One letter separates democracy from mediocracy: I. Our greatest leaders remind us of this from time to time. They have phrased this notion simply and eloquently: "Ask not what your country can do for you," "Yes we can," "Let us strive on to finish the work that we are in." Yet their voices do not echo through the halls of the most important places they should be heard: our public schools. And I'm not talking about kindergartners who scream "MINE!" before they learn how to share.
I'm talking about the grown-ups.
I'm talking about adults blinded by their I's. I'm talking about teachers who watch the clock in their own classrooms, principals who never leave their offices, district leaders who impose strict regimes on their educators, parents who quibble over their children's grades and community members who think that living across the street from a great school is an inconvenience. At a school board meeting about the construction of a new high school, I actually witnessed one concerned citizen express that last sentiment, something to the effect of "What are we supposed to do with the burden of this school in our neighborhood?"
When it comes to public education, we are a people so blinded by our I's that we can't see the "they" looking up to us -- the "they" that was the reason we built schools in the first place, the "they" that is our kids begging us for our eyes. Sure, we repeat mantras like "Children first," but, as many observers have pointed out, we have actually constructed a system that sacrifices the needs of students to the demands of adults.
The truth is that we Americans are so blinded by our I's that we are failing to see the most glaring problem facing our schools: we have no vision for what we want them to do. We say "Children first," but we have no idea what it means. We want the best education system in the world, but we have no idea what it would look like. In our national conversation about the puzzle that is our failing school system, we are so busy trying to place individual pieces -- accountability, choice, etc. -- that we have forgotten to look at the box to see what the finished product should be: what do we want our kids to know and be able to do when they graduate from high school?
Without a cohesive, thoughtful, and comprehensive answer to that question -- a vision for our children's future -- any efforts to address the systemic issues will be in vain. Our answers up to this point have been either too vague to enact ("college and career ready") or too specific to inspire ("proficient scores on standardized tests").
So I will take a stab at it: We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, will provide a free and excellent education to all children in the United States of America.
I knew that there was a reason Ms. Harris had me memorize that in eighth grade. My compliments and my gratitude to the Founding Fathers for supplying exactly the cohesive, thoughtful and comprehensive vision we've been looking for. Here's what their vision means for our kids and their education:
However, in order to ensure that this vision is attained, we need to correct a few I's. First, we must protect this vision by abolishing that curious institution known as the local school board -- it is an asylum for the blind. School board members' eyes are profoundly compromised by their I's and the I's of their constituents. It is impossible for them as a collective to stay focused on our vision for our kids, and it is even more difficult to hold them accountable for doing so. Instead, we should invest authority over public education in the executive -- as has been done in cities like D.C., New York and Chicago -- as it is easier for one person to keep his or her eyes on the prize than several. Furthermore, we are more able to hold a single elected official responsible for his or her policies than an entire board.
Second, we must develop a national curriculum that makes this vision come alive in the classroom. That national curriculum ought to be our King James Bible, a project that calls together our finest minds in every discipline and tasks them with compiling their ideas so that all of our children will have the opportunity to learn -- in the words of education historian Diane Ravitch, "the best that has been thought and known and done in every field or endeavor."
Furthermore, because we want to secure the Blessings of Liberty to our Posterity, we cannot afford to bicker about what should and shouldn't be taught in schools. Instead of holding the debates about American exceptionalism and Roe v. Wade amongst ourselves, we should let our kids dazzle us with their own eloquent arguments. We need to invite our children into those conversations -- that knowledge belongs to them just as much as it belongs to us.
Finally, we need to ensure that our kids know that they are in school in order to achieve this vision. We need them to know that they are in school to open their eyes and forget their I's. After all, when the I's disappear, mediocracy becomes democracy.
Follow Dan Ross on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danross13718
Robert E. Slavin: A Call to Arms for Education Innovation
Give a kid a choice - which will he choose, a test or a video game? How would a teacher answer that question? How would an educational reformer.
Let's stop demonizing teachers, and let's stop firing them because of the scores that students take on irrelevant tests. Let's fire the educational refomers.
1. Money does not fix problems, solutions do! It at time feels money is thrown around with no real solutions to fix anything. Ask the teachers in the classroom where money should be allotted to. In a good year I may get $400 to buy supplies for my 5 chemistry classes. However my school district will pay for students that failed classes to attend summer school.
2. I have found over my years to many average to under average teachers leaving the classroom and sadly entering administration positions. They couldn't run a classroom and now they are running the school?
But really, the biggest problem is when we don't listen to teachers. When we hire unqualified superintendents like Klein, Black, and Rhee. People who've been in the classroom have proved, for the most part, that they're not the sort of "I people" you're talking about. If they were, they'd have gotten their degree in something else and gone on to a much more lucrative career in another field. Teachers, by and large, have proved that they're in it for the kids just by going into teaching. We need to listen to them (even when they get together in groups and bargain collectively), because they're usually the people in the equation with the kids' best interests in mind. Often moreso than the parents, and always moreso than the politicians.
Just as there are different types of cars, fashion, foods, etc, there is a need to have different types of curriculum. A free society is based on the ability to make choice, not to be ruled by dictates and regulations. The idea of a national curriculum denotes bureaucrats telling schools not only what to teach but how to teach it. I worked once for a school district that implemented a district wide curriculum in which subjects would be taught in the same way, the same time, with the same book and on the same schedule. No room for variation, changes, different points of view. The kids in the district are doing even worse now.
If you read the news about young people today, one observation stands out to me: most young people do not make good choices and are incapable of thinking for themselves. A sad commentary about the billions we spend on education.
In the late 1800's, the national superintendent of schools in France stated with pride that he could look at his watch and knew exactly what was being taught anywhere in the nation. Shades of 1984! I am not sure that I want that sort of world for myself, children or country.
To me, it's about accountability. I don't think standards should be a one-size-fits-all prescription for exactly how every teacher teaches. But I also don't think each teacher should have complete authority to decide what their students should learn. I think it's arrogant for us to assume, as individuals, that we know better than hundreds, if not thousands, of professionals what freshman English students should know.
But standards are a minimum. You teach past them, or above them. You teach your students in more rigorous ways, using more engaging and innovative techniques. You just need to make sure they learn the material for the standard (the minimum) along the way.
I've been teaching for about five years now, and it never fails to amaze me how so many teachers complain about their creativity being stifled, when really what they mean is they want to be able to do whatever they want in class, with no oversight. I'm not saying all teachers are like that, or even most, but some definitely are.
Oh, no, out of characters!!! Oh well...
Crafting a national curriculum standard can be done without injecting values into the mix. There is nothing wrong with setting mile posts which students should be able to meet. Ultimately, this is what I believe most people mean when they say a "national curriculum" - a set of clearly stated, objective goals that all students should be able to meet.
In truth, any national curriculum should actually be a set of minimum standards that should, barring learning deficiencies, mental illness, or other issues, should be attainable by all students regardless of socioeconomic background -- and no more. Why? Because we have things which we can, regardless of political leaning, ethnicity, social standing, or otherwise, ALL agree upon that "every child should know". Things like proper English, arithmetic, a basic grasp of the sciences, history, and the like.
Asking the government to establish a standard and then ensure that schools meet that standard is not communist, totalitarian, or Big Brother-ish. Technically, it's socialist, but since there's so much misinformation flying around about what socialism really is about, it's better to simply say what it isn't.
I am curious, though: how does education in a public school go against your values (aside from your charge that it doesn't work)?
Here is but one example: the New York City mayor had a vision of "accountability" and hired a chancellor (Joel Klein) with no background in education (and no vision). What was the extent of their "vision"? Standardized tests, business men running schools, and trying to get rid of experienced teachers who have high salaries.
But they were so focused on improving test scores and getting Principals to improve test scores, that they did not realize the tests were getting easier. They did not realize that the students graduating high school were less prepared for college work (as reported by colleges). And they did not realize that the students were not improving on national tests (which should have made them rethink about how valid their state test scores were.)
Finally, someone who was educated about education, and had experience in education, the New York State Education Commissioner, said the tests became too easy and were therefore invalid.
The chancellor is now giving speeches about what a great job he did in improving test scores.
They are not being held accountable because there is no immediate check on their power. The chancellor and mayor are both blind. Check out more absurdities here: www.nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com
In China, a typical family spends 6x their proportion of disposable family income on education and only on one child.
In American, few families are committed to a life of learning and we outsource of the responsibility to our public schools. When they don't do the job, we complain about them. Look inward at our responsibilities to educate our children. We have doubled the REAL $ in K12 spending over the past 30 years with no improvement to our system. If every parent simply worked for 1 hour more after school with their kids, the results would be profound not to mention improvement in family dynamics.
I can see that providing that care in single parent families is difficult. But, then if it is difficult for them for many valid reasons like time, money, crime, etc. - don't want to start discussing the reason for single parent - that's for another discussion. But, government can't fill that void!
The reason is that many parents shouldn't have had babies. And if they did, then they should stop the pursuit of material happiness and focus on family and kid's future. In developing countries like China/India, they know that success is thru academic excellence, not pursuit of materialistic happiness.
Class size and school size are obvious culprits in hindering quality of education . Americans should by now realize that teachers as babysitters is not a good idea and children spend far more time out of school than in it. Teachers do Teach..Parents need to parent.
2. End the domination of teachers by extraordinary multiple levels of "administration", local-state-federal demands that change with the winds.
3. Find alternate financing that does not depend on property taxes. California used to be the envy of every state in the union, until Proposition 13, which pulled the rug out from under financing for education. It's been a circus ever since.
2. Agreed, if you mean situations where our math curriculum has changed no less than 3 times in the past 5-6 years. Try keeping up with what you are supposed to teach in which grade and leave gaping holes for kids every time you switch it.
3. Michigan did away with funding based on property taxes in the early '90's (Proposal A). For a while it was great, and then the economy tanked. No money left for schools. Our governor is taking away $460 per student, on top of triple-digit $ takeaways for several years prior to this as well. I'd imagine over the last 3 years we will have lost around $1000 per student. And proposal A was supposed to guarantee our foundation grants-not reduce them.
As far as changing curriculum goes, it seems absolutely insane. I know plenty of teachers and this, more than anything, is demoralizing and counter-productive. I say, let teachers drive the curriculum. They, more than anyone, know what needs to be taught, in what order, etc... Of course, it would help to know that finances won't negatively impact teaching staff.
I also want to point out this one, as it too really goes into detail about our obscenely broken educational system:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html
Excerpt:
Article has more, but it is constrained to K-12. Higher education (college) is, in ways, as important as K-12, but that's transcending the scope of my response.
The content is very strong in Honors (and AP level courses in High School) in Public Schools (at least here in California). I have compared the content with other countries and they are up there with the best. I have a degree in Electrical Engineering, earned 26 years back, but I can judge the depth.
It is NOT the content of the courses that is the problem.
Every teacher in my son's schools (all public schools) - from elementary thru High School (he is a Junior in high school now, writing his AP exams this week and next week) have been excellent, it was better every year. By the high goals of this nation (and from the Teacher's Union ad nauseum), his classrooms are overcrowded. But, you have to see the classroom crowding in many other countries to realize we doing very well.
Crowding is NOT the problem.
There are over 500 baseball teams from schools in a tiny state like Wisconsin. About 2000 school teams participated in National Science Bowl in all of USA.
You can see where our priorities are.
As parents, we are more interested in our 401K and pension plans and don't hesitate to let our kids struggle thru criminal student loans.
You can see where our priorities are.
It is therefore imperative that we do all within our powers to encourage and if nessesary, force the participation of parents in the education of their children. Poverty is the biggest factor and impediment. Nevertheless, all within our capabilities must be done to bring the parents into the classroom.