Reader Mike Dixon commented on a post about Martin Luther King Jr.‘s definition of the purpose of education:
A cynical person might suspect that corporate education reform is intended to promote exactly what MLK warned about.
Archives for the day of: January 21, 2013
Thanks to a reader of the blog for sharing this statement by Dr. King on a matter of concern to us all.
Here is a portion:
“We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
And this:
“We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate. The broad education will, therefore, transmit to one not only the accumulated knowledge of the race but also the accumulated experience of social living.
“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, brethren! Be careful, teachers!”
EduShyster tries to imagine how Martin Luther King, Jr., would react to today’s corporate reform movement in education.
Would he agree with the corporate reformers that poverty is an excuse for bad teachers?
Would he agree that segregation doesn’t matter?
Would he agree that unions are an obstacle to high achievement?
Would he demand privatization as the way to close the achievement gap?
Would he throw in his lot with hedge fund managers and billionaires?
See how EduShyster answers those questions.
I earlier posted a letter from a teacher who said that charters give ambitious students a chance to escape their low-performing and disruptive peers. The teacher noted that charters recruit the best students in the poorest neighborhoods. How could anyone blame parents who want their children to be surrounded by others who are equally ambitious?
I invited readers to respond. Here is a thoughtful comment.
This reader comments as follows:
That’s interesting, because I thought one of the major apologies for charters was that they would help close the “achievement gap” by taking our neediest students and making them “competitive” with the most well-performing students.
The apologia in this post basically states as a matter of fact a criticism that charter school advocates have long-denied. At first it was “We don’t get to cherry pick. We’re subject to the same rules as public schools.” Now it is “Yeah, we cherry pick but someone has to serve the gifted students in poor communities.”
It is moving back of the goal post if you ask me. I went to Bronx Science and then to Brooklyn Tech, two of the “best” public high schools in NYC. The public schools and many others like it do a fine job of educating our brightest students.
An argument against what the teacher in this article posits is to expand the opportunities for our brightest students to go to those “specialized” public high schools. As of now, one test determines whether or not a students makes it in. The application process should be diversified with exams only being part of the measuring stick. GPA, recommendations, interviews and essays should also be part of the process, sort of like college.
We have the tools to educate the type of students described in this article. We just lack the will to make better use of them.
This day, set aside to honor the egalitarian message and life of Dr. Martin Luther asking Jr., is an appropriate time to consider the efforts by Governor Bobby Jindal to dismantle public education in Louisiana and replace it with a free market of choices, one with for-profit schools and no unions.
This plan will benefit the haves while harming the have-nots. It is an affront to the legacy of Dr. King. It will be implemented by people elected with the support of economic royalists. It is the work of elitists who shamelessly call themselves reformers as they grind the faces of the neediest into the dirt.
The Jindal plan includes vouchers, charters, for-profit online schools, and for-profit vendors, as well as a teacher evaluation that assures that few teachers will get or keep tenure. They will never have the protection of academic freedom, a concept unknown to corporate reformers.
Jindal’s state commissioner John White, who taught for two years as part of Teach for America and has never evaluated a teacher, says that the his standards will make it very difficult for teachers in Louisiana to win tenure.
In response to the new evaluation system, there is massive demoralization; the rate of teacher retirements has spiked by 25%. Superintendents say they are having a tough time replacing veteran teachers who are bailing out of White’s dystopian state.
Surely, teachers with years of experience in Louisiana public schools must think they are living in a madhouse, when the state superintendent has so little experience, and White has put the evaluation system in the hands of a 20-something with two years of teaching experience and an expired teaching license.
Meanwhile, John White has recommended a change in state board policy so that schools no longer will be “required” to have a librarian, a library or counselors. He wants the language to be changed to “recommended,” so that principals have the autonomy to decide if they want to spend their diminishing funds on a librarian or something else. Will this improve education?
Was it as a member of Teach for America or a member of the unaccredited Broad Academy that Commissioner White developed such contempt for public school teachers and American public education?
Here are the proposed changes:
Teachers, parents, and students need to know the proposed changes Superintendent John White is asking the BESE board to approve next Tuesday.
Two large changes will result in the possible removal of all counselors, librarians, and libraries.
Comprehensive Counseling (1125) no longer requires secondary schools to have counselors, only that “It shall be recommended that …” they have them. Libraries and Librarians (1705) have been reworded similarly: “It is recommended that each secondary school have [them]…” (All italics are mine.) This will allow school systems to eliminate these highly valuable and necessary individuals.
“Carnegie Unit and Credit Flexibility” (2314) allows students to earn credit in two ways. The traditional path involves passing a course with a 67 or greater. The new path is for students to demonstrate proficiency in one of three ways. 1) They can pass a nationally-recognized test, though no definition of such a test follows. 2) They can pass a locally developed test of proficiency, with, again, no definition following. 3) Lastly they can submit portfolios that meet a list of requirements to demonstrate proficiency. Students can now attend any amount of time they wish, because should they demonstrate proficiency, they can still earn the Carnegie credit.
This is only a sample of other changes.
- · No school system is required to participate in a School Accreditation program (311) every five years and receive a classification.
- · The school will no longer be sited for having staff not holding a valid Louisiana teaching certificate or for having physical facilities that “do not conform to the current federal, state, and local building fire, safety, and health codes.”
- · One section (1103) states a high school student shall be in attendance a minimum of 167 days out of 182, but later Section 2314 says the minimum number of minutes required is 7,965, whic! h can be achieved in 159.3 days in a 7-period day, and in 133 days in a 6-period day.
- · Section 2313 for Elementary Program of Studies (covering K-8) has been stripped of its suggested outline of content areas. Any school can design any curricula it deems appropriate.
- · The section on Summer Schools (2501 and 2503) have been gutted of most of their requirements, including minimum instructional hours and class size limits.
- · One person without a valid teaching certificate could teach hundreds of students in one class taught for one week if the school superintendent approves it.
- · Section 1703 also allows local educational agencies to use state money to purchase textbooks that BESE has not approved.
Please contact the BESE board and strongly voice your objections to these proposed changes by Superintendent White and Governor Jindal.
No one could seriously believe those changes will improve education in Louisiana.
Vincent P. Barras, educator
This day on which we mark the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., is an appropriate time to think about our nation’s determination to revive a dual school system in urban districts: one for the “strivers” (the charters, as Mike Petrilli explained it in a post), and another for the kids unwilling or unable to enroll in a charter school (that is, those who are in public schools).
Yesterday, a teacher asked why parents would keep their children in public schools when charter schools are able to exclude the disruptive kids and provide homogeneous groups of well-behaved students.
Here, Jersey Jazzman adds his thoughts to the exchange on the blog:
An excellent discussion here. I wrote about this last week:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/01/segregation-by-behavior-chartery-secret.html
The sad fact is that we already do segregate the students in our public schools: we segregate them by the ability and willingness of their families to pay high prices for housing. If you can afford to pay in the high six-digits for a house in the leafy ‘burbs, then you can send your kid to a fabulous school that will not segregate her from high-achieving children, even if she’s struggling academically or behaviorally. That school will be well-resourced and have a broad and rich curriculum; you’ll also have much more influence on its administration through democratically elected school boards that will be far more responsive to your concerns than autocratic urban school leaders.
These are rights and privileges that come from wealth. They are not available to parents living in urban areas where school resources are being drained by both regressive tax structures and the proliferation of charters, and where citizens are increasingly disenfranchised from having a say in how their schools are run. We currently have a two-tiered system of eduction in this country, and it has nothing to do with how “gifted” the students are in each tier.
Again, I give Petrilli credit for finally addressing all of this. But let’s take it to its logical conclusion:
If we are really saying the issue in urban education is that the “disruptors” need to be separated out, then charters are a terrible way to do so. Folks like Petrilli who want to segregate the children this way have an obligation to propose a fair, transparent, and broad-based system of evaluation at the developmentally appropriate time to track children not just by ability, but by classroom behavior. That system needs to be free of racial, ethnic, gender, and socio-economic bias.
But, perhaps most importantly, it needs to be applied uniformly across our society. There should be no more recourse for wealthy parents to buy their way into a public school district that mainstreams their disruptive, underachieving child with the high-flyers, while poor children in cities are separated into castes.
Good luck trying to sell that one to the PTO, Mike.
Until Petrilli is ready to roll out his system, let’s at least all agree on his premise: the secret to “successful” charters is that they serve different students than neighboring public schools. That’s a big step forward in the debate, and one I’d be happy to see many others take.
A reader thought about privatization and offered these thoughts:
“Pride in our School.” The idea behind this comes from the community spirit/commitment necessary to sustain public schools. Call it the social contract. In my small, rural northern California community, two threats to the success (dare I say existence) of traditional public education are: No Child Left Behind (“NCLB”) and charter schools/school choice. Fortunately, NCLB is not long for this world.
My message: send your kids to your local/closest public school, not a charter; second, if you think a charter school or out-of-district school is a good idea, at least try your local public school first. Investigate your local school by meeting with administration, staff, teachers, and elected school board trustees. Please carefully consider the benefits of sharing your little blessing(s) (your child/children), along your your own hopes, dreams, and invaluable energy with your community (school). It’s a win-win!
Sending kids to the local public school allows parents and their children to learn about their very own community in the deepest and most intimate ways possible. It’s similar to attending church, except 5 days a week instead of one day a week — for those who even attend church. Our children are our ambassadors. They pull us from our other duties and onto the schools grounds, playgrounds, and the playing fields of our towns. This is how my family has come to know so many others in our community. This daily contact in the midst of the push-me-pull-you, hustle-bustle world we live in is a blessing we share, and one that is being threatened by school choice, among other things.
To commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, I am going to quote from one of his famous speeches. The full text of the speech may be found in an anthology titled A Testament of Hope, edited by James M. Washington. I will quote a speech that he delivered to the AFL-CIO on December 11, 1961 called “If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins.”
In this speech, Dr. King shows how closely allied are the labor movement and the movement for civil rights. He shows how the hopes and dreams of working people who have organized into unions for their collective benefit are the same as the hopes and dreams of black people. He called on the labor movement to rid itself of the last vestiges of discrimination within its own ranks and to become partners in fighting for the American dream on behalf of all Americans.
The words of Dr. King are astonishingly relevant today. I urge you to read the entire text, which you may find online at various archives. You will be impressed not only by Dr. King’s moral intensity and eloquence, but by the range of his philosophical and historical references. In retrospect, it is startling that some people at the time denounced him as a militant and did their best to ignore him and marginalize him. His critics have long been forgotten. He will be remembered forever as a true American prophet.
Dr. King said:
Less than a century ago the laborer had no rights, little or no respect, and led a life which was socially submerged and barren.
He was hired and fired by economic despots whose power over him decreed his life or death. The children of workers had no childhood and no future. They, too, worked for pennies an hour and by the time they reached their teens they were wornout old men, devoid of spirit, devoid of hope and devoid of self-respect….
American industry organized work into sweatshops and proclaimed the right of capital to act without restraints and without conscience.
Victor Hugo, literary genius of that day, commented bitterly that there was always more misery in the lower classes than there was humanity in the upper classes. The inspiring answer to this intolerable and dehumanizing existence was economic organization through trade unions. The worker became determined not to wait for charitable impulses to grow in his employer. He constructed the means by which a fairer sharing of the fruits of his toil had to be given to him or the wheels of industry, which he alone turned, would halt and wealth for no one would be available.
This revolution within industry was fought mercilessly by those who blindly believed their right to uncontrolled profits was a law of the universe, and that without the maintenance of the old order catastrophe faced the nation.
History is a great teacher. Now, everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who today attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them…
Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires and few Negro employers. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and the labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth….
And as we struggle to make racial and economic justice a reality, let us maintain faith in the future. We will confront difficulties and frustrating moments in the struggle to make justice a reality, but we must believe somehow that these problems can be solved….
I am convinced that we shall overcome because the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right when he says, “No lie can live forever.” We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right when he says, “Truth crushed to earth will rise again”…
And so if we will go out with this faith and with this determination to solve these problems, we will bring into being that new day and that new America….Yes, this will be the day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands all over this nation and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free At Last, Free At Last, Thank God Almighty, We Are Free At Last.”
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