Reader Lloyd Lofthouse submitted this comment:
“The U.S. public schools are part of the infrastructure of the country. They are as vital—if not more so—than the highways, bridges, waterways, airports, electric grid, water and gas lines, etc.—-infrastructure built mostly by hard working Americans and not by billionaires, who often take credit for what they never sweated or toiled to build.
“Regardless of the cherry picked misinformation and lies of the greedy, power hungry fake education reformers and the fools who believe this swill, history and facts prove that the public schools were the foundation and are still the foundation, the first steps in life of almost every citizen, that made the United States the wealthiest and most powerful country on the planet, the country that helped tip the balance in World War I and win World War II.
“And those public schools have improved steadily for more than a century as they evolved along with the country into a super power.
“In fact, the only way the fake education reforms could make the public schools appear to be failures was to pass unjust, impossible laws that demanded the schools be successful with 100% of the children—something no other country on the planet in recorded history and into the future has ever or will ever achieve. To make sure the new private sector Charter schools would look successful, they created a double standard where only the public schools were transparent and had to achieve the impossible. The new charters hide behind an opaque wall and are not held to the same impossible standards, but even then the failure and fraud of these new Charters is so obvious that they can’t hide the truth and it is coming out—-the word is spreading. In time, there won’t be enough fools left in the country believing the fake education reformers for them to continue their charade.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good post, Lloyd. And remember that fools are exactly what are required in order for the charade to succeed. Citizens who can easily be fooled are the product of a system that methodically extinguishes the resources, creativity, vision and critical capacity necessary to a democracy.
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Speaking of a century of history, a more informed person would recall that public schools gave us a century of segregation and Protestant proselytization.
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WT, you’re blaming public schools for the racism, segregation and false religiosity that was rampant in America? The blame for those blights go deeper and earlier than public schools. Lloyd Lofthouse is very well informed, we should all be as well informed as Lloyd.
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and standardized testing replacing teacher assessment, a militarized, factory setting for learning, and conditioning to be obedient and fearful.
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Lofthouse is inflammatory and uncharitable at best. In any event, I don’t “blame” public schools for their long history of oppression, but at least I don’t romanticize them for it!
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WT, You have a history of leaving comments that are hostile to public schools and their teachers. What do you do? Are you a public school teacher? If not, please use your full name as other critics do, like Harlan Underhill. He is not afraid to be known and he speaks his mind. Why are you afraid to be known? Who are you and why are you a constant critic of anyone who works in public education?
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Wanting accurate descriptions of history is not anti-public school. Who I am is irrelevant — if you can’t answer my point here on the merits, why try to change the subject?
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WT, you participate in our conversation as a gadfly or a troll. Your view of public education is warped and inaccurate. Unmask yourself. My name is Diane Ravitch. I have a Ph.D. In the history of American Education from Columbia University. Who are you and why do you blame public schools for segregation imposed by state legislatures and enforced by the courts? Answer or please leave the blog. I can understand confusion and uncertainty but not spiteful lies about a democratic institution that was the vehicle for desegregation.
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If you want a history of teaching, it’s coming in September this year. I’m now reading an advanced galley proof of “The Teacher Wars, a History of America’s Most Embattled Profession” by Dana Goldstein
I’ll review the book when I’m finished reading it. When it comes out, buy a copy and read it so you know what inflammatory really means and who is responsible—and it ain’t teachers.
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And I don’t criticize everyone who works in public education. That is simply untrue. Why do you demonize disagreement so?
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When WT refuses to say what he or she does for a living, we know that he or she is not a public school teacher. He or she is also no friend of public education, public school students, or public school teachers.
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I didn’t say that public schools invented segregation and imposed it on the rest of society, so perhaps if you discarded that misreading you wouldn’t be quite so resentful.
But I do say that public schools were part and parcel of segregation for 100+ years. That is true. No one should romanticize the 100-year history of public schooling without at least acknowledging the FACT that for all that time public schools excluded black people and imposed Protestantism on kids (ever heard of school prayer? come on).
Public schools were the “vehicle” for ending segregation only in the sense that they were subject to court orders. Yes, indeed.
But public schools are still highly segregated to this day — not by force of law, but because they are designed to serve neighborhoods and zones, which themselves are highly segregated. So when anyone romanticizes the “neighborhood” school, they are romanticizing the main force that produces segregation today.
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WT: I have a doctorate in the history of American education. Schools neither designed nor imposed segregation. Public schools always served neighborhoods, not cities or regions. Public schools are bound by state laws. You are either a troll or a public school hater. Who are you? Give your name. Don’t be afraid. If you are going to make such misinformed and inflammatory comments, sign them.
I attended segregated schools in Texas. They were not permitted by law to admit nonwhite children. Did you know that?
This blog permits anonymity to protect teachers from retribution, not trolls. Name yourself or go away.
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I prefer to have arguments that stick to the substance, rather than ad hominems. Don’t you? I recall that you weren’t too happy, for example, when someone wrote an article claiming that the real reason for your changing opinions was a personal grudge against Joel Klein. So let’s stick to the issues, rather than seeking excuses to make personal attacks.
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WT, public schools are the vehicle through which mandatory racial segregation was ended. Do you remember the Brown decision? Do you know of any private schools that led the fight against segregation. You confirm in me the suspicion that you hate public education.
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Public schools are the vehicle that imposed racial segregation, you mean. They weren’t the vehicle for ending segregation — they struggled against the end of segregation for quite a while. Ending segregation in public schools took the Supreme Court, plus Congress’s funding in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, plus Eisenhower being willing to call out the 101st Airborne in Little Rock, plus police having to quell riots from Boston to Detroit.
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WT, I will say it again. Public schools did not create or impose segregation. The legislatures and the courts did. Your perspective ignores history and the law.
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I certainly don’t hate public education as it stands now. I hate ahistorical romanticization of a very ugly system that lasted for many decades.
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“Public schools are the vehicle that imposed racial segregation, you mean”
Wow, I never knew that the public schools imposed segregation on the rest of society!
So the public schools ( who exactly? The lazy, stupid teachers?) ran around my state putting up all those signs over the drinking fountains, and personally ushered folks to the back of the bus, and blocked the door way of the Magnolia Tea room, and all that other stuff that happened?
The schools passed the segregationists laws?
So interesting!
I never knew that!
WT, you are clearly one of our most informed commenters. ( unlike those clowns who just pass of crazy opinion as fact)
Diane, I call on you as a historian….stop hiding the truth! You must write a book exposing how the public schools of this country imposed segregation upon the rest of society!
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Ang,
WT is a hater of public schools.
I responded to his absurd claim a few minutes ago.
Legislatures pass laws, not public schools.
His bile is tiresome. His ignorance of history and the law appalling.
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Ang, you know what I mean. It wasn’t the case that segregation took place elsewhere and that public schools fought against it. Public schools were complicit in segregation, and it took outside forces to get public schools to begrudgingly change.
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WT, your comments about public schools and segregation are absurd. Public schools comply with the law. The law in 17 states mandated racial segregation. You can’t blame segregation on the public schools, although you try. When the Supreme Court ruled, it struck down those laws. Implementation depended on politicians. If the U.S. had only charter schools, no public schools, there would never have been any desegregation. Today, charters are the most segregated sector in education and proud of it.
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“it took outside forces to get public schools to begrudgingly change.”
So the private sector cheerfully changed themselves one day out of the blue?
Out of the goodness of their hearts?
Or did outside force ( federal laws, perhaps?) act on the private sector?
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Yes, public schools were one vehicle, along with sweeping changes in laws governing employment, public accommodations, and voting, by which de jure segregation was ended.
However, zoned district public schools were and are a primary vehicle by which de facto segregation gained and maintained its stranglehold on our society today–a process that was firmly cemented long before the creation of charter schools or choice. Attempts to introduce district-wide or inter-district integration, even in the bluest parts of the bluest cities in the bluest states, are met with cries of “save our neighborhood schools!” or outright white flight (happening right now on Long Island, NY). Separate and unequal.
There’s no question that the creation of the American system of public education played a significant role in the rise of the nation as a superpower. It is a very open question whether the system has successfully adapted to a very different, extremely interconnected world, and the concept that it offers equal opportunity to all is largely a myth.
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Tim,
Whatever the faults of public, democratically controlled schools, they will be magnified 100-fold by privatization.
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To the points made by WT, I must say that he may not be able to articulate how the history happened or why exactly, but I tend to believe that his statements reflect a sad reality. Discrimination has been a feature in schools for many reasons, which reflects in part the larger society and which is reflected by the society. However, the underlying dynamics of school are the basis for the current re-segregation of the schools and were responsible for segregation from the beginning. They are hierarchical institutions and they follow trends according to arbitrary indices and test results that are skewed in favor of the privileged white student. They are political because they are mandated by law and law is inextricable from politics. The fact is that the schools are there to indoctrinate children and the values, ideals, and beliefs of the predominant group will always be the prevailing standard. Black culture is thereby diminished and polluted beyond all recognition.
I find the statement in response to my earlier comment insulting and offensive and will do my best to restate my position later. Suffice it to say now that the numbers and facts are heavily documented which support what I have said and the public record of conflict, controversy, chaos, and political gamesmanship with respect to schooling can only be denied by erasing the entire history. People can argue about what constitutes a “good education” and there will always be disputes and differences with regard to practices, policies, and programs. However, when the drop-out rate is high across the board, employers are forced to train workers in the most basic skills and functions, students are driven to distraction by boredom and inanities, teachers are hostile to students and parents, bullying and abuses of all kinds are routine and ineradicable, and reform is a dirty word because of more misfires and false promises than anyone could possibly count, one has to be smoking some strong stuff to believe that the strength of this country has been in schooling, whether public or private. I have stacks of journals right next to me with more solid data and info on research and empirical studies than you can shake a stick at which tell a sordid tale. You are fully justified in opposing privatization to your dying breath, but you don’t get to elevate these factories of trivia and self-doubt to the status of greatness merely because you had such a great experience fifty years ago and you can find lots of school supporters to sing their praises as if the experience of others didn’t count..
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Good comments until the end. the public is fooled on so many things, I don’t that “time” is the answer. Money could be the clincher to some things, but the public is so gullible now, without a free press, on issues such as foreign policy, socials security, terrorism. The struggle must continue, with this, and Peter Green, there seems to be a “wait and see” belief being spawned.
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The tactics of the oligarchs- bogus crises, bogus claims of grass roots support, bogus reports from economists and media, bogus claims of the triumph of privatization.
The nation’s bounty squandered in service to the 1%.
A GIANT FAIL.
Thanks for exposing it, Lloyd.
And, kathyirwin1, great final sentence to your comment.
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The billionaires and fake education reformers, with fools and/or paid puppets like WP supporting them, own most of the traditions media but the resistance has word of mouth and there is no other PR tool more powerful than world of mouth.
In fact, Gallup reported in 2013 that 55 percent of Americans don’t trust what they hear from the media. What is left? word of mouth
http://www.gallup.com/poll/164459/trust-media-recovers-slightly-time-low.aspx
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Great post, Lloyd !
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You, Mr. Lofthouse, no doubt believe what you say with total sincerity and conviction. But, I cannot remain silent in the face of such fantastic claims. Our public schools have provided a needed service for many children and they should be credited with being a part of our proud heritage. They are indeed needed to train and inculcate children into the society and they should be salvaged at all cost.
Yet, it is a gross overstatement to claim that the schools made the country great or to wipe out the scandalous record of millions of students who have dropped out or graduated while semi-literate at best and others who have had horrible experiences, including great humiliations, who have felt shamed or alienated, or who have discovered that their training was mediocre and their education profoundly wanting. Things could have been worse and we nearly all have at least some fond memories from our school experience. But, to glorify school in such a grandiose manner when the reality for about fifty percent has ranged from endless drudgery and inane irrelevance to miserable failure and disillusionment is the height of irresponsibility.
The reason there is an army of so-called reformers trying to supplant or eliminate public schooling is because the history has been a constant swing of the pendulum from one extreme to the other and from one imaginary fix to another. Living in a fantasy world and pretending that the history has been splendid and glorious is sick and childish, and it is anything but scientific or honest. You can believe your own hype and continue spreading the mythology in order to satisfy your own ego or to avoid dealing with the real world, but by doing so you merely hasten the demise of your beloved institution. That Kool-aid is poison. Schools are prisons, as Dr. Peter Gray has pointed out and they are prisons because they try to accomplish the impossible through coercion and social engineering. Without autonomy for both, teachers and children will always be at odds. It has been ever thus. Education cannot be legislated.
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Barry Elliott,
Your confused and hostile description of American public education is historically inaccurate. Schools are a reflection of society. They cannot work miracles. They can’t change the tax structure or provide jobs and homes. You, sir, are woefully uninformed. It is too late in the day–when I need to join my family festivities–to try to explain what you need to know. What you think you know is a pack of misinformation.
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There is an interesting tension here. Public schools apparently made America great but also simply reflect the greater society and can be expected to be no better than the society at large. A sort of chicken and egg problem I think.
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I responded briefly yesterday which seems to appear out of order for some reason and which followed an observation about WtT’s comments. I am offended by your tone and somewhat amazed at your non-responsiveness. Schools do indeed reflect society and society reflects schools. That isn’t an excuse for abuse, neglect, or gross failure. Here is some info that reinforces the points I made earlier. You can pretend that I don’t exist but you can’t pretend that this isn’t all well-established and in verifiable records.
None of us gets to cherry pick facts and research just to bolster our emotional needs and beliefs that are more about tradition, convention, nostalgia, or a mythology that have no solid foundation in science and objective reality. It is disingenuous to attack standardized testing, the Core Curriculum, an intense focus on academics at the expense of everything else, obsessions with accountability, etc., etc, which are central to the privatization advocates and “reformers” of today, while glorifying the schools of the 1950’s when I went to school, or of the 1970’s, or 1990’s. The same research that you cite to condemn the charters and the federal education officials proves quite definitively that testing, curriculum, academic and accountability obsessions and such were rotten ideas back during the glory days that you are defending as proof that schools can save the world.
Given the research that is at our fingertips relative to learning, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, educational theory, political science, etc., it is patently absurd to operate under the assumption that education is available in classrooms in schools anything like those of the past, regardless of class size, where children are conscripted, the curriculum is handed down from any set of experts or authorities, there is anonymous arbitrary authority within a centralized branch of government in accordance with law, children are not active more than they are passive and immobile, and knowledge is not understood as embodied and integrated anew by each individual as that person’s exclusive and somewhat unique personal property.
Mr. Lofthouse, Ms. Ravitch, and others that are close to the field appear to suffer from the sentimentality sickness and attachment syndrome that spreads as a result of attending too many graduation ceremonies and hearing too many graduates reflecting back on twelve years of anxious and conflicted pacification of browbeating or pep-talking teachers with belated appreciation and relief. It is part of the job for teachers who are caring and competent to literally save the lives of students and to develop deeply meaningful relationships with students, but that is not education and for every exceptional teacher there are two who are oriented more toward following rules and orders and who think of school as distasteful medicine to be endured.
From Education Week magazine Jan. 2014, published at Statistic Brain website: Number of drop-outs annually: 3,030,000 – 7.9 % in 2013
In 1970 the percentage was 14.6% – so much for the golden age of schooling
This is from the Washington Post.
Two-fifths of high school students graduate prepared neither for traditional college nor for career training, according to a study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona.
College-preparatory programming has expanded dramatically in the past decade, with participation in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate more than tripling. Career-preparatory programs have evolved, as well, and school-to-work “pathways” have replaced tired old vocational programs.
But they are not enough. One-third of high school students complete the modern college-preparatory track, and another one-quarter graduate from career-preparatory programs. The remaining high school population, an estimated 40 percent, do neither.
They are “a virtual underclass of students,” the researchers write, who finish high school with a transcript filled with watered-down general education courses and few prospects for success either in traditional college or in professional training.
The study is titled “The Underserved Third: How Our Educational Structures Populate an Educational Underclass,” and it was written by Regina Deil-Amen at the Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Arizona, and Stefanie DeLuca, a sociologist at Hopkins. It actually published last year in the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, but the findings were released to the general public Monday.
Many contemporary jobs require less than a bachelor’s degree; indeed, workers in high-demand fields can earn more money without a bachelor’s degree than counterparts in low-paying fields who have a degree.
But the structure of American high schools is trapped, the authors write, in a culture that “blindly advocate(s) bachelor’s degrees as the only valuable option and the cure for all social ills.”
“Tracking” is a dirty word in public education. Yet, high schools have tracked students since time immemorial, and tracking endures to this day. The approximately one-third of all high school students who participate in credible AP or IB study make up the gifted, college-preparatory track. Another group, about one-quarter of the student population, is steered instead into career preparatory study and occupies a lower track, although no career programs are ever advertized in quite that way.
One group is explicitly prepared for college, the other for the labor market. One population progresses to four-year colleges; the other enrolls in short-duration career training programs at community colleges or career colleges or simply enters the workforce. Both groups are well-served by their education.
And the underclass? That would be the group that dwells below the level of AP and IB study, in lightweight, second-tier courses that might be called “honors” or AP but lack rigor. If you have a child taking AP courses at a high school where few students ever pass AP tests, then your kid is probably a member of the underclass.
The solution, the authors write, is to abolish tracking altogether and to reimagine high school as a tool to prepare all students for both college and careers.
The ideal high school curriculum, they argue, would incorporate the best aspects of both tracks: academic rigor and cutting-edge career preparation. Students might choose one of several academic “pathways” that “include both academically rigorous, college-preparatory requirements and challenging professional and technical knowledge grounded in industry standards,” they write.
Educators around the Washington region would probably say they already do this: many urban/suburban high schools steer students into various career-oriented pathways that also (in theory) immerse students in rigorous college-preparatory academics. They are often called “academies” or “learning communities”.
But as students and parents well know, some of these programs are rigorous, and some are not. Ambitious, college-bound students typically steer clear of any program that sounds the least bit “vocational,” fully expecting that it will lack college-preparatory rigor. And more often than not, this study concludes, they are right.
From the Alliance for Excelence in Education
By Danielle Wood
Updated on Dec 14, 2007
High school graduation is a big deal. As summer approaches, kids look at the calendar longingly and parents imagine that coveted cap and gown. But a new study by the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, The Alliance for Excellent Education, shows that a good chunk of students are unprepared for life after high school.
The study, Paying Double: Inadequate High School and Community College Remediation, found that close to one-third of all community college freshmen enroll in at least one remedial course upon arrival and 20 percent of freshman in four-year institutions do. They come to college without the basic skills required to succeed there. And high school students who go straight into the work force are just as unprepared.
The study aims to put a dollar amount on what it costs the nation when graduates arrive at university or at their first job without the skills they should have mastered in high school. And the estimate is a whopping $3.7 billion lost annually. Colleges end up spending physical and monetary resources on remedial teaching, and companies are forced to buy technology to compensate for their employee’s lack of basic skills.
So what exactly are they missing? More than 80 percent of employers said recent graduates were deficient in “applied skills” like communication, work ethic, and critical thinking. And 72 percent said they were deficient in basic writing skills.
College grads didn’t fare much better. Not even a quarter were deemed “excellent” in terms of overall preparation – most were dubbed “adequate” or less. And at $22,218 per year for an average private college, those are sad scores indeed.
What’s the good news? Employers agree on what they’re looking for. In terms of basics, they want high school students to graduate with skills in reading comprehension, English language speaking skills, and decent writing. Top applied skills are a good work ethic, the ability to collaborate, and proficient oral communication. Employers know their needs, now if only they could find students prepared to fill them.
In an article entitled, “Schooling and the Development of Education”, by Sanders & Schwab, from the Educational Forum, Vol. XLV, No. 3, 1981, I have excerpted the following revealing statements.
“Teaching practices and school operations cannot be improved in any fundamental sense without profound change in the social structure and culture of schooling.” Pg. 283.
“The difficulties in schools are embedded in the organizational life of schools.” …“The strength of social norms for conformity generally overpower the potential impact of innovations. Teachers who attempt significant change on their own run into the incontrovertible fact of the power of the social structures within which they operate… Pg.277.
“Teachers tend to be criticized much more quickly if they fail to turn in attendance reports than if they are insensitive to the needs of a quiet child.” Pg. 278
These authors speak of “hyperrationalization” (“an effort to rationalize beyond the bounds of knowledge”), which …“may result in a diminution of capacity to improve performance in a social institution already notorious for its rigidity and lack of adaptivity.” They also use terms, such as “ritual categories”. They have clearly spelled out and delineated the built-in factors that render schools impervious to change, which have been spelled out thousands of times in other places since long before Dewey.
I’m shooting from the hip because I simply can’t make this a priority right now. However, the following quotes from an article entitled, Educational Experimentation in National Social Policy, by P. Michael Timpane in the Nov. 1970 Harvard Educational Review (Vol. 40, No. 4) seem terribly apropos (the fact that this discussion was had over forty years ago is highly relevant, since it reflects how little things have changed despite the valiant efforts of so many dedicated and talented people).
“…faced with a response from the educational community ranging from apathy to hostility, the proposal added mechanisms to guard against the erosion of experimental control.” Just a bit later on the page is this reference: “…the ever-present political pressures to water down the experimental design.” Then, a few pages later are these statements: “…systems of educators, bureaucrats, and elected policital officials- which systems are, in general, inhospitable to experimentation.” And, “In the present setting, then, a rationalizing process such as esxperimentation is desperately needed, and just as desperately doomed (with all its built-in handicaps) …
In the Educational Forum, Nov. 1976, Vol. XLI, No. 1, in an article entitled, “The Politics of Accountability”, by Allan C. Ornstein, this statement may ring a bell and shed some light: “When one group seems to benefit more than another group, when there is a complete breakdown in recognizing the righta and interests of individuals, we can be fairly sure that politics and not legitimate reform is behind much of the policy manifestations.”
This is quoted from an article entitled, “Covert Communication in Classrooms, Clinics, Courtrooms, and Cubicles, by Robert Rosenthal, in the American Psychologist, Nov 2002, picked at random off my shelf: “My primary emphasis has been on processes in which the expectation of one person (a teacher, a health care provider, a judge, an executive, or an experimenter) for the behavior of another person…has come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy.” I’ve tried not to use rhetorical excess or to use charged terms, such as brainwashing and I have said that school should function to socialize and indoctrinate children (with the full awareness and voluntary acceptance of parents). However, this refers to the power that has been used and abused willy-nilly solely because there are unconstitutional laws that require children to attend schools.
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Institutions that advance society, either by increasing humanity or opportunity e.g. churches, legislatures, businesses, speak of their accomplishments. Those with the capacity for reflection, recognize weaknesses and strive to improve. The amount of positive change they achieve is a function of culture and resources.
Loss of opportunity and humanity results when, from inception, an institution has a core of malfeasance and corruption, like Ohio’s charters.
Gecko, from the Wall Street movie, was wrong. a singular focus on greed and competition, builds nothing of worth.
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One has to wonder why the defense of public schools is so intensely personal for some individuals. One might also ask why some of us are so critical of the schools and so quick to latch onto reports and studies that point to the faults and problems that one might assume are to be expected in any large institutional framework with such a comprehensive and complicated mandate and with a requirement to serve any and all who come.
Am I still angry and rebellious more than fifty years after graduation due to some personal bitterness or list of complaints against teachers or my school? Am I having a midlife crisis, or am I just a malcontent who likes to find fault and who hates government or authority? Is WT hostile to the schools because he was discriminated against or because he suffered humilation or was denied opportunity that he believes was owed to him (or, her?)?
Speaking for myself, I can say that I have no personal animosity toward anyone at the school I attended for most of eleven years and no particular complaints about incompetent teachers or unfairness. I did have a slight rebellious streak in my youth that I prefer to sustain and nourish, but I believe that I have been able to focus on real issues and direct any such feeling against identifiable sources of injury or oppression with a relatively high degree of maturity and rationality.
I went into the Air Force soon after graduation and got married and started a family before I attended college, giving me a chance to see some things and grow up a little at a young age. Circumstances beyond anyone’s control afforded me with about seven hours a day of free time for about two-and-a-half years of my four years of service, which I used to read extensively in pursuit of knowledge, with a special interest in human behavior. Yet, when I entered UNLV, I discovered that I didn’t have much of an education and I felt pressured to catch up, never realizing my goals or what I believed my capacity to be. I was semi-literate and not at all well-read even after long days of mostly reading entire shifts.
It was that experience that caused me to identify with a long series of books about education, mostly extremely critical and with a great deal of negative information I was hearing about school from two teachers with whom I had become close friends. One of them with whom I still maintain close contact still talks about the shameful way that teachers talked about students in the teacher’s lounge and practices that were and are inimical to the interests of children.
I had maintained a B+ average all through school and was well-behaved and quiet for most of my twelve years, with one short exceptional period. I daydreamed constantly, quite oblivious to the world around me. I was bored stiff much of the time, although a couple of my more dynamic teachers inspired me in a couple of classes and I actually read a few books during a convalescence after surgery for a hernia.
My problems with school are that I can now contrast being engaged, motivated, and taking the initiative outside of school with being disillusioned, disaffected, bitter, cynical, and distracted in school, and I can see that change is resisted so effectively that only the most naïve even consider it a possibility. I now know that John Holt was not exaggerating when he said that “School is bad for kids”, and that herding children into classrooms with the fantasy that many of them will become educated within a group by doing exercises or absorbing the words of teachers and textbooks is simply foolish and wasteful.
I am not hostile to teachers or teachers’ unions, or even to the existence of schools, and I definitely believe that privatization is an invitation to an even worse disaster. However, I believe that those who want education for children should understand that schools cannot provide that service except incidentally and only when the element of coercion is removed completely. I am hostile to those whose refusal to face reality and to acknowledge the glaring failures of schooling and impenetrable barriers to change leads to the perpetuation of harmful circumstances and miseducation.
If you can’t stomach the discomfort of honestly and objectively looking at a century of mediocrity for many and profound loss of opportunity for many others, you shouldn’t be anywhere near this debate. Education is not a matter of working hard to please others, of paying attention to trivia and what “experts” deem worthy of attention, or of studying for the sake of studying. I can’t force you to see these truths and you can’t force children to learn yours without harming them in the process.
This isn’t supposed to be personal, yet for many it is intensely personal. No one should be attacked on this blog for expressing an opinion, but opinions should be based on accurate information and logic that isn’t tainted by extreme emotion. Most irrational dialogue comes from fear. It is reasonable to fear losing a revered institution, however being afraid to deal with the reality of that institutions problems and faults is indeed irrational.
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I can assure you that my combativeness—and I’m proud of being a combat veteran—is backed by plenty of reputable evidence. Read my Crazy Normal Blog for the facts that support my opinions.
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You appear to have some sensible ideas and I think I agree with your general orientation with respect to politics but I am swamped with two projects that are very important to me and can’t take time now to read further. You say that schools do what they are supposed to do and it is true that they do indeed operate as they are designed in order to “produce” a certain type of citizen. Unfortunately, that isn’t the type of citizen that I care to live amongst and it has absolutely nothing to do with education. The citizens that Bill gates, Michele Rhee, Arne Duncan, et al would like to see scare the hell out of me even more, but my interest is in authentic education and in schools that do no harm. We can move forward or we can move backward, but I want no part of either authoritarian institutions that produce consumers and inept low-level workers or elitist adacemies that divorce calculating students from themselves and reality. You might want to spend a little less time sharing your wisdom and a little more looking more closely at the best literature and research.
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Barry Elliott,
Many of us at this blog, don’t have dogs in the race, so to speak. Our concerns are similar to yours, “the (scenario) that the 1% would like to see, scares the hell
out of ” us. I think the Gates and Koch’s well-funded and highly political agenda will lead to a banana republic for the U.S.
In talking with a person that I think may be similar to you, I found that he rejected governmental action, like higher taxation on the wealthy, as Piketty suggests. He rejected unions, undervaluing the role that unions are singularly playing in developing and supporting opposition to corporate parties. I looked forward to his alternative solutions but, he offered none.
Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post, describes that the tests associated with Common Core, are designed to fail 3/4 of students. Without passing scores, students won’t be allowed to be admitted to public universities. Without students, public higher education won’t survive. A nation without publicly supported higher education, leaves the 25% who pass the tests, trying to foot the bill at very expensive private colleges.
Teachers, professors, those of us without dogs in the race…. can document successes of and/or, lament problems with education. But, at the end of the day, the unions, and public institutions won’t exist. The media is already owned by plutocrats. Who will know what the U.S. once was and who will be left to marshal forces against the oligarchs” plans for us?
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Linda,
As Americans or family members, I think we all have a valid interest in trying to make sure that young people do not spend their entire youth feeling as if they are living for someone else’s satisfaction or feeling cheated and contempt toward themselves or others because of arbitrary impositions on their time and attention. The privatizers and self-appointed and paternalistic gurus and “experts” are trying to take us down a path that is fraught with hidden land mines, but the fact that they are dead wrong does not make the defenders of business-as-usual in school right.
To answer your question; “who will be left to marshall forces against the plans the oligarchs’ have for us?”, there is but one possible answer. A new generation that has been freed of its dependence on authority and on our misperceptions regarding what democracy, autonomy, education, progress, and reality are all about will turn the tide. This bizarre war against billionaires and instutionalized bureaucracy is a distraction from the fight that is essential in order to begin a new enlightenment.
Government in a democracy is supposed to be by, of, and for the people. That has become a distant memory, but government is not the culprit in the case of education. The problems are a school cult and mythology that are based in pure fantasy; laws that create conditions that are misanthropic and destructive for children and teachers, and corporations that have forced out the people in formulating decisions and policies.
Scores on tests, curriculum, and coercion to achieve attendance and attention are part of a conception of knowledge, learning, and education that are anachronistic by many decades. Until children demand that the people in power give them the freedom that is their constitutional right and their birthright, we will be stuck in this pathetic state of recycled nonsense.
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The public school can’t continued business as usual, because that would mean higher class sizes, too many standardized tests and a lack of quality early childhood education programs designed to get kids reading early who go on to love reading and become lifelong learners. It would also mean teachers would still be left out of the important decision making.
In fact, teachers should be in charge of decision making when it comes to teaching methods and the curriculum to be taught.
The old way of doing things in public education has to end. Will it? I don’t think so. Our leaders and their masters (think Bill Gates and the Koch brothers, etc) will never let that happen. That, of course, leaves the 99% only one alternative and I’m not talking about going to court or voting to bring about change.
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Barry, Thank you for the reply.
Employees “demanding that people in power give them freedom that is their Constitutional right and birthright” has failed against the plutocrats and their judges. Employees are adults with their labor to barter. Children have….?
Your solution is, a new (impoverished) generation taking on a corporate-owned government with military drone capability?
I’d prefer something with a greater likelihood of success. What’s Plan B?
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We can also buy our own drones. :o)))) Then program them to deliver whatever we want them to deliver by using GPS.
You can even buy drones through Amazon.
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Lloyd always posts practical, insightful, and experienced based thoughts, keep em coming LLoyd!
One minor quibble and that is “. . . the country that helped tip the balance in World War I and win World War II.”
I suggest that the US did help “tip the balance” in WW II. The country that “won” (and in doing so suffered thousands times more than the US) the European theatre was the USSR. I’d give the US major credit for winning the Pacific theatre.
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Can’t argue with that. If Hitler hadn’t started the eastern front by attacking Stalin’s Russia, the outcome of World War II in Europe might have been totally different and taken much longer.
The war in Europe may have also have ended in a stalemate with Hitler still in power.
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One could argue that Hitler lost the war by opening the eastern front in Russian instead of invading the UK.
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One iconoclast claimed, Germany’s refusal to employ women in armaments manufacture, instead relying on pow’s, contributed to their failure.
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