The Only Effective Way to Help Schools

27 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. FLERP! says:

   June 6, 2013 at 10:12 am

   In other words, if they really cared about other people’s children, they should be trying to make public schools more like the best private schools: triple the funding, cut the class sizes to 15 or lower, base admissions on standardized testing, kick out the students with discipline problems, and make teachers at-will employees with defined-contribution retirement plans.

   No? Then enough with this condescending and silly argument that nobody’s actually serious about.

   Reply
   • Dienne says:

     June 6, 2013 at 10:47 am

     Why is it so unreasonable to think that we could spend $30,000 on every child’s education? We seem to have trillions to spend on reducing other countries to rubble and trillions more to spend bailing out banks. Why couldn’t that money – or even a small fraction of it – be spent on education? Especially from the people who claim to be putting “children first”?

     Reply
     • FLERP! says:

       June 6, 2013 at 12:24 pm

       I’m not saying it’s per se unreasonable to think we could double or triple the amount that is spent on public education. What I’m saying is that I don’t see anyone advocating for that — certainly not any of the New York public education advocates (including Diane). I suspect that it’s because *they* probably think it’s unreasonable to think we could spend $30,000 on every child’s education (or $50,000 or $60,000 in New York, if the point is to match what private schools spend). So you should direct your question to them, not me.

       Duane S. proposed here recently that all of the funding in what you could call the “war budget” (Pentagon, CIA, Homeland Security, FBI counter-terrorism, etc.) be cut in half and redirected to education. By my calculations, that would be about a half trillion dollars. If you redirected a half trillion dollars to education, that would almost double the size of public education budgets. To triple them, you’d have to cut the “war budget” down to zero. Education would then take up 20% of the federal budget. Again, I’m not saying that’s reasonable or unreasonable. It could be good policy in some important ways. But that is the scale of this discussion, assuming we actually mean what we say. I tend to think we don’t — that it’s just another empty talking point.

       And it’s not just about dollars, as far as teachers are concerned. It’s also about working conditions. Do we want our children to be taught by teachers who have job security and good retirement benefits? For most parents who send their children to elite (and non-elite) private schools, that’s something that “other people’s children” need, not theirs.

     • Robert D. Shepherd says:

       June 6, 2013 at 1:18 pm

       FLERP, half a trillion is an wild underestimate. According to a recent Brown University study, committed spending on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is now at over 6 trillion dollars. With that kind of money, we could have put solar panels on the roof of every home in the United States. We could have done amazing things to alleviate children’s poverty. The opportunity costs of those fiascoes are breathtakingly large.

     • FLERP! says:

       June 6, 2013 at 1:28 pm

       Robert, I meant annual, on a going forward basis. From what I’ve seen, the number is around $1 trillion a year.

     • teachingeconomist says:

       June 6, 2013 at 1:36 pm

       Robert,

       Is that 6 trillion dollar figure the annual expenditure or the total expenditure on the wars. We spend about 650 billion dollars annually on public K-12 education, so something over 6 trillion over the last 10 years. This would make FLERP! estimate about right.

     • FLERP! says:

       June 6, 2013 at 1:51 pm

       It’s certainly not an annual figure. The whole federal budget is under $4 trillion.

       This is possibly what he’s referring to. It puts the number at $4 trillion, and that appears to include past and future costs.

       http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2011/06/warcosts

       I think a trillion is a decent estimate of the total “war budget,” half of which would be $500 million.

     • Duane Swacker says:

       June 10, 2013 at 11:35 am

       FLERP!

       “But that is the scale of this discussion, assuming we actually mean what we say. I tend to think we don’t — that it’s just another empty talking point.”

       Well, it’s not meant as a “another empty talking point” by me. People think tell me I’m crazy to suggest such a thing as, by golly, “they’s all dem turrerristss” out there who hate “Amurikens” and want to take over this country-ha ha!!

       And your calculations may or may not be correct. I tend to think that the savings could be quite a bit more than your estimate.

       Imperial is as imperial does. And imperials eventually die. Which route will ours go? A more peaceful fade into the night scenario or a total destruction by force? I’d prefer the first and the first step is to get the hell out of being the world’s “democracy policeman” and withdraw the vast majority of our military.

       (Sorry this is a delayed response but I have been enjoying the Jacks Fork River in southern MO for the last week. Got the privilege of seeing a western pygmy rattlesnake in the wild. Not many get that chance!)

2. kb1459 says:

   June 6, 2013 at 10:16 am

   The money that has been spent on this reform issue by the billionaire boys club could have, if not solved the hunger problem in this country, come close to it. This is off topic but I have to say it. I think what Chris Christie is doing in New Jersey for his own political gain is horrible, he should be recalled.

   Reply
3. WordsMatter says:

   June 6, 2013 at 11:19 am

   Thank you Edward Berger for good old common sense. Absolutely on target!

   Reply
4. Robert D. Shepherd says:

   June 6, 2013 at 11:24 am

   It’s no secret that income inequality has skyrocketed in the United States in recent decades, that economic and social mobility have plummeted, that wealth has been increasingly concentrated at the top, and that increasingly, the affluent in this country are isolated in their own circles–living in their own separate neighborhoods; sending their kids to their own separate schools from preschool through college; keeping their money offshore; spending much of their time in homes outside the country; and so on.

   Isolation from ordinary people breeds contempt and prejudice. Lack of intimate, long-term interaction with ordinary people makes it easier for the wealthy to generalize about “those people,” whoever they might be–workers, teachers, the poor, etc., and to buy into across-the-board, one-size-fits-all prescriptions regarding those Others. It becomes easy to think that it makes sense that we have a top-down, mandated, invariant curriculum for the masses based upon the vise of invariant standards on the one side and invariant tests on the other if one thinks of teachers, students, workers, the poor–of any group of people outside the privileged class–as homogenous. “If only we held those people accountable via a standardized test!” begins to sound sensible, even though giving the same test to every third grader is equivalent to giving the same certification exam to plumbers, doctors, airplane mechanics, and NBA players. And when the privileged, with all their accomplishments and clout, make such generalizations, others buy in out of fear and self interest and, of course, respect. How could a man as clearly brilliant and skilled as, say, Bill Gates, be so terribly wrong? Our politicians left and right have almost entirely bought into the absurd generalizations underpinning the accountability movement. And our educational “leaders” have lacked all leadership; they haven’t had the courage to say that the emperor has no clothes.

   There are two main issues here: First, we can have liberty, or we can have standardized objectives (and, inevitably, the standardized curricula that follow from them) mandated by a small, centralized, unaccountable, totalitarian authority. Second, we can recognize students’ uniqueness and diversity and foster their individual propensities and talents, or we can give them a homogenous, one-size-fits-all education.

   It’s astonishing to me that there is even any debate about which we should do. And it’s horrifying that our “leaders”–professional education people–have come down so often on the side of taking away educators’ autonomy, their ability to make their own decisions about what to teach, when, and to whom.

   Reply
   • Duane Swacker says:

     June 10, 2013 at 11:39 am

     Robert,

     You are much nicer than I. I would have written “And our educational “leaders” have lacked all leadership; they DIDN’T AND DON”T HAVE the COJONES to say that the emperor has no clothes. THEY ARE TOADIES WHO KNOW WHO BUTTERS THEIR BREAD”

     Reply
5. Robert D. Shepherd says:

   June 6, 2013 at 11:25 am

   I really wish that one could edit these posts. In the post above, “whoever” should be, of course, “whomever,” objective case.

   Reply
6. Dr. Gabriel Maldonado says:

   June 6, 2013 at 11:53 am

   Diane, I think its time the antireformers in all of us put forth a concise, non technical, branding savvy, counter proposal for what we think public schools should look like as we move forward into the 21st century. I feel like we are throwing rocks at the reformy crowd without a comprehensive counter plan (just counterpoints) which I think the public and politicians (and the teachers) desperately need to counterbalance the proposals and actions of those who, in this last decade have virtually taken over public education in the US. I realize many ideas are out there in the debate, but nowhere have I found an alternative reform agenda, something “the resistance” could all sign on to, as a public alternative proposal, backed by the appropriate research findings and collective wisdom of real educators. I think we might be more effective if we convened a national counter corporate reform conference that would give coherent voice and shape to a national public school plan. There is a reason the Rhees and the Koops with virtually no educational experience have managed to take over – they are very good at the marketing and branding speak (and have tons of money to push their message through).

   Reply
   • Robert D. Shepherd says:

     June 6, 2013 at 12:00 pm

     Yes, and that counterproposal should be about a) restoring local autonomy–site-based management of standards and curricula AND b) re-envisioning school so that it is about discovering the unique propensities and interests of kids and creating alternative tracks, in the later grades–to which parents and students can opt in.

     Reply
   • dianerav says:

     June 6, 2013 at 1:47 pm

     Dr. Gabriel Maldonado, my next book will do exactly that. It will show why the privatizers are wrong and offer a concrete, research-backed counter proposal.

     Reply
     • FLERP! says:

       June 6, 2013 at 2:51 pm

       Will the proposal involve tripling education spending or requiring class sizes below 15?

   • Joanna Best says:

     June 6, 2013 at 1:59 pm

     yes. I agree.

     Reply
7. Robert D. Shepherd says:

   June 6, 2013 at 11:56 am

   Our educational “leaders” are partially responsible for paving the way for the current deform because they, too, for a long time, backed top-down measures–taking autonomy away from local schools and local school districts and placing it in the hands of people in state departments.

   Kids do not come standardized, and we shouldn’t be trying to standardize them, unless, of course, the real agenda is to produce a nation of obedient automatons who will do precisely as they are told. This movement is really about two different visions of America. Do we want an America characterized by individual autonomy, diversity, and pluralism, or do we want to standardize the products of the couplings of “those people”–the masses?

   Reply
8. edededucation says:

   June 6, 2013 at 12:49 pm

   Every school is different. Expecting one to propose the same solutions for every school is denying children and their communities the diversity of educational need that they have, whether we want to acknowledge it or not. In short, what works for one school does NOT necessarily work for the next.

   Somehow folks have gotten caught up on this argument that rich folks proposing educational reforms should have to promote the same reforms in their own children’s schools.

   Reply
   • Robert D. Shepherd says:

     June 6, 2013 at 1:19 pm

     You are right. That’s irrelevant. And the real issue is the absurdity of the one-size-fits-all solutions.

     Reply
     • edededucation says:

       June 6, 2013 at 1:33 pm

       Agreed

   • Dienne says:

     June 6, 2013 at 2:33 pm

     These reforms aren’t being “proposed”, they’re being forced, mostly on poor and minoritiy districts by rich white folks who send their kids to private schools. Imagine the reverse – what if poor and minority people tried to force reform on rich white districts, especially if that reform was exactly the opposite of what the poor and minority people wanted for their own children?

     Reply
     • edededucation says:

       June 8, 2013 at 10:49 am

       I think there are a few nuances here. First, I definitely think it’s worth thinking about that a group of folks could be using social power and privilege inappropriately. So, if rich white folks are using that power to inappropriately implement ineffective interventions, that’s a problem. I’m on board with that argument. However, what seems to have been argued is that the problem is that those rich white folks didn’t chose the same thing for their own kids. That’s a different issue, and a standard that doesn’t make sense, because it would itself fall into the “one-size-fits-all” category.

       Let’s just be precise with our arguments. I agree with you Dienne – using racial/social power to inappropriately force bad interventions is a REAL problem. On the other hand, it’s is NOT a real problem that rich white folks aren’t proposing the same interventions for all kids. Consider the implications – that would suggest that the right answer is that rich white folks shouldn’t just propose one-size-fits-all solutions for poor black schools, but for all schools. That would be equally wrong and disastrous.

9. Deb says:

   June 6, 2013 at 12:58 pm

   This article from Edward F. Berger points out the fact that we need to value the opportunity for ALL students to achieve well. It can’t be done by perpetuating penalizing students who don’t have the benefits afforded to those with a lot of disposable income. That is why I advocate for 1) teaching the kids in their own neighborhoods, 2) keeping class sizes low – (10-12) for as long as is needed for students to learn on grade level, and 3) invest money into the teachers and facilities (as well as tech) to advocate at an optimal level for ALL students.

   I don’t think Ohio did a good job of helping those who need schooling the most. The misguided and misleading attempts to use tests to “fix” the problem generally just proved what we already knew. The kids who needed the most assistance and the districts that had the most problems continued to be the same districts. No one was helped.

   In Ohio, in the mid-90s, the Ohio Proficiency Test was created. It was designed, purportedly, to diagnose the needs of students and the route that the upcoming grade levels should take in order to bring the students up to the appropriate level. The tests were difficult because they pwere diagnostic, not achievement, tests. However, with the onset of NCLB, these tests started morphing to be Achievement Tests and later to Achievement Assessments. The tests have been different each year, yet they are used to compare student progress and AYP and then teacher accountability. It doesn’t matter if the students come to the district mid-year or whether they have never had a standardized test, they are still expected to perform and the teacher who gets the new student in her/his class is expected to make sure that the child is on level. There have been some nightmare cases and in the end, the “solution” is often to focus on the lower kids and bring them up to proficient. That can be at the expense of enriching the other students. It is very difficult to address all the needs that are required when you have an amorphous test hanging over your head, a moving target, aimed at while being blindfolded, so to speak. I don’t think this has made any of us better teachers. But it has made us better test-preparers. I don’t feel that the kids are benefitting from this, particularly with the stress involved.

   What began as a diagnostic test became a punitive test for students, districts, teachers, and ultimately a means of stripping some districts of control. Couple this with the perpetual de-funding of the districts from the state coffers, we have reached a point of utter exhaustion.

   Reply
10. begtodiffer says:

    June 6, 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Right? Hey Mr. Gates, drop a mill in my personal school account and watch those test scores go through the roof.

    Reply
11. Robert Rendo says:

    June 6, 2013 at 11:32 pm

    Robert Shepherd,

    Thank you for bringing into focus income inequality and the new redistribution of wealth in the United States of Two Americas.

    You make some beautifully articulated points.

    Keep up the good work!

    Reply