Brian Jones, elementary teacher and doctoral student in New York City, here presents what he would do if he were Secretary of Education.
Please read it. After you do, if you are so inclined, please explain what you would do if you were asked by President Obama to take the job.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Can’t disagree with a single thing he said–bravo! I’d only add an even stronger plea for more arts instruction in our schools. When well done, art and music education provide the “antidote” to our national obsession with standardized testing and worship of metrics and statistics–and to our increasingly isolated, individualistic approach to learning. No one makes great music alone, and participation in music ensembles gives our children opportunities for creativity and collaboration, which are critical learning skills for all kids.
If I were the Secretary of Education, I would take all the
money being spent on testing and use a good portion of it to hire
aids, reading specialists, nurses, librarians, and all the other
support staff needed to truly serve the needs of a school. School
boards would consist of teachers and parents. Our education system
would promote supporting a student’s strengths, instead of making
school a place of failure. I would have industry work with our
schools to help train high school students for job readiness when
they leave school. I would fund higher education so people
graduating from collegewould not bestrapped with a great debt. I
would invite workingeducationmodels like Finland to come and share
what works with us. The NCLB and RTT would be disbanded. I would
sever all ties with Pearson. There would be no Federal funding for
Charter or online schools. I wish this could happen. I’m sick of
the reformers. I can’t believe Obama is letting it go on and on.
Sincerely, Fed Up Fourth Grade Teacher
________________________________
A fresh voice of sanity and common sense. Well done!
Mr. soon to be Dr. Jones hits on many valid and important points. I find that his plan encompasses the needs of our students, our educators, and our public schools. I am however reluctant to support the notion of schools becoming “well-equipped community centers that can offer support services to families in need.” There are a great number of tax funded options for families in need. With social workers in place in schools, these families can be guided to the proper agencies for assistance. Adding this massive social mandate to schools would put an unneccessary burden on the already over encumbered schools.
I would want to make sure that each school got the money it was due, so it was not improperly distributed by the districts.
All schools should have the sum of all salaries readily available. All schools should have the sum of the state and federal allocations for those salaries. Let’s use data to level the playing field of financial inequity.
I wish you would have added the fact that Brian Jones is also running on the MORE slate for VP of the UFT. MORE needs all the publicity they can get.
While I am a big believer school should offer community services since most schools and places of worship are the center of most communities, I would not leave out the role of charities and organizations like City Harvest and Citymeals on Wheels. Part of the services should be to connect families with organizations and charities that can help them–not only with food but with clothing and other services as well including services that help families get out of debt. (This last part is something many families from all walks of life need.) I do not see why NYC cannot set up a smaller version of “Remote Access Medical” aka RAM in all neighborhoods. We can get our best medical professionals to volunteer their services as they do for RAM and maybe offer some type of incentive like paying off part of their school costs. Of course the fact that our poorest areas of the country need a program like RAM in a country like ours is very sad indeed. And that’s why medical care needs to be both affordable and available to everyone. (see their 2013 schedule)
http://www.ramusa.org/
Be still my heart. A voice of sanity! I could feel my heart swelling with hope as I read what he was writing! It seems so very simple…
I agree with Brian Jones’ points. In addition to doing away with NCLB, TFA and Race to the Top, this is what I would suggest to increase the odds that every child would have the opportunity to get the best education possible:
Basics for Babies: We know that many of our poorest children get off to a bad start. I’d encourage health clinics in all urban areas. The main focus of these clincs would be to ensure the health and normal development of every infant and toddler. And of course prenatal care would be a must.
Incentives for Parents: We know that parents are the key to a child’s health, welfare and education. What can we do for the neglectful but still “adequate” parent? This is a difficult one, but I’d try different approaches, including “stipends” for good school attendance, parent education, clinic visits, and report cards.
High-Quality Preschools: Education begins at birth and that’s where many children are left behind. We know that they seldom catch up. I’d use my influence to create preschools and parent education centers for impoverished preschoolers and their parents.
Highly Trained Teachers for All Schools: I’d stop the disgraceful and long tradition of placing the least experienced and least qualified teachers in the most challenging schools. This is something that can be done TODAY.
Application of Knowledge about How Children Learn: We know a great deal about how children learn but this information is often ignored, especially now. I’d respond to over forty years of educational research. President Obama promised to be the “data president” but he has actually ignored what is known, except of course, for his own children. With them, he demonstrates that he does know.
High Standards for Teachers: Many states have high standards for teacher preparation but they’re always issuing “waivers” every time there is a shortage or an economic downfall. I’d end these waivers.
Professionalization of Teachers: Common sense should tell us that if we want better qualified teachers, we must make the profession more attractive, and not less. I hope I live to see a fully professional teaching force. By that I mean teachers will be to the school what doctors are to the clinic and lawyers are to the firm. They will be well trained and then trusted to run the school in the best way possible. They’ll vote for a head teacher and make most decisions regarding budget, curriculum, instruction and staffing. Like other professionals, they will decide who enters the profession and who stays.
Subsidized Housing: Keeping poor kids confined to impoverished communities hurts these children and our nation. If I were a basketball buddy of the President, I’d ask him to push for the expansion of low-income housing and jobs in ALL communities.
Open Enrollment in All Public Schools: All parents should have the ability to place their children in mainstream schools. I’d find a way to encourage “good” (i.e.affluent) schools to welcome SOME low-income children into their schools.
High academic and Behavior Standards for All Schools: Somewhere along the line “public school” became synonymous with “anything is acceptable.” When did this happen and why? If I were Secretary of Education, I’d find a way to bring back decent standards of behavior and scholarship for all schools.
Private School Scholarships for Poor Kids: As Secretary of Education, I’d encourage people like Bloomberg, Gates and Klein to offer scholarships to impoverished children in the same schools attended by their own children.
Mentors: Many children are without role models and mentors. Could we pay retired people a small stipend to encourage them to mentor children who have no one to encourage them? It might be worth a try.
I know that many of my ideas are “pie in the sky” and extremely expensive. If I had to choose only one, I’d go with the first five years of a child’s life. If we can improve that, we’d see a huge improvement in academic achievement.
Brian Jones’s program is necessary, but not sufficient. I think you need a positive program, more than just rejecting the current misguided reform efforts, as important as that is. The central problem that the current efforts were intended to address is the weakness of our schools in preparing poor children for successful adult lives. I think a Secretary of Education needs an alternative that has real promise of working, one based on proven successes. Here in my blog I lay out (in three parts) three key changes that are proven successes, that would work in helping poor children: http://therepublicon.blogspot.com/2013/01/good-and-bad-strategy-in-education.html
The three programs are: 1. more investment in and expansion of early childhood education; 2. Mastery learning for basic, well defined skills (not high stakes testing!); 3. A transformed school-to-work system, influenced by the German system, for students not bound for 4-year academic college degrees.
I won’t repeat what I said in my blog, linked above, but I will add a few things. First, a lot of education, and much of the most important part, does not involve measurable skills training. This involves developing creative imagination, critical thinking and character education. Much of schooling should not be skills training, though that is a necessary and vital part of it.
Second, developing a system where students have contact with outside mentors from age 15 or 16 would, if done properly (a big if) be of great benefit to all students. The budding scientist will benefit from having contact with a practicing scientist just as the budding car mechanic or airline mechanic will.
Finally, and this is a critique of Diane Ravitch here—who is a hero to me—as well: I think the critique of the existing disastrously misguided reforms have a much better chance of being heard and having an impact if we offer positive, alternative solutions for helping poor children. Dr. Ravitch has championed early childhood education, and I think that is right. But mastery learning and much stronger school-to-work programs would also help enormously. They would transform US education, and, in 10-15 years, America.
I wouldn’t change a thing, and I wish I had written it! What a Wonderful World it Would Be!
The charterites/privatizers have toned it down a bit, but remember the electrifying mantra “we want to give poor kids the same education that rich kids get”? [chant in alternating patterns with “poverty is not destiny.”]
All right then. Click on the link Diane provides. Read the article. Then google and go to the websites of the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, Cranbrook, Harpeth Hall, Chicago Lab Schools, Sidwell Friends. If you don’t like my choices pick similar ones that suit your individual tastes. Read what they offer—I am not speaking rhetorically; I really mean go through all their offerings.
Yes, [sigh] these schools do serve some students whose SES status is not Rocketing out of the Earth’s atmosphere. But these are the kinds of schools that the children of the wealthy, well-connected, well-educated and powerful attend. These sorts of schools don’t just exist in someone’s online piece about what he would do if he were Secretary of Education.
No need for the rheephormy crowd to “make it up as they go along” like Rocketshipsters claim is necessary. They’ve got highly successful proven models right in front of them.
Charterites/privatizers: actions speak louder than words. I invoke what seems to be your highest moral imperative: put your money where your mouth is.
Oh, and I almost forgot: put your own children in your charters, not in the Waldorfs or the Cranbrooks or any of the rest. If it’s good enough for the children of others it’s good enough for yours.
Not too much to ask, is it?
If I were Secretary, I would…
First, Require/request everyone to…
1) Read the Constitution (the word “education” does not appear)
2) Read the Constitution and Declaration of Independence (where words like life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, created equal, unalienable rights, general welfare, blessings of liberty, justice, and domestic tranquility do appear).
3) Understand the meaning of “…to our posterity”
4) Understand Supreme Court decisions and legislative action of Brown v. Board of Education, PL 94-142 (IDEA), Title IX, Plyler vs. Doe, and the underpinnings of President Obama’s Inaugural speech.
Second, Eliminate every-year testing, then eliminate power to test
1) Change testing requirements of NCLB/RTTT to grades 3, 6, 8, and 11 (transition years as benchmarks of school and district progress). This would be a line in the sand statement because then I would …
2) Dismantle NCLB, RTTT, and any accountability measures
Third, Out with DoE, In with HEW
1) Shut down the Department of Education and resuscitate the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
2) Maintain departments that monitor and protect Civil Rights, IDEA, and the Supreme Court rulings and legislation noted above
3) Attend to national Health and Welfare
4) Charge the new HEW to focus on research, to educate state leaders, and to use its bully pulpit (and embarrass states who refuse concepts like, say, science).
Fourth, Go on the road and Knock on the Door of every…
1) Corporate CEO to illustrate how toxic, demeaning, and counter-productive nature of their tactics to make money off the backs of kids are
2) Union to rethink what a 21st century contract looks like
3) Self-proclaimed quick fix reformer to let them know the ’50s called and wants their factory model of education back.
4) Politician to encourage them to spend days (not a photo op) in kindergarten classrooms in rural, urban, and suburban communities – and maybe give the 125 junior English essays to grade in one weekend.
p.s. I forgot – and Encourage President to establish a WPA-like (Federal Works Project Administration) that built your grandparents schools, provide opportunities in the arts, built highways and bridges, and created JOBS.
Excellent. You forgot a few more. 1) Make sure Gates gets nowhere near the new Dept. of HEW. 2) Mandate that teachers have an open forum in newspapers and media to inform the public about attacks on their local schools- Make sure that teachers can report freely without retribution. 3.) Mandate that all charters must be non-profit and must openly display their finances, from top to bottom, in local and state newspapers. Wow. If only we had a billion dollars. They’d let us run everything!!!!!
Besides the fact I would never want the position, a few thoughts.
The federal government cannot mandate, but it can offer support in return for commitments.
My first commitment would be this: all children through grade 8 in any school or system receiving federal funds should be required to have physical education and/or recess for a minimum of 30 minutes a day, not including any time for changing clothes or showering: too much of what gets classified as ADD or hyperactivity is simply students having too much energy with no chance to burn it off.
My second commitment would be to assist schools in insuring that all children are checked for vision, hearing and dental. Vision and hearing problems clearly interfere with learning, but so do untreated dental conditions, which are rampant in some parts of our nation, both rural and urban.
My third commitment would be that in schools receiving federal funds all students have access to real music and art classes for at least one semester every other year. Too often these classes, along with classes in cooking, automotive technology, wood shop, etc, are what encourage students to persist when struggling with academic subjects, and besides, they should not be limited to schools in communities with greater assets.
My fourth commitment would be to assist schools in providing enriched learning opportunities on holidays and during the summers. Too many students in inner city and rural schools lack the ongoing learning activities available to students in wealthier communities.
I believe in educating the whole child, and that includes having the child healthy with a broad set of opportunities to explore his or her talents.
If we are going to have a definition of highly qualified teacher, I would not allow it to include anyone with five weeks of training. In fact, I would prefer to see support of a phased entry to the teaching profession, with newbies slowly taking on increasing responsibilities, somewhat similar to the approach done in Finland.
Of course, none of this is possible with the current corporatization of public education, and I include in that those chains of charters whose CEOs somehow get paid substantially more than urban superintendents with responsibility for far greater number of students.
And I am enjoying what I am reading from others on this thread. Unfortunately we are stuck with Arne Duncan, who really does not seem to understand education or teaching.
Hi, Bety, You should subscribe to Diane Ravitch’s blog. I
think what this guy says in this article says what I was thinking
even better than I did. We have the ideas, we just don’t have the
power to do anything unless we do what the teachers in Seattle did
– they refused to give the standardized MAP test. Now they have
problems, but the NEA is supporting them, and we all have to
support them. We all have to refuse to do everything we are told to
do and live in this environment of fear and intimidation that we
know is not good for us or for the children.
________________________________
Finally someone else said what I’ve been saying- free public education is not a right given to us in the Constitution, nor from God for that matter. Free public education is a privilege and if students and parents would come to understand and respect that, perhaps they would understand their part in taking advantage of it.
But in this material world, many cling to a sense of entitlement. Guess I’m just getting old, but whatever happened to respecting and appreciating what is given to us? And working hard for it? Parents gripe about school buildings being dirty and run down. How about grabbing some cleaning materials and some paint and volunteering to make it better?
If I were head of the USDOE, I would wish to accomplish at least two things: require work hours of parents and guardians at the schools their children attend and return joy to teaching and learning in our schools. Our ultimate goal should be to create life-long learners who feel they should be of some service to society.
Let’s try to make lemonade out of the CCSS along the way.
Robert, free public education is what keeps America free. Countries that do not provide universal education are countries that are taken over by dictators and terrorists. Witness: Afghanistan. Literacy rate 20% (5% for females). One of the early things the Nazis did was kick the Jewish kids out of school. In Southeast Asia after the Vietnam war, the communists hunted down and killed as many educated people, especially teachers as they could find. A friend of mine had a stepmother from Laos who grew up in a refugee camp and never learned to read. So she sent her stepson to a Laotian Sunday school so he could learn to read Lao and Thai and read her mail to her. He was about 8 at the time. In poor countries people have to petition for a school and children are excluded if they cannot pay for uniforms. Free public education, even if some people don’t appreciate it today may not be specifically mentioned in the Constitution, but why would the slave owners have denied it to the slaves if it was not important to their freedom? Did you see the 20/20 about Warren Jeffs and the Fundamentalist Mormons? He kept his followers illiterate and put the children to work instead of educating them so he could control them. It’s not mentioned in the Constitution. It is, however, a part of all men being created equal and life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The first sentence is enough for me:
“As the new Secretary of Education, my first priority will be to reverse the trend toward the privatization of the public schools, to end the pervasive climate of fear and demoralization among the nation’s educators and to urgently promote desegregation and genuine equality of resources and opportunity in all K-12 schools.”
This graduate student believes his duty would be to fix the system with national regulations and policies. I think we are doing that now and not a lot of us like the results (e.g. testing, charter schools, …).
How about shrinking the DOE to 5% of it’s current size and transforming DOE into a research organization that publishes 100’s of peer reviewed studies and emails each to all teachers, all parents and any who wants them, worldwide. Wouldn’t such a move empower teachers and parents to deliver a complete full education to all? Somehow, I think such contemporary information would be better than an “MS in Education” — I could be wrong.
Our education problems (in America) are about connecting with kids. Teachers, alone,
cannot do that. Ignore parent participation and lots of money will be spent with no effective results, in my opinion.
Kids learn from two environments:
1. School
2. Home
Ignore either and you are wasting your money.
PS: Love your blog, Diane. Don’t agree with everything, but you are best education
blog I have found. How to I tweet that?
I agree with Brian completely. I would add a couple of things
1, Dispose of Teach for America and alternative certification (except for vocational courses) or revise it completely as follows.
1. Hire TFAs as paraprofessionals to work under experienced teachers for their first year.
2. Require a commitment of 5 years, not 2, so the schools get full benefit from them
3. Do not place them in schools with high percentages of disadvantaged and disabled students. Instead, put them in middle class schools and create incentives for the best teachers to go to the disadvantaged schools instead.
4. Expect that by the end of their second year they are taking education courses online or in person to earn certification if they intend to stay another year.
2. Charter schools: Hold them to the same standards as public schools and require them to hire ONLY certified teachers and to pay them at state rates and use approved curricula. Require them to provide full special education services including moderate and severe/profound/multihandicapped and autistic with NO quotas and taught ONLY by certified special educators (No first or second year TFA’s) and to follow IDEA and Section 504.
3. Require that all principals be teachers with at least 5 years in the classroom, a Masters or higher in Education and special ed. experience
4. Require that all superintendents have at least 10 years of classroom experience and special educaton certification, (original or add-on) and a Masters or higher. This includes and especially includes the state superintendent.
5. No taxpayer money for parochial or private schools. None for charters that do not meet standards.
6. Schools with high percentages of disadvantaged, disabled, ELL, or 504 students get 10% in extra funding beyond what other schools in the district receive.
7. School Board will consist of parents, grandparents or siblings of students in public schools in the district and teachers or retired teachers only.
8. State governing board consists of 1/2 parents, grandparents, siblings or students in the public schools and 1/2 teachers or administrators from the public schools who have been or are certified teachers.
9. The Mayor, Governor or other public official has no role in choosing the State Superintendent or other leader over the schools. The leader is picked by the school boards. The exception is when the Mayor or Governor IS a teacher (such as Zell Miller was in Georgia.)
10. Eliminate most standardized testing. Any standardized testing is normed on students of the area where the students who are tested live. Questions include equal numbers that are regionally based. In other words, don’t ask Louisiana children about mountains unless there are also questions about bayous. Include regional vocabulary among correct answers, i.e. “pocketbook” as well as “purse” and “soda” or “coke” as well as “pop” for a cold drink.
11. Include the teachers’ unions in policy development and require local and state boards to show evidence of their inclusion.
12. Universally available pre-k held in the public schools and taught by certified early childhood teachers.
13. Deemphasis on “on time” graduation. Emphasis on graduating whether the student is 16 and took some courses on-line or 22.
14. Special education diplomas, state diplomas, for all students with IEPS even if they cannot pass standard courses as long as they complete the work required by their IEPS. NO Certificates of Achievement for students who have been in school all their lives—Real Special Education Diplomas and a Vocational Seal on those diplomas if they completed a vocational program, even with accommodations—-as long as they know the material.
15. Require EVERY administrator and policy maker who is or was a certified teacher above the level of principal to go back to the classroom for 1 year out of every 7 and to spend one week of each school year as a substitute teacher. Require every principal to spend 10 days per school year as a substitute in their own or a nearby school.
Well, that is more than a few. If the schools do not comply the risk losing federal funding or being taken over by a compliant school.
I’m missing something. If the Federal and State governments are screwing education with tests and charter schools, how does more government in the form of regulations not aggravate the problems? Is American education a one size fits all issue? Not according to the teachers I know and the many intelligent and thoughtful comments I have seen in this blog
I love these suggestions.
Yes evaluate teachers: evaluate them based on how well they teach creative and critical thinking, how often they teach music, dance, theatre and visual arts, how active students are in their classes, how inquisitive their students are, how well they turn their classrooms from places of answers to places of questions, and how loved and safe their students feel in their schools.
Then go ahead and test (once in awhile, to satisfy the accountability nuts). Student achievement will be up, school morale will be up, student engagement will be up. That’s what the research I’ve read tells me.
If I were Secretary of Education I would:
==> Abandon normative standardized tests used to “measure” school and teacher performance and replace them with mastery assessments that determine if each individual student is learning the content and demonstrating the skills needed to be an informed citizen in a democracy. The student should be the focal point for teachers… not the tests.
==> Require that the Common Core be revamped so that it aligns with the content and skills needed to be an informed citizen in a democracy.
==> Seek full funding of the special education law with the proviso that States and districts to adhere to maintenance of effort standards in order to qualify for the additional funds. This would alleviate budget problems at the state and local level and preclude the funds earmarked for special education to be used for taxpayer relief.
==> Seek to have the Attorney General file amicus briefs in all states courts where lawsuits are filed to seek equitable funding. This would encourage grassroots efforts to remedy deficient funding formulas.
==> Withhold all federal education funds from States where legislatures have taken more than two years to develop equitable funding formulas after a court has determined the need for legislation. This would require states to act expeditiously to redistribute and/or increase state funding for schools.
==> Require state departments of education to promulgate guidelines for teacher recruitment, retention, certification and evaluation and require local boards AND charter schools to adopt policies in accordance with those guidelines.
==> Provide funding for State departments of education to hire the staff needed to develop and implement the above regulations AND withhold federal education funds from States where the regulations are not in place within three years. This should provide sufficient time for a open and democratic process to take place. Oh… and the money for this could come from the “pot of gold” now being used to fund RTTT.
==> Promote the inter-agency sharing of information regarding students. Everyone working with troubled children is sworn to confidentiality to the point where they cannot share worthwhile information that would benefit the child in need.
==> Use my “bully pulpit” to make the public aware that public school teachers are doing an outstanding job in the face of daunting challenges in districts where children are raised in poverty… and to emphasize that money DOES make a difference. If it didn’t, affluent public school districts would spend the same amount per student as economically challenged districts.
The secretary of education doesn’t have much money to give out but, as we’ve seen with RTTT, it can be used to leverage change. The secretary of education DOES have a bully pulpit… it would be refreshing to have it used to tell the world that our schools are NOT failing but DO face challenges in working with children raised in poverty, that our teachers are dedicated and hard working and not the cause of our supposedly failing schools, and that money DOES make a difference and should be allocated more equitably— particularly in those states where courts have ruled the funding formulas unconstitutional.