Kevin Roden – 05.02.10

Our friends at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture hosted the 2010 Education Forum last week with the goal of raising big questions about the state of public education and inspiring teachers toward excellence and passion in their profession.  It is that last point that made this event truly counter-cultural, for public school teachers find themselves the object of critique, ridicule, and blame from politicians, business leaders, and parents.  Although mandated by law to take in whatever students come their way, teachers are expected to be true miracle workers and somehow solve all the problems initially created by other entities, people, and institutions in our society.

And if Barak Obama and his Education Secretary Arne Duncan have their way, teachers who fail to work these sociological miracles will now be out of job.  $4 billion have been set aside to entice states to get on board with their “Race to the Top” educational reform initiatives.  With today’s budget shortfalls facing just about every state and local school board, the need for federal dollars is paving the way for the largest federal take-over of local public education in our nation’s history.  Duncan, a former pro-basketball player-turned business man with no real experience as a public school teacher is leading the way.  Diane Ravitch,  America’s leading historian of education and former Assistant Secretary of Education, came to Dallas as the keynote speaker for this Forum to critique these initiatives as she has outlined in her latest work, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.  Just in case you smell partisan politics, she also is highly critical of George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” policies which she views as not substantially different than the new plan.

Before we share some of the highlights of her talk, it is important to recognize that concern for the future of public education is not universally had by all in our country.  Public schools have taken such a beating in the last several years that some parents leave it out of the equation when researching educational opportunities for their children.  Regardless of whether one chooses public education or not for their family, an important question must still be addressed: should we ALL be for the success of public education in America?  Knowing full well that this question is primary to the following discussion (which assumes a resounding “yes”), thinkdenton.com will take up this question in the near future.  But we leave you with just one point of reflection: it seems as if one’s commitment to a healthy public educational system is inextricably tied (or should be) with one’s commitment to a healthy democracy in our country.  The 20th century’s most public intellectual, Mortimer Adler, made the connection this way:

We must end that hypocrisy in our national life.  We cannot say out of one side of our mouth that we are for democracy and all its free institutions including, preeminently, political and civil liberty for all; and out of the other side of our mouth, say that only some of the children – fewer than half – are educable for full citizenship and a full human life.

More on that topic later… Here’s a brief outline of the highlights of Ravitch’s talk:

The new question is not how to make public education better, but rather whether public education can survive the cumulative effects of years of promoting Bush-era “No Child Left Behind” policies with the latest push, “Race for the Top”.

THE PROBLEMS WITH “NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND”

• Unrealistic Goals – had the unrealistic goal of mandated that 100% of students be proficient by 2014 – failure to reach this goal results in having your school or district turned over to the private sector
• “Measure and Punish” - created a “measure and punish” environment – data and scores become the goal of education
• Fuzzy Numbers – the pressure put on states and local schools created an environment of fuzzy math where cheating and lowering standards took place
  • — during this time, state scores went up, yet national scores remained the same
  • — graduation rates went up, yet remedial classes in college went up
  • — evidence of institutional fraud where states lied about their scores
• Narrowed Curriculum – only reading and math scores become important
  • — the arts, literature, foreign language, science, etc. – all suffer
  • — encourage teaching to the test
  • — did a great job at instilling the skill of bubble guessing
• Choice and Charters – beginning in 1988, the original intent was to allow for a lab for fresh approaches to deal with the toughest of students – all with the goal of providing the model for the benefit of the greater public school system.
  • — Now we have 1.5 million students in approximately 5000 charter schools nationwide
  • — Instead of collaborating with local schools, they are competing against them – creating antipathy between charter and public school parents.
  • — For the most part, charters are de-regulated and resist audits
  • — They work on a business model – younger teachers, smaller payroll, longer hours – yet studies indicate that teacher effectiveness increases the longer they are in the classroom
  • — A way for public $ to transfer into private hands – big money involved.
  • — Don’t get better results when you look at charters as a whole as compared to their public counterparts
    • —— they have the benefit of reaching the more motivated
    • —— only 17% of charters got better results than public schools
  • — Charters reach only 3% of students – what about the other 97%?  Is this equality?

THE PROBLEMS WITH “RACE TO THE TOP”

The Obama administration has re-branded NCLB in this way, but Ravitch claims it only “intensifies all the bad stuff” of the previous initiatives.  Encouragement to reform come in the form of a $4-5 billion carrot, available to any states who adopt their reforms, which include:

• — removing caps on the possibility and numbers of charter schools (thus privatizing education more and more)
• — judging teachers and tying their salaries to the performance of their students (test scores) – an attach on teacher tenure
• — the “turning around” of failing schools – in other words, closing them down and redistributing the students elsewhere

Ravitch argued that this increase focus on teacher “accountability” fails to account for the other contributing societal factors that play into the success or failure of students:

• — student motivation
• — family support or the lack of it
• — poverty status

Though Arne Duncan famously claims that “poverty is just an excuse”, national studies on SAT scores for years have shown a tight correlation between family income and test scores.  Yet the new school reform calls for accountability only of teachers – not of students, not of the parental support at home, or of the parent’s commitment to bringing their family out of poverty.  You can’t fire students or their parents, so let’s fire the teachers…

Another emphasis of Duncan’s reform is the “turning around” of failing schools (closing them).  Ravitch worries that there is no model for this plan and the possible effects are futile at best, frightening at worst.  For many lower income neighborhoods, the local school may be the only stable institution left.  Removing the schools from the neighborhood may result in the further descent of that already struggling community.  Though recent all-school firings have been lauded by political leaders, what happens to the students and where do you find all the new teachers to replace them?  In many cases, the students are just shifted around to other low-performing schools, thus creating future problems elsewhere.

RAVITCH’s SOLUTIONS

Ravitch is not unaware of certain problems that exist in today’s public schools, but she urges those in power to stop blaming schools for things that are often the result of student motiviation, bad parenting, and socio-economic factors.  Here are some of her thoughts on where to go from here:

• — Long Term Planning – most initiatives and “reforms” focus on quick fixes and short term attempts at solving large, systemic issues.
• — Need More Professionalism, not Less – the current pushes degrade the teacher profession while propping up business leaders with no educational background as the saviors of education.  As such, these new “educational leaders” are forced to rely solely on data (hence the hyper focus on tests and scores as the end-all of education).  To them, the problem of education today is simply reduced to one of management.  True teachers who see students as more than statistics see things differently.
• — Principals as Master Teachers – effective schools will come about under effective leadership, and that leadership requires that the principals be the best teachers, so as to properly inspire, encourage, and create excellence in other teachers.
• — Assessment is OK, but needs to be better – assessment has its place, but it isn’t the goal of education as it has appeared in recent years.  And it certainly doesn’t need to be used to punish teachers.
• — Coherent Curriculum – we are creating good test takers, but not better thinkers or better students equipped with the skills to be life-long learners.  Testing has the negative side-effect of incentivizing only certain things and those are what get all of the attention.
• — Pay attention to Character and Discipline
• — Reject National Formulas – perhaps a better model would be the creation of inspection teams who come out to analyze the issues at place in low performing schools.  Instead of punishing the teachers there, they can work with the school staff to identify the problems and work toward better solutions.

For more on this subject, read Diane Ravitch’s book and check out her website which is stocked with recent articles and commentary by her.  Also, listen to her recent interview on KERA’s “Think” program.

Where will Texas go with these reforms?  What about Denton?  Recent conversations with an undisclosed Board member of Denton ISD indicates that our current Board shares these concerns – in fact, most of them heard her speak recently on this very subject.  We’ll continue to follow the future of public education in Denton.

And don’t forget: it’s election week for our local school board.  Check out our resources on the election and get out to vote!