Everyone wants to reform education. Everyone went to school, so everyone has ideas.
But Amy Frogge, a member of the Metro Nashville School Board, has a truly novel idea: Let experienced educators lead the way. Think of it. Who knows best what children need? Experienced teachers. Who knows best what’s needed to make schools run more efficiently? The people who have been working in them.
Frogge also has the audacious idea that schools would get better if we relied on time-tested research and evidence.
She writes:
“While we must measure progress, our students need more than tests. They need physical activity and unstructured, supervised play. Recess time in many schools has been eliminated or greatly decreased to make way for more instructional time and test prep. However, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, recess is a crucial component of healthy development that offers cognitive/academic, social/emotional and physical benefits. Here, research verifies common sense: Physical activity actually improves behavior and boosts academic performance.
“All students should have access to a rich, broad curriculum. For-profit testing companies are impacting not only recess, but also school curriculum. Too often, the arts and enrichment activities are curtailed in an effort to improve standardized test scores, which provide only limited information for educators. Students need exposure to music, art and nature. New research indicates that music can even help close the achievement gap, and school gardens offer excellent opportunities for children to spend time outside while learning hands-on lessons about core subjects, healthy eating and the environment.
“As a community, we must ensure that every child comes to school ready to learn. Research confirms that poverty, not poor teachers, is at the root of sagging school performance. Indeed, the single biggest factor impacting school performance is the socioeconomic status of the student’s family. Nashville has seen a 42 percent increase in poverty in the past 10 years, and our child poverty and hunger rates remain alarmingly high throughout the U.S. Too many of our students lack basic necessities, and many suffer what experts have termed “toxic stress” caused by chronic poverty. Our efforts to address this problem must extend outside of school walls to provide “wrap-around services” that address social, emotional and physical needs of children through community partnerships and volunteers.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Addressing poverty will cost money. That is the exact opposite of what the privatizers are trying to accomplish….while enriching themselves.
Ohmigod. What an idea… who would have thought it?
As a community, we must ensure that every child comes to school ready to learn. Research confirms that poverty, not poor teachers, is at the root of sagging school performance. Indeed, the single biggest factor impacting school performance is the socioeconomic status of the student’s family.”
Well, read the etas an facts in this piece from the NY Times, Sunday Review… finally talking about the social issues that affect us like poverty.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-the-way-to-beat-poverty.html?_r=0
and while you are at it, read this one, because the issue of student self control affects our job http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/learning-self-control.html
and the ‘Trifector’ of wonderful articles that nail what is afoot in this country– the ‘trends’ that make teaching so difficult, read this on about marriage:http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/opinion/sunday/beyond-marriage.html
which offers the research on the effect on children.
Despite all the facts, “THEY” will continue to blame teachers, and never will a curricula or policy as explained so rationally by Amy, see th eight of day.
Evidence of how much of a difference you are making, Diane Ravitch!
“poverty, not poor teachers…” not surprising that rich people can’t seem to see that.
I agree that we need to listen more to the teachers and less to the
charlatans“experts” who lead from the rear and never suffer for their errors and foolishness. And we need to start recognizing the terrible quality of research in education as discussed by Valerie Strauss here, reviewing a paper in Educational Research.As Strauss explains, only about 1 in every 800 educational research papers is independently verified. As the authors of the paper conclude (emphasis added):
Edcuation is not a science like physics, chemistry, and biology, and shouldn’t be treated as having the sort of predictive power of engineering or applied science. It’s time to stop pretending that we can engineer schooling to produced wholly formed beings, the way the Progressive educators hoped to do, and get back to focusing on the liberal arts and intellectual development. That means addressing the key issues like poverty, teacher quality, and class size.
You’re right, experienced educators would have put the students first and figured out what works best for each of them, in each of their particular situations. That is what we do everyday.
Truth be told, however, I don’t believe that experienced educators would be enough to change/modify/drive “reform”. It actually needs to come from the students themselves, and from their families. The reason that certain towns stay at the top of the list are because the citizens will not settle for anything less. They want graduates that go to Harvard, MIT, the Peace Corp…Other communities are happy with a high school diploma and two years at the local community college. Why is big business trying to change that? What is so wrong with that? It’s never going to change if the communities don’t want it to. Why aren’t we just helping each student be the best student, citizen and employee that they can be, instead of trying to make them all the same? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
After all that, yes, experienced educators would be good to include in any ideas regarding Educational Standards, but don’t forget about the families and community members (non political ones). It will take more time but really, we’ve got plenty of time so what is the rush?
You’re right – education is not a science but there is a bit of a formula for success. Trouble is, for some students the necessary variables are missing and they are the ones, almost always, that exist outside of the school.
“Too often, the arts and enrichment activities are curtailed in an effort to improve standardized test scores, which provide only limited information for educators. Students need exposure to music, art and nature. New research indicates that music can even help close the achievement gap. ”
In my opinion, this is wrong reasoning. These comments are probably made with the best of intentions but they are actually demeaning studies of and experiences in the arts as a legitimate and worthy part of the curriculum. If you are concerned about cuts in arts programs due to excessive testing, does it make sense to then advocate music because it may help close the achievement gap– a gap created by excessive standardized testing? I think not.
These comments reflect the all too common perception that studies and experiences in the arts are “enrichments”, a bonus, a frill and extra and therefore beyond the obligation of schools to provide for from the get-go, and not just for the talented at one extreme and for “at risk” students on the other. And for heaven’s sake not just under the banner of “exposure” as if a little dab will do you, or some little dose of the arts tonic will cure every ill.
The arts are major forms of human achievement and worthy of study–perhaps especially so at this time when aesthetically contrived places, structures, imagery, and events garner so much attention–not always for praiseworthy ends.
I think that many advocates for a full-spectrum curriculum do damage to the cause of arts education by viewing them as a panacea for what ails schools.
It is not just studies and experiences in the arts that are missing, but a freedom from compliance with mindless mandates of all kinds, from SLOs to VAM, to the pathological use of tests to punish students and teachers, to the incessant use of “rigor” as a word-weapon to induce muscle and mind-cramps in the thinking of kids and teachers and principals and superintendents and….
I think it does no service to music or any of the arts to suggest they may be “worthy” of time in schools–allowed, permitted in schools–as if that is some act of generosity, then add the condition that this entry if permitted only if the arts serve some other end, like improving test scores–at the heart of every reference to an achievement gap. If that gap is not the rationale, then the proposed purpose is likely to be reducing truancy, or as using the arts as therapy, or introducing the arts as another way for students with special needs or who are learning English to communicate.
Let the ancillary benefits accrue, but not be the reason the arts enter schools or determine how they are are taught.
I am quoting myself, but the arts should not have to enter the house of education through the back door or ride in the back of the bus to arrive at that destination.
“Wildlife is and should be useless in the same way art, music, poetry and even sports are useless. They are useless in the sense that they do nothing more than raise our spirits, make us laugh or cry, frighten, disturb and delight us. They connect us not just to what’s weird, different, other, but to a world where we humans do not matter nearly as much as we like to think.
And that should be enough.”
You’re far from alone in your thinking, Laura!
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/13/useless-creatures/
Trusting the educational community has been the modus operandi for so much of this country’s history – which helped lead us to become the leader of the world in so many areas. This has is what has led the rest of the world to send their best students to our colleges and universities where the professors were educated in our public schools. This has been forgotten or overlooked in the mad rush to acquire money by corporate CEOs.
Diane, thank you so much for sharing this! It took about a year of these thoughts brewing in my head for me to finally encapsulate my complaints in a mere 600 words for an op-ed. I am thankful that you are doing this work so effectively every day.
And Laura, as a former arts major myself, so I agree with you that art, music, nature, foreign language, etc. are far more than just mere enrichment. They are vital to healthy child (and adult!) development.
Amy,
Almost anyone who works in arts education knows we are almost always caught between a rock and a hardplace.
We are both grateful that Diane has been a consistent and articulate advocate for arts education.
And my remarks were not directed toward you personally. I have voiced these same concerns for many years in different venues.
Knowing Amy well, I know that she does not believe the arts should sneak education “through the back door”. She has a BA in vocal performance and her children are actively involved in dance, choir, band, etc. I think the comment you take issue with was directed at those who believe that we must test to improve education–not people like you or I who know that the arts should never be an afterthought. The testing fanatics–who view education as a success only if test scores improve–cannot use the excuse that music is unnecessary if it is proven that it helps test scores.
Sorry–“sneak into education”. It’s early.