A reader explains why public schools matter to the life of communities:
“Public schools are not panaceas for poverty or crime or any of the other ills of our society, but they can provide a place for a community to come together, to learn to get along with each other, to watch out for each other. They can create a sense of security and predictability for our children. Privatization of our schools destroys this sense of community. It takes ownership out of the hands of the community and renders parents powerless in the education of their own children. Those in power would do well to invest in schools that strengthen our communities.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane Ravitch ended an earlier post (Cody, Common Core Failing) with this short sentence: “Democracy matters.”
Perhaps that ought to be the theme of education reform, genuine education reform. Education reform that restores pubic education to its original mission, that of cultivating democratic citizenship.
Democratic governance is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, for the people. It’s supposed to promote the general welfare of “the People” Indeed, the Constitution specifies that as one of the document’s purposes in being crafted. And in Article I, Section 8, the first power provided to Congress is the power to tax for the “general Welfare of the United States.” And yet, there are those who claim that taxation is “evil.” That it destroys “freedom.” It seems that many of these same people are the ones seeking to rob the public treasuries, diverting taxpayer money from promoting the general welfare to pumping up private bank accounts.
A democratic society is predicated and contingent on a citizenry that understands and is committed to democratic values. Pericles defined them more than two millennia ago: openness, popular sovereignty and majority rule, equality, justice, tolerance, and promoting the general welfare. In any democratic society, the people ARE the government. Aristotle noted that democracy (demos) is the populace, the common people. Thus if all citizens are part of self-rule, then they are “a part of the state, and the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.” That is the essence of the social contract.
Public education has become a part of that. And that’s exactly why public schooling holds a unique place in democracies, and why it’s so important. It’s why Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia (1794) that “The influence over government must be shared among all men.” It’s why nany early advocates for public schools –– Jefferson, George Washington, Horace Mann, for instance –– agreed that democratic citizenship was THE primary function of education. Aristotle called it “the character of democracy,” later described by University of Chicago social scientist Earl Johnson as “the supreme end of education in a democracy.” John Dewey put it this way: ““the democracy which proclaims equality of opportunity as its ideal requires an education in which learning and social application, ideas and practice…are united from the beginning and for all.”
But look at the Mission Statement form the Common Core standards initiative: “The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.”
Not a whiff of democratic citizenship. Zilch.
Many of the big-money foundations –– Gates, Walton, Robertson, Bradley and Koret Foundations –– push “market-driven” corporate-style “reforms.” They are supported by the likes of Pearson (the testing behemoth), ETS (think College Board and PSAT, SAT, AP, and AccuPlacer), ACT, Achieve (funded by big business), McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin and Microsoft. And by big bankers (Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan) and hedge-funders. And by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.
These groups have pushed incessantly for corporate and upper-bracket tax cuts and laissez-faire regulatory policies, which caused a huge pile-up of deficits and debt, and led to a shattered economy. The supply-side policies these organizations pushed to have enacted led to increases in poverty, millions of lost jobs and houses, a corporate culture that fosters off-shore tax evasion and funds oligarchic ideology, and gross income inequality. They broke the economy. But the perpetrators point the finger of blame at public education. The Chamber says the Common Core standards “are essential to helping the United States remain competitive” in the global economy. The Business Roundtable says that increasing student achievement via the Common Core is vitally important to increasing U.S. competitiveness (the Roundtable even resurrects the “rising tide of mediocrity” myth).
The big lie is the American “competitiveness” is tied to student test scores. It’s not. The U.S. already is internationally competitive. When it loses its competitive edge, it’s precisely BECAUSE of the policies the “reformers” (the Chamber, Roundtable, Gates & Walton Foundations, etc.) have championed, and want even more of.
Democracy matters. Indeed.
I’m worrying that it doesn’t matter enough.
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We have ditched democracy (though some of us didn’t sign up for the ditch nor realize it was happening for quite some time). The privileged white men believed what the early philosophers of education had to say because it was only intended for THEM (and, to a lesser extent, to the lesser sex…white women who could get enough education to raise their boys). Once it applied to everyone, and we had the responsibility to educate EVERY child, they weren’t such fans anymore. But they also weren’t very interested in the undertaking until they could imagine the money that could be made. Now they want to compete. So there are winners and losers, and the “reformers” get to profit from both in their scheme.
I am a white, privileged woman who has the nerve to talk about more than fluffy kittens (see an earlier parody post from Diane on the topic). I have cared about the education of EVERY child for many years. It was so surprising to see the privileged and powerful show up a while back acting as if they cared about the problems in education. I should have known they were only here for themselves. Greedy, selfish, foolish men (and women, like Rhee) have earned my complete disdain.
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You are confusing demagoguery,which is what we have now, and which in fact destroyed the Athens of Pericles, with democracy.
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“And yet, there are those who claim that taxation is “evil.” That it destroys “freedom.” It seems that many of these same people are the ones seeking to rob the public treasuries, diverting taxpayer money from promoting the general welfare to pumping up private bank accounts.”
And they bamboozle people with lofty rhetoric to hide what they are really doing. The classic con of diversion/distraction to rob someone.
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Deja vu all over again. In the 70s our school district in rural Ohio, made up of a small college town and 4 rural townships decided to close the rural grade schools and incorporate them all into a regional city school (the high school and middle school were already joined). There was a huge fight with the opponents from the rural towns arguing how it would hurt their communities where life was centered around the community school. The opponents lost, the schools were merged, and in the end the rural communities were hurt. badly After only a few years one of the leading education experts (from the local university) admitted that it was a mistake and he was wrong in advocating for the merger. It did not save money as was originally assumed; the children spent too many hours on buses and less time in after school activities together; the communities lost their community centers. It was much harder for the regional joint schools to connect to the communities and their families.
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Ignorance knows no socio-economic level. It’s an absolute shame that the above sentiment has to be posted seemingly over and over. How can any citizen of this Democratic Republic not have the mental capacity to comprehend the simple value of public education?
In the reform arena, it baffles me how so many who tout to be learned professionals display so much civic ignorance. The real travesty is that one need not be enlightened to be powerful and influential.
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Communities, the U. S.. indeed the world as they prepare our college professors who the whole world comes to study under their expertise. If public schools are so very bad, why does the world come to study under those profs who got their primary education in our public schools? Does not make sense.
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Back to the author’s statement, which contains some potential rallying cries against ed reform legislation, if I may tweak it a bit: “Public schools are not panaceas for poverty or crime or any of the other ills of our society, but they…provide a place for a community to come together. [Federal and state education policies of the last dozen years] take ownership out of the hands of the community and render parents powerless in the education of their own children. Those in power would do well to invest in schools that strengthen our communities.”
This is the narrative which has the power to awaken the sleeping giant: many communities across the country still have the type of school referred to, and are unaware of the extent to which NCLB, RTTT, and CCSS are already changing them. Buttress the opener with relevant facts, e.g., “Longtime high-performing schools, whose student scores have measured among the best in the world internationally for decades, have already had fine state standards replaced by the fledgeling, untested CCSS, and have lost four to six weeks’ instruction time to tests and testprep in the name of ‘accountability’.”
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Teaching in a public school on Long Island I can tell you what a school is to the community. It is safe Halloween where the high school students decorate the classrooms and give candy to the younger kids. It’s building floats for homecoming and the homecoming parade down our main avenue. It’s decorating the halls of our high school for the senior citizen prom. It’s our school newspaper, and the faculty and students who proudly create it. It’s having a place to go when half the community experienced devestating loses after Sandy. It is teachers, students and fellow community members donating time, food, money and clothes to help those who were suffering. It’s a school where many of the teachers, including myself, are former graduates who have come home to teach. A community school is where I have the children of my classmates and several generations from one family. That is just some of what a community school does.
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Has your community school implemented Common Core curriculum and testing? The virtues of having a community around the school is wonderful, but to what extend has it capitulated to the insanity from Washington D.C.?
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Yes we have started, but haven’t been completely destroyed from it yet. I hope we won’t be. Most of the teachers didn’t drink the kook aid so we are holding on as best we can.
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But community schools don’t implement CC just because they think it sounds good. States do (because of the money they got with RttT). And then they tell community schools that they have to do it. And that is part of the problem, for sure. Continuing to be a strong school for the community despite the CC (I think) is the challenge right now.
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Dear Toby, Kids are here. We need to decorate pumpkins as literary characters, and we need advice on where to go for paint. Any ideas? Stop by, if you can! Thanks. Love, M
Sent from my iPad
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???
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This is the group which is “Only for me.” Divide and conquer for my financial wellbeing and who cares about the students I want what I want and that is it.
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Growing up, there was a little convenience store in my home town. It was “Chris’s Sack and Save”. It’s where my friends and I would buy our soda’s, chocolate, and chips to energize us to ride our bikes back to our homes, or to our “wherevers”.
When I was around my 11th or 12th grade year, this little convenience store got sold. Not only did the name change (to what, I really do not recall – it’s been changed quite a bit throughout the years), but I no longer got to see the smiling face of the owner, greeting me when I paid for my goodies (nor him giving me the extra change to pay for my mom’s cigarettes). It just didn’t feel the same. It was kinda sad.
This is what happens when charter schools, education management companies, and any other capitalistic change enters our community-owned, public school system. The names are not the only things that change. The people change. The values change. Who is served changes.
The school no longer belongs to the community. There is a new line of segregation: “us” and “them”. The ballpark is renamed. Corporate sponsors come in and the teachers and administrators behave differently: Maw-Maw called it, “putting on airs”. Even the teachers we saw as second mothers or grandmothers or uncles are gone.
The heart and soul is gone.
What made that school ours is gone.
Sure, there is money to be made with change. But does it help us as human souls to nurture that sense of “belonging” Maslow told us was so important in development of the self?
Sometimes the more things change, the less they stay the same.
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Maybe schools aren’t the place to build communities. Quite possibly education institutions should be for just that purpose: education. Creating separate gov’t-supported community programs to strengthen all socio-economic groups and ages may be more productive. It seems combining these two together hasn’t worked. I’m not saying there won’t be overlap, but making it an expectation of the schools just isn’t working.
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It shouldn’t be an either/or. Schools are communities in themselves and can bring the larger community together. They do not heal all the ills of society, but they create a place where people meet and work with their neighbors to educate the next generation. Educate does not just mean stuff their heads full of information. They are places where imagination and creativity should be allowed to flourish. Schools spark life long interests. They foster friendships and collaboration. They can be places of laughter and fun as well as arenas for serious study. I can’t imagine a public school that isn’t a community.
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You’re right that community programs are also necessary, but in a small community the school building itself is the community gathering place. In the grade school where I grew up, the school cafeteria and gymnasium were used in the evenings and on weekends for boys and girls club meetings, community potlucks, holiday celebrations, and a place where the community came together to see the team play. So when the school goes away and the building and grounds are no longer maintained, these activities are also moved and the community is dispersed. Or worse yet, there is no longer a place to gather, and the gatherings also go away.
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Exactly. I think about my brother’s Cub Scout meetings and my brownie meetings in my elementary cafeteria. Where do they go? What happens to communities, home town pride and childhood when these places are stolen?
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I was under the impression that it did work very well at one time. Integration has provided some growing pains for schools has community havens. But I think we were getting closer to working those things out until reform came along. Now we are going backwards.
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I just don’t think people are aware yet that we could lose public schools. I think we would really, really regret that. In this town, the public school is what we all have in common. It holds the town together.
If we split off into warring “choice” camps, like what is happening in NY and Chicago and Philadelphia (which was inevitable, because parents are simply fighting over public resources for their kids) we’ll be diminished.
Has there ever been a case where a reform group converted a failing charter school into a public school?
I think something like that would go a long way towards building trust with public school parents who want to keep their local public schools.
Do something FOR public schools. Show us.
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So taking away parents’ choice is supposed to give them more ownership? I truly don’t understand that argument. And I see a lot of the ad nominee form of argument onn this blog.
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“Parents’ choice” is not about public schools. It is about options in education paid for by tax payers. Two different conversations.
Most folks who are fond of finding answers to make public schools better see that education options paid for by tax payers redirects the conversation and makes answers and progress in public schools ever more elusive.
Lemmings will follow the “choice”conversation. Those who care about public schools will stay focused on that subject.
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Thanks, Joanna for your thoughtful answer. I guess I just don’t understand why we can’t have both parent choice and high quality public schools. Why can’t both sides get along for the sake of the kids? Can you please help me understand?
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@RazorbackGuru – I am just one parent/taxpayer/part-time educator, and my main concern at the moment is the average- to – good – to great- public school systems in middle-sized, middle (& up) class towns and suburbs across the nation. (I do not pretend to know how to help the crumbling systems in poor areas, beyond sending some of our property taxes to help them, which my state does).
My take on it is just common-sense economics. A school district has a fixed amount of funding. If your local system has decent schools, how can they remain decent if other schools are opened in the district which compete for those students using the same block of money?
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Thank you for your answer, @Spanish & French Freelancer. In one way, I see your point – there is only so much $ to go around and the entry of charter schools into an otherwise pretty good school district will definitely mean less for everyone. I have two thoughts about that: 1st, why would a charter enter any district if there wasn’t a need for it? Businesses operate on a profit motive, and if there isn’t an educational need, they most likely won’t find any takers, and therefore zero profit, right? Second, a common sense law to add for any new charters to be able to enter a district should be some indicator of school quality that avoids the high stakes testing racket. That way charters could only enter districts where students aren’t getting a good education and provide a potentially helpful alternative.
Anyways, my comments are mostly centered on the need for people from all “sides” to work together to help our kids get a great education, wherever they are.
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The conversation here is about the optimal scale of a school building. If there are the right number of students who wish to have a different sort of education, it should have little impact on the other schools, though transportation might well be an issue. Depending on the specific local conditions, these transportation problems might be minimal or very difficult to deal with.
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Razorback,
I don’t see anyone taking away parents choices.
That statement sounds straw man to me.
And a bit inflammatory.
Parents have many choices….
Including where to buy, rent or lease property.
home schooling,
private schools of all kinds and prices,
Choices within the public school ( vocational classes, AP classes, special ed classes, various electives and diploma choices, theme schools, magnet schools, etc… Granted more choices prior to “reform” took over.)
All manner of choices.
I suspect you are referring to charters/ vouchers.
Some of the problems with these include:
Setting up a dual school system.
Segregation.
Various scams and rip offs of the publics money.
Profiteering.
Public money going to religious schools ( do you want to pay for the Wiccan academy for LGBT youth?, or how some other religion to which you do not subscribe? I don’t )
A history of poor results of vouchers.
And many other issues…
( for real information, disregard my little summary and read Reign of Error).
However, we really do all own our public schools.
We can work together to make them great!
And regarding the later comment about places where students are “not getting a good education”…..
Well, perhaps in those places we will see a very high % of children in poverty, or lots of English language learners.
You see, they don’t score as well on corporate made tests as upper class kids.
Again check out Diane’s book for info on the myths surrounding the failing public schools.
It does not follow that low test scores = they are getting a poor education.
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I apologize… I did not intend to be inflammatory. I didn’t realize that talking about parents’ choices was inflammatory. And as for your choices, how can a low SES family even consider to live in areas of town where the schools are better?! They can’t afford to and you know it. Just as they can’t afford to put their kids in private school or to homeschool them on their low income. And the choices within the public school that you mention aren’t present in many of the districts where they can afford to live! Choices? They have no choice at all.
I am not pro charter or pro public school, I am pro kid. I am pro for anything that helps our kids to get a better education. If that is better traditional public schools (and I hope it does), then great! But if it means a charter school under proper regulations helping when a traditional school has not done well… Then I am for that too.
Also, although I agree that alleviating poverty in places where students aren’t getting a good education should be a primary thrust of our educational policy, I do not agree that it is all poverty related. Looking at the ways in which low and high SES school teachers use technology in their classrooms is a great example of this. Even in schools where there are similar technology infrastructures (in both SES examples), the low SES teachers end up using the technology for administration and for teacher centered activities while the higher SES school teachers allow their kids to use the technology to do authentic, student-centered activities.
One more thing – I am reading Reign of Error and enjoying it very much! I appreciate Ms. Ravitch’s passion for kids, but I don’t like her attacks on others. She has a compelling argument without resorting to those tactics.
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You know Razorback, sometimes you just have to name names…and sometimes you just have to call failed programs and policies what they are, and sometimes, you have call arguments that are silly and false, well, silly and false.
And technology? It is no panacea. We’re spending billions and billions of dollars on technology, but there’s just no good research to show that it enhances learning. Yes, it’s a valuable tool. But nothing more.
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Sorry, autocorrect changed my words – ad hominem form of argument
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I am not sure that traditional zoned schools actually reinforce community. I live 540 feet from the edge of one of the the junior high catchment area in my town, so students living at my home are assigned to a school that is an unwalkable 1.5 miles away rather than the school on a much safer walking route only 1.1 miles away. The high school that students living at my house are assigned to is 3.3 miles away instead of the high school that is only 1.7 miles away.
The catchment lines in my town, at least, are designed to break up the SES concentration that is even found in this relatively small self contained town in which I live. The goal, in an important sense, is to use the building catchment are to break up the neighborhoods, not reinforce them.
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But what about the local public schools who have destroyed children’s lives? I am not saying that charters will fix anything. What about my local district who has had administrators and union leaders stealing from the coffers for years while children are regularly shot and beaten in unsafe schools? What about the teachers who allow children to hurt each other because they cannot work outside of their contracts? What about my child who was told that she should keep her mouth shut about being bullied – by a teacher. None of the neighborhood schools in my district are havens. They are all holding pens for children that produce a very large number of uneducated criminals. What do you propose should be done? This district receives the highest amount of money per pupil in our state! Should we just give them more money?
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If you have definitive proof of administrators and union officials stealing from the coffers, get an investigative journalist and your local and state policy-makers in to bring these people to justice.
Your statement claiming that teachers “allow children to hurt each other” because they actually have employment protections that dictate when they are on-duty (and when they are not) is quite a stretch. Sounds like the spinning of a whole lot of BS rhetoric. No “contracted day” clauses promote children getting hurt. Let me guess… you’re a conservative, anti-union “patriot” who’s “not gonna take it anymore,” right?
If you’re unhappy with what’s going on in your community, TAKE ACTION as a member of your community and stop framing the story by putting the responsibility on teachers for preventing crime. That notion is absurd and will make you a laughing-stock. Community leaders are responsible for the well-being of the commons–last I heard, teachers do not run cities, police departments or law-making councils. So, do you have any other preposterous “assertions of truth” about public schools or are you going to refrain from making connections that speak to your political motivations?
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The administrators and union officials were arrested and fined for their thefts.
As far as my child not being protected, thrice my daughter was bullied. When she was thrown down a flight of stairs, the first time, I complained to the teacher. She stated that the incident happened on her break and she cannot be held responsible for the children’s actions during her PROTECTED break. Its rather ironic that her break is protected and my child’s body was not.
It is rather silly of you to assume you know anything about me or my political motivations. Do you view everything as black and white?
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“The administrators and union officials were arrested and fined for their thefts.”
Glad to hear it. Now let’s be fair…you mentioned this situation as if it was still going on and the community has no choice but to take it, yet justice prevailed after all at least on this complaint. That is good news.
“As far as my child not being protected, thrice my daughter was bullied. When she was thrown down a flight of stairs, the first time, I complained to the teacher.”
First off, no child should have to endure what she did. It is indeed terrible, and my heart goes out to both of you. It’s important to know that there are laws stipulating supervision that are in place to protect children, and there are specific obligatory supervision schedules set forth by the administration. If there was any wrong-doing on the part if the teacher, i.e. neglect of the afore-mentioned duties, the administration should call in the police and DYFS and discipline said teacher. Was there neglect as per the scheduled supervision set forth by the administration?
“She stated that the incident happened on her break and she cannot be held responsible for the children’s actions during her PROTECTED break. Its rather ironic that her break is protected and my child’s body was not.”
Here’s where I question the responsibility–again what supervision responsibilities did that teacher have at that time as set forth by the administration? What grade was your daughter in at the time? If she was traveling with a class like in the elementary grades, there MUST be a certified staff member escorting the class. That person would be responsible to find a way to help the child out of the immediate danger and make a report to admins. In middle and high schools, students generally pass through the halls on their own, but hallways should be monitored–this is usually a collective effort on the part of several staff members. If the incident happened during class time, in whose class was your daughter and the other student supposed to be? Those individuals, while most likely not present in the location since most people do not teach in stairwells, would have more of an obligation to report the incident had it been reported to them. Regarding stairwells, it is up to the administration to post monitors or not. Ultimately, the school administration is responsible for every child’s well-being, but it is important to know what the supervision protocols for the stair areas are before one blames an underling such as a teacher for neglect of duties. In my state, the new bullying laws state that any staff member who is made aware of a bullying situation is responsible to make a report. As recent as two years ago, those laws were not in place.
So what were the circumstances regarding supervision in this situation? Without full disclosure of these parameters as part of your story, the argument against teacher protections in this case is weak. The admins are ultimately responsible, but if a teacher was neglecting his or her supervisory obligations as stipulated in the contract and in the teacher’s scheduled assignment, you have a case against the teacher. If not, you are angry about the situation (rightfully so) but taking it out on the teacher.
“It is rather silly of you to assume you know anything about me or my political motivations. Do you view everything as black and white?”
I know the type of Internet poster who looks to blame union protections for the injustices in the public schools. Spin is a big part of their M.O. They tend to be those who purposely steer the narrative toward blaming others for the bad things that happen to them. I’m sorry to hear that your daughter was bullied and several times, too. No child should have to endure that–and over and over, too–but it sounds like the problems in that school were far greater than one superhero teacher could fix. If you are a reasonable “critical thinker,” perhaps you might step away from your immediate reactions to the situation (difficult as that may be given the extreme circumstances) and do a little research on not only how public school supervision protocols work but on why job protections are necessary. In the end, it’s absolutely clear that you made the best choice for your daughter to remove her from that environment–sounds like the administration had little control over the safety and well-being of the children…a travesty, to be sure. I hope there is some way to affect positive change in that community.
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It sounds like your community has much bigger problems than the quality of the schools. Contrary to reform assertions, schools cannot heal the wounds of the surrounding environment. Your schools do sound bad–poorly led and managed–but I sincerely doubt the the school encourages students to bring weapons to school or to beat each other. In that environment, the smartest thing your child could do may be to keep quiet about bullying. Teachers who care are unlikely to get any backing from a corrupt administration. Having worked in a school where fights were a daily event and no student could enter the building without going through a medical detector, I know there are no easy answers, but it does take a strong, committed administration that supports their teachers as well as a community that is behind those efforts. What can you do to make that a reality?
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I can do nothing to make that a reality. I decided to pull my daughter from the system to protect her life. I now homeschool her. She comes with me to work so I can pay the bills and she doesn’t get thrown down a flight of stairs again.
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Getting thrown down the stairs is a bit more than being bullied. That is assault. That teacher sounds like he/she was afraid of being accused of something or afraid of the perpetrators. I would have walked you to the administration. If they didn’t deal with it immediately, I would have been at the police station. Easy for me to say, I know, but what happened to your daughter should have been dealt with by the school immediately. They should have called in the police. You were wise to pull her from the school. You need to connect up with a local or state organization that can help you further. Good luck.
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TE: Indeed. I wonder who made those decisions, & whether they were local ones. Perhaps my small-town experiences (in upstate ny & suburban nj) are bubble-like & not shared by many? The towns I know have 1 hs & no more than 2 ms, w/a variety of SES ranges. Little wiggle room for ‘gerrymandering’, & budget constraints on busing.
denbeck: your analysis of charter sch economics is logical. However what I’m seeing in the nearby urb (Booker’s Newark) worries me. A large swath is going charter. These places need to make $, & if we look at places already doing this for a while (NO, NYC), they soon begin to make inroads into better school areas to expand business. It seems they are legally able to move in regardless of local desires (depending on state law/limits– in NYC just a cap unrelated to local sch quality), use aggressive marketing & disinformation to garner students; by the time locals wake up it’s already underway.
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My town went from one to two high schools, a rather traumatic change. The town was growing in one direction, so that part of town was the logical place to build the new high school, but that side of town was also the richer part of town. After much thought the local school board decided to slice the town on the other axis. Development sense has resulted in SES differences between the two high schools (the original high school has 40% on free or reduced price lunches, the new high school is only 25%). It also means that some areas of the town send students to the high school that is much further from the home.
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