I won't be reporting from Saturday's Save Our Schools March and Rally because my young granddaughters (and their parents) are visiting from Barcelona, but it's likely that PBS NewsHour will have a presence there. The rally and march are being organized by teachers from across the country -- and have attracted promises to attend from numerous big names in the field, as well as endorsements from Jonathan Kozol, Deborah Meier, Diane Ravitch and others. I regret missing the event, because I expect I would recognize a lot of people there. I wish everyone well.
I have a question, however. The acronym SOS is catchy and convenient -- the internationally recognized cry for help. But what are protestors hoping to save our schools FROM? And, just as important, what are they FOR?
I am one of those middle-of-the-road guys who is concerned about the polarization of public education. I see an ever widening gap, with "We must trust teachers" on one side and "We must verify with high stakes testing because we don't trust teachers" on the other. I think Ronald Reagan -- no hero to liberals -- got it right when he said, "Trust but verify." He was talking about the Soviet Union, but I think the concept applies to public education. How we get to that sensible middle, where we trust teachers but also have a valid and reliable way of measuring progress, is the challenge that I see facing us.
So please go to the rally ready to argue for specific changes in schools -- not just 'holistic education' and the like, but specifics.
Here's one: Barnett Berry of the Teacher Leadership Network suggested to me the other day that principals ought to be teaching part of the time. "Principal" was once an adjective, we both recalled, as in "principal teacher." That one step would free teachers to develop their leadership skills, a useful move in the right direction.
Here's another: after the levees broke and effectively destroyed New Orleans' lousy school system, the organization that was created to rebuild was pointedly called "New Schools for New Orleans," a name designed to make the point that no one wanted to go back to the status quo. Whether you agree with the direction they've taken or not, the purpose was to move forward.
So, my protesting friends, on Saturday put on plenty of sunblock, wear floppy hats, drink lots of water, and please bring suggestions that will make schools better.
Post your thoughts here, if you will.
As always, remember that John's book The Influence of Teachers is for sale at Amazon.
Follow John Merrow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/john_merrow
Not this time.
What planet are you occupying when you ask, " But what are protestors hoping to save our schools FROM?"
Please come back to Earth.
And help Save Our Schools from their ongoing destruction by wealth, power, and the politicians who do their bidding.
We are collected voices that can't make the march in DC on Cooperative Catalyst. Share your ideas and blogs Post...and we welcome John Morrow, to take a moment and give a few of his own....
so Please add your links and ideas in the comments on http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/bloggermarch/
Use the tag #bloggermarch and share on facebook, Twitter, Google+, with friends and families and please just talk about education and learning this weekend...even that helps!
Will you? http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/
This is from the official site:
Save Our Schools March & National Call to Action!
It’s time to show the “powers that be” what the people of America think of their support for education and how we should be teaching our children. Please blog and share your link here in a comment. We’ll once again compile them. Please join us and share YOUR voice to put the public back in public schools! Use the twitter hashtag #bloggermarch to share your Blog for the SOS March!
So specific recommendations:
1. Federal guidelines for what a 'proficient' and 'advanced' student is for math, English, AND history, science, and art;
2. Equitable funding for all school districts so that all schools have access to the tools needed to educate all students;
3. Renewed emphasis on early-childhood education to ensure that all students are prepared to learn from their first day of kindergarten through adulthood;
In these days of fiscal hysteria, education is too often the first item on the chopping block. One needs only to look at school districts like Skokie, IL that has fired all non-core teachers from their elementary schools (visual arts, music . . . ) or here in Pennsylvania where the new Governor's budget has forced cuts in every school district that range from 20% to 50%, depending on the district. While money isn't the answer to the challenges of education, but lack of it is certainly a hinderance.
I am always amazed at statements such as this when speaking about teachers. There are many specific suggestions made here in the comments on this article and you can find specific suggestions in just about any thing written by real educators. Teachers speak and write of specific changes often, but most people brush off any of their ideas as the "status quo."
In the current political climate what we don't want is the privatization of our public schools. PUBLIC schools are the very soul of our society. It is what sets us aside from all of the other countries in the world. As one of my (legal) immigrant students said to me once - "America is the only place where you have the right to go to school. No one can tell me that I cannot get an education." And that is one of the most important parts of public education that teachers are trying to protect. With the large amount of money in education private enterprises salivate at the prospect of getting into that pile of money. The one way to destroy what we have now is to bring in private education companies. Start by keeping corporations away from our public schools.
--Equitable funding for all public school communities (including an end to economic and racial segregation)
--An end to high stakes testing for student, teacher, and school evaluation (meaning a more diverse system of evaluation and an end to punitive school closures based on test scores alone)
--Teacher, family, and community leadership in forming public education policies (including educator and civic leadership in drafting new ESEA legislation, funding that is not punitive and competitive, and an end to political and corporate control of the curriculum)
--Curriculum developed for and by local communities (especially a well-rounded curriculum that nurtures intellect and creativity).
I took this language almost verbatim from www.saveourschools.org/about/guiding-principles.
That is what I am for. That is why I will be marching on Saturday.
It isn't easy, but in a democratic, public school model with elected school boards, parents throughout history, have had a major influence in public school reforms- exactly what corporate run schools and the new privatizers don't want. The NYC mayor and his appointed board routinely marginalize and ignore parent voices in decisions.
For example, parents of children with moderate and severe disabilities were the impetus for legal mandates requiring public schools to serve their children. Without them, we would never have gotten IDEA (federal law mandating free and appropriate public ed for ALL children). Laws the corporate reformers are ignoring or have slipped in loopholes they can drive a truck through.
Check out how parents are challenging Bloomberg in NYC over co-locations of charters into public school space. These co-locations have been escalating in spite of overwhelming community opposition:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/07/our-charter-school-co-location-lawsuit.html
I recommend you research an active, real grassroots parent group- Parents Across America. PAA works for authentic and meaningful school reforms. http://parentsacrossamerica.org/
We must save our schools from White Chalk Crime, a special version of white collar crime unique to our schools, which includes the intentional trashing of dedicated teachers who "know too much." Check out my book: White Chalk Crime: The REAL Reason Schools Fail. You will learn all about this insidious takeover of our schools by greedy power mongers who pretend to care about our schools. We have mini Bernie Madoff's running our schools, who are as interested in educating our children as Bernie was interested in investing. I have been trying to expose this for longer than Harry Markopolis failed to expose Bernie Madoff.
When you ask what we are for, a simple answer is a real chance for real schools as opposed to a highly corrupted system that pushes out anyone who really cares and thus gets in their way. Those of us who were successful teachers know what a good school looks like. We also know it cannot happen when those with ulterior motives have the power to make sure we are not heard. Also, go to EndTeacherAbuse.org and learn more about what SOS means in relation to our schools.
The etymology of "education" has to do with "bringing out" the intuitive knowledge encoded within each of our DNA of each one of us. The expression "each one of us" has an inclusive meaning that falls outside designs of those whose would dismantle our education system as well as our government, by cutting off the sustenance every living thing needs to survive. In the case of institutional organizations, the sustenance is always about funding and finances. Throughout history on this beautiful planet, there have been ugly attempts all along the way to constrain, even to the extent of making education for certain people AGAINST THE LAW. Education is consistently seen, by those seeking to assert their own authoritative dominion and control over their fellow humankind, as an enemy to be defeated.
To foster INTELLIGENT governance we need to strive for the best possible PUBLIC educational system to facilitate the forward advance of civilization. I will always define "forward advance of civilization" as one that advances relentlessly toward the equality and prosperity of all humans.
2. Build some redundancy into the reforms we choose to make so that we can successfully and sustainably discover if you are right and that many teachers are better than they appear in the dysfunctional system.
3. Prioritize. Start early with pre-natal and pre-school, teach reading for comprehension and socio-emotional skills, and make schooling a team effort.
4. Stop playing their pr game and twisting words. Rather than change a name to “New Schools for New Orleans,” stop the brutality that the Recovery District uses to push out kids who are harder to educate. We need to seriously confront the charges by the Southern Poverty Law Center, as well as stop data-DRIVEN policies that create the incentives to handcuff and arrest kids rather than make your stats look worse.
You need to disabuse yourselves of the idea that American education is still democratic. It isn't.
I do not much care about schools teaching all sorts of moral and ethical issues (although how to analyze ethics may be considered a subject). I want schools to teach math, science, practical science, reading and writing of standard American English, enough history, civics and economics to be good citizens.
The drive to send everyone to college is foolish. Some 60% cannot function well in college or in those careers. Take a tip from Europeans. Accept what we cannot change - help those that cannot do well in those careers prepare for good trade jobs - stop leaving them hanging with a poorly done college prep curriculum.
Invest adequately so that we drastically reduce dropouts. They later become a bigger drag on society than if we invested properly in the first place.
Accept the reality of two working parents or single working parents and make the school facilities available for inclusive after school activities - sports, music, etc. - instead of exclusive activites for only a select few.
Accept that we are falling behind the rest of the world and teach more of the year - like the rest of the world.
Accept that there are parents who have adequate funds to send their children to non-secular programs - but, that's their problem.
Stop trying to build fake self-esteem. Confidence and self-esteem are
We at The VIVA Project think that classroom teachers hold the key to the code: we need them to help translate what happens in their classrooms into a common set of metrics that we (parents, neighbors, politicians, corporate leaders and even school administrators) can use to see, feel, understand and repeat what successful learning and effective teaching looks like. The VIVA teachers understand that "high stakes, narrow" tests have failed in that task. BUT, they are busy working together to build solutions directly from their classroom practice. We hope the thousands of passionate teachers marching in DC this weekend will join that next step work: www.vivateachers.org