Is policy the ruination of public education?
In researching themes for the AJC panel on education next week, I have been reading a lot of Richard Elmore’s stuff. I have heard Elmore, the Gregory R. Anrig Professor of Educational Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, at two conferences and had a long sit-down session with him when he was in Atlanta to a few years ago. Since then, I try to read all of his commentary.
He wrote a post for the Harvard Graduation School of Education blog that I found fascinating and pertinent to the panel next week.
(The post was itself an excerpt of a longer piece for the Harvard Education Letter, which you ought to read if you have the time and which is now part of an essay collection, “I Used to Think . . . And Now I Think . . .Twenty Leading Educators Reflect on the Work of School Reform.”)
Here is a portion of the blog:
I used to think that policy was the solution. And now I think that policy is the problem. I am a child of the 1960s — the New Frontier, the Great Society, the civil rights struggles, and the reframing of the role of the federal government in the education sector. I began my career working as a legislative affairs specialist at the cabinet level in a federal agency. I am the product of a public policy program. I taught for 11 years at a public policy school. And I have chaired the Consortium of Policy Research in Education, an association of universities engaged in research on state and local education policy.
Now I have to work hard not to show my active discomfort when graduate students come to me and say, as they often do, “I have worked in schools for a few years, and now I am ready to start to shape policy.” Every fiber of my being wants to say, “Use your time in graduate school to become a better practitioner and get back into schools as quickly as possible. You will have a much more profound effect on the education sector working in schools than you will ever have as a policy actor.”
What caused this shift? Every day, as I work with teachers and administrators in schools, I see the effects of a policy system that has run amok. There is no political discipline among elected officials and their advisers. To policy makers, every idea about what schools should be doing is as credible as every other idea, and any new idea that can command a political constituency can be used as an excuse for telling schools to do something.
Elected officials—legislators, governors, mayors, school board members—generate electoral credit by initiating new ideas, not by making the kind of steady investments in people that are required to make the educator sector more effective. The result is an education sector that is overwhelmed with policy, conditioned to respond to the immediate demands of whoever controls the political agenda, and not invested in the long-term health of the sector and the people who work in it.
This condition seems to be a result of our particularly American form of political pluralism. It is not—I repeat not—the case in the other industrialized democracies in which I work, Canada and Australia. My own diagnosis is that this condition is a consequence of an extremely weak professional culture in American schools. Policy makers do not have to respect the expertise of educators, because there are no political consequences attached to that lack of respect.
And from the longer letter, this indictment of “We’re in it for the kids” mantra:
I used to think that public institutions embodied the collective values of society. And now I think that they embody the interests of the people who work in them. I blanch visibly when I hear educators say, “We’re in it for the kids.” This phrase is a monument to self-deception, and, if I could, I would eradicate it from the professional discourse of educators. Public schools, and the institutions that surround them, surely rank among the most self-interested institutions in American society. Local boards function as platforms and training beds for aspiring politicians. Superintendents jockey for their next job while they’re barely ensconced in their current one. Unions defend personnel practices that work in a calculated and intentional way against the interests of children in classrooms. School administrators and teachers engage in practices that deliberately exclude students from access to learning in order to make their work more manageable and make their schools look good. All of these behaviors are engaged in by people who routinely say, “We’re in it for the kids.” The explanation for these behaviors is not that the individuals are unusually immoral, corrupt, or venal; the explanation is that they are people acting according to their interests.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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65 comments Add your comment
Shar
October 24th, 2011
12:10 pm
I’m not an educator, but from the comments on this blog and the curricular chaos generated by the perpetual reinvention of the classroom wheel by those who rarely, if ever, step foot in it, I believe that Dr. Elmore’s first point is valid.
Sadly, I know that his second is. Educational bureaucracies, like bureaucracies everywhere, exist primarily to perpetuate and extend themselves. The difference in education is that the consumer, the student, is powerless to push back.
Hence Beverly Hall and her ilk, and the utter disregard for the future of this city and it’s children.
Sam
October 24th, 2011
12:16 pm
The educational establishment has become the problem. It is massively over-expensive, boated and only mobilizes to agressively stamp out any real innovation.
skipper
October 24th, 2011
12:24 pm
The dynamics have changed. My mother was a teacher for years, and my sister is still in it. there are so many policies to follow, that by the time you satisfy the “Little Johnny needs to feel good about himself” folks, there is no room left for real education. Teachers must keep up with the latest innovations, but here it is in a nutshell. Folks tried to blame teachers and administration for society’s problems. If you cussed in class or were disrespectful to a teacher in the day, you got your butt busted and your feelings hurt. Things are so crazy now that of course it was only a matter of time ’till politics, etc. took over. Give control back to principals, teachers, etc. and quit blaming them for all the short-fallings of society, and the system will amazingly be on the mend!!
d
October 24th, 2011
12:30 pm
I still wonder why we don’t let the professionals dictate their own profession. In an earlier blog, someone commented how NEA supports requiring teachers to be certified in their field before they actually teach a class – stating that engineers, mathematicians, etc. are being left out of the profession by teacher certification rules. I will argue, however, a few points.
1) Why aren’t these professionals breaking down the doors of schools begging to be teachers? I think it’s partly to do with pay, partly to do with lack of respect, partly due to the headache of the bureaucracy of working in the public education system.
2) Certification programs include practical experience. Content knowledge and pedagogical expertise are not the same. An engineer may know everything there is to know about physics, but if she can’t convey that knowledge to children in a way they can learn it, then she will be an ineffective teacher.
3) Why don’t we see people going after other professional organizations/unions/whatever you want to call them that actually regulate their professions? I can’t see AMA or ABA letting anyone practice medicine or law respectively without the proper training and certifications. Why exclude NEA or AFT from the process of determining who has met the requirements for entry into the profession? Under our previous governor, I often commented that as a teacher, I have to deal a veterinarian telling me how to do my job. What did he know about teaching? I didn’t go to him to tell him how to neuter dogs – I don’t have that expertise, but he and other politicians thought they were experts in teaching and knowing how to do my job. Get the politicians out of the way and let the professionals regulate their own profession and things will improve.
William Casey
October 24th, 2011
12:51 pm
IMHO, Dr. Elmore’s observations are accurate, especially the “We’re in it for the kids” nonsense.
Dr. John Trotter
October 24th, 2011
1:08 pm
I want to commend Harvard’s Richard Elmore in his conclusion that school reforms are often more damaging than helpful. I gather that this is the nickel version of his erudite studies. In my many years of observation (and I have been around public school from the day I was born, nearly 58 years ago), this is the conclusion that I drew decades ago, and nothing has come close to dissuade me from this conclusion. Public schooling cannot afford any more Cromwellian reforms. The dedicated and good-hearted teachers cannot afford to be put on the educational wrack any more. We prefer to have King Charles II (wasn’t he the king whom Oliver Cromwell went after?) than Arne Cromwell, et al.
Whenever I hear a holier-than-thou superintendent, school board member, associate superintendent, or principal intone, “Everything that we do is for the kids,” I want to throw up. Well, hell, why wouldn’t it be “for the kids”? Me thinks that thou protesteth too much!
You have heard me say (like a drum beating through the night) that the so-called reforms need to be chunked. In fact, in our first issue of The Teacher’s Advocate! Magazine in 1995 (paper version which can be found in the Archive section of MACE’s website), our maiden article was entitled, “For Kids’ Sake, Let Teachers Teach!” This “kids’ sake” phrase was a play or words. In other words, if you really want to help the kids, then leave the teachers alone; just let them teach. The so-called educational reforms have had terrible unintended consequences. Terrible. Good teachers have left the profession because they refuse to put up with the bull sh-t. Good teachers have been run off because they refused to go along to get along. Good teachers tell their children: “You NEVER should go into teaching. It used to be a great profession, but not anymore. Morons are running education today.”
Warriors are trained to fight. But, today’s educational system has way too many assistant chiefs, associate chiefs, deputy chiefs, et al., who try to tell the warriors how to fight, when to fight, and specify the weapons with which to fight. Hell, it has taken all of the fun out of fighting [teaching]. If I am going to be told how to fight ignorance each day — with insane and inane scripted fighting plans and activities — then all of the joy of fighting evaporates. If I know how to fight and have killed ignorance for years, then why do I need some moronic assistant chief (who was a terrible warrior in his or her time but who kissed enough chieftan as$es to get promoted) telling me when, where, and how to fight?
In Georgia, QBE and NCLB did more damage to public education than you can ever imagine. Our schools are much worse off now than they ever were before all of these so-called “reforms” were implemented and before the many “chiefs” were installed.
I also have said many times (again, go to the maiden issue of The Teacher’s Advocate! in 1995) that we needed to return to elected superintendents. The appointed superintendents are educational sl$ts. They jump in and out of different school board beds throughout the country, depending on how much money is offered to them. They are rehashed and recycled (often by the Broad Foundation and “discovered” by “head-hunters” like Glenn Beck at the Broad Foundation). Quite frankly, they are jokes, and the teachers know that they are jokes.
If I am blessed to grow old, it looks like the entire educational thinking will come full circle back into the thinking of “crazy” John Trotter. Ha!
drew (former teacher)
October 24th, 2011
1:14 pm
Good post Maureen! Sadly, Dr. Elmore is exactly right. Policy (and as Shar mentioned,the bureaucracy that accompanies such policy) continues to strangle any hope for “real” change in public education. And I don’t think ruination is too strong a word to describe what’s happening.
Call me cynical, but I honestly don’t believe public schools can be reformed to something that truly is “for the kids”. Policy, bureaucracy, poltical cowardness, and the self-interests of ALL those involved, simply prevent meaningful reform. Sure…the education buzz words may change from year to year, but the gargantuan beast that is public education is immune to any kind of significant change. It can’t be reformed, but as the “ruination” continues, maybe someday it can eventually be killed.
Public education hasn’t really changed much in 150 years…we put them in rows, 20-30 to a room, and attempt to teach them all the same thing at the same time. The only significant change during this time is the cancerous growth of the bureaucratic/administrative sector of education. It’s the 21st century folks…there has to be a better way. To continue educating children the same way we always have, in the face of the available technology (that could completely transform the way education is delivered), is insane. Maybe the “ruination” will eventually kill the beast, and allow us to truly re-form public education.
Attentive Parent
October 24th, 2011
1:21 pm
John-
It was Charles I who lost his head. Charles II followed Cromwell and enjoyed himself.
I think you mean Glenn Brock the lawyer, not Glenn Beck the radio and TV personality.
d you cite professions which do not finance themselves via confiscated funds from the private sector. If you think the public who pays your salary has no right to comment on the calibre of your product you are misguided.
Once Again
October 24th, 2011
1:24 pm
Central government planning doesn’t work – never has, never will. Why is that so hard to understand. Of course the government education bureaucracy only reflects the values of the people who control it and not society. How could it? It does not have to voluntarily EARN any of its money. It STEALS every penny it has, forces students into class so the bureaucracy will get its funding, lobbies the legislature to restrict options like home schooling, fights vouchers at every turn (not that I support them) so that it will not even have to give the appearance of having to earn its money, arrests parents if children do not attend, lies, cheats on tests, and on and on and on.
Government schools are SOCIALIST. They are the best example of socialism we have in this country. Truly they border on COMMUNIST. Everyone gets according to their need and everyone pays based on the value of their property (their ability).
The sooner parents stop deluding themselves into thinking that government schools are about anything other than perpetuating their own existence and providing the brainwashing and compliance education the state needs of its subservient pawns, the sooner we can begin dismantling this plague upon our society and start building up its replacement.
Concerned DeKalb Mom
October 24th, 2011
1:34 pm
What I appreciated most about Professor Elmore’s piece is his conclusion that the schoolhouse is “where it’s at.” By providing actual practitioners the time and resources to develop their craft and truly reflect on what works and what doesn’t, we can create a teaching corps that can truly inspire our children and impact the future of education.
Conclusion…focus less on the government platitudes on education, and focus more on what is happening behind closed doors in the schoolhouse.
Dr. John Trotter
October 24th, 2011
1:42 pm
@ Attentive Parent: You are right! Glenn Brock, not Glenn Beck. (My secretary was on the other line nad wanting me to look at something online. Multi-tasking!) I didn’t have time to look up the king. I take your word for it. King Charles I was beheaded. Boy, Cromwell’s reform were gruesome, right?)
thomas
October 24th, 2011
1:45 pm
@ d,
AMA and ABA are not labor unions. They are not, as far as I know, concerned about the working conditions of their members. NEA and AFT are labor unions first, professional organizations second. There is nothing wrong with having a labor union. In general, the better the working condition of teachers, happier the teachers are. And, the happier the teachers are, the more likely that they will do better job teaching. I don’t think neither NEA nor AFT can play the role of a professional organization like AMA or ABA.
@ attentive parent,
I believe a fairly substantial public money does go to doctors and lawyers. Yet, you and I probably won’t think about critiquing the caliber of their practices. Just because you pay their salary doesn’t mean your comment must be honored. You always have the right to say whatever you want, but no one, including teachers, has an obligation to pay attention to what you are saying.
historydawg
October 24th, 2011
1:56 pm
Defending public education does not equate to agreeing with what the institution has become. Public education is one of America’s greatest inventions, but certainly reflects the competing interests represented in our Republic.
dj
October 24th, 2011
1:56 pm
Prof. Elmore indicts our system of governing – not just bureaucrats or professionals. The elected and those who elect them all contribute to the mayhem of policy does not produce the effects we are told we want. Legislatures think outcomes occur at the end of one budget cycle and don’t think you have to spend to re-invent. Administrators know that in a cycle or two another bunch of legislators will change the policies just implemented. And no one, not administrators, not elected officials, and especially not voters – will systematically collect and analyze the data to understand what works and what does not. There are exceptions – like the LA Times research found here http://articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/14/local/la-me-teachers-value-20100815 – but these are few and far between. The tale of educational policy is reminiscent of the story of the Little Red Hen – no one wants to do the hard work — but everyone wants to consume the outcomes.
The Truth, So Help Me God
October 24th, 2011
2:10 pm
Public policy is not formulated in a vacuum. It evolves from funding sources such as think tanks and foundations that have quite obvious political leanings. This includes policy coming from “independent, non-profit” institutions such as universities. Professors such as Elmore must remain within the bounds of Harvard’s image or face expulsion, much like that of the “radical” Cornel West.
It was Elmore’s program that in association with Beverly Hall “awarded” Kathy Augustine a degree. Need I say more!
Dr. John Trotter
October 24th, 2011
2:13 pm
@ thomas: Don’t be naive. Sure AMA and ABA are “unions” in the sense that they want to protect their professions. AMA doesn’t want too many medical schools because there would then be too many physicians out there, and the demand for the services of the current physicians would go down as would their salaries. How else to you explain the number of physicians per citizen in Cuba? Yes, all “associations” in some sense are “unions” just as NEA is a “union.” The powerful law firms (like King & Spalding as well as Alston + Bird) have an interest to keep the “little” lawyers from advertising. Hence, the large law firms which usually control ABA passed rules against attorney advertising, but these rules have been found to be unconstitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court. Yes, yes, yes…the AMA and the ABA work on the self-interests of their members. They are driven by the needs of their members.
Dr. John Trotter
October 24th, 2011
2:28 pm
Upated and Edited (thanks to “Attentive Parent”):
I want to commend Harvard’s Richard Elmore in his conclusion that school reforms are often more damaging than helpful. I gather that this is the nickel version of his erudite studies. In my many years of observation (and I have been around public school from the day I was born, nearly 58 years ago), this is the conclusion that I drew decades ago, and nothing has come close to dissuade me from this conclusion. Public schooling cannot afford any more Cromwellian reforms. The dedicated and good-hearted teachers cannot afford to be put on the educational wrack any more. We prefer to have King Charles I than Arne Duncan Cromwell, et al.
Whenever I hear a holier-than-thou superintendent, school board member, associate superintendent, or principal intone, “Everything that we do is for the kids,” I want to throw up. Well, hell, why wouldn’t it be “for the kids”? Me thinks that thou protesteth too much!
You have heard me say (like a drum beating through the night) that the so-called reforms need to be chunked. In fact, in our first issue of The Teacher’s Advocate! Magazine in 1995 (paper version which can be found in the Archive section of MACE’s website), our maiden article was entitled, “For Kids’ Sake, Let Teachers Teach!” This “kids’ sake” phrase was a play or words. In other words, if you really want to help the kids, then leave the teachers alone; just let them teach. The so-called educational reforms have had terrible unintended consequences. Terrible. Good teachers have left the profession because they refuse to put up with the bull sh-t. Good teachers have been run off because they refused to go along to get along. Good teachers tell their children: “You NEVER should go into teaching. It used to be a great profession, but not anymore. Morons are running education today.”
Warriors are trained to fight. But, today’s educational system has way too many assistant chiefs, associate chiefs, deputy chiefs, et al., who try to tell the warriors how to fight, when to fight, and specify the weapons with which to fight. Hell, it has taken all of the fun out of fighting [teaching]. If I am going to be told how to fight ignorance each day — with insane and inane scripted fighting plans and activities — then all of the joy of fighting evaporates. If I know how to fight and have killed ignorance for years, then why do I need some moronic assistant chief (who was a terrible warrior in his or her time but who kissed enough chieftan as$es to get promoted) telling me when, where, and how to fight?
In Georgia, Quality Basic Education (QBE) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) did more damage to public education than you can ever imagine. Our schools are much worse off now than they ever were before all of these so-called “reforms” were implemented and before the many “chiefs” were installed.
I also have said many times (again, go to the maiden issue of The Teacher’s Advocate! in 1995) that we needed to return to elected superintendents. The appointed superintendents are educational sl$ts. They jump in and out of different school board beds throughout the country, depending on how much money is offered to them. They are rehashed and recycled (often by the Broad Foundation and “discovered” by “head-hunters” like Glenn Brock at the Broad Foundation). Quite frankly, they are jokes, and the teachers know that they are jokes.
If I am blessed to grow old, it looks like the entire educational thinking will come full circle back into the thinking of “crazy” John Trotter. Ha!
Dr. John Trotter
October 24th, 2011
2:29 pm
Updated, not upated. Ha!
unclefast
October 24th, 2011
2:33 pm
I’m retiring from high school teaching this year. I HOPE my grandchildren are fortunate enough to attend private school.
Ronin
October 24th, 2011
2:40 pm
“Public schools, and the institutions that surround them, surely rank among the most self-interested institutions in American society. Local boards function as platforms and training beds for aspiring politicians. Superintendents jockey for their next job while they’re barely ensconced in their current one.” Yep…the perpetuation of chaos is the objective…
@John 2:13, Be it medicine, law or education, there is a ruling board in place to protect its members. Specialty medicine has driven up the cost of premiums and care. Some physicians object to the idea of the free standing “nurse in the box” concept to treat routine sickness as it would cut into general practice of some doctors. Further, at one time in GA you could clerk for a judge, take the bar exam and pass, you’re an attorney without spending a fortune for law school. No more.
Via the local school board and high level state supporters, public education is held hostage to serve the needs of the few (educrats).
Tony
October 24th, 2011
2:50 pm
Policy coming from politicians is certainly at the heart of what’s wrong with public education and many other functions of government. Think about other areas where public policy is run amok and the list can go on forever.
Gates and company continue to push for test-score-based performance reviews even though the evidence is mounting that there are other indicators that are just as effective in predicting a school’s quality. Concerned Dekalb Mom listed some of them – mainly collaboration of teachers at the school level. But, we will see the push continue for test scores instead of funding these best practices because that’s what the politicians want. More bad policy.
teacher&mom
October 24th, 2011
2:57 pm
Below is a great example of educational policies and the politics that drive the policies….
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2011/10/john_thompson_will_duncan_lear.html
Ed Johnson
October 24th, 2011
2:57 pm
Does this mean someone at the top now understands that the mess at the bottom stems from the style of management and leadership at the top?
Does this mean we should have hope Atlanta Public Schools will step away from the “urban school reform” paradigm?
Jack
October 24th, 2011
3:09 pm
Seems Trotter has a lot of time on his hands.
jm
October 24th, 2011
3:13 pm
Only a few things are needed to make schools work. And yet, it seems too much for our current educators to accept.
1. Let principals hire and fire teachers without repercussion.
2. Make sure the schools hire good principals
3. Keep schools open until 6pm and 11 months out of the year.
Nashville Transfer
October 24th, 2011
3:14 pm
I think Elmore makes some solid points surrounding the interference of policy in public education. The problem stems mainly from the fact that policy serves as a ’selling point’ for bureaucrats – what Elmore claims as politicians searching for something “innovative.”
Clearly, the problem lies beyond implementing a faulty policy, but in the very make-up of America’s political structure. When public education became compulsory, politicians had an agenda, which was to ensure that America’s next generation be able to compete on the international scale (or, more to to ensure that American reign supreme as the wealthiest, most innovative nation). While it’s a nice thought to believe that schools remain in the hands of LEAs, the reality is that policies are still being made on a national scale. This city follows what that city did in hopes of getting similar results. Instead of being “innovative,” politicians are merely stealing policies or reinventing them.
Public education needs policies, but policies that serve a community and not a nation.
catlady
October 24th, 2011
3:16 pm
BAD policy (come up with through Aunty Em stories, limited personal observations, or by folks who have not been in a classroom since they graduated from high school) is the ruin of education. Policy that seeks to right wrongs or do other thing other than instruct is also bad policy.
A teacher, a board, discipline, THAT is the beginnings of good policy.
Roach
October 24th, 2011
3:17 pm
Richard Elmore gets it. In many places–as when you see the spouses of teachers running for seats on the school board that will oversee the spouse’s work–the tissue of self-deception is surprisingly thin. But look at the comments here. So many are blinded by ideology. It is no wonder that ideologues, finding themselves in office, quickly launch ideology-driven initiatives. Bible classes in public schools, anyone? It’s embarrassing to watch professional educators jump for whichever elected (or appointed) bozo has his hands on the purse-strings.
Nashville Transfer
October 24th, 2011
3:21 pm
@ jm
I have some issues with your points. I’d most likely agree with some form of #3, but there is very little research to back up points 1 and 2. Unfortunately, research shows that little is known of what makes a successful teacher. Even further, principal evaluations are not a good indicator of teacher effectiveness. Sometimes, evaluations match reality and, sometimes, they do not.
I will agree in the basic argument that schools need effective educators. NOW.
unclefast
October 24th, 2011
3:26 pm
“Research shows” whatever tthe researcher wants research to show.
Beverly Fraud
October 24th, 2011
3:29 pm
Dr. Elmore unfortunately for those who can’t see it, is dead wrong. The policies are not wrong, they merely lack rigor. If we would but rigorously rigorize the rigor in the policy, the policy would be more than sufficient to rigorously rigorize rigor.
Why can’t people see that?
former middle school teacher
October 24th, 2011
3:33 pm
@jm, It is not teachers who would fight a longer school year it is the community.
dbm
October 24th, 2011
3:52 pm
Of course we need to reform schools so that it is in the self-interest of teachers and administrators to serve the kids. The harder question is how to do this. Blogs like this one may help us find a way to do this to at least some extent, but then we will still have to find a way to implement that. Maybe we need to work on some more fundamental issues before we can accomplish much with education.
reality 2
October 24th, 2011
3:57 pm
@ jm,
Any policy that claims to solve all problems are bound to cause more problems than solutions.
tar and feathers party
October 24th, 2011
3:58 pm
I believe the current ratio of administrative staff to teachers is 1 to 1. Since when did professionals require such close supervision? New reform, you may call it the Tar and Feathers Reform, fire 90% of the administrators!
NONPC
October 24th, 2011
4:24 pm
Is policy the ruination of public education? ABSOLUTELY. From K to a University Degree, our educational system has taken it upon themselves to teach the slanted viewpoint that they believe, to expose the student to the “well rounded” curriculum that they believe the student should hear.
A student could graduate from High School with excellent reading, writing and math skills… and little more… and do well in college. Add in a little biological and physical sciences, history and geography, and they could excel (as long as they get the reading and writing and math). The problem is that this faction believes we have to teach tolerance of GLBT, and that faction believes we have to teach afro-indian-islamic-hispanic bias, and the next faction believes we have to teach fairness/socialist/marxist ideas, etc, etc, etc. Everyone wants to set policy so that we can warp the young minds to “our” brand of life.
The problem is, we are doing so well promoting the latest subgroup-of-the-month that we don’t recognize that our kids can no longer read/write/perform math.
I am sorry to all of our XXXXXX friends, but reading/writing /math is more important than force-feeding XXXXXXX doctrine to the students.
Example:
I am sorry to all of our African American friends, but Reading/Writing/Math is more important than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I am sorry to all of our Christian friends, but Reading/writing/math is more important than the creationism/evolution or prayer in school.
I am sorry to all of our Environmentalist friends, but reading/writing/math is more important than recycling, earth day, or executing the next global warming project
I am sorry to all of our GLBT friends, but reading/writing/math is more important than exposing my children to your sexuality or way of life.
Policy IS the ruination of public education. It provides the notion that there is something more important to be derived from school than a complete mastery of the basics.
Concerned DeKalb Mom
October 24th, 2011
4:29 pm
Challenge for true educators…can you ignore the “policy” that school boards and other bureaucrats try to push through and just concentrate on teaching? Suppose all educators did that…how would the folks in the Gold Dome and “The Palace” react to teachers who just focus on what they SHOULD be doing rather than what others tell them to do?
There is a TRUE protest movement for you.
HS Math Teacher
October 24th, 2011
4:40 pm
Dr. John Trotter: You hit that baseball right out of the park.
The idiots keep working on the top story of the building, when the foundation is cracking. NUTS!!!
Ole Guy
October 24th, 2011
5:14 pm
Many years ago…in my “yout”…I remember my Grandmother exclaiming “The children are hungry”, when, in fact, SHE was the hungry one. Had she simply said “I am hungry; when’s chow?’, she probably would not have enjoyed the “hurry up with dinner, the kids are hungry” frenzy which surely ensued.
This seems to be precisely what the teacher corps is engaged in…”It’s for the children”. The collective mindset seems to be one of passive exertion…”If I toss a few “it’s for the children” pebbles in the swamp water, maybe the ripples will somehow attract the right kind of attention. JC only knows…my whining and complaining seem to fall on deaf ears. They guide me through the slalom of educational confusion, hold me responsible for everything which is wrong, provide me with absolutely no support in the execution of my PRIMARY job…educating young generations…and use me as the whiping post of fiscal irresponsibility. I gladely work overtime, on a gratis basis, teaching and re-teaching kids who, quite frankly, don’t give a damn; silently, I bear both professional and personal stigma in the form of trumped up performance evals and ultimate layoff, only to be bounced around on the ping pong table of educational mismanagement. Silently, I bear these injustices with the ever-present fear that…”My my, I don’t want to piss anyone off or…golly gee…then I’ll really be in big trouble, so I’ll just attempt to passivly molify the powers that be with the “it’s for the children” fodder. If I, and my fellow teachers, dare stand up for the future of education…AND for OUR futures, we’re likely to get into dutch. THE CHILDREN ARE HUNGRY.
Jordan Kohanim
October 24th, 2011
5:26 pm
Ole Guy,
Forgive me. What is “likely to get into dutch” mean?
Jordan Kohanim
October 24th, 2011
5:28 pm
*does (I apologize for the typo).
Horrible
October 24th, 2011
5:35 pm
The collective picture painted by current news, along with this blog, is appalling. Many administrators are petty, dishonorable bureaucrats who slog through their careers playing cya, micromanaging, and doing their best to acquire enough power to operate their own “friends and family” plan on the public teat. The ideal teacher is a low-level functionary who meekly bends with the latest administrative fad/fiat to put up a word wall, write their gps standard at the beginning of each lesson, and pass on enough students to avoid administrative or parental disfavor. Ideally teachers will also pass out B’s and A’s like Hope Scholarship candy AND show up to work for free during any and all of the current year’s furlough days. Kids – remediate, recover, retest – ultimately no worries about failing or being held back. All above-average scholars. We will FAPE, IEP, IDEA, and differentiate instruction so that all public schools are everything to everybody.
It would seem that any excellence or inspiration that occurs in public education is IN SPITE OF the current environment, not because of it.
Horrible
October 24th, 2011
5:38 pm
And listen to C.S. Lewis, in his “Screwtape Proposes a Toast”, call this one from more than half a century away:
My own experience, as I have said, was mainly on the English sector, and I still get more news from it than from any other. It may be said that what I am now going to say will not apply so fully to the sectors in which some of you may be operating. But you can make the necessary adjustments when you get there. Some application it will almost certainly have. If it has too little, you must labor to make the country you are dealing with more like what England already is.
In that promising land the spirit of “I’m as good as you” has already begun something more than a generally social influence. It begins to work itself into their educational system. How far its operations there have gone at the present moment, I should not like to say with certainty. Nor does it matter. Once you have grasped the tendency, you can easily predict its future developments; especially as we ourselves will play our part in the developing. The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised. This can be done at various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing things that children used to do in their spare time. Let, them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have – I believe the English already use the phrase – “parity of esteem.” An even more drastic scheme is not possible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma — Beelzebub, what a useful word! – by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT.
In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I’m as good as you has fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers – or should I say, nurses? – will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching. We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.
Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will. That is part of the same movement. Penal taxes, designed for that purpose, are liquidating the Middle Class, the class who were prepared to save and spend and make sacrifices in order to have their children privately educated. The removal of this class, besides linking up with the abolition of education, is, fortunately, an inevitable effect of the spirit that says “I’m as good as you”. This was, after all, the social group which gave to the humans the overwhelming majority of their scientists, physicians, philosophers, theologians, poets, artists, composers, architects, jurists, and administrators. If ever there were a bunch of stalks that needed their tops knocked off, it was surely they. As an English politician remarked not long ago, “A democracy does not want great men.”
Larken McCord
October 24th, 2011
5:48 pm
So glad to see opinions like this getting the attention they deserve. Will anyone listen or is the damage already done?
Ron
October 24th, 2011
6:47 pm
After 24 years in the classroom, I can tell you honestly that some policies have been good. Perhaps one big problem is that we never fully implement anything before the plug is pulled and the latest fad program put in place. If it ain’t broke, as they say… The problem is that every election cycle the new guys in power have to prove themselves and justify their ridiculous salaries, so they jump on a bandwagon and here we go with a new policy. I’ve been around long enough to see them come around several times with new names and new faces making money promoting them.
AJinCobb
October 24th, 2011
7:27 pm
From the material Maureen posted at top:
“This condition seems to be a result of our particularly American form of political pluralism. It is not—I repeat not—the case in the other industrialized democracies in which I work, Canada and Australia. My own diagnosis is that this condition is a consequence of an extremely weak professional culture in American schools. Policy makers do not have to respect the expertise of educators, because there are no political consequences attached to that lack of respect.”
As a naturalized Canadian-American I see these comments as profoundly true. The political culture down here is a chaotic mess of people pulling in different directions with nothing to provide enough motivation to do anything coherent. It’s just not like this in parliamentary democracies. At this rate, the very long term victors and losers of the American Revolution may turn out to be opposite to what we Americans are accustomed to thinking.
Meanwhile, great example, “Once Again” wrote above: “Central government planning doesn’t work – never has, never will. Why is that so hard to understand. Of course the government education bureaucracy only reflects the values of the people who control it and not society. How could it? It does not have to voluntarily EARN any of its money. It STEALS every penny it has, forces students into class so the bureaucracy will get its funding, … Government schools are SOCIALIST. They are the best example of socialism we have in this country. Truly they border on COMMUNIST.”
Well, there’s certainly a constituency down here for those views. Meanwhile, Canada and Australia will keep right on cheerfully outperforming American schools with their very “SOCIALIST” systems. However, Canadians and Australians respect and support their government. A democratic “socialist” system can actually be pretty effective. Perhaps “Once Again”’s preferred approach would work too (I admit, I don’t think it would do much for the quality of education available to the underclass), but realistically, it’s not going to get tried, is it? We’ll just keep right on shouting at each other and yanking the poor schools in a different direction every week.
catlady
October 24th, 2011
7:50 pm
Jordan–”get into dutch” ie get into trouble
A Serious Step Backward – Huffington Post (blog) | Live Newsline
October 24th, 2011
8:21 pm
[...] need to "localize, localize, localize. …Solving puzzle of bad teachersAlbany Times UnionIs policy the ruination of public education?Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)Education budgets are tight; foundations help where they [...]
Like Trotter's words
October 24th, 2011
8:28 pm
Hey Jack, I enjoy Trotter’s insights; they are the best on the board. I wish he had more time on his hands.
Jordan Kohanim
October 24th, 2011
8:41 pm
catlady-
Thanks!