Gates: "Does she think all those ‘dropout factories’ are lonely?"
Ravitch: "This may come as a surprise to Bill Gates, but the schools he refers to as "dropout factories" enroll large numbers of high-need students. Many of them don't speak or read English; many of them enter high school three and four grade levels behind. He assumes the schools created the problems the students have; but in many cases, the schools he calls "dropout factories" are filled with heroic teachers and administrators trying their best to help kids who have massive learning problems.
"Unless someone from the district or the state actually goes into the schools and does a diagnostic evaluation, it is unfair to stigmatize the schools with the largest numbers of students who are English-language learners, special-education, and far behind in their learning. That's like saying that an oncologist is not as good a doctor as a dermatologist because so many of his patients die. Mr. Gates, first establish the risk factor before throwing around the labels and closing down schools."
Gates: "If there’s some other magic way to reduce the dropout rate, we’re all ears.”
Ravitch: "Here's the sad truth: There is no magic way to reduce the dropout rate. It involves looking at the reasons students leave school, as well as the conditions in which they live. The single biggest correlate with low academic achievement (contrary to the film Waiting for Superman) is poverty. Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care. worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse. They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated. They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing. This affects their academic performance.
They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well-off.
"The United States today has a child poverty rate of over 20%, and it is rising. This is a national scandal. The film compares us to Finland, but doesn't mention that their child poverty rate is under 5%. Mr. Gates, why don't you address the root causes of low academic achievement, which is not 'bad teachers,' but poverty. It won't involve magic, but it would certainly require the best thinking that you can assemble. And if anyone can afford to do it, surely you can.
I don't mean to suggest that schools as they are now are just fine: They are not. Every school should have a rich and balanced curriculum; many don't. Every child should look forward to coming to school, for his or her favorite studies and activities, but those are the very studies and activities likely to lose out to endless test preparation. Schools need many things: Some need more resources and better conditions for teaching and learning; all need a stable, experienced staff. Teachers need opportunities for intellectual growth and colleagueship. Tests should be used diagnostically, to help students and teachers, not to allocate bonuses and punishments. Teachers, principals, administrators, parents, and local communities should collaborate to create caring communities, and that's happening in many places. I know that none of this is the "magic way" that you are looking for, Mr. Gates, but any educator will tell you that education is a slow, laborious process that requires good teachers, able leadership, willing students, a strong curriculum, and willing students. None of that happens magically."
I also asked Ravitch about her reaction to the strange comparison Alter made in calling her "the Whittaker Chambers of school reform." She wrote:
"I wondered if Alter knows much about history. Whittaker Chambers renounced Communism and embraced American patriotism. Was Alter suggesting that Bill Gates is the Alger Hiss of school reform? I thought it was a weird analogy.
Taken from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/diane-ravitch/ravitch-answers-gates.html
Respectful Reform That Makes Sense
By Chris Janotta
reform (noun): amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved
This definition comes from merriam-webster.com. When I first read it, I was surprised to find such harsh words contained in it. When I read it again, this time out loud, I was taken aback at what types of cruelty, according to this definition, reform should be aimed at. It conjured up images of criminal acts, and I don’t mean just any old criminal acts. I mean the type where reform means twenty-years to life.
Then I thought a little more about this. Had the public school system become so defective, so corrupt, that a vicious system had been created by depraved teachers, administrators, and school boards? And, if so, was the only way to make it any better to institute a series of reforms that would take from twenty years up to an entire lifetime to have a positive effect?
Either way, I thought, we are all doomed. If the former is true then I, without even realizing it, am a part of the system. If the latter was the solution, then entire generations of
students would be receiving a shoddy education. I was beginning to get depressed.
Suddenly, though, I had an idea. What if I checked another site to see if the definition was the same? So, after checking thefreedictionary.com (anything free can’t be bad, right?), I came across a definition that, in turn, made a smile come across my face:
reform n.
1. A change for the better; an improvement.
2. Correction of evils, abuses, or errors.
3. Action to improve social or economic conditions without radical or revolutionary change.
Now this was something I could deal with! Sure, evils, abuses, and errors were still a part of the definition, but none of those words conjured up quite the images that the first set of words had. Besides, I am sure that somewhere within the public school system there are some sort of evils and/or abuses occurring (or maybe some of the evils and abuses are occurring at the upper levels of public education which are beyond the control of teachers, administrators, superintendents, and even school boards), and nobody can argue that any system is completely free of errors.
But it was that third definition that really made me smile. “That,” I said to myself, “sounds like the type of reform I can agree with. In fact, I might even call this type of reform ‘respectful reform.’”
Respectful reform. This had a nice ring to it, but what did it mean? For this, I referred back to the definition. “Action to improve social or economic conditions,” it started out. What more could public education ask for? If every school was fairly funded and every neighborhood had the resources it needed, “a change for the better,” as the first definition states, would surely begin to take place.
Instead of racing for money (and, in most cases, losing the race), schools could be funded based upon need. Instead of using a system where the richest schools get richer based upon where they are located, a disbursement of funds could be based on need.
If community leaders became involved in the schools that so desperately need them to become involved, “a change for the better” could take place. If services and supports were provided in the communities that so desperately need them, “a change for the better” would occur not only for the schools in those communities, but also for the communities themselves. Addressing needs instead of ignoring them; this was starting to sound like the true meaning of respectful reform, but what about the second part of this definition?
“Without radical or revolutionary change.” This was the part that really added meaning for me. Firing teachers to “fix” the system. Instituting evaluation after endless evaluation to the point that teachers have no choice but to teach to a test. Requiring every student, no matter his or her mental capacity, to pass a test at his or her grade level.
Instituting programs that punish teachers, rob students of a well-rounded education, and force schools to close because they aren’t “up to standards” (mostly because meeting these standards is a near impossibility in some schools due to funding issues, lack of resources, or other issues beyond the teachers’ and administrators’ control). Using movies, talk shows, and national publications to spread propaganda against public schools, public school teachers, public school teachers’ unions, and anything else having to do with public These are all radical and revolutionary changes that have come about over the last several years and have come about even more strongly over the last several months. This, by definition is not reform, and, by my definition, is definitely not respectful reform.
However, this is almost to be expected since most of those proposing these reforms are not currently, nor have they ever been, educators. It is for this reason that reform must come from those who are most involved in public education: teachers, parents, and students.
Let the responsibility for change come from within. Allow this triad to make decisions regarding how teachers should be evaluated, how students should be evaluated, and how schools should be evaluated. Allow them to allow time for more teaching instead of more testing. I have yet to meet a teacher, parent, student, or administrator who feels the over-reliance on testing is good for our nation’s students. Nor have I heard that pulling students from social studies, science, physical education, art, or any other class in order to provide even more test preparation is a good idea.
Yet this is exactly what is happening on a daily basis due to the current “reforms.” While I am not suggesting that teachers, parents, and students should make up their own rules and change them as they please, I am suggesting that they play a major role in the “respectful reform” that must take place because those currently taking the lead in this area are suggesting even more of these same practices.
Simply calling something reform doesn’t make it reform, just as calling something respectful reform doesn’t mean it makes any sense to apply it to public education. This is why we must be careful to use respectful reform that makes sense. Anybody with a loud enough voice can stand at the corner of any street in a big city and preach reform, but most of what I’ve heard, whether it be from the mouths of those on street corners or the mouths of those who hold some sort of power through their wealth or position in society, has yet to make much sense.
Even the reform I speak of wouldn’t make sense in a system that doesn’t need it. This is why many of the current reforms won’t work. Every district, every school, every student is different. The type of reform that works one place may produce terrible results in another. If a school is turning out successful students year after year, why must it go through reform? If a student scores at the top of his or her class on every test year after year, why must he or she be subjected to reform? After all, both merriam-webster.com and thefreedictionary.com state that reform is a change or an amendment. Why would one want to amend something that works?
Therefore, I call for respectful reform that makes sense. By having teachers and community members working alongside politicians, parents, and pupils, we can come up with changes that produce positive effects for both public education and American society. There doesn’t seem to be anything defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved about that.
Taken from Ed Voices: http://www.edvoices.com/blog/2010/11/29/respectful-reform-that-makes-sense/
reform (noun): amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved
This definition comes from merriam-webster.com. When I first read it, I was surprised to find such harsh words contained in it. When I read it again, this time out loud, I was taken aback at what types of cruelty, according to this definition, reform should be aimed at. It conjured up images of criminal acts, and I don’t mean just any old criminal acts. I mean the type where reform means twenty-years to life.
Then I thought a little more about this. Had the public school system become so defective, so corrupt, that a vicious system had been created by depraved teachers, administrators, and school boards? And, if so, was the only way to make it any better to institute a series of reforms that would take from twenty years up to an entire lifetime to have a positive effect?
Either way, I thought, we are all doomed. If the former is true then I, without even realizing it, am a part of the system. If the latter was the solution, then entire generations of
students would be receiving a shoddy education. I was beginning to get depressed.
Suddenly, though, I had an idea. What if I checked another site to see if the definition was the same? So, after checking thefreedictionary.com (anything free can’t be bad, right?), I came across a definition that, in turn, made a smile come across my face:
reform n.
1. A change for the better; an improvement.
2. Correction of evils, abuses, or errors.
3. Action to improve social or economic conditions without radical or revolutionary change.
Now this was something I could deal with! Sure, evils, abuses, and errors were still a part of the definition, but none of those words conjured up quite the images that the first set of words had. Besides, I am sure that somewhere within the public school system there are some sort of evils and/or abuses occurring (or maybe some of the evils and abuses are occurring at the upper levels of public education which are beyond the control of teachers, administrators, superintendents, and even school boards), and nobody can argue that any system is completely free of errors.
But it was that third definition that really made me smile. “That,” I said to myself, “sounds like the type of reform I can agree with. In fact, I might even call this type of reform ‘respectful reform.’”
Respectful reform. This had a nice ring to it, but what did it mean? For this, I referred back to the definition. “Action to improve social or economic conditions,” it started out. What more could public education ask for? If every school was fairly funded and every neighborhood had the resources it needed, “a change for the better,” as the first definition states, would surely begin to take place.
Instead of racing for money (and, in most cases, losing the race), schools could be funded based upon need. Instead of using a system where the richest schools get richer based upon where they are located, a disbursement of funds could be based on need.
If community leaders became involved in the schools that so desperately need them to become involved, “a change for the better” could take place. If services and supports were provided in the communities that so desperately need them, “a change for the better” would occur not only for the schools in those communities, but also for the communities themselves. Addressing needs instead of ignoring them; this was starting to sound like the true meaning of respectful reform, but what about the second part of this definition?
“Without radical or revolutionary change.” This was the part that really added meaning for me. Firing teachers to “fix” the system. Instituting evaluation after endless evaluation to the point that teachers have no choice but to teach to a test. Requiring every student, no matter his or her mental capacity, to pass a test at his or her grade level.
Instituting programs that punish teachers, rob students of a well-rounded education, and force schools to close because they aren’t “up to standards” (mostly because meeting these standards is a near impossibility in some schools due to funding issues, lack of resources, or other issues beyond the teachers’ and administrators’ control). Using movies, talk shows, and national publications to spread propaganda against public schools, public school teachers, public school teachers’ unions, and anything else having to do with public These are all radical and revolutionary changes that have come about over the last several years and have come about even more strongly over the last several months. This, by definition is not reform, and, by my definition, is definitely not respectful reform.
However, this is almost to be expected since most of those proposing these reforms are not currently, nor have they ever been, educators. It is for this reason that reform must come from those who are most involved in public education: teachers, parents, and students.
Let the responsibility for change come from within. Allow this triad to make decisions regarding how teachers should be evaluated, how students should be evaluated, and how schools should be evaluated. Allow them to allow time for more teaching instead of more testing. I have yet to meet a teacher, parent, student, or administrator who feels the over-reliance on testing is good for our nation’s students. Nor have I heard that pulling students from social studies, science, physical education, art, or any other class in order to provide even more test preparation is a good idea.
Yet this is exactly what is happening on a daily basis due to the current “reforms.” While I am not suggesting that teachers, parents, and students should make up their own rules and change them as they please, I am suggesting that they play a major role in the “respectful reform” that must take place because those currently taking the lead in this area are suggesting even more of these same practices.
Simply calling something reform doesn’t make it reform, just as calling something respectful reform doesn’t mean it makes any sense to apply it to public education. This is why we must be careful to use respectful reform that makes sense. Anybody with a loud enough voice can stand at the corner of any street in a big city and preach reform, but most of what I’ve heard, whether it be from the mouths of those on street corners or the mouths of those who hold some sort of power through their wealth or position in society, has yet to make much sense.
Even the reform I speak of wouldn’t make sense in a system that doesn’t need it. This is why many of the current reforms won’t work. Every district, every school, every student is different. The type of reform that works one place may produce terrible results in another. If a school is turning out successful students year after year, why must it go through reform? If a student scores at the top of his or her class on every test year after year, why must he or she be subjected to reform? After all, both merriam-webster.com and thefreedictionary.com state that reform is a change or an amendment. Why would one want to amend something that works?
Therefore, I call for respectful reform that makes sense. By having teachers and community members working alongside politicians, parents, and pupils, we can come up with changes that produce positive effects for both public education and American society. There doesn’t seem to be anything defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved about that.
Taken from Ed Voices: http://www.edvoices.com/blog/2010/11/29/respectful-reform-that-makes-sense/
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