Peter Greene, a high school teacher in Pennsylvania, describes the present moment–in which powerful people are tearing apart public education and attacking the profession of teaching–as either a passing storm or the apocalypse.
“A far-reaching network of rich and powerful men is working to take the public education system as we know it and simply make it go away, to be replaced by a system that is focused on generating profit rather than educating children.
“Teachers have been vilified and attacked. Our professional skills have been questioned, our dedication has been questioned, and we have been accused of dereliction and failure so often that now even our friends take it as a given that “American schools are failing.”
“One of the richest, most powerful men on the planet has focused his fortune and his clout on recreating the education system to suit his own personal ideas about how it should work and what it should do. He’s been joined in this by other wealthy, powerful men who see the democratic process as an obstruction to be swept away.
“We have been strong-armed into adopting new standards and the programs that come with them. These are one-size-fits-all standards that nobody really understands, that nobody can justify, and that are now the shoddy shaky foundation of the new status quo.
“And in many regions, our “educational leaders” are also part of the reformster movement. The very people on the state and local level who are charged with preserving and supporting public education are, themselves, fighting against it.”
Despite the powerful forces determined to crush and privatize public education, Greene says, he will not quit.
He writes:
“Someone has to look out for the students. Someone has to put the students’ interests first, and despite the number of people who want to make that claim, only teachers are actually doing it. The number of ridiculous, time-wasting, pointless, damaging, destructive policies that are actually making it down to the students themselves is greater than ever before. Somebody has to be there to help them deal with it, help them stand up to it, and most of all, help them get actual educations in spite of it.
“I don’t want to over-dramatize our role as teachers, but this is what professionals do. Police, lawyers, doctors, fire fighters– they all go toward people in trouble. They run toward people who need help. That’s what teachers do– and teachers go toward the people who are too young and powerless to stand up for themselves. And for professionals, the greater the trouble, the greater the need.
“The fact that public education is under attack just means that our students, our communities, need us more than ever.”
Is there hope? Yes. None of the reformer ideas actually works. They will get bored. They will move on.
“The reformsters are tourists, folks just passing through for a trip that will last no longer than their interest. They’ll cash in their chips and move on to the next game. But we’ll still be here, still meeting the challenges that students bring us. They’ve committed to education for as long as it holds their attention and rewards them; we’ve committed for as long as we can still do the work. They think they can sprint ahead to easy victory; we understand that this is a marathon.
“I don’t care if this is a passing storm or the apocalypse. I choose not to meet it huddled and hoping that I’ll somehow be spared. And while we keep defaulting to battle metaphors, I’d rather not get into the habit of viewing every other human as an enemy that I have to combat with force of arms. I learned years ago that you don’t wait for everything to be okay to do your dance and sing your song; you keep dancing and singing, and that’s how everything gets closer to okay.”
TAGO!
Bravo Mr. Greene. You made my day. 👏👏👏
Fevers peak and they subside, but attacks on public servants will always exist in a capitalist system. So the battle metaphors work for me. They’ve declared endless war, and I knew that going in.
The cowards that they are, they didn’t have the decency to declare war.
Stealthy shelling from economists, Trojan horses carrying politicians, media bombardment, traitors strafing propaganda, hostage taking, resource supply lines cut, rebel communities covertly taken out, they are signs of savage maiming, seizing and decimation, but declared-no.
““A far-reaching network of rich and powerful men is working to take the public education system as we know it and simply make it go away, to be replaced by a system that is focused on generating profit rather than educating children.”
Thank you, Peter, for this compact summary of our real challenge, and for the compelling reason you’ve offered for us to meet it in our individual schools, defending and protecting our students, as well as in the public forum.
This is the second anniversary of my first anti-Gates guest blog on Edweek. I felt very alone, and Anthony Cody had some nerve putting it up when the Gates foundation was actively courting him. It was picked up by Slashdot, though, and Anthony said it got 22,000 hits its first day. Then, Diane linked it here and we found out how many of us there really are.
Whenever I lose the link, to this day, I just Google for “leveraged philanthropy”.
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/07/the_gates_foundations_leverage.html
Thanks to all of you for the growth of this movement to run towards the generation that needs us, in spite of the power arrayed against them. Peter puts it best.
” They run toward people who need help. That’s what teachers do– and teachers go toward the people who are too young and powerless to stand up for themselves. And for professionals, the greater the trouble, the greater the need.”
This July 4, let’s celebrate our independence from “the richest, most powerful men on the planet”.
And my admiration to chemtchr whose comments, tweets and research inspire me to keep on. Thank you for all you do, too. 👍
Bravo, Peter: debut d’une lutte prolonge. (the beginning of a long struggle) Your piece brought some light into this dark tunnel in which we now find ourselves.
This is so sad for us and for all children. We take the opportunity every day to give our best to our students so that they can learn, grow, create, survive, triumph, care, and succeed. We are their safe harbor and they will be our legacy.
I’ve said it before: One-size-fits-all equals one-size fits-none.
Thank you Mr. Greene.
I also thank you for aligning our work as teachers with running toward the work of educating this generation. Now we need to do this with the sense of urgency of firefighters. The arsonists who are setting the house of public education on fire are well known.
I agree in general, “Bravo”!
BUT–I cannot support: “The reformsters are tourists, folks just passing through for a trip that will last no longer than their interest. They’ll cash in their chips and move on to the next game.” I would say, rather, we are experiencing a socio-economic-political convulsion as widespread, as deep, as significant, and as life/world-changing as the industrial revolution, the rise of communism, the collapse of communism. THERE IS TOO MUCH MONEY TO BE MADE in this sector of our society for anyone/anything with profit-motive in their hearts to get bored and move on. We need a new, democratic labor movement but it is going to be very different from the labor movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, because we live in a different era today. What this new labor movement will look like–I don’t know. But I do fear that, without it, city by city will go the way of New Orleans. By the way, if you can’t tell I am a social studies teacher and I have worried since NCLB 12 years ago about what will happen when we raise a generation of children focusing on skills-based ELA and math at the expense of history, civics and economics. If I thought the authors of NCLB were smart enough to have plotted out a generation of students ignorant of history and civics I would credit them with that success. However, I don’t think it was part of a grand design. Rather, I think the emergence of a generation of historically and civically ignorant students is a fortuitous (for the “reformers”) consequence of the last 12 years of educational devastation wrought upon our land.
“I agree in general, “Bravo”. Except I do believe it is part of a “grand design”. The bit players may not fully comprehend their roles, but the puppet masters do.
“The reformsters are tourists, folks just passing through for a trip that will last no longer than their interest. They’ll cash in their chips and move on to the next game.”
This, my friends, is a description of criminal behavior. It should NEVER have been allowed to happen! We must draft new laws to prevent any future highjacking of public schools! Write your legislators!
And don’t think the reformers have eyes only on the US. These deep pockets have similar plans globally. This has nothing to do with competition, but feeds off the competitive nature of the human spirit. This is nothing less than the global marriage of corporations to the state. I think they call that Fascism.
Yes, on a global scale we see fascism in many places, under the sponsorship of this same oligarchy.
There is one more step, from the union of the oligarchs with the state apparatus, to Fascism. That step is to an open terrorist dictatorship, which flaunts its own laws, after all democratic constraints have been removed.
Lockstep, punishment driven schools, Blackwater armies, illegal drones, unauthorized NSA surveillance, Big Data watching us, a corrupt judiciary, criminal environmental degradation with impunity, group punishment of whole urban populations … for some, there is already torture and loss of life under color of state authority, and when THEY cry fascism, we must listen and act.
All these are steps toward fascism. We do not yet live in a fascist state, though. We can unite with those other struggles, and fight consciously to preserve democracy. Pay whatever price there is, and call it a bargain.
Dominance through fabricated “crises”, control of the information flow and social ostracizing and marginalizing of dissenters. Loss of patriotism with apology tours, fostering malignant white guilt, not enforcing borders and NAFTA which will in short order lead to a new North American union. The idea of national sovreignty is is nothing more than
smoke and mirrors.
The control of public education does not exist
in a vacuum. It lives side by side with the control of healthcare, non enforcement of immigration laws and other “feel good” legislation that side steps or blatantly disregards the constitution without consequence.
The battle was lost when citizens allowed our
laws to be violated because they felt “the ends
justified the means”.
Bureaucracy is out of control and any semblance of self government is merely shape without substance. Even our local school boards and administrators dictate to us without consequence.
The average citizen is almost completely politically disengaged and most show up at the polls to cast their vote for the candidate with greatest name recognition. The news outlets are owned by the same folks who own our central banks and most journalists refuse to do their jobs.
Political and religious speech cause people
such discomfort they would rather relinquish their right to free speech than to engage in the conversation.
We anesthetize ourselves with relative excess as most of us have more than our basic needs met while ignoring the ongoing dismantling of the system that brought us that excess.
We sit around with our heads in the sand shouting the sky is not falling and those who claim it is are “conspiracy theorists” and paranoid.
Our lives are becoming micromanaged in any area that actually matters, yet apparently, as long as the material things are maintained with borrowed excess we are content to be ruled over.
I read an article recently where they were discussing Teach For America expanding to India. I find it hard to believe that they would just subscribe to the idea of unqualified, minimally trained teachers. However, if it’s a concept being sold as an American success story, the world adopts those with vigor. India may have ‘drank the kool-ade’.
I’d rather not get into the habit of viewing every other human as an enemy that I have to combat with force of arms. I learned years ago that you don’t wait for everything to be okay to do your dance and sing your song; you keep dancing and singing, and that’s how everything gets closer to okay.”
Peter this “is” a serious battle for education and these people need to be addressed seriously, just as it is being done every day on Diane’s site by her and those like her.
We are addressing ideas and outlining the problems wrought. We are not going after “every human being”. Power does not yield to anything but power, in this case, of public opinion, which we strive to influence. I am not as sanguine as you, nor am I promoting a book to sell, nor is getting “closer to ok” my ambition. I did not know that you are in Pennsylvania. Perhaps you can get the position papers of the conservative Middle States Schools Accrediting NGO, which helps support these goals to “ok”, since they promoted the film, Standardized, as well as BATS, United Opt Out and Chalk Face. Your comments are in line to what Duncan and Gates and their school of thought would encourage their opposition to think,
as the captain of the chain gang said in the film, “Cool Hand Luke”
“Now, I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean sum-bitch.”,
these are the powers that we are up against.
Have you any link to Middle States?
Beautifully stated, Peter Greene! You inspire me.
William Cozart
Thank you, Peter, for putting into words the pain and frustration and fierce determination to FIGHT BACK that I, and thousands of other teachers, have been feeling ever since the truth about the destructive forces behind Common Core came to light.
After forty years of being a university English professor, I retired and am now an English Tutor in New York City. I have loved being a teacher my entire life, running every day (as you so eloquently say) “toward people who need help.” And now, as a tutor this year, the people I ran toward who were “too young and powerless to stand up for themselves” were third graders. Wonderful, enthusiastic children. Children who used to love reading, used to love writing stories, used to love — well — exploring the WORLD, the imaginative one inside them, the inexhaustibly fascinating one outside them. But now. Last April. Like millions of other children, they were being chewed up mercilessly in the meat grinder of high stakes testing. Hour after hour. Day after day. I could see their love of learning begin to drain from their eyes. They were beginning to hate school. NO! I am NOT going to let this happen to these precious children, I kept saying to myself. I’m sure most readers of Diane’s wonderful blog have felt this same anger, this same overwhelming sense of outrage. How dare these wealthy, powerful people deny our students THEIR chance for a rich education, THEIR chance to explore the human adventure for THEMSELVES, THEIR young years that will never come again when they can begin to understand that the wonder of learning lasts a lifetime!
So, thank you again, Peter, for giving voice to what so many of us feel. And thank you, Diane, for your courage, for your endlessly inspiring dedication to education, and for giving us this forum where all of us who love teaching can be reminded every day that we are not alone. God bless you both.
“I don’t care if this is a passing storm or the apocalypse. I choose not to meet it huddled and hoping that I’ll somehow be spared. And while we keep defaulting to battle metaphors, I’d rather not get into the habit of viewing every other human as an enemy that I have to combat with force of arms. I learned years ago that you don’t wait for everything to be okay to do your dance and sing your song; you keep dancing and singing, and that’s how everything gets closer to okay.” So well said Peter Greene! It has been and always will be about the kids. Thank you so much for all of your blogs. You have really helped me hold on to what I feel is a journey.
I think that there needs to be an artistic visual representation of a teacher(s) protecting their students from the storms of destructive education reform. I have a picture in my mind but I do not have the artistic talent to produce what I envision. I have sketched it out.
Are there artists here among us who are working to tell this story visually?
I find it amazing the actual scarcity of research and simple system evaluation goes into these momentous educational decisions. I suppose it’s easy to implement programs ‘willy nilly’, when there is no direct effect on those devising the programs.
I mean candidly speaking, the money that is being spent on this misguided Common Core initiative could be used to much better effect simply addressing the real issues that affect schools.
We desperately need to address the culture of the school environment in American schools. Placing more ‘rigorous curricular criteria’ in the public school system is the equivalent of cooking in a dirty kitchen. If the environment is not addressed, failure is imminent.
Common Core is going to be devastating on a number of levels, in the public schools. Additionally, it’s going to take 10-15 years for it to run its course. By that time, the realization that it is simply a very ineffective tool and not even close to a solution, may have dawned on the reformist movement. That is, if they are still involved with the cause after that duration of bleeding the system of greatly needed funds.
I have worked in distressed schools districts. The children, the people, the families who are served by those districts (East St. Louis, Illinois, springs to mind), can ill afford to wait out the latest in a long line of bad ideas.
Wow!
Keith,
“Additionally, it’s going to take 10-15 years for it to run its course. By that time, the realization that it is simply a very ineffective tool and not even close to a solution,”
We don’t have time nor should we allow two complete cohorts to be abused by these educational malpractices.
We’ve known for quite a while (Hoffman in the 60s amongst others then, and Wilson in the 90s) that these malpractices are COMPLETELY INVALID, UNETHICAL and CAUSE GREAT HARM to many students.
The time to fight is yesterday, now and everyday hence!
Duane. The harm to two generations of students and the fracturing of public schools. There is no reason to believe hat the ‘deformers’ will fade away. What we do know is hat the ‘reformers and their political allies are not swayed by valid research. Hence, whether their ‘deformist’ notions are successful or not even in their terms is irrelevant to their long term war on the public schools. If we keep dancing, as has been suggested and wait for ‘deformist’ failures to push these characters back into the dust bin, then we are sadly misreading the enormity of the ‘deformist ‘pathology. We are not engaging in a discourse with opponents who believe in valid research and democratic values. If we wait and dance. The dance floor will be littered with harmed students, good teachers and shuttered public schools.
I find it amazing the actual scarcity of research and simple system evaluation that goes into these momentous educational decisions. I suppose it’s easy to implement programs ‘willy nilly’, when there is no direct effect on those devising the programs. The ‘ready-fire-aim’ approach to school ‘reform’ is going to reap cataclysmic consequence on public schools. Then, as with all school reform initiatives, those responsible will walk away with impunity and a considerable amount of wealth.
I mean candidly speaking, the money that is being spent on this misguided Common Core initiative could be used to much better effect simply addressing the real issues that affect schools.
We desperately need to address the culture of the school environment in American schools. Placing more ‘rigorous curricular criteria’ in the public school system in its current state is the equivalent of cooking in a dirty kitchen. If the environment is not addressed, the results will not change and failure is imminent.
Common Core is going to be devastating on a number of levels, in the public schools. Additionally, it’s going to take 10-15 years for it to run its course. By that time, the realization that it is simply a very ineffective tool and not even close to a solution, may have dawned on the reformist movement. That is, if they are still involved with the cause after that duration of bleeding the system of greatly needed funds to enrich themselves.
I have worked in distressed schools districts. The children, the people, the families who are served by those districts (East St. Louis, Illinois, springs to mind), can ill afford to wait out the latest in a long line of bad ideas.
The “reformers” don’t care if Common Core or their other “reforms” work. They just move on with something else. The goal is to destroy public institutions for private gain. They are slaves to an insane ideology.
You separate the attack on public education from the attack on other public institutions, you separate it from the attack on working people and unions, you separate it from what is going on globally, you separate it from the tax laws that made these people have way too much money to wield too much power and control over politicians, you will lose the battle even before it gets off the ground.
The enemies are neoliberalism and anybody regardless of political affiliation who supports it.
Is there anyway to fight charter’s constitutionally? It seems rather an oxymoron to privatize public schools. Is there anything that says you can’t take tax money meant for a public purpose and give it to a private organization to replace it. Of course I know there have been rulings on this by the courts, and I know the makeup of the supreme Court at this time so don’t have high hopes, but just hoping. Also the federal government fooling around with curriculum. I know that states can opt out but then they opt out of money too. But just wondering the legal aspects of this. Anyone know?
I love this: ” I learned years ago that you don’t wait for everything to be okay to do your dance and sing your song; you keep dancing and singing, and that’s how everything gets closer to okay.”
Ditto…. We can.t back down… Let,s do it ….
Frankly speaking, who we actually are, what we do and why we do what we do, dictates that ‘backing down’, is not an option.
A twofer plus one for Peter Greene:
“Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” [Mark Twain]
“No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” [Voltaire]
And the combined assault of thoughtful humor—
“Laughter is poison to the pompous.” [KrazyTA]
Keep puncturing their balloons.
😎
I agree that we should not quit but teachers with over 20 years in are being pushed out fast and adminsitrator’s salaries are rising daily. The reformers want to prove that we can’t make all kids engineers, so we are failures but they will make whatever profit can be made until the money is gone. The U.S. will never stop having money but overloading students will frustrate them and cause them to drop out of school. I have a family member who is 17 and doesn’t know 3 x 2 but she can carry on a regular conversation and read most words. She is from the cable generation of 24 hr Hannah Montana. She has had some learning disabilities classes but her memory has gaps in Math. She lives out of state with her mother. We, as teachers, are now tasked with making sure all students are brilliant in all subjects. If not, especially, in states like Illinois, that have reduced tenure and seniority to words that have no meaning, and adopted the Charlotte Danielson evaluation tool, which the author says, ‘should not be used to evaluate teachers, as they would burn out trying to do all of these things all the time’, teachers will be let go at the whim of the administrators. Anyone with more than a few years in, anyone with a masters and more than 20 years teaching will be let go. Local administrators also develop ways to find one fault, that many other teachers share, but it is only recognized in the teacher who makes more money. It is an always perfect or nothing job, having everything prepared and ready for a guest teacher, even if you have emergency plans ready, even if a parent has a stroke and you need to leave for a few days. If that happened and you were a doctor, another doctor would do your job for you, another surgical nurse, another police officer, etc. The pressure is daunting. In Japan many teachers killed themselves. Is that what we want American children and teachers’ families to face? Thank you for your eye-opening messages. We need you. Kathleen (Please do not publish my name. Thank you.)
To be truly inspired by the likes of Peter, we must all do something for our students beyond what we normally do on a daily basis at our schools. It might include starting a small tutoring session three days a week after school. Perhaps meeting with colleagues to target problem students in your school and to offer those kids the interventions they might need in order to succeed. Let’s not complicate the ways to battle the reformers. Rather, let us come up with one more way to reach out to the students in our classrooms. This is the truth, and it is on our side, not theirs.
Ummm…we already do that.
Linda,
Some of us do!
Sorry, don’t buy that “we must do more”.
When does “more” stop?
I am contracted for specific number of hours and days. I diligently work those times (and, as almost all, more than the contracted time). I am not heroic, I am not a “super teacher” (as if there were such a thing) and I do not glorify self sacrifice and prostration as a virtue of the teaching profession. I have a job to do and I do it as much as possible within the time frame for which I am contracted. To consistently give up my personal time without remuneration is to degrade myself and my monetary worth.
Duane, spot on. The more appropriate response to the rather endless ‘do More’ is ‘work to rule’. Endless appeasement will harm teachers, students and, ultimately destroy the teachers union. Teachers are going to have to stand up for their rights, or those rights will erode away to nothingness.
Although I would agree with Brian that, “truth is on our side, and not theirs”, “doing more for our students” is not the answer. As a matter of fact, that seemingly simple action is how the public schools and the accompanying teaching profession got in the condition in which they are now drowning.
The public schools in this country do not have a resources problem. There is no shortage of personnel, or curricula to follow, either. Additionally, placing criteria or mandates on existing curricula is going to accomplish absolutely nothing.
The people making assessments of what is wrong with our school systems in this country and instituting ‘solutions’, have not evaluated the situation nor made inquiries of the individuals who would know what is wrong. I’ll say it, again. The ready-fire-aim modus operandi of the government (seemingly, regardless of the President. Genuinely disappointing, I might add.) in solving the problems in the public school system is deplorable and bordering on criminal. Crimes against humanity should count for more, I believe.
If one were to poll any 100 teachers from any areas in the country from the public school system, the overwhelming response would be that there is a discipline issue within the schools. More directly, there is a cultural problem. This country does not value education.
Our problem is not monetary, resources, curricular, or personnel. The problem with the American public school system is an environmental one.
Simply speaking, the educational environment is not conducive to learning. Add to that quality, the total lack of communication between the respective stakeholders of the school system and what we have is a perfect combination of ingredients for the status quo.
Consequently, doing more for our students, lengthening the school day, adding unqualified teachers (Yes, I do mean, Teach For America.), or this Common Core Initiative silliness is going to lead to the same result: failure. In essence, any ‘initiatives’ or improvements placed into the existing environment will not make an appreciable positive difference, and will more than likely exacerbate the situation.
“Doing more” by teachers is absolutely the wrong solution. The right solution is going to take frank, frequent and actionable communication.
Where I teach resources, human and material, are a very large problem. One school counselor and one school nurse for just under 1,000 students is a problem. No art teacher and very little supplies like paper and books. Some schools in the district where I teach have a nurse for just 40% of the week. Resources are a problem!
Traditional public schools( non-charters) are inadequately funded. Further, because public school districts are largely funded by local real estate taxes, poorer districts receive significantly less money than their wealthier counterparts. Again, resources are a problem.
” Doing more” means aligning the needs and demands of teachers with those of the communities in which we work. For example, affordable healthcare and fair wages not only for my colleagues, but also for the parents of my students. Decent public playgrounds and libraries everywhere. ” Doing more” means advocating for the staff inside our buildings AND the students, their families, and the communities in which we work.
” Doing more” means attending the demonstrations and protests organized by our unions. I am on the building committee at my school, and we consistently get less than 10% of our staff to attend such events. I can go on, but I think you get the point. Let’s not fool ourselves, not all teachers are doing the things I’m suggesting. We don’t have to become super teachers. I know they don’t exist! We can and must do more!
Sir, I taught in East St. Louis, Illinois. It is one of the, if not the poorest city in the United States. Yes, one nurse had to deal with 2-3 schools, same for the counselors. No art classes, let alone paper and books. Limited ancillary classes, to boot.
And, in those circumstances, I was able to get 4 years of consecutive classes of elementary school students through the district curriculum for their grade level and a good portion of the succeeding grade level.
I also had 3 consecutive years (In my first year, the grade level was departmentalized. Yes, sadly, this was at the fourth grade level. Utterly ridiculous.) of my students passing the state standardized tests.
Additionally, I had two years previously in a different school of students passing the standardized tests and doing extremely well on the district prescribed curriculum.
I did this, while volunteering to coach the schools basketball team and running a de facto recreation center in the Washington Park area of East St. Louis.
My question to you is, what exactly do you think teachers do?
I don’t know where you teach, but if public schools were funded by real estate taxes, East St. Louis and most schools in impoverished areas would receive little or no funding. There is a significant component of public school funding that comes from state and federal sources, in the areas that can not pull from real estate funds. Surely, you know this.
Your argument is the primary reason that schools are in the condition that exists, today.
95% of what you alluded to in your post is beyond the purview of the public school system, and absolutely outside the realm of what a teacher can even begin to address.
A teacher’s job is to teach. A schools job is to educate. That’s all. Nothing else.
When you start talking about healthcare, public playgrounds, wages and libraries (REALLY????), you are light years outside the bailey-wick of what public schools are designed to address, and you become a part of the ever growing problem.
Quit being part of the problem, and focus on the problem.
The schools are not even addressing the issues that they are supposed to deal with, and you’re bringing in the library system and wages. Again, not in the wheel house of public education.
I mean, unless you are looking at the problem from the perspective that education is supposed to address these problems in the long run. Even in that regard, you’re still outside of the sphere of practicality, because you want teachers to address the problems.
I will reiterate, our countries educational problem is not one of resources. There may be a problem of allocation of resources, but definitely not a dearth of them.
The educational problem in this country, you could derive from asking any teacher (You know, the people who would actually KNOW.) what their greatest obstacle to success is with their students. I would be willing to wager that an overwhelming majority would point to some element of discipline.
Our school system does not have a definable or even an identifiable culture. It has been the same problem for the last 30 years, and no intervention that is placed in the toxic environment that exists is going to make anything like an appreciable difference.
Seriously, I would suggest that you narrow your focus to what is actually going on in the school that where you teach. If indeed, that is the case.
Keith,
Thanks for your passion! I, like yourself , do in fact in teach at an inner-city school where 98% of our students qualify for free lunch in a district where 87% of our students live at or below the poverty line. Poverty in East St. Louis is just as unacceptable as it is in any city or county in the richest country in the world. Our country DOES have the resources, but those resources are not distributed in an equitable fashion.
In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the state gives essentially the same amount to each student. Sprinkle in some federal dollars, and the balance is made up by the county/city in the form of a school tax. The school tax determined by property values. This formula is not unique to Pennsylvania! As a result of disparities in property values, per pupil spending in and around Philadelphia can differ as much as $6,000.00 – $7,000.00 per pupil. This results in a large difference in resources. When you say resources are not a problem, I believe you are terribly mistaken.
Further, this disparity in funding and resources also influences or limits us in school staffing. Thus many of our schools lack the counselors, social workers and other supports that our students with discipline problems direly(sp) need,
Keith thanks for caring and reading my responses. I do respect your opinion!
I reciprocate my gratitude for your passion, as well.
However, I would submit that although allocation of resources may be an issue in schools in impoverished areas, I would still stand by my assessment that resources are not the problem.
In your response, you inadvertently addressed the very issue that I am pointing out. The issue that is causing the ‘achievement gap’ is the same one that allows charter schools to exhibit ‘improved’ test scores over public schools. Charter schools remove the discipline problems. Effectively, they expel students who can not ‘meet their standards’.
Public schools have that option. However, the avenue of using interventions to deal with deficits or issues is the method that public schools have at their disposal. The major problem is that the option is rarely exercised. “Discipline problems” are allowed to remain in classrooms and disrupt and distract for entire school years. There are even students who are left unchecked for multiple years. You know who they are. Teachers in each succeeding year regret getting those students. It is a very prevalent issue, in public schools.
How are teachers supposed to teach when 1-3 students continually interrupt the other 22? (Assuming a S:R of 1-25.)
It can not be done, and it brings us inexorably, where we are now.
Charter schools effectively are performing exactly the task that everyone feared, when they came in to existence. They may be doing it in a very circuitous fashion, but they are essentially ‘cherry-picking’ students.
They hold lotteries to ‘give all students a fair chance at entry’, and then purge the problem students. Private schools do it at the beginning of the year by prohibitive pricing and selective admissions, but attrition is attrition.
All of the resources that you addressed in the post are supplementary resources. Counselors, social workers and ‘other supports’ are secondary and even tertiary supports that, while they impact instruction, they should not do so at a ‘mass student’ level.
No Brian, I would submit that a great percentage of the problems in the public school system could be alleviated if the schools ‘sold the product’ better and made parents and families a much greater component of the equation. There are actually interventions in place to deal with the discipline issues in each districts handbooks, rule books, and codes of conduct.
The greatest error that has been made in the public school system is that, while we have illuminated with great intensity the sanctions for noncompliance. What we have not done, is highlight the benefits that can be derived from not only compliance, but from active participation and cooperation. To put it succinctly Brian, we need to form coalitions with the stakeholders and galvanize those coalitions to achieve success.
I speak from experience on this topic, because in East St. Louis, I literally sold education to people who had no desire or motive to believe that it would be beneficial to them.
We have in the past and continue to try to convince students and ‘incentivize’ education for them. That is the absolutely incorrect approach, and will never work.
If we convince the parents, we can conform the students. Once that happens, you would not believe all that the students under your charge can achieve. Students seek excellence and begin to ask questions that they want answers to, themselves.
Now I ask you, Brian. Isn’t that what teachers are supposed to accomplish?
I would posit that what we need in public education is a new paradigm that is inclusive of parents, truly inclusive, and any members of the community that have a vested interest in the public school system.
Schools can not solve the problems of society, Brian. Their present condition is evidence of that.
However, I firmly believe that educating the children of this society is extremely feasible, and will go a long way towards solving the very problems that the schools could/can not solve directly.
I would like to close by stating that I absolutely respect your opinion and I salute your passion. Both are desperately needed and from my own perspective, wholly necessary and appreciated.
This hits the nail right on the head. There is no question that reform is needed but the people leading the reform should be professional educators who insist on high standards, not standardization. Hopefully what we are seeing will be a passing storm but professional educators must ally themselves with the media, intellectuals, and advocacy groups to resist the efforts of corporate America and politicians without integrity or knowledge from trashing the educational system.