Kenneth Bernstein is an award-winning NBCT who recently retired as a teacher of government. He is now caring for his wife, who is recovering from a major illness. He usually blogs at the Daily Kos but has taken the time to share his insights here as a comment. Thank you, Ken.
He writes:
We have had a decade of the “reforms” of No Child Left Behind. The approach embodied therein actually is traceable back 30 years, to the release of A Nation at Risk, continued through Goals 2000 which claimed that it would result in America being first in the world in math and science by that date, has seen policy doubling down through Race to the Top and the proposals in the Obama administration’s “Blueprint,” and now we continue the insanity through Common Core and the common assessments. In each of these cases what was excluded in the making of education policy were the voices of those expected to implement the policy choices, professional educators – teachers and principals.
Instead we have had think tanks, we have had politicians, we have had organizations that stand to profit from the decisions – and that includes ostensibly non-profit organizations such as the College Board and ETS among others.
The results to date have not been as promised.
We have failed to address many of the real issues affecting our students, starting with the high percentage (compared to other industrialized democracies) of children in poverty, children who do not get proper nutrition or health care, whose teeth may be rotting, who need glasses but do not have them.
We have had imposed policies that have already been tried and found wanting – turning schools over to “educational management” organizations, converting them to charters, turning to mayoral control – or not yet piloted and evaluated – here the Common Core is one of the best examples. The “data” that has been produced is often either incomplete or in fact downright manipulated – such as graduation rates in Texas, from which we got No Child Left Behind. We ignore contradictions in policies – we have too many students dropping out so to fix that we are going to raise the bar and impose “standards” that are not based on what we know about brain development and differential development rates.
Unfortunately too often the media organizations which should serve to explain things jumps on board the bandwagon. Perhaps it should be expected when the corporation which owns one of the major national newspapers, The Washington Post, gets most of its profits from a for-profit educational venture, Kaplan, which benefits from policies such as increased emphasis on tests.
Fortunately modern means of communicating and organizing are allowing pushback – by parents, students, teachers, administrators, even school boards.
Slowly Americans are beginning to realize that the emperor of educational “reform” is naked – that is, what is being forced upon America’s public schools is less concerned about real learning by students and more concerned about political and economic power.
Perhaps it is time for major media organizations to be far more transparent in their presentations on education, to give equal voice to the voices that have not been heard.
I once had a conversation with a sitting governor, close to a decade ago. The governors had just had a conference on education. Each governor had brought a business leader, which he acknowledged. I asked why each governor had not brought a teacher, or some other educator. He was shocked and acknowledged he at least had never considered the possibility. That is symptomatic of what is wrong in how we make educational policy.
It is also why so many educators – principals as well as teachers – are so demoralized. They are excluded from the making of policy, they are demonized when they object and try to raise the issues that should be discussed. Meanwhile they continue to see the conditions necessary for serving their students disappear, what protections they had to enable them to do their jobs correctly are being taken away from them.
I once told Jay Mathews that I might not object to having my students assessed by quality tests at the end of a course, but I refused to be held accountable if you told me how I had to teach them, because then I had no ability to shape my instruction according to what I knew of my students, and how they were learning.
Increasingly we are trying to tell our teachers not only what to teach but also how to teach it. Sometimes we are even imposing scripted lessons.
Should not the real evaluation be of the results of what has been imposed by those who are not educators, who are not attempting to address the individual needs of the students in their classes, in their schools? And were we to evaluate that way, would w not find almost all of the “reforms” to be failures?
Except the ‘reforms’ have not failed in their other purposes
– increasing profits for testing and curriculum companies (often the same)
– breaking the power of teachers unions
– diminishing the professionalism of teachers, principals and superintendents
– effectively privatizing one of the most important public functions
– removing democratic control of public education and politicizing it in places where it becomes easier to impose the corporatizing agenda.
You know all this.
You have written and spoken out about this.
We need more voices speaking out, loudly.
Thanks for being an important voice.
Thank you for sharing Kenneth Bernstein’s excellent overview of the educational reform movement. I will share it with my graduate students. My hope is that the next generation of school leaders will be part of the activist movement to take back our profession.
Marilyn, here’s an essay of mine that spells out what Kenneth so succinctly talks about. Enjoy the read! http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
This precisely and eloquently captures how we, the teachers, feel. Thank you, Kenneth Bernstein! And thank you Diane Ravitch for spearheading this revolution, for that’s what it’s going to take….a revolution, with teachers forming a national alliance to reclaim our voice, our dignity, and our right to execute lessons in a manner we know is best for our students.
Amen to this article and to the writer!! Truth in every word and caution filled with
a Paul Revere call to arms!!
Maybe when the passion filled educators, the retired and the under the gun of the corporate reformers, meet in April in D.C. they will wave above their heads the thirty years of proof that this agenda has been in the pipeline!! This is a government and corporate marriage. As an advocate for the learning disabled over these thirty years, watching and speakiing out to deaf ears, and averted eyes, a coalition of us around the country have wondered why this awakening has taken so long. Our files are filled with the proof going as far back as nineteen forty seven (at least in my files). A picture is worth a thousand words and showing people these documents of deceit by government and corporate interests, developed by Think Tank entrepenuers (they certainly have benefited from their research and writings) may well add to the argument and the plea.
But anger by itself won’t change anything, it will only motivate actions in some, and disillusionment in others. Action in masses is what is needed and by the nations educators and parents in concert with each other. These coalitions must be built quickly and vocally in every state….the proof is all there. At least try to stop this for the sake of the children. It is life and death to them because they could be left behind to the streets and the scraps of society (brings to mind Kozol’s book Death At An Early Age), or left no choice of what they might decide to become or pursue with the lost promise of what we
have referred to as the American Dream.
It reminds me of the government waking up to admittance of Agent Orange suffered by our Vietnam Vets after so many have died and their families forever
maimed by its effects. Can I equate this example to the life and death terms? You bet!!!
If anyone thinks this is not about life and death of generations and a nation, then you are still deaf and just as blind. Do I sound outraged?!! You bet again!! Bet on this, that if there are not screams of STOP THE INSANITY for the SAKE OF THE CHILDREN and OUR NATION then this fight is lost. Is this a better late then never scenario? Don’t bet but engage, if nothing else then to have taken a stab at what our Democracy has, up
until now, told us we can exert, OUR VOICES!!! Dare to risk for our nation is at risk.
I agree with every word. I think another issue to consider is that new teachers have been raised in this scripted tested atmosphere and have no idea how to so it any other way. I am a former teacher with two kids in Florida’s schools, decimated by Jeb Bush’s anti public school policies. My son’s young teachers have no idea how to individual lesson or even adapt for the kids in front of them. It’s astounding. They don’t know how vibrant learning can be because they have never experienced it and , apparently, Ed programs are falling in line. I have been fighting this since the 90s. I am tired and I am sad for my own two kids. It is not joyous, it is not fun, it’s not authentic… It’s incredibly depressing.
Here’s my voice: http://www.scribd.com/doc/106337306/THE-CHICAGO-PUBLIC-SCHOOLS-ALLERGIC-TO-ACTIVISM
This is a legitimate critique, but as usual, no positive proposals for remediation. In addition, Mr. Bernstein laces his pudding with the poison syrup of the demonization of business, thus losing credibility with everyone who pays for education who is not a teacher. Until the public school teaching cadre gives up its vocabulary of “revolution”, no one will pay attention (in my opinion).
You think you have been victimized, but you haven’t. You’ve done it to yourselves through wilful ignorance of what the American constitutional promise really is (and it’s not a good life for everyone). You once had a chance to save public education by moderating your expectations. I fear that chance is gone, no matter what happens on the political scene nationally. When Obamaism and Hillaryism collapses, Rand, Rubio, and Cruz will be the future of this country.
Mr. Bernstein and the rest of you miss the point that you are not management. You don’t own the school. You are just workers, skilled workers of course, but soon you will be merely at will contract workers. You thought you were something else, but you misunderstood the fundamental power structure of the society: he who pays, plays.
You think you are priests of THE civic religion and that the people can’t do without you because only you can deliver salvation. There was a religious revolution against monopoly control of the sacraments and this country’s founders were the revolutionaries. You want to reinstall the old progressive orthodoxy. Good luck. But money talks, and you don’t have any.
Harlan can fertilize massive fields with the amount of manure he is spitting out. Since I held great credibility with my students and my parents, that disproves his argument to begin with. Then there were the occasions where I was honored by – wait for it – various local BUSINESS associations, including being asked to be a guest speaker, and by the City Council of the community in which I taught.
Harlan, there is a real danger of believing only your own bloviations. You soon lose touch with reality.
Oh, and I am so out of touch with reality that I now have more than 2 dozen of my students who are already classroom teachers, with several more about to join the profession – and it is when done properly a profession – the coming school year.
Having made this one response to Harlan, I will go back to ignoring his out of touch rantings.
Thank you for giving me the first laugh through this whole mess with your first line of reply to Harlan. Harlan reminds me of the bully on the playground who slithers around looking to intimidate or harm the person they see as most vulnerable. Harlan offers nothing to the
conversation but his personal verbal venom and he displays an arrogant distain of what appears to be his view of the little people. Harlan seems to be void of humility and humanity.
Ken, here’s a discussion of a new book that encourages “Trusting Teachers with School Success.” The book has been endorsed by Deborah Meier, Linda Darling Hammond, the president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers and a variety of others.
It gives examples of places where teachers have been empowered to create the public schools they think make sense for youngsters. They also, in many cases, have been able to use multiple measures to assess progress students are making. I thought this might interest you and others who agree that teachers CAN be managers of learning.
http://abcnewspapers.com/2013/03/14/new-book-about-teachers-draws-praise/
Joe – already aware of it. But thanks.
We have been setup. All the 1%ers really want is your child’s data. I do not think they really care how “effective” anyone is. Too me this is a distraction. Data will give them opportunity to fine tune their wares. Teachers are just the data collectors. Can someone please convince me that I’m wrong? I’m feeling “dirty”, “used” and depressed.
You may be right in how you are seeing the current circumstance
of education and the corporate government heist of the education system. But for every mind you open and have an opportunity to shape a life you can make a difference. You will not have the immediate gratification of seeing your work come to fruition but
somewhere in the future your words, insights, and teaching could grow a thought that could make a difference in your students and the world around them. Your job and contract is between you and each and every student who is your charge. Best of luck to you.
Sadly I just got an email from my administrator to stick to the script. It is really difficult to close your door and do what you want. People are constantly in your room looking for objectives and evidence that your keeping up with the prescribed curriculum. It is very disheartening. I am constantly testing kids and recording data. We use a lot of materials generated from Pearson and it isn’t very good.
Thank the Lord I retired. The trouble with education today is school boards with too many folks like Harlan making the decisions. Under the banner of ‘cost saving’ they will continue to drive down the learning in favor of savings. Not one of them ever spent a day as a teacher. Imagine if idiots like this also ran hospitals.
But they are running hospitals, and it’s going to get worse:
Coming Corporate Control of Medicine will Throw Patients Under The Bus
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/05/coming-corporate-control-of-medicine-certain-to-make-socialized-medicine-look-even-better.html
School “reform,” it’s all of a piece: corporate domination and control.