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Amid 'Turnaround Agenda,' Teachers, Communities Overshadowed by Corporate Reforms
The conversation about school reform in Washington is replete with big ideas--glossy proposals for “accountability,” putting the “students first,” fixing “broken” schools, all in hopes of making America “competitive” again.
Yet our schools are poorer than ever, and in many communities, the child poverty has deepened while test scores have stagnated. The experts leading the education reform debate have failed to draw a simple equation: a system with adequate resources does better than one without.
A boy protesting proposed budget cuts to education that threaten the jobs of more than 26,500 teachers in California, at the Berkeley Unified School District building, March 13, 2009. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The gap in the logic has widened as state governments press school districts to conform to new standards--or else. States are gunning for a competitive grant fund known as “Race to the Top,” which the White House dangles as an incentive to restructure school systems. This hyped-up free-market reform rhetoric seeped into President Obama’s suggestion to “offer schools a deal” in his State of the Union address.
The No Child Left Behind corporate-style reform template emphasizes tests and evaluations, purging bad teachers, and shuttering failing schools.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is pressuring teachers’ unions to agree to major reforms so the state can tap into a Race to the Top grant. At issue are efforts to impose evaluation schemes that might make teachers’ jobs contingent on potentially misleading or incomplete data. A Washington Post editorial praised Cuomo for standing up to the supposed obstructionism of unions to defend childrens' civil rights.
In recent remarks commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Cuomo spoke of his increasing intolerance for a school system that regularly fails so many of its students. “Our schools are not an employment program,” he said, according to a report in the New York Times.
Got that? Organized labor equals failing students. Because unions may resist the shedding of teachers who don’t conform to the standard model of constant testing and reducing education to a set of data spreadsheets. And why should teachers feel so entitled to job security when children’s grades are at stake?
That's the ideology of reformers who see radical restructuring, together with charter schools, as liberation from burdensome bureaucracy. Except this solution involves swapping an old bureaucracy for a new one: one that's more efficient at homogenizing public education and blaming schools for the deep inequalities that they often merely symptomize.
This theory doesn’t click with many students and teachers around the country, though. For example, though struggling communities in New York City should have the most at stake in the debate on school quality, somehow, they don't want to see their "underperforming" schools shuttered. At a rally against the threatened closure of M.S. 103 in the Bronx, the Times reported:
[T]he proposed closures are almost always protested by parents and teachers. Monique Small, recording secretary of the Parent Teacher Association, called M.S. 103 “a family.”
“You cannot close down a family,” Ms. Small said. “You cannot close down a home.”
While Mayor Michael Bloomberg also advocates more rigid evaluations, the city seeks to leverage federal “School Improvement Grants” to push a “turnaround” agenda for troubled schools. This process, according to Gotham Schools, enables authorities to:
close 33 schools and reopen them immediately, with new names and identification numbers. Then a team of educators selected for the ‘new’ school would hire a new staff with the union’s input, pulling half of the new teachers from the original school’s roster.
In sum, "turnaround" means the power to turn over a big chunk of the staff. Advocates say such shock therapy sinks low-income communities of color deeper into the social and economic segregation that leads to poor educational outcomes in the first place.
In Hawaii, educators have defied the Race to the Top model in a critical contract vote, rejecting a deal between union leaders and the state that would have moved toward performance-based pay schemes and tighter evaluations.
The symbolism of the action isn’t merely a matter of contracts and union politics. Rank-and-file teachers chose not to buy into Washington’s “incentive,” and demanded the respect due to public servants who understand education better than your average politician. A recent informal union poll of Hawaii teachers revealed that about two thirds worked another job for extra income--reflecting a broader trend of teachers “moonlighting” outside the classroom.
In their zeal to restructure schools, politicians seem to willfully ignore the obvious: a school that doesn’t have the resources to succeed, won’t.
Bruce Baker, a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, told In These Times:
[I]t's much easier to point blame at those working within the system--like teachers--than to actually raise the revenues to provide the resources necessary to really improve the system--to pay sufficient wages to attract and retain top college graduates and to provide the working conditions that would make teaching more appealing--including smaller total student loads... and higher quality infrastructure, materials, supplies, equipment and other supports.
As for the underachieving teachers targeted by politicians, Stan Karp at Rethinking Schools points out that, compared to conventional evaluation systems, assessment programs that empower teachers go further to improve teaching quality. The key is “a school-wide sense of accountability and collective purpose”--in other words, treating teachers as democratic stakeholders, not preprogrammed robots.
But that’s not the kind of education system that corporate reformers envision, because it fosters values that challenge the free-market mentality they champion. Education activist Jim Horn told ITT:
The reason we have an achievement gap is because we have so many kids living in poverty. So raising standards is very cheap... You can raise standards and it won't cost you a nickel. To do something about poverty, however, is going to be a costly endeavor. But doing something about poverty is the only way to ever change the low performance by children in school.... Until that changes, the rest of it is going to be continuing to blame schools for something that schools are not responsible for and can never fix.
The real test facing public education today hinges on questions of social justice. But it’s easier and cheaper for politicians to ask the wrong questions, sell the wrong answers, and cheat the system they claim to fix.
48 Comments so far
Show All"Got that? Organized labor equals failing students. Because unions may resist the shedding of teachers who don’t conform to the standard model of constant testing and reducing education to a set of data spreadsheets."
Yes, the whole 'education reform' movement is all about attacking public unions and deflecting attention from other failures of society, most especially poverty.
It's worth pointing out however that there is ZERO proof that unionization leads to the retention of bad teachers.
1) In the rest of the industrialized world, where teachers and really everyone is treated better than our workers, and students do better in most subjects across the board, pretty much all of the public school teachers are unionized. Somehow in order to swallow this garbage argument we have to believe in an American exceptionalism in which incredibly the US would be the only country in the world in which unionized teachers ruin schools. People who want to "catch up to" European schools would do well to remember that.
More important:
2) THERE IS NO EVIDENCE IN THIS COUNTRY THAT UNIONS ARE KEEPING BAD TEACHERS EMPLOYED:
"Maher made a huge deal of the fact that, because of the union’s protective shield, less than 1% of California’s tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired. Although this ratio clearly outraged him (he appeared visibly upset by it), had he taken five minutes to research the subject, he’d have realized that this figure represents the national average—with or without unions.
In Georgia, where 92.5% of the teachers are non-union, only 0.5% of tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired. In South Carolina, where 100% of the teachers are non-union, it’s 0.32%. And in North Carolina, where 97.7% are non-union, a miniscule .03% of tenured/post-probationary teachers get fired—the exact same percentage as California.
An even more startling comparison: In California, with its “powerful” teachers’ union, school administrators fire, on average, 6.91% of its probationary teachers. In non-union North Carolina, that figure is only 1.38%. California is actually tougher on prospective candidates."
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/03/20/the-myth-of-the-quot-powerful-quot-teachers-union/
These teacher-trashing liars are floating a notion that isn't even accurate.
The teacher quality issue is just one of many red herrings the corporations (and the politicians they own) are using to transfer resources OUT OF "domestic programs" like education, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid (to name just a few) and IN TO the hands of the banksters and their military industrial complex.
The corporations (and the politicians they own) have no intention of improving education or reducing and any deficits. There motives are soley to transfer wealth from the 99% to the 1%.
Education is not what it is cracked up to be. My friends, neighbors, and 90 whatever percent of all the people I've met are products of the u.s. educational system. These are people who champion war, deny climate disruption, deny evolution, and believe steel framed buildings can fall straight down. Go figure.
"and believe steel framed buildings can fall straight down"
What other direction would you expect things to fall? Did you get your physics education from Warner Bros. cartoons?
I've said it before and I'll say it again - for people who claim not to believe in hijacking, the 9/11 morons manage to hijack any and every damn thread on the internet, no matter how unrelated to their pet topic (about which, conveniently, absolutely nothing can be done - one moans on drive-by internet posts and one's duty is complete).
"These are people who champion war, deny climate disruption, deny evolution..."
Let's do a little thought experiment Einstein, which group of people do you imagine is more likely to deny evolution and climate change:
a) public school students
b) homeschooled students, a group led in this country by right wing religious lunatics
Think carefully and show your work. Could you have somehow missed over the past few decades that people have been pulling children from the schools BECAUSE THEY TEACH EVOLUTIONARY THEORY?
"My friends, neighbors, and 90 whatever percent of all the people I've met are products of the u.s. educational system."
That's all one system, is it? Have you considered maybe your friends are idiots connected to the fact they are YOUR friends? MY friends are quite smart.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
You mean Ron Paul?
Such nonsense. So would you have us believe that without public education there would be fewer people who would "champion war, deny climate disruption, deny evolution."
You are arguing for a stronger system of public education here, ironically, without realizing that you are.
fake leftist,
Well, aren't you the intellectual standout?
Here is a test:
Take a torch to the bottom of a steel light pole.
When the steel heats to structural fatigue, will it fall straight down?
Feel free to consult your friends.
I know people that home school and they are not right wing, nor religious zealots. Their kids learn how to learn. By the time the kids are in their teens, the parents simply supply the books, and discuss later. It is my observation that the kids become independent critical thinkers.
"By the time the kids are in their teens, the parents simply supply the books, and discuss later. It is my observation that the kids become independent critical thinkers."
So they give their kids a book about about a foreign language and a book about calculus and a book about physics, and that's how they "learn", is it? Do you have any conception of how ignorant you sound?
I'M SICK OF RIGHT WING ASSES DEVALUING THE TEACHING PROFESSION SO MUCH THAT YOU THINK ANY FOOL WHO DIDN'T USE BIRTH CONTROL CAN DO THE JOB OF EVERY TEACHER IN THE BUILDING. On behalf of the working class kids who need a series of teachers to have any chance at all in life, SCREW YOU!
I see that Operation Distract Attention Away from Real Problems is in full force over at 9/11 Nutjob HQ. What's your action plan for dealing with The Unstoppable Conspiracy? Does it involve anything beyond hijacking unrelated threads on websites dedicated to actual problems?
"Take a torch to the bottom of a steel light pole.
When the steel heats to structural fatigue, will it fall straight down?"
OK, I'll play your stupid little game you concern troll moron. You might have noticed that the Twin Towers covered a 43,560 square ft footprint AND SHOULD NOT BE COMPARED TO A LIGHT POLE SLOWLY SAWED OFF AT THE BOTTOM. The physics of a light pole falling once cut at the bottom and a building collapsing from the top-down are - how to put it so even you might understand? - SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT. The rubble covered a rather larger area than that, in point of fact flaming parts landed on WTC 7, which caused that fire, something you chuckleheads find to be a "mystery."
Are you expressing surprise that when much of the rubble from a building 208 ft on a side falls, much of it falls into that gigantic footprint, while some doesn't?
If this does shock you, perhaps you were homeschooled. You don't even seem capable of figuring out how to reply to a specific comment.
But by all means continue your mission of distracting any and all attention from the real attacks on the public schools.
So are you arguing for the abolition of publicly funded education?
Your arguments are typical far right crap. You throw out some radical sounding critiques but your solution is reactionary.
Go back top rense.com, you right wing POS!
How in the world did you come to that conclusion?
I'm all for education. The problem lies with the fact that the u.s.'s educational system has made this herd. They don't educate, they indoctrinate, teach submission and obedience, use fear as a tool. Look around. Who is standing in lines at McDonalds? Where are all the cars parked Saturday afternoon? Sunday mornings? then Sunday afternoons?
Again and again and again this right wing meme, repeated on THREE threads on this site in the past week:
1) Public schools are not competent to teach anything
yet somehow
2) Public schools are highly efficient indoctrination machines!
Not even any internal logic.
The solution is not further privatization. US political economics dictate that
Privatization = corporatization
So let's keep it simple. Are you advocating
1. Abolition of public funding of education - No tax dollars for any schools.
2. Taking funding from public schools and transfering them to private schools
3. Or maybe you want to increase spending but funnel that increase to private schools?
You certainly don't appear to be advocating more $$ for public schoools.
The article attacking the corporatization of primary and secondary public education. Let's get real - Are you for that or against it? No fair hiding behind wierdly elitist "sheeple" propaganda. Your disdain simply distracts from the issue and is in any case, classist and aimed at the victims of the crisis.
You and the other Rense-heads on this sight need to understand that you are spouting hateful, schizoid, and ultimately plutocracy supporting propaganda, and that is no substitute for actually trying to come to grips with the fact that the US is trashing what's left of its public education system, particularly in non-wealthy communities
Corporatization of the schools will ultimately increase the gaping class and racial disparities that exist in US education. So stop f-cking about with hateful propaganda Bucky, and let's hear what you're proposing.
Sh-t or get off the pot, Buck.
If it's for textbooks approved by Texas, then shut the valve off tight and find a better way. Look at the product.
If I get to pick the curriculum, then unleash the funds.
Good article, gal! Keep after the jerks. We're behind you.
"If I get to pick the curriculum, then unleash the funds."
So unless you dictate curriculum, you oppose public funding. Is that an attempt at humor?
If not then you are for all intents and purposes opposed to public funding of education.
Go back to rense.com. I think you missed your daily dose of anti-social.
..
You're half way there. You think it absurd that I would get to pick the curriculum, but evidently trust putting it in the hands of strangers who work for a government that is corrupt through and through having been under the influence of capital from before public education's inception. Again, look at the product of the assembly line school system.
Round one: the bell rings. "Be quiet and get in line."
Round two: "Stand and say the pledge"
Round three: "Sit down and shut up."
Money well spent.
"trust putting it in the hands of strangers"
Eh? Number one YOU are a stranger for everyone reading this. How could you not understand that? Number two ONCE AGAIN you wallow in your ignorance and denigrate people who've spent careers as education professionals - ones who make a lot less money than they could have in the private sector mind you - as a mere random collection of "strangers," as if the people writing biology curriculum were awarded their jobs in a lottery. (This is incidentally EXACTLY the homeschool method of picking teachers - if a sperm randomly encounters an egg, the owners of said cells were just picked to teach science, math and languages - "Brilliant!")
Are you capable of putting togther a four-year pre-calc curriculum? Are you capable of of teaching a chemistry class, a real one that prepares kids for college if that's what they want to do? Neither are the VAST MAJORITY of Americans.
"under the influence of capital from before public education's inception"
Public education in this country dates back to Massachusetts long before it was a state. It's long been recognized as a social good... except by right wing lunatics.
In any event, this article is about FOR PROFIT companies taking over from public education, using taxpayer funds. Previously you praised FOR PROFIT curriculum providers (who one might point out are also the dreaded "strangers") and you have nothing negative to say about FOR PROFIT schools. The books that your idiot homeschool friends are handing to their kids, no doubt to be used as pricey paperweights, are from FOR PROFIT publishers, written by those creepy "strangers" again.
YOU ARE THE ONE SUPPORTING CAPITALISM IN EDUCATION. Public schools don't have a profit motive, dumabass.
I didn't have to say the pledge in public school. You know what else? My wife teaches in a public school AND SHE DOESN'T EITHER, and she's told her kids it's optional. Don't assume that every teacher is taking commands from the Pentagon. If we checked MOST 'homeschool' homes today, not only would you get a buttload of patriotic crap, but you'd see the bible being used as a science text.
You are complete and total idiot, spewing harmful nonsense from your scrambled worldview. The more you type, the deeper a hole you dig yourself. You're a great example of someone who should not be allowed total control of the education of a young mind.
Ever supervised 30 to 40 kids by yourself Bucky? I doubt it.
So you think capitalism would be better for the masses if it ditched all support for public education? Thanks for making me laugh Buck.
So where do I get to once I'm fully aware of your esoteric educational doctrine, Bucky?
Moses riding a dinosaur across the Sinai?
Hating homos as curriculum?
The Brotherhood of Thule?
If you are trying to make a case regarding your teaching ability, then you are failing miserably. Somehow you ended up in the desert hating people's sexuality. If you represent the quality of public educators, then the system is clearly dysfunctional.
Capitalism better for the masses? Good grief.
Try reading a post before you respond to it. Twice you misrepresented the other poster's comments, claiming that they said the exact opposite of what they did in fact say.
There was nothing in dreamjoehill's post that can be construed as "hating people's sexuality" nor does he say that Capitalism is better for the masses.
By the way, the fight for GLBT equality is not about "people's sexuality."
That is what you learned in public schools? To stand in line at McDonald's? Where to park your car on the weekend?
Before public education only the wealthy went to school, and people stood in lines for the snake oil medicine wagon and parked their horses outside the taverns on weekends. And - they could not read.
Build a structure with paper plates, with paper cups between each plate forming a cylindrical structure. Now drop a weight on top of that structure - or pull out one of the paper cups. Let is know "which way it falls." Feel free to try it at home and get your friend's help.
The fact that the official report is false does not mean that any particular alternative theory is therefore true. That is illogical. Arguing that point of view serves to maintain the cover-up and makes it less likely that we will ever learn the truth.
Thanks for clearing that up. I didn't know that the WTC buildings where made of cardboard and had an asteroid dropped straight down on them.
This is a good example of the u.s. educational system.
LOL. The WTC buildings were not a "steel light pole," either. That is the point.
"No, no, the WTC buildings WERE made of cardboard, and the government DID steer an asteroid and land it on the buildings! Anyone questioning that is an enemy of the truth and a dupe who believes in the official version and may be a secret agent of the government!" LOL.
Just because the cat did not jump over the moon, and the dish did not run away with the spoon, that does not mean that the dog jumped over the moon and the dish ran away with the fork.
Redacted.
Sorry, Two Americas, I severely misread the content and intent of your post.
I will add that dropping a weight on the plates isn't very accurate either - once the structure of the buildings failed *their own* potential energy brought them down.
Understood. I am not trying to come up with an accurate explanation. My point is that just because the official version is absurd, that does not then mean that any absurd alternative theory we come up with is therefore valid.
Focusing on one particular event or phenomenon - the creation of the Fed, going off the gold standard, establishment of corporate personhood, Civil Rights legislation, the creation of the UN, the assassination of JFK, illegal immigration, Jews controlling the media, fluoridation of the water, 911, the 2000 election - as the cause for "the fall of America," with "America" to be viewed as noble and virtuous before that event, and presented as the all-encompassing explanation for all that has gone wrong, serves the purpose of distracting people from the political reality and the history of the country.
Suggest that genocide against the indigenous peoples, the institution of slavery and the rape, horrific abuse and vicious oppression of the slaves, or the disenfranchisement of women, people of color, and the working class in general, or the brutal suppression of organized Labor, or the purging and persecution of the political Left are all more significant and important phenomenon for understanding the political and economic history and current reality of the United States, or suggest that Capitalism is the cause of our misery, and indignant howls of opposition and denial immediately are heard.
lefty is feeling testy this morning for sure - personal rancor over expressing an opinion seems to be a growing phenomena these days
it is characteristic of a failing country where everyone is under stress
the personal attacks are not helpful and scorn is not conducive to discussion, as the gop primary makes so clear
so chill out a bit lefty
unions often get described in the right wing corporate media as "strong" but that is just nwo propaganda
otherwise, why do you think these "powerful" unions have been letting themselves get bitch slapped for the last 30 years
dumbing down has been the term to describe the downward spiral of amerikan education since the rockefellers took it over around the turn of the last century
John Talor Galt, who is an incredible intellectual, has a new book The Underground History of American Education
some noted reviews:
"
When have you seen notices like these for AN EDUCATION BOOK?
"A work of breathtaking scholarship and encyclopedic scope."
-Adam Robinson, Co-founder, The Princeton Review,
author, What Smart Students Should Know
"Gatto's voice is strong and unique. I loved this book!"
-Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul
"Gatto is a singular antidote to stale convention."
-David Guterson, Snow Falling On Cedars
"I give this book a standing ovation!"
-Christiane Northrup, Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
"Brilliant Work!"
-Laissez Faire Books
"Your Ideas Are Splendid!"
-Christopher Lasch"
"I read this book after a lifetime of public schooling- from kindergarten to graduate school. In fact, I had trained to be a teacher myself at one point. When I found this book I literally could not put it down. Gatto was stating everything that I had intuitively known was wrong with the American public school system all along in amazing encyclopedic detail. I truly felt like I was reading a secret history that I was never supposed to find out about. I have yet to find a flaw or inaccuracy in any of what he points out- it all has the loud ring of Truth.
The major premise here is that American schooling has been dumbed down to provide mindless, loyal workers who cannot think for themselves."
http://www.amazon.com/Underground-History-American-Education/dp/B000KF42JK
here's a link to a grade 8 civics test - try it and see if you can pass
http://www.rense.com/general75/pass.htm
you'll see what i mean
'
as geeorge carlin said:
""The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else."
"But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.
"You know what they want? Obedient workers people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club."
or from the evil j d rockefeller:
"I don't want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers." John D. Rockefeller
The Rockefeller's founded the National Education Association.
nuff said
That's not 'personal rancor', this person decided to hijack the thread with an unrelated agenda and an attack on teachers.
"dumbing down has been the term to describe the downward spiral of amerikan education"
No, that's not at all true - especially in better financed districts standards have been raised apace. Higher math is being taught, more and harder science is taught, more foreign languages are taught. A higher % of people are expected to complete high school than ever before. Maybe you could check your facts before trashing the schools on a thread about how the schools are being trashed.
One might add that Carlin (who didn't complete high school himself - left at 15... and was attending Catholic school in any event - and this was in the 1950s - this is your expert source for public education in 2012, good job!) was complaining in that clip about how poor kids' schools are not properly funded, he wasn't advocating getting rid of them. One might also add that dropping out of school led Carlin to join the Air Force; is that the result you were hoping for for working class kids, or..?
so you are reduced to attacking the late great george carlin - a man who was so much smarter than you with life learning, another personal attack on a dead man - good stuff
i notice you didn't attack the substance of his statement
plus i never claimed he was an expert in education either bub, he's just explaining why the education system sucks
your venom is spilling over all over the place
your critical thinking is just critical - not much thinking - typical for a rockefeller grad i might add
maybe you are frustrated with your lack of knowledge - you don't "get it" do ya
"i never claimed he was an expert in education"
That was your citation for the state of public education - a comedian who dropped out of Catholic high school over 50 years ago. I love George Carlin but you might have noticed that I've been citing articles and stats pertaining to public education from this decade.
You've also decided based in NOTHING that Carlin was against funding schools well and paying public school teachers properly, when in fact the opposite is true. You're the one using a dead man as a sockpuppet, and poorly.
Don't come into a thread about public education being bashed, and start bashing public education yourself, and then start crying that I'm being rude when you get your ass handed to you. By all means please continue Operation Distraction from the Real Issues.
No one is "attacking" George Carlin. You are misusing him to promote an agenda that he strongly opposed.
The "education system sucks" because of too much influence from those holding your point of view, not because of too little of that.
care to dance med? thank you for the info on the book
love to...
Whats needed is a society of workers who can think intelligently -&- thinkers who work meaningfully [not just philosophize]. IMO: the Late George Carlin was basically on the money w his screed about the state of education USA- which is not only public schools,but also includes college & the last but not least the main-stream 'News' & Media.
As one who has attended & taught in inner-city public schools [& who has school-aged children]- make No mistake about it- There is quite a bit of regimentation toward conformity to the status-quo going on in public education & some inner-city schools do have a myriad of problems - much of which are reflections of the over-all environment surrounding these schools- as well as official neglect. In principle I'm not against private schools or even home-schooling [if the parents are serious about it & skilled enough to make it work to their kids advantage]. My biggest beef w NCLB / RTTT is that it won't truly address most if any of these issues because it is fake reform [IE: Deform] by non-educators who generally don't even allow their kids to attend inner-city public schools [or any other public school]- even those under their own jurisdiction. Its all about leveraging Corp control of public-assets for private profit & driving down the wage-scale. That's why these deformers are de-professionalizing teaching & attack teachers unions.
On a somewhat different note - I read a recent piece on education where the author made some interesting points - but somewhat slammed the idea of vocational training, as only fit to keep the wheels of Corporations turning. Well I some-what dis-agree- First of all Corps have been shipping the manufacturing base & its jobs over-seas @ 1/4th - 1/40 of the US' pay-scale- for the past 3.5 decades. 2nd: People who are good at trades skills are often able to go into Biz for themselves- potentially leading to greater flexibility & independence from Corps.
Oops! Oh my.
You said "John Galt" when you meant John Taylor Gatto.
I nominate that remark for the best Freudian slip of all time award.
Anyway, that is just an aside. Please go on and explain to us why public education needs to be dismantled. Maybe you can further enlighten us as to the ben4efits of privatizing everything. You know, so we can be free.
Carlin's remarks in no way support your thesis.
John Galt - a fictional character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged.
John Taylor Gatto - a retired American school teacher with nearly 30 years experience in the classroom, and author of several books on education.
Medmed, you're facts are wrong regarding the NEA. The NEA was founded in 1857 (see Wikipedia) long before Standard Oil (1870) and when John D Rockefeller was 18 years old.
You have a lot of criticism of the public schools but no suggestions for improvement. Do you even support publicly funded education in the US or are you a reactionary asshole?!
Wow. Nice catch, not that the argument had any credibility to begin with, but pegging the years really seals the deal. Over on another thread a commenter had John Hinckley Jr and George W Bush as college drinking buddies, even though one graduated 6 years before the other started school and one went to Yale and the other Texas Tech. On top of this he had Ed Gein (who never left Wisconsin and lived without electricity) hanging out with the multi-millionaire Bushes in Texas (before George W was 10 no less)!
These people, is in this thread, are declared to be better people to "teach" history than a certified teacher!
Thanks.
Hinkley and Bush Family social ties are not so easily dismissed. The best treatment of this matter is at:
http://www.nathanielblumberg.com/bush.htm
Wow, that's nuts! I'd not heard that stuff before. Assuming all the stated facts are correct, it looks like Neil Bush was friends with John Hinckley Jr's brother, which got twisted into George W and John himself having been college buddies.
As both a former student & teacher in Public Schools - I do Have some specific recommendations for real school reform:
- Install in school formal programs dealing w the topics of Morals, Ethics & Proper Respect.
- If class size is more than 12 -15 students there should be 2 trained / authorized adults [the main teacher -&- a sub, trainee, parent teachers’ aid, hall monitor, etc] If more than 25 – 30 there should be 3 such adults, etc [though classes w over 25 students should be avoided as much as possible].
- For grades 7 – 12 [possibly even 5 – 12]- mainly separate classes for girls & boys. Separate schools are probably infeasible - but separate classes for boys & girls at that age, would exist on separate floors &/or wings [sections] of school buildings. Probable Exceptions: Lunch, Assembly, Library, Music, Art. – For the Boys’ classes- at least one of the assigned adults [preferably the main teacher] would be a man; for the girls’ classes- at least one of the assigned adults [preferably the main teacher] would be a woman [shouldn’t be a problem since the teaching profession is currently saturated w women].
- In high & Jr high-school [for the most part] instead of having students rotating between classes of different subjects, the teachers of those subjects should rotate [w one of the assigned adults staying w that particular class continually thru the day]. Probable Exceptions: Phys Ed [IE: Gym], Science/Computer Labs, Library, Music/Arts, Lunch.
- Put Phys Ed back in schools – Kick junk food & pop vending machines out schools. This situation has helped exacerbate the obesity epidemic amongst school age kids.
- Lunch periods should be more than the standard 20min allotted. All regular jobs have at least 30min & often up to 1hr allotted for lunch. Most school periods last 40-45mins & even up to 1hr. Why is only 20min allotted for school lunch – 5-10min of which is used going back & forth to the cafeteria & waiting to be served?? Lunch periods should be at least 30min & even the 40-45min of the standard class period- for kids to enjoy their meal.
[NOTE: The whole lunch routine is regimented like a military &/or prison mess-hall. Also many of the foods in the schools are rejects from the market place – which are then ‘dumped’ in schools. The milk lobby has used its political clout to influence the Dept of ED to mandate milk in schools, even though many/most Black & Brown children are lactose intolerant.]
- Schools should have on staff at least 1 bona-fide nutritionist to regular check / test / review school cafeteria menus, & snack items served in school vending machines for appropriate nutritional value, content, & balance.
- Schools gardens [primarily for more so than for flower – organic as much as possible] should be encouraged in both urban as well as rural schools [urban students need to know something about growing food].
- Bring trade skill courses back to high-schools. All knowledge isn’t theoretical book knowledge. Students should understand the importance of being able to build / make &/or do practical things w their hands.
- Stop over-emphasizing standardized testing. Put them in proper perspective. This has too often led to ‘teaching to the test’ instead of teaching useful knowledge & concepts- [Further commentary on Standardized Testing: 1- They have been shown to be biased against students from Black, brown, poor &/or working class back-grounds... 2- The main testing programs are privately run / controlled / owned by the likes of Bill Bennett- Reagan's neo-CON ex-Sec of ED- who once basically equated Black youths w CRIMINALITY, & Mike Milken a CONVICTED Wall St BANKSTER!!! 3- I've taken dozens of standardized test in my life -&- have helped administer some as a teacher. IMO: These tests are not solely {or even primarily} designed to test knowledge & ability to think & evaluate, &/or aptitude. They are also designed to test students’ reaction & ability to perform under pressure {IE: artificially induced - their importance is always hyped, they’re always strictly regimented, they’re always timed, etc}. This type of pressure may be appropriate for college, military / police academies, certain type of job training, etc; but NOT for most young school age children. Further the way these test are administered it seems that they’re designed to train children early on to almost robotically obey the commands {demands} of so-called ‘authority figures’ – EVEN IF UNKNOWN.].
- Heads of the major school districts should be educational professionals w proper educator’s credentials & actual teaching experience. Those w business back-grounds can play appropriate roles in other more appropriate positions.
- More appropriate & meaningful parental involvement- Beyond PTAs & schools notices to parents. IE: [w proper training & screening] semi-volunteer positions as- parent teachers aids, hall monitors, in after-school programs for tutoring & life mentoring, lunch-room staff, maintenance staff- w proper compensation. [This should have been implemented during Pres Clinton’s so-called Welfare ‘Reform’- IE: Properly trained & screened so-called ‘welfare’ mothers could have been directed toward Schools as an alternative to working at McDonalds for work-fare programs. This also could have helped w the day-care problem faced by many work-fare mothers – because most schools either have or could easily implement pre-school/day-care programs.]
Further Commentary on the aboves:
Note that All ideas that seem good on paper & in theory – may not be so in practice. IE: In the IT Hi Tech age of: IBM, Dell, HP/Compaq, MicroSoft, Mac / Apple, & Oracle – there has been a drive to so-call 'integrate' computer technology into the classroom. But this may not Always be a such good idea. I've witnessed situations where primary schools outlined curriculums for IT in the classroom for all grades including pre-school, kindergarten, 1st & 2nd Grades. But how practical is it to have youngsters- pre-schoolers thru 1st [& even 2nd] grade, regularly attending computer courses as part of such a curriculum? Nearly all pre-schoolers & kindergarteners are just learning their ABCs & 123s – yet the computer keyboard assumes that the operator has mastered this. Further even 1st & 2nd graders are still learning spelling & basic vocabulary, grammar & sentence structure. And the standard Key-board is Qwerty based [rather than arranged in ABC order]- such that it is supposed to be manipulated via the ‘home-row keys, which would give even many 3rd graders some difficulty in manipulating it correctly – because their hands are too small to operate the standard key-board properly from its ‘home-row keys’. And then there's fact that while in these early grades they are just mastering ABC order- yet most key-boards are in Qwerty order. From these facts one can logically conclude that formalized computer classes probably shouldn’t begin till 3rd [or even 4th] grade- though models & pictures of computers can be introduced even in pre-school [Just as models & pictures of power-tools, cars & planes are – but no one thinks it’s a good idea to let pre-schoolers & kindergarteners to even turn-on a power-tool, car or plane – let alone operate them.].
Public education is one thing we as a society DID set on the right path right for a good while. It was tangential with the social awareness that inclusion benefits everyone - like some economic policies that created substantial vibrancy unfortunately tied to notions of the extractive economic development model. The economic[alization] model of exceptionalism is now extruding extreme myopia
These challenge and more often than not disprove the acquisitive narcissistic aspects of 'exceptionalism' born of legacies of dehumanization despite what infantilized and infantilizing perspectives of privilege throw at it. Lets not fall into doing it to ourselves. That is precisely the trap the mindset depends on.
"Public education is one thing we as a society DID set on the right path right for a good while."
Yes it did - in fact large districts in cities have been victimized by success of the schools in previous generations. People who did very well following public school educations unfortunately largely moved their tax base to the suburbs.
The main two messages sent by this article are severely misguiding: That all the important activity around education is happening in the establishment, and that mo munny for po people is the answer to fixing their childrens' po performance in school. Very very misleading. The facts are precisely the opposite. The important activity surrounding education is the people's independent initiatives to take education into their own hands and educate the children in the real life environments of the local communities, where the organic curriculum reflects the people's true better interests. And the answer to poor childrens' dismal performance is the very same: Shifting our exchange/association toward our local communities will not bring mo munny in from das kapitalists, but will nurture the huge potential of every individual by giving them real recognition and opportunity as human beings, to be human beings, instead of slave cogs in the elites' machines. Too bad the author has chosen the Path of the Shadow: Demok centrist triangulation, instead of the Path of the Sun: universal solidarity, enlightenment, equity and justice.
"The important activity surrounding education is the people's independent initiatives to take education into their own hands and educate the children in the real life environments of the local communities,"
What in hell does that mean?
1) 75% of Americans have no college education and never encountered college prep courses in school, They have ZERO skill set to prepare their children for anything beyond menial labor. That's the national average, however...
2) ... educational attainment for PARENTS is LOWER than average. In point of fact some people drop out when they get pregnant. These are the people you want to lead education? Brilliant.
3) How did we get to the point where you devalue teaching as a skill to the point that no one needs any sort of background in it to do it? You seem to be saying that people who never encountered subjects and never taught can do a better job than professional teachers.
4) How insulting that you've bought into the extremist right wing BS line that school isn't "real life." What isn't real about it? Is the process of learning unreal, is the social mixture of various ethniticies working with each other daily unreal, is the exposure to different people and new ideas unreal? Are teachers' professions unreal? Is the work they do of so little value to you that you find it not to be "real"?
What's "real" to you - Wal-Mart and McDonalds, selling pot, collecting unemployment, being abused alone and hungry in a hopeless home? Strip clubs? Strip mining? Hunger? For a lot of kids this is "the community."
While we're at it, why not let "the community" do surgery and let "the community" put out refinery fires. Why should we be paying fancy-schmancy doctors and firemen with their high-fallutin' "education" and "experience" do that work, eh?
"mo munny for po people is the answer to fixing their childrens' po performance in school"
That's exactly what happens - richer districts have more resources which makes for better educational outcomes. For starters richer districts can afford smaller class sizes, so DO NOT TELL US THAT MONEY DOESN'T MATTER. Most important of course is that stable home lives with stable and productive parents are the #1 determinant of school success for the child. Poverty leads to unstable home lives. Poverty is a major issue here, and YES darn it redistribution of wealth would go a long way to help education.
I swear half the commenters on this site would be right at home in the Fox News chats. You can bash teachers and public schools all day long.
I have no idea how you reconcile your "mo munny for po people" remarks with "the Path of the Sun: universal solidarity, enlightenment, equity and justice."
I also have no idea how can imagine this author to be promoting "centrist triangulation."
Beleaguered, under-financed and struggling public schools are hardly "the establishment."
It is the lack of adequate public education that turns people into slave cogs in the elites' machines. You suggest that the opposite is true.
Thanks for that powerful rebuttal.
On a gut level, Rtdrury's classist and racist rant is noxious and repellent. It seems that the crazy fascists are out in force on this thread.
The US capitalist system has created impoverished communities and underfunded education, The thinly disgised fascists here in this thread think that now we can just let each community rely on its own "indigenous" resources or some such bullshit which translates to "I got mine & the rest of you can just eat whatever shit is leftover."
The Path of the Sun, my ass, More like the Path of the Sty