This is the third of a series of pieces former U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings is writing for The Huffington Post over the next few weeks through back-to-school season on U.S. Education. Read the first piece here and the second piece here.
You would think by now I would be numb to the complaints about No Child Left Behind. After all, the law's been on the books for nearly a decade now. But here we are, debating many of the same questions, at the heart of which is the soft bigotry of low expectations. At what point will we have the courage to call out those who shamelessly believe poor and minority kids can't learn and get serious about holding the very school systems that our hard-earned tax dollars support accountable for the education of America's young people?
Let's talk history for a minute. When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was last reauthorized in 2001 as "No Child Left Behind," we asked something simple of our schools: that America's children -- regardless of their zip code -- be educated to state-determined grade level standards. Standards, which many, including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, claim are too low. We knew it would require hard work by adults in the system. We also knew that the results would be truly profound and that our kids were worth it. Making this investment in their future was the least we could do.
While the law requires schools to eventually get all children reading and ciphering on grade level, those who rail against the reasonableness of this goal fail to acknowledge provisions in the law which legitimately exclude and exempt many students from this requirement. Students who are profoundly disabled, those transitioning to the English language and those who have not been in the school long enough to be reasonably expected to master the material are not counted in the accountability system and are either not expected to meet the requirements of the law or are given extra time to do the necessary work to catch up.
As U.S. Secretary of Education, I visited often with parents -- in particular, those of minority students -- about what they wanted for their children. The hopes and dreams they held for their offspring were no different from those of white parents with whom I spoke. I never understood why some grown-ups in the school system would think otherwise.
Not only are too many school systems falling short of meeting the goals that policymakers set for them a decade ago, they're falling short of parents' expectations. Parents get that this work isn't easy but they're funding it and they believe it's possible. The fact is there are success stories all over this country. If only we could replicate what works and bring it to scale. Our biggest obstacles are the non-believers -- too many of whom populate our school systems. They need to move aside and make room for those who do believe, who have seen the statistics and possess the will, the energy and the ideas to turn things around.
Today, about half of minority students do not graduate from high school on time. If half our students were afflicted with a debilitating illness or half of the school lunches served were tainted, there would be a public outcry. So why are we not similarly outraged when some of the very people we entrust to teach kids to basic levels of knowledge don't think they're capable?
It's time we employ new strategies. Let's send our strongest teachers to the most challenged education settings. Let's allocate resources according to the most critical needs. And let's spend whatever time it takes to meet the needs of all students rather than accommodating the squeakiest wheels of union demands and those who would simply turn a blind eye to the most vulnerable in society once they have attended to the needs of their own children.
What do I think it will take to educate every child?
For starters, believing in our kids, exposing them to grown-ups who expect great things from them and are prepared to help them achieve, and policymakers who reaffirm our commitment to their academic success.
As Congress continues its work on the reauthorization of this important law, we cannot allow our policymakers to hear from those who would seek to protect the non-believers. They need to hear from all of you who believe our kids and their future is worth the investment.
Playing the blame game while calling teachers bigots for pointing out that poverty affects learning is a real class act, especially when we witness your party protecting the wealthiest in this country while continuing to cut from the rest. You may be confused of truth, but due to your columns, the rest of us have a clear picture of your lack of successful leadership.
What is shameless is a bureaucrat who cannot admit that however well-intentioned her methods might have been, they have proven to be failures. What is shameless is suggesting that anyone who doesn't buy into this technocratic wet dream of test-driven pedagogy is somehow guilty of low expectations of the working poor and people of color.
The bottom line is that your testing plan does not work. It does not measure learning, it measures test performance with all the variables that make such results questionable. It does not measure teacher performance, either, any more than the performance of cafeteria workers measures the overall health of children who eat pizza daily.
The results have proven useful in exposing the disparities between poor and wealthy school districts. But that points to a much more disturbing truth - poverty plays a large role in the success or failure of children. But the implications of that finding are too frightening to seriously consider - the inequitable society we see rapidly polarizing under corporate, conservative direction is replicated in the learning patterns of our nation's children. To deal with the latter, we have to admit we have a problem with the former (as the Finns have already figured out).
Here are the facts that the abominable and fraudulent "NCLB" doesn't address, or actually makes worse:
- Class Size Matters: The fewer the kids in a class, the better. Everyone knows it. And if it isn't true, then how come Andover and Exeter aren't moving to classes of 35?
- Family Matters: If your parents went to college---and particularly if they graduated from college---your odds of doing well in school are significantly improved.
- Income Matters: The more money you spend on a student, the better they do. Yes, money matters tremendously and when you "throw money at a problem", it almost always improves. (Just ask the millions of businesses who "throw money" at their biggest problems on a regular basis.)
When you spend just as much, per student, in the South Bronx, as you do in Greenwich, Connecticut, then these "education reformers" will have some credibility. Until then, their real agenda is usually pretty transparent.
Stop blaming our underpaid and overworked teachers and unions for our dumb flunking kids. Ask the groups who do very well in school regardless of income level--Asians, Russians, and Jews--- what their secret is. It's the parents! It's one thing to say "I want my kid to do well in school" but it's quite another to follow it up and enforce the idea at home with homework monitoring, extra reading and drilling-- talk is cheap. If we're going to have a national conversation about how to improve education, we need to collectively look in the mirror and address the #1 problem in our system: lazy effin parents. Why do educational talking heads never address this? Are they that stupid, or too cowardly to say it publicly?
What a powerful statement! So many think that poor people or black/ brown people don't care about their children's education, but that is simply not the case. Thank you for 1) asking ALL parents what they wanted for their children and 2) sharing what they said.
In a bricks and mortar school you are limited to those that are in physical proximity to the school. By definition that cannot be as good.
The Internet is also mostly asynchronous. Physical Schools are synchronous. That means that individuals have to work in harmony with the physical school. Physical schools cannot time shift. The Internet was designed for time shifting. (like what I am doing here. I post and there is no expectation of when a response will occur. The message and the response are not timed by time.
You can measure the Internet using the mathematics of fluid Dynamics. But the big difference between the Internet and other fluid systems is the Internet moves at the speed of light.
The difference is today we have the Internet. The Internet breaks the barrier of proximity! Now we can learn from anyone, anywhere, anytime!
Then you have to know if what you're learning is worth learning.
So...we're back to teachers again.
As always.
Of course you aren't serious about education... You ARE serious about ending public education. The arguments for helping poor and minority students by cutting out their meals and throwing the family out of housing but punishing teachers is crazytalk. You want to help those kids? Welfare, food stamps, integration and public housing raised 50% of blacks to middle class since 1960's when LBJ STARTED helping them. Now you strip that away, lower more into poverty, and blame "bad" teachers. Bah! I think Joe Wilson should have been talking to you.
There are a lot of ways to contribute to the leaning community. Everyone has their own rhythm, beat, cycle, and contributions to make to the community.
The role of the school is to maximize everyone's potential. The stronger the community, the stronger the individual and the other way around.
Education needs to me more like mapquest, where each individual student is given a unique learning plan based on their origination point and their desired destination point.
The Internet can facilitate this. Proximity should no longer be the glue that ties students together. Shared interests and desired knowledge should be the glue.
But I could be wrong. I just think we have these great tools in the Internet and Digital Libraries. The communities that build educational programs that maximize these tools will be the best able to succeed in a 21st knowledge economy.
Kids who've been homeschooled for any length of time and then rejoin a regular classroom are not always easy for the system to handle. They're used to simple things the average classroom can't provide, like peace and quiet in which to study, or a chair to sit in that's not being kicked arrythmically by the undisciplined children sitting behind them. They're not used to being taught by a teacher whose instructions must be geared toward the average (or worse, the lowest common denominator) rather than the particular.
Shared interests are not only not guaranteed in the normal classroom, but it's guaranteed that one will be shoved in like a sardine in a can (talk about "proximity") next to those who are being unwillingly babysat and have zero interest in the content of the instruction. Adults tend to overlook and to forget this, later, unless they work as a public school teacher.
The handcrafted product of an individualised education probably won't be welcome in the factory, nor will the process used to produce one.
I suspect many are threatened by what I say, which is why I am very careful of what I say.
Your comment about homeschooling is very interesting. It made me think about the reality that liberals might benefit from homeschooling, Why should only the religious right take advantage of home schooling. Homeschooling is about networking outside the classroom.
I completely agree with you that homeschools have access to the full Internet which gives homeschoolers a definite advantage at having access to the best information.
A physical bricks and mortar school could never keep up with the flow of information today. In fact locking kids in classroom, away from the Internet, is a bad thing. Homeschools can really take advantage of that.
The classroom has a shared interest to optimize learning environment.
Interesting point about being accepted in the factory. You are absolutely right this would not be welcome in the factory. But the factory is away. We are moving to an information economy. My approach to education is designed for the 21st century not the 18th.
I'm not a fan of standardized testing at all, but there do need to be local and state standards that each child should reach. As for the smarter students or their counterparts, just tier accordingly.
You should be there for your expertise. Some other teacher with different expertise should also be there. That is the beauty of the Internet. Because there is enough bandwidth now video is possible. And with 4G you can be mobile (both you and the students).
Does this make sense?